Is Hubal The Same As Allah?

Islamic Awareness
Islamic Awareness, All Rights Reserved.
First Composed: 24th April 2006
Last Modified: 20th January 2008

Assalamu-alaykum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu:

1. Introduction
The Christian missionaries have argued over many years that "Allah" of the Qur'an was in fact a pagan Arab "Moon
god" of pre-Islamic times. The primary proponent of this view was Robert Morey, and, along with his missionary
brethren, he has propagated these views extensively. We have made a devastating refutation of this claim by utilising
the archaeological evidence showing that his claims were nothing but a grand fraud. In the meantime, however, the
missionaries have continued their idol speculation and came up with yet another allegation concerning the genuine
monotheistic origins of Allah. This time it is alleged that Allah and Hubal, the principal idol of pre-Islamic times
located in Makkah, are one and the same entity. Furthermore, they claim that "Muhammad's Allah is actually Hubal,
i.e. the Baal of the Moabites". According to them Hubal being the Arabic for the Hebrew HaBaal, "the Baal."
Morey's disastrous foray into ancient Near-Eastern religions and other related disciplines has not dissuaded likeminded Christians to construct similar lunar fantasies. Just like his "Moon god" allegation, the missionaries have
also claimed that Hubal was a Moon-god, and by identity Allah also was a Moon-god. Recently, Timothy Dunkin, an
ardent supporter of Morey and his "scholarship", has attempted to summon the scholarly literature to show Hubal
had been considered as Allah all along, claiming to have advanced scholarly investigation in the process.
Are these claims of the Christian missionaries true? In this article we would like to examine the nature of Allah and
Hubal from the historical, lexical and archaeological point of view. We will show the claim that Allah and Hubal are
identical, is untenable not only from the point of view of history but also from archaeology. A lexical and epigraphic
study will confirm that Hubal and "Ha-Baal" are different deities. Regrettably, one will observe those defective
academic trends observed in previous lunar reconstructions such as fabricating evidence, misquoting sources and
inability to consistently cite the correct bibliographic references, continues unabashed.

2. Hubal = Allah? A Detailed Investigation

The Quraysh had several idols in and around the Kabah. The greatest of them was Hubal. Its cornelian or agate
statue stood inside the Kabah. The statue of Hubal was of a male figure with a golden arm - a replacement of a
broken-off stone arm when Hubal came into possession of the Quraysh. Amr ibn-Luhayy imported Hubal and it
was first set up by Khuzaymah ibn Mudrikah ibn al-Ya's ibn Mudar. Consequently, it used to be called Khuzaymah's
Hubal.[1] In front of Hubal there were seven divination arrows. A custodian guarded the statue, received the offerings
and sacrifices and conducted future-forecasting to pilgrims. The cult associated with him involved divination and
forecasting of future events such as marriage, death, apology, lineage, etc.[2] Abd al-Muttalib, grandfather of the
Prophet Muhammad, shuffled the divination arrows in order to find out which of his ten children he should sacrifice
in fulfilment of a vow. The arrow pointed to his son Abdullah, father of Muhammad. The Quraysh deterred the
Prophet's grandfather, arguing that his act would establish an example that other Arabs might follow.

ORIGINS OF HUBAL AT MAKKAH

It was mentioned that Amr ibn-Luhayy imported Hubal to Makkah. What were the origins of Hubal?
According to the Christian missionary Nehls, in an attempt to connect Hubal with "Ha-Baal" (i.e., the Baal), the
Hubal idol at Makkah must have originated from Moab. He says:
Where was Baal worshipped? In Moab! It was the "god of fertility". Amr ibn Luhaiy brought Hubal from Moab to
Arabia.

Not surprisingly, he did not mention any supporting evidence to prove that the Islamic traditions say that Amr ibn
Luhayy brought the Hubal idol from Moab to Arabia. The missionaries lifting each others work without proper
verification is not entirely surprising. Yet another missionary lifted Nehls' claim about the origins of the Hubal idol
at Makkah from Moab, only to present a quote from Hitti'sHistory Of The Arabs that says Amr ibn-Luhayy
imported the Hubal idol "from Moab or Mesopotamia";[3] thus clearly throwing uncertainty over the Moabite origins
of Hubal. From the Islamic traditions, it is unclear where the Hubal idol in Makkah originated from. Al-Azraqi says
Amr ibn Luhayy brought Hubal from Hit in Mesopotamia, a town situated on the Euphratus,[4] while Ibn al-Kalbi
implied that it came from al-Balqa' in Bild al-Shm.[5] Ibn Hisham[6] and Ibn Kathir,[7] on the other hand, say that it
came from Moab in the land of Balqa' in Transjordan. There is no clear-cut position that can be adduced from the
Islamic traditions on the issue of the place of origin of the Hubal idol at Makkah, although all of them are united on
its foreign origin.[8] There was an awareness among the pre-Islamic Arabs that Hubal was an imported deity and this
partly explains why he was not integrated into the "divine family" of Allah unlike the three "daughters of Allah",
Allat, Manat and al-Uzza. This brings us directly to the issue of whether or not Hubal was nothing but Allah. First
of all let us take a glimpse into the methodologies adopted by anti-Islamic polemicists concerning the identity of
Hubal with respect to the Islamic sources.
CARLETON COON, ISLAMIC SOURCES & HUBAL
There are primarily two methodologies used by anti-Islamic polemicists in an attempt to prove that Hubal is none
other than Allah. One of them is denying entirely the authenticity of the Islamic sources concerning Hubal, instead
relying upon speculation with an option of picking and choosing what appears most suitable from the Islamic
sources. The other method is to simply play around with the content of the Islamic sources. The Christian apologist
Dunkin has adopted the former haphazard approach which involves denying the authenticity of the Islamic sources.

The way he achieves this is to resurrect a specific statement of Carleton Coon, upon which his entire argument is
underwritten. He says quoting Carleton Coon:
Moslems are notoriously loath to preserve traditions of earlier paganism, and like to garble what pre-Islamic
history they permit to survive in anachronistic terms.

With such an introduction, the apologist hoped to present a "refutation" of our claims concerning Hubal and then
provide some "insights" which will encourage scholarly investigation. However, there are a couple of serious
problems with the use of Coon's quote in connection with Hubal. Firstly, Coon's discussion is confined to southern
Arabia, as the title of his paper "Southern Arabia, A Problem For The Future " clearly indicates. Hubal, on
the other hand, was a north / central Arabian deity which does not even figure in epigraphic South Arabian. So,
Coon's quote concerning the alleged garbling of pre-Islamic paganism by Islamic sources has nothing to do with
Hubal. If we look at his quote in context what we read is:
The religion of these southern Arabian states, so intimately entwined with the social and political structure, is
not easy to reconstruct. Moslems are notoriously loath to preserve traditions of earlier paganism, and like to
garble what pre-Islamic history they permit to survive in anachronistic terms. Our religious sources, then, are
confined to the body of inscriptions so far published, and a few superficial Greek observations. [9]

Clearly, Coon is talking about the religious sources of ancient South Arabia which are inscriptions and Greek-related
sources in which Hubal does not even figure. Secondly, one can argue the basis of Coon's dismissal of the value of
the Islamic traditions on the basis of its own merits. What are the evidences which Coon considers to claim that
Islamic sources present a garbled picture of pre-Islamic paganism? According to Coon, the section ("The PreIslamic Kingdoms ") from which the above mentioned quote is taken, is based on the work of Ditlef Nielsen.
Coon plainly says:
The literary evidence upon which much of this section is based is drawn largely from Nielsen, et al., 1927. [10]

Furthermore, in the same section, Coon highlights the discussion on the South Arabian kingdoms, their boundaries
in space and time, their social structures, their religious practices and their economic life, by mentioning that:
With the aid of prodigious scholarship of Nielsen and his associates, we will proceed to discuss these in
brief... It is possible, as Nielsen has done, to fit this whole religious system as we known it on the basis of
incomplete evidence, into the general Semitic scheme, in which the four kingdoms of southern Arabia, and the
northern Arabs as well, become the southern branch, and the Phoenicians, Babylonians, Assyrians, etc., the
northern with the Jews playing a mixed role.... For the present purposes it must be considered sufficient to
have presented the foregoing brief and unscholarly resum of the work of Nielsen and his associates, as a
summary of present knowledge of this intensely interesting and important archeological problem. [11]

To put everything succinctly, Coon's claim that Islamic sources present a garbled picture of pre-Islamic paganism is
not based on comparing the evidence from the Islamic sources vis--vis the South Arabian epigraphic material.
Rather it is based on the belief that since Nielsen and his associates were correct in their assessment of ancient South
Arabian religion, the Islamic sources must have presented a garbled picture of pre-Islamic paganism. But now we
know that the reduction of the pantheon of ancient Near Eastern divinities to a triad by Nielsen was not based on
actual evidence but mere speculation which made his theories dubious which consequently invited incisive
rejoinders from 1924 onwards. What now becomes peculiar is that Dunkin himself admits to the rejection of
Nielsen's theories by saying:

Likewise, while it is true that Nielsen's particular theory about astral triads in Arabian religion was overstated
and has rightly been rejected, this does not mean that there was no astral, and especially lunar, character to
pre-Islamic Arabian religion...

Yet he as no problem accepting Coon's allegation regarding the unreliability of Islamic sources concerning preIslamic paganism which is simply based on the belief that Nielsen was correct in his hypothesis concerning astral
triads in ancient South Arabian religion! Has Dunkin even read Coon's paper? Holding such contradictory positions,
the Christian apologist then states that he considers the Muslim traditions as "fictitious" and it is here we arrive
most abruptly at a common fallacy in modern Islamic studies known as "appeal to Schacht". Merely invoking his
name and summarising his main hypotheses is sufficient to dismantle any historical edifice that could possibly
remain in the Islamic sources. Western scholars have accepted for quite some time now that such uncritical
adherence to the Schachtian framework does not suffice any more in serious academic discourse; [12] to do so is to
disengage with the evidence one is not willing to confront, either due to inherent prejudices in methodology or
distaste in the final result.[13] If Schacht is mentioned then John Wansbrough, who based some of his hypothesis on
Schacht's conclusions, can't be far. According to Wansbrough, the theories that emerge from his analysis are, in his
own words "conjectural",[14] "provisional"[15] and "tentative and emphatically provisional".[16] It seems that use of such
"conjectural", "provisional" and "tentative and emphatically provisional" theories does not trouble Dunkin. Instead
he is all too eager to embrace them to "prove" with certainty that the Islamic traditions are not authentic.
To enlighten the Christian apologist who is adept at quoting people without understanding their position or the
position of modern h adth scholarship, it must be pointed out that Wansbrough and his ilk had relied on the work of
Joseph Schacht and considered that Schacht had sufficiently proven the unreliability of Muslim traditions. However,
in the last two decades a considerable amount of progress has been made in Western scholarship on h adth. This is
due to two reasons: Firstly, the availability of new sources that are "pre-canonical" such as the Mus annafs of Abd
al-Razzq al-S ann and Ibn Ab Shayba or Umar bin Shabba's Trkh al-Madnah (Schacht had no access to
earlier sources); and secondly, the development of isnd and matn analysis of the ah dth that resulted in the
investigation of textual variants of the ah dth. Using this technique, ah dth have been shown to have very early
origins going back to the 1st century of hijra.[17] The earliest Arabic literature that comes to us is in the form
of h adth collections. An example is the S ah ifah of Hammm bin Munabbih, [d. 110 AH / 719 CE], a Yemenite
follower and a disciple of the companion Abu Hurrayrah, [d. 58 AH / 677 CE], from whom Hammm wrote
this S ah ifah, which comprises 138 ah dth and is believed to have been written around the mid-first AH / seventh
century. This is available as a printed edition.[18] The h adthcollections of Ibn Jurayj [d. 150 AH] and Mamar b.
Rshad [d. 153 AH], many of them transmitted by Abd al-Razzq in his Mus annaf, are also available in print.
[19]
Motzki has traced the material in theMus annaf of Abd al-Razzq to the first century of hijra.[20]
Given such a poor understanding and even ignorance of modern h adth scholarship, Dunkin has the audacity to talk
about the "kernel of truth" which he can see "lying at the heart of some of the statements made in the traditional
materials that pertain to our present study". As to by what methodology one can discern the "kernel of truth" is not
discussed and yet there is talk of exercising "enough critical faculty to strip away the chaff that surrounds the
kernel". As for stripping away that chaff from the kernel, we have already shown some examples of it and there are
more to come in the following sections.
HUBAL AND SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF ALLAH
Allat, al-Uzza and Manat, the three female goddess of pre-Islamic Arabia, are mentioned in the Qur'an. The notable
exception to this is Hubal, whom many consider to be a central figure in the Arabian hierarchy of gods. Why is
Hubal, considering he was a prominent figure in the pantheon of gods and goddesses, not mentioned in the Qur'an?
This question in itself has raised many more questions, causing many Orientalists to indulge themselves in

unreserved speculations. Perhaps the earliest scholar to suggest that Hubal was originally the proper name of Allah
in Makkah was the German orientalist Julius Wellhausen. His hypothesis was based on circumstantial evidence
and argumentum e silentio. Wellhausen noted that Allah was always a proper name in the Arabic sources and not a
common noun. According to him, Allah was the title used within each tribe to address its tribal deity instead of its
proper name[21] and that Allah became the Islamic substitute for the name of any idol.[22]Wellhausen suggested that
apart from Hubal's known presence in the Kabah, there is no polemic in the Qur'an against him.[23] In other words,
while the Qur'an railed against Allat, Manat, and al-Uzza, whom the pagan Arabs referred to as the "daughters of
Allah", it stopped short of attacking the cult of Hubal. Although such an argument can be applied to any of the pagan
idols not mentioned in the Qur'an, such as Dhul-Khalasa and Dhul-Shara, the argumentum e silentio of Wellhausen
became a rallying cry for the missionaries and apologists to claim that Hubal was none other than Allah. [24] This is
clearly a logical fallacy. It is ironical that the Qur'an itself is ignored to address the issue of Hubal. As mentioned
earlier, there were three prominent deities of ancient Arabia mentioned in the Qur'an.
Have you then considered Allat and the Uzza, and Manat, the third, the last? What! for you the males and for
Him the females! This indeed is an unjust division! They are naught but names which you have named, you and
your fathers; Allah has not sent for them any authority. They follow naught but conjecture and the low desires
which (their) souls incline to; and certainly the guidance has come to them from their Lord. [Srah alNajm:19-23]

The reason why Hubal is not mentioned is specifically because of his gender. There was nothing to distinguish
Hubal from the other Arab divinities such as Dhul-Khalasa and Dhul-Shara whereas other divinities mentioned in
the Qur'an, i.e., Allat, Manat and al-Uzza, were distinguished by being regarded as the "daughters of Allah", as
pointed out by Fahd although he did not completely elaborate this important point.[25] Similarly, the Qur'an also
criticizes the position of the "sons of Allah" attributed to Jesus and Uzayr. In Srah al-Najm, the Qur'an is referring
to the concept of "daughters of Allah", and to mention a male deity like Hubal would be against the very argument
the Qur'an is drawing attention to.
What! for you the males and for Him the females! This indeed is an unjust division! [Srah al-Najm:21]

The Qur'an uses irony to drive home a point. While many of the Arabs buried their daughters alive, as well as
holding the position that women were inferior to men in all aspects, they still fabricated daughters for Allah. The
first point which the Qur'an mentions is that they have no evidence for their speculations:
They are naught but names which you have named, you and your fathers; Allah has not sent for them any
authority. They follow naught but conjecture and the low desires which (their) souls incline to; and certainly
the guidance has come to them from their Lord. [Srah al-Najm:23]

Secondly, what is interesting is that while this verse attributes this position to conjecture, it further explains the
psychological reason behind the conjecture. Conjecture is the project of an overpowering emotion and desire. A
person seeks all types of justifications for his behaviour, because he wants to act in a certain way. What exactly were
the desires that caused the Arabs to conjecture regarding female idols Allat, al- Uzza, and Manat? Those who take
their desires as gods, end up personifying these desires in idol form, fulfilling the words of the Qur'an
Have you seen him who takes his desires as god?" [Srah al-Jathiya:23]

The main irony in the concept of intercession of the Arabs was that the women in Arabian society did not hold any
real position of influence in their society. Yet, the female deities, according to the Arabs, had the station with Allah
to influence His decisions! As compared with Allat, Manat, and al-Uzza, Hubal lacks specific connective attributes.

He was a male with a golden arm - a replacement of a broken-off stone arm when Hubal came into possession of the
Quraysh. Hubal's cult associated with him involving divination and forecasting of future events. The idolaters most
momentous claims were reserved for other idols which they claimed held a specific station and divine intimate
connection with Allah.
Dunkin stated Hubal (read Allah) was the
result of a long process of evolution from the Ba'al deities of other lands This association would have been
based upon similarities of station and function held in common by these gods in each area.

