Black Goddess: A Critical Analysis of Traditions on the Destruction of al-’Uzzā in Early Islamic Sources

The goddess al-’Uzzā is one of the famous Arabian deities in the pre-Islamic era, whose name is also mentioned in the Qur'an (Najm:19). In some Islamic reports, the destruction of al-’Uzzā has been described in a wonderful way. While most of these traditions describe al-’Uzzā as an idol, in some of them, she appears in the form of a black woman with disheveled hair and is then killed by Muslim soldiers. The main questions of this study are as follows: What is the reason for this altered description and where is the origin of such a forgery? What are the Muslim authors’ reports trying to describe and how does this help to understand the values of deities in Islamic culture?