Isāf and Nāʾila

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Isāf and Nāʾila ( Arabic إساف ونائلة) were two stone idols that were worshiped in pre-Islamic Mecca . According to Arabic tradition, it is originally a man and a woman who had committed sexual immorality in the Kaaba and were therefore petrified.

Ibn al-Kalbī narrates the legend in his book of idols as follows: “They came to Mecca as pilgrims and found a lonely place in the temple and were ignored by the people. Then he fornicated her in the holy house, whereupon they were turned into two stones. "

According to the tradition of the Meccan local historian al-Azraqī († 837), the episode took place at the time when the Arab tribe of the Jurhum ruled Mecca. The two stones were then removed from the Kaaba and placed on the hills of as-Safa and al-Marwa so that people could be warned. In the course of time they were then worshiped as idols. Some scholars, such as al-Azraqī, blamed Amr ibn Luhayy, the progenitor of the Arab tribe of Chuzāʿa, who introduced idolatry in Mecca, for the worship of Isāf and Nāʾila. He called the people to their worship and justified this with the fact that their ancestors had already done this. The Quraishit Qusaiy ibn Kilāb then brought the two stones to the place Zamzam near the Kaaba so that there would be sacrifices there.

Abū Sufyān ibn Harb , the head of the ʿAbd Schams clan, made hair offerings to these idols shortly before the Muslims took Mecca, slaughtered animals for them and vowed to serve them until his death. After the Muslim occupation of the city in January 630, the two stone idols were then destroyed.

literature

  • Toufic Fahd: Le Panthéon de l'Arabie centrale à la veille de l'hégire . Paris 1968, pp. 103-107.
  • Toufiq Fahd: Art. Isāf wa-Nāʾila . In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. IV, pp. 91f.
  • Uri Rubin: The Ka'ba: aspects of its ritual functions and position in Pre-Isamic and early Islamic times . In: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam . 8 (1986) 97-131.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Ibn al-Kalbī: Kitāb al-aṣnām . Translation with introduction a. Comment from Rosa Klinke-Rosenberger. Leipzig 1941. p. 34.
  2. ↑ Cf. al-Azraqī: Achbār Makka . Ed. Desert field 49f. Available online: http://archive.org/stream/diechronikender00wsgoog#page/n514/mode/2up
  3. ↑ See Rubin 106
  4. ↑ Cf. al-Azraqī: Achbār Makka . Ed. F. Wüstenfeld p. 50. Available online: http://archive.org/stream/diechronikender00wsgoog#page/n514/mode/2up