By 630 AD, only eight years after Muhammad implemented his radical new approach to evangelizing, the armies of Islam had conquered the city that chased them out into the desert. The sacred city, which was probably Petra rather than Mecca, belonged to Islam.
This accomplished two things for Muhammad. First, it gave him control of a major pilgrimage site. The merchants of Arabia had been forced to refocus their trade on leather goods and serving as middlemen for Indian spice dealers when the demand for incense disappeared in the Christian era. Dealing leather and spices was not a business that produced the kind of wealth enjoyed by the Nabataeans of five hundred years earlier.[1]
Second, capturing the holy city put Muhammad in position to preach to pagan pilgrims from all over Arabia and the Levant. The hajj was an old custom even in Muhammad’s day,[2] and if Epiphanius’ description of the rituals of the Nabataean god Dushara is correct, pilgrims had been coming to Petra and its kaaba for at least two hundred and fifty years by the time of Muhammad’s victory.
When his forces entered the city, one of Muhammad’s first acts was to destroy the idols in the Kaaba. Johann Burckhardt, the Swiss adventurer who rediscovered Petra for the Western world in 1812, wrote after his visit to Mecca that three hundred and sixty idols had adorned the Kaaba, presumably one for each day of the year.[3] As we noted earlier, this tracks with the recent tally of more than five hundred betyls in Petra.
Islamic records agree that one of the three hundred sixty was considered supreme. Their histories record that an early leader of the Khuza’a tribe named Amr ibn Luhayy obtained an idol of Hubal in Hit, a city northwest of Baghdad in what is now Iraq’s Anbar province, and installed it in the Kaaba,[4] probably in the third century AD.[5] It appears the Khuza’a became guardians of the Kaaba when the power of the Nabataeans waned, and they retained that power until the Quraysh, Muhammad’s tribe, took over as protectors (and beneficiaries) of the shrine in the fifth century.[6]
Until now, historians have generally agreed that during the three or four centuries between ibn Luhayy and Muhammad, worship at the Kaaba had turned from Hubal to Allah.
Officially, the shrine was dedicated to Hubal, a Nabatean deity, and there were 360 idols arranged around the Kabah, probably representing the days of the year. But by Muhammad’s day, it seems that the Kabah was venerated as the shrine of Allah, the High God.[7]
That’s taken as a given by readers of Islamic history. However, it’s not clear why a god who was worshiped in what is now Syria and Iraq should become the most prominent god in Mecca, which is a long way away, or why Allah later overtook Hubal as chief of the Meccan pantheon by the time of Muhammad.
We already addressed the latter question in a previous chapter; the polytheist Arabs did not house more than one male idol per shrine. Muhammad’s grandfather prayed to Allah while standing next to the idol of Hubal; thus, Allah wasHubal. And if the original Kaaba was in Petra, much closer to Damascus than to the heart of the Arabian Peninsula, then the worship of a god known mainly in Syria makes a lot more sense.
It also identifies Hubal/Allah as Dushara. But we still don’t know much about Hubal. Etymology to the rescue:
The name for this god was “Hubal,” without the ayin. This would seem to indicate that his origin was from among a dialect group which used the bl-form, and which also used the ha/hn- article. Dialects like these found representation in the northern Hijaz and Syrian areas.[8]
In other words, the form of the name “Hubal” points to his origin far to the north of Mecca, which is at the southern end of the Hejaz. That’s seven hundred miles or more from the northern Hejaz and Syrian areas, which is where Petra is located.
If we take an ayin, the Hebrew character that looks like a reverse apostrophe, and add it to “Hubal” we arrive at Hubaʿal—and suddenly things make sense.
The name Hubal, then, begins to be comprehensible to us, seeing as there is no sound argument against understanding Hubal to be a baʿal. Hubal appears late on the scene, relatively speaking. We do not see any real evidence for his existence until the time of the Nabataeans, and from there he goes wherever the Arabs go—to Palmyra, the Hijaz, and so forth. The name, itself, seems to suggest that it originally was a title or epithet of a high god. Hubal means “THE lord,” seeming almost as if to differentiate him from others who might conceivably be given that title.[9]
So, Hubal was “the baʿal.” Well, now. Things just became a whole lot clearer. Remember, we connected Hubal to the national god of Edom, Qôs. It seems odd that Qôs is never mentioned in the Bible, while the prophets had some choice words for the national gods of Ammon and Moab. But maybe he is there and we just haven’t recognized him.
