Understanding Western Society
Printed Page 212
In Muhammad’s time, Arabia was inhabited by various tribes, many of them Bedouins (BEH-
For all Arabs, the basic social unit was the clan — a group of blood relations connected through the male line. Although the nomadic Bedouins condemned the urbanized lifestyle of the cities as immoral and corrupt, Arabs of all types respected certain aspects of one another’s customs and had some religious rules and rituals in common. The city of Mecca was the major religious and economic center of western Arabia. For centuries before the rise of Islam, many Arabs prayed at the Ka’ba (KAH-