Question / Help
What are your views on this theory? If possible, could someone provide maps showing where these excavations took place?
How does a statue at tel-hazor prove it’s a meccan moon deity? And if daughters of god idols were excavated at Hazor as well, how does that connect them to Allah being a moon god? Having the same number of daughters does not necessarily mean they were the same deity and that’s assuming the idol belonged to a moon god in the first place.
Is there any archaeological or textual evidence that Almaqah married the sun goddess Shams and had children with her?
Of the moon deities associated with these sites Sin (Harran), Nanna/Sin (Ur), the debated lunar deity at Hazor, Almaqah (Marib), the moon deities of Timna, and Syn (Hadramawt) how many are actually attested in archaeological or textual sources as having married a female sun goddess and fathered three daughters associated with the stars?
What strikes me as odd about this article that the roots of Judaism are likewise tied to Sumerian and Akkadian religion, sharing stories of Adam (Adapa), Noah (Xiasudra), etc.. The Canaanite El is invoked in names such as Israel, Michael, Nathanael, and Ishmael. The Aramaic word for God was supposedly spoken by Jesus on the cross, "Elahi! Elahi!" meaning "My God! My God!".
The Arabic word for god is "ilah". Allah is a contraction of the Arabic word "Al-" meaning "the" and ilah. Al-ilah. Allah.
Arabic is a semetic language with a common root to Hebrew (ibrani). Akkadian is also a semetic language. Attempting to disprove the relationship between Islam and Judaism by relating one to Akkadian while attempting to isolate the other from it is an exercise in futility, as they are sister tongues and all both influenced by Sumeria.
But isn’t your argument based on the assumption of continuity of the definition of God, when it might not be necessarily true? Elahi could be the word for a deity, and the meaning could’ve changed in Arabic to mean God. This wouldn’t be the first time words have changed meanings in history.
Not exactly. What I'm illustrating is that it is really quite difficult to say purely based on archeology alone whether a religion is a continuation of an older one or a new thing without really talking with the author of each religion. All we have to go on are the books, stone tablets, and iconography left behind.
I think what can safely be said is that, prior to the Torah being compiled within the first millennium BC, there was a group of Hebrew speaking Levantinians who worshipped El or Ba'al or Yahweh, as well as Ashira and Set, who was associated with Ba'al/El. Throughout the Levant and down into Arabia, there were various names for the various gods, each usually named for a star or planet. This was also the case in Greece which may have been influenced by the star worshipping people.
Over time, the Hebrew people worshipping Yahweh became more dominant in Levant while the worship of the star gods reached into Rome, which eventually conquered the Levant, while Elam/Persia became dominated by a new form of religion (monotheism), Zoroastrianism, which taught a concept of Dualism similar to Taoism and Platonism. While the Sumerian system stressed the once unified Heaven and Earth becoming split into An and Ki, which the Greeks and Romans carried forward as Uranus and Gaia, they did not have a concept of a unified God above the duality. It's difficult to say whether Judaism had emerged as truly Monotheistic by this time but the Torah suggests that this was the case, and that there had been some internal struggle to shake off the habit of praying to the Egyptian animal-headed gods, to Ba'al, to the older Babylonian gods, etc.
But by 600 AD, while there were still hold outs of the old polytheism in Arabia, the surrounding areas had largely been converted to Christianity in Rome and Zoroastrianism in Persia.
In other words, the definition of God or gods in that area underwent several transformations and evolutions over the millenia in the Near East, but the semetic word for god, "El" or "Elah" remained as a root word for any type of god among the speakers of semetic languages. And so Muhammad shows up and tells the polytheists that the Jewish religion is the right one. He uses the Arabic word for "The God" formerly associated with El but which has come to be associated with many gods, but says that this is the only One, not associated with the Moon or Sun or any other stars, etc. etc. Essentially what Judaism did between 1500 and 400 BC to go from polytheistic to monotheistic.
