Many Muslims When Cornered by Reality Resort to a Play on Words:

INTRODUCTION:

Many Muslims when cornered by reality and fact resort to a play on words, Logomachy, to avoid seeing the reality, the truth, per John 8:32, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (Authorized King James Bible; AV).

For example they will say that "Allah," is the Arabic word for 'god' which it is not or that Mosque means a place of prostration implying it is not a proper name (noun), but none of that is in line with how proper names and nouns are constructed in Semitic languages.    Names and words for specific items/buildings in Semitic languages such as Arabic are many times made up of two or more words.   They well know this, but use this trickery or deceit to avoid reality.

Let's look at some specific examples that illustrate this fact.

EXAMPLE ONE FROM HEBREW A SEMITIC LANGUAGE:

When Moses asks, in response to the calling of God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" He is first given a description and told to tell the sons of Israel that "I AM the One I AM" ???? ??? ?????, or "I AM whatever I need to become".(Exodus 3:13) This phrase is shown to be the meaning of the name when, in poetic parallel "I AM (?????) has sent you." is replaced by the name. "Say to the Israelites, 'YHWH, the God of your fathers-the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob-has sent me to you.' This is MY NAME forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation."(Exodus 3:15).
According to one Jewish tradition, the Tetragrammaton is related to the causative form, the imperfect state, of the Hebrew verb ???? (ha•wah, "to be, to become"), meaning "He will cause to become" (usually understood as "He causes to become"). Compare the many Hebrew and Arabic personal names which are 3rd person singular imperfective verb forms starting with "y", e.g. Hebrew Yôsêph = Arabic Yazîd = "He [who] adds"; Hebrew Yi?yeh = Arabic Yahyâ = "He [who] lives".

And,

<<<"Another tradition regards the name as coming from three different verb forms sharing the same root YWH, the words HYH haya ????: "He was"; HWH howê ????: "He is"; and YHYH yihiyê ?????: "He will be". This is supposed to show that God is timeless, as some have translated the name as "The Eternal One". Other interpretations include the name as meaning "I am the One Who Is." This can be seen in the traditional Jewish account of the "burning bush" commanding Moses to tell the sons of Israel that "I AM (?????) has sent you." (Exodus 3:13-14) Some suggest: "I AM the One I AM" ???? ??? ?????, or "I AM whatever I need to become". This may also fit the interpretation as "He Causes to Become." Many scholars believe that the most proper meaning may be "He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists" or "He who causes to exist'".[source - Answers.com - world's greatest encyclodictionalmaanacapedia, http://www.answers.com/topic/tetragrammaton]>>>.

And,

<<<" Then, too, we must keep in mind that names then had real meaning and were not just "labels" to identify an individual as today. Moses knew that Abram's name (meaning "Father Is High (Exalted)") was changed to Abraham (meaning "Father of a Crowd (Multitude)"), the change being made because of God's purpose concerning Abraham. So, too, the name of Sarai was changed to Sarah and that of Jacob to Israel; in each case the change revealed something fundamental and prophetic about God's purpose concerning them. Moses may well have wondered if Jehovah would now reveal himself under some new name to throw light on his purpose toward Israel. Moses' going to the Israelites in the "name" of the One who sent him meant being the representative of that One, and the greatness of the authority with which Moses would speak would be determined by or be commensurate with that name and what it represented. (Compare Ex 23:20, 21; 1Sa 17:45.) So, Moses' question was a meaningful one.
God's reply in Hebrew was: ´Eh•yeh' ´Asher' ´Eh•yeh'. Some translations render this as "I AM THAT I AM." However, it is to be noted that the Hebrew verb ha•yah', from which the word ´Eh•yeh' is drawn, does not mean simply "be." Rather, it means "become," or "prove to be.'"[source - Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. 2]>>>.

Thus as can be seen, in Semitic languages proper names are made up of words strung together.  The proper noun or name may or may not bear a relationship to the words that make it up.  This will clearly be shown with respect to 'Old middle eastern celestial Moon god, "Allah,"' and its relationship to the two words making it up.

