title: Freedom Caucus

text: On October 30, 2017, "Vanity Fair" published an interview with Republican former House speaker John Boehner, who said of the Freedom Caucus: "They can't tell you what they're for. They can tell you everything they're against. They're anarchists. They want total chaos. Tear it all down and start over. That's where their mindset is."


title: Freedom Caucus

text: The group faced backlash from the Republican Party establishment during the 2016 election cycle. One of its members, Congressman Tim Huelskamp, a Tea Party Republican representing Kansas' First District, was defeated during a primary election on August 2, 2016, by Roger Marshall.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: On March 24, 2017, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), the House Republican bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, was withdrawn by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan because it lacked the votes to pass, due in large part to opposition from Freedom Caucus Republicans who believed that the replacement provisions had the effect of failing to repeal some elements of the original Affordable Care Act.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: Two days later, President Donald Trump publicly criticized the Freedom Caucus and other right-wing groups, such as the Club for Growth and Heritage Action, that opposed the bill. Trump tweeted: "Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Obamacare!" On the same day, Congressman Ted Poe of Texas resigned from the Freedom Caucus. On March 30, 2017, Trump "declared war" on the Freedom Caucus, sending a tweet urging Republicans to "fight them" in the 2018 midterm elections "if they don’t get on the team" (i.e., support Trump's proposals). Vocal Freedom Caucus member Justin Amash responded by accusing Trump of "succumb[ing] to the D.C. Establishment."


title: Freedom Caucus

text: Trump later developed a closer relationship with the caucus chair, Mark Meadows. In April 2018, Trump described three caucus members—Meadows, Jim Jordan, and Ron DeSantis—as "absolute warriors" for their defense of him during the course of the Special Counsel investigation.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: In May 2019, the Freedom Caucus officially condemned one of its founding members, Justin Amash, after he called for the impeachment of President Trump over the Trump–Ukraine scandal. Amash, an outspoken libertarian, announced in June 2019 that he had left the caucus; later the same year, he left the Republican Party and joined the Libertarian Party.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: During the impeachment inquiry against Trump, and subsequent first impeachment of Trump, the caucus emerged as a chief defender of Trump during the proceedings.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: In March 2020, former Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows was appointed as White House chief of staff, replacing Mick Mulvaney, who was also a founding member of the Freedom Caucus.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: Freedom Caucus members have called on Liz Cheney to resign as Chair of the House Republican Conference, due to her vocal criticism of Trump's foreign policy, response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and use of social media, leading to her firing May 12, 2021, and replacement by Elise Stefanik two days later.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: In December 2020, the caucus sided with Donald Trump and opposed the NDAA on the grounds that it did not include a provision to repeal Section 230.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: In April 2021, a faction within the Freedom Caucus, led by Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene, attempted to form a new splinter group called the 'America First Caucus', along with Matt Gaetz. Senior members of the Freedom Caucus reportedly reacted with "fury" to the proposal, with Ken Buck publicly denouncing it. The new caucus was later scrapped.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: Later, a faction emerged of Trump loyalists within the Freedom Caucus known as the 'MAGA Squad', which included Gosar, Greene, Gaetz, Madison Cawthorn, Louie Gohmert, Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs, Scott Perry and Lauren Boebert. It was "not a formal caucus", but was described as more radical than the mainstream Freedom Caucus. The group supported primary challenges against incumbent Republicans during the 2022 United States House of Representatives elections.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: After Trump lost the his bid for reelection in November 2020, many members of the Freedom Caucus supported Trump's attempt to overturn the election results. In early December 2020, amid pressure from Trump on congressional Republicans to help him subvert the election outcome, two dozen House Republicans, including many Freedom Caucus members, sent a letter to Trump asking him to order his Attorney General, William P. Barr, to appoint a Justice Department special counsel to investigate supposed election "irregularities," even though Barr had previously acknowledged that there was no evidence justifying such a step. Several Freedom Caucus members met with officials at Trump's White House in December 2020, discussing ways to overturn the election results during the January 6, 2021 counting of the electoral votes. Most Freedom Caucus members objected to the counting of the electoral votes that formalized Trump's defeat. During the second impeachment of Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection, Freedom Caucus leadership and members demanded that Representative Liz Cheney (one of 10 Republicans who voted in favor of impeachment) resign from her role as chairwoman of the House Republican Conference.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: In December 2021, the Freedom Caucus officially expanded to the state level, establishing the 'State Freedom Caucus Network' in state legislatures to provide legislators with additional resources. The group has state-level caucuses in seven states: Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, South Dakota and Illinois.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: In July 2022, the caucus split over the Respect for Marriage Act, which recognized a statutory right to same-sex marriage. Chairman Scott Perry (R-PA) joining 46 other Republicans (as well as all Democrats) in voting for the bill, but the rest of the Freedom Caucus opposed it, adopting a formal position urging Senate Republicans to block the bill. To take a formal position on legislation, the Freedom Caucus requires the support of 80% of the caucus's members.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: In the November 2022 elections, Republicans narrowly regained control of the House of Representatives that opens in January 2023. The Freedom Caucus was actively involved in the ensuing House Republican leadership elections, but was divided over whether to challenge House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's bid to be Speaker of the House of Representatives. Before the internal House Republican election, the caucus issued an array of demands that would fundamentally change House procedure by weakening the power of the speaker and strengthening the power of both the caucus and rank-and-file House Republicans as a whole. These included making it easier to oust a speaker by reviving the motion to vacate the chair; allowing 10% of the Republican conference to force a vote on any amendment, thus reducing the speaker's control over legislation; and codifying the Hastert rule ("majority-of-the-majority" rule), which would block all legislation except those supported by a majority of House Republicans.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: Former caucus chair Andy Biggs launched a challenge to McCarthy, but McCarthy earned the Republican nomination for speaker, by defeating Biggs in a 188–31 secret ballot vote, with an additional five Republicans writing in other names. McCarthy ran with the endorsement of other Freedom Caucus members, such as vice chair Jim Jordan, David Schweikert, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Caucus member Byron Donalds also ran for House Republican Conference chair, but lost to incumbent Elise Stefanik, while member Andrew Clyde ran for House Republican Conference secretary, but lost to Lisa McClain.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: McCarthy needs 218 votes from the House floor to be elected speaker in the January 3, 2023 vote. After winning the internal Republican nomination, some Freedom Caucus members became outspoken supporters of McCarthy, including Jordan, a former McCarthy rival-turned ally who was set to be chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Taylor Greene also backed McCarthy, saying that any alternative to McCarthy would be insufficiently right-wing. Other caucus members resisted supporting McCarthy, with five members saying they would vote against him, although they have not coalesced around a specific alternative candidate. A third group of caucus members did not publicly support or oppose McCarthy's speakership bid, seeking to extract concessions from him. Because the House Republicans only have a narrow majority (five or six seats more than the Democrats), McCarthy cannot gain a majority unless nearly all Republicans voted for him. McCarthy warned his internal opponents that the next speaker of the House could be chosen with House Democratic votes if the Republican caucus failed to unite around him. In December 2022, seven hardline Republicans, including Freedom Caucus chairman Scott Perry and several members of the caucus, issued a letter demanding certain commitments from a speaker; the letter repeated many demands that the group had made in summer 2022, including securing an increase in Freedom Caucus representation in committee chairmanships and in the House Rules Committee; barring the House Republican leadership and House Republican leadership PACs from getting involved in primaries (as McCarthy has done); and restoring the motion to vacate the chair.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: The current chair of the caucus is Representative Scott Perry from Pennsylvania, with Representative Jim Jordan as the deputy chair.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: The House Freedom Caucus does not disclose the names of its members and membership is by invitation only. "The New York Times" wrote in October 2015 that the caucus usually meets "in the basement of a local pub rather than at the Capitol". The caucus acts as a bloc, with decisions that are supported by 80 percent made binding on all of its members, which has strengthened its influence among House Republicans.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: As the HFC does not publicize a full membership list, the known number of members at the start of each electoral cycle is listed below.


title: Freedom Caucus

text: A number of members have identified themselves, or have been identified by others, as belonging to the Freedom Caucus. There are at least 44 caucus members ; those members include:


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia included indigenous Arabian polytheism, ancient Semitic religions, Christianity, Judaism, Mandaeism, and Iranian religions such as Zoroastrianism, and Manichaeism, and rarely Buddhism.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Arabian polytheism, the dominant form of religion in pre-Islamic Arabia, was based on veneration of deities and spirits. Worship was directed to various gods and goddesses, including Hubal and the goddesses al-Lāt, al-‘Uzzā, and Manāt, at local shrines and temples such as the Kaaba in Mecca. Deities were venerated and invoked through a variety of rituals, including pilgrimages and divination, as well as ritual sacrifice. Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in Meccan religion. Many of the physical descriptions of the pre-Islamic gods are traced to idols, especially near the Kaaba, which is said to have contained up to 360 of them.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Other religions were represented to varying, lesser degrees. The influence of the adjacent Roman and Aksumite civilizations resulted in Christian communities in the northwest, northeast, and south of Arabia. Christianity made a lesser impact in the remainder of the peninsula, but did secure some conversions. With the exception of Nestorianism in the northeast and the Persian Gulf, the dominant form of Christianity was Miaphysitism. The peninsula had been a destination for Jewish migration since Roman times, which had resulted in a diaspora community supplemented by local converts. Additionally, the influence of the Sasanian Empire resulted in Iranian religions being present in the peninsula. Zoroastrianism existed in the east and south, while there is evidence of Manichaeism or possibly Mazdakism being practiced in Mecca.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Until about the fourth century, almost all inhabitants of Arabia practiced polytheistic religions. Although significant Jewish and Christian minorities developed, polytheism remained the dominant belief system in pre-Islamic Arabia.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The contemporary sources of information regarding the pre-Islamic Arabian religion and pantheon include a small number of inscriptions and carvings, pre-Islamic poetry, external sources such as Jewish and Greek accounts, as well as the Muslim tradition, such as the Qur'an and Islamic writings. Nevertheless, information is limited.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: One early attestation of Arabian polytheism was in Esarhaddon’s Annals, mentioning Atarsamain, Nukhay, Ruldaiu, and Atarquruma. Herodotus, writing in his "Histories", reported that the Arabs worshipped Orotalt (identified with Dionysus) and Alilat (identified with Aphrodite). Strabo stated the Arabs worshipped Dionysus and Zeus. Origen stated they worshipped Dionysus and Urania.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Muslim sources regarding Arabian polytheism include the eighth-century "Book of Idols" by Hisham ibn al-Kalbi, which F.E. Peters argued to be the most substantial treatment of the religious practices of pre-Islamic Arabia, as well as the writings of the Yemeni historian al-Hasan al-Hamdani on South Arabian religious beliefs.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: According to the "Book of Idols", descendants of the son of Abraham (Ishmael) who had settled in Mecca migrated to other lands. They carried holy stones from the Kaaba with them, erected them, and circumambulated them like the Kaaba. This, according to al-Kalbi led to the rise of idol worship. Based on this, it may be probable that Arabs originally venerated stones, later adopting idol-worship under foreign influences. The relationship between a god and a stone as his representation can be seen from the third-century Syriac work called the "Homily of Pseudo-Meliton" where he describes the pagan faiths of Syriac-speakers in northern Mesopotamia, who were mostly Arabs.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The pre-Islamic Arabian religions were polytheistic, with many of the deities' names known. Formal pantheons are more noticeable at the level of kingdoms, of variable sizes, ranging from simple city-states to collections of tribes. Tribes, towns, clans, lineages and families had their own cults too. Christian Julien Robin suggests that this structure of the divine world reflected the society of the time. Trade caravans also brought foreign religious and cultural influences.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: A large number of deities did not have proper names and were referred to by titles indicating a quality, a family relationship, or a locale preceded by "he who" or "she who" ("dhū" or "dhāt" respectively).


