Manat

See also: Manat (homonymy)

Manat or Manāh was a goddess of the Destin venerated in Arabia at the time preislamic. What one knows of it comes primarily from the Livre of the idols of Hisham ibn Al-Kalbi. It would have been the elder one of the three " girls of the dieu" (probably Houbal) which seems to have been objects of an enthusiastic worship with Mecque: Allat, Manat and Uzza. The Nabataéen S also returned to him a worship under the name of Manawat or Manawatu and identified it with Némésis, but made some, according to Julius Wellhausen, the mother of Houbal.

Its statue was set up at the seaside around Al-Mushallal with Qudayd, between Médine and Mecque. The inhabitants of these two cities as well as the Aws and Khazraj presented offerings to him and made him sacrifices. Children were fore-mentioned Abd-Manāh and Zayd-Manāh.

Aws, Khazraj and the Arabs of Yathrib had habit to go in Pèlerinage in given places where they took care. On their return, they visited the place of worship of Manat where they shaved the head before returning on their premises. Without this rite the pilgrimage was not complete. Some Arab took “Manat of the crowned place of Khazraj” like witness of their oaths. The eighth year of the Hégire, where it gained the final victory over the remainder of the Quraysh, Mahomet, having left Médine since four or five nights, would have sent Ali to destroy the idol and to seize its treasures, with the number of which were two sword S (Mikhdham and Rasūb), offerings Al-Harith to ibn-Abi-Shamir Al-Ghassāni, king de Ghassān. The Prophet offered them to Ali. One of them would be thus perhaps its famous sword Dhu' L Faqār.

Manat is mentioned in the Coran (Sourate: 53 (Year-Najm), Verse 20)

See too

Sourate 53 : The star (Year-Najm)

Random links: