Please make sure to read Page I, II, III, and IV first, which were recently published.  What follows is the concluding page:

After this lengthy analysis, it becomes quite clear that the anti-Muslim theory that “Allah is the moon-god” comes from nothing more than the fact that the crescent moon is often used as a symbol to represent Islam.  This argument is paper thin for numerous reasons:

1)  The star of David is used to denote Judaism; well then, the Jews must worship the stars–Yahweh must be the star-god!   The cross is used to denote Christianity; do Christians worship the cross?  Certainly, this is silly “logic.”

We can similarly disregard the “Muslims use the lunar calender” argument.  Jews also use the lunar calender; does this mean that they too worship the moon?  Christians use a solar calendar; does this mean they worship the sun god?

2)  The crescent moon as a symbol for Islam is a relatively new phenomenon.  The Prophet Muhammad certainly never used it.  In fact, it seems that he forbade all forms of religious iconography, as he feared it would lead to idolatry.  Neither did the Muslims use the symbol for hundreds of years.  It was only in the nineteenth century that the Ottoman Empire used the crescent symbol on their flag.  The Ottomans were of Turkic origin, and the crescent symbol was used by the pre-Islamic Turkic tribes.  The Ottoman Turks were converts to Islam, and they retained the pre-Islamic symbol from their pagan faith.

The Ottoman Empire expanded to involve much of the Islamic world, and soon “Muslim” became synonymous with “Turk” to the Europeans.  Therefore, the crescent became associated not just with the Ottoman Empire, but Islam in general.  Even so, it was only until the twentieth century that the crescent really became the symbol of Islam in the West and in some (but certainly not all) Muslim countries.  It is a historical irony that the adoption of the pagan symbol was a result of the early Islamic reticence towards adopting an icon.  With no icon representing the faith, the crescent moon became the stand-in symbol for Islam.

Although it is true that the crescent symbol is pagan in origin, it cannot be used as a proof that the Prophet Muhammad or the early Muslims worshiped the moon, since the crescent is of recent origin.  During Muhammad’s time (and hundreds of years thereafter), the Muslims did not use the crescent symbol.

It is hotly debated whether or not the Ottomans adopted the crescent symbol from the Byzantine Empire.  Recent scholarship has moved away from this belief, but it is interesting to note that even when it was a widely held belief, nobody in their right mind would think that it would be proof that the Christians of the Byzantine Empire worshiped the moon!  But somehow when it comes to Muslims there are always foregone conclusions.

3)  As mentioned above, the Prophet Muhammad forbade the use of religious icons.  Furthermore, even though the crescent is used by the religious laity, it is rejected by the traditional and orthodox clergy of Islam.  For example, the ultra-orthodox Islamic website Islam-qa.com says:

There is no basis in sharee’ah for taking the crescent or star as a symbol of the Muslims. This was not known at the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), or at the time of the Khulafa’ al-Raashidoon (the first four leaders of Islam after the death of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), or during the time of the Umawis (Umayyad dynasty)…there is no evidence that this symbol is prescribed by Islam, it is better not to use it. Neither the crescent nor the star are symbols of the Muslims, even though some Muslims may use them as symbols.

Elsewhere, the site says that the symbol might be haram (strictly forbidden) and even bidah (literally: a blame-worthy innovation; what it really refers to is a deviation from or corruption of the faith).  Since our opponents usually take the most conservative expressions of Islam as the only legitimate and representative forms of the religion, surely this should be acceptable to them as proof that the crescent is not a part of Islam.

*  *  *  *  *

It would be appropriate here to point out the pagan origins of many things in the Christian faith: for example, both Christmas and Easter–the two most popular holidays of Christianity–are of pagan origins.  Christmas originated from a pagan holiday involving the worship of the sun.  As for Easter, this too has pagan origins, and involved the worship of the Great Mother Goddess named Eostre. Just imagine if the two Islamic holidays–the two Eids–had pagan origins.  This would become the supreme proof for the anti-Muslim camp.  It would be proof that Allah was the sun god or the pagan mother goddess.

Robert Morey was forced to admit that Christmas and Easter come from pagan origins, but he brushed this point off by saying:

Some Muslims may point to the so-called Christian feasts of Christmas and Easter being pagan in origins.  I agree.  They are pagan in origin!  That is the reason I teach people to not indulge in Christmas and Easter as a form of worship to God, because the New Testament teaches that we are not to observe any holy days, or months or years (Gal. 4:10-11).   Keeping Christmas and Easter as a non-religious time of gift-giving is okay.  But we do not worship God with it.

