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{{Short description|Arabic word for God}} |
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{{About|the Arabic word "Allah"|the Islamic view of God|God in Islam|other uses|Allah (disambiguation)}} |
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{{Good article}} |
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{{Arabicterm|'''الله'''|Allāh|God}} |
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{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}} |
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[[File:Allah3.svg|thumb|right|The word 'Allah' in ''[[thuluth]]'' [[Islamic calligraphy|calligraphy]]]] |
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'''Allah''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|æ|l|ə|,_|ˈ|ɑː|l|ə|,_|ə|ˈ|l|ɑː}};<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/allah "Allah"]. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/allah|title=Allah|work=[[Oxford Learner's Dictionaries]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-03-18 |title=Definition of ALLAH |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Allah |access-date=2024-04-08 |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en}}</ref> {{lang-ar|{{script/Arabic|ﷲ}}|translit=Allāh}}, {{IPA|ar|ʔaɫ.ɫaːh|IPA|Ar-allah.ogg}}) is the common [[Arabic]] word for [[God in Abrahamic religions|God]]. In the English language, the word generally refers to [[God in Islam]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/faithgod.html |title=God |work=Islam: Empire of Faith |publisher=PBS|access-date=18 December 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140327034958/http://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/faithgod.html|archive-date=27 March 2014}}</ref><ref>"Islam and Christianity", ''Encyclopedia of Christianity'' (2001): Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews also refer to God as ''Allāh''.</ref><ref name="gardet-allah">{{cite encyclopedia | url=http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/allah-COM_0047| title=Allah | encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam Online | first=L.|last=Gardet | access-date=2 May 2007 |editor1-first=P.|editor1-last=Bearman|editor2-first=Th.|editor2-last=Bianquis|editor3-first=C.E.|editor3-last=Bosworth|editor4-first=E.|editor4-last=van Donzel|editor5-first=W.P.|editor5-last=Heinrichs|publisher=Brill Online}}</ref> The word is thought to be derived by [[Contraction (grammar)|contraction]] from ''[[Arabic definite article|al]]-[[Ilah|ilāh]]'', which means "the god", and is linguistically related to the [[Aramaic language|Aramaic]] words [[Names of God in Judaism|Elah]] and [[Syriac language|Syriac]] {{lang|arc|ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ}} (ʼAlāhā) and the [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] word ''[[El (deity)|El]]'' (''[[Elohim]]'') for God.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|year=2006|title=Allah|encyclopedia=The Qur'an: An Encyclopedia|publisher=[[Routledge]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=isDgI0-0Ip4C&q=ilah|editor=Oliver Leaman|page=34|isbn=978-0-415-32639-1|author=Zeki Saritoprak}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|author=Vincent J. Cornell|title=God: God in Islam|editor=Lindsay Jones|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Religion|edition=2nd|publisher=MacMillan Reference USA|volume=5|year=2005|page=724}}</ref> |
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'''''Allah''''' ({{lang-ar|الله}}, ''{{ArabDIN|Allāh}}'') is the standard [[Arabic language|Arabic]] word for "[[God]]". The term is best known in the [[Western world|West]] for its use by [[Muslim]]s as a reference to God.<ref name="EncMMENA"> Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, ''Allah'' </ref> Arabic-speakers of all [[Abrahamic]] faiths, including [[Christian]]s and [[Jew]]s, use the word "Allah" to mean "God".<ref> Columbia Encyclopedia, ''Allah'' </ref> The Muslim and Christian Arabs of today have no other word for 'God' than 'Allah'.<ref>{{cite book |author=Lewis, Bernard; Holt, P. M.; Holt, Peter R.; Lambton, Ann Katherine Swynford |title=The Cambridge history of Islam |publisAher=University Press |location=Cambridge, Eng |year=1977 |pages=32 |isbn=0-521-29135-6 |oclc= |doi=}}</ref> In [[pre-Islamic Arabia]], Allah was used by [[shirk (idolatry)|pagan]] [[Mecca]]ns as a reference to the creator-god, possibly the supreme deity.<ref name="EoI">"Allah", ''Encyclopedia of Islam''</ref> |
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The word ''Allah'' has been used by [[Arabs|Arabic people]] of different religions since [[pre-Islamic Arabia|pre-Islamic]] times.<ref name="Robin304">{{cite book|author=Christian Julien Robin|title=Arabia and Ethiopia. In The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GKRybwb17WMC&pg=PA304|year=2012|publisher=OUP USA|pages=304–305|isbn=978-0-19-533693-1}}</ref> The pre-Islamic Arabs worshipped a [[Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia#Role of Allah|supreme deity]] whom they called Allah, alongside other lesser deities.<ref name="auto">{{cite encyclopedia |author=Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow |title=Allah|encyclopedia=The Facts on File Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend|publisher=Facts on File|year=2004|page=53|isbn=978-1-4381-2685-2}}</ref> [[Muhammad]] used the word ''Allah'' to indicate [[God in Islam|the Islamic conception of God]]. ''Allah'' has been used as a term for God by [[Muslim]]s (both [[Arab Muslims|Arab]] and non-Arab), [[Judaeo-Arabic]]-speaking [[Jews]], and [[Arab Christians]]<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/allah |title=Allah |author=Merriam-Webster |dictionary=Merriam-Webster |access-date=25 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140420121231/http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/allah |archive-date=20 April 2014 }}</ref> after the terms "[[Arabic definite article|al]]-[[Ilah|ilāh]]" and "Allah" were used interchangeably in [[Arabic#Old Hejazi and Classical Arabic|Classical Arabic]] by the majority of Arabs who had become Muslims. It is also often, albeit not exclusively, used in this way by [[Bábism|Bábists]], [[Baháʼí Faith|Baháʼís]], [[Mandaeans]], [[Christianity in Indonesia|Indonesian]] and [[Christianity in Malta|Maltese]] Christians, and [[Sephardi Jews]],<ref name="Britannica"> |
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In [[Islam]], Allah is the [[Tawhid|only God]], transcendent creator of the universe, and the judge of humankind.<ref name="EncMMENA"/><ref name="Britannica"> Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, ''Allah'' </ref> Some Islamic scholars believe that the term "Allāh" should not be translated, arguing that "Allāh" as used in Islam is a special and glorified term whose use should be preserved, while God can also be used in reference to deities worshiped by [[polytheism|polytheists]]. |
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"Allah." [[Encyclopædia Britannica]]. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica</ref><ref name="EncMMENA">Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, ''Allah''</ref><ref>Willis Barnstone, Marvin Meyer ''The Gnostic Bible: Revised and Expanded Edition'' Shambhala Publications 2009 {{ISBN|978-0-8348-2414-0}} page 531</ref> as well as by the [[Gagauz people]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities|author=Carl Skutsch|year=2005|publisher=Routledge|page=480}}</ref> Similar usage by Christians and [[Sikhs]] in [[Peninsular Malaysia]] has recently led to political and legal controversies.<ref>[http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10620032 Sikhs target of 'Allah' attack], Julia Zappei, 14 January 2010, ''The New Zealand Herald''. Accessed on line 15 January 2014.</ref><ref>[http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11139915 Malaysia court rules non-Muslims can't use 'Allah'], 14 October 2013, ''The New Zealand Herald''. Accessed on line 15 January 2014.</ref><ref>[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-religion-idUSBREA010C120140102 Malaysia's Islamic authorities seize Bibles as Allah row deepens], Niluksi Koswanage, 2 January 2014, Reuters. Accessed on line 15 January 2014. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-religion-idUSBREA010C120140102]</ref><ref name="10-point"/> |
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==Etymology== |
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According to [[F. E. Peters]], "The [[Qur'an]] insists, Muslims believe, and historians affirm that [[Muhammad]] and his followers worship the same God as the Jews.{{cite quran|29|46}} The Quran's Allah is the same Creator God who covenanted with [[Abraham]]". Peters states that the Qur'an portrays Allah as both more powerful and more remote than [[Yahweh]], and as a universal deity, unlike Yahweh who closely follows [[Israel]]ites.<ref> F.E. Peters, ''Islam'', p.4, Princeton University Press, 2003 </ref> |
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[[File:Component letters in Allah.svg|thumb|240px| The Arabic components that make up the word "Allah": {{ordered list |[[Aleph#Arabic|alif]] |[[Hamza#Hamzat al-waṣl ( ٱ )|hamzat waṣl]] ({{lang|ar|همزة وصل}}) |[[lām]] |lām |[[shadda]] ({{lang|ar|شدة}}) |[[dagger alif|alif khunjāriyah]] ({{lang|ar|ألف خنجرية}}) |[[hāʾ]]}}]] |
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The [[etymology]] of the word ''Allāh'' has been discussed extensively by classical Arab philologists.<ref name=EI2-Ilah>D.B. Macdonald. Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed, Brill. "Ilah", Vol. 3, p. 1093.</ref> Most considered it to be derived from a [[synalepha|contraction]] of the [[Arabic definite article]] ''al-'' and ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|ilāh}}'' "[[deity]], god" to ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|al-lāh}}'' meaning "the deity, the God".<ref name=EI2-Ilah/> Indeed, there is "the interchangeability of ''al-ilāh'' and ''allāh'' in early Arabic poetry even when composed by the Christian [[Adi ibn Zayd|ʿAdī ibn Zayd]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sinai |first1=Nicholas |title=Rain-Giver, Bone-Breaker, Score-Settler: Allāh in Pre-Quranic Poetry |date=2019 |publisher=American Oriental Society |location=Atlanta, GA |isbn=978-1-948488-25-9 |page=7}}</ref> The majority of scholars accept this hypothesis. A minority hypothesis, seen with more skepticism, is that the term is a loanword from [[Syriac language|Syriac]] ''Alāhā''.<ref>[[Gerhard Böwering]]. [[Encyclopedia of the Quran]], Brill, 2002. Vol. 2, p. 318</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Reynolds |first=Gabriel Said |title=Allah: God in the Qur'an |date=2020 |publisher=Yale university press |isbn=978-0-300-24658-2 |location=New Haven |pages=14}}</ref> |
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According to the tradition of Islam there are more than [[99 Names of God]] (''al-asma al-husna'' lit. meaning: "The best names") each of which evoke a distinct characteristic of Allah. The most famous and most frequent of these names are "the Merciful" (''al-rahman'') and "the Compassionate" (''al-rahim'').<ref>{{cite book |last=Bentley |first=David |coauthors= |title=The 99 Beautiful Names for God for All the People of the Book |publisher=William Carey Library |year=1999 |month=Sept. |isbn=0-87808-299-9 }}</ref><ref name="EncMMENA"/> |
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Grammarians of the [[Hasan of Basra|Basra school]] regarded it as either formed "spontaneously" (''murtajal'') or as the definite form of ''lāh'' (from the verbal root ''lyh'' with the meaning of "lofty" or "hidden").<ref name=EI2-Ilah/> |
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==Etymology== |
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Etymologically, ''Allāh'' is derived from the words Allaha (He was Deified), Yu'allihu (He is Deified) and Alooha (Deification). [[Cognates]] of the name "Allāh" exist in other [[Semitic languages]], including [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] and [[Aramaic language|Aramaic]].<ref name="Columbia"> Columbia Encyclopaedia says: Derived from an old Semitic root referring to the Divine and used in the Canaanite El, the Mesopotamian ilu, and the biblical Elohim, the word Allah is used by all Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians, Jews, and other monotheists.</ref> The corresponding the [[Aramaic]] word for God is אלהא or ܐܠܗܐ, pronounced ''ˀĕlāhā'' ''[[Alaha|ˀălāhā]]'', or ''ˀăloho'' depending on dialect.<ref name="cal">[http://cal1.cn.huc.edu The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon] - Entry for ''ˀlh''</ref> Synchronically, the term ''Allah'' does not have a plural form or a feminine gender in the Arabic language.<ref name="EoQ"/> |
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The use of Allah as the name of a deity appears as early as the [[first century]]. An inscription using the [[Ancient South Arabian script]] in [[Old Arabic]] from [[Qaryat al-Fāw]] reads, "to Kahl and {{smallcaps|lh}} and ʿAththar ({{smallcaps|b-khl w-lh w-ʿṯr}})".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sinai |first1=Nicholas |title=Rain-Giver, Bone-Breaker, Score-Settler: Allāh in Pre-Quranic Poetry |date=2019 |publisher=American Oriental Society |location=Atlanta, GA |isbn=978-1-948488-25-9 |page=12}}</ref> |
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==History== |
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{{Original research|date=September 2007}} |
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[[Image:Dcp7323-Edirne-Eski Camii Allah.jpg|thumb|150px|Allah script outside [[Eski Cami]] (The Old Mosque) in [[Edirne]], [[Turkey]].]] |
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[[Image:Allahmedal.jpg|thumb|Medallion showing 'Allah' in [[Hagia Sophia]], [[Istanbul]], [[Turkey]].]] |
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The pre-Islamic Arabs believed in a host of lesser gods which served as intecessors between them and Allah, believing that they needed someone to appeal to Allah on their behalf to have their prayer answered. This belief that Allah is too Holy to approach is rejected in Islam in the Qur'anic verse, "And indeed We have created man, and We know what his own self whispers to him. And We are nearer to him than his jugular vein (by Our Knowledge)." (Qur'an 50:16) Some of the names of these gods were [[Hubal]], [[al-Lāt]], [[al-Uzza]], and [[Manah]].<ref>Encyclopaedia of World Mythology and Legend, ''"The Facts on File"'', ed. Anthony Mercatante, [[New York]], 1983, I:61</ref> Pre-Islamic Jews in Arabia also referred to the supreme creator as Allah{{Fact|date=November 2007}} . It is stated in the Qur'an, "The Jews say: 'Allâh's Hand is tied up!' (i.e. Allah does not give them enough of His Bounty)" (Qur'an 5:64). In a narration collected by al-Bukhari, Muslim, at-Tirmidhi and an-Nasa'i; Tariq said, "The Jews said to 'Umar, 'By Allah! There is a verse (in the Qur'an) that is read by all of you (Muslims), and had it been revealed to us (Jews), we would have taken that day (on which it was revealed) as a day of celebration.' |
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This view of Allāh by the pre-Islamic pagans is viewed by Muslims as a later development having arisen as a result of moving away from Abrahamic [[monotheism]] over time since the building of the [[Kaaba]]. The Qur'an transmits a rebuttal to this common belief at the time in the verse {{cite quran|17|40}}: ''"Has then your Lord (O Pagans!) preferred for you sons, and taken for Himself daughters among the angels? Truly ye utter a most dreadful saying!"''. Secular historians, meanwhile, have postulated that monotheism is the result of an evolution from [[henotheism]], the belief in a supreme deity as well as various lesser divinities. (See [[Judaism#Critical historical view of the development of Judaism|Judaism]].) The pagan Arabians also used the word "Allāh" in the names of their children; Muhammad's father, who was born into pagan society, was named "Abdullāh", which translates "servant of Allāh". "Abdullāh" is still used for names of Muslim and non-Muslims (e.g. Christians also name their children with these names, as testified by the [[Zabad inscription]]). |
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[[Cognates]] of the name "Allāh" exist in other [[Semitic languages]], including [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] and [[Aramaic language|Aramaic]].<ref name="autogenerated1">Columbia Encyclopaedia says: Derived from an old Semitic root referring to the Divine and used in the Canaanite ''[[El (deity)|El]]'', the Mesopotamian ''[[Ilah|ilu]]'', and the biblical ''[[Elohim]]'' and ''[[Eloah]]'', the word Allah is used by all Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians, Jews, and other monotheists.</ref> The corresponding [[Aramaic]] form is ''ʼElāh'' ({{lang|arc|אלה}}), but its emphatic state is ''{{transliteration|arc|ʼElāhā}}'' ({{lang|arc|אלהא}}). It is written as {{lang|syc|ܐܠܗܐ}} ({{transliteration|arc|ʼĔlāhā}}) in [[Biblical Aramaic]] and {{lang|syc|ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ}} ({{transliteration|syc|ʼAlāhā}}) in [[Syriac language|Syriac]], both meaning simply "God".<ref name="cal">[http://cal1.cn.huc.edu The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon] – Entry for ''ʼlh'' {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131018045941/http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/ |date=18 October 2013 }}</ref> The unusual Syriac form is likely an imitation of the Arabic.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sinai |first1=Nicholas |title=Rain-Giver, Bone-Breaker, Score-Settler: Allāh in Pre-Quranic Poetry |date=2019 |publisher=American Oriental Society |location=Atlanta, GA |isbn=978-1-948488-25-9 |page=8}}</ref> |
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The Hebrew word for deity, [[Names of God in Judaism#El|El]] (אל) or [[Names of God in Judaism#Elohim|Elōah]] (אלוה), was used as an [[Tanakh]] synonym for the [[Tetragrammaton]] (יהוה), which is the proper name of God according to the [[Hebrew Bible]]. As mentioned earlier, the [[Aramaic]] word for God is אלהא or ܐܠܗܐ, pronounced ''ˀĕlāhā'' ''[[Alaha|ˀălāhā]]'', or ''ˀăloho'' depending on dialect,<ref name="cal">[http://cal1.cn.huc.edu The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon] - Entry for ''ˀlh''</ref> which comes from the same Proto-[[Semitic languages|Semitic]] word (''*ʾilâh-'') as the Arabic and Hebrew terms. [[Jesus]] is described in [[Gospel of Mark|Mark]] 15:34 as having used the word on the cross, with the ending meaning "my", when saying, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (transliterated in Greek as ''elō[h]-i''). |
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==History of usage== |
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One of the earliest surviving translations of the word ''Allāh'' into a foreign language is in a [[Greek language|Greek]] translation of the [[Shahada]], from 86-96 AH (705-715 AD), which translates it as ''ho theos monos'',<ref>A Bilingual Papyrus Of A Protocol - Egyptian National Library Inv. No. 61, 86-96 AH [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Papyri/enlp1.html]</ref> literally "the one god". Also the cognate Aramaic term appears in the Aramaic version of the ''New Testament'', called the [[Peshitta]] as one of the words Jesus used to refer to God, e.g., in the sixth [[Beatitudes|Beatitude]], "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see [[Alaha]]." |
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=== Pre-Islamic Arabia === |
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{{See also|Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia}}{{Middle Eastern deities}} |
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Regional variants of the word ''Allah'' occur in both pagan and Christian pre-Islamic inscriptions.<ref name="Robin304"/><ref>{{cite book | last = Hitti | first = Philip Khouri | title = History of the Arabs | publisher = Palgrave Macmillan | year = 1970 | pages = 100–101}}</ref> According to [[Marshall Hodgson]], it seems that in the pre-Islamic times, some Arab Christians made pilgrimage to the [[Kaaba]], a pagan temple at that time, honoring Allah there as God the Creator.<ref>Marshall G. S. Hodgson, ''The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization'', [[University of Chicago Press]], p. 156</ref> |
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==Usage outside Islam== |
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Most Arabic-speaking Christian and Jewish Communities (including the [[Yemenite Jews]], several {{ArabDIN|[[Mizrahi Jews|Mizraḥi]]}} communities and some [[Sephardim]].{{Fact|date=November 2007}} ), as well as [[Portal:Eastern Christianity|Eastern Christians]] living in [[Muslim world|Muslim countries]] (such as [[Orthodox Christians]] in Turkey [http://www.zaman.com.tr/webapp-tr/haber.do?haberno=539344]), use "Allāh" as the proper noun for "God".{{Fact|date=April 2007}}. The name's origin can be traced back to the earliest [[Semitic]] writings in which the word for god was Il or El, the latter being an [[Old Testament]] synonym for Yahweh<ref name="Brit"/> Allah is the standard Arabic word for "God" and is used by Arab Christians as well.<ref name="Brit">{{cite web |
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| publisher=Britannica.com |
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| url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9005770/Allah |
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}}</ref> |
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The Syriac word {{lang|syc|ܐܠܗܐ}} (''ʼĔlāhā'') can be found in the reports and the lists of names of Christian martyrs in South Arabia,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.syriaca.org/work/254|title=The Himyarite Martyrs (text) —}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=James of Edessa the hymns of Severus of Antioch and others." Ernest Walter Brooks (ed.), Patrologia Orientalis VII.5 (1911)., vol: 2, p. 613|pages=ܐܠܗܐ (Elaha)}}</ref> as reported by antique Syriac documents of the names of those martyrs from the era of the [[Himyarite]] and [[Aksumite]] kingdoms<ref>Ignatius Ya`qub III, The Arab Himyarite Martyrs in the Syriac Documents (1966), Pages: 9-65-66-89</ref> |
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Because of the centuries long [[Al-Andalus|Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula]], the words [[Insha'Allah|ojalá]] and [[Insha'Allah|oxalá]] today exist in the [[Spanish language|Spanish]] and [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] languages, respectively, borrowed from [[Arabic]] by way of [[Mozarabic]]. These words literally mean "God willing" (in the sense of "I hope so").{{Fact|date=April 2007}} |
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In an inscription of Christian martyrion dated back to 512, references to al-ilah ({{lang|ar|الاله}})<ref name=Kugener>{{Cite book|title=M. A. Kugener, "Nouvelle Note Sur L'Inscription Trilingue De Zébed", Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, pp. 577-586.}}</ref> can be found in both Arabic and Aramaic. The inscription starts with the statement "By the Help of al-ilah".<ref>Adolf Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie II: Das Schriftwesen und die Lapidarschrift (1971), Wien: Hermann Böhlaus Nochfolger, Page: 6-8</ref><ref>Beatrice Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts: From the Nabatean Era to the First Islamic Century according to Dated Texts (1993), Atlanta: Scholars Press, Page:</ref> |
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The word 'Allah' in the [[Indonesian language|Indonesian]] and [[Malay language]], means [[God]], it is used alternatively with the word "''Tuhan''". Indonesia recognises six religions ([[Islam]] (majority), [[Protestantism]], [[Roman Catholicism]].<ref name="Indonesian Christian">{{cite web |
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| url=http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristen Katolik |
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| title=Kristen Katolik |
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| language=Indonesian |
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}}</ref> [[Hinduism]], [[Buddhism]], and [[Confucianism]]) and other religions under the heading of "other beliefs", all of which use these two words to refer to [[God]] in singular, genderless form. For plural usage, Indonesian uses another variant, "''ilah''", and make it plural by [[reduplication]], "''ilah-ilah''" ("''allah-allah''" in lower case also acceptable, denoting [[false gods]]. "''Allah''" with uppercase is always singular). The third word "''Dewa''" (pl. "''Dewa-dewa''", fem. "''Dewi''", pl. masc. and fem. "''Dewa-dewi''") - roughly translates as [[Deity]] or [[gods]] - is usually used only in [[polytheism]] context, such as [[Roman gods]], [[Greek gods]], [[Nordic gods]], etc. It's considered inappropriate by popular usage to use "''Dewa''" in [[monotheistic]] context. |
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Archaeological excavation quests have led to the discovery of ancient [[pre-Islamic Arabia|pre-Islamic]] inscriptions and tombs made by [[Arab Christians]] in the ruins of a church at [[Umm el-Jimal]] in Northern [[Jordan]], which initially, according to Enno Littman (1949), contained references to ''Allah'' as the proper name of God. However, on a second revision by Bellamy et al. (1985 & 1988) the five-verse inscription was retranslated: "(1)This [inscription] was set up by colleagues of ʿUlayh, (2) son of ʿUbaydah, secretary (3) of the cohort Augusta Secunda (4) Philadelphiana; may he go mad who (5) effaces it."<ref>James Bellamy, "Two Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions Revised: Jabal Ramm and Umm al-Jimal", ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'', 108/3 (1988) pp. 372–378 (translation of the inscription) "This was set up by colleagues/friends of ʿUlayh, the son of ʿUbaydah, secretary/adviser of the cohort Augusta Secunda Philadelphiana; may he go mad/crazy who effaces it."</ref><ref>Enno Littmann, Arabic Inscriptions (Leiden, 1949)</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=The Type and Spread of Arabic Script|last=Daniels|first=Peter T.|year=2014}}</ref> |
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== Translation == |
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Some Muslim scholars feel that "Allāh" should not be translated, because they perceive the Arabic word to express the uniqueness of "Allāh" more accurately than the word "god" for several reasons: |
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[[Irfan Shahîd]] quoting the 10th-century encyclopedic collection [[Kitab al-Aghani]] notes that pre-Islamic Arab Christians have been reported to have raised the battle cry "''Ya La Ibad Allah''" (O slaves of Allah) to invoke each other into battle.<ref>Irfan Shahîd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century, Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University-Washington DC, page 418.</ref> According to Shahid, on the authority of 10th-century Muslim scholar [[Al-Marzubani]], "Allah" was also mentioned in pre-Islamic Christian poems by some [[Ghassanid]] and [[Tanukhids|Tanukhid]] poets in [[Syria]] and Northern [[Arabia]].<ref>Irfan Shahîd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century, Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University-Washington DC, Page: 452</ref><ref>A. Amin and A. Harun, Sharh Diwan Al-Hamasa (Cairo, 1951), Vol. 1, Pages: 478-480</ref><ref>Al-Marzubani, Mu'jam Ash-Shu'araa, Page: 302</ref> |
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* The word "god" can take a plural form "gods", whereas the word "Allāh" has no individual plural form (it requires grammatical [[Grammatical inflection|inflection]] to imply plurality). |
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* The word "god" can have gender as male god or female god (called goddess) whereas the word "Allāh" does not have a gender since it cannot be [[Declension|declined]] to mark [[grammatical gender]] and thus [[gender|normative gender]]. <ref name="EoQ">"Allah", ''Encyclopedia of the Qur'an''</ref> |
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Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in pre-Islamic [[Polytheism|polytheistic cults]]. According to the Quran exegete [[Ibn Kathir]], Arab pagans considered Allah as an unseen God who created and controlled the Universe. Pagans believed worship of humans or animals who had lucky events in their life brought them closer to God. Pre-Islamic Meccans worshiped Allah alongside a host of lesser gods and those whom they called the "daughters of Allah."<ref name="auto"/> Islam forbade worship of anyone or anything other than God.<ref>{{Cite book|last=IslamKotob|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uTJoiXp3pS4C|title=Tafsir Ibn Kathir all 10 volumes|publisher=IslamKotob|language=en}}</ref> Some authors have suggested that polytheistic Arabs used the name as a reference to a [[creator god]] or a supreme deity of their [[Pantheon (religion)|pantheon]].<ref name="EoI"/><ref>Zeki Saritopak, ''Allah'', The Qu'ran: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Oliver Leaman, p. 34</ref> The term may have been vague in the [[Mecca|Meccan religion]].<ref name="EoI">L. Gardet, ''Allah'', Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. by [[Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb|Sir H.A.R. Gibb]]</ref><ref name="GodEoQ">Gerhard Böwering, ''God and his Attributes'', Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, ed. by [[Jane Dammen McAuliffe]]</ref> |
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* The word "Allāh" had been used in the Arabic tongue in the pre-Islamic period, which Muslims call [[Jahiliyyah|Jāhilīyah]] (meaning the age of ignorance). |