It should come as no shock that these unnamed and unknown Baal deities are never mentioned nor are the regions
they came from. On only one occasion do we find Dunkin referring to a "station and function held in common".
Noting that the polytheists attributed three daughters to Allah, Dunkin saw a connection with Baal, a deity
mentioned in the late Bronze Age cuneiform alphabetic texts discovered in 1928 at Ras Shamra, Syria, because he
had three daughters. On the basis of this single piece of information Dunkin readily identifies Ba al with Allah. Not
dissimilar to his other startling claims, he posits no evidence whatsoever for this assertion, other than alluding to
"some modifications and evolution" which allowed Baal to become Allah "with three daughters". With these few
words Dunkin rescues himself from properly evaluating the substance of his claim, hoping to capture an air of
credibility by making a passing reference to Baal In The Ras Shamra Texts . In this book Kapelrud explains
that Baal's family consisted of father, mother, brothers, sisters and son[26] as well as various helpers and messengers.
[27]
Dunkin's lack of critical insight extends further than the misappropriation of Ba al's family. The Ugaritist Cyrus
Gordon briefly studied the geographic origin of the so-called "daughters" of Allah and concluded the names in
the triad bore no resemblance with the daughters of Ba al , whilst pointing out Allah and Baal Shamen
were "rival deities".[28]
Gordon was writing just fifteen years after the texts at Ras Shamra had been discovered. Not until very recently has
a comprehensive study of all the epithets of the attested Ugaritic deities been published. [29] The significance of such a
study is that the epithets of all the individual Ugaritic deities mentioned in the cuneiform alphabetic texts from Ras
Shamra and Ras Ibn Hani are discussed in context, allowing one to draw conclusions about a particular deity based
on its respective epithets in light of the epithets of the other deities. Ba al had fourteen epithets. [30] Rahmouni
emphasises the importance of the epithets as they "reflect the basic religious concepts of Ugaritic society and help us
to determine the role and position of the various gods in Ugaritic religion".[31] She goes on to say, "The study of
different epithets of the same god in different contexts helps us to determine the god's characteristics and functions,
".[32] Proceeding from this starting point we learn the most common Ugaritic divine epithet "Ba lu the mighty one"
refers to his victories over rival deities Yammu and Mtu deities which also defeat Baal on occasion. [33] The
limited kingship of Baal is dependant on and is exercised under the supreme authority of the deity Il, who is the
only deity that can appoint another deity as king. Baal has to compete for kingship with other deities. Ba al has no
authority over the creation of mankind or other deities. Baal has a filial relationship to Dagnu. In addition to the
family relationships mentioned earlier, Baal has a son-in-law which refers to the god Yrh who apparently wed Pdry,
the daughter of Baal. Along with all other deities, Baal relies on Il for strength and encouragement and is filially
related to him. Baal is forced to surrender to and is defeated by other deities he battles with. Baal has a consort, the
goddess Anatu.[34] Such attributes have never been associated with Allah. Even more telling is the theology of
Baal[35] and the cultic and ritual practices at Ugarit,[36] from which one could make several dozen observations. It will
be sufficient to mention just one aspect here pertinent to the topic raised. Baal is a dying or disappearing god. [37] One
would be hard pressed to find a greater antithesis to the Islamic creed. In fact just a few hundred kilometres southeast of Ras Shamra in Jabal Usays (also in Syria), the first line of one of the most imperative verses in the
Qur'an,ayat al-Kursi (2:255), lays inscribed on a rock face. Dated to the year ninety-three of hijra, Allah is described
as the Ever-Living, the One who sustains and protects all that exists.[38] One may point to an even earlier inscription

dated twenty-nine of hijra from Cyprus containing Srah al-Ikhlas where Allah is described as one, eternal/absolute,
who begets not nor is begotten and is incomparable. There can be no greater contrast. As has been observed,
Dunkin's proposed falsification of the literary texts by later Muslims in order to eradicate the pagan origin and
nature of Allah is contradicted by the documentary evidence which merely confirms what the literary sources
already tell us,[39] not to mention the Ugaritic materials that he dismally failed to assess and comprehend.
Do contemporary non-Muslim sources provide any inkling of Baal worship and/or idolatrous syncretism before,
during or after the time period which Dunkin thinks the later Muslims allegedly started falsifying their literary
sources to conceal the pagan origin and nature of Allah? A close examination of over one hundred sources written in
languages including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Persian and Chinese from of a variety of
different literary genres written from both within and out with the Islamic state, reveals there is no evidence to
suggest Baal worship was practised amongst the early Muslims or that Hubal was ever considered as Allah. [40] In
fact, the earliest Christian writings clearly depict Muhammad as a monotheist revivalist who drew his people away
from idol worship,[41] just the opposite of what Dunkin had suggested. Writing some twenty-eight years after
Muhammad had died during the end of the caliphate of Ali c. 660 CE, the Armenian chronicler Sebeos says the
"Ishmaelite called Mahmet" turned his people away from vain cults towards the worship of the living god who had
revealed himself to Abraham. Also writing c. 660 CE, the chronicler of Khzistn likewise comments on the
ancestral Abrahamic connection. Writing during the caliphate of Abd al-Malik, c. 687 CE, John bar Penkaye wrote,
"As a result of this man's guidance they held to the worship of the one god in accordance with the customs of
ancient law". Archdeacon George writing in the early eight century said, "he returned the worshippers of idols to the
knowledge of the one God". In the last quarter of the eighth century the Chronicle of Zuqnin, composed by a
resident of a monastery of that name in Mesopotamia said, "he had turned them away from the cults of all kinds and
taught them that there was one God, maker of Creation".[42] The founder of Christian apologetic and anti-Islamic
polemic John of Damascus (c. 655 750 CE) placed at the head of his discussion of Qur'anic doctrine Srah alIkhlas, which it seemed he considered the core Qur'anic message.[43] He even had a positive recognition of
Muhammad as the person who had led his people back to monotheism from all kinds of idolatry.[44]
In his effort to provide a direct comparative analysis of different regions, cultures, languages and religions spanning
several millennia, something which is cautioned against by the very source he thought provided support for his
views,[45] Dunkin's contribution is thin on evidence and thick on speculation and misunderstanding. Let us now move
on to more fruitful ground and consider what the Islamic traditions tell us about Hubal and Allah.

THE IDENTITY OF ALLAH AND HUBAL ACCORDING TO ISLAMIC TRADITION

The hypothesis that Hubal was originally the proper name of Allah suffers from serious difficulties. In the battle of
Uhud, the distinction between the followers of Allah and the followers of Hubal is made clear by the statements of
Prophet Muhammad and Abu Sufyan. Ibn Hisham narrates in the biography of the Prophet:
When Abu Sufyan wanted to leave he went to the top of the mountain and shouted loudly saying, 'You have
done a fine work; victory in war goes by turns. Today in exchange for the day (of Badr). Show your superiority,
Hubal,' i.e. vindicate your religion. The apostle told Umar to get up and answer him and say, God [Allah] is
most high and most glorious. We are not equal. Our dead are in paradise; your dead are in hell.[46]

The same incident is narrated in S ah h of al-Bukhari with a slightly different wording (for a more detailed narration
see here).
Abu Sufyan ascended a high place and said, "Is Muhammad present amongst the people?" The Prophet said,
"Do not answer him." Abu Sufyan said, "Is the son of Abu Quhafa present among the people?" The Prophet

said, "Do not answer him." Abu Sufyan said, "Is the son of Al-Khattab amongst the people?" He then added,
"All these people have been killed, for, were they alive, they would have replied." On that, 'Umar could not help
saying, "You are a liar, O enemy of Allah! Allah has kept what will make you unhappy." Abu Sufyan said,
"Superior may be Hubal!" On that the Prophet said (to his companions), "Reply to him." They asked, "What
may we say?" He said, "Say: Allah is More Elevated and More Majestic!" Abu Sufyan said, "We have (the idol)
al-Uzza, whereas you have no Uzza!" The Prophet said (to his companions), "Reply to him." They said, "What
may we say?" The Prophet said, "Say: Allah is our Helper and you have no helper."

The isnd bundle of these ah dth can be depicted as shown below. It was drawn using Hadth
by al-Sakhr as well as by referring to the books of ah dth.

Sharf software

Commenting on the above tradition that specifically distinguishes and contrasts between the worshippers of Allah
and the worshippers of Hubal, Dunkin says:
These traditions are simply untrustworthy, and most likely represent polemical inventions by later Muslims to
serve as object illustrations of the victory of Allah over the Jahiliya pagan system. The story in which Abu
Sufyan cries, "Be thou exalted, Hubal!", and Mohammed replies, "Be thou more exalted, Allah!", is
programmatic in its polemical presentation. This is especially so when we consider the addendum to this story,
also adduced by Saifullah and David, in which Abu Sufyan holds a meeting with Mohammed and realizes the
error of his previous ways, and becomes a good Muslim. The traditional literature of Islam abounds with this
sort of story, in which pagans and apostates realize their error and "revert" to Islam as the only and obviously
true way. There is simply no good reason to rely upon the traditions about Abu Sufyan and his (and Hubal's)
opposition to Allah as any sort of truly historical set of events, especially in light of the rest of the opposing
evidences...
The traditions which deal with Hubal, while showing a great amount of redaction by later Muslims, nevertheless
still contain a core of information that helps to show us that Hubal was understood to be the Lord of the
Ka'bah.

Dunkin brushed aside what did not suit his fancy as "untrustworthy" and a "polemical invention" by "later
Muslims". Concerning as to who invented the story, why it was invented and where it was invented, the Christian
apologist is remarkably silent, yet he is still able to proclaim with confidence a "great amount of redaction" has
taken place!
As a formal discipline, redaktionsgeschichte (redaction criticism / redaction history), a term coined by Professor
Willi Marxsen in 1954, is a recent construction and was originally developed by biblical scholars to aid the study of
the New Testament text, and in particular the synoptic Gospels. Although it is difficult to find any one agreed upon
definition, the generally stated purpose of this method is to study the way in which authors changed their sources; it
is therefore a method which focuses upon the stages of the editorial process which might reveal something of the
redactor's theology and/or intentions.[47] There is intense debate as to the usefulness of this historical critical method
and what value, if any, it holds in unlocking some of the textual problems of the New Testament, especially so
amongst evangelicals.[48] By definition, therefore, before any claim of "redaction" and its alleged implications can be
made, it is incumbent on the assessor to have sufficiently studied the authors, transmitters and collectors of the
material, their respective texts and how they are expressed. [49] Dunkin claims to have found a "great amount of
redaction" in the traditions concerning Hubal which presupposes the apologist has collated and analysed the
relevant h adth compilations dealing with the Hubal traditions. The apologist has not provided any evidence of the
former thus immediately betraying his own claims as bogus. Nevertheless, let us now take the opportunity to have a
comprehensive look at the sources, their transmitters and collectors to establish if any such "redaction" has occurred.
Isnd bundle of this h adth and its variants in the form of a slightly different text shows an interesting picture, quite
contrary to what Dunkin had claimed. This h adth has come to us from fourindependent sources , i.e., al-Bar'a
ibn Azib, Abdullh ibn Abbs, Abdullh ibn Masd and Urwa ibn al-Zubayr. It was recorded by Sulaymn ibn
Dwd al-Taylis [d. 203 AH / 819 CE] in hisMusnad, Abd al-Razzq [d. 211 AH / 826 CE] in his Mus annaf,
Ibn Abi Shayba [d. 235 AH / 849 CE] in his Mus annaf, Ahmed ibn Hanbal [d. 241 AH / 855 CE] in his Musnad,
al-Bukhr [d. 256 AH / 870 CE] in his S ah h, Ab Dwd [d. 275 AH / 888 CE] in his Sunan, al-Nas' [d. 303
AH / 915 CE] in his Sunan apart from others like al-Ruyan and Ab Awanah. Ahmed ibn Hanbal has collected
this narration from all of the sources except one whereas Abd al-Razzq collected his material from only one
source, i.e., Urwa ibn al-Zubayr.

What about the dating of this tradition? This isnd bundle shows that the earliest known occurrence of this h adth is
in the Musnad of al-Taylis [d. 203 AH / 819 CE]. In other words, this h adth was already known and in
circulation in the early third Islamic century, if we consider the death of al-T aylis as a terminus post quem. Is that
the final word on the dating of this h adth? An analysis of theisnd bundle suggests that the tradition from al-Bar'a
ibn Azib intersects at Zubayr ibn Muawiya [d. 174 AH / 790 CE]. He is the common link. One can claim that
Zubayr ibn Muawiya might have invented this distinguishing tradition between Hubal and Allah, thereafter
circulating it widely as he was the common link.[50] However, there are arguments which speak against the
assumption that Zubayr invented this information outright. A tradition from al-Bukhr circumvents Zubayr ibn
Muawiya and comes via Amr ibn Abdullh [d. 127 AH / 745 CE] in a slightly shorter form. Therefore, this
tradition was already known in the first quarter of the second century of hijra. It can be corroborated by the fact this
tradition with a slighty longer text also occurs in the Mus annaf of Abd al-Razzq al-S ann [d. 211 AH / 826
CE] and was independently transmitted via the isnd Mamar b. Rshad [d. 153 AH / 770 CE]
Muh ammad ibn Muslim, i.e., Ibn Shihab al-Zuhr [d. 124 AH / 741 CE]
Urwa ibn al-Zubayr [d. 94 AH / 712
CE]. Hence it can be safely said that this tradition was already known to al-Zuhr who died a few years before Amr
ibn Abdullh. Likewise, a similar point can be made concerning Abdullh ibn Dhakwn [ d. 130 AH / 748 CE] who
again independently transmitted this tradition of Abdullh ibn Abbs. Furthermore, Amr ibn Abdullh and
Muh ammad ibn Muslim directly received the traditions from the al-Bar'a ibn Azib [d. 72 AH / 692 CE] and Urwa
ibn al-Zubayr [d. 94 AH / 712 CE], respectively, thereby representing the shortest isnd going back to the actual
source. Thus it can be safely concluded that this tradition goes back to the first century of hijra. With the
independence of sources as well as transmitters of this h adth, it is hard to believe Dunkin's claim of its
"untrustworthy" and a "polemical invention" by "later Muslims". Study of the matn (i.e., the text of the h adth) from
the four independent sources clearly shows that they are talking about one and the same event, and in particular, a
clear distinction between the followers of Allah and followers of Hubal is demonstrated, with an addition or
subtraction of the details in the text. Such an omission or addition occurs in the h adth literature and does not
constitute "redaction".
Going back to the actual text of the h adth, one can see clear facts emerging. Firstly, the Quraysh worshipped Hubal
and al-Uzza (among other deities not stated here); the Muslims, on the other hand, worshipped Allah. Secondly,
with regard to the statement of Abu Sufyan ascribing superiority to Hubal, Prophet Muhammad replied that Allah
was more Majestic and more Glorious. Thirdly, the dead of the pagan Quraysh in the Battle of Uhud who
worshipped Hubal, al-Uzza among other gods are in the hell, whereas the dead who worshipped Allah are in
heaven. Fourthly, the worshippers of Allah are not equal to the worshippers of Hubal. Since the Christian
missionaries have a habit of using a syllogism even though there are clear statements refuting their position, let us
note the following syllogism.
1.

Hubal was worshipped by the Quraysh; Allah was worshipped by the Muslims.

2.

The worshippers of Hubal are in hell; the worshippers of Allah are in heaven.

3.

Therefore, Hubal was not Allah.

Commenting on the above tradition, the Christian missionaries say:

Unlike the verse in the Quran, this one does mention Hubal by name and suggests that he was distinct from
Allah. Again, Muhammad transforming Allah from a pagan deity into the sole universal God, a transformation
which was different from any similarly named deity, can account for why Sufyan viewed Hubal as a different
god altogether.

Furthermore, this tradition actually poses problems for the Muslims since it implies that the pagans such as
Abu Sufyan did not view Allah as the supreme god, but one of many rival gods. Sufyan attributes his victory
over Muhammad and his god to Hubal and Uzza, suggesting that at least in his mind these gods were equal, if
not superior, to Allah. Sufyan obviously felt that Allah could be challenged and defeated, which means that
these pagans didn't see Allah as the unrivaled and supreme Deity as both the Quran and Islamic traditions
claim.

It is hard to see how this tradition poses "problems" for Muslims. In fact, this tradition clearly refutes the
missionaries' claim that Allah and Hubal were identical. Furthermore, Abu Sufyan, the chieftain

of the
Quraysh, became a Muslim in 8 AH just a few days before the liberation of Makkah, after a
personal council with the Prophet . He swallowed his pride and admitted that:
[51]

By God, I thought that had there been any God with God, he would have continued to help me. [52]

In other words, Hubal and al-Uzza which Abu Sufyan had proclaimed as gods neither assisted nor helped him to
defeat the Muslims. He then accepted Allah as the one, supreme God beside whom there exists no other god.
Furthermore, he was also personally involved in the smashing of the idol of Allat, one of the so called daughters of
Allah.[53] It must also be added that if the idol of Hubal which occupied the Kabah in Makkah represented the image
of Allah, then why did Muhammad order it to be destroyed? He could easily have left the statue as it was and
justified it as the image of Allah, thus making it far easier for those transitioning from polytheism to monotheism.
History records this never happened, rather Muhammad ordered all the idols destroyed. It is not difficult to see why
this is the case if one pays attention to the Islamic sources, especially those which inform us directly about the life
and times of Muhammad. Consider the following. The most supreme delight in the afterlife is the ability to see
Allah. Anticipating this humbling and blissful moment is a source of immense joy and happiness for all the
believers.[54] We find narrated in the S ah h of al-Bukhari the following report:
On the authority of Abu Huraira: The people said, "O Allah's Apostle! Shall we see our Lord on the Day of
Resurrection?" The Prophet said, "Do you have any difficulty in seeing the moon on a full moon night?" They
said, "No, O Allah's Apostle." He said, "Do you have any difficulty in seeing the sun when there are no clouds?"
They said, "No, O Allah's Apostle." He said, "So you will see Him, like that. Allah will gather all the people on
the Day of Resurrection, and say, 'Whoever worshipped something (in the world) should follow (that thing),' so,
whoever worshipped the sun will follow the sun, and whoever worshiped the moon will follow the moon, and
whoever used to worship certain (other false) deities, he will follow those deities...

