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Mentioned in the Qur'an (Sura 53:20), 'Allāt' (a contraction of pre-Arabic
★ ''al-ilāhat'' "the Goddess") was a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess who was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca. She is one of three goddesses that the pre-Islamic Meccans referred to as "The Daughters of God",but she was also considered the bride or consort of the Father God, Allah. She is mentioned along with ˤUzzā and Manāt in Qur'an Sura 53:19-23. Her name also occurs in earlier Safaitic graffiti (Safaitic ''han-'Ilāt'' "the Goddess") and she was worshipped by the Nabataeans of Petra and the people of Hatra, who equated her with the Greek Athena & the Roman Minerva. According to Wellhausen, they believed Allāt was the mother of Hubal (and hence the mother-in-law of Manāt). The Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the 5th century B.C., considers her the equivalent of Aphrodite:"The Assyrians call Aphrodite Mylitta, the Arabians Alilat, and the Persians Mitra" (Histories I:131). According to Herodotus, the ancient Arabians believed in only two gods: "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." (Histories III:38).
According to the ''Book of Idols'' (''Kitab al-Asnām'') by
Hishām b. al-Kalbi, the pre-Islamic Arabs believed ''Allāt'' resided in the Ka'ba and also had a stone statue form in the sanctuary. B. al-Kalbi writes (N.A. Faris 1952, pp. 14-15):
:Her custody was in the hands of the Banū-Attāb ibn-Mālik of the Thaqīf, who had built an edifice over her. The Quraysh, as well as all the Arabs, were wont to venerate Allāt. They also used to name their children after her, calling them Zayd-Allāt and Taym-Allāt. [...] Allāt continued to be venerated until the Thaqīf embraced Islam, when the Apostle of God dispatched al-Mughīrah ibn-Shuˤbah, who destroyed her and burnt her temple to the ground.
According to the story of the Satanic Verses found in early Islamic histories such as at-Tabari, al-Lat, along with Manāt and ˤUzzā, was one of the ''gharaniq'', the "high flying cranes", goddesses whose intercession was to be desired alongside that of Allah.
This story was the inspiration for Salman Rushdie's controversial The Satanic Verses, which in effect re-tell the history of the Prophet Muhammad and the beginnings of Islam. The goddess is depicted as taking revenge on the Prophet for having dethroned her and excluded her from the new religion.

Contents

See also

References

External links

See also

★ Thaqif and Islam

References

★ Book of Idols, Being a Translation from the Arabic of the Kitāb al-Asnām, Ibn al-Kalbī (Translation and Commentary by Nabih Amin Faris), , , Princeton University Press, 1952, Library of Congress #52006741

★ The History, Herodotus (Translated by David Grene), , , Chicago University Press, 1987, ISBN 0-226-32770-1

External links

★ ''The Book of Idols (''Kitāb al-Asnām'')'' by Hishām Ibn al-Kalbī

★ Allah, the unique name of God

★ Herodotus 1:131 online

★ Herodotus 3:8 online

★ Sunni account from witness-pioneer.org