Monotheism became a widespread religious trend in pre-Islamic Arabia in the fourth century, when it began to quickly supplant the polytheism that had been the common form of religion until then.
[1] The transition from polytheism to monotheism in this time is documented from inscriptions in all writing systems on the Arabian Peninsula (including those in Nabataean, Safaitic, and Sabaic), where polytheistic gods and idols cease to be mentioned.
In Islamic tradition, Arabia is described as being dominated by polytheism and idolatry before the mission of Muhammad such as in the Book of Idols by Hisham ibn al-Kalbi.
[7] Similarly, late Nabataean, Safaitic, and Sabaic inscriptions attest to the veneration of a broad array of sacred stones and polytheistic deities until the fourth century.
[8] Several decades after recorded Christian contacts by rulers of the Empire, the Himyarite ruling class converted to Judaism during the reign of Malkikarib Yuhamin.
[9] It is in the mid-fourth century that inscriptions suddenly transition from polytheistic invocations to ones mentioning the high god Rahmanan (whose name means "The Merciful One").
[10] A Sabaic inscription dating to this time, titled Ja 856 (or Fa 60) describes the replacement of a polytheistic temple dedicated to the god Almaqah with a mikrāb (which might be the equivalent of a synagogue or an original form of organization local to Himyarite Judaism[11]).
The evidence suggests a sharp break with polytheism, coinciding with the sudden appearance of Jewish and Aramaic words (‘ālam/world, baraka/bless, haymanōt/guarantee, kanīsat/meeting hall) and personal names (Yṣḥq/Isaac, Yhwd’/Juda), Yws’f/Joseph).
[22] Similarly, of 58 extant Late Sabaic inscriptions that mention the theonym Rahmanan from the period of Jewish rule in south Arabia, none of them can be labelled as pagan or polytheistic.
[27][28] All Paleo-Arabic inscriptions from the fifth and sixth centuries, which have been found in all major regions of the Arabian peninsula and in the southern Levant, are either monotheistic or explicitly Christian.
[29] These inscriptions also demonstrate a penetration of monotheism into previously thought holdouts or surviving bastions of paganism or polytheism, such as Dumat al-Jandal and Taif (which ibn al-Kalbi held to be the centre of the cult of Al-Lat in the sixth century).
[35][36][37] Muslim-era historiographical sources, such as the eighth-century Book of Idols by Hisham ibn al-Kalbi as well as the writings of the Yemeni historian al-Hasan al-Hamdani on South Arabian religious beliefs continue to depict pre-Islamic Arabia as dominated by polytheistic practices until the sudden rupture brought about by the coming of Muhammad and his career between 610 and 632.
[38] Ibn Hazm (d. 1064) attempts to describe the broad landscape of pre-Islamic religious belief in his Jamharat ansāb al-ʿArab (Compilation of Arab Genealogy):[39]all of [Mesopotamian tribes] Iyād and Rabīʿah and Bakr and Taghlib and Namar and [the eastern] ʿAbd al-Qays are Christian, so too is [Syrian] Ghassān, and [the southern] Banū Ḥārith ibn Kaʿb in Najrān, and [the northern] al-Ṭayyiʾ, Tanūkh, many of [the Syrian] Kalb, and all those from [Najdi] Tamīm and [Iraqi] Lakhm residing in Ḥīrah.