Part 3 The True Origin of Allah

What about Arabia? As pointed out by Professor Coon, “Muslims are notoriously loathe to preserve traditions of earlier paganism and like to garble what pre-Islamic history they permit to survive in anachronistic terms” (Carleton S. Coon, Southern Arabia, Washington DC, Smithsonian, 1944, p.398).

During the 19th century, Arnaud, Halevy, and Glaser went to southern Arabia and dug up thousands of Sabean, Minaean, and Qarabanian inscriptions which were subsequently translated.

In the 1940’s, archaeologists G. Caton Thompson and Carleton S. Coon made some amazing discoveries in Arabia. During the 1950’s, Wendell Phillips, W.F.Albright, Richard Bower, and others excavated sites Qataban, Timna, and Marib (the ancient capital of Sheba).

Thousands of inscriptions from walls and rocks in northern Arabia have also been collected. Reliefs and votive bowls used in worship of the “daughters of Allah” have also been discovered. The three daughters, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat are sometimes depicted together with Allah the moon-god represented by a crescent moon above them (North Arabian archaeological finds concerning Al-Lat are discussed in: Isaac Rabinowitz, Aramaic Inscriptions of the Fifth Century, JNES, XV, 1956, pp.1-9; Another Aramaic Record of the North Arabian goddess Han’Llat, JNES, XVIII, 1959, pp.154-55; Edward Linski, The Goddess Atirat in Ancient Arabia, in Babylon and in Ugarit: Her Relation to the Moon-god and the Sun-goddess, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, 3:101-9; H.J.Drivers, Iconography and Character of the Arab Goddess Allat, found in Études Preliminaries Aux Religions Orientales Dans L’Empire Roman, ed. Maarten J. Verseren, Leiden, Brill, 1978, pp.331-51).

The archaeological evidence demonstrates that the dominant religion in Arabia was the cult of the moon-god. The Old Testament consistenly rebuked the worship of the moon-god (e.g. Dt.4:19; 17:3; 2 Ki.21:3,5; 23:5; Jer.8:2; 19:13; Zeph.1:5). When Israel fell into idolatry, it was usually to the cult of the moon-god. In Old Testament times, Nabonidus (555-539 BC), the last King of Babylon, built Tayma, Arabia, as a centre of moon-god worship. Segall stated: “South Arabia’s stellar religion has always been dominated by the Moon-god in various variations” (Berta Segall, The Iconography of Cosmic Kingship, the Art Bulletin, vol.xxxviii, 1956, p.77). Many scholars have also noticed that the moon-god’s name, Sín, is a part of such Arabic words as “Sinai”, the “wilderness of Sîn”, and so forth.

When the popularity of the moon-god waned elsewhere, the Arabs remained true to their conviction that the moon-god was the greatest of all gods. While they worshipped 360 gods at the Kabah in Mecca, the moon-god was the chief deity. Mecca was in fact built as a shrine for the moon-god. This is what made it the most sacred site of Arabian paganism.

In 1944, G. Caton Thompson revealed in her book, The Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidah, that she had uncovered a temple of the moon-god in southern Arabia (see map above). The symbols of the crescent moon and no less than 21 inscriptions with the name Sîn were found in this temple (see above left). An idol which is probably the moon-god himself was also discovered (see above right). This was later confirmed by other well-known archaeologists (See Richard Le Baron Bower Jr. and Frank P. Albright, Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1958, p.78ff; Ray Cleveland, An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1965; Nelson Gleuck, Deities and Dolphins, New York, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1965).

The temple reveals that the temple of the moon-god was active even in the Christian era. Evidence gathered from both North and South Arabia demonstrate that moon-god worship was clearly active even in Muhammad’s day and was still the dominant cult.

According to numerous inscriptions, while the name of the moon-god was Sîn, his title was al-ilah, “the deity”, meaning that he was the chief of high god among the gods. As Coon pointed out, “The God Il or Ilah was originally a phase of the Moon-God” (Coon, Southern Arabia, p.399).

The moon-god was called al-ilah, the god, which was shortened to Allah in pre-Islamic times. The pagan Arabs even used Allah in the names they gave to their children. For example, both Muhammad’s father and uncle has Allah as part of their names. The fact that they were given such names by their parents proves that Allah was the title for the moon-god even in Muhammad’s day. Professor Coon says, “Similarly, under Muhammad’s tutelage, the relatively anonymous Ilah, becameAl-Ilah, The God, of Allah, the Supreme Being” (Ibid.).

This fact answers the questions: “Why is Allah never defined in the Quran?” and “Why did Muhammad assume that the pagan Arabs already knew who Allah was?”

Muhammad was raised in the religion of the moon-god Allah. But he went one step further than his fellow pagan Arabs. While they believed that Allah the moon-god was the greatest of all gods and the supreme deity in the pantheon of deities,Muhammad decided that Allah was not only the greatest god but the only God.

