The Names of the Moon God and Sun Consort
The Name of the Moon God anciently was Sin among the Israelites. The Arabs
gave this male deity the name Qamar and the consort was named Shams. The
details can be seen in the paper The Golden Calf (No. 222).
The Sun God was a female consort. The names we find among the Celts are
derived from these names. For example James is a derivation of the Shamus
type and comes from this system. So also are Milcom and Chemosh gods of
the
pagan descendents of Lot. The god Milcom is related in the name Malcolm.
The name Al ilat being circulated as we see above is a corruption of one
of
the three female deities. The name Al ilat is the older form of the sun
Goddess referred to in Herodotus i. 131; iii. 8. This became Al lat or
Allat
and means simply the goddess. She was wor****pped among the Arabs of the
Sinaitic peninsular and particularly the Nabateans and Palmyrenes.
Herodotus
asserts in the second passage that 'alilat and 'orotalt are the sole
deities
of Arabia. Nöldeke (ERE 1. p 661) draws attention to the name as the older
form of Allat and makes comparison with the name Al'ilãh, which was the
older form of Allãh. In both passages Herodotus identifies her with
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and thus a great celestial goddess.
The definitive proof that al ilat as the goddess is not associated with
Allah is the statement by Muhammed himself in the Koran at Surah liii:19,
where he identifies al ilat as one of the three heavenly deities, Al Lat,
Al
Uzza and Manat as the third. He denounces their adherence and places Allah
as one true God. In this Surah he goes on to denounce the adoration of
Sirius also in these contexts when he proclaims Allah as Lord of Sirius
(Surah liii:50) in condemnation of the belief that Sirius itself had
divine
power.
Al Lat is also referred to in the inscription at Safã as 'LT and perhaps
HLT. She is understood as the Mother of the Gods. The name is seemingly
pronounced as Hallat. She was venerated among the later Arabs.
The Sun god held in special honour by the Nabateans and identified by
Strabo
(784) was also understood to be Al Lat (ERE ibid).
The cult was at Ta'if to the east of Mecca and the tribe of the Thaqif
spoke
of her as their mistress.
The most im****tant cult of later times also was the cult of Al Uzza, which
was the wor****p of Venus. The name meant simply "the Mighty."
Manat was perhaps associated with the deity of Meni (Isa. 65:11). Manat
was
venerated by the tribe of the Hudhail close to Mecca and especially among
the inhabitants of Yathrib (Medina). The incidence of her name is evidence
that the cult was found over a great part of Arabia.
For this reason Muhammad had to attack the wor****p of these deities. In
the
explanation of the problem he located the wor****p of the deities to the
time
of Noah and thus associated them with the system at Babel as seen from
Genesis. The deities so located were:
Yaghuth (helper) (Surah lxxi. 23)
(Robertson Smith identifies this deity with Ye'ush the ancestor of the
Edomites mentioned in Genesis 36 and elsewhere in the OT). It is only
later
that we hear of this god's idol being in contention among the tribes of
the
Yemen.
Ya'uq and
Suwa (prob. the preserver) the cult was confined to Yemen (Sur lxxi. 20).
