Is Allah God's name or Proper name of God in Arabic?
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Salaam all.
Actually I have read replies on older topics but there are too many answers/opinions that are confusing me.
Peace diamantinehoneybunch,
Yes, Allah is the proper name of the deity of Islam
Allah= The deity
Sahih International Indeed, I am Allah. There is no deity except Me, so worship Me and establish prayer for My remembrance. 20/14
(20143)
l-lahu
Allah. PN ? nominative proper noun AllahHave a blessed ramadan
peace
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Salam diamantinehoneybunch,
Allh (Arabic ه is simply the Arabic designation for God. The term is derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article "Al-" (The) and "ilaah" (god) to "Al-laah" (i.e. Allh) meaning "The Sole Deity", "The God" ( , ho theos monos).
Cognates of the proper noun "Allh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew (Eloah/Alwhh) and Aramaic. An interesting example of this would be the Aramaic word Aalaha (or lhā which is the word for God in the language that Jesus (pbuh) spoke.
Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allaah" to mean "God". If you pick up an Arabic Bible, you will see the word "Allaah" being used where "God" is used in English, fact is, it has been used by Christian Arabs and Jewish Arabs in their Bible centuries before Islam came. The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for 'God' than 'Allah'... Even the Arabic-descended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Roman Catholic, uses Alla for 'God'.
Hope this helps.
Peace be unto you ^_^ -
Peace Earthdom, all
The intention of islam is to cleanse your soul, this is also the meaning of the term muslim, where the 'm' adds a doer to the action of struggling for SLM to reach islam. Of course, in God's system it includes submitting yourself to God alone "You alone we serve, you alone we seek for help" as the fifth verse of chapter one reads. Islam/muslim/salam is still closer to peace than submission in my opinion. Not do you tell your friends "submit!" when you come forth to them saying "salaam". No, it is the personal struggle to reach peace within your soul by being God-aware which could be called "peacemaking" with an awkward English translation of the word. This is why I tend not to attempt to translate the words islam or muslim as I have not found any viable word. Of course, to add exact definitions for islam you may need to use more than one English word where submit is one of them, but islam is so much more than submission.
It seems that we need to contine to call God's religion for islam and its practitioner for muslim since the terms seems to carry multiple meanings, untranslatable into English.
Yet when you think of islam, you think of peacefulness and this is what this religion stands for. The ideal practitioner is someone who is like Isa. When you submit to God you accept that peacefulness or harmony is God's system, so I still think submission is not the proper name of God's religion. Might want to start to look at the English word harmony to somewhat replace peace in this matter because I think it seems more suitable. To live in perfect harmony with God's system might be an even better descriptive phrase for islam. The first thing you need to do in God's system is to submit to God, but there is so much more to His religion than simply submission. God is a nice One, He does not want us to feel like His slaves but rather servants, giving our lives to Him does not mean we have to abstain from the good things of life, even God mentions that in His Hadith (Quran). The English word 'submit' has a forceful nature about it and I think it is also another poor choice, it has the connotation that one does not have any choice, but we have any choice we like to disobey and not choose to follow God. Rather you should give yourself to God and get soaked up in His system and taking Him for Provider, Protector, Sustainer.
Also there is a misconception in what is means by being a follower of God and that it means not using the brain ourselves, which the term submission ultimately misleads people to think. Quran, for example, is there as a guide, but it gives mainly guidelines to live your life and not so much exact details on how you should perform them. There exists no such exact details, you shall only follow the guidelines and form your life after them. Submission is a too harsh word which I think should be avoided. Rather accept God's system and live with him as a Lord, and when God's Guidance comes (through commands or inspiration to do something in life) we should obey. We should be our own individuals and not being copycats of Muhammad or Isa or Musa or any other Messengers as they were only men, they may have been good examples of those who give themselves to God, but we can also follow their example and give ourselves to God without copying their behavior in detail. There is no such need. You need not to study Muhammad's life or any other Messenger, just follow the clear Guidance which will come when you seek his Nearness and make choices in life based on righteousness, which includes using your brain which God equipped you with.
When God says to follow in the footsteps of Ibrahim, he means to follow his good example of giving the control to God, and not to study their lives in detail. Why do you think the Quran does not explain the life of the prophets in detail in it? Right, because they are not relevant.
The story of Ibrahim's attempt of sacrifice of his son is showing that even if one would misunderstand a command to be from God, God will intervene if we are his ally. God was obviously testing Ibrahim at this point; God would not command a Believer to sacrifice another righteous follower of God which Ishmael probably was and Ibrahim was obviously making a mistake, but God was understanding since he knew that Ibrahim only did things to satisfy his Master. Well, obviously this was only a philosophical approach to the meaning of this story, but in the end what I wanted to point at is that with God's Guidance, even if we are about to make a serious mistake with dire consequences in life, God will intervene and stop us just as He stopped Ibrahim from killing his own son.
