Allat

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Allat

Al-Lat (Arabic: ???????) was a pre-Islam

Islam

Islam is a Monotheism, Abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of the Prophets of Islam Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure....
ic Arabian goddess

Goddess

A goddess is a female deity. Often deities are part of a polytheism system that includes several deities in a pantheon .Common associations of goddesses are the Earth goddess, the Mother Goddess, Love goddess, and the hearth goddess, reflecting historical gender roles....
who was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca

Mecca

Mecca , also spelled Makkah , Makka is a city in Saudi Arabia. Home to the Masjid al-Haram, it is the holy city in Islam and plays an important role in the faith....
. She is mentioned in the Qur'an

Qur'an

The Qur?an is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believe the Qur?an to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind, and consider the original Arabic text to be the final revelation of God....
(Sura 53:20),

Descriptions
The goddess occurs in early Safaitic

Safaitic

Safaitic is the name given to an Old North Arabian dialect, preserved in the form of inscriptions which are written in a type of South Semitic script....
graffiti (Safaitic han-'Ilat "the Goddess") and the Nabataeans of Petra

Petra

Petra is an Archaeology site in the Arabah, Ma'an Governorate, Jordan, lying on the slope of Mount Hor in a Depression among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah , the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba....
and the people of Hatra

Hatra

Hatra is an ancient ruined city in the Ninawa Governorate and al-Jazira, Mesopotamia of Iraq. It is today called al-Hadr, and it stands in the ancient Persian province of Khvarvaran....
also worshipped her, equating her with the Greek Athena

Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena is the shrewd companion of Hero and the goddess of Hero endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens, which built the Parthenon to worship her....
and Tyche

Tyche

In Ancient Greek religion, Tyche was the presiding tutelary deity that governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny. Increasingly during the Hellenistic period, cities had their own specific iconic version of Tyche, wearing a mural crown ....
and the Roman Minerva

Minerva

Minerva was the Roman mythology name of Greek goddess Athena. She was considered to be the virgin goddess of warriors, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving,crafts, and the inventor of music....
. She is frequently called "the Great Goddess" in Greek in multi-lingual inscriptions.

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Encyclopedia

Al-Lat (Arabic: ???????) was a pre-Islam

Islam

Islam is a Monotheism, Abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of the Prophets of Islam Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure....
ic Arabian goddess

Goddess

Mecca

Qur'an

Descriptions

The goddess occurs in early Safaitic

Safaitic

Petra

Hatra

Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena is the shrewd companion of Hero and the goddess of Hero endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens, which built the Parthenon to worship her....
and Tyche

Tyche

Minerva

Hubal

Hubal was a god worshipped in pagan Arabia, notably at Mecca before the arrival of Islam....
(and hence the mother-in-law of Manat

Manah

Manat was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca. The pre-Islamic Arabs believed Manat to be the goddess of fate. She was known by the cognate name Manawat to the Nabataeans of Petra, who equated her with the Graeco-Roman goddess Nemesis and she was considered the wife of Hubal....
).

The Greek historian Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
, writing in the 5th century BC, considered her the equivalent of Aphrodite

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the classical Greek mythology goddess of love, sex, and beauty. According to Greek oral poet Hesiod, she was born when Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus....
:"The Assyrians

Assyrians

Assyrians or Assyrian people may refer to :*the Ancient Assyrians*the modern Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac peopleSee also*Assyrian ...
call Aphrodite Mylitta, the Arabians Alilat, and the Persians Mitra
Mitra

*mitra [Hn-In ????? ] was an important Indo-Iranian divinity. Following the prehistoric cultural split of Indian and Iranian cultures, names descended from *mitra were used for the following religious entities:...
" (Histories

Histories (Herodotus)

The Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus is considered the first work of history in Western literature. Written about 440 BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories tells the story of the Greco-Persian Wars between the Achaemenid Empire and the Polis in the 5th century BC....
I:131). According to Herodotus, the ancient Arabians believed in only two gods: "They believe in no other gods except Dionysus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
and the Heavenly Aphrodite; and they say that they wear their hair as Dionysus does his, cutting it round the head and shaving the temples. They call Dionysus

Dionysus

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the classical Greek mythology goddess of love, sex, and beauty. According to Greek oral poet Hesiod, she was born when Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus....
, Alilat." (Histories

Histories (Herodotus)

Qur'an

Uzza

Mentioned in the Qur'an , al-?Uzz? "the Mightiest One" or "the strong" was a pre-Islamic Arabian fertility goddess who was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca....
and Manat

Manah

Iram

Iram or IRAM may refer to:*Iram of the Pillars , a lost city located on the Arabian Peninsula*Institut de Radio Astronomie Millim?trique, or IRAM, the Institut de Radio Astronomie Millim?trique cofunded by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique , Max Planck Gesellschaft , and Instituto Geografico Nacional ...
is also mentioned in Sura 89

Al-Fajr (sura)

Surat Al-Fajr is the 89th sura of the Qur'an with 30 ayat.The sura describes destruction of disbelieving peoples, such as Ancient Egyptians and the people of Iram of the Pillars....
:5-8, and archaeological evidence from Iram shows copious inscriptions devoted to her for the protection of a tribe by that name.

Al-lat is also explicitly attested from early Islamic records discussing the pre-Islamic period. According to the Book of Idols (Kitab al-Asnam) by Hisham b. al-Kalbi

Hisham Ibn Al-Kalbi

Hisham Ibn Al-Kalbi, full name Abu al-Mundhir Hisham b. Muhammed b. al-Sa'ib b. Bishr al-Kalbi was an Arab historian.Al-Kalbi was born in Kufa, but spent much of his life in Baghdad....
, the pre-Islamic Arabs believed Al-lat resided in the Ka?bah

Kaaba

The Kaaba "Cube" is a cuboidal building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and is the Most holy place#Islam in Islam. The building is more than two thousand years old, and according to Islamic tradition the first building at the site was built by Abraham ....
and also had an idol inside the sanctuary: