Allah

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This article is about the Arabic word "Allah". For the Islamic view of God, see God in Islam. For other uses, see Allah (disambiguation).
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Allah
"Allah" in Arabic calligraphy

Allah (English pronunciation: /ˈælə/ or /ˈɑːlə/; Arabic: الله‎ Allāh, IPA: [ʔalˤˈlˤɑːh] ( listen)) is the Arabic word for God (literally 'the God', as the initial "Al-" is the definite article).[1][2][3] It is used mainly by Muslims to refer to God in Islam,[4] Arab Christians, and often, albeit not exclusively, by Bahá'ís, Arabic-speakers, Indonesian and Maltese Christians, and Mizrahi Jews.[5][6][7] Christians and Sikhs in Malaysia also use and have used the word to refer to God. This has caused political and legal controversies.[8][9][10]

Etymology

The Arabic components that build-up the word "Allah":
1. alif
2. hamzat waṣl (همزة وصل)
3. lām
4. lām
5. shadda (شدة)
6. dagger alif (ألف خنجرية)
7. hāʾ

The term Allāh is derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- "the" and ilāh "deity, god" to al-lāh meaning "the [sole] deity, God" (ὁ θεὸς μόνος, ho theos monos).[11] Cognates of the name "Allāh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic.[12] Biblical Hebrew mostly uses the plural form (but functional singular) Elohim. The corresponding Aramaic form is ʼĔlāhā ܐܠܗܐ in Biblical Aramaic and ʼAlâhâ ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ in Syriac as used by the Assyrian Church, both meaning simply 'God'.[13] In the Sikh scriptures, Guru Granth Sahib, the term Allah (Punjabi: ਅਲਹੁ) is used 37 times.[14]

The name was previously used by pagan Meccans as a reference to a creator deity, possibly the supreme deity in pre-Islamic Arabia.[15][16] The concepts associated with the term Allah (as a deity) differ among religious traditions. In pre-Islamic Arabia amongst pagan Arabs, Allah was not considered the sole divinity, having associates and companions, sons and daughters–a concept that was deleted under the process of Islamization. In Islam, the name Allah is the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name, and all other divine names are believed to refer back to Allah.[17] Allah is unique, the only Deity, creator of the universe and omnipotent.[5][6] Arab Christians today use terms such as Allāh al-Ab (الله الأب, 'God the Father') to distinguish their usage from Muslim usage.[18] There are both similarities and differences between the concept of God as portrayed in the Quran and the Hebrew Bible.[19] It has also been applied to certain living human beings as personifications of the term and concept.[20][21]

There is a Unicode character for the word Allāh, ﷲ = U+FDF2.[22] Many Arabic type fonts feature special ligatures for Allah.[23]

Usage

Many inscriptions containing the name Allah have been discovered in Northern and Southern Arabia as early as the 5th century B.C., including Lihyanitic, Thamudic and South Arabian inscriptions.[24][25][26][27]

The name Allah or Alla was found in the Epic of Atrahasis engraved on several tablets dating back to around 1700 BC in Babylon, which showed that he was being worshipped as a high deity among other gods who were considered to be his brothers but taking orders from him.[28]

Dumuzid the Shepherd, a king of the 1st Dynasty of Uruk named on the Sumerian King List, was later over-venerated so that people started associating him with "Alla" and the Babylonian god Tammuz.[29]

Nabataeans

The name Allah was used by Nabataeans in compound names, such as "Abd Allah" (The Servant/Slave of Allah), "Aush Allah" (The Faith of Allah), "Amat Allah" (The She-Servant of Allah), "Hab Allah" (Beloved of Allah), "Han Allah" (Allah is gracious), "Shalm Allah" (Peace of Allah), while the name "Wahab Allah" (The Gift of Allah) was found throughout the entire region of the Nabataean kingdom.[30][31]

From Nabataean inscriptions, Allah seems to have been regarded as a "High and Main God", while other deities were considered to be mediators before Allah and of a second status, which was the same case of the worshipers at the Kaaba temple at Mecca.[32]

Islam

Main article: God in Islam
See also: Names of God in the Qur'an
Medallion showing "Allah" in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey.

According to Islamic belief, Allah is the proper name of God,[33] and humble submission to his will, divine ordinances and commandments is the pivot of the Muslim faith.[5] "He is the only God, creator of the universe, and the judge of humankind."[5][6] "He is unique (wāḥid) and inherently one (aḥad), all-merciful and omnipotent."[5] The Qur'an declares "the reality of Allah, His inaccessible mystery, His various names, and His actions on behalf of His creatures."[5]

Allah script outside Eski Cami (The Old Mosque) in Edirne, Turkey.