Morey is arguing that although the majority of Christian laypersons worship Christmas and Easter with great devotion, the purists like himself “teach people to not indulge” in them.  Doesn’t this then apply to the crescent symbol, which is rejected by Islamic purists, namely the traditional and orthodox clergy?  What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right?  This is yet another case of the huge double-standards employed by the anti-Muslim camp when criticizing Islam.

But Christmas and Easter are just the tip of the iceberg.  Scholarship has uncovered much else of Christianity’s pagan origins; there is evidence to suggest that even the concept and story of Jesus Christ has pagan roots.

Yet more relevant is the fact that the Judeo-Christian concept of God originates from pagan sources, according to some scholars. Professor Mark S. Smith, a professor of the Bible and Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU, published a book entitled The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel in which he discusses this issue in great detail.  The book is dense and difficult reading, but fortunately it has been appropriately summarized by Wikipedia (normally I would be averse to using Wikipedia as a “source,” but here I am simply using it as a good summary of the book itself, which I have read; whoever summarized it on Wikipedia did a great job, better than I could do myself. More importantly, I’ll reference a scholar’s review of the book to corroborate the online encyclopedia.):

Smith begins from the understanding that Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in origin, and that deities such as El, Baal and Asherah, far from being alien to the Israelites, formed part of their heritage. He therefore sees Israelite monolatry (the insistence that Israel should worship one god, Yahweh, but without denying the reality of other gods) as a break with Israel’s own past.

Yahweh, he argues, originated in Edom/Midian/Teman as a warrior-god and was subsequently assimilated into the highland pantheon headed by El and his consort, Asherah and populated by Baal and other deities.^[2]

Smith sees this process as marked by two major phases, which he describes as “convergence” and “differentiation.” In the period of the Judges and the early monarchy, convergence saw the coalescence of the qualities of other deities, and even the deities themselves, into Yahweh. Thus El became identified as a name of Yaweh, Asherah ceased to be a distinct goddess, and qualities of El, Asherah and Baal (notably, for Baal, his identification as a storm-god) were assimilated into Yahweh. In the period from the 9th century BC through to the Exile certain features of the Israelite religion were differentiated from the Yahweh cult, identified as Canaanite, and rejected: examples include Baal, child sacrifice, the asherah, worship of the sun and moon, and the cults of the “high places”

In other words, various Canaanite (pagan) deities converged into Yahweh, and only at a later point differentiated into competing gods but only after Yahweh had assimilated many of their qualities into himself.  Prof. Richard S. Hess has also summarized and reviewed Smith’s book, saying (emphasis added):

Smith argues that there are three major tendencies in the history of Israelite religion. There is the convergence of the characteristics of deities such as El, Baal, and Asherah into those of Yahweh. There is the divergence of the figures of Baal and Asherah from Yahweh.  Finally, there is the role of the Monarchy in the acceptance of various deities and images associated with Yahweh as well as rejection of these late in the Monarchy under Josiah.

Smith then turns his attention toward the evidence for various deities during the period of the Judges, i.e., Iron Age I. For him, this was largely a time that saw the convergence of deities such as El and Yahweh…

For Smith, El was never a threat and simply became assimilated with Yahweh in the first millennium, as evidenced by the early divine name Yahweh-El. Baal was a clear threat from the ninth century onwards as the account of Ahab and Jezebel’s attempt to introduce the Tyrian form of this deity (Baal Shamem) led to a prophetic revolt and intolerance for the god. Nevertheless, various characteristics such as those of the storm and stormcloud were adopted and applied to Yahweh. As noted, Asherah was reduced to a cult symbol of Yahweh. However, the female characteristics of Yahweh and some background to the personification of Wisdom (e.g., Proverbs 3) owe their origins to Asherah. The sun deity was assumed by Yahweh who took on its characteristics. The actual symbol of the sun in the form of the winged sun disk became a later symbol of the Judean monarchy.

This is a polemical goldmine: “the sun deity was assumed by Yahweh who took on its characteristics.”  If anti-Muslims Jews and Christians want to argue that Allah came from the moon-god, then Muslims can reply by noting that Yahweh came from the sun-god.  If the Islamophobes would cite unacademic and spurious sources like Robert Morey and Yoel Natan to claim Allah comes from the moon-god, Muslims can cite actual scholars such as Prof. Mark S. Smith and others in academia to claim that Yahweh originates from a solar deity and other pagan gods.

