The Name Allah

[meedo]

can a English say the shahada as follows " i witness there is no deity except Hashem and Muhammad is his messenger?

if yes, then i fully understand what you are saying. If not, why not?

if he means by hashem the God of Abraham.

 

[Eucharisted]

Perhaps I didn’t communicate myself well enough.

I am not saying that the Name Allah is newer than the Name God, nor am I saying that it is improper, but rather, I am saying, why not drop using the Name Allah in non-Arabic languages? For example, in English you call God God, and in Japanese you call God Tentei, and in Latin you call God Deus, and in Arabic you call God Alllah. It is the same Name, just a different language. But to call God Allah in every language is very silly, and an error on Mohammed’s early followers, because the Name itself dose not universalize men and women, nor tongues, nor dose it act as a sign of a Muslim; rather, it makes God out to be a pagan god, and I think God should be honored more than a pagan god, for He is not a god among many but is the only living God, the true God.

 

[inJESUS]

if he means by hashem the God of Abraham.

good then. I will only ask for a reference if you can.

 

[ralphinal]

If you look carefully into your post you will see that youa re actually conrtradicting yourself

No I am not. You are forcing words to mean things that they do not mean.

1st You say that Titles and deescritipns and not proper names.

Correct

2nd You take what god has described himself to be ( HE IS WHO HE IS ) and forgetting what the meaning that underlies it and then forming it into a noun just like ‘‘peter’’ for example.

What God is trying to say here is that HE IS WHO HE IS ( basicly telling people that the specifc name doesnt matter , what matter is that he is their God and his nature or specific noun is not their concern)

Incorrect. IN the time that the Bible was written, to know the name of someone was understood to have a level of power over them. The fact that God allowed this conversation was proof that he desired a relationship with man. I AM does not mean that his name does not matter. It means that he has always and will always exist. He is unchanging and outside of creation

To prove my point take the name of God

‘‘Ha Shem’’ , meaning ‘‘the name’’. This is used as a noun for God even though actually it refers to a name that is not known . Another proof that eventhe noun that is used as a name of God is actually not his name but a reference to a holy diety.

It basicly shows that the exact exact noun of this diety was not of supreme importance such as the attributes that it actually bears and the obligations and commandements that it will levy on its creations .

You really need to talk to some Jews. Hashem is used not because they do not know his name, but because they hold it in such regard that they will not use it lest they show disrespect. It is like calling the king “Your Majesty” or a judge “Your honor,” but more so. Talk to any orthodox Jew and they will explain it to you.

You still cannot tell me why God told Moses that this was his name and would always be his name and then Muhammed would not USE IT ONCE.

DId God LIE TO MOSES?

 

[dzheremi]

First : i am an arab .

What is your point? inJESUS is also a native Arabic speaker, and you will still argue with him even though he and I are essentially making the same point (I think? Please correct me if I am misreading your posts, inJESUS), which has nothing to do with Arabic morphology. I am around Arabs all day pretty much every day (there is a large Saudi population here). If I have any question about Arabic language, I can ask them, or ask any of the professors in the local university, including some who are native speakers as well (from Palestine, from North Africa, etc).

The word for

The God = AL ELAH

To this day, at the time of Muhammed and even before you can refer dieties as AL ELAH. If you are talking about a specific diety.

''AL ELAH ‘’ are 2 words . ALLAH is one word.

If arab Christians and jews want to refer to ‘‘THE GOD’’ They can say Al ELAH and not ALLAH.
If they want to refer to the God of Abraham they use ALLAH.

The problem with your logic is that you are assuming that the God of Abraham is “Allah” (proper name), when God actually told Moses that He is that He is, without mentioning “Allah” as a proper name (or even any Hebrew cognate; does "Ehyeh asher ehyeh" look anything like “Allah” to you?). My point is that you can assume them to be the same God, and for the Arabs He will be called “Allah” because that is the word for this concept among Arabic speakers, but it doesn’t seem to be taken to be a proper name by the other communities who share the same term. It is an Islamic idea only, just as Islam also has “Isa” as the proper name for their version of Jesus, but the Arab Christians have “Yesua’a”. Would you then tell the Arab Christians that they cannot refer to Jesus but by the name “Isa”? Sure, you can request that (they will say “no”, surely), but it is arrogant of you to say that GOD requires it, when the Christians had this name before Islam ever came around to tell the rest of the world that Jesus is actually “Isa” only, and Isa has only the uniquely Islamic characteristics attributed to Him in the Qur’an (ex. that He is a prophet of Islam, subordinate to Muhammad by virtue of Muhammad’s perfect transmission of the Qur’an, which was not given to Jesus, etc).

 

[Sam_777]

If we translate the Hebrew word YHWH to Arabic, some possible translations would be:

YHWH = I AM = I AM WHO I AM = انا هوا انا =** انا الذى انا** = يهوا = انا مأنا

Maybe inJESUS & dzheremi can also propose some possible translations in Arabic.

 

[inJESUS]

No Dhzeremi, you point matches mine so i will not correct you and i will repeat it, if Allah is a word used for the concept of God to Arabs, so be it, but saying it is the proper name of God is false and it is not pre-Islamic Arabs who will determine God’s name just as it was not Moses who called God by I AM who I AM.

Meedo adds that Allah as a name is not obligatory. I still need to see a proof for this claim.