Is "Allah" the same deity as "God"? I broached this topic in June 2005 in "Is Allah God?" (answering the question in the affirmative). The topic has taken on new urgency with the uproar over Pope Benedict XVI's comments about Islam, prompting the pope to state today that Muslims "worship the one God and with whom we promote peace, liberty, social justice and moral values for the benefit of all humanity."
In this, he agrees with Pope John Paul II's statement in August 1985. While visiting Casablanca, Morocco, he declared that Catholics and Muslims "believe in the same God, the one God, the living God." (September 21, 2006)
Sep. 25, 2006 update: Pope Benedict reaffirmed this same point, this time even more forcefully. In the course of a statement to Muslim ambassadors, he quoted the Nostra Aetate issued by the Second Vatican Council:
The Church looks upon Muslims with respect. They worship the one God living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to humanity and to whose decrees, even the hidden ones, they seek to submit themselves whole-heartedly, just as Abraham, to whom the Islamic faith readily relates itself, submitted to God.
The pope endorsed this 1965 statement by calling it "the Magna Carta of Muslim-Christian dialogue."
Comment: Every twenty years, it appears, the church confirms that, indeed, Allah=God.
Aug. 15, 2007 update: A Roman Catholic bishop in the Netherlands, Tiny Muskens, has taken the Allah=God idea to an extreme, proposing that all monotheists refer to God as Allah, as a means to increase inter-faith understanding. The Associated Press relates how Muskens
told Dutch television on Monday[, Aug. 13] that God did not mind what he was named and that in Indonesia, where Muskens spent eight years, priests used the word "Allah" while celebrating Mass. "Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? ... What does God care what we call him? It is our problem."
A survey in the Netherlands' biggest-selling newspaper De Telegraaf on Wednesday found 92 percent of the more than 4,000 people polled disagreed with the bishop's view, which also drew ridicule. "Sure. Lets call God Allah. Lets then call a church a mosque and pray five times a day. Ramadan sounds like fun," Welmoet Koppenhol wrote in a letter to the newspaper. Gerrit de Fijter, chairman of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, told the paper he welcomed any attempt to "create more dialogue," but added: "Calling God ‘Allah' does no justice to Western identity. I see no benefit in it."
Aug. 23, 2007 update: For a rare, serious argument that Allah≠God, see Soeren Kern, "Who Is Allah?" which argues that "just because Christianity, Judaism and Islam are called "monotheistic" faiths, it does not follow that Christians, Jews and Muslims pray to the same God."
Aug. 29, 2007 update: An article by Ilan Barir on "The Yezidis of Iraq, an Endangered Minority," reminds me that for this religion too, God is called Allah. As Barir summarizes its belief system, "The Yezidi religion includes a belief in a single God, Allah, as well as the belief in an archangel that refused to obey the godly command to bow down to Adam."
This is as good a point as any to add to the Qur'anic reference provided in my original article, which was Sura 29:46. Here is Sura 5:44 (5:47 in some editions):
We have sent down the Torah.
Oct. 4, 2007 update: George W. Bush has also reaffirmed his belief that Allah is the same as God, in an interview today, saying, "I believe in an almighty God, and I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God. That's what I believe."
Dec. 4, 2007 update: The Associated Press has also decided that Allah=God and implemented this in its highly influential Stylebook.
The Muslim name for God. The word God should be used, unless the Arabic name is used in a quote written or spoken in English.
Dec. 24, 2007 update: Che Din Yusoff, a senior official at the publications control unit of Malaysia's Internal Security Ministry, has warned a Catholic publication, the Weekly Herald, not to use the term Allah in its Malay-language section to refer to its concept of God.
Che Din indicated this usage is erroneous because, Allah refers to the Muslim God. "Christians cannot use the word Allah. It is only applicable to Muslims. Allah is only for the Muslim god. This is a design to confuse the Muslim people."
Che Din instructed the newspaper to use the generic term for God, Tuhan. Che Din reasoned that because Christians do not use the word Allah in their English-language worship, they also should not use it in Malay. In addition, Che Din forbade three other Malay words to non-Muslims: solat for prayers, kaabah for the place Muslims worship to in Mecca, and baitula for the house of Allah.