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* It occurs in Arabic classical poetry. |
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According to one hypothesis, which goes back to [[Julius Wellhausen]], Allah (the supreme deity of the tribal federation around [[Quraysh]]) was a designation that consecrated the superiority of [[Hubal]] (the supreme deity of Quraysh) over the other gods.<ref name="Robin304"/> However, there is also evidence that Allah and Hubal were two distinct deities.<ref name="Robin304"/> According to that hypothesis, the [[Kaaba]] was first consecrated to a supreme deity named Allah and then hosted the pantheon of Quraysh after their conquest of [[Mecca]], about a century before the time of [[Muhammad]].<ref name="Robin304"/> Some inscriptions seem to indicate the use of Allah as a name of a polytheist deity centuries earlier, but nothing precise is known about this use.<ref name="Robin304"/> Some scholars have suggested that Allah may have represented a remote creator god who was gradually eclipsed by more particularized local deities.<ref name= Berkey>{{cite book|author=Jonathan Porter Berkey|title=The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800|url=https://archive.org/details/formationofislam0000berk|url-access=registration|year=2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-58813-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/formationofislam0000berk/page/42 42]}}</ref><ref name="Peterson2007">{{cite book|author=Daniel C. Peterson|title=Muhammad, Prophet of God|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9zpbEj0xA_sC&pg=PA21|date=26 February 2007|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|isbn=978-0-8028-0754-0|page=21}}</ref> There is disagreement on whether Allah played a major role in the Meccan religious cult.<ref name= Berkey/><ref name= Peters107>{{cite book|author=Francis E. Peters|title=Muhammad and the Origins of Islam|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0OrCo4VyvGkC&pg=PA107|year=1994|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-1875-8|page=107}}</ref> No iconic representation of Allah is known to have existed.<ref name= Peters107/><ref name="Zeitlin33">{{cite book|author=Irving M. Zeitlin|title=The Historical Muhammad|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sbhJJ7AOLL4C|date=19 March 2007|publisher=Polity|isbn=978-0-7456-3999-4|pages=33}}</ref> Muhammad's father's name was [[Abd Allah ibn Abd al Muttalib|{{transliteration|ar|DIN|ʿAbd-Allāh}}]] meaning "the slave of Allāh".<ref name="GodEoQ"/> The interpretation that Pre-Islamic Arabs once practiced [[Abrahamic religions]] is supported by some literary evidence, being the prevalence of [[Ishmael]], whose God was that of [[Abraham]], in pre-Islamic Arab culture.<ref>The Treasury of literature, Sect. 437</ref><ref>The Beginning of History, Volume 3, Sect.10</ref><ref>The Collection of the Speeches of Arabs, volume 1, section 75</ref> |
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* Was also used by Jews in certain regions (for cognate Hebrew [[Eloah|Elōah]]){{Fact|date=November 2007}}. |
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=== Islamic period === |
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{{main|God in Islam}} |
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{{see also|Names of God in Islam}} |
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In contrast with pre-Islamic Arabian [[polytheism]], as stated by [[Gerhard Böwering]], God in Islam does not have associates and companions, nor is there any kinship between God and [[jinn]].<ref name="EoQ"/> Pre-Islamic pagan Arabs believed in a blind, powerful, inexorable and insensible fate over which man had no control. This was replaced with the Islamic notion of a powerful but provident and merciful God.<ref name="Britannica"/> According to [[Francis Edward Peters]], "The [[Quran|Qur’ān]] insists, Muslims believe, and historians affirm that [[Muhammad]] and his followers worship the same God as the Jews ({{Qref|29|46}}). The Qur’an's Allah is the same Creator God who covenanted with [[Abraham]]". Peters states that the Qur'an portrays Allah as both more powerful and more remote than [[Yahweh]], and as a universal deity, unlike Yahweh who closely follows [[Israel]]ites.<ref name="Peters1">F.E. Peters, ''Islam'', p.4, Princeton University Press, 2003</ref> |
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Since the first centuries of Islam, Arabic-speaking commentators of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faith used the term ''Allah'' as a generic term for the supreme being.<ref>Thomas, Kenneth J. "Allah in Translations of the Bible." The Bible Translator 52.3 (2001): 301-306.</ref> [[Saadia Gaon]] used the term ''Allah'' interchangeably with the term ''[[Elohim|ʾĔlōhīm]]''.<ref>Thomas, Kenneth J. "Allah in Translations of the Bible." The Bible Translator 52.3 (2001): 301-306.</ref> [[Theodore Abu Qurrah]] translates ''theos'' as ''Allah'' in his Bible, as in John 1:1 "the Word was with Allah".<ref>Thomas, Kenneth J. "Allah in Translations of the Bible." The Bible Translator 52.3 (2001): 301-306.</ref> Muslim commentators likewise used the term Allah for the Biblical concept of God. [[Ibn Qutayba]] writes "You cannot serve both Allah and Mammon.".<ref>Thomas, Kenneth J. "Allah in Translations of the Bible." The Bible Translator 52.3 (2001): 301-306.</ref> However, Muslim translators of the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia rarely translated the [[Tetragrammaton]], referring to the supreme being in Israelite tradition, as ''Allah''. Instead, most commentators either translated [[Yahweh]] as either ''yahwah'' or ''rabb'', the latter corresponding to the Jewish custom to refer to Yahweh as ''Adonai''.<ref>Thomas, Kenneth J. "Allah in Translations of the Bible." The Bible Translator 52.3 (2001): 301-306.</ref> |
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Most Quran [[Tafsir|commentators]], including [[al-Tabari]] (d. 923), [[al-Zamakhshari]] (d. 1143/44), and [[Fakhr al-Din al-Razi|al-Razi]] (d. 1209), regard ''Allah'' to be a proper name.<ref>Ibrahim, Zakyi. "To Use “God” or “Allah”?." American Journal of Islam and Society 26.4 (2009): i-vii.</ref> While other names of [[God in Islam]] denote attributes or adjectives, the term ''Allah'' specifically refers to his essence as his real name (''ism'alam li-dhatih'').<ref>Ibrahim, Zakyi. "To Use “God” or “Allah”?." American Journal of Islam and Society 26.4 (2009): i-vii.</ref> The other names are known as the [[99 Names of God|99 Names of Allah]] (''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|al-asmā' al-ḥusná}}'' lit. meaning: 'the best names' or 'the most beautiful names') and considered attributes, each of which evoke a distinct characteristic of Allah.<ref name="EncMMENA" /><ref name="Ben">{{cite book |last=Bentley |first=David |title=The 99 Beautiful Names for God for All the People of the Book |publisher=William Carey Library |date=September 1999 |isbn=978-0-87808-299-5 }}</ref> All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name.<ref name="Tao-Islam"> |
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{{cite book |
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| last =Murata |
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| first =Sachiko |
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| year =1992 |
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| title =The Tao of Islam : a sourcebook on gender relationships in Islamic thought |
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| location =Albany NY USA |
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| publisher=SUNY |
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| isbn =978-0-7914-0914-5 |
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}}</ref> Among the 99 names of God, the most famous and most frequent of these names are "the Merciful" (''[[Rahman (name)|ar-Raḥmān]]'') and "the Compassionate" (''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|ar-Raḥīm}}''),<ref name="EncMMENA" /><ref name="Ben" /> including the forementioned above ''al-Aḥad'' ("the One, the Indivisible") and ''al-Wāḥid'' ("the Unique, the Single"). |
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According to Islamic belief, Allah is the most common word to represent God,<ref name="EoQ">Böwering, Gerhard, ''God and His Attributes'', Encyclopaedia of the Qurʼān, Brill, 2007.</ref> and humble submission to his will, divine ordinances and commandments is the pivot of the Muslim faith.<ref name="Britannica"/> "He is the only God, creator of the universe, and the judge of humankind."<ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="EncMMENA"/> "He is unique (''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|wāḥid}}'') and inherently one (''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|aḥad}}''), all-merciful and omnipotent."<ref name="Britannica"/> No human eyes can see Allah till the Day Of Judgement.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Translation|url=https://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=6&verse=103|access-date=2021-04-11|website=corpus.quran.com}}</ref> The Qur'an declares "the reality of Allah, His inaccessible mystery, His various names, and His actions on behalf of His creatures."<ref name="Britannica"/> Allah does not depend on anything.<ref>{{Cite web|title=112. Surah Al-Ikhlaas or At-Tauhid – NobleQuran.com|url=https://noblequran.com/surah-al-ikhlaas-or-at-tauhid/|access-date=2021-04-11|language=en-US}}</ref> Allah is not considered a part of the Christian Trinity.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Translation|url=https://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=5&verse=73|access-date=2021-03-30|website=corpus.quran.com}}</ref> God has no parents and no children.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Translation|url=https://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=112&verse=3|access-date=2021-03-30|website=corpus.quran.com}}</ref> |
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The concept correlates to the [[Tawhid]], where chapter 112 of the [[Quran|Qur'an]] ([[Al-Ikhlas|''Al-'Ikhlās'']], The Sincerity) reads:<ref>[[Arabic script in Unicode]] symbol for a Quran verse, U+06DD, page 3, [http://www.evertype.com/standards/iso10646/pdf/09419-encode-koranic.pdf Proposal for additional Unicode characters]</ref><blockquote> |
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:[[]] Say, God is one God; |
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: the eternal God: |
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: He begetteth not, neither is He begotten: |
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: and there is not any one like unto Him.<ref>[[Sale, G]] [[AlKoran]]</ref></blockquote> |
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In a [[Sufi]] practice known as ''dhikr Allah'' ([[Arabic]]: <big>ذكر الله</big>, lit. "Remembrance of God"), the Sufi repeats and contemplates the name ''Allah'' or other associated divine names to Him while controlling his or her breath.<ref>Carl W. Ernst, Bruce B. Lawrence, ''Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond'', Macmillan, p. 29</ref> |
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=== Present day === |
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==== Islam ==== |
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[[File:Istanbul, Hagia Sophia, Allah.jpg|thumb|Medallion showing "Allah [[Jalla Jalaluhu]]" in the [[Hagia Sophia]], [[Istanbul]], Turkey]] |
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[[File:Dcp7323-Edirne-Eski Camii Allah.jpg|thumb|150px|Allah script outside the [[Old Mosque, Edirne|Old Mosque]] in [[Edirne]], Turkey]] |
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[[File:Khalili Collection Islamic Art txt 0222.1.jpg|thumb|right|Silk textile panel repeating the name Allah, North Africa, 18th century]] |
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The Islamic tradition to use ''Allah'' as the personal name of God became disputed in contemporary scholarship, including the question, whether or not the word ''Allah'' should be translated as ''God''.<ref>Andreas Görke and Johanna Pink Tafsir and Islamic Intellectual History Exploring the Boundaries of a Genre Oxford University Press in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies London {{ISBN|978-0-19-870206-1}} p. 478</ref> [[Umar Faruq Abd-Allah]] urged English-speaking Muslims to use God instead of Allah for the sake of finding "extensive middle ground we share with other Abrahmic and universal traditions".<ref>Ibrahim, Zakyi. "To Use “God” or “Allah”?." American Journal of Islam and Society 26.4 (2009): i-vii.</ref> |
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Most Muslims use the Arabic phrase ''[[Insha'Allah|{{transliteration|ar|ALA|in shā’a llāh}}]]'' (meaning 'if God wills') unstranslated after references to future events.<ref>Gary S. Gregg, ''The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology'', Oxford University Press, p.30</ref> Muslim discursive piety encourages beginning things with the invocation of ''[[Basmala|{{transliteration|ar|ALA|bi-smi llāh}}]]'' (meaning 'In the name of God').<ref>Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, ''Islamic Society in Practice'', University Press of Florida, p. 24</ref> There are certain other phrases in praise of God that are favored by Muslims and left untransalted, including "[[subhan'allah|{{transliteration|ar|ALA|Subḥāna llāh}}]]" (Glory be to God), "[[Alhamdulillah|{{transliteration|ar|ALA|al-ḥamdu li-llāh}}]]" (Praise be to God), "[[Shahada|{{transliteration|ar|ALA|lā ilāha illā llāh}}]]" (There is no deity but God) or sometimes "''lā ilāha illā inta/ huwa''" (There is no deity but ''You''/ ''Him'') and "[[Takbir|{{transliteration|ar|ALA|Allāhu Akbar}}]]" (God is the Most Great) as a devotional exercise of remembering God ([[dhikr]]).<ref>M. Mukarram Ahmed, Muzaffar Husain Syed, ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'', Anmol Publications PVT. LTD, p. 144</ref> |
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==== Christianity ==== |
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The [[Arab Christians|Christian Arabs]] of today have no other word for "God" than "Allah".<ref name="Cambridge">{{cite book |author1=Lewis, Bernard |author2=Holt, P. M. |author3=Holt, Peter R. |author4=Lambton, Ann Katherine Swynford |title=The Cambridge history of Islam |publisher=University Press |location=Cambridge, Eng |year=1977 |page=32 |isbn=978-0-521-29135-4 }}</ref> Similarly, the [[Aramaic]] word for "God" in the language of [[Assyrian Christians]] is ''ʼĔlāhā'', or ''Alaha''. (Even the Arabic-descended [[Maltese language]] of [[Malta]], whose population is almost entirely [[Catholic Church|Catholic]], uses ''Alla'' for "God".) |
