(part 1 of 3): Is Allah God?
IslamReligion.com
Yes, Allah is God. He is Allah, the One and Only. He is the same God who is worshiped in the Jewish and Christian faith and is recognizable as such. All over the world and throughout history, people of all faiths have turned to God or a higher deity, the creator of the universe. He is Allah. Allah is God. God is the sustainer.
The word God is spelled and pronounced differently in different languages: the French call him Dieu, the Spaniards Dios and the Chinese call the One God Schangdi. In Arabic the One True God means Allah and He is the same One True God to whom the following biblical passage refers:
“Hear Israel, the LORD our God, is one God”. (Deuteronomy 6.4 & Markus 12.29)
In allen drei monotheistischen Religionen (Judentum, Christentum und Islam) sind Gott und Allah derselbe. Wenn wir allerdings die Frage stellen, ist Allah Gott, ist es ebenso wichtig zu verstehen, wer Allah nicht ist.
Er ist weder ein Mann, noch ist Er ein ätherischer Geist, wenn Muslime daher über Allah sprechen gibt es kein Konzept der Trinität. Er wurde nicht gezeugt und Er zeugt nicht, daher hat Er keine Söhne oder Töchter. Er hat keine Partner oder Untergebenen; daher gibt es keine Halbgötter oder Untergötter, die im Konzept von Allah innewohnen. Er ist kein Teil Seiner Schöpfung und Allah ist nicht inallem und jedem. Demnach ist es nicht möglich, Allah ähnlich zu werden oder Allahschaft zu erreichen.
„Say:“ He is Allah, One, Allah, the Absolute (Eternal Independent, On whom everything depends). He does not produce and has not been created and none is equal to Him. “ (Quran 112)
The Quran, God’s book of guidance for all mankind, was revealed in Arabic; therefore non-Arabic speakers can get confused about terminology and names. When a Muslim says the word Allah, he speaks about God. God the Most High, God the Most Magnificent, God the Almighty. God who created everything.
“He created the heavens and the earth in a just way. He is exalted above all that they worship. ” (Quran 16: 3)
Muslims believe that Islam is God’s last message to humanity, and they believe that God gave the Torah to the Prophet Moses as He gave the Gospel to the Prophet Jesus. Muslims believe that Judaism and Christianity in their original form were divine religions. Indeed, one of the foundations of Islam is to believe in God’s books of revelation. The prophets of Islam contain the same prophets that are in the Jewish and Christian traditions; they all came to their peoples with the same message – to recognize and worship the One God.
„… Were you witnesses when Jacob was dying and when he said to his sons:“ Who will you serve when I am gone? “ they said, „We serve your God, the God of your fathers Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, the Only God, and we are devoted to Him.“ (Quran 2: 133)
Muslims love and respect all of God’s prophets and messengers. However, Muslims believe that the Quran contains the only concept of God that has not been spoiled by human-made ideas and idolatrous practices.
He, Allah / God said very clearly in the Quran that He had sent messengers to every people. We don’t all know their names or times; we do not all know their stories or their sufferings, but we know that God did not create and then give up a single person. God’s message of grace, love, justice and truth has been made available to all people.
“And in each people We raised up a Messenger (who preached there):“ Serve Allah and avoid the idols … „(Quran 16:36)
“And for every nation there is a messenger (determined) …” (Quran 10:47)
Thousands of years have lived and died on the wide earth. Every time a woman looks to heaven to seek her creator, she turns to Allah. Every time a man hides his face in his hands and asks for mercy or relief, he asks Allah. Every time a child huddles fearfully in a corner, its heart searches for Allah. Allah is God. Whenever someone is thankful for a bright new day or for the cool, refreshing rain or the whispering wind in the trees, whenever he or she is thankful to Allah, he thanks God.
Humanity has taken the purity of God and mixed it with wild imaginations and strange exaggerations. God are not three, He is one. God has no partners or fellow gods; He is alone in His Majesty and in His Rule. It is not possible to become godlike, because nothing is comparable to God. God is not part of His creation; He is above it. He is the first and the last. God is Allah, the Most Merciful.
„… There is nothing like it …“ (Quran 42:11)
“And none is equal to him” (Quran 112: 4)
„He is the first (nothing is before him) and the last (nothing is after him), the highest (nothing is about him) and the closest (nothing is closer than he) and he is the connoisseur of all things.“ (Quran 57: 3)
Yes! God is Allah.
(part 2 of 3): Allah – the one and only
Allah is God. He is the one to whom you turn in the hour of need. He’s the one you thank when you realize the wonders of this life. Allah is a word that has many layers of meanings. It is the name of God (the Lord of the Worlds) and it is the basis of the Islamic religion. He is Allah, the One who is entitled to all worship.
