9781422281109

14 I SLAM : C ORE B ELIEFS AND P RACTICES

whom he had worked as a business agent. As the years passed, Muhammad’s reputation as a trustworthy man grew—he became known as al-Amin, “the trusted one”—but so did his doubts about the direction he saw his society taking. At this time on the Arabian Peninsula, the central unit of social organization was the tribe, which included smaller groupings of related families known as clans. (Although many Arabs were pagans, there were also quite a few Christians, whose values sup- ported the preservation of tribe and family but who also had a concept of a life after death.) In general, the values of Arabian society supported the preservation of tribe and family. The Arabs believed that proper behavior involved following the ways of their ancestors and preserving the honor of the tribe. Belonging to a tribe also provided protection; though vendettas were common, the threat of inter-tribal bloodshed helped hold together a society without a single government or set of laws. In the polytheistic religion of the peninsula, various gods and goddesses were viewed as guardians of individual tribes and were the objects of sacrifice, and prayer at local shrines. The nomadic Arabs carried small figurines representing gods and goddesses on their journeys, and they believed other helpful spirits lived in nat- ural features like trees and springs. The Arabs asked their deities for guidance on all kinds of matters, from marriage arrangements

Words to Understand in This Chapter

pilgrimage— a journey (often long and difficult) to a shrine or other place of religious significance. polytheism— belief in more than one god. Ramadan— the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, which is a period of meditation and self- sacrifice for Muslims. Zoroastrianism— religious system founded by Zoroaster and set forth in a holy text (the Aveta), which teaches the worship of a single god in the context of a universal struggle between good and evil. This was at one time the national religion of Persia.