The importance of Prophet Muhammad's exposition cannot be underestimated. He is describing the single most
pleasurable moment of the people of Paradise. Equally though we are reminded of the fate of those who worshipped
other than God alone. It is amply clear the idol Hubal and those who worshipped him along with other false deities
and their followers, are clearly distinguished from Allah and the worshippers of Allah on this juncture Islamic
tradition is very clear.[55]
In fact, a number of scholars have already noted that Hubal and Allah can't be one and the same entity. For example,
over 100 years ago, Margoliouth had casted doubts on Wellhausen's identification of Hubal with Allah and
dismissed it as a "hypothesis". He says:
Between Hubal, the god whose image was inside the Kabah, and Allah ("the God"), of whom much will be
heard, there was perhaps some connection; yet the identification of the two suggested by Wellhausen is not
yet more than an hypothesis.[56]

As part of an examination as to what deity the Quraysh were supposed to have represented,[57] Patricia Crone made
an argument concerning Wellhausen's suggestion that Allah might simply be another name for Hubal. Commenting
on the Islamic tradition she says:
One would have to fall back on the view that Allah might simply be another name for Hubal, as Wellhausen
suggested; just as the Israelites knew Yahwe as Elohim, so the Arabs knew Hubal as Allah, meaning "God". It
would follow that the guardians of Hubal and Allah were identical; and since Quraysh were not guardians of
Hubal, they would not be guardians of Allah, either... When Abd al-Mutallib is described as having prayed to
Allah while consulting Hubal's arrow, it is simply that the sources baulk at depicting the Prophet's grandfather
as a genuine pagan, not that Allah and Hubal were alternative names of the same god. If Hubal and Allah had
been one and the same deity, Hubal ought to have survived as an epithet of Allah, which he did not. And
moreover there would not have been traditions in which people are asked to renounce the one for the other .[58]

Crone's straightforward rejection of the identification of Hubal and Allah is based on the application of common
sense in view of the available evidence. Dunkin contests Crone's statement and in the process utterly confuses
himself regarding her position, a direct consequence of not carefully reading the entirety of the discussion. He says,
She is not, per se, arguing against the equation of Hubal and Allah - indeed, she does not directly address the
question at all. In his speediness to form the identification of Hubal with Allah, Dunkin neglected to read on just an
additional two paragraphs where he would have found the answer to his imaginary question. Crone further
reinforces her position by saying,
But as has been seen, they [Quraysh] do not appear to have been guardians of Hubal, and Hubal was not
identified with Allah, nor did his cult assist that of Allah in any way. [59]

Similarly, while discussing Hubal and Allah in the context of the Battle of Uhud, Hayward R. Alker points out that
they both can't be one and the same.
This seems, however, unlikely, especially as, at the battle of Uhud, in the course of the warfare between
Quraysh of Mecca and Muslims of Medina, the clash between the Meccans' god Hubal and the Muslims' Allah is
stressed.[60]

F. E. Peters makes a clear distinction between Hubal and Allah on the basis that the former was a newcomer and the
Quraysh adopted Hubal to further their political alliance with the surrounding tribe of Kinana.
Or, to put the question more directly, was Hubal rather than Allah, "Lord of the Kaba"? Probably not, else the
Qur'an, which makes no mention of Hubal, would certainly have mentioned the contention. Hubal was, by the
Arabs' own tradition, a newcomer to both Mecca and Kaba, an outsider introduced by the ambitious Amr ibn
Luhayy, and the tribal token around which the Quraysh later attempted to construct a federation with the
surrounding Kinana, whose chief deity Hubal was. Hubal was introduced into the Kaba but he never supplanted
the god Allah, whose House it continued to be.[61]

Similar conclusions have been reached by von Grunebaum.

It seems quite a defensible suggestion that even before Muhammad the Kaba was first and foremost the holy
place of Allah and not that of the Hubal deriving from the Nabataeans and 359 other members of the
astrological syncretic pantheon assembled there. [62]

What now becomes the clutching of straws for the missionaries is the tenuous claim that Abd al-Muttalib's praying
to Allah whilst standing next to the statue of Hubal[63] shows that "Allah to whom Muhammad's grandfather vowed
and worshiped was none other than Hubal". As to how standing next to the statue of Hubal and praying to Allah is
equivalent to Hubal actually being Allah is a great mystery. By this "logic", a Christian standing next to the cross
and praying to the Trinitarian deity makes him a cross-worshipper. Moreover, the text in English and Arabic clearly
distinguishes and differentiates between Hubal and Allah. The Qur'an acknowledges that the Makkans were aware of
Allah as one true God;[64] yet they worshipped deities other than Him who will act as intercessors.
They serve, besides Allah, things that hurt them not nor profit them, and they say: "These are our intercessors
with Allah." [Qur'an 10:18]

IS HUBAL = HA-BAAL? AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL ENQUIRY

The seventeenth century witnessed a rekindled interest in Arabic studies across Western Europe. Chairs were being
established in Arabic in order to facilitate the dissemination of a language whose collective scholarly output was
huge and multi-disciplinary. Although the motives for establishing such endowments in England were often less
conspicuous than others,[65] the primary interest in studying Arabic was religious, giving a better understanding of the
biblical text and complimenting the study of Hebrew. Considered as an essential tool for the conversion of Muslims
to Christianity, the Arabic language was seen as a missionizing tool with great unexplored potential. [66] The most
prominent scholar of this period was undoubtedly Edward Pococke (16041691 CE). The son of an Anglican vicar,
Pococke completed his master's degree in 1626 at Oxford, before applying himself to study the rudiments of Arabic
under Matthias Pasor and William Bedwell successively. An ordained priest in 1629, he was appointed as chaplain to
the English merchants in Aleppo, Syria, arriving in the city shortly thereafter in 1630. It is here Pococke received
further instruction in Arabic language and literature under the guidance of the Muslim scholar Shaykh
Fathallah[67] with whom he entered into an agreement with, and a servant he hired named Hamed with whom he
would be able to converse in Arabic familiarly. By the time Pococke had completed his tenure some six years later,
Shaykh Fathallah was reported to have said Pococke could speak Arabic as well as the mufti of Aleppo![68] With
recent developments at Cambridge where a chair in Arabic had been established just a few years earlier, under the
patronage of William Laud, Chancellor of the University and Bishop of London, Pococke returned to Oxford to
become the first Laudian Professor of Arabic. It is here Pococke engaged in a long study of Ab'l-Faraj's (Bar
Hebraeus) Al-Mukhtasar Fid Duwal (Compendious History Of The Dynasties ), before eventually
having published in 1650 a short extract under the title Specimen Historiae Arabum , a Latin translation with
extensive notes on the section dealing with pre-Islamic and early Islamic history of the Arabs and Islam. [69] A
landmark publication in terms of methodology and the extensive use of original sources, the books authority was
recognized by western scholars who drew much from the information supplied therein. It also dispelled a number of
absurd Occidental fantasies reverberating in Christendom regarding Muhammad and Islam.[70] In his notes section
dealing with the religion ofjahaliya, Pococke discusses the most commonly mentioned idols such as the three
"daughters of Allah", Allt, al-Uzz and Mant. Perhaps the first to suggest so in a published work, Pococke
supposed Hubal was equivalent to Hab-baal. He said,
Qum pulchr convenit figmento isti nomen suum, ut sit Vanitas? Qud si cum nomine suo ad Arabes
transierit, erat forsan illis quibus mutuatum sumpserunt Habbaal, vel Habbel: .[71]

A testament to the fact his work remained authoritative several centuries after it had been published, the views of
Pococke regarding the idol Hubal and its ultimate derivation were subsequently popularised throughout a wide range
of scholarly literature in Western Europe. Hvernick's exposition of the Old Testament directed at the higher critics
of Germany contained a section on the Arabic language. Briefly recounting pre-Islamic idolatry he says of the idol
Hubal, ... a new Aramaic worship was introduced, instead of the ancient imageless worship, statues of idols were

placed on the Kaaba; Hobal ,, the Great Baal absolutely so called (Mnter, Relig. d. Babylon. s. 18, ff.) was
reverenced, ...[72] Again, briefly surveying pre-Islamic Arabia on the eve of Islam, Muehleisen draws a comparison
between Hubal and Baal by citing Pococke mentioning his Specimen Historiae Arabum "has not yet been
surpassed".[73] In both cases the indebtedness to Pococke is evident. However, Pococke's derivation was to find its
most unusual expression in the writings of the Dutch orientalist Reinhart Dozy (18201883 CE). His extraordinary
hypothesis attributed the establishment of the sanctuary at Mecca to Davidic times by Jews from the tribe of Simeon
who convened the "festival" of Makkah. As there were no prophets, priests or rabbis at Makkah who could sway the
people by undermining their modes of worship, Dozy thought the original form of worship of the Jews could thus be
properly discerned, the traces of which had essentially disappeared from the Old Testament. Therefore, the old
Jewish religion could be inferred from the Simeonites practices at Makkah. Dozy believed the ancient religion of
Israel was not the worship of Jehovah, but of Baal due to the fact he was worshipped by the Simeonites at Makkah
in the form of Hubal meaning hab-baal "the Baal" which had been imported from Syria.[74]
From this assortment of sources the identification of Hubal with the Ba al was thus passed into the Christian
missionary literature. Contrasting the differences between the Christian conception of God and the Muslim one,
Zwemer suggested Hubal was in fact none other than Allah, noting the Baal-Hubal identification made by Dozy and
Pococke.[75] Zwemer terminates the discussion with some emotive imagery, "Islam is not original, not a ripe fruit, but
rather a wild offshoot of foreign soil grafted on Judaism."[76] one might say a somewhat self-defeating statement in
light of Dozy's highly eccentric views. Zwemer's views have been taken up in earnest by contemporary missionaries
highlighting the alleged Baal-Hubal-Allah worship of the Muslims. The missionaries hypothetically ask did the
Makkans worship the God Yahweh? Special emphasis is placed on Dozy's Baal-Hubal identification, which
unbeknown to the missionaries requires an implicit acceptance of his historical reconstruction on which his
identification is principally grounded. The missionaries have unwittingly established pagan Ba al worship for the
Jews and themselves besides the worship of Jehovah whom Dozy discovered was idolised in the form of a he-goat.
[77]
Moving back to more solid ground, scholars have long since noted the fragile basis on which this identification
was made,
The name [Hubal] cannot be explained from the Arabic for the etymologies in Ykt etc. condemn themselves,
but Pocock's supposition that Hubal is equivalent to ,
although defended by Dozy, is hardly better founded.
[78]

Such cautionary advice has not deterred other like minded missionaries from advancing this more than three
hundred and fifty year old hypothesis. Nehls says:
Interesting is the name HUBAL (in Arabic and Hebrew script the vowels were not noted). This shows a very
suspicious connection to the Hebrew HABAAL (= the Baal). As we all know this was an idol mentioned in the
Bible (Num. 25:3, Hosea 9:10, Deut. 4:3, Josh. 22:17 and Ps. 106:28-29).

In fact, such an argument, albeit in a more sophisticated way, was also made by Sergio Noja.[79] Noja hypothesis can
be summarized like this. Hubal consists of hbl ()(. The h- or hn- article in Ancient North Arabian was the
forerunner of the al- of Arabic. As for bl, it was modified with time from bl () (. With the loss of ayn in the
middle of b and l, bl became bl. Furthermore, since ha-bl means "the lord", or "the god" (Baal was an ancient
Canaanite deity) and in classical Arabic it can be written as al-bl which would still mean the same thing. Hubal
would, therefore, be the ancient correspondent of Allah.
Noja's argument, seductive as it appears, has some serious problems. The inscriptions in the Arabian peninsula can
be classified into two groups according to the form of definite article used: h- or hn- [orh(n)-] on the one hand and
on the other l-, the precursor of classical Arabic al-.[80] Chronologically speaking, the latter group is regarded as

late, since its epigraphic evidence dates only from late 1st century BCE onwards and have been found in central,
north and eastern Arabia, Syria and the Negev region. The earliest occurrence of the hn- article is in the name of the
goddess hn-lt in the Aramaic dedications on silver bowls found at her shrine at Tell al-Mashta, in the Nile delta.
[81]
These have been dated to the late 5th century BC. This dating is arrived at partly on palaeographical grounds and
partly by the quite arbitrary identification of Gm (the patronym of one of the donors), with "Geshem, the Arab"
mentioned in Nehemiah (2:19; 6:1 and cf. 6:2, 6).[82] Macdonald points out that Gm was a common name in
southern Syria and northern Arabia in the pre-Islamic period and there is no external evidence to suggest that these
two occurrences refer to the same person.[83] However, the al- group appears to be more ancient as Herodotus stated
that the Arabs worshipped a goddess name , Al-ilat (or Allat, "the goddess").[84] This tells us that this form of
Arabic definite article was used as early as the 5th century BCE. However, this does not give us any idea about the
dialect in which such an article was used.[85]
Attempts have been date the hn- article even earlier than al- by the Christian apologist Dunkin. He claims that:
...Livingstone has proposed a reading back of the hn- form (as it would have appeared in the Arabian dialect)
into certain Arab terms which were apparently carried over wholesale into the Akkadian of a triumphal
inscription celebrating victories won by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 744-727 BC). While this reading
is more tenuous, it may well push the epigraphic evidence for the hn- form in Arabian languages back another
three centuries. So, we see that the hn- form is definitely ancient.

While he admits that the reading is quite tenuous, as scholars also admit,[86] it has not dissuaded him to make the
claim that the hn- form is "definitely ancient". However, a closer reading of Livingstone's article reveals something
entirely different from what Dunkin is claiming. Livingstone says that:
The suggestion is made here that what has been heard is the Arabic definite article and that the above
inscription is at present the earliest known attestation thereof. A spoken form han-nqt(u) is to be
postulated....
The material discussed in this article can be placed within the context of the history and classification of the
languages of Pre-Islamic Arabia.... The form discussed here could of course equally well belong to an allanguage or a han- language in Beeston's classification, but would in any case push the prehistory of Arabic
within that classification back a further three hundred years. [87]

Livingstone is saying that the text of inscription of Tiglathpileser III (744-727 BCE), in particular, the word a-naqa-a-te can be considered as having an Arabic definite article al-, as in an-nqte. In addition, he also
postulates han-nqt(u) as the spoken form. Contrary to what Dunkin had claimed concerning the antiquity
of hn- form, Livingstone says that the form of the definite article discussed by him can "equally well belong to an
al- language or a han- language", thus pushing them back another three centuries. Clearly, Livingstone's
conclusions do not support Dunkin's claim of antiquity of hn-article only.
The idea that the h(n)- article found in Ancient North Arabian is the ancestor of Arabic l- has been suggested by
scholars over a long period. One of the earliest to propose this hypothesis was Wensinck. [88] His line of reasoning is
this:[89] At the outset, the tribes of Northern Arabia used the article h-. This he interprets as h-, which was gradually
reduced to h-, a consequence of this shortening being the reinforcement of the first consonant of the following
word by way of compensation, for example, h-kitb > h-kkitb > han-kitb > hal-kitb > al-kitb. He then adds
that hesitating the form han- began to shift into the cognate form hal. Gradually, however, hal- grew the usual form
of the article in connection with gutturals, semi-gutturals and also with labials among various tribes. However,
Wensinck's conclusion has been obtained by taking up specimens of the various types of the article to be found

among the tribes of Northern Arabia and by the theoretical reconstruction of a chain of evolution. Not surprisingly,
this view has come under criticism due to the lack of epigraphic evidence for showing the actual transformation
of h(n)- to Arabic l-.[90] Theoretically, it can be argued that it could have happened in a number of ways, the problem
always come back to the lack of epigraphic evidence for the actual process. [91] Noja assumed a similar transformation
from the Ancient North Arabian h- to Arabic l-.[92] Not surprisingly, he did not furnish any proof either.
After claiming the alleged antiquity of hn- article, the Christian apologist Dunkin is of the opinion that /n/ in hn- can
be assimilated to form ha- although this turns out to be exactly the reverse of what scholars like Wensinck have
proposed. Moreover, he claims to have the support of modern scholarship for his creative opinions! Let us begin
with his statements and examine them one by one.
The proposed assimilation of the n in hn-ba'al ---> haba'al is certainly possible linguistically. Southern and
Vaughn demonstrate that the assimilation of an n before a consonant is fairly typical in North Semitic
languages, and indeed they note that it is well-attested and not just theoretical. This same phenomenon is
observed in Hebrew, for instance, where the terminal n in the preposition min (with) is assimilated with the
doubling of the following consonant (except, of course, when before a guttural or a resh, in which case the
prepositional vowel is lengthened along with the assimilation of the nun). Voigt further points out that old
North Arabic forms show assimilation of the n to the following consonant, and do not seem to show a doubling
of the consonant, as is found in some other North Semitic languages. Thus, the proposed elision by Noja is
certainly possible on this count, as well.

Southern and Vaughn have indeed demonstrated that the assimilation of an /n/ before a consonant, i.e., nC > CC, is
typical in the North Semitic languages.[93] They have also shown that the phonetic character of /n/ in North Semitic
languages fosters this assimilation and is accompanied by doubling of the consonant following /n/. It is hard to
imagine how this is going to support the conversion of hn-baal to form habaal. The actual outcome of assimilation
of /n/ to the following consonant with its doubling would result in hn-baal becoming hab-baal. This is certainly
not the outcome which Dunkin expected. Furthermore, Dunkin claims that according to Voigt (on p. 225), the old
North Arabic forms show assimilation of the /n/ to the following consonant, without doubling of the consonant itself.
[94]
There is no such claim by Voigt. In fact, he says:
See also hn-qbr, 'the tomb', next to h-qbr.[95]

What Voigt points out is the well-known case of Lihyanite inscriptions where hn- and h- forms exist side by side.
Such a close co-existence of h(n)- articles in Lihyanite inscriptions has been a source of curiosity as well as
extensive scholarly studies for more than 100 years.[96] Dunkin's case of alleged conversion from hnbaal or habaal by assimilation of /n/ has now fallen apart. However, an important point needs to be made. In the
discussions by scholars concerning the fate of the consonant next to the article h(n)-, it is always noted that whether
or not there is assimilation of consonant by doubling (or without one), the character of h- or hn- still remains the
same, i.e., they still function as definite articles. In other words, hn-baal or hab-baal would mean "the Baal". The
noun here is not going to transform into something different such as "Hubaal".
With the alleged assimilation of /n/ in hn- article sorted out, let us now move to the name bl to become bl with the
loss of ayn. For such a process to happen bl would have to have been transmitted through a language such as
Akkadian or Punic in which the ayn had disappeared. This would give in Akkadian Bel and in Punic Bol. Both

forms were present at Palmyra, but Palmyrene does not use the Ancient North Arabian definite
article h- or hn-. Since the word bl, with the ayn, exists in Arabic as a common noun, and as the name of a preIslamic idol, it would be very difficult to argue that Arabic had received the word or name by this route, let alone

why it had been given an Ancient North Arabian definite article. Such an enormous difficulty has not deterred
Dunkin to make some more foolish claims. He says:
However, the dropping of the ayin is not impossible. Drijvers certainly did not consider it so, as he saw no
difficulties in stating that Ba'al-Bel-Bol (together) was the original West Semitic form of the name. Beeston
states that the "conversion of consonant into vowel" such as occurs in the Punic bol for ba'l, is "well-attested in
Semitic languages". More to the point, Voigt demonstrates that glottal stops in Arabian dialects can contract,
using the example of the contraction of the hamza in the conversion bi-?al ---> bi-l. This same principle could
certainly apply to the contraction of the similar ayin. As such, Noja's argument, based as it is upon the
disappearance of the ayin, is most certainly plausible...
....
Nobody has proposed that the name Hubal came from Palmyrene, and there were certainly many other
dialects, including those much closer to the Arab milieu such as Nabataean (in which the name appears
as hblw) from which an entrance by Hubal into the Arab consciousness could have been made. Many of these
dialects also used the ha/hn- form of the article.

