If the stories and themes of Islamic literature regarding the idols of the pre-Islamic Arabs can frequently be understood as variants of those found in monotheist writings more generally, it is nevetheless possible that some, even much, of the detail – the names of the gods, of the tribes associated with them, of the ‘priestly’ families, of geographical localities, etc. – reflects historical realities to some extent. The nature of that reality and of its reflexion in the literature would still need to be clarified, but it might be argued that at least the literature provides a point from which historical reconstruction could begin.

This chapter considers how far the traditional Muslim material on the idols of the Arabs is usable as a source for the facts of pre-Islamic Arab religion. We will be concerned especially with information at the most basic level, such things as names and geographical locations. The discussion does not aim to be exhaustive and is concerned with general problems and characteristics of the material rather than with collecting all the available evidence about particular gods or idols named in the tradition. There already exist several works to which readers seeking quite comprehensive collections of the evidence pertaining to particular gods, idols or sanctuaries may refer. Attention is focused here on features of the evidence, not on reaching any conclusions about the particular ‘gods’ or other alleged objects of worship.