One could certainly disagree with Smith’s hypothesis and conclusion.  What is relevant here however is the recurring theme of hypocrisy displayed by anti-Muslim Jews and Christians, whereby they vilify Islam for what is present in their own religion.

It would be easy to apply the same simplistic line of thinking to Christianity that the Islamophobes apply to Islam: Christians use the solar calendar, they celebrate Christmas which originated from a pagan holiday involving the sun-god, and they worship the Sun/Son of God–THIS IS ALL PROOF THAT CHRISTIANS WORSHIP THE SUN-GOD!

I wouldn’t really be surprised if some anti-Muslim Jews and Christians used this fact, that some scholars say the Biblical God had roots in a solar-deity, to argue that the Islamic God came from the sun-god, since after all, the Islamic God is the same as Judeo-Christian one–except they would somehow link Allah to the sun-god, and use “ellipses” to omit the fact that the link to the sun-god is through the Judeo-Christian tradition itself.  Then they’d argue: the Islamic God is not the same as the Judeo-Christian one because Allah comes from the pagan sun-god!

*  *  *  *  *

This last revelation, that early Judaism was not completely independent of “pagan” religion and society, should signal a paradigm shift in the minds of modern-day Jews, Christians, and Muslims who often define themselves in complete opposition to pagandom.  Such a myopic view towards pagan faiths (here defined simply as non-Abrahamic religions) is intolerant, hateful, and simply inaccurate.

On a more positive note, there is certainly room to accept a more tolerant, nuanced, and appropriate view of “paganism” in Islam: the Prophet Muhammad is said to have affirmed what was good in pre-Islamic Arab custom and rejected what was wrong with it.  For example, he affirmed the hospitality that the pre-Islamic Arabs were known for, whereas he rejected female infanticide.  The point is that he did not reject pagan custom wholesale.

*  *  *  *  *

Having thus established that Allah did not originate from the moon-god–that Muslims never worshiped the moon, that the Quran itself explicitly forbids lunar worship in multiple verses, and that Allah was the most popular name the Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians used for God long before Muhammad was born, that the Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians continue to do so, that Allah is the name used for God in Arabic Bibles, that the word Allah is derived from the Aramaic word Alaha which Jesus used, that the word Allah is closer to what Jesus used than the word “God” that Christians use today, that much of Christianity comes from pagan origins, that the word “God” that Christians use today comes from pagan roots, and that some scholars say that the Israelite god originated from pagan deities including the sun-god–the Islamophobes have absolutely no leg to stand on.

And because they don’t have a leg to stand on, the Islamophobes resort to their fall-back argument.  They argue that the Muslims do not worship the same God as Christians because the Quran categorically rejects the Trinity dogma.  This argument, supported by the likes of Robert Spencer, will be addressed in the next part of the Series–and it will be seen how this is yet another case of anti-Muslim Christians shooting themselves in the foot in their desperate attempts to vilify the religion that they despise so much.

Please make sure to read Page I, II, and III first, which were recently published.

Robert Morey’s book is full of academic dishonesty and wholesale deceit.  This is what Shabir Ally referred to as “deceptive methods” and “dishonest tactics.”  Ally lists Morey’s methodology as follows:

1. Misquoting authorities,

2. Concealing evidence,

3. Filling pages with irrelevant information thus giving a false impression of establishing something,

4. Using logical fallacies to establish conclusions, and

5. Drawing conclusions for which no evidence was even suggested, much less established.

Ally criticized Morey for reproducing a quote without including ellipses (…) to indicate the omission of words.  This, as we have seen, is a tactic that Robert Spencer has employed as well.  Morey responded to Ally’s allegation of “misquoting authorities” by saying:

What Shabir means by “misquotation” is actually partial quotation. He thus confuses partial quotation for misquotation.  This is sad as it reveals he has no command of the English language or the laws of logic.

Morey goes on:

The same is true of Shabir’s focus on if I used …enough times to suit him. Yet, he failed to use… when quoting me on several occasions! The point is: The presence or absence of … in a citation has no logical bearing on the validity of what is quoted.