ALLAH, AND ILAH AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP IN ARABIC:

As stated in the last part, in Semitic languages proper names are made up of words strung together.  The proper noun or name may or may not bear a relationship to the words that make it up.  This will clearly be shown with respect to 'Old middle eastern celestial Moon god, "Allah,"' and its relationship to the two words making it up.

Scholar Syed Abul Ala Maududi said, with respect one of the words, 'ilah,' which is the Arabic word for 'god' and is one of the words used to make the proper Arabic name "Allah,".
<<<"The root of this word consists of the three (Arabic) letters, alif, lam, and ha and the connotations of various derivations, as one finds in lexicons are as follows:

Became confused or perplexed.

Achieved peace and mental calm by seeking refuge with someone or establishing relations with him.

Became frightened of some impending mishap or disaster, and someone gave him the necessary shelter.

Turned to another eagerly, due to the intensity of his feelings for him.

The lost offspring of the she-camel rushed to snuggle up to its mother on finding it. Became hidden, or concealed. Also, got elevated.

Adored, offered worship to.

If we reflect upon these original meanings, we can gain the necessary idea of how the verb came to mean the act of worship and the noun to denote the object of worship. There are four considerations to bear in mind in this connection :

1. Foremost among the factors which engender a sentiment of some degree of adoration for some one is a person's own state of being in distress or need. He cannot even conceive of worshiping someone unless he has reason to believe that someone to be in a position to remove his distress, to fulfill his needs, to give him shelter and protect him in time of danger, and soothe his troubled heart.

2. It goes without saying that the above belief is accompanied by a belief also in the superiority of the other in status, power, and strength.

3. It is also a matter of fact that where any of the needs of a human being are met under the ordinary process of give and take, which takes place perceptibly before one's own eyes, it leads to no sense of reverence, much less of adoration, for the other. For example, if I should be in need of money and, having applied for, and been given a job, am paid for it, since the whole transaction would take place within the full ken of my senses, and I would be fully aware of the circumstances or the reason for giving me the money, I would experience not the slightest desire to offer my employer any adoration. That sentiment arises only when there is some element of mystery surrounding the personality, the power, or the ability of the other to fulfill peoples' needs or to influence events. That is why the word chosen to denote an object of worship includes in its meanings the senses of mystery, perplexity, and superiority in status, etc.

4. Lastly, it is only natural that if one believes another to be in a position to fulfill one's needs, to provide shelter and protection, to soothe a disturbed heart and fill it with peace and calm, one turns eagerly to that person as a matter of course.

We may therefore safely conclude from the above that the connotation of the word ilah includes the capacities to fulfill the needs of others, to give them shelter and protection, to relieve their minds of distress and agitation, superiority, and the requisite authority and power to do all these, to be mysterious in some way or hidden from men's eyes, and the turning of men eagerly to him.

The Pre-Islamic Concept

Having discussed the various literal senses of the word, let us now see what the pre-Islamic concepts of ilah were, and which of these the Qur'an strove to reject :

And they have taken for their ilahs others than Allah, that they may according to their reckoning be a source of strength to them (or that coming under their protection may confer security).
(19 : 81) Surat Mariam

And they have taken others than Allah as their ilahs hoping that they would help when needed.
(36:74) Surat Ya'aseen

From these two verses we learn that the Arabs of the Jahiliyyah (the pre-Islamic period of Ignorance) believed that those whom they regarded as ilahs were their patrons, would come to their rescue in time of danger or difficulty, and that by placing themselves under their protection they rendered themselves safe from fear, molestation or harm.

And when the Decree of your Lord had gone forth (and the time came for its execution), the ilahs they used to invoke instead of Allah proved of no avail to them and contributed only to their Doom.
(11 : 101) Surat Hood

And those whom the people call to instead of Allah have not created aught, but are themselves creatures. Dead they are, and not alive, and they know not when they would be raised from their state, the real ilah is the One and Only Ilah.
(18 : 20, 21) Surat Al kahf

Invoke not; or pray to, any ilah along with Allah. There is no ilah but He.2
(28 : 88) Surat Al Kassas

And those who, instead of praying to Allah, pray to His supposed associates do but follow suppositions and idle guesses.
(10:66) Surat younus

These verses point to three aspects. The first is that the Arabs used to address their prayers to those whom they regarded as their ilahs and invoke them in times of distress or for fulfillment of any of their needs. The second is that these ilahs included not only Jinns, angels, and gods, but dead humans too, as one can see from the second of the above verses. The third is that they believed that these ilahs could hear their prayers and could come to their rescue.