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[[Arab Christians]] have used two forms of invocations that were [[affix]]ed to the beginning of their written works. They adopted the Muslim ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|bismillāh}}'', and also created their own [[Trinity|Trinitized]] ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|bismillāh}}'' as early as the 8th century.<ref name="Thomas"/> The Muslim ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|bismillāh}}'' reads: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." The Trinitized ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|bismillāh}}'' reads: "In the name of Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God." The [[Syriac language|Syriac]], [[Latin]] and [[Greek language|Greek]] invocations do not have the words "One God" at the end. This addition was made to emphasize the [[monotheism|monotheistic]] aspect of Trinitarian belief and also to make it more palatable to Muslims.<ref name="Thomas">Thomas E. Burman, ''Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs'', [[Brill Publishers|Brill]], 1994, p. 103</ref> |
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==Pronunciation== |
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The word ''Allāh'' is generally pronounced {{IPA|[ɑɫˈɫɑː(h)]}}, exhibiting a heavy lām, {{IPA|[ɫ]}}, a [[velarized alveolar lateral approximant]], a marginal phoneme in [[Arabic phonology|Modern Standard Arabic]]. Since the initial alef has no [[hamza]], the initial {{IPA|[a]}} is elided when a preceding word ends in a vowel. If the preceding vowel is {{IPA|/i/}}, the lām is light, {{IPA|[l]}}, as in, for instance, the [[Basmala]].<ref name="ARABIC for NERDS">{{Cite news|url=https://www.arabic-for-nerds.com/2018/06/16/how-do-you-pronounce-allah-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87-correctly/|title=How do you pronounce "Allah" (الله) correctly?|date=16 June 2018|work=ARABIC for NERDS|access-date=16 June 2018|language=en-US|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180617092853/https://www.arabic-for-nerds.com/2018/06/16/how-do-you-pronounce-allah-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87-correctly/|archive-date=17 June 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref> |
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==As a loanword== |
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===English and other European languages=== |
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The history of the name ''Allāh'' in English was probably influenced by the study of [[comparative religion]] in the 19th century; for example, [[Thomas Carlyle]] (1840) sometimes used the term Allah but without any implication that Allah was anything different from God. However, in his biography of Muḥammad (1934), [[Tor Andræ]] always used the term ''Allah'', though he allows that this "conception of God" seems to imply that it is different from that of the Jewish and Christian theologies.<ref name="Watt45">William Montgomery Watt, ''Islam and Christianity today: A Contribution to Dialogue'', [[Routledge]], 1983, p.45</ref> |
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Languages which may not commonly use the term ''Allah'' to denote God may still contain popular expressions which use the word. For example, because of the centuries long [[Al-Andalus|Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula]], the word {{lang|es|ojalá}} in the Spanish language and {{lang|pt|oxalá}} in the [[Portuguese language]] exist today, borrowed from [[Andalusi Arabic]] {{transliteration|xaa|law šá lláh}}<ref name="DRAE">{{cite book |title=Diccionario de la lengua española |date=2022 |publisher=Real Academia Española - ASALE |edition=23.6 electronic |url=https://dle.rae.es/ojal%25C3%25A1 |access-date=24 April 2023 |language=es |chapter=ojalá}}</ref> similar to {{transliteration|ar|[[inshalla]]}} ({{lang-ar|إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ}}). This phrase literally means 'if God wills' (in the sense of "I hope so").<ref>Islam in Luce López Baralt, ''Spanish Literature: From the Middle Ages to the Present'', Brill, 1992, p.25</ref> The German poet [[Siegfried August Mahlmann|Mahlmann]] used the form "Allah" as the title of a poem about the ultimate deity, though it is unclear how much Islamic thought he intended to convey. |
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Some Muslims leave the name "Allāh" untranslated in English, rather than using the English translation "God".<ref>F. E. Peters, ''The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition'', [[Princeton University Press]], p.12</ref> The word has also been applied to certain living human beings as [[Anthropomorphism|personifications]] of the term and concept.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-nation-of-islam.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130813190129/http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-nation-of-islam.htm|url-status=dead|title=Nation of Islam|archive-date=13 August 2013|website=www.bible.ca}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3290.shtml |title=A history of Clarence 13X and the Five Percenters, referring to Clarence Smith as Allah |publisher=Finalcall.com |access-date=14 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131022034331/http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3290.shtml|archive-date=22 October 2013}}</ref> |
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===Malaysian and Indonesian language=== |
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{{main|Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur v. Menteri Dalam Negeri|2010 attacks against places of worship in Malaysia}} |
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[[File:Vocabularium, ofte Woordenboek, in 't Duytsch en Maleys (IA vocabulariumoft00dancgoog).djvu|page=77|thumb|The first dictionary of Dutch-Malay by [[Albert Cornelius Ruyl|A.C. Ruyl]], Justus Heurnius, and Caspar Wiltens in 1650 recorded {{lang|ms|Allah}} as the translation of the Dutch word {{lang|nl-Latf|[[God]]t}}.|link=File:Vocabularium,_ofte_Woordenboek,_in_'t_Duytsch_en_Maleys_(IA_vocabulariumoft00dancgoog).djvu%3Fpage=77]] |
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[[File:GKKA Banjarmasin.jpg|thumb|{{Lang|id|Gereja Kalam Kebangunan Allah}} (Word of God Revival Church) in [[Indonesia]]. {{Lang|id|Allah}} is the word for "God" in the [[Indonesian language]] - even in {{Lang|id|Alkitab}} (Christian [[Bible]], from {{lang|ar|الكتاب}} {{transliteration|ar|al-kitāb}} = the book) translations, while {{Lang|id|[[wikt:Tuhan|Tuhan]]}} is the word for "Lord".]] |
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[[File:Seremban-Annunciation-feast-3808.jpg|thumb|[[Christianity in Malaysia|Christians in Malaysia]] also use the word {{lang|zlm|Allah}} for "God".]] |
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Christians in Malaysia and Indonesia use {{lang|ms|Allah}} to refer to God in the [[Malaysian language|Malaysian]] and [[Indonesian language]]s (both of them standardized forms of the [[Malay language]]). Mainstream Bible translations in the language use {{lang|ms|Allah}} as the translation of Hebrew {{transliteration|hbo|[[Elohim]]}} (translated in English Bibles as "God").<ref>Example: [http://alkitab.sabda.org/verse.php?book=Mat&chapter=22&verse=32&search=allah&scope=all&exact=off Usage of the word "Allah" from Matthew 22:32 in Indonesian bible versions (parallel view) as old as 1733] {{webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131019125828/http://alkitab.sabda.org/verse.php?book=Mat&chapter=22&verse=32&search=allah&scope=all&exact=off |date= 19 October 2013 }}</ref> This goes back to early translation work by [[Francis Xavier]] in the 16th century.<ref>The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society Sneddon, James M.; University of New South Wales Press; 2004</ref><ref>The History of Christianity in India from the Commencement of the Christian Era: Hough, James; Adamant Media Corporation; 2001</ref> The first dictionary of Dutch-Malay by Albert Cornelius Ruyl, Justus Heurnius, and Caspar Wiltens in 1650 (revised edition from 1623 edition and 1631 Latin edition) recorded {{lang|ms|Allah}}" as the translation of the Dutch word {{lang|nl-Latf|[[God]]t}}.<ref>{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=3GcTAAAAQAAJ&q=allah |title= Justus Heurnius, Albert Ruyl, Caspar Wiltens. "Vocabularium ofte Woordenboeck nae ordre van den alphabeth, in 't Duytsch en Maleys". 1650:65 |access-date= 14 January 2014|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131022172808/https://books.google.com/books?id=3GcTAAAAQAAJ&v=onepage&q=allah&f=false|archive-date= 22 October 2013|year= 1650 |last1= Wiltens |first1= Caspar |last2= Heurnius |first2= Justus }}</ref> Ruyl also translated the [[Gospel of Matthew]] in 1612 into the Malay language (an early Bible translation into a non-European language,<ref> |
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But compare: |
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{{cite book |
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| last1 = Milkias |
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| first1 = Paulos |
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| chapter = Ge'ez Literature (Religious) |
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| title = Ethiopia |
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| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=DtIRbpUNp_oC |
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| series = Africa in Focus |
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| location = Santa Barbara, California |
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| publisher = ABC-CLIO |
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| date = 2011 |
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| page = 299 |
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| isbn = 978-1-59884-257-9 |
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| access-date = 15 February 2018 |
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| quote = Monasticism played a key role in the Ethiopian literary movement. The Bible was translated during the time of the Nine Saints in the early sixth century [...]. |
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}} |
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</ref> |
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made a year after the publication of the [[King James Version]]<ref>Barton, John (2002–12). The Biblical World, Oxford, UK: Routledge. {{ISBN|978-0-415-27574-3}}.</ref><ref>North, Eric McCoy; Eugene Albert Nida ((2nd Edition) 1972). The Book of a Thousand Tongues, London: United Bible Societies.</ref>), which was printed in the Netherlands in 1629. Then he translated the [[Gospel of Mark]], published in 1638.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://sejarah.sabda.org/sejarah/bio_ruyl.htm|title=Sejarah Alkitab Indonesia / Albert Conelisz Ruyl|website=sejarah.sabda.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url= https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/514364/Albert-Cornelius-Ruyl |title= Encyclopædia Britannica: Albert Cornelius Ruyl |encyclopedia= Britannica.com |access-date= 14 January 2014|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131019171117/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/514364/Albert-Cornelius-Ruyl|archive-date= 19 October 2013}}</ref> |
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The [[government of Malaysia]] in 2007 outlawed usage of the term {{lang|zlm|Allah}} in any other but Muslim contexts, but the [[High Court of Malaya|Malayan High Court]] in 2009 revoked the law, ruling it unconstitutional. While {{lang|ms|Allah}} had been used for the Christian God in Malay for more than four centuries, the contemporary controversy was triggered by usage of {{lang|zlm|Allah}} by the Roman Catholic newspaper [[The Herald (Malaysian Catholic Weekly)|''The Herald'']]. The government appealed the court ruling, and the High Court suspended implementation of its verdict until the hearing of the appeal. In October 2013 the court ruled in favor of the government's ban.<ref>{{cite news |title= No more 'Allah' for Christians, Malaysian court says |first= Simon |last= Roughneen |url= http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2013/1014/No-more-Allah-for-Christians-Malaysian-court-says |newspaper= [[The Christian Science Monitor]] |date= 14 October 2013 |access-date= 14 October 2013}}</ref> In early 2014 the Malaysian government confiscated more than 300 bibles for using the word to refer to the Christian God in Peninsular Malaysia.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25578348|title= BBC News - More than 300 Bibles are confiscated in Malaysia|publisher= BBC|date= 2 January 2014|access-date= 14 January 2014|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140125052310/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25578348|archive-date= 25 January 2014|url-status= live}}</ref> However, the use of {{lang|zlm|Allah}} is not prohibited in the two Malaysian states of [[Sabah]] and [[Sarawak]].<ref name="settle">{{cite news|url= http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=87900|title= Catholic priest should respect court: Mahathir|newspaper= [[Daily Express (Sabah)|Daily Express]]|date= 9 January 2014|access-date= 10 January 2014|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140110085352/http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=87900|archive-date= 10 January 2014|url-status= live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url= http://www.theborneopost.com/2014/03/29/worship-without-hindrance/|title= Worship without hindrance|author1= Jane Moh |author2= Peter Sibon |newspaper= [[The Borneo Post]]|date= 29 March 2014|access-date= 29 March 2014|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140329094134/http://www.theborneopost.com/2014/03/29/worship-without-hindrance/|archive-date= 29 March 2014|url-status= live}}</ref> The main reason it is not prohibited in these two states is that usage has been long-established and local Alkitab ([[Bibles]]) have been widely distributed freely in East Malaysia without restrictions for years.<ref name="settle"/> Both states also do not have similar Islamic state laws as those in West Malaysia.<ref name="10-point"/> |
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In reaction to some media criticism, the Malaysian government has introduced a "10-point solution" to avoid confusion and misleading information.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://aliran.com/web-specials/bahasa-malaysia-bibles-10-point-solution/|title= Bahasa Malaysia Bibles: The Cabinet's 10-point solution|date= 25 January 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url= http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/01/24/Najib-Kalimah-Allah/|title= Najib: 10-point resolution on Allah issue subject to Federal, state laws|newspaper= [[The Star (Malaysia)|The Star]]|date= 24 January 2014|access-date= 25 June 2014}}</ref> The 10-point solution is in line with the spirit of the [[18-point agreement|18]]- and [[20-point agreement]]s of Sarawak and Sabah.<ref name="10-point"> |
