Manah
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- This article is about the pre-Islamic Arabian goddess. For the town in Oman see Manah (town)
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Mentioned in the Qur'an (Sura 53:20), Manāt was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca. According to the Book of Idols (Kitāb al-Asnām) by Hišām b. al-Kalbi, the pre-Islamic Arabs believed Manāt to be the goddess of fate and the oldest of the three "Daughters of God". 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 (Hommel, First Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. 1. p. 380.)
B. al-Kalbī writes (N.A. Faris 1952, pp.12-14):
- The most ancient of all these idols was Manāt. The Arabs used to name [their children] 'Abd-Manāt and Zayd-Manāt. Manāt was erected on the seashore in the vicinity of al-Mushallal in Qudayd, between Medina and Mecca. All the Arabs used to venerate her and sacrifice before her. The Aws and the Khazraj, as well as the inhabitants of Medina and Mecca and their vicinities, used to venerate Manāt, sacrifice before her, and bring unto her their offerings.
He also wrote regarding the traditional practices of the Arab pilgrimage to Mecca:
- that the Aws and the Khazraj, as well as those Arabs among the people of Yathrib and other places who took to their way of life, were wont to go on pilgrimage and observe the vigil at all the appointed places, but not shave their heads. At the end of the pilgrimage, however, when they were about to return home, they would set out to the place where Manāt stood, shave their heads, and stay there a while. They did not consider their pilgrimage completed until they visited Manāt. Because of this veneration of Manāt by the Aws and the Khazraj, ˤAbd al-ˤUzzā ibn-Wadi'ah al-Muzani, or some other Arab, said:
- "An oath, truthful and just, I swore
- By Manāt, at the sacred place of the Khazraj.
The Book of Idols also records:
- The Quraysh as well as the rest of the Arabs continued to venerate Manāt until the Apostle of God set out from Medina the eighth year of the Hijrah, the year in which God accorded him the victory. When he was at a distance of four or five nights from Medina, he dispatched ˤAlī to destroy her. ˤAlī demolished her, took away all her [treasures], and carried them back to the Prophet. Among the treasures which ˤAlī carried away were two swords which had been presented to [Manāt] by al-Harith ibn Abī-Shamir al-Ghassānī, the king of Ghassān. The one sword was called Mikhdham and the other Rasūb. [...] The Prophet gave these two swords to ˤAlī. It is, therefore, said that Dhū l-Faqār, the sword of ˤAlī, was one of them.
[edit] Reference
Ibn al-Kalbī; (author) and Nabih Amin Faris (translator & commentary) (1952): The Book of Idols, Being a Translation from the Arabic of the Kitāb al-Asnām. Princeton University Press. US Library of Congress #52006741