The root word behind Qôs is the Arabic qaus, meaning “bow.”[10] This appears to be a reference to the powers of the storm-god since the same root word appears in God’s covenant with Noah.
I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
Genesis 9:13 (ESV), emphasis added
While the Hebrew qešet does mean the bow of a warrior, in this context it suggests that we’re on the right track: Qôs may have been the Edomite name for the West Semitic storm-god, Hadad—Baal. The Baal, or Hubal.
Here’s another connection: Hubal was the god of oracles or divination. Worshipers seeking guidance, like Muhammad’s grandfather, would ask questions of the god at the Kaaba by consulting a group of seven arrows marked with words—sort of a low-tech Magic 8 Ball.
This practice connects Hubal and the Kaaba to several partners in Allah, Inc.—the storm-god, one of the gods of divination in ancient Mesopotamia (although with animal guts instead of arrows), and the arrows link Hubal both to Qôs and to Resheph/Apollo, the archer, who was the god of oracles in the Greek world.
Worship of this god appears to have begun in what is now southern Jordan, the heartland of the biblical Edom.[11] A mountain named Jabal al-Qaus sits about fifty-five miles south-southeast of Petra, near the modern border with Saudi Arabia. The point is this: If Qôs, the god of ancient Edom who became Dushara to the Nabataeans, was the god behind Hubal in the Kaaba, it supports the theory that Islam began not in Mecca, hundreds of miles to the south in Arabia, but at Petra, a (black) stone’s throw from Jerusalem.
But wait—there’s more!
We’ve suggested already that Qôs might be identified with the storm-god, Baal, because of the link between qaus(“bow”) and the rainbow. Baal, who was originally called Hadad (“Thunderer”), was king of the West Semitic gods.
At Ugarit, religious texts name three daughters of Baal: Pidray, Tallay, and Arsay.[12] This is another link in the chain that binds Baal, Hubal, and Allah: The “Satanic verses,” Surah 53:19–20, name al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat as daughters of Allah.[13]
Early in his career, trying to reconcile with the leaders of his Quraysh tribe, Muhammad softened his monotheistic doctrine and rebranded the three major pre-Islamic Arabic goddesses as angels[14] whose “intercession is accepted with approval.”[15] While the Quraysh were delighted,[16] Jibril later revealed to Muhammad that Satan had tempted the would-be prophet to insert those verses into the revelation of God.
Oops.
A temple to al-ʿUzzā, the Temple of the Winged Lions, sits right across the Colonnaded Street in Petra from the Temple of Dushara, which we believe was the site of the original Kaaba. Muslim history remembers al-ʿUzzā as one of the most important deities to the Quraysh,[17] another piece of evidence supporting the theory that Islam originated at Petra rather than Mecca.
If we’re correct, then the storm-god was part of the supernatural coalition that banded together in the deserts southeast of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. But he was more than just a weather deity; the Bible identifies him as one of the most dangerous rebels of the infernal council.
It was well known in the ancient world that Baal’s palace was located on Mount Zaphon. Today, it’s called Jebel al-Aqra, an imposing mountain on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast just north of the border with Syria. Its peak is more than fifty-two hundred feet above sea level, and it was sacred to nearly every version of the storm-god in the ancient Near East—Baal, Teshub, Tarhunz, and Zeus. Even though the Greek storm-god ruled from Olympus, Zaphon is where he defeated the chaos-god, Typhon, whose desperate efforts to dodge the thunderbolts of Zeus, the story goes, dug the channel of the Orontes River.