“Creator of heaven and earth! How should He have a son where He has no companion and where He created everything and knows all things? He is Allah your Lord. There is no god but Him, the creator of all things; so worship Him. And He is the keeper of all things. Looks cannot reach him, but he does reach the looks. And He is the All-Kind, the All-Known. ” (Quran 6: 101-103)
In Arabic, the word for God (Allah) comes from the verbta’allaha (or ilaha), which means „to be worshiped“. So Allah means the One to worship.
Allah is God, the creator and sustainer of the world, differences and confusion arise because the English (or German) word God can be put into the plural as gods or changes gender as in goddess. This is not the case in Arabic. The word Allah stands alone, there is no plural and no gender. The use of the words He or Him is only grammatical and does not indicate that Allah has any form of gender that we should be able to understand. Allah is Unique. His name is unchangeable in the Arabic language. Allah describes Himself in the Quran:
„Say:“ He is Allah, One; Allah, the Absolute (Eternal Independent, whom all creatures need, He does not eat and drink). He does not produce and has not been conceived, and none is equal to Him. “ (Quran 112)
This short chapter from the Quran is known as the chapter of purity or sincerity. In a few words, it sums up the Islamic belief system; that Allah or God is One. He is alone in His Majesty; He is alone in His omnipotence. He has no partners or partners. He was there in the beginning and He will be there in the end. God is one. Some might ask: If God is one, why does God use the word „We“ in the Quran?
In English we know the use of the royal „we“ or the grammatical construction Pluralis Majestatis. Many other languages including Arabic, Hebrew and Urdu also use this construction. We hear how the members of various royal families or dignitaries use the word „we“, as in „we determine“ or „we are not pleased“. This does not in any way indicate that more than one person is speaking; If we keep this concept in mind, it is obvious that there is no one more worthy of using the royal ´we´ than Allah – God.
“(This is) a book that We have sent down to you (o Muhammad) so that with the permission of their Lord (Allah) you may lead people out of the darkness to the light, on the path of the sublime, the worthy. .. ”(Quran 14: 1)
„And truly, we honored the children of Adam and carried them across land and sea and provided them with good things and gave them an award to the many that We created.“ (Quran 17:70)
“And if we wanted to, we could certainly take away what we revealed to you; you would then find no protector for us in this matter ”(Quran 17:86)
“ O you men, if you are in doubt about the resurrection, so (consider) that We have created you (ie Adam) from earth. .. ”(Quran 22: 5)
The respected 13th century Islamic scholar Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said: “Every time Allah uses the plural for Himself, it is because of the respect and honor due to Him and the large number of His names and characteristics, and the great number of His hosts and angels.
The use of the words we, nahnu, or we truly inna, in no way indicate that there is more than one God. They have no correlation with the concept of the Trinity at all. The whole foundation of Islamic religion rests on the belief that there is only one God and that Muhammad is His last Messenger.
„Your God is One God, there is no God but Him, the Most Merciful, the Most Merciful“ (Quran 2: 163)
(part 3 of 3): The Moon God
Poorly informed people sometimes think that Allah is a modern interpretation of an ancient moon god. This significant misinterpretation of Allah is often combined with strange, unsubstantiated claims that Muhammad, God’s blessings and peace, are on him, have reawakened this God and made it the central point of the religion of Islam. That is categorically not true. Allah is God, the One and Only, the Most Merciful. Allah is the God of Abraham, the God of Moses and the God of Jesus.
„It is not a god except Allah (nobody has the right to be worshiped except Allah, the One and Only True God, who has no wife and no son), and Allah is Truly the Almighty, the All-Wise.“ ( Quran 3:62)
Very little is known about the religion of the Arabs before the prophet Abraham. There is little doubt that the Arabs had mistakenly served idols, celestial bodies, trees and stones, and some of their idols even had animal properties. Although a number of smaller deities can be seen in connection with the moon on the Arabian Peninsula, there is no evidence that the Arabs had ever worshiped the moon [1] before other gods.
On the other hand, there is evidence that the sun was worshiped as a female deity across Arabia. The sun (shame) was worshiped by various Arab tribes with both sanctuaries and idols. The name Abdu Shams (servant of the sun) was used in many parts of Arabia. In the north, the name Amr-I-Shams, „man of the sun“ was common and the name Abd-al-Scharq „servant of the rising“ are evidence of the worship of the rising sun.
One of Muhammad’s uncles was Abdu Shams, also the man who was nicknamed Abu Hurairah, a famous Islamic scholar of the first generation of Muslims. When Abu Hurairah adopted Islam, the Prophet Muhammad changed his name to Abdu Rahman (Servant of the Most Merciful).
