Loading ...Arab Polytheism: Religion Before Muhammed
By: Jake Harris / Arab America contributing writer
Islam and the Arab world have a long, shared religious bond going from the Kaaba at Mecca to the Moroccan coast bordering the Atlantic Ocean. Something seldom touched on in Western education is the Arab World before the revelations of the Prophet. It is important to remember that pre-Islamic Arab polytheism was not a uniform belief system and was diverse. Different tribes had unique idols and local deities in the larger Arab pantheon. Another important disclaimer is that there were monotheist Christians and Jews who lived in the Arab world at this time.
Pre-Islamic Religion
Idols were a common theme in Arab polytheism. Statues to be worshipped were a common practice in pre-Islamic religion. There were two main types of statues. Sanam, were statues made of wood, silver, or gold. Awsan were statues made of stone.
Deities in the Arabian pantheon showed resemblance to gods in other pantheons, such as ancient Mesopotamia and Greco-Roman gods. One of the most important gods in the South Arabian pantheon is known as Athtar. One who’s studied ancient mythology would immediately recognize the resemblance to the name of the Mesopotamian god Ishtar. Athtar is the god of thunderstorms and irrigation. Athtar, like Ishtar, is associated with the planet Venus.
Individual gods in South Arabia corresponded with the kingdoms that existed in what is now modern Saudi Arabia. Wadd, the god associated with the moon, is one of the few explicitly mentioned in the Quran as one of the false gods during the Jahiliya, a period known in Islam as “the age of ignorance”.
The Book of Idols
Arabian genealogist Ibn al-Kalbi’s Book of Idols, written in the 8th-9th century CE, is the most commonly referenced source related to religion in the pre-Islamic Arab World. The source is secondary, as well as a collection of different accounts. Contemporary bias must be taken into account when evaluating the source.
The book is almost like a database of all the national and tribal gods. On top of being a pre-medieval encyclopedia of an erased era, it also served to explain some of the religious customs and practices that existed before Islam became the dominant religion in the region.
Hubal
One of the book’s particular focuses is documenting paganism in Mecca. In hindsight, Mecca had particular importance as the future holiest city in Islam. One of the pagan deities worshipped in Mecca was known as Hubal. The god was the idol of the Quraysh tribe. The Kaaba, which now exists as the holiest site in Islam, was initially a place that housed idols of 360 different gods, the highest of them being Hubal. Known primarily as a god of divination, worshippers would shoot arrows at the idol, and the direction in which the arrows pointed would serve as an indicator to a question that mere mortals wanted resolved by the divine.
Conflict between Religion: Muslims and the Quraysh
The revelations revealed to Muhammad by Allah that were recorded in the Quran led to the Prophet accumulating a following that continued to grow among members of the Quraysh tribe. Initially, this was ignored by the leaders of the tribe until Muhammed started to criticize and go after the prior religious practices. Once it started to become a revelation to Muhammed that Allah was the only God, Muhammed and his followers became persecuted by the Meccans.
There was not only an ancestral incentive to keep the practices of their forefathers alive, but also an economic one. There was a concern among Meccan tribal leaders that there would be a decline in pilgrimages to the Kaaba and therefore a drop off in economic activity. Social class was also involved. The teachings of Islam reiterate that everyone, regardless of race, wealth, title, influence,e is equal in the eyes of God. This was seen as a threat to the social hierarchies that existed at the time. Many of the early converts were of a lower social status or in bad standing with their tribe.
The pre-Islamic period in the Arab World is one of those periods in history that is surrounded in time by larger, more centralized empires. Preceding this period was the influence of the Greeks, the Persians, and Alexander the Great. Following this period were the powerful caliphates of the Umayyad, and Abbasids. Perhaps these monumental periods in human history explain why this period is largely glossed over in much of academia. It remains an important part of the history of the Arab world as a whole.
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