Who is Allah?

A brief examination into the Evangelical Zionist Christian claim that Allah is a
Moon God of the Arabs and not the same deity worshipped by the great prophets of
the Old Testament and the prophet Jesus (peace be upon them all).

Compiled and written by Aboo ‘Imraan ‘Abdus-Saboor bin Tomas Maldonado al-Mekseekee

Today’s evangelical Zionists Christians have tried in error to convince many that the
Supreme Being “Allah” worshipped by billions of Muslims worldwide is not the same
Supreme Being that the great prophets of the Old Testament such as Noah, Abraham,
Moses, David, and Jesus worshipped.

The following are some statements that can be referenced on the Internet and in many
Christian books available in public libraries and churches throughout the Western
world. From the strangest and most bizarre of these statements we find the likes of:

"…And I will tell you Allah is not Jehovah either. Jehovah's not going to turn you into
a terrorist that'll try to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands
of people." Pastor Jerry Vines Pastor of First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida and former
President of Southern Baptist Convention.

“The Muslim's claim that Allah is the God of the Bible and that Islam arose from the
religion of the prophets and apostles is refuted by solid, overwhelming archeological
evidence. Islam is nothing more than a revival of the ancient Moon-god cult. It has
taken the symbols, the rites, the ceremonies, and even the name of its god from the
ancient pagan religion of the Moon-god. As such, it is sheer idolatry and must be
rejected by all those who follow the Torah and Gospel.” Yeshua Communications Network

“Allah has definite characteristics: he is not a father, has no son, is not a triune being
but a single (and thus incomplete) entity who destroys rather than saves sinners,
has compassion on only the righteous, does not deal in grace but only rewards good
deeds, has no way to redeem the lost sinners, etc. Allah is not the God of the Bible.”
The Berean Call Ministry of Bend Oregon

“Throughout the Qur'an we read that Allah loves those who do good and does not
love those who do evil. Allah is not at all like the Christian God.” James Watkins
Christian Minister

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“The problem is, Allah is NOT Jehovah” Taken from the article: The Bible Speaks to Muslims

“Many believe the word “Allah” was derived from the mid- eastern word “el” which
in Ugaritic, Caananite and Hebrew can mean a true or false God. This is not the case,
“The source of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common
name meaning “God” (or a “god”), and the Muslim must use another word or form if
he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity.” Encyclopedia of Religion
and Ethics (ed. Hastings), I: 326

“He went on CNN and he laughed at us, and he said, ‘They’ll never get me because
Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me.’ Well, you know what? I knew that my
God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”
Lieutenant General William Boykin former United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for
Intelligence during a speech about hunting down Somali Warlord Osman Atto

The information that you the noble reader will be presented is meant to provide the facts
surrounding the use of the Divine Name “Allah”. I hope and pray that you will read it
with sincerity, open-mindedness, as well as with an open heart to the truth.

{Say (O Muhammad): O people of the Book come to a word that is just between us and
you, that we worship none but Allah, and that we associate no partners with Him, and
that none of us shall take others as lords besides Allah. Then, if we turn away, say: Bear
witness that we are Muslims.} Soorah Aali Imraan: 64

The Linguistic meaning of “Elahh”

In The New Strong's Expanded Dictionary of Bible Words: Hebrew and Greek
Dictionaries (Hardcover) on page 326 regarding the following name of God found in the
Old Testament there it is mentioned:

‫ֱאלָּה‬
“Elahh (Aramaic), means “god”. This Aramaic word is the equivalent of the Hebrew
Eloahh. It is a general term for “God” in the Aramaic passages of the Old Testament, and
it is a cognate form of the word Allah, the designation of deity used by the Arabs.”

“Cognate” here is just a fancy way of saying related in origin, as certain words in
genetically related languages descended from the same ancestral root; for example,
English name and Latin nōmen from Indo-European.1

1
As defined on www.dictionary.com..

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The Aramaic and Hebrew root of this word is ‫“ א‬Aleph” ‫“ ל‬Lamed” and ‫“ ה‬Heh” which
corresponds exactly with its sister language Arabic root ‫ إ‬which consists of ‫“ إ‬Alif” ‫ل‬
“Laam” and  “Haa”.

The word is widely used in the Book of Ezra and Daniel and other portions of the Old
Testament that are written in Aramaic. On each occasion the reference is to the “God” of
the Jewish people. When “Elahh” is used by the Prophet Ezra himself he specifies the
“God” of the Jews. So we find in the text of Ezra 5:1 and 6:14 the:

‫ִׂש ָר ֵאל‬
ְ ‫ֱאלָּה י‬
Elahh (God) of Israel

Also in the text of Ezra 5:12 and 6:3 the:

‫ֱאלָּה ְׁש ַמּיָא‬

Elahh (God) of Heaven

When “Elahh” is used in the book of Daniel it is in reference to the living “God” whom he
worshipped.

The Linguistic meaning of “Eloahh”

In The New Strong's Expanded Dictionary of Bible Words: Hebrew and Greek
Dictionaries (Hardcover) on page 327 regarding the following name of God found in the
Old Testament there it is mentioned:

‫אֱלֹו ַּה‬
“Eloahh” means “god”. This Hebrew name for “God” corresponds to the Aramaic “Elahh”.
The origin of the term is unknown, and it is used rarely in Scripture as a designation of
deity…Certain scholars regard the word as being a singular version of the common plural
form ‫“ אֱלֹהִים‬Elohim”, a plural of majesty. Eloahh is commonly thought to be vocative in
nature, meaning “O God”. But it is not clear why a special form for the vocative in an
address to God should be needed, since the plural Elohim is frequently translated as a
vocative when the worshipper is speaking directly to God2, as in Ps 79:1. There is an
obvious general linguistic relationship between Eloahh and Elohim, but determining its
precise nature is difficult.”
2
It bares the same meaning as the Arabic “Allahumma” where the Meem attached to the end of the divine
name indicates a vocation to the Supreme Being.

