Pre-Islamic Arabia (Jahiliyyah) is the history of Arab people who lived in the Arabian Plate before the rise of Islam in the 630s. The study of Pre-Islamic Arabia is important to Islamic studies as it provides the context for the development of Islam.

The scientific studies of Pre-Islamic Arabs starts with the Arabists of the early 19th century when they managed to decipher epigraphic Old South Arabian (10th century BC), Ancient North Arabian (6th century BC) and other writings.

Nabataean trade routes in Pre-Islamic era. Trade Caravans travelled by land and depending on the trade winds also by sea. The map above demonstrates the main land routes, with key land markets and sea ports

Pre-Islamic Arabia, hence it is no longer limited to the written traditions which are not local due to the lack of surviving Arab historians accounts of that era, therefore it is compensated by existing material consisting of primarily written sources from other traditions (such as Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, etc.).

From the 3rd century CE, Arabian history becomes more tangible with the rise of the Himyarite Kingdom, and with the appearance of the Qahtanites in the Levant and the gradual assimilation of the Nabataeans by the Qahtanites in the early centuries CE, a pattern of expansion exceeded in the explosive Muslim conquests of the 7th century.

Sources of history include archaeological evidence,, foreign accounts and oral traditions later recorded by Islamic scholars especially pre-Islamic Poems and Hadiths plus a number of ancient Arab documents that survived to the medieval times and portions of them were cited or recorded.

Archaeological exploration in the Arabian Peninsula has been sparse but fruitful, many ancient sites were identified by modern excavations.

Early Semitic migrations: The earliest known events in Arabian history are migrations from the peninsula into neighbouring areas. In the 3rd millennium BCE, Semitic-speaking peoples migrated from the Arabian Peninsula into Mesopotamia, brought down Sumer, and eventually established the semitic Akkadian Empire under Sargon of Akkad (c. 2300 BCE).

The East Semitic group established itself at Ebla. The Amorites were Northwest Semitic speakers who left Arabia in the late 3rd millennium BCE and settled along the Levant. Some of these migrants established societies that evolved into the Aramaeans and Canaanites of later times.

Pre-Historic to Iron Age:

Ubaid period (5300 BC)-could have originated in eastern Arabia
Umm an-Nar Culture (2600-2000 BC)
Sabr culture (2000 BC)
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 The A’adids established themselves in South Arabia (modern day Yemen), settling to the east of the Qahtan tribe.They established the Kingdom of A’ad around the 10th century BCE to the 3rd century CE.

Magan is attested as the name of a trading partner of the Sumerians. It is often assumed to be located in Oman.

The A ’ad nation were known to the Greeks and Egyptians. Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographos (2nd century CE) refers to the place by a Hellenized version of the inhabitants of the capital Ubar.

The Thamud were a people of ancient Arabia, either a tribe or a group of tribes, that created a large kingdom and flourished from 3000 BCE to 200 BCE. Recent archaeological work has revealed numerous Thamudic rock writings and pictures not only in Yemen but also throughout central Arabia.

They are mentioned in sources such as the Qur’an, old Arabian poetry, Assyrian annals (Tamudi), in a Greek temple inscription from the northwest Hejaz of CE 169, in a 5th-century Byzantine source and in Old North Arabian graffiti around Tayma.

They are mentioned in the victory annals of the Neo-Assyrian King, Sargon II (8th century BCE), who defeated these people in a campaign in northern Arabia. The Greeks also refer to these people as “Tamudaei”, i.e. “Thamud”, in the writings of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Pliny. Before the rise of Islam, approximately between 400-600 CE, the Thamud totally disappeared.

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During Minaean rule (7th century BCE – 1st century BCE) the capital was at Karna (now known as Sa’dah). Their other important city was Yathill (now known as Baraqish). The Minaean Kingdom was centered in northwestern Yemen, with most of its cities laying along the Wadi Madhab.

Minaic inscriptions have been found far afield of the Kingdom of Ma’in, as far away as al-`Ula in northwestern Saudi Arabia and even on the island of Delos and in Egypt. It was the first of the Yemeni kingdoms to end, and the Minaic language died around CE 100.

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