Goddess of the Black Stone Alby Stone Bob Trubshaw's article on the Black Stone of Mecca was of great

interest to myself, as I had already seen Rufus Camphausen's original article on The Ka'bah at Mecca, and already had something of an interest in the sub ect! Camphausen, and now Bob Trubshaw, ha"e done us all a great ser"ice by bringing this material to our attention in an accessible form, and presenting what is basically a strong and coherent case for the original pagan conte#t of the Black Stone$ but it is also apparent that there is a good deal more that could be said on the sub ect! Indeed, there are a number of points that really must be made, particularly with regard to the goddess Al'Lat, whose identity % and those of her old Meccan companions,Al'Uzza and Manat % is perhaps not as clear%cut as Rufus Camphausen has asserted, and as Bob Trubshaw has reported! There are more connections to be made, and these show the goddess of the Black Stone in a rather different light! &f especial interest is the e#planation of the Beni Shaybah, the imams who attend the sacred structure, as 'Sons of the &ld 'oman', the old lady in (uestion supposedly being the )ueen of Sheba! *ny connection with an authentic, historical )ueen of Sheba is debatable, but in "iew of the tradition it is worth pointing out that the +ebrew sheba' can mean either 'se"en' or 'oath'! The Biblical place%name Beer-sheba is literally 'the well of se"en', the well in (uestion being dug by *braham and where he made a peace%treaty with *bimelech! *braham ga"e se"en ewe%lambs to seal the pact, and the place was named to commemorate the e"ent! The well is said to ha"e been reopened by Isaac, who renamed it Shibah, which ust happens to be the feminine form of the numeralsheba'! Interestingly, the site is now said to ha"e se"en wells! The name gi"en by *braham thus seems to ha"e been a play on the +ebrew words for 'se"en' and 'oath'! The sacred comple# at Mecca has the holy well Zamzam, of course! That the Semitic tribes associated oath%taking with the number se"en is confirmed by +erodotus, writing in the fifth century BC,, who reports that *rabs solemnised oaths between two men by enlisting the ser"ices of a third, who 'stands between them and with a sharp stone cuts the palms of their hands!!!then he takes a little tuft of wool from their clothes, dips it in the blood and smears the blood on se"en stones which lie between them, in"oking as he does so, the names of -ionysus and .rania'! +erodotus identifies the latter as Alilat, who is undoubtedly the same goddess formerly "enerated at Mecca as Al'Lat /01! It seems rele"ant that the sanctity of treaties made at the Ka'bah is stressed in the Koran /2341, where e"en co"enants made with infidels are to be honoured3 '5od and +is apostle repose no trust in idolaters, sa"e those with whom you ha"e made treaties at the Sacred Mos(ue! So long as they keep faith with you, keep faith with them! 5od lo"es the righteous!'

