Allah

Allah is the Arabic language word for "God." However, it should be noted that the word literally means "The One to be worshipped"^[1]^[2]. It is best known in the West for its use in the Muslim holy book, the Qur'an, which is an Arabic work. However, the word is the common term for God used by all Arabic speakers, whatever their religion, including Arab Christians and Jews. Consequently, the word is used in Arabic translations of Tanakh and the Gospels, as well as in Indonesian and old Turkish translations of the Bible. Arabic speakers of all faiths use the word "Allah" to mean "God".

In Islam, Allah is the One and Only God (without any partner) ^{[Quran 112:1]}, the supreme Creator, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as of Jesus and Muhammad. Islamic scholars often translate "Allāh" directly into English as "God." This is consistent with the word's etymological derivation (see Etymology below). However, some scholars infer that "Allāh" should not be translated, arguing that "Allāh" is a special and glorified term whose use should be preserved. This is a significant issue when translating the Qur'an.

The Bahá'í Faith, whose scriptures are primarily written in Arabic and Persian, also uses Allāh to mean God, though typical practice is to use the customary word for God in the language being spoken. In certain specific uses Allāh is not translated, rather the whole Arabic phrase is used. The chief example of this would be the customary Bahá'í greeting Alláh'u'abhá, which is commonly translated as God is the All Glorious.

According to the tradition of Islam there are 99 Names of God. They are synonyms that appear in the Qur'an.^[3]

Etymology

Various theories are proposed regarding the etymology of the word "Allah". One theory is that the word Allāh (الله) is derived from a contraction of the Arabic words al- (the) and Template:ArabDIN (deity, masculine form) — Template:ArabDIN meaning "the God", which is the most likely. Another theory traces the etymology of the word to the Aramaic Alāhā.^[4]

Cognates of the name "Allāh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic.^[5]

Muslim and non-Muslim scholars often translate "Allāh" directly into English as "God"; and Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians refer to God using the Arabic word Allah. However, 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" because of the two reasons:

The word "god" can take a plural form "gods", whereas the word "Allāh" has no plural form.
The word "god" can have gender as male god or female god (called goddess) whereas the word "Allāh" does not have gender.^[6]

This is a significant issue in translation of the Qur'an.

The word "Allāh" had been used in the Arabic tongue in the pre-Islamic period, which Muslims call Jāhilīyah; it occurs in Arabic classical poetry and was also used by Jews in certain regions (for cognate Hebrew Elōah).

Typography

An example of *Template:ArabDIN* written in simple Arabic calligraphy.

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.

One exception may be in the pre-Islamic Zabad inscription, 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:-

as الاه : This reading would be Allāh spelled phonetically with alif for the ā.
as الاله : This reading would be Al-'ilāh = "the god", uncontracted, by older spelling practice without alif for ā.

The form in the inscription is shown at.^[7]

Unicode has a glyph reserved for Allāh, Template:Rtl-lang = U+FDF2, which can be combined with an alif to yield the post-consonantal form, Template:Rtl-lang, as opposed to the full spelling alif-lām-lām-hā Template:Rtl-lang which may be rendered slightly differently, in particular featuring a diacritic alif on top of the shadda. In this, Unicode imitates traditional Arabic typesetting, which also frequently featured special llāh types.

In Abjad numerals, The Name Of Allah (الله) numeric value is 66.

The calligraphic variant of the word used as the Coat of arms of Iran is encoded in Unicode, in the Miscellaneous Symbols range, at codepoint U+262B (☫).

For further reading, see Arabic name#Mistakes made by Europeans and other non-Arabs.

History

The pre-Islamic Arabs believed in a host of other terms to signify gods, such as Hubal and al-Lāt, al-`Uzzah, and Manah.^[8] Pre-Islamic Jews referred to their supreme creator as Yahweh or Elohim. 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 "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.) 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 used the word, as testified by the Zabad inscription).

The Hebrew word for deity, El (אל) or Elōah (אלוה), was used as an Old Testament synonym for the Tetragrammaton (יהוה), which is the proper name of God according to the Hebrew Bible. The Aramaic word for God is alôh-ô (Syriac dialect) or elâhâ (Biblical dialect), which comes from the same Proto-Semitic word (*ʾilâh-) as the Arabic and Hebrew terms; Jesus is described in 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-i).

