What’s in a Name? Pt. 3: Allah

Apologetics, Islam, Theology

Yesterday we looked at the name Yahweh and the fact that it is the personal proper name of the Judeo-Christian God.  The case is not as clear cut with Allāh as Robert Morey says:

“The word ‘Allah’ comes from the compound Arabic word al-ilah. Al is the definite article ‘the’ and ilah is an Arabic word for ‘god.’”[1] 

If Morey’s position is correct then Allāh is not a personal name at all but rather a simple compound noun meaning “the god.” 

Contrary to Morey’s claims Arabic scholar Edward William Lane defined Allāh saying:

“ﷲ [written with the disjunctive alif ﷲ, meaning God, i.e. the only true God,]… a proper name denoting the true god, comprising all the excellent divine names; a unity comprising all the essences of existing things…”[2] 

Citing Lane and other Arabic authorities, the Qur’anic translator and commentator Maulana Muhammad Ali notes that:

“Allāh, according to the most correct of the opinions respecting it, is a proper name applied to the Being Who exists necessarily by Himself, comprising all the attributes of perfection (T-LL), the al being inseparable from it, not derived (Msb-LL). Al-ilāh is a different word, and Allāh is not a contraction of al-ilāh. The word Allāh is not applied to any being except the only true God, and comprises all the excellent names, and the Arabs never gave the name Allāh to any of their numerous idols.”[3]

…to be continued

[1] Morey, Robert. The Islamic Invasion, (Las Vegas: Christian Scholars, 1999), 47-48. [Emphasis his] – cf. the article “Allah is the Arabic Word for God” on the Muslim website www.faizani.com which states, “Allah is the Arabic word for God. It is compounded of ‘Al’, the definite article ‘the’, and ‘illah’, meaning ‘god’. Therefore, Allah literally means ‘The God’ — somewhat parallel to the capitalized ‘God’ in English.” http://www.faizani.com/portal/allah.html

 

[2] Lane, Edward William, An Arabic-English Lexicon, (Beirut: Librairie Du Libran, 1968), 1:83. [Italics his]

 

[3] Ali, Qur’ān, 3, Note b. [Italics his] – See Morey, Islamic Invasion, 47-53 for a series of quotes from Islamic scholars countering Ali’s claim.

7 thoughts on “What’s in a Name? Pt. 3: Allah”

  1. “and the Arabs never gave the name Allāh to any of their numerous idols.”[3]”

    because the concept of islam is that the others WERE NOT GODS… so why would they call one of their numerous gods “THE god” or “THE ONE TRUE GOD” over everyone else?

    this seemed to me to be a very… stupid… statement. so then i looked at your source:

    “See Morey, Islamic Invasion, ”

    Islamic INVASION!??? LMAO! good job, peter!

  2. Actually, the Source was: The Holy Qur’ān with English Translation and Commentary. Maulana Muhammad Ali, trans. (Dublin, Ohio: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha’at Islam Lahore, 2002), 3, n. b. ;)

    If you would have been a little more careful in reading you would have seen that I referred the reader to Morey’s book for claims countering those of Ali’s.

  3. ah. my bad. but the other point still stands: it’s irrelevant to point out that the arabs never called any other pagan god allah. duh

  4. Actually it is very relevant to my point. The link you referred me to made the claim:

    “Allah is simply the Arabic word for God.”

    Well, if Allah is a common noun simply meaning ‘God’ then there is no problem, but if it is a proper noun referring to the personal name of God then there is a problem as Allah is not the equivalent to Yahweh. I’ll tie all this together in my next post.

  5. *sigh* okay. this isn’t m argument anyways. muslims should be debating theology with you. not me so i’ll bid your blog adieu. :) for a while

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