https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItI0JL0nr3E&list=PLRagz8v-1fF6KN1zX99EBH80W56NN-TFL&t=1s🔻"Religious Landscape of Pre-Islamic Arabia: An Analysis Based on Primary (Epigraphic) and Contemporary Sources," Lec07
speaker: Dr. Farhad Ghoddoussi
Sep 13, 2026
Topic: Gentiles — Review, Introduction and Methodological Considerations
summary:In the previous lectures of this series, we discussed the presence of Judaism and Christianity in pre-Islamic Arabia, drawing primarily on epigraphic evidence, pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, and early literary fragments.
Building on that foundation, from this lecture onward, we will focus on the religious beliefs and practices of the non-Jewish and non-Christian populations of Arabia. These groups are commonly categorized as polytheists, idolaters, and monotheistic
ḥanīfs, and for simplicity, we refer to them as "gentiles."
Methodologically, we will continue grounding our inquiry in epigraphy and pre-Islamic poetry while incorporating the Qur'an as a central primary source. Although we omitted the Qur'an from earlier discussions to maintain a narrower focus, it offers vital contemporary testimony regarding polytheistic doctrines and practices. Our goal is to examine the religious beliefs, rituals, customs, and deities (idols) worshipped by these gentiles.
After reviewing and discussing several methodological concerns, we turned to one of the most prominent classical Islamic sources on the idols of pre-Islamic Arabia: Ibn al-Kalbi's
Kitāb al-Aṣnām (
The Book of Idols). We read the introduction to his text, in which he explains how—following the initial monotheism of Ishmael (ع) and his descendants—polytheism and idol worship spread throughout the Arabian Peninsula, ultimately turning Mecca into a pagan city with idols housed inside the Ka'ba shrine.
There are nine specific idols named in the Qur'an by their proper individual names. Five of these are mentioned in Surah Nuh (
71:23):
"And they said, 'Do not abandon your gods. Do not abandon Wadd (وَدّ), nor Suwā‘ (سُوَاع), nor Yaghūth (يَغُوث), Ya‘ūq (يَعُوق), or Nasr (نَسْر).'"
This raises an important question: why does the Qur'an, which is typically concise when mentioning proper names, explicitly list the names of five idols belonging to the people of Noah, who lived in the distant past and were destroyed in the Flood?
Interestingly, Ibn al-Kalbi and other classical writers list these exact five figures among the idols and divinities worshipped by pre-Islamic Arabian gentiles living contemporary with or close to the time of Prophet Muhammad (ص). According these writers the details of their forms and worshippers are as follows:
Wadd: Shaped like a man; worshipped by the tribe of Kalb.
Suwā‘: Shaped like a woman; worshipped by the tribe of Hudhayl and Hamdān.
Yaghūth: Shaped like a lion; worshipped by the tribe of Madh'hij.
Ya‘ūq: Shaped like a horse; worshipped by the tribe of Hamdān.
Nasr: Shaped like a bird (eagle or vulture); worshipped by the tribe of Ḥimyar.
This leads to a second question: How did these five idols survive Noah's Flood and spread into Arabia, particularly its southern region? Regarding Ya‘ūq and Nasr, Ibn al-Kalbi notes that he found no record of anyone from Hamdān, Ḥimyar, or other tribes naming their children after these two deities, nor did he find mention of them in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. He suggests this may be because Ḥimyar relinquished idolatry to embrace Judaism in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, with Hamdān following suit in the early 6th century due to integration with them. This observation aligns with the view of several modern scholars that polytheism was already in decline on the eve of Islam.
We will inshallah try to address the above two questions in the next lecture.
#pre_islamic_arabia
