Amr ibn Luhayy

THE CORPUS HELD HUBAL AND NOT THE MAN WHO FETCHED HIM. In the tradition's own telling the entire Meccan idol-cult has a named author and a journey attached to it, and the registry had the idol without the story. His stated reasoning is recorded as the sources give it — that the idols could act as INTERMEDIARIES for God, not as replacements.

Domains

• introduction of idol worship to mecca
• chieftaincy of khuzaa
• the hajj season

Relations

• installed the idol of: Hubal

Sources

• Reference treatment of Amr ibn Luhayy: Amr ibn Luhayy al-Khuza'i was a chief of the Banu Khuza'a, a tribe of pre-Islamic Arabia; he went out of Mecca to the Sham lands, and when he came to Ma'ab in the Balqa he saw people worshipping idols, and they gave him an idol called Hubal, a huge idol in the shape of a man, which became Mecca's chief idol. Impressed by their idol worship, he became convinced that the idols could act as intermediaries for God, and was allowed to take one home, which he set up for the Arabs to worship during the Hajj season.
• Ibn al-Kalbi, Kitab al-Asnam (early 9th c. CE)
• Ibn Ishaq, via Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-Nabawiyya