Allah

Allah (/ˈælə, ˈɑːlə, əˈlɑː/ A(H)L-ə, ə-LAH; Arabic: الله, IPA: [ɑɫˈɫɑːh] ) is an Arabic word for God, particularly the God of Abraham. Outside of the Middle East, it is principally associated with Islam (in which it is also considered the proper name), although the term was used in pre-Islamic Arabia and continues to be used today by Arabic-speaking adherents of any of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism and Christianity. It is thought to be derived by contraction from al-ilāh (الاله, lit. 'the god') and is linguistically related to God's names in other Semitic languages, such as Aramaic (ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ ʼAlāhā) and Hebrew (אֱלוֹהַּ ʾĔlōah).
The word "Allah" now implies the superiority or sole existence of one God, but among the pre-Islamic Arabs, Allah was a supreme deity and was worshipped alongside lesser deities in a pantheon. Many Jews, Christians, and early Muslims used "Allah" and "al-ilah" interchangeably in Classical Arabic. The word is also frequently, albeit not exclusively, used by Bábists, Baháʼís, Mandaeans, Indonesian Christians, Maltese Christians, and Sephardic Jews, as well as by the Gagauz people.
The etymology of the word Allāh has been discussed extensively by classical Arab philologists. Most consider it to be derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- and ilāh "deity, god" to al-lāh meaning "the deity, the God". Indeed, there is "the interchangeability of al-ilāh and allāh in early Arabic poetry even when composed by the Christian ʿAdī ibn Zayd. The majority of scholars accept this hypothesis. A minority hypothesis, seen with more skepticism, is that the term is a loanword from Syriac Alāhā.
Grammarians of the Basra school regarded it as either formed "spontaneously" (murtajal) or as the definite form of lāh (from the verbal root lyh with the meaning of "lofty" or "hidden"). Other Muslims scholars suggested that the term derives from wilah (the object of mystery) since the nature of God is a mystery and perplexing for humans.
The use of Allah as the name of a deity appears as early as the first century. An inscription using the Ancient South Arabian script in Old Arabic from Qaryat al-Fāw reads, "to Kahl and lh and ʿAththar (b-khl w-lh w-ʿṯr)".
Cognates of the name "Allāh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic. The corresponding Aramaic form is ʼElāh (אלה), but its emphatic state is ʼElāhā (אלהא). It is written as ܐܠܗܐ (ʼĔlāhā) in Biblical Aramaic and ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ (ʼAlāhā) in Syriac, both meaning simply "God". The unusual Syriac form is likely an imitation of the Arabic.
Regional variants of the word Allah occur in both pagan and Christian pre-Islamic inscriptions. 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.
The Syriac word ܐܠܗܐ (ʼĔlāhā) can be found in the reports and the lists of names of Christian martyrs in South Arabia, as reported by antique Syriac documents of the names of those martyrs from the era of the Himyarite and Aksumite kingdoms
In an inscription of Christian martyrion dated back to 512, references to al-ilah (الاله) can be found in both Arabic and Aramaic. The inscription starts with the statement "By the Help of al-ilah".
Archaeological excavation quests have led to the discovery of ancient pre-Islamic inscriptions and tombs made by Arab Christians in the ruins of a church at Umm el-Jimal in Northern Jordan, which initially, according to Enno Littmann (1949), contained references to Allah as the proper name of God. However, on a second revision by Bellamy et al. (1985 & 1988) the five-verse inscription was retranslated: "(1)This [inscription] was set up by colleagues of ʿUlayh, (2) son of ʿUbaydah, secretary (3) of the cohort Augusta Secunda (4) Philadelphiana; may he go mad who (5) effaces it."
Irfan Shahîd quoting the 10th-century encyclopedic collection Kitab al-Aghani notes that pre-Islamic Arab Christians have been reported to have raised the battle cry "Ya La Ibad Allah" (O slaves of Allah) to invoke each other into battle. According to Shahid, on the authority of 10th-century Muslim scholar Al-Marzubani, "Allah" was also mentioned in pre-Islamic Christian poems by some Ghassanid and Tanukhid poets in Syria and Northern Arabia.
Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in pre-Islamic polytheistic cults. According to the Quran exegete Ibn Kathir, Arab pagans considered Allah as an unseen God who created and controlled the Universe. Pagans believed worship of humans or animals who had lucky events in their life brought them closer to God. Pre-Islamic Meccans worshiped Allah alongside a host of lesser gods and those whom they called the "daughters of Allah." Islam forbade worship of anyone or anything other than God. Some authors have suggested that polytheistic Arabs used the name as a reference to a creator god or a supreme deity of their pantheon. The term may have been vague in the Meccan religion.
According to one hypothesis, which goes back to Julius Wellhausen, Allah (the supreme deity of the tribal federation around Quraysh) was a designation that consecrated the superiority of Hubal (the supreme deity of Quraysh) over the other gods. However, there is also evidence that Allah and Hubal were two distinct deities. According to that hypothesis, the Kaaba was first consecrated to a supreme deity named Allah and then hosted the pantheon of Quraysh after their conquest of Mecca, about a century before the time of Muhammad. Some inscriptions seem to indicate the use of Allah as a name of a polytheist deity centuries earlier, but nothing precise is known about this use. Some scholars have suggested that Allah may have represented a remote creator god who was gradually eclipsed by more particularized local deities. There is disagreement on whether Allah played a major role in the Meccan religious cult. No iconic representation of Allah is known to have existed. Muhammad's father's name was ʿAbd-Allāh meaning "the slave of Allāh". The interpretation that Pre-Islamic Arabs once practiced Abrahamic religions is supported by some literary evidence, being the prevalence of Ishmael, whose God was that of Abraham, in pre-Islamic Arab culture.
In contrast with pre-Islamic Arabian polytheism, as stated by Gerhard Böwering, God in Islam does not have associates and companions, nor is there any kinship between God and jinn. 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. According to Francis Edward Peters, "The Qur'ān insists, Muslims believe, and historians affirm that Muhammad and his followers worship the same God as the Jews (29:46). The Qur'an's Allah is the same Creator God who covenanted with Abraham". Peters states that the Qur'an portrays Allah as both more powerful and more remote than Yahweh, and as a universal deity, unlike Yahweh who closely follows Israelites.
Since the first centuries of Islam, Arabic-speaking commentators of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faith used the term Allah as a generic term for the supreme being. Saadia Gaon used the term Allah interchangeably with the term ʾĔlōhīm. Theodore Abu Qurrah translates theos as Allah in his Bible, as in John 1:1 "the Word was with Allah". Muslim commentators likewise used the term Allah for the Biblical concept of God. Ibn Qutayba writes "You cannot serve both Allah and Mammon.". However, Muslim translators of the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia rarely translated the Tetragrammaton, referring to the supreme being in Israelite tradition, as Allah. Instead, most commentators either translated Yahweh as either yahwah or rabb, the latter corresponding to the Jewish custom to refer to Yahweh as Adonai.
Most Qur'an commentators, including al-Tabari (d. 923), al-Zamakhshari (d. 1143/44), and al-Razi (d. 1209), regard Allah to be a proper name. While other names of God in Islam denote attributes or adjectives, the term Allah specifically refers to his essence as his real name (ism'alam li-dhatih). The other names are known as the 99 Names of Allah (al-asmā' al-ḥusná lit. meaning: 'the best names' or 'the most beautiful names') and considered attributes, each of which evoke a distinct characteristic of Allah. All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name. Among the 99 names of God, the most famous and most frequent of these names are "the Merciful" (ar-Raḥmān) and "the Compassionate" (ar-Raḥīm), including the forementioned above al-Aḥad ("the One, the Indivisible") and al-Wāḥid ("the Unique, the Single").