One would think that Morey would be more cautious in accusing others of having “no command of the English language or the laws of logic,” when in fact he is absolutely wrong:

The failure to indicate any textual omission within the quote is always a misquotation and often makes a large effect on the meaning of the words.

Neither does the question of misquotation, partial quotation, or ellipses have anything to do with the laws of logic.  Lastly, it seems that Morey might not even know what the word ellipses means, an assumption that seems reasonable enough considering his repeated usage of “…” which renders his sentences virtually unreadable.  As stated before, perhaps he should exhibit a bit of discretion before accusing others of having “no command of the English language or the laws of logic.”

Clearly, a person who quotes books and omits words and phrases without so much as an ellipses is wholly unreliable.  This is academic dishonesty, and would be considered fraudulent.

Morey protests:

The same is true of Shabir’s focus on if I used …enough times to suit him. Yet, he failed to use… when quoting me on several occasions! The point is: The presence or absence of … in a citation has no logical bearing on the validity of what is quoted.

I did not find a single instance of Shabir Ally omitting ellipses when quoting Robert Morey, so this is a baseless claim.  As for his claim that the ellipses has no bearing on the validity of what is quoted, this is also false.  In this specific instance, Morey quoted Professor Carleton S. Coon as follows:

The god Il or Ilah was originally a phase of the Moon God.

Here is what Morey omitted from Coon’s quote (emphasis added):

The god Il or Ilah was originally a phase of the Moon God, but early in Arabian history the name became a general term for god, and it was this name that the Hebrews used prominently in their personal names, such as Emanu-el, Isra- el, etc., rather than the Ba’al of the northern semites proper, which was the sun.  Similarly, under Mohammed’s tutelage, the relatively anonymous Ilah became Al-Ilah, The God, or Allah, the Supreme Being. (Carleton S. Goon, Southern Arabia, p. 399)

Shabir Ally pointed out this deception, saying (emphasis added):

A second problem with Dr. Morey’s approach here is that he left out of Professor Coon’s statement what would disprove Morey’s most important argument against the God of Islam. Morey is proud of repeating that Allah is not the God of the Bible but the Moon-god of pre-Islamic Arabia. It would have been inconvenient for him to repeat what Coon had said as follows: … “and it was this name that the Hebrews used prominently in their personal names, such as Emanu-el, Isra-el, etc…” Morey would not let his readers understand that according to Professor Coon the same name which in South Arabia was used for the Moon-god was also used in Hebrew names like Emanu-el which Morey considers a name for Jesus.

Robert Morey protests:

He also commits the “Tit for Tat” fallacy of arguing that if Islam falls because Allah was originally the Moon-God, then Judaism goes down with it as some liberal scholars feel that Elohim started out as an astral deity. But the issue of whether Elohim started out as the Moon-God has no logical bearing on whether Allah began as the Moon-God. He is using Elohim as a red herring to divert attention from Allah.

This is yet another example of an anti-Muslim ideologue invoking the familiar “tu quoque, tu quoque!” defense.  Morey argues that whether or not the Judeo-Christian god Elohim started out as the moon-god “has no logical bearing” with regard to his basic theory, and is thus merely “a red herring.”  This is quite absurd when we consider that the entire question that is being debated here is whether or not Muslims worship the same god as the Jews and Christians.  It could therefore not possibly be more relevant!

In other words, if Robert Morey cites a source saying that Allah comes from El, and El was originally a moon-god, then in that case all Morey has proven is that both the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions worship a god (El/Elohim and Allah respectively) that was originally the moon-god.  But, even in this case, Muslims worship the same god as the Jews and Christians–exactly the opposite of Robert Morey’s entire argument.

Morey writes on pages 10-11 of The Moon-God Allah in the Archaeology of the Middle East:

As Coon pointed out, “The god Il or Ilah was originally a phase of the Moon God.” The Moon-god was called al-ilah, i.e. the god, which was shortened to Allah in pre-Islamic times. The pagan Arabs even used Allah in the names they gave to their children. For example, both Muhammad’s father and uncle had Allah as part of their names. The fact that they were given such names by their pagan parents proves that Allah was the title for the Moon-god even in Muhammad’s day. Professor Coon goes on to say, “Similarly, under Mohammed’s tutelage, the relatively anonymous Ilah, became Al-Ilah, The God, or Allah, the Supreme Being.”

This is a logical fallacy if there ever was one.  How does the fact that the pagan Arabs believed in Allah (and named their children after him) prove that Allah was the moon-god?  It doesn’t.  This simply does not follow, and therefore this is a non sequitur.

