him) , and professed the religion of his father Abraham (Peace be upon
him) They had worshipped Allâh, professed His Oneness and followed His
religion a long time until they forgot part of what they had been
reminded of. However, theystill maintained such fundamental beliefs
such as monotheism as well as various other aspects of Abraham's
religion, until the time when a chief of Khuza'a, namely 'Amr bin
Luhai, who was renowned for righteousness, charity, reverence and care
for religion, and was granted unreserved love and obedience by his
tribesmen, came back from a trip to Syria where he saw people worship
idols, a phenomenon he approved of and believed it to berighteous
since Syria was the locus of Messengers and Scriptures, he brought
with him an idol (Hubal) which he placed in the middle of Al-Ka'bah
and summoned people to worship it. Readily enough, paganism spread all
over Makkah and, thence, to Hijaz, people of Makkah being custodians
of not only the Sacred House but the whole Haram as well. A great many
idols, bearing different names, were introduced into the area.
An idol called 'Manat', for instance, was worshipped in a place known
as Al-Mushallal near Qadid on the Red Sea. Another, 'Al-Lat' in Ta'if,
a third, 'Al-'Uzza' inthe valley of Nakhlah, and so on and so forth.
Polytheism prevailed and the number of idols increased everywhere in
Hijaz. It was even mentioned that'Amr bin Luhai, with the help of
ajinn companion who told him that the idols of Noah's folk – Wadd,
Suwa', Yaguth, Ya'uk and Nasr – were buried in Jeddah, dug them out
and took them to Tihama. Upon pilgrimage time, the idols were
distributed amongthe tribes to take back home. Every tribe, and house,
had their own idols, and the Sacred House was also overcrowded with
them. On the Prophet's conquest of Makkah, 360 idols were found around
Al-Ka'bah. He broke them down and had them removed and burned up.
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