Dushara (

Nabataean Arabic Nabataean Arabic was the dialect of Arabic spoken by the Nabataeans in antiquity. In the first century AD, the Nabataeans wrote their inscriptions, such as the legal texts carved on the façades of the monumental tombs at Mada'in Salih, ancient ...

: 𐢅𐢈𐢝𐢛𐢀 ''dwšrʾ''), also transliterated as Dusares or Dhu Shara, is a pre-Islamic Arabian

god In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

worshipped by the

Nabataeans The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ) were an ancient Arabs, Arab people who inhabited northern Arabian Peninsula, Arabia and the southern Levant. Their settlements—most prominently the assumed capital city o ...

Petra Petra (; "Rock"), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu (Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: or , *''Raqēmō''), is an ancient city and archaeological site in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit systems, P ...

and Madain Saleh (of which city he was the patron). Safaitic inscriptions imply he was the son of the goddess Al-Lat, and that he assembled in the heavens with other deities. He is called "Dushara from

" in one inscription. Dushara was expected to bring justice if called by the correct ritual.

Etymology

Dushara is known first from

epigraphic Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

Nabataean sources who invariably spell the name ''dwšrʾ'', the Nabataean script denoting only consonants. He appears in Classical Greek sources as Δουσάρης (''Dousárēs'') and in Latin as ''Dusares''. The original meaning is disputed, but early Muslim historian Hisham ibn al-Kalbi in his " Book of Idols" explains the name as ''Dhū l-Šarā'' (), "etymologically probably 'the one of the Shara (mountains north of

)'", referring to a mountain range southeast of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

now known as al-Sharat. This interpretation is accepted by some scholars, and compared to other Canaaite deities who are associated with mountains or geographic areas (such as Baal Lebanon, Baal Hermon, and YHWH Teman and YHWH Shomron from Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions). If this interpretation is correct, ''Dushara'' would be more of a title than a proper name, but both the exact form of the name and its interpretation are disputed.

Worship

In Classical Greek times, he was associated with

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

because he was the chief of the Nabataean pantheon as well as with

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

. A shrine to Dushara has been discovered in the

harbour A harbor (American English), or harbour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be Mooring, moored. The t ...

of ancient Puteoli in Italy. The city was an important nexus for trade to the Near East and it is known to have had a Nabataean presence during the mid first century BCE. The cult continued in some capacity well into the Roman period and possibly as late as the Islamic period.Peterson, Stephanie Bowers, "The Cult of Dushara and the Roman Annexation of Nabataea" (2006). Open Access Dissertations and Theses. Paper 5352. This deity was mentioned by the ninth century CE Muslim historian Hisham Ibn Al-Kalbi, who wrote in the '' Book of Idols'' (''Kitab al-Asnām'') that: "The Banū al-Hārith ibn-Yashkur ibn-Mubashshir of the ʻAzd had an idol called Dū Sharā". Safaitic inscriptions mention animal sacrifices to Dushara, asking for a variety of services.

References

Bibliography

* Ibn al-Kalbī, ''The Book of Idols, Being a Translation from the Arabic of the Kitāb al-Asnām''. Tr. and comm. Nabih Amin Faris (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1952). * Healey, John F., ''The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus'' (Leiden, Brill, 2001) (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 136). * el-Khouri, Lamia; Johnson, David, "A New Nabataean Inscription from Wadi Mataha, Petra", ''Palestine Exploration Quarterly'', 137,2 (2005), 169–174.

External links

Nabataean religion
in the original Arabic (description on p. 5)
"Solving the Enigma of Petra and the Nabataeans"
Biblical Archaeology Review {{Pre-Islamic Arabia Nabataea Arabian gods Al-Lat

Etymology

Worship

See also

References

Bibliography

External links