Dan’s thinking box….

I once discussed religion with several non-muslims before. When I asked them if they knew Allah, most of them had the same or similar answer; "it’s your god right?" This statement is clear and evident that people do not really know who or what Allah is. I think that even the non-arab Muslims do not really know Allah. They just think that Allah is a name of Islamic God or the Muslims only. However this is somewhat incorrect. This is why insults on Islam is made on the word Allah. They say Allah is this and Allah is that. But they don’t really understand what the word Allah is.

The word Allah is actually a term in Arabic, not a name of God. It comes from the root "ilah". When the word is in its root, it can be transformed into having gender and being plural. When the article "the" is placed in front of the root "ilah", it becomes "Al-lah". When it’s in this form, it cannot be made plural nor can it have any gender. The word Allah is the perfect word to describe God.

So you see, Allah is not a name but instead a term for God. Allah is an Arabic term for the word God in English. English lacks the capacity to describe God because the word ‘God’ in English can be made plural; Gods, or be made into having gender; Goddess. This is why Muslims prefer to use ‘Allah’ instead of God. So, when you think of making fun of Islam by using the word Allah, remember that Allah is not a name, but a term that when you translate to your language, it means God, The God, The singular and genderless God.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 4:59 am and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.