The Thing About Allah (part two in a series)

There’s alot of talk out there about this Muslim god named Allah. For many Americans, the name strikes notes of fear and anger. His name is the last word on the lips of terrorists, suicide bombers and killers, who shout “Allahu Akbar!” (God is great!) just before they wreak their deadly havoc.

Who is this Allah? Why is he so violent and vicious? The twisted answers to that question lie in the pages of the Qur’an and the example of Islam’s founder “The Prophet Muhammad” (see for example, Qur’an 2:191-193). Christians are right to reject a doctrine of God that rejects the Trinity, the Incarnation, the supreme commandments of Christ to love God and love our fellow man. But these rejections still beg the questions, “Who is Allah? Where does he come from?”

Many answers have been suggested: He is the fabrication of Muhammad’s fertile imagination. He is a Babylonian moon god. He is a demon posing as God.

A cardinal rule of communicating with others is to speak intelligently to them. If we try convincing our Muslim friends that they are worshipping a moon god, well…we’re not going to get very far.

Calling the god of Islam a moon god or a demon may be well received by an audience that is predisposed to dislike Islam, but it hardly works when we want to communicate with Muslims. The crescent moon symbolism in Islam, though historically ambiguous, appears to be tied to the rise of Islam among Central Asian Turkic tribes, who long held the symbol of the moon in their pre-Islamic iconography.

While it is true that the name Allah may have pre-Islamic roots in words that trace back into antiquity, we can’t honestly attribute those ancient origins to Muslims today. Instead, we have to take them at their word or words found in the Qur’an; there’s plenty in those words to impeach the Islamic doctrine of Allah without resorting to ancient slanders.

The Qur’an is very clear on this point:

“And of His signs are the night and day and the sun and moon. Do not prostrate to the sun or to the moon, but prostrate to Allah, who created them, if it should be Him that you worship” (Qur’an 41:37).

To be fair, we have to concede that our own English word “God” appears nowhere in the Bible, Old or New Testament. “God” derives from the ancient Germanic name “Gott” which first applied to the Nordic god “Odin.” If we wouldn’t want Muslims to accuse us of worshipping the king of Valhalla, then we really should leave the accusations of moon worship out of our conversation with Muslims. It is misleading and unhelpful.

So why do Muslims use the name “Allah?” It was the only word they had for God. Long before Muhammad was born, both Jews and Christians living in the Arabic-speaking world worshipped God with the only word that Arabic contained to depict the God of creation, the God who sustains and relates to mankind. That name was ‘Allah.’ Even today, the Arabic Bible begins with the words, “In the beginning, Allah created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1) and the gospel of John continues with the declaration that, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with Allah and the Word was Allah” (John 1:1).

Where did Allah come from? Muhammad took the name from the local Jewish and Christian communities. In every Arabic-language biblical reference to God we can find Muhammad’s source for the name of Allah. But then he took it in a new direction with the teachings of the Qur’an.

The Islamic doctrine of Allah is quite distinct from the Judeo-Christian teaching of God found in the Old and New Testaments. Make no mistake about it: Muhammad rejected the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition that he encountered. He reshaped Allah into a god that better suited his own vision. And that is what makes Christianity distinct from Islam.

Yes, Muhammad rejected the Trinity, but then, so does the Jewish faith, but we would not want to suggest that Jews worship a different god. Instead, we reasonably point out that the Jewish conception of God is deficient, for it does not allow for a God who became flesh and dwelt among us.

Today, many millions of Christians around the world worship the true and living God with the name Allah. Christians from such diverse origins as the Arab world, the Hausa-speaking people of West Africa and the Christians of Indonesia all worship the Triune God with the name Allah.

Christians have much to differ with Muslims, but let us be honest and fair, and set aside the criticism that Muslims worship the moon. Then we can begin to communicate with Muslims in an intelligible way and introduce to them the God who offers them salvation in the person of Jesus Christ.

David Garrison, PhD
Executive Director, Global Gates