SOCIETY IN PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA: THE INSTITUTION OF THE TRIBE
'Ensemble' (Copyright Salvatore Puleio 2020) PRE-ISLAMIC SOCIETY IN ARABIA: THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TRIBES If you wonder how society was structured before the advent of Islam, the answer is simple; the tribe, as a matter of fact, was the horizon guiding people lives. Everyone belonged to one of the many tribes, which were groups, organized around kinship, whose members helped each other. There was no State, and there were no particular institutions which had to keep the order and apply the law; the only safeguard came from the relatives of the same family, who were tasked to protect each other. These were duties each member was supposed to fulfil; in the case this did not happen, the person was regarded as the worst criminal. This kind of action, in fact, could bring disruption to the entire tribe. It was a very different setting from what we know nowadays, although the tribal belonging still plays a significant role in the Arabian Peninsula still now; in fact, all the male a