Arabian Paganism

Horse: Horses were renowned for their strength and capabilities in travel, hunting and warfare. Cavalry commanders in Nabataea even held high positions in society. Horses were tamed in North Arabia during the mid-first millennium BC at the latest. Ammianus Marcellinus (c.330–395) tells us that the Saracens ranged “widely with the help of swift horses and slender camels in times of peace or of disorder” which shows that horses were a normal mount for both the nomadic and settled peoples of the region.

Rock art of horses and horsemen are found all over Harrat Ash-Sham and the Arabian peninsula. They are one of the most frequent subjects of these rock drawings, and are shown by themselves and in scenes of hunting, raiding and fighting. Horses were used to hunt lions (often with the aid of archers on foot), oryx, ibex, gazelle and sometimes onager and ostrich. Onager hunts were mostly done on foot and sometimes ostrich were hunted with bows on camelback. Hunting and raiding on horseback was often done with a long flexible lance but short throwing spears were also used. Swords and bows were mostly used on foot.

Horse figurines outnumber all other animals in Petra. Some figurines include mounted riders but its unclear if they're meant to be deities or human warriors. On the façade of Al-Khazneh we have two Dioskuroi, sons of Zeus, linked to Gemini. The Diosckuroi and the terracotta figurines might be alluding to Syrian mounted deities such as 'Azizu, Arsu, Ma'an or Abgal. Its interesting to note that these deities are sometimes referred to as gny' (jinn) while the horse is said to descend from a jinn. Jinn often take the form of horses in folklore. Unridden horse figurines were used as votive offerings when asking for the security, growth and health of the flock. These figurines could replace the sacrifice of living animals or represented an animal that was left to pasture and die a natural death, which is a practice attested in Muslim sources on pre-Islamic Arabia. Horse figurines could also be deposited in burials to symbolically transport the dead through the afterlife.

Camel: The life of a camel-herder and that of his family depended on the camel. The camel's milk and occasionally meat, feeds them. Its hair clothes them, gives them shelter, and camel dung fuels their campfires. For merchants, camel caravans brought them great wealth. Because of the value and cultural importance of the camel we have many depictions of the animal in the form of sculptures, coins, reliefs, rock art and figurines. Wild camels were hunted while domesticated camels were raided and sacrificed. Rock art, monumental carvings and votive figurines of camels could be dedicated to deities.

In Egypt the camel is associated with Seth who was banished to the desert after the conflict with His brother Osiris for the throne. The camel was viewed as an impure animal and its blood was used in malignant magic. This negative association did not exist in Syro-Arabia where deities were often depicted riding camels. An inscription from Dura-Europos refers to Arsu as rsw wmty "Arsu the camel-rider." Many of the reliefs in Palmyra that represent armed deities depict them as pairs, the horseman representing a military escort and the camel-rider representing a traveler.

Camels were used during ceremonial processions where the animal would transport the image or sacred stone of a deity to a temple or between temples. This is depicted in Palmyra's Temple of Allat where four veiled women walk behind a camel. The camel carries a small round tent reminiscent of the Islamicate mihmal, a passenger-less litter carried on a camel among caravans of pilgrims to hajj. This tent is called a qubba, a portable shrine used to carry holy objects. Today the term is applied to the domed tombs of saints. In front of the camel is a unattended donkey who guides the procession of the camel. Its possible that the donkey acted as a medium that identified where the temple should be built similar to the fable in which Mohammad's camel Qaswa decided the location of his home which would later become a mosque. Only 50 years ago, the Bedouin of the Sinai and Negeb were still using a howdaj, a curtained acacia-wood frame similar to the qubba, mounted on a very special camel, which was lined with ostrich feathers and housed a chunk of meteorite believed to possess supernatural qualities. The meteorite lead them to good pasture and was taken on raids. In Hatra's Temple of Allat the Goddess is represented riding on a camel alluding to a procession in which Allat was introduced to the city. Both in Hatra and Palmyra the camel represents Allat's nomadic roots and in both cities the camel has a wasm tribal mark which indicates that the camel was dedicated to the Goddess.

Islamic-period sources describe a burial practice called the baliyyah. This practice involves hamstringing a camel at the grave of its owner to provide a mount in the afterlife. An excavated baliyyah from Wadi Ramm contained a buried camel. A terracotta figurine could have been used in place of a live camel since they and figurines of horses were placed in Nabataean tombs.

Ibex: The most popular animal in Neolithic Near Eastern art is the ibex. Its easy to identify the crescent moon rising out of the mountains in the east and then setting in the mountains of the west with the ibex who lives in these mountains, symbolically carrying the moon on his head. The moon's cycles understood as symbolizing life, death and rebirth, paralleling the cycle of the soul. Millenia later the ibex was sacred to the Mesopotamian Tammuz and South Arabian Athtar. It was depicted on ritual furniture by both cultures. In South Arabia the ibex was the victim of a rain-making hunt practiced well after Islam. The connection between the ibex and rainfall is confirmed in Sabaean inscriptions where Athtar withheld the rains because the ibex hunt wasn't done properly.

Rock art near the Jordan-Saudi Arabian border and Negeb show an absolute obsession with the animal. At Jabal Ideid rock art depicts a man who touches the horns of an ibex with pole while a woman gives birth with upraised arms in prayer. The relationship between the ibex, fertility and life is explicit here. Other scenes depict people touching the horns of an ibex either with bare hands or with a pole. Some rock art depicts dogs attacking or chasing ibexes. Sometimes men are hunting the ibex with bows. This must've been an initiatory ritual hunt as the ibex was not a major food source.

In some instances the ibex is saved rather than hunted, with the hunter shooting the dog. Parallel motifs can be found across the Near East. Since the dog is usually seen killing the ibex we can associate the dog with death and the underworld, similar to Anubis or Cerberus. One example of rock art parallels a seal with Tammuz being mirrored by another version of Himself that is upside-down. Beside Him an ibex is being attacked by a dog. The rock art also depicts an ibex that is mirrored by another upside-down ibex with a line separating the two, indicating that the upside-down ibex is in the underworld. The ibex sometimes occurs with a star, a cross, a dot, or the sun alluding astral associations. The most common type of horned animal depicted in Nabataean terracotta figurines is the ibex. Ibex horns show up as part of pottery vessels and vessels molded in the shape of ram or sheep bodies show up well. At Jabal Serbal a pair of copper ibex horns once part of a statue were placed on an altar. Its clear that ibex iconography was key in certain Nabataean rituals. The ibex could represent the main aspect of Dushara as a mountain God of storms and fertility. In the Greco-Roman period the animal was sacred to Dionysus, who was syncretized with Dushara. Dionysus also has dying and rising qualities like Tammuz.

Gazelle and Deer: The gazelle represents the wilderness, the untamed land. On tablet I of the Gilgamesh epic, Enkidu, the untamed savage, is characterized as a companion of the gazelles. Gazelle representations are rare in Mesopotamian art, deer are far more common. Often scenes portray a lion attacking a deer. Abundance and fertility appear simultaneously with death and demise. In the Greco-Roman period both Temple XI at Hatra and the Temple of Heracles at Masjid-i Solaiman yielded gazelle-pendants. They may reference the famous episode of Heracles’ chase of the Ceryneian hind or the stag of Artemis. At Hatra and Dura-Europos, the gazelle is frequently represented in hunting scenes, mainly in graffiti or paintings. Unlike the ibex, the gazelle was often eaten. In Allat's temple at Palmyra a monumental figure of a lion with a gazelle sitting peacefully between its paws is displayed indicating that the shedding of blood in the precinct was forbidden. Two hand-made heads of a deer or a gazelle were found in Petra, probably handles of pottery.

Eagle: In the myth of Etana an eagle breaks an oath of mutual aid with a snake and devours the snake's young. When the snake comes back he prays to Shamash who instructs him to hide in a bull's carcass that will be feasted on by the eagle. When the eagle arrives to feast on the carcass the snake attacks the eagle and throws him into a pit to starve. The wounded eagle prays to Shamash for help and so the God sends Etana who saves the eagle and nurses him back to health. In return Etana gets taken up through the seven heavens on the back of the eagle and finally meets with a Ishtar to get the plant of birth.

In the Nabataean temple of Khirbet Et-Tannur a sculpture of an eagle with a snake was set up. The sculpture might represent disharmony or duality. In the myth of Etana the eagle lives on top of a tree, while the snake is at the bottom, the eagle flies, the snake crawls. In earlier versions the snake hunts but only the eagle eats. The eagle and snake also symbolize heaven and earth, or water, respectively. It may have also been an apotropaic symbol. A solitary eagle was carved on the façade of Petra's treasury and atop a sculpture of a Goddess (possibly a personification of the spring) in Khirbet Et-Tannur. The eagle was frequently carved on the doorways of tombs at Hegra, possibly representing Dushara as Lord of Heaven and protector of tombs. Ba'al Shamin's temple at Si', a popular pilgrimage destination for Safaitic nomads, had an eagle carved above the entrance. The association between supreme weather Gods and eagles is not surprising given the fact that rain clouds and thunderstorms gather around mountains which were considered to be the home of the Gods. Allat is also associated with eagles in both Hatra and Palmyra.

The eagles atop tomb entrances could also represent the soul's flight from the body. Folklore and Muslim sources tell us that ancient Arabs believed the soul would leave the body in the form of a bird. This is usually an owl but sometimes an eagle. This alludes to the eagle’s role as psychopompos, a guide of the souls to heaven. The Roman emperors made their apotheosis in the same way, on the back of an eagle like Etana or Ganymede, and an eagle was released from the pyre of important funerals, symbolizing the ascent of the soul. In ancient Egypt small statuettes in the form of a bird, often a falcon, with human heads represented the ba (soul) of the deceased.

Snake: The earliest dated sculpture in Petra is the Snake Monument dated to the late 2nd century BC. Its a high rock-cut cube crowned with a snake, likely a python. The snake was an apotropaic symbol. We have found votive reliefs with an upraised snake and snake representations on Nabataean tombs in Petra and Hegra. At Bab as-Siq in Petra two reliefs were carved on the wall. One is a horse or mule carrying a baetyl and to it's right are two snakes with a quadruped between their heads. The left snake prevents the animal from escaping while the right snake is trying to pull the animal backwards to devour it. The quadruped is likely a dog or a jackal representing death being devoured by the snake signifying immortality.

The snake is associated with immortality in the Epic of Gilgamesh where it eats the plant of life. Snakes' annual shedding of their skin rendered them a symbol of regeneration and everlasting life like the phoenix. Hence the snake was associated with healing deities such as Asclepius, Eshmun, Shadrafa and Hauron. Hauron, once co-ruler with El, was punished for rebelling against Him. But when He repented, Hauron was reprieved and banished from the mountainous abode of the Gods. Before leaving the mountain, Hauron took revenge by destroying the Tree of Life and transforming into a huge poisonous serpent, pouring His deadly spittle over its life-giving fruit, turning the Tree of Life into a Tree of Death, and enveloping the world in a poisonous fog. As a result the Gods lost Their immortality and so They decided to send one of Them, named Adammu, down to save the world.

