Why Allah is the Unique Name of Islam's entity of worship?

[Mosacked]

So after this same silliness is shot down in the “Malaysian Churches” thread, you give it its own thread?

Anyway, I have to agree with Kadaveri here, as the linguistically-valid opinions would first consider cognates in related (Semitic) languages to look for a common root. As is written in the link I posted in the “Malaysian Churches” thread, it comes down to common roots:

This is borne out by looking at Aramaic/Syriac forms, which are Alaha or Aloho (depending on dialect). Do you also want to argue that the Syriac-speaking Christians are also worshiping a false deity? That is the height of insanity. JESUS CHRIST, THE SAVIOR HIMSELF spoke Aramaic, and He called out on the cross “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabatchthani?” This “Eloi” is Aramaic for “My God” (the full phrase is “My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?”). It is the Aramaic cognate with “Allah”, coming from the same '-L-H root (I don’t know enough about Aramaic to know why the h is not present in this case, but I would guess perhaps Aramaic is closer to the proto-Semitic root, in which the final -ah is apparently not stable; see here)

Stop slandering the Savior of all mankind with your anti-Semitic invective.

Whatever you typed here is a bunch of incoherent absrudity. Theres nothing wrong with aramaic. The problem starts when u jumpstart your argument with warped reasonings and try to connect to something that has nothing to do with u. Arabic is not Aramaic. And arabic is developed FOR islam. The only slanderous liar is in 1 John 2:22. And it clearly refers to islam.

1 John 2:22 - Who is the Liar? He is the Antichrist who denies the Father (God) and the Son (Jesus).

 

[Mosacked]

You misunderstand Kadaveri’s point. “Allah” is God with a capital “G”, as we would capitalize it in English when talking about God. “Illah” is god with a lowercase “g”, as we might write it when talking a particular god of a pantheon. It has nothing to do with capitalization in Arabic, as such a thing does not exist.

Firstly we have already rightly shown that allah is NOT god. Neither physically, nor literally.

Secondly, if the first instance cannot be proven, then the 2nd cannot even be valid argument since it is not the word then there is no argument on its application.

Take a look at this, IF YOU EVEN BOTHER:

arabbible.com/t-Allah.aspx

And if I may quote "The fact remains that there is no controversy whatsoever about what Islam’s deity is named. “Allah” is his proper name, the name that he calls himself, and expects others to call him. If someone would like to contest this claim, let him consider the words of Edward William Lane, the sole author of the Arabic-English Lexicon. This eight-volume authoritative series not only took thirty years to compile, but is said to far surpass every lexicon ever produced in any language. Concerning the word “Allah”, Lane says that according to the most correct opinions of Arab grammarians, which are more than thirty in number, Allah “is a proper name”. Also, Abdul Mannan Omar, the editor of the Encyclopedia of Islam, and translator of the Qur’an into English, says directly that Allah “is not a common noun” and, like Lane, declares it to be a “proper name” (The Dictionary of the Qur’an p.28, 29).

Christians need to ask themselves. Why does this entity which refers to itself using a UNIQUE NAME want to equate that NAME to God?

.

 

[dzheremi]

Theres nothing wrong with aramaic. The problem starts when u jumpstart your argument with warped reasonings and try to connect to something that has nothing to do with u. Arabic is not Aramaic. And arabic is developed FOR islam. The only slanderous liar is in 1 John 2:22. And it clearly refers to islam.

What do you mean when you write that “Arabic is developed FOR Islam”? You know that Arabic is first attested to circa 5th century BC, and Islam started roughly 1,000 years later? So I’m not quite sure what you mean. If you mean that certain concepts or terms in Arabic were redefined or coined after the rise of Islam, sure, that’s true, but so what? The same thing happened with Christianity, as happened as well with Judaism, Zoroastrianism, etc. That’s nothing unique to Islam.

If you mean that in a technical sense, you’re also right, but it doesn’t mean anything. Certain features of Arabic writing have been introduced with the aim of aiding or propagating Islam, such at the harakat (diacritics that provide short vowel pronunciation for the otherwise-unvoweled Arabic script, obviously very important with the spread of Islam to non-Arabic speaking regions). Again, this does not mean anything, because all people benefited from this invention, no matter who came up with it or why. If you read an Arabic Bible, it will be fully voweled as well.

