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Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

January 07, 2023

This article is about a religion-specific overview of Arabia before the rise of Islam in 610 CE. For a general overview of civilization in Arabia before Islam, see Pre-Islamic Arabia.

Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia included indigenous Arabian polytheism, ancient Semitic religions, Christianity, Judaism, Mandaeism, and Iranian religions such as Zoroastrianism, and Manichaeism, and rarely Buddhism.

Alabaster votive figurines from Yemen, now in the National Museum of Oriental Art, Rome

Arabian polytheism, the dominant form of religion in pre-Islamic Arabia, was based on veneration of deities and spirits. Worship was directed to various gods and goddesses, including Hubal and the goddesses al-Lāt, al-‘Uzzā, and Manāt, at local shrines and temples such as the Kaaba in Mecca. Deities were venerated and invoked through a variety of rituals, including pilgrimages and divination, as well as ritual sacrifice. Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in Meccan religion. Many of the physical descriptions of the pre-Islamic gods are traced to idols, especially near the Kaaba, which is said to have contained up to 360 of them.

Other religions were represented to varying, lesser degrees. The influence of the adjacent Roman and Aksumite civilizations resulted in Christian communities in the northwest, northeast, and south of Arabia. Christianity made a lesser impact in the remainder of the peninsula, but did secure some conversions. With the exception of Nestorianism in the northeast and the Persian Gulf, the dominant form of Christianity was Miaphysitism. The peninsula had been a destination for Jewish migration since Roman times, which had resulted in a diaspora community supplemented by local converts. Additionally, the influence of the Sasanian Empire resulted in Iranian religions being present in the peninsula. Zoroastrianism existed in the east and south, while there is evidence of Manichaeism or possibly Mazdakism being practiced in Mecca.

Background and sources

Until about the fourth century, almost all inhabitants of Arabia practiced polytheistic religions.[1] Although significant Jewish and Christian minorities developed, polytheism remained the dominant belief system in pre-Islamic Arabia.[2][3]

The contemporary sources of information regarding the pre-Islamic Arabian religion and pantheon include a small number of inscriptions and carvings,[3] pre-Islamic poetry, external sources such as Jewish and Greek accounts, as well as the Muslim tradition, such as the Qur'an and Islamic writings. Nevertheless, information is limited.[3]

One early attestation of Arabian polytheism was in Esarhaddon’s Annals, mentioning Atarsamain, Nukhay, Ruldaiu, and Atarquruma.[4] Herodotus, writing in his Histories, reported that the Arabs worshipped Orotalt (identified with Dionysus) and Alilat (identified with Aphrodite).[5][6] Strabo stated the Arabs worshipped Dionysus and Zeus. Origen stated they worshipped Dionysus and Urania.[6]

Muslim sources regarding Arabian polytheism include the eighth-century Book of Idols by Hisham ibn al-Kalbi, which F.E. Peters argued to be the most substantial treatment of the religious practices of pre-Islamic Arabia,[7] as well as the writings of the Yemeni historian al-Hasan al-Hamdani on South Arabian religious beliefs.[8]

According to the Book of Idols, descendants of the son of Abraham (Ishmael) who had settled in Mecca migrated to other lands. They carried holy stones from the Kaaba with them, erected them, and circumambulated them like the Kaaba.[9] This, according to al-Kalbi led to the rise of idol worship.[9] Based on this, it may be probable that Arabs originally venerated stones, later adopting idol-worship under foreign influences.[9] The relationship between a god and a stone as his representation can be seen from the third-century Syriac work called the Homily of Pseudo-Meliton where he describes the pagan faiths of Syriac-speakers in northern Mesopotamia, who were mostly Arabs.[9]

Worship

Deities

Main article: List of pre-Islamic Arabian deities
 
Nabataean baetyl depicting a goddess, possibly al-Uzza.

The pre-Islamic Arabian religions were polytheistic, with many of the deities' names known.[1] Formal pantheons are more noticeable at the level of kingdoms, of variable sizes, ranging from simple city-states to collections of tribes.[10] Tribes, towns, clans, lineages and families had their own cults too.[10] Christian Julien Robin suggests that this structure of the divine world reflected the society of the time.[10] Trade caravans also brought foreign religious and cultural influences.[11]

A large number of deities did not have proper names and were referred to by titles indicating a quality, a family relationship, or a locale preceded by "he who" or "she who" (dhū or dhāt respectively).[10]

The religious beliefs and practices of the nomadic Bedouin were distinct from those of the settled tribes of towns such as Mecca.[12] Nomadic religious belief systems and practices are believed to have included fetishism, totemism and veneration of the dead but were connected principally with immediate concerns and problems and did not consider larger philosophical questions such as the afterlife.[12] Settled urban Arabs, on the other hand, are thought to have believed in a more complex pantheon of deities.[12] While the Meccans and the other settled inhabitants of the Hejaz worshiped their gods at permanent shrines in towns and oases, the Bedouin practiced their religion on the move.[13]

Minor spirits

In South Arabia, mndh’t were anonymous guardian spirits of the community and the ancestor spirits of the family.[14] They were known as ‘the sun (shms) of their ancestors’.[14]

In North Arabia, ginnaye were known from Palmyrene inscriptions as "the good and rewarding gods" and were probably related to the jinn of west and central Arabia.[15] Unlike jinn, ginnaye could not hurt nor possess humans and were much more similar to the Roman genius.[16] According to common Arabian belief, soothsayers, pre-Islamic philosophers, and poets were inspired by the jinn.[17] However, jinn were also feared and thought to be responsible for causing various diseases and mental illnesses.[18]

Malevolent beings

Aside from benevolent gods and spirits, there existed malevolent beings.[15] These beings were not attested in the epigraphic record, but were alluded to in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, and their legends were collected by later Muslim authors.[15]

Commonly mentioned are ghouls.[15] Etymologically, the English word "ghoul" was derived from the Arabic ghul, from ghala, "to seize",[19] related to the Sumerian galla.[20] They are said to have a hideous appearance, with feet like those of an ass.[15] Arabs were said to utter the following couplet if they should encounter one: "Oh ass-footed one, just bray away, we won't leave the desert plain nor ever go astray."[15]

Christian Julien Robin notes that all the known South Arabian divinities had a positive or protective role and that evil powers were only alluded to but were never personified.[21]

Roles of deities

Role of Allah

Main article: Allah

Some scholars postulate that in pre-Islamic Arabia, including in Mecca,[22] Allah was considered to be a deity,[22] possibly a creator deity or a supreme deity in a polytheistic pantheon.[23][24] The word Allah (from the Arabic al-ilah meaning "the god")[25] may have been used as a title rather than a name.[26][27][28] The concept of Allah may have been vague in the Meccan religion.[29] According to Islamic sources, Meccans and their neighbors believed that the goddesses Al-lāt, Al-‘Uzzá, and Manāt were the daughters of Allah.[2][24][26][27][30]

Regional variants of the word Allah occur in both pagan and Christian pre-Islamic inscriptions.[31][32] References to Allah are found in the poetry of the pre-Islamic Arab poet Zuhayr bin Abi Sulma, who lived a generation before Muhammad, as well as pre-Islamic personal names.[33] Muhammad's father's name was ʿAbd-Allāh, meaning "the servant of Allah".[29]

Charles Russell Coulter and Patricia Turner considered that Allah's name may be derived from a pre-Islamic god called Ailiah and is similar to El, Il, Ilah, and Jehovah. They also considered some of his characteristics to be seemingly based on lunar deities like Almaqah, Kahl, Shaker, Wadd and Warakh.[34] Alfred Guillaume states that the connection between Ilah that came to form Allah and ancient Babylonian Il or El of ancient Israel is not clear. Wellhausen states that Allah was known from Jewish and Christian sources and was known to pagan Arabs as the supreme god.[35] Winfried Corduan doubts the theory of Allah of Islam being linked to a moon god, stating that the term Allah functions as a generic term, like the term El-Elyon used as a title for the god Sin.[36]

South Arabian inscriptions from the fourth century AD refer to a god called Rahman ("The Merciful One") who had a monotheistic cult and was referred to as the "Lord of heaven and Earth".[24] Aaron W. Hughes states that scholars are unsure whether he developed from the earlier polytheistic systems or developed due to the increasing significance of the Christian and Jewish communities, and that it is difficult to establish whether Allah was linked to Rahmanan.[24] Maxime Rodinson, however, considers one of Allah's names, "Ar-Rahman", to have been used in the form of Rahmanan earlier.[37]

Al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat

 
Bas-relief: Nemesis, al-Lat and the dedicator. Palmyrene, 2nd–3rd century AD.

Al-Lāt, Al-‘Uzzá and Manāt were common names used for multiple goddesses across Arabia.[26][38][39][40][41] G. R. Hawting states that modern scholars have frequently associated the names of Arabian goddesses Al-lāt, Al-‘Uzzá and Manāt with cults devoted to celestial bodies, particularly Venus, drawing upon evidence external to the Muslim tradition as well as in relation to Syria, Mesopotamia and the Sinai Peninsula.[42]

Allāt (Arabic: اللات) or al-Lāt was worshipped throughout the ancient Near East with various associations.[34] Herodotus in the 5th century BC identifies Alilat (Greek: Ἀλιλάτ) as the Arabic name for Aphrodite (and, in another passage, for Urania),[5] which is strong evidence for worship of Allāt in Arabia at that early date.[43] Al-‘Uzzá (Arabic: العزى) was a fertility goddess[44] or possibly a goddess of love.[45] Manāt (Arabic: مناة) was the goddess of destiny.[46]

Al-Lāt's cult was spread in Syria and northern Arabia. From Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions, it is probable that she was worshiped as Lat (lt). F. V. Winnet saw al-Lat as a lunar deity due to the association of a crescent with her in 'Ayn esh-Shallāleh and a Lihyanite inscription mentioning the name of Wadd, the Minaean moon god, over the title of fkl lt. René Dussaud and Gonzague Ryckmans linked her with Venus while others have thought her to be a solar deity. John F. Healey considers that al-Uzza actually might have been an epithet of al-Lāt before becoming a separate deity in the Meccan pantheon.[47] Paola Corrente, writing in Redefining Dionysus, considers she might have been a god of vegetation or a celestial deity of atmospheric phenomena and a sky deity.[48]

Mythology

According to F. E. Peters, "one of the characteristics of Arab paganism as it has come down to us is the absence of a mythology, narratives that might serve to explain the origin or history of the gods."[49] Many of the deities have epithets, but are lacking myths or narratives to decode the epithets, making them generally uninformative.[50]

Practices

 
Stone-carved god-stones in Petra, Jordan.

Cult images and idols

The worship of sacred stones constituted one of the most important practices of the Semitic peoples, including Arabs.[51] Cult images of a deity were most often an unworked stone block.[52] The most common name for these stone blocks was derived from the Semitic nsb ("to be stood upright"), but other names were used, such as Nabataean masgida ("place of prostration") and Arabic duwar ("object of circumambulation", this term often occurs in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry).[53] These god-stones were usually a free-standing slab, but Nabataean god-stones are usually carved directly on the rock face.[53] Facial features may be incised on the stone (especially in Nabataea), or astral symbols (especially in South Arabia).[53] Under Greco-Roman influence, an anthropomorphic statue might be used instead.[52]

The Book of Idols describes two types of statues: idols (sanam) and images (wathan).[54] If a statue were made of wood, gold, or silver, after a human form, it would be an idol, but if the statue were made of stone, it would be an image.[54]

Representation of deities in animal-form was common in South Arabia, such as the god Sayin from Hadhramaut, who was represented as either an eagle fighting a serpent or a bull.[55]

 
Floor-plan of the peristyle hall of the Awwam temple in Ma'rib.

Sacred places

Sacred places are known as hima, haram or mahram, and within these places, all living things were considered inviolable and violence was forbidden.[56] In most of Arabia, these places would take the form of open-air sanctuaries, with distinguishing natural features such as springs and forests.[56] Cities would contain temples, enclosing the sacred area with walls, and featuring ornate structures.[57]

Priesthood and sacred offices

Sacred areas often had a guardian or a performer of cultic rites.[58] These officials were thought to tend the area, receive offerings, and perform divination.[58] They are known by many names, probably based on cultural-linguistic preference: afkal was used in the Hejaz, kâhin was used in the Sinai-Negev-Hisma region, and kumrâ was used in Aramaic-influenced areas.[58] In South Arabia, rs2w and 'fkl were used to refer to priests, and other words include qyn ("administrator") and mrtd ("consecrated to a particular divinity").[59] A more specialized staff is thought to have existed in major sanctuaries.[58]

Pilgrimages

Pilgrimages to sacred places would be made at certain times of the year.[60] Pilgrim fairs of central and northern Arabia took place in specific months designated as violence-free,[60] allowing several activities to flourish, such as trade, though in some places only exchange was permitted.[61]

South Arabian pilgrimages

The most important pilgrimage in Saba' was probably the pilgrimage of Almaqah at Ma'rib, performed in the month of dhu-Abhi (roughly in July).[59] Two references attest the pilgrimage of Almaqah dhu-Hirran at 'Amran.[59] The pilgrimage of Ta'lab Riyam took place in Mount Tur'at and the Zabyan temple at Hadaqan, while the pilgrimage of Dhu-Samawi, the god of the Amir tribe, took place in Yathill.[59] Aside from Sabaean pilgrimages, the pilgrimage of Sayin took place at Shabwa.[59][60]

Meccan pilgrimage

The pilgrimage of Mecca involved the stations of Mount Arafat, Muzdalifah, Mina and central Mecca that included Safa and Marwa as well as the Kaaba. Pilgrims at the first two stations performed wuquf or standing in adoration. At Mina, animals were sacrificed. The procession from Arafat to Muzdalifah, and from Mina to Mecca, in a pre-reserved route towards idols or an idol, was termed ijaza and ifada, with the latter taking place before sunset. At Jabal Quzah, fires were started during the sacred month.[62]

Nearby the Kaaba was located the betyl which was later called Maqam Ibrahim; a place called al-Ḥigr which Aziz al-Azmeh takes to be reserved for consecrated animals, basing his argument on a Sabaean inscription mentioning a place called mḥgr which was reserved for animals; and the Well of Zamzam. Both Safa and Marwa were adjacent to two sacrificial hills, one called Muṭ'im al Ṭayr and another Mujāwir al-Riḥ which was a pathway to Abu Kubais from where the Black Stone is reported to have originated.[63]

Cult associations

Meccan pilgrimages differed according to the rites of different cult associations, in which individuals and groups joined for religious purposes. The Ḥilla association performed the hajj in autumn season while the Ṭuls and Ḥums performed the umrah in spring.[64]

The Ḥums were the Quraysh, Banu Kinanah, Banu Khuza'a and Banu 'Amir. They did not perform the pilgrimage outside the zone of Mecca's haram, thus excluding Mount Arafat. They also developed certain dietary and cultural restrictions.[65] According to Kitab al-Muhabbar, the Ḥilla denoted most of the Banu Tamim, Qays, Rabi`ah, Qūḍa'ah, Ansar, Khath'am, Bajīlah, Banu Bakr ibn Abd Manat, Hudhayl, Asad, Tayy and Bariq. The Ṭuls comprised the tribes of Yemen and Hadramaut, 'Akk, Ujayb and Īyād. The Basl recognised at least eight months of the calendar as holy. There was also another group which didn't recognize the sanctity of Mecca's haram or holy months, unlike the other four.[66]

Astrology and divination

The ancient Arabs that inhabitated the Arabian Peninsula before the advent of Islam used to profess a widespread belief in fatalism (ḳadar) alongside a fearful consideration for the sky and the stars, which they held to be ultimately responsible for every phenomena that occurs on Earth and for the destiny of humankind.[67] Accordingly, they shaped their entire lives in accordance with their interpretations of astral configurations and phenomena.[67]

In South Arabia, oracles were regarded as ms’l, or "a place of asking", and that deities interacted by hr’yhw ("making them see") a vision, a dream, or even direct interaction.[68] Otherwise deities interacted indirectly through a medium.[69]

