http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/moongod.htm
Allah - the Moon God
The Archeology of The Middle East
The religion of Islam has as its focus of wor****p a deity by the name
of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the
biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is
thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in
Arabia during pre- Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is
essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if
"Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it
is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become
Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre- Islamic pagan
deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall
before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can
endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what
the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth
concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence
demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the
Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his
daughters.
The reader must know that Ismael was a Hebrew.
Archaeologists have uncovered temples to the Moon-god throughout the
Middle East. From the mountains of Turkey to the banks of the Nile,
the most wide-spread religion of the ancient world was the wor****p of
the Moon-god. In the first literate civilization, the Sumerians have
left us thousands of clay tablets in which they described their
religious beliefs. As demonstrated by Sjoberg and Hall, the ancient
Sumerians wor****pped a Moon-god who was called many different names.
The most popular names were Nanna, Suen and Asimbabbar. His symbol was
the crescent moon. Given the amount of artifacts concerning the
wor****p of this Moon-god, it is clear that this was the dominant
religion in Sumeria. The cult of the Moon-god was the most popular
religion throughout ancient Mesopotamia. The Assyrians, Babylonians,
and the Akkadians took the word Suen and transformed it into the word
Sin as their favorite name for the Moon-god. As Prof. Potts pointed
out, "Sin is a name essentially Sumerian in origin which had been
borrowed by the Semites. "
In ancient Syria and Canna, the Moon-god Sin was usually represented
by the moon in its crescent phase. At times the full moon was placed
inside the crescent moon to emphasize all the phases of the moon. The
sun-goddess was the wife of Sin and the stars were their daughters.
For example, Istar was a daughter of Sin. Sacrifices to the Moon-god
are described in the Pas Shamra texts. In the Ugaritic texts, the Moon-
god was sometimes called Kusuh. In Persia, as well as in Egypt, the
Moon- god is depicted on wall murals and on the heads of statues. He
was the Judge of men and gods. The Old Testament constantly rebuked
the wor****p of the Moon-god (see: Deut. 4:19;17:3; II Kngs. 21:3,5;
23:5; Jer. 8:2; 19:13; Zeph. 1:5, etc.) When Israel fell into
idolatry, it was usually the cult of the Moon-god. As a matter of
fact, everywhere in the ancient world, the symbol of the crescent moon
can be found on seal impressions, steles, pottery, amulets, clay
tablets, cylinders, weights, earrings, necklaces, wall murals, etc. In
Tell-el-Obeid, a copper calf was found with a crescent moon on its
forehead. An idol with the body of a bull and the head of man has a
crescent moon inlaid on its forehead with shells. In Ur, the Stela of
Ur-Nammu has the crescent symbol placed at the top of the register of
gods because the Moon-god was the head of the gods. Even bread was
baked in the form of a crescent as an act of devotion to the Moon-god.
The Ur of the Chaldees was so devoted to the Moon-god that it was
sometimes called Nannar in tablets from that time period.
A temple of the Moon-god has been excavated in Ur by Sir Leonard
Woolley. He dug up many examples of moon wor****p in Ur and these are
displayed in the British Museum to this day. Harran was likewise noted
for its devotion to the Moon-god. In the 1950's a major temple to the
Moon-god was excavated at Hazer in Palestine. Two idols of the moon
god were found. Each was a stature of a man sitting upon a throne with
a crescent moon carved on his chest . The accompanying inscriptions
make it clear that these were idols of the Moon-god. Several smaller
statues were also found which were identified by their inscriptions as
the "daughters" of the Moon-god. What about Arabia? As pointed out by
Prof. Coon, "Muslims are notoriously loath to preserve traditions of
earlier paganism and like to garble what pre-Islamic history they
permit to survive in anachronistic terms."
During the nineteenth century, Amaud, Halevy and Glaser went to
Southern Arabia and dug up thousands of Sabean, Minaean, and
Qatabanian inscriptions which were subsequently translated. In the
1940's, the archeologists G. Caton Thompson and Carleton S. Coon made
some amazing discoveries in Arabia. During the 1950's, Wendell
Phillips, W.F. Albright, Richard Bower and others excavated sites at
Qataban, Timna, and Marib (the ancient capital of Sheba). Thousands of
inscriptions from walls and rocks in Northern Arabia have also been
collected. Reliefs and votive bowls used in wor****p of the "daughters
of Allah" have also been discovered. The three daughters, al-Lat, al-
Uzza and Manat are sometimes depicted together with Allah the Moon-god
represented by a crescent moon above them. The archeological evidence
demonstrates that the dominant religion of Arabia was the cult of the
Moon-god.
In Old Testament times, Nabonidus (555-539 BC), the last king of
Babylon, built Tayma, Arabia as a center of Moon-god wor****p. Segall
stated, "South Arabia's stellar religion has always been dominated by
the Moon-god in various variations." Many scholars have also noticed
that the Moon-god's name "Sin" is a part of such Arabic words as
"Sinai," the "wilderness of Sin," etc. When the popularity of the Moon-
god waned elsewhere, the Arabs remained true to their conviction that
the Moon-god was the greatest of all gods. While they wor****pped 360
gods at the Kabah in Mecca, the Moon-god was the chief deity. Mecca
was in fact built as a shrine for the Moon-god.
