Adapted from The Living Quraysh, Int. Qst. J (2008) by Professor Ahmad Ahmad, University of California, Santa Barbara. (Click here to download.)

As its name reflects, Institution Quraysh is firmly grounded in tradition. Whether in the Arab World, Europe, or North America, iQ’s ethos of bridging differences and connecting people remains constant. These principles themselves are derived from the legacy of the ancient Quraysh tribe of Arabia.

At the dawn of the 6th Century, the Quryash were the dominant tribe in Arabia. The unprecedented proliferation of trade, science, and arts heralded by the dawn of Islam thrust the Quraysh to a position of international prominence. To this day, the Quraysh occupy a special place in the Arab and Muslim collective consciousness, revered for their inimitable contribution to the development of codes and practices that continue to shape our world. However, even before being elevated to such lofty heights, the Quraysh were known throughout pre-Islamic Arabia for their strong legal and business traditions.

Unity

The very word ‘Quraysh’ is said to come from the Arabic word for gathering or getting together, taqarrush, relating to the efforts to unite the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula. The spirit of taqarrush or getting together would prove to be central to the growth of Arab and Islamic civilisation, whereby people of different nations and races where brought together under one banner, exhibiting diversity within unity.

Justice

The pursuit of justice runs deep in Quraysh history, as shown by the Fudul Alliance (Hilf al-Fudul), a 6th Century bill of rights protecting visiting merchants in Mecca from abuse by the locals. With this, the Quraysh elders established that justice takes precedence over bonds of blood and ancestry. Numerous other alliances, or ahlaf, offer examples of negotiated conventions addressing different concerns, ranging from regulating access to resources such as water, to the protection of property, and the resolution of social and familial disputes.

Trade protections were a recurrent feature of the pre-Islamic Quraysh. In most cases, the protection was offered to foreign merchants, who shared neither the Quraysh's language or pre-Islamic pagan religion. A frequent statement in the negotiation of these trade conventions was "Your rights must be equivalent to your responsibilities", thereby exemplifying the equitable basis of the Quraysh’s relations with others.

Working with Others

For many generations, Quraysh tradesmen sold their merchandise only in Arabian markets, mostly in Mecca’s trade-cum-religious festivals. However, the Quraysh ultimately convinced the Byzantine Empire to open its markets to Arab products.

This open exchange, or ilaf, would fundamentally alter the course of history. Not only did it connect Arabian and Byzantine markets, but it also encouraged the exchange of ideas. By the time of their adoption of Islam, the Quraysh, and Arabia itself, were firmly part of a wider world with a myriad of different peoples, languages, and traditions. After the spread of Islam to the Levant and Egypt, the legacy of ilaf fulfilled itself through the creation of complex networks of religious and secular interactions throughout the entire region.

Furthermore, the Quraysh variety of Arabic provided the basis for the lingua franca of what became the world’s largest cultural and economic unit, binding together diverse peoples all the way from the Atlantic Ocean to the Himalayas. Arabic also came to be used by European intellectuals who studied Arabic literary and scientific texts, and especially by European merchants who traded with the Arab lands of the Mediterranean. Moreover, the legal and economic traditions first laid down in Arabia, informed and influenced practices and behaviours wherever Arabs and Muslims were to be found. As such, even though time has seen the political centre of gravity move far from the homeland of the Quraysh, their legacy continues to permeate and guide legal, business, and interpersonal relations across the globe.

It is this noble example which iQ seeks to emulate through its work.