Eastern Arabia ,
Nabu (1939). Library of Congress
John Adams Building, Washington, D.C. , 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. It is not known whether these were the only deities in the pantheon or whether there were others. 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. 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. 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.
South Arabia 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. 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. For example, the pantheon of Saba comprised
Almaqah, the major deity, together with '
Athtar,
Haubas, Dhat-Himyam, and
Dhat-Badan. According to the
Book of Idols, Dhu'l-Kaffayn originated from a clan of the
Banu Daws. In addition to being worshipped among the Azd, Dushara is also reported to have a shrine amongst the Daws. Dhu’l-Khalasa was an oracular god and was also worshipped by the
Bajila and Khatham tribes.
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. The god
Astar, a sky-deity was related to that of 'Attar, was also worshipped in Aksum. The god
Almaqah was worshiped at
Hawulti-Melazo. The South Arabian gods in Aksum included Dhat-Himyam and
Dhat-Ba'adan. 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.
Transition to Judaism The
Himyarite kings radically opposed polytheism in favor of
Judaism, beginning officially in 380. 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). 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. Abraha had recently constructed a
splendid church in
Sanaa, and he wanted to make that city a major centre of pilgrimage, but Mecca's Kaaba presented a challenge to his plan. However, there is also evidence that Allah and Hubal were two distinct deities. 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. Religious divisions were an important cause of the crisis. 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. During those months, it was possible to participate in pilgrimages and fairs without danger. The
conquest of Mecca around 629–630 AD led to the destruction of the idols around the
Kaaba, including
Hubal. 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.
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. 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. The
Safaitic tribes in particular prominently worshipped the goddess
al-Lat as a bringer of prosperity. The Syrian god
Baalshamin was also worshipped by
Safaitic tribes and is mentioned in Safaitic inscriptions. Religious worship amongst the
Qedarites, an ancient tribal confederation that was probably subsumed into Nabataea around the 2nd century AD, was centred on 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 (, in Assyrian texts) who communed with the other world. 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. 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. 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". The
Midianites, a people referred to in the
Book of Genesis and located in north-western Arabia, may have worshipped
Yahweh. 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. They transformed it into a desert tent-shrine set up with a copper sculpture of a snake. The
Lihyanites worshipped the god Dhu-Ghabat and rarely turned to others for their needs. Dhu-Ghabat's name means "he of the thicket", based on the etymology of
gabah, meaning forest or thicket. 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, is mentioned in
Lihyanite inscriptions as well. The worship of the
Hermonian gods
Leucothea and
Theandrios was spread from
Phoenicia to Arabia. According to the
Book of Idols, the
Tayy tribe worshipped al-Fals, whose idol stood on
Jabal Aja, while the
Kalb tribe worshipped
Wadd, who had an idol in Dumat al-Jandal.
Nabataeans ,
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-‘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. 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. They also worshipped
Shay al-Qawm,
al-Kutba', and various Greco-Roman deities such as
Nike and
Tyche. Maxime Rodinson suggests that Hubal, who was popular in Mecca, had a Nabataean origin. 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. 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. 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.
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. The nomads of the countryside worshipped a set of deities, bearing Arab names and attributes, most prominent of them was
Abgal, who himself is not attested in Palmyra itself. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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". A shrine to Dushara has been discovered in the
harbour of
ancient Puteoli in Italy, together with the
Puteoli Nabataean inscriptions. 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. A Minaean altar dedicated to Wadd evidently existed in Delos, containing two inscriptions in Minaean and Greek respectively.
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. Alan Jones infers from Bedouin poetry that the gods, even Allah, were less important to the Bedouins than Fate. They seem to have had little trust in rituals and pilgrimages as means of propitiating Fate, but had recourse to divination and soothsayers (). The Bedouins regarded some trees, wells, caves and stones as sacred objects, either as fetishes or as means of reaching a deity. They created sanctuaries where people could worship fetishes. 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. 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. However, there is evidence that the word jinn is derived from Aramaic, , 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.
Julius Wellhausen has observed that such spirits were thought to inhabit desolate, dingy and dark places and that they were feared. One had to protect oneself from them, but they were not the objects of a true cult. Bedouin religious experience also included an apparently indigenous cult of ancestors. 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. Only certain ancestors, especially heroes from which the tribe was said to derive its name, seem to have been objects of real veneration. == Other religions ==