Contributing Authors

Who was Allah? A Pagan deity, the Moon God of the Arabs.

"And (mention, O’ Muhammad) when your Lord said to his angels: 'Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successive authority.' They said: 'Will You place upon it one -whom causes corruption therein and sheds blood, whilst we declare Your praise and sanctify You?'  He [Allah] said:  'Indeed, I know all that which you do not know'…”? [Quran 2:30-31]

Allah as the Koran reveals

Allah is the name of the ‘only’ God in Islam. The Arabic name for “God” is the word "Al-ilah". Allah is a pre-Islamic name coming from the compound Arabic word “Al-ilah, which means the God and is derived from al (the) and ilah (deity)”. It is a generic title for whatever/whichever god was considered as the highest amongst gods!

Different Pagan Arab tribes used “Allah” to refer to its personal high god. “Allah” was being worshipped at the Kaa’ba in Mecca by the Pagan Bedouin Arabs prior to the time of Prophet Muhammad bin Abdullah. It was formerly the name of their chief god amongst the numerous idol-gods (360 approx) in the Kaaba at Mecca before Prophet Muhammad forced them into accepting his one-god-worshipping monotheistic creed, Islam. Numerous historians have shown that the moon-god, called “Hubal”, was the main god to whom these pagan Bedouin Arabs offered their prayers at the Kaa’ba; and they used the name “Allah” as and when they prayed.

A Muslim is one, who submits to the will of Allah! Islam means submission (to Allah), but originally it meant ‘strength which characterized a desert warrior, who, even when faced with impossible odds, would fight to the death for his tribe’. [Dr. M. Baravmann, The Spiritual Background of Early Islam, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1972]

Many believe the word “Allah” was derived from the mid-eastern word “el”, which in Ugaritic, Canaanite and Hebrew, and can mean a true or false God. This is not the case, “the source of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Islamic times. Allah is not a common name meaning “God” (or a “god”), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity.” [Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (ed. Hastings), I:326.]

According to the Encyclopedia of Religion, Allah corresponded to the Babylonian god Baal, and these Pagan Arabs knew of him long before Prophet Muhammad ever worshipped Him as the supreme God. Before Islam came into being, these Pagan Arabs recognized many gods and goddesses, each tribe had their own sacred deity and there were also nature deities. Allah was the god of the local Pagan Bedouin Qureish tribe, to which Muhammad belonged, before he created Islam to lead his chosen peoples out of worshipping polytheistic deities. Allah was then known as “HUBAL” the Moon God, who had 3 daughters (Al-Laht, Al-Manat & Al-Uzza), considered as intercessors for the worshippers unto Allah. Their names were Al-at, Al-uzza, and Al-Manat, which were three goddesses; the first two daughters of Allah had names which were feminine forms of Allah. Hubal was the chieftain God of Gods at the Kaaba amongst the other 360 idol deities. He was a statue in the likeness of a man, whose body was made of red precious stones and arms made of gold. [Reference Islam, George Braswell Jr.]

Historians like Al-Waqqidi have said Allah was actually the chieftain of these 360 idol-gods being worshipped in Arabia at the time Muhammad rose to prominence. Ibn Al-Kalbi gave 27 names of pre-Islamic deities. Interestingly, not many Muslims would ever want to accept that Allah was already being worshipped at the Ka'ba in Mecca by Arab pagans before Muhammad came. Muslims become angry when they are confronted with these facts! Yet, history will never be on their side, because this is the Ultimate Truth. Pre-Islamic literature has proved this. [G. J. O. Moshay, Who Is This Allah?, Dorchester House, Bucks, UK, 1994, pg. 138].

History has shown that Mecca and the holy stone at al-Kaaba were holy sites for pre-Islamic pagan Arabs. The Kaaba in Mecca was formerly named Beit-Allah, meaning House of Allah. We are told by Muslims that it was first built in heaven. This is in contradistinction to what Prophet Moses was instructed to build, something overlooked by Muslims in their reading of the Bible and Torah.

