Four types of matrimonial relationship were common in the days of jāhiliyyah (Jāhiliyyah is the term often used in the Islamic context to refer to the situation that prevailed in Arabia before the advent of Islam. It is derived from a root that signifies `ignorance')
The first of these was the one we have today: a man makes a proposal to marry another man’s daughter or his ward, pays her dowry, and marries her.
A second type was that a man would tell his wife, after she had finished a menstrual period, to call on a particular man and become pregnant by him. The husband in this case would stay away from his wife not touch her until she was clearly pregnant. He would then have intercourse with her if he so wished. The husband resorted to this in order to have a son of better traits. This relationship was known as istibđā’.
Another type of relationship was that a number of men, less than 10, would have one woman and each would have sexual intercourse with her. Should she become pregnant and give birth to a child, she would send for them after a few nights to come over.
None of them would be able to stay away. When they gathered at her place, she would say to them, “You know what has been going on between us, and now I have a child”. She would point to one of them and say, “It is your child”. She named whomever she wanted, and the child would be named as that person’s child, and he could not deny this.
A fourth type of relationship was that many men would associate with the one woman, who would not refuse anyone. Such women were prostitutes. They used to place a flag on their doors as a sign of what they did. Whoever wanted a prostitute was free to go to her. Should any prostitute get pregnant and give birth, they would go to her and call in an expert in recognizing resemblances. He would ascribe the child’s paternity to one of them, and the child would be considered his. He would not refuse this. (Related by al-Bukhārī in the Şaĥīh, Book of Marriage.)
Thanks to Islam all these types of relation between man and woman were banned except the first type. The first type is the legal and sound marriage. The Prophet pointed out that he was born from sound and legal marriage. It is well-known that the tribe of the Prophet was a noble one that none of its members practiced any of these illegal previous types.
Marriage in jāhiliyyah days jāhiliyyah marriage pre-islamic hapits