The Book of IDOLS (Kitâb al-'açnâm- كتاب الأصنام ) by Ibn Al-Kalbî, Bilingual Edition (French-Arabic)

The book of IDOLS (Kitâb al-'açnâm- كتاب الأصنام ) by Ibn Al-Kalbî, Bilingual edition (French-Arabic), Translation of the full text, enriched with notes, accompanied by maps and indexes, by Ahmed Benjelloun

Exhibited in writing for the first time, in 201 AH/816, by the author Abu al-Mundhir Hisham ibn Mohammad ibn al-Kalbi, The Book of Idols, which deals with pre-Islamic Arab idolatry, brought to its time an edifying light on a slice of the religious history of central and northern Arabia.

The work is limited to "the important gods" mentioned in the Qoran, and a few secondary deities.

The Kit â b al-'açn â m is instructive in more ways than one. Reading it, we discover many aspects of pre-Islamic Arab paganism, different from other idolaters. The reader feels transported as if by magic, during an overflight of the famous dunes of Tih â ma, w â di al-Qora and other places of poetic inspiration and dreams; he will live by imagination certain distant scenes in time, of the daily life of these Bedouins, these A'r â b of which Ibn Khald û n will say, after the Qoran, how turbulent and violent they were, but who were not certainly not as barbaric as their contemporaries in other continents.

It remains to emphasize and recall that the author Ibn al-Kalb î is not inventing anything. His book is neither a story nor an epic or mythological tale. It is a corpus of Arabic or adopted deities, the most important among them are mentioned in the Qoran. The information collected by the author has been subjected to rigorous verification and found to be accurate and objective.

كتاب الأصنام لهشام بن محمد الكلبي
يعد كتاب “الأصنام” لهشام بن محمد الكلبي الوحيد الذي وصلنا مما أفرده العلماء لأصنام العرب ومعبوداتها، وهو كتاب شديد الأهمية بسبب اندثار الكتب الأخرى التي ألفت في بابه، ولأن مؤلفه هشام بن محمد الكلبي الذي كان أغزر علماء الأخبار تأليفاً حول الجاهلية وتاريخها، انتشر كتاب .
كتاب “الأصنام” واحد من أندر المؤلفات العربية، فريد في حقله وميدانه، ويعتبر كنزاً للمؤرخين المعنين بتاريخ ما قبل الإسلام في الجزيرة الع ربية.