Oxford Dictionary of World Mythology

• Oxford Dictionary of World Mythology
• About
• Get help in the History Group

Alilat

Alilat West Asia
The Arabian mother goddess, a deity under considerable Assyrio-Babylonian influence. At Petra, the capital of the Nabataean kingdom, the cult turned upon worship of Dusura, her dying son. He was either a mountain god or an astral deity; statues portray him as genius of the vine. An Arabic historian records that the Nabataeans revered a four-sided stone, known as Allat or Alilat. Veneration of stones and pillars was a feature of the nomadic peoples of West Asia. The Hebrews were attracted to rocks as natural altars during their wanderings in the desert, while the ascetic movement in Christian Syria reached its spectacular climax in the pillar saints, the chief exponent being St Simeon.

Although the ritual of early Arabian religions was a particular target of the prophet Mohammed, today Mecca affords the most conspicuous instance of veneration given to a stone–that proffered to ‘the black stone which fell from heaven in the days of...

[The entire page is 207 words long]

Oxford University Press Titles

• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology
• The Oxford Dictionary of Economics
• The Oxford Companion to American Literature
• The Oxford Companion to American Military History
• The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization
• The Oxford Companion to English Literature
• The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales
• The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare
• The Oxford Dictionary of Plays
• The Oxford Dictionary of Art
• Oxford Dictionary of Sociology
• Oxford Dictionary of World History
• Oxford Dictionary of World Mythology