Dieux et déesses d’Arabie, éd. Chr. J. Robin et I. Sachet, 2011 — p. Wadd, the weaponed idol of Dūmat al-Jandal and the quṣṣāṣ Michael Lecker 1 The Hebrew University, Jerusalem The idol Wadd had the shape of a weaponed man 2 It was located in Dūmat al Jandal (or Dūma, modern al Jawf at the southeastern end of Wadi Sirḥān) and belonged to the tribe of Kalb. There is a detailed description of Wadd in the famous monograph about the pre Islamic idols compiled by Ibn al Kalbīʾ (d. 204/819), himself a member of the Kalb, whose informant was a fellow Kalbī. Ibn al Kalbī and his father cum teacher, Kalbī (d. 146/763), were particularly interested in this idol since one of their ancestors was called ʿAbd Wadd or the slave of Wadd. The volume of literary evidence about pre‑Islamic idol worship is rather meager: Muslim scholars compiled many monographs about horses and camels, but only a handful about idols. 3 The accounts about Wadd in Ibn al-Kalbī’s Book of Idols reached him from a variety of informants who had different viewpoints; his recording of divergent or even conlicting accounts without comment was in line with the mode of scholarship common at his time. In Qurʾān 71:23 an idol called Wadd (or, according to some, Wudd) 4 is one of the ive “gods” of the people of Noah. Noah says: “They have said: Forsake not your gods. Forsake not Wadd, nor Suwāʿ, nor Yaghūth, Yaʿūq and Nasr!” Most medieval exegetes identify the Qurʾanic Wadd with Wadd of Dūma, but the identiication is doubtful: one expects the Qurʾanic Wadd to have been Yemenite because 1. I am grateful to Michael Macdonald and Christian Robin for their comments on my lecture. 2. On Wadd see Hawting 1999, index; EI, s.v. Wadd (Chr. Robin) ; EQ, s.v. Idols and images (G.R. Hawting); Wellhausen 1897, pp. 14-18; Ibn al Kalbī, Aṣnām, pp. 34-35 (Arabic), pp. 59-60 (trans.); Ryckmans 1951, p. 16; Fahd 1968, pp. 182-191. For the talbiya of the worshippers of Wadd see Ibn Ḥabīb, Muḥabbar, p. 312. The question of whether the weaponed man was an Arab warrior or a Roman/Byzantine one remains open. Wellhausen 1987, p. 17 assumed that Christianity was dominant in Dūma at the time of Muḥammad, and hence the worship of Wadd was marginal. But cf. Lecker 2003b. 3. EI, s.v. Wathaniyya (G. Monnot). 4. The qurrāʾ or Qurʾān readers of Medina read Wudd, while those of Kūfa and Baṣra read Wadd; Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, XIX, p. 99.