Islam and the Culture of the Arabian Peninsula

Author: إبراهيم ابراش

 Certainly, the Lord of the Worlds has His wisdom in choosing the prophets and messengers, as well as the time and place of their emergence, along with their heavenly laws. However, we still wonder about the divine wisdom in the revelation of the Quran to our Prophet Muhammad, the Arab Quraishi, in the Arabian Peninsula, where its inhabitants were among the most ignorant, backward, and rough people on Earth. Why was the message not revealed to a messenger from the civilized peoples of that time, when the Roman, Persian, Chinese, Indian civilizations, and others in Africa, such as the Kingdom of Kush and the Kingdom of Axum, were flourishing? Even in the same region that would later be called the Arab world, there were more civilized peoples than the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula, including the peoples of the civilizations of Mesopotamia — the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Sumerian — as well as the civilizations of the Levant — the Canaanite, Aramaic, Hittite, and Kish civilizations — and in Egypt, there was the Pharaonic civilization?

Referring to Islamic history and the wars, conflicts, and achievements witnessed by the Islamic world, it can be said that the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula had no favor or role in building Islamic civilization. It is true that the noble messenger and the noble Quran represented a turning point in human history, but after the Prophet's death and during the so-called Rashidun Caliphate, which lasted about 30 years, conflicts and disagreements began, most of which occurred in the Arabian Peninsula among its tribes, where tribalism and bedouin culture continued to prevail over the tolerant Islamic culture as emphasized by the Quran.
Yes, through Islamic conquests, Islam spread, and a vast Islamic civilization emerged across several continents, with around 2 billion Muslims today, but we have not read about any role played by the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula in this spread and this civilization. In fact, the most important books of Hadith were written by non-Arabs such as Al-Bukhari, Al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, Muslim, Abu Dawood, and Al-Nasa'i; none of them were Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula, and most of the scholars of that civilization were Muslims from non-Arab backgrounds.

The Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula were a major factor in all internal strife and conflicts, and then in the collapse of the Islamic Caliphate during the Ottoman era, where they allied with Britain to overthrow it. I could almost assert that they were not qualified to carry the message of Islam and advance in the course of civilization, even when the name Arabs was included in the term "Arab Islamic civilization," most of the scholars of that civilization were not Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula. These Bedouins abandoned all crafts, industries, and sciences that would develop lands and serve humanity, which would impart civilization to Islam for foreigners and Jews, dedicating themselves instead to poetry, raiding, and acquiring concubines, except for the time of prophethood and the righteous caliphs, which did not exceed fifty years. Even during that period, the reality was not as sacred as the narrators described. During this short period, there was the Great Fitna among Arab Muslims and the killing of caliphs who were promised Paradise and companions of the Prophet. Then came the Umayyad Caliphate and the conflict over power, the conquests searching for spoils and concubines. The scholar Ibn Khaldun wrote in his famous introduction, which he completed in the fourteenth century, "The caliphate since the time of Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan has turned into hereditary monarchy like the king of the non-Arabs." After that came the Abbasid Caliphate and the beginning of the transfer of power and dominance to non-Arabs, especially the Persians. Then, the unified caliphate disintegrated, the kingdoms of factions emerged, and Andalusia was lost, until rescue for the caliphate came from Central Asia through non-Arab Turks. Even in this era, the Ottoman Caliphate accused the Arabs of treason for their alliance with Britain, particularly during the Hussein-McMahon negotiations during World War I to overthrow the caliphate system, which indeed happened in 1924.
The Arabian Peninsula was fertile ground for the establishment of extremist Islamic groups and the spread of backward religious culture, which was exploited by the West, especially Britain, to keep the Arab and Islamic world in a state of backwardness.

After the West adopted secularism and found that separating religion from politics and authority contributed to their industrial revolution and enhanced the democratic path, they worked from the beginning of colonialism to thwart attempts to transfer their experiences to others. They hindered intellectual and civilizational progress in the Arab and Islamic countries, creating Gulf kingdoms and supporting the Wahhabi movement in Najd, where its founder, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, allied with the Al Saud in 1744 to establish the Saudi kingdom. The West, particularly Britain, also opposed the modernization and advancement policies of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, leading to his defeat in 1840, after which he was forced to withdraw his armies from the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant.

In the Islamic countries they occupied, they reinforced the backward, superficial religious culture, supported Sufi movements and lodges, and facilitated the existence of political Islam groups from the Muslim Brotherhood to Al-Qaeda, ISIS, al-Nusra, etc.

When Arab thinkers outside the Arabian Peninsula attempted to revive a contemporary and civilizational Arab nationalist project and redefine the relationship between Islam and Arabism, the first to oppose them were the rulers of the Gulf Arab states, who allied with the West to confront the newly introduced idea of Arab nationalism and its call for Arab unity. We have seen this in their hostility towards all progressive forces, political parties, and systems, such as Gamal Abdel Nasser, accusing them of secularism and disbelief.

Currently, we find that the peoples of non-Arab Muslim countries are more stable and advanced. For example, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, etc., while Arab Muslim countries, especially the Gulf states, the cradle of Muhammad’s Sharia, are closer to American protectorates, housing American and Western military bases. With oil and gas wealth, they financed extremist ideologies such as Wahhabism and all extremist jihadist groups from the Muslim Brotherhood to Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and al-Nusra. These kingdoms were also a primary ally with America in destroying Iraq, and with their funds and coordination with Washington, they spread the chaos of what is termed the Arab Spring to destroy what was achieved in Arab countries outside the Arabian Peninsula, such as Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Syria.

The rulers of the Gulf have promoted the notion that their oil and gas resources are a generosity and a gift from God, showing His satisfaction with them as protectors of Islam and its cradle! If this were the case, how do we explain the presence of oil, gas, and countless riches in the communist Soviet Union, in Christian America, in Venezuela, and other non-Muslim countries? Why hasn’t oil and gas wealth benefitted the Islamic peoples afflicted by poverty, hunger, and backwardness, while this money is being invested in 'infidel' countries? And where are the Arabian Peninsula's nations regarding the occupation of Palestine and Jerusalem and the famine in Gaza?

Gulf media still disseminate a distorted Islamic culture, reinforce chaos, distort genuine Arab thought and culture, and recruit mercenaries from everywhere for this purpose while opposing national states that attempt to rebel against Western hegemony.