ʿAṯtar in Islamic myth: Kitāb al-Tījān revisited

This paper suggests that the Islamic work of Kitāb al-Tījān preserves a vague memory of the Ancient South Arabian deity ʿAṯtar, in a pre-Islamic legend concerning a figure named Qayl bin ʿAṯṯar, who, according to the legend, led a delegation to perform a rain-invocation rite. Along with other distortions, the name of ʿAṯtar was distorted to ʿAnz, in the published edition. However, a survey of the early manuscripts, not used in the published edition, reveals the presumably original form as ʿṯr (ʿAṯṯar). The survey opens new avenues for research, and highlights the uniqueness of Kitāb al-Tījān and its significant potential to enhance our understanding of the South Arabian religion and to reconstruct its lost mythology.