There were three methods of chance-based divination attested in pre-Islamic Arabia; two of these methods, making marks in the sand or on rocks and throwing pebbles are poorly attested.[70] The other method, the practice of randomly selecting an arrow with instructions, was widely attested and was common throughout Arabia.[70] A simple form of this practice was reportedly performed before the image of Dhu'l-Khalasa by a certain man, sometimes said to be the Kindite poet Imru al-Qays according to al-Kalbi.[71][72] A more elaborate form of the ritual was performed in before the image of Hubal.[73] This form of divination was also attested in Palmyra, evidenced by an honorific inscription in the temple of al-Lat.[73]

Offerings and ritual sacrifice

 
Thamudic petroglyphs from Wadi Rum, depicting a hunter, ibex, a camel and a rider on horseback. Camels were among the sacrificial animals in pre-Islamic Arabia.[74]

The most common offerings were animals, crops, food, liquids, inscribed metal plaques or stone tablets, aromatics, edifices and manufactured objects.[75] Camel-herding Arabs would devote some of their beasts to certain deities. The beasts would have their ears slit and would be left to pasture without a herdsman, allowing them to die a natural death.[75]

Pre-Islamic Arabians, especially pastoralist tribes, sacrificed animals as an offering to a deity.[74] This type of offering was common and involved domestic animals such as camels, sheep and cattle, while game animals and poultry were rarely or never mentioned. Sacrifice rites were not tied to a particular location though they were usually practiced in sacred places.[74] Sacrifice rites could be performed by the devotee, though according to Hoyland, women were probably not allowed.[76] The victim's blood, according to pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and certain South Arabian inscriptions, was also 'poured out' on the altar stone, thus forming a bond between the human and the deity.[76] According to Muslim sources, most sacrifices were concluded with communal feasts.[76]

In South Arabia, beginning with the Christian era, or perhaps a short while before, statuettes were presented before the deity, known as slm (male) or slmt (female).[59]

Human sacrifice was sometimes carried out in Arabia. The victims were generally prisoners of war, who represented the god's part of the victory in booty, although other forms might have existed.[74]

Blood sacrifice was definitely practiced in South Arabia, but few allusions to the practice are known, apart from some Minaean inscriptions.[59]

Other practices

In the Hejaz, menstruating women were not allowed to be near the cult images.[55] The area where Isaf and Na'ila's images stood was considered out-of-bounds for menstruating women.[55] This was reportedly the same with Manaf.[77] According to the Book of Idols, this rule applied to all the "idols".[55] This was also the case in South Arabia, as attested in a South Arabian inscription from al-Jawf.[55]

Sexual intercourse in temples was prohibited, as attested in two South Arabian inscriptions.[55] One legend concerning Isaf and Na'ila, when two lovers made love in the Kaaba and were petrified, joining the idols in the Kaaba, echoes this prohibition.[55]

By geography

Eastern Arabia

 
The Worshipping Servant statue from Tarout Island, 2500 BC

The Dilmun civilization, which existed along the Persian Gulf coast and Bahrain until the 6th century BC, worshipped a pair of deities, Inzak and Meskilak.[78] It is not known whether these were the only deities in the pantheon or whether there were others.[79] The discovery of wells at the sites of a Dilmun temple and a shrine suggests that sweet water played an important part in religious practices.[78]

In the subsequent Greco-Roman period, there is evidence that the worship of non-indigenous deities was brought to the region by merchants and visitors.[79] These included Bel, a god popular in the Syrian city of Palmyra, the Mesopotamian deities Nabu and Shamash, the Greek deities Poseidon and Artemis and the west Arabian deities Kahl and Manat.[79]

South Arabia

 
Sculpture of a Sabaean priestess raising her hand to intercede with the sun goddess on behalf of a donor. Probably first century.

The main sources of religious information in pre-Islamic South Arabia are inscriptions, which number in the thousands, as well as the Quran, complemented by archaeological evidence.

The civilizations of South Arabia are considered to have the most developed pantheon in the Arabian peninsula.[50] In South Arabia, the most common god was 'Athtar, who was considered remote. The patron deity (shym) was considered to be of much more immediate significance than 'Athtar. Thus, the kingdom of Saba' had Almaqah, the kingdom of Ma'in had Wadd, the kingdom of Qataban had 'Amm, and the kingdom of Hadhramaut had Sayin. Each people was termed the "children" of their respective patron deity. Patron deities played a vital role in sociopolitical terms, their cults serving as the focus of a person's cohesion and loyalty.

Evidence from surviving inscriptions suggests that each of the southern kingdoms had its own pantheon of three to five deities, the major deity always being a god.[80] For example, the pantheon of Saba comprised Almaqah, the major deity, together with 'Athtar, Haubas, Dhat-Himyam, and Dhat-Badan.[80] The main god in Ma'in and Himyar was 'Athtar, in Qataban it was Amm, and in Hadhramaut it was Sayin.[80] 'Amm was a lunar deity and was associated with the weather, especially lightning.[81] One of the most frequent titles of the god Almaqah was "Lord of Awwam".[82]

Anbay was an oracular god of Qataban and also the spokesman of Amm.[83] His name was invoked in royal regulations regarding water supply.[84] Anbay's name was related to that of the Babylonian deity Nabu. Hawkam was invoked alongside Anbay as god of "command and decision" and his name is derived from the root word "to be wise".[4]

 
Ruins of temple of Awwam, dedicated to Almaqah.

Each kingdom's central temple was the focus of worship for the main god and would be the destination for an annual pilgrimage, with regional temples dedicated to a local manifestation of the main god.[80] Other beings worshipped included local deities or deities dedicated to specific functions as well as deified ancestors.[80]

Influence of Arab tribes

The encroachment of northern Arab tribes into South Arabia also introduced northern Arab deities into the region.[21] The three goddesses al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat became known as Lat/Latan, Uzzayan and Manawt.[21] Uzzayan's cult in particular was widespread in South Arabia, and in Qataban she was invoked as a guardian of the final royal palace.[21] Lat/Latan was not significant in South Arabia, but appears to be popular with the Arab tribes bordering Yemen.[21] Other Arab deities include Dhu-Samawi, a god originally worshipped by the Amir tribe, and Kahilan, perhaps related to Kahl of Qaryat al-Faw.[21]

Bordering Yemen, the Azd Sârat tribe of the Asir region was said to have worshipped Dhu'l-Shara, Dhu'l-Kaffayn, Dhu'l-Khalasa and A'im.[85] According to the Book of Idols, Dhu'l-Kaffayn originated from a clan of the Banu Daws.[86] In addition to being worshipped among the Azd, Dushara is also reported to have a shrine amongst the Daws.[86] Dhu’l-Khalasa was an oracular god and was also worshipped by the Bajila and Khatham tribes.[72]

Influence on Aksum

Before conversion to Christianity, the Aksumites followed a polytheistic religion that was similar to that of Southern Arabia. The lunar god Hawbas was worshiped in South Arabia and Aksum.[87] The name of the god Astar, a sky-deity was related to that of 'Attar.[88] The god Almaqah was worshiped at Hawulti-Melazo.[89] The South Arabian gods in Aksum included Dhat-Himyam and Dhat-Ba'adan.[90] A stone later reused for the church of Enda-Cerqos at Melazo mentions these gods. Hawbas is also mentioned on an altar and sphinx in Dibdib. The name of Nrw who is mentioned in Aksum inscriptions is related to that of the South Arabian god Nawraw, a deity of stars.[91]

Transition to Judaism

The Himyarite kings radically opposed polytheism in favor of Judaism, beginning officially in 380.[92] The last trace of polytheism in South Arabia, an inscription commemorating a construction project with a polytheistic invocation, and another, mentioning the temple of Ta’lab, all date from just after 380 (the former dating to the rule of the king Dhara’amar Ayman, and the latter dating to the year 401–402).[92] The rejection of polytheism from the public sphere did not mean the extinction of it altogether, as polytheism likely continued in the private sphere.[92]

Central Arabia

The Kinda tribe's chief god was Kahl, whom their capital Qaryat Dhat Kahl (modern Qaryat al-Faw) was named for.[93][94] His name appears in the form of many inscriptions and rock engravings on the slopes of the Tuwayq, on the walls of the souk of the village, in the residential houses and on the incense burners.[94] An inscription in Qaryat Dhat Kahl invokes the gods Kahl, Athtar al-Shariq and Lah.[95]

Hejaz

According to Islamic sources, the Hejaz region was home to three important shrines dedicated to al-Lat, al-’Uzza and Manat. The shrine and idol of al-Lat, according to the Book of Idols, once stood in Ta'if, and was primarily worshipped by the Banu Thaqif tribe.[96] Al-’Uzza's principal shrine was in Nakhla and was the chief-goddess of the Quraysh tribe.[97][98] Manāt's idol, reportedly the oldest of the three, was erected on the seashore between Medina and Mecca, and was honored by the Aws and Khazraj tribes.[99] Inhabitants of several areas venerated Manāt, performing sacrifices before her idol, and pilgrimages of some were not considered completed until they visited Manāt and shaved their heads.[54]

In the Muzdalifah region near Mecca, the god Quzah, who is a god of rains and storms, was worshipped. In pre-Islamic times pilgrims used to halt at the "hill of Quzah" before sunrise.[100] Qusai ibn Kilab is traditionally reported to have introduced the association of fire worship with him on Muzdalifah.[100]

Various other deities were venerated in the area by specific tribes, such as the god Suwa' by the Banu Hudhayl tribe and the god Nuhm by the Muzaynah tribe.[101]

Historiography

The majority of extant information about Mecca during the rise of Islam and earlier times comes from the text of the Quran itself and later Muslim sources such as the prophetic biography literature dealing with the life of Muhammad and the Book of Idols.[102] Alternative sources are so fragmentary and specialized that writing a convincing history of this period based on them alone is impossible.[103] Several scholars hold that the sīra literature is not independent of the Quran but has been fabricated to explain the verses of the Quran.[104] There is evidence to support the contention that some reports of the sīras are of dubious validity, but there is also evidence to support the contention that the sīra narratives originated independently of the Quran.[104] Compounding the problem is that the earliest extant Muslim historical works, including the sīras, were composed in their definitive form more than a century after the beginning of the Islamic era.[105] Some of these works were based on subsequently lost earlier texts, which in their turn recorded a fluid oral tradition.[103] Scholars do not agree as to the time when such oral accounts began to be systematically collected and written down,[106] and they differ greatly in their assessment of the historical reliability of the available texts.[104][107][108]

Role of Mecca and the Kaaba

 
A drawing of the Kaaba's black stone in fragmented form, front and side illustrations.

The Kaaba, whose environs were regarded as sacred (haram), became a national shrine under the custodianship of the Quraysh, the chief tribe of Mecca, which made the Hejaz the most important religious area in north Arabia.[109] Its role was solidified by a confrontation with the Christian king Abraha, who controlled much of Arabia from a seat of power in Yemen in the middle of the sixth century.[110] Abraha had recently constructed a splendid church in Sana'a, and he wanted to make that city a major center of pilgrimage, but Mecca's Kaaba presented a challenge to his plan.[110] Abraha found a pretext for an attack on Mecca, presented by different sources alternatively as pollution of the church by a tribe allied to the Meccans or as an attack on Abraha's grandson in Najran by a Meccan party.[110] The defeat of the army he assembled to conquer Mecca is recounted with miraculous details by the Islamic tradition and is also alluded to in the Quran and pre-Islamic poetry.[110] After the battle, which probably occurred around 565, the Quraysh became a dominant force in western Arabia, receiving the title "God's people" (ahl Allah) according to Islamic sources, and formed the cult association of ḥums, which tied members of many tribes in western Arabia to the Kaaba.[110]

The Kaaba, Allah, and Hubal

According to tradition, the Kaaba was a cube-like, originally roofless structure housing a black stone revered as a relic.[111] The sanctuary was dedicated to Hubal (Arabic: هبل), who, according to some sources, was worshiped as the greatest of the 360 idols the Kaaba contained, which probably represented the days of the year.[112] Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Al-Kalbi both report that the human-shaped idol of Hubal made of precious stone came into the possession of the Quraysh with its right hand broken off and that the Quraysh made a hand of gold to replace it.[113] A soothsayer performed divination in the shrine by drawing ritual arrows,[109] and vows and sacrifices were made to assure success.[114] Marshall Hodgson argues that relations with deities and fetishes in pre-Islamic Mecca were maintained chiefly on the basis of bargaining, where favors were expected in return for offerings.[114] A deity's or oracle's failure to provide the desired response was sometimes met with anger.[114]

Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in Meccan religion. According to one hypothesis, which goes back to Julius Wellhausen, Allah (the supreme deity of the tribal federation around Quraysh) was a designation that consecrated the superiority of Hubal (the supreme deity of Quraysh) over the other gods.[31] However, there is also evidence that Allah and Hubal were two distinct deities.[31] According to that hypothesis, the Kaaba was first consecrated to a supreme deity named Allah and then hosted the pantheon of Quraysh after their conquest of Mecca, about a century before the time of Muhammad.[31] Some inscriptions seem to indicate the use of Allah as a name of a polytheist deity centuries earlier, but we know nothing precise about this use.[31] Some scholars have suggested that Allah may have represented a remote creator god who was gradually eclipsed by more particularized local deities.[28] There is disagreement on whether Allah played a major role in the Meccan religious cult.[2][25] No iconic representation or idol of Allah is known to have existed.[25][115]

Other deities

The three chief goddesses of Meccan religion were al-Lat, Al-‘Uzzá, and Manāt, who were called the daughters of Allah.[2][26][27][30] Egerton Sykes meanwhile states that Al-lāt was the female counterpart of Allah while Uzza was a name given by Banu Ghatafan to the planet Venus.[116]

Other deities of the Quraysh in Mecca included Manaf, Isaf and Na’ila. Although the early Arab historian Al-Tabari calls Manaf (Arabic: مناف) "one of the greatest deities of Mecca", very little information is available about it. Women touched his idol as a token of blessing, and kept away from it during menstruation. Gonzague Ryckmans described this as a practice peculiar to Manaf, but according to the Encyclopedia of Islam, a report from Ibn Al-Kalbi indicates that it was common to all idols.[117] Muhammad's great-great-grandfather's name was Abd Manaf which means "slave of Manaf".[118] He is thought by some scholars to be a sun-god.[119] The idols of Isāf and Nā'ila were located near the Black Stone with a talbiyah performed to Isāf during sacrifices. Various legends existed about the idols, including one that they were petrified after they committed adultery in the Kaaba.[63]

The pantheon of the Quraysh was not identical with that of the tribes who entered into various cult and commercial associations with them, especially that of the hums.[120][121] Christian Julien Robin argues that the former was composed principally of idols that were in the sanctuary of Mecca, including Hubal and Manaf, while the pantheon of the associations was superimposed on it, and its principal deities included the three goddesses, who had neither idols nor a shrine in that city.[120]

Political and religious developments

The second half of the sixth century was a period of political disorder in Arabia and communication routes were no longer secure.[122] Religious divisions were an important cause of the crisis.[123] Judaism became the dominant religion in Yemen while Christianity took root in the Persian Gulf area.[123] In line with the broader trends of the ancient world, Arabia yearned for a more spiritual form of religion and began believing in afterlife, while the choice of religion increasingly became a personal rather than communal choice.[123] While many were reluctant to convert to a foreign faith, those faiths provided intellectual and spiritual reference points, and the old pagan vocabulary of Arabic began to be replaced by Jewish and Christian loanwords from Aramaic everywhere, including Mecca.[123] The distribution of pagan temples supports Gerald Hawting's argument that Arabian polytheism was marginalized in the region and already dying in Mecca on the eve of Islam.[123] The practice of polytheistic cults was increasingly limited to the steppe and the desert, and in Yathrib (later known as Medina), which included two tribes with polytheistic majorities, the absence of a public pagan temple in the town or its immediate neighborhood indicates that polytheism was confined to the private sphere.[123] Looking at the text of the Quran itself, Hawting has also argued that the criticism of idolaters and polytheists contained in Quran is in fact a hyperbolic reference to other monotheists, in particular the Arab Jews and Arab Christians, whose religious beliefs were considered imperfect.[104][124] According to some traditions, the Kaaba contained no statues, but its interior was decorated with images of Mary and Jesus, prophets, angels, and trees.[31]

To counter the effects of anarchy, the institution of sacred months, during which every act of violence was prohibited, was reestablished.[125] During those months, it was possible to participate in pilgrimages and fairs without danger.[125] The Quraysh upheld the principle of two annual truces, one of one month and the second of three months, which conferred a sacred character to the Meccan sanctuary.[125] The cult association of hums, in which individuals and groups partook in the same rites, was primarily religious, but it also had important economic consequences.[125] Although, as Patricia Crone has shown, Mecca could not compare with the great centers of caravan trade on the eve of Islam, it was probably one of the most prosperous and secure cities of the peninsula, since, unlike many of them, it did not have surrounding walls.[125] Pilgrimage to Mecca was a popular custom.[126] Some Islamic rituals, including processions around the Kaaba and between the hills of al-Safa and Marwa, as well as the salutation "we are here, O Allah, we are here" repeated on approaching the Kaaba are believed to have antedated Islam.[126] Spring water acquired a sacred character in Arabia early on and Islamic sources state that the well of Zamzam became holy long before the Islamic era.[127]

Advent of Islam

 
Persian miniature depicting the destruction of idols during the conquest of Mecca; here Muhammad is represented as a flame.

