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| Religions of the ancient Near East |
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| Pre-Islamic Arabian deities |
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Hubal (Arabic: هبل) was a god worshipped in pre-Islamic Arabia, notably at the Kaaba in Mecca. His idol was a human figure, believed to control acts of divination, which was in the form of tossing arrows before the statue. The direction in which the arrows pointed answered questions asked of the idol. The origins of the cult of Hubal are uncertain, but the name is found in inscriptions from Nabataea in northern Arabia (across the territory of modern Syria and Iraq). The specific powers and identity attributed to Hubal are equally unclear.
Access to the idol was controlled by the Quraysh tribe. The god's devotees fought against followers of the Islamic prophet Muhammad during the Battle of Badr in 624 CE. After Muhammad entered Mecca in 630 CE, he removed the statue of Hubal from the Kaaba along with the idols of all the other pagan gods.
Hubal in Mecca[edit]
Hubal most prominently appears at Mecca, where an image of him was worshipped at the Kaaba. According to Karen Armstrong, the sanctuary was dedicated to Hubal, who was worshipped as the greatest of the 360 idols the Kaaba contained, which probably represented the days of the year.[1]
Hisham Ibn Al-Kalbi's Book of Idols describes the image as shaped like a human, with the right hand broken off and replaced with a golden hand.[2] According to Ibn Al-Kalbi, the image was made of red agate, whereas Al-Azraqi, an early Islamic commentator, described it as of "cornelian pearl". Al-Azraqi also relates that it "had a vault for the sacrifice" and that the offering consisted of a hundred camels. Both authors speak of seven arrows, placed before the image, which were cast for divination, in cases of death, virginity, and marriage.[2]
According to Ibn Al-Kalbi, the image was first set up by Khuzaymah ibn-Mudrikah ibn-al-Ya's' ibn-Mudar, but another tradition, recorded by Ibn Ishaq, holds that Amr ibn Luhayy, a leader of the Khuza'a tribe, put an image of Hubal into the Kaaba, where it was worshipped as one of the chief deities of the tribe.[3] The date for Amr is disputed, with dates as late as the end of the fourth century CE suggested, but what is quite sure is that the Quraysh later became the protectors of the ancient holy place, supplanting the Khuza'a.
A tale recorded by Ibn Al-Kalbi has Muhammad's grandfather Abdul Mutallib vowing to sacrifice one of his ten children. He consulted the arrows of Hubal to find out which child he should chose. The arrows pointed to his son Abd-Allah, the future father of Muhammad. However, he was saved when 100 camels were sacrificed in his place. According to Tabari, Abdul Mutallib later also brought the infant Muhammad himself before the image.[4]
After defeat by Muhammad's forces at the Battle of Badr, Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, leader of the Quraysh army, is said to have called on Hubal for support to gain victory in their next battle, saying "Show your superiority, Hubal". [5] When Muhammad conquered Meccain 630, he removed and had destroyed the statue of Hubal, along with the other 360 images at the Kaaba, and re-dedicated the structure to Allah.[6]
Origins of Hubal[edit] [[[ Ha[Spirit]+ of Baal]]]
There may be some foundation of truth in the story that Amr travelled in Syria and had brought back from there the cults of the goddesses ʻUzzāʼ and Manat, and had combined it with that of Hubal, the idol of the Khuza'a.[7] According to Al-Azraqi, the image was brought to Mecca "from the land of Hit in Mesopotamia" (Hīt in modern Iraq). Philip K. Hitti, who relates the name Hubal to an Aramaic word for spirit, suggests that the worship of Hubal was imported to Mecca from the north of Arabia, possibly from Moab or Mesopotamia.[8] Hubal may have been the combination of Hu, meaning "spirit" or "god", and the Moab god Baal meaning "master" or "lord". Outside South Arabia, Hubal's name appears just once, in a Nabataean inscription;[9] there hbl is mentioned along with the gods Dushara (ذو الشراة) and Manawatu — the latter, as Manat, was also popular in Mecca. On the basis of such slender evidence, it has been suggested that Hubal "may actually have been a Nabataean".[10] There are also inscriptions in which the word Hubal appears to be part of personal names, translatable as "Son of Hubal" or "made by Hubal".[11]
Mythological role[edit]
The paucity of evidence concerning Hubal makes it difficult to characterise his role or identity in pagan Arabian mythologies. The 19th century scholar Julius Wellhausen suggested that Hubal was regarded as the son of al-Lāt and the brother of Wadd.[12] Hugo Winckler in the early twentieth century speculated that Hubal was a lunar deity, a view that was repeated by other scholars.[13] This was derived from Ditlef Nielsen's theory that South Arabian mythology was based on a trinity of Moon-father, Sun-mother and the evening star (the planet Venus) envisaged as their son.