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{{cite web |
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|url= http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Business-News/2014/02/24/My-take-on-the-Allah-issue-10point-solution-is-key-to-managing-the-polarity/ |
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|title= The 'Allah'/Bible issue, 10-point solution is key to managing the polarity |
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|author= Idris Jala|work= The Star |
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|date= 24 February 2014|access-date= 25 June 2014 |
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|author-link= Idris Jala |
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}} |
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</ref> |
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== National flags with "Allah" written on them == |
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<gallery widths="200" heights="140"> |
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File:Flag of Iraq.svg|[[Flag of Iraq]] with the [[Takbir]] written on it |
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File:Flag of Saudi Arabia.svg|[[Flag of Saudi Arabia]] with the [[Shahada]] written on it |
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File:Flag of the Taliban.svg|[[Flag of Afghanistan]] with the [[Shahada]] written on it |
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File:Flag of Iran.svg|[[Flag of Iran]] with "Allah" written on it |
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File:"Allah" in Arabic script from stars on flag of Uzbekistan.gif|alt=The 12 stars in the Flag of Uzbekistan form the inscription "Allah" in Arabic script|The 12 stars in the [[Flag of Uzbekistan]] form the inscription "Allah" in [[Arabic script]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Flags, Symbols & Currency of Uzbekistan |url=https://www.worldatlas.com/amp/flags/uzbekistan |website=WorldAtlas |date=24 February 2021 |language=en-US}}</ref> |
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</gallery> |
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==Typography== |
==Typography== |
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[[ |
[[File:Allah name in different languages.png|280px|thumbnail|The word ''Allah'' written in different [[writing system]]s]] |
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The word ''Allāh'' is always written without an [[aleph|alif]] to spell the ''ā'' vowel. This is because the spelling was settled before Arabic spelling started habitually using alif to spell ''ā''. However, in vocalized spelling, a small diacritic ''alif'' is added on top of the ''[[shadda]] |
The word ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|Allāh}}'' is always written without an [[aleph|{{transliteration|ar|ALA|alif}}]] to spell the ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|ā}}'' vowel. This is because the spelling was settled before Arabic spelling started habitually using ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|alif}}'' to spell ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|ā}}''. However, in vocalized spelling, a [[Dagger alif|small diacritic ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|alif}}'']] is added on top of the ''[[shadda|{{transliteration|ar|ALA|shaddah}}]]'' to indicate the pronunciation. |
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In the pre-Islamic [[Zabad inscription]],<ref>{{cite web |
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| title=Zebed Inscription: A Pre-Islamic Trilingual Inscription In Greek, Syriac & Arabic From 512 CE |
| title=Zebed Inscription: A Pre-Islamic Trilingual Inscription In Greek, Syriac & Arabic From 512 CE |
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| url=http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/zebed.html |
| url=http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/zebed.html |
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| publisher=Islamic Awareness |
| publisher=Islamic Awareness |
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| date= |
| date=17 March 2005 |
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}} |
}} |
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</ref> God is referred to by the term {{lang|ar| الاله }}, that is, alif-lam-alif-lam-ha.<ref name=Kugener/> This presumably indicates ''Al-'ilāh'' = "the god", without ''alif'' for ''ā''. |
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</ref> where it ends with an ambiguous sign that may be a lone-standing ''h'' with a lengthened start, or may be a non-standard conjoined ''l-h'':- |
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* {{lang|ar| الاه }}: This reading would be ''Allāh'' spelled phonetically with ''alif'' for the ''ā''. |
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* {{lang|ar| الاله }}: This reading would be ''Al-'ilāh'' = "the god" (an older form, without contraction), by older spelling practice without ''alif'' for ''ā''. |
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Many Arabic type fonts feature special [[typographic ligature|ligatures]] for Allah.<ref name="Typ1"> |
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In ''[[Abjad numerals]]'', the numeric value of {{lang|ar|الله }} is [[66 (number)|66]]. |
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* [http://www.smi.uib.no/ksv/ArabicFonts.html Arabic fonts and Mac OS X] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080310022047/http://www.smi.uib.no/ksv/ArabicFonts.html |date=10 March 2008 }} |
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* [http://www.smi.uib.no/ksv/ArabicProgsx.html Programs for Arabic in Mac OS X] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131006005022/http://www.smi.uib.no/ksv/ArabicProgsx.html |date=6 October 2013 }}</ref> |
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Since [[Arabic script]] is used to write other texts rather than Koran only, rendering ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|lām}}'' + ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|lām}}'' + ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|hā’}}'' as the previous ligature is considered faulty which is the case with most common Arabic typefaces. |
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{{lquote|This simplified style is often preferred for clarity, especially in non-Arabic languages, but may not be considered appropriate in situations where a more elaborate style of calligraphy is preferred. |
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:—[[SIL International]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Scheherazade New |url=//software.sil.org/scheherazade/design/ |website=[[SIL International|SIL International]] |access-date=4 February 2022}}</ref>}} |
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===Unicode=== |
===Unicode=== |
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[[Unicode]] has a code point reserved for ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|Allāh}}'', {{script/Arabic|ﷲ}} = U+FDF2, in the [[Arabic Presentation Forms-A]] block, which exists solely for "compatibility with some older, legacy character sets that encoded presentation forms directly";<ref>The Unicode Consortium. [https://www.unicode.org/faq/middleeast.html#5 FAQ - Middle East Scripts] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131001110649/http://www.unicode.org/faq/middleeast.html#5 |date=1 October 2013 }}</ref><ref name="Uni">{{cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFB50.pdf |title=''Unicode Standard 5.0'', p.479, 492 |access-date=14 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140428184606/http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFB50.pdf|archive-date=28 April 2014}}</ref> this is discouraged for new text. Instead, the word ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|Allāh}}'' should be represented by its individual Arabic letters, while modern font technologies will render the desired ligature. |
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[[Unicode]] has a codepoint reserved for ''Allāh'', {{lang|ar|ﷲ}} = U+FDF2. |
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This character according to the official Unicode specification is a ligature of ''alif-lām-lām-shadda-(superscript alif)-hā'' ({{script|Arab|اللّٰه}} U+0627 U+0644 U+0644 U+0651 U+0670 U+0647). |
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There is, however some confusion arising from the fact that Arabic typography usually features a ''llāh'' glyph without the preceding alif, which only occurs phrase-initially (or with {{ArabDIN|hamzatu l-waṣl}} {{script|Arab|آ}} in Qur'anic orthography). Consequently, the majority of [[Arabic Unicode]] fonts do not conform with the specification and have a glyph without the alif at this position (e.g. those provided by [http://www.linotype.com/2517/arabicfonts.html Linotype], the great majority of those licensed to or developed by [http://www.microsoft.com/typography/links/FontPortal.aspx?PID=8 Microsoft], those of [http://www.arabeyes.org Arabeyes.org], [[SIL]]'s [http://scripts.sil.org/ArabicFonts Lateef] and the fonts of [http://www.crulp.org CRULP] developed in Pakistan), |
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while others have the prescribed form with alif (e.g. [http://scripts.sil.org/ArabicFonts SIL's Scheherazade], [http://www.tdc.org/news/2006Results/AdobeArabic.html Adobe Arabic] distributed with the Middle-Eastern version |
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of the [http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html Adobe Reader 7], [[Arial Unicode MS]], and [http://sakkal.com/type/typesetting.html Arabic Typesetting], distributed with [http://www.microsoft.com/typography/VOLT.mspx VOLT] and with [http://www.microsoft.com/office/editions/prodinfo/language/proofingtools.mspx Microsoft Office Proofing Tools 2003]). |
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The calligraphic variant of the word used as the [[ |
The calligraphic variant of the word used as the [[emblem of Iran]] is encoded in Unicode, in the [[Miscellaneous Symbols]] range, at code point U+262B (☫). The [[#National flags with "Allah" written on them|flags that include the word]] are also present in the [[regional indicator symbol]]s of Unicode: 🇮🇶, 🇸🇦, 🇦🇫, 🇮🇷, 🇺🇿. |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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* [[Abdullah (name)]] |
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{{Wikisource}}{{Commons+cat|Allah}} |
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* [[ |
* [[Allah as a lunar deity]] |
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* [[ |
* [[Emblem of Iran]] |
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* [[Ismul Azam]] |
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* [[Names of God]] |
* [[Names of God]] |
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* [[Ilah]] |
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* [[Qur'an]] |
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* [[Termagant]] |
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== |
== Notes == |
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{{notelist}} |
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* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01316a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia - Allah] |
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* [http://www.islam-info.ch/en/Who_is_Allah.htm The Concept of Allāh according to the Qur'an] |
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* [http://www.islamtutor.com/basics.php?p=allah Allah - An Advanced look at God in Islam] |
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* [http://www.sacredlearning.com For Mainstream/Traditional Classical Islamic Teachings] |
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* [http://www.islamworld.net An Orthodox Traditional Islamic Information Website] |
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* [http://answering-christianity.com/allahorigin.htm The Origins of "ALLAH" A Refutation to Quennel Gale's Article "Allah"] |
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* [http://cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H433&Version=KJV Strong's Concordance H433 "Eloah" (See Gesenius's Lexicon commentary).] |
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== |
== References == |
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{{reflist|30em}} |
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* Samuel M. Zwemep - ''The Moslem Doctrine of God'' (Originally published in 1905) ISBN 1-84664-478-X |
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* Ian Richard Netton - ''Allah Transcendent'' (1994) ISBN 0-7007-0287-3 |
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== General and cited references == |
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==References== |
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* {{cite book |title=The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary |publisher=Harper Collins |year=2015 |isbn=9780062227621 |url=https://archive.org/details/thestudyquran_201909/mode/2up |editor1-first=Seyyed Hossein |editor1-last=Nasr |editor2-first=C.K. |editor2-last=Dagli |editor3-first=Maria Massi |editor3-last=Dakake |editor4-first=J.E.B. |editor4-last=Lumbard |editor5-first=M. |editor5-last=Rustom |url-access=registration|author-link=Seyyed Hossein Nasr }} |
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{{reflist}} |
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* The Unicode Consortium, ''Unicode Standard 5.0'', Addison-Wesley, 2006, {{ISBN|978-0-321-48091-0}}, [https://web.archive.org/web/20080304160907/http://www.unicode.org/book/aboutbook.html About the Unicode Standard Version 5.0 Book] |
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== Further reading == |
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=== Online === |
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* [https://www.britannica.com/topic/Allah Allah Qur'ān], in ''Encyclopædia Britannica Online'', by Asma Afsaruddin, Brian Duignan, Thinley |
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==External links== |
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{{Wikisource}} |
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{{wikiquote}} |
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{{Commons category|Allah in calligraphy}} |
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* [http://www.searchtruth.com/Allah/99Names.php Names of Allah with Meaning on Website, Flash, and Mobile Phone Software] |
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* [http://www.sultan.org/articles/god.html Concept of God (Allah) in Islam] |
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* [http://www.islam-info.ch/en/Who_is_Allah.htm The Concept of Allāh According to the Qur'an] by Abdul Mannan Omar |