According to Ibn Sa'd, the opposition in Mecca started when the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, delivered verses that "spoke shamefully of the idols they (the Meccans) worshiped other than Himself (God) and mentioned the perdition of their fathers who died in disbelief".[128] According to William Montgomery Watt, as the ranks of Muhammad's followers swelled, he became a threat to the local tribes and the rulers of the city, whose wealth rested upon the Kaaba, the focal point of Meccan religious life, which Muhammad threatened to overthrow.[129] Muhammad's denunciation of the Meccan traditional religion was especially offensive to his own tribe, the Quraysh, as they were the guardians of the Kaaba.[129]

The conquest of Mecca around 629–630 AD led to the destruction of the idols around the Kaaba, including Hubal.[130] Following the conquest, shrines and temples dedicated to deities were destroyed, such as the shrines to al-Lat, al-’Uzza and Manat in Ta’if, Nakhla and al-Qudayd respectively.[131][132]

North Arabia

Less complex societies outside South Arabia often had smaller pantheons, with the patron deity having much prominence. The deities attested in north Arabian inscriptions include Ruda, Nuha, Allah, Dathan, and Kahl.[133] Inscriptions in a North Arabian dialect in the region of Najd referring to Nuha describe emotions as a gift from him. In addition, they also refer to Ruda being responsible for all things good and bad.[133]

The Safaitic tribes in particular prominently worshipped the goddess al-Lat as a bringer of prosperity.[133] The Syrian god Baalshamin was also worshipped by Safaitic tribes and is mentioned in Safaitic inscriptions.[134]

Religious worship amongst the Qedarites, an ancient tribal confederation that was probably subsumed into Nabataea around the 2nd century AD, was centered around a polytheistic system in which women rose to prominence. Divine images of the gods and goddesses worshipped by Qedarite Arabs, as noted in Assyrian inscriptions, included representations of Atarsamain, Nuha, Ruda, Dai, Abirillu and Atarquruma. The female guardian of these idols, usually the reigning queen, served as a priestess (apkallatu, in Assyrian texts) who communed with the other world.[135] There is also evidence that the Qedar worshipped al-Lat to whom the inscription on a silver bowl from a king of Qedar is dedicated.[40] In the Babylonian Talmud, which was passed down orally for centuries before being transcribed c. 500 AD, in tractate Taanis (folio 5b), it is said that most Qedarites worshiped pagan gods.[136]

 
Aramaic stele inscription of Tayma dedicated to the god Salm

The Aramaic stele inscription discovered by Charles Hubert in 1880 at Tayma mentions the introduction of a new god called Salm of hgm into the city's pantheon being permitted by three local gods – Salm of Mahram who was the chief god, Shingala, and Ashira. The name Salm means "image" or "idol".[137]

The Midianites, a people referred to in the Book of Genesis and located in north-western Arabia, may have worshipped Yahweh.[138] Indeed, some scholars believe that Yahweh was originally a Midianite god and that he was subsequently adopted by the Israelites.[138] An Egyptian temple of Hathor continued to be used during the Midianite occupation of the site, although images of Hathor were defaced suggesting Midianite opposition.[138] They transformed it into a desert tent-shrine set up with a copper sculpture of a snake.[138]

The Lihyanites worshipped the god Dhu-Ghabat and rarely turned to others for their needs.[84] Dhu-Ghabat's name means "he of the thicket", based on the etymology of gabah, meaning forest or thicket.[139] The god al-Kutba', a god of writing probably related to a Babylonian deity and perhaps was brought into the region by the Babylonian king Nabonidus,[84] is mentioned in Lihyanite inscriptions as well.[140] The worship of the Hermonian gods Leucothea and Theandrios was spread from Phoenicia to Arabia.[141]

According to the Book of Idols, the Tayy tribe worshipped al-Fals, whose idol stood on Jabal Aja,[142] while the Kalb tribe worshipped Wadd, who had an idol in Dumat al-Jandal.[143][144]

Nabataeans

Further information: Nabataean religion

The Nabataeans worshipped primarily northern Arabian deities. Under foreign influences, they also incorporated foreign deities and elements into their beliefs.

The Nabataeans’ chief-god is Dushara. In Petra, the only major goddess is Al-‘Uzzá, assuming the traits of Isis, Tyche and Aphrodite. It is unknown if her worship and identity is related to her cult at Nakhla and others. The Nabatean inscriptions define Allāt and Al-Uzza as the "bride of Dushara". Al-Uzza may have been an epithet of Allāt in the Nabataean religion according to John F. Healey.[145]

Outside Petra, other deities were worshipped; for example, Hubal and Manat were invoked in the Hejaz, and al-Lat was invoked in the Hauran and the Syrian desert. The Nabataean king Obodas I, who founded Obodat, was deified and worshipped as a god.[146] They also worshipped Shay al-Qawm,[147] al-Kutba',[140] and various Greco-Roman deities such as Nike and Tyche.[148] Maxime Rodinson suggests that Hubal, who was popular in Mecca, had a Nabataean origin.[149]

 
Nike holding up a bust of Atargatis, crowned as Tyche and encircled by the signs of the zodiac. Amman Museum copy of Nabataean statue, 100 AD.

The worship of Pakidas, a Nabataean god, is attested at Gerasa alongside Hera in an inscription dated to the first century A.D. while an Arabian god is also attested by three inscriptions dated to the second century.[150]

The Nabataeans were known for their elaborate tombs, but they were not just for show; they were meant to be comfortable places for the dead.[151] Petra has many "sacred high places" which include altars that have usually been interpreted as places of human sacrifice, although, since the 1960s, an alternative theory that they are "exposure platforms" for placing the corpses of the deceased as part of a funerary ritual has been put forward. However, there is, in fact, little evidence for either proposition.[152]

Religious beliefs of Arabs outside Arabia

Palmyra was a cosmopolitan society, with its population being a mix of Aramaeans and Arabs. The Arabs of Palmyra worshipped al-Lat, Rahim and Shamash. The temple of al-Lat was established by the Bene Ma'zin tribe, who were probably an Arab tribe.[153] The nomads of the countryside worshipped a set of deities, bearing Arab names and attributes,[154] most prominent of them was Abgal,[155] who himself is not attested in Palmyra itself.[156] Ma'n, an Arab god, was worshipped alongside Abgal in a temple dedicated in 195 AD at Khirbet Semrin in the Palmyrene region while an inscription dated 194 AD at Ras esh-Shaar calls him the "good and bountiful god". A stele at Ras esh-Shaar shows him riding a horse with a lance while the god Saad is riding a camel. Abgal, Ma'n and Sa'd were known as the genii.[157]

The god Ashar was represented on a stele in Dura-Europos alongside another god Sa'd. The former was represented on a horse with Arab dress while the other was shown standing on the ground. Both had Parthian hairstyle, large facial hair and moustaches as well as similar clothing. Ashar's name is found to have been used in a theophoric manner among the Arab-majority areas of the region of the Northwest Semitic languages, like Hatra, where names like "Refuge of Ashar", "Servant of Ashar" and "Ashar has given" are recorded on an inscription.[158]

In Edessa, the solar deity was the primary god around the time of the Roman Emperor Julian and this worship was presumably brought in by migrants from Arabia. Julian's oration delivered to the denizens of the city mentioned that they worshipped the Sun surrounded by Azizos and Monimos whom Iamblichus identified with Ares and Hermes respectively. Monimos derived from Mu'nim or "the favourable one", and was another name of Ruda or Ruldaiu as apparent from spellings of his name in Sennacherib's Annals.[159]

The idol of the god al-Uqaysir was, according to the Book of Idols, located in Syria, and was worshipped by the tribes of Quda'a, Lakhm, Judham, Amela, and Ghatafan.[160] Adherents would go on a pilgrimage to the idol and shave their heads, then mix their hair with wheat, "for every single hair a handful of wheat".[160]

A shrine to Dushara has been discovered in the harbour of ancient Puteoli in Italy. The city was an important nexus for trade to the Near East, and it is known to have had a Nabataean presence during the mid 1st century BCE.[161] A Minaean altar dedicated to Wadd evidently existed in Delos, containing two inscriptions in Minaean and Greek respectively.[162]

Bedouin religious beliefs

The Bedouin were introduced to Meccan ritualistic practices as they frequented settled towns of the Hejaz during the four months of the "holy truce", the first three of which were devoted to religious observance, while the fourth was set aside for trade.[109] Alan Jones infers from Bedouin poetry that the gods, even Allah, were less important to the Bedouins than Fate.[163] They seem to have had little trust in rituals and pilgrimages as means of propitiating Fate, but had recourse to divination and soothsayers (kahins).[163] The Bedouins regarded some trees, wells, caves and stones as sacred objects, either as fetishes or as means of reaching a deity.[164] They created sanctuaries where people could worship fetishes.[165]

The Bedouins had a code of honor which Fazlur Rahman Malik states may be regarded as their religious ethics. This code encompassed women, bravery, hospitality, honouring one's promises and pacts, and vengeance. They believed that the ghost of a slain person would cry out from the grave until their thirst for blood was quenched. Practices such as killing of infant girls were often regarded as having religious sanction.[165] Numerous mentions of jinn in the Quran and testimony of both pre-Islamic and Islamic literature indicate that the belief in spirits was prominent in pre-Islamic Bedouin religion.[166] However, there is evidence that the word jinn is derived from Aramaic, ginnaye, which was widely attested in Palmyrene inscriptions. The Aramaic word was used by Christians to designate pagan gods reduced to the status of demons, and was introduced into Arabic folklore only late in the pre-Islamic era.[166] Julius Wellhausen has observed that such spirits were thought to inhabit desolate, dingy and dark places and that they were feared.[166] One had to protect oneself from them, but they were not the objects of a true cult.[166]

Bedouin religious experience also included an apparently indigenous cult of ancestors.[166] The dead were not regarded as powerful, but rather as deprived of protection and needing charity of the living as a continuation of social obligations beyond the grave.[166] Only certain ancestors, especially heroes from which the tribe was said to derive its name, seem to have been objects of real veneration.[166]

Other religions

Iranian religions

Iranian religions existed in pre-Islamic Arabia on account of Sasanian military presence along the Persian Gulf and South Arabia and on account of trade routes between the Hejaz and Iraq. Some Arabs in northeast of the peninsula converted to Zoroastrianism and several Zoroastrian temples were constructed in Najd. Some of the members from the tribe of Banu Tamim had converted to the religion. There is also evidence of existence of Manichaeism in Arabia as several early sources indicate a presence of "zandaqas" in Mecca, although the term could also be interpreted as referring to Mazdakism. However, according to the most recent research by Tardieu, the prevalence of Manichaeism in Mecca during the 6th and 7th centuries, when Islam emerged, can not be proven.[167][168][169] Similar reservations regarding the appearance of Manichaeism and Mazdakism in pre-Islamic Mecca are offered by Trompf & Mikkelsen et al. in their latest work (2018).[170][171] There is evidence for the circulation of Iranian religious ideas in the form of Persian loan words in Quran such as firdaws (paradise).[172][173]

Zoroastrianism was also present in Eastern Arabia[174][175][176] and Persian-speaking Zoroastrians lived in the region.[177] The religion was introduced in the region including modern-day Bahrain during the rule of Persian empires in the region starting from 250 B.C. It was mainly practiced in Bahrain by Persian settlers. Zoroastrianism was also practiced in the Persian-ruled area of modern-day Oman. The religion also existed in Persian-ruled area of modern Yemen. The descendants of Abna, the Persian conquerors of Yemen, were followers of Zoroastrianism.[178][179] Yemen's Zoroastrians who had the jizya imposed on them after being conquered by Muhammad are mentioned by the Islamic historian al-Baladhuri.[179] According to Serjeant, the Baharna people may be the Arabized descendants of converts from the original population of ancient Persians (majus) as well as other religions.[180]

Abrahamic religions

Judaism

Further information: Jewish tribes of Arabia
 
Seal ring from Zafar with writing "Yishaq bar Hanina" and a Torah ark, 330 BC – 200 AD

A thriving community of Jewish tribes existed in pre-Islamic Arabia and included both sedentary and nomadic communities. Jews had migrated into Arabia from Roman times onwards.[181] Arabian Jews spoke Arabic as well as Hebrew and Aramaic and had contact with Jewish religious centers in Babylonia and Palestine.[181] The Yemeni Himyarites converted to Judaism in the 4th century, and some of the Kinda were also converted in the 4th/5th century.[182] Jewish tribes existed in all major Arabian towns during Muhammad's time including in Tayma and Khaybar as well as Medina with twenty tribes living in the peninsula. From tomb inscriptions, it is visible that Jews also lived in Mada'in Saleh and Al-'Ula.[183]

There is evidence that Jewish converts in the Hejaz were regarded as Jews by other Jews, as well as by non-Jews, and sought advice from Babylonian rabbis on matters of attire and kosher food.[181] In at least one case, it is known that an Arab tribe agreed to adopt Judaism as a condition for settling in a town dominated by Jewish inhabitants.[181] Some Arab women in Yathrib/Medina are said to have vowed to make their child a Jew if the child survived, since they considered the Jews to be people "of knowledge and the book" (ʿilmin wa-kitābin).[181] Philip Hitti infers from proper names and agricultural vocabulary that the Jewish tribes of Yathrib consisted mostly of Judaized clans of Arabian and Aramaean origin.[109]

The key role played by Jews in the trade and markets of the Hejaz meant that market day for the week was the day preceding the Jewish Sabbath.[181] This day, which was called aruba in Arabic, also provided occasion for legal proceedings and entertainment, which in turn may have influenced the choice of Friday as the day of Muslim congregational prayer.[181] Toward the end of the sixth century, the Jewish communities in the Hejaz were in a state of economic and political decline, but they continued to flourish culturally in and beyond the region.[181] They had developed their distinctive beliefs and practices, with a pronounced mystical and eschatological dimension.[181] In the Islamic tradition, based on a phrase in the Quran, Arab Jews are said to have referred to Uzair as the son of Allah, although the historical accuracy of this assertion has been disputed.[26]

Jewish agriculturalists lived in the region of Eastern Arabia.[184][185] According to Robert Bertram Serjeant, the Baharna may be the Arabized "descendants of converts from Christians (Arameans), Jews and ancient Persians (Majus) inhabiting the island and cultivated coastal provinces of Eastern Arabia at the time of the Arab conquest".[180] From the Islamic sources, it seems that Judaism was the religion most followed in Yemen. Ya'qubi claimed all Yemenites to be Jews; Ibn Hazm however states only Himyarites and some Kindites were Jews.[179]

Christianity

 
Jubail Church in eastern Saudi Arabia. The 4th century remains are thought to be one of the oldest surviving church buildings in the world.

