Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

686 22c. the arabs
Other sources suggest that there were h · anīfs in various parts of Arabia, that
the movement was one of individuals rather than religious communities,
and that Mecca was important to its adherents. Other details are less reliable,
and there is no evidence to link h · anīfīya with south Arabian inscriptions
attesting to worship of a god called al-Rah · mān, ‘the Merciful’, one of
the Islamic names for God. But the fact that the tradition on the h · anīfs
makes some of them doubters or enemies of Muh · ammad suggests that it
should not be dismissed entirely as later prophetic annunciation or the
tidying up of a pagan past.
Of interest in this respect is the testimony of Sozomen (d. before 448),
who from the vantage point of Gaza in southern Palestine offered the following
comments on Arab religion:
It seems that the Saracens were descended from Ishmael, son of Abraham, and
hence were originally called Ishmaelites. Their mother Hagar was a slave, so in
order to hide the shame of their origin they took the name of Saracens, pretending
to be descended from Sarah, the wife of Abraham. As such is their descent,
they practise circumcision like the Jews, abstain from eating pork, and adhere to
numerous other Jewish observances and practices. In so far as they in any sense
diverge from the observances of that people, this arises from the passage of time
and their contacts with other neighbouring peoples . . . It seems likely that with the
passage of time their ancient customs fell into disuse as they gradually took to
observing the customs of other peoples. Eventually, when some of their tribe
came into contact with the Jews, they learned from them the facts of their true
origin and returned to observance of Hebrew custom and law. In fact, even at the
present time there are some of them who live their lives in accordance with the
Jewish law. 54
The connection with Judaism may reflect an inclination to associate false
belief with the machinations of Jews. 55 As to the Abrahamic religion
attested in the text, while the connection is circumstantial and Sozomen
wrote long before the testimony of the Qur�ān, the Islamic scripture may
refer to continuing monotheistic trends in Arabia that it wishes to distance
from earlier monotheistic faiths now viewed as rivals.
iv. economic life in arabia
It is difficult to generalize on the notion of an Arabian ‘economy’, since the
internal economic situation in the peninsula varied from place to place and
depended on whether a community was settled or nomadic. As noted
above, the south had a lively village economy based on terrace farming and
irrigation; but even here, production was primarily limited to foodstuffs and
54 Soz. HE vi.38.10–14. Cf. Cook (1983) 81; Millar (1993a) 42–4.
55 On the topos of the scheming Jews, see Schafer (1997).
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