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The religious beliefs and practices of the nomadic Bedouin were distinct from those of the settled tribes of towns such as Mecca. Nomadic religious belief systems and practices are believed to have included fetishism, totemism and veneration of the dead but were connected principally with immediate concerns and problems and did not consider larger philosophical questions such as the afterlife. Settled urban Arabs, on the other hand, are thought to have believed in a more complex pantheon of deities. While the Meccans and the other settled inhabitants of the Hejaz worshiped their gods at permanent shrines in towns and oases, the Bedouin practiced their religion on the move.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: In South Arabia, "mndh’t" were anonymous guardian spirits of the community and the ancestor spirits of the family. They were known as ‘the sun ("shms") of their ancestors’.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: In North Arabia, were known from Palmyrene inscriptions as "the good and rewarding gods" and were probably related to the "jinn" of west and central Arabia. Unlike jinn, could not hurt nor possess humans and were much more similar to the Roman genius. According to common Arabian belief, soothsayers, pre-Islamic philosophers, and poets were inspired by the jinn. However, jinn were also feared and thought to be responsible for causing various diseases and mental illnesses.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Aside from benevolent gods and spirits, there existed malevolent beings. These beings were not attested in the epigraphic record, but were alluded to in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, and their legends were collected by later Muslim authors.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Commonly mentioned are ghouls. Etymologically, the English word "ghoul" was derived from the Arabic "ghul", from "ghala", "to seize", related to the Sumerian "galla". They are said to have a hideous appearance, with feet like those of an ass. Arabs were said to utter the following couplet if they should encounter one: "Oh ass-footed one, just bray away, we won't leave the desert plain nor ever go astray."


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Christian Julien Robin notes that all the known South Arabian divinities had a positive or protective role and that evil powers were only alluded to but were never personified.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Some scholars postulate that in pre-Islamic Arabia, including in Mecca, Allah was considered to be a deity, possibly a creator deity or a supreme deity in a polytheistic pantheon. The word "Allah" (from the Arabic "al-ilah" meaning "the god") may have been used as a title rather than a name. The concept of "Allah" may have been vague in the Meccan religion. According to Islamic sources, Meccans and their neighbors believed that the goddesses Al-lāt, Al-‘Uzzá, and Manāt were the daughters of Allah.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Regional variants of the word "Allah" occur in both pagan and Christian pre-Islamic inscriptions. References to Allah are found in the poetry of the pre-Islamic Arab poet Zuhayr bin Abi Sulma, who lived a generation before Muhammad, as well as pre-Islamic personal names. Muhammad's father's name was "ʿAbd-Allāh", meaning "the servant of Allah".


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Charles Russell Coulter and Patricia Turner considered that Allah's name may be derived from a pre-Islamic god called Ailiah and is similar to El, Il, Ilah, and Jehovah. They also considered some of his characteristics to be seemingly based on lunar deities like Almaqah, Kahl, Shaker, Wadd and Warakh. Alfred Guillaume states that the connection between Ilah that came to form Allah and ancient Babylonian "Il" or "El" of ancient Israel is not clear. Wellhausen states that Allah was known from Jewish and Christian sources and was known to pagan Arabs as the supreme god. Winfried Corduan doubts the theory of Allah of Islam being linked to a moon god, stating that the term Allah functions as a generic term, like the term El-Elyon used as a title for the god Sin.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: South Arabian inscriptions from the fourth century AD refer to a god called Rahman ("The Merciful One") who had a monotheistic cult and was referred to as the "Lord of heaven and Earth". Aaron W. Hughes states that scholars are unsure whether he developed from the earlier polytheistic systems or developed due to the increasing significance of the Christian and Jewish communities, and that it is difficult to establish whether Allah was linked to Rahmanan. Maxime Rodinson, however, considers one of Allah's names, "Ar-Rahman", to have been used in the form of Rahmanan earlier.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Al-Lāt, Al-‘Uzzá and Manāt were common names used for multiple goddesses across Arabia. G. R. Hawting states that modern scholars have frequently associated the names of Arabian goddesses Al-lāt, Al-‘Uzzá and Manāt with cults devoted to celestial bodies, particularly Venus, drawing upon evidence external to the Muslim tradition as well as in relation to Syria, Mesopotamia and the Sinai Peninsula.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Allāt (Arabic: اللات) or al-Lāt was worshipped throughout the ancient Near East with various associations. Herodotus in the 5th century BC identifies "Alilat" (Greek: Ἀλιλάτ) as the Arabic name for Aphrodite (and, in another passage, for Urania), which is strong evidence for worship of Allāt in Arabia at that early date. Al-‘Uzzá (Arabic: العزى) was a fertility goddess or possibly a goddess of love. Manāt (Arabic: مناة) was the goddess of destiny.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Al-Lāt's cult was spread in Syria and northern Arabia. From Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions, it is probable that she was worshiped as Lat ("lt"). F. V. Winnet saw al-Lat as a lunar deity due to the association of a crescent with her in 'Ayn esh-Shallāleh and a Lihyanite inscription mentioning the name of Wadd, the Minaean moon god, over the title of "fkl lt". René Dussaud and Gonzague Ryckmans linked her with Venus while others have thought her to be a solar deity. John F. Healey considers that al-Uzza actually might have been an epithet of al-Lāt before becoming a separate deity in the Meccan pantheon. Paola Corrente, writing in "Redefining Dionysus", considers she might have been a god of vegetation or a celestial deity of atmospheric phenomena and a sky deity.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: According to F. E. Peters, "one of the characteristics of Arab paganism as it has come down to us is the absence of a mythology, narratives that might serve to explain the origin or history of the gods." Many of the deities have epithets, but are lacking myths or narratives to decode the epithets, making them generally uninformative.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The worship of sacred stones constituted one of the most important practices of the Semitic peoples, including Arabs. Cult images of a deity were most often an unworked stone block. The most common name for these stone blocks was derived from the Semitic "nsb" ("to be stood upright"), but other names were used, such as Nabataean ("place of prostration") and Arabic ("object of circumambulation", this term often occurs in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry). These god-stones were usually a free-standing slab, but Nabataean god-stones are usually carved directly on the rock face. Facial features may be incised on the stone (especially in Nabataea), or astral symbols (especially in South Arabia). Under Greco-Roman influence, an anthropomorphic statue might be used instead.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The "Book of Idols" describes two types of statues: idols ("sanam") and images ("wathan"). If a statue were made of wood, gold, or silver, after a human form, it would be an idol, but if the statue were made of stone, it would be an image.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Representation of deities in animal-form was common in South Arabia, such as the god Sayin from Hadhramaut, who was represented as either an eagle fighting a serpent or a bull.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Sacred places are known as "hima", "haram" or "mahram", and within these places, all living things were considered inviolable and violence was forbidden. In most of Arabia, these places would take the form of open-air sanctuaries, with distinguishing natural features such as springs and forests. Cities would contain temples, enclosing the sacred area with walls, and featuring ornate structures.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Sacred areas often had a guardian or a performer of cultic rites. These officials were thought to tend the area, receive offerings, and perform divination. They are known by many names, probably based on cultural-linguistic preference: was used in the Hejaz, "kâhin" was used in the Sinai-Negev-Hisma region, and "kumrâ" was used in Aramaic-influenced areas. In South Arabia, "rsw" and "'fkl" were used to refer to priests, and other words include "qyn" ("administrator") and "mrtd" ("consecrated to a particular divinity"). A more specialized staff is thought to have existed in major sanctuaries.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Pilgrimages to sacred places would be made at certain times of the year. Pilgrim fairs of central and northern Arabia took place in specific months designated as violence-free, allowing several activities to flourish, such as trade, though in some places only exchange was permitted.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The most important pilgrimage in Saba' was probably the pilgrimage of Almaqah at Ma'rib, performed in the month of dhu-Abhi (roughly in July). Two references attest the pilgrimage of Almaqah dhu-Hirran at 'Amran. The pilgrimage of Ta'lab Riyam took place in Mount Tur'at and the Zabyan temple at Hadaqan, while the pilgrimage of Dhu-Samawi, the god of the Amir tribe, took place in Yathill. Aside from Sabaean pilgrimages, the pilgrimage of Sayin took place at Shabwa.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The pilgrimage of Mecca involved the stations of Mount Arafat, Muzdalifah, Mina and central Mecca that included Safa and Marwa as well as the Kaaba. Pilgrims at the first two stations performed "wuquf" or standing in adoration. At Mina, animals were sacrificed. The procession from Arafat to Muzdalifah, and from Mina to Mecca, in a pre-reserved route towards idols or an idol, was termed and , with the latter taking place before sunset. At Jabal Quzah, fires were started during the sacred month.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Nearby the Kaaba was located the betyl which was later called "Maqam Ibrahim"; a place called "al-Ḥigr" which Aziz al-Azmeh takes to be reserved for consecrated animals, basing his argument on a Sabaean inscription mentioning a place called "mḥgr" which was reserved for animals; and the Well of Zamzam. Both Safa and Marwa were adjacent to two sacrificial hills, one called Muṭ'im al Ṭayr and another Mujāwir al-Riḥ which was a pathway to Abu Kubais from where the Black Stone is reported to have originated.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Meccan pilgrimages differed according to the rites of different cult associations, in which individuals and groups joined for religious purposes. The "Ḥilla" association performed the "hajj" in autumn season while the "Ṭuls" and "Ḥums" performed the "umrah" in spring.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The "Ḥums" were the Quraysh, Banu Kinanah, Banu Khuza'a and Banu 'Amir. They did not perform the pilgrimage outside the zone of Mecca's "haram", thus excluding Mount Arafat. They also developed certain dietary and cultural restrictions. According to "Kitab al-Muhabbar", the "Ḥilla" denoted most of the Banu Tamim, Qays, Rabi`ah, Qūḍa'ah, Ansar, Khath'am, Bajīlah, Banu Bakr ibn Abd Manat, Hudhayl, Asad, Tayy and Bariq. The "Ṭuls" comprised the tribes of Yemen and Hadramaut, 'Akk, Ujayb and Īyād. The "Basl" recognised at least eight months of the calendar as holy. There was also another group which didn't recognize the sanctity of Mecca's "haram" or holy months, unlike the other four.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The ancient Arabs that inhabitated the Arabian Peninsula before the advent of Islam used to profess a widespread belief in fatalism ("ḳadar") alongside a fearful consideration for the sky and the stars, which they held to be ultimately responsible for every phenomena that occurs on Earth and for the destiny of humankind. Accordingly, they shaped their entire lives in accordance with their interpretations of astral configurations and phenomena.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: In South Arabia, oracles were regarded as "ms’l", or "a place of asking", and that deities interacted by "hr’yhw" ("making them see") a vision, a dream, or even direct interaction. Otherwise deities interacted indirectly through a medium.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: There were three methods of chance-based divination attested in pre-Islamic Arabia; two of these methods, making marks in the sand or on rocks and throwing pebbles are poorly attested. The other method, the practice of randomly selecting an arrow with instructions, was widely attested and was common throughout Arabia. A simple form of this practice was reportedly performed before the image of Dhu'l-Khalasa by a certain man, sometimes said to be the Kindite poet Imru al-Qays according to al-Kalbi. A more elaborate form of the ritual was performed in before the image of Hubal. This form of divination was also attested in Palmyra, evidenced by an honorific inscription in the temple of al-Lat.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The most common offerings were animals, crops, food, liquids, inscribed metal plaques or stone tablets, aromatics, edifices and manufactured objects. Camel-herding Arabs would devote some of their beasts to certain deities. The beasts would have their ears slit and would be left to pasture without a herdsman, allowing them to die a natural death.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Pre-Islamic Arabians, especially pastoralist tribes, sacrificed animals as an offering to a deity. This type of offering was common and involved domestic animals such as camels, sheep and cattle, while game animals and poultry were rarely or never mentioned. Sacrifice rites were not tied to a particular location though they were usually practiced in sacred places. Sacrifice rites could be performed by the devotee, though according to Hoyland, women were probably not allowed. The victim's blood, according to pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and certain South Arabian inscriptions, was also 'poured out' on the altar stone, thus forming a bond between the human and the deity. According to Muslim sources, most sacrifices were concluded with communal feasts.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: In South Arabia, beginning with the Christian era, or perhaps a short while before, statuettes were presented before the deity, known as (male) or (female).