The main areas of Christian influence in Arabia were on the northeastern and northwestern borders and in what was to become Yemen in the south.[186] The north west was under the influence of Christian missionary activity from the Roman Empire where the Ghassanids, a client kingdom of the Romans, were converted to Christianity.[187] In the south, particularly at Najran, a centre of Christianity developed as a result of the influence of the Christian Kingdom of Axum based on the other side of the Red Sea in Ethiopia.[186] Some of the Banu Harith had converted to Christianity. One family of the tribe built a large church at Najran called Deir Najran, also known as the "Ka'ba of Najran". Both the Ghassanids and the Christians in the south adopted Monophysitism.[186]

The third area of Christian influence was on the north eastern borders where the Lakhmids, a client tribe of the Sassanians, adopted Nestorianism, being the form of Christianity having the most influence in the Sassanian Empire.[186] As the Persian Gulf region of Arabia increasingly fell under the influence of the Sassanians from the early third century, many of the inhabitants were exposed to Christianity following the eastward dispersal of the religion by Mesopotamian Christians.[188] However, it was not until the fourth century that Christianity gained popularity in the region with the establishment of monasteries and a diocesan structure.[189]

In pre-Islamic times, the population of Eastern Arabia consisted of Christianized Arabs (including Abd al-Qays) and Aramean Christians among other religions.[177] Syriac functioned as a liturgical language.[190][191] Serjeant states that the Baharna may be the Arabized descendants of converts from the original population of Christians (Aramaeans), among other religions at the time of Arab conquests.[185] Beth Qatraye, which translates "region of the Qataris" in Syriac, was the Christian name used for the region encompassing north-eastern Arabia.[192][193] It included Bahrain, Tarout Island, Al-Khatt, Al-Hasa, and Qatar.[194] Oman and what is today the United Arab Emirates comprised the diocese known as Beth Mazunaye. The name was derived from 'Mazun', the Persian name for Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Sohar was the central city of the diocese.[192][194]

In Nejd, in the centre of the peninsula, there is evidence of members of two tribes, Kinda and Taghlib, converting to Christianity in the 6th century. However, in the Hejaz in the west, whilst there is evidence of the presence of Christianity, it is not thought to have been significant amongst the indigenous population of the area.[186]

Arabicized Christian names were fairly common among pre-Islamic Arabians, which has been attributed to the influence that Syrianized Christian Arabs had on Bedouins of the peninsula for several centuries before the rise of Islam.[195]

Neal Robinson, based on verses in the Quran, believes that some Arab Christians may have held unorthodox beliefs such as the worshipping of a divine triad of God the father, Jesus the Son and Mary the Mother.[196] Furthermore, there is evidence that unorthodox groups such as the Collyridians, whose adherents worshipped Mary, were present in Arabia, and it has been proposed that the Quran refers to their beliefs.[197] However, other scholars, notably Mircea Eliade, William Montgomery Watt, G. R. Hawting and Sidney H. Griffith, cast doubt on the historicity or reliability of such references in the Quran. Their views are as follows:

  • Mircea Eliade argues that Muhammad's knowledge of Christianity "was rather approximative"[198] and that references to the triad of God, Jesus and Mary probably reflect the likelihood that Muhammad's information on Christianity came from people who had knowledge of the Monophysite Church of Abyssinia, which was known for extreme veneration of Mary.[198]
  • William Montgomery Watt points out that we do not know how far Muhammad was acquainted with Christian beliefs prior to the conquest of Mecca and that dating of some of the passages criticizing Christianity is uncertain.[199] His view is that Muhammad and the early Muslims may have been unaware of some orthodox Christian doctrines, including the nature of the trinity, because Muhammad's Christian informants had a limited grasp of doctrinal issues.[200]
  • Watt has also argued that the verses criticizing Christian doctrines in the Quran are attacking Christian heresies like tritheism and "physical sonship" rather than orthodox Christianity.[199][201]
  • G. R. Hawting, Sidney H. Griffith and Gabriel Reynolds argue that the verses commenting on apparently unorthodox Christian beliefs should be read as an informed, polemically motivated caricature of mainstream Christian doctrine whose goal is to highlight how wrong some of its tenets appear from an Islamic perspective.[201]

See also

References

Citations

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  5. ^ a b Mouton & Schmid 2014, p. 338.
  6. ^ a b Teixidor 2015, p. 70.
  7. ^ Peters 1994a, p. 6.
  8. ^ Robin, Christian Julien, "South Arabia, Religions in Pre-Islamic", in McAuliffe 2005, pp. 92
  9. ^ a b c d Teixidor 2015, p. 73-74.
  10. ^ a b c d Robin, Christian Julien, "South Arabia, Religions in Pre-Islamic", in McAuliffe 2005, pp. 87
  11. ^ Meyer-Hubbert 2016, p. 72.
  12. ^ a b c Aslan 2008, p. 6.
  13. ^ Peters 1994b, p. 105.
  14. ^ a b Hoyland 2002, p. 144.
  15. ^ a b c d e f Hoyland 2002, p. 145.
  16. ^ Teixidor 1979, p. 77.
  17. ^ El-Zein 2009, p. 34.
  18. ^ El-Zein 2009, p. 122.
  19. ^ Lebling 2010, p. 96.
  20. ^ Cramer 1979, p. 104.
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  22. ^ a b Waardenburg 2003, p. 89.
  23. ^ Campo 2009, p. 34.
  24. ^ a b c d Hughes 2013, p. 25.
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  27. ^ a b c Peters 1994b, p. 110.
  28. ^ a b Peterson 2007, p. 21.
  29. ^ a b Böwering, Gerhard, "God and his Attributes", in McAuliffe 2005
  30. ^ a b Peterson 2007, p. 46.
  31. ^ a b c d e f Robin, Christian Julien, "Arabia and Ethiopia", in Johnson 2012, pp. 304–305
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Sources

