The Age of Ignorance ( / , "ignorance") is an Islamic concept referring to the period of time and state of affairs in Arabia before the advent of Islam in 610 CE. It is often translated as the "Age of Ignorance". The term jahiliyyah is derived from the verbal root jahala () "to be ignorant or stupid, to act stupidly". In modern times various Islamic thinkers have used the term to criticize what they saw as the un-Islamic nature of public and private life in the Muslim world. For Islamist scholars like Muhammad Rashid Rida, Abul A'la Maududi, and others, Jahiliyyah refers to secular modernity and modern Western culture. In his works, Maududi asserted that modernity is the “new jahiliyyah.” Sayyid Qutb viewed jahiliyyah as a state of domination of humans over humans, as opposed to their submission to God. Radical groups have justified armed struggle against secular regimes as a jihad against jahiliyyah. Etymology The term jahiliyyah is derived from the Arabic verbal root jahala "to be ignorant or stupid, to act stupidly". Recent scholarship has begun to suggest that al-Jahiliyya (or simply Jahiliyya) did not originally express any temporal connotations but instead a state of being. It was only after several centuries following the emergence of the Quran that it began to represent a period of time preceding Muhammad's revelations. It has been suggested that the word jahiliyyah in the Quran means "ignorant people", against both the traditional Islamic interpretation "Age of Ignorance", and the Orientalist interpretation "(state of) ignorance" (Ancient Greek ἄγνοια). The basic argument is that the ending -iyyah in early Arabic (Arabiyya) denotes a collective plural noun rather than an abstract noun, as the word jahiliyya was later understood. In the Quran The term Jahiliyyah is used several places in the Quran, and translations often use various terms to represent it: Then, following misery, He sent down upon you a feeling of security, a slumber overcoming a party among you, while another party cared only for themselves, thinking false thoughts about God, thoughts fit for the Age of Idolatry. Quran 3:154 Do they truly desire the law of paganism? But who is fairer than God in judgment for a people firm of faith? Quran 5:50 Remain in your homes, and do not display your adornments, as was the case with the earlier Age of Barbarism. Quran 33:33 For the unbelievers had planted in their hearts