Dushara

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Đu l-Sharā (Arabic,ذو شرى )"Lord of the Mountain", also known in Greek transliteration as 'Dusares' was a deity in the ancient Middle East, worshipped at Petra and Madain Saleh (of which city he was the patron deity) by the Nabataeans. In Greek times, he was associated with Zeus because he was the chief of the Nabataean pantheon. His sanctuary at Petra contained a great temple in which a large cubical stone (Ka'ba) was the centrepiece.

The existence of this deity was mentioned by the 9th century CE historian Hisham Ibn Al-Kalbi, who wrote in The Book of Idols (Kitab al-Asnām) that: "The Banū al-Hāārith ibn-Yashkur ibn-Mubashshir of the ˤAzd had an idol called Đu l-Sharā."

References

Ibn al-Kalbī; (author) and Nabih Amin Faris (translator & commentary) (1952): The Book of Idols, Being a Translation from the Arabic of the Kitāb al-Asnām. Princeton University Press. US Library of Congress #52006741

External links

• Nabataean religion
• The Kitab al-Asnam ("Book of Idols"): translation as posted by an evangelical Christian site.
• Kitab al-Asnam in the original Arabic (description on p. 5)
• Dhushara The Meaning of the Name

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Last updated on Thursday November 15, 2007 at 16:31:40 PST (GMT -0800)
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