January 07, 2023
religion, islamic, arabia, this, article, about, religion, specific, overview, arabia, before, rise, islam, general, overview, civilization, arabia, before, islam, islamic, arabia, included, indigenous, arabian, polytheism, ancient, semitic, religions, christi. This article is about a religion specific overview of Arabia before the rise of Islam in 610 CE For a general overview of civilization in Arabia before Islam see Pre Islamic Arabia Religion in pre Islamic Arabia included indigenous Arabian polytheism ancient Semitic religions Christianity Judaism Mandaeism and Iranian religions such as Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism and rarely Buddhism Alabaster votive figurines from Yemen now in the National Museum of Oriental Art Rome Arabian polytheism the dominant form of religion in pre Islamic Arabia was based on veneration of deities and spirits Worship was directed to various gods and goddesses including Hubal and the goddesses al Lat al Uzza and Manat at local shrines and temples such as the Kaaba in Mecca Deities were venerated and invoked through a variety of rituals including pilgrimages and divination as well as ritual sacrifice Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in Meccan religion Many of the physical descriptions of the pre Islamic gods are traced to idols especially near the Kaaba which is said to have contained up to 360 of them Other religions were represented to varying lesser degrees The influence of the adjacent Roman and Aksumite civilizations resulted in Christian communities in the northwest northeast and south of Arabia Christianity made a lesser impact in the remainder of the peninsula but did secure some conversions With the exception of Nestorianism in the northeast and the Persian Gulf the dominant form of Christianity was Miaphysitism The peninsula had been a destination for Jewish migration since Roman times which had resulted in a diaspora community supplemented by local converts Additionally the influence of the Sasanian Empire resulted in Iranian religions being present in the peninsula Zoroastrianism existed in the east and south while there is evidence of Manichaeism or possibly Mazdakism being practiced in Mecca Contents 1 Background and sources 2 Worship 2 1 Deities 2 2 Minor spirits 2 3 Malevolent beings 2 4 Roles of deities 2 4 1 Role of Allah 2 4 2 Al Lat al Uzza and Manat 3 Mythology 4 Practices 4 1 Cult images and idols 4 2 Sacred places 4 3 Priesthood and sacred offices 4 4 Pilgrimages 4 4 1 South Arabian pilgrimages 4 4 2 Meccan pilgrimage 4 4 3 Cult associations 4 5 Astrology and divination 4 6 Offerings and ritual sacrifice 4 7 Other practices 5 By geography 5 1 Eastern Arabia 5 2 South Arabia 5 2 1 Influence of Arab tribes 5 2 2 Influence on Aksum 5 2 3 Transition to Judaism 5 3 Central Arabia 5 4 Hejaz 5 4 1 Historiography 5 4 2 Role of Mecca and the Kaaba 5 4 3 The Kaaba Allah and Hubal 5 4 4 Other deities 5 4 5 Political and religious developments 5 4 6 Advent of Islam 5 5 North Arabia 5 5 1 Nabataeans 5 5 2 Religious beliefs of Arabs outside Arabia 5 6 Bedouin religious beliefs 6 Other religions 6 1 Iranian religions 6 2 Abrahamic religions 6 2 1 Judaism 6 2 2 Christianity 7 See also 8 References 8 1 Citations 8 2 SourcesBackground and sources EditUntil about the fourth century almost all inhabitants of Arabia practiced polytheistic religions 1 Although significant Jewish and Christian minorities developed polytheism remained the dominant belief system in pre Islamic Arabia 2 3 The contemporary sources of information regarding the pre Islamic Arabian religion and pantheon include a small number of inscriptions and carvings 3 pre Islamic poetry external sources such as Jewish and Greek accounts as well as the Muslim tradition such as the Qur an and Islamic writings Nevertheless information is limited 3 One early attestation of Arabian polytheism was in Esarhaddon s Annals mentioning Atarsamain Nukhay Ruldaiu and Atarquruma 4 Herodotus writing in his Histories reported that the Arabs worshipped Orotalt identified with Dionysus and Alilat identified with Aphrodite 5 6 Strabo stated the Arabs worshipped Dionysus and Zeus Origen stated they worshipped Dionysus and Urania 6 Muslim sources regarding Arabian polytheism include the eighth century Book of Idols by Hisham ibn al Kalbi which F E Peters argued to be the most substantial treatment of the religious practices of pre Islamic Arabia 7 as well as the writings of the Yemeni historian al Hasan al Hamdani on South Arabian religious beliefs 8 According to the Book of Idols descendants of the son of Abraham Ishmael who had settled in Mecca migrated to other lands They carried holy stones from the Kaaba with them erected them and circumambulated them like the Kaaba 9 This according to al Kalbi led to the rise of idol worship 9 Based on this it may be probable that Arabs originally venerated stones later adopting idol worship under foreign influences 9 The relationship between a god and a stone as his representation can be seen from the third century Syriac work called the Homily of Pseudo Meliton where he describes the pagan faiths of Syriac speakers in northern Mesopotamia who were mostly Arabs 9 Worship EditDeities Edit Main article List of pre Islamic Arabian deities Nabataean baetyl depicting a goddess possibly al Uzza The pre Islamic Arabian religions were polytheistic with many of the deities names known 1 Formal pantheons are more noticeable at the level of kingdoms of variable sizes ranging from simple city states to collections of tribes 10 Tribes towns clans lineages and families had their own cults too 10 Christian Julien Robin suggests that this structure of the divine world reflected the society of the time 10 Trade caravans also brought foreign religious and cultural influences 11 A large number of deities did not have proper names and were referred to by titles indicating a quality a family relationship or a locale preceded by he who or she who dhu or dhat respectively 10 The religious beliefs and practices of the nomadic Bedouin were distinct from those of the settled tribes of towns such as Mecca 12 Nomadic religious belief systems and practices are believed to have included fetishism totemism and veneration of the dead but were connected principally with immediate concerns and problems and did not consider larger philosophical questions such as the afterlife 12 Settled urban Arabs on the other hand are thought to have believed in a more complex pantheon of deities 12 While the Meccans and the other settled inhabitants of the Hejaz worshiped their gods at permanent shrines in towns and oases the Bedouin practiced their religion on the move 13 Minor spirits Edit In South Arabia mndh t were anonymous guardian spirits of the community and the ancestor spirits of the family 14 They were known as the sun shms of their ancestors 14 In North Arabia ginnaye were known from Palmyrene inscriptions as the good and rewarding gods and were probably related to the jinn of west and central Arabia 15 Unlike jinn ginnaye could not hurt nor possess humans and were much more similar to the Roman genius 16 According to common Arabian belief soothsayers pre Islamic philosophers and poets were inspired by the jinn 17 However jinn were also feared and thought to be responsible for causing various diseases and mental illnesses 18 Malevolent beings Edit Aside from benevolent gods and spirits there existed malevolent beings 15 These beings were not attested in the epigraphic record but were alluded to in pre Islamic Arabic poetry and their legends were collected by later Muslim authors 15 Commonly mentioned are ghouls 15 Etymologically the English word ghoul was derived from the Arabic ghul from ghala to seize 19 related to the Sumerian galla 20 They are said to have a hideous appearance with feet like those of an ass 15 Arabs were said to utter the following couplet if they should encounter one Oh ass footed one just bray away we won t leave the desert plain nor ever go astray 15 Christian Julien Robin notes that all the known South Arabian divinities had a positive or protective role and that evil powers were only alluded to but were never personified 21 Roles of deities Edit Role of Allah Edit Main article Allah Some scholars postulate that in pre Islamic Arabia including in Mecca 22 Allah was considered to be a deity 22 possibly a creator deity or a supreme deity in a polytheistic pantheon 23 24 The word Allah from the Arabic al ilah meaning the god 25 may have been used as a title rather than a name 26 27 28 The concept of Allah may have been vague in the Meccan religion 29 According to Islamic sources Meccans and their neighbors believed that the goddesses Al lat Al Uzza and Manat were the daughters of Allah 2 24 26 27 30 Regional variants of the word Allah occur in both pagan and Christian pre Islamic inscriptions 31 32 References to Allah are found in the poetry of the pre Islamic Arab poet Zuhayr bin Abi Sulma who lived a generation before Muhammad as well as pre Islamic personal names 33 Muhammad s father s name was ʿAbd Allah meaning the servant of Allah 29 Charles Russell Coulter and Patricia Turner considered that Allah s name may be derived from a pre Islamic god called Ailiah and is similar to El Il Ilah and Jehovah They also considered some of his characteristics to be seemingly based on lunar deities like Almaqah Kahl Shaker Wadd and Warakh 34 Alfred Guillaume states that the connection between Ilah that came to form Allah and ancient Babylonian Il or El of ancient Israel is not clear Wellhausen states that Allah was known from Jewish and Christian sources and was known to pagan Arabs as the supreme god 35 Winfried Corduan doubts the theory of Allah of Islam being linked to a moon god stating that the term Allah functions as a generic term like the term El Elyon used as a title for the god Sin 36 South Arabian inscriptions from the fourth century AD refer to a god called Rahman The Merciful One who had a monotheistic cult and was referred to as the Lord of heaven and Earth 24 Aaron W Hughes states that scholars are unsure whether he developed from the earlier polytheistic systems or developed due to the increasing significance of the Christian and Jewish communities and that it is difficult to establish whether Allah was linked to Rahmanan 24 Maxime Rodinson however considers one of Allah s names Ar Rahman to have been used in the form of Rahmanan earlier 37 Al Lat al Uzza and Manat Edit Bas relief Nemesis al Lat and the dedicator Palmyrene 2nd 3rd century AD Al Lat Al Uzza and Manat were common names used for multiple goddesses across Arabia 26 38 39 40 41 G R Hawting states that modern scholars have frequently associated the names of Arabian goddesses Al lat Al Uzza and Manat with cults devoted to celestial bodies particularly Venus drawing upon evidence external to the Muslim tradition as well as in relation to Syria Mesopotamia and the Sinai Peninsula 42 Allat Arabic اللات or al Lat was worshipped throughout the ancient Near East with various associations 34 Herodotus in the 5th century BC identifies Alilat Greek Ἀlilat as the Arabic name for Aphrodite and in another passage for Urania 5 which is strong evidence for worship of Allat in Arabia at that early date 43 Al Uzza Arabic العزى was a fertility goddess 44 or possibly a goddess of love 45 Manat Arabic مناة was the goddess of destiny 46 Al Lat s cult was spread in Syria and northern Arabia From Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions it is probable that she was worshiped as Lat lt F V Winnet saw al Lat as a lunar deity due to the association of a crescent with her in Ayn esh Shallaleh and a Lihyanite inscription mentioning the name of Wadd the Minaean moon god over the title of fkl lt Rene Dussaud and Gonzague Ryckmans linked her with Venus while others have thought her to be a solar deity John F Healey considers that al Uzza actually might have been an epithet of al Lat before becoming a separate deity in the Meccan pantheon 47 Paola Corrente writing in Redefining Dionysus considers she might have been a god of vegetation or a celestial deity of atmospheric phenomena and a sky deity 48 Mythology EditAccording to F E Peters one of the characteristics of Arab paganism as it has come down to us is the absence of a mythology narratives that might serve to explain the origin or history of the gods 49 Many of the deities have epithets but are lacking myths or narratives to decode the epithets making them generally uninformative 50 Practices Edit Stone carved god stones in Petra Jordan Cult images and idols Edit The worship of sacred stones constituted one of the most important practices of the Semitic peoples including Arabs 51 Cult images of a deity were most often an unworked stone block 52 The most common name for these stone blocks was derived from the Semitic nsb to be stood upright but other names were used such as Nabataean masgida place of prostration and Arabic duwar object of circumambulation this term often occurs in pre Islamic Arabic poetry 53 These god stones were usually a free standing slab but Nabataean god stones are usually carved directly on the rock face 53 Facial features may be incised on the stone especially in Nabataea or astral symbols especially in South Arabia 53 Under Greco Roman influence an anthropomorphic statue might be used instead 52 The Book of Idols describes two types of statues idols sanam and images wathan 54 If a statue were made of wood gold or silver after a human form it would be an idol but if the statue were made of stone it would be an image 54 Representation of deities in animal form was common in South Arabia such as the god Sayin from Hadhramaut who was represented as either an eagle fighting a serpent or a bull 55 Floor plan of the peristyle hall of the Awwam temple in Ma rib Sacred places Edit Sacred places are known as hima haram or mahram and within these places all living things were considered inviolable and violence was forbidden 56 In most of Arabia these places would take the form of open air sanctuaries with distinguishing natural features such as springs and forests 56 Cities would contain temples enclosing the sacred area with walls and featuring ornate structures 57 Priesthood and sacred offices Edit Sacred areas often had a guardian or a performer of cultic rites 58 These officials were thought to tend the area receive offerings and perform divination 58 They are known by many names probably based on cultural linguistic preference afkal was used in the Hejaz kahin was used in the Sinai Negev Hisma region and kumra was used in Aramaic influenced areas 58 In South Arabia rs2w and fkl were used to refer to priests and other words include qyn administrator and mrtd consecrated to a particular divinity 59 A more specialized staff is thought to have existed in major sanctuaries 58 Pilgrimages Edit Pilgrimages to sacred places would be made at certain times of the year 60 Pilgrim fairs of central and northern Arabia took place in specific months designated as violence free 60 allowing several activities to flourish such as trade though in some places only exchange was permitted 61 South Arabian pilgrimages Edit The most important pilgrimage in Saba was probably the pilgrimage of Almaqah at Ma rib performed in the month of dhu Abhi roughly in July 59 Two references attest the pilgrimage of Almaqah dhu Hirran at Amran 59 The pilgrimage of Ta lab Riyam took place in Mount Tur at and the Zabyan temple at Hadaqan while the pilgrimage of Dhu Samawi the god of the Amir tribe took place in Yathill 59 Aside from Sabaean pilgrimages the pilgrimage of Sayin took place at Shabwa 59 60 Meccan pilgrimage Edit The pilgrimage of Mecca involved the stations of Mount Arafat Muzdalifah Mina and central Mecca that included Safa and Marwa as well as the Kaaba Pilgrims at the first two stations performed wuquf or standing in adoration At Mina animals were sacrificed The procession from Arafat to Muzdalifah and from Mina to Mecca in a pre reserved route towards idols or an idol was termed ijaza and ifada with the latter taking place before sunset At Jabal Quzah fires were started during the sacred month 62 Nearby the Kaaba was located the betyl which was later called Maqam Ibrahim a place called al Ḥigr which Aziz al Azmeh takes to be reserved for consecrated animals basing his argument on a Sabaean inscription mentioning a place called mḥgr which was reserved for animals and the Well of Zamzam Both Safa and Marwa were adjacent to two sacrificial hills one called Muṭ im al Ṭayr and another Mujawir al Riḥ which was a pathway to Abu Kubais from where the Black Stone is reported to have originated 63 Cult associations Edit Meccan pilgrimages differed according to the rites of different cult associations in which individuals and groups joined for religious purposes The Ḥilla association performed the hajj in autumn season while the Ṭuls and Ḥums performed the umrah in spring 64 The Ḥums were the Quraysh Banu Kinanah Banu Khuza a and Banu Amir They did not perform the pilgrimage outside the zone of Mecca s haram thus excluding Mount Arafat They also developed certain dietary and cultural restrictions 65 According to Kitab al Muhabbar the Ḥilla denoted most of the Banu Tamim Qays Rabi ah Quḍa ah Ansar Khath am Bajilah Banu Bakr ibn Abd Manat Hudhayl Asad Tayy and Bariq The Ṭuls comprised the tribes of Yemen and Hadramaut Akk Ujayb and iyad The Basl recognised at least eight months of the calendar as holy There was also another group which didn t recognize the sanctity of Mecca s haram or holy months unlike the other four 66 Astrology and divination Edit The ancient Arabs that inhabitated the Arabian Peninsula before the advent of Islam used to profess a widespread belief in fatalism ḳadar alongside a fearful consideration for the sky and the stars which they held to be ultimately responsible for every phenomena that occurs on Earth and for the destiny of humankind 67 Accordingly they shaped their entire lives in accordance with their interpretations of astral configurations and phenomena 67 In South Arabia oracles were regarded as ms l or a place of asking and that deities interacted by hr yhw making them see a vision a dream or even direct interaction 68 Otherwise deities interacted indirectly through a medium 69 There were three methods of chance based divination attested in pre Islamic Arabia two of these methods making marks in the sand or on rocks and throwing pebbles are poorly attested 70 The other method the practice of randomly selecting an arrow with instructions was widely attested and was common throughout Arabia 70 A simple form of this practice was reportedly performed before the image of Dhu l Khalasa by a certain man sometimes said to be the Kindite poet Imru al Qays according to al Kalbi 71 72 A more elaborate form of the ritual was performed in before the image of Hubal 73 This form of divination was also attested in Palmyra evidenced by an honorific inscription in the temple of al Lat 73 Offerings and ritual sacrifice Edit Thamudic petroglyphs from Wadi Rum depicting a hunter ibex a camel and a rider on horseback Camels were among the sacrificial animals in pre Islamic Arabia 74 The most common offerings were animals crops food liquids inscribed metal plaques or stone tablets aromatics edifices and manufactured objects 75 Camel herding Arabs would devote some of their beasts to certain deities The beasts would have their ears slit and would be left to pasture without a herdsman allowing them to die a natural death 75 Pre Islamic Arabians especially pastoralist tribes sacrificed animals as an offering to a deity 74 This