It seems desirable to clear up one point, at this stage, about the nature of the prayer made to the ilah or ilahs and the help or succor sought of them. If I feel thirsty, and call to my servant to give me some water, or am unwell and call for a doctor for treatment, my summons to them does not constitute du'a, that is, it has no similarity to a prayer sent up to a deity, nor does this make either the servant or the doctor into an ilah. Both these are common, in everyday happenings, with nothing of the supernatural about them. However, if I should, while feeling thirsty or unwell, call to some saint or god instead of the servant or a doctor, that obviously would amount to treating the saint or god as an ilah and to my addressing a du'a to him. Addressing a prayer to a saint confined to his grave hundreds or even thousands of miles away3 clearly indicates that I believe him--though dead--to be possessed of the power to listen to a prayer at such a distance or to otherwise being aware of things so far off or, if one may use the appropriate Arabic words, to be both samee and baseer 4. My action would clearly imply belief in their exercising such a way over the realm of creation as to be able to have the water reach me or to make me recover from my illness. In the case of a god, my prayer would mean that I believe him to possess power over water and over health and sickness, and to therefore arrange, by supernatural means, to fulfill my needs. Thus, the basis on which a prayer is addressed to someone includes necessarily a concept of his being possessed of some supernatural authority and power.

And, verily, We did destroy the places of which you see ruins about you, and We showed them Our signs in diverse ways that they might turn (away from their wrong ways to Us). So why did not those whom they had made their ilahs, and presumed to have access to Us, help them in their hour of doom? Far from helping, they abandoned them and made themselves scarce, exposing the hollowness of their falsehoods and fabrications 5.
(46 : 27, 28) Surat Al Ahqa'af

And wherefore should I not give my worship to Him who created me and to Whom all of you will return? Should I take for myself ilah other then Allah Who, should He Who is also Ar-Rahman wish me any harm, will avail me naught by their intercession, nor will they be able to come to my rescue?
(36 : 22-23) Surat ya'aseen

And those who have taken others then Allah as protectors or helpers say, "We do not worship them except that they may bring us closer to Him." Allah will decide for them on the Day of Judgment regarding that in which they differ.
(39:3) Surat Al Zoumar

And they worship other than Allah those who have power neither to harm nor benefit them, and they say that they are their intercessors with Him.
(10 : 18) Surat younus

What we learn from these verses is, firstly, that it was not that the Arabs believed their ilahs to account for the whole of divinity among themselves or that there was no Supreme Being over and above them. They quite clearly believed in the existence of such a Being for whom they employed the special Proper name of '"Allah"." As for their ilahs, their belief consisted essentially of the concept that they enjoyed some share in the divinity of the Supreme God, that their word carried some weight with Him, and that their intercession could result in some gains or ward off some harm or loss. It was on these grounds that they regarded them as ilahs besides Allah and, considering their precept and practice, we may say that it was the belief about someone to have power to intercede with God, the act of addressing of prayers to him for help, the performing of certain devotions indicative of respect and reverence and adoration, and the making of offerings, that constituted in their terminology, the treating of Him as ilah.

And God said : "Do not make two ilahs ;there is but one ilah ; So, fear Me alone." (16:51) Surat Al Nahl

And (Ibrahim said to them): I fear not those you associate with God. Any harm can come to me only if He should will it, and not otherwise (through any or all of your supposed gods).
(6 : 81) Surat Al Ana'am

(And said Hud's people to him All we think of yon is that you are under the curse of someone or other of our ilahs.
(11:54) Surat Hud

According to these verses, the Arab belief about their ilahs was that if they should give them any cause for offence or should otherwise be deprived of their favors and attentions, they would suffer epidemics, famine, lose of life and property, or other calamities.

