Response to zzazzeefrazzee

Submitted by Mark Durie (Australia), May 3, 2008 at 07:35

Thanks zz-zz-zz for the thoughtful comments.

I will think over them, and am very glad to follow up the references you suggest. They are precious to me. Thanks so much for the care you took in working through all this. It is not surprising to me that Christian Arabs would take on a pagan or Islamic term al-Ilah to refer to God, whilst keeping Yasua for Jesus. All over the world, Christian communities have taken up pre-existing terms for God - as this is not a personal name. The word 'god' is a case in point. They would not do the same with the name for Jesus. Hence Allah but not Isa is used by most Arabic-speaking Christians.

In terms of linguistic history, I understand that Alaha corresponds to Ilah. The al-Ilah > Allah form is distinct and is not morphologically equivalent to Alaha, despite the phonetic similarities.

Mark.

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