type of offering was common and involved domestic animals such as camels sheep and cattle while game animals and poultry were rarely or never mentioned Sacrifice rites were not tied to a particular location though they were usually practiced in sacred places 74 Sacrifice rites could be performed by the devotee though according to Hoyland women were probably not allowed 76 The victim s blood according to pre Islamic Arabic poetry and certain South Arabian inscriptions was also poured out on the altar stone thus forming a bond between the human and the deity 76 According to Muslim sources most sacrifices were concluded with communal feasts 76 In South Arabia beginning with the Christian era or perhaps a short while before statuettes were presented before the deity known as slm male or slmt female 59 Human sacrifice was sometimes carried out in Arabia The victims were generally prisoners of war who represented the god s part of the victory in booty although other forms might have existed 74 Blood sacrifice was definitely practiced in South Arabia but few allusions to the practice are known apart from some Minaean inscriptions 59 Other practices Edit In the Hejaz menstruating women were not allowed to be near the cult images 55 The area where Isaf and Na ila s images stood was considered out of bounds for menstruating women 55 This was reportedly the same with Manaf 77 According to the Book of Idols this rule applied to all the idols 55 This was also the case in South Arabia as attested in a South Arabian inscription from al Jawf 55 Sexual intercourse in temples was prohibited as attested in two South Arabian inscriptions 55 One legend concerning Isaf and Na ila when two lovers made love in the Kaaba and were petrified joining the idols in the Kaaba echoes this prohibition 55 By geography EditEastern Arabia Edit The Worshipping Servant statue from Tarout Island 2500 BC The Dilmun civilization which existed along the Persian Gulf coast and Bahrain until the 6th century BC worshipped a pair of deities Inzak and Meskilak 78 It is not known whether these were the only deities in the pantheon or whether there were others 79 The discovery of wells at the sites of a Dilmun temple and a shrine suggests that sweet water played an important part in religious practices 78 In the subsequent Greco Roman period there is evidence that the worship of non indigenous deities was brought to the region by merchants and visitors 79 These included Bel a god popular in the Syrian city of Palmyra the Mesopotamian deities Nabu and Shamash the Greek deities Poseidon and Artemis and the west Arabian deities Kahl and Manat 79 South Arabia Edit Sculpture of a Sabaean priestess raising her hand to intercede with the sun goddess on behalf of a donor Probably first century The main sources of religious information in pre Islamic South Arabia are inscriptions which number in the thousands as well as the Quran complemented by archaeological evidence The civilizations of South Arabia are considered to have the most developed pantheon in the Arabian peninsula 50 In South Arabia the most common god was Athtar who was considered remote The patron deity shym was considered to be of much more immediate significance than Athtar Thus the kingdom of Saba had Almaqah the kingdom of Ma in had Wadd the kingdom of Qataban had Amm and the kingdom of Hadhramaut had Sayin Each people was termed the children of their respective patron deity Patron deities played a vital role in sociopolitical terms their cults serving as the focus of a person s cohesion and loyalty Evidence from surviving inscriptions suggests that each of the southern kingdoms had its own pantheon of three to five deities the major deity always being a god 80 For example the pantheon of Saba comprised Almaqah the major deity together with Athtar Haubas Dhat Himyam and Dhat Badan 80 The main god in Ma in and Himyar was Athtar in Qataban it was Amm and in Hadhramaut it was Sayin 80 Amm was a lunar deity and was associated with the weather especially lightning 81 One of the most frequent titles of the god Almaqah was Lord of Awwam 82 Anbay was an oracular god of Qataban and also the spokesman of Amm 83 His name was invoked in royal regulations regarding water supply 84 Anbay s name was related to that of the Babylonian deity Nabu Hawkam was invoked alongside Anbay as god of command and decision and his name is derived from the root word to be wise 4 Ruins of temple of Awwam dedicated to Almaqah Each kingdom s central temple was the focus of worship for the main god and would be the destination for an annual pilgrimage with regional temples dedicated to a local manifestation of the main god 80 Other beings worshipped included local deities or deities dedicated to specific functions as well as deified ancestors 80 Influence of Arab tribes Edit The encroachment of northern Arab tribes into South Arabia also introduced northern Arab deities into the region 21 The three goddesses al Lat al Uzza and Manat became known as Lat Latan Uzzayan and Manawt 21 Uzzayan s cult in particular was widespread in South Arabia and in Qataban she was invoked as a guardian of the final royal palace 21 Lat Latan was not significant in South Arabia but appears to be popular with the Arab tribes bordering Yemen 21 Other Arab deities include Dhu Samawi a god originally worshipped by the Amir tribe and Kahilan perhaps related to Kahl of Qaryat al Faw 21 Bordering Yemen the Azd Sarat tribe of the Asir region was said to have worshipped Dhu l Shara Dhu l Kaffayn Dhu l Khalasa and A im 85 According to the Book of Idols Dhu l Kaffayn originated from a clan of the Banu Daws 86 In addition to being worshipped among the Azd Dushara is also reported to have a shrine amongst the Daws 86 Dhu l Khalasa was an oracular god and was also worshipped by the Bajila and Khatham tribes 72 Influence on Aksum Edit Before conversion to Christianity the Aksumites followed a polytheistic religion that was similar to that of Southern Arabia The lunar god Hawbas was worshiped in South Arabia and Aksum 87 The name of the god Astar a sky deity was related to that of Attar 88 The god Almaqah was worshiped at Hawulti Melazo 89 The South Arabian gods in Aksum included Dhat Himyam and Dhat Ba adan 90 A stone later reused for the church of Enda Cerqos at Melazo mentions these gods Hawbas is also mentioned on an altar and sphinx in Dibdib The name of Nrw who is mentioned in Aksum inscriptions is related to that of the South Arabian god Nawraw a deity of stars 91 Transition to Judaism Edit The Himyarite kings radically opposed polytheism in favor of Judaism beginning officially in 380 92 The last trace of polytheism in South Arabia an inscription commemorating a construction project with a polytheistic invocation and another mentioning the temple of Ta lab all date from just after 380 the former dating to the rule of the king Dhara amar Ayman and the latter dating to the year 401 402 92 The rejection of polytheism from the public sphere did not mean the extinction of it altogether as polytheism likely continued in the private sphere 92 Central Arabia Edit The Kinda tribe s chief god was Kahl whom their capital Qaryat Dhat Kahl modern Qaryat al Faw was named for 93 94 His name appears in the form of many inscriptions and rock engravings on the slopes of the Tuwayq on the walls of the souk of the village in the residential houses and on the incense burners 94 An inscription in Qaryat Dhat Kahl invokes the gods Kahl Athtar al Shariq and Lah 95 Hejaz Edit According to Islamic sources the Hejaz region was home to three important shrines dedicated to al Lat al Uzza and Manat The shrine and idol of al Lat according to the Book of Idols once stood in Ta if and was primarily worshipped by the Banu Thaqif tribe 96 Al Uzza s principal shrine was in Nakhla and was the chief goddess of the Quraysh tribe 97 98 Manat s idol reportedly the oldest of the three was erected on the seashore between Medina and Mecca and was honored by the Aws and Khazraj tribes 99 Inhabitants of several areas venerated Manat performing sacrifices before her idol and pilgrimages of some were not considered completed until they visited Manat and shaved their heads 54 In the Muzdalifah region near Mecca the god Quzah who is a god of rains and storms was worshipped In pre Islamic times pilgrims used to halt at the hill of Quzah before sunrise 100 Qusai ibn Kilab is traditionally reported to have introduced the association of fire worship with him on Muzdalifah 100 Various other deities were venerated in the area by specific tribes such as the god Suwa by the Banu Hudhayl tribe and the god Nuhm by the Muzaynah tribe 101 Historiography Edit The majority of extant information about Mecca during the rise of Islam and earlier times comes from the text of the Quran itself and later Muslim sources such as the prophetic biography literature dealing with the life of Muhammad and the Book of Idols 102 Alternative sources are so fragmentary and specialized that writing a convincing history of this period based on them alone is impossible 103 Several scholars hold that the sira literature is not independent of the Quran but has been fabricated to explain the verses of the Quran 104 There is evidence to support the contention that some reports of the siras are of dubious validity but there is also evidence to support the contention that the sira narratives originated independently of the Quran 104 Compounding the problem is that the earliest extant Muslim historical works including the siras were composed in their definitive form more than a century after the beginning of the Islamic era 105 Some of these works were based on subsequently lost earlier texts which in their turn recorded a fluid oral tradition 103 Scholars do not agree as to the time when such oral accounts began to be systematically collected and written down 106 and they differ greatly in their assessment of the historical reliability of the available texts 104 107 108 Role of Mecca and the Kaaba Edit A drawing of the Kaaba s black stone in fragmented form front and side illustrations The Kaaba whose environs were regarded as sacred haram became a national shrine under the custodianship of the Quraysh the chief tribe of Mecca which made the Hejaz the most important religious area in north Arabia 109 Its role was solidified by a confrontation with the Christian king Abraha who controlled much of Arabia from a seat of power in Yemen in the middle of the sixth century 110 Abraha had recently constructed a splendid church in Sana a and he wanted to make that city a major center of pilgrimage but Mecca s Kaaba presented a challenge to his plan 110 Abraha found a pretext for an attack on Mecca presented by different sources alternatively as pollution of the church by a tribe allied to the Meccans or as an attack on Abraha s grandson in Najran by a Meccan party 110 The defeat of the army he assembled to conquer Mecca is recounted with miraculous details by the Islamic tradition and is also alluded to in the Quran and pre Islamic poetry 110 After the battle which probably occurred around 565 the Quraysh became a dominant force in western Arabia receiving the title God s people ahl Allah according to Islamic sources and formed the cult association of ḥums which tied members of many tribes in western Arabia to the Kaaba 110 The Kaaba Allah and Hubal Edit According to tradition the Kaaba was a cube like originally roofless structure housing a black stone revered as a relic 111 The sanctuary was dedicated to Hubal Arabic هبل who according to some sources was worshiped as the greatest of the 360 idols the Kaaba contained which probably represented the days of the year 112 Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Al Kalbi both report that the human shaped idol of Hubal made of precious stone came into the possession of the Quraysh with its right hand broken off and that the Quraysh made a hand of gold to replace it 113 A soothsayer performed divination in the shrine by drawing ritual arrows 109 and vows and sacrifices were made to assure success 114 Marshall Hodgson argues that relations with deities and fetishes in pre Islamic Mecca were maintained chiefly on the basis of bargaining where favors were expected in return for offerings 114 A deity s or oracle s failure to provide the desired response was sometimes met with anger 114 Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in Meccan religion According to one hypothesis which goes back to Julius Wellhausen Allah the supreme deity of the tribal federation around Quraysh was a designation that consecrated the superiority of Hubal the supreme deity of Quraysh over the other gods 31 However there is also evidence that Allah and Hubal were two distinct deities 31 According to that hypothesis the Kaaba was first consecrated to a supreme deity named Allah and then hosted the pantheon of Quraysh after their conquest of Mecca about a century before the time of Muhammad 31 Some inscriptions seem to indicate the use of Allah as a name of a polytheist deity centuries earlier but we know nothing precise about this use 31 Some scholars have suggested that Allah may have represented a remote creator god who was gradually eclipsed by more particularized local deities 28 There is disagreement on whether Allah played a major role in the Meccan religious cult 2 25 No iconic representation or idol of Allah is known to have existed 25 115 Other deities Edit The three chief goddesses of Meccan religion were al Lat Al Uzza and Manat who were called the daughters of Allah 2 26 27 30 Egerton Sykes meanwhile states that Al lat was the female counterpart of Allah while Uzza was a name given by Banu Ghatafan to the planet Venus 116 Other deities of the Quraysh in Mecca included Manaf Isaf and Na ila Although the early Arab historian Al Tabari calls Manaf Arabic مناف one of the greatest deities of Mecca very little information is available about it Women touched his idol as a token of blessing and kept away from it during menstruation Gonzague Ryckmans described this as a practice peculiar to Manaf but according to the Encyclopedia of Islam a report from Ibn Al Kalbi indicates that it was common to all idols 117 Muhammad s great great grandfather s name was Abd Manaf which means slave of Manaf 118 He is thought by some scholars to be a sun god 119 The idols of Isaf and Na ila were located near the Black Stone with a talbiyah performed to Isaf during sacrifices Various legends existed about the idols including one that they were petrified after they committed adultery in the Kaaba 63 The pantheon of the Quraysh was not identical with that of the tribes who entered into various cult and commercial associations with them especially that of the hums 120 121 Christian Julien Robin argues that the former was composed principally of idols that were in the sanctuary of Mecca including Hubal and Manaf while the pantheon of the associations was superimposed on it and its principal deities included the three goddesses who had neither idols nor a shrine in that city 120 Political and religious developments Edit The second half of the sixth century was a period of political disorder in Arabia and communication routes were no longer secure 122 Religious divisions were an important cause of the crisis 123 Judaism became the dominant religion in Yemen while Christianity took root in the Persian Gulf area 123 In line with the broader trends of the ancient world Arabia yearned for a more spiritual form of religion and began believing in afterlife while the choice of religion increasingly became a personal rather than communal choice 123 While many were reluctant to convert to a foreign faith those faiths provided intellectual and spiritual reference points and the old pagan vocabulary of Arabic began to be replaced by Jewish and Christian loanwords from Aramaic everywhere including Mecca 123 The distribution of pagan temples supports Gerald Hawting s argument that Arabian polytheism was marginalized in the region and already dying in Mecca on the eve of Islam 123 The practice of polytheistic cults was increasingly limited to the steppe and the desert and in Yathrib later known as Medina which included two tribes with polytheistic majorities the absence of a public pagan temple in the town or its immediate neighborhood indicates that polytheism was confined to the private sphere 123 Looking at the text of the Quran itself Hawting has also argued that the criticism of idolaters and polytheists contained in Quran is in fact a hyperbolic reference to other monotheists in particular the Arab Jews and Arab Christians whose religious beliefs were considered imperfect 104 124 According to some traditions the Kaaba contained no statues but its interior was decorated with images of Mary and Jesus prophets angels and trees 31 To counter the effects of anarchy the institution of sacred months during which every act of violence was prohibited was reestablished 125 During those months it was possible to participate in pilgrimages and fairs without danger 125 The Quraysh upheld the principle of two annual truces one of one month and the second of three months which conferred a sacred character to the Meccan sanctuary 125 The cult association of hums in which individuals and groups partook in the same rites was primarily religious but it also had important economic consequences 125 Although as Patricia Crone has shown Mecca could not compare with the great centers of caravan trade on the eve of Islam it was probably one of the most prosperous and secure cities of the peninsula since unlike many of them it did not have surrounding walls 125 Pilgrimage to Mecca was a popular custom 126 Some Islamic rituals including processions around the Kaaba and between the hills of al Safa and Marwa as well as the salutation we are here O Allah we are here repeated on approaching the Kaaba are believed to have antedated Islam 126 Spring water acquired a sacred character in Arabia early on and Islamic sources state that the well of Zamzam became holy long before the Islamic era 127 Advent of Islam Edit Persian miniature depicting the destruction of idols during the conquest of Mecca here Muhammad is represented as a flame According to Ibn Sa d the opposition in Mecca started when the prophet of Islam Muhammad delivered verses that spoke shamefully of the idols they the Meccans worshiped other than Himself God and mentioned the perdition of their fathers who died in disbelief 128 According to William Montgomery Watt as the ranks of Muhammad s followers swelled he became a threat to the local tribes and the rulers of the city whose wealth rested upon the Kaaba the focal point of Meccan religious life which Muhammad threatened to overthrow 129 Muhammad s denunciation of the Meccan traditional religion was especially offensive to his own tribe the Quraysh as they were the guardians of the Kaaba 129 The conquest of Mecca around 629 630 AD led to the destruction of the idols around the Kaaba including Hubal 130 Following the conquest shrines and temples dedicated to deities were destroyed such as the shrines to al Lat al Uzza and Manat in Ta if Nakhla and al Qudayd respectively 131 132 North Arabia Edit Less complex societies outside South Arabia often had smaller pantheons with the patron deity having much prominence The deities attested in north Arabian inscriptions include Ruda Nuha Allah Dathan and Kahl 133 Inscriptions in a North Arabian dialect in the region of Najd referring to Nuha describe emotions as a gift from him In addition they also refer to Ruda being responsible for all things good and bad 133 The Safaitic tribes in particular