Al-Lat (, ), also spelled Allat, Allatu, and Alilat, is a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess, at one time worshipped under various associations throughout the entire Arabian Peninsula, including Mecca, where she was worshipped alongside Al-Uzza and Manat. She was depicted as the feminine counterpart, consort, or daughter of Allah. The word Allat or Elat has been used to refer to various goddesses in the ancient Near East, including the goddess Asherah-Athirat. She also is associated with the Great Goddess.
The worship of al-Lat is attested in South Arabian inscriptions as Lat and Latan, but she had more prominence in north Arabia and the Hejaz, and her cult reached as far as Syria. The writers of the Safaitic script frequently invoked al-Lat in their inscriptions. She was also worshipped by the Nabataeans and was associated with al-'Uzza. The presence of her cult was attested in both Palmyra and Hatra. Under Greco-Roman influence, her iconography began to show the attributes of Athena, the Greek goddess of war, as well as Athena's Roman equivalent Minerva. According to Islamic sources, the tribe of Banu Thaqif in Ta'if especially held reverence to her.
In Islamic tradition, her worship ended in the seventh century when her temple in Ta'if was demolished on the orders of Muhammad.
Etymology The etymology of "al-Lat" is ultimately uncertain, with two sometimes competing theories, one based on Arabic traditions, the other on similarities with other Semitic religions. In the first, "al-Lat" is derived from a word meaning "to knead"; in the second, her name is akin to the feminine form of "Allah".Fahd, T., "al-Lat", in Due to the association between the two names, debate over these derivations have been influenced by the belief among some Muslims that the word "Allah", referred to as Lafẓ al-Jalālah (The Word of Majesty), is a proper name, one that God chose for Himself, and not a title or derived from a title.Andreas Görke and Johanna Pink Tafsir and Islamic Intellectual History Exploring the Boundaries of a Genre Oxford University Press in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies London p. 478Morris S. Seale Muslim Theology A study of Origins with Reference to the Church Fathers Great Russel Street, London 1964 p. 58 Consequently, by making the word "Allat" a feminine form of "Allah" and a name itself derived from a title, is in conflict with such a non-derivation belief about the word "Allah".
Medieval Arab lexicographers derived the name from the verb latta (to mix or knead barley-meal). It has also been associated with the "idol of jealousy" erected in the temple of Jerusalem according to the Book of Ezekiel, which was offered an oblation of barley-meal by the husband who suspected his wife of infidelity. It can be inferred from al-Kalbi's Book of Idols that a similar ritual was practiced in the vicinity of the image of al-Lat.. This suggests potentially a proto-Semitic or later developed Pan-Semitic longstanding association with barley-meal.
In a euhemeristic retelling attributed to Ibn Abbas, Mujahid, and Ar-Rabi bin Anas: Al-Lat was a man who used to mix Sawiq (a kind of barley mash) with water for the pilgrims during the time of Jahiliyyah. When he died, the people remained next to his grave and worshiped him.
The second etymology takes al-Lat to be a feminine form akin to the name Allah. This is potentially supported by a form given by Herodotus, who identifies (which would correspond to ) with Aphrodite Urania (one of only two deities Herodotus claims the Arabians worshiped). The ending "-āt" is explained as the same as an ossified vocative form like (, 'O sister') for (, 'sister').Bauer, Hans (1915), “Semitische Sprachprobleme. 5. Die Verwandtschaftsnamen und ilāh „Gott“ im Semitischen. 6. Die Entstehung des semitischen Passivums 7. Das aramäische Aoristpräxis”, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (in German), volume 69, page 561. A similar theory is held for the ending of "ˀil+āh" to "ˀil" which is elsewhere only sporadically attested in Arabic but has left its trace in the -ā vocatives of (, 'father'), (, 'brother'), (, 'father-in-law'). It should be noted, many gods and goddesses were referred to by the titles "al-ˀilāh" and "al-ˀilāt", and so it is not certain that the goddess referenced by Herodotus is one and the same.
More recent to both these theories, epigraphic evidence has revealed Old North Arabian languages (such as Safaitic and Hismaic), with forms lacking any definite article, leaving the form lt attested. al-Jallad (often considered the expert on these specific languages) groups the names ˀlh, lh, ˀlt, and lt together as variations, as Safaitic proper nouns lack definite articles (while Hismaic has suffixed definite articles instead of prefixed). MacDonald his mentor and leader of the OCIANA (Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of North Arabia) on the other hand considers this mistaken. He views that references to ˀlt and lt are different with ˀlt being a generic term for goddess and lt being a proper name. This does not however tell us much about the history of the word prior to becoming a proper name, only however potentially explains the wider conflation with the word and the Arabic root ( to bruise or bray, esp. barely wheat; grind, crumble, or making of flour and by ext. bread).
The goddess Asherah or Athirat was sometimes titled ˀlt "Elat" a word akin to the feminine equivalent/consort of the deity El. The Chaldean "Allat" is seen as a title for the Mesopotamian goddess Ereshkigal, the goddess of death (although the title is more likely to be derived from instead of Semitic, but perhaps influenced by phono-semantic matching). A western Semitic goddess modeled on the Mesopotamian goddess was known accordingly as Allatum, and she was recognized in Carthage as Allatu.. Despite having been examined by some scholars, the connections however to the Arabian goddess 'Al-Lat' has not yet been established and the issue remains unsettled.
The goddess Allat's name is recorded as: () in Imperial Aramaic; () in Nabataean Arabic; () in Palmyrene Aramaic; (), (), and () in Safaitic; () in Dadanitic; () in Thamudic; () in Ancient Greek; () and () in Sabaean; in Classical Arabic.
