Pre-Islamic Arabia Regional variants of the word
Allah occur in both
pagan and Christian
pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions. According to
Marshall Hodgson, it seems that in the
pre-Islamic Arabia, some
Arab Christians undertook pilgrimages to the
Kaaba, a pagan temple at that time, honoring Allah there as the God the Creator.
Archaeological excavations have led to the discovery of pre-Islamic inscriptions and tombs made by Arab Christians in the ruins of a church at
Umm el-Jimal in Northern
Jordan, which initially thought to be containing references to
Allah by
Enno Littmann, as the proper name of God; however, this view was rejected by a second translation of the five-verse inscription made by Bellamy et al. (1985–88). In an inscription of Christian martyrion dated to 512, references to al-ilah () appear in both Arabic and Aramaic. The inscription opens with the phrase "By the Help of al-ilah".
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 Meccan cults. According to
Ibn Kathir, Arab idolaters considered Allah as an unseen God who created and controlled the Universe. Pagans believed worship of humans or animals who had fortunate occurrences 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". According to one Islamic hypothesis, the Kaaba was originally built by
Abraham and his son
Ishmael for the worship of a single supreme god, Allah, to whom people were called on pilgrimages. However, this place of worship was filled by the
Quraysh with as many as 360 idols about a century before Muhammad's time. 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 Abd Allah ibn Abd al Muttalib| meaning "the slave of Allāh".
Islamic period Early Islam "The
Qur'ān insists that
Muhammad and his followers worship the same God as the Jews (). The Qur'an's Allah is the same Creator God who covenanted with
Abraham".
Francis Edward 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. Pre Islamic Arabs believed in a blind, powerful, unstoppable and insensible fate over which man had no control. This was replaced with the Islamic belief of a powerful yet benevolent and merciful God's control over man's life.
living in the heavens. This understanding developed over time under the influence of
Islamic theology, acquiring a transcendent character. However, in contrast to this transcendent and absolute conception of God established among the elite, the public and
Sufis maintained
the traditional understanding on God. Also actions and attributes such as coming, going, sitting, satisfaction, anger and sadness etc. similar to humans used for this God in the Quran were considered —"no one knows
its interpretation except God" ()—by later scholars stating that God was
free from resemblance to humans in any way.
Islamic theology Islamic theology emphasises the absolute uniqueness and singularity of God in his essence, attributes, qualities, and acts. This emphasis was made despite a number of verses and hadiths that offer analogies for God, and it was gradually established over time. Instead, the term "
mutashabih" was used for these verses, and the approach of "believing in the essence, not searching for its meaning" (
Bila Kayf) was adopted. Understandings and expressions contrary to these definitions (
tanzih) were described as
shirk, which is considered one of the
greatest sins in Islam, and it was said that those who did so would
leave the religion.
God's Arsh (throne) and
Kursi (pulpit)—may appear as chair or footstool in direct translations, often confused and used interchangeably in Islamic terminology—are also evaluated within this scope in Islamic theology; "Indeed your Lord is Allah Who created the heavens and the earth in six Days, then established Himself on the Throne" "You will see the angels all around the Throne, glorifying the praises of their Lord...." Named as the
Ayat al-Kursi of
Surah al-Baqarah literally is this:"Allah! There is no god except Him, the Living, 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 knows what is ahead of them and what is behind them, but no one can grasp any of His knowledge—except what He wills. His "Kursi" encompasses the heavens and the earth, and the preservation of both does not tire Him. He is High, Great."Islamic teachings, in accordance with the principle of
tawhid, also condemn statements that imply God is something comparable to known and created things. This understanding is based on the expressions in the chapter 112 of the
Quran (
''Al-'Ikhlās'', The Sincerity): These expressions were also used in polemics as a response to understandings that described God through the metaphor as father; قُلْ هُوَ ٱللَّهُ أَحَدٌ
ٱللَّهُ ٱلصَّمَدُ لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُۥ كُفُوًا أَحَدٌۢ ١ :
Say, God is one God; : the eternal God: : He begetteth not, neither is He begotten: : and there is not any one like unto Him. Most Qur'anic
commentators, including
al-Tabari (d. 923),
al-Zamakhshari (d. 1143/44), and
al-Razi (d. 1209), regard word
Allah to be a proper noun i.e. (), while other names denote attributes or adjectives known as the
99 Names of Allah ('''' lit. meaning: 'the beautiful names'). The most famous and frequently repeated names are "the Merciful" (
ar-Raḥmān) and "the Compassionate" ('
), Islamic theology rejects definitions and expressions that imply a comparison between God and His creations, because He cannot be likened to His creations in any of His attributes. However, it is observed that many of these names are translated as "the most..." in a comparative mode, as in the expression ' ( , ), which is also used as an Islamic
slogan. in
Edirne, Turkey
Present day Islam The Islamic tradition to use
Allah as the personal name of God became contested in contemporary scholarship, including the question, whether or not the word
Allah should be translated as
God. Muslim devotional practices encourage beginning things with the invocation of
Basmala| (meaning 'In the name of God'). There are certain other phrases in praise of God that are commonly used by Muslims and left untranslated, including "subhan'allah|" (Glory be to God), "Alhamdulillah|" (Praise be to God), "Shahada|" (There is no deity but God) or sometimes "" (There is no deity but
You/
Him) and "Takbir|" (God is the Most Great) as a devotional exercise of remembering God (
dhikr).
Christianity 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 , or ''
. (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 '
, and also created their own Trinitarian ' as early as the 8th century. ==Pronunciation==