Allah was one of the many names in the pantheon of gods in Arabia from about 700 BC. To show that Allah, or IL, and Allat, had been around for a long time already, they were honored in many Arab personal names. In times of great stress, or pleadings, the Northern Arabs used the god-form, FHLH, which meant, "so, O Allah."
The goddess form used just as often was FHLT which meant, "so, O Allat." This shows that Allah was well established in North Arabia and he also had a consort named Allat. ILAHA was used for the sun god. This shows that Allah was the sun god figure and Allat was the moon goddess. Allat was the high goddess. In Safatic inscriptions of Hauran, she was referred to as Alilat, Alitta, Hallat, and her Babylonian title was Allitu. In the Southern part of Arabia she was ILAT. Linguistic variation take place by migration along trade routes going back through Phoenicia, Assyria, Babylon, and Sumer.
The Nabataeans claimed that Allat was the goddess-consort of Dusares, which is the same North Arabian marriage between Tammuz and Ishtar, the Babylonian godhead. Allah was the exact unquestionable linguistic male gender compliment of Allat, with suffix gender distinctions on the LIL root. Wadd was the only moon god to the Arabs. carved in stone in North Arabia
Yemenites, circa 3 BC, built a temple of Wadd on the Greek Island of Delos! Wadd got around, but he was the only moon god, unless we let Sin in, who was a moon god, but never in the evolution of the pantheon from Sumer, home of Allah and Allat.
The Islamic notion of monotheism attached to Allah is not present in North Arabian inscriptions. Winnett, in an article for The Moslem World, gives a number of inscription quotes, including Allah, Allat, Dhu-Ghabat, Nahy, with Manat and LIL, coming up frequently in names of the writers. In one inscription Allah is asked to send the Jinn (devils) to aid the writer. Vengeance is called for from Allah on other men competing for the lover of the writer. Please don't think lightly of these writers. They were carving their zeal in stone with metal instruments, and that takes a serious mind and some time. It is a vastly greater undertaking than carving ones initials in tree bark. Winnett shows that common to Allah in the inscriptions is the attribute, "abtar" or "childless." The revelation that Allah had no offspring, which Mohammad claimed in Koran, Sura 108 and 112, was used by Mohammad as a correction for the Christian doctrine regarding the Sonship of Jesus Christ.
This does not imply that Mohammad knew a monotheistic god personally. It implies that Mohammad picked Allah, a god who could not keep a wife, so other gods impregnated Allat, the wife of Allah. Arab monotheism had its roots in North Arabia 500 years before the birth of Christ. Though Allah was childless, it is clear that Allah had a consort named Allat. The original reason they never produced a son is because the doctrine of pagan Babylon, from which Allah evolved, said that the goddess could produce a son without being sired by the god in residence.
Much later, the North Arabian reason Allah never had a son was because Allat went to other gods to sire her. Mohammad's monotheism is a myth. Allah and Allat, along with devils (Jinn) and a whole community of deities, were happily making their way to Mecca in North Arabia circa 500 BC. This Hajj of Allah might better be called "the migration of the gods to Mecca." It was a divine caravan! Olmstead draws the divine couple together by reporting an inscription at Dedan which said, "Naamil (note the IL root), son of Hafraz. Allah is exalted." From Tema comes another voice blasting the inferior god, "Salm is a mean god" and, "A foul god is Salm." Olmstead then associates Allah with the gods reported by Herodotus-- Dionysus, Alilat, and Orotalt. Alilat is Allat, the consort of Allah.
It is interesting to note that a Dedanite inscription makes reference to Geshmu the Arab, Nehemiah's opponent. This is the kind of historic cross reference which is glaringly missing in the Koran. Mohammad was terrified of the Allah / Allat connection. He allowed the family to exist momentarily, by way of the "Satanic verses" in Sura 53, but he saw at once that he could not counterfeit Christianity and win the Jews with an earthly physical family for the Islamic godhead.
The Jews in Medina liked Mohammad's monotheism, so Allah had to be divorced from Allat for the Jews to go for the new cult. Mohammad could not understand how Allah could have a son who was a god but not physically sired by God. Mohammad believed that all sons are produced in the marriage bed. Allah made the journey from Sumer to Northern Arabia. It is clear that Allah's role in the advent of Islam in 625 AD, is written history. Mohammad claimed he found Allah in the Kaaba after he threw out all of the other pagan gods. Allah is the pagan god who survived best and who migrated over 2000 miles from Babel to Mecca. It is now clear that Mohammad's claim to a heritage in Elohim is the most exquisite of blasphemies. Allah is the god of Islam. Allat was its goddess.
