Allah/AlIlah: Does 'Allah' have a meaning?

**AhmedBahgat**

Salam bro

Do you think that Allah is a combination of Al + Lah ?

Cheers

The

Yes, buddy, at the moment I do think that Allah is 'The God,' provided we can translate 'ilah' the same way.

**AhmedBahgat**

The

To be honest, my understanding comes, to a large degree, from two Quranic verses. But apart from that, what do you propose is the meaning of 'ilah'. And what about 'Allah'? Take care.

**AhmedBahgat**

The

I will try to break this up into manageable parts so that we can know where to agree or disagree; I hope this is okay with you, buddy.

@ Ilah mean god, any god, Al-Ilah, also means any god, so we can refer to any man made god using Ilah or Al-Ilah

I agree that the disbelievers misappropriate the term 'ilah' and take others than Allah as 'ilah,' but this does not mean that there really are multiple 'ilahs'.

Here the Quran condemns those who take two 'gods,' and tells that indeed He is the only Ilah:

16:51 God says: 'Take not to you two gods (ilahayni). He is Ilahun Wahidun; so have awe of Me.'

There are many other verses that tell us that there is only One Ilah. So, the correct understanding would be that we have only one Ilah. If you agree with this, then we will move on to the next part. Take care.

**AhmedBahgat**

The

@ This is because Allah is still using the word Ilah to refer to Himself, i.e. Ilah can be used to refer to Allah and any man made god, while the name Allah is a unique name that is explicit to Allah
Certianly I agree with that, i.e. we can refer to Allah using the word Ilah, as for the believers there is only one Ilah who is Allah

It is not only the believers who have one Ilah, buddy, everybody has only one 'ilah'.

16:51 God says: 'Take not to you two gods (ilahayni). He is Ilahun Wahidun; so have awe of Me.'

It doesn't say that he is One Ilah only for the believers, merely that there is only One Ilah. If you can bring a verse where Allah or a Prophet tells the believers to take one 'ilah' and the disbelievers to take another 'ilah,' then I would be interested in seeing it.

Note this verse, where He again says there is only One Ilah:

16:22 Your Ilah is One Ilah. And they who believe not in the world to come, their hearts deny, and they have waxed proud.

The disbelievers wrongly take others as 'ilah' but the Quran does not endores their practice (16:22, 16:51). Whether Muslims or non-Muslims (Pagans/jews/Christians/others), there is only One Ilah for all.

**AhmedBahgat**

The

Yes, buddy. And what we are interested in is the right perspective and not the disbelievers' perspective. So now we agree that there is in fact only one Ilah (for believers and disbelievers alike) and that is Allah. I will now move to the next part of your earlier post.

@however if we use the word Ilah to refer to Allah then we must add to the sentence something that uniquely identify Him which His unique name Allah, i.e.

La Illah Illa Allah
i.e. there is no god except Allah
or A Ilah Ghair Allah
i.e. is it a god other than Allah?
for the first example it should sound odd if you say it like this: there is no god except the God, it makes absolutely no sense
and for the second example, it should also sound odd if you say it like this: is it a god other than the God?

I don't see why it makes no sense or that it sounds odd; it is probably because you are looking at it critically.
Let's read it again, this time with 'Allah' as 'The ilah': There is no ilah except The ilah.

Let us now compare it with another verse (16:22): Your ilah is One ilah

Here's another verse (4:171): The ilah is One ilah.

Now compare 4:171 and 16:22 -- what do we get?

The

I did feel that 'ilah' was a misunderstood term, but it is only now that I tried a methodical approach to the subject. And Allah does indeed forcefully convey that He Alone is Ilah.

21:25 And We sent never a Messenger before thee except that We revealed to him, saying, 'There is no ilah but I; so serve Me.'

And Pharaoh's (one of the most arrogant and obstinate disbelievers depicted in the Quran) late realization in 10:90 is also profound.

I am glad we had this conversation, buddy.

**AhmedBahgat**

**AhmedBahgat**

The

@I think to say, the God is the only God, sounds a bit poor and odd

Which verse are you referring to when you give that example of 'the God is the only God'?

Jeez, buddy, I agree we are not on the same page. What I am trying to say is that there is no structural difference between 'The ilah is One ilah' and 'Your ilah is One ilah'.

If you say 'The ilah is One ilah' has a wrong construct, then you have to say the same for 'Your ilah is One ilah' (16:22) as well.

Again, the context for 'ilah' is given in the Quran itself. 21:25 ('There is no ilah but I) makes it clear that there is One Ilah, no matter what the disbelievers say, and that should be enough for us. But fortunately we have an example: In 5:73, the disbelievers are saying "Allah is third of three". Does that mean there exist more than one Allah?

**AhmedBahgat**

Indeed bro we are talking about totally different things

Let me simplify it

do you consider the name Allah to be driven from the Arabic word Al-Ilah?

and

How do you translate the following 3 Arabic words into English:

Ilah

Al-Ilah

Allah

?

Cheers