In Islamic tradition, there are 99 Names of God (al-asmā’ al-ḥusná lit. meaning: 'the best names' or 'the most beautiful names'), each of which evoke a distinct characteristic of Allah.[6][34] All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name.[17] Among the 99 names of God, the most famous and most frequent of these names are "the Merciful" (al-Raḥmān) and "the Compassionate" (al-Raḥīm).[6][34]

Most Muslims use the untranslated Arabic phrase in shā’ Allāh (meaning 'if God wills') after references to future events.[35] Muslim discursive piety encourages beginning things with the invocation of bismillāh (meaning 'in the name of God').[36]

There are certain phrases in praise of God that are favored by Muslims, including "Subḥān Allāh" (Holiness be to God), "al-ḥamdu lillāh" (Praise be to God), "lā ilāha illā Allāh" (There is no deity but God) and "Allāhu akbar" (God is great) as a devotional exercise of remembering God (dhikr).[37] In a Sufi practice known as dhikr Allah (lit. remembrance of God), the Sufi repeats and contemplates on the name Allah or other divine names while controlling his or her breath.[38]

Some scholars[who?] have suggested that Muḥammad used the term Allah in addressing both pagan Arabs and Jews or Christians in order to establish a common ground for the understanding of the name for God, a claim Gerhard Böwering says is doubtful.[33] According to Böwering, in contrast with pre-Islamic Arabian polytheism, God in Islam does not have associates and companions, nor is there any kinship between God and jinn.[33] 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.[39]

According to Francis Edwards 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.[19]

Christianity

The Aramaic word for "God" in the language of Assyrian Christians is ʼĔlāhā, or Alaha. Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allah" to mean "God".[7] The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for "God" than "Allah".[18] (Even the Arabic-descended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Roman Catholic, uses Alla for "God".) Arab Christians for example use terms Allāh al-ab (الله الأب) meaning God the Father, Allāh al-ibn (الله الابن) mean God the Son, and Allāh al-rūḥ al-quds (الله الروح القدس) meaning God the Holy Spirit. (See God in Christianity for the Christian concept of 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 CE.[40] 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 Trinitian belief and also to make it more palatable to Muslims.[40]

According to Marshall Hodgson, it seems that in the pre-Islamic times, some Arab Christians made pilgrimage to the Ka‘bah, a pagan temple at that time, honoring Allah there as God the Creator.[41]

Some archaeological excavation quests have led to the discovery of ancient Pre-Islamic inscriptions and tombs made by Arabic-speaking Christians in the ruins of a church at Umm el-Jimal in Northern Jordan, which contained references to Allah as the proper name of God, and some of the graves contained names such as "Abd Allah" which means "the servant/slave of Allah".[42][43][44]

The name Allah can be found countless times in the reports and the lists of names of Christian martyrs in South Arabia, as reported by antique Syriac documents of the names of those martyrs from the era of the Himyarite & Aksumite kingdoms.[45][46]

A Christian leader named Abd Allah ibn Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad was martyred in Najran in 523 AD, and he had worn a ring that said "Allah is my lord".[46][47]

In an inscription of Christian martyrion dated back to 512 AD, references to Allah can be found in both Arabic and Aramaic, which called him "Allah" and "Alaha", and the inscription starts with the statement "By the Help of Allah".[46][48][49]

In Pre-Islamic Gospels, the name used for God was "Allah", as evidenced by some discovered Arabic versions of the New Testamentt written by Arab Christians during the Pre-Islamic era in Northern and Southern Arabia.[46][50][51]

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.[52]

"Allah" was also mentioned in pre-Islamic Christian poems by some Ghassanid and Tanukhid poets in Syria and Northern Arabia.[53][54][55]

Judaism

Main articles: Mizrahi Jews and Names of God in Judaism

As Hebrew and Arabic are closely related Semitic languages, it is commonly accepted that Allah (root, ilāh) and the Biblical Elohim are cognate derivations of same origin, as in Eloah a Hebrew word which is used (e.g. in the Book of Job) to mean '(the) God' and also 'god or gods' as in the case of Elohim, ultimately deriving from the root El, 'strong', possibly genericized from El (deity), as in the Ugaritic ’lhm "children of El" (the ancient Near Eastern creator god in pre-Abrahamic tradition).

In Jewish scripture Elohim is used as a descriptive title for the God of the scriptures whose name is YHWH, as well as for pagan gods.