They made their religious scholars end rabbis their rabbs instead of Allah, and Jesus son of Mary too into one, although they had been told to worship but one ilah only, besides Whom there is no ilah at all.
(9 :31) Surat Al Tawba

Have you noticed the men who has made his selfish desires his ilah ? Can you assume any responsibility about such a one?
(25:43) Surat Al Forqa'an

And in this wise did the supposed gods of pagans make infanticide appear an approved act in their eyes.
(6 : 138) Surat Al Ana'am

What! Have they partners in godhood who have established for them some religion without sanction from Gods?
(42:21) Surat Al Shura'h

Here we have yet another concept of ilah very different from those dealt with above. Here there is no element of the supernatural. The ilah here is some human being, or man's own selfish ego or selfish desires. No prayers are offered to it, nor is it regarded as being in a position to will any harm or benefit to someone nor is it looked to for help or succor. It is an ilah in the sense that its dictates are accepted and obeyed to such extent that that which it declares to be permitted or prohibited is treated as such, and it is deemed to have an inherent right to make us do or not do certain things, with no higher or superior authority whose approval might be necessary for its orders or which might be appealed to against them.

The first verse we have quoted here (9:31) speaks of religious scholars and rabbis having been made into ilahs. We get a very lucid explanation of this in Hadith. Hazrat 'Adi bin Hatim once asked the Holy Prophet, on whom be peace, about the verse, and in reply the Prophet told him that whet was characterized as taking as ilahs was the practice of accepting as permitted or prohibited anything pronounced as such by the scholars or rabbis, without caring to ascertain what God had actually said about it.

As for the second verse, (25:43) the meaning is clear enough. He who obeys only the dictates of his selfish desires or inclinations or, rather regards his personal views as the only law, in effect makes his self his ila'h instead of God.

The last two verses use the word shuraka which we have translated as supposed gods or partners, in godhood, but although the word ilah has not been used, the implication clearly is that to treat any beings, etc., as shuraka amounts, in effect, to believing them to have a share in divinity. The import of these verses is that those who regard any custom or rule or practice as permissible although it has no divine sanction, are guilty of treating the originators of the custom, etc., as having a share in divinity, i. e., of treating them as ilahs.

The Criterion for Godhood

There is a clear logical inter-connection between all the different concepts of ilah set out above. Whosoever regards any other person or being to be his helper or patron in the supernatural sense, or capable of solving his problems or fulfilling his needs, of hearing and granting his prayers, or of doing him harm or good, does so only because he believes that Person or being to enjoy some measure of authority in the management of the universe. Similarly, if a person's avoidance of certain actions or performance of others is governed by the hope or fear that they would win him the pleasure or displeasure of some other person or being, he does so obviously because of belief that that person or being possesses some hind of supernatural authority in shaping the affairs of men. As for him who believes in God and yet turns to others for the fulfillment of his needs, he too can do so only because he believes them to have some share in God's authority. And, lastly, no different is the case of the person who accords the status of law to the commandments of someone other than God, and binds himself to obey the injunctions or prohibitions of that someone. for he in effect thereby accords him supreme authority. We can therefore safely conclude that the essence of godhood is authority, whether it is conceived as sovereignty of a supernatural kind over the whole universe, or on the basis that man is bound by God's law in his worldly life and that all of His injunctions are to be complied with because they emanate from Him."[source - http://www.islam101.com/tauheed/ilah.htm]>>>.

So, now let's look at how the "Allah," is constructed. The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god." It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic, and as can be seen follows the general rule for Semitic languages that proper names are made up of words strung together.  The proper noun or name may or may not bear a relationship to the words that make it up.  This has clearly been shown with respect to 'Old middle eastern celestial Moon god's name, "Allah,"' and its relationship to the two words making it up.

Now let's look at what others say about the old middle eastern celestial Moon god, "Allah."

[1] Dr. Arthur Jeffery, one of the foremost Western Islamic scholars in modern times and professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Columbia University, notes:

<<<"The name Allah, as the Quran itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa">>>.

[2] The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, states, <<<"The origin of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity">>>.

[3] The Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, states,<<<"The name Allah goes back before Muhammad">>>.

[4] Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326, T & T Clark, states:
<<<"Allah" is a proper name, applicable only to their [Arabs'] peculiar God.">>>.