Hauron had hidden himself in the Tree of Life and was too fast for Adammu to escape His deadly bite. Adammu tries to free Himself from the teeth of the serpent, but fails. He doesn't know how “to bind the Biter" and how to conquer the poison. The venom starts to paralyze Adammu and so He invokes eleven Gods with a plea to subdue the serpent by binding and feeding it, presumably with a leaf from the Tree of Life. As in Mesopotamia, the serpent is an adversary to the divine order. However, when none of the eleven Gods answer, a twelfth is prayed to, Hauron. He gives in and uproots and trims the Tree of Death, thus making life possible again. The remedy against the serpent’s venom is the homeopathic principle of like cures like. A statue found in the Hauran, the volcanic desert east of Damascus, depicts Hauron as the divine physician Aesculapius, feeding a leaf to the serpent encircling His staff. To protect the new life on earth, Hauron engenders the Kotharat, seven divine midwives who protect and help pregnant women. It is interesting to note that so far two sculptures of Aesculapius have been uncovered in Petra.

Lion: The lion occupies a predominant place in the iconography of the ancient world. Its in all manifestations of the Zodiac as Leo, which is why the lion corresponds to the heat of the summer in Greco-Egyptian magic. Towards the end of winter Leo is directly overhead, displaying its maximum power as it "kills" Taurus, the Bull, which is trying to "escape" below the horizon. Taurus then disappears in the Sun's rays for forty days and then reappears announcing the Spring equinox.

Egyptian myths represent the lion as a symbol of power, courage and revenge. The Egyptian Goddesses Sekhmet and Menhit are depicted with the heads of lions. In Palmyra, Allat's temple displayed a monumental figure of a lion with a gazelle sitting peacefully between its paws, indicating that the shedding of blood in the precinct was forbidden. Inside the temple Allat was depicted in civilian dress enthroned next to two lions looking very much like Atargatis. However, Allat lacks a male consort such as Hadad, the mural crown, the spindle, kestos, or rays around Her head as seen in depictions of Atargatis. It is far from certain that the lion iconography was borrowed from Atargatis. Allat's association with lions is at least as old as the association of lions with Atargatis and countless other Near Eastern Goddesses were also linked to lions such as Anat, Astarte, Qedeshet, Ishtar and Nanaia. Allat's iconography could have been borrowed from any of them, if it was borrowed at all.

Allat’s association with lions dates back to at least the first century and is attested in a region that stretches from the Hauran to Mesopotamia. Throughout this region lions are associated with Allat both in the form of Athena and in civilian dress. Sometimes they flank the Goddess’s throne like in Her temple in Palmyra, but in other representations Allat is shown sitting on the back of a lion, standing on a lion, or riding a chariot drawn by lions. The lion seems to embody or represent Her. Hence we can understand the lion of Allat monument as Allat Herself protecting the gazelle and ensuring that the sanctuary is not defiled by blood. In the vision of the temple guardian Eusebius he sees a flaming meteorite crash down accompanied by a gigantic lion coming down from a mountain near Emesa where Allat had a sanctuary. Its clear that the lion represents a fundamental aspect of Allat’s personality. In Petra lions are carved along several procession ways leading to high places and temples. One of these temples is a major Nabataean sanctuary called the “Temple of the Winged Lions.” Its columns were decorated with winged lion capitals. Winged lions show up on a mural at Siq el-Barid near Petra which depicts a winged Eros harnessing two winged lions.

Dolphin: The dolphin was one of the major religious symbols of the Nabataeans. Even those living inland would have been familiar with dolphins as Tyrian and Sinope coins struck with dolphins were in circulation for centuries. And indeed dolphin motifs are found in places far removed from the site or smell of the sea. They were placed on altars and carved in temples such as Khirbet Et-Tannur and Khirbet Brak. Dolphin tails and dolphin heads appear on facades. In the temple of Allat at Wadi Ramm we've found a bronze dolphin tail that was once the handle of a ritual implement. Atargatis and Aphrodite (who were synonymous according to Lucian) are both associated with dolphins. Aphrodite was also linked to the sea in general, and Her form Aphrodite Anadyomene (emerging from the sea) was incredibly popular in Syria and Nabataea. Dolphins are found on Phoenician and Jewish sarcophagi and in Petra dolphins and tragic masks representing death are often paired. The animal was considered to be the harbinger of fair weather, successful enterprise, and safe journeys both in this life and the next.

Conclusion: Its helpful to look at figurines and reliefs of animals as a source of information to illustrate the religious attitudes and beliefs of the ancient Arabs and their neighbors. They act as religious tools to perceive the divine world. Certain animals were associated with certain deities, such as Aphrodite with the dove or Allat with the lion. Figurines also act as votive offerings as an expression of thanks for all the good things one receives each day. These are typically given at a shrine or altar before statues or baetyls. They are tokens of respect to supreme beings, and a way of acting and communicating with the Gods, and of keeping in contact with Them.

The Gods are the source of all that is good. Anyone wishing to draw closer to the Gods should establish an altar with iconography that can include animal motifs. Historically votive figurines of animals, in particular horses and camels, were mass produced. They may have been connected with the hope for security, growth and health of the flock. Placed on an altar, or elsewhere prominently displayed, they acted as a legitimate substitution for animal sacrifice, or indicated that a living animal was allowed to pasture in the pastureland of the God and die a natural death. Sacred animals were also symbols of Gods or their manifestations. Animal bodies and parts could be depicted on ritual vessels such as incense burners, libation bowls and offering dishes. Most of terracotta figurines were found in houses giving us a real tangible view of Nabataean household worship.

The following is a list of animals depicted on reliefs, terracotta figurines and zoomorphic vessels from Petra as well as their associations:

• Horses: Strength, travel, hunting, warfare, Gemini, mounted deities
• Camels: Wealth, travel, the desert, wayfinding, nomadism, Allat
• Ibex: Moon, life, death, rebirth, reincarnation, Rudhaw, Dushara
• Gazelle: Wilderness, spring, abundance, fertility, innocence, Allat
• Dove: Atargatis, Aphrodite, Mother Goddesses, Allat(?), Al-'Uzza(?)
• Eagle: Ascent, the heavens, rain, sun, Dushara, Ba'al Shamin, Allat
• Snake: Health, immortality, healing, rebellion, medicine, healing deities
• Lion: Leo, summer, kingship, power, courage, revenge, Allat, Al-'Uzza
• Dolphin: Safe travel, fair weather, wealth, Allat, Atargatis
• Monkey: Apotropaic symbol, wards off evil spirits

References and Further Reading:

• The Horse in Arabia and the Arabian Horse: Origins, Myths and Realities
• Hunting, Fighting, and Raiding. The Horse in Pre-Islamic Arabia
• Fortune and Misfortune of the Eagle in the Myth of Etana
• The Eagle as a Divine Symbol in the Ancient Mediterranean
• “The Camel as a Sethian Creature,” in Essays for the Library of Seshat
• Camels, Caravans and Deities: Representations of Camels in Palmyra and Hatra as Proof of Caravan Trade
• The Metaphor of the Lion in Mesopotamian and Greek Civilization
• Representing and Naming the Gods. Iconography and Nomenclature of the Goddess Allat in Palmyra and Hatra
• The Ibex as an Iconographic Symbol in the ancient Near East
• Ibex, crescent and swastika as symbols of a lunar god in the rock art of the Ancient Near East and Central Asia
• Symbolism of the ibex motif in Negev rock art
• A Gazelle Pendant from Hatra. A Comparative Analysis
• Snakes in Petra
• Religious Stories in Transformation: Conflict, Revision and Reception
• Approaches to Nabataean Religion - Sculpture and Religion by Robert Wenning
• The Nabataean Terracotta Figurines by Lamia Salem El-Khouri

We seek refuge in you, O good one, your creation so wide,

During Khanwan's season, a hundred sacrifices beside.

The tribe's head, Dhu Qasad, you've raised with pride,

And Alhan Dhi Yahyar's chest, you did not let hide.

The poor were fed bread, their hunger denied,

From the valley's top, the spring's flow you supplied.

In war and hardship, your strength was our guide,

False rulers, by your hand, were swiftly defied.

The spring's flow increased, never to subside,

Elaz's frankincense, you've always purified.

Through night's darkest hours, your light was applied,

Blessings remembered, your provisions multiplied.

The vine into wine, under your sun's stride,

Camel pastures expanded, as far as the tide.

The upright law, in our hearts, you've inscribed,

Covenant keepers rejoice, in happiness they confide.

Qasid's alliances, with your signature tied,

Betraying nights to clear mornings, you've clarified.

Attackers against us, by your might, were denied,

Fortune seekers prospered, their earnings supplied.

Those stumbling in luck, with your portion satisfied,

In fertile Al-Shuaib, abundance you've not denied.

Yadhkur's well with buckets, you've always filled,

Praise for your blessings, in our songs implied.

Your promise, O steadfast, forever will abide,

Help us, O’ Shams, when rain clouds coincide.

To you, we pray, for even people were sacrificed,

In your refuge, O good one, our faith is fortified.

A tablet from nineteenth century BC Anatolia mentions a Puzu-Ishtar ‘the Tadmuraean’ (Palmyrene) as witness to a contract. But there are very few references to Tadmur in historical texts until the first century BC, when it grows into a substantial settlement. Because of its central location on the route between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean, the city was always in danger of being conquered by greater powers. It finally was conquered in 20 AD by Rome. It became thoroughly Romanized getting a senate, magistrates, theatre, colonnaded streets, etc.

When the Sassanians captured the Roman emperor Valerian, Odenathus son of Hairan son of Wahb-Allat son of Nasor, a leading citizen of Palmyra and a Roman senator, stepped into the power vacuum and took up Rome’s cause. He was of mixed Arab-Aramean ancestry. His name, the name of his father, Hairan, and that of his grandfather, Wahb-Allat, are Arabic while Nasor, his great-grandfather, has an Aramaic name. At that point Arabs have been in Palmyra for centuries. They migrated to the city in the later half of the first millennium BC and formed a significant segment of the aristocracy. Two hundred years prior to Odenathus there was Sheikh Zabdibel, who aided the Seleucids in the battle of Raphia and was mentioned as the commander of "the Arabs and neighboring tribes to the number of ten thousands." The Arabs introduced their Gods to the city and built temples and wrote inscriptions in Their honor. This makes Palmyra an important city for understanding Arab polytheism.