According to Islamic belief, Allah is the most common word to represent God, and humble submission to his will, divine ordinances and commandments is the pivot of the Muslim faith. "He is the only God, creator of the universe, and the judge of humankind." "He is unique (wāḥid) and inherently one (aḥad), all-merciful and omnipotent." No human eyes can see Allah till the Day Of Judgement. The Qur'an declares "the reality of Allah, His inaccessible mystery, His various names, and His actions on behalf of His creatures." Allah does not depend on anything. Allah is not considered a part of the Christian Trinity. God has no parents and no children.
The attributes of Allah Almighty are described in this way in the Ayat al-Kursi of Surah al-Baqarah in the Holy Quran.
ٱللَّهُ لَآ إِلَـٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ٱلْحَىُّ ٱلْقَيُّومُ ۚ لَا تَأْخُذُهُۥ سِنَةٌۭ وَلَا نَوْمٌۭ ۚ لَّهُۥ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَمَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ۗ مَن ذَا ٱلَّذِى يَشْفَعُ عِندَهُۥٓ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِهِۦ ۚ يَعْلَمُ مَا بَيْنَ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَمَا خَلْفَهُمْ ۖ وَلَا يُحِيطُونَ بِشَىْءٍۢ مِّنْ عِلْمِهِۦٓ إِلَّا بِمَا شَآءَ ۚ وَسِعَ كُرْسِيُّهُ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ ۖ وَلَا يَـُٔودُهُۥ حِفْظُهُمَا ۚ وَهُوَ ٱلْعَلِىُّ ٱلْعَظِيمُ ٢٥٥
"Allah! There is no god ˹worthy of worship˺ except Him, the Ever-Living, All-Sustaining. Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. Who could possibly intercede with Him without His permission? He ˹fully˺ knows what is ahead of them and what is behind them, but no one can grasp any of His knowledge—except what He wills ˹to reveal˺. His Seat encompasses the heavens and the earth, and the preservation of both does not tire Him. For He is the Most High, the Greatest."
The concept correlates to the Tawhid, where chapter 112 of the Qur'an (Al-'Ikhlās, The Sincerity) reads:
In a Sufi practice known as dhikr Allāh (Arabic: ذِكر الله, lit. "Remembrance of God"), the Sufi repeats and contemplates the name Allah or other associated divine names to Him while controlling his or her breath.
The Islamic tradition to use Allah as the personal name of God became disputed in contemporary scholarship, including the question, whether or not the word Allah should be translated as God. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah urged English-speaking Muslims to use God instead of Allah for the sake of finding "extensive middle ground we share with other Abrahamic and universal traditions".
Most Muslims use the Arabic phrase in shā'a llāh (meaning 'if God wills') untranslated after references to future events. Muslim discursive piety encourages beginning things with the invocation of bi-smi llāh (meaning 'In the name of God'). There are certain other phrases in praise of God that are favored by Muslims and left untranslated, including "Subḥāna llāh" (Glory be to God), "al-ḥamdu li-llāh" (Praise be to God), "lā ilāha illā llāh" (There is no deity but God) or sometimes "lā ilāha illā inta/ huwa" (There is no deity but You/ Him) and "Allāhu Akbar" (God is the Most Great) as a devotional exercise of remembering God (dhikr).
The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for "God" than "Allah". Similarly, the Aramaic word for "God" in the language of Assyrian Christians is ʼĔlāhā, or Alaha. (Even the Arabic-descended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Catholic, uses Alla for "God".)
Arab Christians have used two forms of invocations that were affixed to the beginning of their written works. They adopted the Muslim bismillāh, and also created their own Trinitized bismillāh as early as the 8th century. The Muslim bismillāh reads: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." The Trinitized bismillāh reads: "In the name of the 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 Trinitarian belief and also to make it more palatable to Muslims.
