Of the world’s greatest religions, Islam can be considered the youngest great religion in the world. It was founded on the Arabian Peninsula in the early 7th century. It was not a short process. All of it was due to the local traditions of the Arabs and beliefs before islam were different.
the people who previously lived on the Peninsula are Aribi people
Previous beliefs were of a polytheistic nature. The vast majority of tribes had their own gods, but there were also gods common to several dozen tribes. The early followers of Islam were modelled on their original beliefs – many of them infiltrated the later faith.
Beliefs before islam and ghosts
Faith in ghosts, in many gods, in special/extraordinary stones and lonely trees (identified with ghosts) were characteristic of pre-Muslim beliefs. In addition, the Arabs of that time believed in ghouls and genies. The ghouls were treated as demons, devilish creatures with which the Bedouin populated the desert. The genie was unfriendly to humans, it was the epitome of images of a wild and dangerous desert – unknown areas of the desert were inhabited by genie. According to the Arabs, insane people, including poets (Muhammad was initially treated as a poet), are controlled by the genie. Interestingly, after the advent of Islam, the number of gins increased and not, as one might expect, decreased.
The life of pagan bedouins is interesting. Their religion was very poor, they were not interested in spiritual life. They did not create their mythology or theology. The Bedouin religion represents the earliest and most primitive form of Semitic beliefs. It is an animistic religion. The Bedouins worshiped the spirit of the earth and the spirit of the barren earth was a vicious demon. This shows the Bedouins’ deep attachment to the earth (not as a territory, but as a source of life).
In pre-Muslim beliefs you can still find the cult of the sun and the moon. Bedouins were shepherds and nomads, and because of the weather conditions on the peninsula they grazed animals at night by the moon, so it was important for them, and they treated the sun as an object that wants to destroy them together with animal and plant life. The worship of the sun would be characteristic of Bedouins if they were engaged in agriculture.
