by Pam Uher

Created on: February 21, 2010

During ancient times the people and cultures of Mesopotamia and the people of Southern Arabia blended and shared the many deities of their polytheistic religions. The Arabian culture changed the gender and associated symbols in many cases as new deities emerged and evolved over time. Archeologists, etymologists and historians have traced through artifacts and shrines, how the Mesopotamian gods and goddesses blended into Arabian life and new similar deities with new names developed and became integral in their beliefs.

The Arabian Pre Islamic god Anbay is a lesser deity with similar attributes to deities from other ancient cultures such as: Thoth an Egyptian deity, Hermes a Greek deity and Mercury a Roman deity. Anbay is often associated in tandem with Nabu (“the harbinger”); “related to that of the Babylonian Nabu-Mercury, the god of fate and science and the spokesman of the gods…”. 1 Various references cite Anbay and Haukim (Haukan) representing the “twin connected gods - gods of command and decision”.2  It is common to find ancient experts referring to Anbay and Nabu in tandem where Anbay is the “God of Justice & an Oracular Source” and Nabu is the “harbinger” wise one. Although, Amm and Anbay were foremost “Moon-Gods”, as the tribes and culture of southern Arabia honored the moon and centered their ‘calendar’ on lunar cycles.

Further exploration of the role Anbay played in Pre-Islamic southern Arabian religiosity reveals this deity was considered the “mouthpiece for the “god of the moon” Amm (“He who waxes”).

The significance of Anbay as a lesser deity of Pre-Islamic religious belief may not just involve his pantheon status within the realm of ancient polytheism, but revolves around the fact that when Muhammad changed the religious focus to monotheism the pagan belief in many gods (Anbay included) faded away.

If Muhammad had lived somewhere other than Arabia, Amm as spoken through, Anbay might still be a central deity of reverence and perhaps the Middle East socio-political turmoil over religiosity would not be a critical world issue.

It has also been conjectured that the people of southern Arabia might have kept and developed a faith of “moon-o-theism” (Yoel Natan, 2006), had it not been for the rise of Islam and the belief in Allah.

Ultimately in our modern world of academic exploration and thought the revisionist thinking explicated today sees the possibility that Allah is a progressive ever evolving reformation of the “moon-god” deity and symbol from Pre-Islamic times. Thus, Islam has pagan origins, not unlike Christianity. It is not just a divinely inspired faith. Plus it seems to have a connection to astrological practices, as depicted from ancient artifacts of the era, being uncovered at modern digs, exemplify. This gives further credibility when connecting Allah to Pre Islamic “moon-god” deities, such as Anbay (the moon god of the Qataban people).

The significance of Anbay to present Muslim and Christian religious beliefs seems to deserve an in-depth investigation, in light of new perspectives arising from modern interpretation of new archelogicial evidence from the ancient world.

www.britannica.com www.britannica.com

www.joel.info/moonotheism.htm

www.scribd.com

Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Michael Jordan, 2nd Edition

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