The word Allāh is generally pronounced [ɑɫˈɫɑː(h)], exhibiting a heavy lām, [ɫ], a velarized alveolar lateral approximant, a marginal phoneme in Modern Standard Arabic. Since the initial alef has no hamza, the initial [a] is elided when a preceding word ends in a vowel. If the preceding vowel is /i/, the lām is light, [l], as in, for instance, the Basmala.
The history of the name Allāh in English was probably influenced by the study of comparative religion in the 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 Muḥammad (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.
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 Andalusi Arabic law šá lláh similar to inshalla (Arabic: إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ). This phrase literally means 'if God wills'. The German poet Mahlmann used the form "Allah" as the title of a poem about the ultimate deity, though it is unclear how much Islamic thought he intended to convey.
Some Muslims leave the name "Allāh" untranslated in English, rather than using the English translation "God". The word has also been applied to certain living human beings as personifications of the term and concept.
Christians in Malaysia and Indonesia use Allah to refer to God in the Malaysian and Indonesian languages (both of them standardized forms of the Malay language). Mainstream Bible translations in the language use Allah as the translation of Hebrew Elohim (translated in English Bibles as "God"). This goes back to early translation work by Francis Xavier in the 16th century. The first dictionary of Dutch-Malay by Albert Cornelius Ruyl, Justus Heurnius, and Caspar Wiltens in 1650 (revised edition from 1623 edition and 1631 Latin edition) recorded Allah" as the translation of the Dutch word Godt. Ruyl also translated the Gospel of Matthew in 1612 into the Malay language (an early Bible translation into a non-European language, made a year after the publication of the King James Version), which was printed in the Netherlands in 1629. Then he translated the Gospel of Mark, published in 1638.
For a time it became illegal for non-Muslims to use "Allah" after the country experienced a social and political upheaval in the face of the word being used by Malaysian Christians and Sikhs. The government of Malaysia in 2007 outlawed usage of the term Allah in any other but Muslim contexts, but the Malayan High Court in 2009 revoked the law, ruling it 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 appealed the court ruling, and the High Court suspended implementation of its verdict until the hearing of the appeal. In October 2013 the court ruled in favor of the government's ban. In early 2014 the Malaysian government confiscated more than 300 bibles for using the word to refer to the Christian God in Peninsular Malaysia. However, the use of Allah is not prohibited in the two Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak. The main reason it is not prohibited in these two states is that usage has been long-established and local Alkitab (Bibles) have been widely distributed freely in East Malaysia without restrictions for years. Both states also do not have similar Islamic state laws as those in West Malaysia. The ban was overturned in 2021.
In reaction to some media criticism, the Malaysian government has introduced a "10-point solution" to avoid confusion and misleading information. The 10-point solution is in line with the spirit of the 18- and 20-point agreements of Sarawak and Sabah.
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.
In the pre-Islamic Zabad inscription, God is referred to by the term الاله, that is, alif-lam-alif-lam-ha. This presumably indicates Al-'ilāh means "the god", without alif for ā.
Many Arabic type fonts feature special ligatures for Allah.
Since Arabic script is used to write other texts rather than Koran only, rendering lām + lām + hā' as the previous ligature is considered faulty which is the case with most common Arabic typefaces.
Unicode has a code point reserved for Allāh, U+FDF2 ﷲ ARABIC LIGATURE ALLAH ISOLATED FORM, in the Arabic Presentation Forms-A block, which exists solely for "compatibility with some older, legacy character sets that encoded presentation forms directly"; this is discouraged for new text. Instead, the word Allāh should be represented by its individual Arabic letters, while modern font technologies will render the desired ligature.
The calligraphic variant of the word used as the emblem of Iran is encoded in Unicode, in the Miscellaneous Symbols range, at code point U+262B (☫). The flags that include the word are also present in the regional indicator symbols of Unicode: 🇮🇶, 🇸🇦, 🇦🇫, 🇮🇷, 🇺🇿.