In effect he said, “Look, you already believe that the moon-god Allah is the greatest of all gods. All I want you to do is accept the idea that he is the only god. I am not taking away the Allah you already worship. I am only taking away his wife and his daughters and all the other gods.”

This is seen from the fact that the first point of the Muslim creed is not “Allah is great” but “Allah is the greatest” – he is the greatest among the gods. Why would Muhammad say that Allah is thegreatest except in a polytheistic (many gods) context? The Arabic word is used to contrast the greater from the lesser.

That this is true is seen from the fact that the pagan Arabs never accused Muhammad of preaching adifferent Allah than the one they already worshipped. Thus “Allah” was the moon-god according to the archaeological evidence.

Muhammad thus attempted to have it both ways. To the pagans, he said that he still believed in the moon-god Allah. To the Jews and the Christians he said that Allah was their God, too. But both the Jews and the Christians, who worshipped Yahweh, knew better and they rejected his god Allah as a false god.

Al-Kindi, one of the early Christian apologists against Islam, pointed out that Islam and its god Allahdid not come from the Bible but from the paganism of the Sabeans. They did not worship the God of the Bible but the moon-god and his daughters al-Uzza, al-Lat, and Manat (Three Early Christian-Muslim Debates, ed. by N.A.Newman, Hatfield, PA, IBRI, 1994, pp.357, 413, 426).

Dr. Newman concludes his study of the early Christian-Muslim debates by stating, “Islam proved itself to be … a separate and antagonistic religion which had sprung up from idolatry” (Ibid., p.719). Islamic scholar Caesar Farah concluded, “There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea that Allah passed to the Muslims from the Christians and the Jews” (Caesar Farah, Islam: Beliefs and Observances, New York, Barrons, 1987, p.28).

The Arabs worshipped the moon-god as a supreme deity. But that was not biblical monotheism. While the moon-god was greater than all the other gods and goddesses, this was still a polytheistic pantheon of deities. Now that we have the actual idols of the moon-god, it is no longer possible to avoid the fact that Allah was a pagan god in pre-Islamic times.

Is it any wonder that the symbol of Islam is the crescent moon? That a crescent moon sits on top of their mosques and minarets? That a crescent is found on the flags of Islamic nations? That the Muslims fast during the month which begins and ends with the appearance of the crescent moon in the sky?

Conclusion

The pagan Arabs worshipped the moon god Allah by praying toward Mecca several times a day; making a pilgrimage to Mecca; running around the temple of the moon-god called the Kabah; kissing the black stone; killing an animal in sacrifice to the moon-god; throwing stones at the devil; fasting for the month that begins and ends with the crescent moon; giving alms to the poor, and so on.

The fact that the Muslims worship only one god – are monotheists – does not prove that the god they worship is the True God. A similar pagan “reformation” occurred in ancient Egypt when Pharaoh Akhenaton decided to become a monotheist by making the sun-god Aton the one and only true god of Egypt, persecuting and outlawing worship of all the other gods of his nation.

There are four interesting parallels with Islam here: (a) Akhenaton made the male sun-god the one and only god of Egypt, while (b) Muhammad made the male moon-god the one and only god of the Arabs. Neither god remotely resembled Yahweh, the God of the Bible, both being pagan deitiesborrowed from polytheistic religions. And there is a third parallel: (c) Though technically monotheistic, in practice Akhenaton remained a god himself. Though never calling himself a “god”, Muhammad certainly accrued many of the attributes of godly power as we shall see in subsequent articles. Finally, (d) Akhenaton used as a symbol for his god the Ankh Cross consisting of a solar disk atop a Tau cross, whilst Muhammad retained for Islam the pagan crescent moon symbol of the moon-godAllah.

Is this all a fanciful, far-fetched conclusion? Is all the vast array of scholarly information available onAllah simply a conspiracy by evil Westerners to discredit Islam? Or might what you have read be the truth? Are you honest enough to continue researching the origins of Islam further? And most importantly, are you honest enough to admit that you might be wrong and that the truth about God lies elsewhere?

My purpose in this article has not been to prove Christianity but simply to examine Islam’s roots and to see if the “official version” is believable. What we must not do is try to cover up the deficiencies of our own religion by attacking another one. The two issues muct be kept separate so as not to confuse the issue. This requires self-control above all else. It means keeping passions checked whilst we calmly investigate the facts. Hot-headed people do not tend to find the truth because they are too blinded by their own chaotic feelings.

May Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and all the biblical prophets, and of Yah’shua (Jesus) Himself, bless and you guide you in the way of truth. Amen.

via NCCG.ORG New Covenant Church of God – B’rit Chadashah Assembly of Yahweh – New Covenant Ministries Islam Page – 1. The True Origin of ‘Allah’: The Archaeological Record Speaks.

Categories: Christian misconceptions