7. Moon worship was equally popular in various forms. I have already referred to the classical legends of Apollo and Diana, twin brother and sister, representing the sun and the moon. The Egyptian Khonsu, traversing the sky in a boat, referred to the moon, and the moon legends also got mixed up with those about the god of magic, Thoth and the Ibis. In the Vedic religion of India the moon-god was Soma, the lord of the planets, and the name was also applied to the juice which was the drink of the gods. It may be noted that the moon was a male divinity in ancient India; it was also a male divinity in ancient Semitic religion, and the Arabic word for the moon (qamar) is of the masculine gender.
On the other hand, the Arabic word for the sun (shams) is of the feminine gender. The pagan Arabs evidently looked upon the sun as a goddess and the moon as a god.
7. Moon worship was equally popular in various forms. I have already referred to the classical legends of Apollo and Diana, twin brother and sister, representing the sun and the moon. The Egyptian Khonsu, traversing the sky in a boat, referred to the moon, and the moon legends also got mixed up with those about the god of magic, Thoth and the Ibis. In the Vedic religion of India the moon-god was Soma, the lord of the planets, and the name was also applied to the juice which was the drink of the gods. It may be noted that the moon was a male divinity in ancient India; it was also a male divinity in ancient Semitic religion, and the Arabic word for the moon (qamar) is of the masculine gender.
On the other hand, the Arabic word for the sun (shams) is of the feminine gender. The pagan Arabs evidently looked upon the sun as a goddess and the moon as a god.
Mircea Eliade and Charles J. Adams assert that he was "a god of rain and a warrior god. Towards the end of the pre-Islamic era he emerged as an intertribal warrior god worshipped by the Quraysh and the allied tribes of the Kinana and Tihama."[15] The view that he was a warrior rain god is repeated by David Adams Leeming.[16]
John F. Healey in The Religion of the Nabataeans (2001) accepts the Nabataean origins of the god, but says there is little evidence of Hubal's mythological role, but that it is possible that he was closely linked to Dushara in some way. The one surviving inscription concerns a religious injunction to placate Hubal and others for violating a tomb.[11]
In modern culture[edit]
Both Islamists and Christian evangelicals have invoked the figure of Hubal in the ideological struggles of the post Cold War era. In Islamism Hubal has been used as a symbol of modern forms of "idol worship". According to Adnan A. Musallam, this can be traced to one of the founders of radical Islamism, Sayyid Qutb, who used the label to attack secular rulers such as Nasser, seen as creating "idols" based on un-Islamic Western and Marxist ideologies. In 2001, Osama bin Laden called America the modern Hubal. He referred to allies of America as "hypocrites" who "all stood behind the head of global unbelief, the Hubal of the modern age, America and its supporters".[17][18] Al Qaeda's then number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, repeated the phrase ("hubal al-'asr") in describing America, during his November 2008 message following Barack Obama's election to the presidency.[19] The analogy may have been passed on to Bin Laden by one of his teachers, Abdullah Azzam.[20]
Conversely, American Evangelicals have invoked Hubal by claiming that the worship of Allah as proclaimed by Muhammad was not a restoration of Abrahamic monotheism, but an adaptation of the worship of Hubal. Robert Morey's 1994 book Moon-god Allah in the Archeology of the Middle East revives Hugo Winckler's identification of Hubal as a moon god, and claims that worship of Allah evolved from that of Hubal, thus making Allah a "moon god" too.[21] This view is repeated in the Chick tracts "Allah Had No Son" and "The Little Bride". It has been widely circulated in Evangelical and anti-Islamic literature in the United States. In 1996 Janet Parshall asserted that Muslims worship a moon god in syndicated radio broadcasts.[22] In 2003 Pat Robertson stated, "The struggle is whether Hubal, the Moon God of Mecca, known as Allah, is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah God of the Bible is Supreme."[23]
