ʿUkāz

ʿUkāz ( Arabic سوق عكاظ, DMG Sūq ʿUkāẓ ) was a fair in pre-Islamic Arabia .

history

The market place was located southeast of Mecca between Naḫla and at-Tā'if in the middle of the tribal area of ​​the Hawāzin and strategically positioned on the Frankincense Route through western Arabia. Besides the other two important festivals of that time, the Madǧanna and Ḏū l-madjāz, ʿUkāẓ was the most important.

The festival was held in the month of Ḏū l-qaʿda, just before the start of the pilgrimage to Mecca and ʿArafāt , which already existed in pre-Islamic times. The ʿUkāẓ market was the scene of numerous important historical events, such as the Fijar War between the Quraišites and the Hawāzin.

In addition to its function as a marketplace, where it was primarily about buying and selling goods, ʿUkāẓ was also an important meeting point for the leaders of the tribes of that time and thus for the cohesion of the tribal communities. After the rise of Islam, the ʿukāẓ market increasingly lost its importance.

literature

• Irfan Shahîd article ʿUkāẓ in: The Encyclopaedia of Islam (New Edition), Brill: Leiden (2000), Volume 10, p. 789
• Nāṣir ibn Saʻd Rashīd: Sūq ʻUkāẓ fī al-jāhilīyah wa-al-Islām: tārīkhahu wa-nashāṭatahu wa-mawqiʻahu Dār al-Anṣār: University of California, 1977
• Tilman Nagel: Mohammed: Leben und Legende , Munich: Oldenbourg (2008), p. 61, ISBN 978-3-486-58534-6