Allah as a lunar deity
The postulation that Allah (God in Islam) originated as a moon god first arose in 1901 in the scholarship of archeologist Hugo Winckler. He identified the name Allah with a pre-Islamic Arabian deity known as Lah or Hubal, which he called a lunar deity. The idea has been dismissed by scholars such as Patricia Crone[1] and Joseph Lumbard,[2] and is vehemently rejected by Muslims.[3]
The general idea was widely propagated in the United States in the 1990s by
Scholarly views
Before Islam, the Kaaba contained a statue representing the god Hubal.[6][7] On the basis that the Kaaba was also Allah's house, Julius Wellhausen considered Hubal to be an ancient name for Allah.[8][9][10] The 20th-century scholar Hugo Winckler in turn claimed that Hubal was a moon god,[11] though others have suggested otherwise. David Leeming describes him as a warrior and rain god,[12] as does Mircea Eliade.[13]
More recent scholars have rejected this view, partly because it is speculation but also because of the
Christian proponents
However, recent research from various sources have proven that the "evidence" used by Morey was of the statue retrieved from an excavation site at Hazor, of which there is no connection to "Allah" at all.[18] In fact, Bible scholar and mission strategist Rick Brown openly disagrees with this approach and said:
Those who claim that Allah is a pagan deity, most notably the moon god, often base their claims on the fact that a symbol of the crescent moon adorns the tops of many mosques and is widely used as a symbol of Islam. It is in fact true that before the coming of Islam many "gods" and idols were worshipped in the Middle East, but the name of the moon god was Sîn, not Allah, and he was not particularly popular in Arabia, the birthplace of Islam. The most prominent idol in Mecca was a god called Hubal, and there is no proof that he was a moon god. It is sometimes claimed that there is a temple to the moon god at Hazor in Palestine. This is based on a representation there of a supplicant wearing a crescent-like pendant. It is not clear, however, that the pendant symbolizes a moon god, and in any case this is not an Arab religious site but an ancient Canaanite site, which was destroyed by Joshua in about 1250 BC. ... If the ancient Arabs worshipped hundreds of idols, then no doubt the moon god Sîn was included, for even the Hebrews were prone to worship the sun and the moon and the stars, but there is no clear evidence that moon-worship was prominent among the Arabs in any way or that the crescent was used as the symbol of a moon god, and Allah was certainly not the moon god's name.[19]
In 2009, anthropologist Gregory Starrett wrote, "a recent survey by the
Farzana Hassan sees these views as an extension of long-standing Christian claims that Muhammad was an impostor and deceiver, and has stated: "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."[22]
Muslim views
In 8th-century Arab historian
Whether or not Hubal was even associated with the moon, both Muhammad and his enemies clearly identified Hubal and Allah as different gods, their supporters fighting on opposing sides in the Battle of Uhud. Ibn Hisham notes that Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, leader of the anti-Islamic army, glorified Hubal after their perceived victory at Uhud:
When Abū Sufyān wanted to leave he went to the top of the mountain and shouted loudly saying, ‘You have done a fine work; victory in war goes by turns. Today in exchange for the day (Ṭ. of Badr). Show your superiority, Hubal,’ i.e. vindicate your religion. The apostle told 'Umar to get up and answer him and say, ‘God is most high and most glorious. We are not equal. Our dead are in paradise; your dead in hell.’[24]
The
:"Do not prostrate to the sun or to the moon, but prostrate to Allah, who created them."[25][26][27]
Islam teaches that Allah is the name of God (as iterated in the Quran),
Pre-Islamic traditions
Before Muhammad, Allah was not considered the sole divinity by Meccans; however, Allah was considered the creator of the world and the giver of rain. The notion of the term may have been vague in the Meccan religion.
See also
References
- ^ Meccan Trade And The Rise Of Islam. pp. 193–194.
- ^ a b c "Scholarly Pursuits: Joseph Lumbard, classical Islam professor". BrandeisNOW. Brandeis University. December 11, 2007.