We tell you all of that so you’ll understand the significance of this famous passage from Isaiah.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
Isaiah 14:12–14 (KJV)
How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
We usually read the English Standard Version, but we want to emphasize that the prophet was referring to a divine rebel here. In verse 13, the Hebrew phrase rendered “sides of the north,” yarkete tsaphon, is only used three places in the Bible: Here, in Isaiah 14, to describe Lucifer’s “mount of the congregation”; in Psalm 48, where the psalmist compares Zion with Zaphon, to demonstrate that God’s “mount of the congregation” is superior; and in the apocalyptic prophecy of the war led by Gog of Magog—the Antichrist—in Ezekiel 38 and 39.
Some English-language Bible translators recognized the significance of Mount Zaphon:
You said to yourself,
Isaiah 14:13 (NET), emphasis added
“I will climb up to the sky.
Above the stars of El
I will set up my throne.
I will rule on the mountain of assembly
on the remote slopes of Zaphon.”
You said in your heart,
Isaiah 14:13 (NIV), emphasis added
“I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.”
This long war, from Eden until today, has been fought for control of the mount of assembly, or mount of the congregation. In Hebrew, the phrase is har môʿēd, which underlies the Greek word rendered into English as “Armageddon” in Revelation 16:16. The fight is for the har môʿēd, and the prize is Zion—Jerusalem.
In a nutshell, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and the psalmist weren’t writing about someplace in the physical north (although Mount Zaphon is north of Israel). Zaphon was the home base of the greatest supernatural enemy of the people of God in the Bible. How do we know? Because Jesus specifically linked the storm-god to Satan.
But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?
Matthew 12:24–26 (ESV)
“Beelzebul” means “Baal the prince (of demons).” Later, in Revelation 2:13, Jesus calls the city of Pergamum in western Turkey the place “where Satan’s throne is” and “where Satan dwells.” This was probably a reference to the Altar of Zeus in the acropolis of Pergamum. Zeus was the storm-god, like Baal, and thus he is also Satan/Lucifer.
We’ve hit you with a lot of names in this article. To summarize, the evidence points to Zeus, Baal (Hadad), Qôs, Dushara, and Hubal being the same entity—the storm-god, who Jesus identified as Satan, the divine rebel who was ejected from Eden, “the holy mountain of God.”[18]
And since Hubal was “lord of the Kaaba,” then Satan himself is part of Allah, Inc.
That begs the question: Why would Satan partner with anyone? It’s inconsistent with what we’ve been taught about the devil. He’s the one whose unrestrained pride in his beauty and splendor led him to imagine that he could exalt himself above the stars (i.e., the angels) of God.
True. But he’s also not stupid. Cooperating with other rebels, at least for now, is his last, best chance to make himself “like the Most High.”
[1] Holland, op. cit., 233.
[2] Armstrong, op. cit., 10.
[3] John Lewis Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia. London: Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street, 1829 (http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/9457/pg9457-images.html), retrieved 1/12/19.
[4] Francis E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 108.
[5] Timothy W. Dunkin, “Ba’al, Hubal, and Allah: A Rebuttal to the Islamic Awareness Article Entitled “Is Hubal the Same as Allah?” by M. S. M. Saifullah and ‘Abdallah David.” StudyToAnswer.net(https://web.archive.org/web/20180327233537/http://www.studytoanswer.net/islam/hubalallah.html), retrieved 1/12/19.
[6] “Mecca.” Jewish Virtual Library (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/mecca#history), retrieved 1/12/19.
[7] Armstrong, op. cit., 11.
[8] Dunkin, op. cit.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Knauf, op. cit., 676.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Mark Smith and Wayne Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle: Volume II (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009), 49.
[13] Jonathan P. Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East 600–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 42.
[14] John Burton, “Those Are the High-Flying Cranes.” Journal of Semitic Studies, Volume 15, Issue 2 (1970), 246.
[15] Abū Ja’far Muhammad b. Jarīr al-Tabarī, The History of al-Tabari Vol. VI: Muhammad at Mecca. Translated and annotated by W. Montgomery Watt and M. V. McDonald (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), 108.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Peters, op. cit, 110–111.
[18] Ezekiel 28:11–19. Eden was a garden, but it was also “the holy mountain of God.”