The
Archeology of The Middle East
The
religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by
the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah
in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the
Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus
one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God
or a pagan god in Arabia during pre- Islamic times? The
Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their
attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah"
is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture,
then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we
should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if
Allah was a pre- Islamic pagan deity, then its core
claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the
results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can
endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up
and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way
to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah.
As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the
god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the
Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the
stars were his daughters.
The reader must know that Ismael was a Hebrew.
Archaeologists have uncovered temples to the Moon-god
throughout the Middle East. From the mountains of Turkey
to the banks of the Nile, the most wide-spread religion
of the ancient world was the worship of the Moon-god. In
the first literate civilization, the Sumerians have left
us thousands of clay tablets in which they described
their religious beliefs. As demonstrated by Sjoberg and
Hall, the ancient Sumerians worshipped a Moon-god who
was called many different names. The most popular names
were Nanna, Suen and Asimbabbar. His symbol was the
crescent moon. Given the amount of artifacts concerning
the worship of this Moon-god, it is clear that this was
the dominant religion in Sumeria. The cult of the
Moon-god was the most popular religion throughout
ancient Mesopotamia. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and the
Akkadians took the word Suen and transformed it into the
word Sin as their favorite name for the Moon-god. As
Prof. Potts pointed out, "Sin is a name essentially
Sumerian in origin which had been borrowed by the
Semites. "
In ancient Syria and Canna, the Moon-god Sin was usually
represented by the moon in its crescent phase. At times
the full moon was placed inside the crescent moon to
emphasize all the phases of the moon. The sun-goddess
was the wife of Sin and the stars were their daughters.
For example, Istar was a daughter of Sin. Sacrifices to
the Moon-god are described in the Pas Shamra texts. In
the Ugaritic texts, the Moon-god was sometimes called
Kusuh. In Persia, as well as in Egypt, the Moon- god is
depicted on wall murals and on the heads of statues. He
was the Judge of men and gods. The Old Testament
constantly rebuked the worship of the Moon-god (see:
Deut. 4:19;17:3; II Kngs. 21:3,5; 23:5; Jer. 8:2; 19:13;
Zeph. 1:5, etc.) When Israel fell into idolatry, it was
usually the cult of the Moon-god. As a matter of fact,
everywhere in the ancient world, the symbol of the
crescent moon can be found on seal impressions, steles,
pottery, amulets, clay tablets, cylinders, weights,
earrings, necklaces, wall murals, etc. In Tell-el-Obeid,
a copper calf was found with a crescent moon on its
forehead. An idol with the body of a bull and the head
of man has a crescent moon inlaid on its forehead with
shells. In Ur, the Stela of Ur-Nammu has the crescent
symbol placed at the top of the register of gods because
the Moon-god was the head of the gods. Even bread was
baked in the form of a crescent as an act of devotion to
the Moon-god. The Ur of the Chaldees was so devoted to
the Moon-god that it was sometimes called Nannar in
tablets from that time period.
A temple of the Moon-god has been excavated in Ur by Sir
Leonard Woolley. He dug up many examples of moon worship
in Ur and these are displayed in the British Museum to
this day. Harran was likewise noted for its devotion to
the Moon-god. In the 1950's a major temple to the
Moon-god was excavated at Hazer in Palestine. Two idols
of the moon god were found. Each was a stature of a man
sitting upon a throne with a crescent moon carved on his
chest . The accompanying inscriptions make it clear that
these were idols of the Moon-god. Several smaller
statues were also found which were identified by their
inscriptions as the "daughters" of the Moon-god. What
about Arabia? As pointed out by Prof. Coon, "Muslims
are notoriously loath to preserve traditions of earlier
paganism and like to garble what pre-Islamic history
they permit to survive in anachronistic terms."
During the nineteenth century, Amaud, Halevy and Glaser
went to Southern Arabia and dug up thousands of Sabean,
Minaean, and Qatabanian inscriptions which were
subsequently translated. In the 1940's, the
archeologists 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 at 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. The
archeological evidence demonstrates that the dominant
religion of Arabia was the cult of the Moon-god.
In Old Testament times, Nabonidus (555-539 BC), the last
king of Babylon, built Tayma, Arabia as a center of
Moon-god worship. Segall stated, "South Arabia's
stellar religion has always been dominated by the
Moon-god in various variations." Many scholars have
also noticed that the Moon-god's name "Sin" is a
part of such Arabic words as "Sinai," the
"wilderness of Sin," etc. 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 Hureidha, that she
had uncovered a temple of the Moon-god in southern
Arabia. The symbols of the crescent moon and no less
than twenty-one inscriptions with the name Sin were
found in this temple. An idol which may be the Moon-god
himself was also discovered. This was later confirmed by
other well-known archeologists.
The evidence 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 Sin,
his title was al- ilah, i.e. "the deity," meaning
that he was the chief or high god among the gods. As
Coon pointed out, "The god Il or Ilah was originally
a phase of the Moon God." The Moon-god was called
al- ilah, i.e. 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 had Allah as part of their
names.
The fact that they were given such names by their pagan
parents proves that Allah was the title for the Moon-god
even in Muhammad's day. Prof. Coon goes on to say,
"Similarly, under Mohammed's tutelage, the relatively
anonymous Ilah, became Al-Ilah, The God, or Allah, the
Supreme Being."
This fact answers the questions, "Why is Allah never
defined in the Qur'an? 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, i.e. the Moon-god, was the
greatest of all gods and the supreme deity in a 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 to accept that 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," i.e., he is the greatest among the gods.
Why would Muhammad say that Allah is the "greatest"
except in a polytheistic 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 a different Allah than the
one they already worshipped. This "Allah" was the
Moon-god according to the archeological 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 knew better and that is why 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 Allah did 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. 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." Islamic scholar
Caesar Farah concluded "There is no reason,
therefore, to accept the idea that Allah passed to the
Muslims from the Christians and Jews." The Arabs
worshipped the Moon-god as a supreme deity. But this was
not biblical monotheism. While the Moon-god was greater
than all 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 then that the symbol
of Islam is the crescent moon? That a crescent moon sits
on top of their mosques and minarets? That a crescent
moon 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 which begins and ends with the crescent moon;
giving alms to the poor, etc.
The Muslim's claim that Allah is the God of the Bible
and that Islam arose from the religion of the prophets
and apostles is refuted by solid, overwhelming
archeological evidence. Islam is nothing more than a
revival of the ancient Moon-god cult. It has taken the
symbols, the rites, the ceremonies, and even the name of
its god from the ancient pagan religion of the Moon-god.
As such, it is sheer idolatry and must be rejected by
all those who follow the Torah and Gospel. moongod.htm
Further information:
thoroughly study the links in this
file and also in
The
Cult of the Moon God
The Vatican and Islam