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Human sacrifice was sometimes carried out in Arabia. The victims were generally prisoners of war, who represented the god's part of the victory in booty, although other forms might have existed.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Blood sacrifice was definitely practiced in South Arabia, but few allusions to the practice are known, apart from some Minaean inscriptions.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: In the Hejaz, menstruating women were not allowed to be near the cult images. The area where Isaf and Na'ila's images stood was considered out-of-bounds for menstruating women. This was reportedly the same with Manaf. According to the "Book of Idols", this rule applied to all the "idols". This was also the case in South Arabia, as attested in a South Arabian inscription from al-Jawf.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Sexual intercourse in temples was prohibited, as attested in two South Arabian inscriptions. One legend concerning Isaf and Na'ila, when two lovers made love in the Kaaba and were petrified, joining the idols in the Kaaba, echoes this prohibition.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Dilmun civilization, which existed along the Persian Gulf coast and Bahrain until the 6th century BC, worshipped a pair of deities, Inzak and Meskilak. It is not known whether these were the only deities in the pantheon or whether there were others. The discovery of wells at the sites of a Dilmun temple and a shrine suggests that sweet water played an important part in religious practices.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: In the subsequent Greco-Roman period, there is evidence that the worship of non-indigenous deities was brought to the region by merchants and visitors. These included Bel, a god popular in the Syrian city of Palmyra, the Mesopotamian deities Nabu and Shamash, the Greek deities Poseidon and Artemis and the west Arabian deities Kahl and Manat.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The main sources of religious information in pre-Islamic South Arabia are inscriptions, which number in the thousands, as well as the Quran, complemented by archaeological evidence.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The civilizations of South Arabia are considered to have the most developed pantheon in the Arabian peninsula. In South Arabia, the most common god was 'Athtar, who was considered remote. The patron deity ("shym") was considered to be of much more immediate significance than 'Athtar. Thus, the kingdom of Saba' had Almaqah, the kingdom of Ma'in had Wadd, the kingdom of Qataban had 'Amm, and the kingdom of Hadhramaut had Sayin. Each people was termed the "children" of their respective patron deity. Patron deities played a vital role in sociopolitical terms, their cults serving as the focus of a person's cohesion and loyalty.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Evidence from surviving inscriptions suggests that each of the southern kingdoms had its own pantheon of three to five deities, the major deity always being a god. For example, the pantheon of Saba comprised Almaqah, the major deity, together with 'Athtar, Haubas, Dhat-Himyam, and Dhat-Badan. The main god in Ma'in and Himyar was 'Athtar, in Qataban it was Amm, and in Hadhramaut it was Sayin. 'Amm was a lunar deity and was associated with the weather, especially lightning. One of the most frequent titles of the god Almaqah was "Lord of Awwam".


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Anbay was an oracular god of Qataban and also the spokesman of Amm. His name was invoked in royal regulations regarding water supply. Anbay's name was related to that of the Babylonian deity Nabu. Hawkam was invoked alongside Anbay as god of "command and decision" and his name is derived from the root word "to be wise".


