272 i Flora Unveiled
This revelation is especially significant because Muhammad belonged to the Quraysh
tribe, stewards of the sacred Ka’bah shrine where Allat, Al- ’Uzza, and Manat were wor-
shipped. As a child, Muhammad is said to have taken part in religious rites dedicated to
these deities, and he understood that Meccans were devoutly loyal to them. Several early
biographers of Muhammad, writing in the eighth through tenth centuries and includ-
ing Ibn Ishaq, al- Wāqidī, Ibn Sa’d, and al- Tabarī, recorded the tradition that, to convert
Meccans to Islam, Muhammad granted them permission to continue worshipping Allat,
Al- ’Uzza, and Manat so long as they accepted Allah as the supreme deity. According to this
tradition, the original version of Sūra 53 contained the following lines:
Have ye thought upon Al- Lat and Al- ’Uzza,
And Manat, the third, the other?
These are the exalted gharāniq,
whose intercession is hoped for.^24The term gharāniq, usually translated as “high flying cranes,” is a metaphor for interced-
ing angels. It was said that the Meccans were so grateful for Muhammad’s words that they
accepted Islam and joined him in ritual prostration at the end of the Sūrah. Later, accord-
ing to tradition, Muhammad retracted these lines at the behest of the Angel Gabriel, who,
in Sūra 22:52, explains that “God abrogates what Satan interpolates,” heretically implying
that Muhammad was tempted by Satan. To correct Muhammad’s error, the Angel Gabriel
substituted the current version of the Sūra (Sūra 53:21). The Scottish historian Sir William
Muir coined the term “Satanic Verses” for the offending interpolation, made famous in the
West by Salmon Rushdie’s novel of the same name.
Modern Muslim scholars deny the authenticity of the “gharāniq incident.” However,
no one disputes the fact that several medieval Islamic historians believed that Meccans
were reluctant to give up worshipping their three goddesses and that Muhammad tried to
accommodate them.
Of the three goddesses, Manat is perhaps the easiest for modern observers to understand.
As the personification of Time, Fate, and Death, her presence loomed over every waking
hour of one’s life. However, in the following discussion, we will focus our discussion on the
agricultural goddesses Allat and Al- ’Uzza, who are more complex and variable and are often
confused with each other.
The Agricultural Goddesses Allat and Al- ’UzzaDifferent aspects of the goddess Allat were venerated throughout the Arabian Peninsula.
Like Inanna, she was associated with the planet Venus, and Herodotus equated her with
Aphrodite. Depending on the region, she was also either the wife of Allah (a contraction
of Al- Ilah, “the God”) or his daughter. Inscriptions found in Nabataea refer to her as the
“Mother of the Gods.” Shams, the Sabaean sun goddess, may represent another aspect of
Allat. In her function as a tutelary deity, she was depicted armed in the manner of Athena.
She may also be related to the Chaldean goddess Allat and the Carthaginian goddess
Allatu, both of whom were underworld deities, like the Sumerian Ereshkigal or the Greek