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Hubal and Dhu Shara There are two deities that are also relevant to this argument: Hubal and Dhu Shara. Dhu Shara or more correctly Dhu 'sh-Shara which means "pertaining to ash-Shara" has an obvious connection to the term Asherah of the Bible. It is a deity that was worshipped by the Nabateans in their capital of Petra. He was represented by a four-cornerd block of unhewn black stone four feet in height and two feet in width. The blood of sacrificial victims was poured upon it and before it. Underneath it stood a golden pedestal and the whole sanctuary blazed with gold and votive offerings (ERE vol. 1. p. 663). The Greek records show this deity as Dusares. Epiphaneus says the festival of Dusares was celebrated at Petra on the 25th December which was the winter solstice. The ERE acknowledges it as a connection with sun worship (ibid) (cf. the paper The Origins of Christmas and Easter (No. 235)). In the centre of the home of the cult As sherah (hence The Groves) he was identified with Dionysus. The connection of the cult with luxuriant vegetation is also that of sun worship in the cycles. This god became represented by an idol among the tribe of Daus not far from Mecca. The black stone of Dusares or Dionysus the god of the Nabateans at Petra was taken to the Ka'aba and became the cult focus there that even Muhammed would fail to remove. It subsequently became adopted by Hadithic Islam and the worship of a pagan god has become the centre of the Meccan pilgrimage. The second God to come from the North was that of Hubal. 'Amr b. Luhai is understood to have brought his idol to Mecca from Moab (Ma'ab) and placed it in the Ka'aba. It was originally of human form. It had with it divining arrows for divination. The Kalb tribe of the Syrian Desert used the name of Hubal for a person or clan and they also used Isaf and Na'ila, which were two other deities peculiar to Mecca. 'Amr b. Luhai is held to be the representative of the Huza'a which was the tribe to occupy Mecca before the Quraish (ERE ibid p. 664). We might thus deduce that the Huza'a introduced the pagan cults to Mecca although Nöldeke considers it improbable that 'Amr B. Luhai should be credited with this move but does not specify the reason, leaving us to infer that it preceded him The word El was used by earlier Arabs as a single name for the deity as simply God in the same way it is used in the Bible. The word became iyal as a plural form of majesty. In the same way the word for Lord, Baal, as The Lord became a name of the deity and appears commonly in the Semitic system. The verb ba'ila (to be bewildered) means in effect to seize for the God Ba'al (probably also our bail). In the Saifa inscriptions the word Hallah meaning The God enters the composition of the various personal names of the Nabateans and many various Northern Arabs at a very early time. Forms such as Zaid Allahi or increase of God, etc., are found from an early time and the word was in use among even the pre-Islamic and Heathen Arabs. Allah became a common use among the various idiomatic phrases in common use among the heathen Arabs. The Koran itself is the evidence for the view that the pre-Islamic and heathen Arabs themselves regarded Allah as the Supreme Being. They turn to Allah when in distress (Surahs x. 23; xxix. 65; xxxi. 31). Solemn oaths are sworn in his name (S. vi. 109; xvi. 40; xxxv. 40). He is recognized by mankind as the Creator, and Giver of rain (xxxi. 61 ff). Their crime is that they worship other gods beside Him; namely the three goddesses Al Lat, Al Uzza and Manat who are believed to be His daughters (xvi. 59 ff). Wellhausan cites a large number of passages in which pre-Islamic Arabs mention Allah as a great deity. There are so many that even if we strike some out as suspicious there are so many as to establish beyond doubt that the term Allah is a pre-Muhammedan term. The term is the common name for God among all Arabs, heathen and otherwise. Yet despite the evidence Wellhausen then goes on to try and establish a link that says the name Allah is derived from the worship of the Moabite Hubal. This seems to be a religious bias with no basis in historical fact that one can readily see. In fact the evidence is quite the contrary. It is from Wellhausen that the false argument is derived (ERE ibid). The confusion in the names comes from the danger of a little knowledge of some based on an error by Wellhausen. Because we repeatedly find the name of a deity followed by the title Alaha, or the god, Wellhausen argued that the Arabs of a later age might have applied the epithet Allah as the God to a number of different deities and that, in this manner, from being a mere appendage to the name of a great god, may gradually have become the name of the Supreme God. This argument is appalling reasoning ignoring the text of the Bible and the ancient linguistic forms concerning the names of God in the Hebrew, Chaldean, Aramaic and Arabic languages. |