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The Hebrew grammarian Edward Horowitz mentions in his book “How the Hebrew
Language Grew” on page 82 that most Islamic religious terms come from words also
commonly found in the Hebrew language then states on page 99 that:

“Allah is equivalent to ‫( אֱלֹו ַּה‬Eloahh)”!

The Linguistic meaning of “Allah”

The Christian European Orientalist Edward William Lane states in his Arabic – English
Lexicon volume 1 page 83:

“ ‫ إ‬is the same as the Hebrew ‫ אֱלֹו ַּה‬and the Chaldee ‫ ; ֱאלָּה‬and is of uncertain
derivation: according to some. It is originally ٌ;َ ‫ ِو‬, like as ٌ‫ إ@َ?ح‬is originally ٌ‫ ; ِو@َ?ح‬meaning
that mankind yearns towards him who is thus called, [seeking protection or aid,] in their
wants, and humble themselves to him in their afflictions, like as every infant yearns
towards its mother.”

And on the same page says about the divine name “Allah”:

“A‫ ا‬written with the disjunctive Alif meaning God, the only true god, according to the
most correct of the opinions respecting it, which are twenty in number or more than
thirty, is a proper name, applied to the Being who exists necessarily by Himself,
comprising all of the attributes of perfection; a proper name denoting the true god,
comprising all the excellent divine names; a unity comprising all the essences of existing
things; the ‫ ال‬being inseparable from it: not derived.”

The only difference in these names is the pronunciation of the divine name; however the
root letters as previously mentioned are equivalent and convey the same meaning. It
should also be noted that both Arabic and Hebrew have different pronunciations of their
respective definite articles.

Words from a Yemeni Jew regarding the Divine Name “Allah”

A certain Yemeni Jew has made a small video where he addressed the Arabic meaning of
the divine name “Allah” and its equivalency to the Hebrew divine name Eloah. He states:

“As a Yemenite Jew I can tell you that the name itself is not the “devil” it is not a pagan
idol it is not the Moon God as evangelical Christians have been propagating for decades
this is a very, very, sick cult by the way and their idiocy is quite redundant I mean I can’t
even imagine a people would even teach themselves these things and flatter themselves
with these things and at the same time claim to support Israel when in actuality in Israel
we say “Allah” we say “Yallah” we say these terms these phrases are understandable to
our understanding that they are not in any way shape or form to what evangelical
Christians say is basically the devil, no! We understand what the name Allah means and
what it signifies...”

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He then goes on to refute the claim of those who say that Allah in Hebrew means ‘curse’
and those who say that Allah is a ‘moon god’. You can reference the entire video on you
tube at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jno7fJMB13A&feature=related

Conclusion

Therefore based on the linguistics of the Semitic languages and the textual evidence
(based on both the Old Testament and the Quran) presented here we can conclude the
following:

• Elahh (Aramaic), Eloahh (Hebrew), and Allah (Arabic) are all related linguistically
since they are all from the same Semitic family of languages.

• While the complete meaning of Elahh (Aramaic) and Eloahh (Hebrew) is not
known to Hebrew grammarians (according to their cited sources not my claim)
the ancient meaning of Allah (Arabic) has been preserved by the Arabs and the
Muslim Arab language grammarians and is still the main name of God used today
by the Muslim people as well as by Christians of the Muslim lands.

• Elahh (Aramaic), Eloahh (Hebrew), and Allah (Arabic) is in fact the same God of
both Jews and Muslims while the Christians made Prophet Jesus, peace be upon
him, a God and worship him despite the corrupted biblical evidence that states
he, himself, used to pray and call upon Elahh in his own native Aramaic tongue.
{See the B’rit Chadasah (the translated Hebrew version of the New Testament)
Matthew 26:39.}

• Elahh (Aramaic), Eloahh (Hebrew), and Allah (Arabic) were worshipped by all of
the Semitic prophets from Noah to Abraham to Moses to David to Solomon to
Ezra to Daniel to Jesus to Muhammad peace be upon them all. With the
exception of Prophets Muhammad and Ishmael all of the Prophets of Banu-
Israaeel (the Children of Israel) used the Hebrew divine names in prayer and
urged their disciples to call upon God with them. Prophet Ishmael spoke both
Hebrew (the language of his father Prophet Abraham ), Egyptian (the language
of his mother Hagar), and Arabic (which he learned from the Arab tribe of Jurhum
that he married into in Makkah, reference Saheeh Bukhaaree 1/475, 476 for this
narration). Prophet Muhammad spoke pure Arabic so both prophets called
upon the divine name used by the Arabs.

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• Allah and Jehovah are the same but it is the Christians who choose out of
stubbornness not to acknowledge this despite the linguistic and biblical
evidences brought before them.

• If we were to acknowledge the claim of the Evangelical Zionist Christians that

Allah is a “Moon God” based on mere misinterpretation of archeological evidence
then the symbols, rites, and ceremonies of the religion of Judaism will also have to
be considered steeped in an ancient pagan religion in itself. In addition to this the
usage of God’s Hebrew names Elahh, Eloahh, El, Yehovah, Yah and Adonai found in
the Old Testament would all be considered names derived from pagan gods based
on the ancient pagan literature found from the people in those areas. In fact this is
a claim that Atheists such as William Hardwood in his Mythology’s Last Gods have
been using to try and prove the non-existence of God! We seek refuge in Allah
from his ignorance.