Pre-Islamic Arabia () refers to the Arabian Peninsula before 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 earliest Semitic civilization in the eastern part was Dilmun, which arose around the end of the fourth millennium and lasted to around 600 CE. Additionally, from the second half of the second millennium BCE, Southern Arabia was the home to a number of kingdoms such as the Sabaeans, Minaeans, and Eastern Arabia was inhabited by Semitic speakers who presumably migrated from the southwest, such as the so-called Samad population. From 106 CE to 630 CE northwestern Arabia was under the control of the Roman Empire, which renamed it Arabia Petraea. A few nodal points were controlled by Iranian Parthian and Sassanian empires.
Pre-Islamic religions in Arabia included Arabian indigenous polytheistic beliefs, ancient Semitic religions (religions predating the Abrahamic religions which themselves likewise originated among the ancient Semitic-speaking peoples), various forms of Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and Mandaeism, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, and rarely Hinduism and Buddhism.
Studies
Scientific studies of Pre-Islamic Arabs starts with the Arabists of the early 19th century when they managed to decipher epigraphic Old South Arabian (10th century BCE), Ancient North Arabian (6th century BCE) and other writings of pre-Islamic Arabia. Thus, studies are no longer limited to the written traditions, which are not local due to the lack of surviving Arab historians' accounts of that era; the paucity of material is compensated for by written sources from other cultures (such as Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, etc.), so it was not known in great detail. From the 3rd century CE, Arabian history becomes more tangible with the rise of the Ḥimyarite, and with the appearance of the Qaḥṭānites in the Levant and the gradual assimilation of the Nabataeans by the Qaḥṭānites in the early centuries CE, a pattern of expansion exceeded in the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. Sources of history include archaeological evidence, foreign accounts and oral traditions later recorded by Islamic scholars—especially in the pre-Islamic poems—and the Ḥadīth, plus a number of ancient Arab documents that survived into medieval times when portions of them were cited or recorded. Archaeological exploration in the Arabian Peninsula has been sparse but fruitful; and many ancient sites have been identified by modern excavations. The most recent detailed study of pre-Islamic Arabia is Arabs and Empires Before Islam, published by Oxford University Press in 2015. This book collects a diverse range of ancient texts and inscriptions for the history especially of the northern region during this time period.
Prehistoric to Iron Age
Ubaid period (5300 BCE) – could have originated in Eastern Arabia. Umm Al Nar culture (2600–2000 BCE) Sabr culture (2000 BCE) Wadi Suq Culture (1900–1300 BCE) Lizq/Rumaylah = Early Iron Age (1300–300 BCE) Samad Period Late Iron Age (c. 100 BCE–c.300 CE) Recent Pre-Islamic Period (c. 150 BCE–c. 325 CE)
Magan, Midian, and ʿĀd
Magan is attested as the name of a trading partner of the Sumerians. It is often assumed to have been located in Oman. The A'adids established themselves in South Arabia (modern-day Yemen), settling to the east of the Qahtan tribe. They established the Kingdom of ʿĀd around the 10th century BCE to the 3rd century CE.
The ʿĀd nation were known to the Greeks and Egyptians. Claudius Ptolemy's Geographos (2nd century CE) refers to the area as the "land of the Iobaritae" a region which legend later referred to as Ubar.
The origin of the Midianites has not been established. Because of the Mycenaean motifs on what is referred to as Midianite pottery, some scholars including George Mendenhall, Peter Parr, and Beno Rothenberg have suggested that the Midianites were originally Sea Peoples who migrated from the Aegean region and imposed themselves on a pre-existing Semitic stratum. The question of the origin of the Midianites still remains open.