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The sedentary people of pre-Islamic Eastern Arabia were mainly Aramaic, Arabic and to some degree Persian speakers while Syriac functioned as a liturgical language. [7] [8] In pre-Islamic times, the population of Eastern Arabia consisted of Christianized Arabs (including Abd al-Qays), Aramean Christians, Persian-speaking Zoroastrians [9] and Jewish agriculturalists.
The history of Islam is believed by most historians [1] to have originated with Muhammad's mission in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE, [2] [3] although Muslims regard this time as a return to the original faith passed down by the Abrahamic prophets, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus, with the submission (Islām) to the will of God.
Muhammad, the final Islamic prophet, was born and lived in Mecca for the first 53 years of his life (c. 570–622 CE) until the Hijra. This period of his life is characterized by his proclamation of prophethood. Muhammad's father, Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib, died before he was born.
The mausoleum of Khadija in Mecca, before its demolition by the House of Saud in the 1920s. From 613 to 619 CE, the Islamic prophet Muhammad gathered in his hometown of Mecca a small following of those who embraced his message of Islam and thus became Muslims. The first person who professed Islam was his wife, Khadija bint Khuwaylid.
[175] [176] [177] Similar reservations regarding the appearance of Manichaeism and Mazdakism in pre-Islamic Mecca are offered by Trompf & Mikkelsen et al. in their latest work (2018). [178] [179] There is evidence for the circulation of Iranian religious ideas in the form of Persian loan words in Quran such as firdaws (paradise). [180] [181]
Mecca has been referred to by many names. As with many Arabic words, its etymology is obscure. [24] Widely believed to be a synonym for Makkah, it is said to be more specifically the early name for the valley located therein, while Muslim scholars generally use it to refer to the sacred area of the city that immediately surrounds and includes the Ka'bah.
For Zainab Abdu, the holiest sites in Islam were the backdrop for her weekends growing up. Raised in Mecca, Abdu remembers roller-skating with friends near the Grand Mosque where the Kaaba is located.
Though the belief that pre-Islamic Arabs regularly practised female infanticide has become common among both Muslims and Western writers, few surviving sources are referencing the practice before Islam. An inscription in Yemen forbidding the practice, dating to approximately 400 BC, is the sole mention of it in pre-Islamic records.