Jahiliyyah should not be confused with Ahl al-Fatrah.
In Islam, jahiliyyah (ar|{{wikt-lang|ar|جَاهِلِيَّة pronounced as /ar/) is a polemical term for the society of pre-Islamic Arabia. It is otherwise called the Age of Ignorance, referring to Arabian religious practices before the rise of Muhammad in the 7th century.[1] It may be derived from the verbal root (Arabic: جهل,).[2] Alternatively, it is an abstract noun derived from, the Arabic term for a barbarian.
Islamists have used the concept of jahiliyyah to criticize un-Islamic conduct in the Muslim world.[1] 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."[3] [4] Sayyid Qutb viewed jahiliyyah as a state of domination of humans over humans, as opposed to their submission to God.[5] 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.[5]
In the context of jahiliyyah, many Muslim historians have stated that violent misogyny, particularly female infanticide, was common among Arabians before Islam was founded. However, the information in these sources may have been greatly exaggerated in order to provide a foundation for high criticism of the Age of Ignorance, both for religious concerns and for other reasons.[6]
Jahiliyyah is similar in some ways to Ahl al-Fatrah, which refers to people who were alive at any point between the supposed death of Jesus around 30 CE and the first revelation of Muhammad around 610 CE. Generally speaking, fatrah refers to those whom the message of God was not or could not be transmitted effectively, thus absolving them of personal accountability for idolatry or like-minded sins. Meanwhile, jahiliyyah refers to pre-Islamic Arabians who might have had the option of following Abrahamic monotheism (i.e., becoming a hanif) as per their knowledge, but chose not to do so out of ignorance or pride, thus incurring divine punishment on the Day of Judgement.
The term jahiliyyah is derived from the Arabic verbal root jahala "to be ignorant or stupid, to act stupidly".[2] It has been suggested that the word jahiliyyah in the Quran means "ignorant people", against both the traditional Islamic interpretation "Age of Ignorance", and the Orientalist interpretation "(state of) ignorance" (Ancient Greek ἄγνοια).[7] The basic argument is that the ending -iyyah in early Arabic (Arabiyya) denotes a collective plural noun rather than an abstract noun, as the word jahiliyya was later understood.
The term Jahiliyyah is used several places in the Quran, and translations often use various terms to represent it:
This term refers to Arab culture before the arrival of Islam. Before Islam, some of the tribes of Arabia were nomadic, with a strong community spirit and some specific society rules. Their culture was patriarchal, with rudimentary religious beliefs. Their religious beliefs included yearly celebrations around the Kaaba, a time of trading and social exchange. Since the term describes the condition of the time, 'Jahiliyya' is used to describe the period of ignorance and darkness that predated Islam.[12]
A notable usage of this concept during the Islamic Golden Age is from the controversial 13th-century theologian ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) who pronounced takfir (excommunication) upon the Ilkhanate monarchs who had publicly professed themselves as Muslims yet implemented a legal system which was based on the traditional Mongol Yassa judicial code instead of Muslim law. According to ibn Taymiyya, a ruler who claims to be Muslim but codified human-made laws for governance is guilty of the pagan idolatry of jahiliyya; in spite of his declaration of the shahada (Islamic testimony of faith), or regular observance of salah (prayers), sawm (fasting) and other outward expressions of religiosity.[13]
Classical Qur'anic commentator ibn Kathir (d. 1373), a prominent pupil of Ibn Taymiyya, propounded the same belief in his tafsir, writing: