Theetymology of the wordAllāh has been discussed extensively by classical Arab philologists.[16] The majority of scholarsconsider it to be derived from acontraction of theArabic definite articleal- andilāh "deity, god" toal-lāh meaning "the deity, the God"[16] as in the contraction ofal-ʾilāt toAllāt.[17] In some sources, the contracted and un-contracted forms are used interchangeably.[18] Originally,ʾilāh was used as an epithet for the West Semitic creator godʾIlu (theUgaritic version ofEl), before being adopted as the proper name itself for this god.[19]
Semiticcognates of "Allāh" appear in Semitic languages,[20] such as the AramaicʼElāh (אלה) in the absolute form, and in its definite/emphatic form,ʼElāhā (אלהא), as in reflected inBiblical Aramaic. Also Syriacܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ (ʼAlāhā), both meaning simply "god", or "deity", used by both monotheists and pagans.[21] Others are Akkadianʾilum, Ugarticʾilu, and Phoenicianʾl. A minority hypothesis posits thatAllah is a loanword from theSyriacAlāhā.[22][23] A more likely theory is that, it is an adaptation of the word to the phonetic structure of Arabic.[24][25]
Whether or notAllah can be considered as the personal name of God became disputed in contemporary scholarship.[26] Islamic scholars have generally tried to explain the issue by rejecting approaches that associate this word with the names of other gods or that state it is derived from these names; grammarians of theBasra school regarded it as either formed "spontaneously" (murtajal) or as the determined form ofllāh (from the verbal rootlyh with the meaning suggesting of "lofty" or "hidden").[16] Other Muslims scholars proposed that the term derives fromwilah ('the object of mystery') since the nature of God is a mystery and incomprehensible for humans.[27][28]: 162 In Islamic usage and theology,Allah is God's most unique, proper name,[29] and referred to asLafẓ al-Jalālah ('the Word of Majesty').Jahm bin Safwan claimed thatAllah is a name God created for himself and that names belong to the things God created.[30]
According toMarshall Hodgson, it seems that in thepre-Islamic Arabia, someArab Christians undertook pilgrimages to theKaaba, a pagan temple at that time, honoring Allah there as the God the Creator.[32]Archaeological excavations have led to the discovery of pre-Islamic inscriptions and tombs made by Arab Christians in the ruins of a church atUmm el-Jimal in NorthernJordan, which initially thought to be containing references toAllah byEnno Littmann, as the proper name of God; however, this view was rejected by a second translation of the five-verse inscription made by Bellamy et al. (1985 - 88).[33][34][35] In an inscription of Christian martyrion dated to 512, references to al-ilah (الاله)[36] appear in both Arabic and Aramaic. The inscription opens with the phrase "By the Help of al-ilah".[37][38]Irfan Shahîd quoting the 10th-century encyclopedic collectionKitab 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 scholarAl-Marzubani, "Allah" was also mentioned in pre-Islamic Christian poems by someGhassanid andTanukhid poets inSyria and NorthernArabia.[40][41][42]
Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in pre-Islamicpolytheistic Meccan cults.[43][44] According toIbn Kathir, Arab idolaters considered Allah as an unseen God who created and controlled the Universe. Pagans believed worship of humans or animals who had fortunate occurrences 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".[11] According to Islamic sources, the Meccans and their neighbors believed that the goddessesAl-lāt,Al-‘Uzzá, andManāt, and in some cases theAngels, were the daughters of Allah. Some authors have suggested that polytheistic Arabs used the name as a reference to acreator god or a supreme deity of theirpantheon.[43][45] According to one Islamic hypothesis, the Kaaba was originally built byAbraham and his sonIshmael for the worship of a single supreme god, Allah, to whom people were called on pilgrimages. However, this place of worship was filled by theQuraysh with as many as 360 idols about a century before Muhammad's time.[10] Some scholars have suggested that Allah may have represented a remote creator god who was gradually eclipsed by more particularized local deities.[46][47] There is disagreement on whether Allah played a major role in the Meccan religious cult.[46][48] No iconic representation of Allah is known to have existed.[48][49] Muhammad's father's name wasʿAbd-Allāh meaning "the slave of Allāh".[44] The interpretation that Pre-Islamic Arabs once practicedAbrahamic religions is supported by some literary evidence, being the prevalence ofIshmael, whose God was that ofAbraham, in pre-Islamic Arab culture.[50][51][52]
"TheQur'ān insists thatMuhammad and his followers worship the same God as the Jews (29:46). The Qur'an's Allah is the same Creator God who covenanted withAbraham".Francis Edward Peters states that the Qur'an portrays Allah as both more powerful and more remote thanYahweh, and as a universal deity, unlike Yahweh who closely followsIsraelites.[53] Since the first centuries of Islam, Arabic-speaking commentators of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faith used the termAllah as a generic term for the supreme being.[54]Saadia Gaon used the termAllah interchangeably with the termʾĔlōhīm.[54]Theodore Abu Qurrah translatestheos asAllah in his Bible, as in John 1:1 "the Word was with Allah".[54] Muslim commentators likewise used the term Allah for the Biblical concept of God.Ibn Qutayba writes "You cannot serve both Allah andMammon."[54] However, Muslim translators of the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia rarely translated theTetragrammaton, referring to the supreme being in Israelite tradition, asAllah. Instead, most commentators either translatedYahweh as eitheryahwah orrabb, the latter corresponding to the Jewish custom to refer to Yahweh asAdonai.[54]
In contrast with pre-Islamic Arabianpolytheism, as stated byGerhard Böwering, God in Islam does not have associates and companions, nor is there any kinship between God andjinn.[55] Pre Islamic Arabs believed in a blind, powerful, unstoppable and insensible fate over which man had no control. This was replaced with the Islamic belief of a powerful yet benevolent and merciful God's control over man's life.[12] In the early periods of Islam, the concept of God was established as apersonal deity[56]living in the heavens.[57] This understanding developed over time under the influence ofIslamic theology, acquiring a transcendent character.[58] However, in contrast to this transcendent and absolute conception of God established among the elite,[59] the public andSufis[a] maintainedthe traditional understanding on God. Also actions and attributes such as coming, going, sitting, satisfaction, anger and sadness etc. similar to humans used for this God in the Quran were consideredmutashabihat—"no one knowsits interpretation except God" (Quran3:7)—by later scholars stating that God wasfree from resemblance to humans in any way.[b]
Islamic theology emphasises the absolute uniqueness and singularity of God in his essence, attributes, qualities, and acts.[64] This emphasis was made despite a number of verses and hadiths that offer analogies for God, and it was gradually established over time.[58] Instead, the term "mutashabih" was used for these verses, and the approach of "believing in the essence, not searching for its meaning" (Bila Kayf) was adopted. Understandings and expressions contrary to these definitions (tanzih) were described asshirk, which is considered one of thegreatest sins in Islam, and it was said that those who did so wouldleave the religion.
God's Arsh (throne) andKursi (pulpit)[65] -may appear as chair or footstool in direct translations, often confused and used interchangeably in Islamic terminology- are also evaluated within this scope in Islamic theology;[66]
"Indeed your Lord is Allah Who created the heavens and the earth in six Days, then established Himself on the Throne"[67]
"You will see the angels all around the Throne, glorifying the praises of their Lord,....".[68]
Named as theAyat al-Kursi ofSurah al-Baqarah literally is this; "Allah! There is no god except Him, the Living, Sustaining. Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. Who could possibly intercede with Him without His permission? He knows what is ahead of them and what is behind them, but no one can grasp any of His knowledge—except what He wills. His "Kursi" encompasses the heavens and the earth, and the preservation of both does not tire Him. He is High, Great."[69]
Islamic teachings, in accordance with the principle oftawhid, also condemn statements that imply God is something comparable to known and created things. This understanding is based on the expressions in the chapter 112 of theQur'an (Al-'Ikhlās, The Sincerity):[70] These expressions were also used in polemics as a response to understandings that described God through the metaphor as father;
Most Qur'aniccommentators, includingal-Tabari (d. 923),al-Zamakhshari (d. 1143/44), andal-Razi (d. 1209), regard wordAllah to be a proper noun ie (ism' li-dhatih), while other names denote attributes or adjectives[72] known as the99 Names of Allah (al-asmā' al-ḥusná lit. meaning: 'the beautiful names').[13][73][74] The most famous and frequently repeated names are "the Merciful" (ar-Raḥmān) and "the Compassionate" (ar-Raḥīm),[13][73]al-Aḥad ("the One") and Al Hayy (the living one). In aSufi practice known asdhikr Allāh (Arabic:ذِكر الله, lit. "Remembrance of God"), the Sufi chants and contemplates the nameAllah or other associated divine names to Him while regulating his or her breath.[75]Islamic theology rejects definitions and expressions thatimply a comparison between God and His creations, because He cannot be likened to His creations in any of His attributes. However, it is observed that many of these names are translated as "the most..." in a comparative mode, as in the expressionAllāhu ʾAkbar (Arabic:اللّٰهُ أَكْبَر[ʔaɫ.ɫaː.huʔak.bar],lit.'God is the greatest'), which is also used as an Islamicslogan.
The Islamic tradition to useAllah as the personal name of God became contested in contemporary scholarship, including the question, whether or not the wordAllah should be translated asGod.[76]Umar Faruq Abd-Allah encouraged English-speaking Muslims to use God instead of Allah for the sake of finding "extensive middle ground we share with other Abrahamic and universal traditions".[72]
Most Muslims use the Arabic phrasein shā'a llāh (meaning 'if God wills') untranslated after references to future events.[77] Muslim devotional practices encourage beginning things with the invocation ofbi-smi llāh (meaning 'In the name of God').[78] There are certain other phrases in praise of God that are commonly used by Muslims and left untranslated, 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 butYou/Him) and "Allāhu Akbar" (God is the Most Great) as a devotional exercise of remembering God (dhikr).[79]
Arab Christians have used two forms of invocations that wereaffixed to the beginning of their written works. They adopted the Muslimbismillāh, and also created their ownTrinitarianbismillāh as early as the 8th century.[81] The Muslimbismillāh reads: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." The Trinitizedbismillāh reads: "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God." TheSyriac,Latin andGreek invocations do not have the words "One God" at the end. This addition was made to emphasize themonotheistic aspect of Trinitarian belief and also to make it more palatable to Muslims.[81]
Pronunciation
The Arabic components that make up the word "Allah":
The wordAllāh is generally pronounced[ɑɫˈɫɑː(h)], exhibiting a heavylām,[ɫ], avelarized alveolar lateral approximant, a marginal phoneme inModern Standard Arabic. Since the initial alef has nohamza, the initial[a] is elided when a preceding word ends in a vowel. If the preceding vowel is/i/, thelām is light,[l], as in, for instance, theBasmala.[82]
As a loanword
English and other European languages
The history of the nameAllāh in English was probably influenced by the study ofcomparative 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 termAllah, though he allows that this "conception of God" seems to imply that it is different from that of the Jewish and Christian theologies.[83]
