Isāf ( ar, إساف) and Nā'ila ( ar, نائلة) were two deities worshipped as a god and a goddess in

pre-Islamic Arabia Pre-Islamic Arabia ( ar, شبه الجزيرة العربية قبل الإسلام) refers to the Arabian Peninsula before the History of Islam, emergence of Islam in 610 CE. Some of the settled communities developed into distinctive civilizati ...

. They were primarily worshipped by the

Quraysh The Quraysh ( ar, قُرَيْشٌ) were a grouping of Arab clans that historically inhabited and controlled the city of Mecca and its Kaaba. The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born into the Hashim clan of the tribe. Despite this, many of the Qur ...

Attestations

Some Muslim scholars, including

al-Azraqi Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah Al-Azraqi () was a 9th-century Islamic commentator and historian, and author of the ''Kitab Akhbar Makka'' (Book of Reports about Mecca). Al-Azraqi was from a family who lived in Mecca for hundreds of years. He gave inform ...

, claimed that 'Amr ibn Luhayy, the patriarch of the

Arab tribe The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, No ...

Banu Khuza'a The Banū Khuzāʿah ( ar, بنو خزاعة singular ''Khuzāʿī'') is the name of an Azdite, Qaḥṭānite tribe, which is one of the main ancestral tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. They ruled Mecca for a long period, prior to the Islamic p ...

, who introduced

idolatry Idolatry is the worship of a cult image or "idol" as though it were God. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, the Baháʼí Faith, and Islam) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the A ...

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...

, was responsible for the worship of Isāf and Nā'ila. He had called on people to worship them and justified the fact that their ancestors had already done so. The Qurayshi Qusaiy ibn Kilāb had then taken the two stones to the well of Zamzam near the

Kaaba The Kaaba (, ), also spelled Ka'bah or Kabah, sometimes referred to as al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah ( ar, ٱلْكَعْبَة ٱلْمُشَرَّفَة, lit=Honored Ka'bah, links=no, translit=al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah), is a building at the c ...

. Isāf and Nā'ila were said to be particularly important to the

tribe, associated with Qurayshi sacrifices involving a ''talbiya'' specifically directed to Isāf. Various legends existed about the idols, including one that they were petrified after they committed adultery in the

Ibn al-Kalbi Hishām ibn al-Kalbī ( ar, هشام بن الكلبي), 737 AD – 819 AD/204 AH, also known as Ibn al-Kalbi (), was an Arab historian. His full name was Abu al-Mundhir Hisham ibn Muhammad ibn al-Sa'ib ibn Bishr al-Kalbi. Born in Kufa, he spent ...

handed down the legend in his

Book of Idols __NOTOC__The ''Book of Idols'' ('), written by the Arab scholar Hisham ibn al-Kalbi (737–819), describes gods and rites of pre-Islamic Arab religions. The text is critical of pre-Islamic Arabian religion and decries the state of religious corrupt ...

as follows:

They set out to perform the pilgrimage. Upon their arrival in Mecca they entered the Ka'bah. Taking advantage of the absence of anyone else and of the privacy of the Sacred House, Isaf committed adultery with her in the sanctuary. Thereupon they were transformed into stone, becoming two ''miskhs''.

According to the traditions of the Meccan local historian al-Azraqī, the incident happened at the time when the Arab tribe of the

Jurhum Jurhum ( ar, جرهم, Jurhum; also Banu Jurhum or The second Jurhum) historically referred to as Gorrhamite by the Greeks, was an old Arab tribe in the Arabian peninsula. Traditionally, they were a Qahtanite tribe whose historical abode was Yemen ...

ruled over Mecca. The two stones were then removed from the Kaaba and placed on the

Al-Safa and Al-Marwah Safa and Marwa ( ar, ٱلصَّفَا وَٱلْمَرْوَة, Aṣ-Ṣafā wal-Marwah) are two small hills, connected to the larger Abu Qubais and Qaiqan mountains, respectively, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, now made part of the Masjid al-Haram. M ...

hills, so that the people would be warned. Over the course of time, they were then venerated as idols. After the Muslim capture of the city in January 630, the two stone idols were destroyed.

, ''Akhbar Makka'', pg. 50

Interpretations

Aziz al-Azmeh Aziz Al-Azmeh (Arabic: عزيز العظمة) (born July 24, 1947) is a Syrian academic and professor at the Department of History, Central European University, Vienna, Austria. Among other books and papers, he published '' Islams and Modernities' ...

believes that Isāf and Nā'ila were probably the original deities of the

, brought by them from their erstwhile territories to

and worshipped continually along the regnant deities of Mecca, including

al-'Uzza Al-ʻUzzā ( ar, العزى or Old Arabic l ʕuzzeː was one of the three chief goddesses of Arabian religion in pre-Islamic times and she was worshiped by the pre-Islamic Arabs along with al-Lāt and Manāt. A stone cube at Nakhla (near ...

References

{{Reflist Arabian gods Arabian goddesses Mythological duos Quraysh