In response, the editor of the Weekly Herald, Father Andrew Lawrence, explained his newspaper's usage of the word: "We follow the Bible. The Malay-language Bible uses Allah for God and Tuhan for Lord. In our prayers and in church during Malay mass, we use the word Allah. This is not something new. The word Allah has been used [by Christians] in Malaysia for a long time. There is no confusion."
Publishers in Malaysia are required to obtain annual permits from the government which expire on Dec. 31. the Weekly Herald is in discussion with the government to renew its permit; Che Din indicated this would happen only if it stops using the word Allah in its Malay pages.
Comment: This development makes for an interesting coda to the Tiny Muskens flap (see entry at Aug. 15, 2007).
Dec. 28, 2007 update: The Malaysian case promises to be an interesting one, for the Weekly Herald plans has sued the government and the internal security minister (a post held at the moment by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) for banning the word Allah in its pages. "We are of the view that we have the right to use the word Allah," says its editor, the Rev. Lawrence Andrew.
The Sabah Evangelical Church of Borneo, has joined the suit because customs officials confiscated three boxes of children's educational materials from a church member going through the Kuala Lumpur airport in August on the grounds the books contained the word Allah to refer to the Christian God. This, he was told, could raise confusion and controversy among Muslims and the matter was classified as a security issue. In response, the church's lawyer, Lim Heng Seng, said that "The decision to declare Allah as only for Muslims, categorizing this as a security issue, and banning books with the word Allah' is unlawful." The pastor of the Sabah Evangelical Church, Jerry Dusing, noted that Christians in Sabah have long used the word Allah when they worship in the Malay language and that the word even appears in their Malay Bible. "The Christian usage of Allah predates Islam. Allah is the name of God in the old Arabic Bible as well as in the modern Arabic Bible," plus Christians in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Indonesia and elsewhere use Allah without problem.
Comment: A serious court case could bring out the arguments of the two sides of this debate in an unprecedented fashion.
Dec. 30, 2007 update: No court case: the Malaysian government reversed itself, faxing a note to Father Lawrence that the Weekly Herald will receive a 2008 permit to publish, without conditions.
Jan. 4, 2008 update: Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi himself has forbidden Christians to use the word Allah, Datuk Abdullah Mohd Zin of the Prime Minister's Department announced in a press conference. Badawi instructed him to clarify the matter, the Star explains:
"One of the reasons given to uphold the restriction is because that it has long been the practice of this country that the world Allah refers to God according to the Muslim faith." It was only proper for other religions to use the word God and not Allah when referring to their God in respective beliefs, Abdullah said, adding that the use of the word Allah shall not be made a public debate that may give the impression as if there is no freedom of religion in the country. "The use of the word Allah by non-Muslims may arouse sensitivity and create confusion among Muslims in the country," he said.
Jan. 14, 2008 update: Another politician has weighed on this issue, this time French president Nicolas Sarkozy during a visit to Saudi Arabia, announcing that "it is the same God" to which Muslims, Jews, and Christians address their prayers:
Sans doute, Musulmans, Juifs et Chrétiens ne croient-ils pas en Dieu de la même façon. Sans doute n'ont-ils pas la même manière de vénérer Dieu, de le prier, de le servir. Mais au fond, qui pourrait contester que c'est bien le même Dieu auquel s'adressent leurs prières? Que c'est bien le même besoin de croire. Que c'est le même besoin d'espérer qui leur fait tourner leurs regards et leurs mains vers le Ciel pour implorer la miséricorde de Dieu, le Dieu de la Bible, le Dieu des Evangiles et le Dieu du Coran? Finalement, le Dieu unique des religions du Livre.
Apr. 6, 2008 update: The novelist Rabih Alameddine has an amusing take on this issue today in the Los Angeles Times, in "‘Allah' vs. ‘God': Using English to separate the two has become a dangerous practice."
Allah means God.