In fact, what Prof. Coon says is (emphasis added):

The god Il or Ilah was originally a phase of the Moon God, but early in Arabian history the name became a general term for god, and it was this name that the Hebrews used prominently in their personal names, such as Emanu-el, Isra- el, etc., rather than the Ba’al of the northern semites proper, which was the sun.  Similarly, under Mohammed’s tutelage, the relatively anonymous Ilah became Al-Ilah, The God, or Allah, the Supreme Being. (Carleton S. Goon, Southern Arabia, p. 399)

Coon is saying that the word ilah had become the general term for god “early in Arabian history.” We know that this was long before the Prophet Muhammad was born, because Coon says that “it was this name that the Hebrews used prominently…”

Furthermore, Coon is saying that the word ilah became the generic term for god, and that the Prophet Muhammad called his god “Al-Ilah, The God, or Allah.”  This makes it even clearer that Allah was never the name for the moon-god.  If one accepts Prof. Coon’s quote, then all this is saying is that the word ilah (not Allah) was originally used for the moon-god, then long before Muhammad it had become the generic term for god and gods in general.  This is not the same as Allah.  As Shabir Ally concludes: “Obviously, then, al-ilah was not the Moon-god according to Coon but only according to Morey.”

*  *  *  *  *

The fact that even the source Robert Morey cites says that the term Allah is connected to the Judeo-Christian name for God is underscored by the modern-day reality that Arabic-speaking Christians continue to refer to God using the term Allah. Even the Arabic translation of the Bible uses the term Allah to refer to God.  Does this mean that these Christians worship the moon-god?

Anti-Muslim ideologues attempt to counter this point by arguing that Arab Christians adopted the word Allah for God only after the advent of Islam.  One anti-Muslim website, for example, offers the following explanation: “The name ‘Allah’ had permeated the Arab mind and became its supreme god. Thus the name slipped into the Arabic translation of the Bible.”  We are told that this was either a mistake or happenstance, or alternatively that Arab Christians adopted the term Allah for God out of fear that they may be persecuted in the lands of Islam if they called their god anything else.  Yet another theory is that certain “dhimmi”-minded Christians used the term Allah to appease the Muslims.  Robert Morey seems to adhere to this theory, as his website whines: “Bible societies have even gone so far as to use the name Allah in the Bibles they produce for Arab Christians.”

However, these counter-arguments fall to the wayside when it is pointed out that Arab Christians used the term Allah for God long before the Prophet Muhammad was born.  Professor Timothy George writes (emphasis added):

The word Allah is found 2,685 times in the Quran.  Muhammad not invent the word.  In fact, it was the common word of address for God used by Arabic Christians centuries before Muhammad was born. Millions of Arabic-speaking Arab Christians still address God as Allah today…Christians called God Allah long before Muslims did.  (Timothy George, Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad?, Ch.4)

Dr. Miroslav Volf, distinguished Professor of Theology at Yale University, writes:

“Arab Christians and Arabic-speaking Jews since long before the time of Muhammad have used the name ‘Allah’ to refer to God.” (Miroslav Volf, Allah: A Christian Response, p.82)

Bible scholar Rick Brown writes (emphasis added):

However the term Allah came into Arabic, we know from ancient inscriptions that Arabic-speaking Christians were using the [word] Allah before the rise of Islam…Even today, Allah is the Arabic name for God that is commonly used by Jews and Christians.

Brown goes on to say:

Imad Shehadeh (2004), director of an Arab Christian seminary, notes the oldest extant Arab Christian translations of [Biblical] Scripture use allâh, and that this practice is documented from ancient times until the present. This fact is well exemplified in the essays in David Thomas (2006a), especially (Kachouh 2006). Shehadeh notes the total lack of evidence that anyone ever used the term allâh as the name of a moon god. Quoting Montgomery Watt, he says the claim that “Christians worship God and Muslims worship Allah” is as sensible as saying “Englishmen worship God and Frenchmen worship Dieu”.

Professor J. Dudley Woodberry says:

Many missionaries branded so-called Muslim forms of worship and religious vocabulary as wrong, without knowing that virtually all quranic religious vocabulary, including the name “Allah,” and virtually all the forms of worship, except those specifically related to Muhammad, were used by Jews and/or Christians before they were used by Muslims.