It is hard to see how the statements of Drijvers and Beeston are in contrary to what we have stated concerning
dropping of ayn in bl in Akkadian or Punic. Moreover, Dunkin himself rejects the notion that the name Hubal
came from Palmyra and considers it to be a Nabataean deity. One now wonders why he is invoking the
dropping of ayn in languages other than Nabataean itself! It must be emphasized that in both
Nabataean and Safaitic inscriptions a deity called Baalshamin is always written as blmn, i.e., with an
ayn between b and l. There is no Nabataean and Safaitic epigraphic evidence which shows the
name bl becoming bl with the loss of ayn, which in turn enabled hbl to become hbl. As mentioned earlier the
word bl, with the ayn, exists in Arabic as a common noun and it is also found in Surah al-Saffat in the Qur'an[97]
"Will ye call upon Baal (bl) and forsake the Best of Creators" [Qur'an 37:125]

The Qur'an condemns Baal worship. Moreover, it is also clear that in both the Nabataean and Arabic scripts the
difference between Hubal and Baal (with an ayn) always existed, and that they were considered two distinct
deities. Furthermore, Dunkin claims that Voigt had demonstrated (p. 225) "that glottal stops in Arabian dialects can
contract" and he uses the example of "the contraction of the hamza in the conversion bi-?al ---> bi-l". Dunkin then
makes an even more surprising claim that such a principle "could certainly apply to the contraction of the
similar ayin". A closer look at Voigt's paper give us a completely different picture from Dunkin's strange claims.
Voigt says:
Some Arab grammarians argued that the short form of the article went on to form hamza. After vocal would be
an elision of the hamza and the contraction of the adjacent vowels, so for example *bi-al-> bi-l-.[98]

Voigt has not "demonstrated" that the "glottal stops in Arabian dialects can contract". Rather he points out that some
Arab grammarians consider the short form of the article l- went on to form hamza or to be precise hamza al-wasl,
the glottal stop of the juncture. This is not the place to discuss the subject present in elementary Arabic grammar
books, but it is worthwhile adding that hamza al-wasl is a phonetic device affixed in the beginning of a word for
ease of pronunciation and is accompanied by a vowel /i/, /u/ or /a/.[99] In the example, bi-al-, where the article al- is
in non-sentence-initial position, the hamza and its short vowel /a/ on the definite article are deleted, although
the alif seat remains in the spelling. This makes bi-al- read as bi-l-. Similar examples include wa-al-which is read
as wa-l-. Being a phonetic device to aid pronunciation, hamza al-wasl has nothing to do with contraction of

consonants and most certainly could not be applied to the "contraction of the similar ayin". The case of Dunkin for
"contraction" of ayn to support the conversion of bl to bl has now completely collapsed.
With the stripping away of the chaff that surrounds the kernel, we are now left with some mopping up. One of the
issues is dropping of the ayn in the area where h(n)- dialects were present. Dunkin claims that his
... historical reconstruction is supported by the fact that the name for this god was "Hubal", without the ayin.
This would seem to indicate that his origin was from among a dialect group which used the bl-form, and which
also used the ha/hn- article. Dialects like these found representation in the northern Hijaz and Syrian areas.
Further, this introduction appears to have taken place prior to the establishment of the l-form (whose most
well-known representative is the Classical Arabic of the Qur'an and the other traditional writings) as the
dominant dialect type (around the beginning of the 6th century AD), which is why we would not see Noja's
hypothetical l-bal form.

We are not told as to which "dialect group" uses the bl-form as well as the h(n)- article which resulted in the
formation of the name "Hubal". It is safe to assume that he himself does not know what this "dialect group" is. But it
is good to make matters clearer in this regard. The h(n)- dialects are all classified under Ancient North
Arabian[100] and they always had ayn as one of the consonants.[101] As for the bl-forms, as opposed to bl as in Ancient
North Arabian, they come from those dialects where ayn had disappeared such as Akkadian (Bol) and Punic (Bel).
Both these forms were present at Palmyra, but Palmyrene does not use the Ancient North Arabian definite
article h(n)-. In other words, the "dialect group" which Dunkin claimed to have used h(n)- article as well as bl-form
is his own inventions; it simply does not exist. Therefore, there are two opposing choices before Dunkin:
1.

If he claims h(n)- dialects were used to form "Hubal", then he has to live with the fact that ayn always
existed as one of the consonants in these dialects. Moreover, it was noted that in the case ofh(n)- article,
whether or not there is assimilation of consonant following it by doubling (or without one), the character
of h- or hn- still remains the same, i.e., they still function as definite articles. In other words, it will always
be hn-baal or hab-baal and this would mean "the Baal". So, there can be no "Hubal" at all here.

2.

If he considers that the bl-form was used to form "Hubal" from those dialects such as Akkadian or Punic
where ayn had disappeared, then he must live with the fact that these dialects did not useh(n)- article.

Dunkin claimed that his unknown, unnamed, and now clearly fictitious "dialect group" which alleged to have used
both h(n)- article as well as bl-form, was introduced prior to the establishment of the l-form as the dominant dialect
around c. 6th century CE. This is rather strange. The most obvious characteristic of what is called the "Old Arabic"
by scholars, is the use of the definite article l-. The earliest document which is indisputably in Old Arabic written in
the musnad script, was found at Qaryat al-Faw dated to the first century BCE. This text uses the article l-,
the *ban, rather than *banaya, the fl form of the causative stem, and the preposition mn rather than bn.[102] In fact,
there are numerous inscriptions dated before the advent of Islam which contain the l- article. Undoubtedly, Dunkin's
attempts to find this fictitious "dialect group" are starting to resemble the case of clutching the straws.
In the light of archaeological evidence, Noja's and the Christian missionaries' hypothesis that Ha-Ba al ("the Lord")
became Hubal now becomes completely untenable, let alone Hubal being Allah! There is nothing in the missionary
hyperbole that "seriously damages the Muslim claim regarding Allah in pre-Islamic times being the same God of
Abraham".

HUBAL - A MOON GOD?

The pre-Islamic god Hubal, whose name is known from early Arabian sources, was also known apparently to the
Nabataeans. Hubal in a Nabataean inscription dated to c. 1 BCE / CE from Mada'in Salih (Hijr or Hegra, Figure 1),
north-west of Madinah, appears as hblw. The final -w is typical of Nabataean divine and personal names.

Figure 1: Nabataeans and their trade routes. [103]

The inscription is funerary in character and Hubal's name appears with Dushara and Mantu (i.e., Manat). The
inscription reads:
... pyty mh ldwr whblw wamnwtw mdym 5 ...

... [he] shall be liable to Dushara and Hubalu and Manotu in the sum of 5 shamads ...[104]

Despite Hawting's misgivings,[105] there is no doubt about this reading.[106] Another possible occurrence of the name
Hubal is in the Nabataean inscription (dated 48 CE) from Pozzuoli near Naples.[107] The reading of J. T. Milik was
reported by Starcky, although some doubt remains.[108] The name appears as bnhbl, without the final -w and therefore
an exact correspondent of the Arabic form. It was interpreted by Starcky as "son of Hubal".[109] But it can also be
interpreted as "Hubal has fashioned".[110] Interestingly, bnhbl also appears in a "Thamudic" inscription from Northern
Arabia.[111] Milik and Starcky reported that the name Hubal also appears in a personal name, brhbl, "Son of Hubal",
in a dedicatory text dated to 25 BCE.[112] The authors Milik and Starcky regarded it as an Aramaic version of the
name found in the Pozzuoli inscription. Based on the epigraphic evidence, Healey says that the cult of Hubal was
restricted in Nabataean inscriptions to Hegra. Therefore, Hubal can be considered as a local god and his cult did not
spread at all among the Nabataean lite, despite its Arabian origins.[113]
Was Hubal a Moon-god? The information that we have concerning the nature of Hubal comes from only two
sources: Islamic and Nabataean. They do not say, nor do they suggest, that Hubal was a Moon-god. In spite of lack
of any evidence of lunar connotations of Hubal, it has not deterred scholars to claim that Hubal was a Moon-god.
The claim of Christian missionaries that Hubal was a Moon-god is based on a citation from Mahmoud
Ayoub's Islam: Faith And History .[114] A similar claim was also made by Robert Morey.[115] In fact, the claim
that Hubal was a Moon-god is rather old. More than 100 years ago Hugo Winckler suggested there was a Moon-god
cult in Makkah and that Hubal was a Moon-god[116] and it was subsequently repeated by Carl Brockelmann.
[117]
Gonzague Ryckmans tentatively associated Hubal with the Moon.[118] Such ideas were the result of the
scholarship of Ditlef Nielsen who claimed that all ancient Arabian religion was a primitive religion of nomads,
whose objects of worship were exclusively a triad of the Father-Moon, Mother-Sun and the Son-Venus star
envisaged as their child.[119] Not only was this an over-simplified view based on an unproven hypothesis, it is also
quite absurd to think that over a millennium-long period during which paganism is known to have flourished, there
was not substantial shifts of thinking about the deities. As noted earlier, Nielsen's triadic hypothesis was
handed incisive rejoinders by many scholars. With regard to those who connect Hubal to the Moon, Brown points
out such a connection is not based on any evidence and is merely inferred by astral analogy. He says:
Ryckmans, Les Noms, p. 9, tentatively associates Hubal with the moon, but there is no necessary evidence for
this association in the name, and it can only be inferred in order to supply the Hijazi pantheon with a moondeity, which on analogy with other pantheons it is supposed it must have had.[120]

Even the foundation of such an analogy is faulty as it is based solely on the acceptance of Nielsen's now discredited
triadic hypothesis. Acknowledging the "generally received opinion" of Nielsen regarding the worship of astral triads
in ancient South Arabia, Brown notes there is no such indication of a fixed schematisation in Central / North Arabia.
There are a bewildering array of deities whose precise nature and function is extremely difficult to define. For
instance, an examination of the theophorous names reveals the presence of Jupiter (t-m--h-w-r, "devotee of Ahwar
(Jupiter)".[121] Brown proposes a number of connections to other stars and planets as well. For example, he suggests
the idol/deity Suayr, a tall rock connected with the Malik, Milkan and Banu Bakr of Kinanah, was associated with
the stars as a number of stars bore this name.[122]
Despite the lack of any evidence, it is somewhat surprising to learn therefore that the Christian apologist Dunkin
purports to have seen evidence which proves Hubal had "specifically lunar, characteristics". In an attempt to prove
Hubal was a Moon-god, Dunkin erroneously summarises the Encyclopaedia Of Islam (New Edition) . It
must be stated at the outset neither the first nor new edition of the Encyclopaedia Of Islam suggests
anywhere that Hubal was a Moon-god, let alone Hubal being Allah.[123] Fahd points out Hubal's most characteristic
role in the Kabah was that of a cleromantic (divination by lots) divinity,[124] something which the missionary

excludes mentioning and for good reason. Allah had never been worshipped as a cleromantic divinity by the earliest
Muslims; on the contrary, the Qur'an categorically forbids divination (e.g., 5:3, 5:90) and describes it as the
handiwork of Satan. In order to decisively prove Hubal was a Moon-god, the apologist makes use of a book
called The Joy Of Sects , authored by jazz critic and reviewer Peter Occhiogrosso, better known for his
publications co-authored/written with Frank Zappa and Larry King. Should one transform a music journalist (to say
nothing of Occhiogrosso) into a specialist on the nature of the deities worshipped in seventh century Arabia at the
advent of Islam? Such a bizarre use of sources is astonishing and calls for an explanation.[125]
Clearly, there is no evidence of a connection between Hubal and the moon. Those scholars who have made a
connection between Hubal and the moon have rested their case on flimsy evidence. Not surprisingly, Winckler's
claim that Hubal was a Moon-god was refuted by Fahd.[126] While dealing with the Nabataean deity Hubal, Healey
agrees with Fahd's view while pointing out the age-old assumption of Nielsen that all Arabian religion was
ultimately astral. He says:
On the other hand Fahd rightly rejects the attempts by some earlier scholars to connect Hubal with Saturn or
the moon... Such suggestions have been based partly on the assumption that all Arabian religion is ultimately
astral and partly on the Islamic inheritance of a lunar calendar... [127]

The claim of Hubal being a Moon-god rests on no evidence and is inferred by astral analogy based on Nielsen's
hypothesis, which Dunkin himself has rejected. Clearly, the apologist can't have his cake and eat it too. Let us now
move on to his attempts on connecting Hubal with Allah with more fabricated evidence.
WHAT IS IN A NAME? HUBAL, ALLAH & PRE-ISLAMIC CHRISTIANITY
Given that Dunkin's construction of Hubal from the h(n)- article and bl-form turned out to be spurious and shown to
be banked heavily on misquoting modern scholarship, let us not turn our attention to some of the desperate attempts
to connect Hubal with Allah. In this effort, Dunkin says:
Hubal would have went from being a title applied to local deities, to being the name for a high god, one viewed
as more universal in his power. There is nothing strange about the notion (and indeed it should perhaps be
expected) that a high god in a henotheistic system (and one which in Arabia seems to have gradually been
evolving towards monotheism) would be referred to with universalist terminology such as "the lord" or "the
god", denoting his stature as the god par excellence. An example of this sort of evolving conception was found
with the Nabataeans and other northern Arabian tribes who referred to Dushara, their high god, with the term
'lh', "the god". The name Hubal "the lord" certainly fits this motif of a local high god being referred to as "the
Ba'al of ____" Likewise, the term Allah (= al-ilah, the god) has the same sort of ring to it. We know that other
deities in the Semitic Near East were referred to with the title/epithet "Allah". The moon god of the Sabaeans
in the Yemen was called "Allah". The Edomite deity Qos/Quash, clearly connected with moon worship through
the use of the typical crescent moon and star symbology found throughout the ancient Near East, was carried
over into the Nabataean realm with the name Qos-Allah. Guillaume noted thatIlah was a name applied to the
moon god among some Pre-Islamic Arabian tribes.
.....
It is not at all improbable that Ba'al with his three daughters passed, with some modifications and evolution
due to the passage of time, to being Hubal with three daughters - Hubal (the lord) known also by the name
Allah (the god, al-ilah).

The genuineness of the statements above can be verified by looking into the references which Dunkin has quoted to
bolster his claims to connect Allah with Hubal. Clearly, if the quotes from the references are indeed not genuine or
do not even say what Dunkin is claiming, his whole argument falls apart. To begin with, quoting Teixidor, the
Christian apologist says:
An example of this sort of evolving conception was found with the Nabataeans and other northern Arabian
tribes who referred to Dushara, their high god, with the term 'lh', "the god".

Firstly ilh does not mean "the god"; it simply means "god". Secondly, Teixidor does not say anything about the
"evolving conception" of a henotheistic system acquiring universalist terminology. Rather he points out the usage of
ilh in the Nabataean milieu and connects it with proto-Semitic Il(u) and Northwest Semitic El. The actual quote
reads:
A study of Nabataean personal names shows that the divine name Ilah was the one most frequently used to
form theophores, but is, of course, is far from being characteristic. Ilah means "god," and it is cognate with
proto-Semitic il(u) and with Northwest Semitic el. Whether el was originally a proper name or simply an
appellative is not yet clear. Yet the question is of some importance to the history of religion in antiquity. In fact,
should el be a proper name, its presence in proto-Semitic would emphasize the monotheistic character of the
primitive religion of all Semites. [128]

Clearly, Teixidor's quote is about the usage of ilh to form theophores and that it is far from being unique. Ilh is
cognate with proto-Semitic Il(u) and with Northwest Semitic El, the latter being the deity mentioned in the Old
Testament. Just like ilh, El was also to be found be used to indicate tribe, the chief of the tribe, or even the god of
the tribe.[129] Hence, just like what Dunkin had said concerning ilh, one can equally say that there is nothing strange
about the notion that a high god in a henotheistic system would be referred to with a universalist terminology such
as El, denoting his stature as the god par excellence.
What is more startling is Dunkin's next claim. He says that there were deities in the Semitic Near East which were
referred to with the title/epithet "Allah". He then quotes the Encyclopaedia Of Islam which allegedly says:
The moon god of the Sabaeans in the Yemen was called "Allah"... The Encyclopedia of Islam, eds. B. Lewis, V.L.
Menage, C. Pellat, J. Schacht, Vol I, p. 303.