One of the earliest surviving translations of the word Allāh into a foreign language is in a Greek translation of the Shahada, from 86-96 AH (705-715 AD), which translates it as ho theos monos,^[9] literally "the one god". Also the cognate Aramaic term appears in the Aramaic version of the New Testament, called the Pshitta (or Peshitta) as one of the words Jesus used to refer to God, e.g., in the sixth Beatitude, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see Alaha." And in the Arabic Bible the same words: "طُوبَى لأَنْقِيَاءِ الْقَلْبِ، فَإِنَّهُمْ سَيَرَوْنَ الله"

Debates in popular media

A common debate in between Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religious communities is the "identity" of the deity which they worship. The Qur'an states that Jews and Christians are considered People of the Book meaning that it regards the Torah and the Gospels, like the Qur'an, as revelations from the God of Abraham. This is interpreted by some to mean that these faiths all worship the same deity. Others conclude that, because the beliefs each group has about their deity are so different from the others' beliefs, the deities are in fact different (in which case one religious group may argue that the others serve a false deity). The terms "God" and "Allah" are often both used in popular religious media to distinguish between the belief systems.

While it is customary for people to use the word in their own language for "God," e.g. the Japanese use (神様) pronounced as "Kami Sama," and French language uses “Dieu”, a feverish debate about reference to "God" in the Tanakh and the Gospels using the Arabic Qur'an term "Allāh" has been waged in the aftermath of September 11th (begun in the United States and followed by repercussions in Western Europe).

Allah outside Islam

Most Arabic-speaking Christian and Jewish Communities (including the Yemenite Jews, several Template:ArabDIN communities and some Sephardim) use "Allāh" as the proper noun for "God". Eastern Christians living in Muslim countries such as Turkey's Armenians use the word 'Allah' as the proper noun for "God". 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. Allah is the standard Arabic word for “God” and is used by Arab Christians as well.^[10]

Because of the centuries-long Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula, the words ojalá and oxalá today exist in the Spanish and Portuguese languages, respectively, borrowed from Arabic by way of Mozarabic. These words literally mean "God willing" (in the sense of "I hope so").

External links

Bibliography

Samuel M. Zwemep - The Moslem Doctrine of God (Originally published in 1905) ISBN 1-84664-478-X
Ian Richard Netton - Allah Transcendent (1994) ISBN 0-7007-0287-3

References and notes

^ It stems from the Arabic verb ta'Allaha (or alaha), which means "to be worshipped". Thus in Arabic, the word "Allah" means "The One who deserves all worship", quoted from 2nd reference.
^ http://emuslim.com/WhoIsAllah.asp
^ Bentley, David (1999). The 99 Beautiful Names for God for All the People of the Book. William Carey Library. ISBN 0-87808-299-9. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
^ Encyclopedia of Islam, Allah
^ Columbia Encyclopedia 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 others.
^ Concept of God in Islam
^ "Zebed Inscription: A Pre-Islamic Trilingual Inscription In Greek, Syriac & Arabic From 512 CE". Islamic Awareness. March 17 2005. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, "The Facts on File", ed. Anthony Mercatante, New York, 1983, I:61
^ A Bilingual Papyrus Of A Protocol - Egyptian National Library Inv. No. 61, 86-96 AH [1]
^ "Allah". Britannica.com.

ru-sib:Аллах

[1] It stems from the Arabic verb ta'Allaha (or alaha), which means "to be worshipped". Thus in Arabic, the word "Allah" means "The One who deserves all worship", quoted from 2nd reference.

[2] ttp://emuslim.com/WhoIsAllah.asp

[3] Bentley, David (1999). The 99 Beautiful Names for God for All the People of the Book. William Carey Library. ISBN 0-87808-299-9. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

[EoI-4] Encyclopedia of Islam, Allah

[Columbia-5] Columbia Encyclopedia 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 others.

[6] Concept of God in Islam

[7] "Zebed Inscription: A Pre-Islamic Trilingual Inscription In Greek, Syriac & Arabic From 512 CE". Islamic Awareness. March 17 2005. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

[8] Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, "The Facts on File", ed. Anthony Mercatante, New York, 1983, I:61

[9] A Bilingual Papyrus Of A Protocol - Egyptian National Library Inv. No. 61, 86-96 AH [1]

[10] "Allah". Britannica.com.

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