Muslim

Allah

Allah (Arabic: الله‎ Allāh, IPA: [ʔalˤːɑːh] ( listen)) is the standard Arabic word for God.[1] The term is best known in the West for its use by Muslims as a reference to God in the context of Islam. It is also used by Arabic speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Mizrahi Jews, Bahá'ís, Eastern Orthodox Christians and Eastern Catholic Christians, in reference to God.[1][2][3]
The Arabic components that build-up the word "Allah"

The term Allāh is derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- "the" and ʼilāh "deity, god" to al-lāh meaning "the [sole] deity, God" (ho theos monos).[4] Cognates of the name "Allāh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic.[3] 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.[5]

The name was previously used by pagan Meccans as a reference to the creator deity, possibly the supreme deity in pre-Islamic Arabia.[4][6] 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 which Islam thoroughly and resolutely did away with. In Islam, the name Allah is the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name. All other divine names are believed to refer back to Allah.[7] Allah is unique, the only Deity, creator of the universe and omnipotent.[1][2] Arab Christians today use terms such as Allāh al-ʼAb ( الله الأب, "God the Father") to distinguish their usage from Muslim usage.[8] There are both similarities and differences between the concept of God as portrayed in the Qur'an and the Hebrew Bible.[9] It has also been applied to certain living human beings as personifications of the term and concept.[10][11]

Unicode has a codepoint reserved for Allāh, ﷲ = U+FDF2.[12] Many Arabic type fonts feature special ligatures for Allah.[13]
Contents
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* 1 Usage in Arabic
o 1.1 Pre-Islamic Arabia
o 1.2 Islam
o 1.3 Christianity
o 1.4 Judaism
* 2 As a loanword
o 2.1 English and other European languages
o 2.2 Malaysian and Indonesian language
o 2.3 In other scripts and languages
* 3 Typography
o 3.1 Unicode
* 4 Notes
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links

Usage in Arabic
Pre-Islamic Arabia

In pre-Islamic Arabia, Allah was used by Meccans as a reference to the creator-god, possibly the supreme deity.[14]
Allah at Rohtas Fort Pakistan

Allah was not considered the sole divinity; however, Allah was considered the creator of the world and the giver of rain. The notion of the term may have been vague in the Meccan religion.[4] Allah was associated with companions, whom pre-Islamic Arabs considered as subordinate deities. Meccans held that a kind of kinship existed between Allah and the jinn.[15] Allah was thought to have had sons[16] and that the local deities of al-ʻUzzá, Manāt and al-Lāt were His daughters.[17] The Meccans possibly associated angels with Allah.[18][19] Allah was invoked in times of distress.[19][20] Muhammad's father's name was ‘Abdallāh meaning the “servant of Allāh.” or "the slave of Allāh"[19]
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,[21] and humble submission to His Will, Divine Ordinances and Commandments is the pivot of the Muslim faith.[1] "He is the only God, creator of the universe, and the judge of humankind."[1][2] "He is unique (wahid) and inherently one (ahad), all-merciful and omnipotent."[1] The Koran declares "the reality of Allah, His inaccessible mystery, His various names, and His actions on behalf of His creatures."[1]
Allah script outside Eski Cami (The Old Mosque) in Edirne, Turkey.

In Islamic tradition, there are 99 Names of God (al-asma al-husna lit. meaning: "The best names") each of which evoke a distinct characteristic of Allah.[2][22] All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name.[7] Among the 99 names of God, the most famous and most frequent of these names are "the Merciful" (al-rahman) and "the Compassionate" (al-rahim).[2][22]

Most Muslims use the untranslated Arabic phrase "insha' Allah" (meaning "God willing") after references to future events.[23] Muslim discursive piety encourages beginning things with the invocation of "bismillah"(meaning "In the name of God").[24]

There are certain phrases in praise of God that are favored by Muslims, including "Subhan-Allah" (Holiness be to God), "Alhamdulillah" (Praise be to God), "La-il-la-ha-illa-Allah" (There is no deity but God) and "Allāhu Akbar" (God is great) as a devotional exercise of remembering God (zikr).[25] In a Sufi practice known as zikr Allah (lit. remembrance of God), the Sufi repeats and contemplates on the name Allah or other divine names while controlling his or her breath.[26]

Some scholars[who?] have suggested that Muhammad 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.[21] 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.[21] 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.[27]