prominently worshipped the goddess al Lat as a bringer of prosperity 133 The Syrian god Baalshamin was also worshipped by Safaitic tribes and is mentioned in Safaitic inscriptions 134 Religious worship amongst the Qedarites an ancient tribal confederation that was probably subsumed into Nabataea around the 2nd century AD was centered around a polytheistic system in which women rose to prominence Divine images of the gods and goddesses worshipped by Qedarite Arabs as noted in Assyrian inscriptions included representations of Atarsamain Nuha Ruda Dai Abirillu and Atarquruma The female guardian of these idols usually the reigning queen served as a priestess apkallatu in Assyrian texts who communed with the other world 135 There is also evidence that the Qedar worshipped al Lat to whom the inscription on a silver bowl from a king of Qedar is dedicated 40 In the Babylonian Talmud which was passed down orally for centuries before being transcribed c 500 AD in tractate Taanis folio 5b it is said that most Qedarites worshiped pagan gods 136 Aramaic stele inscription of Tayma dedicated to the god Salm The Aramaic stele inscription discovered by Charles Hubert in 1880 at Tayma mentions the introduction of a new god called Salm of hgm into the city s pantheon being permitted by three local gods Salm of Mahram who was the chief god Shingala and Ashira The name Salm means image or idol 137 The Midianites a people referred to in the Book of Genesis and located in north western Arabia may have worshipped Yahweh 138 Indeed some scholars believe that Yahweh was originally a Midianite god and that he was subsequently adopted by the Israelites 138 An Egyptian temple of Hathor continued to be used during the Midianite occupation of the site although images of Hathor were defaced suggesting Midianite opposition 138 They transformed it into a desert tent shrine set up with a copper sculpture of a snake 138 The Lihyanites worshipped the god Dhu Ghabat and rarely turned to others for their needs 84 Dhu Ghabat s name means he of the thicket based on the etymology of gabah meaning forest or thicket 139 The god al Kutba a god of writing probably related to a Babylonian deity and perhaps was brought into the region by the Babylonian king Nabonidus 84 is mentioned in Lihyanite inscriptions as well 140 The worship of the Hermonian gods Leucothea and Theandrios was spread from Phoenicia to Arabia 141 According to the Book of Idols the Tayy tribe worshipped al Fals whose idol stood on Jabal Aja 142 while the Kalb tribe worshipped Wadd who had an idol in Dumat al Jandal 143 144 Nabataeans Edit Further information Nabataean religion Relief of Dushara National Museum of Damascus The Nabataeans worshipped primarily northern Arabian deities Under foreign influences they also incorporated foreign deities and elements into their beliefs The Nabataeans chief god is Dushara In Petra the only major goddess is Al Uzza assuming the traits of Isis Tyche and Aphrodite It is unknown if her worship and identity is related to her cult at Nakhla and others The Nabatean inscriptions define Allat and Al Uzza as the bride of Dushara Al Uzza may have been an epithet of Allat in the Nabataean religion according to John F Healey 145 Outside Petra other deities were worshipped for example Hubal and Manat were invoked in the Hejaz and al Lat was invoked in the Hauran and the Syrian desert The Nabataean king Obodas I who founded Obodat was deified and worshipped as a god 146 They also worshipped Shay al Qawm 147 al Kutba 140 and various Greco Roman deities such as Nike and Tyche 148 Maxime Rodinson suggests that Hubal who was popular in Mecca had a Nabataean origin 149 Nike holding up a bust of Atargatis crowned as Tyche and encircled by the signs of the zodiac Amman Museum copy of Nabataean statue 100 AD The worship of Pakidas a Nabataean god is attested at Gerasa alongside Hera in an inscription dated to the first century A D while an Arabian god is also attested by three inscriptions dated to the second century 150 The Nabataeans were known for their elaborate tombs but they were not just for show they were meant to be comfortable places for the dead 151 Petra has many sacred high places which include altars that have usually been interpreted as places of human sacrifice although since the 1960s an alternative theory that they are exposure platforms for placing the corpses of the deceased as part of a funerary ritual has been put forward However there is in fact little evidence for either proposition 152 Religious beliefs of Arabs outside Arabia Edit Palmyra was a cosmopolitan society with its population being a mix of Aramaeans and Arabs The Arabs of Palmyra worshipped al Lat Rahim and Shamash The temple of al Lat was established by the Bene Ma zin tribe who were probably an Arab tribe 153 The nomads of the countryside worshipped a set of deities bearing Arab names and attributes 154 most prominent of them was Abgal 155 who himself is not attested in Palmyra itself 156 Ma n an Arab god was worshipped alongside Abgal in a temple dedicated in 195 AD at Khirbet Semrin in the Palmyrene region while an inscription dated 194 AD at Ras esh Shaar calls him the good and bountiful god A stele at Ras esh Shaar shows him riding a horse with a lance while the god Saad is riding a camel Abgal Ma n and Sa d were known as the genii 157 The god Ashar was represented on a stele in Dura Europos alongside another god Sa d The former was represented on a horse with Arab dress while the other was shown standing on the ground Both had Parthian hairstyle large facial hair and moustaches as well as similar clothing Ashar s name is found to have been used in a theophoric manner among the Arab majority areas of the region of the Northwest Semitic languages like Hatra where names like Refuge of Ashar Servant of Ashar and Ashar has given are recorded on an inscription 158 In Edessa the solar deity was the primary god around the time of the Roman Emperor Julian and this worship was presumably brought in by migrants from Arabia Julian s oration delivered to the denizens of the city mentioned that they worshipped the Sun surrounded by Azizos and Monimos whom Iamblichus identified with Ares and Hermes respectively Monimos derived from Mu nim or the favourable one and was another name of Ruda or Ruldaiu as apparent from spellings of his name in Sennacherib s Annals 159 The idol of the god al Uqaysir was according to the Book of Idols located in Syria and was worshipped by the tribes of Quda a Lakhm Judham Amela and Ghatafan 160 Adherents would go on a pilgrimage to the idol and shave their heads then mix their hair with wheat for every single hair a handful of wheat 160 A shrine to Dushara has been discovered in the harbour of ancient Puteoli in Italy The city was an important nexus for trade to the Near East and it is known to have had a Nabataean presence during the mid 1st century BCE 161 A Minaean altar dedicated to Wadd evidently existed in Delos containing two inscriptions in Minaean and Greek respectively 162 Bedouin religious beliefs Edit The Bedouin were introduced to Meccan ritualistic practices as they frequented settled towns of the Hejaz during the four months of the holy truce the first three of which were devoted to religious observance while the fourth was set aside for trade 109 Alan Jones infers from Bedouin poetry that the gods even Allah were less important to the Bedouins than Fate 163 They seem to have had little trust in rituals and pilgrimages as means of propitiating Fate but had recourse to divination and soothsayers kahins 163 The Bedouins regarded some trees wells caves and stones as sacred objects either as fetishes or as means of reaching a deity 164 They created sanctuaries where people could worship fetishes 165 The Bedouins had a code of honor which Fazlur Rahman Malik states may be regarded as their religious ethics This code encompassed women bravery hospitality honouring one s promises and pacts and vengeance They believed that the ghost of a slain person would cry out from the grave until their thirst for blood was quenched Practices such as killing of infant girls were often regarded as having religious sanction 165 Numerous mentions of jinn in the Quran and testimony of both pre Islamic and Islamic literature indicate that the belief in spirits was prominent in pre Islamic Bedouin religion 166 However there is evidence that the word jinn is derived from Aramaic ginnaye which was widely attested in Palmyrene inscriptions The Aramaic word was used by Christians to designate pagan gods reduced to the status of demons and was introduced into Arabic folklore only late in the pre Islamic era 166 Julius Wellhausen has observed that such spirits were thought to inhabit desolate dingy and dark places and that they were feared 166 One had to protect oneself from them but they were not the objects of a true cult 166 Bedouin religious experience also included an apparently indigenous cult of ancestors 166 The dead were not regarded as powerful but rather as deprived of protection and needing charity of the living as a continuation of social obligations beyond the grave 166 Only certain ancestors especially heroes from which the tribe was said to derive its name seem to have been objects of real veneration 166 Other religions EditIranian religions Edit Iranian religions existed in pre Islamic Arabia on account of Sasanian military presence along the Persian Gulf and South Arabia and on account of trade routes between the Hejaz and Iraq Some Arabs in northeast of the peninsula converted to Zoroastrianism and several Zoroastrian temples were constructed in Najd Some of the members from the tribe of Banu Tamim had converted to the religion There is also evidence of existence of Manichaeism in Arabia as several early sources indicate a presence of zandaqas in Mecca although the term could also be interpreted as referring to Mazdakism However according to the most recent research by Tardieu the prevalence of Manichaeism in Mecca during the 6th and 7th centuries when Islam emerged can not be proven 167 168 169 Similar reservations regarding the appearance of Manichaeism and Mazdakism in pre Islamic Mecca are offered by Trompf amp Mikkelsen et al in their latest work 2018 170 171 There is evidence for the circulation of Iranian religious ideas in the form of Persian loan words in Quran such as firdaws paradise 172 173 Zoroastrianism was also present in Eastern Arabia 174 175 176 and Persian speaking Zoroastrians lived in the region 177 The religion was introduced in the region including modern day Bahrain during the rule of Persian empires in the region starting from 250 B C It was mainly practiced in Bahrain by Persian settlers Zoroastrianism was also practiced in the Persian ruled area of modern day Oman The religion also existed in Persian ruled area of modern Yemen The descendants of Abna the Persian conquerors of Yemen were followers of Zoroastrianism 178 179 Yemen s Zoroastrians who had the jizya imposed on them after being conquered by Muhammad are mentioned by the Islamic historian al Baladhuri 179 According to Serjeant the Baharna people may be the Arabized descendants of converts from the original population of ancient Persians majus as well as other religions 180 Abrahamic religions Edit Judaism Edit Further information Jewish tribes of Arabia Seal ring from Zafar with writing Yishaq bar Hanina and a Torah ark 330 BC 200 AD A thriving community of Jewish tribes existed in pre Islamic Arabia and included both sedentary and nomadic communities Jews had migrated into Arabia from Roman times onwards 181 Arabian Jews spoke Arabic as well as Hebrew and Aramaic and had contact with Jewish religious centers in Babylonia and Palestine 181 The Yemeni Himyarites converted to Judaism in the 4th century and some of the Kinda were also converted in the 4th 5th century 182 Jewish tribes existed in all major Arabian towns during Muhammad s time including in Tayma and Khaybar as well as Medina with twenty tribes living in the peninsula From tomb inscriptions it is visible that Jews also lived in Mada in Saleh and Al Ula 183 There is evidence that Jewish converts in the Hejaz were regarded as Jews by other Jews as well as by non Jews and sought advice from Babylonian rabbis on matters of attire and kosher food 181 In at least one case it is known that an Arab tribe agreed to adopt Judaism as a condition for settling in a town dominated by Jewish inhabitants 181 Some Arab women in Yathrib Medina are said to have vowed to make their child a Jew if the child survived since they considered the Jews to be people of knowledge and the book ʿilmin wa kitabin 181 Philip Hitti infers from proper names and agricultural vocabulary that the Jewish tribes of Yathrib consisted mostly of Judaized clans of Arabian and Aramaean origin 109 The key role played by Jews in the trade and markets of the Hejaz meant that market day for the week was the day preceding the Jewish Sabbath 181 This day which was called aruba in Arabic also provided occasion for legal proceedings and entertainment which in turn may have influenced the choice of Friday as the day of Muslim congregational prayer 181 Toward the end of the sixth century the Jewish communities in the Hejaz were in a state of economic and political decline but they continued to flourish culturally in and beyond the region 181 They had developed their distinctive beliefs and practices with a pronounced mystical and eschatological dimension 181 In the Islamic tradition based on a phrase in the Quran Arab Jews are said to have referred to Uzair as the son of Allah although the historical accuracy of this assertion has been disputed 26 Jewish agriculturalists lived in the region of Eastern Arabia 184 185 According to Robert Bertram Serjeant the Baharna may be the Arabized descendants of converts from Christians Arameans Jews and ancient Persians Majus inhabiting the island and cultivated coastal provinces of Eastern Arabia at the time of the Arab conquest 180 From the Islamic sources it seems that Judaism was the religion most followed in Yemen Ya qubi claimed all Yemenites to be Jews Ibn Hazm however states only Himyarites and some Kindites were Jews 179 Christianity Edit Jubail Church in eastern Saudi Arabia The 4th century remains are thought to be one of the oldest surviving church buildings in the world The main areas of Christian influence in Arabia were on the northeastern and northwestern borders and in what was to become Yemen in the south 186 The north west was under the influence of Christian missionary activity from the Roman Empire where the Ghassanids a client kingdom of the Romans were converted to Christianity 187 In the south particularly at Najran a centre of Christianity developed as a result of the influence of the Christian Kingdom of Axum based on the other side of the Red Sea in Ethiopia 186 Some of the Banu Harith had converted to Christianity One family of the tribe built a large church at Najran called Deir Najran also known as the Ka ba of Najran Both the Ghassanids and the Christians in the south adopted Monophysitism 186 The third area of Christian influence was on the north eastern borders where the Lakhmids a client tribe of the Sassanians adopted Nestorianism being the form of Christianity having the most influence in the Sassanian Empire 186 As the Persian Gulf region of Arabia increasingly fell under the influence of the Sassanians from the early third century many of the inhabitants were exposed to Christianity following the eastward dispersal of the religion by Mesopotamian Christians 188 However it was not until the fourth century that Christianity gained popularity in the region with the establishment of monasteries and a diocesan structure 189 In pre Islamic times the population of Eastern Arabia consisted of Christianized Arabs including Abd al Qays and Aramean Christians among other religions 177 Syriac functioned as a liturgical language 190 191 Serjeant states that the Baharna may be the Arabized descendants of converts from the original population of Christians Aramaeans among other religions at the time of Arab conquests 185 Beth Qatraye which translates region of the Qataris in Syriac was the Christian name used for the region encompassing north eastern Arabia 192 193 It included Bahrain Tarout Island Al Khatt Al Hasa and Qatar 194 Oman and what is today the United Arab Emirates comprised the diocese known as Beth Mazunaye The name was derived from Mazun the Persian name for Oman and the United Arab Emirates Sohar was the central city of the diocese 192 194 In Nejd in the centre of the peninsula there is evidence of members of two tribes Kinda and Taghlib converting to Christianity in the 6th century However in the Hejaz in the west whilst there is evidence of the presence of Christianity it is not thought to have been significant amongst the indigenous population of the area 186 Arabicized Christian names were fairly common among pre Islamic Arabians which has been attributed to the influence that Syrianized Christian Arabs had on Bedouins of the peninsula for several centuries before the rise of Islam 195 Neal Robinson based on verses in the Quran believes that some Arab Christians may have held unorthodox beliefs such as the worshipping of a divine triad of God the father Jesus the Son and Mary the Mother 196 Furthermore there is evidence that unorthodox groups such as the Collyridians whose adherents worshipped Mary were present in Arabia and it has been proposed that the Quran refers to their beliefs 197 However other scholars notably Mircea Eliade William Montgomery Watt G R Hawting and Sidney H Griffith cast doubt on the historicity or reliability of such references in the Quran Their views are as follows Mircea Eliade argues that Muhammad s knowledge of Christianity was rather approximative 198 and that references to the triad of God Jesus and Mary probably reflect the likelihood that Muhammad s information on Christianity came from people who had knowledge of the Monophysite Church of Abyssinia which was known for extreme veneration of Mary 198 William Montgomery Watt points out that we do not know how far Muhammad was acquainted with Christian beliefs prior to the conquest of Mecca and that dating of some of the passages criticizing Christianity is uncertain 199 His view is that Muhammad and the early Muslims may have been unaware of some orthodox Christian doctrines including the nature of the trinity because Muhammad s Christian informants had a limited grasp of doctrinal issues 200 Watt has also argued that the verses criticizing Christian doctrines in the Quran are attacking Christian heresies like tritheism and physical sonship rather than orthodox Christianity 199 201 G R Hawting Sidney H Griffith and Gabriel Reynolds argue that the verses commenting on apparently unorthodox Christian beliefs should be read as an informed polemically motivated caricature of mainstream Christian doctrine whose goal is to highlight how wrong some of its tenets appear from an Islamic perspective 201 See also EditAncient Semitic religion Ancient Canaanite religion Book of Idols Hanif Religions of the ancient Near East Rahmanism Shirk Islam TaghutReferences EditCitations Edit a b Hoyland 2002 p 139 a b c d Berkey 2003 p 42 a b c Nicolle 2012 p 19 a b Doniger 1999 p 70 a b Mouton amp Schmid 2014 p 338 a b Teixidor 2015 p 70 Peters 1994a p 6 Robin Christian Julien South Arabia Religions in Pre Islamic in McAuliffe 2005 pp 92harvnb error no target CITEREFMcAuliffe2005 help a b c d Teixidor 2015 p 73 74 a b c d Robin Christian Julien South Arabia Religions in Pre Islamic in McAuliffe 2005 pp 87harvnb