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Each kingdom's central temple was the focus of worship for the main god and would be the destination for an annual pilgrimage, with regional temples dedicated to a local manifestation of the main god. Other beings worshipped included local deities or deities dedicated to specific functions as well as deified ancestors.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The encroachment of northern Arab tribes into South Arabia also introduced northern Arab deities into the region. The three goddesses al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat became known as Lat/Latan, Uzzayan and Manawt. Uzzayan's cult in particular was widespread in South Arabia, and in Qataban she was invoked as a guardian of the final royal palace. Lat/Latan was not significant in South Arabia, but appears to be popular with the Arab tribes bordering Yemen. Other Arab deities include Dhu-Samawi, a god originally worshipped by the Amir tribe, and Kahilan, perhaps related to Kahl of Qaryat al-Faw.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Bordering Yemen, the Azd Sârat tribe of the Asir region was said to have worshipped Dhu'l-Shara, Dhu'l-Kaffayn, Dhu'l-Khalasa and A'im. According to the "Book of Idols", Dhu'l-Kaffayn originated from a clan of the Banu Daws. In addition to being worshipped among the Azd, Dushara is also reported to have a shrine amongst the Daws. Dhu’l-Khalasa was an oracular god and was also worshipped by the Bajila and Khatham tribes.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Before conversion to Christianity, the Aksumites followed a polytheistic religion that was similar to that of Southern Arabia. The lunar god Hawbas was worshiped in South Arabia and Aksum. The name of the god Astar, a sky-deity was related to that of 'Attar. The god Almaqah was worshiped at Hawulti-Melazo. The South Arabian gods in Aksum included Dhat-Himyam and Dhat-Ba'adan. A stone later reused for the church of Enda-Cerqos at Melazo mentions these gods. Hawbas is also mentioned on an altar and sphinx in Dibdib. The name of Nrw who is mentioned in Aksum inscriptions is related to that of the South Arabian god Nawraw, a deity of stars.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Himyarite kings radically opposed polytheism in favor of Judaism, beginning officially in 380. The last trace of polytheism in South Arabia, an inscription commemorating a construction project with a polytheistic invocation, and another, mentioning the temple of Ta’lab, all date from just after 380 (the former dating to the rule of the king Dhara’amar Ayman, and the latter dating to the year 401–402). The rejection of polytheism from the public sphere did not mean the extinction of it altogether, as polytheism likely continued in the private sphere.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Kinda tribe's chief god was Kahl, whom their capital Qaryat Dhat Kahl (modern Qaryat al-Faw) was named for. His name appears in the form of many inscriptions and rock engravings on the slopes of the Tuwayq, on the walls of the souk of the village, in the residential houses and on the incense burners. An inscription in Qaryat Dhat Kahl invokes the gods Kahl, Athtar al-Shariq and Lah.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: According to Islamic sources, the Hejaz region was home to three important shrines dedicated to al-Lat, al-’Uzza and Manat. The shrine and idol of al-Lat, according to the "Book of Idols", once stood in Ta'if, and was primarily worshipped by the Banu Thaqif tribe. Al-’Uzza's principal shrine was in Nakhla and was the chief-goddess of the Quraysh tribe. Manāt's idol, reportedly the oldest of the three, was erected on the seashore between Medina and Mecca, and was honored by the Aws and Khazraj tribes. Inhabitants of several areas venerated Manāt, performing sacrifices before her idol, and pilgrimages of some were not considered completed until they visited Manāt and shaved their heads.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: In the Muzdalifah region near Mecca, the god Quzah, who is a god of rains and storms, was worshipped. In pre-Islamic times pilgrims used to halt at the "hill of Quzah" before sunrise. Qusai ibn Kilab is traditionally reported to have introduced the association of fire worship with him on Muzdalifah.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Various other deities were venerated in the area by specific tribes, such as the god Suwa' by the Banu Hudhayl tribe and the god Nuhm by the Muzaynah tribe.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The majority of extant information about Mecca during the rise of Islam and earlier times comes from the text of the Quran itself and later Muslim sources such as the prophetic biography literature dealing with the life of Muhammad and the "Book of Idols". Alternative sources are so fragmentary and specialized that writing a convincing history of this period based on them alone is impossible. Several scholars hold that the sīra literature is not independent of the Quran but has been fabricated to explain the verses of the Quran. There is evidence to support the contention that some reports of the sīras are of dubious validity, but there is also evidence to support the contention that the sīra narratives originated independently of the Quran. Compounding the problem is that the earliest extant Muslim historical works, including the sīras, were composed in their definitive form more than a century after the beginning of the Islamic era. Some of these works were based on subsequently lost earlier texts, which in their turn recorded a fluid oral tradition. Scholars do not agree as to the time when such oral accounts began to be systematically collected and written down, and they differ greatly in their assessment of the historical reliability of the available texts.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Kaaba, whose environs were regarded as sacred ("haram"), became a national shrine under the custodianship of the Quraysh, the chief tribe of Mecca, which made the Hejaz the most important religious area in north Arabia. Its role was solidified by a confrontation with the Christian king Abraha, who controlled much of Arabia from a seat of power in Yemen in the middle of the sixth century. Abraha had recently constructed a splendid church in Sana'a, and he wanted to make that city a major center of pilgrimage, but Mecca's Kaaba presented a challenge to his plan. Abraha found a pretext for an attack on Mecca, presented by different sources alternatively as pollution of the church by a tribe allied to the Meccans or as an attack on Abraha's grandson in Najran by a Meccan party. The defeat of the army he assembled to conquer Mecca is recounted with miraculous details by the Islamic tradition and is also alluded to in the Quran and pre-Islamic poetry. After the battle, which probably occurred around 565, the Quraysh became a dominant force in western Arabia, receiving the title "God's people" ("ahl Allah") according to Islamic sources, and formed the cult association of "ḥums", which tied members of many tribes in western Arabia to the Kaaba.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: According to tradition, the Kaaba was a cube-like, originally roofless structure housing a black stone revered as a relic. The sanctuary was dedicated to Hubal (Arabic: هبل), who, according to some sources, was worshiped as the greatest of the 360 idols the Kaaba contained, which probably represented the days of the year. Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Al-Kalbi both report that the human-shaped idol of Hubal made of precious stone came into the possession of the Quraysh with its right hand broken off and that the Quraysh made a hand of gold to replace it. A soothsayer performed divination in the shrine by drawing ritual arrows, and vows and sacrifices were made to assure success. Marshall Hodgson argues that relations with deities and fetishes in pre-Islamic Mecca were maintained chiefly on the basis of bargaining, where favors were expected in return for offerings. A deity's or oracle's failure to provide the desired response was sometimes met with anger.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in Meccan religion. According to one hypothesis, which goes back to Julius Wellhausen, Allah (the supreme deity of the tribal federation around Quraysh) was a designation that consecrated the superiority of Hubal (the supreme deity of Quraysh) over the other gods. However, there is also evidence that Allah and Hubal were two distinct deities. According to that hypothesis, the Kaaba was first consecrated to a supreme deity named Allah and then hosted the pantheon of Quraysh after their conquest of Mecca, about a century before the time of Muhammad. Some inscriptions seem to indicate the use of Allah as a name of a polytheist deity centuries earlier, but we know nothing precise about this use. Some scholars have suggested that Allah may have represented a remote creator god who was gradually eclipsed by more particularized local deities. There is disagreement on whether Allah played a major role in the Meccan religious cult. No iconic representation or idol of Allah is known to have existed.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The three chief goddesses of Meccan religion were al-Lat, Al-‘Uzzá, and Manāt, who were called the daughters of Allah. Egerton Sykes meanwhile states that Al-lāt was the female counterpart of Allah while Uzza was a name given by Banu Ghatafan to the planet Venus.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Other deities of the Quraysh in Mecca included Manaf, Isaf and Na’ila. Although the early Arab historian Al-Tabari calls Manaf (Arabic: مناف) "one of the greatest deities of Mecca", very little information is available about it. Women touched his idol as a token of blessing, and kept away from it during menstruation. Gonzague Ryckmans described this as a practice peculiar to Manaf, but according to the Encyclopedia of Islam, a report from Ibn Al-Kalbi indicates that it was common to all idols. Muhammad's great-great-grandfather's name was Abd Manaf which means "slave of Manaf". He is thought by some scholars to be a sun-god. The idols of Isāf and Nā'ila were located near the Black Stone with a "talbiyah" performed to Isāf during sacrifices. Various legends existed about the idols, including one that they were petrified after they committed adultery in the Kaaba.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The pantheon of the Quraysh was not identical with that of the tribes who entered into various cult and commercial associations with them, especially that of the "hums". Christian Julien Robin argues that the former was composed principally of idols that were in the sanctuary of Mecca, including Hubal and Manaf, while the pantheon of the associations was superimposed on it, and its principal deities included the three goddesses, who had neither idols nor a shrine in that city.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The second half of the sixth century was a period of political disorder in Arabia and communication routes were no longer secure. Religious divisions were an important cause of the crisis. Judaism became the dominant religion in Yemen while Christianity took root in the Persian Gulf area. In line with the broader trends of the ancient world, Arabia yearned for a more spiritual form of religion and began believing in afterlife, while the choice of religion increasingly became a personal rather than communal choice. While many were reluctant to convert to a foreign faith, those faiths provided intellectual and spiritual reference points, and the old pagan vocabulary of Arabic began to be replaced by Jewish and Christian loanwords from Aramaic everywhere, including Mecca. The distribution of pagan temples supports Gerald Hawting's argument that Arabian polytheism was marginalized in the region and already dying in Mecca on the eve of Islam. The practice of polytheistic cults was increasingly limited to the steppe and the desert, and in Yathrib (later known as Medina), which included two tribes with polytheistic majorities, the absence of a public pagan temple in the town or its immediate neighborhood indicates that polytheism was confined to the private sphere. Looking at the text of the Quran itself, Hawting has also argued that the criticism of idolaters and polytheists contained in Quran is in fact a hyperbolic reference to other monotheists, in particular the Arab Jews and Arab Christians, whose religious beliefs were considered imperfect. According to some traditions, the Kaaba contained no statues, but its interior was decorated with images of Mary and Jesus, prophets, angels, and trees.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: To counter the effects of anarchy, the institution of sacred months, during which every act of violence was prohibited, was reestablished. During those months, it was possible to participate in pilgrimages and fairs without danger. The Quraysh upheld the principle of two annual truces, one of one month and the second of three months, which conferred a sacred character to the Meccan sanctuary. The cult association of "hums", in which individuals and groups partook in the same rites, was primarily religious, but it also had important economic consequences. Although, as Patricia Crone has shown, Mecca could not compare with the great centers of caravan trade on the eve of Islam, it was probably one of the most prosperous and secure cities of the peninsula, since, unlike many of them, it did not have surrounding walls. Pilgrimage to Mecca was a popular custom. Some Islamic rituals, including processions around the Kaaba and between the hills of al-Safa and Marwa, as well as the salutation "we are here, O Allah, we are here" repeated on approaching the Kaaba are believed to have antedated Islam. Spring water acquired a sacred character in Arabia early on and Islamic sources state that the well of Zamzam became holy long before the Islamic era.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: According to Ibn Sa'd, the opposition in Mecca started when the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, delivered verses that "spoke shamefully of the idols they (the Meccans) worshiped other than Himself (God) and mentioned the perdition of their fathers who died in disbelief". According to William Montgomery Watt, as the ranks of Muhammad's followers swelled, he became a threat to the local tribes and the rulers of the city, whose wealth rested upon the Kaaba, the focal point of Meccan religious life, which Muhammad threatened to overthrow. Muhammad's denunciation of the Meccan traditional religion was especially offensive to his own tribe, the Quraysh, as they were the guardians of the Kaaba.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The conquest of Mecca around 629–630 AD led to the destruction of the idols around the Kaaba, including Hubal. Following the conquest, shrines and temples dedicated to deities were destroyed, such as the shrines to al-Lat, al-’Uzza and Manat in Ta’if, Nakhla and al-Qudayd respectively.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Less complex societies outside South Arabia often had smaller pantheons, with the patron deity having much prominence. The deities attested in north Arabian inscriptions include Ruda, Nuha, Allah, Dathan, and Kahl. Inscriptions in a North Arabian dialect in the region of Najd referring to Nuha describe emotions as a gift from him. In addition, they also refer to Ruda being responsible for all things good and bad.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Safaitic tribes in particular prominently worshipped the goddess al-Lat as a bringer of prosperity. The Syrian god Baalshamin was also worshipped by Safaitic tribes and is mentioned in Safaitic inscriptions.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Religious worship amongst the Qedarites, an ancient tribal confederation that was probably subsumed into Nabataea around the 2nd century AD, was centered around a polytheistic system in which women rose to prominence. Divine images of the gods and goddesses worshipped by Qedarite Arabs, as noted in Assyrian inscriptions, included representations of Atarsamain, Nuha, Ruda, Dai, Abirillu and Atarquruma. The female guardian of these idols, usually the reigning queen, served as a priestess (, in Assyrian texts) who communed with the other world. There is also evidence that the Qedar worshipped al-Lat to whom the inscription on a silver bowl from a king of Qedar is dedicated. In the Babylonian Talmud, which was passed down orally for centuries before being transcribed c. 500 AD, in tractate Taanis (folio 5b), it is said that most Qedarites worshiped pagan gods.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Aramaic stele inscription discovered by Charles Hubert in 1880 at Tayma mentions the introduction of a new god called Salm of "hgm" into the city's pantheon being permitted by three local gods – Salm of Mahram who was the chief god, Shingala, and Ashira. The name Salm means "image" or "idol".


