... p'yty 'mh ldwšr' whblw wamnwtw šmdym 5 ...
... [he] shall be liable to Dushara and Hubalu and Manotu in the sum of 5 shamads ...[35]
Despite Hawting's misgivings,[36] there is no doubt about this reading.[37] Another possible occurrence of the name Hubal is in the Nabataean inscription (dated 48 CE) from Pozzuoli near Naples.[38] The reading of J. T. Milik was reported by Starcky, although some doubt remains.[39] The name appears as bnhbl, without the final -w and therefore an exact correspondent of the Arabic form. It was interpreted by Starcky as "son of Hubal".[40] But it can also be interpreted as "Hubal has fashioned".[41] Interestingly, bnhbl also appears in a "Thamudic" inscription from Northern Arabia.[42] Milik and Starcky reported that the name Hubal also appears in a personal name, brhbl, "Son of Hubal", in a dedicatory text dated to 25 BCE.[43] The authors Milik and Starcky regarded it as an Aramaic version of the name found in the Pozzuoli inscription. Based on the epigraphic evidence, Healey says that the cult of Hubal was restricted in Nabataean inscriptions to Hegra. Therefore, Hubal can be considered as a local god and his cult did not spread at all among the Nabataean élite, despite its Arabian origins.[44]
Ba'alshamin (or Baalshamin, as written in popular literature), b'lšmn, was a Syrian deity who was incorporated into the Nabataean pantheon. Ba'alshamin has a long history going back to the second millennium BCE. His origin lies in the great storm and fertility god Ba'lu of the Ugaritic texts.[45] His specific name appears to be a title of the storm god Hadad whose worship was widespread in Syria and Mesopotamia. He was popular in Palmyra, Hatra and the Edessa region, where he was identified with the local deity Maralahe.[46] Ba'alshamin was worshipped over a wide area and his popularity gradually spread south.[47] He had a late 1st century BCE temple dedicated to him at Si' in Syria. Littmann published a major inscription from Si' dedicated to Ba'alshamin.
In the pious remembrance of Maleikat, the son of Ausū, the son of Mo'aierū who built for Ba'al Samīn the inner temple and the outer temple and this theatron and [the (or these watch towers],... and departed from (?) life in peace![48]
From Salkhad in Syria, we have an altar from 72 / 73 CE, dedicated to Ba'alshamin, god of mtnw. The inscription reads:
This is the cult-stone which was made by 'Ubaid, the son of 'Utaifik (?) for Ba'al-Shamīn, the god of Matan (?), in the year 33 of Malik the king, the king of the Nabataeans.[49]
The Nabataean inscription from Bosra dated to the 1st century CE is again dedicated "to Ba'alshamin, the god of Shu'aydu" (lb'lšmn 'lh š'ydw).[50] Moving further down south in Wadi Musa, near Petra in Jordan, an inscription from the reign of Aretas IV is dedicated lb'lšmn 'lh mnkw, "to Ba'alshamin, god of mnkw".[51]
The texts discussed above clearly show that Ba'alshamin was an official Nabataean deity. Ba'alshamin moved from his Syrian home to down south[52] and was also worshipped in Northern Arabia by Safaitic people as evidenced by numerous Safaitic inscriptions.[53]
It must be emphasized that in both Nabataean and Safaitic inscriptions Ba'alshamin is always written as b'lšmn, i.e., with an 'ayn between b and l. There is no Nabataean and Safaitic epigraphic evidence which shows that the name b'l to becoming bl with the loss of 'ayn, which in turn enabled hb'l to become hbl. As mentioned earlier the word b'l, with the 'ayn, exists in Arabic as a common noun and it is also found in Surah al-Saffat in the Qur'an
"Will ye call upon Ba'al (b'l) and forsake the Best of Creators" [Qur'an 37:125]
The Qur'an condemns Ba'al worship. Moreover, it is also clear that in both the Nabataean and Arabic scripts the difference between Hubal and Ba'al (with an 'ayn) always existed, and that they were considered two distinct deities. In the light of archaeological evidence, Noja's and the Christian missionaries' hypothesis that Ha-Ba'al ("the Lord") became Hubal now becomes completely untenable, let alone Hubal being Allah! There is nothing in this hyperbole that "seriously damages the Muslim claim regarding Allah in pre-Islamic times being the same God of Abraham".
HUBAL - A MOON GOD?
The claim of Christian missionaries that Hubal was a Moon god is based on a citation from Mahmoud Ayoub's Islam: Faith And History.[54] A similar claim was also made by Robert Morey.[55] In fact, the claim that Hubal was a Moon god is rather old. More than 100 years ago Hugo Winckler suggested that there was a Moon god cult in Makkah and that Hubal was a Moon god[56] and it was subsequently repeated by Carl Brockelmann.[57] Such ideas were reinforced by Ditlef Nielsen who claimed that all ancient Arabian religion was a primitive religion of nomads, whose objects of worship were exclusively a triad of the Father-Moon, Mother-Sun and the Son-Venus star envisaged as their child.[58] Not only was this an over-simplified view based on an unproven hypothesis, it is also quite absurd to think that over a millennium-long period during which paganism is known to have flourished, there was not substantial shifts of thinking about the deities. Not surprisingly, Nielsen's triad hypothesis was handed devastating refutation by many scholars.[59] Moreover, the information that we have concerning the nature of Hubal comes from Islamic sources. They do not say that Hubal was a Moon god. On the other hand, the Nabataean sources are silent about him. Clearly, there is no evidence of a connection between Hubal and the Moon. The scholars who have made a connection between Hubal and the Moon have rested their case on flimsy evidence. Not surprisingly, Winckler's claim that Hubal was a Moon god was refuted by Fahd.[60] While dealing with the Nabataean deity Hubal, Healey agrees with Fahd's view. He says:
On the other hand Fahd rightly rejects the attempts by some earlier scholars to connect Hubal with Saturn or the moon... Such suggestions have been based partly on the assumption that all Arabian religion is ultimately astral and partly on the Islamic inheritance of a lunar calendar...[61]