Languages which may not commonly use the termAllah to denote God may still contain popular expressions which use the word. For example, because of the centuries longMuslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula, the wordojalá in the Spanish language andoxalá in thePortuguese language exist today, borrowed fromAndalusi Arabiclaw šá lláh[84] similar toinshalla (Arabic:إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ). This phrase literally means 'if God wills'.[85] The German poetMahlmann 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 retain the name "Allāh" untranslated in English, rather than using the English translation "God".[86]
Christians in Malaysia and Indonesia useAllah to refer to God in theMalaysian andIndonesian languages (both of them standardized forms of theMalay language). Mainstream Bible translations in the language useAllah as the translation of HebrewElohim (translated in English Bibles as "God").[87] This goes back to early translation work byFrancis Xavier in the 16th century.[88][89] 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) recordedAllah" as the translation of the Dutch wordGodt.[90] Ruyl also translated theGospel of Matthew in 1612 into the Malay language (an early Bible translation into a non-European language,[91] made a year after the publication of theKing James Version[92][93]), which was printed in the Netherlands in 1629. Then he translated theGospel of Mark, published in 1638.[94][95]
For a timeit became illegal for non-Muslims to use "Allah" after the country experienced a social and political upheaval in the face of the word being used byMalaysian Christians andSikhs. Thegovernment of Malaysia in 2007 prohibited usage of the termAllah in any other but Muslim contexts, but theMalayan High Court in 2009overturned the law, ruling it unconstitutional. WhileAllah had been used for the Christian God in Malay for more than four centuries, the contemporary controversy was triggered by usage ofAllah by the Roman Catholic newspaperThe 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.[96] In early 2014 the Malaysian government confiscated more than 300 bibles for using the word to refer to the Christian God in Peninsular Malaysia.[97] However, the use ofAllah is not prohibited in the two Malaysian states ofSabah andSarawak.[98][99] 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.[98] Both states also do not have similar Islamic state laws as those in West Malaysia.[100] The ban was overturned in 2021.[101][102][103][100][failed verification]
In reaction to some media criticism, the Malaysian government has introduced a "10-point solution" to avoid confusion and misleading information.[104][105] The 10-point solution is in line with the spirit of the18- and20-point agreements of Sarawak and Sabah.[100]
The wordAllāh is always written without analif to spell theā vowel. This is because the spelling was established before Arabic spelling started regularly usingalif to spellā. However, in vocalized spelling, asmall diacriticalif is added on top of theshaddah to indicate the pronunciation.
In the pre-IslamicZabad inscription,[106] God is referred to by the termالاله, that is, alif-lam-alif-lam-ha.[36] This presumably indicatesAl-'ilāh means "the god", withoutalif forā.
Many Arabic type fonts feature specialligatures for Allah.[107]
SinceArabic script is used to write other texts rather than Koran only, renderinglām +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 has a code point reserved forAllāh,U+FDF2ﷲARABIC LIGATURE ALLAH ISOLATED FORM,[109]in theArabic Presentation Forms-A block, which exists solely for "compatibility with some older, legacy character sets that encoded presentation forms directly";[110][111] this is not recommended for new text. Instead, the wordAllāh should be represented by its individual Arabic letters, while modern font technologies will generate the desired ligature.
^Tajalli (Arabic:تَجَلِّي,romanized: tajallī,lit.'manifestation') is the appearance and disclosure ofGod as truth inSufism.[60] Tajalli is believed to be a process by which God manifests himself in concrete forms.[61]
^Human qualities which are attributed to Allah in the Quran such as coming, going, sitting, satisfaction, anger and sadness; "Allah has equipped them with words to bring them closer to our minds; in this respect, they are like proverbs that are used to create a picture in the mind and thus help the listener to clearly understand the idea he wants to express."[62][63]
^"God".Islam: Empire of Faith. PBS. Archived fromthe original on 27 March 2014. Retrieved18 December 2010.
^"Islam and Christianity",Encyclopedia of Christianity (2001): Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews also refer to God asAllāh.
^Gardet, L."Allah". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.).Encyclopaedia of Islam Online. Brill Online. Retrieved2 May 2007.
^Merriam-Webster."Allah".Merriam-Webster. Archived fromthe original on 20 April 2014. Retrieved25 February 2012.
^abAnthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow (2004). "Allah".The Facts on File Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend. Facts on File. p. 53.ISBN978-1-4381-2685-2.
