Jahiliyyah (Arabic, جاهلية) is an Islamic term that can be translated as "age of ignorance" (from the Arabic word "ignorant"). It refers to the time and society prior to the rise of the Prophet Muhammad and Islam in seventh-century Arabia. According to this view, at the beginning humanity was monotheistic. However he progressively departed from the worship of one God, a practice that would have been introduced by the prophet Abraham (in Arabic, Ibrahim), falling into paganism. The Arabs were no stranger to this behavior, and did the same, turning the Kaaba into a place of worship of idols. Proof of the original monotheism of human beings would be the Jewish and Christian communities living in Arabia.
The historical emergence of Islam sought only to restore original monotheism and not to found a new religion. The period during which Muhammad presented his message is called Nubuwwa.
The term Jahiliyyah was not used by Mohammed as an allusion to pre-Islam paganism (as Christian writers did in relation to the pre-Christian era) but also as a state of mind and a pre-Islamic Arab mentality. characterized by the spirit of revenge, by arrogance, which Islam intended to abolish. Modern use of the term In the thinking of the authors linked to what is called Islamic fundamentalism, the term Jahiliyyah is used to refer to any culture or civilization that departs from God, and can be used to describe Muslim society as well traditional concepts. Sayyid Qutb, an associate of the Muslim Brothers, first applied the term to Muslims, considering the government of Egyptian President Nasser as part of the Jahiliyyah, and in his view it was necessary to combat it. Qutb was accused by the Nasser government of treason and executed for it. Bibliography
wiki
