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I begin by praising Allah and ask for His forgiveness and I take refuge with Allah from the evil of ourselves and the accursed Satan. Whom so ever Allah guides, there is none to misguide and who so ever Allah leaves to go astray, there is none to guide.
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Ermmm.....
.........
.....
..... So what/why/how do we address You??
Some of the biggest misconceptions that many non-Muslims have about Islam have to do with the word "Allah". For various reasons, many people have come to believe that Muslims worship a different God than Christians and Jews. This is totally false, since "Allah" is simply the Arabic word for "God" - and there is only One God. Let there be no doubt - Muslims worship the God of Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus (peace be upon them all).
It's certainly true that the Jews, Christians and Muslims all have different concepts of God Almighty. That however will not be discussed in this article.
The Muslims prefer calling "Allah" instead of the English word "God". This is so because the Arabic word "Allah" is pure and unique unlike the English word "God" - which can be played around with.
If we add the letter "s" to the word "God", it becomes "Gods" - that is the plural of God. Allah is one and singular and there's no plural of Allah.
If we add the word "-dess" to the word "God", we've transformed God into a female. God became "Goddess". Allah has no gender and there's no such thing as male Allah or female Allah. Well if we add "father" to "God", we now have a "Godfather". Add "mother" and we have a "Godmother". The list goes on....
Allah is a unique word which does not conjure up any mental picture nor can it be played around with. Therefore we Muslims prefer saying, "Allah". But sometimes when interacting with non-Muslims, we might have to use the word "God" for Allah to avoid misunderstanding.
It's also important to take note that "Allah" is the same word that Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews use for God. If u were to pick up any Arabic Bible, you'll see the word Allah being used where "God" is used in English. This is simply because "Allah" is the only word in the Arabic language equivalent to the word "God" with a capital "G"
In English, the only thing that seperates between "god" (a false god) and "God" (the true God), is the capital "G". Now, the problem arises. What if we want to use "god" with the small "g" at the beginning of a sentence? In the English language, the 1st letter of any word at the beginnig of a sentence has to be in capital letters. Do you see the problem?? We've made a false god to mean the true God.
In Semitic languages like Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic, they don't have upper case - capital letters. So the problem of diffrentiating which is the true God and the false god is not there.
In Arabic, "Allah" is formed by adding "Al-" (the english equivalent of the word "the") with "-ilah" (which means "god"). So the Arabic word "Allah" literally means "The God". The Arabic word "Al-" is basically serving the same function as the capital "G" in English. Due to the above mentioned facts, a more accurate translation of the word "Allah" into English might be "The One-and-Only God" or "The One True God".
I begin by praising Allah and ask for His forgiveness and I take refuge with Allah from the evil of ourselves and the accursed Satan. Whom so ever Allah guides, there is none to misguide and who so ever Allah leaves to go astray, there is none to guide.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Ermmm.....
.........
.....
..... So what/why/how do we address You??
Some of the biggest misconceptions that many non-Muslims have about Islam have to do with the word "Allah". For various reasons, many people have come to believe that Muslims worship a different God than Christians and Jews. This is totally false, since "Allah" is simply the Arabic word for "God" - and there is only One God. Let there be no doubt - Muslims worship the God of Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus (peace be upon them all).
It's certainly true that the Jews, Christians and Muslims all have different concepts of God Almighty. That however will not be discussed in this article.
The Muslims prefer calling "Allah" instead of the English word "God". This is so because the Arabic word "Allah" is pure and unique unlike the English word "God" - which can be played around with.
If we add the letter "s" to the word "God", it becomes "Gods" - that is the plural of God. Allah is one and singular and there's no plural of Allah.
If we add the word "-dess" to the word "God", we've transformed God into a female. God became "Goddess". Allah has no gender and there's no such thing as male Allah or female Allah. Well if we add "father" to "God", we now have a "Godfather". Add "mother" and we have a "Godmother". The list goes on....
Allah is a unique word which does not conjure up any mental picture nor can it be played around with. Therefore we Muslims prefer saying, "Allah". But sometimes when interacting with non-Muslims, we might have to use the word "God" for Allah to avoid misunderstanding.
It's also important to take note that "Allah" is the same word that Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews use for God. If u were to pick up any Arabic Bible, you'll see the word Allah being used where "God" is used in English. This is simply because "Allah" is the only word in the Arabic language equivalent to the word "God" with a capital "G"
In English, the only thing that seperates between "god" (a false god) and "God" (the true God), is the capital "G". Now, the problem arises. What if we want to use "god" with the small "g" at the beginning of a sentence? In the English language, the 1st letter of any word at the beginnig of a sentence has to be in capital letters. Do you see the problem?? We've made a false god to mean the true God.
In Semitic languages like Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic, they don't have upper case - capital letters. So the problem of diffrentiating which is the true God and the false god is not there.
In Arabic, "Allah" is formed by adding "Al-" (the english equivalent of the word "the") with "-ilah" (which means "god"). So the Arabic word "Allah" literally means "The God". The Arabic word "Al-" is basically serving the same function as the capital "G" in English. Due to the above mentioned facts, a more accurate translation of the word "Allah" into English might be "The One-and-Only God" or "The One True God".
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If there's any error, I'm open for rectification. None is perfect as perfection only belongs to Allah (God Almighty). All good things come from Allah and all the bad things are from my side and the side of Satan the accursed.
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