The Name of God in Islam (No. 54)

Christian Churches of God No. 54

The Name of God in Islam

(Edition 2.5 20020126-20110503-20170708) Since September 11 2001 there has been an extraordinary amount of misinformation and childish vilification occurring as a result of the approach to history and debate in the United States of America, particularly among its religious systems. The derivation of the name of God is one such example.

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(Copyright  2002, 2011, 20017 Wade Cox)

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The Name of God in Islam

Ignorance: The beginning of hatred what is presented as verifiable truth. It seeks to Often one is simply stunned by the appalling assert some failure of the compilers to identify ignorance of the religious systems of this world. this valuable piece of information. It is not In the discussion of late there has been an surprising that the accounts do not contain such extraordinary amount of vilification of the references, as the assertions are completely Islamic system based on, or as a result of, the false, as we will see. terrorist attacks coming from the Afghan systems under the Taliban and the Bin Laden The Names of the Moon God and Sun network and the Allied counter reactions. Many Consort papers are being circulated that are so The Name of the Moon God anciently was Sin obviously false, yet presented in such an among the Israelites. The Arabs gave this male assertive way, that a scholar of Comparative deity the name Qamar and the consort was Religion would laugh at the assertions. named Shams. The details can be seen in the However, a number of people, who are less paper The Golden Calf (No. 222). informed, are being taken in by these religious bigots. The Sun God was a female consort. The names we find among the Celts are derived from these One such fairy tale of the bigots concerns the names. For example James is a derivation of the name of God or Allah in Islam. Shamus type and comes from this system. So also are Milcom and Chemosh gods of the We will now look at some of the assertions pagan descendants of Lot. The god Milcom is regarding these matters. Perhaps we might get related in the name Malcolm. some sense and reason based on fact into the argument. The name Al ilat being circulated as we see above is a corruption of one of the three female The Origin of the name Allah deities. The name Al ilat is the older form of One assertion concerning the name of Allah is the sun Goddess referred to in Herodotus i. 131; doing the rounds as follows. iii. 8. This became Al lat or Allat and means simply the goddess. She was worshipped "If this were an authentic history, the textbook would among the Arabs of the Sinaitic peninsular and explain that the god of Muhammad was man's particularly the Nabateans and Palmyrenes. creation. Arabia was a pagan nation that worshiped over 300 gods. One of those was the moon god Herodotus asserts in the second passage that named, al-ilah. Legend has it that the moon god ‘alilat and ‘orotalt are the sole deities of mated with the sun god and had two daughters, both Arabia. Nöldeke (ERE 1, p. 661) draws of whom were worshiped as goddesses. When attention to the name as the older form of Allat Muhammad claimed to have had his `vision' and and makes comparison with the name Al’ilãh, `revelation from Gabriel' he chose al-ilah as the god which was the older form of Allãh. In both to build his army around. Muhammad shortened the name, al-ilah, to, Allah, and declared that he alone passages Herodotus identifies her with Ούρανίη should be worshiped. He forbade the worship of the and thus a great celestial goddess. daughters. To this day, a crescent moon can be found at the front of every mosque, acknowledging that The definitive proof that al ilat as the goddess Allah was, and is the moon god. All of this is is not associated with Allah is the statement by missing from the Houghton-Mifflin accounts." Muhammed himself in the Koran at Surah Now on the face of it this argument might liii:19, where he identifies al ilat as