This quote is nowhere to be seen in the Encyclopaedia Of Islam ![130] In his fervour to hypothesise the lunar
characteristics of Allah, Dunkin deemed himself fit to fabricate evidence. On checking the entries " Allh",
[131]
"Ilh"[132] and "Saba"[133] in this encyclopaedia, no evidence of Sabaeans worshipping a Moon-god in Yemen is
to be found. On the contrary, while discussing Ilmaqah (not certainly Allah!), the patron deity of Sabaeans, A. F. L.
Beeston says that he was a Sun-god!
For the period down to the early 4th century A.D., few would now agree with the excessive reductionism of D.
Nielsen, who in the 1920s held that all the many deities in the pagan pantheon were nothing more than varying
manifestations of an astral triad of sun, moon and Venus-star; yet it is certainly the case that three deities
tend to receive more frequent mention than the rest....
But just as the Greek local patron deities such as Athene in Athens, Artemis in Ephesus, etc., figure more
prominently than the remoter and universal Zeus, so in South Arabia the most commonly invoked deity was a
national one, who incorporated the sense of national identity. For the Sabaeans this was 'lmkh (with an
occasional variant spelling 'lmkhw). A probable analysis of this name is as a compound of the old Semitic

word 'l"god" and a derivative of the root khw meaning something like "fertility" (cf. Arabic kah "flourish");
the h is certainly a root letter, and not, as some mediaeval writers seem to have imagined, a t marbta, which
in South Arabian is always spelt with t...
Many European scholars still refer to this deity in a simplistic way as "the moon god", a notion stemming from
the "triadic" hypothesis mentioned above; yet Garbini has produced cogent arguments to show that the
attributes of 'lmkh are rather those of a warrior-deity like Greek Herakles or a vegetation god like Dionysus.[134]

In any case, the claim that Allah was the the Moon-god of the Sabaeans in Yemen returns back to Dunkin's fantasy
land. His next claim is on the Edomite deity called Qos. Concerning this deity, Dunkin says:
The Edomite deity Qos/Quash, clearly connected with moon worship through the use of the typical crescent
moon and star symbology found throughout the ancient Near East, was carried over into the Nabataean realm
with the name Qos-Allah.

This claim indeed appears seductive but a closer examination of the source material reveals something else.

(a)

(b)

(c)
Figure 2: The Nabataean inscription mentioning "Qoselah". (a) Fragment of the rock containing the inscription,
(b) outline of the inscription and (c) its transcription in Hebrew with "Qoselah" underlined. [135]

Savignac was the first person to publish a Nabataean inscription which allegedly mentioned "Qosallah" (Figure 2).
[136]
However, he was not sure about the reading of the inscription and he suggested two different readings.[137] This
has been pointed out by Glueck along with the doubtful character of the reading "Qosallah", which Dunkin, not
surprisingly, conveniently left out. Glueck says:
Per Savignac has suggested two slight varying translations for the inscription on this stele:
"(the stele) which Qosmilk made for Qos, the god of Huru (the sculptor)";
or
"(the stele) which Qosmilk made for Qosallah. Huru (the sculptor)."
....
Whether or not "Qosallah" in the second version of the Khirbet Tannur inscription is to be considered as the full
name of the deity or is to be translated in accordance with the first suggestion as "Qos, god of ...," the fact
remains that "Qos" or "Qaus" is the name of a familiar Edomite, Nabataean and Arabian deity and occurs also
in numerous related composite names. [138]

Apart from doubtful nature of reading of the Nabataean inscription, Glueck says much more about the actual reading
of the word/phrase "Qosallah". By simply turning our attention to the reference dealing with the reading
"Qosallah"[139] and its original transcription [Figure 2(c)],[140] what we see is the following statement from Albright.
The second name may better be read Qoselah. [141]

What Dunkin had been claiming as "Qosallah" turns out to be Qoselah which probably suggests the translation
"Qos, god of ...". Not surprisingly, it turns out that Qoselah has nothing to do with Allah. This brings us to yet
another quote from Dunkin where he says:
Guillaume noted that Ilah was a name applied to the moon god among some Pre-Islamic Arabian tribes.

Guillaume, on the other hand, writes:

The oldest name for God used in the Semitic word consists of but two letters, the consonant 'l' preceded by a
smooth breathing, which was pronounced as '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 Ilh familiar
to us in the form Allh, which is compounded of al, the definite article, and Ilh by eliding the vowel 'i', is not
clear. Some scholars trace the name of the South Arabian Ilh, a title of the Moon god, but this is a matter of
antiquarian interest. In Arabia Allh was known from Jewish and Christian sources as the one god, and there
can be no doubt whatever that he was known to pagan Arabs of Mecca as the supreme being. Were this not so,
the Qur'an would have been unintelligible to the Meccans; moreover it is clear from Nabataean and other
inscriptions that Allh means 'the god'. [142]

It turns out Dunkin clipped the quote concerning Jews and Christians worshipping Allah which could have easily
refuted his thesis on equating Allah with Hubal and made him and his ilk Hubal worshippers. Instead he satisfied
himself with a tiny piece of the sentence which he thought he could use to advance his spurious ideas about Allah
and Hubal. Contrary to what Dunkin had claimed, Guillaume said that some scholars "trace the name of the South
Arabian Ilh, a title of the Moon god..." Our understanding of the history of ancient South Arabia has advanced
noticeably since Guillaume wrote his book. Now matters like these are easily solved by referring to the Qatabanian
and Sabaean lexicons. As to what exactly il and ilh mean in epigraphic South Arabian (i.e., Qatabanian and
Sabaean inscriptions) as well as how they are related to their cognates in Arabic and Hebrew is depicted in Figure 3.

(a)

(b)

(c)
Figure 3: Discussion on 'IL and 'ILH in (a, b) Qatabanian [143] and (c) Sabaic dictionaries. [144] Note that the
lexicons also mention that ilh in the Qatabanian and Sabaean dialects is similar to Arabic ilh and Hebrew
elah.

Similar views are also expressed by D. B. Macdonald in the Encyclopaedia

means deity. Concerning ilh he says:

of Islam . He says that ilh simply

... for the Christians and (so far the poetry ascribed to them is authentic) the monotheists, al-ilh evidently
means God; for the poets it means merely "the one who is worshipped", so al-ilh indicates: "the god already
mentioned"... By frequency of usage, al-ilh was contracted to Allh, frequently attested in pre-Islamic poetry
(where his name cannot in every case have been substituted for another), and then became a proper name
(ism alam)...
ilh is certainly identical with elah and represents an expanded form of an element -l- (il, el) common to the
semitic languages. [145]

From the discussion, it is clear that in Qatabanian and Sabaean il or ilh has no astral connotations. Furthermore,
ilh in the Qatabanian and Sabaean dialects is similar to the Arabic ilh and the Hebrewelah. As we have seen
earlier, this is similar to the usage of ilh in Nabataean inscriptions as well as the usage of El in the ancient NearEast.
Finally, we now arrive at grandest of all statements by Dunkin where he completes the identification of Hubal with
Allah, i.e.,
Hubal (the lord) known also by the name Allah (the god, al-ilah).

Before the advent of Islam, the Christians in Syria used to worship a deity called Al-ilh. The evidence for this
comes from a well-known trilingual inscription from Zebed, south of Aleppo, Syria, inscribed in the year 512 CE.
The text covers a lintel over the door to the martyrion of St. Serge. The Arabic, though, does not translate the Greek
but merely lists six names, not all of which are mentioned in Greek. However, the Arabic text clearly mentions ,
Al-ilh and the text reads:

With the help of God ( !)Sergius, son of Amat Manaf, and Tobi, son of Imru'l-qais and Sergius, son of Sa'd,
and Sitr, and Shouraih. [146]

There is no doubt that Dunkin's argument is in deep trouble. On one hand, his claim on connecting Hubal with Allah
turned out to be nothing more than an admixture of various concoctions married with the occasional fabrication. On
the other hand, his fellow-brethren were found to be worshipping Al-ilh, which according to him was none other
than Hubal.

3. Conclusions
Hubal is not Allah. Uneasy with this statement of fact, the Christian missionaries have exerted a great deal of effort
to prove otherwise. With the impetus from Morey, the missionaries and apologists have attempted to prove that
Hubal had been considered as Allah all along, paradoxically, by relying on the literary evidence they consider
fictitious. Such a schizophrenic approach to the Islamic sources is not uncommon in the missionary and apologetical
literature, where pieces of historical information become instantly true or false depending on the moment (e.g.,
hypothesis being forwarded). Ignoring the Qur'anic evidence detailing the concept of intercession, it is claimed Abd
al-Muttalib's praying to Allah while standing next to the statue of Hubal shows that "Allah to whom Muhammad's
grandfather vowed and worshiped was none other than Hubal". We have already shown that there are clear traditions
dealing with the Battle of Uhud, as well as other aspects of Islamic history and beliefs, which explicitly differentiate
between the worshippers of Hubal and the worshippers of Allah. Surprisingly, this is also acknowledged by the
missionaries, a clear contradiction of their own stance.
Realising the weight of history including the literary evidence falsifies their theories, the missionaries have
attempted to explore the linguistic background of Hubal. Completely oblivious to the fact Baal worship is
condemned by the Qur'an, the missionaries resorted to a number of faulty linguistic arguments in order to prove

Hubal to be a baal, a key stage in their identification of Hubal with Allah. They point towards a "dialect group"
from the linguistic mosaic of ancient Arabia indicating that it contains all the linguistic properties necessary to
support the transformation of bl to bl, This unknown, unnamed "dialect group" is fictitious and simply does not
exist. Noja made a more sophisticated and ingenious argument regarding the transformation of Ha-Ba al to Hubal
who is alleged to have been none other than Allah. Using archaeology, it was shown that such a transformation is
unlikely. For the name bl (i.e., Baal) to become bl (i.e., Baal) with the loss of ayn, it would have to have been
transmitted through a language such as Akkadian or Punic in which the ayn had disappeared. This would give in
Akkadian Bel and in Punic Bol. Both these forms were present at Palmyra . But the problem is that Palmyrene does
not use the Ancient North Arabian definite article h- or hn-. Moreover, the word bl, with the ayn, exists in Arabic
as a common noun, and as the name of a pre-Islamic idol mentioned in the Qur'an 37:125. The ayn is a proper
consonant and it remained pronounced into Islamic times. The Nabataean inscriptions also show a clear distinction
between Hubal and Baalshamin (derived from the Ugaritic deity Balu) always existed, and that they were
considered two distinct deities. Thus it would be very difficult to argue that Arabic had received the word or name
by either the Palmyrene route, let alone why it had been given an Ancient North Arabian definite article.
In other words, the Christian missionaries' hypothesis that Ha-Baal ("the Lord") became Hubal, which was the same
as Allah, becomes completely untenable. Far from encouraging "further scholarly investigation", such crossfertilisation of ideas between the missionaries and apologists has led to rash of poorly constructed lunar ascriptions.
Exhibiting much the same scholarly credentials as Morey, we have observed those very same defective academic
attributes such as fabrication of evidence, misquoting sources and inability to consistently cite the correct
bibliographic references, continue to be utilised for polemical purposes.
And Allah knows best!

Acknowledgements
One of the authors (MSMS) would like to thank both Dr. M. C. A. Macdonald and Dr. R. Hoyland for stimulating
discussions on ancient North Arabian and ancient South Arabian epigraphies. The authors would also like to thank
Asim Awan for discussions on pre-Islamic godhood. None of them are associated with Islamic Awareness.

Appendix 1: Baalshamin - A Nabataean Deity

Baalshamin (or Baalshamin, as written in popular literature), blmn, was a Syrian deity who was incorporated into
the Nabataean pantheon. Baalshamin has a long history going back to the second millennium BCE. His origin lies
in the great storm and fertility god Balu of the Ugaritic texts.[147] His specific name appears to be a title of the storm
god Hadad whose worship was widespread in Syria and Mesopotamia. He was popular in Palmyra, Hatra and the
Edessa region, where he was identified with the local deity Maralahe.[148] Baalshamin was worshipped over a wide
area and his popularity gradually spread south.[149] He had a late 1st century BCE temple dedicated to him at Si in
Syria. Littmann published a major inscription from Si dedicated to Baalshamin.
In the pious remembrance of Maleikat, the son of Aus, the son of Moaier who built for Baal Samn the inner
temple and the outer temple and this theatron and [the (or these watch towers],... and departed from (?) life
in peace![150]

From Salkhad in Syria, we have an altar from 72 / 73 CE, dedicated to Baalshamin, god of mtnw. The inscription
reads:

This is the cult-stone which was made by Ubaid, the son of Utaifik (?) for Baal-Shamn, the god of Matan (?),
in the year 33 of Malik the king, the king of the Nabataeans. [151]

The Nabataean inscription from Bosra dated to the 1st century CE is again dedicated "to Baalshamin, the god of
Shuaydu" (lblmn lh ydw).[152] Moving further down south in Wadi Musa, near Petra in Jordan, an inscription
from the reign of Aretas IV is dedicated lblmn lh mnkw, "to Baalshamin, god of mnkw".[153]
The texts discussed above clearly show that Baalshamin was an official Nabataean deity. Ba alshamin moved from
his Syrian home to down south[154] and was also worshipped in Northern Arabia by Safaitic people as evidenced by
numerous Safaitic inscriptions.[155]

Appendix 2: Hubal In The Hebrew Bible?

It is also worthwhile to point out that attempts were made by Barstad to find a trace of Hubal in the Hebrew Bible.
Barstad considered some instances of the word hebel in the Hebrew Bible, usually translated as "vanity" and found
frequently as a derogatory term applied to pagan idols, as occurrences of the name of a Canaanite deity related to the
Arabian Hubal (e.g., Jer. 10:3 and Zech. 10:2).[156]Bob Becking has strongly rejected these ideas as there is no
evidence of any such Canaanite deity. Furthermore, a connection via Moab, a possible source of Hubal at Makkah, is
far too flimsy.[157]

References & Notes

[1] N. A. Faris, The

Book Of Idols: Being A Translation From The Arabic Of The Kitb al-Asnm
By Hishm Ibn Al-Kalbi , 1952, Princeton Oriental Studies - Volume 14, Princeton University Press: Princeton
(NJ), p. 23.
[2] T. Fahd, "Une
55-79.

Pratique Clromantique A La Ka ba Preislamique ", Semitica, 1958, Volume 8, pp.

[3] P. K. Hitti (Rev. Walid Khalidi), History

New York, p. 100.

Of The Arabs, 2002, Revised 10th Edition, Palgrave Macmillan:

[4] Abu Walid Muhammad b. Abdullah al-Azraqi (Ed. F. Wustenfeld), Kitab

Akhbar Makkah: Die

Chroniken Der Stadt Mekka: Gesammelt Und Auf Kosten Der Deutschen Morgenlndischen
Gesellschaft, 1858, Volume 1, F.A. Brockhaus: Leipzig, p. 31 and p. 73.
[5] N. A. Faris, The

Book Of Idols: Being A Translation From The Arabic Of The Kitb al-Asnm
By Hishm Ibn Al-Kalbi , 1952, op. cit., p. 7.
[6] Abd al-Malik Ibn Hisham (Ed. F. Wstenfeld), Kitab Sirat Rasulallah: Das Leben Muhammed's
Nach Muhammed Ibn Ishk , 1859, Dieterichsche Universitats - Buchhandlung: Gottingen, p. 51; Also see A.
Guillaume, The Life Of Muhammad: A Translation Of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah , 2004 (18th
Impression), Oxford University Press: Karachi, p. 701, note 63.

