Hubal: Difference between revisions

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==Description in hadith==

==Scholars==

{{Quote|1=[http://books.google.com/books?id=0OrCo4VyvGkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false Peters, Francis E. (1994). ''Muhammad and the origins of Islam''. (p. 108). Albany: State University of New York Press.]|2=Amr ibn Luhayy brought with him (to Mecca) an idol called Hubal from the land of Hit in Mesopotamia.⁵ Hubal was one of the Quraysh's greatest idols. So he set it up at the well inside the Ka'ba and ordered the people to worship it. Thus a man coming back from a journey would visit it and circumambulate the House before going to his family, and he would shave his hair before it.

Hubal is the idol to which Abu Safyan⁶ said on the day of (the battle of) Uhud, "Tower up, O Hubal," that is, manifest you religious power," while the Prophet said, "Tower up, O Unique One." The name of the well inside the Ka'ba was al-Akhsaf; the Arabs used to call it al-Akhshaf...(al-Azraqi 1858, 73)

{{Quote|1=[http://books.google.com/books?id=0OrCo4VyvGkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false Peters, Francis E. (1994). ''Muhammad and the origins of Islam''. (p. 109). Albany: State University of New York Press.]|2=The Quraysh had several idols in and around the Ka'ba. The greatest of these was Hubal. It was made, as I was told, of red agate, in the form of a man with the right hand broken off. It came into the possession of the Quraysh in this condition, and they therefore made for it a hand of gold....It stood inside the Ka'ba, and in front of it were seven divinatory arrows. On one of these were written the word "pure," and on another "associated alien." Whenever the lineage of a newborn was doubted, they would offer a sacrifice to Hubal and then shuffle the arrows and throw them. If the arrows showed the word "pure," the child would be declared legitimate and the tribe would accept him. If, however, the arrows showed "associated alien," the child would be declared illegitimate and the tribe would reject him. The third arrow had to do with divination concerning the dead, while the fourth was for divination about marriage. The purpose of the three remaining arrows has not been explained. Whenever they disagreed concerning something, or proposed to embark upon a journey, or undertake some other project, they would proceed to Hubal and shuffle the divinatory arrows before it. Whatever result they obtained they would follow and do accordingly. (Ibn al-Kalbi, ''Book of Idols'', pp. 28-29 = Ibn al-Kalbi 1952, pp. 23-24)}}

{{Quote|1=[https://books.google.com/books/about/Meccan_Trade_and_the_Rise_of_Islam.html?id=jKVNvgAACAAJ Crone, Patricia (1987). ''Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam''. (pp. 192-195). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.]|2=But if Quraysh represented Allah, what was Hubal doing in their shrine? Indeed, what was the building doing? No sacrifices can be made over a stone immured in a wall, and a building accommodating Hubal makes no sense around a stone representing Allah. Naturally Quraysh were polytheists, but the deities of polytheist Arabia preferred to be housed separately. No pre-Islamic sanctuary, be it stone or building, is known to have accommodated more than one male god, as opposed to one male god and female consort. The Allah who is attested in an inscription of the late second century A. D. certainly was not forced to share his house with other deities. And the shrines of Islamic Arabia are similarly formed around the tomb of a single saint. If Allah was a pagan god like any other, Quraysh would not have allowed Hubal to share the sanctuary with him-not because they were proto-monotheists, but precisely because they were pagans.