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Is It Appropriate That Arab Christians Call God Allah?

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Is It Appropriate That Arab Christians Call God Allah? 7. Jahrgang MBS TEXTE 142 2010 Thomas Schirrmacher Is it appropriate that Arab Christians call God Allah? BUCER IN S T E M R A I N M A R 2 1 : E P 4 H TheologicalTheologische Accents Akzente AddendumAddendum Addendum: November 3, ously exchange the older literature 2014 on “3rd Argument” for better, newer literature. Even if I Section, pp. 4–6 did not commit myself to that view, this question has to remain even more The existing 1993 article was not open than it did and tend in the direc- actually a scholarly article for which tion of a virtually simultaneous Ara- I would have conducted my own bic translation of the Bible (according research. Rather, it was a summary of to Sidney H. Griffith. The Bible in quite various arguments against the Arabic, Princeton University Press: call for Arab Christians to no longer Princeton/Oxford, 2013, presently refer to God in Arabic as ‘Allah.’ the best depiction of the discussion I would like to somewhat cor- about the time of the development rect the two sub-arguments in the of the Arabic Bible). The reason for “3rd Argument” section (pp. 4-6), this stance is that from the time prior even if this barely weakens my over- to the Koran there are practically no all argumentation and perhaps even written sources in Arabic. However, strengthens it. The state of research that changes nothing regarding the has changed over the course of the 20 fact that the oldest manuscripts of the years since 1993. I will hopefully find Arabic Bible, which come from the time to essentially rework the topic in early days of Islam, already used the 2015 and present a revised edition of word ‘Allah.’ the essay at hand. On the other hand, I say in my orig- On the one hand, I would like to inal article that for a long time before mention that there is indeed no man- Mohammed, Christians and Jews uscript of an Arabic Bible translation used the word ‘Allah’ to express the from the time prior to Mohammed. name of the Christian God. That is However, many experts assume that not the case for Arabic, or, more spe- the original production of a transla- cifically, I need to state this more pre- tion is older (afresh and ardently in cisely. No manuscripts and only a few recent times by Hikmat Kashout. inscriptions, names, etc. are available The Arabic Versions of the Gospel. De to us in Arabic prior to Mohammed, Gruyter: Berlin, 2012). I did not since Arabic only concretely became read the literature mentioned on a written language at the time of the pp. 4-5 precisely enough and render production of the Koran. Yet, we find them precisely enough, and in the Allah as part of the name of Arabic revised edition I will unceremoni- Christians prior to Mohammed (see AddendumAddendum examples in Griffith’s work), but we Mohammed or his contemporaries do not have any texts. Indeed, there borrowed (above all according to is sufficient evidence for the fact that Rick Brown. “Who Was ’Allah‘ before there were Arabic-speaking Chris- Islam? Evidence that the Term ‘Allah‘ tians prior to the time of Moham- Originated with Jewish and Christian med. However, they apparently used Arabs,“ pp. 147-178 in: Evelyne A. Rei- the lingua franca and the language sacher [ed.]. Toward Respectful Under- of the church in the region, Syriac or standing and Witness Among Muslims: Aramaic, as the written language. My Essays in Honor of J. Dudley Wood- references to bishops in the 4th cen- berry. William Carey Library: Pasa- tury utilizing the word ‘Allah’ should dena [CA, USA], 2012). As early as not have referred to Arabic but rather during the time of Theodor Nöldeke, to Syriac or Aramaic. Western Islamic studies accepted the There is no disagreement that God borrowing of the word ‘Koran’ from was called ‘Alah’ in church Syriac. As the Syriac, where it designates a Bibli- a result, a completely new line of argu- cal lectionary. (Within the framework mentation has emerged which more of the so-called Lichtenberg Debate, than offsets the weakness of my argu- it has been a topic of discussion as to ments. That is, namely, that ‘Allah’ whether the Koran is not traceable does not stem from pre-Islamic, ‘hea- back to a Syriac-Arabic mixed dialect then’ Arabic but rather from Syriac or that conducted additional borrow- Aramaic church language and, with ings from Syriac church language. that said, from the lingua franca of However, I am not presupposing this the region. According to this, ‘Allah’ thesis.) would be a Christian word which TableInhaltsverzeichnis of Contents Introduction: Arguments for Arab Christians to call God Allah ................................................... 3 Allah is El ................................................................................ 3 Pagan Designations for God are used in the Bible .................... 