Bel, Ba'al and Al-Lah

I always wonder about Moslems. Why don't they like debate, archaeological proof, rational discussion, and why do they know so little about their own cult? Why are most Moslems so sure that a moon idol wrote the Koran, or that Muhammad was a pure and simple preacher who loved animals ? Why don't Moslems know more about what lies in the Koran, and why are they so largely ignorant of Islam's bloody imperial history, its racism, its supremacism, misogyny and hatred of non-Moslem's, all evidenced in Islamic liturgy? Ignorance is not bliss, it is just ignorance.

Further, what would happen to Christianity if science, investigation and logic led to a conclusion that Christ was actually the incarnation of a moon/astral deity and that Christians were worshipping a moon or astral idol with thousands of years of pagan beliefs and rituals associated with it ? Would that change Christianity ? Yes it certainly would. But would similar charges against Muhammadanism – true as they are – ever affect Moslems ? Of course not. The totalitarian belief system of Islam or Submission, is largely premised on mindless irrationality and dumb mimickery. Obey, pray, follow, never inquire and prostrate yourself to whatever Muhammad told you to venerate.

Moslems might be shocked to learn that the Mesopotamian Bel or Baal is Allah or ilah, the 'one' [sorry not Obama blessed be the great man that he is]. In Assryo-Babylonian history which covers about 1000 years, history and archaeological evidence prove that the astral moon deity known as Bel or 'Lord' [Sin in Babylonian] over time spread throughout the Near East and took on many forms in the liturgy of nature and other pagan cults. This Baal of the Old Testament, associated as it was with Babylon and the destruction of the Jewish state circa 586 BC and thus with evil, had like the Arabian ilah or Ba'allah a sun goddess as a consort named Allat.

When the Romans conquered parts of the Near East circa the first century BC, the worship of Bel was already strong in places such as Palmyra in Syria and a major trading center. In Palmyra the Bel or Ba'al was the highest 'god' and the ruler of the universe. Arabs trading with the Romans would certainly have been confronted with this pagan cult. Bel was the fusion of many ideas of Ba'al and took on the form more of a Roman Jupiter than of a Babylonian moon idol. In other words the evil Ba'al from the Old Testament was recasted in an anthropomorphic form as a Romanized-Palmyran Zeus.

Ba'al or Baal is of course the Semitic form of the Assyro-Babylonian Bel. Canaanites and Hittites both worshiped Ba'al or Bel on high, as a sky god, and fertility god. Other local tribes ascribed various natural and fertility rites and associations with Ba'al, leading to a diverse Near Eastern pan-theology around the Assyro-Babylonian invention. Ba'al or Hub'al worship travelled to Arabia probably during the time of the Roman empire and 100 years or so before Christ becoming fused with local moon deities. Hub'al of course became the most important deity at Mecca, and was simply regarded as the 'one' or ilah.

Ba'al cults included; Baal-Peor of the Moabites, Baal-Zebul of the Philistines, and Baal-Shamin of the native Syrian Palmyrenes. All of these cults would have had some contact with the northern Arabian tribes who were already engaged in moon deity worship – a natural enough pagan cult for nomadic societies. Over time the local cults of Ba'al reformed the deity into a universal 'god' with 3 daughters – the same daughters as the Allah thing.

Local Ba'als satisfied local needs. Guarantees of fertility, crop growing, the continuance of rich pasture lands, or the maintenance of river floods, trade and even peace, would all be 'protected' and ascribed to the local 'god' of Ba'al. This assumption is only sensible. Ba'al was an astral deity who had a particular interest in local conditions. The ilah of Mecca would have been no different in this regard.

Ba'al was thus a very flexible 'god'. In Assryo-Babylonian terms he started off as a moon deity and then a 'weather' god. Over time he mutated to many locales in the Near East and became a localized celestial power, imbuing the local cult with divine power. The manifestation of Ba'al worship was usually in the form of a bull – blood sacrifices of bulls were common from Babylon to Crete. A bull was a symbol of male fertility and strength and linked to divine powers of a celestial object.

In Arabia the Ba'al cult was transferred along trade and routes of war. Inscriptions in northern Arabia dating from before Christ refer to Ba'al as 'Marilaha' or the 'Lord'. Mar-ilaha comes from the Babylonian deity 'Marduk' and ilah is simply the 'one'. Marduk was conflated with Ba'al in Mesopotamia and the two deities were merged into the supreme 'god' under the name of Sin 'the Lord' or Ba'al and known as a moon deity.

Over time throughout the Arabian peninsula, Ba'al or Mar-ilah became Hub'al [lah] or the 'Lord'. Most likely Hub'al is simply the merger of Mar-ilah and local moon deity/god worship. There is no dispute however that Hub'al originated out of Syria. Hub'al [lah] or the ilah is thus an amalgam of Near Eastern sky/moon diety worship and local pagan beliefs and rituals. By the time Muhammad was born in 571 AD Hub'al [lah] was the main deity in Mecca and responsible, so the Arabs believed, in defeating the Ethiopian invasion of that same year.