Enlightening articles on similar themes:
Observations on Arabs
Tribalism
which is itself a long commentary on this: Why We Will Never See Democracy in the Middle East
I do agree that the Arab psyche seems to predate Islam by quite a long period of time. I would venture to guess that Islam was heavily influenced by this Arab tribalist mindset overlaid with a religious motif.
As a trivial example, I once noted thatArab women covered their faces centuries before Mohammed. Islamic law apparently took the Jewish concepts of female modesty, applied it to justify the existing custom, and then used it to strengthen the laws of Islamic modesty beyond the original legal requirements. The Koranic laws may have been codifying and organizing existing Arab customs and mores.
