In that benighted era, darkness lay heavier and thicker in one land than in any other. The neighboring countries of Persia, Byzantium, and Egypt possessed a glimmer of civilization and a faint light of learning, but the Arabian peninsula, isolated and cut off by vast oceans of sand, was culturally and intellectually one of the world's most backward areas. The Hijaz, birthplace of the Prophet, had not passed through even the limited development of neighboring regions, and had not experienced any social evolution or attained any intellectual development of note. Although their highly developed language could express the finest shades of meaning, a study of their literature's remnants reveals the limited extent of their knowledge. All of this shows their low cultural and civilizational standards, their deeply superstitious nature, their barbarous and ferocious customs, and their uncouth and degraded moral standards and conceptions.

It was a land without a government, for every tribe claimed sovereignty and considered itself independent. The only law recognized was that of the jungle. Robbery, arson, and the murder of innocent and weak people was the norm. Life, property, and honor were constantly at risk, and tribes were always at daggers drawn with each other. A trivial incident could engulf them in ferocious warfare, which sometimes developed into a decades-long and country-wide conflagration. As one scholar writes: 

These struggles destroyed the sense of national unity and developed an incurable particularism; each tribe deeming itself self-sufficient and regarding the rest as its legitimate victims for murder, robbery and plunder.¹ 

Barely able to discriminate between pure and impure, lawful and unlawful, their concepts of morals, culture, and civilization were primitive and uncouth. Their life was wild and their behavior was barbaric. They reveled in adultery, gambling, and drinking. They stood naked before each other without shame, and women circumambulated the Ka'ba in the nude.

Their prestige called for female infanticide rather than having someone "inferior" become their son-in-law and eventual heir. They married their widowed stepmothers and knew nothing of the manners associated eating, dressing, and cleanliness. Worshippers of stones, trees, idols, stars, and spirits, they had forgotten the earlier Prophets' teachings. They had an idea that Abraham and Isma'il were their forefathers, but almost all of these forefathers' religious knowledge and understanding of God had been lost.