The religion of the ancient Arabs, little as we know of it, is especially interesting, inasmuch as the Arabs longest retained the original Semitic character, and hence probably the original Semitic religion: and so in the ancient religion of Arabia we see the religion once professed by Chaldeans, Canaanites, Phœnicians. This ancient religion ‘rises little higher than animistic polydaemonism. It is a collection of tribal religions standing side by side, only loosely united, though there are traces of a once closer connection.’ [11] The great objects of worship were the sun and the stars and the three moon-goddesses—El-Lát the bright moon, Menáh the dark, and El-´Uzzà the union of the two; whilst a lower cultus of trees, stones, and mountains, supposed to be dwelt-in by souls, shows that the religion had not yet quite risen above simple fetishism. At the time of Moḥammad the Arabs worshipped numerous images, which may have been merely a development from the previous stone-worship, or may have been introduced from intercourse with Christians. There are traces of a belief in a supreme God behind this pantheon, and the moon-goddesses and other divinities were regarded as daughters of _the most high God_ (Alláh ta´ála)—a conception also possibly derived from Christianity. The various deities (but not the Supreme Allah) had their fanes, where human sacrifices, though rare, were not unknown; and their cultus was superintended by a hereditary line of seers, who were held in great reverence, but never developed into a priestly caste. Besides the tribal gods, individual households had their special Penates, to whom was due the first and the last salám of the returning or outgoing host. But in spite of all this superstitious apparatus the Arabs were never a religious people. In the old days, as now, they were reckless, skeptical, materialistic. They had their gods and their divining-arrows, but they were ready to demolish both if the responses proved contrary to their wishes. A great majority believed in no future life nor in a reckoning-day of good and evil. If a few tied camels to the graves of the dead that the corpse might ride mounted to the judgment-seat, it must have been the exception; and if there are some doubtful traces of the doctrine of metempsychosis, this again must have been the creed of the very few.