In Arabic, Muslims, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians all pray to Allah. In English, however, Christians and Jews pray to God, and Allah is the Muslim deity. No one would think of using the word "Allah" to talk about any other religion. The two words, "God" and "Allah," do not mean the same thing in English. They should. …
We never say the French pray to Dieu, or Mexicans pray to Dios. Having Allah be different from God implies that Muslims pray to a special deity. It classifies Muslims as the Other. Separating Allah from God, we only see a vengeful, alarming deity, one responsible for those frightful fatwas and ghastly jihads—rarely the compassionate God. The opening line of every chapter in the Koran is "Bi Ism Allah, Al Rahman, Al Rahim": In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful. In the name of Allah. One and the same.
The separation is happening on all sides. This year, the Malaysian government issued an edict warning the Herald, a weekly English newspaper, that no religion except Islam can use the word Allah to denote God. No such edict, or fatwa for that matter, is needed for the New York Times: a quick search through the archives shows that Allah is used only as the Muslim God.
In these troubled times, creating more differences, further parsing so to speak, is troubling, even dangerous. I suggest we either not use the word Allah or, better yet, use it in a non-Muslim context.
Otherwise, the terrorists win.
One nation under Allah?
Apr. 18, 2008 update: Mark Durie, an Anglican pastor in Melbourne, Australia, published Revelation? Guide for the Perplexed in 2006. It takes up in depth the question whether Christians worship the same God as Muslims. They do not, he finds:
A careful study of the scriptures of Islam and Christianity shows that the LORD God of the Bible and Allah of the Quran are different personalities in many respects. They have such different personalities, and different capacities, that they cannot said to be the same. … to claim they are the same god would only be misleading.
Durie summarizes those differences in Appendix A, "YHWH and Allah":
The Bible
The Quran
YHWH is God's name ‘forever'. (Exodus 3:13–15)
Allah is God's name. (The Quran)
Evil is not from YHWH, but wilful rebellion against YHWH. YHWH is the author of good, not evil. (Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 92:15; 1 John 1:5)
Allah is the author of both good and evil. (Q91:5–9)
YHWH can make himself present with and in people and places: this is distinct from his omnipresence. (Exodus 33:14–15; Joel 2:27–29)
Allah is everywhere at once, but nowhere in particular: he indwells nothing. (Q2:109; Q4:125)
YHWH is holy, and his followers should be holy too. (Leviticus 19:1–2)
The Holiness of Allah is rarely referred to in the Quran: it appears to be a minor or secondary attribute of Allah. (Q59:20-24)
Human beings are created in God's image and should seek to be like him. (Genesis 1:26–27; Ephesians 5:1-2)
Nothing in creation is like Allah, and people must not seek to be like him. (Q4:50–54) No human attribute may be associated with Allah, and when people use the same words to describe humans and Allah this is merely a figure of speech.
YHWH loves sinners and reaches out to his enemies in love. (Exodus 34:5–7; 1 John 4:19)
Allah will typically hate those who hate him, and love those who obey him, and he wants people to follow him in this. He is however under no obligation to love, and can love or hate whoever he chooses. (Q3:25–29)
YHWH is faithful to his word, which is unchanging, and he does not lie. (Numbers 23:19) Although God can and often does make conditional promises – including covenants – his inherent faithfulness is not dependent upon human faithfulness, but reflects his utter holiness. (Hebrews 6:17–19; Malachi 3:6)
Allah acts as he pleases and is the ‘best of schemers' (Q3:54); he can, without impugning his perfection, abrogate something he has said earlier and replace it with a contradictory word. (Q16:100–104) He is not obligated to follow his covenants, nor does he obligate himself to people in any way. (Q17:85–89)
Revelation? carries endorsements from Bat Ye'or, Andrew Bostom, Peter Riddell, and Robert Spencer.
"Revelation?" by Mark Durie
May 5, 2008
The Associated Press news item also indicates that the Sabah Evangelical Church of Borneo (on which, see Dec. 28, 2007 update, above) has also filed a separate lawsuit to import books using the word Allah for God.
update: It appeared that the Malaysian government had given way for the Weekly Herald to use the word Allah (see the Dec. 30, 2007 update, above) but then the prime minister himself forbade Christians to do so (see the Jan. 4, 2008 update, above). Now comes word not only that the Weekly Herald is suing the government but that High Court Judge Lau Bee Lan ruled that prosecutors' objection to the lawsuit is "without merit" and she will allow the paper to argue against the government ban in court.
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