one of the appear plausible to the uninformed and indeed three heavenly deities, Al Lat, Al Uzza and it is circulated by some as a genuine view. Manat as the third. He denounces their adherence and places Allah as one true God. In Note the writer is attacking the Houghton- this Surah he goes on to denounce the adoration Mifflin accounts because they do not contain of Sirius also in these contexts when he The Name of God in Islam Page 3 proclaims Allah as Lord of Sirius (Surah liii:50) Dhu Shara or more correctly Dhu ‘sh-Shara, in condemnation of the belief that Sirius itself which means “pertaining to ash-Shara” has an had divine power. obvious connection to the term Asherah of the Bible. It is a deity that was worshipped by the Al Lat is also referred to in the inscription at Nabateans in their capital of Petra. He was Safã as ‘LT and perhaps HLT. She is represented by a four-cornered block of unhewn understood as the Mother of the Gods. The black stone four feet in height and two feet in name is seemingly pronounced as Hallat. She width. The blood of sacrificial victims was was venerated among the later Arabs. poured upon it and before it. Underneath it stood a golden pedestal and the whole The Sun god held in special honour by the sanctuary blazed with gold and votive offerings Nabateans and identified by Strabo (784) was (ERE, vol. 1, p. 663). The Greek records show also understood to be Al Lat (ERE, ibid.). this deity as Dusares. Epiphaneus says the festival of Dusares was celebrated at Petra on The cult was at Ta’if to the east of Mecca and the 25th December which was the winter the tribe of the Thaqif spoke of her as their solstice. The ERE acknowledges it as a mistress. connection with sun worship (ibid.) (cf. the paper The Origins of Christmas and Easter The most important cult of later times also was (No. 235)). the cult of Al Uzza, which was the worship of Venus. The name meant simply “the Mighty.” In the centre of the home of the cult As sherah (hence The Groves) he was identified with Manat was perhaps associated with the deity of Dionysus. The connection of the cult with Meni (Isa. 65:11). Manat was venerated by the luxuriant vegetation is also that of sun worship tribe of the Hudhail close to Mecca and in the cycles. This god became represented by especially among the inhabitants of Yathrib an idol among the tribe of Daus not far from (Medina). The incidence of her name is Mecca. evidence that the cult was found over a great part of Arabia. The black stone of Dusares or Dionysus the god of the Nabateans at Petra was taken to the For this reason the Prophet Qasim (termed Ka’aba and became the cult focus there that Muhammad) had to attack the worship of these even Muhammed would fail to remove. It deities. In the explanation of the problem he subsequently became adopted by Hadithic located the worship of the deities to the time of Islam and the worship of a pagan god has Noah and thus associated them with the system become the centre of the Meccan pilgrimage. at Babel as seen from Genesis. The deities so located were: The second God to come from the North was Yaghuth (helper) (Surah lxxi. 23) that of Hubal. ‘Amr b. Luhai is understood to (Robertson Smith identifies this deity with have brought his idol to Mecca from Moab Ye’ush the ancestor of the Edomites mentioned (Ma’ab) and placed it in the Ka’aba. It was in Genesis 36 and elsewhere in the OT). It is originally of human form. It had with it only later that we hear of this god’s idol being divining arrows for divination. in contention among the tribes of the Yemen. Ya’uq and The Kalb tribe of the Syrian Desert used the Suwa (prob. the preserver) the cult was name of Hubal for a person or clan and they confined to Yemen (Sur lxxi. 20). also used Isaf and Na’ila, which were two other deities peculiar to Mecca. Hubal and Dhu Shara There are two deities that are also relevant to ‘Amr b. Luhai is held to be the representative of this argument: Hubal and Dhu Shara. the Huza’a which was the tribe to occupy Mecca before the Quraish (ERE, ibid., p. 664). Page 4 The Name of God in Islam

