Pre-Islam Pagan Arabs made idols of Hubal (Moon god), Lat, Uzza, and Manat, but never Allah - Yasir Qadhi

Who is Yasir Qadhi?

Yasir Qadhi is an American Muslim scholar and writer of Pakistani descent. Since 2001, he has served as Dean of Academic Affairs at the Al-Maghrib Institute, an international Islamic educational institution with a center in Houston, Texas. He also teaches in the Religious Studies department at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, where he resides. Qadhi has written numerous books and lectured widely on Islam and contemporary Muslim issues. A 2011 The New York Times Magazine essay by Andea Elliott described Qadhi as "one of the most influential conservative clerics in American Islam."

---

What is Pre-Islam?

Pre-Islam refers to the period in history before the emergence and widespread adoption of Islam. It specifically denotes the time before the Prophet Muhammad's revelations and the establishment of Islamic faith, culture, and civilization.

---

Who is the Moon God?

In modern times it is claimed Allah (God in Islam) historically originates as a Moon God. Therefore this Moon God was worshipped in pre-Islamic Arabia originates in early 20th-century scholarship, most prominently advocated by American evangelicals from the 1990s. The idea was proposed by archeologist Hugo Winckler in 1901. It was proliferated in the USA in the 1990s, first via the publication of Robert Morey's pamphlet The Moon-god Allah: In Archeology of the Middle East (1994). Morey argues that "Allah" was the name of a moon god in pre-Islamic Arabic mythology, the implication being that "Allah" as the term for God in Islam implies that Muslims worship a different deity than the Judeo-Christian one. Joseph Lumbard, a professor of classical Islam, has stated the idea is "not only an insult to Muslims but also an insult to Arab Christians who use the name 'Allah' for God."

---

Who is Allah?

Allah is the Arabic word for God in Abrahamic religions. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from al-ilah, which means 'the god', and is related to El and Elah, the Hebrew and Aramaic words for God. The word Allah has been used by Arabic people of different religions since pre-Islamic times. More specifically, it has been used as a term for God by Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) and Arab Christians.

---

Who are Arabs?

Arabs are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs from Morocco to Iraq share a common bond based on ethnicity, language, culture, history, identity, ancestry, nationalism, geography, unity, and politics which give the region a distinct identity and distinguish it from other parts of the Muslim world. They also have their own customs, literature, music, dance, media, food, clothing, society, sports, architecture, art and, mythology. Arabs have significantly influenced and contributed to human progress in many fields, including science, technology, philosophy, ethics, literature, politics, business, art, music, comedy, theatre, cinema, architecture, food, medicine, and religion. Before Islam, most Arabs followed polytheistic Semitic religion, while some tribes adopted Judaism or Christianity and a few individuals, known as the hanifs, followed a form of monotheism.

---

Who was Hubal?

Hubal was a deity worshipped in pre-Islamic Arabia, particularly by the Quraysh tribe at the Kaaba in Mecca. He was believed to be the head moon-god of the Arab pantheon and was worshipped through rituals involving divination and arrow tossing. The idol of Hubal was one of many in the Kaaba and was eventually destroyed by Muhammad upon his conquest of Mecca.

---

What is Pagan?

Paganism is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians. It was applied on populations of the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population or because they were not milites Christi (soldiers of Christ). Alternate terms in Christian texts for the same group were hellene, gentile, and heathen. Pagan and paganism were pejorative terms for the same polytheistic group, implying its inferiority. Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry", and for much of its history was a derogatory term. Both during and after the Middle Ages, pagan was a pejorative term that was applied to any non-Abrahamic or unfamiliar religion, and the term presumed a belief in false god(s).

---

What is Idols?

Polytheism is the worship of or belief in multiple deities, usually as a pantheon of gods and goddesses. In most religions which accept polytheism, the different gods and goddesses are representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles, and can be viewed either as autonomous or as aspects or emanations of a creator deity or transcendental absolute principle (monistic theologies), which manifests immanently in nature (panentheistic and pantheistic theologies). Most of the polytheistic deities of ancient religions, with the notable exceptions of the Ancient Egyptian and Hindu deities, were conceived as having physical bodies. Polytheism is a type of theism. Within theism, it contrasts with monotheism, the belief in a singular God, in most cases transcendent. Important polytheistic religions practiced today include Chinese traditional religion, Hinduism, Japanese Shinto, and various neopagan faiths.

---