What does allah mean

1. What does “Allah” mean?
By Abu Iman Abd ar-Rahman Robert Squires. © Muslim Answers
Some of the biggest misconceptions that many non-Muslims have about Islam have to do with the word
“Allah”. For various reasons, 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. Judaism,
Christianity and Islam all claim to be “Abrahamic Faiths”, and all of them are also classified as
“monotheistic”. However, Islam teaches 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. First of all, 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. This is because “Allah” is the only word in the Arabic language
equivalent to the English word “God” with a capital “G”. Additionally, the word “Allah” cannot be made
plural or given gender (i.e. masculine or feminine), which goes hand-in-hand with the Islamic concept of
God. 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. This is not unique to the word “Allah”, since many Muslims tend to use Arabic words when
discussing Islamic issues, regardless of the language which they speak. This is because the universal
teachings of Islam - even though they have been translated in every major language - have been
preserved in the Arabic language. 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”. This also holds true for the various Hebrew words for God, which are “El” and
“Elah”, and the plural form “Elohim”. The reason for these similarities is that Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic
are all Semitic languages with common origins. 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.

2. The Arabic word “Allah” presents no such difficulty or ambiguity, since it is only used for
Almighty God alone. Additionally, in English, the only difference between “god”, meaning a
false god, and “God”, meaning the One True God, is the capital “G”. In the 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 Truee God”.
More importantly, it should also be noted that the Arabic word “Allah” contains a deep
religious message due to its root meaning and origin. This is because it stems from the
Arabic verb ta’allaha (or alaha), which means “to be worshipped”. Thus in Arabic, the word
“Allah” means “The One who deserves all worship”. This, in a nutshell, is the Pure
Monotheistic message of Islam. You see, according to Islam, “monotheism” is much more
than simply believing in the existence of “only One God” - as seemingly opposed to two,
three or more. If one understands the root meaning of the word “Allah”, this point should
become clear. One should understand that Islam’s criticism of the other religions that claim
to be “monotheistic” is not because they are “polytheistic” in the classic sense, but
because they direct various forms of worship to other than Almighty God. We will discuss
the meaning of worship in Islam below, however, before moving on it should be noted that
many non-Muslims are unaware of the distinction between simply believing in the existence
of only One God and reserving all worship for Him alone.

3. Many Christians are painfully unaware of this point, and thus you often find them asking
how Muslims can accuse the followers of Jesus, peace be upon him, of being “polytheists”
when they were all “monotheistic Jews”. First of all, it should be clarified that the word
“polytheist” doesn’t really sound right in this context, since to many it implies simply
believing in the existence of more than one God. So in an Islamic context, “associators”,
“man-worshippers” or “creature worshippers” might be more accurate and appropriate
terms - especially since Christians believe Jesus to be both “100% God and 100% man”,
while still paying lip-service to God’s “Oneness”. However, as we’re previously touched
upon, what is really at the root of this problem is the fact that Christians - as well as the
members of other religions - don’t really know what “monotheism” means - especially in the
Islamic sense. All of the books, articles and papers that I’ve read which were written by
Christians invariably limit “monotheism” to believing in the existence of “One Sovereign
and Creator God”. Islam, however, teaches much more than this.
Suffice it to say that just because someone claims to be a “monotheistic” Jew, Christian or
Muslim, that doesn’t keep them from falling into corrupt beliefs and idolatrous practices.
Many people, including some Muslims, claim belief in “One God” even though they’ve fallen
into acts of idolatry. Certainly, many Protestants accuse Roman Catholics of idolatrous
practices in regards to the saints and the Virgin Mary. Likewise, the Greek Orthodox Church
is considered “idolatrous” by many other Christians because in much of their worship they
use icons. However, if you ask a Roman Catholic or a Greek Orthodox person if God is
“One”, they will invariably answer: “Yes!”. This lip-service, however, does not stop them
from being “creature worshipping” idolaters. The same goes for Hindus, who just consider
their gods to be “manifestations” or “incarnations” of the One Supreme God.