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* [http://www.muslim.org/islam/allah.htm Allah, the Unique Name of God] |
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; Typography |
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* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080310022047/http://www.smi.uib.no/ksv/ArabicFonts.html Arabic Fonts and Mac OS X] |
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* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131006005022/http://www.smi.uib.no/ksv/ArabicProgsx.html Programs for Arabic in Mac OS X] |
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*{{cite book | last=Holt | first=P. M. | authorlink=P. M. Holt | coauthors=Ann K. S. Lambton, [[Bernard Lewis]] | title=The Cambridge History of Islam (Paperback) | year=1977 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | id=ISBN 978-0521291354}} |
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{{Islam topics|state=collapsed}} |
{{Islam topics|state=collapsed}} |
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{{Names of God}} |
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{{Authority control}} |
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[[Category:Allah| ]] |
[[Category:Allah| ]] |
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[[Category: |
[[Category:Arabian deities]] |
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[[Category:Arabian gods]] |
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[[Category:Islamic terminology]] |
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[[Category:Middle Eastern gods]] |
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[[Category:Names of God]] |
[[Category:Names of God]] |
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[[Category:Islam| ]] |
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[[Category:Islamic mythology]] |
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[[af:Allah]] |
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[[ar:الله (إسلام)]] |
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[[az:Allah]] |
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[[bn:আল্লাহ]] |
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[[bs:Allah]] |
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[[br:Allah]] |
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[[bg:Аллах]] |
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[[ca:Al·là]] |
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[[cs:Alláh]] |
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[[da:Allah]] |
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[[de:Allah]] |
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[[dv:ﷲ]] |
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[[et:Allah]] |
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[[es:Alá]] |
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[[eo:Alaho]] |
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[[fa:الله]] |
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[[fr:Allah]] |
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[[gl:Alá]] |
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[[ko:알라]] |
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[[hi:अल्लाह]] |
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[[hr:Alah]] |
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[[id:Allah]] |
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[[is:Allah]] |
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[[it:Allah]] |
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[[he:אללה]] |
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[[kn:ಅಲ್ಲಾಹ]] |
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[[ka:ალაჰი]] |
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[[ku:Allah]] |
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[[lv:Allahs]] |
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[[lt:Alachas]] |
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[[hu:Allah]] |
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[[ml:അല്ലാഹു]] |
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[[ms:Allah]] |
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[[nl:Allah]] |
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[[ja:アッラーフ]] |
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[[no:Allah]] |
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[[nn:Allah]] |
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[[uz:Alloh]] |
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[[pl:Allah]] |
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[[pt:Alá]] |
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[[ro:Allah]] |
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[[ru:Аллах]] |
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[[sq:Allahu]] |
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[[simple:Allah]] |
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[[sd:الله]] |
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[[sk:Alah]] |
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[[sl:Alah]] |
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[[sr:Алах]] |
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[[fi:Allah]] |
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[[sv:Allah]] |
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[[ta:அல்லாஹ்]] |
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[[tt:Allah]] |
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[[th:อัลลอฮ์]] |
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[[tg:Оллоҳ]] |
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[[tr:Allah]] |
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[[uk:Аллах]] |
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[[ur:اللہ]] |
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[[zh:安拉]] |
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Latest revision as of 01:16, 28 July 2024
Allah (/ˈælə, ˈɑːlə, əˈlɑː/;[1][2][3] Arabic: ﷲ, romanized: Allāh, IPA: [ʔaɫ.ɫaːh] ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam.[4][5][6] The word is thought to be derived by contraction from al-ilāh, which means "the god", and is linguistically related to the Aramaic words Elah and Syriac ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ (ʼAlāhā) and the Hebrew word El (Elohim) for God.[7][8]
The word Allah has been used by Arabic people of different religions since pre-Islamic times.[9] The pre-Islamic Arabs worshipped a supreme deity whom they called Allah, alongside other lesser deities.[10] Muhammad used the word Allah to indicate the Islamic conception of God. Allah has been used as a term for God by Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab), Judaeo-Arabic-speaking Jews, and Arab Christians[11] after the terms "al-ilāh" and "Allah" were used interchangeably in Classical Arabic by the majority of Arabs who had become Muslims. It is also often, albeit not exclusively, used in this way by Bábists, Baháʼís, Mandaeans, Indonesian and Maltese Christians, and Sephardi Jews,[12][13][14] as well as by the Gagauz people.[15] Similar usage by Christians and Sikhs in Peninsular Malaysia has recently led to political and legal controversies.[16][17][18][19]
Etymology
- alif
- hamzat waṣl (همزة وصل)
- lām
- lām
- shadda (شدة)
- alif khunjāriyah (ألف خنجرية)
- hāʾ
The etymology of the word Allāh has been discussed extensively by classical Arab philologists.[20] Most considered it to be derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- and ilāh "deity, god" to al-lāh meaning "the deity, the God".[20] Indeed, there is "the interchangeability of al-ilāh and allāh in early Arabic poetry even when composed by the Christian ʿAdī ibn Zayd.[21] The majority of scholars accept this hypothesis. A minority hypothesis, seen with more skepticism, is that the term is a loanword from Syriac Alāhā.[22][23]
Grammarians of the Basra school regarded it as either formed "spontaneously" (murtajal) or as the definite form of lāh (from the verbal root lyh with the meaning of "lofty" or "hidden").[20]
The use of Allah as the name of a deity appears as early as the first century. An inscription using the Ancient South Arabian script in Old Arabic from Qaryat al-Fāw reads, "to Kahl and lh and ʿAththar (b-khl w-lh w-ʿṯr)".[24]
Cognates of the name "Allāh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic.[25] The corresponding Aramaic form is ʼElāh (אלה), but its emphatic state is ʼElāhā (אלהא). It is written as ܐܠܗܐ (ʼĔlāhā) in Biblical Aramaic and ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ (ʼAlāhā) in Syriac, both meaning simply "God".[26] The unusual Syriac form is likely an imitation of the Arabic.[27]
History of usage
Pre-Islamic Arabia
| Deities of the ancient Near East |
|---|
| Religions of the ancient Near East |
Regional variants of the word Allah occur in both pagan and Christian pre-Islamic inscriptions.[9][28] According to Marshall Hodgson, it seems that in the pre-Islamic times, some Arab Christians made pilgrimage to the Kaaba, a pagan temple at that time, honoring Allah there as God the Creator.[29]
The Syriac word ܐܠܗܐ (ʼĔlāhā) can be found in the reports and the lists of names of Christian martyrs in South Arabia,[30][31] as reported by antique Syriac documents of the names of those martyrs from the era of the Himyarite and Aksumite kingdoms[32]
In an inscription of Christian martyrion dated back to 512, references to al-ilah (الاله)[33] can be found in both Arabic and Aramaic. The inscription starts with the statement "By the Help of al-ilah".[34][35]
Archaeological excavation quests have led to the discovery of ancient pre-Islamic inscriptions and tombs made by Arab Christians in the ruins of a church at Umm el-Jimal in Northern Jordan, which initially, according to Enno Littman (1949), contained references to Allah as the proper name of God. However, on a second revision by Bellamy et al. (1985 & 1988) the five-verse inscription was retranslated: "(1)This [inscription] was set up by colleagues of ʿUlayh, (2) son of ʿUbaydah, secretary (3) of the cohort Augusta Secunda (4) Philadelphiana; may he go mad who (5) effaces it."[36][37][38]
Irfan Shahîd quoting the 10th-century encyclopedic collection Kitab al-Aghani notes that pre-Islamic Arab Christians have been reported to have raised the battle cry "Ya La Ibad Allah" (O slaves of Allah) to invoke each other into battle.[39] According to Shahid, on the authority of 10th-century Muslim scholar Al-Marzubani, "Allah" was also mentioned in pre-Islamic Christian poems by some Ghassanid and Tanukhid poets in Syria and Northern Arabia.[40][41][42]
Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in pre-Islamic polytheistic cults. According to the Quran exegete Ibn Kathir, Arab pagans considered Allah as an unseen God who created and controlled the Universe. Pagans believed worship of humans or animals who had lucky events in their life brought them closer to God. Pre-Islamic Meccans worshiped Allah alongside a host of lesser gods and those whom they called the "daughters of Allah."[10] Islam forbade worship of anyone or anything other than God.[43] Some authors have suggested that polytheistic Arabs used the name as a reference to a creator god or a supreme deity of their pantheon.[44][45] The term may have been vague in the Meccan religion.[44][46]
According to one hypothesis, which goes back to Julius Wellhausen, Allah (the supreme deity of the tribal federation around Quraysh) was a designation that consecrated the superiority of Hubal (the supreme deity of Quraysh) over the other gods.[9] However, there is also evidence that Allah and Hubal were two distinct deities.[9] According to that hypothesis, the Kaaba was first consecrated to a supreme deity named Allah and then hosted the pantheon of Quraysh after their conquest of Mecca, about a century before the time of Muhammad.[9] Some inscriptions seem to indicate the use of Allah as a name of a polytheist deity centuries earlier, but nothing precise is known about this use.[9] Some scholars have suggested that Allah may have represented a remote creator god who was gradually eclipsed by more particularized local deities.[47][48] There is disagreement on whether Allah played a major role in the Meccan religious cult.[47][49] No iconic representation of Allah is known to have existed.[49][50] Muhammad's father's name was ʿAbd-Allāh meaning "the slave of Allāh".[46] The interpretation that Pre-Islamic Arabs once practiced Abrahamic religions is supported by some literary evidence, being the prevalence of Ishmael, whose God was that of Abraham, in pre-Islamic Arab culture.[51][52][53]
Islamic period
In contrast with pre-Islamic Arabian polytheism, as stated by Gerhard Böwering, God in Islam does not have associates and companions, nor is there any kinship between God and jinn.[54] Pre-Islamic pagan Arabs believed in a blind, powerful, inexorable and insensible fate over which man had no control. This was replaced with the Islamic notion of a powerful but provident and merciful God.[12] According to Francis Edward Peters, "The Qur’ān insists, Muslims believe, and historians affirm that Muhammad and his followers worship the same God as the Jews (29:46). The Qur’an's Allah is the same Creator God who covenanted with Abraham". Peters states that the Qur'an portrays Allah as both more powerful and more remote than Yahweh, and as a universal deity, unlike Yahweh who closely follows Israelites.[55]
Since the first centuries of Islam, Arabic-speaking commentators of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faith used the term Allah as a generic term for the supreme being.[56] Saadia Gaon used the term Allah interchangeably with the term ʾĔlōhīm.[57] Theodore Abu Qurrah translates theos as Allah in his Bible, as in John 1:1 "the Word was with Allah".[58] Muslim commentators likewise used the term Allah for the Biblical concept of God. Ibn Qutayba writes "You cannot serve both Allah and Mammon.".[59] However, Muslim translators of the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia rarely translated the Tetragrammaton, referring to the supreme being in Israelite tradition, as Allah. Instead, most commentators either translated Yahweh as either yahwah or rabb, the latter corresponding to the Jewish custom to refer to Yahweh as Adonai.[60]
Most Quran commentators, including al-Tabari (d. 923), al-Zamakhshari (d. 1143/44), and al-Razi (d. 1209), regard Allah to be a proper name.[61] While other names of God in Islam denote attributes or adjectives, the term Allah specifically refers to his essence as his real name (ism'alam li-dhatih).[62] The other names are known as the 99 Names of Allah (al-asmā' al-ḥusná lit. meaning: 'the best names' or 'the most beautiful names') and considered attributes, each of which evoke a distinct characteristic of Allah.[13][63] All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name.[64] Among the 99 names of God, the most famous and most frequent of these names are "the Merciful" (ar-Raḥmān) and "the Compassionate" (ar-Raḥīm),[13][63] including the forementioned above al-Aḥad ("the One, the Indivisible") and al-Wāḥid ("the Unique, the Single").