We might thus deduce that the Huza’a and establish a link that says the name Allah is introduced the pagan cults to Mecca although derived from the worship of the Moabite Hubal. Nöldeke considers it improbable that ‘Amr B. This seems to be a religious bias with no basis Luhai should be credited with this move but in historical fact that one can readily see. In fact does not specify the reason, leaving us to infer the evidence is quite the contrary. that it preceded him. It is from Wellhausen that the false argument is derived (ERE, ibid.). The word El was used by earlier Arabs as a single name for the deity as simply God in the The confusion in the names comes from the same way it is used in the Bible. The word danger of a little knowledge of some based on became iyal as a plural form of majesty. an error by Wellhausen.

In the same way the word for Lord, Baal, as Because we repeatedly find the name of a deity The Lord became a name of the deity and followed by the title Alaha, or the god, appears commonly in the Semitic system. The Wellhausen argued that the Arabs of a later age verb ba’ila (to be bewildered) means in effect might have applied the epithet Allah as the God to seize for the God Ba’al (probably also our to a number of different deities and that, in this bail). manner, from being a mere appendage to the name of a great god, may gradually have In the Saifa inscriptions the word Hallah become the name of the Supreme God. meaning The God enters the composition of the various personal names of the Nabateans and This argument is appalling reasoning ignoring many various Northern Arabs at a very early the text of the Bible and the ancient linguistic time. Forms such as Zaid Allahi or increase of forms concerning the names of God in the God, etc., are found from an early time and the Hebrew, Chaldean, Aramaic and Arabic word was in use among even the pre-Islamic languages. and heathen Arabs. Allah became a common use among the various idiomatic phrases in The Origin of the name Allah common use among the heathen Arabs. The When the Ka’abah was cleaned out in Mecca Koran itself is the evidence for the view that the there were some 167 idols there. The pagan pre-Islamic and heathen Arabs themselves pantheon among the Arabs was extensive, regarded Allah as the Supreme Being. They albeit confined in the main to the three deities, turn to Allah when in distress (Surahs x. 23; and Sirius. Much of this pagan worship entered xxix. 65; xxxi. 31). Solemn oaths are sworn in Islam as we will see but it did not involve the his name (S. vi. 109; xvi. 40; xxxv. 40). He is Name of God. recognized by mankind as the Creator, and Giver of rain (xxxi. 61ff.). Their crime is that There appears to be two accounts one of Hubal they worship other gods beside Him; namely and the 360 idols representing the days of the the three goddesses Al Lat, Al Uzza and Manat year and the figure of 167 re the idols in Ka’aba who are believed to be His daughters (xvi. itself. The various reports indicate it may have 59ff.). been both numbers and with the 360 surrounding the Ka’aba and the 167 internal to Wellhausan cites a large number of passages in it. which pre-Islamic Arabs mention Allah as a great deity. There are so many that even if we Muhammed came from a family that was in strike some out as suspicious there are so many large part Unitarian Christian and it was in this as to establish beyond doubt that the term Allah manner that he was exposed to the Bible is a pre-Muhammedan term. structure.

