Jahiliyya: Difference between revisions

In his book, ''Ethico-religious concepts in the Quran", the Japanese scholar of Islamic studies, [[Toshihiku Izutsu]], drew upon a research based on Quranic verses and evidence from hadiths and history to develop Godziher's view, and he arrived at the conclusion that in the Quranic usage, the word "jahl" and its cognates refer to the hostility of the Prophet (s)'s opponents to [[monotheism]]; they thought that monotheism was a strict and onerous belief. During the period of Jahiliyya, people of Arab did not take [[Allah]] to be the only god; rather they believed that there was a hierarchy of gods none of whom was to be obeyed in an absolute manner. Thus the belief that Allah was the only god would make a drastic change in their conception of the relation between God and humans, because it requires that one be unconditionally obedient of one and the same God. In fact, such obedience requires that one give up one's arrogance and selfishness, whereas Jahiliyya requires the idea of human autonomy. Drawing on Quranic verses, Izutsu took arrogance to be the origin of all characters of Jahiliyya.