The religious landscape of Northwest Arabia as reflected in the Nabataean, Nabataeo-Arabic, and pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions

Abstract

This article examines the divine figures attested in the Nabataean, Nabataeo-Arabic and pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions from the Arabian Peninsula from the 1st to the 6th century ad. The list of the divine figures attested in these texts, either mentioned as such or contained in theophoric names, is based on the examination of all the corpuses, published or unpublished, that are available to the author (from Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ, Taymāʾ and its region, Dūmat al-Jandal, etc.). The identification of about 400 divine names in the inscriptions allows us to create a picture of the deities who appear in different places at different times. Among the main conclusions are the identification of regional variations within the Nabataean kingdom and a decrease in the number of divine figures in the Nabataeo-Arabic and pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions, in favour of figures such as mry ʿlmʾ and ʾlʾlh (masculine) and ʾlt, ʾlʿzʾ and mnwtw (feminine).

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