[7] Abu Al-Fida Ismail Ibn Kathir (Trans. T. Le Gassick), The Life Of The Prophet Muhammad: A
Translation Of Al-Sira Al-Nabawiyya , 1998, Volume 1, Garnet Publishing Ltd.: Reading (UK), p. 42.
[8] The lack of a consensus in Islamic traditions concerning the origin of the Hubal idol is also pointed out by
Western scholarship. See T. Fahd, "Hubal" in B. Lewis, V. L. Menage, Ch. Pellat and J. Schacht
(Eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam (New Edition) , 1971, Volume III, E. J. Brill: Leiden & Luzac & Co.:
London, p. 537; More recently also by J. F. Healey, The Religion Of Nabataeans: A Conspectus , 2001,
Religions In The Graeco-Roman World - Volume 136, Brill: Leiden, p. 130.
Compare this to Cook's complete assuredness regarding Hubal's Moabite origins. See M. Cook, Muhammad,
1996, Oxford University Press: Oxford (UK), p. 37.
[9] C. S. Coon, "Southern Arabia, A Problem For The Future ", Papers Of The Peabody Museum
Of American Archaeology And Ethnology , 1943, Volume 20, p. 398; It was reprinted in C. S. Coon,
"Southern Arabia, A Problem For The Future ", Annual Report Of The Board Of Regents Of
The Smithsonian Institution , 1944, Publication 3776, p. 398.
[10] C. S. Coon, "Southern Arabia, A Problem For The Future ", Papers Of The Peabody Museum
Of American Archaeology And Ethnology , 1943, op. cit., p. 391; Also in C. S. Coon, "Southern Arabia,
A Problem For The Future ", Annual Report Of The Board Of Regents Of The Smithsonian
Institution, 1944, op. cit., p. 391.
[11] C. S. Coon, "Southern Arabia, A Problem For The Future ", Papers Of The Peabody Museum
Of American Archaeology And Ethnology , 1943, op. cit., p. 392 and p. 400; Also in C. S. Coon,
"Southern Arabia, A Problem For The Future ", Annual Report Of The Board Of Regents Of
The Smithsonian Institution , 1944, op. cit., p. 392 and p. 400.
[12] Some of Schacht's pupils term modern day criticisms of his central hypotheses as "Schacht-bashing" and
describe it as a "favourite sport" in certain academic circles. See Z. Maghen, "Dead Tradition: Joseph
Schacht And The Origins Of "Popular Practice" ", Islamic Law And Society , 2003, Volume 10, Issue
3, pp. 276-277. If criticism of one man is termed "bashing", how should we term one man's criticism of thousands of
people from multiple successive generations of a single community, the vast majority of which are categorised as
fabricators and liars, co-conspirators on a massive geographical scale from one side of the Islamic realm to the
other? As is slowly being recognised in western circles, ulm al-h adth possesses much more critical acumen than it
had been previously ascribed. To give just one example, Muslim scholars anticipated Schacht's seminal claim
beginning over ten centuries before he was born. See J. Brown, "Critical Rigor Vs. Juridical Pragmatism:

How Legal Theorists And Hadth Scholars Approached The Backgrowth Of Isnds In The
Genre Of Ilal Al-Hadth", Islamic Law And Society , 2007, Volume 14, Issue 1, pp. 1-41.
As for a good review of the Western scholarship so far on h adth see H. Motzki, "The Question Of The
Authenticity Of Muslim Traditions Reconsidered: A Review Article ", in H. Berg (Ed.), Method
And Theory In The Study Of Islamic Origins , 2003, Islamic History And Civilization: Studies And Texts,
Volume 49, Brill: Leiden & Boston, pp. 211-290.
[13] There exist a lot of refutations of Schacht's methodologies. The most comprehensive of them is by M. M. alAzami, On Schacht's Origins Of Muhammadan Jurisprudence , 1996, The Oxford Centre for Islamic
Studies & Islamic Text Society; idem., Studies In Early Hadith Literature, 1992, American Trust

Publications (Indianapolis); N. Abbott, Studies In Arabic Literary Papyri , 1967, Volume II (Qur'anic
Commentary & Tradition), The University Of Chicago Press: Chicago, pp. 5-83; F. Sezgin, Geschichte Des
Arabischen Schrifttums , 1967, Volume I, E. J. Brill: Leiden, pp. 53-84; M. M. Bravmann, The Spiritual
Background Of Early Islam: Studies In Ancient Arab Concepts , 1972, E. J Brill: Leiden, pp. 123-198
("Sunnah And Related Concepts"). Of this study Serjeant remarked, "Bravmann has convincingly demolished
Schacht's theory that sunnah was originally applied to the practice of the first two caliphs and only later to that of
the Prophet". See R. B. Serjeant, "Early Arabic Prose " in A. F. L. Beeston, T. M. Johnstone, R. B. Serjeant & G.
R. Smith (Eds.), Arabic Literature To The End Of The Umayyad Period , 1983, Cambridge University
Press: UK, p. 147.
There are others which are scattered all over the scholarly literature. For example see D. S. Powers, " The Will Of
Sad B. Ab Waqqs: A Reassessment ", Studia Islamica , 1983, Volume 58, pp. 33-53; H. Motzki, "The

Musannaf Of Abd al-Razzq Al-S ann As A Source of Authentic Ah dth of The First
Century A.H.", Journal Of Near Eastern Studies , 1991, Volume 50, pp. 1-21; U. Rubin, "Al-Walad
Li-l-Firsh: On The Islamic Campaign Against Zin ", Studia Islamica , 1993, Volume 78, pp. 526. For the alleged role of non-Arabs converts in Islamic jurisprudence see H. Motzki, "The Role Of Non-Arab
Converts In The Development Of Early Islamic Law ", Islamic Law And Society , 1999, Volume 6,
Issue 3, pp. 293-317.
[14] J. Wansbrough, Qur'anic
Oxford University Press, p. xi.

Studies: Sources & Methods Of Scriptural Interpretation , 1977,

[15] ibid., p. ix
[16] J. Wansbrough, The Sectarian
1978, Oxford University Press, p. x.

Milieu: Content & Composition Of Islamic Salvation History ,

[17] Perhaps the best example of such an analysis is by Harald Motzki on the collection of the Qur'an. H. Motzki,
"The Collection Of The Qur'an: A Reconsideration Of The Western Views In Light Of Recent
Methodological Developments ", Der Islam, 2001, Volume 78, pp. 1-34. The Western views on the
collection of the Qur'an that Motzki discusses are the works of Wansbrough (Qur'anic Studies: Sources &
Methods Of Scriptural Interpretation , 1977, Oxford University Press), Watt (Muhammad's Mecca ,
1988, Edinburgh), Nldeke and Schwally (Geschichte des Qorans , 1938, Leipzig), Casanova (Mohammad
et la fin du Monde , 1911, Paris), Mingana ("The Transmission Of The Qur'an ", 1916, Journal of The
Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society ) and Burton (The Collection Of The Qur'an , 1979,
Cambridge University Press). Refuting the claims of Western scholarship concerning the collection of the Qur'an
Motzki states that [p. 31]:
Muslims account are much earlier and thus much nearer to the time of the events than hitherto assumed in
Western scholarship. Admittedly, these accounts contain some details which seem to be implausible or, to put it
more cautiously, await explanation, but the Western views which claim to replace them by more plausible and
historically more reliable accounts are obviously far away from what they make themselves out to be.

Also see H. Motzki, "The Prophet And The Cat: On Dating Mlik's Muwatta
And Legal
Traditions", Jerusalem Studies In Arabic And Islam , 1998, Volume 22, pp. 18-83; idem., "The Murder
Of Ibn Ab l-Huqayq: On The Origin And Reliability Of Some Maghz Reports", in H. Motzki
(Ed.), The Biography Of Muhammad: The Issue Of Sources , 2000, Islamic History And Civilization:

Studies And Texts, Volume 32, Brill: Leiden, Boston, Kln, pp. 170-239; U. Mitter, "Unconditional
Manumission Of Slaves In Early Islamic Law: A Hadth Analysis", Der Islam, 2001, Volume 78,
pp. 35-72.
For a recent overview of dating Muslim traditions see H. Motzki, "Dating
Survey", Arabica, 2005, Volume 52, No. 2, pp. 204-253.
[18] M. Hamidullah, S ah ifah Hammm
1979, Centre Cultural Islamique: Paris.

Muslim Traditions: A

bin Munabbih: The Earliest Extant Work On The H a dth,

[19] Abd al-Razzq b. Hammm al-S ann (ed. Habib al-Rah mn al-Azami), Al-Mus annaf, 1972, 11 volumes,
Beirut.
[20] H. Motzki, "The

Musannaf Of Abd al-Razzq Al-S ann As A Source of Authentic

Ah dth of The First Century A.H.", Journal Of Near Eastern Studies , 1991, Volume 50, pp. 1-21; A
detailed discussion of it is available in Motzki's book: H. Motzki (trans. Marion H. Katz), The Origins Of
Islamic Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh Before The Classical Schools , 2002, Brill: Leiden, Boston,
Kln, see chapter II; Also see H. Motzki, "The Author And His Work In The Islamic Literature Of The
First Centuries: The Case Of Abd al-Razzq's Musannaf", Jerusalem Studies In Arabic And
Islam, 2003, Volume 28, pp. 171-201.
[21] J. Wellhausen, Reste Arabischen Heidentums Gesammelt
Von Georg Reimer: Berlin, p. 218. The German text reads:

Und Erlutert , 1897, Druck Und Verlag

Ganz in dem selben Sinne nun wird Allah ursprnglich gesagt und verstanden sein, nicht im Gegensatz gegen
den besonders benannten Stammgott, sondern als appellatives Attribut desselben. Allah war also zunchst
innerhalb jedes einzelnen Stammes der gewhnlich statt des Eigennamens gebrauchte Titel des Stammgottes;
alle sagten sie Allah und jeder verstand seinen Gott. Aber der Ausdruck "der Gott", der im sprachlichen Verkehr
fast die Alleinherrschaft bekam, bildete nun den bergang zu dem Gedanken eines identischen, allen Stmmen
gemeinsamen, einen und allgemeinen Gottes.

[22] ibid., p. 85. The German text reads:

Das vornehmste Geschlecht von Bagila hiess Ahmas Allah, Allah war islamischer Ersatz fr irgend welchen
Gtzennamen.

[23] ibid., pp. 75-76. On p. 75 Wellhausen says:

Der Dienst dieser Gttinnen war nun allerdings sehr viel weiter verbreitet als der des Hubal; doch sollte man
denken, bei einer Polemik gegen den Gtzendienst eben der Mekkaner wre dringende Veranlassung gewesen,
den spezifisch mekkanischen Gott der Kaba nicht zu vergessen. Statt dessen wird von Muhammad
vorausgesetzt und auch von seinen Gegnern zugestanden, das Allah der Herr der Kaba sei. Ist etwa der Allah
von Mekka Hubal? mit anderen Worten wurde Hubal in Mekka Allah genannt, ungefhr so wie Jahve in Israel
Elohim.

[24] See for example, Ibn Warraq, Why

I Am Not A Muslim , 1995, Prometheus Books: Amherst (NY), p. 39.

[25] T. Fahd, Le Panthon De L'Arabie Centrale A La Veille De L'Hgire , 1968, Institut Franais
D'Archologie De Beyrouth Bibliothque Archologique Et Historique - Volume 88 , Librairie Orientaliste Paul
Guethner: Paris, pp. 95-96.
[26] A. S. Kapelrud, Baal

In The Ras Shamra Texts , 1952, G. E. C. Gad: Copenhagen (Denmark), pp. 64-82.

[27] ibid., pp. 82-86.

[28] C. H. Gordon, "The Daughters of Baal and Allah ", The Moslem World , 1943, Volume 33, Number
1, p. 50. Citing Gordon's article in support, Alexander Jacob says that Allah is derived from Baal solely on the basis
that Baal had three daughters. Jacob has obviously never read Gordon's article where no such sweeping assertions
are made. Additionally, he has misread C. H. Gordon, "Canaanite Mythology", in S. N. Kramer
(Ed.), Mythologies Of The Ancient World , 1961, Quadrangle Books, Inc.: Chicago, p. 196, where Gordon
argues against those scholars who think Baal's daughters should instead be considered as his consorts. In the same
footnote, Jacob, in the same astral vein, also informs us the deity Marduk is the source of the account of Jesus
alleged death and resurrection; Jesus being a "mythological figure representing the solar force synonymous with
Marduk, Bel, Baal " See A. Jacob, tman: A Reconstruction Of The Solar Cosmology Of The
Indo-Europeans, 2005, Georg Olms Verlag AG: Hildesheim (Germany), p. 197, footnote 1530.
[29] A. Rahmouni (Trans. J. D. Ford), Divine Epithets In The Ugaritic Alphabetic Texts , 2007, Handbook
Of Oriental Studies, Section One, The Near And Middle East Volume 93, Koninklijke Brill NV: Leiden (The
Netherlands).
[30] ibid., p. 381 (Appendix Two: "A List Of The Epithets Of Each Ugaritic Deity Or Demon "). They
are as follows: "the mightiest of the heroes", "Balu the mighty one", "without equal (lit. there is none above him)",
"the son of Ilu", "the son of Dagnu", "the annihilator Haddu", "the valiant one", "prince Ba lu", "the prince, lord of
the earth", "scion of Dagnu", "our king", "the supreme one", "rider of the clouds", "our judge (/ ruler)".
[31] ibid., p. 331.
[32] ibid.
[33] For a collection of texts with regard to Baal's struggles with Mtu see, B. Margalit, A Matter Of Life
And Death A Study Of The Baal-Mot Epic (CTA 456) , 1980, Alter Orient Und Altes Testament
Band 206, Verlag Butzon & Bercker Kevelaer: Germany.
[34] A. Rahmouni (Trans. J. D. Ford), Divine Epithets In The Ugaritic Alphabetic Texts , 2007, op. cit.,
pp. 331-345. This is a brief summary of part of the author's conclusions relating to the deity Baal. For full
comprehension of the data one must consult all the 112 epithets discussed in their proper contexts.
[35] S. J. Sanders, Towards A Theology Of Baal: Revisiting The Interpretation Of The Ugaritic
Texts, 2003, Ph.D Thesis (unpublished), University of Edinburgh . According to the author's abstract [page i] the
last study devoted to the theology of Baal was around thirty years ago. Rahmouni makes it quite clear that her
volume does not deal with the study of the divine names themselves. We must therefore look elsewhere for a
widespread theological discussion.

[36] D. Pardee (Ed. T. J. Lewis), Ritual And Cult At Ugarit , 2002, Writings From The Ancient World Volume
10, Society Of Biblical Literature, Atlanta (GA). One can gain some appreciation from these texts how the deities at
Ugarit, including Baal, were actually worshipped and the forms of such worship. This volume is a condensed
presentation of the author's earlier work written in French, which is the most complete discussion of the data
published so far. See D. Pardee, Les Textes Rituels , 2000, Publications De La Mission Archologique Franaise
De Ras Shamra-Ougarit Volume XII, ditions Recherche Sur Les Civilisations: Paris. Also note that Ba al does
not appear in the divination texts whether those using animal parts, teratology or astrological phenomena. See S. J.
Sanders,Towards A Theology Of Baal: Revisiting The Interpretation Of The Ugaritic Texts ,
2003, op. cit., p. 330.
[37] T. N. D. Mettinger, The Riddle Of Resurrection: "Dying And Rising Gods" In The Ancient
Near East, 2001, Coniectanea Biblica, Old Testament Series 50, Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm:
Sweden, pp. 55-81 (Ugaritic Baal). For another perspective see M. S. Smith, The Origins Of Biblical
Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background And The Ugaritic Texts , 2001, Oxford University
Press Inc.: New York , pp. 104-131 ("The Life And Death Of Ba al ").
[38] Muhammad Ab al-Faraj al-Ushsh, "Kitabt
Abhath, 1964, Volume 17, p. 241 (no. 16).

Arabiyya Ghayr Manshura Fi Jabal Usays ", Al-

[39] Restricting the time frame from 1-70 AH, Hoyland points out the dated documentary evidence informs us that,
God is 'compassionate', 'merciful', no partner (i.e. documents only in his name), 'lord of the heavens and the
earth', 'lord of the worlds', human action only done 'by His permission' and 'by Allah's might and His power',
'lord of Gabriel, Michael and Serafiel'. His people are united by a new calendar (i.e., all dated documents use
the same new calendar beginning 1 AH = 622 CE), a new name (muhjirn, appears on earliest papyri of 20s
AH, and known from Greek and Syriac sources), a script and a language (use of Arabic script and language
prevalent); appeal to Allah for forgiveness, compassion and blessings, praise Him, say Amen(i.e. they have
common rituals of invocation and worship). Their ruler is commander of the believers, the servant of Allah and
he benefits the believers.

See, R. Hoyland, "New

Documentary Texts And The Early Islamic State ", Bulletin Of The School
Of Oriental And African Studies , 2006, Volume 69, No. 3, p. 396.
[40] For comprehensive survey of non-Muslim writings see R. Hoyland, Seeing

Islam As Others Saw It: A

Survey And Evaluation Of Christian, Jewish And Zoroastrian Writings On Early Islam , 1997,
Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam - 13, The Darwin Press, Inc.: Princeton (NJ).
[41] R. G. Hoyland, "The Earliest Christian Writings On Muhammad: An Appraisal ", in H. Motzki
(Ed.), The Biography Of Muhammad: The Issue Of Sources , 2001, Islamic History And Civilization
Studies And Texts Volume 32, Koninklijke Brill NV: Leiden (The Netherlands), pp. 283-284. Hoyland identifies
the other categories as, "initiator of the Conquests", "the Trader", "the King", "the Lawgiver", "the Prophet / "false
Prophet"".
[42] ibid., p. 283.
[43] D. J. Sahas, John Of Damascus On Islam: The "Heresy Of The Ishmaelites" , 1972, E. J. Brill:
Leiden (The Netherlands), p. 75. For a possible earlier Christian reference to this Surah written c. 700 by Mar Aba

of Kashkar (641 751 CE) see, G. J. Reinink, "An Early Syriac Reference To Qur'n 112? ", in H. L. J.
Vanstiphout, W. J. van Bekkum, G. J. van Gelder & G. J. Reinink (Eds.), All Those Nations Cultural
Encounters Within And With The Near East , 1999, STYX Publications: Groningen (The Netherlands), pp.
123-130.
[44] D. J. Sahas, John

Of Damascus On Islam: The "Heresy Of The Ishmaelites" , 1972, op. cit., p. 72.

[45] A. S. Kapelrud, Baal

In The Ras Shamra Texts , 1952, op. cit., pp. 12-13.

[46] A. Guillaume, The Life Of Muhammad:

(18th Impression), op. cit., p. 386.

A Translation Of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah , 2004

[47] N. Perrin, What Is Redaction Criticism? , 1969, Fortress Press: Philadelphia, pp. 1-2; Also see H. H.
Buls, "Redaction Criticism And Its Implications ", The Springfielder , 1973, Volume XXXVI, No. 4, pp.
260-279.
[48] R. T. Mann, Redaction

Criticism Of The Synoptic Gospels: Its Role In The Inerrancy Debate

Within North American Evangelicalism , 2007, Th.D Thesis (unpublished), University Of South Africa. For
further references dealing with the subject one is advised to consult this thesis.
[49] Such as misunderstanding editorial technique. See for example, R. S. Faizer, "Muhammad And

The
Medinan Jews: A Comparison Of The Texts Of Ibn Ishaq's Kitab Sirat Rasul Allah With AlWaqidi's Kitab al-Maghazi ", International Journal Of Middle East Studies , 1996, Volume 28,
Number 4, pp. 463-489; idem., "The Issue Of Authenticity Regarding The Traditions Of Al-Wqid
As Established In His Kitb al-Maghz", Journal Of Near Eastern Studies , 1999, Volume 58, No.
2, pp. 97-106.
[50] That the common link was the inventor of a h adth, was championed by G. H. A. Juynboll. This is simply
an apriori assumption without any basis. See G. H. A. Juynboll, "Some Isnd-Analytical Methods
Illustrated On The Basis Of Several Women-Demeaning Sayings From Hadth Literature", AlQantara, 1989, Volume 10, pp. 343-384. A critique of such position on common links was made by Harald
Motzki, "Dating Muslim Traditions: A Survey ", Arabica, 2005, op. cit., pp. 226-230.
[51] Safi-ur Rahman al-Mubarakpuri, Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum [The Sealed Nectar] , 1996, First Edition,
Maktaba Dar-us-Salam: Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), p. 392; I. K. Poonawala (Trans.), History Of Al-Tabari,

Volume IX: The Last Years Of The Prophet - The Formation of the State A.D. 630-632 / A.H.
8-11, 1990, State University Of New York Press: Albany (NY), p. 45; P. K. Hitti (Trans.), The Origins Of The
Islamic State Being A Translation Of Kitb Futh al-Buldn Of Abu Al-Abbas Ahmad Bin
Jabir Al-Baladhuri , 2002, Gorgias Press: Piscataway (NJ), pp. 62-63; "Abu Sufyan" in E. van
Donzel, Islamic Desk Reference: Compiled From The Encyclopaedia Of Islam , 1994, E. J. Brill:
Leiden, p. 15; F. E. Peters, Muhammad And The Origins Of Islam , 1994, State University of New York
Press: Albany (NY), p. 235.
[52] A. Guillaume, The Life Of Muhammad:
(18th Impression), op. cit., p. 547.