Ba'al Hamon and Manawat

Ba'al Hamon was brought to Palmyra from Canaanite lands by Arab tribes. The worship of Canaanite deities among Arabs should not surprise us as the oldest Arabic inscription invokes Malkom and Kemosh and Qos, all Canaanite Gods of the Iron Age. In 89 AD the Arab tribe of the Bene Agrud built a sanctuary in Ba'al Hamon's honor on top of Jebel Muntar giving Him the status of the God of the high place of Palmyra. The inscription commemorating the dedication of the sanctuary consists of three lines:

"To Ba'al Hamon, Moqimu son of Moqimu son of Zabdibol ‘Arima and Yarhibola son of Malku son of Lishamsh son of Hannibel ’A'abai, at their own expense, have erected this sanctuary, and the portico of alabaster which is in front of it, and the portico which is below, and all the ceiling, and its door, and the Srgb’ in bronze. And they have also offered the sanctuary of Manawat and its portico, and all its decoration, for their lives, and the lives of their children and brothers for ever. In the month Iyyar, the year 400 (May, 89 AD)"

Ba'al Hamon was identified with Bel due Babylonian influence. The mountain sanctuary of Ba'al Hamon stood as the dwelling place of Bel on the basis of a parallelism with that of the Mesopotamian God who had a temple on top of the ziggurat and another one at its base. Ba'al Hamon is often paired with Manawat, Goddess of time, fortune, and destiny, though it is not known if They formed a married couple. Manawat was also popular in Hegra, the southern extend of the Nabataean kingdom. Inscriptions tell us that She is a Goddess who appropriates gifts to Her worshipers and presides over chance and luck, like an Arabian Nemesis or Tyche. Ba'al Hamon and Manawat were the Fortunes (Gads) of Bene Agrud.

Ba'al Shamin

The cult of Ba'al Shamin at Palmyra was also brought into the oasis by Arab tribes that came from the Anti-Lebanon or the Hauran. Ba'al Shamin, a weather God, a patron of farmers and shepherds, was adored along the Levantine coast in the second millennium BC, and His cult became the religious patrimony of the Phoenicians in the beginning of the first millennium BC. The epithet Ba‘al Shamin, “Lord of Heaven,” can also be used to denote the supreme God of any local pantheon, such as Dushara among the Nabateans. Lord of Heaven, signifying the God to Whom the heavens belong. Ba'al Shamin is thus neither the Moon God nor the Sun God, but rather the equivalent of the Greek Zeus or the Roman Jupiter. Ba'al Shamin is already mentioned in the first part of the fourteenth century BC in the treaties concluded between Shuppiluliuma, king of the Hittites, and Niqmadu II, king of Ugarit. At the Hittite fortress of Karatepe He heads a list of deities described as "the whole group of the children of the Gods’’ indicating that He presides over the assembly of the Holy Ones. Josephus, writing around 100 AD but quoting from reliable sources preserved in the archives of Tyre, asserts that the cult of Ba'al Shamin was current in that city in the tenth century BC.

A Greek bilingual inscription from Palmyra calls Ba'al Shamin "Zeus Most High and the One who listens to prayers.” This is translated to Aramaic as mare 'alma, "Lord of the World/Eternity” which is translated into Greek as Zeus megystos keraunios "Zeus the Bearer of Thunder." In the Hauran epekoos (who-listens-to-prayer) was an epithet of Ba'al Shamin exclusively. He is styled the “Most High” (hypsistos), an epithet which was translated into Latin as summus exsuperantissimus "the Most Superior" in order to indicate that He was superior to all other divine beings. He is the sixth most invoked deity among Safaitic nomads and there's even an inscription that references the Ba'al Cycle. Ba'al Shamin's cult spread toward the arable lands of Syria, and His preeminence as a supreme weather God was acknowledged in the Hauran and in the Anti-Lebanon by Arab tribes. It is from these buffer zones between the coast and the Syrian Desert that the cult of Baal Shamin reached Palmyra. The tribe of the Bene Maazin seem to have owned the temple of Ba'al Shamin. In 62 AD a member of the Bene Maazin offered an altar to Ba'al Shamin, Durahlun (dwrhlwn), Rahim (rhm), and the Gad (gd) of Yedi'ebel. Greek bilingual inscriptions identify Ba'al Shamin and Durahlun with Zeus implying that They weren't separate entities.

Ten out of nineteen inscriptions found in the temple of Ba'al Shamin mention His name followed by that of Durahlun, which most probably means Du-Rahlun, i.e. “the One of Rahle.” Durahlun would have been the supreme God of the region of Rahle, on Mt. Hermon. The earliest inscriptions from the temple of Ba'al Shamin call Him and Durahlun "the Good Gods" and "the Good and Bountiful Gods." This association of Ba'al Shamin with Durahlun, the tribal God of the Arab group that migrated from the Anti-Lebanon to Palmyra, indicates that the God of the Rahle region had been accepted by the priests of Ba'al Shamin because He was thought to be a sort of "avatar" of the Lord of Heaven. Before migrating to Palmyra the Arabs tribes must've been influenced by the religious traditions of the Phoenicians and the association at Palmyra of Ba'al Shamin with the God of Rahle, on the Hermon, is a remnant of this. Ba'al Shamin also has angels. Inscriptions mention the “Holy Brothers” or “Holy Angels” of Ba'al Shamin, Malakbel and Aglibol. This triad echoes an Aramaic inscription from about the fifth century BC, found in Cilicia, which invokes Ba'al Shamin, “the great,” the Moon/Dawn God Shahr, and the Sun God Shamash.

Shamash

Shamash is the God of the Sun, justice, and oracles. In ancient Mesopotamia He committed law to kings, guided living creatures rightly, bore witness to oaths and is called is called the Lord of Oracular Decisions. The earliest reference connecting Shamash with the Arabs comes from the Iron Age. After revolting Arabs were defeated by the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, their priestess queen, Teelhunu, was forced to settle in Assyria. When Esarhaddon reinstated Hazael as king of Duma, he was willing to return Teelhunu to the Arab monarch in view of her position as priestess. Esarhaddon consulted the oracle of Shamash to learn whether he should return the priestess to her country. The oracle said yes and Teelhunu was allowed to return to Arabia. Its possible that Teelhunu introduced the worship of Shamash to the Arabs after this incident. Shamash was worshiped in the Arab quarter of Palmyra at least since the first century BC. There were two other solar Gods in Palmyra, Yarhibol, Malakbel, but they could not have all been the Sun God. Very likely Shamash alone impersonated the Sun God to the Arab ancestors of the Palmyrenes, Yarhibol and Malakbel having been associated with the sun only by the theological reasoning of priests.

Strabo says of the Nabateans that "they worship the sun, building an altar on top of the house, and pouring libations on it daily and burning frankincense" although mentions of Shamash in Nabataea are rare. Shamash was also worshipped by Arabs living in Hatra and on its coins Hatra presented itself as "Hatra (sacred enclosure/fortress) of the Sun God, Shamash" which suggests that the whole city was dedicated to Shamash. The Hatrene ruler Nasru was even the high priest of Shamash and so were his descendants. This parallels the situation in Emesa where Arab kings acted as priests of the Sun God Elegabal, a God assimilated to Helios in later times. Although Elegabal was worshipped as a mountain God by the original inhabitants of Emesa He became a Sun God after Sampsigeramus ("Shamash has decided") had established his rule there. The cult of the Sun reached its climax under the Roman Emperor Elagabalus, who was of Emesene origin, and had been a priest of the local Elahgabal. The heliolatry propagated by Elagabalus succeeded in merging the cult of the emperors with that of Sol Invictus. Under Aurelianus the cult of the Sun became a state religion. The Arab cult of the Sun which had flourished in many Syrian cities during the Greco-Roman period was transformed by the Roman philosophers, and the Sun became the ever-present image of the intelligible God. This is clearly stated in Julian’s Hymn to King Helios.

Arsu, Azizu and Mun'im

Another city where the cult of the Sun God excelled was Edessa. Here, the traditional cult of Sin, the Moon God of Harran, had prevailed ever since the beginning of the first millennium BC. In the early centuries AD Sin is still called "Lord of the Gods” but the increasing influence of the solar theology had already engulfed the Edessenes, for when Emperor Julian delivered his oration on Helios at Antioch he said that the Edessenes worshiped the Sun flanked by Azizos and Monimos, two deities to be identified with Ares and Hermes, according to Iamblichus. Thus Monimos is the planet Mercury, whereas Azizos is Mars. Azizos comes from the Arabic Azizu ’’the strong one” while Monimos comes from Mun'im "the favorable one." A tradition similar to that of Edessa is found in the Hauran. An altar in the Museum of Sweida represents the eagle, symbol of the sun, standing with its wings fully spread on a bust of Azizu. Some scholars believe that in the Hauran, Azizu and Mun'im stood for Phosphorus, the Morning Star, and Hesperus, the Evening Star. The Edessean theology may have developed as a result of the popularity that the cult of Helios/Shamash gained in the Levant.

At Palmyra, one relief shows Azizu together with Arsu. They are called the "Good and Bountiful Gods" and Azizu is called "the good and compassionate God." Arsu is seen riding a camel and Azizu a horse. The camel is Arsu’s animal as protector of caravans. The Greeks saw Him as an Ares, the God of war, as shown by a bilingual inscription from the temple of Ba'al Shamin. On some tesserae Arsu is associated with Hermes/Mercury, no doubt in the latter’s role as the patron of merchants. The epithet of Arsu is r'yy’ or r'y' i.e. the one who loves. It must be emphasized that there is only one occasion so far discovered on which Arsu and Azizu are associated at Palmyra, and that on other reliefs and inscriptions each is associated with other deities, or appears alone. There is no evidence of Arsu having a similar relationship to Azizu as Mun'im does, and no evidence of the conflation between Arsu and Mun'im as some earlier scholars have attempted to prove. There is also no evidence of any astral association, either. Just because Arsu was conflated with Ares and associated with Hermes does not mean that Arsu was associated with the planet Mars or the planet Mercury.

Rahim

Rahim was worshiped together with Shamash and Allat in the temple erected in the western quarter of the city. The name Rahim (rhm) is probably related to the attribute rahman, ‘‘the compassionate,” often applied to the Palmyrene Gods. The Quranic epithets of Allah, ar-rahman ar-raheem, ‘‘the Merciful and the Compassionate,” are also good parallels to the Palmyrene name. Rahim may be the epithet given to their God by some Arab tribes of the oasis long before they settled there. The inscriptions show that the devotees of Rahim were also worshipers of Allat. The Bene Maazin and their associates, the Bene Nurbel, excelled in this devotion. The worship of these two deities was essential in the religious life of the Arabs in Palmyra. Rahim is also mentioned in three Safaitic inscriptions and the name also often appears in the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud as one of the names of Yahweh.

Jinn?

Some divine beings in Palmyra are frequently called gny', ginnaya, plural ginnayi, namely, genii. This Aramaic term is cognate with the Arabic word jinn, which means "to conceal." The Palmyrene ginnaya may have been conflated with the Latin genius. Greco-Roman writers acknowledged the existence of deities who were tutelaries of people and places. In petitions and oaths Romans often appealed to the "genii” of the persons addressed. The concern of these genii was to take care of human lives and enterprises. The Palmyrenes worshiped Them everywhere and gave Them the epithet šbb' “close,” meaning that the beings were guardians of people. The Palmyrene genii were frequently invoked in pairs. Some scholars believe that certain pairs of divine beings stand for the Roman Dioscuri but there is very little evidence for a cult of Castor and Pollux at Palmyra or in the Palmyrene region. They instead probably have Semitic roots maybe connected to the Gods of dawn and dusk.

