Jahiliyya

Jahiliyyah (Arabic: جاهلية‎‎ ǧāhiliyyah/jāhilīyah "") is an Islamic concept of the period of time and state of affairs in Arabia before the advent of Islam. It is often translated as the "Age of Ignorance". The term jahiliyyah is derived from the verbal root jahala "to be ignorant or stupid, to act stupidly". In modern times various Islamic thinkers have used the term to criticize what they saw as un-Islamic nature of public and private life in the Muslim world. In current use, Jahiliyyah refers to secular modernity, as in the work of Abul A'la Maududi, who viewed modernity as the “new jahiliyyah.”Sayyid Qutb viewed jahiliyyah as a state of domination of humans over humans, as opposed to their submission to God. Radical groups have justified armed struggle against secular regimes as a jihad against jahiliyyah.

The term Jahiliyyah is used several places in the Quran, and translations often use various terms to represent it:

This term can be used in reference to the Arabic culture before the arrival of Islam.

Before the Islamic conversion the Arab tribes were nomadic, with a strong community spirit and some specific society rules. Their culture was patriarchal, with rudimentary religious beliefs. Although there were some traces of monotheism in the "hanifs" figures, their religious beliefs were based mostly on idol adorations and social congregations once a year around the Kaaba for trading and exchanges. Since the term is, in its deep sense, used as a condition, and not as an historical period, the Jahiliyya is used to describe the period of ignorance and darkness that preluded the arrival of Islam. It refers to the general condition of those that haven't accepted the Muslim faith.

The term "modern Jahiliyyah" was coined by the Indian Islamist writer Abul Ala Maududi, who characterized modernity with its values, lifestyles, and political norms as "the new barbarity" which was incompatible with Islam. Such criticisms of modernity were taken up in the emerging anti-colonialist rhetoric and the term gained currency in the Arab world through translations of Mawdudi's work. The concept of modern Jahiliyyah attained wide popularity through a 1950 work by Mawdudi's student Abul Hasan Nadvi, titled What Did the World Lose Due to the Decline of Islam? Expounding Mawdudi's views, Nadvi wrote that Muslims were to be held accountable for their predicament, because they came to rely on alien, un-Islamic institutions borrowed from the West.

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