What Are Bedouin Tribals

Pre-Islamic Arabia was a culture knit together by kinship. In this society there was no emperor or ruling elite. The people of pre-Islamic Arabia were bound together by nomadic tribes who made profit by trading and most importantly “raiding”. These raids were often described as small-scale warfare and were instrumented by tribal leaders in order to increase the wealth and power of the tribe (Gordon 5). This was the society in which Islam came to power. Warfare and raiding were essential in order to be successful in pre-Islamic Arabia. The integration of warfare into the Islamic religion created a similarity among Muslims, those who follow Islam, and non-Islamic Arabian people. This relationship and common interest established by the prophet Muhammad helped in the rise of Islam among non-Islamic

Following the customs of prosperous family’s, Muhammad passed a fraction of his childhood living with a family in the dessert. Because of this occurrence amid these people is what might have impacted the evolution of Islam. Muhammad started working as a distributor and shortly after that married a wealthy women and had kids. Muhammad began to acquire revelations from God, which then he would overtime declaim ahead to the public. This developed religion had integrated features of Christianity and Judaism. Islam was a creed that declared prophets from these two religions and behold that Islam’s shared the same God as the Christians and the Jews, according to Muhammad being the final diviner. Muslims

The unity generated by the Islamic faith allowed for the cooperation of differing tribes and people groups to conquer Arabia, Persia, and beyond (Traditions and Encounters pg203-203). Under the centralized Abbasid Empire,

They did the same daily routine every single day. Each day would run into the next. There were no breaks, no social media to keep up with throughout the day, and their looks didn’t matter. The nomads would follow the herds of animals to their next location to settle. They would travel in snow, rain, and the spring flood water on foot with their belongings. The men and women had their own jobs to fulfill and they were raised to complete their daily tasks every day. The women were brought up to bake bread, milk the herd, make a clotted yoghourt, and most importantly produce men. The men go to work and bring home the food for the family. Nomads have no memories to have because they are always working all the time. It was a life with no time to adapt to another way of

In the early seventh century the Middle East was primarily nomadic herding groups and merchant societies. Nomads and merchants both rely heavily on trade to support their ways of life, and with no centralized government Arabia was split into kinship groups of nomads and trade cities of merchants. Each area was only responsible to the well being of its

Muhammad, who was a merchant in the trading city of Mecca, had begun to preach his beliefs in the cities. This set of beliefs had not only tied in the roots of both Judaism and Christianity, but also cultural qualities of the Arabic people at the time. The syncretism of these religions made this new set of beliefs very appealing. Muhammad had taken good aspects of each culture and blended them together in such a way that it was supported by a number of people. Many eagerly followed Muhammad, eventually forming a bond between nomads under the same religion. They did not know it at the time, but this group of united nomads would soon start a very successful conquest throughout the Middle East and parts of Africa.

By the 7th century, Islam had become many different divisional sects and started spreading to different parts of the world including North Africa. Egypt was the first conquest of the many Arab controlled cities in approximately 641 A.D. and the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb was to begin. As the Umayyad Caliphate started it conquest to create their Islamic States, the Byzantine Roman Empire would start losing its last remaining strongholds in Northern Africa. The Caliphate offered Islam to the Berber people as an alternative from the oppressed Byzantine government. The large number of Berbers inhabiting the Maghreb and thus created the spread of Islam in Northern Africa. These Berbers created an imperial dynasty in the 11th century, in Morocco, establishing the Almoravid State, lasting from 1040 – 1147 AD. The empire stretched over the North-Western Maghreb and Al-Andalus. The Berber people were known for their trading with products such as slabs of salt, textiles, and horses. They would travel across Sahara spreading Islam to the Western Sudan, while staying in their Islamic quarters for Muslims. Thus beginning the spread of Islam into Western

The core religious allegory of Islam starts with Muhammad’s revelations in the caves and ends with the death of 4th successor Ali, almost 40 years later. It is analogous to the Last Suppers, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in Christianity. In the lifetime of Muhammad, his community gained control over the Arabian Peninsula. And though he passed away in 632 AD the religious story doesn’t end there. But it is continued through his four closest followers, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali, together they formed the Rashidun, which means the Rightly Guided One’s. Together they established the first Islamic state, the Caliphate. In just 30 years the Rashidun Caliphate had conquered all of Persia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Levant and

The caravan system became more efficient in terms of business relations and desert politics. Many like Mansa Musa and Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan scholar, would make journeys or follow caravans into Africa. Ibn told of his journey to Mali of how people would get there through friends or merchants and about Africanized Islamic rituals, which demonstrated the African influence on a religion that was brought to them from elsewhere. How travelers would not bring many supplies with them except salt and beads with which to trade with. The importance of Islam is clearly evident in the discussion of trans-Saharan trade.

