Manāt: Difference between revisions
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''So that, if he wishes, on any day, he leads him off his life by his reins. And he who is tied by the rope of death, will have to submit.'' | ''So that, if he wishes, on any day, he leads him off his life by his reins. And he who is tied by the rope of death, will have to submit.'' | ||
By making idols to Manāt, they hoped to elicit her pity by making offerings. But death is inevitable, and I think that people who haven't really lived, haven't been themselves, are terrified of death; but people who have really lived are not afraid to die. So as Ṭarafa said: "By your life, the time is not, except borrowed; so provision yourself with what you can from the goodness of it." Manat awaits us our whole lives. It is clear though, that the pagan Arabs did not concern themselves with an afterlife or eschatological questions, which is a core theme in the Abrahamic religions. 45:24 "There is nothing beyond our worldly life. We die; others are born. And nothing destroys us but the passage of time" and from Tarafa : "By your life, the time is not, except borrowed; so provision yourself with what you can from the goodness of it." This implies not the availability of a full life beyond the present one but only the existence of an inevitable barrier; death | By making idols to Manāt, they hoped to elicit her pity by making offerings. But death is inevitable, and I think that people who haven't really lived, haven't been themselves, are terrified of death; but people who have really lived are not afraid to die. So as Ṭarafa said: "By your life, the time is not, except borrowed; so provision yourself with what you can from the goodness of it." Manat awaits us our whole lives. It is clear though, that the pagan Arabs did not concern themselves with an afterlife or eschatological questions, which is a core theme in the Abrahamic religions. 45:24 "There is nothing beyond our worldly life. We die; others are born. And nothing destroys us but the passage of time" and from Tarafa : "By your life, the time is not, except borrowed; so provision yourself with what you can from the goodness of it." This implies not the availability of a full life beyond the present one but only the existence of an inevitable barrier; death. | ||
== See also == | == See also == | ||
Revision as of 00:07, 14 September 2022
Manāt (مناة), Old Hejazi: Manōt (منوٰة), Palmyrene: Manawat (مناواة), is the goddess of fate, fortune, time, death, and destiny and She also plays an important role in the Ancient Arabian understanding of time and fate. 53:19-20 "So have you considered Allat and Alʿuzza? and Manōt, the third - the other one?" Well, let us consider Manāt, who was revered by Arabs, particularly by the Aws and Khazraj tribes as well as Quraysh. The adherents made sacrifices to Manāt and had their own family idols of Manāt in their homes. She's pretty similar to the Greek Moirai, the three sister goddesses who represent fate. She represents *manāyā (*destiny) and She visits those who are dying or brings death closer to people. This isn't exactly dahr, it's more about individual fate or the preordained death of each individual while dahr or zamān is universal fate, or the impersonal fate of everyone. Dahr is fate-as-time that changes and wears things down while manāyā is fate-as-death. In the Greek tradition destiny was represented as a thread spun from a spindle while in pre-Islamic poetry we also see the archetype of rope connected to destiny as previously discussed. The poet Ṭarafa bin al-‘Abd stressed that human beings are linked to death by rope:
By your life, swear that Death, so long as he misses a strong man, is surely as the loosened halter, both folded ends of which are in the hands of the owner of the animal.
So that, if he wishes, on any day, he leads him off his life by his reins. And he who is tied by the rope of death, will have to submit.
By making idols to Manāt, they hoped to elicit her pity by making offerings. But death is inevitable, and I think that people who haven't really lived, haven't been themselves, are terrified of death; but people who have really lived are not afraid to die. So as Ṭarafa said: "By your life, the time is not, except borrowed; so provision yourself with what you can from the goodness of it." Manat awaits us our whole lives. It is clear though, that the pagan Arabs did not concern themselves with an afterlife or eschatological questions, which is a core theme in the Abrahamic religions. 45:24 "There is nothing beyond our worldly life. We die; others are born. And nothing destroys us but the passage of time" and from Tarafa : "By your life, the time is not, except borrowed; so provision yourself with what you can from the goodness of it." This implies not the availability of a full life beyond the present one but only the existence of an inevitable barrier; death.
See also
Sources
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