As a loanword

English and other European languages

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"Allāh" written in Arabic calligraphy by the 17th-century Ottoman artist Hâfiz Osman (green version)
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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.[56]

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 Arabic (Arabic: إن شاء الله). This phrase literally means 'if God wills' (in the sense of "I hope so").[57] 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.[58]

Malaysian and Indonesian language

The first dictionary of Dutch-Malay by A.C. Ruyl, Justus Heurnius, and Caspar Wiltens in 1650 recorded "Allah" as the translation of the Dutch word "Godt".
Main article: Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur v. Menteri Dalam Negeri

Christians in Malaysia and Indonesia use Allah to refer to God in the Malaysian and Indonesian languages (both of which are 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").[59] This goes back to early translation work by Francis Xavier in the 16th century.[60][61] The first dictionary of Dutch-Malay by A.C. 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".[62] Ruyl also translated Matthew in 1612 to Malay language (first Bible translation to non-European language, only a year after King James Version was published[63][64]), which was printed in the Netherlands in 1629. Then he translated Mark which was published in 1638.[65][66]

The government of Malaysia in 2007 outlawed usage of the term Allah in any other but Muslim contexts, but the High Court in 2009 revoked the law, ruling that it was 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 appeal was heard. In October 2013, the court ruled in favor of the government's ban.[67] However, the use of Allah does not prohibited in the two Malaysian state of Sabah and Sarawak in Borneo as they have already use it since a long time ago.[68]

In early 2014, the Malaysian government confiscated more than 300 bibles for using the word to refer to the Christian God.[69]

In other scripts and languages

Name of Allāh after the 17th-century Ottoman calligrapher Hâfız Osman

Allāh in other languages that use Arabic script is spelled in the same way. This includes Urdu, Persian/Dari, Uyghur among others.

Typography

The word Allah written in different writing systems.

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,[70] 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:-

  • الاه : This reading would be Allāh spelled phonetically with alif for the ā.
  • الإله : This reading would be al-Ilāh = 'the god' (an older form, without contraction), by older spelling practice without alif for ā.

Unicode

Unicode has a codepoint 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",[71] which is dicouraged 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 Coat of arms of Iran is encoded in Unicode, in the Miscellaneous Symbols range, at codepoint U+262B (☫).

