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The Arabs themselves divided the peninsula into only two regions: north (Arabia Deserta
and Arabia Petraea) and south (Arabia Felix). From the early second millennium bce to the
first century bce, Arabia Felix was known as Saba (“Sheba” in the Bible) and its inhabitants
were referred to as Sabaeans. Saba was the main source of commercially valuable aromatic
plants, including frankincense and myrrh, and the fragrant spices cinnamon and cassia.^20
As a result, the rulers of ancient Saba were famed for their great wealth, which they used
to build opulent temples decorated with gold and silver statues of their deities. The Bible
records the munificent gifts given by the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon.^21 However, it
was not in the wealthy south, but in the less hospitable northern region populated by Arabs
that Islam was born in the seventh century and quickly swept throughout the Arabian
Peninsula.
Prior to the rise of Islam, virtually all the inhabitants of Arabia, north and south,
were polytheistic. The names of many local deities are known from inscriptions,
although their attributes are poorly understood.^22 Both gods and goddesses were wor-
shipped, and the most important male and female deities were often paired as divine
couples. As was the practice among other polytheistic societies of the ancient world,
local deities were often blended with deities from other religions (typically Greco-
Roman), and the attributes of individual deities might vary from town to town or
assume the attributes of other deities. For example, Herodotus reported that the Arabs
of Nabataea (southern Jordan and northern Arabia) worshiped Allat (contraction of
Al- Ilat, “the Goddess”), whose attributes were comparable to those of Aphrodite and
Dionysus.Sūra 53 and the Satanic VersesThe Ka’bah in Mecca—a large, black, cubical, masonry structure—was the most
important religious shrine in northern Arabia during pre- Islamic times just as
it is today, attracting pilgrims from all over the peninsula every year. By the time
Muhammad’s forces conquered Mecca in 630 bce, the Ka’bah was said to house some
360 idols. Since little is known about the identities of these Meccan deities, we con-
fine our discussion of pre- Islamic vegetation goddesses to those mentioned by name
in the Quran: Allat, Al- ’Uzza, and Manat. Just as the female devotees of the goddess
Asherah were chastised in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Jeremiah 44:15– 28), the worshippers
of Allat, Al- ’Uzza, and Manat were also rebuked, both in the Quran and in traditional
medieval Islamic writings, thus attesting to their importance in pre- Islamic Arabia.
The Quranic critique of the three goddesses occurs in Sūra 53 19– 23, an- Najm (The Star),
considered to be a revelation by the angel Gabriel:Have ye thought upon Al- Lat and Al- ’Uzza
And Manat, the third, the other?
Are yours the males and His the females ?
That indeed were an unfair division!
They are but names which ye have named, ye and your fathers, for which Allah hath
revealed no warrant. They follow but a guess and that which (they) themselves
desire. And now the guidance from their Lord hath come unto them.^23