Anyway…there are lots of things that Islam did to and for the Arabic language. I don’t think it’s a very fruitful means through which you can make an argument against Islam, though. It is true, as far as I can tell, that the Qur’an is the first major piece of literature to be written in Arabic, and as such it really makes sense that many “advances” (for lack of a better way to put it) would be tied to it, whether we’re talking about linguistics, military conquests, or anything else.

So I’m afraid I’m still not seeing what the issue is for you with Arabic. Please don’t buy into the Islamic narrative of the Middle East that ties everything to Islam. Arabic is the liturgical language of Islam, but also for millions of Arab Christians and Jews across the world, none of whom seem to have the issues with it that you have. It can express the same theology as any other tongue, and that is what is important regarding religion.

 

[dzheremi]

I’ve been through all your claims in the “Malaysian Churches” thread. Go read my reply there. I’m not going to rehash it all here. Bring something new instead of posting the same old tired material, please.

 

[Mosacked]

What do you mean when you write that “Arabic is developed FOR Islam”? You know that Arabic is first attested to circa 5th century BC, and Islam started roughly 1,000 years later? So I’m not quite sure what you mean. If you mean that certain concepts or terms in Arabic were redefined or coined after the rise of Islam, sure, that’s true, but so what? The same thing happened with Christianity, as happened as well with Judaism, Zoroastrianism, etc. That’s nothing unique to Islam.

If you mean that in a technical sense, you’re also right, but it doesn’t mean anything. Certain features of Arabic writing have been introduced with the aim of aiding or propagating Islam, such at the harakat (diacritics that provide short vowel pronunciation for the otherwise-unvoweled Arabic script, obviously very important with the spread of Islam to non-Arabic speaking regions). Again, this does not mean anything, because all people benefited from this invention, no matter who came up with it or why. If you read an Arabic Bible, it will be fully voweled as well.

Anyway…there are lots of things that Islam did to and for the Arabic language. I don’t think it’s a very fruitful means through which you can make an argument against Islam, though. It is true, as far as I can tell, that the Qur’an is the first major piece of literature to be written in Arabic, and as such it really makes sense that many “advances” (for lack of a better way to put it) would be tied to it, whether we’re talking about linguistics, military conquests, or anything else.

So I’m afraid I’m still not seeing what the issue is for you with Arabic. Please don’t buy into the Islamic narrative of the Middle East that ties everything to Islam. Arabic is the liturgical language of Islam, but also for millions of Arab Christians and Jews across the world, none of whom seem to have the issues with it that you have. It can express the same theology as any other tongue, and that is what is important regarding religion.

Just a hint…if its not already obvious you have been swirling around the fact that the quran declares ‘allah’ as a name. Unless you are telling us the quran is corrupted.

.

 

[Mosacked]

I’ve been through all your claims in the “Malaysian Churches” thread. Go read my reply there. I’m not going to rehash it all here. Bring something new instead of posting the same old tired material, please.

I didn’t post much in that thread. And if you have nothing to say…I’d be glad to speak to the others, don’t bother to rehash something out of nothing.

 

[Mosacked]

For the record, there were Christians in Arabia in Muhammed’s time. Even more, there were heretics there as well.

By the time Muhammed set foot on the earth, Arabic speaking Christians were praying to God.

Ralph, do not join in the ignorance. Muslims KNOW allah is a name. Yet some muslims are shameless enough to deny this in their attempt to equate ‘allah’ synonymously with the noun – ‘god’.

See
في البدء كان الكلمة والكلمة كان عند الله وكان الكلمة الله
John 1:1 en arch hn o logoV kai o logoV hn proV ton qeon kai qeoV hn o logoV

How many times does the word ‘allah’ appears in the above verse?

If you say twice, it means there is no difference between islam’s allah and the god of the others, but this is NOT what the above verse means. The above verse seeks to differentiate between ‘gods’.

If you say once, it means ‘allah’ is differentiated from the word ‘god’.

The conclusion is clear. What is extremely obvious is the name allah is a distinct word and not the literal word for God. Muslims will argue to their benefit everytime depending on the situation. They will argue and say allah is a unique name when they want to declare their faith as GREATER, BUT they will also argue that allah is a regular noun when they want to equate their entity of worship to the literal word of ‘god’.

This is the faith of the ancient serpent. If it were so easy to catch, it wouldn’t be, that many would be deceived.

muslimsopenyoureyes.blogspot.com
.