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Midianites, a people referred to in the Book of Genesis and located in north-western Arabia, may have worshipped Yahweh. Indeed, some scholars believe that Yahweh was originally a Midianite god and that he was subsequently adopted by the Israelites. An Egyptian temple of Hathor continued to be used during the Midianite occupation of the site, although images of Hathor were defaced suggesting Midianite opposition. They transformed it into a desert tent-shrine set up with a copper sculpture of a snake.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Lihyanites worshipped the god Dhu-Ghabat and rarely turned to others for their needs. Dhu-Ghabat's name means "he of the thicket", based on the etymology of "gabah", meaning forest or thicket. The god al-Kutba', a god of writing probably related to a Babylonian deity and perhaps was brought into the region by the Babylonian king Nabonidus, is mentioned in Lihyanite inscriptions as well. The worship of the Hermonian gods Leucothea and Theandrios was spread from Phoenicia to Arabia.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: According to the "Book of Idols", the Tayy tribe worshipped al-Fals, whose idol stood on Jabal Aja, while the Kalb tribe worshipped Wadd, who had an idol in Dumat al-Jandal.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Nabataeans worshipped primarily northern Arabian deities. Under foreign influences, they also incorporated foreign deities and elements into their beliefs.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Nabataeans’ chief-god is Dushara. In Petra, the only major goddess is Al-‘Uzzá, assuming the traits of Isis, Tyche and Aphrodite. It is unknown if her worship and identity is related to her cult at Nakhla and others. The Nabatean inscriptions define Allāt and Al-Uzza as the "bride of Dushara". Al-Uzza may have been an epithet of Allāt in the Nabataean religion according to John F. Healey.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Outside Petra, other deities were worshipped; for example, Hubal and Manat were invoked in the Hejaz, and al-Lat was invoked in the Hauran and the Syrian desert. The Nabataean king Obodas I, who founded Obodat, was deified and worshipped as a god. They also worshipped Shay al-Qawm, al-Kutba', and various Greco-Roman deities such as Nike and Tyche. Maxime Rodinson suggests that Hubal, who was popular in Mecca, had a Nabataean origin.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The worship of Pakidas, a Nabataean god, is attested at Gerasa alongside Hera in an inscription dated to the first century A.D. while an Arabian god is also attested by three inscriptions dated to the second century.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Nabataeans were known for their elaborate tombs, but they were not just for show; they were meant to be comfortable places for the dead. Petra has many "sacred high places" which include altars that have usually been interpreted as places of human sacrifice, although, since the 1960s, an alternative theory that they are "exposure platforms" for placing the corpses of the deceased as part of a funerary ritual has been put forward. However, there is, in fact, little evidence for either proposition.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Palmyra was a cosmopolitan society, with its population being a mix of Aramaeans and Arabs. The Arabs of Palmyra worshipped al-Lat, Rahim and Shamash. The temple of al-Lat was established by the Bene Ma'zin tribe, who were probably an Arab tribe. The nomads of the countryside worshipped a set of deities, bearing Arab names and attributes, most prominent of them was Abgal, who himself is not attested in Palmyra itself. Ma'n, an Arab god, was worshipped alongside Abgal in a temple dedicated in 195 AD at Khirbet Semrin in the Palmyrene region while an inscription dated 194 AD at Ras esh-Shaar calls him the "good and bountiful god". A stele at Ras esh-Shaar shows him riding a horse with a lance while the god Saad is riding a camel. Abgal, Ma'n and Sa'd were known as the "genii".


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The god Ashar was represented on a stele in Dura-Europos alongside another god Sa'd. The former was represented on a horse with Arab dress while the other was shown standing on the ground. Both had Parthian hairstyle, large facial hair and moustaches as well as similar clothing. Ashar's name is found to have been used in a theophoric manner among the Arab-majority areas of the region of the Northwest Semitic languages, like Hatra, where names like "Refuge of Ashar", "Servant of Ashar" and "Ashar has given" are recorded on an inscription.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: In Edessa, the solar deity was the primary god around the time of the Roman Emperor Julian and this worship was presumably brought in by migrants from Arabia. Julian's oration delivered to the denizens of the city mentioned that they worshipped the Sun surrounded by Azizos and Monimos whom Iamblichus identified with Ares and Hermes respectively. Monimos derived from "Mu'nim" or "the favourable one", and was another name of Ruda or Ruldaiu as apparent from spellings of his name in Sennacherib's Annals.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The idol of the god al-Uqaysir was, according to the "Book of Idols", located in Syria, and was worshipped by the tribes of Quda'a, Lakhm, Judham, Amela, and Ghatafan. Adherents would go on a pilgrimage to the idol and shave their heads, then mix their hair with wheat, "for every single hair a handful of wheat".


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: A shrine to Dushara has been discovered in the harbour of ancient Puteoli in Italy. The city was an important nexus for trade to the Near East, and it is known to have had a Nabataean presence during the mid 1st century BCE. A Minaean altar dedicated to Wadd evidently existed in Delos, containing two inscriptions in Minaean and Greek respectively.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Bedouin were introduced to Meccan ritualistic practices as they frequented settled towns of the Hejaz during the four months of the "holy truce", the first three of which were devoted to religious observance, while the fourth was set aside for trade. Alan Jones infers from Bedouin poetry that the gods, even Allah, were less important to the Bedouins than Fate. They seem to have had little trust in rituals and pilgrimages as means of propitiating Fate, but had recourse to divination and soothsayers (). The Bedouins regarded some trees, wells, caves and stones as sacred objects, either as fetishes or as means of reaching a deity. They created sanctuaries where people could worship fetishes.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The Bedouins had a code of honor which Fazlur Rahman Malik states may be regarded as their religious ethics. This code encompassed women, bravery, hospitality, honouring one's promises and pacts, and vengeance. They believed that the ghost of a slain person would cry out from the grave until their thirst for blood was quenched. Practices such as killing of infant girls were often regarded as having religious sanction. Numerous mentions of jinn in the Quran and testimony of both pre-Islamic and Islamic literature indicate that the belief in spirits was prominent in pre-Islamic Bedouin religion. However, there is evidence that the word jinn is derived from Aramaic, , which was widely attested in Palmyrene inscriptions. The Aramaic word was used by Christians to designate pagan gods reduced to the status of demons, and was introduced into Arabic folklore only late in the pre-Islamic era. Julius Wellhausen has observed that such spirits were thought to inhabit desolate, dingy and dark places and that they were feared. One had to protect oneself from them, but they were not the objects of a true cult.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Bedouin religious experience also included an apparently indigenous cult of ancestors. The dead were not regarded as powerful, but rather as deprived of protection and needing charity of the living as a continuation of social obligations beyond the grave. Only certain ancestors, especially heroes from which the tribe was said to derive its name, seem to have been objects of real veneration.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Iranian religions existed in pre-Islamic Arabia on account of Sasanian military presence along the Persian Gulf and South Arabia and on account of trade routes between the Hejaz and Iraq. Some Arabs in northeast of the peninsula converted to Zoroastrianism and several Zoroastrian temples were constructed in Najd. Some of the members from the tribe of Banu Tamim had converted to the religion. There is also evidence of existence of Manichaeism in Arabia as several early sources indicate a presence of "zandaqas" in Mecca, although the term could also be interpreted as referring to Mazdakism. However, according to the most recent research by Tardieu, the prevalence of Manichaeism in Mecca during the 6th and 7th centuries, when Islam emerged, can not be proven. Similar reservations regarding the appearance of Manichaeism and Mazdakism in pre-Islamic Mecca are offered by Trompf & Mikkelsen et al. in their latest work (2018). There is evidence for the circulation of Iranian religious ideas in the form of Persian loan words in Quran such as "firdaws" (paradise).


