Can Allah be construed as the same entity as that “god” that Abraham spoke of?
Zeus=Jupiter.
Diana=Artemis.
Allah=Yahweh? I can’t quite see this as being a fact. So why do so many people say that Christians, Muslims, and Jews all believe in the same “god”?
Because Mohammed said so. As Mohammed laid out his beliefs, he relied on the bible for much of his history of God in the world.
Muslims refer to themselves, Jews and Christians as “people of the book”–the “book” referring to the bible as the original source of information about God, prior to the revelations that Mohammed received.
And BTW, Jews do not refer to G-d as Yahweh.
We Jews do consider the Muslims’ “Allah” to be the same G-d as we pray to. “Allah” is an Arabic variation on the Hebrew word “E-l” (I use the dash to avoid writing a form of G-d’s name, as is my religious custom), which is a name (in addition the one you used) by which the Hebrew Bible refers to the Creator of everything.
While we believe that the way in which we pray is the most correct, we do not consider Islam to be a form of idolatry.
Then why don’t you write it as “All-h”?
And, by the way, I think the English word “God” is about as far from His True Name as you can get, so you probably don’t have to worry about writing the whole thing out.
IANAJ, but I asked a Jewish friend about this once and she said that since popular perception of God is to simply call him ‘God’, it’s considered proper to use G-d. I don’t know if typing/writing God would upset him per se, but rather it’s an act of respect to just not do it.
Because it’s pronounced “El”.
Actually, “El” does not mean “God”, it means “god”. The word “God” in Hebrew is “Elohim” (or “Elokim”, as Chaim would write it), which is the plural of “god” with an H thrown in in honor of the Y-word.
Allah is an Arabic contraction for (correct my misspelling, please) al illah, which means “the G-d” It’s not intended to be a proper name, exactly.
This was posed to Aish HaTorah Ask The Rabbi and here is their answer:
http://aish.com/rabbi/ATR_browse.asp?l=All&offset=150
My question: As a young student in Hebrew school, I was taught that we never write the full name of God; that it should always be written without an “O”. What’s the reason? And why do I see it spelled out on Aish.com?
I often see a warning on printed material that says: “This contains the Name of God – please dispose of reverently.” I would be grateful if you could give me some advice on how this is done.
THE AISH RABBI REPLIES:
There are two separate issues here. One is the legal issue of erasing God’s Name; the other is the emotional issue of showing the Name proper respect.
First the legal side: The Torah exhorts us to destroy idolatry, and from here we learn the injunction not to erase the name of God. (see Deuteronomy 12:3-4)
[remainder of copyrighted work deleted. Follow the link to read more]
[Edited by bibliophage on 11-11-2001 at 07:34 PM]
Further, Mohammed claimed that Arabs descended from Abraham
just as Jews did - but by a different son by a different wife.
It’s Abraham’s Lord, with the same archangel Gabriel.
Um, off the top of my head, if I can remember –
Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Both were raised to worship the One God, the God of Abraham. From Isaac are descended the Jews, and from Ismael are descended the Muslims. And, of course, Christianity arose out of Judaism. That’s the Bible’s explanation, any way. Three faiths, but one God.
BTW, in case you missed the subtlety of KELLER’s statement “While we believe that the way in which we pray is the most correct, we do not consider Islam to be a form of idolatry” – some Jews (including KELLER, I believe, and please correct me if I’m wrong) consider Christianity to be a form of idolatry. They do not believe the Christian God is the same God as the Jewish God, because they insist on construing the concept of a Trinity to mean more than one god, Christian belief to the contrary notwithstanding. Not surprisingly, this pisses off some Christians.
So if you ask a conservative Jew if Christians and Jews worship the same god, he or she might tell you “no.” But if you ask a Christian (such as myself), we will tell you “yes, we do.”
Well, seems to me, if there is only ONE God, then it’s not like identification of Zeus with Odin. Trying to match up Zeus and Odin, you get problems like Zeus was in charge of lightning, but Thor (not Odin) was in charge in lightning, etc. But if there’s only ONE, then there’s not much chance of mis-identification. “Oh, wait, I was praying to the OTHER One God”…
There may be different interpretations of what that One God asks of Christians, Jews, or Moslems, but as long as there’s belief in only ONE, then it gotta be the same One. Christians can’t say that there is only One God and He’s different from the only One God of the Moslems or the Jews.
The differences are in theology, interpretation of the rules, identification of the various paths to get to that One God… but there can’t be a different God altogether.
Jodi:
Jodi, while I did deliberately not mention Christianity, it is not so much because it is clearly idolatry from the Jewish point of view as because the Jewish point of view regarding Christianity and the trinity (and in the fact that G-d contained himself in a physical body) is a complicated one.
It is not in the same category of idolatry that, say, Hinduism is. However, these beliefs are incompatible with some core beliefs of Judaism. There is also a distinction between what Judaism considers idolatry in regard to Jewish law and Noahide law. Suffice it to say that it’s not quite as clear-cut as you make it sound, and I avoided mention of it because the initial question was really about Islam anyway.
CKDextHavn:
Not necessarily, Dex. G-d has to be defined the same for that deity to be the same. Omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, physicality or non-physicality…if one’s definition of the lone G-d includes those and another’s definition does not, then it’s not really the same being they’re referring to.
Chaim Mattis Keller
Don’t forget the Zoroastrians, and Mandeans they are “peoples of the book” too.
To be more precise, from Ishmael come the Arabs, not the Muslims. Only about 25% of the world’s Muslims are Arabs - Islam didn’t arise until several thousand years after Genesis. See Gen. 21.9-21.21.
So, actually, Avraham had many more children by his third wife Keturah (Gen 25:1-5)
In Jewish Literacy, Joseph Telushkin says:
“…the majority of Jewish scholars concluded that although Christianity speaks of a trinity, it does not conceive of the three forces as separate with different and conflicting wills. Rather, the trinity represents three aspecst of one God. While Jews are forbidden to hold such a belief, it is not * avodah zara * (idolatry)”
In light of that, CARNIVOROUS, I wonder what CHAIM meant by “not in the same category of idolatry.” I wasn’t aware there were categories of idolatry. I thought you either were an idolater, or you weren’t.
He mentioned
Perhaps we will hear from him on Sunday.
Rabbi Telushkin mentioned that Jews were forbidden to deal with idolators within three days of their holidays; that would forbid dealing with Christians withing three days of Sunday, so I imagaine the difference involves that.
I would also add that I am not trying to back CHAIM into a corner; I’m just curious. I know there’s no black and white answer.
But I don’t think I’m wrong in stating that the fundamentalist Jewish position is that Christianity is idolatry. I don’t ascribe that position to any particular Jewish person, however, unless or until they claim it as their own. And even then they are of course free to believe as they see fit.