A few years ago I was crashing my car at high speed in my wild uncontrolled life and because God seemed to have been a friend of me back then already I was saved miraculously. They said that the steering wheel had gone through the seat and I was found unconscious outside the car. The car had burst in flames and was just a burning wreck when I awoke from unconsciousness. I walked away unharmed except a sore chest from the impact of the seat belt as fortunatly I wore seat belt, but almost not a scratch on me. Even if I made an irresponsible and bad thing God was there and saving me because I was probably considered God's friend since I had given myself in God's hands earlier and I had discovered the Truth that the Universe had a creator and I reflected upon creation a lot.
Seek his Nearness, Guidance, Wisdom, Knowledge, Peace and Prosperity, and probably something else which I have no Knowledge of yet. But God promised you can live in Peace and Prosperity even in this life, thus you do not necessarily have to wait until the Hereafter.
And sorry that I went off-topic as usual.
God bless you
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Peace Man of Faith.
Like I said to you in previous post if Muslim means submitter, but if you want to define the word "Muslim" with the "peacemaker", yeah it's up to person who define it.
No you're not off topic instead you gave another ways to intepretate the word "Muslim" by summarizing the Quranic teaching with very explicitly contains "peacemaker" ideals.Edip Yuksel also said the same like you, he define "Muslim" as "Peacemaker".We as Muslim aslo recognize if some verses in the Quran teach us about "freedom" and "Peace" such verse 2256.
There is also a Progressive Muslim from my country named Ulil Abshar Abdalla who give another name for "Islam".It's in Arabic, unfortunately I forgot, but this term has similiar name with "Peacemaker".So the conclusion is "Peacemaker" is not literal meaning of "Muslim", but the "vision" of Muslim".
God bless you.
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Peace Earthdom,
I beg to differ. I insist that the word islam by very strong means stands for peace in both name and connotation. Perhaps not the peace we may think about as peace when we think of war and peace, but rather that things are in harmony. One of the goals of islam is to find a balance in life, a kind of harmony, so that you may live in peace, and the word also has this meaning as is. But your are right in something, submitter is one of the meanings of muslim, 'indirectly'.
Otherwise, there would not be a greeting called 'salaam' which is sanctioned by God which seems to mean peace or harmony. That this is derived from the root SLM is noteworthy.
Like I repeatedly proclaimed, the word Muslim awkwardly translates into "peacemaker", this term does not sound good in my opinion. That is why I still say muslim. But the 'm' indicates that this is a doer of islam, which is struggling to gain a harmonious mind. It means so much more than only submitting yourself to God. You have to do drastical changes in your life, if you have chosen this path and it is a lifelong struggle, not only telling God that you submit to Him. This means little to God since God think like this "Man cannot live by words alone...".
However, loan words have always occured in history of mankind and one can simply adopt the word muslim/islam from Arabic and even Hebrew (in which share the same words however pronunced differently). It suffice to say that the formula on which islam is based on is probably not directly translatable. I think the word itself including its root is older than the Arabic language itself as it spread from the language is succeeded. Yes, there was a language before Arabic, from which there are too branches today, Hebrew and Arabic. However, we can wonder if the Arabic today should be treated as a separate language, but rather a natural development from ancient time up unto the present. Obviously, the Quran and thus the Arabs' tendency to be very conservative about their language has kept it pretty much the same over thousands of years. It has also made Arabs excessively proud over their language even if it was a mere choice of language of revelation and an important language in the region during that time. God could likewise release a book in English if it was a matter of revelation today. There are problems in understanding of the text no matter language of revelation due to changes and corruption to change the words of God. Of course, since the language Arabic has such a complex structure it may be suited for revelation, but to say it is fail-safe is naive to say. You could make a revelation in English and with a good choice of words it could be understandable for 1000 years too.
