What were the main features of the Jahiliyya period?
The age of ignorance is romanized as jhilyah.The period of time and state of affairs in Arabia before the advent of Islam is referred to as 'ignorance'.It is sometimes referred to as the "Age of Ignorance".To be ignorant or stupid is the root of the term jahiliyyah.The term has been used to criticize the un-Islamic nature of public and private life in the Muslim world.Secular modernity was seen as the new jahiliyyah by Sayyid Qutb, who viewed it as a state of domination.Radical groups justify armed struggle against secular regimes as jihad against jahiliyyah.[5]
To be ignorant or stupid is the root of the term jahiliyyah.[3]
Recent scholarship suggests that the state of being is what al-Jahiliyya originally meant.After several centuries following the emergence of the Quran, it began to represent a period of time preceding Muhammad's revelations.[5]
It has been suggested that the word jahiliyyah in the Quran means "ignorant people", against both the traditional Islamic interpretation and the Orientalist interpretation.The argument is that the ending -iyyah in early Arabic means a collective pronoun rather than an abstract pronoun, as the word jahiliyya was later understood.
There are several places in the Quran where the term Jahiliyyah is used.
Some of the Arab tribes used to be nomadic, with a strong community spirit and some specific society rules.Their culture was patriarchal.The religious beliefs of the "hanifs" were mostly based on worship of idols and social gatherings around the Kaaba for trading and exchanges.The Jahiliyya is used to describe the period of darkness and ignorance that preceded the arrival of Islam.The general condition of those who haven't accepted the Muslim faith is referred to.
The term "modern Jahiliyyah" was created by the author of a book called "the new barbarity" which was incompatible with Islam.The term "modernity" gained currency in the Arab world through translations of Maududi's work.The 1950 work "What Did the World Lose Due to the Decline of Islam?" was the basis of modern Jahiliyyah.Muslims were to be held accountable for their situation because they came to rely on un-Islamic institutions borrowed from the West.[2]
According to Sayyid Qutb, the Muslim community has been extinct for a few centuries.[13]
During the time of the Prophet, a person would cut himself off from Jahiliyyah if he embraced Islam.He would start a new life when he joined the circle of Islam because he was ignorant of the Divine Law.He would look at the deeds with distrust and fear because he thought they were bad in Islam.With this feeling, he would turn toward Islam for new guidance; and if at any time temptations overwhelmed him, the old habits attracted him or if he became slack in carrying out the injunctions of Islam, would become restless with a sense of guilt and would feel the need to purify Islam.Sayyid Qutb
Jahiliyya is the rule of humans because it involves making some humans servants of others, rebelling against service to God, and rejecting God's divinity.In any time and any place, people are either governed by God's shari'a, without any reservations, or they are not.They are in jahiliyya.