History Can Trace A Word. Can It Trace God? Can An Infinite God Originate From One Tribe?
If Allah is an Islamic name, then a dangerous question immediately appears. Did Islam create Allah, or did Islam inherit Allah? Most discussions never make it past this point. People are taught what to think about God, but far fewer are taught to ask where the names came from. History, however, does not care about religious sensitivities. History asks a simpler question: What existed first? The evidence creates an inconvenient problem. The name Allah did not begin with Islam. It existed before Muhammad, before the Qur'an, and before the rise of Islam. It was also used by Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews. The term itself belongs to a larger family of Semitic names for God, related to forms such as Aramaic Alaha and Hebrew Eloah . [en.wikipedia.org] , [academia.edu] The moment this is acknowledged, the argument changes. Because a name that predates Islam cannot logically have originated with Islam, it must have come from somewhere earlier. The next question becomes even more unc...