Allah of Muhammad is a false god The Moon God and Archaeology (By Robert A. Morey, Ph.D) As we have learned, the religion of Islam has its focus of worship a deity named “Allah.” The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. (1) The Muslim’s claims for continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians. If “Allah” is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in the 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 due to the results of hard sciences such as archaeology. So, instead of endlessly speculating about the past, we can look to science to see what evidence reveals. 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. Archaeologists have uncovered temples to the moon god throughout the Middle East. From the mountains of Turkey to the banks of Nile, the most widespread religion of the ancient world was the worship of the moon god. The Sumerians, the first literate civilization, left thousands of clay tablets describing their religious beliefs. As demonstrated by Sjoberg and Hall, the ancient Sumerians worshipped a moon god who as called many different names. The most popular names were Nanna, Suen, Asimbabbar. (2) a symbols was the crescent moon. Given the amount of artifacts concerning worhip 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 Akkadians took the word Suen and transformed it into the word Sin as their favorite name for this deity. (3) Professor Potts pointed out “Sin is a name essentially Sumerian in origin which had been borrowed by the Semites.” (4) In Ancient Syria and Canna, the moon god Sin was usually represented by trhe moon in its cresecent 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. (5) Sacrifices to the moon god are described in the Ras 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. 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, and so on. In Tellel-Obeid, a copper calf was found with crescent moon 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. (6). The Ur of the Chaldees was so devoted to the moon god that it was sometimes called Nannar in the tablets from that time period. A temple of the moon god has been excavated in Ur by Sir Leonard Wooley. He dug up many examples of the moon worship that are now displayed in the British Museum. Harran was likewise noted for its devotion to the moon god. In the 1950’s a major temple to the moon god was excavated in Palestine. Two idols of the moon god were found. Each was a statue 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. (7) What about Arabia? As pointed out bu Professor 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. “(8) During the nineteenth century, Arnaud, 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, archaeologists 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 Qataban, Timna, and Marib (the ancient capital of Sheba). Thousands of inscriptions from wall 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.(9) The archeological evidence demonstrates that the dominant religion of Arabia was the cult of the moon god. The Old Testament constantly rebuked the worship of the moon god (Deuteronomy 4:19; 17:3; 2 Kings 21:3, 5 23:5; Jeremiah 8:2; 19:13; Zephaniah 1:5). When Israel fell into idolatry, it was usually to the cult of the moon god. In the Old Testament times, Nabonidus (555-539 B.C.) , the last king of Babylon, built Tayma, Arabia, as a center of the moon god worhip. Segall stated, South Arabia’s stellar religion has always been dominated by the Moon-god in various variations.” (10) scholars have also noticed that the moon god’s name, “Sin,” is a part of such Arabic words as “Sinai,” “the wilderness of Sin”, and so forth. 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 Kaaba in Mecca, the moon god was the chief deity. Meccas was in fact built as a shrine for the moon god. This is what made it the most sacred site of the 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 21 inscriptions with the name Sin were found in the temple idol(11) which may be the moon god himself was also discovered. This was later confirmed by other well known archeologists. (12) The evidence reveals that the temple of the moon god was active even in the Christian area. Evidence gathered from both North and South Arabia demonstrate that moon-god worship was clearly active even in Muhammad’s day and it was still dominant cult. According to numerous insriptions, while the name of the moon god was Sin, his title was al-ilah, “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.” (13) The moon god was called al-ilah, 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 parents proves that Allah was the title for the moon god even in Muhammad’s day. Professor Coon says, “Similarly, under Muhammad’s tutelage, the relatively anonymous Ilah, became Al- Ilah, the God, or Allah, the Supreme Being.” (14) This fact answers the questions: Why Allah never defined in the Qura? And “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 (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 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” – 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 already worshipped. This “Allah” was the moon god according to the archeological evidence. Muhammad thus attempted to have it both. 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 Christians knew better and 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 Bioble but the moon god and his daughters Al-Uzza, Al-Lat, and Manat. (15) Dr. Newman concludes his study of the early Christian-Muslim debates stating,” Islam proved itself to be … separate and antagonistic religion which had sprung up from idolatry.”(16) Scholar Caesar Farah concluded, “ There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea that Allah passed to the Muslim from the Christians and Jews. (17) The Arabs worshipped the moon god as a supreme deity. But this was not biblical monotheism. While the moon god was greater that all other gods and goddesses, this was still 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 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 that begins and ends with the crescent moon; giving alms to the poor ; and so on. The Muslim’s claim that Allah is the God of the Bible and 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 the Gospel. REFERENCES: (1) [(Ahmed Deedat, What Is His Name? (Durban, S.A. IPCI, 1990). Deedat argues that “Allah” is a biblical name for God on the basis of Allelujah” which he convolutes into “Allah-lujah (p.37). This only reveals that he does not understand Hebrew. The divine name is the “jah” preceeded by the verb “to praise.” His other “biblical arguments are equally absurd. He also claims that the word “Allah” was never corrupted by paganism. “Allah” is a unique word for the only God… you cannot make a feminine of Allah” (p. 32). He does not tell his readers that one of the Allah’s daughters was named “ Al-Lat,” which is the feminine form of “Allah.”] (2) Mark Hall, A study of the Sumerian Moon-god, Nanna/Suen, Ph.D., 1985, University Press of PA. (3) Austin Potts, “The Hymns and Prayers to the moon –god Sin, Ph.D., 1971, Dropsie College, p.2. (4) Ibid., p.4 (5) Ibid., p. 7. (6) Ibid., pp. 14-21. (7) Yigal, Yadin, Hazor (New York: Random House, 1975; London: Oxford, 1972; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1958). (8) Carleton S. Coon, Southern Arabia (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 1944), p.398. (9) North Arabian archaeological finds concerning Al-Lat are discussed in: Isaac Rabinowitz, “Aramaic insriptions of the Fifth Century” (JNES, XV [1956], 1-90; “Another Record of the North Arabian goddess Han’Llat” (JNES, XVIII[1959], 154-550. Edward Linski, “The goddess Atirat in Ancient Arabia, in Babylon and in Ugarit: Her Relation to the Moon-god and the Sungoddess” (Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, 3; 101-109). H.J. Drijvers, “Iconography and Charadter of the Arabian goddess Allat, “ found in Etudes Preliminaries Aux Religions Orientales DAns L’ Empire Roman (ed. By Maarten J. Verseren (Leiden: Brill, 1978], pp. 331-51). (10) Berta Segall, “The Iconography of Cosmic Kingship” (The Art Bulletin, vol. xxxvii, 1956), p. 77. (11) G. Caton Thomspson, “The Tombs and Moon Temple pf Hureidha” (Oxford”: Oxford University Press, 1944). (12) See Richard Le Baron Bower, Jr., and Frank P. Albright, Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1958), p. 78ff.; Ray Cleveland, “An Ancient Southern Arabian Necropolis (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1965); Nelson Gleuck, “Deties and Dolphins” (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1965). (13) Coon, “Southern Arabia”, p. 399. (14) Ibid. (15) The Early Christian-Muslim Debates (ed. By N.A. Newman [Hatfield, PA: I.B.R.I., 1994], pp. 357, 413, 426). (16) Ibid., p. 719. (17) Caesar Farah, Islam: Beliefs and Observations (New York: Barrons, 1987), p. 28.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 11:58:40 +0000
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