A Translation Of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah , 2004

[53] I. K. Poonawala (Trans.), History

Of Al-Tabari, Volume IX: The Last Years Of The Prophet The Formation of the State A.D. 630-632 / A.H. 8-11, 1990, op. cit., pp. 44-46.
[54] "Some faces that day shall be shinning and radiant, gazing upon their Lord." [Surah al-Qiyamah, 75:22-23]
[55] Holding the Islamic corpus in deep suspicion, Pavel Pavlovitch simply ignores this important contradistinction
whilst subtly hinting that Allah and Hubal are in fact one and the same entity. See P. Pavlovitch, " Qad kunna la

nabudu llaha wa-la na rifuhu. On The Problem Of The Pre-Islamic Lord Of The
Kaba", Journal Of Arabic And Islamic Studies , 1998/1999, Volume II, pp. 4974. Available online. Also
see here for response and counter response.
[56] D. S. Margoliouth, Mohammed
York, p. 19.

And The Rise Of Islam , 1905, G. P. Putnam's Sons: London & New

[57] P. Crone, Meccan Trade And The Rise Of Islam , 1987, Princeton University Press: New Jersey (NJ), p.
189. Crone introduces this sub-discussion with the following question, Third, what deity did Quraysh represent?
The foregoing statements are part of her analysis to provide an answer to this question.
To diverge momentarily, in recent years Crone has modified her position somewhat with regard to the Islamic
sources. In a popular article written for Open Democracy entitled, "What Do We Actually Know About
Mohammed?", she says as part of her conclusions "We shall never be able to do without the literary sources, of
course, and the chances are that most of what the tradition tells us about the prophet's life is more or less correct in
some sense or other." One also notes the optimism in her introduction "... For all that, we probably know more about
Mohammed than we do about Jesus (let alone Moses or the Buddha), and we certainly have the potential to know a
great deal more." Separately see, P. Crone, "Quraysh And The Roman Army: Making Sense Of The
Meccan Leather Trade ",Bulletin Of The School Of Oriental And African Studies , 2007, Volume
70, Issue 1, pp. 63-88, for some modifications to her hypothesis regarding the geo-economic situation at the advent
of Islam.
[58] P. Crone, Meccan

Trade And The Rise Of Islam , 1987, op. cit., pp. 193-194.

[59] ibid., p. 194.

[60] H. R. Alker, Rediscoveries And Reformulations: Humanistic Methodologies For
International Studies , 1996, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, p. 271, footnote 646.
[61] F. E. Peters, Muhammad
York, pp. 109-110.

And The Origins Of Islam , 1994, State University of New York Press: New

[62] G. E. von Grunebaum, Classical Islam:

AldineTransaction: New Brunswick (NJ), p. 25.

A History, 600 A.D. To 1258 A.D. , 2005 (Paperback),

[63] A. Guillaume, The Life Of Muhammad: A Translation Of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah , 2004
(18th Impression), op. cit., p. 68. Abd al-Muttalib's praying to Allah whilst standing next to the statue of Hubal is
mysteriously transformed by Robert Morey to claim that the pagans from Makkah "prayed to Hubal using the name
Allah". See R. Morey, A Reply To Shabbir Ally's Attack On Dr. Robert Morey: An Analysis Of
Shabbir Ally's False Accusation And Unscholarly Research , n.d., Faith Defenders: Orange (CA), p. 5;

R. A. Morey, Winning
Appendix, p. vii.

The War Against Radical Islam , 2002, Christian Scholars Press: Las Vegas (NV),

[64] In the Western literature on Islam, the belief in one true God, i.e., Allah, by pagan Arabs becomes belief in a
"High God". See W. M. Watt, "Belief In A "High God" In Pre-Islamic Mecca ", Journal Of Semitic
Studies, 1971, Volume 16, pp. 35-40; idem., "The Qur'an And Belief In A "High God" ", Der Islam,
1979, Volume 56, pp. 205-211, U. Rubin, "Al-Samad And The High God: An Interpretation
Of Sra CXII", Der Islam, 1984, Volume 61, pp. 197-217.
[65] Personal motives weighed just as heavily as scholarly ones, such as the desire of donors to immortalise their
names many of whom had never married or had no surviving male heir. See M. Feingold, "Patrons And

Professors: The Origins And Motives For The Endowment Of University ChairsIn Particular
The Laudian Professorship Of Arabic ", in G. A. Russell (Ed.), The 'Arabick' Interest Of The
Natural Philosophers In Seventeenth-Century England , 1994, E. J. Brill: Leiden, pp. 109-127.
[66] P. M. Holt, "The

Study Of Arabic Historians In Seventeenth Century England: The

Background And The Work Of Edward Pococke ", Bulletin Of The School Of Oriental And
African Studies, 1957, Volume 19, No. 3, pp. 446-449; idem., "Edward Pococke (160491), The First
Laudian Professor Of Arabic At Oxford ", Oxoniensia, 1991, Volume LVI, pp. 127-129.
[67] Holt informs us Sm al-Kayln identifies Fathallh with the poet Fathallh al-Halab ibn al-Nahhs who died
in Madinah in 1052 AH / 1642 CE. Toomer however dismisses this identification by pointing out that in 1671
Huntington wrote a letter to Pococke from Aleppo saying his "old scheich" who had died several years since had
remembered Pococke with his last breath. See P. M. Holt,Studies In The History Of The Near East , 1973,
Frank Cass and Company Limited: Oxford & New York, p. 23, footnote 9; G. J. Toomer, Eastern Wisedome
And Learning: The Study Of Arabic In SeventeenthCentury England , 1996, Oxford University
Press Inc.: New York, p. 121, footnote 22.
[68] L. Twells, M. A., The

Theological Works Of The Learned Dr. Pocock, Sometime Professor Of

The Hebrew And Arabick Tongues, In The University Of Oxford, And Canon Of ChristChurch: Containing His Porta Mosis And English Commentaries On Hosea, Joel, Micah, And
Malachi. To Which Is Prefixed, An Account Of His Life And Writings, Never Before Printed;
With The Addition Of A New General Index To The Commentaries , 1740, Volume I, Printed for the
Editor, and sold by R. Gosling, at the Mitre and Crown in Fleet-Street: London, p. 6. Later on Pococke would enjoy
a further sojourn in the East which Twells informs us allowed him to attain greater skill in Arabic, see p. 10.
[69] E. Pocockii (Trans. & Ed.), Specimen

Histori Arabvm, Sive Gregorii AbulFarajii Malatiensis,

De Origine & Moribus Arabum: Succincta Narration, In Linguam Latinam Conversa,
Notisque Probatissimis Apud Ipsos Authoribus, Fusis Illustrata , 1650, Excudebat H. Hall,
Impensis Humph: Robinson, In Cmeterio Paulino, Ad Insigne Trium Columbarum: Oxoni. Although his notes at
least as far as page 198 were printed in 1648 (his notes start with a separate title located on page 32), the book was
not officially published until 1650. See F. Madan, M. A., F. S. A., Oxford Books: A Bibliography Of

Printed Works Relating To The University And City Of Oxford Or Printed Or Published There
With Appendixes, Annals, And Illustrations, 1912, Volume 2, Oxford Literature 14501640, And 1641
1650, At The Clarendon Press: Oxford, pp. 475-476 (no. 2007) & p. 488 (no. 2034).

[70] Such as the story that Muhammad was entombed in an iron coffin suspended by magnets between heaven and
earth, and, a dove trained to eat from his ear and so impersonate the Holy Ghost. See P. M. Holt, "Edward
Pococke (160491), The First Laudian Professor Of Arabic At Oxford ", Oxoniensia, 1991, op.
cit., pp. 128-129.
[71] E. Pocockii (Trans. & Ed.), Specimen

Histori Arabvm, Sive Gregorii AbulFarajii Malatiensis,

De Origine & Moribus Arabum: Succincta Narration, In Linguam Latinam Conversa,
Notisque Probatissimis Apud Ipsos Authoribus, Fusis Illustrata , 1650, op. cit., p. 96.
[72] H. A. Ch. Hvernick (Trans. W. L. Alexander, D. D. ) A General Historico-Critical Introduction To
The Old Testament, 1852, Clark's Foreign Theological Library, Volume XXVIII, T. T. Clark: Edinburgh, p. 108.
[73] Rev. J. Muehleisen, Ishmael; Or, A Natural History Of Islamism,
Christianity, 1859, Rivingtons, Waterloo Place: London, p. 41-42.

And Its Relation To

[74] Summarised from the introduction provided by H. Oort (Trans., Enlgd. & Ed., Rev. J. W. Colenso), The

Worship Of Baalim In Israel. Based Upon The Work Of Dr. R. Dozy, 'The Israelites At Mecca' ,
1865, Longmans, Green, and Co.: London, pp. 1-8.
[75] S. M. Zwemer, The

Moslem Doctrine Of God: An Essay On The Title And Attributes Of Allah

According To The Koran And Orthodox Tradition , 1905, Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier: Edinburgh and
London, pp. 27-28.
[76] ibid., p. 28.
[77] H. Oort (Trans., Enlgd. & Ed., Rev. J. W. Colenso), The

Worship Of Baalim In Israel. Based Upon

The Work Of Dr. R. Dozy, 'The Israelites At Mecca' , 1865, op. cit., p. 64.
[78] "Hubal" in M. Th. Houtsma, A. J. Wensinck, T. W. Arnold, W. Heffening & E. Lvi-Provenal (Eds.), The
Encyclopaedia of Islam , 1927, Volume II, E. J. Brill Ltd.: Leyden & Luzac & Co.: London, p. 327.
[79] S. Noja, "Hubal = Allah ", Rendiconti:
1994, Volume 128, pp. 283-295.

Istituto Lombardo Accademia Di Scienze E Lettere ,

As for a less-than-sophisticated argument of associating Hubal with Baal, Khairat al-Saleh says:
Hubal was associated with the Semitic god Bal and with Adonis or Tammuz, the gods of spring, fertility,
agriculture and plenty.

See K. Al-Saleh, Fabled Cities, Princes & Jinn From Arab Myths
Books: New York & Douglas & McIntyre:Vancouver / Toronto, p. 28.

And Legends , 1985, Schocken

[80] A. F. L. Beeston, "Languages Of Pre-Islamic Arabia ", Arabica, 1981, Volume 28, p. 181; M. C. A.
Macdonald, "Reflections On The Linguistic Map Of Pre-Islamic Arabia ", Arabian Archaeology
And Epigraphy, 2000, Volume 11, p. 29, Figure 1, pp. 41-42 and pp. 48-50; C. Rabin, Ancient West Arabian ,
1951, Taylor's Foreign Press: London, pp. 35-36. Rabin discusses am- and an- articles found in some Yemeni
dialects.

[81] I. Rabinowitz, "Aramaic Inscriptions Of The Fifth Century B.C.E.

In Egypt", Journal Of Near Eastern Studies , 1956, Volume 15, pp. 1-9.

From A North-Arab Shrine

[82] ibid., p. 6, note 41.

[83] M. C. A. Macdonald, "Reflections On The Linguistic Map
Archaeology And Epigraphy , 2000, op. cit., p. 70, note 85.

Of Pre-Islamic Arabia ", Arabian

[84] Herodotus (Ed. & Trans. by G. Rawlinson), The History Of Herodotus , 1934, Tudor Publishing
Company: New York, p. 148, 3.8. Also available online. This important point concerning the use of article al- in Alilat was also highlighted by A. F. L. Beeston, "Languages Of Pre-Islamic Arabia ", Arabica, 1981, op. cit.,
p. 181; Also see M. C. A. Macdonald, "Reflections On The Linguistic Map Of Pre-Islamic
Arabia", Arabian Archaeology And Epigraphy , 2000, op. cit., p. 41 and p. 49.
[85] M. C. A. Macdonald, "Reflections On The Linguistic
Archaeology And Epigraphy , 2000, op. cit., p. 49.

Map Of Pre-Islamic Arabia ", Arabian

[86] ibid., p. 74, note 146.

[87] A. Livingstone, "An Early Attestion
Studies, 1997, Volume 42, p. 261.

Of The Arabic Definite Article ", Journal Of Semitic

[88] A. J. Wensinck, "The Article

Of Determination In Arabic ", Mededelingen Der Koninklijke

(Nederlandse) Akademie Van Wetenschappen. Afdeeling Letterkunde , 1931, Volume 71, No. 3, pp.
47-64. Also see W. Vycichl, "L'origine De L'article Dfini de L'arabe ", Comptes Rendus Du Groupe
Linguistique D'tudes Chamito-Smitiques , 1973-1978, Volume 18-23, pp. 713-719.
Winnett had used the Lihyanite and Thamudic inscriptions which use h- or hn- article to claim that h-lh or hlh represent the name Allah or Al-ilah, respectively (F. V. Winnett, "Allah Before Islam ", The Moslem
World, 1938, Volume 28, pp. 241-247). Similarly, Allat and al-Uzza were called h-lt (or hn-lt) and hn-z (F. V.
Winnett, "The Daughters Of Allah ", The Moslem World , 1940, Volume 30, pp. 120-123). Winnett assumed
that the deity who appears in the Ancient North Arabian inscriptions as lh was identical to "Allah". Similarly, the
deity who appears in the Ancient North Arabian inscriptions as lh was assumed to be identical with both lh and
Allah. In the same vein, the deity who appears in the Ancient North Arabian inscriptions h-lh was assumed to be
identical with lh, lh and Allah. These assumptions are not justified by any evidence. On the other hand, lh and
lt are ordinary nouns meaning "god" and "goddess", the former being comparable to Arabic ilah. H-lh and h(n)lt mean literally "the god" and "the goddess". For h(n)-lt see I. Rabinowitz, "Aramaic Inscriptions Of The
Fifth Century B.C.E. From A North-Arab Shrine In Egypt ", Journal Of Near Eastern Studies ,
1956, op. cit., pp. 1-9; idem., "Another Aramaic Record Of The North-Arabian Goddess HanIlat", Journal Of Near Eastern Studies , 1959, Volume 18, pp. 154-155.
[89] For a complete discussion see A. J. Wensinck, "The Article Of Determination In
Arabic", Mededelingen Der Koninklijke (Nederlandse) Akademie Van Wetenschappen.
Afdeeling Letterkunde , 1931, op. cit., pp. 54-55.
[90] F. Rundgren, "The Form Of The Definite Article In Arabic " in M. Macuch, C. Mller-Kessler & B.G.
Fragner (Eds.), Studia Semitica Necnon Iranica Rudolpho Macuch Septuagenario Ab Amicis Et

Discipulis Dedicata , 1989, Otto Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden, pp. 257-269; D. D. Testen, Parallels In Semitic
Linguistics: The Development Of Arabic la- And Related Semitic Particles , 1998, Studies In
Semitic Languages And Linguistics - Volume 26, Brill: Leiden, pp. 135-182.
[91] M. C. A. Macdonald, "Reflections On The Linguistic
Archaeology And Epigraphy , 2000, op. cit., pp. 48-49.
[92] S. Noja, "Hubal = Allah ", Rendiconti:
1994, op. cit., pp. 291-292.

Map Of Pre-Islamic Arabia ", Arabian

Istituto Lombardo Accademia Di Scienze E Lettere ,

[93] M. Southern & A. G. Vaughn, "Where Have All The Nasals Gone? nC > CC In North
Semitic", Journal Of Semitic Studies , 1997, Volume 42, pp. 263-282, especially the introduction on pp. 263264 and conclusions on pp. 281-282.
[94] R. Voigt, "Der Artikel Im Semitischen ", Journal
1997 and Volume 42 as is stated by Dunkin!

Of Semitic Studies , 1998, Volume 43, p. 225. Not

[95] ibid. The German text reads:

s. auerdem hn-qbr 'das Grab' neben h-qbr.

