Several authorities relate that al-Lat had once been a man who prepared barley gruel (sawiq) for the people of Taʾif, and that they later came to worship him. Thus the Arabs’ polytheism centered on idols fashioned as likenesses of righteous men; in some cases the identities of those represented were no longer even known. The dominant form of idolatry in Arabia, then, was the veneration of terrestrial statues made as effigies of the pious. Among them one finds no famous idol regarded as a talisman of the sun, the moon, or anything of that sort—forms of worship characteristic of other peoples, such as the Chaldeans.

The Magians, by contrast, worshipped the sun, the moon, and human beings, a graver practice than venerating the righteous. Those who adore prophets and saints merely seek their intercession and nearness, just as the Arabs used to claim about their own idols. The Magians, however, appeal directly to the sun, moon, and stars for actions, believing them to govern the universe; they do not view such worship as a means of drawing closer to God, nor do they treat those bodies as intercessors.

It is therefore evident that the polytheism of the Magians was more serious than that of the Arab idol-worshippers. They were hostile toward the People of the Scripture, such as the Christians, and they did not acknowledge the prophethood of the Messiah,