Hubal in the Wor­ship of Pre-Islam­ic Arab Consciousness

It has always been the mis­sion­ary tra­di­tion to jump from one nefar­i­ous claim to anoth­er in try­ing to ascer­tain the nature of ​“Allah”. We have pre­vi­ous­ly shown some of the more com­mon the­o­ries that they prop­a­gate, rang­ing from Allah^(T) being the ​“moon god” to al-Raḥmān being a term for ​“pome­gran­ate”. A recent mis­sion­ary alle­ga­tion has also been hurled against a beatif­ic salu­ta­tion of the Prophet Muham­mad ﷺ. Now a new pos­tu­la­tion has been advanced, name­ly that ​“Allah” is syn­ony­mous with the pagan god Hubal of pre-Islam­ic Makkah.

Before address­ing this claim, it is use­ful to out­line how idol­a­try func­tioned in pre-Islam­ic Arabia :

Every tribe had a dif­fer­ent idol which it wor­shiped. Gen­er­al­ly, objects of wor­ship belonged to three gen­res : met­al and wood­en stat­ues, stone stat­ues, and shape­less mass­es of stone which one tribe or anoth­er con­se­crat­ed because its ori­gin was thought to be heav­en­ly, where­as in real­i­ty it was only a piece of vol­canic or mete­oric rock.¹

Thus, it is acknowl­edged that each Arab tribe pos­sessed its own prin­ci­pal cult image. With regard to Hubal, it is com­mon­ly report­ed that :

Hubal was the great­est mem­ber of the Arab pan­theon and resided in Makkah, inside the Ka’bah. Pil­grims came to its shrine from all cor­ners.²

In poly­the­is­tic set­tings, terms such as ​“chief” or ​“great­est” often denote cul­tic or shrine promi­nence rather than meta­phys­i­cal suprema­cy, and there­fore can­not estab­lish iden­ti­ty between a rit­u­al idol and a tran­scen­dent cre­ator-deity. How­ev­er, Hubal’s promi­nence does not resolve the ques­tion of his iden­ti­ty. To eval­u­ate the mis­sion­ary claim that Hubal was Allah, we must exam­ine Hubal’s ori­gin and cul­tic role.

The Nature and Ori­gin of Hubal

Tra­di­tion­al his­tor­i­cal sources asso­ciate Hubal with an exter­nal ori­gin, rather than as an indige­nous Ara­bi­an high deity. Mar­tin Lings notes :

So ​‘Abd al-Mut­tal­ib con­tin­ued to dig with­out any actu­al move being made to stop him ; and some of the peo­ple were already leav­ing the sanc­tu­ary when sud­den­ly he struck the well’s stone cov­er­ing and uttered a cry of thanks­giv­ing to God. The crowd reassem­bled and increased ; and when he began to dig out the trea­sure which Jurhum had buried there, every­one claimed the right to share in it. ​‘Abd al-Mut­tal­ib agreed that lots should be cast for each object, as to whether it should be kept in the sanc­tu­ary or go to him per­son­al­ly or be divid­ed amongst the tribe. This had become the recog­nised way of decid­ing an issue of doubt, and it was done by means of divin­ing arrows inside the Ka’bah, in front of the Moabite idol Hubal…³

This sup­ports the long­stand­ing tra­di­tion that Hubal was import­ed from the Lev­an­tine or Mesopotami­an cul­tur­al sphere, rather than being iden­ti­cal with the supreme deity rec­og­nized by the Arabs.

Philip K. Hit­ti fur­ther observes :

Hubal (from Aram. for vapour, spir­it), evi­dent­ly the chief deity of al-Ka’bah, was rep­re­sent­ed in human form. Beside him stood rit­u­al arrows used for div­ina­tion by the sooth­say­er (kahin, from Ara­ma­ic) who drew lots by means of them. The tra­di­tion in ibn-Hisham, which makes ​‘Amr ibn-Luhayy the importer of this idol from Moab or Mesopotamia, may have a ker­nel of truth in so far as it retains a mem­o­ry of the Ara­ma­ic ori­gin of the deity. At the con­quest of Makkah by Muham­mad, Hubal shared the lot of the oth­er idols and was destroyed.⁴

Ref­er­ences to Hubal in ear­ly sīrah and his­tor­i­cal lit­er­a­ture describe cul­tic con­sul­ta­tion and div­ina­tion prac­tice, not the­o­log­i­cal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with Allah, nor recog­ni­tion of Hubal as a cre­ator-deity. Rit­u­al invo­ca­tion does not con­sti­tute nam­ing iden­ti­ty. Mod­ern schol­ar­ship rein­forces this his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry of Hubal as a rit­u­al stat­ue asso­ci­at­ed with div­ina­tion, rather than a supreme cre­ator-god. John F. Healey notes that Hubal’s for­eign impor­ta­tion helps explain why he was nev­er inte­grat­ed into the divine fam­i­ly con­cept sur­round­ing Allah, who remained ani­con­ic even in pre-Islam­ic Mecca :

“There was a tra­di­tion­al aware­ness of Hubal hav­ing been import­ed from Syr­ia, Tran­sjor­dan or Mesopotamia, which part­ly explains why Hubal is not inte­grat­ed into the divine fam­i­ly of Allah (an ani­con­ic deity even in pre-Islam­ic Mec­ca).”⁵

This dis­tinc­tion is deci­sive : Hubal func­tioned as a cult stat­ue tied to div­ina­tion, while Allah exist­ed in Arab con­scious­ness as a tran­scen­dent, non-icon­ic high deity.

