The Nomadic Zone Islam emerged in the town of Mecca which was part of the Nomadic Zone in Hejaz, a strip of land in western Arabia running parallel to the Red Sea. A series of tribes lived in this Nomadic Zone, some were settled in towns such as Mecca, Taif and Yathrib, and others lived as Bedouins out in the desert. Fred Donner describes the environment in the Nomadic Zone, “There was, then, no state in northern Arabia to impose its control over the tribes, so that society was dominated by the most powerful tribal groups-which were, as we have seen, those focused around warrior nomads or holy families. Despite the fact that confederations headed by warrior nomads as well as those headed by holy families lacked the administrative and legal features that we associate with the state, however, they did resemble the state in one respect: they functioned as sovereign entities, independent of external political control and desiring to extend their domination over new groups and areas. This meant not only that they acted … Continue reading Governing Structures in Pre-Islamic Arabia