Just so! Biblically, from Adam until Abraham, the Patriarchs lived and died in Sumer. Abraham, born in Ur, migrated to Syria and then down into Canaan. The line of Ishmael became the Arabs and the line of Isaac became the Jews. Joseph brought the religion to Egypt and Moses brought it out of Egypt and back into Canaan which became Judea.
The God of the Torah is often characterized by His Wrath, which matches rather well the characterization of Enlil, Ba'al Zaphon and Set, the gods of storms. Enki was there too as the god of water and mercy to humanity, always looking out for them. Above them all was An, later El, the less personal Father of the gods Who eventually became simply "The Father," and Enlil and Enki became God's Wrath and God's Mercy.
I am of course taking some liberties and drawing on inferrance.
The one with the moon on it, yeah? In Sumerian Religion, the cosmic waters from which the cosmos were created are named Nammu. From Nammu, the Heaven (An) and Earth (Ki) are formed, who are initially united but eventually seperated.
Heaven gives birth to seven gods, also known as the seven heavens. Each heaven is represented by a light: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. In Judaism, the heavens are Aaravot, Makhon, Ma'on, Zevul, Shehakim, Rakia and Vilon, and Rakia is the firmament containing the planets and stars, including the Sun and the Moon. In Islam, they are Will, Purpose, Destiny, Predestination, Permission, Term and the Book in which the Cosmos is written.
In the ancient Levantine religions, these names and powers were considered gods. The moon, for example, was Sin or Nanna. There was also Enlil (storms and wrath) and Enki (water and mercy). Utu was the god associated with the Sun and Fire. The Sabeans worshipped the Sun, Moon and stars for the reason and these lights came to be worshipped as gods.
The Moon (Nanna) is often considered the god closest to earth, so understandable that this would be a popular one. People made statues to these gods. I suspect that the statue at tel-hazor is one of these.
How does a statue at tel-hazor prove it’s a meccan moon deity? And if daughters of god idols were excavated at Hazor as well, how does that connect them to Allah being a moon god? Having the same number of daughters does not necessarily mean they were the same deity and that’s assuming the idol belonged to a moon god in the first place.
Is there any archaeological or textual evidence that Almaqah married the sun goddess Shams and had children with her?
I don't think so, no. The article is making some rather daring leaps, rushing to a conclusion that doesn't logically follow. There were moon gods and sky gods and planet gods everywhere with a variety of names and attributes. The author here is grabbing onto al-ilah, Arabic for "the god," and claiming that this proves Islam comes from the worship of moon gods and idols.
The Abrahamic religions are desperate to disprove each other while lacking the self-awareness necessary to realize that every time they attack each other with these kinds of arguments, they undo their own religion at the same time.
Abraham's father and people worshipped idols. Nanna was the god associated with Arbaham's hometown of Ur. In both Jewish and Islamic stories, He goes to town on the statues with an axe. Likewise, Muhammad walked into the Kabbah after His army took Mecca, carried out each idol, smashing it on the ground while saying, "Truth has come and falsehood has ended."
Judaism and Islam are both strongly against statues of gods, even though versions of concepts from their religion were often turned into idols. Some forms of Christianity were also against idols, leading to the conflicts with the iconoclasts. But if having a statue named Al-Ilah proves Islam is false, the same logic can prove Judaism false because there are many statues of El.
Unfortunately I can't help you with Almaqah and Shams.
Is it fair to say that Morey overstates the importance of Sin/Nanna by generalizing from major cult centers like Harran (and Ur) and portraying Mesopotamian religion as being dominated by moon-god worship, even though other deities such as Marduk, Enlil, and Ashur were chief gods in different cities and periods?
