Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

Arabia and Her Neighbours
There is a general impression that Islam originated in a nomadic and pastoral society which was completely isolated from the then civilized world. This statement, though true within limits, must by supplemented and qualified by t le fact that the Arabs were in full contact with the Persian and Roman Empires and that they had developed extensive trade relations with the surrounding countries. Arabia was no longer a country only of nornads at the birth of Islam. It was the seat of an extenswe commerce. Agriculture also flourished in the fertile parts of the country. Thus Anbia at that time contained all the thsee layers of society -- pastoral, agricultural and commercial ~ and was in full contact with the civilization then existing Let us begin with international relations of Arabia at that time. At .he time when Islam made its appearance, the Byzantine Empire, to the northwest of Arabia, was in a state of in*ernal confusion. After the death of Justinian in 363 A.D., the Eastern Roman Empire suffered many attacks from the barbarL,.o and its internal stability was shaken by internecine quarrels.
The Persian Empire on the northeast of Arabia, which included Iraq and Mesopotamia, had long been a rival of the Byzantine in the east. The fifty-year peace agreed upon towards the end of the reign of Justinian had not been kept. Taking advantage of the weakness of Byzantine, Khusrau II of Persia declared war, on the pretext of avenging the murder of the Emperor Maurice, who had helped him gain the throne of Persia Phocas, who had succeeded Maurice, was not in a position toward off the Persian attack, and Asia Minor was overrun. In 610 A.D., Heraclius, son of the governor of North Africa, replaced Ph-jcas, and after twelve years of preparation, undertook a campaign against the Persians and compelled them to withdraw from Asia Minor, Egypt and Syria, by using his sea power. In 627 A.D., Khusrau’s palace was captured and
’ Hasan Askari, Islamic State and Society, India, 1990, P 9
Arabia Before Islam
35
sacked, he had to flee from his capital. Peace was made in the following year.
None of these empires, adjacent to Arabia, haf, iled to achieve its object, and the deciraated Roman army ferried bauk to My Lfe/ptian shore. The Arabs of (he northeast and northwesl on the northern borders of Arabia were, however, under the influence and suzerainty of Persia and B>£antum, respectively. Similarly, Yaman, the southern part of Arabia, was coming under the influence of Byzantium through OIQ Christian Kingdom of Abyssinia. These were the three channels through which the cultural and spiritual influences of the outside world reached Arabia.
The Gnassanids triced their descent from an anricnt south Arabian tribe. They settled in the region southeast of Damascus and displaced the Salih who were, the first Arabians to found a kingdom in Syria. The Banu Ghassan were gradually christianized and Syrianised. They did not however, abandon their native tongue, Arabic, although they spoke under the Byzantine political Bsdou-n hords. ”Facing the Byzantine empire they did, the Ghassanids adopted a form of Christianity which, though of the interests’’. The” Ghassanid kingdom reached the highest peak of prosperity in sixth century after Christ under al-Harith II, Ibn Jabalah of Ghassan, whom the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian, appointed Lord over all the tribes of Syria as a reward for defeating his Lakhmid rival alMundhir, who was an ally of the Persians”. On the eve of the rise of Islam the subsidies hitherto paid by Byzantine to the Ghassa’”-*i were stopped by Hercules as a measure of economy...and the Muslims consequently found Ghassan in a state of resentment and disloyalty to Byzantine. There was another Arab kingdom in the northeast bordering on Persia. Its capital was Hirah which lay aboufr three miles south of Kufah. The dynasty at Hirah was of south Arabian or Yamanite origin and called itself Tanukh. The native population of Hirah was Christian whom the Arabs called ”Ibad or worshippers.
In the latter part of the third century, a new dynasty, the Lakhmids, came to rule over Hirah. Among the important kings of

36