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Zoroastrianism was also present in Eastern Arabia and Persian-speaking Zoroastrians lived in the region. The religion was introduced in the region including modern-day Bahrain during the rule of Persian empires in the region starting from 250 B.C. It was mainly practiced in Bahrain by Persian settlers. Zoroastrianism was also practiced in the Persian-ruled area of modern-day Oman. The religion also existed in Persian-ruled area of modern Yemen. The descendants of Abna, the Persian conquerors of Yemen, were followers of Zoroastrianism. Yemen's Zoroastrians who had the jizya imposed on them after being conquered by Muhammad are mentioned by the Islamic historian al-Baladhuri. According to Serjeant, the Baharna people may be the Arabized descendants of converts from the original population of ancient Persians (majus) as well as other religions.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: A thriving community of Jewish tribes existed in pre-Islamic Arabia and included both sedentary and nomadic communities. Jews had migrated into Arabia from Roman times onwards. Arabian Jews spoke Arabic as well as Hebrew and Aramaic and had contact with Jewish religious centers in Babylonia and Palestine. The Yemeni Himyarites converted to Judaism in the 4th century, and some of the Kinda were also converted in the 4th/5th century. Jewish tribes existed in all major Arabian towns during Muhammad's time including in Tayma and Khaybar as well as Medina with twenty tribes living in the peninsula. From tomb inscriptions, it is visible that Jews also lived in Mada'in Saleh and Al-'Ula.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: There is evidence that Jewish converts in the Hejaz were regarded as Jews by other Jews, as well as by non-Jews, and sought advice from Babylonian rabbis on matters of attire and kosher food. In at least one case, it is known that an Arab tribe agreed to adopt Judaism as a condition for settling in a town dominated by Jewish inhabitants. Some Arab women in Yathrib/Medina are said to have vowed to make their child a Jew if the child survived, since they considered the Jews to be people "of knowledge and the book" ("ʿilmin wa-kitābin"). Philip Hitti infers from proper names and agricultural vocabulary that the Jewish tribes of Yathrib consisted mostly of Judaized clans of Arabian and Aramaean origin.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The key role played by Jews in the trade and markets of the Hejaz meant that market day for the week was the day preceding the Jewish Sabbath. This day, which was called "aruba" in Arabic, also provided occasion for legal proceedings and entertainment, which in turn may have influenced the choice of Friday as the day of Muslim congregational prayer. Toward the end of the sixth century, the Jewish communities in the Hejaz were in a state of economic and political decline, but they continued to flourish culturally in and beyond the region. They had developed their distinctive beliefs and practices, with a pronounced mystical and eschatological dimension. In the Islamic tradition, based on a phrase in the Quran, Arab Jews are said to have referred to Uzair as the son of Allah, although the historical accuracy of this assertion has been disputed.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Jewish agriculturalists lived in the region of Eastern Arabia. According to Robert Bertram Serjeant, the Baharna may be the Arabized "descendants of converts from Christians (Arameans), Jews and ancient Persians (Majus) inhabiting the island and cultivated coastal provinces of Eastern Arabia at the time of the Arab conquest". From the Islamic sources, it seems that Judaism was the religion most followed in Yemen. Ya'qubi claimed all Yemenites to be Jews; Ibn Hazm however states only Himyarites and some Kindites were Jews.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The main areas of Christian influence in Arabia were on the northeastern and northwestern borders and in what was to become Yemen in the south. The north west was under the influence of Christian missionary activity from the Roman Empire where the Ghassanids, a client kingdom of the Romans, were converted to Christianity. In the south, particularly at Najran, a centre of Christianity developed as a result of the influence of the Christian Kingdom of Axum based on the other side of the Red Sea in Ethiopia. Some of the Banu Harith had converted to Christianity. One family of the tribe built a large church at Najran called "Deir Najran", also known as the "Ka'ba of Najran". Both the Ghassanids and the Christians in the south adopted Monophysitism.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: The third area of Christian influence was on the north eastern borders where the Lakhmids, a client tribe of the Sassanians, adopted Nestorianism, being the form of Christianity having the most influence in the Sassanian Empire. As the Persian Gulf region of Arabia increasingly fell under the influence of the Sassanians from the early third century, many of the inhabitants were exposed to Christianity following the eastward dispersal of the religion by Mesopotamian Christians. However, it was not until the fourth century that Christianity gained popularity in the region with the establishment of monasteries and a diocesan structure.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: In pre-Islamic times, the population of Eastern Arabia consisted of Christianized Arabs (including Abd al-Qays) and Aramean Christians among other religions. Syriac functioned as a liturgical language. Serjeant states that the Baharna may be the Arabized descendants of converts from the original population of Christians (Aramaeans), among other religions at the time of Arab conquests. Beth Qatraye, which translates "region of the Qataris" in Syriac, was the Christian name used for the region encompassing north-eastern Arabia. It included Bahrain, Tarout Island, Al-Khatt, Al-Hasa, and Qatar. Oman and what is today the United Arab Emirates comprised the diocese known as Beth Mazunaye. The name was derived from 'Mazun', the Persian name for Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Sohar was the central city of the diocese.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: In Nejd, in the centre of the peninsula, there is evidence of members of two tribes, Kinda and Taghlib, converting to Christianity in the 6th century. However, in the Hejaz in the west, whilst there is evidence of the presence of Christianity, it is not thought to have been significant amongst the indigenous population of the area.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Arabicized Christian names were fairly common among pre-Islamic Arabians, which has been attributed to the influence that Syrianized Christian Arabs had on Bedouins of the peninsula for several centuries before the rise of Islam.


title: Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia

text: Neal Robinson, based on verses in the Quran, believes that some Arab Christians may have held unorthodox beliefs such as the worshipping of a divine triad of God the father, Jesus the Son and Mary the Mother. Furthermore, there is evidence that unorthodox groups such as the Collyridians, whose adherents worshipped Mary, were present in Arabia, and it has been proposed that the Quran refers to their beliefs. However, other scholars, notably Mircea Eliade, William Montgomery Watt, G. R. Hawting and Sidney H. Griffith, cast doubt on the historicity or reliability of such references in the Quran. Their views are as follows:


title: Virginia Hall

text: Virginia Hall Goillot DSC, Croix de Guerre, (April 6, 1906 – July 8, 1982), code named Marie and Diane, was an American who worked with the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in France during World War II. The objective of SOE and OSS was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE and OSS agents in France allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. After World War II Hall worked for the Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).


title: Virginia Hall

text: Hall was a pioneering agent for the SOE, arriving in Vichy France on 23 August 1941, the first female agent to take up residence in France. She created the Heckler network in Lyon. Over the next 15 months, she "became an expert at support operations – organizing resistance movements; supplying agents with money, weapons, and supplies; helping downed airmen to escape; offering safe houses and medical assistance to wounded agents and pilots." She fled France in November 1942 to avoid capture by the Germans.


title: Virginia Hall

text: She returned to France as a wireless operator for the OSS in March 1944 as a member of the Saint network. Working in territory still occupied by the German army and mostly without the assistance of other OSS agents, she supplied arms, training, and direction to French resistance groups, called Maquisards, especially in Haute-Loire where the Maquis cleared the department of German soldiers prior to the arrival of the American army in September 1944.


title: Virginia Hall

text: The Germans gave her the nickname "Artemis," and the Gestapo reportedly considered her "the most dangerous of all Allied spies." Having lost part of her leg in a hunting accident, Hall used a prosthesis she named "Cuthbert." She was also known as "The Limping Lady" by the Germans and as "Marie of Lyon" by many of the SOE agents she assisted.


title: Virginia Hall

text: Virginia Hall was born in Baltimore, Maryland on April 6, 1906 to Barbara Virginia Hammel and Edwin Lee Hall. She attended Roland Park Country School and then Radcliffe College of Harvard University and Barnard College of Columbia University, where she studied French, Italian, and German. She also attended George Washington University, where she studied French and Economics. She wanted to finish her studies in Europe, so she traveled the Continent and studied in France, Germany, and Austria, finally landing an appointment as a Consular Service clerk at the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland in 1931.


title: Virginia Hall

text: A few months later she transferred to Smyrna, known later as Izmir, Turkey. In 1933, she tripped and accidentally shot herself in the right foot while hunting birds. Her leg was amputated below the knee and replaced with a wooden appendage which she named "Cuthbert". After losing her leg, she worked again as a consular clerk in Venice and in Tallinn, Estonia.


title: Virginia Hall

text: Hall made several attempts to become a diplomat with the United States Foreign Service, but women were rarely hired. In 1937, she was turned down by the Department of State because of an obscure rule against hiring people with disabilities as diplomats. Even an appeal for her to be hired to President Franklin D. Roosevelt was unheeded. She resigned from the Department of State in March 1939, still a consular clerk.


title: Virginia Hall

text: Early in World War II in February 1940, Hall became an ambulance driver for the army of France. After the defeat of France in June 1940, she made her way to Spain where, by chance, she met a British intelligence officer named George Bellows. Bellows was impressed with her and gave her the telephone number of a "friend" who might be able to help her find employment in England. The friend was Nicolas Bodington, who worked for the newly-created Special Operations Executive (SOE).


title: Virginia Hall

text: Hall joined the SOE in April 1941 and after training arrived in Vichy France, unoccupied by Germany and nominally independent at that time, on August 23, 1941. She was the second female agent to be sent to France by SOE's F (France) Section, and the first to remain there for a lengthy period of time. (SOE F section would send 41 female agents to France during World War II, of whom 26 would survive the war.) Hall's cover was as a reporter for the "New York Post" which gave her license to interview people, gather information and file stories filled with details useful to military planners. She based herself in Lyon. She turned away from her "chic Parisian wardrobe" to become inconspicuous and often quickly changed her appearance through make-up and disguise.


title: Virginia Hall

text: Hall was a pioneer as a World War II secret agent and had to learn on her own the "exacting tasks of being available, arranging contacts, recommending who to bribe and where to hide, soothing the jagged nerves of agents on the run and supervising the distribution of wireless sets." The network (or circuit) of SOE agents she founded was named Heckler. Among her recruits were gynecologist Jean Rousset and Germaine Guérin, the owner of a prominent brothel in Lyon. Guérin made several safehouses available to Hall and passed along tidbits of information she and her female employees heard from German officers visiting the brothel.


title: Virginia Hall

text: The official historian of the SOE, M. R. D. Foot, said that the motto of every successful secret agent was ""dubito, ergo sum"" ("I doubt, therefore I survive."). Hall's lengthy tenure in France without being captured illustrates her caution. In October 1941, she sensed danger and declined to attend a meeting of SOE agents in Marseille which the French police raided, capturing a dozen agents. After that debacle, Hall was one of the few SOE agents still at large in France and the only one with a means of transmitting information to London. George Whittinghill, an American diplomat in Lyon, allowed her to smuggle reports and letters to London in the diplomatic pouch.


title: Virginia Hall

text: The winter of 1941–42 was miserable for Hall. In a letter she said that if SOE would send her a piece of soap she would be "both very happy and much cleaner." In the absence of an SOE wireless operator her access to the American diplomatic pouch was the only means the few agents left at large in France had of communicating with London. She continued building contacts in southern France and she assisted in the brief missions of SOE agents Peter Churchill and Benjamin Cowburn and earned high compliments from both. She avoided contact with an SOE agent sent to Lyon named Georges Duboudin and refused to introduce him to her contacts. She regarded him as amateurish and lax in security. When SOE headquarters directed that Duboudin should supervise her, she told SOE to "lay off." She worked as little as possible with Philippe de Vomécourt, who, although an authentic French Resistance leader, was lax in security and grandiose in his ambitions. In August 1942, SOE agent Richard Heslop met with her and described her as a "girl" (she was 36) who lived in a gloomy apartment, but he relied on her to facilitate communications with other agents. When a suspicious Heslop demanded to know who "Cuthbert" was she showed him by banging her wooden foot against a table leg producing a hollow sound.