The Palmyrenes acknowledged the genii as protectors of their caravans, their herds, and their desert villages. Camels loaded with all kinds of products were easy prey for bandits. The caravans had to be escorted through the desert and this, the Palmyrenes believed, was the main occupation of the genii. The tutelary entities are consistently portrayed wearing what would be the traditional dress at the time. Reliefs depicting the genii have been found primarily in the wadis and outskirts of Palmyra or in the hamlets that surrounded the oasis in Roman times. Here the Arab tribesmen lived as semi-nomads, which was not the case with the Arabs living in the city itself. In the Roman era the hamlets around Palmyra were not only centers of settled life but also relays for the passing caravans. In this environment the cult of the tutelary genii proliferated. They were believed to protect flocks and caravans and therefore shrines were erected in Their honor. The connection between the Palmyrene ginnaya and the later jinn of Islam is unclear.

Abgal and His Companions

The God Abgal is often depicted as a youth with long hair and mustache, wearing the local costume while holding a lance. Sometimes He is riding a horse with a bow and quiver. An inscription from Khirbet Semrin indicates that Yarhibol had placed Abgal in charge of the village: "Let Abgal, His brothers, and the members of His house be remembered by Yarhibol who gave Abgal authority over this locality forever. Let whoever fears Abgal be remembered." Abgal had a Greco-Roman style sanctuary in Khirbet Semrin where He was paired with Ma'nu. Like other pairs such as Ba'al Shamin and Durahlun, or Azizu and Arsu, Abgal and Ma'nu are called "the Good and Bountiful Gods." Abgal is also mentioned with Aglibol, Malakbel, and "the jinn" in the same sanctuary.

In Jebel al-Abiad He is invoked with other deities including Bel, Baal Shamin, Aglibol, Malakbel, Astarte, Nemesis, and Arsu. Worship of Abgal is appears late, in the second and third centuries, and He was not worshipped in the city of Palmyra itself but in satellite villages. This indicates that Abgal is a God of the Syrian steppe. Another indication of this is the fact that Abgal being associated with Aglibol and Malakbel is not common and it is much more common for Him to be associated with other steppe Gods such as Azizos, Ma'anu, Ashar, or Shalman worshipped by nomads and semi-nomads of the Syrian desert. These were all depicted in a very similar style, as warrior Gods with long hair, mustache and weaponry. Often riding a camel or horse. They were also all given the epithet "good and bountiful" and often called gny'. Ma'nu was worshipped with Abgal in His sanctuary but He is much more frequently paired with another deity named Sha'ad(u). Ma'an rides a horse like Arsu while Sha'ad rides a camel like Azizu. Ma'nu's feast was celebrated on the 16th of August. Shalman has a sister, the Goddess Shalmanat. They seem to be identical with the Assyrian Shulman and Shulmanitu.

Gads

Many different Gads were worshipped in Palmyra including tribal Gads such as Gad Taimi and the Gads of cities such as Palmyra and Dura-Europos. They were often depicted as the Goddess Tyche/Fortuna but sometimes also depicted as a male God in native dress. A Gad personified the protection given by a God to specific individuals and groups. Among the Safaitic nomads, the great tribal confederations of Ḍayf and ʿAwīḏ each have their own Gad, but so do outside nations, such as the Nabataeans (Gad-Nabaṭ).

Deities that Require More In-Depth Discussion

I have already written an article on Allat. Its an article I plan on updating/reworking in the future. Shay' Al-Qaum also deserves His own post and there is also much more to be said about Ba'al Shamin and the Gads.

Further Reading:

• The Pantheon Of Palmyra
• The Religion and Rituals of the Nomads of Pre-Islamic Arabia
• The Pagan God: popular religion in the Greco-Roman Near East
• Who Are the “Attendants of Helios”
• The God Gad

Popular religion among Arabs remained mostly unchanged in the Greco-Roman period with the exception of minor things like the addition of Greek deities such as Nemesis and Tyche or giving Allāt Athena's iconography. The reverence for holy places such as sacred groves and high mountains, baetyls, the various types of sacrifices, the use of altars (nsb), the role of kahins/priests, all remained mostly the same. Basically, the system worked, it didn't need to change. The divine responded to human prayers and this was acknowledged throughout the ancient Near East. In fact, many inscriptions about offerings end with "because the god has listened to the prayer." In Greek this idea is known as epekooi, the ones who listen to prayers. For example, epekoos, was an epithet of Baal Shamin, who although was an Aramaic god, was popular among the Arab nomads of the Al-Harrah basalt desert, and Atargatis, who was worshipped in Nabataea, was invoked as theoi epekooi.

What does appear in the Hellenistic era are angels. Malakbel who's name literally means "angel of Baal," and along with Aglibol, they were considered the "Holy Brothers" and "Holy Angels" of Baʿal Shamin. Even Ḏušarē had an angel, with an inscription saying "the god of Gaia and his angel Idaruma." Baʿal Shamin, in fact, heads a whole list of deities called "the children of the gods" which is reminiscent of the Book of Enoch which calls angels "the holy sons of God." At the beginning of the second century we start seeing Baal Shamin being called "Lord of Eternity" which reflects Baal Shamin's transformation from a weather and vegetation god only in the first millennium BC to the supreme god. This transformation parallels developments in astronomy. Astronomy, the study of the heavens, grew, so the Lord of the Heavens also had to grow and encompass more.

From roughly the 4th - 1st centuries BC, Arab tribes from the southern Levant and northwestern Arabia migrated northward into Syria and Mesopotamia. Palmyra, Homs, Edessa, Bosra and Hatra all had significant Arab populations. At the same time as this migration was going on, Syria was Hellenizing. This simultaneous presence of three cultures, Arab, Aramean, and Greek, quickly blended into a new culture. This culture synchronized local deities with Greek ones. Allat with Athena, Alʿuzza with Aphrodite, Dhushara with Dionysus, Atargatis with Hera, Baal Shamin with Zeus, ʿAzizos with Ares, etc. These are of course not direct parallels and the attributes varied. For example, Allat was most commonly associated with Athena but Herodotus associates her with Aphrodite Urania and we even have an inscription associating her with Artemis.

Source: The Pagan God

Dusares or Dushara, being a mountain God, is also a storm God as is custom in the Ancient Near East, which would give Him a fertility aspect. A parallel can be drawn with Dhu-Ghābat, “He of the thicket”, the supreme God of the Lihyanites, Dushara is in the same way a God of vegetation and fertility. This fertility aspect allowed for the identification of Dushara with Dionysus as God of fertility but the evidence for this is inconclusive. Several ancient writers, including Herodotus from the 5th century BC, Strabo from the 1st century AD, and lexicographer Hesychius from the 5th century AD, all say that the Arabs worshipped Dionysus. Hesychius in particular directly equates Dushara and Dionysus but this is not attested in Nabatean inscriptions. Nor is there any evidence for Dushara being depicted as Dionysus in Petra. The Hauran, which became the center of Arabia Petraea, is known for its agriculture including grapes. Sia', a temple of pilgrimage known from Safaitic inscriptions is full of grape and vine imagery though it was probably a temple to Ba'al Shamin not Dushara nor Dionysus. There are depictions of Dionysus in Petra but none are linked to Dushara. Dushara's identification with Dionysus might have to do with the cult of the dead and resurrection, linking Him with Osiris. It's interesting to note that Dushara's consort Al-'Uzza was associated with Osiris's consort, Isis. More on this later.

Dushara as supreme storm God was more often compared with Zeus. His assimilation with Zeus seems natural as both are the respective heads of Their pantheons and are storm Gods. Evidence for this pairing can be found on a 1st century BC bilingual inscription from Miletus, Greece at the temple of Apollo: "Syllaeus, brother of the king, on behalf of king Obodas, dedicated to Zeus Dusares Soter (Savior)." Another inscription in the island of Delos mentions Zeus Dusares. Eagle and lion imagery in His temples might show a link with Zeus-Hadad though this can also imply a solar aspect, power or protection without a direct link to Zeus. Dushara was called Zeus Hypsistos in Petra and this title was also given to Ba'al Shamin in Palmyra, another supreme storm God, though this does not mean that Dushara is Ba'al Shamin. The cult of Zeus Hypsistos was widespread and could be attached to the local supreme God of many places. One coin depicts a deity's bust above thunderbolts and thunderbolts are found in many temples though not directly linked to Zeus nor Dushara. Another coin has a bull on the obverse side which might suggest a link with Zeus-Hadad but this is local money and it probably doesn't refer to a deity in Syria. It rather expresses the fertility aspect of Dushara. An altar dedicated to Zeus Hagios was found on the northern bank of Gaia, today Wadi Musa, opposite the Temenos of Dushara's temple (Qaṣr al-Bint) and there's another one in Siq. There is also a terracotta relief of Zeus Ammon found at the Temple of the Winged Lions.

As Lord of Heaven with solar features Dushara could be associated with Helios. This goes back to Strabo (or rather his informer Athenodoros) informing us that the Nabataeans "worship the sun, building an altar on the top of the house (or temple?), and pouring libations on it daily and burning frankincense." The presence of eagles in many temples might imply solar imagery and the epithets of Dushara include aspects of Sol Invictus like one from Suwayda set up by a priest of Dushara which honors Him with the title aniketos (invincible), an epithet normally reserved for Sol Invictus. In Hegra an inscription describes a God "who separates night from day," which might refer to Dushara. If it does it might mean Dushara is a creator God. Solar deities were common throughout the Near East such as Elagabal of Emesa and Heliopolitanus of Baalbek. Palmyra had three distinct solar Gods, Shamash, Yarhibol and Malakbel. Either Elegabal or one of the Palmyran Gods became Sol Invictus though scholars are in disagreement as to which one. In Petra there are approximately 15 to 19 high places, many of which may be associated with the worship of Dushara, based on the presence of betyls and the simplicity of architecture atop each space. These could also link Dushara to the sun. If Helios was assimilated with any deity in Nabataea it would've been Dushara but there's no direct link. There are depictions of Helios in Petra, like there are of Dionysus, but usually as part of façades with other Olympian Gods or as part of the 7 classical planets without any association with Dushara. Dushara definitely has solar features but as Lord of Heaven and not as a sun God in a triad with a moon deity and Venusian deity as seen in Duma and Tayma.

So have you considered Allāt and Al’uzza? And Manāt, the third - the other one? - Quran 53:19-20. Well, let us consider Manāt, then. The earliest Quranic codices spell Manat as mnwt which is the same spelling we find in the Nabataean, Latin and Palmyrene forms of the name instead of mnāt which would correspond to the Classical Arabic pronunciation of the name. She is understood as a Goddess of fate and time so before we begin we must understand how ancient Arabs understood fate and time.

Manāyā and Dahr

There is time as we use the word today (زمن zamān - وقت waqt) and time as a symbol of life and death. Time is the determining factor of fate in pre-Islamic poetry and is not itself determined by some other power. Although time and fate are conceptually different, they are closely bound as seen in the multitude of terms used by Arab poets with dual meaning such as dahr (دهر), zamān (زمن era) and ayyām (أيام days) used for expressing reversals of fortune. The word dahr is used the most, and although it's usually translated as eternity, dahr simply means a long time. Dahr could also mean nāzila (نازلة mischief from the heavens, literally, "coming down") and one would attribute their misfortune to dahr. The oracle Satih, who interpreted a dream for the Yemeni king Rabia, said: "Time (dahr) sometimes is misfortune (dahārīr)".