According to Francis Edwards Peters, "The Koran insists, Muslims believe, and historians affirm that Muhammad and his followers worship the same God as the Jews (29:46). The Koran's Allah is the same Creator God who covenanted with Abraham". Peters states that the Koran portrays Allah as both more powerful and more remote than Yahweh, and as a universal deity, unlike Yahweh who closely follows Israelites.[9]
Christianity

Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allah" to mean "God".[3] The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for 'God' than 'Allah'.[8] (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-ʼab (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 basm-Allah, and also created their own Trinitized basm-Allah as early as the eight century CE.[28] The Muslim basm-Allah reads: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." The Trinitized basm-Allah 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.[28]

According to Marshall Hodgson, it seems that in the pre-Islamic times, some Arab Christians made pilgrimage to the Kaaba, a pagan temple at that time, honoring Allah there as God the Creator.[29]
Judaism
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As a loanword
English and other European languages
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The history of the word "Allāh" in English was probably influenced by the study of comparative religion in 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 Muhammad (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. By this time Christians were also becoming accustomed to retaining the Hebrew term "Yahweh" untranslated (it was previously translated as 'the Lord').[30]

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 word literally means "God willing" (in the sense of "I hope so").[31]

Some Muslims leave the name "Allāh" untranslated in English.[32]
Malaysian and Indonesian language

Christians in Indonesia and Malaysia also use Allah to refer to God in the Malaysian language and Indonesian Language (both languages forms of the Malay language which is referred to as Bahasa Melayu).

Mainstream Bible translations in both languages use Allah as the translation of Hebrew Elohim (translated in English Bibles as "God").[33] This goes back to early translation work by Francis Xavier in the 16th century.[34][35]. 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".[36] 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[37][38]), which was printed in the Netherlands in 1629. Then he translated Mark which was published in 1638. [39][40]

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 has in turn appealed the court ruling, and the High Court has suspended implementation of its verdict until the appeal is heard.
In other scripts and languages

* Allah in other languages with Arabic script is spelled in the same way. This includes Urdu, Persian/Dari, Uyghur among others.
* Bengali: আল্লাহ Allah
* Bosnian: Allah
* Chinese: 阿拉 Ālā, 安拉 Ānlā; 真主 Zhēnzhǔ (semantic translation)
* Greek: Αλλάχ Allách, Θεός Theós (God)
* Hebrew: אללה Allah
* Hindi: अल्लाह Allāh
* Japanese: アラー Arā, アッラー Arrā, アッラーフ Arrāfu
* Maltese: Alla
* Korean: 알라 Alla
* Polish Allah, also archaic Allach or Ałłach
* Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian: Алла́х Allakh
* Serbian, Belarusian, Macedonian: Alah, Алах
* Spanish, Portuguese: Alá
* Thai: อัลลอฮ์ Anláw
* Punjabi (Gurmukhi): ਅੱਲਾਹ Allāh (archaic ਅਲਹੁ in Sikh scripture)

Typography

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,[41] 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.
* الاله : This reading would be Al-ʼilāh = "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. This character according to the official Unicode specification is a ligature of alif-lām-lām-shadda-(superscript alif)-hā (اللّٰه U+0627 U+0644 U+0644 U+0651 U+0670 U+0647).
An example of Allāh written in simple Arabic calligraphy.

There is, however some confusion arising from the fact that Arabic typography usually features a llāh glyph without the preceding alif, which only occurs phrase-initially (or with hamzatu l-waṣl آ in Qur'anic orthography). Consequently, the majority of Arabic Unicode fonts do not conform with the specification and have a glyph without the alif at this position (e.g. those provided by Linotype, the great majority of those licensed to or developed by Microsoft, those of Arabeyes.org, SIL's Lateef and the fonts of CRULP developed in Pakistan), while others have the prescribed form with alif (e.g. SIL's Scheherazade, Adobe Arabic distributed with the Middle-Eastern version of the Adobe Reader 7, Arial Unicode MS, and Arabic Typesetting, distributed with VOLT and with Microsoft Office Proofing Tools 2003).

