The sealed nectar : HOW were the Arabs before Islam?

So I'm in the midst of a really good book. The Sealed Nectar. Care to listen to some of the insights I got from the book?

Well, in order to know how the presence of Islam and the messages brought by the Prophet Muhammad has changed a nation (the Arabs especially) as a whole, there is a need to know how a particular community was before and after they received the message. Therefore, the book start off explaining in detail how the Arabs were in the first place.

It is true that they still believe in the religion of Ibrahim, who was their great great ancestor who rebuilt the Kaabah after Adam. They still take Allah as their God, but there were a lot of additions to the practise of their faith as many generations had passed after Ibrahim and Ismail...and as time passes, there were a lot of fabrications and designations to the real truth brought by these prophets. They started to worship idols, and thought that these idols were able to act as a medium to communicate to Allah.... all this started with a man...Let me extract from the book regarding this matter:

" ...However they still maintained fundamental beliefs such as monotheism ..until the time when a chief...'Amr bin Luhai came back from a trip to Syria. He was renowed for righteousness, charity, devotion and care for religion. In Syria, he saw people worshipping idols, a phenomenon he approved of and believed it to be righteous since Syria was the locale of Messengers and Scriptures. He brought with him an idol (Hubal) which he placed in the middle of Al-Kaabah and summoned ppl to worship it. "

Ah-haa..so that's how it all started. Anyway, they would give offerings (crops, cattles) to these idols and practise superstitious beliefs, believing in omens, and many more unnecessary practice that they thought would bring them closer to God. (???) Oh, how astrayed they were kan ?! Also, in terms of marriages, there were four types of marriages at this point. Would you wanna know? Em u need to read it for urself in this book pls! Tp byk la yg pelik2 di situ.. One of it being many men (less than 10 men) would have sexual relationship with a woman, and then when the woman got pregnant and give birth to a child, she can just point to one of those men and would say: 'I have given birth to a child and it's your child!' (pointing to one of them)..pelik juga di situ... There was also prostitutions among the woman..and as the author pointed out ,
" the woman was a marketable commodity and regarded as a piece of inanimate property."


Oh also, this one's famous. Of course there were people of some tribes who murder their infant daughters out of shame and out of fearing that they will not have enough to feed the baby. But then Allah anwers this in 17:31.. "And do not kill your children for fear of of poverty. We provide for them and for you."

What more, people of different tribes were constantly fighting with each other, conflicts often arise and wars often happened. Can you imagine, they can only live in peace with each other during the 4 prohibited months (ie bulan2 haram: Muharram, Rejab, Zulkaedah and Zulhijah) in which it is the only time they can practise their economic and social activities...[sigh]..In the other months, wars and fights would erupt. Yeah, they were all looking for power and and were greedy for wealth..

So, basically these people were in total darkness. They were ignorant and their minds were paralyzed. It is only with the Message of God brought by His Messenger Muhammad that they were brought to light. But it was not easy, definitely, not for the prophet, his sahabah, and all the early converts of Islam. They needed to be steadfast in practising their religion .....

And all that, for another entry altogether... SalamMmm... ;)