Not to be simple minded, but since Christians in the Middle East have been using “Allah” for centuries before there was Islam (what other word could they have used?), why are we worried about its use here?
Is this a bit like being worried that English speakers are not worshipping Jesus, because there is no “J” in ancient Greek?
January 15th, 2010 | 12:47 pm | #1
My concern is that the term “Allah” has shifted from a generic term for a deity to a brand name associated with the god of Islam.
Now it may be that I’m making much ado about nothing and that when people around the world hear “Allah” they are thinking of a “fill-in-the-blank god” like we do for the term “God.” But if they are associating it with Islam or at least with the characteristics of the Muslim deity, then that is a problem.
Also, I’m not convinced that we can’t abandon words just because they’ve been used in certain ways for centuries. There are a lot of good words that have been co-opted and have been encrusted with new connotations. Sometimes we have to let them go.
I imagine there are some Germans who wish they could have named their kid after a favorite relative but who would nevertheless never dream of naming them Hitler. ; )
January 15th, 2010 | 1:35 pm | #2
O.K.
Hard to disagree with this when I can no longer say that someone is “bonnie, blythe, and gay.”
BUT:
What are native Arabic speakers supposed to call God? Should they rewrite liturgies?
Here is the worst problem:
In speaking to monotheists the Koran uses “Allah” as if it will be comprehensible to a non-Muslim audience as the name of God generally.
Do we now have to rewrite (Allah forbid!) the Koran?
January 15th, 2010 | 1:40 pm | #3
Joe,
Are we talking about Allah, or Allahtm? :)
January 15th, 2010 | 2:18 pm | #4
What Joe said.
I know I sound like a broken record, but I believe it is incumbent on Christians now, given the rampant pluralism and redefinition of terms, to be absolutely specific about the God and Lord we worship: Jesus.
To Name the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
That would go a long way to preventing any possible confusion or misunderstanding what what we mean when we say “god” or “Allah.”
The Islamic “Allah” is not the God whom we worship and adore.
If Christians can’t figure that out, it makes me wonder what part of CHRISTianity they don’t get.
January 15th, 2010 | 2:20 pm | #5
JMR What are native Arabic speakers supposed to call God? Should they rewrite liturgies?
That’s a tough question. First, I’d say that those who are most familiar with the culture (missiologist, bible translators) should decide whether it is even an issue. If it does cause confusion (as I suspect) then I think that some alternative should be proposed, say, adding a modifer or prefix (e.g., “The God”) or using an alternative term altogether.
In speaking to monotheists the Koran uses “Allah” as if it will be comprehensible to a non-Muslim audience as the name of God generally.
But doesn’t Mohammad assume that any reference to Allah is a reference to Allah? The Bible talks about gods and God and the distinction is clear. Is there not something similar in the Koran?
If not, then the obvious answer would be for non-Muslims to read the Koran with great care.
Obviously, such linguistic confusions are bound to occur when using terms for god/God. But I suspect that Allah has made the move from generic title to brand name. What percentage of the globe’s population associates that term with the “god of Mohammad”? I suspect that it would be 90-95% of the people who are familiar with the term associate it with Islam.
Jeff Are we talking about Allah, or Allahtm? :)
I think that is the solution: Muslims should add the copyright or trademark symbol to the name of their deity. (And if the non-Muslim Arabs had filed a trademark infringement case against Mohammad, we wouldn’t have to worry about this issue.)
January 15th, 2010 | 2:37 pm | #6
Maybe we should not say Yahweh or Elohim since Jews may get confused by what we’re saying. Maybe I shouldn’t say God or Jesus since Mormons and JWs will misunderstand me.
January 15th, 2010 | 2:48 pm | #7
Joe,
Hypothetical:
Suppose I am one of the thousands of Christians in Damascus. I say, (in Arabic) the equivalent of “Praise God!” Is anyone who knows me confused about what I mean? Do they doubt my Trinitarian beliefs?
You might be confused about my beliefs . . . or some passing visitor from (say) Lebanon, but that does not seem like my fault. If I thought you unsure, I need only cross myself as I say it and then you would be sure.
This does not seem that hard to me.
All of this is an entirely separate question from whether Muslims are “pointing” to the actual God when they say Allah, given other beliefs they have when they say “Allah.”
January 15th, 2010 | 3:01 pm | #8
‘If it does cause confusion (as I suspect) then I think that some alternative should be proposed, say, adding a modifer or prefix (e.g., “The God”) or using an alternative term altogether.’
“Allah” already means, literally, “The God.”
January 15th, 2010 | 3:17 pm | #9
Joe,
My superscript html tag didn’t work. Perhaps all the confusion can be cleared up by using ALT codes:
Allah ™ = Allah (alt 0153)
Allah † = Allah (alt 0134)
January 15th, 2010 | 3:47 pm | #10
I once heard an AM radio evangelist at 1 a.m. say that there are millions of people in English-speaking countries who will find themselves damned because they worshipped “Jesus” because there “weren’t [sic] no letter J in the English alphabet until the 17th century.” He continued, “there is no other name under heaven by which men may be saved and his name is Yesus.”
I didn’t know “Jesus” (or Yeshua Ben-Joseph) was supposed to be a password. I thought He was supposed to be Lord? Silly me.
January 15th, 2010 | 4:06 pm | #11
This does not seem that hard to me.
Maybe its not and I’m just making too much of it (though my own writing doesn’t show it, I can take words way too seriously sometimes).
My concern is more about how Christians in those regions communicate with non-believers, specifically Muslims. I can’t help but think that followers of Islam are getting the impression that the “Christian God” is just a slightly revised version of “Islam’s God.” In other words, do they think of Christianity the way we think of Mormonism?
January 15th, 2010 | 6:26 pm | #12
““Allah” already means, literally, “The God.””
That is incorrect. It’s a frequent misconception because many Arabic words that begin with “al” have that included article.
January 19th, 2010 | 1:20 pm | #13
Inter-religious reference may be rough to sort out, but isn’t the fact that there’s an unbroken chain of Christian speakers of arabic that have used tokens of “Allah” to refer to God in their liturgy since the beginning of (or perhaps since before the beginning of) Islam secure their referent as the same as an English speaker’s referent in tokens of “God”?
It may be that use of “Allah” in speaking with English speakers is innapropriate because it implicates that one is speaking about Islam (where not cancelled) – but still, if such traditions exist within the East, it seems a bit silly to insist that in their languages, the same implication exists.
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