Indian Antiquary Vol 12

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 11

JANUARY, 1883.)
THE ORACLE OF HUBAL.
to war, concluding & treaty, starting on a was believed to have the power of sending rain. journey, entering a state of matrimony, ascer. Once more, Pocock mentions that this idol is taining the guilty party in a murder, tracinga! supposed by some to have been the one known person's genealogy, and such-like." Before in Arabian literature as 'the Image of Abraham,' the operation of drawing the arrows began, the which was among the idols demolished by applicants had to offer to Hubal the following Muhammad when he cleansed the Ka'ba' of petition :- O divinity, the desire to know such idolatry in the eighth year of the Hajira. or such a thing has brought us to thee. Make This was the opinion of Abu'l-Fida, who expressus to know the truth !" Having consulted ly states that the image of Abraham occupied the oracle, persons were expected to take action the chief place in the Ka'ba, and that he was upon the information or advice thus received. represented by Huba 1. Hishami says that
The question as to whom this idol Hubal among the images and pictures that covered was supposed to represent, elicits information of the walls of the Ka'ba was a figure of Abraham some interest. The learned Dr. Pocock, whose in the act of divining by arrows. If this was Specimen Historic Arabum has not yet been not Hubal, there were more deities than one surpassed as the ultimate authority in critical who divined by arrows; and if it was, how questions relating to Arabia and Islam, derives happens it that this image was inside the Ka'ba, the name of it from the Hebrew by habba'al and the image of Hubal outside ? It has to be or 57 habbel, -and, by ignoring the vowel
borne in mind, however, that much of this, points, suggests the appropriateness of 5
rinteness of ban though it is all of it from the best sources, is in hevel, vanity !" Among the Arabe, H u bal
great measure conjectural, -H u bal remains appears to have had a double character, in a mystery :" as to the actual identity of the which respect he resembled the Syrian idol
idol, its history and origin, and the etymology Baal (properly, Ba'al), who was regarded both of its name, no satisfactory knowledge exists." as the founder of the Babylonian empire, and We may add that this practice of divining as the Sun personified as a deity. The by arrows was followed not only by the Arabe, opinion that Hubal was the same as the Baby. but also by the ancient Greeks and other lonian or Syrian idol Ba'al or Bél, or synony- nations of ancient times. It is, moreover, mous with it, is in fact supported by the particularly mentioned in Scripture: for eramtestimony of the Arabian authorities, who relate ple, in Exck. xxi. 21-23 we read, that it was originally brought from Syria or | The king of Babylon stood at the parting Mesopotamia. Of course, the Arabian writers of the way, at the head of the two ways, to do not maintain that H u bal was identical with use divination. He made bright his arrows," he Ba'al: they admit, however, that it was an consulted with images, he looked into the liver. astronomical deity, which Ba'al also is believed At his right hand was the divination for to have been,-whose designation, by the way, Jerusalem, -to appoint captains, to open the like that of the sun' among ourselves, always mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice appears with the article-Habba'a l.' with shouting, to appoint battering-rams against Further, Herodotus (and after him, Rawlinson), the gates, to cast up & mound, to build a fort. held the opinion that I abal was the Jupiter And it shall be unto them as a false divination of the Arabians, '* -presumably because he in their sight --to them that have sworn oaths :
* Pocock, Specimen, p. 327 seqq. ; D'Herbelot, Biblio.. **Rawlinson, Herodotus, vol. I, p. 318; Smith, Dictionthique Orientale, Art. ACDAH Sale, Prel. Disc. p. 90; ary of the Bible, Art. BAAL ; Burokhardt, Arabia, vol. I, De Percival, Histoire des Arabes, tome I, p. 265; Muir, p. 300; Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 184. Life of Mahomet, vol. I, p. oclvi. W&qidi and Abd Hatim * Pocock, Specímen, pp. 98-9. severally mention a tradition of Ibn Zama'ah to the effect 60 Arnold, Iolim and Christianity, p. 27; conf. Forster, that when Muhammad was an infant, his grandfather Mohammetaniem Unveiled, vol. II, p. 409. Abdu'l-Muttalib took him into the interior of the Ka'ba 1 Muir, Life of Mahomet, vol. IV, p. 128; Hishamt, and standing before the idol Hubal, thanked God and in- p. 364. Arnold, Islam and Christianity, p. 97. voked His blessing upon the infant. (Conf. Sprenger, Life 6 Pocock, Specimen, p. 98. The curious reader may of Mohammad, p. 76.) We thus learn another of the uses follow up the subject in Lenormant, Chaldean Magic and of Hubal, and what was its position in Mubammad's time. Sorcery, pp. 133-4 (edn. Lond. 1877) and his Letters As
- De Percival, Histoire des Arabes, tome I, p. 266; syriologiques, tome II, pp. 164-178. Strata-r-Rash, fol. 23; Journal Asiatique (Sept. 1838), * Potter, Antiquities of Greece, vol. I, p. 384; Sale, p. 297. Pocock, Specimen, pp. 97-8.
Prel. Disc. p. 90. " Arnold, Islam and Christianity, p. 17. Ibid.
Made bright his arrow,' that is, the Vulgate " Smith, Dictionary of the Bible, Art. BAAL (edn. has it, mixed them together or shook them (preparatory Lond. 1863)
to throwing).