Ri'am
Arabian · deity · pantheon era · deity
THE SECOND HIMYARITE IDOL IN THIS BATCH, beside Nasr. The Yemen is the region the Book of Idols covers most thinly and the epigraphic record covers best — which is why the corpus holds the South Arabian pantheon under its own Sabaean key rather than here.
Domains
- tribal patronage of himyar
- the cult at sana
Sources
- Reference treatment of the tribal idols of the Kitab al-Asnam: the Banu Munhib ibn Daws had an idol called Dhu al-Kaffayn, 'he of the two palms', and when they embraced Islam the Prophet sent al-Tufayl ibn 'Amr al-Dawsi to destroy it, and al-Tufayl set the idol on fire; the Muzayna had an idol called Nuhm, and they used to name their children 'Abd-Nuhm after it; al-Uqaysir was a place to which tribes were wont to go on pilgrimage and at whose shrine they used to shave their heads; Umyanis was the name of an idol worshipped in the land of Khawlan, by a branch of the Khawlan tribe; Himyar and the people of Sana in the Yemen worshipped an idol called Ri'am; and Dhu'l-Ka'bat was worshipped by Bakr, Taghlib, the descendants of Wa'il, and Iyad, in the Sandad area.
- Ibn al-Kalbi, Kitab al-Asnam (early 9th c. CE)