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Allah (God): Difference between revisions
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[[File:Pre-Islamic Basmala in South Arabian Script.jpg|thumb|A Pre-Islamic basmala found in Yemen in 2018 and written in South Arabian Script. Right-to-left, the top line reads "bsmlh rḥmn rḥmn rb smwt", which has been interpreted as "In the name of Allāh, the Raḥmān have mercy upon us, O lord of the heavens"<ref>Ahmad al-Jallad [https://www.academia.edu/43388891 (draft) The pre-Islamic basmala: Reflections on its first epigraphic attestation and its original significance], pp. 3, 6</ref>|alt=|296x296px]]According to [[Islam]], '''Allāh''' is the creator of the universe. In the pre-Islamic era, the Quranic ''mushrikeen'' worshipped Allah as the supreme creator god, along with one or more lesser deites. A number of pre-Islamic gods and godesses are named in the Quran, for example ''Allāt'' ( | [[File:Pre-Islamic Basmala in South Arabian Script.jpg|thumb|A Pre-Islamic basmala found in Yemen in 2018 and written in South Arabian Script. Right-to-left, the top line reads "bsmlh rḥmn rḥmn rb smwt", which has been interpreted as "In the name of Allāh, the Raḥmān have mercy upon us, O lord of the heavens"<ref>Ahmad al-Jallad [https://www.academia.edu/43388891 (draft) The pre-Islamic basmala: Reflections on its first epigraphic attestation and its original significance], pp. 3, 6</ref>|alt=|296x296px]]According to [[Islam]], '''Allāh''' is the creator of the universe. In the pre-Islamic era, the Quranic ''mushrikeen'' worshipped Allah as the supreme creator god, along with one or more lesser deites. A number of pre-Islamic gods and godesses are named in the Quran, for example ''Allāt'' (often transliterated as al-Lat based on one possible etymology<ref>Arne A. Ambros, and Stephan Procházka - [http://jis.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/3/400.extract A Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic (p. 306)] - Weisbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3895004006</ref><ref>[http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1332 Lat, al-] - Oxford Islamic Studies Online</ref><ref>Regarding the possibility that Allāt was a contraction of al-'ilāhat, meaning "the goddess", Dr Marijn van Putten, a leading expert of Arabic linguistic history, notes it would be a completely irregular contraction and evidence is marginal or non-existent. Regarding the possiblity that it originated as a feminine form of Allāh, he finds it quite likely that there is no relation whatsoever. See this [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1586831645532880899 Twitter thread] involving Dr van Putten - 30 October 2022</ref>) ''Manāt'', and ''al-‘Uzzá'' were Allah's daughters. One of the [[Five Pillars of Islam]] is to accept that Allah is the only God (Arabic: la ilaaha il Allah)<ref>[http://www.mideastweb.org/Middle-East-Encyclopedia/shahada.htm Shahada] - Encyclopedia of the Middle East.</ref><ref>[http://www.themodernreligion.com/convert/islam_conversion_main.htm Embracing Islam] - The Modern Religion</ref> | ||
Twenty-first century academic scholarship has considerably transformed our understanding about the history of the name Allah, his worship in Arabia, and the beliefs of the ''mushrikeen'' who are mentioned so often in the Quran. This progress has largely been made thanks to archaeological and epigraphic expeditions to Arabia to learn more about the history of the language, scripts and beliefs of Arabia in the centuries before Islam. | Twenty-first century academic scholarship has considerably transformed our understanding about the history of the name Allah, his worship in Arabia, and the beliefs of the ''mushrikeen'' who are mentioned so often in the Quran. This progress has largely been made thanks to archaeological and epigraphic expeditions to Arabia to learn more about the history of the language, scripts and beliefs of Arabia in the centuries before Islam. | ||
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In a footnote Kjær adds: "The initial reluctance to use the theonym Allah might have been due to its polytheistic origins.", citing Böwering, Gerhard, ‘Chronology and the Qur’ān’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān (Leiden: Brill, 2001), p. 329</ref> | In a footnote Kjær adds: "The initial reluctance to use the theonym Allah might have been due to its polytheistic origins.", citing Böwering, Gerhard, ‘Chronology and the Qur’ān’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān (Leiden: Brill, 2001), p. 329</ref> | ||
The word | The word Allāh first appears in the epigraphic record as the name of one of many Nabataean deities in 1st century BCE or 1st century CE northern Arabia.<ref name="alJallad2022">See the start of Appendix 1 (p. 93) in the open access chapter: Ahmad Al-Jallad (2022), [https://www.academia.edu/45498003/Al_Jallad_Pre_Print_Draft_The_Religion_and_Rituals_of_the_Nomads_of_Pre_Islamic_Arabia_A_Reconstruction_based_on_the_Safaitic_Inscriptions The Religion and Rituals of the Nomads of Pre-Islamic Arabia: A Reconstruction based on the Safaitic Inscriptions] in (ed. Zhi Chen et al.), Ancient Languages and Civilizations, Volume: 1, Leiden: Brill</ref> The word possibly might have come from a contraction of al-ʾilāh (the god), though there are some linguistic difficulties with this idea. In any case it was the name of a deity at that time and there is no indication that it was associated with the monotheistic Judeo-Christian god. The name Abd Allah (like the name of Muhammad's father) first appears in a Nabataean pagan context. There they used the same construct also for other gods, for example ʿAbdu Manōti, "servant of Manāt". In Safaitic inscriptions (a script used in the north Arabian desert), the name Allāh is occasionally invoked, though other deities much more so. By the sixth century CE the name Allāh is applied in a monotheistic context around the Hijaz and at some point merges with the Christian al-ʾilāh (the god). Allah appears equated with al-Rahman (who in the south was associated with the Judeo-Christian God) in a pre-Islamic basmala inscription discovered in Yemen, as discussed in the next section below.<ref>See this [https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1450418538418745355 twitter thread] by leading linguist in the history of Arabic, Dr Marijn van Putten - 19 October 2021 ([https://web.archive.org/web/20211027185522/https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1450418538418745355 archive])</ref> Al-Jallad writes, "In contrast to South Arabia, the North Arabian monotheistic traditions of the 5th and 6th c. CE invoked al-ʾilāh/allāh. While al-ʾilāh is attested in clear Christian contexts, allāh is rarer and found in confessionally ambiguous contexts. It is impossible at this moment to decide whether the distinction between the two was simply regional or whether it betokened a confessional split. What is clear, however, is that “Raḥmān” was not used in pre-Islamic times in North Arabia."<ref>Ahmad al-Jallad [https://www.academia.edu/43388891 (draft) The pre-Islamic basmala: Reflections on its first epigraphic attestation and its original significance], page 14</ref> | ||
===The Basmala=== | ===The Basmala=== | ||