The Noble Koran [Allah’s book] tells us that Prophet Muhammad drove/broken/thrown the other idols away from the Kaaba; and made now one God the only god and himself as its holy messenger. He kept the Kaaba as a holy, sacred place and confirmed that the black stone (hajar al-aswad) had sacred powers to take away man's sins, as also believed by the pre-Islamic Pagans. He obligated every believer to make a pilgrimage to the Black Stone kept at the Kaaba at least once in his/her lifetime. [Surah 22:26-37] No Old Testament saint had ever made a pilgrimage to the Kaaba and kissed its Black Stone, despite such stories that Abraham and his illegitimate son Ishmael restored it at the Kaaba.

So, Muhammad simply used the name Allah, the name of an existing and regularly worshipped deity, thereby, without distinguishing it from the idol-gods of the Pagan Meccans. Muhammad’s grandfather was a high priest and keeper of this idol. His own father was named Abdullah (i.e. Abd-ilah = slave of ilah), which means "keeper of Al-ilah". This was simply a modification of the Pagan's former worship, but never a complete break. He never did say for the people to stop their worship of the wrong Allah, or for the right one! He just instituted worship of one of the 360 idol-gods of the pre-Islamic Pagans of Mecca, nothing else.

The goddess Al-Laht, which is a T at the end of the name of Allah, was represented by a square stone, whose major sanctuary was in the city of Taif. In the sanctuary, there was a Black Stone in the town of Qudayd between Mecca and Medina. She was the goddess of fate, a female counterpart of Allah. Al-Uzza was the goddess of east Mecca. It has been said that there were human sacrifices made to her and the Islamic traditions tell of a story of Muhammad’s grandfather almost sacrificing his son the father of Muhammad to her. What prevented this was his seeking counsel from a fortune teller, who told him to ransom his son with one hundred camels. Muslims look to this as the will of Allah to bring Muhammad into existence. [Reference Muhammad Husain Haykal, Hayat Muhammad]

“The name Allah, as the Qur'an itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Al-laht, are found not infrequently among the Theophanous names in inscriptions from North Africa.” [(Arthur Jeffrey, ed. Islam: Muhammad and His Religion ,1958, p. 85.)]

The literal name of Muhammad's father in Arabic is Abd Allah and his uncle's name was Obeid Allah. These names symbolizes Muhammad's family pagan roots, and also prove that Allah was part of a polytheistic system of worship before He was made the supreme and only god, discarding the rest. This should be proof to Muslims that the name Allah has pre-Islamic roots, rather say, it was the name of one the gods the Pagan Arabs worshipped. Muhammad had good intentions in taking Pagans of Mecca away from polytheistic worship; however, he did not go far enough in his godly reforms.

Pre-Islamic Mecca was the place where the idol Allah was located, and the people of Arabia used turn to that direction when they prayed to their Allah. According to "The Encyclopedia of Islam" (p. 303), before Islam, the Arabs used to turn toward Mecca 5 times a day for praying to the Pagan deity, Al-ilah, their high god/goddess. Given Allah or Al-ilah was the Arabicized name of the Moon God Hubal, the crescent moon, the religious symbol in Islam, simply signifies Hubal, the Moon God. (Muslims have changed its significance today to mean from Mecca to the moon Islam will spread). Today, there is hardly a Muslim that knows the ancient pagan origins of Allah and the Crescent Moon, or they are not told to know such history of pre-Islamic deities!

Historical records say that the Black Stone, shaped in a vagina, was an ancient pagan fertility symbol, found throughout the Middle East. Prophet Muhammad smashed all the idols of the pagan Bedouin Arabs, but the Black Stone still remains one of the holiest symbols in Islam and is the object of the ritual worship during Umra and Hajj pilgrimages, when Muslims devotees to kiss Black Stone. Devotion to the Black Stone is thus another practice that preceded Mohammad’s times.

Muhammad made Allah into a single being, who, unlike the Biblical God, called Father, has no Son. Because of this portrayal, there is no fellowship or love amongst the godhead and his creations. To a Muslim, God is strictly singular, all seeing, all hearing, almighty; he is the first and the last. As concerns Islam's difference with Christianity, Allah has no Son and he cannot be called a Father, who relates to his son in a unique way (Son and Father does not mean offspring in historic Christianity).

