Seerat-un-Nabi (SAW) (Episode 6)

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When Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) built the Kaaba together with Hazrat Ismail (AS), through his preaching, the tribes of Jurhum and Qatura accepted the Deen-e-Ibrahimi and accepted Allah as the One God. After Hazrat Ibrahim (AS), due to the influence of Hazrat Ismail (AS), those who later settled in Makkah also continued to accept Deen-e-Hanif, i.e., the religion of Hazrat Ibrahim (AS). At that time, all the tribes of Makkah, including Aal-e-Ismail, believed in the worship of only One God, and the sanctity of the Kaaba was fully maintained.

But after the death of Hazrat Ismail (AS), when no Prophet was sent to guide the people of Makkah, gradually shirk and misguidance started spreading among them.

When the tribes of Ayad and Banu Khuza'ah attacked Makkah one after another, many tribes of Banu Ismail had to leave Makkah. At that time, they also took a stone from the Kaaba with them for the sake of blessing. Because of its association with the Kaaba, they started respecting it a lot. The effect of this respect was that gradually, in the coming time, their future generations gave that stone itself the status of a deity. In this way, shirk began to prevail among them.

But in the true sense, the regular beginning of shirk and idol worship among the Arabs, and especially among the people of Makkah, happened almost 2500 years after Hazrat Ibrahim (AS), when Banu Khuza'ah took over Makkah. The person who started idol worship among the Arabs was the chief of the Khuza'ah tribe, "Amr bin Luhay". This person was the custodian of the Kaaba.

Once when he went to Syria (Shaam), he saw people worshipping idols there. There were five idols named "Wadd, Yaghuth, Yauq, Suwa, and Nasr". These idols were worshipped by the nation of Nuh (AS). This person brought their idols with him from there and on his return, buried them at a place in Jeddah.

When he returned to Makkah, he publicized that his Jinn has told him about these idols which the nation of Nuh used to worship. Then he took the people of Makkah, who had already inclined towards shirk and idol worship, with him to Jeddah and dug out those idols from the earth and brought them to Makkah and placed them inside the Kaaba, where in the name of respect, the worship of these idols started and these idols were considered to possess different divine attributes.

Gradually, the people of Makkah themselves started carving new idols, and then many such idols were made which gained immense importance among the polytheists of Arabia in the coming era.

Since Makkah was the center of the entire Arabian Peninsula because of the Kaaba, when people of different tribes from outside used to come to Makkah during Hajj days, they would see these idols being worshipped there and on their return, they would get replicas of these idols made and take them along and install them in their own areas and start worshipping them.

(To be continued, InshaAllah)