Responses to Islamic Awareness

The Word Allah In The Arabic Bible


Abu Iman 'Abd ar-Rahmaan Robert Squires attempt to convince us, for reasons unknown, that the God of the Bible and Qur'an are the same since both Muslims and Arab Christians use the word "Allah" to address God:

Upon comparing the images, one should be able to clearly see that the word Allah appears in both the Qur'anic and Arabic Bible images. Indeed, the word Allah appears throughout Arabic translations of the Bible, since it is simply the Arabic name for Almighty God. Insha'llah, the examples below will help quell the doubts of those who have been duped into believing that Muslims worship a different god - either by the hostile media or by Christian missionary propaganda.

This is partially true. In Arabic, the word Allah (or the (al) - God (`llah)) is the masculine form of the noun for the name of God. The feminine form is al-`ilat. The noun "Allah" predates Islam and comes to the Arabic language from Syriac. Christoph Heger tells us : "Instead, the word "Allah", as a lot of other words, especially words of the religious sphere, was imported from the Syriac (Aramaic) language: "alaha" - with three long a-vowels -, is the Aramaic word for the (Christian) unique God. The last (long) "a" characterizes the status absolutus in the Aramaic language and was duly omitted by the Arabs like case endings in the Arabic vernacular, whereas the understanding of the first syllable of "alaha" as an article was a common misunderstanding like for instance in "al-Iskandar" from Greek "Alexandros" etc. The doubling of the "l" is irrelevant, since the doubling sign is a very late invention of Arabic orthography, centuries after Muhammad."

Our Arab Christian brothers and sisters use the name "Allah" for the God of the Bible. Once again, Allah is simply the Arab word for god. In the Arabic Bible, the Word Elohim (Hebrew for God) or Theos (Greek for God) is always translated as Allah. Incidentally, the Arab Christians called God "Allah" LONG BEFORE THE BIRTH OF MUHAMMAD AND ISLAM!

We hope that this serves as enough documentation for those who still have doubts about this. We could think of no other way to prove this point, except to encourage everyone to do further critical and open-minded research on their own. Please, don't forget to compare the images . . .

You are confusing terms and concepts. There is no doubt, or argument, that the Arabic word "Allah" means God! Before the advent of Islam, the Arabs referred to Pagan deities, such as Hubul (the major god of the Kaa'bah and the city of Mecca), as "allah". Hubul, however, WAS NOT the same "Allah" preached by Muhammad. Likewise, the English term "god" can refer to the God of the Bible or to other deities such as Brahma, Osiris, Shiva, or Krishna who ARE NOT the same as the God of the Bible.

The problem raised by this discussion is that the God (or Allah) of the Bible has radically different attributes and gives mankind a completely different message than the God (or Allah) of Islam. Therefore, in spite of a common name, they cannot be the same! The God (or Allah) of the Bible revealed His message of salvation and love, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, to humankind and, as it is often said, God knows best!

For a more detailed discussion of this issue, please read The God of Islam.

Andrew Vargo

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