Allah Is God
Last night I finally came to the realization that Allah is God. It was in my Arabic class. I asked how you say "gods and goddesses." Turns out it's "illah" and "illaha," the non-definite masculine and feminine forms of Allah. The "Al" at the beginning of Allah is pretty much the same thing as our capital "G," it shows you're talking about a specific god, not just any god. So "Allah" really is "God," the exact same word as our word for God. In fact, when Arab speakers use the word "Allah" they're actually talking about the exact same invisible deity as when people in this country say "God," the God of Moses and Abraham, Jesus' dad, etc. So "Allah" is "God;" they represent the exact same concept in every sense of the meaning.
My teacher said that when Bush said something about a war between God and Allah it was pretty much impossible for Arabic newscasters to translate into Arabic. They just stumbled over it. There's no way to say it, they are the same word, a war between God and God? Even if they tried to explain it, it wouldn't make any sense because they are the same god. When English is translated into Arabic, "God" is translated to "Allah." When it's translated back into English, Allah stays. When you read the Bible in Arabic it says Allah. Allah is God.
So why do we not translate the Arabic word for God into English like we do for every other language? We don't talk about how Mexicans are shifty cause they don't believe in God, they believe in "el Dios." The word "Allah" should not even exist in English. It's not an English word, we have our own word for that. We don't talk about how silly it is to believe in illah's and illaha's, and that true Christians believe in the one true Allah.
Think of the incredible social consequences of not translating that one word. Instead of all the religious people in this country viewing Muslims as brothers, they view them as enemies. All because of one mis-translated word. Honestly I think it's just ignorance. Nobody knows that it's just a mistaken translation. How the fuck can that be? How is it that no one has corrected some news announcer and MSNBC? Seems like it would only take once or twice before people realize they sound like an idiot when they say that.
A similar thing was attempted recently with "madrasa," the Arabic word for "school." Absolutely every educated person in this world went to a "madrasa," but Fox News tried to make it out like Barack Obama was at a terrorist training camp or something, just by using the Arabic word for school instead of the English one.
Anyway, I guess I kind of knew this before, but I never really thought about it being a translation issue, and that we don't do it with any other language.
So will everyone please not use the word Allah unless you're speaking in Arabic. If you're speaking in English, the word is "God", not Allah. Any differences between the Christian and Muslim renditions of God are no different than between the Catholic or Jewish versions of God, and the English language is fully equipped to discuss the differences.
October 25th, 2007 - 10:20
I thought I would post this as a comment. I found a site that claimed that there’s no plural of the word for god in Arabic, so I asked my Arabic teacher about it. Here’s his response.
December 28th, 2008 - 12:02
no it’s not true that Allat is the feminine form of Allah. First of all, Allat was referred to by pagans as Allah’s daughter. if Allat was the feminine form of Allah, then logically, Allat would be referred to as Allah’s wife, not daughter. Second, though it is true that Ilahah means goddess, it won’t become Al-lat if the article Al- is placed in front. If any, it would become Al-lahat, not Al-lat. And there’s no such thing as Allahat. The word Allah has no plural form or feminine form as the letter i from ilah is taken out to form a completely different word which means the same; Allah. The word Allah has become a different word which cannot be made into feminine form or plural.
December 28th, 2008 - 15:57
So Allah and Allah are actually different words, one can be made plural and the other can’t, but they mean the same thing. Umm, sure.
We should do that for gay marriage. When you put the word “gay” in front of it forms “a completely different word which means the same.” No need for “civil unions,” we can just have marriage be two different words that are spelled the same and mean the same thing but are actually different words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilah
December 28th, 2008 - 20:26
No, I said, Al-Ilah and Allah are different words. Read:
“…as the letter i from ilah is taken out…”
December 28th, 2008 - 21:13
So your point is that “the god” and “God” are different words? Do you argue the same point for the English, god vs God?
My point is that Allah is the Arabic word for God, not some other separate god. It is incorrect in my opinion to not translate that word into English. And that when you use Arabic to discuss the concept of gods and goddesses you use variations on the word for God just as we do in English. It’s somewhat pointless to discuss the spelling of Arabic words using English characters and my blog comments don’t seems to like Arabic. The wiki article I linked has a good description with Arabic spellings of the various forms of the word(s).
December 28th, 2008 - 22:18
in arabic, there’s no capitalization. So, it would either be “the god” or “god”. The god is Allah, and god is ilah. But in English, “the god” is replaced with the word “God” with the capital G.
Well, when i said the letter ‘i’, i assumed you knew that i meant the letter Alif.
And the wiki article is wrong about the word ilah in islamic context. Islam says there’s no god but God (the god). so, whenever a muslim says ilah, it would always be referred to God or Allah. The word ilah can never be referred to any except God. Allah is the only ilah there is, and there’s no ilah but Allah.
December 31st, 2008 - 14:14
Isn’t it just a kasra on top of an alif. I thought the alif was just a “place holder” in this case like the nubra.
So I’m sure your aware the shahada you quoted from the Koran uses the word ilah to mean exactly what you said it can’t be used to mean, to mean god. It sounds to me a little like how ain’t ain’t a “word.”
The Muslim viewpoint is obviously centered on propping up monotheism and I get it already. I’m more interested in how other secular atheists like myself would discuss the concept in Arabic.