Christians in Arabia before Islam: Traces of Christian Life in the Poetry of Ancient Arabs

Abstract

The book offers an insight into the history of the Arabian Peninsula before the rise of Islam as based on contemporary Greek, Syriac and Arabic medieval sources. The main research is done on the so-called pre-Islamic poetry, a medieval reminiscence of literary tradition, part of which still retains traces of Christian origin.

Included are samples of Arabic texts and translations into Czech.

Keywords

• Ancient Arab poetry
• pre-Islamic Arabia
• pagan cults
• Kaaba
• Islam
• Jews
• Christians