The term is the common name for God among He set about destroying three aspects to the all Arabs, heathen and otherwise. Yet despite worship of the one true God. Firstly he set the evidence Wellhausen then goes on to try about eliminating pagan worship from the Arab The Name of God in Islam Page 5 tribes. He was then faced with the task of name Eloah is the title of the God of the exposing and destroying the Trinitarian system, Temple at Jerusalem. This name is singular and which had imposed itself on the East from admits of no plurality. It refers to the one True Constantinople as a tool of the Roman system. God alone. He also had the task of liberating the Arabs from the Jewish aristocracy and kingships that In the eastern Aramaic the singular Elahh controlled the Middle East at that time. Much became Allah’ in the Arabic in this way. Elahh of this influence extended into Khazaria and was referred to as Al Elahh or The God in the would see the conversion of the Khazar singular as it appears in the Bible text and the Ashkenazi to Judaism in the next century in 740 Chaldean. It then became Al’ilãh in the Arabic CE. from the eastern Aramaic, the two hh sound being expressed as an aspirant with the final Muhammed began to teach in 610 CE and by letter h of Allah. Thus the ancient Arabic form 632 Islam was established after the Hejira or was Al’ilãh altering the double h sound. Islam the flight from Mecca to Medina. under Muhammed carried on the name Allah because it was singular and it admits of no It is true that the mosques in Islam have plurality. crescents associated with them but so do many Trinitarian Churches in Christianity. However, There is no doubt that the name Eloah of the the names have nothing to do with the name of Bible and Allah of the Arabic come to us from Allah. Much of the mosque structure is also the Semitic language via Ancient Hebrew and associated with the breasts of the goddess in its Ancient Chaldean respectively and mean the roof form and is directly pagan, but this has same thing. little to do with the Prophet and with true Islam. The name Yahovah is a title applied to Eloah as As we see Al’ilãh was the older form of Allãh. the third person form of the verb meaning He This is not associated with the Moon God at all Causes to Be. This view is confirmed by the and not with the celestial goddess Al ilat or Al footnote to the text in Exodus 3:14 in the Lat either in any way. Annotated Oxford RSV. The name expressed in the text in Exodus 3:14 means I am what I will The Hebrew and Arabic languages are related become (‘eyeh ‘asher ‘eyeh cf. Bullinger fn. to in this way. The Hebrew was the originator of Companion Bible also). It designates an act of the western Aramaic form, which was spoken creation in expansion of Himself by the One after the Babylonian captivity in place of True God in accordance with His will and plan. Hebrew. The Chaldean Semitic language In this sense all men will become sons of God. became eastern Aramaic and from which the modern Arabic springs. It is thus a name applied to the spokesman of the One True God who is referred to as The names for God in Hebrew were: Yahovih (SHD 3069) or Yahovah of Hosts. Eloah (singular form); and Yahovah (SHD 3068) is used to refer to Elohim (plural form). subordinate deities and sometimes multiple deities at the same time. In other words they all El was a short form and could mean mighty as act for the one True God Eloah as the elohim. applied to a person. Thus all men will become spiritual gods or elohim as sons of God (see the paper The Elect The names for God in Chaldean were: as Elohim (No. 1)). Elahh (singular form) (= Heb. Eloah) Elahhin (plural form) (= Heb. Elohim) The name Yahovah is applied to at least four beings, three of whom are angels or messengers El had the same meaning. Both the Hebrew and for the God in Heaven at the same time as we the Chaldean appear in the Bible texts using see from the instance with Abraham and Lot, these forms. The book of Ezra shows that the and the destruction at Sodom and Gomorrah. Page 6 The Name of God in Islam

These aspects have been all examined at the way out and no doubt will end up in papers: The Angel of YHVH (No. 24); The Trinitarianism. The Seventh Day Baptists are Names of God (No. 116); The Pre-Existence of Unitarian as they have always been in their Jesus Christ (No. 243); and Abraham and International Conference but became Sodom (No. 91). Trinitarian in the US Conference from the mid seventies. Theologically they are very weak. It is from this ignorance of the origins of names The Churches of God and the Seventh Day in language and a desire to slander and malign Baptists were originally Unitarian in every by self-righteous bigots in Christianity that we denomination including the Seventh Day see error and slander arise. The ignorance of Adventists. Armstrong was credentialed a Islam based on the traditions of men further minister of the Church of God (Seventh Day) increases the hostility. when it was Unitarian. The Seventh Day Adventists became Trinitarian at the end of the Why would people attack the name Allah? 1970s. What is the significance of the term? These same people are now faced with the fact The real problem stems from the false theology that they have invented a false doctrine and that entered Christianity and finds expression permeate the Churches of God with error. today in the Churches of God. It was for this reason in the early centuries The Trinitarian system developed from a following the false Trinitarian theology in Binitarian structure that found itself adopted at Christianity that Islam insists on referring to the Nicaea in 325 CE. The Trinity was developed One True God as Allah,’ rather than the plural by the Cappadocians, Gregory of Nyssa, ellahhin, because the name admits of no Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil. The theology plurality whatsoever. was adopted in 381 CE and crippled Christianity theologically. Augustine of Hippo Rather than admit that they are in error, the then set the erroneous theology in concrete in Binitarian, Ditheist and Trinitarian teachers of his writings. the various Churches of God invent arguments based on falsehood and slander those who The Churches of God have even less excuse for disagree. This practice is contrary to the Bible the error. They developed, under Herbert and now to the Laws of the United States as Armstrong in the twentieth century, a ditheism well as other nations. that commenced a false theology around two co-eternal Gods. These erroneous teachers are The various errors in theology will be examined faced with the Bible terminology of Eloah in the work FAQs on Islam (No. 55). being the name for God in the singular and which can only be used of the One True God The idea that Allah is not the God of the Bible, who sent Jesus Christ (John 17:3). They then whose name is actually Yahweh so it is have to attack the use of Eloah as One True claimed, is an idea that has emerged from God. They do this by coupling the terms Eloah Sacred Names theology in the USA and is false. and Allah, which is a correct link, but assert it It fails to understand the names of God in the relates to the worship of a moon God in Islam Bible and the place of the Eloah-Elohim because of the pagan intrusions into the distinction there. mosques under a mystical system. It is true that Islam, like Christianity before it, is hopelessly In one diatribe we find comments such as: paganised but that has nothing to do with the To the "people of the Scriptures" or "book," Muslims use of Allah in the Koran or Qur’an. are told to say, "We have faith in that which has been revealed to us and in that which has been revealed unto you. Our God and your God are one, and unto Some churches such as the Church of God him we are resigned," Koran 29:46. (Seventh Day) when penetrated by Trinitarians Do Muslims believe in both the Koran (Quran) and in the USA opted for Binitarianism as the easy the Bible? We shall see. The Name of God in Islam Page 7