God's spirit or Force is present in the Universe and by living in harmony with the system you live in islam, and all this work is being muslim. This is the same reason why God said to Believers to even go to war to stand up for your rights of having a harmonious life. It seems even to be a "crime" not standing up for your rights. If there is a "disturbance in the Force" then this has a detrimental effect on the state of islam. However, everything should be settled in the most peaceful manner. It is therefore quite clear that the word muslim means to by any means struggle for peace and not necessarily mean that the peace is peaceful, but rather a harmony or balance. One can easily learn a lesson from Buddhism and its meditation and some martial arts where this kind of concentration and balance should be reached. It makes the body feel controlled, disciplined, relaxed and not stressed, and this is also the sort of balance which should be aimed for in islam. The martial arts training includes that you must control your emotions and release yourself from anger and instead reach inwards in your soul to be a better fighter. In God's religion it does not necessarily mean violence, but you are a sort of holy fighter who controls the emotions or inner self to be a wiser and knowledgeable man or woman. God clearly tells to separate yourself from emotions when you deliver a judgment and always judge in the most balanced way. Judgment can range from making a decision in an act of war to in everyday life, oftenly on-the-fly, and for this absolute concentration a'la the martial arts training is required. The Buddhistic/Hinduistic meditation is not far off from what is expected from a person. It is a very good practice. But meditation should be a permanent state, for you should live in a state of meditation/(prayer) at all times and this is also what is taught. The intense meditative sessions are there to keep it that way so you are in a trance also on the battlefield or other instances.
When we control and release ourselves from emotions and try to live as God has taught us then we can consider ourselves muslim. Bodily harmony or rather a balance in the "Force", this is part of what SLM stands for. We need to be aware, not only about God, but who we are.
If you really read Quran with "new" eyes you will see all this is what it tries to teach. It is what it means in the chapter when it says you should "meditate" for one third, half or two thirds of the night. This peace is what God is expecting us to practice on. Your prayers are there to stay in contact with the Creator and are a part of meditation. Everything you should do while bonded with the Lord, He should be present in your soul from the very bottom of it. Through practice you can charge your soul with power of the Holy Spirit (God). This is when God is guiding and your are absolutely near. When not too attached to this world you can "hear" the "voice" of God from within you and thus it all becomes clear.
Yes, drfazl is right when he says our problem is emotions, but he may be wrong that we should remove emotions but rather control them. We are allowed to feel grief or have opinions but they should be secondary. The Wisdom of God should be primary and emotions secondary. But with exercise through meditation and prayers we can become partially (or even close to fully) detached from this world. This condition can equal to being on drugs while not being on drugs. Some say it is dangerous to leave this world within meditation, but it means a fear of detachment from this world and the feeling perceived is only that your soul becomes lighter. With trust in God it is not dangerous to get deep into meditation. Inside our souls we should feel the urge to leave this world. A reverent Believer should almost feel like longing for death because the reward of the next life is by far exceeding what you can expect out of this world. But we cannot hasten this, God disallowed suicide, and those on God's side cannot do this, God is preventing them. On a side-note I have wanted to do it but I have never been able to and I suspect it is due to God refuse to let me carry out anything like it. So we have to live our lives until God takes us back.
We shall never fear death, it is a sign of weakness and distrust in God. I have only been afraid of the pain involved in dieing, but I am sure if you die righteously God will suppress pain and what is endorphines for anyway?
Some people become filled with sorrow when they beloved ones die as if they are never going to see them again, is this belief? See it as if they are only going on vacation until you meet again. The only tears I let get fallen is because I miss them due to the old memories of having them around but I am not overly concerned about it.
Sorry, now I rambled on and turned onto off-topic discussions not related to the topic of thread, but at least it covered that Arabic has absolutely nothing to do with any "magical" connection between it and God. The word muslim may be used because there are no one-word solutions to use instead of it.
God bless you
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Peace Man of Faith.
Don't worry about it.Actually I want reply your post, but because it's off topic, so yeah I just only say "thanks" to you, because you describe the meaning of "patience" in better ways.
God bless you.
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Peace Earthdom,
I do not know if you meant that as a sarcastic remark or not -)
God bless you
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Man of Faith, of course it's not a sarcasm.
You may already knew if I still in step for improving my english, so please forgive me if that sound sarcasm.
God bless you.
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Salam diamantinehoneybunch,
Allh (Arabic ه is simply the Arabic designation for God. The term is derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article "Al-" (The) and "ilaah" (god) to "Al-laah" (i.e. Allh) meaning "The Sole Deity", "The God" ( , ho theos monos).
Cognates of the proper noun "Allh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew (Eloah/Alwhh) and Aramaic. An interesting example of this would be the Aramaic word ?Aalaha? (or lhā which is the word for God in the language that Jesus (pbuh) spoke.
Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allaah" to mean "God". If you pick up an Arabic Bible, you will see the word "Allaah" being used where "God" is used in English, fact is, it has been used by Christian Arabs and Jewish Arabs in their Bible centuries before Islam came. The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for 'God' than 'Allah'... Even the Arabic-descended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Roman Catholic, uses Alla for 'God'.