 

[dzheremi]

Just a hint…if its not already obvious you have been swirling around the fact that the quran declares ‘allah’ as a name. Unless you are telling us the quran is corrupted.
.

No I haven’t been, I just don’t understand how that makes any sort of point. Anyway, here it is in surah Al-Ikhlas, if it helps you sleep at night:

Arabic:
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ ١
اللَّهُ الصَّمَدُ ٢
لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ ٣
وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُ كُفُوًا أَحَدٌ ٤

Transliteration:
Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem
1 Qul huwa Allahu ahad
2 Allahu alssamad
3 Lam yalid walam yoolad
4 Walam yakun lahu kufuwan ahad

The relevant part has been bolded for you in the transliteration. “Qul huwa Allahu” means “say he is Allah”. The full surah translates as:

1. Say: He is Allah, the One and Only;
2. Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
3. He begetteth not, nor is He begotten;
4. And there is none like unto Him.

 

[ralphinal]

And they referred to god using the regular word ilah. Before islam, there was no arabic. Whatever they spoke was unofficial dialect. Arabic came for and from islam.

Can you provide a non-biased source for this?

Ralph, do not join in the ignorance. Muslims KNOW allah is a name. Yet some muslims are shameless enough to deny this in their attempt to equate ‘allah’ synonymously with the noun – ‘god’.

See
في البدء كان الكلمة والكلمة كان عند الله وكان الكلمة الله
John 1:1 en arch hn o logoV kai o logoV hn proV ton qeon kai qeoV hn o logoV

How many times does the word ‘allah’ appears in the above verse?

If you say twice, it means there is no difference between islam’s allah and the god of the others, but this is NOT what the above verse means. The above verse seeks to differentiate between ‘gods’.

If you say once, it means ‘allah’ is differentiated from the word ‘god’.

The conclusion is clear. What is extremely obvious is the name allah is a distinct word and not the literal word for God. Muslims will argue to their benefit everytime depending on the situation. They will argue and say allah is a unique name when they want to declare their faith as GREATER, BUT they will also argue that allah is a regular noun when they want to equate their entity of worship to the literal word of ‘god’.

This is the faith of the ancient serpent. If it were so easy to catch, it wouldn’t be, that many would be deceived.

muslimsopenyoureyes.blogspot.com
.

I I have seen what you are talking about. I do wonder though if Arabic might be a little strange in how words are formed. It seems so to me

 

[dzheremi]

The trouble, Ralph, is that the verse itself does not match Mosacked’s analysis of it. It does not “try to differentiate between gods”, because it is not dealing with the gods of pagans or anything like that. It is a rather straight-forward translation of a verse that everybody knows in English…in fact, it is so straight-forward that I, with my one year of Arabic education, can break it down word for word, so that you (and especially Mosacked) can hopefully see that there’s nothing funny going on:

في = in
البدء= the beginning
كان = was
الكلمة = the word
و = and
الكلمة = the word
كان = was
عند = with
الله = God
و= and
كان= was
الكلمة = the word
الله= God

Or, in translation with proper English syntax, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God” (John 1:1). One of the most famous Bible verses ever. No funny business.

What this is all supposed to prove, I don’t quite understand.

 

[ralphinal]

The trouble, Ralph, is that the verse itself does not match Mosacked’s analysis of it. It does not “try to differentiate between gods”, because it is not dealing with the gods of pagans or anything like that. It is a rather straight-forward translation of a verse that everybody knows in English…in fact, it is so straight-forward that I, with my one year of Arabic education, can break it down word for word, so that you (and especially Mosacked) can hopefully see that there’s nothing funny going on:

في = in
البدء= the beginning
كان = was
الكلمة = the word
و = and
الكلمة = the word
كان = was
عند = with
الله = God
و= and
كان= was
الكلمة = the word
الله= God

Or, in translation with proper English syntax, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God” (John 1:1). One of the most famous Bible verses ever. No funny business.

What this is all supposed to prove, I don’t quite understand.

Any validity to the claim that there was no Arabic before the Quran? I know that post-Quran, the rules of syntax are based on it, but the language itself?

 

[dzheremi]

Any validity to the claim that there was no Arabic before the Quran? I know that post-Quran, the rules of syntax are based on it, but the language itself?