There were, in pagan times, se"en priestesses at site of the Black Stone, who circled it se"en times, naked! Today, the tawaf, the se"enfold counterclockwise circuit of the Ka'bah, is a memory of that ancient practice! But the older practice is itself a strong echo of the descent of the Sumerian goddess Inanna 6and her Babylonian e(ui"alent Ishtar7 through the se"en gates of the underworld, the gatekeepers demanding the remo"al of a garment at each gate until she stands naked before her elder sister ,reshkigal, ')ueen of the 5reat ,arth', the goddess of death and the underworld! *nother name for ,reshkigal is Allatu, 'the goddess', which is clearly an earlier form ofAl'Lat/Alilat! This suggests that, far from being a moon%goddess, Al'Latis actually the goddess of the underworld, who could indeed be fittingly described as the '&ld 'oman'! I do not myself subscribe to the idea of three%phase moon goddesses of the maiden%mother%hag model popularised by the likes of Robert 5ra"es /81, but in the case of Al'Latand her sisters there is a definite argument against it % although the reported e"idence is contradictory and confusing! In his introduction to the 9enguin edition of theKoran, translator :!;! -awood says that Al'Lat, Al'Uzza, and Manat 'represented the Sun, <enus, and =ortune respecti"ely' />1 % but I ha"e also seen Allat described as a representation of <enus /?1, and she once had a temple in the precinct de"oted to the sun%god Shamash in +atra, Ira( /@1! In early Mesopotamian art, the only hea"enly bodies regularly shown as a group were the triad of Sun, Moon, and <enus, the three most important celestial lights$ and in Sumer and early Babylon the sun and moon were represented mainly by a male di"inity, though elsewhere in the Semitic world the moon was usually regarded as feminine! Al'Uzza and Manat are less easily traced to a more archaic source! Their names % 'the Strong' and '-estiny' respecti"ely % suggest abstract forces rather than natural ob ects! If the three 'daughters of *llah' /41 are personifications of any natural phenomena, then one is surely the ,arth 6 Al'Lat A Allatu A ,reshkigal7$ the others are of uncertain pedigree! But there is also a strong chance that their form and function were influenced by the banat, the three daughters of Baal, the supreme deity of the Canaanites! They symbolised light, rain, and earth /B1! *t 9etra, the :abataeans "enerated a four%sided stone named after *llat /C1, whose son -usura 6in their system7 is a "ersion of TammuDE-umuDiE-u'uDi, the "egetation god characterised by a seasonal death and resurrection, who dwells in the underworld for half the year! +is full name in Sumerian is umu-zi-abzu, 'faithful son of the abyssal waters' % a rough but appropriate rendering of abzu, which denotes the spaces below the earth as well as the primal waters! -umuDiETammuD, of course, was the reason for InannaEIshtar descending to *llatu's realm in the first place, according to nearly e"ery "ersion of the myth! &nce there, the Mesopotamian <enus lies about the reason for her "isit, so breaking the 'law of the underworld which must be fulfilled', and is sentenced to death by the Anunna!i, the se"en udges of the underworld! Abzu6later3 A"su7, was the natural home of the Sebettu, the se"en sages associated by Babylonians with the foundation of culture and the se"en ma or cities of the region!

*ll this fits in well with Islamic and pagan *rab traditions concerning the Black Stone and its precincts! By word%play, the Beni Shaybah are at once the Sons of the &ld 'oman, the Sons of the Se"en, and the Sons of the &ath$ they are also the successors of the se"en sky%clad ser"itors of *l'Fat, whose Babylonian predecessor ruled the se"enfold palace of the underworld$ and of the se"enAnunna!i! Fike many e#amples of the a#is mun$i, the Black Stone has a sacred well nearby, and is associated with oath%taking! The )ueen of Sheba, bearing in mind the lore associated with Beer%sheba, takes on further significance3 tradition has it that she was black, and of $%inn ancestry % in other words, she was a di"ine being in her own right, possibly e"en a hypostasis of Al'Lat herself! *s for &'re3 the identification with Kore 6a title of 9ersephone7 is a familiar notion, but one that is almost certainly mistaken! In 5reek, !ore can denote a girl, and!oros a boy$ the word actually comes from the same Indo%,uropean stem as a number of other words meaning 'to grow', and denotes more or less the same thing % an increase in siDe! *ny phonetic similarity between &'re andKore is coincidental, but oddly fortuitous if the former is an aspect or title of Al'Lat3 9ersephone, 'bringer of destruction', is )ueen of the .nderworld in 5reek myth, daughter of -emeter, who represents the earth as mother! 9ersephone's son is Triptolemos, who resembles TammuDE-umuDi! ,ssentially, -emeter and 9ersephone are effecti"ely twin aspects of the earth % mother and gra"e of all % and ha"e no real connection with the moon whatsoe"er! +ekate, who figures in their myth, cas indeed be seen as a representation of the moon, but is in herself a triad of maleficent, nocturnal entities$ she is (uite separate from 9ersephone and -emeter! The supposed triad of Gore, -emeter, and +ekate is a relati"ely modern in"ention, with no real foundation in ancient 5reek myth or iconography! Fittle of this affects Bob Trubshaw's reading of Camphausen's analysis, other than to suggest that worship of the moon is probably not as dominant in the pre% Islamic Meccan schema as Camphausen thinks! There is always a chance that Al'Lat did become linked with a lunar cult at some point, but little e"idence to suggest that she or her sisters were moon%goddesses! &n the whole, the pattern presented here suggests that Al'Latis essentially a chthonic mother% goddess, a deity of the underworld also associated with fidelity and co"enants % a later form of ,reshkigal, who has retained many of her older attributes, albeit in a slightly distorted form! *fter Mecca and Medina, the third most holy site of Islam is surely the -ome of the Rock on Temple Mount in ;erusalem! &ne reason for this is undoubtedly the influence of ;udaic and Christian monotheism upon Mohammed's early teachings /21$ but another ma or reason for it is probably the fact that in the -ome of the Rock is the 'ben Shetiyyah, a flat, yellow%brown, asymmetrical rock belie"ed by many ;ews to be, as its name implies, the 'Stone of =oundation', around which 5od built the world, and which was used as the pedestal of the *rk of the Co"enant! The *rk, as is well known, was a symbol of the +ebrews' communal pact with 5od$ it was also used as a weapon in the destruction of ;ericho, an e"ent replete with se"ens$ and it contained the two stone tablets engra"ed with

