mention only of three, which were worshipped under female names;10 Allat, al Uzza, and Manah. These were by them called 3 Nodhm al dorr. 4 Al Beidâwi. 5 Vide Post. 1 Vide Poc. Spec. p. 163. 2 Shahrestani. 3 Al Jannâbi. 4 Shahrestani. 5 This name seems to be corrupted, there being no such among the Arab tribes. Poc. Spec. p. 130. 6 Abulfarag, p. 160. 7 Poc. Spec. p. 132. 8 Cap. 53. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. goddesses, and the daughters of GOD; an appellation they gave not only to the angels, but also to their images, which they either believed to be inspired with life by GOD, or else to become the tabernacles of the angels, and to be animated by them; and they gave them divine worship, because they imagined they interceded for them with GOD. Allât was the idol of the tribe of Thakîf who dwelt at Tayef, and had a temple consecrated to her in a place called Nakhlah. This idol al Mogheirah destroyed by Mohammed's order, who sent him and Abu Sofiân on that commission in the ninth year of the Hejra.1 The inhabitants of Tayef, especially the women, bitterly lamented the loss of this their deity, which they were so fond of, that they begged of Mohammed as a condition of peace, that it might not be destroyed for three years, and not obtaining that, asked only a month's respite; but he absolutely denied it.2 There are several derivations of this word which the curious may learn from Dr. Pocock:3 it seems most probably to be derived from the same root with Allah, to which it may be a feminine, and will then signify the goddess. Al Uzza, as some affirm, was the idol of the tribes of Koreish and Kenânah,4 and part of the tribe of Salim:5 others6 tell us it was a tree called the Egyptian thorn, or acacia, worshipped by the tribe of Ghatfân, first consecrated by one Dhâlem, who built a chapel over it, called Boss, so contrived as to give a sound when any person entered. Khâled Ebn Walîd being sent by Mohammed in the eighth year of the Hejra to destroy this idol, demolished the chapel, and cutting down this tree or image, burnt it: he also slew the priestess, who ran out with her hair dishevelled, and her hands on her head as a suppliant. Yet the author who relates this, in another place says, the chapel was pulled down, and Dhâlem himself killed by one Zohair, because he consecrated this chapel with design to draw the pilgrims thither from Mecca, and lessen the reputation of the Caaba. The name of this deity is derived from the root azza, and signifies the most mighty. Manah was the object of worship of the tribes of Hodhail and Khazâah,7 who dwelt between Mecca and Medina, and, as some say,8 of the tribes of Aws, Khazraj, and Thakîf also. This idol was a large stone,9 demolished by one Saad, in the eighth year of the Hejra, a year so fatal to the idols of Arabia. The name seems derived from mana, to flow, from the flowing of the blood of the victims sacrificed to the deity; whence the valley of Mina,10 near Mecca,