the House was built (Ezra 5:8). He is the Eloah Now this argument is a sound approach. It of Heaven and Earth (Ezra 5:11). It was this shows a need to examine the Koran and see Eloah that the fathers had provoked with wrath what the differences are between the two and He sent them into captivity (Ezra 5:12). religions. Cyrus decreed that the house of Eloah be built, and the vessels of gold and silver were the The Koran does indeed require a true Muslim to vessels of Eloah, which were sent to be placed follow both the Koran and the Bible. This in it (Ezra 5:13-17, 6:5). position has great strength and could prove to be the point on which the religions are The House of Eloah was protected and ordered reconciled. An example of the fiction to be built by the rulers of the empire because permeating the Churches of God currently Eloah had chosen Cyrus to begin this process. follows: Darius II completed it and Artaxerxes II ordered its furbishment. Ezra and Nehemiah What is the nature of the god - Allah - of the restored the Temple system and Ezra died in Muslims? Is he the same as the Yahweh of 323 BCE. There was no doubt in anyone’s Scripture? As reported in the January/February 2000 issue of mind that it was the Temple of Eloah the God Battle Cry, a comparison of Allah and Yahweh, of Heaven and Earth. Not once is the name based on their portrayal in the Koran and the Bible Yahweh mentioned in this regard. Indeed the respectively, is a study of opposites. name Yahweh is a mispronunciation of the Unknowable: Allah is so transcendent, so exalted, name in any event. that no man can ever personally know Allah. Yahweh, on the other hand, sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world so we could know God From the above we have seen that the names personally, John 17:3 (R. Nickels, Islam and You, Eloah and Allah’ are derived from the two Study No. 185). variants of the same language structure. Eloah and Elahh are the same deity from whence The Bible is clear that no one has seen God comes the name Allah’. Given this major truth ever. He chose to reveal Himself through His we might be able to then go into common servants the prophets and He sent Jesus Christ. ground and build some mutual understanding. The writer appears to be totally unaware of the term Eloah as it applies in the Bible. Also he Allah’ is the Arabic form of the One True God appears unaware that the term Yahovah or Eloah who is extending Himself to become Yahweh as he claims is used of Angels in the elohim through the people He has called into OT, one of whom, the spiritual Rock that was His system. with Israel in the Wilderness (1Cor. 10:4) was Jesus Christ. The Koran holds that Christians are nearest to them. They do not and never will accept the Ezra shows, in the great restoration, that The traditions that determined a Trinitarian and House of God at Jerusalem is the House of Binitarian structure. They certainly do not Eloah (Ezra 4:24) and not the house of believe in a capricious God and this sort of “Yahweh.” Ezra identifies Eloah as the Eloah dialogue serves no purpose other than to of Israel (Ezra 5:1). The prophets were the indulge bigotry and encourage hostility. prophets of Eloah (Ezra 5:2). He is Eloah of the q Jews (Ezra 5:5). He is the great Eloah for whom