Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
THE PAST REMEMBERED t 45<br />
There was prayer in the pagan era, but it is characterized in the<br />
Quran as “whistling <strong>and</strong> clapping of h<strong>and</strong>s” (8:35). One <strong>for</strong>m of<br />
prayer has been preserved. When Muslim pilgrims approached the<br />
sanctuary on pilgrimage, they cried out again <strong>and</strong> again a <strong>for</strong>mulaic<br />
salutation beginning “We are here, O Allah, we are here.” This<br />
is the so-called talbiya, which, like most else connected with the<br />
pilgrimage, antedated <strong>Islam</strong> <strong>and</strong> survived into it.<br />
Allah was worshiped at Mecca be<strong>for</strong>e <strong>Islam</strong>, as the Quran,<br />
which calls him “the Lord of this house” (i.e., the Kaba) makes<br />
clear (106:3). So too was a male deity named Hubal, whose idol in<br />
human <strong>for</strong>m—Allah had no idol—seems to have been placed inside<br />
the Kaaba. The Quran curiously makes no mention of Hubal,<br />
but it does speak of three other deities of the many worshiped at<br />
Mecca in pre-<strong>Islam</strong>ic days: Manat, al-Uzza, <strong>and</strong> al-Lat, called collectively<br />
by the Quraysh the “daughters of Allah.” We do not<br />
know their stories since one of the characteristics of Arab paganism<br />
as it has come down to us is the absence of a mythology, narratives<br />
that might serve to explain the origin or history of the gods.<br />
These Meccan deities were manifestly cult objects <strong>and</strong> we have<br />
only the cult descriptions, <strong>and</strong> an occasional appellative, to instruct<br />
us about them. Thus we have no idea why the Quraysh<br />
should have assigned them their filial roles, save perhaps simply to<br />
introduce some order into the large <strong>and</strong> somewhat chaotic Meccan<br />
pantheon. Nothing we know suggests that Allah was otherwise<br />
thought to have had daughters, or that the three goddesses possessed<br />
any family relationship. They often swapped characteristics<br />
<strong>and</strong> shared shrines, but Manat, al-Uzza, <strong>and</strong> al-Lat were quite discrete<br />
divinities, <strong>and</strong> the best examples, by all accounts, of the personified<br />
worship of heavenly bodies.<br />
Muhammad no more invented Allah than he did al-Lat, al-Uzza,<br />
<strong>and</strong> Manat. The cult of the deity termed simply “the god” (al-ilah)<br />
was known throughout southern Syria <strong>and</strong> northern Arabia, <strong>and</strong><br />
was obviously of central importance in Mecca, where the building<br />
called the Kaaba was indisputably his house. Indeed, the Muslim<br />
profession of faith, “There is no god (ilah) but The God (al-ilah),”<br />
attests to precisely that point: the Quraysh are being called on to<br />
repudiate the very existence of all other gods save this one. It seems