4. Everyone should be aware of the fact that throughout the long history of the “Abrahamic
Faiths”, there have people who, while believing in “One God”, have adopted beliefs and
practices that completely nullify their claim to “monotheism”. This is the Muslim view of
Christians. We’re well aware of the fact that they claim belief in “One God” with their lips,
but this doesn’t mean that they don’t nullify their claim in other ways. This is because many
people simply haven’t been taught everything that Pure Monotheism entails. From an
Islamic point of view, “monotheism” can be nullified in many ways. For example, simply
believing that it is permissible to rule by Western “liberal” and “democratic” laws in lieu of
the Divinely Revealed Law of Almighty God makes one a “polytheist”. Certainly, a person
who does such a thing, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, doesn’t ever believe that there
is another Almighty Creator and Sovereign Lord. However, for all practical purposes, such a
person has take another “god”, whether they choose to admit it or not. In this way they are
associating partners with Almighty God (Arabic: shirk), and thus become a “polytheist” in a
practical sense, regardless of their lip-service to “monotheism”. This holds true even if the
person doesn’t believe what they are doing is “worship”. For example, Roman Catholics
who pray to the Virgin Mary will staunchly deny that they are “worshipping” her. They
instead call it “adoration” or some other watered-down term. However, from an Islamic point
of view, what is worship if not this? Islam teaches that prayer and supplication are the
marrow of worship, so if one directs their prayers to an intermediary (even if the pray is
“ultimately” meant for God), then what is left of worship? Additionally, how can someone
who believes in Almighty God follow man-made laws instead of God’s Law, without
admitting that they’ve begun worshipping other than God? Do they know better than God?

5. Additionally, the Old Testament makes it perfectly clear that making a “graven image” of any
created thing (not to mention ones which are supposed to “represent” Almighty God) is
prohibited. Please see Exodus 20:4-6, Leviticus 26:1 and Deuteronomy 4:16, 23, 25, 5:8 and
Nehemiah 9:6 for some statements in regards to this point. Without addressing the issue
that Christians commonly violate the unambiguous commandment not to even “make”
representations of anything that is in the “heavens above or on the earth beneath”, these
verses not only teach that worshipping idols is prohibited, but also that Almighty God is
eternally distinct from His creation and thus nothing in His creation can represent Him. To
believe otherwise is to be a de facto idol worshipper - even if one claims belief in one, and
only one, “True God”. In Exodus 20:4-6 and Deuteronomy 4:16, Almighty God - who is a
“Jealous God” - makes it perfectly clear that He is distinct from His creation.
By giving such clear and merciful guidance to human beings, God is establishing a
universal and eternal Truth for the benefit of mankind. This eternal Truth is the bedrock of
religious guidance, since once people begin to believe that Almighty God mixes with or can
be represented by His creation, they can be duped into believing almost anything. Once
someone accepts that God has become “incarnate” in His creation, or that someone or
something is a “manifestation” - and thus representation - of Him, the floodgates are open
and “Truth” becomes a matter of subjective guesswork. Once the first and most basic
concept is violated - regardless of how complicated and sophisticated the rationale for it
might be - it is very easy to fall further and further away from the Eternal Truth of Pure
Monotheism. In the final analysis, it is not a question of whether God is capable of becoming
a man, but rather a question of whether one bases their beliefs about God on clear,
unambiguous and authentic guidance.

6. Once it is left up to the human mind to decide what Almighty God can and cannot do, the
stage is set for misguidance to take root. Human speculation about God only ends up
leading to misguidance and despair, since no clear conclusions can ever be reached. For
example, is God capable of creating an object so heavy that He is incapable of moving it? If
not, does that mean that He is incapable? It is because of misguided questions like this that
Islam clearly teaches that mankind should only say about God what He has said about
Himself. This means all of our ideas about God must be based on Revelation - not human
speculation. In short, the final prophet of Islam - Muhammad - was sent by Almighty God to
preach the same Pure Monotheism that was practiced by Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and
Jesus - peace be upon them all. This Pure Monotheism means not only believing that there
is only One God in existence, but realizing that He is transcedent above His creation and
that all worship is due to Him alone.
Before concluding, 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 ddoes) 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.

7. ( . . . 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, because in
reality, 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 and a distinctive spelling - 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.

8. In concluding this point, 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.”

9. (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.
Before closing, we would like everyone to be aware of the fact that some Christian
missionary organizations print English literature intended to teach Christians about Islam
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, when these same organizations print literature in the Arabic language, hoping to
lead Arabic-speaking Muslims “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. And on
an even more ridiculous note . . .

10. there are also missionary organizations that exceed this in ignorance (or deceit) by writing
books 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