Pre-Islamic Arabia

Prior to the rise of Islam, worst anarchy and confusions prevailed in the religious life of the Arabs. 
The position of the women was very degrading in the Arab society. They were treated as chattels and with contempt. The birth of a female child was considered as a great curse and she was often buried alive by the heartless father.
Most undoubted proof of female infanticide and burying daughters alive in Pre-Islamic Arabia is the Al-Shabeka Graveyard at Makkah.
During Jahiliya (ignorance period) Arabs used to bury their female live child in this graveyard. Hazrat Umar bin Qattab (RA) buried his daughter here before converting to Islam. 
Adultery was common among the pre-Islamic Arabs. Step sons could marry their step-mothers and even the brothers sometimes married their own sisters. Men and women could have full liberty with their opposites.
Human beings were sacrificed to propitiate gods. Fathers sometimes killed their children also for fear of poverty.
Women could not have any share of the property of the husbands or the fathers in a word, no status in the society. Slavery, in its worst form, prevailed in the Arab society; the master can even put his slave to death.
There were some Jews and Christians in Arabia, but they did not reform such evil practices and even some of them started following them.
Except for Jews and Christians, the rest of the Arabs followed the most primitive form of religious belief. They were idol worshipers, adoring many gods and goddesses. Some of them sacrificed children, slaves infront of idols for blessings of their gods. (Source)
Under the customary tribal law existing in Arabia at the advent of Islam, as a general rule women had virtually no legal status. 
These tribes were patriarchal and inheritance was passed through the male lines; women could not inherit property. The tribal leader enforced the tribe’s spoken rules, which generally limited the rights of the women. Women were often considered property to be inherited or seized in a tribal conflict.
There were also patterns of homicidal abuse of women and girls, including instances of killing female infants if they were considered a liability. The Quran mentions that the Arabs in Jahiliyyah (the period of ignorance or pre-Islamic period) used to bury their daughters alive. The motives were twofold: the fear that an increase in female offspring would result in economic burden, and the fear of the humiliation frequently caused when girls were captured by a hostile tribe and subsequently preferring their captors to their parents and brothers

References:
1) https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/pre-islamic-arabia/
2) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_pre-Islamic_Arabia
3) Giladi, A. (May 1990). "Some Observations onInfanticide in Medieval Muslim Society". International Journal of the Middle East Studies.
4) Smith, W. Robertson (1903). Kinship & Marriage in Early Arabia 1903, p. 293). London, Adam and Charles Black. p. 293. 
5) Moon-o-theism, Yoel Natan, Volume II, Page 72

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