Islam Is Repackaged Polytheism: Documentation
Muhammad The Prophet, M. R. M. Abduraheem, p 3-4, 1971, Muslim
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Islam: Truth or Myth? start page |
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Muhammad The Prophet, M. R. M. Abduraheem, p 3-4, 1971
He dashed post-haste to the market place and purchased some idols `which were kept there ready for sale. Then he returned to Mecca and informed the Quraish in sugar-coated words the wonderpower of those stone images and the favours, their devotees were prone to get. The Quraish, who by nature were susceptible to the bacillus of idolatry fell an easy prey, to the contagion of the times. The result was that the Ka'ba, the Holy abode consecrated to the worship of Allah was desecrated within a short time by the installation of -three hundred and sixty stony and wooden idols. They were worshipped by them each a day all the year round and for whom the blood of the victims profusely flowed. .
Topping all the idols there, the costly red store idol Hubal which had been brought by that unworthy man of Mecca was installed with much awe and piety. [Footnote: Hubal is an Aramaic word, meaning vapour or spirit. Another tradition says that the idol Hubal was found out with its right hand mutilated by a man named Khuzaima bin Mudrika and he joining to it a right hand made of gold, installed it in the centre of the Ka'ba, where it was worshipped and therefore was called Hubal Khuzaima. It was an idol of Banu Kinana.] Beside it were laid the ritual arrows of divination. On both sides of it were placed the two gold images of deers. Nearby were standing the imageries of the Prophets Abraham and Ishmael with seven divining arrows in their hands and also the idol of Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus in her affectionate embrace. Year in and year out people, were surging there to worship. Both men and women stepping out of their clothings and, rubbing shoulders with each other made seven rounds of the Ka'ba, fell prostrate before the idols and invoked their blessings and benedictions. [footnote: After the episode of Abraha, the Quraish priding themselves as the people of the sanctuary imposed many a restriction on others who came to Mecca from outside for worship. The outsiders were neither allowed to bring their food inside the sacred territory nor permited to go round the Ka'ba wearing their own clothings. The Quraish supplied them clothings but if they had none, they (the outsiders) were asked to go round the Ka'ba naked. The men circumambulated the Ka'ba completely naked while women were wearing a piece of cloth in front and back and having one hand in front and the other behind.] Not satisfied with this numerality of idols and plurality of gods each and every family had established separately an idol in its home as its private deity. Some of them were like blooming girls, some of them were like ferocious lions and some of them were like rapacious vultures and so on. They worshipped them by whistling through their fingers and clapping their hands. (Q. 8:35)
When they went out on a journey the last thing they did was rubbing against their family deity and when they returned the first thing they did was also the same. They carried with them along with the articles of travel four crude stones, three to form oven and the one to worship. If they were unable to carry four they would take one of the stones used for oven and worship it with great piety and veneration.
Men in every walk of life had their idols installed in the Ka'ba. The corn merchants had their idol made of flour. If there was any famine they, greatly irked by its inability to help them in their hour of stress, would break it to pieces and swallow it up. When the pilgrims did not find out any wood to feed their oven in rainy days they would break the wooden idols installed there and use them as, firewood instead to bake their bread and cook their curry
.Not only did they worship stone and stone images but they worshipped sun, moon, stars, trees, sand dunes and what not. They considered them as having the power of making or marring anything in this world. They sacrificed not only animals but also human beings to propitiate and please them.
Such superstitious belief and worship were prevalent not only in Mecca but throughout the length and breadth of the sub-continent of Arabia in an area of one million square miles. The sons of Ishmael who had migrated from Mecca which had become too small to absorb all of them took a stone each from the Holy Ka'ba along with them. They installed it as their family deity in their new settlements and circumambulated it with great veneration and piety as they; did the sacred Ka'ba. . In addition, the idiotic Amr ibn, Luhayy had set up an idol in black stone in Qudayd, a place on the sea-shore in Mecca-Yathrib route and named it Al-Manat or the god of destiny. It was worshipped by the tribes of Aus and Khazraj of Yathrib and others who followed their crude, mode of religion. He set up another idol named Dhul Khalasa in Tabala another one named Nahik in Safa, another one named Mutiim in Marwa, another one named Al-Uzza (the feminine form of Azeez) in Nakhla and another one named Al-Lat (the feminine form of Allah) in Ta'if which was worshipped by its brave tribe of Thaqif. [footnote: The apostle of Allah had said that until the women of Thars tribe revived, the worship of the idol of Dhul Khalasa renouncing the religion of Allah, Doomsday will not come (Bukhari and Muslim). The temple of that deity, was called the Yemenite Ka'ba or the northern Ka'ba.] Besides them Amr ibn Luhayy spread the cult of idolatry wherever he set his accursed feet on and planted thousand and one stones in the sacred soil of Arabia as idols of worship and deities of veneration.
In addition, the idolatrous Arabs had dedicated seven temples for the worship of the seven planets and each tribe had chosen one as its special deity
. The tribe of Himyar worshipped the Sun, the tribe of Keis, Sirius, the tribe of Lakhm and Jodaam, the Jupiter, the tribe of Asad, Mercury, the tribe of Misam, the Bull's eye, the tribe of Tai, Canopus and the Quraish, the Saturn, dedicating the Ka'ba to it.Blind beliefs and superstitions were in the blood of the Arabs. Before doing any work they would light incense, lie prostrate before their idols and beg their approval by prophetic significations. If they tallied with their well-cherished notions and deep-felt desires they-would praise those idols to the skies. If not they would pour forth volleys of abuses upon them.
