Allah, the Moon-God is a controversial view about Islam, put forth by some writers and some Christian groups,[4][5][6] in which it is claimed that the Islamic deity Allah has pre-Islamic pagan roots stemming from local mythology. According to this view, the chief deity of pre-Islamic Mecca "was the moon-god called al-ilah (meaning the god or the idol), which was shortened to Allah in pre-Islamic times".[7]
One line of this argument has been publicized in recent times by the author Robert Morey,[8] among other Christian writers.[9] Morey, who cites among other references a 1950s era archeological excavation in Hazor, Israel, argues that the same name of God of Islam, Arabic Allah, was an epithet of Hubal in pre-Islamic Mecca.[10]
As such, the lunar calendar is also claimed to be a result of this origination.[11][12]
Islamic scholars have rejected these claims,[13] some even calling them "insulting".[14]
Contents |
Allah was known to pre-Islamic Arabia as he was one of the Meccan deities.[18] Mohammed's father (Abd-allah), for example, had Allah as part of his name.[19] Arthur Jeffrey for example states:
"The name Allah, as the Quran itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Arabia".[20]
The Moon-God deity of pre-Islam is also not without precedence, as has been documented by scholars such as Green et al.[21] Lunar deities have been well documented in pre-Islamic urban centers such as Harran, Sumer, Babylon, and Ur, which served as "the chief seat of the lunar deity, Nannar or Sin."[22] As such, it is argued that "Allah" has it's origins in the Sumerian God Ilah:
"Allah [al-ilah] himself was ancient - a thousand years before Mohammed the Persians wrote 'Allah is exalted' - but he was only one of many deities."[23]
Some authors have contended that the Islamic deity "is derived from Semitic El, and originally applied to the moon; [which] seems to have been preceded by Ilmaqah, the moon god."[24] Others have made the direct connection between the two:
"The god Il or Ilah was originally a phase of the Moon God, but early in Arabian history the name became a general term for god, and it was this name that the Hebrews used prominently in their personal names, such as Emanuel, Israel, etc., rather than the Bapal of the northern semites proper, which was the Sun. Similarly, under Mohammed's tutelage, the relatively anonymous Ilah became Al-Ilah, The God, or Allâh, the Supreme Being."[25]
and Alfred Guillaume has noted that certain scholars believe that Ilah in pre-Islamic Arabia was a title of the moon god,
"The oldest name for God used in the Semitic world consists of but two letters, the consonant 'l' preceded by a smooth breathing, which was pronounced 'Il' in ancient Babylonia, 'El' in ancient Israel. The relation of this name, which in Babylonia and Assyria became a generic term simply meaning ‘god’, to the Arabian Ilah familiar to us in the form Allah, which is compounded of al, the definite article, and Ilah by eliding the vowel ‘i’, is not clear. Some scholars trace the name to the South Arabian Ilah, a title of the Moon god, but this is a matter of antiquarian interest...it is clear from Nabataean and other inscriptions that Allah meant 'the god'."[26]
and Gray, likewise, notes that Il was a South Arabian moon god.[27]
During the advent of Islam, Muhammed is claimed to have "replaced the moon god as lord of the Kaaba, although still relegated to an inferior position below the various tribal idols and three powerful goddesses: al-Manat, goddess of fate, al-Lat, mother of the gods, and al-Uzza, the planet Venus."[28] [29] These are the same three goddesses that were later mentioned in the infamous Satanic Verses of the Koran (verses 19 and 20 of al-Sura Najm).[30][31] Sullivan adds that these three are the daughters of Allah the Moon-God with the Sun-God.[32]
Robert Morey claims that God in Islam is in origin the moon god Hubal, a deity worshipped at the Kaaba in pre-Islamic Arabia.[33] Among one of the arguments is an excerpt from Ibn Ishaq, which seems to suggest the validity of this view, citing Muhammad's grandfather "standing by Hubal praying to Allah".[34] Some authors such as Wellhausen however considered Hubal to be an ancient name for Allah.,[35] while others have pointed to Hubal as a lunar deity.[36][37] and Occhigrosso even maintains that Hubal the moon god's worship was connected with the Black Stone of the Kaaba.[38]
Islamic groups have called the Moon-God view a "lie".[39] CAIR, for example, describes the Moon-God theory of Allah, evangelical "fantasies" that are "perpetuated in their comic books".[40]
Muslim scholars cite the the 37th verse of the Sura Fusillat as proof against the Moon-God claim[41]:
وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ اللَّيْلُ وَالنَّهَارُ وَالشَّمْسُ وَالْقَمَرُ لَا تَسْجُدُوا لِلشَّمْسِ وَلَا لِلْقَمَرِ وَاسْجُدُوا لِلَّهِ الَّذِي خَلَقَهُنَّ إِن كُنتُمْ إِيَّاهُ تَعْبُدُونَ"And of His signs are the night and day and the sun and moon. Do not prostrate to the sun or to the moon, but prostate to Allah , who created them, if it should be Him that you worship".