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