[5] And scholar George W. Braswell, Jr. states:
<<<"Pre-Islamic Arabia also had its stone deities. They were stone statues of shapeless volcanic or meteoric stones found in the deserts and believed to have been sent by astral deities. The most prominent deities were Hubal, the male god of the Ka'ba, and the three sister goddesses al-Lat, al-Manat, and al-Uzza; Muhammad's tribe, the Quraysh, thought these three goddesses to be the daughters of Allah. Hubal was the chief god of the Ka'ba among 360 other deities. He was a man-like statue whose body was made of red precious stone and whose arms were of solid gold." [source - George W. Braswell, Jr., Islam Its Prophets, Peoples, Politics and Power" (Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, TN; July, 1996), p. 44]>>>.

[6] And by numerous scholars, a summary:
<<<"The old middle eastern Moon god who has gone by many names is still well venerated. This is shown by "The Archeology of The Middle East" which states, "The religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters.

Archaeologists have uncovered temples to the Moon-god throughout the Middle East. From the mountains of Turkey to the banks of the Nile, the most wide-spread religion of the ancient world was the worship of the Moon-god. In the first literate civilization, the Sumerians have left us thousands of clay tablets in which they described their religious beliefs. As demonstrated by Sjoberg and Hall, the ancient Sumerians worshipped a Moon-god who was called many different names. The most popular names were Nanna, Suen and Asimbabbar. His symbol was the crescent moon. Given the amount of artifacts concerning the worship of this Moon-god, it is clear that this was the dominant religion in Sumeria. The cult of the Moon-god was the most popular religion throughout ancient Mesopotamia. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Akkadians took the word Suen and transformed it into the word Sin as their favorite name for the Moon-god. As Prof. Potts pointed out, "Sin is a name essentially Sumerian in origin which had been borrowed by the Semites." [source - The Archeology of the Middle East]"[additional references - "South Arabia's stellar religion has always been dominated by the Moon-god in various variations" (Berta Segall, The Iconography of Cosmic Kingship, the Art Bulletin, vol.xxxviii, 1956, p.77).; Isaac Rabinowitz, Aramaic Inscriptions of the Fifth Century, JNES, XV, 1956, pp.1-9; Edward Linski, The Goddess Atirat in Ancient Arabia, in Babylon and in Ugarit: Her Relation to the Moon-god and the Sun-goddess, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, 3:101-9; H.J.Drivers, Iconography and Character of the Arab Goddess Allat, found in Études Preliminaries Aux Religions Orientales Dans L'Empire Roman, ed. Maarten J. Verseren, Leiden, Brill, 1978, pp.331-51); Richard Le Baron Bower Jr. and Frank P. Albright, Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1958, p.78ff; Ray Cleveland, An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1965; Nelson Gleuck, Deities and Dolphins, New York, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1965).; Another Aramaic Record of the North Arabian goddess Han'Llat, JNES, XVIII, 1959, pp.154-55."]>>>.

[7] Answering-Islam says,
<<<Allah (allah, al-ilah, the god) was the principal, though not the only, deity of Makkah. The name is an ancient one. It occurs in two South Arabic inscriptions, one a Minean found at al-'Ula and the other Sabean, but abounds in the form HLH in the Lihyanite inscriptions of the fifth century B.C. Lihyan, which evidently got the god from Syria, was the first center of the worship of this deity in Arabia. The name occurs as Hallah in the Safa inscriptions five centuries before Islam and also in a pre-Islamic Christian Arabic inscription found in umm-al-Jimal, Syria, and ascribed to the sixth century. The name of Muhammad's father was 'Abd-Allah ('Abdullah, the slave or worshiper of Allah). The esteem in which Allah was held by the pre-Islamic Makkans as the creator and supreme provider and the one to be invoked in time of special peril may be inferred from such koranic passages as 31:24, 31; 6:137, 109; 10:23. Evidently he was the tribal deity of the Quraysh. (Ibid., pp. 100-101; underlined emphasis ours)
[source - http://answering-islam.org.uk/Shamoun/ishmael-baal.htm]>>>.

OTHER EXAMPLES OF FORMING OF PROPER NAMES IN SEMITIC LANGUAGES:

As previously stated and shown, in Semitic languages proper names are made up of words strung together.  The proper noun or name may or may not bear a relationship to the words that make it up.  This was clearly be shown with respect to 'Old middle eastern celestial Moon god, "Allah,"' and its relationship to the two words making it up, "Al" and "Ilah".