None at all, my friend. I refuted this particular claim in response to another one of Mosacked’s wacky assertions the other day. Arabic has been attested to since c.5th century BC, which as I’m sure you realize is long before Islam was ever conceived of. The source on this is “The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics” (mine is the 2nd edition, from 2005) by Peter Matthews. I’ll leave it up to you if you want to believe the former head of the linguistics department at Cambridge or…some guy on the internet who claims that Arabic was invented for Islam or something similarly silly.

As an aside: As far as I know (and I am certainly no scholar of Arabic, though I am focusing on Semitic linguistics during my graduate work), the rules of syntax did not specifically evolve according to the Qur’an (meaning that there is no “1-to-1” correspondence between what is written in the Qur’an and how Arabic evolved around the world, as nobody speaks the Quran’ic Arabic, and the variety of dialects is rather bewildering) . In fact, CAF user and native Arabic speaker “inJESUS” used to post some interesting questions regarding grammatical inconsistencies in the Qur’an, if I remember correctly. I wish I could find them now, but I’m not sure what to search for to bring them up.

 

[ralphinal]

None at all, my friend. I refuted this particular claim in response to another one of Mosacked’s wacky assertions the other day. Arabic has been attested to since c.5th century BC, which as I’m sure you realize is long before Islam was ever conceived of. The source on this is “The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics” (mine is the 2nd edition, from 2005) by Peter Matthews. I’ll leave it up to you if you want to believe the former head of the linguistics department at Cambridge or…some guy on the internet who claims that Arabic was invented for Islam or something similarly silly.

As an aside: As far as I know (and I am certainly no scholar of Arabic, though I am focusing on Semitic linguistics during my graduate work), the rules of syntax did not specifically evolve according to the Qur’an (meaning that there is no “1-to-1” correspondence between what is written in the Qur’an and how Arabic evolved around the world, as nobody speaks the Quran’ic Arabic, and the variety of dialects is rather bewildering) . In fact, CAF user and native Arabic speaker “inJESUS” used to post some interesting questions regarding grammatical inconsistencies in the Qur’an, if I remember correctly. I wish I could find them now, but I’m not sure what to search for to bring them up.

Actually, inJesus’s posts were the reasons I asked that. I recall him saying that there were grammatical errors in the Qur’an, but if you press a Muslim Arab on them, they will say that those are not errors. Kind of like those acts that Muhammed did that are sins for everyone else.

It seems like he said once that there were almost two rules of grammar in Arabic: one for those who were Arab speakers and one for those who wanted to defend the Qur’an

 

[Rachel_Malloy]

Please remember to stay on topic and remove personal insults from your posts prior to posting - thanks!

God bless

 

[Mosacked]

Any validity to the claim that there was no Arabic before the Quran? I know that post-Quran, the rules of syntax are based on it, but the language itself?

Correction Ralph, there was no official arabic. I mentioned it was a kind of dialect.

The official formation of Arabic was developed around the same time as the religion of islam.

Remember that the quran admits allah as a name. You can check this out easily. Since it started out as a name, then it cannot be a regular noun. Secondly, since there already exists a noun for the word and its even included in the name itself, then it is only logical to conclude that the name must therefore refer to something else besides the noun.

The God of Jews & Christians declared in the Torah that His ONE AND ONLY NAME for ALL generations is YAHWEH.

Call Him by any other name, and you’ll be invoking the devil.

muslimsopenyoureyes.blogspot.com

.

 

[dzheremi]

I have no idea what you mean by “official Arabic”, but again, it is the word of the head of the Linguistics department at Cambridge against your word, for which you have no valid sources. Feel free to believe anything you want about Islam, but don’t confuse that with facts about the history of the Arabic language. There were Arabic-speaking kingdoms like those of the Ghassanids and Lakhmids centuries prior to the founding of Islam. I suppose you could say they spoke a “dialect”, too, but then so does everyone. What the Qur’an and Islam did do was to elevate the Quraishi dialect of Arabic (that Muhammad and the rest of his tribe spoke) to a prestigious place, for obvious reasons. Variant readings of the Qur’an that arose as Arabic spread to previously Syriac, Coptic, Tamazight or other linguistic areas were a big reason for the standardization of the Qur’an in the form it exists today. Islam brought Arabic out of the Arabian peninsula proper, but it existed long before Muhammad was even a gleam in his daddy’s eye.

