On Idols and Islam

As an Islamic/Arab child, I was raised on Islamic beliefs and how Mohammad came and told people about God, saving humanity through the Koran. We heard all the stories about how he marched to the Ka3be, and destroyed all the stone idols, throwing them away and ending the adoration of idols in his time.

Personally, I was always fascinated by the way people told these stories. And I used to agree: we "should" only worship a one and only God.

After hanging out with way too many radical feminists, I started hearing about goddesses. And these immortal figures where each god and goddess represented something different. All of my life I've heard about how islam fought against idols. And now I was shocked to hear about goddesses and deities. And there was this contradiction in my head…

Now I realize that the stone idols were representations of these goddesses… people didn't worship stone! They worshiped the gods! And they created a symbol to represent them… just as we have the sword of Ali, or the Cross in Christianity.

And then I started researching these goddesses online. And I couldn't find anything written positively about lilith. Although from what I heard and understood: she represented the women who refused to obey the first man Adam. She rebelled.

During my research, I found out that she is said to be evil. She disobeyed god. She ran away from heaven, and then god sent her two guys to tell her that she had to submit and come back to heaven. She refused. They told her that as a punishment, she was no longer able to give birth! To revenge against her cruel sterilization, she said that from now on she was going to kill other mothers' babies. At the same time feminist describe her as a woman who wanted to be on top.

And then in the islamic world, lilith is said to have slept with devil and that was how jinn were born

I was intrigued because…in islam, jinn came before adam! Wtf?!

And then there is a resemblance between the devil and lilith because they both refused to submit to adam and they were both kicked out of heaven. And they made a promise to god that they would have a way to come back at god.

And so, after what I just learned through my research, and what I have learned all my life , I know that I wanna be a believer of the one and only God and his prophet, but also of the goddesses that represent something that I did not find in religion.

Zainab