the Faw % which ha"e been roundly e(uated with baetyls by a number of Biblical scholars, and sometimes presumed to ha"e been of meteoric origin! Beneath the 'ben Shetiyyah is a deep hollow known to Muslims as Bir-el-Arweh, the 'ell of Souls! In ;ewish lore, the 'ben Shetiyyah rests upon and keeps in place the waters of the *byss 6that is, abzu7! &ne ;ewish tradition has it that -a"id dug the foundations of the Temple at ;erusalem, and disco"ered the 'ben Shetiyyah during his e#ca"ations! 'hen he tried to remo"e the stone, the waters of the *byss began to well up! This parallels the Islamic tradition that has Mohammed casting down an idol that stood in the sacred comple# at Mecca! *ccording to the tradition, this idol was blocking a well inside the Ka'bah, and the waters began to flow from that moment! Supposedly, the idol represented a deity named (ubal, which seems to be a "ersion of the name of the goddess who was known elsewhere as Kybele, and who was "enerated in 9hrygia in the form of a stone, a black aerolite that was presented to Rome in 8H? BC, by Ging *ttalus /0H1! Gnowing that the *rabs habitually worshipped stones as representations of their di"inities, it seems probable that the idol (ubal was a stone, perhaps of celestial pro"enance! Interestingly, the goddess )a'ila % one of a "eritable host of di"inities "enerated at the Meccan site % supposedly appeared in the form of a black woman at the time Mohammed destroyed the idols, and ran screaming from the sacred place!

References 03 +erodotus, trans! *!R Burn 68nd ed!, +armondsworth, 02B87 The (istories, pp! 8H@%4! 83 *! Stone 6022H7, 'Robert 5ra"es and the Triple 5oddess3 * Modern Myth', in Tal!in* Stic! 8! >3 :!;! -awood, trans! 6@th ed!, +armondsworth, 022H7, The Koran, p! 0! ?3 9! Masson%&ursel and Fouise Morin, 'Mythology of *ncient 9ersia', in )ew Larousse 'ncyclo"e$ia of Mytholo*y 68nd ed!, Fondon, 024C7, p! >8>! @3 5eorges Rou# 6>rd ed!, +armondsworth, 02287, Ancient +ra,, p! ?8H! 43 Islamic oral tradition 6al-(a$ith3 'the Talk'7 has it that Mohammed's original re"elation endorsed the idea that the three were goddesses, but he later disowned this as a false teaching inspired by Satan! See Mircea ,liade 6Chicago, 02C@7, A (istory of -eli*ious +$eas, "ol! >, p! 4C! B3 Cyrus +! 5ordon 602407, 'Canaanite Mythology', in S!:! Gramer 6ed!7, Mytholo*ies of the Ancient .orl$, pp! 024%B! C3 *rthur Cotterell 6Fondon, 02B27, A ictionary of .orl$ Mytholo*y, p! 8?! 23 ;erusalem was chosen as the first ,iblah or point of orientation for Islamic prayer, replaced by Mecca following a new re"elation in 48? C,! The 9rophet also claimed that *braham and Ishmael had built the Ka'bah, which was thus a Temple more ancient than that of ;erusalem 6Koran, 83088, 0?8, 0??7! The new ,iblah and foundation%legend effecti"ely constituted a restructuring of Islamic cosmology, a formal break with the ;udaic tradition that had influenced

Mohammed's monotheism, and a re"ision of the traditions of *rab paganism! 0H3 =ranD Cumont 6Fondon, 02007, /riental -eli*ions in -oman 0a*anism, pp! ?4% B