Are God & Allah the same?

It does not matter. I could be Isaac's own son, but if I create a false god and claim he has attributes of the God of Abraham, it still is not the same God.

The god created by Muhammed did not exist until Muhammed made him up. When Muhammed decided to draw from Judaism as the model for his made-up god, it was to make his god appealing and for him to make sense. It is no different than if I created a pseudo-christian cult, and invoked Jesus (like Joseph Smith, Jim Jones, and David Koresh did) that does not mean that my followers are worshipping the same God as followers of Jesus Christ.

I don't know how better to make this distinction. Muhammed was very successful in making his false god appealing so that it has in fact confused many into thinking there is some level of truth in Islam. I do not accept that. If I carve a wooden calf and name it Jehovah, that means nothing. That is what I think Muhammed has done but without the physical manifestation of a false god. His god was still created by human hands, so to speak. And his god is an enemy of Christ.

 

So you would posit Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses 'worshipped' a 'false' God? We shouldn't assert a claim of worshipping a 'false' God on the Jews and Muslims if their concepts are only inferior. There is a difference in holding to an inferior concept (i.e. Knowledge) of God and holding to a 'false' God (i.e. Gaia). Regardless whither the revelation of Muhammad ibn Abdullah was false or not the concepts behind Allah are clearly derived from the traditions of Arab 'God-Fearers' (i.e. individuals who where monotheists and worshipped the One True God).

Al-Qur'an is replete with references to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and retell the stories of the Old Testament and the New in the way it was taught throughout the Middle-East at the time. To suggest that Muhammad or any Muslims worship a pagan moon god has just as much merit as suggesting that Germans worship the pagan god the term "Gott" originally referred to or Zeus in the Greek.

The Bible didn't 'drop out of the sky' it has context with the world of the Greeks and the Jews. Concepts and theories of the time are found within it's pages. The Revelation, as it is, could not have come down in any other cultures or time and still have been conveyed in the same way with the same terms. There are Greek Philosophies which convey the very same depth of knowledge of the Trinity that is found within the Scriptures. It was not new to Philosophers of the time familiar with Plato and Middle and Neo-Platonism. To ignore their similarity and common origins in ideas and concepts of pagan greek philosophy is putting one's head in the sand.

If that is your plan then this conversation is at an end and that is fine but I don't appreciate you or anyone else on the broad attempting to establish Christianity at the expense of the truth. Christianity stands fine without it and I see no reason to belittle it with such tactics.

Be Well.

 

I think people still often get too caught up in the semantics. If I sculpt a clay idol, call it Jesus, and tell you that it represents the God of Abraham, what would you think? Would the fact that I invoke the name of Abraham change the nature of what I created? Would any amount of spin change the fact that it was a creation of my mind and my hands? Would anyone argue that It was the same Jesus you worship, but I just has some inferior understanding of some of his attributes?

I'm using such repugnant symbology to try to make a point. Just because Muhammed used Abraham in his story about his god doesn't change the nature of what he created. He only used the God of Abraham in his story so that he could show the error of the Jews and thereby demonstrate why his creation was the superior religion.

I believe Joseph Smith did the same thing with Jesus. Consider this: Is the Jesus of the Mormons the same Jesus we serve? Why or why not?

 

I believe any god that is represented by a false prophet like muhammed is a false god.

It doesn't matter if he's called allah or Homer the Magnificent One.

 

Again I would assert that you are 'conflating' the term with the concepts derived from external sources. The term 'Allah' is 'The-God' and derives from the some root as the word spoken by Jesus Christ Himself (Eloi/Elahi).

Are you suggesting that Jesus cried out to a 'moon god'?

Christ cried out before his death "ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” Eloi is the exact Arabic word Elahi which comes from the same root as Allah.

This really isn't relevant to the question of the OP. All that I have continued to suggest here is that the actual term 'Allah' is 'not' an improper term to be used for God Almighty regardless if we perceive it to be an Islamic or pre-Islamic pagan term.

 

I think the point is being missed by people trying to be overly intellectual about the word "Allah".

The problem isn't that it is just another word for "God", but the problem arises from the fact that Muslims insist that Allah is not a title, but the personal name of the God of Islam

 

I get the strong impression that I'm not getting my point across as well as I should.

Again, it makes no difference if the word "allah" is the Arabic word for "God". Just because someone creates something and calls it "God" does not make the thing they created God. It won't pass the DNA test.

The words and labels used by others make no difference to me. I know who my Father is, and He is not the god that Muslims refer to as "Allah" or "God" or any other entity created by Mr. Muhammed or any other man. It cannot be the same God because they do not know Him. There is only one way to know Him, and that is through Christ Jesus. There is no other name under heaven that will lead us to Him. Jesus. That's it. And the Muslims deny Jesus, calling him a prophet. It is impossible for them to know the true God Almighty except they come through Christ.

 

And thus we go around in circles (for the last 9 pages). The word "Allah" is most definitely found in the Bible, the Arabic Bible. The KJV, is simply a translation of the Greek and Hebrew. It is but one translation. The Bible has been translated into languages all over this world so that nations all over this world may have the ability to read it, and that includes the Arabic speaking people. In their Bible the word "Allah" is definitely found and it means "God."

