128 THE RELIGION OF THE CRESCENT.

nations of a different stock, the ancient religion of the Semites was Monotheistic. Many Semitic tribes, like the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, and even the Hebrews themselves at more than one period of their history, fell into Polytheism and idolatry through contact with the Hamites; but the process was a very gradual one, and in many cases the names of the deities worshipped of themselves prove that they had their origin in Monotheistic conceptions.1 The Northern Arabs especially seem to have preserved their pristine faith in a fair degree of purity up to a comparatively late period. We find among them no such deities2 as the Baal, Ashtoreth,3 Moloch, Ammon, worshipped in Canaan. If Professor Plumptre4 and others are right in believing in the Arabian origin of the Book of Job, that wonderful work5 shows us that Monotheism was only just beginning to be affected in the minds of the Arabs of the early age in which the book was written by Sabaean ideas and the


1 Renan, loc. cit.
2 Grau, p. 134.
3 A deity whose name is written
עתתר is mentioned, along with others, in early Arabian inscriptions. But the form of the name in each case shows that the deity in question was introduced from Syria, and was not a native Arabian god.
4 "Biblical Studies," pp. 174, sqq. ; Canon Cook's article on Job in Smith's "Bible Dictionary;" &c.
5 Job xxxi. 26-28.
THE ORIGIN OF ISLAM. 129

worship of the host of heaven. Herodotus1 informs us that in his day the Arabs had two principal deities, Orotal and Alilat. The former of these names is doubtless a corruption of Allah2 Ta'ala' (GOD Most High), while the latter is the goddess Al Lat3 mentioned in the Qur'an. Knowing how very inaccurate most of the classical writers are in their accounts of the religions of other nations (of which Tacitus' description of the Jewish worship in the Temple at Jerusalem4 is a fair example), we cannot depend very much on this statement of "the Father of History" as a proof that Polytheism was already prevalent among the Arabs generally. Indeed the very name Allah Ta'ala' GOD Most High, in which the word Allah is exactly equivalent to ό Θεος 5 in


1 Herodotus, lib. iii., cap. viii., "Διονυσον δε θεον μουνον και την Ουρανιην ηγευνται είναι … Ονομαζουσι δε τον μεν Διονυσον Οροταλ, την δε Ουρανιην ’ Αλιλατ. "
2
أَللَهُ تَعَالىَ Regarding this title, Allah ta'ala', Weil says, speaking of the pre-Islamic Arabs: ". . . horten aber dabei nicht auf, an ein hochsten Wesen zu glauben, welches vor Mohammed schon Allahu taala gennant ward." ("Mohammed der Prophet," p. 18.) Sir W. Muir ("Life of Mahomet," p. xvii., note) agrees with this.
3
أللاَّتُ Surah liii. 19.
4 Taciti Histt., lib. v., capp. 3, 4: "Effigiem animalis" (asini), "quo monstrante errorem sitimque depulerant, penetrali sacravere."
5 The Arabic word Allah (
أَللَّهُ ) is a contraction of al, the definite article, and ilah, "God." The word without the article, like the Greek (θεος ), may be used of false gods.