These views have been dismissed by both Muslim and secular religious scholars.[24][25][26] Farzana Hassan sees these claims as an extension of longstanding Christian Evangelical beliefs that Islam is "pagan" and that Muhammad was an impostor and deceiver:
Literature circulated by the Christian Coalition perpetuates the popular Christian belief about Islam being a pagan religion, borrowing aspects of Judeo-Christian monotheism by elevating the moon god Hubal to the rank of Supreme God, or Allah. Muhammad, for fundamentalist Christians, remains an impostor who commissioned his companions to copy words of the Bible as they sat in dark inaccessible places, far removed from public gaze.[
Wadd (Arabic: ود) "Love and Friendship", known variously as Ilumquh, ʻAmm and Sīn, was the Minaean pagan moon god. Snakes were believed to be a sacred symbol to Wadd. He is mentioned in the Qur'an(71:23) as a deity of the time of the Prophet Noah.
The Temple dedicated to Wadd was demolished on the orders of Muhammad, and those who resisted the demolition were killed, in the Expedition of Khalid ibn al-Walid (2nd Dumatul Jandal).[1][2]
Wadd[edit]
Main article: Wadd
Wadd (Arabic: ود) meaning the God of Love and Friendship, also known as Ilumquh, ʻAmm and Sīn, was the Minaean moon god. Snakeswere held sacred to the believers of Wadd. He is mentioned in the Qur'an (71:23) as a God in the time of the Prophet, Noah.
Before it razzed by the invasion of Khalid, the holy shrine of Wadd was located at Dumatul Jandal.[2][7]
Expedition[edit]
Muhammad sent Khalid ibn Walid the demolish Wadd after the battle of Tabuk ,[1][2] an idol worshipped by the Banu Kalb tribe.[7]
Khalid went to Dumatul Jandal to destroy it, but the Banu Abd-Wadd and the Banu Amir al Ajdar tribes resisted. Khalid slew all resistance, Ibn Kalbi also mentions that among those slaughtered were Qatan ibn-Shurayb, whose mother wept at his death and fell over to his body and started sobbing until she died. Khalid demolished the deistic symbol and destroyed the entire shrine.[1][2]
Islamic primary sources[edit]
The Muslim historian Hisham Ibn Al-Kalbi, mentions this event as follows:
| “ | Abu-al-Mundbir related that [his father] al-Kalbi once said: I was told by Malik ibn-Harithah al-Ajdari that he himself had seen Wadd, and that his father was wont to send him to it with some milk saying, "Offer it unto thy god to drink." Malik added, "I used to drink the milk myself.' He also said, "I also saw it after Khalid ibn-al-Walid had destroyed it and smashed it into pieces." For the Apostle of God had, after the battle of Tabuk, sent Khalid ibn-al-Walid to destroy it. But the banu-'Abd-Wadd and the banu-'Amir al-Ajdar resisted Khalid and attempted to defend the idol. Khalid, therefore, fought and defeated them, and then destroyed [the shrine] and demolished the idol. Among those killed in battle on that day was a man of the banu-'Abd-Wadd whose name was Qatan ihn-Shurayb. His mother happened upon him dead and thereupon cried out saying:
"Verily friendiship doth never last, Nor do the blissful times 'er endure; A mother's love doth not save a son From misfortune, nor his life insure." She then said:
"O thou the centre of my love, The source of all my joy and mirth! Would that thy mother were never born, Nor e'er to thee hath given birth." After which she fell over his body sobbing and died. Hassan ibn-Masad, the cousin of al-Ukaydir the ruler of Dumat al-Jandal, was also killed. [In short] it was Khalid who destroyed [Wadd].
[The Book of Idols, By Hisham Ibn-Al-Kalbi, Pg 48-49] [2]
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