 

Triune Believer

The Muslim god "Allah" is a word form of god, any god. The god that the Muslim's serve is called "Allah" because they do not want to translate, it is a form of imperfection. The Muslim god's real name is spelled SATAN.

I am a Bible believing Christ Follower that serves the Triune God, the only real and true God. He is NOT the same entity as the Muslim "Allah", although the generic transliteration of His name is "Allah" from the Arabic. The Triune God is the Creator God, is the protecting God, is the Saves By GRACE God of the only true scriptures.

They are the same in word form ONLY!

 

Qute true. Each religion's God is defined by the Sacred Books of that particular religion, whether it by the Vedas of the Hindus, the Granth Sahib of the Sikhs, the Watchtower publications of the J.W.'s, the Koran of Islam, or the Bible of Christians. We define God by the Scriptures in which we believe, by that which we find authoritative. What the world calls Christendom falls Bible-believing Christianity. Within that are Baptists. One of the Baptist distinctives is that the Bible is our final authority in all matters of faith and practice. This is contrary to the RCC who have the magesterium and the early church fathers, and Oral Tradition as their various authorities to appeal to.

 

You left out the Mormons. Don't forget the Book of the Mormons :thumbs:

There are a lot of people who worship a lot of things they call "God". Calling a thing "God" does not make it God. Getting hung up on the use of language is an error. You need to look at the essence of a thing to understand what it is, not the label put on it by men.

Whether it is a golden calf, or a carved wooden pole, or a carved animal of ivory, or a new god constructed merely of words, man has always had this nasty predisposition to worship false gods. It is a grave sin. The rich young man whom Jesus told to sell all and follow Him - he had a false god, which was his money. Some Christians also struggle with their worship of this other god. So we are all tempted by false gods within our hearts.

The "Allah" referred to by Muslims and the Koran is a false god. It has been perfectly well established that if someone uses the word "allah" in some other context or reference, then it may not be referring to this Islamic false god. Just as I use the same letters "g" and "o" and "d" to refer to God or a false god, trying my best to differentiate by capitalizing God when refering to the only real God. That's pretty lame too, but language can only express just so much without lengthy explanations.

 

You know, last winter, I got my bus stuck in a snow drift that was about 8 feet deep. While waiting for the snow plow, I had to get out and do some digging in the snow. By the time we got out and got the kids to school (we were stuck for a couple of hours), everyone at school "knew" about me hitting the moose and gutting it on the side of the road. (Which was not true.)

Didn't me any less me, just meant that the kids at school had an incorrect understanding of me. Same being, incorrect understanding.

 

That is Hinduism, or a form of it.
"We all worship the same God, just in our own different ways."
"There are many ways to the one God; we all have our own."
That is totally contrary to Christianity to the one who said: "I am the way the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me.
There is no incorrect understanding. They worsip another God entirley which has no relevance whatsoever with the God of Christianity.

 

So when the Isrealites created a golden calf and worshipped it, it was the same being but an incorrect understanding? You seem to be saying that God was wrong when He wrote the first commandment - that all references to God are just incorrect understanding, not false gods at all. Somehow I don't think that's right. How far from God does one have to go in one's worship before you would acknowledge that their incorrect understanding has taken someone to a false god?

I'd like to know how a person who denies Jesus Christ can find their way to God, even imperfectly, when Jesus says that is impossible? How does any Christian reconcile the claim that Muslims worship our God and yet deny Christ? How did they find God without Christ? That's an impossibility.

 

This is the first commandment:
(Exo 20:3 KJV) Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
--Israel did not commit this sin. They knew who Jehovah was and they had not departed from serving him. They had not forgotten about the worship of Jehovah.

The second command says:
(Exo 20:4 KJV) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
(Exo 20:5 KJV) Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
--This is the command that the Israelites broke. Having been led by a cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, they always had a tangiblle evidence of the shekinah glory of God. Moses was always there as God's personal representative. Now they hadn't seen Moses for quite some time. The glory had been lifted. There was no cloud, no fire. They needed some image (so they thought) to visualize Jehovah. They still worshiped Jehovah. The calf that they made represented Jehovah. It is the second command that they broke, not the first.

In application I think this is much like the Charismatics of today who need a tangible evidence of their salvation, and that evidence is speaking in tongues. They are looking for that which is tangible, an experience to hold on to. The Bible says that we should walk by faith and not by sight. That is what many Christians don't want to do, and it is what the Israelites at that time in history did not do.

However, make no mistake. They had a correct understanding of God. They only wanted a visible representation of him. Catholics have had a visible representation of him for these last 2000 years.

2 Corinthians 5:19-20 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.

Salvation is only through Christ. Through Christ the sinner is reconciled to God. Once that happens the ministry of reconciliation is given to him that others may also be reconciled to God. It is summed up in the Great Commission as well. An understanding of Christ comes from Christians; it comes from the Bible. The Muslims deny the deity of Christ. Their God is not the God of the Bible. The only way that they can believe is if someone goes to them with the gospel and tells them how to be saved. The main work is done by the Holy Spirit through His Word.