Al-Uzzá was one of the three chief goddesses of Arabian religion in pre-Islamic times and was worshiped as one of the daughters of Allah by the pre-Islamic Arabs along with Allāt and Manāt. Al-‘Uzzá was also worshipped by the Nabataeans, who equated her with the Greek goddess Aphrodite. A stone cube at aṭ-Ṭā’if (near Mecca) was held sacred as part of her cult. She is mentioned in the Qur’an Sura 53:19 as being one of the goddesses that people worshiped. Al-ʻUzzá also later appears in Ibn Ishaq’s account of the Satanic Verses. The temple dedicated to al-ʻUzzá and the statue itself was destroyed by Khalid ibn al Walid in Nakhla.
Before Muhammed was born, the moon god “al-Ilah” (Allah) had three daughters named al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat. The first two were even named after their father. Each daughter had a separate shrine near Mecca, where Allah’s shrine was located. As Muhammad grew weary from evangelizing his new religion with little success, he was tricked by the devil into adding a verse in the Koran that commanded Muslims to pray to Allah’s three pagan daughters Lat, Uzza and Manat. The pagan female trinity was immediately accepted without dissent and the passage was considered part of the revealed Koran. However some time later, Muhammad got a revelation from God that the verse should be removed.
