Dhat-Badan

{{Short description|Himyarite goddess}}

Dhat-Badan ({{langx|xsa|𐩹𐩩𐩽𐩨𐩲𐩵𐩬}}), Dhat-hami, or Zat-Badar, ´She of the Wild Goats` and ´She of the Sanctuary',Forlong, John G.R., [https://books.google.com/books?id=LDoESlYRyMEC&dq=Dhat-Badan&pg=PA538 Encyclopedia of Religions], 2008 was a Himyarite goddess.

Dhat-Badan was a nature goddess of the oasis, nature, and the wet season worshipped at tree-circled pools{{Citation needed|reason=While Dhat-Badan was likely a fertility goddess based on the epigraphic record, there is nothing I can find in the Sabaean corpus to support that she was associated with "the oasis, nature, and the wet season worshipped at tree-circled pools" and th |date=January 2024}} throughout the region of ancient Yemen, Somalia, and Ethiopia.

She was said to forbid any invocation to her when there was no seeress or priestess present in her sanctuary.Müller, Walter W. Zwei sabäische Votivinschriften an die Sonnengöttin: Nami 74 und Yemen Museum 1965 (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1987), p. 64, as cited in Hoyland, Robert G. "Arabia and the Arabs : from the Bronze Age to the coming of Islam." (London; New York : Routledge, 2001), pg. 159-60.

This priestess was called a ḥlmt, literally 'Dreamer'.Müller 1987, p. 64 In the sanctuary, the priestess would lie down and sleep before the sacred tree(s) of the goddess to receive an oracle in the form of a prophetic dream.{{Citation needed|reason=This claim is made in the "Arabian Paganism" page cited below, however a more reliable source is needed. |date=January 2024}}

She was a popular goddess of the polytheists of Axum. The she-ibex was sacred to her and it was said that an island in the Red Sea inhabited by ibexes was under her protection.{{Cite web|url=https://wathanism.blogspot.com/2011/11/deities-beings-and-figures-in-arabian.html|title=Arabian Paganism: Mythology and religion of pre-Islamic Arabia: Deities, Spirits, Figures and Locations|date=9 November 2011}}{{unreliable source?|date=October 2020}}