Then there's manāyā (منايا destiny) which is more about individual fate or the preordained death of each individual while dahr or zamān is universal fate, or the impersonal fate of everyone. Dahr is fate-as-time that changes and wears things down while manāyā is fate-as-death. In poetry, manāyā is presented as a ruthless force that dooms humans, its indiscriminate and inevitable. From Zuhayr's Mu'allaqa:

I regard Fate like the blows of a nearly blind she-camel, whomsoever it strikes, dies but whom it misses, lives on and ages.

Fate worries people and the occasions of relief are few and fleeting. This mood is captured well by the poet 'Adi ibn Zayd who said:

They lived a good life for a time, trusting restfully in their lot.

Then Fate turned against them in the same manner that it destroys mountains.

Thus Fate fires at the man in quest of livelihood circumstance after circumstance.

In the Greek tradition destiny was represented as a thread spun from a spindle while in ancient Arab poetry we also see the archetype of rope connected to destiny. Again from Zuhayr:

And whosoever fears the ropes of Fate will nevertheless be ensnared by them, even if one manages to ascend the courses of heaven with a ladder.

The poet Ṭarafa bin al-‘Abd stressed that human beings are linked to fate-as-death by rope. It cannot be bargained or reasoned with:

By your life, swear that Death, so long as he misses a strong man, is surely as the loosened halter, both folded ends of which are in the hands of the owner of the animal.

So that, if he wishes, on any day, he leads him off his life by his reins. And he who is tied by the rope of death, will have to submit.

And in the Mu‘allaqa of 'Imru’ al-Qays, we see the Pleiades star cluster, al-Thurayyā in Arabic, tied by hemp ropes to the top of a rock:

Oh long night, dawn will come, but will be no brighter without my love. You are a wonder, with its stars held up as by ropes of hemp to a solid rock.

The Pleiades also shows up in a poem by Abīd ibn al-’Abras who mentioned “the Pleiades bringing evil fortune and good”:

And there shall surely come after me generations unnumbered, That shall pasture the precipices of Aikah and Ladud

And the Sun shall rise, and the night shall eclipse it, And the Pleiades shall circle bringing evil fortune and good

Related practices appeared in Arabia. People used rope to protect themselves from the evil eye. One poet’s parents were afraid the evil eye would harm him, so they took him to a sheikh (elder), who tied rope to his arm as an amulet. For this reason, the poet earned the nick-name Dhul-Rumma, (owner of rope). Some believed practitioners of witchcraft tied knots into rope to harm people. The traces of this art are reflected in the Quran where the believer seeks refuge “from the evil of the witches who blow into knots” (Q 113:4). The tradition says that the verses were revealed to Muhammad after magic was worked into his hair using a cord with knots, concealed under a stone at the bottom of a well. Another metaphor of Fate is the arrow, launched at unwitting victims like in the elegy of Rabīʿah bin Mukaddam:

But the arrows of Fate, whomsoever they strike, no medicine man nor sorcerer can avail.

And Labid's Mu'allaqa:

Indeed, Fate’s arrows never miss their mark.

Kahins (oracles/seers) would use bows to symbolically catch and shoot these arrows. Looking at the examples above, ancient Arabs were far from revering dahr or manāyā as divine. Due to the mortal fear of desert life, sudden misfortune, and the uncertainty of the future, they imagined this power in their poetry to be pretty hostile and viewed it negatively. A few centuries earlier we find the term rġm mny in Safaitic inscriptions always in a funerary context as an expression of grief for the deceased. The dead were "struck down" (raġām or raġm) by fate. The appearance of fate in these funerary contexts suggests that the force was regarded much in the same way as in the pre-Islamic poems; it was the ultimate cause of death. Many prayers request escape from the manifestations of fate: misfortune and adversity. There is no need to exhaust the examples given in Al-Jallad's work on Safaitic religion in the section titled Fate.

There are no prayers to manāyā itself, nor are there any attempts to appease it. This absence suggests that Safaitic authors regarded it, much like pre-Islamic poets, as blind and cold, unresponsive to invocations and indifferent to offerings. While a number of authors called out to the Gods to be saved from manāyā, one text illustrates the limitations of divine intervention and echoes the later stoicism of pre-Islamic poets. Fate may be avoided, but ultimately it prevails and everyone meets their death:

He stopped again while going to water and remembered the dead and grieved, so O Allāt, grant long life to your righteous worshipper and protect [him] but from death there is no deliverance.

Indeed, the only solution is stoic acceptance as seen in a verse from the Muffaddaliyat:

And of a truth I know and there is no averting it that I am destined to be the sport of Fate; but dost thou see me wailing thereat?

and the adoption of a hedonistic attitude towards mortality as Ṭarafa said:

By your life, the time is not, except borrowed; so provision yourself with what you can from the goodness of it.

Qedar, a tribe or confederation which existed between about the 8th to 5th centuries BC, is only scantily understood, but may in fact be the first known exercise in Arab history in forging a unity larger than the kinship-based tribe. This unity was formed around a center of cultic pilgrimage and worship; Dumat, in the north of the peninsula, sacred to a number of tribes. It became the seat of their confederation and the base of their religion. Later on other centers of pilgrimage would be founded such as Sia', Khirbet Et-Tannur, Mecca and Petra.

The Gods worshipped at Dumat are mentioned in the Esarhaddon Prism from the 7th century BC: For the return of his gods he prayed me and I showed him favour and the gods Atarsamain, Dai, Nuhai, Ruldaiu, Abirillu, Atarkuruma, the gods of the Arabians, their ruined [effigies] I restored and the might of Ashur, my lord, and the writing of my name upon them I wrote and gave them back to him. The reduced phonology of Akkadian resulted in loss of information when the deities' names were transliterated. Therefore reconstructing the original Arabic names can be tricky and error prone.

The worship of Atarsamain was widespread among Arab tribes except in Nabataea. Atarsamain ("Morning Star of Heaven" عثتر سمين), which I will now call by the more accurate Arabic ʿAṯtart Samay (عثترة السمي/السماء), is associated with Venus. Some have proposed that Athtart Samay could be equivalent to Allat but this identification is difficult because under Hellenistic influence Allāt was identified with Athena/Minerva and not Aphrodite/Venus. But before the Hellenistic era Herodotus does identify Her with Aphrodite: "They believe in no other gods except Dionysus and the Heavenly Aphrodite... They call Dionysus, Orotalt; and Aphrodite, Alilat." (Histories, Book 3) Herodotus also associates Astarte with Heavenly Aphrodite saying: "The great goddess (Mother of Heaven and Earth) worshipped by Eastern nations under various names—Mylitta in Assyria, Astarte in Phoenicia: called Heavenly Aphrodite, or simply the Heavenly One, by the Greeks." (Histories, Book 1) The identification of Allāt with Astarte and thus Heavenly Aphrodite is found in Palmyra where Arab families would sometimes invoke their patron deity as Allāt, and sometimes as Astarte/Ishtar.

The worship of a Venusian deity by Arabs is further confirmed by the remark of Jerome that Saint Hilarion "arrived at Elusa on the very day that a solemn festival had brought all the people of the town to the temple of Venus; for the Saracens worship this Goddess as the Morning Star and their race is dedicated to Her cult." The Arabs also worshipped a male deity associated with Venus known as Azizos/ʿAziz. ʿAziz was identified as Ares by emperor Julian in his work 'Hymn to King Helios'. He says: "The inhabitants of Emesa, a place from time immemorial sacred to Helios, associate with Helios in their temples Monimos and Azizos. Iamblichus, from whom I have taken this and all besides, a little from a great store, says that the secret meaning to be interpreted is that Monimos is Hermes and Azizos Ares, the assessors of Helios, who are the channel for many blessings to the region of our earth." This might explain why Allāt was identified with Athena instead of Aphrodite in the Hellenistic era; the Arabs understood the personification of Venus to have a warrior aspect. It also explains what happened to ʿAṯtarat Samay, She was simply referred to as "the Goddess" which is what Allāt means.

The second deity mentioned is Da'y (دأي) most likely to mean crow. Da'y occurs only three times in personal names in Sabaean inscriptions and is a bird deity according to Knauf. They occur in the names hyt'd'y and whbd'y, the latter following the same formula found in the name WahbAllat. The terms d'y and d'yt are also found in Safaitic inscriptions in Wadi Ramm and in Qatabanian inscriptions where d'yn seems to be a clan name. It is difficult to say anything about the nature of this God.

Nuha is mentioned in inscriptions found in the vicinity of Dumat, written in a similar language and script to those of Tayma, which offer prayers to Nuha and a number of divinities. One requests "help in the matter of my love" from Ruḍaw, Nuha and ʿAṯtart Samay, all three known to the Assyrians as Gods of Qedar. None are dated, but they most likely belong to the period of Qedar’s prosperity in the 8th to 5th centuries BC. In Nejd we have inscriptions that point out that emotions are a gift of the Gods, some from Nuha and Ruḍaw: "by Nuha is the flying into a rage", "by Nuha is the jealousy of a lover", "by Ruḍaw is weeping." The name Nuha/NHY seems to mean "the wise" or "the ultimate." One early Thamudic B inscription mentions Nuha with the epithet "the elevated sun" thus Nuha could be associated with the Sun. The word could, however, also refer to a divinity connected with a special kind of wisdom. In the Old Testament there are traditions of wisdom in Teman, which may be a region south of Edom, such as Tayma, and Nuha could have some connection with these traditions.

Ruldaiu could be identified with the god Orotalt mentioned by Herodotus. The theory goes that at the time of Herodotus (5th century BC) the ض in Ruldaiu/Ruḍaw was pronounced by Greeks as 'ld' leading eventually to Orotalt. Ruḍaw appears together with Allāt in Thamudic B and Safaitic inscriptions. In the latter, Allāt and Ruḍaw appear together as the main divinities, invoked more than any other deity, and invoked together frequently. Interestingly, Ruḍaw is absent from Hismaic, Dadanitic and Nabataean inscriptions and is not associated with Allāt in Thamudic B inscriptions, this is perhaps because Allāt was called by Her original name, Athtart Samay. Ruḍaw's identification with Dionysus by Herodotus is a clue to the nature of His cult among the Arabs. According to Herodotus, the Arabian Dionysus had his hair cropped. This is a ceremony performed on bridegrooms in many parts of the Middle East to this day, and its also well documented among modern Bedouin as an initiation into adulthood. It's likely that the cropping of hair, like circumcision, originally belonged to the rites of puberty, wedding and entrance into adult society. Dionysus was not only the god of wine, there is also a myth about his birth. The story of Dionysus’ second birth from the thigh of Zeus hints at an initiation ritual, and it might have a connection with the Sacred Band of Thebes. This makes the connection between Arabs and Dionysus more understandable and it should be kept in mind that the role of Dionysus as the God of wine isn't a complete picture of his true nature in the 5th century BC.