Muslims believe with absolute certainty that Allah, from the beginning of creation, has sent prophets and messengers to guide and teach humanity. Hence the original religion is submission to the will of Allah. The first Arabs had worshiped Allah. Over time, however, their worship was falsified by man-made views and exaggerations. The reason for this is obscured by the mists of time, but they could have become idolatrous in the same way that the people of Noah did.
The descendants of Noah’s prophet had been a community that believed in the unity of Allah, but confusion and digressions crept in. Righteous men tried to remind people of their obligations to Allah, but time passed and Satan saw an opportunity to mislead people. When the righteous men died, Satan suggested that people build statues of men to help them remember their obligations to Allah.
People built statues in the places where they met and at home, and Satan left them until everyone had forgotten the reason the statues existed. Many years later, devilish Satan reappeared among people, this time suggesting that they worship the statues directly. An authentic tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, God’s blessings and peace be with him, summarizes the beginning of idolatry as follows:
“The names (of the idols) had previously belonged to some pious men of Noah’s people and when they died, Satan encouraged their people to prepare the places where they used to sit and to place idols there and to name them with their names . People did this, but the idols were not worshiped until the people (who made them) died and the origin of the idols became blurred, whereupon people began to worship them. ”[3]
When the Prophet Abraham and his son Ishmael rebuilt the Holy House of Allah (the Kaaba), most Arabs followed his example and returned to worshiping the One God, but as time went on, the Arabs returned to their old custom and worshiped idols and demigods. There is little doubt about it and much evidence suggests that in the years between the Prophets Abraham and Muhammad, religion on the Arabian Peninsula was dominated by idolatry.
Each tribe or household had idols and statues, the Arabs believed in seers, used lot arrows to predict future events, and performed animal sacrifices and rituals in the name of their idols. It is said that the main idols of Noah’s people were excavated in the area of today’s Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and distributed among the Arab tribes. [4] When the Prophet Muhammad triumphantly returned to Mecca, the Kaaba [5] contained more than 360 different idols.
The most famous idols that had existed in pre-Islamic Arabia were Manat, al Lat and al Uzza. [6] There is no evidence that these idols had anything to do with moon gods or the moon. The Arabs served these idols and called them to intercede. Allah rejected this false idolatry.
“What do you think of Al-Lat and Al-`Uzza and Manat (two idols of the pagan Arabs), the third (another idol of the pagan Arabs) of the others? How? Should the boys be entitled to you and the girls to Him? That would truly be an unfair distribution. Truly, it is only the names that you and your fathers came up with, for which Allah has not given any authorization. They follow a mere delusion and their personal inclinations, although their master’s instructions came to them. ” (Quran 53: 19-23)
In the midst of overwhelming paganism and idolatry, the pre-Islamic Arabs have never worshiped a moon god as supreme deity, in fact there is no evidence that they have ever worshiped a moon god. Generation after generation, however, they have not lost their belief in the One Supreme Ruler of the Universe (though most of the time they kept the wrong concept of belief in belief in Allah). They were aware of His blessing and punishment and believed in the day of judgment. Poets from this period constantly invoked Allah.
Nabigha, a well-known fifth century AD poet said: “I swore an oath and left no room for doubt, because who else can help me except Allah? and Zuhair b. Abi. Salma confirmed his belief in Judgment Day by saying: “The deeds are recorded in roles to be shown on Judgment Day; Retribution can also be practiced in this world. ” The Quran also testifies to the fact that the pre-Islamic Arabs of Allah – God – were aware of the One.
“And if you ask them:“ Who created the heavens and the earth and made the sun and the moon serve you? “ then they will surely say: „Allah.“ Then why can they be turned away (from Allah)? Allah extends and limits the means of maintenance to that of His servants that He wants. Surely Allah has full knowledge of all things. And if you ask them: „Who sends water down from the sky and thus animates the earth after her death?“ – then they will surely say: „Allah.“ Say: „All praise is due to Allah.“ However, most of them don’t understand it. ” (Quran 29: 61-63)
Footnotes:
[1] http :// www. Britainica.com/EBchecked/topic/31651/Arabian-religion/68308/Pre-Islamic-deities
[2] Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics,
[3] Sahieh Al-Bukhari
[4] Safi-ur-Rahman al-Mubarkpur, (2002) The Sealed Nectar, revised 2nd edition. Darussalam, Riyadh.
[5] The cube-shaped building, in the middle of the Holy Mosque in the city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
[6] Hisham Ibn Al-Kalbi, Kitab al-Asnam, published by Ahmad Zaki Pasha. (Cairo, 1927), pp. 9-14.
Source: https://www.islamland.com/deu/articles/missverstndnisse-ber-allah