Back جاهلية Arabic جاهليه ARZ Cahiliyyət dövrü Azerbaijani Яһилиәт Bashkir আইয়ামে জাহেলিয়া Bengali/Bangla ЖехӀилийн зама CE Jahiliya Danish Dschāhilīya German Yahilía Spanish جاهلیت Persian

Jahiliyyah

"Jahalia" redirects here. For the Romanian village, see Râșca, Suceava.
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Not to be confused with Ahl al-Fatrah.

Al-Jāhiliyyah (The Age of Ignorance) is a historical era in Islamic salvation history[1] that can describe the pre-Islamic Arabian past or just the Hejaz leading up to the life of Muhammad.[2][3][4]

The Jahiliyyah served as a grand narrative of a morally corrupt social order. Its people (the jahl, sing. jāhil) lacked religious knowledge (ʿilm) and civilized qualities (ḥilm).[5] As a result, they committed polytheism and idol worship, female infanticide, had societies rife with tyranny, injustice, despotism, and anarchy, and prejudice resulted in vainglorious tribal antagonisms.[6] The pre-Islamic age was essentialized into a group of attributes and societal functions that could be condensed into a barbaric way of life that stood in contrast with the mission of Muhammad and the way of life he introduced. Today, this narrative is not considered historical. As a grand narrative or master narrative,[7][8] and as a discourse, it served the role of validating and even necessitating the venture of Islam.[9][10] Analogous grand narratives that have existed across societies include the Age of Enlightenment succeeding a Dark Ages in European history, and the idea that the coming of Jesus Christ served to redeem a world contaminated by Original Sin.[11][7]

In modern Islamist writings, the concept is used to refer to a decadent moral state accused of imitating the Jahiliyyah.[12] Islamists have used this concept of jahiliyyah to criticize un-Islamic conduct in the Muslim world.[13] Prominent Muslim theologians like Muhammad Rashid Rida and Abul A'la Maududi, among others, have used the term as a reference to secular modernity and, by extension, to modern Western culture. In his works, Maududi asserts that modernity is the "new jahiliyyah."[14][15] Sayyid Qutb viewed jahiliyyah as a state of domination of humans over humans, as opposed to their submission to God.[16] Likewise, radical Muslim groups have often justified the use of violence against secular regimes by framing their armed struggle as a jihad to strike down modern forms of jahiliyyah.[16] Ibn Taymiyyah and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab have both viewed their fellow Muslims as living in a state of jahiliyyah.[4]

  1. ^ Munt 2015, p. 436.
  2. ^ Webb 2014.
  3. ^ Shepard 2007, p. 37.
  4. ^ a b Shepard 2013.
  5. ^ Munt 2015, p. 436–437.
  6. ^ Webb 2014, p. 69–70.
  7. ^ a b Halverson, Goodall & Corman 2011.
  8. ^ Webb 2014, p. 69–71.
  9. ^ Webb 2016, p. 258.
  10. ^ Tottoli 2023, p. 143.
  11. ^ Webb 2014, p. 83.
  12. ^ Hartung 2014, p. 62–64.
  13. ^ Eleanor Abdella Doumato (rev. Byron D. Cannon) (2009). "Jāhilīyah". In John L. Esposito (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530513-5.
  14. ^ Worth, Robert (13 October 2021). "The Deep Intellectual Roots of Islamic Terror". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 November 2009.
  15. ^ L. Esposito, John (2003). The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 154. ISBN 0-19-512558-4.
  16. ^ a b Jahiliyyah The Oxford Dictionary of Islam
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