Some of the biggest misconceptions that
many non-Muslims have about Islam have to do with the word "Allah".
Somehow, many people have come to believe that Muslims
worship a different God than Christians and Jews. This is
totally false, since "Allah" is simply the
Arabic word for "God" - and there is only
One God. Let there be no doubt - Muslims worship the God of
Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus - peace be upon them
all. However, it is certainly true that Jews, Christians and
Muslims all have different concepts of Almighty God. For
example, Muslims - like Jews - reject the Christian beliefs
of the Trinity and the Divine Incarnation. This, however,
doesn't mean that each of these three religions worships a different
God - because, as we have already said, there is only One
True God. Islam teaches, however, that other religions have,
in one way or another, distorted and nullified a pure and
proper belief in Almighty God by neglecting His true
teachings and mixing them with man-made ideas.
It is important to note that "Allah" is the
same word that Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews use for
God. If you pick up an Arabic Bible, you will see the word "Allah"
being used where "God" is used in English. "Allah"
is the only word in the Arabic language equivalent to the
English word "God" with a capital "G".
It should be noted, however, that in Arabic, "Allah"
is a somewhat unique word grammatically, since it cannot be
made plural or given gender (i.e. masculine or feminine),
which goes hand-in-hand with the Islamic concept of God. The
root word "god" in English, for instance,
can be used in similiar forms, such as "gods",
"God" or "goddess", all
with different connotations and meanings. Because of this,
and also because the Qur'an, which is the holy scripture of
Muslims, was revealed in the Arabic language, some Muslims
use the word "Allah" for "God",
even when they are speaking other languages. In English, the
only difference between "god", meaning a
false god, and "God", meaning the One True
God, is the capital "G". In Arabic alphabet,
since it does not have capital letters, the word for God
(i.e. Allah) is formed by adding the equivalent to the
English word "the" (Al-) to the
Arabic word for "god/God" (ilah). So
the Arabic word "Allah" literally it means "The
God" - the "Al-" in Arabic
basically serving the same function as the capital "G"
in English. Due to the above mentioned facts, a more accurate
translation of the word "Allah" into English
might be "The One -and-Only God" or "The
One True God".
However, before moving on, we should probably address the
practice of those Muslims who insist on using the
Arabic word "Allah" even when speaking
English. Even though this practice certainly is not to
be condemned when it is done around those who understand the
meaning of the Arabic word "Allah", it is my
experience - both during my years as a non-Muslim and my
years as a Muslim - that such a practice can (and usually
does) breed misunderstanding. It seems that often times, many
of the Muslims who use the word "Allah" in
lieu of the word "God", even when trying
to attract people to Islam, are unaware of the severe
misunderstandings that many non-Muslims have about Islam (and
the distorted way which Islam has been portrayed in the
West). Insisting on using the word "Allah"
only fuels the flames of misunderstanding - so there's no
good reason to do it. I've often wondered what value
some Muslims think that using the word "Allah"
adds to the Pure Message that they are trying to convey. ( .
. . and I'm still waiting for an answer!) Unfortunately,
those Muslims who insist on using the word "Allah"
even when addressing non-Muslims who are unfamiliar with
Islam and the Arabic language, do both a disservice to
themselves and their religion. Unfortunately, this practice
is usually based on the false assumption - by a non-native
speaker of English - that the word "God" in
English is incapable of expressing a pure and proper belief
in Almighty God. This is certainly false. If someone says
that the English word "God" cannot be used
to express the Pure Islamic Belief in Tawhid, they are
wrong not because they don't understand Tawhid,
but simply because they don't understand the English
language. Many people who insist on using the Arabic word "Allah"
usually don't realize this, but really they are not so much
affirming the word "Allah" as they are
rejecting the word "God" as unsuitable -
based on incorrect assumptions. For someone to assume that
the word "God" presupposes a certain
theological point-of-view (such as the Trinity) is simply
Wrong - and that's Wrong with a capital "W". To say
the word "God" should be rejected because it
can be changed into "god", "gods"
or "goddess" is illogical because each of
these words has a distinctive meaning - at least to
someone who knows how to speak English correctly. Using the
same logic, I can demonstrate that the root letters "ktb"
can be used to form the Arabic words "kitab"
(book), "maktabah" (library), "maktab"
(office) and "kaatib" (writer), but does
that mean that these words have the same meaning? Do
Arabic-speaking people go through life confusing libraries
with writers and offices with books (both in conversation and
in reality)? I think not! This is not to mention the fact
that if the Arabic "Al-" was put in front of
these words in order to make them definite, confusion would
be even less likely!. So the logic in both cases is the same,
and this is because even though the same letters are used in "God"
and "god", these two words have two
different meanings in the English language. The capital "G"
implies something different than the small "g"
- and anyone who denies this simply doesn't know how to speak
the English language. In concluding this paragraph, it should
be mentioned that Arabic-speaking Muslims who believe in Pure
Tawhid, Arabic-speaking Christians, the idol
worshippers of Mecca and (so-called) Muslims who believe in "Wahdat
al-Wujud" all use the word "Allah".