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 (☫).
Notes

1. ^ a b c d e f g "Allah." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica
2. ^ a b c d e Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, Allah
3. ^ a b c Columbia Encyclopedia, Allah
4. ^ a b c L. Gardet, Allah, Encyclopaedia of Islam
5. ^ The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon - Entry for ʼlh
6. ^ Smith, Peter (2000). "prayer". A concise encyclopedia of the Bahá'í Faith. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. pp. 274–275. ISBN 1-85168-184-1.
7. ^ a b Murata, Sachiko (1992). The Tao of Islam : a sourcebook on gender relationships in Islamic thought. Albany NY USA: SUNY. ISBN 0791409147.
8. ^ 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 0-521-29135-6.
9. ^ a b F.E. Peters, Islam, p.4, Princeton University Press, 2003
10. ^ http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-nation-of-islam.htm Nation of Islam - personification of Allah as Detroit peddler W D Fard
11. ^ http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3290.shtml "A history of Clarence 13X and the Five Percenters", referring to Clarence Smith as Allah
12. ^ Unicode Standard 5.0, p.479,492
13. ^
* Arabic fonts and Mac OS X
* Programs for Arabic in Mac OS X
14. ^ See Qur'an 13:16 ; 29:61-63; 31:25; 39:38)
15. ^ See Qur'an 37:158)
16. ^ See Qur'an (6:100)
17. ^ See Qur'an (53:19-22 ; 16:57 ; 37:149)
18. ^ See Qur'an (53:26-27)
19. ^ a b c Gerhard Böwering, God and his Attributes, Encyclopedia of the Qur'an
20. ^ See Qur'an 6:109; 10:22; 16:38; 29:65)
21. ^ a b c Böwering, Gerhard, God and His Attributes, Encyclopaedia of the Qurʼān, Brill, 2007.
22. ^ a b Bentley, David (September 1999). The 99 Beautiful Names for God for All the People of the Book. William Carey Library. ISBN 0-87808-299-9.
23. ^ Gary S. Gregg, The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology, Oxford University Press, p.30
24. ^ Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Islamic Society in Practice, University Press of Florida, p.24
25. ^ M. Mukarram Ahmed, Muzaffar Husain Syed, Encyclopaedia of Islam,Anmol Publications PVT. LTD, p.144
26. ^ Carl W. Ernst, Bruce B. Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond, Macmillan, p.29
27. ^ Allah, Encyclopedia Britannica
28. ^ a b Thomas E. Burman, Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, Brill, 1994, p.103
29. ^ Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, University of Chicago Press, p.156
30. ^ William Montgomery Watt, Islam and Christianity today: A Contribution to Dialogue, Routledge, 1983, p.45
31. ^ Islam in Luce López Baralt, Spanish Literature: From the Middle Ages to the Present, Brill, 1992, p.25
32. ^ F. E. Peters, The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition, Princeton University Press, p.12
33. ^ Example: Usage of the word "Allah" from Matthew 22:32 in Indonesian bible versions (paralel view) as old as 1733
34. ^ The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society Sneddon, James M.; University of New South Wales Press; 2004
35. ^ The History of Christianity in India from the Commencement of the Christian Era: Hough, James; Adamant Media Corporation; 2001
36. ^ Justus Heurnius, Albert Ruyl, Caspar Wiltens. "Vocabularium ofte Woordenboeck nae ordre van den alphabeth, in 't Duytsch en Maleys". 1650:65
37. ^ Barton, John (2002-12). The Biblical World, Oxford, UK: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415275743.
38. ^ North, Eric McCoy; Eugene Albert Nida ((2nd Edition) 1972). The Book of a Thousand Tongues, London: United Bible Societies.
39. ^ (Indonesian) Biography of Ruyl
40. ^ Encyclopedia Brittanica: Albert Cornelius Ruyl
41. ^ "Zebed Inscription: A Pre-Islamic Trilingual Inscription In Greek, Syriac & Arabic From 512 CE". Islamic Awareness. March 17, 2005. http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/zebed.html.

See also
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Allah

* Ilah
* Names of God
* Tawhid
* Dhikr
* Termagant
* Five Pillars of Islam
* Kaaba
* Prophets of Islam

References

* The Unicode Consortium, Unicode Standard 5.0, Addison-Wesley, 2006, ISBN 0321480910, [1]

External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Allah
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Allah (category)

* Names of Allah with meaning on website, Flash, and Mobile phone Software.
* Concept of God (Allah) in Islam
* The Concept of Allāh according to the Qur'an by Abdul Mannan Omar
* Allah, the unique name of God

Typography

* Arabic fonts and Mac OS X
* Programs for Arabic in Mac OS X

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