Isn't Allah Just Another Name For God?

Now, Contending for the Faith. In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here is this week’s question: “Dear Tom and Dave, I just read in a Christian Institute Journal something that is contrary to what you have written in your newsletter. The author states, in an article titled “Allah Does Not Belong to Islam,” that Arabic-speaking, Coptic, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical, and Reformed Christians worship Allah, which is simply the word or term for “God” in another language.

“To demean or demonize the word for ‘God’ in another language does a great disservice to believers who speak Arabic.” She says, “No other term for ‘God’ exists in Arabic for the God Christians claim to be the one true God,” and adds, “Let’s exercise caution in speaking of Islam’s different tenets, and not demonize Allah, who was found throughout the old and new testaments in the Arabic Bible, as is God in our English version. The Apostle John said, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Allah, and the Word was Allah’ (John:1:1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
See All...). We can join our Arab brothers and sisters in Christ, who often say ‘Allah be praised!’”

Tom:  My response is “YOW!!!”

Dave: [laughing] Tom, somebody’s trying to make me angry. [laughing] I lose my patience more and more. It’s not true, what they’re saying. First of all, Allah is not a father and he has no son—this is what the Qur’an says. The Qur’an says, “Say not three…” Don’t have this nonsense of the Trinity, okay? Allah was the name of the chief God of the Ka’aba—in fact, “Allah” is a contraction of “Al-Ilah,” meaning “the chief God.” “Ilah” is the word for “God” in Arabic. I don’t know anything about Arabic, but I can find that out! I can read the Qur’an. You’ve got the word “G-O-D” in the Qur’an, in the English translation of the Qur’an, over and over and over.

For example, Surah 4:171: “Allah is one god.” “Ilah,” okay? The very confession that they make you pronounce at the point of a sword or they take your head off, is “There is no ilah but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.” So to say that it’s the only word for God in Arabic simply isn’t true. It’s the name of a god, and they insist on Allah in every religion.

You can’t say “G-O-D” in English, you can’t say “Dieu” in French, “Bog” in Russian, “Dios” in Spanish, or whatever. No, you must always say “Allah.” Well, that’s not a generic term for “God.” That is the name of a god, and that god was the Moon God in the Ka’aba. “Al-ilah,” the chief God, okay?

Tom: Who had three daughters.

Dave:That’s right: Al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat. And he had no sons, but three daughters. And in fact the so-called Satanic Verses—Salomon Rushdie is still in hiding with a price on his head—he wrote a novel that related this, and in fact in the Qur’an, Muhammad was given this revelation that says that these three daughters should be honored. Whoops! And then he felt that couldn’t be right because he’s done away with all the idols, so these were called “Satanic Verses”—that he had been inspired by Satan. And then he got a verse in the Qur’an saying, “Well, don’t feel bad about it, because Satan messes everybody up”—you know, I’m not giving the exact quote…

Tom:Dave, I’ve wondered about this. If a people who speak a language, and they have a name for God—for example, let’s go to the Old Testament: Baal. Were they, then, once they converted to Judaism, were they to bring their name, and go back in their language and refer to their god, Baal? That doesn’t make sense to me.

Dave:  “Baal be praised.” “In the beginning was Baal.” No. It absolutely is wrong, and the Muslim is pushing his “Allah” on the entire world, and he’s doing it in the most devious manner by saying “This is the only word for God that there is,” when you know that couldn’t be true—how could they talk about some “god”? There is no Allah but Allah? No! There is no ilah but Allah—there is no god but Allah, Muhammad is his messenger. And all through the Qur’an, Allah is one—what? One god. What’s the word? Ilah. “Allah is one ilah.” They don’t say, “Allah is one Allah.” That would be redundant. There is a word for “god”—it is ilah, and it was known in Arabic for centuries before Muhammad, as was Allah. And again, let me say it, Allah is a contraction of “Al” “ilah”—the chief god. And Allah was the chief god in the Ka’aba that had 300-and-some idols—this was a pagan temple. They have kept everything. Muhammad smashed the idols. He kept the name of Allah. He kept the Hajj—the holy pilgrimage to the Ka’aba. He kept the brown stone in the Ka’aba—all the rituals. They circumambulate around it seven times. They kiss the dark stone. They run between Marwa and Safa, two hills on which are the stone effigies of two of the gods who fornicated in the temple and were turned to stone and are on these mountains. They climb Mt Arafat. They go to Wadi Mina, a little ravine, and there’s a stone there that looks like Satan, and they throw 21 stones at Satan.

Tom! This was practiced by the Arabs—pagan Arabs—for centuries before Muhammad ever came along! And now he’s kept the name of the god, he’s kept the Ka’aba, he’s kept the pilgrimage, he’s kept all the rituals, and he also kept Ramadan, which was before Muhammad was ever born as well.

And you say this is the one true religion? No, this is the paganism that was practiced for centuries, and he’s massaged it around a little bit, and now he’s pushing it on the world as the one true religion.