Ḏušarē was also associated with Dionysus. Knauf assumes that Ruḍaw and Ḏušarē were two names for the same God but Ḏušarē's connection to Dionysus has more to do with Dionysus as a vegetation God while Ruḍaw's/Oratalt's identification with Dionysus has more to do with Dionysus as an initiatory God. Additionally, the two Gods are linked to different locations. Ḏušarē, as the name suggests, was linked to the Shara (Seir) mountain range and was also called the "God of Gaia," Gaia being an area in modern-day Wadi Musa. Dushara was also said to be mn rqm "from Petra," while Ruḍaw was given the epithet "from Chaldea." Here we seem to have two cults, that of Dushara and Alʿuzza in the core Nabataean area and that of Ruḍaw and Allat. Ruḍaw's cult originated in the southern extremity of Babylon, where Arab settlements are reported in cuneiform sources, and later spread to Dumat. In Dumat, Ruḍaw became associated with ʿAṯtart Samay and understood to be Her father, and the cult further spread around the region, particularly to the Hawran. The astral significance of ʿAṯtart Samay may also imply that Ruḍaw was also astral and some have proposed a connection between Ruḍaw and the divine astral pair ʿZZ/ʿAziz/Azizos and 'RSW/Arsu/MNʿM/Munʿim/Monimos found in Palmyra and Emesa. Here Ruḍaw is identified as Arsu/Munʿim and would be paired with ʿAziz, representing the evening and morning stars respectively. It thus seems that the Arabs were linked to the cults in Syria through the God Ruḍaw as the guardian of ceremonies of initiation and passing from one state to another. The Arabs were also linked to the cults in Mesopotamia with Ruḍaw and Allat paralleling Ishtar and Sin.

The Islamic tradition is ignorant of Ruḍaw's nature. We are told that "Ruḍaw" belonged to the clan of Rabiʿa bin Saʿd of Tamim. Verses are given attributed to a certain Mustawghir of this clan referring his "destruction of Ruḍaw." The importance of Ruḍaw's cult is indirectly stressed by Al-Mustawghir's rage, though the idea of the Muslim tradition being a reliable reference point to inscriptions has been challenged. We are further told that "some of the narrators" have reported that Ruḍaw was a sanctuary or stele (baeytl). Ruḍaw seems to play no part in the stories about Muhammad or the "jahiliyya" and little can be gleaned from the verses about Ruḍaw's nature. It is not obvious whether "Ruḍaw" in Islamic-period texts refers to a deity, a sanctuary, a statue or even a person. It seems unlikely that Ruḍaw was actually worshipped on the even of Islam and inscriptions in West Arabia written in the centuries prior to Islam show no trace of Ruḍaw's cult and he is not mentioned in the Quran. There is nothing to suggest the survival of Ruḍaw's worship past the 4th century AD. There is, in fact, no evidence of any sort of paganism surviving past the 5th century in the epigraphic record. It is of course possible that Ruḍaw remained venerated among marginal groups who did not write any inscriptions, or none that we've found yet.

The nature and identity of the two remaining Gods of Dumat, Abirillu and Atarkuruma, are difficult to grasp. We don't even know what the name Abirillu looked like in Old Arabic. Knauf has speculated that Abirillu might be a deified king but admits that it's difficult to say anything about them. Atarkuruma might be a second local manifestation of ʿAṯtart Samay. Kuruma might come from quram قَرَم meaning camel calf or qarm قَرْم which refers to a horse that's left to graze freely. Finally, there's qorm قُرْم which is a mangrove tree found in the Gulf.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/586429

Alʿuzza is in many ways like Allat. She has the same geographic distribution and She was appropriated by Hellenistic culture in the same way. She even shows up with Allat in South Arabian amulets. Alʿuzza's name means "the Mighty One." She was a major goddess in the Nabataean pantheon and She was known as the goddess of Bosra. However, She's never invoked with Allat in Nabataea. In fact, Alʿuzza isn't found in Hegra, the Hejazi center of the Nabataeans, while Allat isn't found in Petra. Alʿuzza was also popular in the Sinai while Allat was not. This lead some scholars to believe that Alʿuzza was originally a title for Allat and later split into a separate deity. Another theory is that Allat was the goddess of the Safaitic-writing Bedouin while Alʿuzza is the goddess of the Nabataeans. Alʿuzza is found in the theophoric names of Safaitic-writing Bedouin but they don't invoke her in prayers. When the Nabataeans took over the northern Hejaz they adopted Allat, the local goddess, instead of exporting Alʿuzza to the region. Alʿuzza was worshipped in Dedan, however, so Her worship did spread to the Hejaz and even further to South Arabia.

This complexity might be ironed out when looking at Hellenistic syncretism. In bilingual and in Greek sources Allat is associated with Athena/Minerva while Alʿuzza is associated with Aphrodite/Venus. Earrings found in the Nabataean city of Memphis were matched with the imagery of Alʿuzza baetyls which were matched with jewellery of Aphrodite. In the region north of Nabataea Alʿuzza found her counterpart in Aphrodite and even the Egyptian goddess Isis, but there's no evidence that Hellenization made it to the Arabian peninsula so this association with Aphrodite or Isis may not have reached that far south. However, John of Damascus considered the stone at the Ka'ba to be the head of Aphrodite.

Because of Her association with Aphrodite/Venus some have thought that She was a deified form of the planet Venus. We do have Christian Syriac sources talking about Arabs worshipping Venus in the Sinai where Alʿuzza was popular. Although the cult of Venus might encompass all three goddesses, Allat, Manat and Alʿuzza. The problem with this, however, is that we'd have to mostly rely on non-Arabian and even non-Pagan sources. Inscriptions in Ancient North Arabian and Old South Arabian do not link her to Venus. Turning to the South Arabian pantheon, a pantheon which is largely astral and included Alʿuzza, Venus was represented by the male god ʿAthtar, not by the goddess Alʿuzza, and in pre-Islamic poetry Venus is taken to be masculine. Regardless of any connection to Venus or lack thereof, Alʿuzza was a chief goddess worshipped by many in the Hellenized Levant, Nabataea, Hejaz and in South Arabia. She was syncretized with Aphrodite/Venus which is related to the Mesopotamian Inana/Ishtar and Canaanite Astarte.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/655724

This post isn't about who the God of Islam is, which is clearly a monotheistic Abrahamic god. This post is about the use of the term Allāh among pre-Islamic pagans.

The name allāh is found in pre-Islamic pagan inscriptions, there is no doubt about it. Arab Christians from the 1st to 4th centuries used the word al-ilāh (the god) to refer to their monotheistic deity, not allāh. Christians do begin using al-ilāh and allāh interchangeably later on in the 6th century as seen in the poetry of al-Nābigha al-Dhubyānī and ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith. The Nabataeans often referred to their main deity Ḏušarē simply as *ʾlhʾ (*the god) and so allāh being a contraction of al-ilāh used as an epithet that replaced a respective deity’s proper name is the most likely answer. Thus, we can ask a different question. What did the word allāh mean to the pre-Islamic Arabs? Allāh meant the god. The main god, whether that be of the Christians or Pagans. That seems to be the most likely answer; that allāh is a contracted form of the word al-ilāh.

However, Allāh is sometimes used in pagan inscriptions as the name of a particular deity rather than just an epithet/title. In one inscription Allāh and the god Shay al-Qawm are both appealed to for abundance and safety. In another inscription, Allāh is paired with Ruḍā. Here we see allāh clearly being used as a proper name and not just an epithet that implies one deity was superior to others. We even see Allāh being paired with Allāt. So who was Allāh to the pagan Arabs? Allāh seems to be whichever principal deity was being worshipped locally. If this is correct, then in Dedan, it was Ḏul Ɣaybat. In the Nabatean context, it was Ḏušarē. In the Meccan context...well it gets a bit more complicated. Allāh is mentioned in pre-Islamic poetry as a creator deity even by apparently pagan poets, which is inline with Islamic tradition. There seems to be an acceptance of the idea of divine creation, both of the cosmos as a whole and of humans specifically by at least some pagan poets, although not always explicitly mentioning Allāh. Safaitic inscriptions also ask Allāh to grant rain, and in poetry as well, or he is credited with having already done so. And although some scholars suggest that Allāh may have represented a remote creator god, pre-Islamic poetry suggests that he was very much involved in human affairs, both by granting favours and by being destructive and threatening. In a poem boasting about a successful raid by his tribe the poet says: "the order of Allāh is irresistible and the wicked are rendered miserable by it." In poetry Allāh seems to be the ultimate origin and allocator of fate.

A lot of pre-Islamic poetry mentions al-ilāh (the god), al-raḥmān (the Merciful) and al-rabb (the Lord) as a deity. These are epithets and it's not always clear if the poet was pagan or not. There's also the question of the authenticity of these poems since they were written down ~200-300 years after they were first recited. Scribes may have censored pagan themes or altered the wording or straight up made some of these up. Although sometimes we do see mentions of pagan deities such as Allat and Wadd. It's also important to consider that some of these poets actually later converted to Islam, and of course they continued writing poetry but now with a new monotheistic worldview. Even when it comes to poets who were presumably pagan, many poems were recited to Christian kings such as the poems pronounced by ʿĀmir ibn al-Ṭufayl at the court of Nuʿmān III. He probably would have given his poems a Christian bent to please the Lakhmid king.

Epiphanius of Salamis talks about the birth of Dushara from a virgin (Panarion 4th century AD) and some scholars have concluded that the figurines could represent Al-‘Uzza and Her son Dushara, although this suggestion was not adopted by other scholars. Its more likely that Epiphanius's account is of Dushara and His mother Allat, not Al-'Uzza, since Allat was given the epithet "Mother of Gods" and Al-'Uzza seems to be Dushara's consort, not mother. That being said, here is Epiphanius's report:

"The leaders of the idolaters … in many places hold a great feast on the very night of Epiphany… First of all, in Alexandria they hold festival in what is called the Coreum, which is a great temple, namely the sacred precinct of Core. They stay awake the whole night singing hymns to the idol to the accompaniment of flutes. They keep it up the entire night, and after cockcrow torchbearers descend into an underground shrine and bring up a wooden statue seated naked on a litter… They carry the statue in a circle seven times around the very center of the temple to the accompaniment of flutes, kettledrums, and hymns and thus reveling carry it back down to the place underground. Asked what the rite means, they say: Today at this hour Core (meaning the virgin) engendered Aeon. This is also done in the city of Petra ... in the temple of the idol there. They sing hymns to the virgin in Arabic, calling her in Arabic “Chaamu”, which means Core or “virgin”, and the one born from her “Dusares”…The rite is also performed in the city of Elusa on that night as in Petra and Alexandria."

The festival occurred at the winter solstice on the 6th of January and was celebrated as a mystery in several Mediterranean cultures. The birth of Dushara can be compared with the birth of Jesus as the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ took place on the 6th of January in the East until Justinian, who in 560 AD urged the Christians in Jerusalem to adopt the earlier Roman date. This brings us back to solar imagery for the cult of Christ was often identified with the Sun among early Christian Arabs; Christ had risen at sunrise and the resurrection was equated with the rising, the second coming was expected from the east, early churches often faced the east. The birth of Mithras also occurred that night. The winter solstice was a birth of light and expressed fertility, the rebirth of vegetation. The continual rebirth of deities makes Them immortal. The concept of rebirth and resurrection was common to many ancient Semitic religions. This was particularly prevalent in Phoenician religion, where it was a part of the cult of Melqart. Melqart was often Hellenized as Adonis, and was related to the ancient Sumerian Dummuzi, biblical Tammuz, where rebirth and resurrection figured highly.

