Hello,
I saw previous post buts I was wondering if someone could answer who is familiar with pre-islamic inscriptions and not answer using hadiths.
My question is: was Allah, as a distinct god, worshiped by the ancient polytheistic Arabs? and is there proof? Even if not in arabic do we see such a thing in the languages before arabic?
From google searches all I have seen is that allah appears usually in christian contexts. Perhaps since they used aramaic as their religious language they ported allaha to allah to denote their monotheistic god.
Names with Allah in it would be proof as well. I am under the impression that the polytheists in Arabia might have just been worshiping Allah near the time of islam, but after hearing of the god from Christians.
lastly if anyone is able to comment on differences between al ilah (which is on inscriptions) and allah, i would appreciate it.
Thank You!
In the Safaitic inscriptions from North Arabia you get both al ilah and allah. In Safaitic specifically he was not one of the more common deities and there is no distinct way to date the deity so it would be difficult to determine the date. However the Safaitic inscriptions are considered to have an end date of the 4th century as there are no references to Christianity in the inscriptions. This would suggest that the name Allah or al Ilah evolved independently to Christianity.
Source - C. Bennett, PhD thesis, Pre-Islamic Bedouin Inscriptions from North Arabia, 2016