However, does this guarantee all of them proper belief in "Allah"?
Certainly not, because if they have a corrupt concept of "Allah"
it doesn't matter what word they use!
This brings us to a more important point: It should be
clearly understood that what Islam is primarily concerned
with is correcting mankind's concept of Almighty God.
What we are ultimately going to be held accountable at the
end of our life is not whether we prefer the word "Allah"
over the word "God", but what our concept of
God is. Language is only a side issue. A person can have an
incorrect concept of God while using the word "Allah",
and likewise a person can have a correct concept of God while
using the word "God". This is because both
of these words are equally capable of being misused and being
improperly defined. As we've already mentioned, using the
word "Allah" no more insinuates belief in
the Unity of God than the use of the word "God"
insinuates belief in the Trinity - or any other theological
opinion. Naturally, when God sends a revelation to mankind
through a prophet, He is going to send it in a language that
the people who receive it can understand and relate to.
Almighty God makes this clear in the Qur'an, when He states:
"Never did We send a Messenger except (to teach) in
the language of his (own) people in order to make (things)
clear to them". - From the Holy Qur'an, Chapter 14 -
"Abraham", Verse 4
As Muslims, we think that it is unfortunate that we have to
go into details on such seemingly minor issues, but so many
falsehoods have been heaped upon our religion, that we feel
that it is our duty to try to break down the barriers of
falsehood. This isn't always easy, since there is a lot of
anti-Islamic literature in existence which tries to make
Islam look like something strange and foreign to Westerners.
There are some people out there, who are obviously not on the
side of truth, that want to get people to believe that "Allah"
is just some Arabian "god", and that Islam
is completely "other" - meaning that it has
no common roots with the other Abrahamic religions
(i.e. Christianity and Judaism). To say that Muslims worship
a different "God" because they say "Allah"
is just as illogical as saying that French people worship
another God because they use the word "Dieu",
that Spanish-speaking people worship a different God because
they say "Dios" or that the Hebrews
worshipped a different God because they sometimes call Him "Yahweh".
Certainly, reasoning like this is quite ridiculous! It should
also be mentioned, that claiming that any one language uses
the only the correct word for God is tantamount to denying
the universality of God's message to mankind, which was to
all nations, tribes and people through various prophets who
spoke different languages.
It is interesting to note that the Aramaic word "El",
which is the word for God in the language that Jesus spoke,
is certainly more similar in sound to the word "Allah"
than the English word "God"! Also, the
various Hebrew words for God are "El" and "Elah",
and its plural form is "Elohim". It should
also be noted that in translating the Bible into English, the
Hebrew word "El" is translated variously as "God",
"god" and "angel"! This
imprecise language allows different translators, based on
their preconceived notions, to translate the word to fit
their own views.
Even more interesting is the fact that some Christian
missionary organizations print English literature intended to
teach Christians about Islam in which say such things as: "Allah
is the god of the Muslims" and that "Muhammad
came to get people to believe in the god Allah" -
implying that "Allah" is some sort of false "god".
However, in their literature that they make in Arabic, hoping
to lead Arabic speaking people "to Christ",
they use the word "Allah" for God. It seems
that if they were on the side of truth, they would not have
to resort to such inconsistencies.
There are also missionary organizations that excede this in
ignorance by writing pamphlets that call on Muslims to give
up their belief in "Allah", and instead
worship the "Lord" Jesus, "the Son
of God". Besides making it abundantly clear that
they are outside the community of Pure Monotheism, the people
who write such material don't even realize that if they wrote
such a pamphlet in Arabic, it would be self-contradictory.
This is because in an Arabic Bible Jesus is the "Son
of Allah"! If an Arabic-speaking person gave up the
worship of "Allah", they would have no God
to worship, since "Allah" is simply the
Arabic word for God!
Before we conclude, however, we would like to ask our readers
to ask themselves what they think the reasons are behind all
of these lies? If Islam was just some false religion that
didn't make any sense, would so many people, from Western
scholars to Christian missionaries, have to tell so many lies
about it? The reason is that the Ultimate Truth of Islam
stands on solid ground and its unshakable belief in the Unity
of God is above reproach. Due to this, Christians can't
criticize its doctrines directly, but instead make up things
about Islam that aren't true so that people lose the desire
to learn more. If Muslims were able to present Islam in the
proper way to people in the West, it surely might make many
people reconsider and re-evaluate their own beliefs. It is
quite likely that Christians, when they find out that there
is a universal religion in the world that teaches people to
worship and love God, while also practicing Pure Monotheism,
would at least feel that they should re-examine the basis for
their own beliefs and doctrines.