Now here is another example provided Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia with respect to the name of a former Crown Prince,
<<<"Example, Crown Prince 'Abd al-Ilah (also written Abdul Ilah), (1913-1958), was the cousin of and brother-in-law of King Ghazi, and was regent of Iraq for King Faisal II from April 4, 1939 to May 2, 1953, when Faisal came of age. He also held the title of Crown Prince of Iraq from 1943.

A son of King Ali ibn Hussein of Hejaz, who was the elder brother of King Faisal I of Iraq, he assumed power upon the death of his brother in an automobile accident. He was deposed briefly by former prime minister Rashid Ali al-Kaylani, who led a pro-German coup during World War II but was restored after the United Kingdom invaded the country in May 1941.

'Abd al-Ilah stepped down in 1953, when Faisal came of age, but he continued to be a close adviser of the young king, and an advocate of a pro-Western foreign policy. He was killed, along with most of the royal family, on July 14, 1958, in a coup d'état led by Colonel Abdul Karim Qassim that brought an end to the Iraqi monarchy."[source - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]>>>.
Note, His name like that of old middle eastern celestial Moon god, "Allah," contains the Arabic word for god, "Ilah".  Just another example of proper names are made up of words strung together in Semitic languages.  The proper noun or name may or may not bear a relationship to the words that make it up.

In fact some members of Islam even seek to deceive with respect to the meanings of Arabic proper names that are made up according to how proper names are made up of words strung together in Semitic languages by claiming the proper name has the meaning of the two or more words that make it up.  Of course this is nothing but pure grammatical nonsense only meant to deceive when they are in a state of denial with respect to the truth.  Let's look at one example by a member of Islam,
<<<" Mosque literally means a place of prostration. As such, it is not necessarily characteristic of a dome or a building. If the Quran had said that Muhammad(saw) visited the Temple(using the word "haykal"), an anachronism would appear. However, the pertinent verse says "masjid" which in this case means a ground whereon a worshipper prostrates.">>>
Whereas, knowing how Semitic languages construct proper names of things, places, and people from words in those languages making up the proper name this is sheer grammatical nonsense used only to deceive.

CONCLUSION:

The construction of proper names of things, places, and people in Semitic languages has clearly been shown to be by combining words in those languages to form the.  The proper noun or name thus may or may not bear a relationship to the words that make it up.  This was clearly be shown with respect to 'Old middle eastern celestial Moon god, "Allah,"' and its relationship to the two words making it up, "Al" and "Ilah", the name of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael, creator of all there is, that of a former Crown Prince, and that of the name of the building used by members of Islam to worship in, "Mosque," which is made up of two Arabic words, "haykal" and "masjid" per a member of Islam.

Also, as noted by scholar S.A.Ala Maududi, sometimes the original meaning of a word gets obscured,
<<<"But as centuries passed, the real meanings of these terms gradually under went subtle changes so that, in course of time, instead of the full connotations, they came to stand for only very limited meanings or restricted and rather vague concepts. One reason was the gradual decline of interest in the Arabic language and the other that the words ceased to have the same meanings for the later generations of Muslims that they had for the original Arabs to whom the Qur'an had been revealed. It is for these two reasons that in the more recent lexicons and commentaries many of the Qur'anic words began to be explained not by their original sense but by what they had by then come to stand for, e.g., The word ilah, as used in respect of others than God, came to be synonymous with idols or gods; The word rabb came to mean only someone who brings up or rears or feeds another or provides for his worldly needs; 'Ibadah began to be understood as the performance of a set of rituals of "worship"; Deen began to mean a religion, or belief in some precepts; and the word Thaghut began to be translated to mean an idol or the Devil." [source - The Meaning of ILAH, (taken from S.A.Ala Maududi's article : "Four Basic Terms"), http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Articles/shariah/ilah.htm]>>>.

And as noted by Teri Riddering, on 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![source - Teri Riddering, http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/23458 ]>>>.

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Your Friend in Christ Iris89

Francis David said it long ago, "Neither the sword of popes...nor the image of death will halt the march of truth."Francis David, 1579, written on the wall of his prison cell." Read the book, "What Does The Bible Really Teach" and the Bible today!