[96] F. Hommel, Aufstze Und Abhandlungen Arabistisch-Semitologischen Inhalts , 1892, 1 Halfte,

G. Franz: Mnchen, pp. 1-51 for Lihyanite inscriptions at al-Ula; A. J. Wensinck, "The Article Of
Determination In Arabic ", Mededelingen Der Koninklijke (Nederlandse) Akademie Van
Wetenschappen. Afdeeling Letterkunde , 1931, op. cit., pp. 51-52; E. Ullendorff, "The Form Of The
Definite Article In Arabic And Other Semitic Languages ", in G. Makdisi (Ed.), Arabic And Islamic
Studies In Honor Of Hamilton A. R. Gibb , 1965, E. J. Brill: Leiden, p. 635; F. Rundgren, "The Form Of
The Definite Article In Arabic " in M. Macuch, C. Mller-Kessler & B.G. Fragner (Eds.), Studia Semitica
Necnon Iranica Rudolpho Macuch Septuagenario Ab Amicis Et Discipulis Dedicata , 1989, op.
cit., p. 261; D. D. Testen, Parallels In Semitic Linguistics: The Development Of Arabic la- And
Related Semitic Particles , 1998, op. cit., p. 145.
However, for a problem with the reading hn-qbr as proposed by A. Jaussen and M-R. Savignac see M. C. A.
Macdonald, "Reflections On The Linguistic Map Of Pre-Islamic Arabia ", Arabian Archaeology
And Epigraphy, 2000, op. cit., p. 71, note 94.
[97] Baal functions as both a proper name and common noun in the Qur'an. The former relates to the pre-Islamic
deity/idol worshiped by the people to whom the Prophet Elijah was sent. The latter means "husband", occurring four
times, twice in the singular and twice in the plural. See G. D. Newby, "Baal", in J. D. McAuliffe (Gen.
Ed.), Encyclopaedia Of The Qur'n , 2001, Volume One A D, Koninklijke Brill NV: Leiden (The
Netherlands), p. 194. Also see A. A. Ambros (Collab. S. Prochzka), A Concise Dictionary Of Koranic
Arabic, 2004, Wiesbaden: Reichert (Germany), p. 42 & p. 305. In the South Semitic, North-West Semitic, Ugaritic
and East Semitic languages surveyed by Zammit, namely Geez, epigraphic South Arabian, Aramaic, Syriac,
Hebrew, Phoenician, Ugaritic and Akkadian, Baal conveys essentially the same meaning. For the details see M. R.
Zammit, A Comparative Lexical Study Of Qur'nic Arabic , 2002, Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section
One, The Near and Middle East Volume 61, Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden (The Netherlands), pp. 97-98.

[98] R. Voigt, "Der Artikel Im

original quote in German reads:

Semitischen ", Journal Of Semitic Studies , 1998, op. cit., p. 225. The

Einige arabische Grammatiker meinten, die Kurzformen des Artikels gingen auf die Form mit Hamz zurck.
Nach Vokal kme es zu einer Elision des Hamz und der Kontraktion der dann benachbarten Vokale, also z.B.
*bi-al- > bi-l-. Dieser Ansatz ist richtig, wenn er auch weiter unten etwas prziser gefat werden soll.

[99] K. C. Ryding, A
Press, pp. 19-20.

Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic , 2005, Cambridge University

[100] M. C. A. Macdonald, "Reflections On The Linguistic Map Of Pre-Islamic Arabia ", Arabian
Archaeology And Epigraphy , 2000, op. cit., pp. 41-48 for a complete and exhaustive discussion
onh(n)- dialects.
[101] ibid., p. 34 for the chart of all the Ancient North Arabian dialects.
[102] M. C. A. Macdonald, "Reflections On The Linguistic
Archaeology And Epigraphy , 2000, op. cit., p. 50.
[103] J. F. Healey, The

Map Of Pre-Islamic Arabia ", Arabian

Religion Of Nabataeans: A Conspectus , 2001, op. cit., Map I.

[104] J. F. Healey, The Nabataean Tomb Inscriptions Of Mada'in Salih: Edited With Introduction
And Commentary, 1993, Journal Of Semitic Studies Supplement - 1, Oxford University Press on Behalf of
University of Manchester, p. 154, H 16.
[105] G. R. Hawting, The Idea Of Idolatry And The Emergence Of Islam: From Polemic To
History, 1999, Cambridge Studies In Islamic Civilization, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, p. 113, note 5.
[106] J. F. Healey, The

Religion Of Nabataeans: A Conspectus , 2001, op. cit., p. 128.

[107] Corpus

Inscriptionum Semiticarum Ab Academia Inscriptionum Et Litterarum

Humaniorum Conditum Atque Digestum , 1889, Pars Secunda (Inscriptiones Aramaicas Continens), Tomus
1, E Reipublicae Typographeo: Parisiis, No. 158, pp. 185-187. For the picture of the inscription see Corpus
Inscriptionum Semiticarum Ab Academia Inscriptionum Et Litterarum Humaniorum Conditum
Atque Digestum, 1889, Pars Secunda (Inscriptiones Aramaicas Continens), Tomus 1 (Tabul), E Reipublicae
Typographeo: Parisiis, Plate XXII, No. 158.
[108] J. Starcky, "Ptra

Et La Nabatne " in L. Pirot, A. Robert, H. Cazelles & A. Feuillet, Dictionnaire De

La Bible - Supplment , 1966, Volume 7, Letouzey & An, diteurs: Paris, col. 998.
[109] ibid.
[110] J. F. Healey, The
[111] J. Starcky, "Ptra

Religion Of Nabataeans: A Conspectus , 2001, op. cit., p. 128.

Et La Nabatne " in L. Pirot, A. Robert, H. Cazelles & A. Feuillet, Dictionnaire De

La Bible - Supplment , 1966, Volume 7, op. cit., col. 998, col. 999-1000.

[112] J. T. Milik & J. Starcky, "Inscriptions Rcemment Dcouvertes Ptra ", Annual Of The
Department Of Antiquities Of Jordan , 1975, Volume 20, pp. 121-124, especially p. 122, No. 5.
[113] J. F. Healey, The

Religion Of Nabataeans: A Conspectus , 2001, op. cit., p. 37.

[114] M. M. Ayoub, Islam: Faith And History , 2004, Oneworld Publications: Oxford (England), p. 15. Another
reference frequently utilised by the missionaries stating Hubal was a moon god is from C. Glass, The Concise
Encyclopdia Of Islam , 1989, Stacey International: London, p. 160. As with Ayoub, Glass provides no
evidence for his claims.
[115] R. Morey, A

Reply To Shabbir Ally's Attack On Dr. Robert Morey: An Analysis Of Shabbir

Ally's False Accusation And Unscholarly Research , n.d., op. cit., p. 28; Also see R. A. Morey,Winning
The War Against Radical Islam , 2002, op. cit., Appendix, p. xxxv and p. 11 for an allusion.
[116] H. Winckler, Arabisch, Semitisch, Orientalisch:
Untersuchung, 1901, W. Peiser: Berlin, p. 83.

Kulturgeschichtlich-Mythologische

der Gott, der in Mekka verehrt wurde, muss also, da Muhammad den mondkult lehrt, ein mondgott gewesen
sein; sein Name ist bekannt, es war Hobal. Wellhausen hat hierfr vllig beweisende belege gegeben. Hobal
war fr Mekka was Sin fr Harran, Marduk fr Babylon. Er gleich dem Allah Muhammeds wie die
altgermanischen u. altslavischen gtter den neu eingefhrten Christusgotte der oft noch in der Form seines
Vorgangers weiter verehrt wurde, oder doch sehr in den Schatten treten musste neben einem Heiligen, der die
Zge des alten Heidengottes trug.

One can see colossal ignorance about Islam here! Also see H. Winckler, "Himmels
Babylonier", Der Alte Orient, 1901, Volume 3, pp. 55-56.
[117] C. Brockelmann (Trans. J. Carmichael & M. Perlmann), History
Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited: London, p. 9 and p. 12.
[118] G. Ryckmans, Les
9.

= Und Weltenbild Der

Of The Islamic Peoples , 1949,

Noms Propres Sud-Smitiques , 1934, Volume I, Bureaux Du Muson: Louvain, p.

[119] D. Nielsen, "Zur Altarabischen Religion " in F. Hommel, N. Rhodokanakis, D. Nielsen

(Eds.), Handbuch Der Altarabischen Altertumskunde , 1927, Volume I (Die Altarabische Kultur), Nyt
Nordisk Forlag: Kopenhagen, pp. 177-250. For the discussion on the triad of moon, sun and the Venus star in the
Semitic pantheon see pp. 213-234.
[120] D. A. Brown, The

Deities Worshipped In Central And North-Western Arabia At The Advent

Of Islam, Their Temples And Rituals , 1965, Volume I, Ph.D Thesis (unpublished), p. 188. After much effort
including assistance from special collections staff at the University Library, Edinburgh University, the authors have
been unable to establish which institution this thesis was submitted to. The copy referred to here was originally part
of Professor Robert Serjeant's personal library, which now forms the Serjeant Special Collection held at the
University of Edinburgh. Serjeant was formerly Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge.
[121] ibid., pp. 183-185.

[122] ibid., p. 190; D. A. Brown, The

Deities Worshipped In Central And North-Western Arabia At

The Advent Of Islam, Their Temples And Rituals , 1965, Volume II, Ph.D Thesis (unpublished), p. 713.
[123] "Hubal" in M. Th. Houtsma, A. J. Wensinck, T. W. Arnold, W. Heffening & E. Lvi-Provenal (Eds.), The
Encyclopaedia of Islam , 1927, Volume II, E. J. Brill Ltd.: Leyden & Luzac & Co.: London, p. 327; T. Fahd,
"Hubal" in B. Lewis, V. L. Menage, Ch. Pellat and J. Schacht (Eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam (New
Edition), 1971, Volume III, E. J. Brill: Leiden & Luzac & Co.: London, pp. 536-537.
[124] T. Fahd, "Hubal" in B. Lewis, V. L. Menage, Ch. Pellat and J. Schacht (Eds.), Encyclopaedia
(New Edition), 1971, Volume III, op. cit., p. 537.

of Islam

[125] Dunkin spells Occhiogrosso's name incorrectly at exactly the same point as the internet website where he has
most likely copied his information from. One will also notice the apologist's reference to Toufic Fahd's article in
the Encyclopaedia Of Islam is incorrect. The information he is referring to is found on page 537, not page 536,
and in Volume 3, not Volume 1 once again mirroring the information found on this website. One will also notice
that details of the publisher and dates of publication are missing from almost every reference in his article. When
combined with the observations noted above, and those mentioned in previous sections, it adds fuel to the suspicion
that Dunkin has never actually handled much of the source material he claims to have read.
[126] T. Fahd, Le Panthon De L'Arabie Centrale A La Veille De L'Hgire , 1968, op. cit., pp. 102-103;
Also see T. Fahd, "Une Pratique Clromantique A La Ka ba Preislamique ", Semitica, 1958, op. cit.,
pp. 75-76.
[127] J. F. Healey, The

Religion Of Nabataeans: A Conspectus , 2001, op. cit., p. 131.

For a good example of what happens when one views ancient Semitic religion through an exclusively astral lens, see
H. Lewy, "Origin And Significance Of The Mgn Dwd: A Comparative Study In The Ancient
Religions Of Jerusalem And Mecca ", Archiv Orientln , 1950, Volume XVIII, No. 3, pp. 330-365.
Amongst a plethora of astral assertions are that the Solomonic temple was one of the centres of the "Saturn-cult",
Jerusalem is "Saturn's holy city" and David and Solomon's favourite deity was "the planet Saturn". For an
unimaginative and less-than-sophisticated claim that the Kabah was the house of Saturn, see Abdallah Abd alFadi, Is The Qur'an Infallible? , 1995, Light of Life: Villach (Austria), pp. 54-55. Not surprisingly, he did not
provide any evidence for such a claim.
[128] J. Teixidor, The Pagan God: Popular Religion
Princeton University Press: Princeton (NJ), p. 83.

In The Greco-Roman Near East , 1977,

[129] J. Starcky, "Review Of La Antiche Divinit Semitiche (By S. Moscati, J. Bottro,

Dahood, B. Caskel) ", Revue Biblique, 1960, Volume 67, p. 271. The text (in French) reads:

M. J.

Or l'tymologie la plus communment propose pour El nous oriente dans la mme direction. La
racine 'WL dsigne les tres et les choses qui sont en avant et, dans de groupe nomade que formaient les
premiers Smites, le mot el a pu dsigner la chef de la tribu, et par analogie l'unique divinit tutlaire. Dieu
tait le premier par excellence.

For the Old Testament usage of El see S. P. Tregelles (Trans.), Gesenius's

Hebrew And Chaldee Lexicon

To The Old Testament Scripture: Translated With Additions And Corrections From The
Author's Thesaurus And Other Works , 1881, Samuel Bagster And Sons: London, p. xlv.
[130] The entries on Volume 1, p. 303, consists of "Ah madnagar", "Ah madu", "Ah madu Lobbo", "Ah mar
Banu 'L-" and "Al-Ah naf B. Kays". See H. A. R. Gibb, J. H. Kramers, E, Levi-Provenal, J. Schacht
(Eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam (New Edition) , 1960, Volume I, E. J. Brill (Leiden) & Luzac & Co.
(London), p. 330.
[131] L. Gardet, "Allh", H. A. R. Gibb, J. H. Kramers, E, Levi-Provenal, J. Schacht (Eds.), Encyclopaedia
Islam (New Edition) , 1960, Volume I, op. cit., pp. 406-417.
[132] D. B. Macdonald, "Ilh" in B. Lewis, V. L. Mnage, Ch. Pellat and J. Schacht (Eds.), Encyclopaedia
Islam (New Edition) , 1971, Volume III, E. J. Brill (Leiden) & Luzac & Co. (London), p. 1093.

of

of

[133] A. F. L. Beeston, "Saba'" in C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W. P. Heinrichs & G.

Lecomte, Encyclopaedia Of Islam (New Edition) , 1995, Volume VIII, E. J. Brill: Leiden, pp. 664-665.
[134] ibid.
[135] R. P. R. Savignac, "Le Dieu Nabaten De
Volume 46, pp. 408-409, Plate X and Plate IX(c).

Laaban Et Son Temple ", Revue Biblique, 1937,

[136] ibid.
[137] ibid., p. 409.
[138] N. Glueck, Deities
New York, pp. 514-515.

And Dolphins: The Story Of The Nabataeans , 1965, Farrar, Straus And Giroux:

[139] ibid., ref. 1017 on p. 514 and the references for note 1017 on p. 615.
[140] R. P. R. Savignac, "Le Dieu Nabaten De Laaban Et Son
cit., p. 408 for the transcription of the Nabataean inscription in Hebrew.

Temple ", Revue Biblique, 1937, op.

[141] N. Glueck, "The

Topography And History Of Ezion-Geber And Elath ", Bulletin Of The

American Schools Of Oriental Research , 1938, No. 72, p. 12, note 44.
[142] A. Guillaume, Islam, 1956, Penguin Books: London, p. 7.
[143] S. D. Ricks, Lexicon Of Inscriptional
Istituto Biblico: Roma, pp. 10-11.

Qatabanian , 1989, Studia Pohl No. 14, Editrice Pontificio

[144] J. C. Biella, Dictionary Of Old South Arabic: Sabaean Dialect , 1982, Harvard Semitic Studies No.
25, Scholars Press: Chico (CA), p. 15; Also see A. F. L. Beeston, M. A. Ghul, W. W. Mller & J.
Ryckmans, Sabaic Dictionary (English-French-Arabic) , 1982, Publication Of The University Of Sanaa
(Yar), Editions Peeters: Louvain-la-Neuve and Librairie du Liban: Beirut, p. 5.

[145] D. B. Macdonald, "Ilh" in B. Lewis, V. L. Mnage, Ch. Pellat and J. Schacht (Eds.), Encyclopaedia
Islam (New Edition) , 1971, Volume III, op. cit., p. 1093.
[146] M. A. Kugener, "Nouvelle Note Sur L'Inscription
Orientali, 1907, pp. 577-586. Pl. I facing p. 586.
[147] J. F. Healey, The

of

Trilingue De Zbed ", Rivista Degli Studi

Religion Of Nabataeans: A Conspectus , 2001, op. cit., p. 124.

[148] H. J. W. Drijvers & J. F. Healey, The Old Syriac Inscriptions Of Edessa And Osrhoene: Texts,
Translations And Commentary , 1999, Handbuch der Orientalistik - Volume 42, Brill: Leiden, p. 80.
[149] J. Teixidor, The Pagan God: Popular Religion
Princeton University Press: Princeton (NJ), pp. 29-40.

In The Greco-Roman Near East , 1977,

[150] E. Littmann, Semitic Inscriptions , 1904, Part IV Of The Publications Of An American Archaeological
Expedition To Syria In 1899-1900, The Century Co.: New York, pp. 85-90, No. 1.
[151] E. Littmann, Semitic Inscriptions, Section A: Nabataean Inscriptions From Southern
Hauran, 1914, Publications Of The Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions To Syria In 1904-1905 And
1909 (Division IV), E. J. Brill: Leyden, pp. 21-22, No. 23.
[152] Corpus

Inscriptionum Semiticarum Ab Academia Inscriptionum Et Litterarum

Humaniorum Conditum Atque Digestum , 1889, Pars Secunda (Inscriptiones Aramaicas Continens), Tomus
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Ab Academia Inscriptionum Et Litterarum Humaniorum Conditum Atque Digestum , 1889, Pars
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[153] N. I. Khairy (With An Additional Note By J. T. Milik), "A New Dedicatory Nabataean Inscription
From Wadi Musa", Palestine Exploratory Quarterly , 1981, Volume 113, pp. 19-26, especially Milik's
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[154] D. Tarrier, "Baalshamin Dans Le Monde
Rcentes", Aram, 1990, Volume 2, pp. 197-203.

Nabaten: Propos De Dcouvertes

[155] E. Littmann, Semitic Inscriptions, Section C: Safaitic Inscriptions , 1943, Publications Of The
Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions To Syria (Division IV), E. J. Brill: Leiden, index on p. 344 for
details; J. F. Healey, The Religion Of Nabataeans: A Conspectus , 2001, op. cit., p. 126; M. C. A.
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[156] H. M. Barstad, "HBL Als Bezeichnung Der Fremden Gtter
Gott Hubal", Studia Theologica , 1978, Volume 32, pp. 57-65.

Im Alten Testament Und Der

[157] B. Becking, "Does Jeremiah X 3 Refer To A Canaanite Deity Called Hubal? ", Vetus
Testamentum, 1993, Volume 43, No. 4, pp. 555-557; B. Becking, "Hubal" in K. van der Toorn, B. Becking & P.
W. van der Horst (Eds.), Dictionary Of Deities And Demons In The Bible DDD , 1999, Second
Extensively Revised Edition, Brill: Leiden & Eerdmans: Grand Rapids (MI), p. 430.

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