Who is Allah
First of all, it is important to note that "Allah"
is the same word that Arabic-speaking
Christians and Jews use for God. If you pick
up an Arabic Bible, you will see the word
"Allah" being used where "God" is used in
English. This is because "Allah" is the only
word in the Arabic language equivalent to
the English word "God" with a capital "G".
Additionally, the word "Allah" cannot be
made plural or given gender (i.e. masculine
or feminine), which goes hand-in-hand with
the Islamic concept of God. Because of this,
and also because the Qur'an, which is the
holy scripture of Muslims, was revealed in
the Arabic language, some Muslims use the
word "Allah" for "God", even when they are
speaking other languages. This is not
unique to the word "Allah", since many
Muslims tend to use Arabic words when
discussing Islamic issues, regardless of the
language that they speak. This is because
the universal teachings of Islam - even
though they have been translated in every
major language - have been preserved in
the Arabic language.
It is interesting to note that the Aramaic
word "El", which is the word for God in the
language that Jesus spoke, is certainly more
similar in sound to the word "Allah" than the
English word "God". This also holds true for
the various Hebrew words for God, which
are "El" and "Elah", and the plural form
"Elohim". The reason for these similarities is
that Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic are all
Semitic languages with common origins. It
should also be noted that in translating the
Bible into English, the Hebrew word "El" is
translated variously as "God", "God" and
"angel"! This imprecise language allows
different translators, based on their
preconceived notions, to translate the word
to fit their own views. The Arabic word
"Allah" presents no such difficulty or
ambiguity, since it is only used for Almighty
God alone. Additionally, in English, the only
difference between "God", meaning a false
God, and "God", meaning the One True God,
is the capital "G". In the Arabic alphabet,
since it does not have capital letters, the
word for God (i.e. Allah) is formed by adding
the equivalent to the English word "the" (Al-)
to the Arabic word for "God/God" (ilah). So
the Arabic word "Allah" literally it means
"The God" - the "Al-" in Arabic basically
serving the same function as the capital "G"
in English. Due to the above mentioned facts,
a more accurate translation of the word
"Allah" into English might be "The One -and-
Only God" or "The One True God".