Pre-Islamic deities.
Pre-Islamic Arabian religion is commonly understood to be polytheistic. Of the many Arabian deities, only some of the more important will be mentioned here.
South Arabian deities. In the official cults of the South Arabian kingdoms, the devotees venerated most highly a triad of deities that were astral in character: the moon god, the sun goddess, and the god equated with the planet Venus. Each of these deities bore a variety of names, depending on the region, or on a particular attribute of the divinity. Chief among the triad was the moon god, who was the protector of the principal cities. The people of the various kingdoms and areas referred to themselves as his offspring, each under a different name: the Sabaeans were the children of Ilumquh ("God Is Power"), the Minaeans the children of Wadd ("Love"), the Qatabdnians the children of 'Amm ("Uncle"), and the people of Hadramawt the offspring of Sin (the name of the moon god in ancient Babylonia).
In each region other names of the moon god appear, derived from aspects of the lunar cycle or other attributes. Next among the triad was Venus, the morning and evening star, named 'Athtar, who also had a variety of attributes. Third was the sun goddess, whose principal name, Shams, was common to the various kingdoms, like 'Athtar, but whose paired epithets, describing contrasting aspects, varied locally.
Despite the prominence of the name elsewhere among Semitic peoples, the god Il (EI) appears to play a comparatively minor role in the South Arabian inscriptions. Some modem scholars have sought to explain this circumstance by equating Il with the moon god, but this opinion has not prevailed.
The remaining list of South Arabian deities is long, and many of them appear to have had a more particularized function than that of the major triad. Some were guardians of clans or of places, and two Qatabanian deities watched over boundaries and irrigation, respectively. Other deities' names, to cite only a few, were attributes, such as Yitha' ("Saviour"), Nasrum ("Eagle"), Ra'at ("He Who Instills Fear"), Dhli 'Awdhdn ("He Who Preserves"), and Mutibaqabt ("He Who Guarantees the Harvest").
North Arabian deities. Among the peoples around the northern perimeter of Arabia, "god," in the most generic sense, was El, or in a longer form of the same name, Ilah. His veneration at a very early stage is attested by his appearance in theophoric names, that is, personal names of which one element is a divine name (the biblical name Gabriel is an example).
Among nomadic tribes in particular, a residual sense of El as being the god par excellence remained until the time of Islam.
Astral or local deities, however, tended to displace El in the Nabataean and Palmyrene kingdoms. Although El was preserved in early Nabataean theophoric cornpounds, in Palmyra a more central place in the cult went to Bel (Baal, "Lord"), and in both Petra and Palmyra to Belshamin ("Lord of the Heavens"). With Bel, sometimes in a triad, the Palmyrenes associated Yarhibol, a solar deity, and Aglibol, a lunar deity; while Belshamin stood in a triadic relationship with the gods Malakbel, also a solar deity, and Aglibol.
AI-Lat, AI-‘Uzza, and Manat. Among the Qur’an's references to its 7 th-century pagan milieu are three goddesses, called daughters of Allah: AI-Lat, AI-‘Uzza, and Manat; these are also known from earlier inscriptions in northern Arabia. Al-Lat ("the Goddess") may have had a role subordinate to that of El (Ilah), as "daughter" rather than consort, but at at-Ta'if and a number of other sites in northern Arabia she is mentioned as al-Lat-of-a-particular-place, as the local deity. At Palmyra she was equated with Athena. As for her two partners in the Qur’anic triad, the goddess al-'Uzza ("Strong") was known among the Nabataeans, while Mandt ("Fate") was associated at Palmyra with the Greek Nemesis. Another principal goddess was Ruda, whose name is the feminine form of Arso, a deity whom Herodotus had mentioned in the 5th century BC along with al-Lat as the sole recipients of worship among the Arabs.