title: Virginia Hall

text: Another task Hall took on was helping British airmen, shot down or crashed over Europe, escape and return to England. Downed airmen who found their way to Lyon were told to go to the American Consulate and say they were a "friend of Olivier." "Olivier" was Hall and she, with the help of brothel-owner Guerrin and other friends, hid, fed, and helped dozens of airmen escape France to neutral Spain and hence back to England.


title: Virginia Hall

text: The French nicknamed her "la dame qui boite" and the Germans put "the limping lady" on their most wanted list.


title: Virginia Hall

text: Hall learned that the 12 agents arrested by the French police in October 1941 were incarcerated at the Mauzac prison near Bergerac. Wireless operator Georges Bégué smuggled out letters to Hall from the prison and she recruited Gaby Bloch, wife of the prisoner Jean-Pierre Bloch, as an ally to plan an escape. Bloch visited the prison frequently to bring food and other items to her husband, including tins of sardines. The tools she smuggled in and the sardine tins enabled Bégué to make a key to the door of the barracks where the prisoners were kept. Hall, too well known to visit the prison, assembled safe houses, vehicles, and helpers. A priest smuggled in a radio to Bégué, and from within the prison, he began transmitting to London.


title: Virginia Hall

text: On July 15, 1942, the prisoners escaped and, after hiding in the woods while an intense manhunt took place, all of them met up with Hall in Lyon by August 11. From there, they were smuggled to Spain and thence back to England. The official historian of SOE, M. R. D. Foot, called the escape "one of the war's most useful operations of its kind." Several of the escapees returned later to France and became leaders of SOE networks.


title: Virginia Hall

text: The Germans were furious about the escape from Mauzac prison and the laxity of the French police in allowing the escape. The Gestapo flooded Vichy France with 500 agents and the Abwehr also stepped up operations to infiltrate and destroy the fledgling French Resistance and the SOE networks. The Germans focused on Lyon, the center of the resistance. Hall had counted on contacts she had with the French police to protect her, but, under pressure from the Germans, her police contacts were no longer reliable.


title: Virginia Hall

text: In May 1942, Hall had agreed to have messages from the Gloria Network, a French-run resistance movement based in Paris, transmitted to SOE in London. In August Gloria was infiltrated by a Roman Catholic priest and Abwehr agent named Robert Alesch and its leadership was captured by the Abwehr. Alesch also made contact with Hall in August, claiming to be an agent of Gloria and offering intelligence of apparently high value. She had doubts about Alesch, especially when she learned that Gloria had been destroyed, but was persuaded of his bona fides, as was the London headquarters of SOE. Alesch was able to penetrate Hall's network of contacts, including the capture of wireless operators and the sending of false messages to London in her name.


title: Virginia Hall

text: On November 7, 1942, the American Consulate in Lyon told Hall that an allied invasion of North Africa was imminent. In response to the invasion, on November 8, the Germans moved to occupy Vichy France. Hall anticipated correctly that the suppression by the Gestapo and Abwehr would become even more severe and she fled Lyon without telling anyone, including her closest contacts. She escaped by train from Lyon to Perpignan, then, with a guide, walked over a 7,500 foot pass in the Pyrenees to Spain, covering up to 50 miles over two days in considerable discomfort.


title: Virginia Hall

text: Hall had named her artificial foot "Cuthbert", and she signaled to SOE before her escape that she hoped that "Cuthbert" would not trouble her on the way. The SOE did not understand the reference and replied, "If Cuthbert troublesome, eliminate him." After arriving in Spain, she was arrested by the Spanish authorities for illegally crossing the border, but the American Embassy eventually secured her release. She worked for SOE for a time in Madrid, then returned to London in July 1943 where she was quietly made an honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).


title: Virginia Hall

text: On her return to London, SOE leaders declined to send Hall back to France as an agent despite her requests. She was compromised, they said, and too much at risk. However, she took a wireless course and contacted the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) about a job. She was hired by the Special Operations Branch at the low rank and pay of a second lieutenant and on March 21, 1944, returned to France, arriving by motor gunboat at Beg-an-Fry east of Roscoff in Brittany. Her artificial leg prevented her from parachuting.


title: Virginia Hall

text: OSS provided her with a forged French identification card in the name of Marcelle Montagne. Her codename was Diane. The objective of the OSS teams was to arm and train the resistance groups, called Maquis, so they could support the Allied invasion of Normandy, which would take place on June 6, 1944, with sabotage and guerrilla activities.


title: Virginia Hall

text: Hall was disguised as an older woman, with gray hair and her teeth filed down to resemble that of a peasant woman. She disguised her limp with the shuffle of an old woman. Landing with her was Henri Lassot, 62 years old. Lassot was the organiser and leader of the new Saint network, it being too radical a thought that a woman could lead an SOE or OSS network of agents. She was Lassot's wireless operator. They were the fourth and fifth OSS agents to arrive in France. Lassot carried with him one million francs, equivalent to 5,000 British pounds; Hall had 500,000 francs with her. Hall quickly separated herself from Lassot whom she characterized as too talkative and a security risk, instructing her contacts not to tell him where she was. Aware that her accent would reveal that she was not French, she engaged a French woman, Madame Rabut, to accompany and speak for her.


title: Virginia Hall

text: From March to July 1944, Hall roamed around France south of Paris, posing sometimes as an elderly milkmaid (and on one occasion selling cheese she had made to a group of German soldiers). She found and organized drop zones, established several safe houses, and made and renewed contacts, notably with Philippe de Vomecourt, in the Resistance. She organized and supplied with arms several resistance groups of a hundred men each in the Cher and Cosne. She unsuccessfully attempted to organize a jailbreak to gain freedom for three men she called her nephews, captives of the Germans in Paris. Her resistance groups undertook many successful small-scale attacks on infrastructure and German soldiers.


title: Virginia Hall

text: Hall was next given the job of helping the Maquis in southern France harass the Germans in support of the Allied invasion of the south, Operation Dragoon, which would take place on August 15, 1944. In July, Hall was ordered to go to Haute-Loire department, arriving July 14, quitting her disguise, and establishing her headquarters in a barn near Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. As a woman with the rank of second lieutenant she had problems asserting her authority over the Maquis groups and the self-proclaimed colonels heading them. She complained to OSS headquarters, "you send people out ostensibly to work with me and for me, but you do not give me the necessary authority."


title: Virginia Hall

text: She told the Maquis leaders that she would finance them and give them arms on condition that they would be advised by her, but the prickly Maquis leaders continued to be a problem. The three planeloads of supplies she received in late July and the money she distributed for expenses gained their grudging acquiescence.


title: Virginia Hall

text: The three battalions of Maquisards (about 1,500 men) in her area undertook a number of successful sabotage operations. Now part of the French Forces of the Interior (FFI), they forced the German occupiers to withdraw from Le Puy-en-Velay and head north with the rest of the retreating German forces. Belatedly, a Jedburgh team, called Jeremy, of three men parachuted in on August 25 to undertake the training and supply of the battalions. Hall commented wryly, "this was after the Germans had been liquidated in the department of the Haute Loire and Le Puy liberated."


title: Virginia Hall

text: Hall and several of the British and American military officers working for her left the Haute Loire and arrived in Paris on September 22. Later, she and her OSS agent Paul Golliot journeyed to Austria to foment anti-Nazi resistance. With the collapse of the Nazis, Hall and Golliot returned to Paris in April 1945. She wrote reports and identified people who had helped her and were deserving of commendations and then resigned from OSS.


title: Virginia Hall

text: After the war, Hall visited Lyon to learn the fate of the people who had worked for her there. Her closest associates, brothel-owner Germaine Guérin and gynecologist Jean Rousset, had both been captured by the Germans and sent to concentration camps, but they survived. She arranged 80,000 francs (400 British pounds) compensation from the United Kingdom for Guérin, but most of her other helpers received nothing. Many of the people she knew had not survived – including the three men she called "nephews" who had been executed at Buchenwald concentration camp. The German agent and priest, Robert Alesch, who had betrayed her network in Lyon was captured after the war and executed in Paris.


title: Virginia Hall

text: Hall joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947, one of the first women hired by the new agency. As a woman she was discriminated against, as the CIA later acknowledged. She was passed over for promotions, honors and work for which she was qualified despite the support and efforts from her superiors who knew her work directly. She was given a desk-bound job as an intelligence analyst to gather information about Soviet penetration of European countries. She resigned in 1948 and then was rehired in 1950 for another desk job.


title: Virginia Hall

text: In the 1950s, she again headed ultra secret paramilitary operations in France as a model for setting up resistance groups in several European countries in case of a Soviet attack. She became a "sacred" presence and first woman operations officer in the entire covert action arm of the CIA and a valued member of the Special Activities Division supporting undercover activities to prevent the spread of communism in Europe.


title: Virginia Hall

text: She received a poor performance reports from a superior who had never overseen her work. In 1966, she retired, at the mandatory retirement age of 60.


title: Virginia Hall

text: In the secret CIA report of her career, the CIA admitted that her fellow officers "felt she had been sidelined-shunted into backwater accounts because she had so much experience that she overshadowed her male colleagues, who felt threatened by her" and that "her experience and abilities were never properly utilized".


title: Virginia Hall

text: While in Haute-Loire, Hall had met and fallen in love with an OSS lieutenant, Paul Goillot, who worked with her. In 1957, the couple married after living together off-and-on for years. They retired to a farm in Barnesville, Maryland, where she lived until her death on July 8, 1982. Her husband survived her by five years. She is buried in the Druid Ridge Cemetery, Pikesville, Maryland.


