Religions
of the Arabs
Most of the Arabs complied with the call of Ismael , and professed the religion of his father Ibrahim . They worshipped Allah,
professed His Oneness, and followed His religion for a long time until they forgot part of what they had been reminded of.
However, they still maintained fundamental beliefs such as monotheism as well as
various other aspects of Ibrahim 's religion, until the time when a chief of Khuza'ah, namely 'A m r bin Luhai came back from a trip to Syria. He was renowned for his righteousness, charity, devotion and care
for religion, and was granted unreserved
love and obedience by his tribesmen.
In Syria, he saw people worshipping idols, a phenomenon he approved of and believed to be righteous, since Syria was the land of the
advent of Messengers and their Scriptures.
He brought with him an idol (Hubal) which he placed in the middle of the Ka'bah and summoned people to worship it. Readily
enough, idolatry spread all over M akkah and thence to Hijaz, with the people of Makkah being custodians of not only the Sacred
House but of the entire Haram as well. A great number of idols, bearing different
names, were introduced into the area An idol called Manat was worshipped at Al-M ushallal near Qudayd
on the Red Sea. Another, Al-Lat, in Ta'if; a third, A l-'U zza, in the valley
of Nakhlah, and so on . Polytheism prevailed and the number of idols
increased everywhere in Hijaz. 'A m r bin Luhai, with the help of a Jinn
companion who told him that the idols of N oah's folk — Wadd, Suw a',
Yaguth, Ya'uq and Nasr -- were buried in Jeddah, dug them out and
took them to Tihamah. At the time of the pilgrimage, these idols were distributed among the tribes to take back hom e.1 Every tribe and house
had their own idols, and the Sacred House was crowded with them. On
the Prophet's conquest of Makkah, 360 idols were found around the ka'baa , he broke them down had removed and burned them .
Polytheism and idol worship became the most prominent feature
of the religion of pre-Islamic Arabs despite their alleged profession of
Ibrahim's religion.
Most of the traditions and ceremonies of idol worship were instituted
by 'A m r bin Luhai, and were deemed as "good innovations" rather
than deviations from the religion of Ibrahim. Some features of their
idol worship were:
1 : Devoting themselves to the idols, seeking refuge with
• them, uttering oaths in their names, calling for their help in
hardship, and supplication to them for fulfillment of wishes, believing
that the idols could intercede before Allah for the fulfillment of people's
2 : Performing pilgrimage to the idols, circumambulating around
• them, abasing themselves and even prostrating themselves
before them.
3 : Seeking favor of idols through various sacrifices in their name.
• These sacrifices were mentioned by Allah in His Saying:
"And that which is sacrificed (slaughtered) on An-Nusub (stone-
altars)" [5:3]
Allah also says :
"Eat not (0 believers) of that (meat) on which Allah's Name has not
been pronounced (at the time of the slaughtering of the animal)."
[6:121]
4 : Allocating certain portions of food, drink, cattle, and crops
• to idols. Surprisingly enough, portions were also devoted
to Allah Himself, but people often found reasons to transfer parts
of Allah's portion to idols, but never did the opposite. To this effect,
Allah Says:
"And they assign to Allah a share of the tilth and cattle which He has
created, and they say: 'This is for Allah', according to their pretending,
'and this is for our (Allah's so-called) partners.'But the share of their
(Allah's so-called) 'partners', reaches not Allah, while the share of
Allah reaches their (Allah's so-called) 'partners'. Evil is the way they
judge." [6:136]