- ^ "1930. Doubts of one who is interested in Islam". Islam Question and Answer. May 3, 1998. Retrieved February 28, 2024.
- ISBN 0415091365.
- ISBN 978-0-521-29135-4.
- Arnold, T. W.; Basset, R.; Hartmann, R. (eds.). First Encyclopedia of Islam. Vol. 1. pp. 379–380.
- ^ Glassé, C. The New Encyclopedia of Islam. p. 185.
- ^ Wellhausen, Julius. Reste Arabischen Heidenthums. p. 75.
- ISBN 0521651654.
- ISBN 1593331029.
- ^ Winckler, Hugo (1901). Arabisch, Semitisch, Orientalisch: Kulturgeschichtlich-Mythologische Untersuchung. Berlin: W. Peiser. p. 83.
- ^ a b Leeming, David Adams (2004). Jealous gods and chosen people: the mythology of the Middle East. Oxford University Press. p. 121.
- ^ Eliade, Mircea; Adams, David (1987). The Encyclopedia of religion. Vol. 1. Macmillan. p. 365.
- ^
- Fahd, Toufic (1968). Le panthéon de l'Arabie centrale à la veille de l'Hégire. Institut Français d'Archéologie de Beyrouth. Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique. Vol. LXXXVII. Paris: Paul Geuthner. pp. 102–103.
- Fahd, Toufic (1958). "Une pratique cléromantique à la Kaʿba preislamique". Semitica. 8: 75–76.
- ^ Morey, Robert (1994). The Moon-god Allah in the Archeology of the Middle East. Newport, PA: Research and Education Foundation.
- ^ Shaheen 1997, p. 8.
- ^ Schmidt, Donald E. (2005). The folly of war: American foreign policy, 1898-2005. Algora. p. 347.
- ^ Juferi, Mohd Elfie Nieshaem (October 15, 2005). "The Mysterious Statue at Hazor: The 'Allah' of the Muslims?". Bismika Allahuma. Archived from the original on February 4, 2019.
- ^ Brown, Rick (Summer 2006). "Who Is 'Allah'?" (PDF). International Journal of Frontier Missions. 23 (2): 79. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 31, 2016.
- .
- ^ Shaheen 1997, p. 9.
- ISBN 978-0-7864-3300-1.
- ^ Peters, Francis E. (1994). Muhammad and the origins of Islam. SUNY Press. p. 109.
- ISBN 0-19-636033-1.
- ^ Juan Eduardo Campo (ed.). "moon". Encyclopedia of Islam. p. 479.
- ^ "Tafsir Ibn Kathir – 53:19 – English". quran.com. Retrieved May 21, 2021.
- ^ Shakir, M. H. "Ha Mim". The Koran. University of Michigan. Retrieved July 9, 2017.
- ^ "Allah". Allah - Ontology of Quranic Concepts from the Quranic Arabic Corpus. Quranic Arabic Corpus - Ontology of Quranic Concepts. Retrieved July 16, 2017.
- ISBN 9780691122335.
- ^ Gardet, L. "Allah". Encyclopaedia of Islam.
- ^ See Qur'an 37:158
- ^ See Qur'an (6:100)
- ^ See Qur'an (53:26–27)
- ^ a b c Böwering, Gerhard. "God and his Attributes". Encyclopedia of the Qur'an.
- ^ See Qur'an 6:109; 10:22; 16:38; 29:65
Bibliography
- Shaheen, Jack G. (1997). Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture (PDF). Georgetown University Occasional Papers. Centre For Muslim-Christian Understanding: History and International Affairs, Georgetown University. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 24, 2012.
External links
- Islamic Awareness, Reply To Robert Morey's Moon-God Allah Myth: A Look At The Archaeological Evidence Retrieved 21 October 2012
- Bismika Allahuma, Do Muslims Worship Allah The Moon God? Retrieved 8 July 2017