See also

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Notes

  1. ^ "God". Islam: Empire of Faith. PBS. Retrieved 18 December 2010. 
  2. ^ "Islam and Christianity", Encyclopedia of Christianity (2001): Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews also refer to God as Allāh.
  3. ^ L. Gardet. "Allah". Encyclopaedia of Islam Online. 
  4. ^ Merriam-Webster. "Allah". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 25 February 2012. 
  5. ^ a b c d e f "Allah." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica
  6. ^ a b c d e Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, Allah
  7. ^ a b Columbia Encyclopedia, Allah
  8. ^ Sikhs target of 'Allah' attack, Julia Zappei, Jan. 14, 2010, The New Zealand Herald. Accessed on line Jan. 15, 2014.
  9. ^ Malaysia court rules non-Muslims can't use 'Allah', Oct. 14, 2013, The New Zealand Herald. Accessed on line Jan. 15, 2014.
  10. ^ Malaysia's Islamic authorities seize Bibles as Allah row deepens, Niluksi Koswanage, Jan. 2, 2014, Reuters. Accessed on line Jan. 15, 2014.
  11. ^ L. Gardet, Allah, Encyclopaedia of Islam
  12. ^ 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.
  13. ^ The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon – Entry for ʼlh
  14. ^ http://www.srigranth.org
  15. ^ L. Gardet, "Allah", Encyclopedia of Islam
  16. ^ Smith, Peter (2000). "prayer". A concise encyclopedia of the Bahá'í Faith. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. pp. 274–275. ISBN 978-1-85168-184-6. 
  17. ^ a b 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. 
  18. ^ a b 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. 
  19. ^ a b F.E. Peters, Islam, p.4, Princeton University Press, 2003
  20. ^ Nation of Islam – personification of Allah as Detroit peddler W D Fard[dead link]
  21. ^ ""A history of Clarence 13X and the Five Percenters", referring to Clarence Smith as Allah". Finalcall.com. Retrieved 2014-01-14. 
  22. ^ "''Unicode Standard 5.0'', p.479, 492" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-01-14. 
  23. ^
  24. ^ René Dussaud, Les Arabes en Syrie avant l’Islam (Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1907), Pages: 141
  25. ^ Philip Hitti, History of the Arabs: From the Earliest Times to the Present, Tenth Edition (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1970), Pages: 100
  26. ^ F. V. Winnett, A Study of the Lihyanite and Thamudic Inscriptions (Toronto: 1937), Pages: 30
  27. ^ Kenneth J. Thomas, The Bible Translator: Technical Papers, Vol. 52:3, (July 2001), Pages: 301-305
  28. ^ Stephanie Dalley (1989), Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others, Oxford University Press, Pages: 3-10
  29. ^ Thorkild Jacobsen, The Harps that Once: Sumerian Poetry in Translation (1997), Yale University Press, Part. 1, Pages: 53-61
  30. ^ Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Language (1997), Columbia University Press-New York, Page: 30
  31. ^ Dan Gibson, The Nabataeans: Builders of Petra (2003), Page: 209
  32. ^ John F. Healey, The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus (2000), Brill Publishing, Page: 83
  33. ^ a b c Böwering, Gerhard, God and His Attributes, Encyclopaedia of the Qurʼān, Brill, 2007.
  34. ^ 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. 
  35. ^ Gary S. Gregg, The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology, Oxford University Press, p.30
  36. ^ Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Islamic Society in Practice, University Press of Florida, p. 24
  37. ^ M. Mukarram Ahmed, Muzaffar Husain Syed, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Anmol Publications PVT. LTD, p. 144
  38. ^ Carl W. Ernst, Bruce B. Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond, Macmillan, p. 29
  39. ^ Allah, Encyclopædia Britannica
  40. ^ a b Thomas E. Burman, Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, Brill, 1994, p. 103
  41. ^ Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, University of Chicago Press, p. 156
  42. ^ James Bellamy, ‘Two Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions Revised: Jabal Ramm and Umm al-Jimal’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 108/3 (1988)
  43. ^ Enno Littmann, Arabic Inscriptions (Leiden, 1949)
  44. ^ Rick Brown, International Journal of Frontier Missions, (23:2 Summer 2006), page 80.
  45. ^ Ignatius Ya`qub III, The Arab Himyarite Martyrs in the Syriac Documents (1966), Pages: 9-65-66-89
  46. ^ a b c d Rick Brown, Who was ‘Allah’ before Islam? (2007), page 8.
  47. ^ Alfred Guillaume& Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, (2002 [1955]). The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Isḥāq’s Sīrat Rasūl Allāh with Introduction and Notes. Karachi and New York: Oxford University Press, page 18.
  48. ^ Adolf Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie II: Das Schriftwesen und die Lapidarschrift (1971), Wien: Hermann Böhlaus Nochfolger, Page: 6-8
  49. ^ 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:
  50. ^ Frederick Winnett V, Allah before Islam-The Moslem World (1938), Pages: 239–248
  51. ^ Michael Macdonald, Personal Names in the Nabataean Realm-Journal Of Semitic Studies (1999), Page: 271
  52. ^ Irfan Shahîd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century, Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University-Washington DC, page 418.
  53. ^ Irfan Shahîd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century, Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University-Washington DC, Page: 452
  54. ^ A. Amin & A. Harun, Sharh Diwan Al-Hamasa (Cairo, 1951), Vol. 1, Pages: 478-480
  55. ^ Al-Marzubani, Mu'jam Ash-Shu'araa, Page: 302
  56. ^ William Montgomery Watt, Islam and Christianity today: A Contribution to Dialogue, Routledge, 1983, p.45
  57. ^ Islam in Luce López Baralt, Spanish Literature: From the Middle Ages to the Present, Brill, 1992, p.25
  58. ^ F. E. Peters, The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition, Princeton University Press, p.12
  59. ^ Example: Usage of the word "Allah" from Matthew 22:32 in Indonesian bible versions (parallel view) as old as 1733
  60. ^ The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society Sneddon, James M.; University of New South Wales Press; 2004
  61. ^ The History of Christianity in India from the Commencement of the Christian Era: Hough, James; Adamant Media Corporation; 2001
  62. ^ "Justus Heurnius, Albert Ruyl, Caspar Wiltens. "Vocabularium ofte Woordenboeck nae ordre van den alphabeth, in 't Duytsch en Maleys". 1650:65". Books.google.co.id. Retrieved 2014-01-14. 
  63. ^ Barton, John (2002–12). The Biblical World, Oxford, UK: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-27574-3.
  64. ^ North, Eric McCoy; Eugene Albert Nida ((2nd Edition) 1972). The Book of a Thousand Tongues, London: United Bible Societies.
  65. ^ (Indonesian) Biography of Ruyl
  66. ^ "Encyclopædia Britannica: Albert Cornelius Ruyl". Britannica.com. Retrieved 2014-01-14. 
  67. ^ Roughneen, Simon (14 October 2013). "No more 'Allah' for Christians, Malaysian court says". The Christian Science Monitor. 
  68. ^ "Catholic priest should respect court: Mahathir". Daily Express. 9 January 2014. Archived from the original on 10 January 2014. Retrieved 10 January 2014. 
  69. ^ "BBC News - More than 300 Bibles are confiscated in Malaysia". Bbc.co.uk. 2014-01-02. Retrieved 2014-01-14. 
  70. ^ "Zebed Inscription: A Pre-Islamic Trilingual Inscription In Greek, Syriac & Arabic From 512 CE". Islamic Awareness. 17 March 2005. 
  71. ^ The Unicode Consortium. FAQ - Middle East Scripts

References

External links

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