Archeologists have uncovered temples
to the Moon-god throughout the Middle East. From the
mountains of Turkey to the banks of the Nile, the
most wide-spread religion of the ancient world was
the worship of the Moon-god. In the first literate
civilization, the Sumerians have left us thousands of
clay tablets in which they described their religious
beliefs. As demonstrated by Sjoberg and Hall, the
ancient Sumerians worshipped a Moon-god who was
called many different names. The most popular names
were Nanna, Suen and Asimbabbar. His symbol was the
crescent moon. Given the amount of artifacts
concerning the worship 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 the Akkadians took the word Suen and
transformed it into the word Sin as their favorite
name for the Moon-god. As Prof. Potts pointed out,
"Sin is a name essentially Sumerian in
origin which had been borrowed by the Semites."
In ancient Syria and Canna, the
Moon-god Sin was usually represented by the moon in
its crescent 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. Sacrifices to the Moon-god are
described in the Pas 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. The Old Testament
constantly rebuked the worship of the Moon-god (see:
Deut. 4:19;17:3; II Kngs. 21:3,5; 23:5; Jer. 8:2;
19:13; Zeph. 1:5, etc.) When Israel fell into
idolatry, it was usually the cult of the Moon-god. 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,
etc. In Tell-el-Obeid, a copper calf was found with a
crescent moon on its forehead. An idol with the body
of a bull and the head of man has a crescent moon
inlaid 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. The
Ur of the Chaldees was so devoted to the Moon-god
that it was sometimes called Nannar in tablets from
that time period.
A temple of the Moon-god has been
excavated in Ur by Sir Leonard Woolley. He dug up
many examples of moon worship in Ur and these are
displayed in the British Museum to this day. Harran
was likewise noted for its devotion to the Moon-god.
In the 1950's a major temple to the Moon-god was
excavated at Hazer in Palestine. Two idols of the
moon god were found. Each was a stature 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. What about Arabia? As pointed out by
Prof. 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."
During the nineteenth century, Amaud,
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, the archeologists 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 at
Qataban, Timna, and Marib (the ancient capital of
Sheba). Thousands of inscriptions from walls 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.
The archeological evidence demonstrates that the
dominant religion of Arabia was the cult of the
Moon-god.
In Old Testament times, Nabonidus
(555-539 BC), the last king of Babylon, built Tayma,
Arabia as a center of Moon-god worship. Segall
stated, "South Arabia's stellar religion has
always been dominated by the Moon-god in various
variations." Many scholars have also
noticed that the Moon-god's name "Sin"
is a part of such Arabic words as "Sinai,"
the "wilderness of Sin," etc. 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 Kabah in Mecca, the
Moon-god was the chief deity. Mecca was in fact built
as a shrine for the Moon-god.
This is what made it the most sacred
site of 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 twenty-one
inscriptions with the name Sin were found in this
temple. An idol which may be the Moon-god himself was
also discovered. This was later confirmed by other
well-known archeologists.
The evidence reveals that the temple
of the Moon-god was active even in the Christian era.
Evidence gathered from both North and South Arabia
demonstrate that Moon-god worship was clearly active
even in Muhammad's day and was still the dominant
cult. According to numerous inscriptions, while the
name of the Moon-god was Sin, his title was al-ilah,
i.e. "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." The
Moon-god was called al-ilah, i.e. 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 pagan parents proves that Allah was
the title for the Moon-god even in Muhammad's day.
Prof. Coon goes on to say, "Similarly, under
Mohammed's tutelage, the relatively anonymous Ilah,
became Al-Ilah, The God, or Allah, the Supreme Being."
This fact answers the questions,
"Why is Allah never defined in the Qur'an?
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, i.e. 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 that 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," i.e., 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 they already worshipped. This "Allah"
was the Moon-god according to the archeological
evidence. Muhammad thus attempted to have it both
ways. 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 the Christians knew better and that
is why 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 Bible but the Moon-god and his daughters
al-Uzza, al-Lat and Manat. Dr. Newman concludes his
study of the early Christian-Muslim debates by
stating, "Islam proved itself to be...a
separate and antagonistic religion which had sprung
up from idolatry." Islamic scholar Caesar
Farah concluded "There is no reason,
therefore, to accept the idea that Allah passed to
the Muslims from the Christians and Jews."
The Arabs worshipped the Moon-god as a supreme deity.
But this was not biblical monotheism. While the
Moon-god was greater than all other gods and
goddesses, this was still a 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 the 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?