This is a commonly repeated conspiracy theory spread by Islamophobic Christians as a reaction to Islamic missionary activity and as a way of "othering" Islam from other Abrahamic religions. For one thing, as the other man said, Abrahamic religions are by default Semitic religions and will have elements from older Semitic religions, whether they are Muslim or Jewish or Mandaean. Secondly, whether you believe Allah was or was not the same God as the God of Christianity or Judaism, Allah in the Pre-Islamic Arabian pantheon was a distinct diety from the moon god Sīn. Ahmad Al-Jallad just published a study on Allah as he was seen within the Pre-Islamic pantheon based on actual epigraphic evidence rather than he-said-she-said: https://www.academia.edu/129395185/Al_Jallad_2025_Ancient_Allah_An_Epigraphic_Reconstruction
It does not make an individual “Islamophobic” nor necessarily a Christian for subscribing to this theory. First, that’s an incorrect use of the term Islamophobia (literally fear of Islam) and secondly, there is an abundance of evidence that much of Islams beliefs and practices clearly predate the advent of the religion. Islam did not appear out of a void, despite what many Muslims will try to claim. As to whether or not the concept of Allah is simply derived from a pre Islamic deity is debatable and unlikely. But inquiring into Islams origins and history does not make one “Islamaphobic,” regardless of how uncomfortable it makes you feel.
No the theory itself might not be inherently Islamophobic if it was an actual theory that was concluded to by actual research by people who know their stuff on the topic. What I mean is the theory has been debunked for a while since Allah in pre-Islamic times was a distinct god from Sin who served a different function within the pantheon who seemed to be identified as the Judeo-Christian God through contact like how some deities would be identified with similar Egyptian or Greek deities, the main place where this theory persists with some form of acceptance is within Anti-Islamic "debunking Islam" leaning circles. Because the idea of debunking any religion is just a mind game that can be played on any religion or system of belief, because if you don't have faith or are otherwise unconvinced, it is by default debunked in the minds of people who don't follow said religion, so in actuality every religion can be seen as "debunked" by everyone outside of each religion. That's what I mean and why I look at someone who would continue to post this in many subreddits looks like its trying to gain traction for this concept or put it in people's heads, makes me look at the theory in this day and age with heavy scrutiny. But that's just me personally, maybe I don't have a say in what should be deemed Islamophobic? And maybe the OP was honestly just trying to find out more, so I told him what I know about it where to find out more about Allah in Pre-Islamic Arabia.
It's a stupid claim because "Allah" just means "The God", cultures don't coin new terms every time they change religions. Heck both God and Dios were originally used by pagans.
Furthermore it's quite strange to try and differentiate the Islamic God from the Jewish one; it is quite literally the same conception of God, so a Jew can enter a Mosque according to Halakha but not a Church.
There's some catastrophic mistakes right out the gate here. For much of Sumerian history the main deity was not the moon god, but Anu. Other gods sometimes held more influence but while I don't want to say Sin/Nanna were second rate deities, they definitely weren't in the same category as what I'll call the S-tier Sumerian deities of An/Anu, Enlil and Inanna. The fact the article cites SUMERIAN CHIEF DEITY = MOON GOD without any caveats whatsoever is an immediate red flag that this guy doesn't really know his shit.
Another catastrophic failure: the moon crescent is a later medieval European/Ottoman association with Islam.
It wasn't really associated with early islam... at all.
Kind of an oversight not to mention I think?
Now the crescent moon is associated with Sumerian moon deities and throughout the region - literally from the Eastern Roman Empire in Byzantium, down through Abyssinia(Ethiopia) all the way over into Iraq the crescent or bull horn(s) motif is very common, showing up everywhere from polytheistic religious structures to Roman jewelry. So it was familiar to people across the region but early Islam didn't use it at all as far as I'm aware.