Hope this helps.
Peace be unto you ^_^Exactly!
Thank you for the post.
And that's why in the English translations of the Quran it shoud be used "God" and not "Allah", same as in the Authorized translation of Dr. Rashad Khalifa, PhD.Also, I think a lot of people here should often read and examine this site, it might help to clarify a lot of ideas
http//www.unchangingword.com/index.php
jedi
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Salam diamantinehoneybunch,
Allh (Arabic ه is simply the Arabic designation for God. The term is derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article "Al-" (The) and "ilaah" (god) to "Al-laah" (i.e. Allh) meaning "The Sole Deity", "The God" ( , ho theos monos).
Cognates of the proper noun "Allh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew (Eloah/Alwhh) and Aramaic. An interesting example of this would be the Aramaic word ?Aalaha? (or lhā which is the word for God in the language that Jesus (pbuh) spoke.
Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allaah" to mean "God". If you pick up an Arabic Bible, you will see the word "Allaah" being used where "God" is used in English, fact is, it has been used by Christian Arabs and Jewish Arabs in their Bible centuries before Islam came. The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for 'God' than 'Allah'... Even the Arabic-descended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Roman Catholic, uses Alla for 'God'.
Hope this helps.
Peace be unto you ^_^Salaam,
Thanks brother Hicham.
Yes I also know that even Arabic Bible uses the word Allah.
But I don't understand why some people especially non-Arabic speakers often say that Allah means moon-god. Where did they get this?
And I have heard that country like Malaysia condemned the using of Allah in the Bible that was going to be produced.
By the way thanks for the great post.
Your posts are always great ^_^ -
Exactly!
Thank you for the post.You're welcome my brother. Peace be unto you ^_^
Thanks brother Hicham.
Yes I also know that even Arabic Bible uses the word Allah.
But I don't understand why some people especially non-Arabic speakers often say that Allah means moon-god. Where did they get this?
And I have heard that country like Malaysia condemned the using of Allah in the Bible that was going to be produced.
By the way thanks for the great post.
Your posts are always great ^_^ DThanx. Glad I was of any help my sister ^_^
I believe the most cited source is a book entitled "The moon-god Allah in the archeology of the Middle East" by Christian apologist Robert Morey. Giggle! Not only is this claim absurd because "ALLH" is simply the Arabic word for God, the same way "Dieu" is the French word for God, and "Kami" is the Japanese word for God, Etc! But, how can ALLAH be a "moon God" if HE Himself instructs us not to worship the moon (which He created in the first place)!? (_ಠ
And of His portents are the night and the day and the sun and the moon.
Do not prostrate to the sun or the moon; but prostrate to ALLAH Who created them, if it is Him Whom ye (really) worship. {4137}Hope this helps
Peace be unto you. -
Peace all,
The Arabic word "allh" imports the same meaning as the English word "God".
It would be absurd to think that God has given himself an Arabic proper name.
It is quite commonplace in traditional Sunni Islam to maintain that God should be properly referred to as "Allah" notwithstanding the mother tongue of the speaker. This is simply the result of a dogged and domineering cultural-religious imposition.
I am an Arab. When I speak in Arabic with friends, I use the Arabic word "allh".
I was born and raised in England. When I speak in English with friends, I use the English word "God".
I am learning French. When I practice French with my friend, I use the French word "Dieu".
I dread to think that He who lies above the firmaments in omnipotent administration should have chosen for Himself a proper name from among the lowly tongues of men.
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Peace all,
The Arabic word "allh" imports the same meaning as the English word "God".
It would be absurd to think that God has given himself an Arabic proper name.
It is quite commonplace in traditional Sunni Islam to maintain that God should be properly referred to as "Allah" notwithstanding the mother tongue of the speaker. This is simply the result of a dogged and domineering cultural-religious imposition.
I am an Arab. When I speak in Arabic with friends, I use the Arabic word "allh".
I was born and raised in England. When I speak in English with friends, I use the English word "God".
I am learning French. When I practice French with my friend, I use the French word "Dieu".
I dread to think that He who lies above the firmaments in omnipotent administration should have chosen for Himself a proper name from among the lowly tongues of men.
Thank you mod uq for making clear.
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Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allaah" to mean "God". If you pick up an Arabic Bible, you will see the word "Allaah" being used where "God" is used in English, fact is, it has been used by Christian Arabs and Jewish Arabs in their Bible centuries before Islam came. The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for 'God' than 'Allah'... Even the Arabic-descended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Roman Catholic, uses Alla for 'God'.
Same here, in Indonesia the word "Allah" was used in the Christian Bible.