Translations:Allāh/4/en

A lot of pre-Islamic poetry mentions al-ilāh (the god), Raḥmān (the Merciful) and al-rabb (the Lord) as a deity. These are epithets and its not always clear if the poet was pagan or not. There's also the question of the authenticity of these poems since they were written down ~200-300 years after they were first recited. Scribes may have censored pagan themes or altered the wording or straight up made some of these up. Although sometimes we do see mentions of pagan deities such as Allāt and Wadd. It's also important to consider that some of these poets actually later converted to Islam, and of course they continued writing poetry but now with a new monotheistic worldview. Even when it comes to poets who were presumably pagan, many poems were recited to Christian kings such as the poems pronounced by ʿĀmir ibn al-Ṭufayl at the court of Nuʿmān III. He probably would have given his poems a Christian bend to please the Lakhmid king.