A Semiotic Study of Concepts of War Symbols, Traditions, and Codes of Pre-Islamic Arabs

The wars of the pre-Islamic era, known as Ayyām al-ʿArab, to some extent reflect the pre-Islamic sociocultural mechanism of the tribal system of the Arabian Peninsula. The present research article aimed to study the kinds of symbols and codes the pre-Islamic Arabs used in their wars and the meaning of those symbols and codes in the social, behavioral, and communicative system of the Arab society. The hypothesis of this study can be stated in this way that studying the concepts of symbols and codes of Ayyām al-ʿArab as behavioral manifestations and patterns rising from the jahali culture can reveal perspectives from the subjective and objective worlds of Arabs. Accordingly, using the historical method, primary sources, and some recent research, we tried to analyze the pre-Islamic wars from the perspective of semiotics and its dominant traditions. The findings show that the symbols and traditions are the result of geographical, social, and cultural environment of the Arabian Peninsula before Islam, and the jahali Arabs were strongly committed to them as moral and social values.