There are 99 names of Allah in Islam, symbolizing him as an entity, who is the most merciful to one the most cruel and barbaric. In Islam, some believe that if one memorizes the 99 names of Allah and repeats them, he/she will go to paradise (heaven), because they give the believer power, making them conscious of God. Neither the Koran nor the Hadith speak of these names in such a way. The Surahs in the Koran begin with “In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful”. Yet in practice Islam's god is portrayed as a stern, harsh, having compassion on those who do right and deals severely with those who do not believe or obey him. To a Muslim, the God of the Bible, who is described as triune, is offensive and paganish, reminding them of what Muhammad destroyed at the altars in the holy Kaaba. This is recorded in their Koran. They interpret this as 3 separate Gods and not a unified one. The Quran says: “They are unbelievers who say God is a third of three. No God is there but one God.” While Muslims affirm Jesus' virgin conception, they deny he had any pre-existence that would imply he is God? To call a prophet God is the ultimate in blasphemy to them. “Verily God will not forgive the union of other gods with himself.”

Muslims claim that their God is the same as that of the Old and New Testaments (i.e. of Jews and Christians) and that the name 'Allah' can be found in the Bible. This is a claim no different from what the Jehovah's Witnesses do claim for the name Jehovah. In reality, Allah is not called Yahweh even once in the Koran, neither is Yahweh called Allah in the Bible! So, they both can't be the same God. Neither is the word Elohim, which is applied to Yahweh over 2,500 times in the Bible, is ever used in the Koran. Neither is he called ‘I Am’, which god said to Moses would be his name forever in the Bible. The God of the Bible identifies himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jacobs’ name is later changed to 'Israel', being the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. The God of the Bible calls Jerusalem the city of David and that the Messiah would descend from his lineage. Neither does the God of the Bible not mention Mecca or Medina but, instead, Jerusalem some 800 times. Yet, Jerusalem is not even mentioned in Allah’s Koran, which the Muslims claim as their own true holy words of god!

The God in the Bible is called the God of the Jews, which is impossible with Allah and his Islam. The Jews are called his chosen people, but they are not Allah's chosen ones. Allah commands the Muslim to not take the Jews or Christians as friends or family. Surah.5:51 disdain the Jews. Muhammad said, “the last hour will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims kill them”. [Mishkat Al Masabih Sh.M. Ashraf, p.147, 721, 810-11, 1130]. So, how could Israel inherit the land or any of God's promises from Allah, if he is to be their God? Clearly, he is also not the same God of the Bible either!

Muslims are trying to prove their positions, using the Old Testament word "halleluyah", interpreting the first part of it "halle" as "Allah". The word [H]alleluyah is not a compound Hebrew word. It is not two words, but a singular word meaning praise to Yahweh (halle = praise, lu= to, yah = Yaweh). The beginning of the word is Hallel meaning praise, an adjective. It has to be a common noun to mean Allah or God. And the last syllable of the word is a reference to Yahweh the God of the Bible. So, if we were to agree with Muslims, its meaning would be: Allah (God) to Yahweh (God). It makes no sense; the Muslim claim is absurd.

Muslims' game-playing with 'words' gets only more ludicrous as they try to have Jesus saying the name of their God, i.e. Allah. When Jesus was on the cross, he cried out Eli, Eli, which they interpret as Allah, Allah. Here Jesus was quoting the Biblical Psalm 22:1, which says: “Eli, Eli Sabbathani” (“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”). What makes even more ludicrous is the fact that Muslims don't even believe that it was actually Jesus, who was placed on the cross; instead, he was imposter in the likeness of Jesus.

-----------------

“Do not share the knowledge with which you have been blessed with everyone in general, as you do with some people in particular; and know that there are some men in whom Allah, may He be glorified, whom has placed hidden secrets, which they are forbidden to reveal…” Ali ibn Abi Talib

To be continued…