History of the Ancient Arabs

Pre-Islamic Arabia[1] (Arabic: شبه الجزيرة العربية قبل الإسلام) is the Arabian Peninsula prior to the emergence of Islam in 610 CE.

Some of the settled communities developed into distinctive civilizations. Information about these communities is limited and has been pieced together from archaeological evidence, accounts written outside of Arabia, and Arab oral traditions which were later recorded by Islamic historians. Among the most prominent civilizations were the Thamud civilization, which arose around 3000 BCE and lasted to around 300 CE, and the Dilmun civilization, which arose around the end of the fourth millennium and lasted to around 600 CE. Additionally, from the beginning of the first millennium BCE, Southern Arabia was the home to a number of kingdoms such as the Sabaeans, and Eastern Arabia was inhabited by Semitic speakers who presumably migrated from the southwest, such as the so-called Samad population. A few nodal points were controlled by Iranian Parthian and Sassanian colonists.

Pre-Islamic religion in Arabia included indigenous polytheistic beliefs, various forms of Christianity, Judaism, Manichaeism, and Zoroastrianism.