26 chapter one
Islam. Commenda contracts, mudharabah, which were used in pre-
Islamic trade were accepted and declared legitimate under Islam.
The pre-Islamic forms of commercial insurance were also allowed
to continue and survive the coming of Islam.
But lending at interest, for economic purposes or otherwise, was
condemned; Muslims were to recover only their loan principle, cap-
ital, “you have the right to only your capital, ‘ru"aùs amwalikum’”
(Qur"àn 2:275).
But the pre-Islamic Bedouin is also condemned and is often charged
with hypocrisy in the Qur"àn, “the Bedouins said: ‘We believe’ (in
Islam), say: ‘You believe not, but you ought to say, ‘we have sur-
rendered’ (to Islam) for faith has not yet entered your hearts’”,
(Qur"àn 49:14). This was particularly the case when it came to the
fulfillment of the call for Holy War, jihàd; they were described as
being reluctant to take part in military jihàd but were in a hurry to
claim a share in the spoils of war (Qur"àn 9:90, 97–101, 120).
The condemnation of the forms of life in pre-Islamic Arabia that
has led to rightly declaring them un-Islamic appears also in the
Sunnah, in which the Prophet is reported to have warned his fol-
lowers against having a behavioural attitude to each other as that
of al-Jahiliyyah, the pre-Islamic Arabia’s Age of Ignorance and
Confusion. However, the Qur"ànic and Prophet’s reference to the
age of jahiliyyah should be inferred as related to those beliefs, actions
and patterns of behaviour that were not per se accepted in Islam.
These can be divided into three main categories as follows:
First, although the pagans believed in God as the creator and sus-
tainer of the universe, “If you ask them (the unbelievers) who has
created heavens and earth they will say Allah (God)”, “if you ask
them who has created heavens and earth and subjected the sun and
the moon, they will say Allah”, and “if you ask them who sends
down water from the sky and gives life to the earth after being dead,
they will say Allah”, (Qur"àn 31:25, 29:61, 63, respectively), they
also believed in God’s associates, as intermediaries between man and
God. These were forms of deities mostly of their own making to
reconcile between them and God. Gradually they perceived these
man-made gods equal to God and began to worship them as His
associates. This was not accepted. The educational approach and
the resort to the power of reasoning can be seen clearly in the
Qur"àn in guiding the human mind to the truth before God’s ret-
ribution is promised to the stubborn mind. We read the Qur"ànic