Attestations
Pre-Islamic era Al-Lat was mentioned as Alilat by the Greek historian Herodotus in his fifth-century BC work Histories, and she was considered the equivalent of Aphrodite (Aphrodite Urania):Corrente, Paola, "Dushara and Allāt alias Dionysos and Aphrodite in Herodotus 3.8", in According to Herodotus, the ancient Arabians believed in only two deities:
Al-Lat was widely worshipped in north Arabia, but in South Arabia she was not popular and was not the object of an organized cult, with two amulets (inscribed "Lat" on one, "Latan" on the other) being the only indication that this goddess received worship in the area.Robin, Christian Julien, "South Arabia, Religions in Pre-Islamic", in However, she seems to have been popular among the Arab tribes bordering Yemen. She was also attested in eastern Arabia; the name Taymallat (a theophoric name invoking the goddess) was attested as the name of a man from Gerrha, a city located in the region.
From Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions, it is probable that she was worshipped as Lat (lt). In Safaitic inscriptions, al-Lat was invoked for solitude and mercy, as well as to provide well-being, ease and prosperity. Travelers would invoke her for good weather and protection. She was also invoked for vengeance, booty from raids, and infliction of blindness, and lameness to anyone who defaces their inscriptions.
The Qedarites, a northern Arabian tribal confederation, seemed to have also worshipped al-Lat, as evidenced by a silver bowl dedicated by a Qedarite king, with the goddess' name inscribed on it.
The Nabataeans and the people of Hatra also worshipped al-Lat, equating her with the Greek goddesses Athena and Tyche and the Roman goddess Minerva. She is frequently called "the Great Goddess" in Greek in multilingual inscriptions. The Nabataeans regarded al-Lat as the mother of the deities, and her family relations vary; sometimes she is regarded as the consort of Dushara and at other times as the mother of Dushara. Nabataean inscriptions call her and al-'Uzza the "brides of Dushara".Corrente, Paola, "Dushara and Allāt alias Dionysos and Aphrodite in Herodotus 3.8", in
A temple was built for al-Lat in Iram of the Pillars, by the tribe of ʿĀd. Al-Lat was referred to as "the goddess who is in Iram" in a Nabataean inscription. She was also referred to as "the goddess who is in Bosra". Perhaps a local Hijazi form of her attested in Hegra alongside Dushara and Manat was "Allat of 'Amnad".
Al-Lat was closely related to al-'Uzza, and in some regions of the Nabataean kingdom, both al-Lat and al-'Uzza were said to be the same goddess. John F. Healey believes that al-Lat and al-'Uzza originated as a single goddess, which parted ways in the pre-Islamic Meccan tradition. Susan Krone suggests that both al-Lat and al-'Uzza were uniquely fused in central Arabia.
Al-Lat was also venerated in Palmyra, where she was known as the "Lady of the temple". According to an inscription, she was brought into the Arab quarter of the city by a member of the Bene Ma'zin tribe, who were probably an Arab tribe. She had a temple in the city, which Teixidor believed to be the cultic center of Palmyrene Arab tribes. The practice of casting divination arrows, a common divination method in Arabia, was attested in her temple; an honorific inscription mentioning "a basin of silver for [casting] lots (lḥlq)".
By the second-century AD, al-Lat in Palmyra began to be portrayed in the style of Athena, and was referred to as "Athena-Allāt", but this assimilation does not extend beyond her iconography. The Palmyrene emperor Vaballathus, whose name is the Latinized form of the theophoric name Wahballāt ("Gift of al-Lat"), began to use Athenodorus as the Greek form of his name.
Islamic tradition In Islamic sources discussing pre-Islamic Arabia, al-Lat is attested as the chief goddess of the Banu Thaqif tribe. She was said to be venerated in Ta'if, where she was called ar-Rabba ("The Lady"), and she reportedly had a shrine there that was decorated with ornaments and treasure of gold and onyx. There, the goddess was venerated in the form of a cubic granite rock. The area around the shrine was considered sacred; no trees could be felled, no animal could be hunted, and no human blood could be shed.
According to al-Kalbi's Book of Idols, her shrine was under the guardianship of the Banū Attāb ibn Mālik of the Banu Thaqif. She was also venerated by other Arab tribes, including the Quraysh, and their children would be named after the goddess, such as Zayd al-Lat and Taym al-Lat.
Al-Lat is also mentioned in pre-Islamic Arab poetry, such as in al-Mutalammis' satire of Amr ibn Hind:
A poem by the pre-Islamic monotheist Zayd ibn Amr mentions al-Lat, along with al-'Uzza and Hubal:
Al-Lat was also called as a daughter of Allah along with the other two chief goddesses al-'Uzza and Manat. According to the Book of Idols, the Quraysh were to chant the following verses as they circumambulated the Kaaba:
The word gharaniq was translated as "most exalted females" by Faris in his English translation of the Book of Idols, but he annotates this term in a footnote as "lit. Numidean cranes".
According to Islamic tradition, the shrine dedicated to al-Lat in Ta'if was demolished on the orders of Muhammad, during the Expedition of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, in the same year as the Battle of Tabuk (which occurred in October 630 AD). The destruction of the cult image was a demand by Muhammad before he would allow any reconciliation to take place with the tribes of Ta'if, who were under his siege. According to the Book of Idols, this occurred after the Banu Thaqif converted to Islam, and that her temple was "burnt to the ground".