al-Lāt

Summary

Al-Lat is the idol that the Arabs took in Ta'if after Manat. Together with Manat and al-Uzza, it was among their greatest idols in the account of al-Raheeq al-Makhtum ¹ ².

On the order of the idols

Among their oldest idols was Manat, at al-Mushallal near Qudayd. Then they took al-Lat in Ta'if, then al-Uzza in Wadi Nakhla, and then shirk multiplied ¹. The rites of its worship are covered in Idol worship in the Jahiliyya.

Not covered here

The rock of al-Lat, its building and its curtains among Thaqif; the Thaqif delegation and its request to keep the idol; and its demolition at its entrances.

For young visitors

Al-Lat is the idol of the people of Ta'if, one of the three greatest idols of the Arabs before Islam.

The war between the Ahlaf and Banu Malik

The civil war of Thaqif's two moieties — the Ahlaf and Banu Malik: when the Ahlaf's herds drove them to fence the Jalathan pasture of Banu Nasr, Banu Malik allied with Yarbu' and war rolled through the day of Ta'if, the al-Aban defile massacre, the days of Umr dhi Kinda and Karuba, and Afif ibn Awf's battle-cry said to have made seventy pregnant women miscarry; it ended when the Ansari Uhayha refused Mas'ud ibn Mu'tib a pact — 'your brother is the one you left behind; reconcile with him though it cost your nose' — and gave him instead a slave who built Ta'if's first fortress-tower.

At a glance

Summary

On the order of the idols

Not covered here

Connections

People and things also explored

Sources

The war between the Ahlaf and Banu Malik