error no target CITEREFMcAuliffe2005 help Meyer Hubbert 2016 p 72 a b c Aslan 2008 p 6 Peters 1994b p 105 a b Hoyland 2002 p 144 a b c d e f Hoyland 2002 p 145 Teixidor 1979 p 77 El Zein 2009 p 34 El Zein 2009 p 122 Lebling 2010 p 96 sfn error no target CITEREFLebling2010 help Cramer 1979 p 104 a b c d e f Robin Christian Julien South Arabia Religions in Pre Islamic in McAuliffe 2005 pp 88harvnb error no target CITEREFMcAuliffe2005 help a b Waardenburg 2003 p 89 Campo 2009 p 34 sfn error no target CITEREFCampo2009 help a b c d Hughes 2013 p 25 a b c Peters 1994b p 107 a b c d e Robinson 2013 p 75 a b c Peters 1994b p 110 a b Peterson 2007 p 21 a b Bowering Gerhard God and his Attributes in McAuliffe 2005harvnb error no target CITEREFMcAuliffe2005 help a b Peterson 2007 p 46 a b c d e f Robin Christian Julien Arabia and Ethiopia in Johnson 2012 pp 304 305 Hitti 1970 p 100 101 sfn error no target CITEREFHitti1970 help Phipps 1999 p 21 a b Coulter amp Turner 2013 p 37 Guillaume 1963 p 7 Corduan 2013 p 112 113 Rodinson 2002 p 119 Taylor 2001 p 130 131 162 Healey 2001 p 110 153 a b Hoyland 2002 p 63 Frank amp Montgomery 2007 p 89 Hawting 1999 p 142 Zeitlin 2007 p 44 Gilbert 2010 p 8 Leeming 2004 p 122 Coulter amp Turner 2013 p 317 Healey 2001 p 112 114 Corrente Paola Dushara and Allat alias Dionysos and Aphrodite in Herodotus 3 8 in Bernabe et al 2013 pp 265 266 Peters 2003 p 45 a b Hoyland 2002 p 140 Hirsch Emil G Benzinger Immanuel 1906 Stone and Stone Worship Semitic Stone Worship Jewish Encyclopedia Kopelman Foundation Archived from the original on 31 October 2012 Retrieved 21 November 2020 The worship of sacred stones constituted one of the most general and ancient forms of religion but among no other people was this worship so important as among the Semites The religion of the nomads of Syria and Arabia was summarized by Clement of Alexandria in the single statement The Arabs worship the stone and all the data afforded by Arabian authors regarding the pre Islamitic faith confirm his words The sacred stone nuṣb plural anṣab is a characteristic and indispensable feature in an ancient Arabian place of worship When the Arabs offered bloody sacrifices the blood was smeared on the sacred stones and in the case of offerings of oil the stones were anointed comp Gen xxviii 18 xxxi 13 The same statement holds true of the Greco Roman cult although the black stone of Mecca on the other hand is caressed and kissed by the worshipers In the course of time however the altar and the sacred stone were differentiated and stones of this character were erected around the altar Among both Canaanites and Israelites the maẓẓebah was separated from the altar which thus became the place for the burning of the victim as well as for the shedding of its blood That the altar was a development from the sacred stone is clearly shown by the fact that in accordance with ancient custom hewn stones might not be used in its construction a b Hoyland 2002 p 183 a b c Hoyland 2002 p 185 a b c al Kalbi 2015 p 12 13 a b c d e f g Robin Christian Julien South Arabia Religions in Pre Islamic in McAuliffe 2005 pp 90harvnb error no target CITEREFMcAuliffe2005 help a b Hoyland 2002 p 157 Hoyland 2002 p 158 a b c d Hoyland 2002 p 159 a b c d e f g Robin Christian Julien South Arabia Religions in Pre Islamic in McAuliffe 2005 pp 89harvnb error no target CITEREFMcAuliffe2005 help a b c Hoyland 2002 p 161 Hoyland 2002 p 162 al Azmeh 2017 p 198 a b al Azmeh 2017 p 199 al Azmeh 2017 p 201 Peters 1994b p 96 Wheatley 2001 p 366 a b al Abbasi Abeer Abdullah August 2020 The Arabsʾ Visions of the Upper Realm Marburg Journal of Religion University of Marburg 22 2 1 28 doi 10 17192 mjr 2020 22 8301 ISSN 1612 2941 Retrieved 23 May 2022 Hoyland 2002 p 153 Hoyland 2002 p 154 a b Hoyland 2002 p 155 Hoyland 2002 p 155 156 a b al Kalbi 2015 p 30 a b Hoyland 2002 p 156 a b c d Hoyland 2002 p 165 a b Hoyland 2002 p 163 a b c Hoyland 2002 p 166 al Kalbi 2015 p 27 a b Crawford 1998 p 79 a b c Hoyland 2002 p 142 144 a b c d e Robin Christian Julien Before Himyar Epigraphic evidence in Fisher 2015 pp 97 98 Lurker 2015 p 20 Korotaev 1996 p 82 sfn error no target CITEREFKorotaev1996 help Lurker 2015 p 26 a b c Hoyland 2002 p 141 The Encyclopaedia of Islam Volume 1 Brill p 812 a b Hawting 1999 p 125 Ancient Civilizations of Africa 1981 p 395 ISBN 9780435948054 Lurker 2015 p 41 Ancient Civilizations of Africa 1981 p 397 ISBN 9780435948054 Finneran Niall 2007 11 08 The Archaeology of Ethiopia p 180 ISBN 978 1136755521 Ancient Civilizations of Africa 1981 pp 352 353 ISBN 9780435948054 a b c Robin Christian Julien Arabia and Ethiopia in Johnson 2012 pp 270 Hoyland 2002 p 50 a b al Sa ud 2011 p 84 Hoyland 2002 p 201 al Kalbi 2015 p 14 al Kalbi 2015 p 16 Healey amp Porter 2003 p 107 al Kalbi 2015 p 12 a b Peters 2017 p 207 sfn error no target CITEREFPeters2017 help Healey amp Porter 2003 p 93 Peters 1994a p 5 7 a b Humphreys 1991 p 69 71 a b c d Donner Fred M The historical context in McAuliffe 2006 pp 33 34harvnb error no target CITEREFMcAuliffe2006 help Humphreys 1991 p 69 71 Humphreys 1991 p 86 87 Humphreys 1991 p 86 87 Lindsay 2005 p 7 a b c d Zeitlin 2007 p 33 34 a b c d e Robin Christian Julien Arabia and Ethiopia in Johnson 2012 pp 286 287 Zeitlin 2007 p 33 34 Armstrong 2000 p 11 Peters 1994b p 108 109 a b c Zeitlin 2007 p 30 Zeitlin 2007 p 33 Sykes 2014 p 7 Fahd 2012 al Kalbi 2015 p 27 28 Coulter amp Turner 2013 p 305 a b Robin Christian Julien Arabia and Ethiopia in Johnson 2012 pp 303 304 Peters 1994b p 106 Robin Christian Julien Arabia and Ethiopia in Johnson 2012 pp 297 299 a b c d e f Robin Christian Julien Arabia and Ethiopia in Johnson 2012 pp 302 Hawting 1999 p 1 a b c d e Robin Christian Julien Arabia and Ethiopia in Johnson 2012 pp 301 a b Zeitlin 2007 p 49 Zeitlin 2007 p 31 Peters 1994b p 169 a b Watt Montgomery Muhammad in Lambton amp Lewis 1977 pp 36 Armstrong 2000 p 23 Tabari 1990 p 46 sfn error no target CITEREFTabari1990 help al Kalbi 2015 p 13 14 25 26 a b c Hoyland 2002 p 207 Healey 2001 p 126 Hoyland 2002 p 132 136 Neusner 2006 p 295 Teixidor 2015 p 72 a b c d McLaughlin 2012 p 124 125 Healey 2001 p 89 a b Drijvers 1980 p 154 Kaizer 2008 p 87 al Kalbi 2015 p 51 al Kalbi 2015 p 9 Hawting 1999 p 92 Paola Corrente 2013 06 26 Alberto Bernabe Miguel Herrero de Jauregui Ana Isabel Jimenez San Cristobal Raquel Martin Hernandez eds Redefining Dionysos Walter de Gruyter pp 263 264 ISBN 9783110301328 Sartre 2005 p 18 Taylor 2001 p 126 Taylor 2001 p 145 Rodinson 2002 p 39 Chancey 2002 p 136 Healey 2001 p 169 175 Ball 2002 p 67 68 Teixidor 1979 p 36 Drijvers 1976 p 4 Drijvers 1976 p 21 Teixidor 1979 p 81 Teixidor 1979 p 82 Teixidor 1979 p 84 Teixidor 1979 p 68 69 a b al Kalbi 2015 p 42 AA VV Museo archeologico dei Campi Flegrei Catalogo generale vol 2 Pozzuoli Electa Napoli 2008 pp 60 63 Robin Christian Julien Before Himyar Epigraphic evidence in Fisher 2015 pp 118 a b Zeitlin 2007 p 29 Zeitlin 2007 p 37 a b Carmody amp Carmody 2015 p 135 a b c d e f g Zeitlin 2007 p 59 60 Tardieu Michel 2008 Manichaeism translated by DeBevoise Tardieu Michel Les manicheens en Egypte Bulletin de la Societe Francaise d Egyptologie Manichaeism Activity in Arabia That Manicheism went further on to the Arabian peninsula up to the Hejaz and Mecca where it could have possibly contributed to the formation of the doctrine of Islam cannot be proven Garry W Strompf amp Gunner Mikkelsen 2018 The Gnostic World Routledge ISBN 978 1138673939 Perhaps the charge of zandaqa functions in this report as a belated rhetorical caricature with no historical substance much like the employment of congeners Manichee and Gnostic in the vocabulary of christian heresiography If this is the case historians can no longer appeal to the testimony of al Kalbi as undisputable evidence for the proliferation of Manichaen Doctrine in pre islamic Mecca Ibid Strompf amp Mikkelsen et al This tradition is persistently echoed by later tradents whose values as independent witnesses to Manichaean activity in early seventh century Mecca are correspondingly suspect Hughes 2013 p 31 32 Berkey 2003 p 47 48 Crone 2005 p 371 Gelder 2005 p 110 Stefon 2009 p 36 a b Houtsma 1993 p 98 Esposito 1999 p 4 a b c Lecker 1998 p 20 a b Holes 2001 p XXIV XXVI a b c d e f g h i Zeitlin 2007 p 87 93 Shahid 1995 p 265 sfn error no target CITEREFShahid1995 help Gilbert 2010 p 2 9 Smart 2013 p 305 sfn error no target CITEREFSmart2013 help a b Holes 2001 p XXIV XXVI a b c d e Goddard 2000 p 15 17 Berkey 2003 p 44 46 Gilman amp Klimkeit 1999 p 87 sfn error no target CITEREFGilmanKlimkeit1999 help Kozah amp Abu Husayn 2014 p 55 Smart 1996 p 305 Cameron 2002 p 185 a b Nestorian Christianity in the Pre Islamic UAE and Southeastern Arabia Peter Hellyer Journal of Social Affairs volume 18 number 72 winter 2011 p 88 AUB academics awarded 850 000 grant for project on the Syriac writers of Qatar in the 7th century AD American University of Beirut 31 May 2011 Archived on 28 April 2015 Retrieved 12 May 2015 a b Kozah amp Abu Husayn 2014 p 24 Zeitlin 2007 p 35 Robinson 2013 p 76 Sirry 2014 p 46 a b Eliade 2013 p 77 a b Watt 1956 p 318 Watt 1956 p 320 a b Sirry 2014 p 47 Sources Edit Armstrong Karen 2000 Islam A Short History Modern Library ISBN 978 0 8129 6618 3 Aslan Reza 2008 No God but God The Origins Evolution and Future of Islam Random House ISBN 978 1 4070 0928 5 al Azmeh Aziz 2017 The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity Allah and His People Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 316 64155 2 Ball Warwick 2002 Rome in the East The Transformation of an Empire Routledge ISBN 978 1 134 82387 1 Berkey Jonathan Porter 2003 The Formation of Islam Religion and Society in the Near East 600 1800 Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 58813 3 Bernabe Alberto Jauregui Miguel Herrero de Cristobal Ana Isabel Jimenez San Hernandez Raquel Martin eds 2013 Redefining Dionysos Walter de Gruyter ISBN 978 3 11 030132 8 Bukharin Mikhail D 2009 Mecca On The Caravan Routes In Pre Islamic Antiquity In Marx Michael Neuwirth Angelika Sinai Nicolai eds The Qurʾan in Context Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾanic Milieu Texts and Studies on the Qurʾan Vol 6 Leiden and Boston Brill Publishers pp 115 134 doi 10 1163 ej 9789004176881 i 864 25 ISBN 978 90 04 17688 1 ISSN 1567 2808 S2CID 127529256 Cameron Averil 2002 The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity Routledge ISBN 978 1 134 98081 9 Carmody Denise Lardner Carmody John Tully 2015 In the Path of the Masters Understanding the Spirituality of Buddha Confucius Jesus and Muhammad Understanding the Spirituality of Buddha Confucius Jesus and Muhammad Routledge ISBN 978 1 317 46820 2 Chancey Mark A 2002 The Myth of a Gentile Galilee Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 139 43465 2 Corduan Winfried 2013 Neighboring Faiths A Christian Introduction to World Religions InterVarsity Press ISBN 978 0 8308 7197 1 Coulter Charles Russell Turner Patricia 2013 Encyclopedia of Ancient Deities Routledge ISBN 978 1 135 96390 3 Cramer Marc 1979 The Devil Within University of Michigan ISBN 978 0 491 02366 5 Crawford Harriet E W 1998 Dilmun and Its Gulf Neighbours Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 58679 5 Crone Patricia 2005 Medieval Islamic Political Thought Edinburgh University Press ISBN 978 0 7486 2194 1 El Zein Amira 2009 Islam Arabs and Intelligent World of the Jinn Syracuse University Press ISBN 978 0 8156 3200 9 Doniger Wendy ed 1999 Merriam Webster s Encyclopedia of World Religions Merriam Webster ISBN 978 0 87779 044 0 Drijvers H J W 1976 van Baaren Theodoor Pieter Leertouwer Lammert Leemhuis Fred Buning H eds The Religion of Palmyra Brill ISBN 978 0 585 36013 3 Drijvers H J W 1980 Cults and Beliefs at Edessa Brill Archive ISBN 978 90 04 06050 0 Eliade Mircea 2013 History of Religious Ideas Volume 3 From Muhammad to the Age of Reforms University of Chicago Press ISBN 978 0 226 14772 7 Esposito John 1999 The Oxford History of Islam Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 510799 9 Fahd T 2012 Manaf In Bearman P J Bianquis Th Bosworth C E van Donzel E J Heinrichs W P eds Encyclopaedia of Islam 2nd ed Brill doi 10 1163 1573 3912 islam SIM 4901 ISBN 978 90 04 16121 4 Fisher Greg 2015 Arabs and Empires before Islam OUP Oxford ISBN 978 0 19 105699 4 Finster Barbara 2009 Arabia In Late Antiquity An Outline of The Cultural Situation In The Peninsula At The Time of Muhammad In Marx Michael Neuwirth Angelika Sinai Nicolai eds The Qurʾan in Context Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾanic Milieu Texts and Studies on the Qurʾan Vol 6 Leiden and Boston Brill Publishers pp 61 114 doi 10 1163 ej 9789004176881 i 864 21 ISBN 978 90 04 17688 1 ISSN 1567 2808 S2CID 160525414 Frank Richard M Montgomery James Edward 2007 Arabic Theology Arabic Philosophy From the Many to the One Peeters Publishers ISBN 978 90 429 1778 1 Gelder G J H van 2005 Close Relationships Incest and Inbreeding in Classical Arabic Literature I B Tauris ISBN 978 1 85043 855 7 Gilbert Martin 2010 In Ishmael s House A History of Jews in Muslim Lands McClelland amp Stewart ISBN 978 1 55199 342 3 Gilman Ian Klimkeit Hans Joachim 2013 Christians in Asia before 1500 Routledge ISBN 978 1 136 10978 2 Goddard Hugh 2000 A History of Christian Muslim Relations Rowman amp Littlefield ISBN 978 1 56663 340 6 Guillaume Alfred 1963 Islam Cassell Hawting G R 1999 The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam From Polemic to History Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 139 42635 0 Healey John F 2001 The Religion of the Nabataeans A Conspectus Brill ISBN 978 90 04 10754 0 Healey John F Porter Venetia 2003 Studies on Arabia in Honour of G Felix Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 851064 2 Holes Clive 2001 Dialect Culture and Society in Eastern Arabia Glossary Brill ISBN 978 90 04 10763 2 Houtsma Martijn Theodoor ed 1993 E J Brill s First Encyclopaedia of Islam 1913 1936 Volume 5 Brill ISBN 978 90 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in the Seventh Century Gorgias Press LLC ISBN 978 1 4632 0355 9 Lambton Ann K S Lewis Bernard 1977 The Cambridge History of Islam Volume 1A Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 29135 4 Lindsay James E 2005 Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World Greenwood Publishing Group ISBN 978 0 313 32270 9 Lurker Manfred 2015 A Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses Devils and Demons Routledge ISBN 978 1 136 10628 6 Lecker Michael 1998 Jews and Arabs in Pre and Early Islamic Arabia Ashgate ISBN 978 0 86078 784 6 Leeming David Adams 2004 Jealous Gods and Chosen People The Mythology of the Middle East Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 534899 6 McLaughlin John L 2012 The Ancient Near East Abingdon Press ISBN 978 1 4267 6550 6 Meyer Hubbert Katarzyna Aleksandra 2016 Un Rein zum Gebet Zu den islamischen Religionsnormierungen des Ortes der Kleidung und der Intention in ihrem interkulturellen Entstehungsraum Hochschule des Bundes fur offentliche Verwaltung Mir Mustansir 2006 Polytheism and Atheism In McAuliffe Jane Dammen ed Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾan Vol IV Leiden and Boston Brill Publishers doi 10 1163 1875 3922 q3 EQCOM 00151 ISBN 978 90 04 14743 0 Mouton Michel Schmid Stephan G 2014 Men on the Rocks The Formation of Nabataean Petra Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH ISBN 978 3 8325 3313 7 Neusner Jacob 2006 Jeremiah in Talmud and Midrash A Source Book University Press of America ISBN 978 0 7618 3487 8 Nicolle David 2012 The Great Islamic Conquests AD 632 750 Osprey Publishing ISBN 978 1 78096 998 5 Peters Francis Edward 1994a Mecca A Literary History of the Muslim Holy Land Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 03267 2 Peters Francis Edward 1994b Muhammad and the Origins of Islam SUNY Press ISBN 978 0 7914 1875 8 Peters Francis Edward 2003 Islam a Guide for Jews and Christians Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 11553 5 Peterson Daniel C 2007 Muhammad Prophet of God Wm B Eerdmans Publishing ISBN 978 0 8028 0754 0 Phipps William E 1999 Muhammad and Jesus A Comparison of the Prophets and Their Teachings A amp C Black ISBN 978 0 8264 1207 2 Robin Christian Julien 2006 South Arabia Religions in Pre Islamic In McAuliffe Jane Dammen ed Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾan Vol V Leiden Brill Publishers doi 10 1163 1875 3922 q3 EQCOM 00189 ISBN 90 04 14743 8 Robinson Neal 1991 Christ in Islam and Christianity The Representation of Jesus in the Qur an and the Classical Muslim Commentaries Albany New York SUNY Press ISBN 978 0 7914 0558 1 S2CID 169122179 Robinson Neal 2013 Islam A Concise Introduction Routledge ISBN 978 1 136 81773 1 Rodinson Maxime 2002 Muhammad Prophet of Islam Tauris Parke Paperbacks ISBN 978 1 86064 827 4 al Sa ud Abd Allah Sa ud 2011 Central Arabia During the Early Hellenistic Period King Fahd National Library ISBN 978 9 960 00097 8 Sartre Maurice 2005 The Middle East Under Rome Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 01683 5 Seidensticker Tilman 2009 Sources For The History of Pre Islamic Religion In Marx Michael Neuwirth Angelika Sinai Nicolai eds The Qurʾan in Context Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾanic Milieu Texts and Studies on the Qurʾan Vol 6 Leiden and Boston Brill Publishers pp 293 322 doi 10 1163 ej 9789004176881 i 864 66 ISBN 978 90 04 17688 1 ISSN 1567 2808 S2CID 161557309 Shahid Irfan 1995 Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century Dumbarton Oaks ISBN 978 0 88402 284 8 Sirry Mun im 2014 Scriptural Polemics The Qur an and Other Religions Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 935937 0 Smart J R 1996 Tradition and Modernity in Arabic Language and Literature Psychology Press ISBN 978 0 7007 0411 8 Stefon Matt 2009 Islamic Beliefs and Practices The Rosen Publishing Group Inc ISBN 978 1 61530 017 4 Stein Peter 2009 Literacy In Pre Islamic Arabia An Analysis of The Epigraphic Evidence In Marx Michael Neuwirth Angelika Sinai Nicolai eds The Qurʾan in Context Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾanic Milieu Texts and Studies on the Qurʾan Vol 6 Leiden and Boston Brill Publishers pp 255 280 doi 10 1163 ej 9789004176881 i 864 58 ISBN 978 90 04 17688 1 ISSN 1567 2808 S2CID 68889318 Sykes Egerton 2014 Who s Who in Non Classical Mythology Routledge ISBN 978 1 136 41437 4 al Tabari Muhammad ibn Jarir 1990 The Last Years of the Prophet translated by Husayn Isma il Qurban State University of New York Press ISBN 978 0 88706 691 7 Taylor Jane 2001 Petra and the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans I B Tauris ISBN 978 1 86064 508 2 Teixidor Javier 1979 The Pantheon of Palmyra Brill Archive ISBN 978 90 04 05987 0 Teixidor Javier 2015 The Pagan God Popular Religion in the Greco Roman Near East Princeton University Press ISBN 978 1 4008 7139 1 Waardenburg Jean Jacques 2003 The Earliest Relations of Islam with Other Religions The Meccan Polytheists Muslims and Others Relations in Context Religion and Reason vol 41 Berlin De Gruyter pp 89 91 doi 10 1515 9783110200959 ISBN 978 3 11 017627 8 Watt W Montgomery 1956 Muhammad At Medina Oxford At The Clarendon Press p 318 Wheatley Paul 2001 The Places Where Men Pray Together Cities in Islamic Lands Seventh Through the Tenth Centuries University of Chicago Press ISBN 978 0 226 89428 7 Zeitlin Irving M 2007 The Historical Muhammad Polity ISBN 978 0 7456 3999 4 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Religion in pre Islamic Arabia amp oldid 1127443693, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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