Thus, the asser­tion that Hubal and Allah were one and the same lacks his­tor­i­cal, the­o­log­i­cal, and con­cep­tu­al foundation.

The Fal­la­cy of Equat­ing Hubal With Allah

The mis­sion­ary argu­ment rests on a flawed syllogism :

• Hubal was a promi­nent idol at the Kaʿbah
• Allah was acknowl­edged as a high God among the Quraysh
• There­fore Hubal = Allah

This infer­ence col­laps­es under scruti­ny. Cul­tic promi­nence does not estab­lish the­o­log­i­cal iden­ti­ty, nor does rit­u­al cen­tral­i­ty imply meta­phys­i­cal suprema­cy. A sanc­tu­ary may con­tain a wide­ly con­sult­ed idol while the broad­er reli­gious world­view retains a sep­a­rate, tran­scen­dent high-God who is not embod­ied in any mate­r­i­al form.

Pre-Islam­ic Ara­bi­an reli­gion oper­at­ed on dis­tinct con­cep­tu­al lay­ers. Idols func­tioned as rit­u­al inter­me­di­aries — objects of peti­tion, div­ina­tion, and trib­al sym­bol­ism — while Allah was invoked as cre­ator, sus­tain­er, oath-wit­ness, and supreme arbiter, par­tic­u­lar­ly in moments of exis­ten­tial per­il. The Qur’an pre­serves this his­tor­i­cal real­i­ty by repeat­ed­ly not­ing that the pagan Arabs acknowl­edged Allah as Cre­ator, even while wrong­ly asso­ci­at­ing oth­er beings with Him.⁶

Most deci­sive­ly, no pri­ma­ry source iden­ti­fies Hubal as Allah. No inscrip­tion, pre-Islam­ic poem, oath-for­mu­la, genealog­i­cal tra­di­tion, cul­tic invo­ca­tion, or ear­ly his­tor­i­cal tes­ti­mo­ny records the Mec­ca­ns call­ing Hubal ​“Allah.” Hubal con­sis­tent­ly appears in the sources as a cult stat­ue tied to div­ina­tion prac­tices, where­as Allah appears as an ani­con­ic, tran­scen­dent deity, invoked with­out phys­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Even if a divine title could the­o­ret­i­cal­ly be used in mul­ti­ple con­texts, his­tor­i­cal iden­ti­ty requires attest­ed usage rather than spec­u­la­tive lin­guis­tic pos­si­bil­i­ty. The absence of evi­dence is there­fore deci­sive, not incidental.

The mis­sion­ary the­sis there­fore rests not on evi­dence, but on cat­e­go­ry con­fu­sion — conflating :

• rit­u­al promi­nence with divine supremacy
• cul­tic func­tion with meta­phys­i­cal identity
• idol ven­er­a­tion with the­o­log­i­cal monotheism

With­out explic­it his­tor­i­cal proof that Hubal was ever called Allah, the pro­posed iden­ti­ty remains spec­u­la­tive and log­i­cal­ly inde­fen­si­ble. The bur­den of proof lies on those assert­ing equiv­a­lence, and that bur­den remains unmet.

It has been alleged that this posi­tion leaves Mus­lims ​“trapped” between con­ced­ing that Allah is mere­ly a gener­ic label for any deity or con­tra­dict­ing them­selves regard­ing whether Jews, Chris­tians, and pagans wor­ship the same God. This charge rests on a false dilem­ma. Rec­og­niz­ing that dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties may intend the one true Cre­ator while hold­ing dis­tort­ed or incom­plete con­cep­tions of Him does not imply that Allah is a gener­ic name applic­a­ble to idols, nor that dis­tinct false gods are there­by iden­ti­cal with Him. Mis­con­cep­tion about God does not cre­ate a new deity, and seman­tic flex­i­bil­i­ty does not sub­sti­tute for his­tor­i­cal evi­dence. The present argu­ment con­cerns his­tor­i­cal iden­ti­ty — and no evi­dence exists that Hubal was ever called or under­stood to be Allah.