Like the mysteries at Eleusis and those of Isis and Osiris the festival must've been a profound experience. Gathering at the temple of Dushara in the evening of the 5th of January, staying the whole night, and singing hymns to the accompaniment of flutes and drums. Perhaps they partook in some entheogens or fasting or perhaps the long hours of singing and music was enough to induce a mystical experience or trance. After many hours, the first light, the Morning Star, and the rising of the sun announces the birth and epiphany of Dushara, indicated also by revealing the baetyl, which then is carried seven times in a circumambulation around the temple to be presented to all worshippers, making the epiphany public.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/522686

"They believe in no other gods except Dionysus and the Heavenly Aphrodite; and they say that they wear their hair as Dionysus does his, cutting it round the head and shaving the temples. They call Dionysus, Orotalt; and Aphrodite, Alilat." - Herodotus, Histories, Book 3, Ch. 8

There have been many theories regarding who Oratalt referred to. Perhaps Ḏušarē, Ruḍā, a corruption of Allāh ta'āla. His name may mean “the fire of God,” ôrath êl. But this post will focus on the second deity, Alilat, more commonly known as Allāt. She is by far the best attested deity in ancient Arabia across various languages and locations. Her name might be written as Lt, 'lt, 'llt, Hn' lt or Ltn. She was sometimes worshipped alongside two other goddesses, Manāt and Alʿuzza. Allāt means "the goddess" but it's clear that it was treated as a proper name very early on as seen in Herodotus, who was writing in the 5th century BC describing events that happened in the 6th century BC.

After the 5th century BC, evidence of her worship is widespread. She's attested as far south as modern Yemen up to the Hejaz, as far north as Syria and Mesopotamia and in the Roman era as far west as Cordoba, Spain. She was worshipped in the Nabatean kingdom, Palmyra and Hatra. She's considered the consort of Ḏušarē. In fact, it's possible they represented the only deities of the Nabatean pantheon. With all other deities simply being attributes of the god and goddess. In this sense the Nabateans weren't polytheists, but dualists, like some Wiccans today. This is also supported by the Herodotus quote above. But this doesn't mean all Arabs were dualists, polytheism is very clearly attested in epigraphy and the archeological record. It's just one understanding of Nabatean religion. In this view, Manāt and Alʿuzza are just local manifestations or attributes of Allāt which were later split into distinct goddesses.

Regardless of a polytheistic or dualist worldview, it’s clear that Allāt played a major role in the Nabatean and other Arabian pantheons. She was regarded as the mother of other gods, worshipped in the legendary city of Iram and was the patron-deity of Bosra. In the Hellenistic era She took up the iconography of Athena/Minerva. The name Wahballāt (gift of Allāt) was often translated into Greek as Gift of Athena. Herodotus associates Her with Aphrodite Urania (Heavenly Aphrodite) and this stellar aspect is reflected in Palmyra where Arab families would sometimes invoke their patron deity as Allāt, and sometimes as Astarte. She's best attested in Safaitic inscriptions where She's the most frequently invoked deity.

In these Safaitic inscriptions the author would write their name, address the deity, and then request something such as safety, relief, or wealth. Allāt was mostly invoked for safety and security, such as when herding goats, or for relief from sickness. Unlike in the Nabatean pantheon where gods were referred to as the gods of the king, Allāt is a personal deity. She was invoked for day-to-day requests by Arab nomads. Further south in Dedan, the center of the Lihyanite kingdom, Allāt was secondary to the main deity, Ḏul Ɣaybat, and found in personal names. The fact that She's not as well attested in Dedan might mean that She was introduced from the north. She's also found in Duma and in Thamudic inscriptions scattered around the Arabian peninsula. In South Arabia, amulets belonging to women inscribed with the name Allat and sometimes along with Alʿuzza suggests that these two goddesses were patron-protectors of women.

To summarise, Allāt is attested as early as the 5th century BC. From then on Her worship is found in the kingdoms of Nabataea, Palmyra and Hatra, and in the Arabian and Syrian deserts. She was most popular among Arab nomads who used the Safaitic script. Although first equated with Aphrodite Urania by Herodotus she would later take up the iconography of Athena in Romanized areas. She's often associated with two other goddesses, Manāt and Alʿuzza, who may have once been Her attributes, and the god Ḏušarē who's considered Her consort. She's also regarded as the mother of gods. She's called upon for day-to-day requests such as safety, security, and relief, and along with Alʿuzza she was a patron-protector of women.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/437039

Introduction

Divination is an important ritual. In South Arabia this was done by first presenting an offering to the sacrificial altar and then asking the oracle. The oracle would deliver a reply inspired by ʿAṯtar, probably in a trance state, and finally one would offer a thanksgiving sacrifice after they received the response. This ritual included the libation of the sacrifice's blood, turning towards corresponding pillars three times, and bowing down while turning three times as well. The oracle wasn't consulted at random but at certain days of certain months which are carefully specified on which the ceremonies took place. Sometimes no reply was given so the sacrifice will have to be repeated or one would have to increase the number or value of offerings.

The Ecstatic and Astrological Divination of the Kāhins

The Ancient Arabs had a developed astrology and foretold the future by the stars. Astrology is also found in pre-Islamic poetry. The poet Ta’abbata Sharran felt that he was guided by the Milky Way galaxy. Abīd ibn al-’Abras mentioned “the Pleiades bringing evil fortune and good”:

And there shall surely come after me generations unnumbered, That shall pasture the precipices of Aikah and Ladud

And the Sun shall rise, and the night shall eclipse it, And the Pleiades shall circle bringing evil fortune and good

Another way of foretelling the future was through the ecstatic experiences practiced by kāhins. Ibn Hishām tells us of a famous kāhin in Yemen: "The people assembled at the foot of the mountain. The kāhin himself was on the alp. As soon as the sun raised he went down the descent and reclining to his bow continued to stay having turned his face toward the rising sun. After standing a time he began jumping..."

We don't know much about the kāhins but the story as a whole, with the mountain, jumping, and the use of a bow, suggests that this was some sort of ecstatic experience or mystical ascension. But this topic needs more comprehensive study. There's also the issue of the scarcity of direct evidence of the spiritual life of pre-Islamic Arabian society. Because of this, I encourage modern practitioners to allow themselves to be more eclectic and synchronistic when it comes to divination and find inspiration in traditions that are better preserved.

Astrology and Divine Ascent

The ancient Arabs travelled at night to protect themselves from the Sun and to navigate using the stars. This made them develop astrological notions such as the deification of the sun, moon and stars. Some astral gods had their analogues in the mythological systems of other Semitic peoples. Due to the developed totemic notions of the Arabs, the astral gods had holy animals as well. For example, the oryx was a sacred animal for ʿAṯtart (عثترة) the goddess of Venus.

In one of the mu‘allaqa poems by 'Imru’ al-Qays, we see the stars tied by hemp ropes to the top of a rock:

Oh long night, dawn will come, but will be no brighter without my love. You are a wonder, with its stars held up as by ropes of hemp to a solid rock.

The Arabs were aware of the archetypes of the ladder and rope and the myths about ascension to the heavens. In the poem of Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulmā, the ladder is a tool of rising to the heavens in order to escape from the claws of death:

He who dreads the causes of death will be caught by them. Even if he ascend the heavens with a ladder.

The rock in the mu‘allaqa of ’Imru’ al-Qays symbolises the cosmic mountain. The hemp ropes tying the rock with the stars are the means of ascension. These symbolical images are used in the depiction of night, which alludes to ignorance, evil and darkness. The rope tying the rock and stars is the road to light and truth. This represents ancient ideas about the initial primordial union between the earth and the heavens and they're being expressed with the archetypes of the rock (mountain), stars and ropes.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/382513

Priests and priestesses are the guardians of the gods and goddesses’ interests, protectors of their temples and sacred areas, supervisors of offerings, sacrifices, weddings, births, funerals, ceremonies and rituals, and mediators between gods and worshippers. They were exorcists, oracles, healers, bankers, archivists and writers and readers of hymns and poems. Although no Safaitic inscription discovered so far indicates that sacrifice in the wilderness required the officiation of a priest, if we take the texts at face value, sacrifice among nomads was performed by the worshippers directly as individual acts of devotion or involving a small number of people. Sacrifice in temples, however, probably did require a priest. The temple itself was pretty self-sufficient being a commercial center, archive, as well as the home of the priests with its own source of water as seen in Khirbet Et-Tannur, a Nabataean temple. Sacred areas out in the open such as high places, groves and springs don't necessarily need to be staffed but at many there would be a guardian such as a palm grove mentioned by Diodorus that was "in the care of a man and a woman who hold the sacred office for life" and also in the case of a mountain where a cult statue was set up and a "priest (sacerdos) also lives there, and he wears a dalmatic and linen cloak" according to Antoninus Placentinus.

Priests in Arabia appear under many different titles which may mean these are ranks in a hierarchy, different roles, or regional variations. These include kāhin, kamar or kumra, rabb, sadin, passim and afkal. In the Hejaz, afkal was the usual term, in the Sinai and Hisma region it was kāhin, in southern Syria it was kumra, and in the caravan cities of Palmyra and Hatra it was passim. Afkal comes from the Akkadian apkallu meaning wise or sage and its found in the Hejaz and Sinai peninsula. This was probably the highest authority if these titles were ranks and not just regional variation because the builders of a sanctuary at Wadi Ramm call themselves the servants of the afkal. Priestesses were known in Arabia, the most famous being Zarqah Al-Yamama.

Although a kāhin seems to be a priest like the others mentioned above as seen in ancient inscriptions which mention a kāhin of Allat in Ramm and a kāhin of Al-'Uzza in the Sinai, in Islamic-period texts the kāhin was a seer, oracle, and dream interpreter who used the aid of jinn. The title and the function are cognate with those of the ancient Hebrew kohen, their ability to divine what others could not perceive came from their tendency to be alone in wild places, to spend a lot of time in reflection, and to view the world with ‘the eye of enlightenment’ according to the historian al-Mas’udi. In addition, al-Mas’udi says, many of them were physically deformed, and made up in spirit for what they lacked in body: the celebrated legendary kāhin Satih, for example, supposedly had no bones in his body, and could be ‘rolled up like a gown’. When Mohammad first started experiencing his so-called revelation he suspected he was turning into a kāhin and to show why its enough to compare an oath of the kāhin Al-Khuza'i with an early chapter of the Quran:

أحلف بالنور والظلمة، وما بتهامة من بهمة ، وما بنجد من أكمة ، لقد خبأتم لي أطباق جمجمة، مع الفلندح أبي همهمة

قالوا: أصبت فاحكم بين هاشم بن عبد مناف وبين أمية بن عبد شمس أيهما أشرف

فقال: والقمر الباهر، والكوكب الزاهر، والغمام الماطر، وما بالجو من طائر، وما اهتدى بعلم مسافر، منجد أوغائر، لقد سبق هاشم أمية إلى المفاخر، أول منها وآخر

I swear by the light and the darkness, and by the boulders in Tihama, and by the hills in Najd, you have hidden for me plates of wooden cups, with Al-Falandah Abi Humaya.

