How was life in the Arabian Peninsula before the advent of Islam?

The Arabian Peninsula before Islam was in the worst of conditions due to several factors:

A. Doctrinal Aspect: 1. Worship of idols and drawing near to them. 2. Augury and pessimism regarding birds and days. 3. Divided loyalties among the superpowers such as the Romans, Persians, and Abyssinians.

B. Morals, Behaviors, and Customs: 1. Fighting over trivial matters, such as the "War of Basus" and the "War of Dahis and Al-Ghabra." 2. Consuming impure things like carrion and drinking blood. 3. Circumambulating the Kaaba naked. 4. Widespread fornication and its various forms, such as Istibda' marriage, communal intercourse (Ijtima' al-raht), and prostitution. 5. Killing children for fear of poverty or shame, like burying daughters alive (wa'd al-banat). 6. Boasting about ancestors and lineage. 7. Engaging in usurious transactions (riba).

C. Status of Women: 1. Depriving them of inheritance and treating them as commodities to be inherited. 2. Forcing them into marriages they detested or preventing them from marrying. 3. Leaving wives in suspense, neither married nor divorced. 4. Strange practices after the husband's death, such as confinement in a "hifsh" (a small hut) and touching an animal until it died.

Islam changed these bad customs, replacing them with what is good.