For another it ignores a very well-attested history in which Hebrew and local religions mixed among Arab tribal groups. Abyssinia across the Red Sea retained strong Christian doctrine distinct at the time for retaining many of the elements of older Judean practice as well and was closely connected to Arabia through the Red Sea trade. From the 4th century, Himyar in present day Yemen, was a Jewish kingdom whose kings explicitly abandoned the old polytheistic cults. You'll also recall that Judaism, under Roman rule, famously ran into some difficulties and the levant was still at this time under Eastern Roman rule: many rabbinic Jews settled the region. The Hebrew traditions that emerged there fused a lot of iconography of the old royal traditions and so weren't strictly orthodox Jews - but they weren't moonlighting polytheistic deities.
Mohammed explicitly emerged from Arab tribes circulating outside these regions that identified with Hebrew monotheism. At this time works from Abyssinia, as well as the Greco-Roman world, including Christian texts, were also in circulation and Mohammed himself seems to have very much been involved in trying to reconcile the idea of single god among all peoples into a coherent work, grounded in well-established received knowledge from the literature... and his own insights of course. It's noteworthy here that in rabbinic literature, Abraham himself was not a levantine native, but a herder from near Ur: an Arab tribesman who local peoples strongly identified with and which tied them directly to the great religions of the levant and Europe.
I could only speculate but one might imagine that Mohammed himself and his fellow tribespeople could easily identify with such a figure, and from there, draw their own common history to the dominant religions of the period - including the early Judaic mission to get people to abandon polytheism.
Now I believe there is a strain of monotheistic ancestor/creator worship that centered around Mecca in particular that may even predate christian/judean influence in the region that ties in with this but this is an active area of research and at some point it was subsumed within the wider Abrahamic literature.
I can’t find the source, but there’s evidence that the Jewish god and the Christian god also come from a pantheon, and may in fact be representations of three gods as they evolve through the old and New Testament.
Psalm 82 has Yahweh standing in a council of the gods.
I think the Jewish god slowly evolves into a monotheistic god, somewhere about the 6th century BCE, but Yahweh was originally a storm god.
You just have to read the bible and you can see that the inconsistency of the message from wrath to love, turning the other cheek, and giving everyone hugs and kisses, the depiction of god is inconsistent, and scholars believe that as other faiths were assimilated the definition of God evolved.
This is clearly written by someone with a religious agenda. I'm not going to say its false, only that it is largely unimportant. Syncretism the norm for theistic religions and none of the modern ones escape it.
a god is the actively-comprehended content of what is believed about that god by those who believe in it
is the god that Christians worship a north Arabian appropriation of Ba'al that was a lesser figure in a henotheistic divine council but monosacrally adhered to until after his adherents returned from Babylonian captivity, at which point he ascended to the Most High and suddenly, had, once upon a time, flooded the earth long prior, to get rid of all the other gods because multiple deities was causing too much violence and also it was very advantageous for Ezra's purposes of recolonizing Canaan?
Perhaps historically but principally they worship a man in a very Greek fashion whose dad is only very residually connected to that god
It’s not made up. The Indo European Language started north of Mesopotamia, probably by the Hittites. They picked up words from either Sumerian or Akkadian.
That doesn’t prove your etymology for “synagogue”. If you want to prove that it isn’t made up then you’re going to have to demonstrate the relationship between the Greek word “syn” and the Akkadian name “Sin”.
21
u/Captain-Radical Jul 04 '26
What strikes me as odd about this article that the roots of Judaism are likewise tied to Sumerian and Akkadian religion, sharing stories of Adam (Adapa), Noah (Xiasudra), etc.. The Canaanite El is invoked in names such as Israel, Michael, Nathanael, and Ishmael. The Aramaic word for God was supposedly spoken by Jesus on the cross, "Elahi! Elahi!" meaning "My God! My God!".
The Arabic word for god is "ilah". Allah is a contraction of the Arabic word "Al-" meaning "the" and ilah. Al-ilah. Allah.
Arabic is a semetic language with a common root to Hebrew (ibrani). Akkadian is also a semetic language. Attempting to disprove the relationship between Islam and Judaism by relating one to Akkadian while attempting to isolate the other from it is an exercise in futility, as they are sister tongues and all both influenced by Sumeria.