Al-Lat idol in the House of the Black Stone

The Al-Lat idol in the House of the Black Stone links Jahilia’s older religious order to its conquest by Mahound. Its appearance as an omen announces his return from exile; after he enters the city, the House is cleansed and its 360 idols are destroyed, marking a decisive change in the city’s public faith.

Identity and Setting

Al-Lat is one of the goddesses associated with the polytheistic worship of Jahilia. Her statue stands in the House of the Black Stone, among the city’s sacred images. The House is not merely a backdrop: it is where the statue’s uncanny sign is witnessed and where the old religious order is later dismantled.

The idol also belongs to a wider contest over whether Lat, Uzza, and Manat might be acknowledged alongside the new faith. Mahound is pressed to consider such recognition as part of a proposed compromise, and his uncertainty over the goddesses’ status becomes part of his crisis over what to recite. The statue therefore carries the material presence of a religious order whose claims are being challenged and negotiated.

The Sign of Mahound’s Return

After a quarter-century of exile, Mahound is on his way back to Jahilia. Baal sees a single blood-colored tear emerge from the corner of the statue’s left eye and understands it as a sign of the Prophet’s return. The statue’s brief alteration gives Baal knowledge before Mahound has re-entered the city, linking a sacred image to the approaching political reversal.

The omen appears in a city that has itself changed. Jahilia, once shifting and provisional, has hardened into a poor, ordinary place; Mahound’s power has cut off its pilgrims and caravans, and its fairs have declined. Against this backdrop of material deterioration, the tear does not restore the old city. It announces the return of the force that will bring its former religious and civic arrangements to an end.

Destruction and Religious Change

Mahound enters Jahilia after receiving an account of what lies ahead, and the narration describes the House of the Black Stone’s 360 idols as awaiting destruction. The images are broken during the cleansing of the House. The account does not isolate the Al-Lat statue for a separate description of its destruction, but places it within the collection of idols removed from the sanctuary.

After the cleansing, Mahound establishes his tent at the old fairground, and the people gather around it to embrace Submission. The sequence sets the idol’s omen against its eventual historical limit: the statue first signals the return of Mahound, then belongs to the sacred order displaced when he takes the city. Its narrative force lies in that transition, from an image capable of bearing an omen to one of the images swept away by the new faith.