Within its membership the bond of kin was a powerful element for mutual support. To wrong a person was to wrong his gens; and to support a person was to stand behind him with the entire array of this gentile kindred.[83]
Although in the later ages of gentile government, all the members of a group were not necessarily bound by blood, from the nature of the rights conferred, and the obligations imposed, the bond uniting them was doubtless stronger than that which now unites mere kindred. Of this tie uniting early groups J. G. Frazer says:
All the members of a totem clan regard each other as kinsmen or brothers and sisters, and are bound to help and protect each other. The totem bond is stronger than the bond of blood or family in the modern sense.[84]
As Arabia, at the time of Mohammed, was still under gentile organization, there is perhaps at the present day no country which affords a better opportunity for the study of several of the successive stages of human development. At the time indicated, the entire Arabian peninsula was composed of a multitude of groups varying in civilization, which were bound together by common privileges, obligations, and responsibilities and by a real or pretended bond of kinship traced through males.
In early Arabia a group bound together by a real or feigned unity of blood was the type or unit of society. Sometimes a confederation of these smaller groups was formed, but so strong was the bond between the more closely related groups that they soon broke up into their original units. The genealogists assert that these groups which were patriarchal tribes founded on male descent are subdivisions of an original stock.
At the time of the Prophet the Arabians claimed to trace their descent from two brothers the sons of Wâil. Prof. W. Robertson Smith informs us, however, that the name of one of these “brothers” is a feminine appellation and that it is the designation of a tribe and not of a person. He says: “The gender shows that the tribal name existed before the mythical ancestor was invented,” and adds: “The older facts down to the time of Al-Farazdac personify Taghlib as the daughter not the son of Wâil. It is not unlikely that the mythical legend of Taghlib and Bakr originated at a time when the female principle in human affairs and in the Deity was beginning to give place to the male.”[85]