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Comments: 'Disputing the word 'Allah'?'
Jan
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strong>Jan. 13, p. 20
Along with Muslims, Christians and Jews believe in the one and only God, whose name in Arabic is “Allah”. The root of this word is found in all Semitic languages, such as Syriac and Aramaic as well as in the Hebrew word Elohim found in the Old Testament.
In the Arabic language, prior to Islam, it was possible to distinguish between “ilah”, god with a small “g” and “Allah”, God with a capital “G”, the absolute God, the one and only God as opposed to all the other so called “god[s]”.
The word “Allah” is formed when the Arabic article “al” is absorbed by the noun “ilah”. In other words, “Allah” was simply the name that Arabs, including Christian Arabs, along with Jews of the time, prior to the beginnings of Islam, used to identify God. It was a word in use prior to the birth of the Prophet (Blessings and Peace be upon him.) (By Phillip Turnbull, BSD City, Banten)
Your comments:
Prophet Muhammad did not write the Holy Koran as Turnbull states. The Koran is the word of Allah.
This has been understood by humans from the early age.
Syed Yasser Khorezmi
Norway
While I agree on the interchangeability of the use of the word “Tuhan” and “Allah,” unfortunately, Phillip incorrectly quoted the Koran in the last paragraph as the sayings of the Prophet.
The Koran is the word of God — not of the Prophet.
Kunrat Wirasubrata
Jeddah