This is what made it the most sacred site of Arabian paganism. In
1944, G. Caton Thompson revealed in her book, The Tombs and Moon
Temple of Hureidha, that she had uncovered a temple of the Moon-god in
southern Arabia. The symbols of the crescent moon and no less than
twenty-one inscriptions with the name Sin were found in this temple.
An idol which may be the Moon-god himself was also discovered. This
was later confirmed by other well-known archeologists.
The evidence reveals that the temple of the Moon-god was active even
in the Christian era. Evidence gathered from both North and South
Arabia demonstrate that Moon-god wor****p was clearly active even in
Muhammad's day and was still the dominant cult. According to numerous
inscriptions, while the name of the Moon-god was Sin, his title was
al- ilah, i.e. "the deity," meaning that he was the chief or high god
among the gods. As Coon pointed out, "The god Il or Ilah was
originally a phase of the Moon God." The Moon-god was called al- ilah,
i.e. the god, which was shortened to Allah in pre-Islamic times. The
pagan Arabs even used Allah in the names they gave to their children.
For example, both Muhammad's father and uncle had Allah as part of
their names.
The fact that they were given such names by their pagan parents proves
that Allah was the title for the Moon-god even in Muhammad's day.
Prof. Coon goes on to say, "Similarly, under Mohammed's tutelage, the
relatively anonymous Ilah, became Al-Ilah, The God, or Allah, the
Supreme Being."
This fact answers the questions, "Why is Allah never defined in the
Qur'an? Why did Muhammad assume that the pagan Arabs already knew who
Allah was?" Muhammad was raised in the religion of the Moon-god Allah.
But he went one step further than his fellow pagan Arabs. While they
believed that Allah, i.e. the Moon-god, was the greatest of all gods
and the supreme deity in a pantheon of deities, Muhammad decided that
Allah was not only the greatest god but the only god.
In effect he said, "Look, you already believe that the Moon-god Allah
is the greatest of all gods. All I want you to do is to accept that
the idea that he is the only god. I am not taking away the Allah you
already wor****p. I am only taking away his wife and his daughters and
all the other gods." This is seen from the fact that the first point
of the Muslim creed is not, "Allah is great" but "Allah is the
greatest," i.e., he is the greatest among the gods. Why would Muhammad
say that Allah is the "greatest" except in a polytheistic context? The
Arabic word is used to contrast the greater from the lesser. That this
is true is seen from the fact that the pagan Arabs never accused
Muhammad of preaching a different Allah than the one they already
wor****pped. This "Allah" was the Moon-god according to the
archeological evidence. Muhammad thus attempted to have it both ways.
To the pagans, he said that he still believed in the Moon-god Allah.
To the Jews and the Christians, he said that Allah was their God too.
But both the Jews and the Christians knew better and that is why they
rejected his god Allah as a false god.
Al-Kindi, one of the early Christian apologists against Islam, pointed
out that Islam and its god Allah did not come from the Bible but from
the paganism of the Sabeans. They did not wor****p the God of the Bible
but the Moon-god and his daughters al-Uzza, al-Lat and Manat. Dr.
Newman concludes his study of the early Christian-Muslim debates by
stating, "Islam proved itself to be...a separate and antagonistic
religion which had sprung up from idolatry." Islamic scholar Caesar
Farah concluded "There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea
that Allah passed to the Muslims from the Christians and Jews." The
Arabs wor****pped the Moon-god as a supreme deity. But this was not
biblical monotheism. While the Moon-god was greater than all other
gods and goddesses, this was still a polytheistic pantheon of deities.
Now that we have the actual idols of the Moon-god, it is no longer
possible to avoid the fact that Allah was a pagan god in pre-Islamic
times. Is it any wonder then that the symbol of Islam is the crescent
moon? That a crescent moon sits on top of their mosques and minarets?
That a crescent moon is found on the flags of Islamic nations? That
the Muslims fast during the month which begins and ends with the
appearance of the crescent moon in the sky?
CONCLUSION
The pagan Arabs wor****pped the Moon-god Allah by praying toward Mecca
several times a day; making a pilgrimage to Mecca; running around the
temple of the Moon-god called the Kabah; kissing the black stone;
killing an animal in sacrifice to the Moon-god; throwing stones at the
devil; fasting for the month which begins and ends with the crescent
moon; giving alms to the poor, etc.
The Muslim's claim that Allah is the God of the Bible and that Islam
arose from the religion of the prophets and apostles is refuted by
solid, overwhelming archeological evidence. Islam is nothing more than
a revival of the ancient Moon-god cult. It has taken the symbols, the
rites, the ceremonies, and even the name of its god from the ancient
pagan religion of the Moon-god. As such, it is sheer idolatry and must
be rejected by all those who follow the Torah and Gospel. moongod.htm
Further information: thoroughly study the links in this file and also
in The Cult of the Moon God The Vatican and Islam
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