Wadd Ehya
Thursday July 10, 2025, brought the full moon. It rose over my sister’s mountain cabin, silently shining. I sat meditating, eyes closed, focused on listening, on the idea of listening, the process of listening. The river flows powerfully in early July, and through the open windows I could hear its constant rushing.
“Wad ehya.” Seemingly produced from the river itself, I heard the words clearly, sounding within my mind. No mistake. Spoken precisely. But what words were they?
On a hunch, I looked them up in Arabic.
Wadd = the pre-Islamic Moon God
Ehya = a night vigil, like the Night of Prayer associated with Ramadan
I read that Wadd was the god of the ancient Minaeans who lived on the Arabian Peninsula, mentioned in the Qur’an as a “god of old from before the flood of Noah.” Islam considers Wadd a false idol; Muhammad had the temples and images of Wadd destroyed, so not much history remains.
The full moon has long had associations with fertility. But I’ve only ever heard of moon goddesses, female deities. Yet the paired image of the crescent moon and morning star, Venus, both strongly connected to the mystical feminine, were once associated with Wadd. As God of the Full Moon, however, Wadd’s most sacred symbol was the snake, Yah, blatantly representing phallic genitalia. Some scholars have linked references to Yah, or yh, a shortened form of the name yhwh, Yahweh/God of the Old Testament of the Bible, to Wadd. Much is made of multiple descriptions in various Psalms about a god of procreative power, riding the clouds, his strength especially enhanced by the full moon: “The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.” Pretty evocative erotic imagery.
“He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants.”
Fascinating. Rides on the wings of the wind. I think of the Vulture.
There was a whole cult of Wadd. People would carve wd’b, an abbreviation for “Wadd is Father,” on personal amulets, even the walls of buildings. He was a protector, God of love and friendship. That said, I lean toward protector: the symbols used to write his name in Ancient South Arabian script look a lot like a war axe and a shield. As his cult spread into western Arabia, the Banu Kalb tribe worshipped Wadd in the form of a man rather than snake or moon, and they erected a temple in Dumat al-Jandal, complete with carved idol. According to Malik ibn Harithah per Hisham ibn al-Kalbi’s Book of Idols,
“lt was the statue of a huge man, as big as the largest of human beings, covered with two robes, clothed with the one and cloaked with the other, carrying a sword on his waist and a bow on his shoulder, and holding in [one] hand a spear to which was attached a standard, and [in the other] a quiver full of arrows.”
Something in me loves this image. I’ve always wanted to be massive like that. I act like I am. It’s quite ridiculous, really, this idol. So. Many. Weapons. He has his own flag? which he has then attached to his spear?? He’s like a heavenly multi-tool. Wadd can DO IT ALL. The cloaks refer to the face of the moon appearing “veiled” at times, and ancient peoples thought this was the Moon God intentionally turning his face from them due to his awesome, terrifying, unbearable power. God speaking through the burning bush or the whirlwind — or an out-of-body flight with a vulture, riding the clouds — so that we can survive the encounter.
How long have I veiled my true face, forsaken something holy within me? As if to spare others, because they wouldn’t be able to handle it. Slouched in bed, I kept ehya in my own way through the night. The moon shone bright through the tall pines surrounding my sister’s log cabin. I felt like I was bathing in a healing moonglow. I didn’t know why it felt that way to me, and I didn’t ask. I just loved the feeling, and sighed deeply, often. I dozed and woke again, sighed and smiled, and meditated on that heretic’s anthem from the Qur’an until I finally fell asleep to the sound of the river, just a couple hours before sunrise:
“And they say: By no means leave your gods, nor leave Wadd ….” (Qur’an 71:23)