Pre-Islamic-Arabian civilization was largely an oral culture, and with tremendous respect for and admiration for people who could express themselves orally and especially those who could recite poetry almost at the drop of a hat. Some of the most important people in the tribe were the poets. As they sang of the glory of the tribe, they told the story of the tribe.

 

To the Bedouin, the word had a mystical importance. Poets linked the tribe to its ancestors and celebrated values older than memory. Poetry was the sinew that bound the Bedouin together, celebrating their victories, lamenting their defeats.

 

The poems themselves like the poems of Homer, both celebrate this great heroic ethos, and yet intimate in the deepest way, the tragedy that this war, this ethos of constant tribal warfare, brings to people.

 

Warfare and conflict were the grim realities of a dangerous time. Muhammad's uncle taught him the skills he’d need to survive in a world where even a prophet would wield a bow and arrow.

 

In a wilderness punished by the elements and bereft of water, rivalry over a single well could provoke a blood feud for generations.

 

A real rivalry, real battle, even sometimes quite bloody, so the allegiance of individuals was to the family, immediately and at a larger extent to the tribe.

 

Without the tribe's protection, no one could endure. Scattered across the peninsula were countless factions, all embroiled in bitter struggles, each defending its precious grazing lands, trade routes, and most importantly its wells.

 

Well, you have to understand that most of the lands are dry and so water is something that everyone always considers precious.

 

For those of us in climates that are more heavily watered, it's difficult to understand the depth and the centrality of the symbol of water in societies that are desert and in which it only rains once or twice a year and in which a little water makes a difference between life and death.