1. Arabia before Islam

Picture Arabia in the sixth century. No central government. No king. What kept a person safe was their tribe. It was their protection and their law. Harm one member, and the whole tribe would avenge it. Feuds could run for generations.

In a world like that, what did people admire? Words. The Arabs prized eloquence above almost anything. Poets were celebrities. The best poems were said to be hung on the Ka'bah. This matters later in the story. The Qur'an would challenge a people who were masters of language.

With no state, the tribe was everything. And poets were celebrities.

Now picture one town in that land of tribes: Makkah. It was a dry valley, and it grew rich on trade. Caravans ran south to Yemen in winter, north to Syria in summer. The tribe that ran the town was Quraysh. The Qur'an itself refers to these journeys of theirs.

At the centre of the town stood the Ka'bah. Muslims believe Abraham and his son Ishmael built it for the worship of one God. By the sixth century it held many idols. Pilgrims came to it from across Arabia. They brought Makkah two things. Honour, and money.

Makkah's wealth depended on the pilgrims who came to the Ka'bah.

Who were the idols in the Ka'bah for? Here is something that surprises many people. Most Arabs worshipped idols as intercessors, go-betweens, while still believing in a supreme God, Allah. That God was seen as distant from daily life.

Idol worship was not the only faith in the land. There were Jewish tribes in towns such as Yathrib, later called Madinah. There were Christians in the north and in Yemen.

And a few people went further. They are remembered as hanifs: people who rejected idol worship and searched for the religion of Abraham. One of these searchers was Waraqah ibn Nawfal, a cousin of Khadijah, who had become a Christian.

Belief in God was there in Arabia. It was buried under idols.

Around 570 the Ka'bah itself is threatened. Abrahah, the Christian ruler of Yemen under the Abyssinian kingdom, marches on Makkah. His army includes at least one war elephant. His aim is to destroy the Ka'bah. The people of Makkah withdraw to the hills.

The army never reaches the Ka'bah. It is destroyed first. Surah al-Fil describes it being struck by flocks of birds. The Arabs dated events from that year. And the Prophet ﷺ is traditionally said to have been born in it.

The Prophet ﷺ was born, tradition says, in the year Makkah was spared.