A Criticism of the Opinions of Jerald Hawthing about Idolatry and Polytheism in the Qur'an

Jerald Hawthing, the British Qur’ān researcher, has examined the qur’ānic verses related to idolatry and polytheism. The study at hand adopted a descriptive-analytical approach to criticize his opinions about the foregoing topic. This resulted in the identification of three key points in his viewpoints: the general qur’ānic terms do not directly refer to the idolatry of the contemporaries of the Qur’ān, the specific qur’ānic terms do not imply their idols, and the derivations of polytheism do not imply their doctrinal idolatry or polytheism. These three viewpoints can be criticized as follows. The Qur’ān’s use of general, abstract terms to talk about the idolatry of its contemporaries is done in the light of their increased familiarity with abstract concepts common among all cultures that belong to the non-God worshipping domain. Based on the existing indications in the qur’ānic verses and those out of these verses, it gets clear that this worshipping has been in the form of idolatry. The specific names that exist in the Qur’ān about the polytheism of the polytheists agree with doctrinal polytheism, and according to traditional Islamic sources, these have been the idols worshipped by the contemporaries of the Qur’ān. The majority of the verses used in the Qur’ān about polytheism target doctrinal polytheism rather than practical polytheism. Moreover, the concept of intersession is not actually related to polytheism; rather, the polytheists used the intercession of the deities merely as a pretext for their idolatry and polytheism.