^Sinai, Nicholas (2019).Rain-Giver, Bone-Breaker, Score-Settler: Allāh in Pre-Quranic Poetry. Atlanta, GA: American Oriental Society. p. 7.ISBN978-1-948488-25-9.
^Columbia Encyclopaedia says: Derived from an old Semitic root referring to the Divine and used in the CanaaniteEl, the Mesopotamianilu, and the biblicalElohim andEloah, the word Allah is used by all Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians, Jews, and other monotheists.
^Reynolds, Gabriel Said (2020).Allah: God in the Qur'an. New Haven: Yale university press. p. 14.ISBN978-0-300-24658-2.
^Sinai, Nicholas (2019).Rain-Giver, Bone-Breaker, Score-Settler: Allāh in Pre-Quranic Poetry. Atlanta, GA: American Oriental Society. p. 8.ISBN978-1-948488-25-9.
^Kiltz, David. "The Relationship between Arabic Allāh and Syriac Allāha." Der Islam 88.1 (2012): 47.
^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 LondonISBN978-0-19-870206-1 p. 478
^Ibrahim, Zakyi. "To Use 'God' or 'Allah'?".American Journal of Islam and Society 26.4 (2009): v.
^ibn ʿUmar al-Baydawi, ʿAbd Allah (2016).The Lights Of Revelation And The Secrets Of Interpretation. Translated by Haddad, Gibril Fouad. Beacon Books and Media Limited.ISBN978-0-9926335-7-8.
^It is generally accepted that the word is not derived from any root and does not carry a dictionary meaning and constitutes the proper name of the real god, or even if it has a dictionary meaning, it loses this meaning when it becomes the name of the real god./Kelimenin herhangi bir kökten türemiş olmayıp sözlük mânası taşımadığı ve gerçek mâbudun özel adını teşkil ettiği, yahut sözlükte bir anlamı olsa bile gerçek mâbuda ad olunca bu anlamı kaybettiği genellikle benimsenmektedir.https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/allah
^Morris S. SealeMuslim Theology A study of Origins with Reference to the Church Fathers Great Russel Street, London 1964 p. 58
^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
^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."
^Daniels, Peter T. (2014).The Type and Spread of Arabic Script.
^abM. 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:
^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
^The Collection of the Speeches of Arabs, volume 1, section 75
^F.E. Peters,Islam, p.4, Princeton University Press, 2003
^abcdeThomas, Kenneth J. "Allah in Translations of the Bible." The Bible Translator 52.3 (2001): 301-306.
^Böwering, Gerhard,God and His Attributes, Encyclopaedia of the Qurʼān, Brill, 2007.
^Williams, W. Wesley, "A study of anthropomorphic theophany and Visio Dei in the Hebrew Bible, the Quran and early Sunni Islam", University of Michigan, March 2009
^abIbrahim, Zakyi. "To Use "God" or "Allah"?." American Journal of Islam and Society 26.4 (2009): i-vii.
^abBentley, David (September 1999).The 99 Beautiful Names for God for All the People of the Book. William Carey Library.ISBN978-0-87808-299-5.
^Murata, Sachiko (1992).The Tao of Islam: a sourcebook on gender relationships in Islamic thought. Albany NY USA: SUNY.ISBN978-0-7914-0914-5.
^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 LondonISBN978-0-19-870206-1 p. 478
^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.ISBN978-0-521-29135-4.
^abThomas E. Burman,Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs,Brill, 1994, p. 103
^But compare:Milkias, Paulos (2011). "Ge'ez Literature (Religious)".Ethiopia. Africa in Focus. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 299.ISBN978-1-59884-257-9. Retrieved15 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.ISBN978-0-415-27574-3.
^North, Eric McCoy; Eugene Albert Nida ((2nd Edition) 1972). The Book of a Thousand Tongues, London: United Bible Societies.