According to Islamic belief, Allah is the most common word to represent God,[54] and humble submission to his will, divine ordinances and commandments is the pivot of the Muslim faith.[12] "He is the only God, creator of the universe, and the judge of humankind."[12][13] "He is unique (wāḥid) and inherently one (aḥad), all-merciful and omnipotent."[12] No human eyes can see Allah till the Day Of Judgement.[65] The Qur'an declares "the reality of Allah, His inaccessible mystery, His various names, and His actions on behalf of His creatures."[12] Allah does not depend on anything.[66] Allah is not considered a part of the Christian Trinity.[67] God has no parents and no children.[68]
The concept correlates to the Tawhid, where chapter 112 of the Qur'an (Al-'Ikhlās, The Sincerity) reads:[69]
In a Sufi practice known as dhikr Allah (Arabic: ذكر الله, lit. "Remembrance of God"), the Sufi repeats and contemplates the name Allah or other associated divine names to Him while controlling his or her breath.[71]
Present day
Islam
The Islamic tradition to use Allah as the personal name of God became disputed in contemporary scholarship, including the question, whether or not the word Allah should be translated as God.[72] Umar Faruq Abd-Allah urged English-speaking Muslims to use God instead of Allah for the sake of finding "extensive middle ground we share with other Abrahmic and universal traditions".[73]
Most Muslims use the Arabic phrase in shā’a llāh (meaning 'if God wills') unstranslated after references to future events.[74] Muslim discursive piety encourages beginning things with the invocation of bi-smi llāh (meaning 'In the name of God').[75] There are certain other phrases in praise of God that are favored by Muslims and left untransalted, including "Subḥāna llāh" (Glory be to God), "al-ḥamdu li-llāh" (Praise be to God), "lā ilāha illā llāh" (There is no deity but God) or sometimes "lā ilāha illā inta/ huwa" (There is no deity but You/ Him) and "Allāhu Akbar" (God is the Most Great) as a devotional exercise of remembering God (dhikr).[76]
Christianity
The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for "God" than "Allah".[77] Similarly, the Aramaic word for "God" in the language of Assyrian Christians is ʼĔlāhā, or Alaha. (Even the Arabic-descended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Catholic, uses Alla for "God".)
Arab Christians have used two forms of invocations that were affixed to the beginning of their written works. They adopted the Muslim bismillāh, and also created their own Trinitized bismillāh as early as the 8th century.[78] The Muslim bismillāh reads: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." The Trinitized bismillāh reads: "In the name of Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God." The Syriac, Latin and Greek invocations do not have the words "One God" at the end. This addition was made to emphasize the monotheistic aspect of Trinitarian belief and also to make it more palatable to Muslims.[78]
Pronunciation
The word Allāh is generally pronounced [ɑɫˈɫɑː(h)], exhibiting a heavy lām, [ɫ], a velarized alveolar lateral approximant, a marginal phoneme in Modern Standard Arabic. Since the initial alef has no hamza, the initial [a] is elided when a preceding word ends in a vowel. If the preceding vowel is /i/, the lām is light, [l], as in, for instance, the Basmala.[79]
As a loanword
English and other European languages
The history of the name Allāh in English was probably influenced by the study of comparative religion in the 19th century; for example, Thomas Carlyle (1840) sometimes used the term Allah but without any implication that Allah was anything different from God. However, in his biography of Muḥammad (1934), Tor Andræ always used the term Allah, though he allows that this "conception of God" seems to imply that it is different from that of the Jewish and Christian theologies.[80]
Languages which may not commonly use the term Allah to denote God may still contain popular expressions which use the word. For example, because of the centuries long Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula, the word ojalá in the Spanish language and oxalá in the Portuguese language exist today, borrowed from Andalusi Arabic law šá lláh[81] similar to inshalla (Arabic: إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ). This phrase literally means 'if God wills' (in the sense of "I hope so").[82] The German poet Mahlmann used the form "Allah" as the title of a poem about the ultimate deity, though it is unclear how much Islamic thought he intended to convey.
Some Muslims leave the name "Allāh" untranslated in English, rather than using the English translation "God".[83] The word has also been applied to certain living human beings as personifications of the term and concept.[84][85]
Malaysian and Indonesian language
Christians in Malaysia and Indonesia use Allah to refer to God in the Malaysian and Indonesian languages (both of them standardized forms of the Malay language). Mainstream Bible translations in the language use Allah as the translation of Hebrew Elohim (translated in English Bibles as "God").[86] This goes back to early translation work by Francis Xavier in the 16th century.[87][88] The first dictionary of Dutch-Malay by Albert Cornelius Ruyl, Justus Heurnius, and Caspar Wiltens in 1650 (revised edition from 1623 edition and 1631 Latin edition) recorded Allah" as the translation of the Dutch word Godt.[89] Ruyl also translated the Gospel of Matthew in 1612 into the Malay language (an early Bible translation into a non-European language,[90] made a year after the publication of the King James Version[91][92]), which was printed in the Netherlands in 1629. Then he translated the Gospel of Mark, published in 1638.[93][94]
The government of Malaysia in 2007 outlawed usage of the term Allah in any other but Muslim contexts, but the Malayan High Court in 2009 revoked the law, ruling it unconstitutional. While Allah had been used for the Christian God in Malay for more than four centuries, the contemporary controversy was triggered by usage of Allah by the Roman Catholic newspaper The Herald. The government appealed the court ruling, and the High Court suspended implementation of its verdict until the hearing of the appeal. In October 2013 the court ruled in favor of the government's ban.[95] In early 2014 the Malaysian government confiscated more than 300 bibles for using the word to refer to the Christian God in Peninsular Malaysia.[96] However, the use of Allah is not prohibited in the two Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak.[97][98] The main reason it is not prohibited in these two states is that usage has been long-established and local Alkitab (Bibles) have been widely distributed freely in East Malaysia without restrictions for years.[97] Both states also do not have similar Islamic state laws as those in West Malaysia.[19]
In reaction to some media criticism, the Malaysian government has introduced a "10-point solution" to avoid confusion and misleading information.[99][100] The 10-point solution is in line with the spirit of the 18- and 20-point agreements of Sarawak and Sabah.[19]
National flags with "Allah" written on them
-
Flag of Iraq with the Takbir written on it -
Flag of Saudi Arabia with the Shahada written on it -
Flag of Afghanistan with the Shahada written on it -
Flag of Iran with "Allah" written on it -
Typography
The word Allāh is always written without an alif to spell the ā vowel. This is because the spelling was settled before Arabic spelling started habitually using alif to spell ā. However, in vocalized spelling, a small diacritic alif is added on top of the shaddah to indicate the pronunciation.
In the pre-Islamic Zabad inscription,[102] God is referred to by the term الاله, that is, alif-lam-alif-lam-ha.[33] This presumably indicates Al-'ilāh = "the god", without alif for ā.
Many Arabic type fonts feature special ligatures for Allah.[103]
Since Arabic script is used to write other texts rather than Koran only, rendering lām + lām + hā’ as the previous ligature is considered faulty which is the case with most common Arabic typefaces.
This simplified style is often preferred for clarity, especially in non-Arabic languages, but may not be considered appropriate in situations where a more elaborate style of calligraphy is preferred.
Unicode
Unicode has a code point reserved for Allāh, ﷲ = U+FDF2, in the Arabic Presentation Forms-A block, which exists solely for "compatibility with some older, legacy character sets that encoded presentation forms directly";[105][106] this is discouraged for new text. Instead, the word Allāh should be represented by its individual Arabic letters, while modern font technologies will render the desired ligature.
The calligraphic variant of the word used as the emblem of Iran is encoded in Unicode, in the Miscellaneous Symbols range, at code point U+262B (☫). The flags that include the word are also present in the regional indicator symbols of Unicode: 🇮🇶, 🇸🇦, 🇦🇫, 🇮🇷, 🇺🇿.
See also
Notes
References
- ^ "Allah". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
- ^ "Allah". Oxford Learner's Dictionaries.
- ^ "Definition of ALLAH". www.merriam-webster.com. 18 March 2024. Retrieved 8 April 2024.
- ^ "God". Islam: Empire of Faith. PBS. Archived from the original on 27 March 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
- ^ "Islam and Christianity", Encyclopedia of Christianity (2001): Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews also refer to God as Allāh.
- ^ Gardet, L. "Allah". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam Online. Brill Online. Retrieved 2 May 2007.
- ^ Zeki Saritoprak (2006). "Allah". In Oliver Leaman (ed.). The Qur'an: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-415-32639-1.
- ^ Vincent J. Cornell (2005). "God: God in Islam". In Lindsay Jones (ed.). Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 5 (2nd ed.). MacMillan Reference USA. p. 724.
- ^ a b c d e f Christian Julien Robin (2012). Arabia and Ethiopia. In The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity. OUP USA. pp. 304–305. ISBN 978-0-19-533693-1.
- ^ a b Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow (2004). "Allah". The Facts on File Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend. Facts on File. p. 53. ISBN 978-1-4381-2685-2.
- ^ Merriam-Webster. "Allah". Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 20 April 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2012.
- ^ a b c d e f "Allah." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ a b c d Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, Allah
- ^ Willis Barnstone, Marvin Meyer The Gnostic Bible: Revised and Expanded Edition Shambhala Publications 2009 ISBN 978-0-8348-2414-0 page 531
- ^ Carl Skutsch (2005). Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Routledge. p. 480.
- ^ Sikhs target of 'Allah' attack, Julia Zappei, 14 January 2010, The New Zealand Herald. Accessed on line 15 January 2014.
