Transformation of the Arabian
Peninsula (part 2)
continued from page 15
which all can recognize the nearness
of the Day of Judgment. The Prophet
of Allah a then cited two prophesies.
We will mention only the first
one here to avoid digression from
the topic of this article. The Prophet
a said, “When the barefooted, poor
goat-shepherds start competing in
building large buildings.”
The hadith of Bukhari narrates “camel
herders” instead of goat-shepherds,
which was the subsistence of the preindustrial
Arab. When they fought and
raided, the feuds were over pasturage,
grassy lands, and the oases that fed
their stock since “there were two main
types of animal husbandry among
the Arab nomads; camel-breeding
and sheep- or goat-breeding.”3
As another author puts it,
“Since time immemorial
the struggle for existence
in Arabia has centered
round water
and pasturage.
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.”4 This collective and
rapid transition of a medieval nation
from poverty to palaces and from ancient
nomadic to an urban, sedentary
life in a short and rapid period of time
as the hadith alludes to is an outcome
of the black gold that lay deep underneath
the sands of Arabia for thousands
of years. Unbeknownst to the
Sahaba l and the millions of ummatis
transmitting this hadith for over 1400
years, the fulfilment of the prophetic
words lay concealed under the very
plains of sand they and many others
have traversed for centuries past.
But this is only touching the surface
of the fulfillment of this essential
prophesy. It is hard to imagine that
the Prophet for all of mankind and
all times a would make a regional
prophesy. The majority of fulfilled
prophesies are rarely localized since
the purpose of prophesy is to warn the
world about the coming of the Hour.
How could the world know the particulars
of every culture or region
to identify when a prophesy is
fulfilled and realize the coming
of the Hour? Most prophesies,
in fact, are modern
phenomena, that can
be readily witnessed
and/or verified by
the common man
from around
the world. The
prevalence of
music in our
times, for
example,
is a modern
phenomenon
and
a famous
prophesy.
Here,
too, the
prophesy is
not about the
transformation
of a desert-ridden
people but the windfall
that brought them from obscurity
to notoriety, as one author writes
about the current crown prince that
he “is known for his lavish spending.
He has bought a $500 million yacht,
a $300 million French chateau, and a
$450 million Leonardo da Vinci painting.”
5 All this with petrodollars and not
hard-earned money.
Oil is the windfall that transformed
the socio-political landscape in the
Peninsula, but more than that, it has
engineered the very modern world
we live in today. Charles Hall writes,
“The modern world runs on oil and
money. Money has no intrinsic value,
but it grants access to oil and the
energy intense products derived from
oil—that is, a large part of the goods
and services of the modern society.
Oil and money are linked as cheap
energy—mainly oil based—has fueled
the economic prosperity of the past
century. An appropriate term for the
geological and the economic time in
which we live in is the oleocene—the
age of oil. Although some have said
that we live in an information age or
a postindustrial age it is clear that our
life is based fundamentally on hydrocarbons.”
6 Without oil, we would be
forced to make fundamental changes
in our life. All imported commodities,
which is 70 % the items found on
our store shelves, are available to us
because of oil. To get to that store, we
use oil. Even the car we drive to get to
the store is manufactured in a factory
that runs on oil. Many of the car parts
themselves are oil-based products.
Look around you right now and you
can make a long list of synthetic or
semi-synthetically made items like
plastic, vinyl, rubber, paint and polish
in your house. The carpet, your 20%
polyester shirt, pants, and sweater, the
sofa cushions you now sit on, the vinyl
flooring in your kitchen, the blinds
and curtains that give you privacy,
your cellphone and laptop, the tube of
toothpaste, bottles of vitamin, detergent,
Tylenol, the recessed lights, the
light bulb, the road you drive on, the
sidewalk you walk on, the construction
material used to build your house, and
all the big and small appliances and
continued on page 30
24 September – October 2021 | AL-MADINAH