title: Virginia Hall

text: General William Joseph Donovan personally awarded her a Distinguished Service Cross in September 1945 in recognition of her efforts in France, the only one awarded to a civilian woman in World War II. President Truman wanted a public award of the medal, but Hall demurred, stating that she was "still operational and most anxious to get busy." She was made an honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), and was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palme by France.


title: Virginia Hall

text: Hall's refusal to talk and write about her World War II experiences resulted in her slipping into obscurity during her lifetime, but her death "triggered a new curiosity" which persisted into the 21st century.


title: Virginia Hall

text: In 1988 her name was added to the Military Intelligence Corps Hall of Fame. The French and British ambassadors in Washington honored her in 2006, on the 100th anniversary of her birth. In 2016, a CIA field agent training facility was named the Virginia Hall Expeditionary Center. The CIA Museum gives five operatives individual sections in its catalog. One is Virginia Hall; the other four are men who went on to head the CIA. She was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame in 2019.


title: Virginia Hall

text: IFC Films released "A Call to Spy" in October 2020, the first feature film about Virginia Hall. It had its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in June 2019, commemorating the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Hall is portrayed by Sarah Megan Thomas, and the film is directed by Lydia Dean Pilcher. The film went on to win the Audience Choice Award in Canada. "A Call to Spy" had its U.S. festival premiere at the 2020 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, where it was honored with the Anti-Defamation League's "Stand Up" Award.


title: Virginia Hall

text: The film "A Woman of No Importance" was announced in 2017, based on the book by Sonia Purnell and starring Daisy Ridley as Hall.


title: Agatha Raisin (TV series)

text: Agatha Raisin is a British comedy-drama television program, based on M. C. Beaton's book series of the same name about a former PR agent who solves crime mysteries in the Cotswolds village of Carsely.


title: Agatha Raisin (TV series)

text: The programme was broadcast as a pilot titled "Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death" on 26 December 2014, followed by an eight-part series that first aired on Sky One on 7 June 2016. A second season was ordered by Acorn TV on 15 January 2018. On 27 February 2019, the show was commissioned for a third season. A fourth season started filming in March 2021.


title: Agatha Raisin (TV series)

text: On 22 August 2014, Sky announced that it had commissioned the adaptation for Sky One. It was commissioned by Cameron Roach. Sky One chief Adam MacDonald said, "Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death is a contemporary, sharp and witty crime drama offering for the upcoming festive season."


title: Agatha Raisin (TV series)

text: "Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death" began filming in September 2014. The main filming location is Biddestone, Wiltshire. On her role in the film, Ashley Jensen said, "I am absolutely delighted to be on board! It's not often a part like this comes along for a woman. Agatha Raisin is a strong forthright, independent, driven, successful woman, who is both funny and flawed, a real woman of our time."


title: Agatha Raisin (TV series)

text: Series two was ordered by Acorn TV, with a change to three 90-minute films as opposed to 45-minute episodes.


title: Agatha Raisin (TV series)

text: On 27 February 2019, the show was commissioned for series 3, which consists of four 90-minute episodes. It premiered on 28 October 2019.


title: Agatha Raisin (TV series)

text: Reviewing the first series, "The Independent" was critical of the writing, but praised Jensen. On the other hand, "The New York Times" called the series 'Delightful'. "The Guardian" described the second series as "Campy, kitsch, silly and very fun". TV Scoop said about the show 'It’s a sexy show with loads of plot twists. You follow Agatha’s journey figuring out whodunnit in a comical way'.


title: Agatha Raisin (TV series)

text: Region 1: Acorn Media- "Agatha Raisin, Series 1" DVD was released on 25 October 2016. "Agatha Raisin, Series 2" DVD and Blu-ray were released on 7 May 2019.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: The Oghuz or Ghuzz Turks (Middle Turkic: ٱغُز, "Oγuz", ) were a western Turkic people that spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia. The name "Oghuz" is a Common Turkic word for "tribe". Byzantine sources call the Oghuz the Uzes (Οὐ̑ζοι, "Ouzoi"). By the 10th century, Islamic sources were calling them Muslim Turkmens, as opposed to Tengrist or Buddhist. By the 12th century, this term had passed into Byzantine usage and the Oghuzes were overwhelmingly Muslim. The term "Oghuz" was gradually supplanted among the Turks themselves by the terms "Turkmen" and "Turcoman", ( or "Türkmân") from the mid-10th century on, a process which was completed by the beginning of the 13th century.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: The Oghuz confederation migrated westward from the Jeti-su area after a conflict with the Karluk allies of the Uyghurs. Today, much of the populations of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are descendants of Oghuz Turks and their language belongs to the Oghuz group of the Turkic languages family. Kara-Khanid scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari wrote that of all the Turkic languages, that of the Oghuz was the simplest. He also observed that the Oghuz had been separated for so long from the eastern Turks, that the language of the Turks in the east could be clearly distinguished from the language of the Oghuz and Kipchak further west.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: In the 9th century, the Oghuzes from the Aral steppes drove Bechens from the Emba and Ural River region toward the west. In the 10th century, they inhabited the steppe of the rivers Sari-su, Turgai and Emba to the north of Lake Balkhash of modern-day Kazakhstan. A clan of this nation, the Seljuks, embraced Islam and in the 11th century entered Persia, where they founded the Great Seljuk Empire.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Similarly in the 11th century, a Tengriist Oghuz clan, referred to as Uzes or Torks in the chronicles of Rurikid Kievan Rus', overthrew Pecheneg supremacy in the steppes of Rus' Khaganate. Harried by another Turkic people, the Kipchaks, these Oghuz penetrated as far as the lower Danube, crossed it and invaded the Balkans, where they were struck down by an outbreak of plague, causing the survivors either to flee or to join the Byzantine imperial forces as mercenaries (1065).


title: Oghuz Turks

text: The Oghuz seem to have been related to the Pechenegs, some of whom were clean-shaven and others of whom had small 'goatee' beards. According to the book on the leader of the Huns, "Attila and the Nomad Hordes", "Like the Kimaks they set up many carved wooden funerary statues surrounded by simple stone "balbal" monoliths." The authors of the book go on to note that "Those Uzes or Torks who settled along the Russian frontier were gradually Slavicized, though they also played a leading role as cavalry in 1100- and early 1200-era Russian armies, where they were known as "Black Hats"... Oghuz warriors served in almost all Islamic armies of the Middle East from the 1000s onwards, in Byzantium from the 800s, and even in Spain and Morocco." In later centuries, they adapted and applied their own traditions and institutions to the ends of the Islamic world and emerged as empire-builders with a constructive sense of statecraft.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Linguistically, the Oghuz belong to the Common Turkic speaking group, characterized by sound correspondences such as Common Turkic /-š/ versus Oghuric /-l/ and Common Turkic /-z/ versus Oghuric /-r/.Within the Common Turkic group, the Oghuz languages share these innovations: loss of Proto-Turkic gutturals in suffix anlaut, loss of /ɣ/ except after /a/, /g/ becoming either /j/ or lost, voicing of /t/ to /d/ and of /k/ to /g/, and */ð/ becomes /j/.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Ottomans and Afsharids are also believed to descend from the Oghuz-Turkmen tribes of Begdili, Yiva, Bayandur, Kayi and Afshar respectively.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: The Ottoman dynasty, who gradually took over Anatolia after the fall of the Seljuks, toward the end of the 13th century, led an army that was also predominantly Oghuz. The Ottomans proved to be superior to other local Oghuz Turkish states. Ahmed Bican Yazıcıoğlu, in early 15th century, traced Osman's genealogy to Oghuz Khagan, the legendary ancient ancestor of Turkic people, through his eldest grandson of his eldest son, so giving the Ottoman sultans primacy among Turkish monarchs.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Turkologist Peter Benjamin Golden (2011) used Proto-Turkic lexical items about the climate, topography, flora, fauna, people's modes of subsistence in the Proto-Turkic Urheimat to locate it in the southern, taiga-steppe zone of the Sayan-Altay region. Recently, the early Turkic peoples are proposed to descend from agricultural communities in Northeast Asia who moved westwards into Mongolia in the late 3rd millennium BC, where they adopted a pastoral lifestyle. By the early 1st millennium BC, these peoples had become equestrian nomads. In subsequent centuries, the steppe populations of Central Asia appear to have been progressively replaced and Turkified by East Asian nomadic Turks, moving out of Mongolia.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: During the 2nd century BC, according to ancient Chinese sources, a steppe tribal confederation known as the Xiongnu and their allies, the Wusun (probably an Indo-European people) defeated the neighboring Indo-European-speaking Yuezhi and drove them out of western China and into Central Asia. Various scholarly theories link the Xiongnu to Turkic peoples and/or the Huns. Bichurin claimed that the first usage of the word "Oghuz" appears to have been the title of "Oğuz Kağan", whose biography shares similarities with the biography, recorded by Han Chinese, of Xiongnu leader Modu Shanyu (or Mau-Tun), who founded the Xiongnu Empire. However, Oghuz Khan narratives were actually collected in Compendium of Chronicles by Ilkhanid scholar Rashid-al-Din in the early 14th century.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Sima Qian recorded the name "Wūjiē" 烏揭 (LHC: *"ʔɔ-gɨat") or "Hūjiē" 呼揭 (LHC: *"xɔ-gɨat"), of a people hostile to the Xiongnu and living immediately west of them, in the area of the Irtysh River, near Lake Zaysan. Golden suggests that these might be Chinese renditions of "*Ogur" ~ "*Oguz", yet uncertainty remains. According to one theory, "Hūjiē" is just another transliteration of "Yuezhi" and may refer to the Turkic Uyghurs; however, this is controversial and has few scholarly adherents.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Yury Zuev (1960) links the Oghuz to the Western Turkic tribe 姑蘇 "Gūsū" < (MC *"kuo-suo") in the 8th-century encyclopaedia Tongdian (or erroneously "Shǐsū" 始蘇 in the 11th century Zizhi Tongjian). Zuev also noted a parallel between two passages: