Chief of the Prophets — Page 12
Chapter One 12 The four months that are called Dhul-Qa‘dah, Dhul-Ḥajjah, Muḥarram, and Rajab in the Islamic calendar were considered particularly sacred in pre-Islamic times. Bloodshed was completely forbidden in these months enabling people to travel freely. Conclusion In essence, the state of the Arabia with respect to its civilization and society, religion and traditions was so dreadful and horrific, that no religion other than Islam could have reformed it. Sir William Muir, who did not have a soft corner for Islam, also acknowledged this fact. He writes: During the youth of Moḥammad, the aspect of the Peninsula was strongly conservative; perhaps never at any previous time was reform more hopeless… After five centuries of Christian evangelization, we can point to but a sprinkling here and there of Christian converts; the Beni'l-Ḥārith of Nejrān; the Beni Hanīfa of Al-Yemāma; some of the Beni Ṭai' at Teimā; and hardly any more. Judaism, vastly more powerful, had exhibited spasmodic efforts at proselytism; but, as an active and converting agent, the Jewish faith was no longer operative. In fine, viewed in a religious aspect, the surface of Arabia had been now and then gently rippled by the feeble efforts of Christianity; the sterner influences of Judaism had been occasionally visible in a deeper and more troubled current; But the tide of indigenous idolatry and Ishmaelite superstition, setting strongly from every quarter towards the Ka‘bah. 1 It should be further noted that these circumstances were not unique to Arabia; in fact at that time, the entire world was passing through a dark age. Religions were corrupted, and clouds of sin and 1 The Life of Moḥammad: From the Original Sources by Sir William Muir and T. H. Weir, p. xcvii, Published at Edinburgh by J. Grant, 1912.