Year: 2021
Type: book
Abstract: The most popular reference for pre-Islamic Arabian religion is Hišām ibn Al-Kalbī's kitābu l-ʾaṣnām (The Book of Idols).The text presents a series of folktales recounting the history of human belief, beginning with absolute monotheism, moving on to the development of polytheism, and ending in the Twilight of the Gods ushered in by the appearance of Mohammed.The cult of Al-ʿUzzē, for example, ended not through mass conversion to Islam but in combat with Mohammed's commander, Khālid bin al-Walīd.It is worth quoting the tale in full.We were told by al-ʿAnazī abū-ʿAlī that ʿAlī ibn-al-Ṣabbāḥ had told him that he himself was informed by abū-al-Mundhir, who reported that his father had related to him on the authority of abū-Ṣāliḥ that ibn-ʿAbbās said: Al-ʿUzzā was a she-devil which used to frequent three trees in the valley of Nakhlah.When the Prophet captured Mecca, he dispatched Khālid ibn-al-Walīd saying, "Go to the valley of Nakhlah; there you will find three trees.Cut down the first one."Khālid went and cut it down.On his return to report, the Prophet asked him saying, "Have you seen anything there?"Khālid replied and said, "No."The Prophet ordered him to return and cut down the second tree.He went and cut it down.On his return to report the Prophet asked him a second time, "Have you seen anything there?"Khālid answered, "No."Thereupon the Prophet ordered him to go back and cut down the third tree.When Khālid arrived on the scene he found an Abyssinian woman with dishevelled hair and her hands placed on her shoulder[s], gnashing and grating her teeth.Behind her stood Dubayyah al-Sulamī who was then the custodian of al-ʿUzzā.When Dubayyah saw Khālid approaching, he said: "O thou al-ʿUzzā!Remove thy veil and tuck up thy sleeves; Summon up thy strength and deal Khālid an unmistakable blow.For unless thou killest him this very day, Thou shalt be doomed to ignominy and shame."Thereupon Khālid replied: "O al-ʿUzzā!May thou be blasphemed, not exalted!Verily I see that God hath abased thee."Turning to the woman, he dealt her a blow which severed her head in twain, and lo, she crumbled into ashes.He then cut down the tree and killed Dubayyah the custodian, after which he returned to the Prophet and reported to him his exploit.Thereupon the Prophet said, "That was x preface al-ʿUzzā.But she is no more.The Arabs shall have none after her.Verily she shall never be worshipped again.Trans.faris (1952: 21-22) While the historicity of these accounts has rightly been questioned, they do bring into relief an important point made by W. Saleh-"the opponents of Muhammad did not live to tell their side of the story."1What we know about them, and those who came before them, has traditionally been reconstructed from polemical sources such these.Their worldview and beliefs are filtered through an Islamic lens and reach us in a fragmentary and garbled form; the line between what might be genuine kernels of truth and literary license, tropes and topoi is not clear.This book approaches the religion and rituals of the pre-Islamic Arabian nomads using different sources, the Safaitic inscriptions.These texts were carved at the latest some three centuries before the rise of Islam and stretch into the distant past.Unlike Islamic-period literary sources, this material was produced by practitioners of tradition Arabian religion; the inscriptions are eyewitnesses to the religious life of Arabian nomads prior to the spread of Judaism and Christianity across Arabia.In the following pages, I will attempt to reconstruct this world using their own words, interpreted through comparative philology, pre-Islamic and Islamic-period literary sources, and their archaeological context.I owe thanks first to M.C.
Source: BRILL eBooks
Author: Ahmad Al-Jallad
Institutions: Beijing Normal University, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W3196528847