Idols and Idolatry in Legendary Maġāzī Literature

This article aims at analyzing idolatry inasmuch it appears as a literary motif in legendary maġāzī literature, a large and varied corpus of narratives, spread mostly in the post-Classical period (15th-19th centuries), which re-count in fictional way the early Muslim military expeditions that took place during Muḥammad’s lifetime (Ar. ġazawāt, sing. ġazwa). Within this genre, it considers primarily those ġazawāt in which direct references to idolatry ap-pear, either as references to the general concept and as references to individu-al idols. Regarding the latter, it provides an overview accompanied by textual examples of all the idols mentioned by name in the ġazawāt, divided into those that are also attested in the historical sources and the fictitious ones in-vented by the narrators for narrative purposes.