3 Arab Chrstians called God Allah long before Mohammed ......................................... 4 Allah simply means ‘God’ ........................................................ 6 There is no Alternative to Allah in Arabic ................................ 6 The German word Gott and the English word God is much more strongly tainted than Allah ........................ 7 Many Arguments against the prior History of the word Allah have to do with El ........................................ 8 An Individual can believe in the ‘same’ God, and not be a believer, or/and possess a false View of God ......... 9 Annotation ............................................................................. 10 The Author ............................................................................. 13 Impressum ............................................................................. 14 Translation by Richard McClary of a chapter from Thomas Schirrmacher Feindbild Islam (Islam: A Stereotypical Enemy). Verlag für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft: Nürnberg, 2003. 105 pp. € 9.80. ISBN 3-933372-67-4. This excerpt has also been published in German as MBS-Text 96 in 2008: http://www.bucer.de/ ressource/details/mbs-texte-096-2008-durfen-arabische-christen-gott-allah-nennen.html. 1. Aufl. 2010 Is it appropriate that Arab Christians call God Allah? Is it appropriate that Arab Christians call God Allah? Thomas Schirrmacher Introduction: also represented in Arabic and appar- Arguments for Arab ently generally known. It was called Christians to call God Allah ilah, which exactly corresponds to the Hebrew Eloah, endued with the definite In the following I want to examine article al-ilah, ‘the God.’”5 the demand [issued by some Christian Even one of the opponents of the use groups in Germany] that Arab Chris- of the word ‘God’ for the Islamic God tians should not address God as Allah writes: “The Arabic name for God has in prayer, and that we should never ren- its linguistic roots in the semitic El, der the Arabic term “Allah” as “Gott” in similar to Elohim.”6 German1 (resp. “God” in English). This demand that was specifically directed Pagan Designations for towards Peter Beyerhaus and Christine 2 God are used in the Bible Schirrmacher. I want to present the following argu- 2. Argument: The designations Elo‑ ments against this opinion and in in him, El, and theos used by Jews and support of the view that Allah is the Christians in the Old and New Testa- best and most natural designation for ments were common to their pagan the Biblical God: environment. Jews and Christians used these terms for the true God as well as for false Gods. The Bible exclusively Allah is El uses designations for God that were 1. Argument: Allah corresponds to also used for other deities. This is what the Old Testament designations for is found in a dictionary about El and God El und Elohim.3 Ilah is surely iden- Elohim:7 “They mean less a distinctive tical to Elohim and depicts an expansion individual person than a divine type of of the -l- (il, el) element of the semitic certain generic person. As a designation languages …”4 That is the unanimous of the category ‘God,’ they have their opinion of Islamic studies and Old Tes- roots in polytheistic religion.”8 El was, tament Biblical scholars. after all, the head of the Canaanite pan- “What is important is that the com- theon of Gods!9 And regarding theos, mon Semitic generic term for God was we read the following: “The Greek THEOLOGISCHE AKZENTE 3 Thomas Schirrmacher term for God is significantly polytheis- nai out of reverence when actually the tic … .”10 Nowhere are we called upon word Yahweh appeared. This was done to only use designations for God that so as not to speak the name of God are exclusively used by Christians. unnecessarily. However, that does not Using the same logic that applies if change anything about the fact that the Arabic Christians dispense with the using the name of Yahweh unchanged word Allah, Arabic Christians and or using it correctly translated does not missionaries would also no longer be decide between belief and unbelief. At allowed to use the Arabic name for this point one can become more pious Jesus, Isa (which is used in addition to than the New Testament. In Athens, the more common term Josua),11 and we Paul even dispensed with the name would have to dispense with the use of ‘Jesus’ and rather only spoke of the fact the name Jesus, since Jesus is lexically that God would judge the world “by the filled differently in other religions. For man he has appointed” (Acts 17:31). instance, in Buddhism-Hinduism the word is used to indicate the incarnation Arab Chrstians called of teachers of wisdom from the past. God Allah long before The central problem in the whole Mohammed debate is, in my opinion, the conclusion that whoever is using the same designa- 3. Argument: Arabic churches14 and tions for God is also placing the respec- Christians have always called God tive deities on the same level.
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