ALLAH


Meaning of ALLAH in English

(Arabic: God), the one and only God in the religion of Islam. Etymologically, the name Allah is probably a contraction of the Arabic al-Ilah, the God. The name's origin can be traced back to the earliest Semitic writings in which the word for god was Il or El, the latter being an Old Testament synonym for Yahweh. Allah is the standard Arabic word for God and is used by Arab Christians as well as by Muslims. Allah is the pivot of the Muslim faith. The Muslim holy scripture, the Qur'an, constantly preaches Allah's reality, his inaccessible mystery, his various names, and his actions on behalf of his creatures. Three themes preponderate: (1) Allah is creator, judge, and rewarder; (2) he is unique (wahid) and inherently one (ahad); and (3) he is omnipotent and all-merciful. God is the Lord of the Worlds, the most high, nothing is like unto him, and this in itself is to the believer a request to adore Allah as protector and to glorify his powers of compassion and forgiveness. God, says the Qur'an, loves those who do good, and two passages in the Qur'an express a mutual love between God and man, but the Judeo-Christian precept to love God with all thy heart is nowhere formulated in Islam. The emphasis is rather on God's inscrutable sovereignty, to which one must abandon oneself. In essence, the surrender to Allah (islam) is the religion itself. Muslim piety has collected, in the Qur'an and in the Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), the 99 most beautiful names (al-asma' al-husna) of God, and these names have become objects of devoted recitation and meditation. Among the names of Allah are the One and Only, the Living One, the Subsisting (al-Hayy al-Qayyum), the Real Truth (al-Haqq), the Sublime (al-'Azim), the Wise (al-Hakim), the Omnipotent (al-'Aziz), the Hearer (as-Sami'), the Seer (al-Basir), the Omniscient (al-'Alim), the Witness (Shahid), the Protector (al-Wakil), the Benefactor (ar-Rahman), the Merciful (ar-Rahim), and the Constant Forgiver (Ghafur, Ghaffar). At all times there have been freethinkers in Islam, but rare indeed has been the Muslim thinker who has denied the very existence of God. Indeed, the profession of faith (shahadah) by which a person is introduced into the Muslim community consists of the affirmation that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his prophet. For pious Muslims, every action is opened by an invocation of the divine name (basmalah). The formula insha'a Allah, if God wills, appears frequently in daily speech. This formula is the reminder of an ever-present divine intervention in the order of the world and the actions of human beings. Muslims believe that nothing happens and nothing is performed unless it is by the will or commandment of Allah. The personal attitude of a Muslim believer, therefore, is a complete submission to God, whom one does not question but whom one knows according to his (Qur'anic) word to be a fair judge, at once formidable and benevolent, and the supreme help.

Britannica English vocabulary.      Английский словарь Британика.