Baal against Mawt

OEC points to Al-Jallad. 2015. Echoes of the Baal Cycle in a Safaito-Hismaic Inscription.

For this preArabic poem, there are two seasons, analogous to day and night. There are days and nights of Mawt, and days and nights of Baal. Mawt's season is the hot, dry "summer"; Baal owns the cool, fertile "winter". For OEC, on behalf of old Macedon, Crete and points south are Down Under.

Gnostics aside, Cretans and Arabs never believed they live in the underworld. It hadn't occurred to them that Europe be their underworld either. Every Mediterranean religion agreed that the underworld is a magmachamber (which it geologically is). Rather, once a year the underworld comes to Crete and southern Syria.

This was normative thought in south Syria and lowland western Arabia, before Judaism and outside (say) Egyptian influence. I am inclined to declare it protoSemitic.

Of interest is that this myth is so well-documented at Ugarit. I imagine that a bit northerly for a cycle like this. Although if Minoan Crete went along with it, it might hold for (say) Cyprus and points east. An import from their southeast?

As for the Quran: the poem grants to these two gods their respective season, but leaves alone why. This thought opened up space for an impartial Judge between them. Q. 25:61-2 states that Allâh made the day and night alternate; 23:80 then grants that alternation to Him, and associates that with life and death. Elsewhere Q. 3:190, 10:6, 45:5 establish the alternation as a sign for a sensible people.