Why are the Arab deities called the deities of the Nuh people?

Question

And said, 'Never leave your gods and never leave Wadd or Suwa' or Yaghuth and Ya´uq and Nasr.' ([71] Nuh : 23)

The deities of Arabia worshipped by the Arabs of the Prophet's time are named here. But they are attributed to the time of Nuh, who lived more than 3,000 years before the Prophet. How were the Arabs able to preserve the memory of them for 3,000 years?

I think that if the people of Nuh worshipped them, then the memory of these deities should have been preserved by other ancient peoples. But so far I have not heard that other nations know about them.

Is there any historical evidence that these deities existed in such an ancient time? Are there the same names in the pantheons of other ancient peoples, for example, the ancient Egyptians?

Answer 1

The majority view is that these were idols of the people of Noah. As to how the Arabs came to worship them: One tradition is that these idols were drowned and hence buried underground due to the deluge. And after that a devil from the jinn told Amr bin Luhai about them and he re-introduced their worship among the Arabs.

ويذكر أن عمرو بن لحي كان له رئى من الجن، فأخبره بأن أصنام قوم نوح- ودا وسواعا ويغوث ويعوق ونسرا- مدفونة بجدة فأتاها فاستثارها

It was said that 'Amr bin Luhai was told by a jinn companion of his tha the idols of Noah's people: Wadd, Suwa', Yaguth, Ya'uk and Nasr were buried in Jeddah. So he dug them out and took them to Tihama.

^{— Raheeq al-Makhtum}

Some of the exegetes have noted that one alternate claim is that these were names of the idols of the Arabs and not worshiped by anyone else. The narrative takes an interlude from the story of Noah and it means that the people of Noah said 'Never leave your gods' and the Arabs did the same by saying 'never leave Wadd or Suwa' or Yaghuth and Ya´uq and Nasr'.