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The cause of Islam stood as yet in parlous condition, half-formulated, unwieldy, awaiting the moulding hand of persecution to develop it into a political and social system. "Do you see Al-Lat and Al-Ozza and Manat the third idol beside? These are the exalted females, and truly their intercession is to be expected."
When he came to the verses: "Do you see Al-Lat and Al-Ozza and Manat the third beside," he inserted: "Verily these are the exalted females, and truly their intercession may be expected."
Each community has its own Al-lat, "The Lady," as she is called in Arabia, a strict and exacting lady, not to be confounded with the licentious goddesses of later times; and in all Semitic lands traces of her early prevalence are found.
But the older conception as we see from a Nabataean inscription in De Vogue, page 119, is that Al-lat is mother of the gods. At Petra the mother-goddess and her son were worshipped together, and there are sufficient traces of the same thing elsewhere to lead us to regard this as having been the general rule when a god and goddess were worshipped in one sanctuary."
Robertson Smith remarks: "Except the comparatively modern Isaf and Naila in the sanctuary at Mecca where there are traditions of Syrian influence, I am not aware that the Arabs had pairs of gods represented as man and wife. In the time of Mohammed the female deities, such as Al-lat, were regarded as daughters of the supreme male God.
During the next fifteen years Mohammed led a tranquil life. His future was provided for and he had plenty of leisure to occupy himself as he chose. In these years Mohammed and his wife continued to be conventional worshipers of idols, who nightly performed rites in honor of various gods and goddesses, among whom were Allah and his female consoler Al-Lat.
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