In short, Arabian religion was diverse, shifting, and heavily localized, and this was only natural. Arabian society was essentially tribal, and despite the nearness of several regional superpowers—Byzantium and Zoroastrian Persia, as well as Christian Ethiopia—none had ever been able to bring the Arabs under their command for long enough to sponsor or enforce the spread of a settled “state” faith. The best the Byzantines and Persians had been able to do was to enlist two northern Arabian tribal groups, the Lakhmids and Ghassanids, into their proxy wars. This was clientelism, not colonialism.
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