- ^ Malaysia court rules non-Muslims can't use 'Allah', 14 October 2013, The New Zealand Herald. Accessed on line 15 January 2014.
- ^ Malaysia's Islamic authorities seize Bibles as Allah row deepens, Niluksi Koswanage, 2 January 2014, Reuters. Accessed on line 15 January 2014. [1]
- ^ a b c Idris Jala (24 February 2014). "The 'Allah'/Bible issue, 10-point solution is key to managing the polarity". The Star. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
- ^ a b c D.B. Macdonald. Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed, Brill. "Ilah", Vol. 3, p. 1093.
- ^ Sinai, Nicholas (2019). Rain-Giver, Bone-Breaker, Score-Settler: Allāh in Pre-Quranic Poetry. Atlanta, GA: American Oriental Society. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-948488-25-9.
- ^ Gerhard Böwering. Encyclopedia of the Quran, Brill, 2002. Vol. 2, p. 318
- ^ Reynolds, Gabriel Said (2020). Allah: God in the Qur'an. New Haven: Yale university press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-300-24658-2.
- ^ Sinai, Nicholas (2019). Rain-Giver, Bone-Breaker, Score-Settler: Allāh in Pre-Quranic Poetry. Atlanta, GA: American Oriental Society. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-948488-25-9.
- ^ Columbia Encyclopaedia says: Derived from an old Semitic root referring to the Divine and used in the Canaanite El, the Mesopotamian ilu, and the biblical Elohim and Eloah, the word Allah is used by all Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians, Jews, and other monotheists.
- ^ The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon – Entry for ʼlh Archived 18 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Sinai, Nicholas (2019). Rain-Giver, Bone-Breaker, Score-Settler: Allāh in Pre-Quranic Poetry. Atlanta, GA: American Oriental Society. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-948488-25-9.
- ^ Hitti, Philip Khouri (1970). History of the Arabs. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 100–101.
- ^ Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, University of Chicago Press, p. 156
- ^ "The Himyarite Martyrs (text) —".
- ^ James of Edessa the hymns of Severus of Antioch and others." Ernest Walter Brooks (ed.), Patrologia Orientalis VII.5 (1911)., vol: 2, p. 613. pp. ܐܠܗܐ (Elaha).
- ^ Ignatius Ya`qub III, The Arab Himyarite Martyrs in the Syriac Documents (1966), Pages: 9-65-66-89
- ^ a b M. A. Kugener, "Nouvelle Note Sur L'Inscription Trilingue De Zébed", Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, pp. 577-586.
- ^ Adolf Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie II: Das Schriftwesen und die Lapidarschrift (1971), Wien: Hermann Böhlaus Nochfolger, Page: 6-8
- ^ Beatrice Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts: From the Nabatean Era to the First Islamic Century according to Dated Texts (1993), Atlanta: Scholars Press, Page:
- ^ James Bellamy, "Two Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions Revised: Jabal Ramm and Umm al-Jimal", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 108/3 (1988) pp. 372–378 (translation of the inscription) "This was set up by colleagues/friends of ʿUlayh, the son of ʿUbaydah, secretary/adviser of the cohort Augusta Secunda Philadelphiana; may he go mad/crazy who effaces it."
- ^ Enno Littmann, Arabic Inscriptions (Leiden, 1949)
- ^ Daniels, Peter T. (2014). The Type and Spread of Arabic Script.
- ^ Irfan Shahîd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century, Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University-Washington DC, page 418.
- ^ Irfan Shahîd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century, Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University-Washington DC, Page: 452
- ^ A. Amin and A. Harun, Sharh Diwan Al-Hamasa (Cairo, 1951), Vol. 1, Pages: 478-480
- ^ Al-Marzubani, Mu'jam Ash-Shu'araa, Page: 302
- ^ IslamKotob. Tafsir Ibn Kathir all 10 volumes. IslamKotob.
- ^ a b L. Gardet, Allah, Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. by Sir H.A.R. Gibb
- ^ Zeki Saritopak, Allah, The Qu'ran: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Oliver Leaman, p. 34
- ^ a b Gerhard Böwering, God and his Attributes, Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, ed. by Jane Dammen McAuliffe
- ^ a b Jonathan Porter Berkey (2003). The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800. Cambridge University Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-521-58813-3.
- ^ Daniel C. Peterson (26 February 2007). Muhammad, Prophet of God. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-8028-0754-0.
- ^ a b Francis E. Peters (1994). Muhammad and the Origins of Islam. SUNY Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-7914-1875-8.
- ^ Irving M. Zeitlin (19 March 2007). The Historical Muhammad. Polity. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-7456-3999-4.
- ^ The Treasury of literature, Sect. 437
- ^ The Beginning of History, Volume 3, Sect.10
- ^ The Collection of the Speeches of Arabs, volume 1, section 75
- ^ a b Böwering, Gerhard, God and His Attributes, Encyclopaedia of the Qurʼān, Brill, 2007.
- ^ F.E. Peters, Islam, p.4, Princeton University Press, 2003
- ^ Thomas, Kenneth J. "Allah in Translations of the Bible." The Bible Translator 52.3 (2001): 301-306.
- ^ Thomas, Kenneth J. "Allah in Translations of the Bible." The Bible Translator 52.3 (2001): 301-306.
- ^ Thomas, Kenneth J. "Allah in Translations of the Bible." The Bible Translator 52.3 (2001): 301-306.
- ^ Thomas, Kenneth J. "Allah in Translations of the Bible." The Bible Translator 52.3 (2001): 301-306.
- ^ Thomas, Kenneth J. "Allah in Translations of the Bible." The Bible Translator 52.3 (2001): 301-306.
- ^ Ibrahim, Zakyi. "To Use “God” or “Allah”?." American Journal of Islam and Society 26.4 (2009): i-vii.
- ^ Ibrahim, Zakyi. "To Use “God” or “Allah”?." American Journal of Islam and Society 26.4 (2009): i-vii.
- ^ a b Bentley, David (September 1999). The 99 Beautiful Names for God for All the People of the Book. William Carey Library. ISBN 978-0-87808-299-5.
- ^ Murata, Sachiko (1992). The Tao of Islam : a sourcebook on gender relationships in Islamic thought. Albany NY USA: SUNY. ISBN 978-0-7914-0914-5.
- ^ "The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Translation". corpus.quran.com. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
- ^ "112. Surah Al-Ikhlaas or At-Tauhid – NobleQuran.com". Retrieved 11 April 2021.
- ^ "The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Translation". corpus.quran.com. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
- ^ "The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Translation". corpus.quran.com. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
- ^ Arabic script in Unicode symbol for a Quran verse, U+06DD, page 3, Proposal for additional Unicode characters
- ^ Sale, G AlKoran
- ^ Carl W. Ernst, Bruce B. Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond, Macmillan, p. 29
- ^ Andreas Görke and Johanna Pink Tafsir and Islamic Intellectual History Exploring the Boundaries of a Genre Oxford University Press in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies London ISBN 978-0-19-870206-1 p. 478
- ^ Ibrahim, Zakyi. "To Use “God” or “Allah”?." American Journal of Islam and Society 26.4 (2009): i-vii.
- ^ Gary S. Gregg, The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology, Oxford University Press, p.30
- ^ Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Islamic Society in Practice, University Press of Florida, p. 24
- ^ M. Mukarram Ahmed, Muzaffar Husain Syed, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Anmol Publications PVT. LTD, p. 144
- ^ Lewis, Bernard; Holt, P. M.; Holt, Peter R.; Lambton, Ann Katherine Swynford (1977). The Cambridge history of Islam. Cambridge, Eng: University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-521-29135-4.
- ^ a b Thomas E. Burman, Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, Brill, 1994, p. 103
- ^ "How do you pronounce "Allah" (الله) correctly?". ARABIC for NERDS. 16 June 2018. Archived from the original on 17 June 2018. Retrieved 16 June 2018.
- ^ William Montgomery Watt, Islam and Christianity today: A Contribution to Dialogue, Routledge, 1983, p.45
- ^ "ojalá". Diccionario de la lengua española (in Spanish) (23.6 electronic ed.). Real Academia Española - ASALE. 2022. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
- ^ Islam in Luce López Baralt, Spanish Literature: From the Middle Ages to the Present, Brill, 1992, p.25
- ^ F. E. Peters, The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition, Princeton University Press, p.12
- ^ "Nation of Islam". www.bible.ca. Archived from the original on 13 August 2013.
- ^ "A history of Clarence 13X and the Five Percenters, referring to Clarence Smith as Allah". Finalcall.com. Archived from the original on 22 October 2013. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
- ^ Example: Usage of the word "Allah" from Matthew 22:32 in Indonesian bible versions (parallel view) as old as 1733 Archived 19 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society Sneddon, James M.; University of New South Wales Press; 2004
- ^ The History of Christianity in India from the Commencement of the Christian Era: Hough, James; Adamant Media Corporation; 2001
- ^ Wiltens, Caspar; Heurnius, Justus (1650). Justus Heurnius, Albert Ruyl, Caspar Wiltens. "Vocabularium ofte Woordenboeck nae ordre van den alphabeth, in 't Duytsch en Maleys". 1650:65. Archived from the original on 22 October 2013. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
- ^
But compare:
Milkias, Paulos (2011). "Ge'ez Literature (Religious)". Ethiopia. Africa in Focus. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 299. ISBN 978-1-59884-257-9. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
Monasticism played a key role in the Ethiopian literary movement. The Bible was translated during the time of the Nine Saints in the early sixth century [...].
- ^ Barton, John (2002–12). The Biblical World, Oxford, UK: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-27574-3.
- ^ North, Eric McCoy; Eugene Albert Nida ((2nd Edition) 1972). The Book of a Thousand Tongues, London: United Bible Societies.
- ^ "Sejarah Alkitab Indonesia / Albert Conelisz Ruyl". sejarah.sabda.org.
- ^ "Encyclopædia Britannica: Albert Cornelius Ruyl". Britannica.com. Archived from the original on 19 October 2013. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
- ^ Roughneen, Simon (14 October 2013). "No more 'Allah' for Christians, Malaysian court says". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
- ^ "BBC News - More than 300 Bibles are confiscated in Malaysia". BBC. 2 January 2014. Archived from the original on 25 January 2014. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
- ^ a b "Catholic priest should respect court: Mahathir". Daily Express. 9 January 2014. Archived from the original on 10 January 2014. Retrieved 10 January 2014.
- ^ Jane Moh; Peter Sibon (29 March 2014). "Worship without hindrance". The Borneo Post. Archived from the original on 29 March 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
- ^ "Bahasa Malaysia Bibles: The Cabinet's 10-point solution". 25 January 2014.
- ^ "Najib: 10-point resolution on Allah issue subject to Federal, state laws". The Star. 24 January 2014. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
- ^ "Flags, Symbols & Currency of Uzbekistan". WorldAtlas. 24 February 2021.
- ^ "Zebed Inscription: A Pre-Islamic Trilingual Inscription In Greek, Syriac & Arabic From 512 CE". Islamic Awareness. 17 March 2005.
- ^
- Arabic fonts and Mac OS X Archived 10 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- Programs for Arabic in Mac OS X Archived 6 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Scheherazade New". SIL International. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
- ^ The Unicode Consortium. FAQ - Middle East Scripts Archived 1 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Unicode Standard 5.0, p.479, 492" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 April 2014. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
General and cited references
- Nasr, Seyyed Hossein; Dagli, C.K.; Dakake, Maria Massi; Lumbard, J.E.B.; Rustom, M., eds. (2015). The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary. Harper Collins. ISBN 9780062227621.
- The Unicode Consortium, Unicode Standard 5.0, Addison-Wesley, 2006, ISBN 978-0-321-48091-0, About the Unicode Standard Version 5.0 Book
Further reading
Online
- Allah Qur'ān, in Encyclopædia Britannica Online, by Asma Afsaruddin, Brian Duignan, Thinley
External links
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Wikiquote has quotations related to Allah.
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- Names of Allah with Meaning on Website, Flash, and Mobile Phone Software
- Concept of God (Allah) in Islam
- The Concept of Allāh According to the Qur'an by Abdul Mannan Omar
- Allah, the Unique Name of God
- Typography
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