Furthermore, there are some main aspects, which determine the success of the Arab conquerors and their influence that they had on the political, social, and cultural changes of the Middle East. In the first place, we have seen that the most commented – upon aspect of the conquests, their rapidity, is a consequence of the drive by the conquest leadership to recruit nomads into their armies. Nomads are much more mobile than sedentary people, more used to fighting in their everyday lives, and their work is less labor intensive than growing crops, so more of them can be spared to fight than in an agricultural society. In Arab case, non – Muslim sources allow us to perceive an additional advantage that the Arabs had been serving in the armies of

Trade across the Sahara existed for many eras before the Common Era but it was periodic, incidental, modest, and much unorganized. During this time, the trade goods were carried on the backs of cattle known as pack-oxen. “The pack-oxen became accustomed to desert conditions allowing them to travels days without water as they traveled from one water source to the other.” The problem with the oxen was that they were unable to travel without rest and water which was hard to come by. Because of the time dependency of the oxen travel across the Sahara was very dangerous. It took ages for the merchandise to reach its attended destination. The trade remained unorganized until around the 5th century when the domestication of the camel revolutionized desert travel.

In Mecca, Muhammad began spreading his message of one God and the rich and leading tribes of Mecca was not too happy. They feared the loss not only of their inherited belief in the paganisms, but also a very wealthy pilgrimage business (Campo 493). At first, the resistance was limited to mockery and disdain but later changed an active pursuit and persecution (Hitti 113). Still according to Hitti, their heated resistance to his teaching forced his followers to migrate to Abyssinia but he would later conquered

This shift to commerce advanced a shift in religious beliefs. The paganism and tribal system that had been in use for so long became compromised. “At the beginning of the seventh century, when the Quraysh and some of the other Arabs were leaving the old nomadic life behind and were becoming aware of the social problems of the settled life, the Prophet of Islam brought a new religious message to the Arabs” (Muhammad 68). Because of the shift in society, “some of the younger generation were growing disenchanted and seemed to be searching for a new spiritual and political solution to the malaise and disquiet in the city” (Muhammad, 68). In effect, the shift from a violent tribal system to a more peaceful sedentary lifestyle, centered on commerce in the marketplace, made the beliefs of paganism no longer sufficient to respond to the new principles on which people based their actions. People “felt that their old religious ideas no longer spoke to them in their dramatically altered world” (Muhammad, 8). Additionally, those who were still caught up in the violent warfare of the tribal system felt that the cycle of violence would never cease and that they could never achieve the unity necessary for

The Nomads were people of a tribe who would migrate around many different places in search of new viable resources, wealth, and technology when their supply of food and land would be exploited. The nomads were the hunter-gatherers of the 7th -13th centuries and also even having their own livestock in most cases. They herded sheep, cattle, goats, horses, and many other animals. Since they move from place to place so much they do not partake in agriculture so much, or even so on a long term basis. The nomads would migrate for reasons such as to raid settled communities or avoid approaching enemy conflicts. It being their natural way of life, living off of the land and working for their own food and shelter, they were seen as savages in most eyes. The Nomadic people were made up of warriors and tribal elders of a low culture society. The tribal elders being the chairmen of the tribe/chiefs who were the key holders, sources, and transmitters of

Ibn Battuta was one of the greatest travelers of ancient history. He was a Moroccan scholar who widely ventured the medieval world. Ibn Battuta's urge to travel was due to the interest of finding the best teachers and the best libraries, as well as making the pilgrimage to Mecca known as hajj, out of eagerness and devotion to his faith. His journey began in 1325 at just the age of 21, Ibn Battuta rode out of Tangier with a donkey unassisted with alms of gold and woolen cloth. During Ibn Battuta's travel, Islamic civilizations stretched from the Atlantic coast of Africa to Southeast Asia, which has constituted the Dar-Al Salam. Ibn Battuta’s voyage begins in his home place Morocco and continued on to Arab Mashreq, Arabian Peninsula, Persia, Iraq, East Africa, Anatolia, Central Asia, South Asia, China, Southeast Asia, Al-Andalus, Mali Empire and West Africa. Throughout his travels Ibn Battuta told more about himself, the people he met and the importance of the positions he held. In social characteristics, Ibn Battuta was able to give an insight of gender roles throughout countries, and distinctly state the different roles in marriages and ceremonies. In political characteristics, Ibn Battuta was appointed a Judge with a significant recognition, creating laws and decided cases in a court of law. In cultural characteristics, Battuta outlines the different traditions and customs of cultures he experienced throughout his travel. Lastly, in economic characteristics, Battuta