"Allah" vs. "ilah"

Submitted by Teri Riddering (United States), Jul 13, 2005 at 13:28

...I am very surprised (and aghast) at Daniel Pipes' candid comparison between "Allah" and the God of the Jewish & Christian Scriptures. Even semantically, there is no equivalence! The muslims would have the world believe that "Allah" is a generic term for the god of all humanity because, in that manner, they can more easily convert people to Islam.

I want to quote some paragraphs from David Hunt's section of Questions and Answers in "The Berean Call" of April 2003. As he clearly states, the generic term in Arabic for God is NOT "Allah", but "ilha", which is also used throughout the Koran. Example: "There is no 'ilah' save him... Allah is the only one 'ilah'." (2:255; 4:171, etc.)

Allah is a contraction of "Al-ilah", meaning the chief or greatest god. Allah was the chief god in the Ka'aba, a pagan temple that held more than 300 idols. Allah was the Moon god who, by his spouse the sun goddess, had 3 daughters: Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat. The presence of the crecent moon marking Islam is evidence of that long-established paganism. Muhammad carried the rituals associated with the Ka'aba and Ramadan over to Islam almost exactly as pagan Arabs practiced them for centuries.

But the true and honest Muslims have to admit that theologically, Allah is not the Christian God. In the Koran it says: "Far is it removed from his transcendent majesty that he should have a son" (Sur 4:171). For that reason, it is blasphemous for a Muslim to say that the Christian God is the same as Allah, because they would never say that Jesus is "Allah's Son"!

On the other hand, it is also a huge mistake to say that Allah is the same as the Jewish/Hebrew God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because of the vast difference in their instrinsic qualities. Their "personal traits" are totally opposite, as well as their ultimate goals.The Biblical God's motivation for doing things is always love, so as to bless His people and the nations of the world, while the motivation of the Koran's god is always domination and subjugation of his people and all the nations of the world using any avaliable means, including treachery, deceit, maiming and death.

On the other hand, the Hebrew God clearly states that He has chosen the descendants of Jacob to be His people, and not the descendants of Ishmael, whose nation of people is called by God in Genesis 16:12 as a "wild man" (lit. mountain donkey). Try asking some Muslim if Allah says that about the descendants of Ishmael!

No, even though there may be some similarities between the Koranic/Muslim god and the Biblical God, whether Jewish or Christian, (as stated by their respective followers), the difference far outweigh the similarities, thus belying any attempt to make them equal!

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