The ancient people of the Middle East worshiped many gods and spirits. Often they used idols and icons to represent these beings. The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians constructed huge statues of their many gods. The nomads who traveled between these great Empires carried smaller statues. Each tribe would carry a “family god” who they worshiped with prayers and sacrifices. These family gods were often represented by small idols or totems carved of wood or stone. Many were connected with the forces of nature: plants, and animals, and the grand mysterious sky.
The ancient Hebrews (also called the Israelites) were a nomadic tribe in the Middle East. The first books of the Bible describe their travels. As the Hebrews traveled from Babylon to Egypt, to Canaan they encountered many gods and many ideas about God. They may have been the first tribe to start worshiping God as a single formless power (without an idol).
In the book of Exodus, when Moses goes up the mountain his tribe constructs a golden calf to worship. When he returns he teaches them that they should worship God by following the Commandments instead of by bowing before a statue. The Commandments are then placed in the Ark and carried in front of the tribe instead of an idol.
The ancient Arabs were also nomadic tribal people. Each tribe was a large family that traveled through the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula looking for pastures to feed their herds of camels and goats. Each tribe carried a statue or idol of their family god. These gods were often deifications of natural forces. The Quraysh tribe (Muhammad’s tribe) carried a shark totem. They also worshiped the goddess al-Uzza, goddess of the morning star and acacia trees. The Nasr tribe carried a vulture totem.
After hundreds of years of carrying their gods, the Arabs created a holy city: Mecca. Each tribe left their idols in the Kaaba, a large black cubical temple. They continued their nomadism across Arabia. But once a year during the month of Hajj all the Arab tribes would visit the holy city of Mecca and worship their gods. This was a holy month and so the tribes would refrain from fighting. Meeting in the city of Mecca to worship also allowed the tribes to trade, do business, and intermarry. The city became the sacred and the economic center of Arabia.
Each tribe wanted to attract people to worship their god and therefore increase their power and influence. Often they would hire poets to compose verses on the power of their particular god. The poets competed to promote their gods and goddess: al-Hubal (the god of the moon) al-Lah (the father god) al-Uzza (the goddess of Venus) Al-Manat (the goddess of the sea and destiny) and al-Lat (the goddess of plants).
A pilgrim to ancient Mecca would find a bustling town in the middle of the desert: traders with silks, spices, and jewels from all over the Middle East and Asia, Africans and Persians, elephants and parrots, a hundred different languages and dialects, and a hundred different small temples each with its own idol and its own poets reciting verses about the power of its god. Everywhere money was being exchanged and everywhere powers and influences were competing.
Muhammad was a simple man who was born in Mecca in 622. He was a hardworking and honest orphan who became a shepherd and then a caravan leader. He found Meccan society to be corrupt and decadent. So he would take a month every year and go out to live in a cave and meditated in silence. It was during one of these retreats that an Angel began speaking to him.
The message that the Angel recited to him became the Quran, and the religion of Islam. The Angel was a messenger of Allah, the one formless God. Allah instructed Muhammad to teach his people to stop worshiping idols (much as Moses had).
After much work, preaching, and fighting, Muhammad converted the Arabs to Islam. He conquered the city of Mecca and destroyed all the idols, clearing out the Kaaba. Muslims to this day still visit Mecca during the holy month of Hajj. But now they worship God as a formless power. They are careful not to allow any images of God or even of Muhammad. And they even discourage any representational art.