This is from a friend of mine who is fluent in Arabic:

"From a linguistic basis, the word "Allah" comes from the Arabic "Al-Ilah", meaning 'The God". It has the Semitic root 'ilah' corresponding to the Hebrew 'eloah' (singular form of the plural 'Elohim'). It is the word for God currently used in the Arabic [translation of the] Bible and has been reverently used by may millions of Arabic CHristians since the 1st C. AD.

The Greek translation of our own word for God (theos) has a "heathen" Greek origin with an Indo-European root 'dhes'. Additionally, the pagan Greek 'Zeus' has the Indo-European root of 'dyeu' and is the origin of the word "Deus" (God in the Latin Vulgate Bible), 'Dios' (Spanish) and 'Dieu' (French). Fianlly our English word for God comes from a proto-Germanic pagan word for a god or idol, and was neuter in gender until it was masculinised when the Greman tribes converted to Christianity in the mid-first millenium AD....In fact, Arab Christians may have a better case for not wanting to translate their word Allah into the English word God for fear that [the word] 'God' has pagan origins!"

All this of course is seperate from the theological question of whether a Muslim's Allah is the same as the CHristian God, to which the answer should be obvious. I am here addressing only the word itself.


Stand Fast, Craigellachie!