>>19558067>>19558068In Southern Arabia, the most important deity was ʿAmm, the moon god. This was in stark contrast to most other civilizations in both the Old and New Worlds (the Mesoamericans, the Indo-Europeans, the Altaics, the Egyptians, the Aztecs, etc…), where the Sun reigned supreme. It turns out that 'Amm was not El, but Attar, a god associated with the Morning Star (Venus) who tried to dethrone El on his sacred mount and fell into the underworld. Sound familiar? ʿAmm, in fact, derives from a Proto-Arabic term for paternal uncle. Asherah of Ugarit entered the pantheon as ʿAmm's consort. The name also suffered a slight corruption and its epithet ʾElat became ʾal-Lāt. However, there is significant confusion surrounding ʾAl-Lāt's true relationship with Allah. While her Ugaritic ancestor ʾElat/ʾAṯirat was the consort of ʾEl, in Arabia she was of ʿAmm/Attar. That's the Moon/Venus god who tried to usurp El, if you remember. But when ʾEl arrived on the scene as Allah, things got confusing.