Quraysh and Their Recog­ni­tion of Allah

Despite their devi­a­tion into idol­a­try, it is his­tor­i­cal­ly attest­ed that the Quraysh nev­er lost aware­ness of Allah as a supreme Lord. As one schol­ar observes, they con­tin­ued to invoke Allah in times of per­il and regard­ed Him as the ulti­mate cre­ator.⁷ Hence it is clear that there is noth­ing in the mis­sion­ary dia­tribe that ​“seri­ous­ly dam­ages the Mus­lim claim regard­ing Allah in pre-Islam­ic times being the same God of Abra­ham” nor does the missionary’s reliance on Psalms or cir­cu­lar rea­son­ing con­sti­tute evi­dence link­ing Allah with Hubal. What is obvi­ous­ly clear from the evi­dence we have pre­sent­ed is that it is the wor­ship of Hubal that was lat­er import­ed into the present beliefs of the Makkans who had ear­li­er already acknowl­edged the exis­tence of Allah as the Only God. 

Mod­ern schol­ar­ship con­firms this :

“The Mec­ca­ns already believed in Allah as a cre­ator god before Islam, even though they also ven­er­at­ed less­er deities.”⁸

This aligns with the Qurʾānic cri­tique of shirk : not denial of Allah’s exis­tence, but the erro­neous asso­ci­a­tion of idols along­side Him. If Hubal had tru­ly been Allah, it would be inex­plic­a­ble why :

• Allah was nev­er rep­re­sent­ed by an idol
• Hubal remained a dis­tinct cult object
• The Qurʾān polemi­cized against idols while affirm­ing Allah’s transcendence

Indeed, Islam has iden­ti­fied itself with the oth­er Semit­ic reli­gions (Judaism and Chris­tian­i­ty) and called upon them in these words :

“Say [O Prophet]: ​‘O Peo­ple of the Book ! Let us come togeth­er on a fair and noble prin­ci­ple com­mon to both of us, nev­er to wor­ship or serve aught but God, nev­er to asso­ciate any oth­er being with Him, and nev­er to take one anoth­er as Lords besides God.“⁹

This reflects the prin­ci­ple of reli­gio nat­u­ralis : the innate human recog­ni­tion of a sin­gu­lar supreme Cre­ator, cor­rupt­ed by lat­er idol-associations.

As for the missionary’s tan­gen­tial polemic regard­ing Ar-Raḥmān, it remains irrel­e­vant to the ques­tion of Hubal and is addressed else­where.

Con­clu­sion

In light of his­tor­i­cal sources, Qur’anic the­ol­o­gy, and mod­ern schol­ar­ship, the claim that Allah was Hubal is unten­able. Hubal appears as a rit­u­al idol of for­eign ori­gin, asso­ci­at­ed with div­ina­tion, while Allah was rec­og­nized — even before Islam — as a tran­scen­dent, ani­con­ic supreme deity. The mis­sion­ary the­sis rests not on evi­dence, but on cat­e­go­ry con­fu­sion, spec­u­la­tive ety­mol­o­gy, and unsup­port­ed infer­ence. The mis­sion­ary case relies on lay­ered infer­ence rather than direct his­tor­i­cal attes­ta­tion, sub­sti­tut­ing con­jec­ture for doc­u­men­tary proof. Pos­si­bil­i­ty is repeat­ed­ly treat­ed as evi­dence — a method­olog­i­cal­ly inde­fen­si­ble move in his­tor­i­cal inquiry.

It is inter­est­ing to note that despite the prop­a­ga­tion of this ridicu­lous the­o­ry that Allah = Hubal, the mis­sion­ary still felt it fit to put up the fol­low­ing ​“dis­claimer” in his Adden­dum section :

Hence, even if the Quran­ic men­tion of Baal turns out to be a ref­er­ence to Hubal, this would only show that Muham­mad dis­as­so­ci­at­ed Allah from Hubal by turn­ing the for­mer into the true uni­ver­sal God.

It is an obvi­ous escape tac­tic for some­one who was nev­er sure about the ​“posi­tion” of Hubal in the wor­ship of pre-Islam­ic con­scious­ness and want­ed to leave the back door open if any­thing ​“dis­as­trous” hap­pens to the the­o­ry he prop­a­gates. Well, the dis­as­ter has cer­tain­ly arrived !

And only Allah knows best — for He alone is wor­thy of worship.

Last Updat­ed on Jan­u­ary 28, 2026 by Bis­mi­ka Allahu­ma Team

1. M.H. Haykal, The Life of Muham­mad (transl. Isma’il R. al Faruqi), p. 20[⤶]
2. Haykal, ibid.[⤶]
3. Mar­tin Lings, Muham­mad : His Life Based on the Ear­li­est Sources, p. 11[⤶]
4. Philip K. Hit­ti, His­to­ry of the Arabs, p. 100[⤶]
5. John F. Healey, The Reli­gion of the Nabataeans : A Con­spec­tus (Brill, 2001), p. 130[⤶]
6. cf. Qur’an 29:61 ; 31:25 ; 39:38[⤶]
7. Refer to M. Mohar Ali, Sir­at al-Nabi and the Ori­en­tal­ists, Vol. 1A, p. 74 for the full dis­cus­sion.[⤶]
8. W. Mont­gomery Watt, Muham­mad at Mec­ca, p. 26[⤶]
9. Qur’an, 3:64[⤶]