User blog comment:LurkerLordB/Religion in a world without Christianity/@comment-1593341-20120424094112/@comment-1310192-20120430041549

According to Wikipedia, "Hanif (Arabic: حنيف‎, Ḥanīf; plural: حنفاء, ḥunafā') is a term that refers to those who maintain the pure monothestic beliefs of the patriarch Ibrahim. More specifically, in Islamic thought it refers to the people during the period known as the Age of Ignorance, who were seen to have rejected idolatry and retained some or all of the tenets of the religion of Ibrahim which was "submission to God" (Arabic: Allah) in its purest form."

I think this looks more as a "Abrahamic Arabians" as in the Christians, Sabians and Jews on Arabia rather than an altogether new religion.

About Christianity beong nonexistant in Arabia, that is entirely false. Byzantine Arabia (as in the non-coast, non-Aramaic Levant) was almost entirely Christian, asmwere the Byzantine allies, the Ghassanids, a huge part of Saba, Yemen and Hadramwt's population, most of the Arabs in Mesopotamia, a lot of the Sassanid puppets the Lakhmids and several Kindah pagan tribes. Yes, it was mostly non-Chalcedonian religions such as the Nestorians and the Miaphysites along with some local forms, but there was a LOT of Christianity in Ancient Arabia. Plus, it is stated Muhammad traveled to the extremely Christianised Damascus and Nabatea.

So Muslim influences are more like 55% Christian, 40% Pagan and 5% Jewish.