Baal

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Baal (बाल) is a Muslim Jat clan found in Pakistan.

Variants

Jat Gotras Namesake

History

Phoenician god: Hercules

E. J. Chinnock[1] writes....The Phoenician god Melkarth (lord of the city), whom the Syrians called Baal (lord), was supposed to be identical with the Grecian Heracles, or Hercules, who was the mythical ancestor of the Macedonian kings. Curtius (iv. 7) tells us that Alexander affirmed he had been ordered by an oracle to sacrifice in Tyre to Heracles. Gesenius informs us that a Maltese inscription identifies the Tyrian Melkarth with Heracles.

Baal god

Baal (/ˈbeɪ.əl, ˈbɑː.əl/),[2] or Baʻal (Hebrew: בַּעַל baʿal), was a title and honorific meaning 'owner', 'lord' in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods. [3] Scholars previously associated the theonym with solar cults and with a variety of unrelated patron deities, but inscriptions have shown that the name Ba'al was particularly associated with the storm and fertility god Hadad and his local manifestations. [4]

The Hebrew Bible includes use of the term in reference to various Levantine deities, often with application towards Hadad, who was decried as a false god. That use was taken over into Christianity and Islam, sometimes under the form Beelzebub in demonology.

Etymology: The spelling of the English term "Baal" derives from the Greek Báal (Βάαλ) which appears in the New Testament[5] and Septuagint, [6]and from its Latinized form Baal, which appears in the Vulgate.[7] These forms in turn derive from the vowel-less Northwest Semitic form bʿl (Phoenician and Punic: 𐤁𐤏𐤋).[8] The word's biblical senses as a Phoenician deity and false gods generally were extended during the Protestant Reformation to denote any idols, icons of the saints, or the Catholic Church generally.[9] In such contexts, it follows the anglicized pronunciation and usually omits any mark between its two As.[10] In close transliteration of the Semitic name, the ayin is represented, as Baʿal.

In the Northwest Semitic languages—Ugaritic, Phoenician, Hebrew, Amorite, and Aramaic—the word baʿal signified 'owner' and, by extension, 'lord',[11] a 'master', or 'husband'.[12][13] Cognates include the Akkadian Bēlu (𒂗),[c] Amharic bal (ባል),[14] and Arabic baʿl (بعل). Báʿal (בַּעַל) and baʿl still serve as the words for 'husband' in modern Hebrew and Arabic respectively. They also appear in some contexts concerning the ownership of things or possession of traits.

The feminine form is baʿalah (Hebrew: בַּעֲלָה;[15] Arabic: بَعْلَة), meaning 'mistress' in the sense of a female owner or lady of the house[16] and still serving as a rare word for 'wife'.[17]

Suggestions in early modern scholarship also included comparison with the Celtic god Belenus, however this is now widely rejected by contemporary scholars.[18]

Distribution and population in Pakistan

According to 1911 census the Baal were the principal Muslim Jat clan in:

  • Gurdaspur District - Baal (117)
  • N B: With Major portion of the then district Gurdaspur of composite India, some region went to Pakistan and the rest of the area forms now [Gurdaspur]] district in Indian Punjab state.

Notable persons

References

  1. ↑ The Anabasis of Alexander/2b, f.n.1
  2. ↑ "Baal". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.
  3. ↑ Smith, William Robertson (1878), "Baal" , in Baynes, T. S. (ed.), Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 3 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 175–176
  4. ↑ Freedman, David Noel, ed. (1992), The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, vol. 1, New York: Doubleday, ISBN 978-0300140019. "Baal (Deity)".
  5. ↑ Romans 11:4
  6. ↑ Herrmann, Wolfgang (1999a), "Baal", in Toorn, Karel van der; Becking, Bob; Horst, Pieter Willem van der (eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd ed., Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, pp. 132
  7. ↑ Herrmann (1999a), p. 132.
  8. ↑ Huss, Werner (1985), Geschichte der Karthager, Munich: C.H. Beck, ISBN 9783406306549. (in German),p.561
  9. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary (1885), "Baalist, n."
  10. ↑ "Baal". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.
  11. ↑ Herrmann (1999a), p. 132.
  12. ↑ Pope, Marvin H. (2007). "Baal Worship". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 3 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4.
  13. ↑ Olmo Lete, Gregorio del; Sanmartin, Joaquin; Watson, Wilfred G.E., eds. (2015), Diccionario de la Lengua Ugarítica, 3rd ed., Leiden: translated from the Spanish for E.J. Brill as A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition (Ser. Handbuch der Orientalistik [Handbook of Oriental Studies], Vol. 112), ISBN 978-90-04-28864-5
  14. ↑ Kane, Thomas Leiper (1990), Amharic–English Dictionary, vol. I, Weisbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, ISBN 978-3-447-02871-4,p.861
  15. ↑ Strong, James (1890), The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Cincinnati: Jennings & Graham
  16. ↑ Strong, James (1890), The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Cincinnati: Jennings & Graham
  17. ↑ Wehr, Hans; Cowan, J. Milton (1976), A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, Ithaca: Spoken Language Services, ISBN 0879500018,p.67
  18. ↑ Belin, in Gilles Ménage, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue françoise, 1750. Ménage constructs a derivation of both the "Chaldean" Bel and the Celtic Belin from a supposed word for 'ball, sphere', whence 'head', and 'chief, lord'

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