So they said: You are right. So judge between Hashim bin Abd Manaf and Umayyah bin Abd Shams, which of them is more honorable?

He answered: By the moon that shines brightly, by the star that shows clearly, by the clouds that give rain, by all the birds in the air, by who is guided by the knowledge of a traveler, by the savior or attacker, Hashem has preceded Umayyah in feats, the first and the last

Now the first few verses of Surah Ash-Shams:

وَٱلشَّمْسِ وَضُحَىٰهَا, وَٱلْقَمَرِ إِذَا تَلَىٰهَا, وَٱلنَّهَارِ إِذَا جَلَّىٰهَا, وَٱلَّيْلِ إِذَا يَغْشَىٰهَا

By the sun and its forenoon brightness, by the moon when it follows it, by the day revealing it, by the night veiling it

Later, however, Mohammad tried to distance himself from the kāhin's rhyming speech (سجع الكهان). But linguistically the Quran is uttered in the same high Arabic language that the rhymed speech of the seers and oracles shared with their poetry. The fact that Mohammad feared he was "turning into" a kāhin tells us a lot about what it was like to become one. Parallels can be drawn with how one would become a shaman among the Yurak of Siberia. Toward the approach of maturity the shamanic candidate begins to have visions, sings in his sleep, likes to wander in solitude, and so on; after this incubation period he attaches himself to a senior shaman to be taught. Among the Kazakh and Kyrgyz there's the baqça, a singer, poet, musician, diviner, priest, and doctor, who appears to be the guardian of religious traditions. We must not take these comparisons too far, however, because these are unrelated traditions, because we know very little about how one was initiated into kāhinhood, and in order to not conflate kāhins with shamans who may have completely different religious roles.

Sources:

• The Religion and Rituals of the Nomads of Pre-Islamic Arabia
• ‘Kamkam the Nabataean Priestess
• Arabia and the Arabs
• Arabs: A 3000 Year History

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/873572

Introduction

Tayma was an important trade and religious center in North Arabia which attained prominence during the reign of king Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, during the 6th century BCE. Nabonidus lived there for ten years and ruled over a vast tract of desert extending from Tayma to Yathrib dotted with oases. He settled colonies of Babylonians in these oasis after fighting, then making peace with some unknown Arabian tribes. The Babylonians brought Aramean deities to the oasis as attested in this Aramaic Stele: "in the 22nd year … ' [in Taym]a, Ṣalm of Mahram and Shingala and Ashima*, the gods of Tayma, to* Ṣalm of [Hajam] . . appointed him on this day [in Tay]ma which … therefore … which Ṣalm-shezeb, son of Pet-osiri, set up [in the temple of S]alm of Hajam, therefore the Gods of "Tayma ma[de gra]nts to Ṣalm-shezeb, son of Pet-osiri, and to his seed in the temple of Ṣalm of Hajam. And any man who shall destroy this pillar, may the Gods of Tayma pluck out him and his seed and his name from before Tayma! And this is the grant which Ṣalm of Mahram and Shingala and Ashima, the gods of Tayma, have g[iven] to Ṣalm of Hajam … from the field 16 palms, and from the treasure of the king 5 palms, in all 21 palms year by year. And neither Gods nor men shall bri[ng out] Ṣalm-shezeb, son of Pet-osiri, from this temple, neither his se[ed] nor his name, who are prie[sts in] this temple [forever]." - Ṣalm-shezeb the priest.

The inscription records how a new deity, Ṣalm of Hajam, was introduced into Tayma by the priest Ṣalm-shezeb, who further provided an endowment for the new temple, and founded a hereditary priesthood. On one side of the stone the god Ṣalm of Hajam is represented in Assyrian fashion, and below him a priest stands before an altar. The name of the priest, Ṣalm-shezeb, means ”(the God) Ṣalm has saved” or ”Ṣalm saves (me)," an Aramaic name. The name of the priest's father is Egyptian, Pet-Osiri meaning "he whom Osiris gave." Tayma was at the crossroads for the caravans going to Egypt or Mesopotamia which made it an obligatory stop for travelers. And thus, like other oasis-caravan cities such as Palmyra, Tayma had a cosmopolitan character. Though this doesn't necessarily mean that his father was Egyptian as names don't always indicate ethnicity. We know that in Egypt Aramaeans gave their children Egyptian names and in the Greco-Roman period Arabs in Egypt would do this as well.

Deities

The chief God of Tayma was Ṣalm of Mahram. The word ṣalm is cognate with the Arabic صنم which today means idol/image but it could also mean "the strong one." Another explanation is that it is connected to the Arabic ẓalām ظلام (dark) and the Assyrian kakkabu dhalmu, the planet Saturn. Mahram is a place name apparently preserved in the Arabic Mahramah محرمة near Jebel Selma, close to Tayma. The word means holy place/sacred area. C. J. Gadd has compared the Tayma cube with steles found in Harran with astronomical symbols (the star of Ishtar-Venus, the winged disc of the sun God Shamash and the crescent of the moon God Sin). It is in Harran that we find many theophoric names with Salmu. A deity named Salmu is attested in many Aramaic inscriptions elsewhere and in Assyrian deity lists. This Ṣalmu might be the same one in Tayma where we also find the emblem of the sun God, the winged disk. It appears at the top left of the Tayma cube hovering above a humanoid figure. According to Gadd, the figure on the Tayma cube would be Ṣalm of Hajam being received by the Gods of Tayma, while the disk would be Salm of Mahram.

It is more likely that Ṣalm is represented by the bull-head altar since bullheads are frequently found with inscriptions mentioning Ṣalm, suggesting that Ṣalm was a lunar deity. This might be why Nabonidus was so interested in Tayma, he was a devotee of the moon God Sin and relocated to a city that was the center of moon God worship. The issue is that the inscriptions with bull-heads don't mention which Ṣalm they are referring to and the bull-heads themselves have solar disks between the horns anyway. Regardless, the fact that we have terms such as Ṣalm of Mahram and Ṣalm of Hajam indicate that Ṣalm was believed to be a tutelary deity of a given locality like the gny' (jinn) in Palmyra. In Palmyra there were many jinn who acted as tutelary deities of villages, settlements, encampments, orchards and tribes. Deities being "of" places is not unheard of in North Arabian, South Arabian and Aramaic, the most famous example being the Nabatean Dushara (of Shara). Ṣalm of Hajam, who was being introduced to Tayma in the inscription, might have come from Al-Hajam الهجم in Yemen. Another deity, Ṣalm of rb, also had a temple in Tayma. Inscriptions found in Najran and Jordan also record the deity Ṣalm. When Tayma waged war against Dedan or the Nabateans it was Ṣalm who lead these wars. Inscriptions mention nsr lslm (supported/aided Ṣalm) similar to the Quranic nasara نصر. Salm is found in many theophoric names such as *ṣlmd' "*Ṣalm has known," ṣlm'l "Ṣalm is God," and ṣlmškr "Ṣalm has been thanked."

The second deity mentioned is Šingala. Like Ṣalm, Šingala is found in many Aramaic theophoric names like Saggildaa "Saggil is judge" or Tab-Sagal "Saggil is good." Over the years there have been many explanation for the name Shingala. One suggestion is that it might be connected with the Goddess Shigal mentioned in Late Syriac sources like the lexicon of Bar Bahlul which claims She is the Chaldean equivalent of Aphrodite. Another is that it might be a compound of the Akkadian moon God Sin and some other word. Perhaps the Sumerian word gal which means "great," "the great Sin," or maybe it is Sin-egalla’ "Sin of the palace," or Sin-gly "Sin uncovers." Many more suggestions have been offered by various scholars, none truly satisfactory. Shingala or variants of it don't appear in any Akkadian deity lists. The best explanation we have is that Shingala is a compound of Shinga and El meaning "the great God" or "El is great." Such divine names are often found in Semitic deities such as the Amorite Yakrubel and the Hebrew El Shaddai. Sadly this doesn't tell us much about the nature or personality of this deity but Shingala is most likely a lunar deity.

Ašima doesn't show up in any cuneiform texts unless we accept the identification with Ishum, an Akkadian God who acts as a divine night watchman, tasked with protecting houses at night, and also associated with various underworld deities, especially Nergal and Shubula. Ašima was first incorrectly read as Ashira, a mother Goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources including South Arabian inscriptions. Ašima is found in Aramaic texts in Egypt in the compound name ’šmbyt’l "Ashima's baetyl." In the Hebrew Bible we find a mention of Ashima being worshipped by the people of Hamat 2 Kings 17:30 The men of Babylon made Succoth Benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima. Like the previous deities, Ashima shows up in Aramaic personal names such as 'šmzbd "Ashima has given." Ashima comes from the root word 'šm or اسم in Arabic, meaning "name." As far as we know, Ashima is a Goddess, thus completing the Sun, Moon and Venus triad with Ashima as Venus, Ṣalm as the Sun and Shingala as the Moon. A similar triad is found in Dumat, another caravan city in Arabia. All the Taymanitic deities mentioned so far seem to be Aramean in origin and were first attested in North Syria before they show up in Tayma.

When Nabonidus made Tayma his home, he introduced the worship of many Akkadian deities including Nabu, patron God of literacy, the rational arts, scribes, and wisdom, His consort Tashmetu, Marduk, patron deity of the city of Babylon, Nanaya, a Goddess of love, closely associated with Inanna/Ishtar. These deities may have influenced or been transformed into Nabatean deities mentioned in the Greco-Roman period such as Al-Kutbay, a God of scribes like Nabu and Allāt and Alʿuzza may have been influenced by Nanaya. Ishtar, goddess of love, war, and fertility, is also mentioned in cuneiform fragments found in Tayma and Her cult has long been connected to those of Allāt and Alʿuzza, all three are considered Venusian deities. The Mesopotamian empires eventually succumbed to the Achaemenid Empire and its during this period that we start hearing about what are usually considered Arabian deities proper, though invoked in Imperial Aramaic, the lingua franca of the region. Salm continues to be worshipped but we start hearing about deities such as Manafu, known as Manaf in Islamic sources, attested in the Hauran as Zeus Manaphos and even mentioned in Palmyra with Tammuz. The Goddess Manawatu, commonly known as Manāt, also shows up in this period. The Nabateans and Lihyanites fought over Tayma though this doesn't seem to have affected it's pantheon.

Neo-Babylonian Period

• Ṣalm/Ṣalam: A tutelary solar deity associated with the sun disk and bull
• Šingala/Šangila: Likely a lunar deity
• Ašima: A Venusian Goddess *Nabu: God of writing and wisdom. His name means "to prophesize"
• Tašmetu/Tašmetum: Consort of Nabu. Her name means “the lady who listens”
• Marduk: God of Babylon astrologically associated with the planet Jupiter
• Nanaya: Goddess of love associated with eroticism and sensuality
• Ištar: Goddess of war and love associated with beauty, sex, divine justice, and political power

Persian Period

• Ṣalm/Ṣalam: This tutelary solar deity continues to be worshipped in this period
• Manafu/Manaf: A God equated with Zeus in the Hauran
• Manawatu/Manawat/Manat: Goddess of time, fate, fortune, destiny and death