 

[Mosacked]

I have no idea what you mean by “official Arabic”, but again, it is the word of the head of the Linguistics department at Cambridge against your word, for which you have no valid sources. Feel free to believe anything you want about Islam, but don’t confuse that with facts about the history of the Arabic language. There were Arabic-speaking kingdoms like those of the Ghassanids and Lakhmids centuries prior to the founding of Islam. I suppose you could say they spoke a “dialect”, too, but then so does everyone. What the Qur’an and Islam did do was to elevate the Quraishi dialect of Arabic (that Muhammad and the rest of his tribe spoke) to a prestigious place, for obvious reasons. Variant readings of the Qur’an that arose as Arabic spread to previously Syriac, Coptic, Tamazight or other linguistic areas were a big reason for the standardization of the Qur’an in the form it exists today. Islam brought Arabic out of the Arabian peninsula proper, but it existed long before Muhammad was even a gleam in his daddy’s eye.

dzheremi, ignorance does not equal to right of argument.

Feel free to accuse falsely, you’re only misleading those who are to be misled. What is fact is this. Before islam, there was NO officially written form of arabic. Even the kids know this.

Check this out:

indiana.edu/~arabic/arabic_history.htm

Arabic was designed FOR islam, especially the written form. And certainly, anyone who worships the God of the Jews and Christians will reject allah.

muslimsopenyoureyes.blogspot.com

.

 

[dzheremi]

Uh…well then what DOES give me a right to argue for this position? A college degree in linguistics? Cos I have one of those, and it doesn’t even take one to understand what is (and isn’t!) written in the link you provided, if you aren’t reading it with an eye towards supporting your own untenable position. For instance:

The rise of Arabic to the status of a major world language is inextricably intertwined with the rise of Islam as a major world religion. Before the appearance of Islam, Arabic was a minor member of the southern branch of the Semitic language family, used by a small number of largely nomadic tribes in the Arabian peninsula, with an extremely poorly documented textual history.

This means that prior to the rise of Islam on the world stage Arabic was a much less important language in terms of its distribution throughout the world or the prestige attached to it. Islam boosted both of these dimensions considerably, but it did not in any way “design” or make “official” the Arabic language in any way beyond establishing it as the language of the Islamic religion.

Within a hundred years after the death (in 632 C.E.1) of Muhammad , the prophet entrusted by God to deliver the Islamic message, Arabic had become the official language of a world empire whose boundaries stretched from the Oxus River in Central Asia to the Atlantic Ocean, and had even moved northward into the Iberian Peninsula of Europe.

Again, Arabic became the language of a world empire with the expansion of Islam, no doubt, but so did Assyrian with the expansion of the Assyrian empire, Russian with the expansion of the Russian (and later Soviet) empire, Latin with the Roman empire, etc. This is how empires work. The Islamic empire was no different.

 

[Charles_R]

As far as I can tell the word Allah predates Islam. Or put it in another way, the Islamic title for God or the Islamic name for God which is “Allah” is a variant of the Hebrew Elohim or Eloha. The Jews and the Arabs used it long before the advent of Islam. It is strange to claim that it an Islamic word, unique to that religion.

plim.org/1Allah.html

 

[Mosacked]

Uh…well then what DOES give me a right to argue for this position? A college degree in linguistics? Cos I have one of those, and it doesn’t even take one to understand what is (and isn’t!) written in the link you provided, if you aren’t reading it with an eye towards supporting your own untenable position. For instance:

This means that prior to the rise of Islam on the world stage Arabic was a much less important language in terms of its distribution throughout the world or the prestige attached to it. Islam boosted both of these dimensions considerably, but it did not in any way “design” or make “official” the Arabic language in any way beyond establishing it as the language of the Islamic religion.

Again, Arabic became the language of a world empire with the expansion of Islam, no doubt, but so did Assyrian with the expansion of the Assyrian empire, Russian with the expansion of the Russian (and later Soviet) empire, Latin with the Roman empire, etc. This is how empires work. The Islamic empire was no different.

You have not been reading. I said there exists a dialect, of which nobody knows of except the quarish people. From the looks of it, you need a degree in logic, not linguistics and I’m not arguing with you on how empires work.

I Quote - “Only in the mid-seventh century do we begin to have more than isolated bits and pieces of epigraphic evidence for its (arabic) existence, and by this time the language had become the preferred medium of communication for a growing empire, as well as a dynamic and new religion.”

“This has important implications for the study of Arabic literature–at least once it becomes a written tradition, with the revelation of the Qur’an”

I don’t need to explain to you what is written above. It says very clearly that the written form was ONLY revealed with the emergence of the Quran.