Brown comments on the Christian usage of theophoric Arabic names bearing the name Allah in them (emphasis added):

The hardest pre-Islamic evidence comes in the form of stone inscriptions that bear theophoric Arab names, i.e., Arabic names that incorporate a word for deity. The word one finds most often in the surviving inscriptions is ’lh, pronounced [ałłâh], and sometimes the shortened or Hebraic form, ’l. There is no evidence for a significantly different term for God used in place of this, such as Greek theos or Hebrew adonai or elohîm, although Yhwh is found on occasion, probably as part of a Jewish name.

He goes on:

The widespread usage of these terms in the two centuries before Islam correlates with the well-documented spread of Christianity throughout most of Arabia that during that same period (Guillaume & Ibn Ishaq 2002 [1955]: 18).

Brown offers one such example, a Christian man by the name Abdullah (slave of Allah) who lived before Muhammad:

For example, a leader of the Christians who was martyred in Najran in 523 AD is said to have been ‘Abdullah ibn Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad. Not only does he bear a theophoric name that means “servant of allâh”, he is also said to have worn a ring that said “allâh is my Lord” (Guillaume & Ibn Ishaq 2002 [1955]: 18).

There is archaeological proof that buttresses the historical evidence.  For instance, an inscription has been found honoring a Christian martyr, “in which God is referred to as alah or allah.”

Robert Morey complains that ”[dhimmi-oriented] Bible societies have even gone so far as to use the name Allah in the Bibles they produce for Arab Christians.”  Yet, Arabic Bibles have always used the word Allah for God.  It is the exact opposite of what Morey claims: Arabic Bibles had historically always used Allah until recent times when suddenly some Evangelical Christians furthered the absurd idea that Allah is some different, pagan moon-god.  But, all the ancient Arabic manuscripts we have of the Bible used the term Allah.  This, even though the Bible was translated by different churches in different parts of Arabia.  Brown expounds (emphasis added):

The New Testament or parts of it were translated many times into Arabic…The extant manuscripts date from the post-Islamic period, but there is evidence for pre-Islamic translations of the Gospel, although scholars disagree on the matter…

They all use the word allâh to refer to God. Since the Arab Christians were spread over a vast region and belonged to diverse and warring churches long before the rise of Islam, the fact that all of them used allâh to refer to God in the earliest surviving translations is an indication that the term allâh must have been in widespread use by Arab Christians in pre-Islamic times.

*  *  *  *  *

The next obvious question is: why did pre-Islamic Christians use the term Allah to refer to God?  The answer to this is quite the slap on the face of anti-Muslim Evangelical Christians.  It may come as a surprise to many ignorant anti-Muslim Christians today, but Jesus Christ did not speak English (amazing revelation, I know) and would never have used the term “God.”  Instead, Jesus spoke Aramaic–which is a sister language of Arabic–and he referred to God as Alaha. Allah is the Arabic cognate of the Aramaic word Alaha.  UCLA professor Michael G. Morony writes on p.528 of Iraq After the Conquest:

alaha (Syr.): god, used for God by Christians, cognate with Allah (Ar.).

This explains why Arabic-speaking Christians, even before Muhammad, used the term Allah for God.  Brown writes (emphasis added):

The term allâh is most likely derived from the Aramaic word for God, alâh

Dudley Woodberry stated that the term allâh is derived from Syriac, which was the form of Aramaic commonly used in literature and Scripture in the Middle East from the fourth to the ninth centuries. (Forms of Aramaic had been the lingua franca for centuries, but Syriac took on the role of a literary language.) Kenneth Thomas (2006a: 171) supports Woodberry’s claim with the observation that “Western scholars are fairly unanimous that the source of the word Allah probably is through Aramaic from the Syriac alâhâ”. Arthur Jeffrey (1938: 66) wrote that “there can be little doubt” about this, and F. V. Winnett (1938: 247), an expert in Ancient Arabic, came to the same conclusion. Syriac-speaking Christians, most of whom speak Arabic as well, have had the same opinion, namely that the Arabic term allâh is a loanword from Syriac, and Imad Shehadeh (2004) has supported the argument from the perspective of an Arab Christian scholar.

The Aramaic word Alaha became Allah just as any word is modified when it is taken from one language to another.  For one thing, Brown points out:

In Aramaic, God is called alâh-â, where the final -â is removable…Given the prevalence of Judaism and Christianity in Arabia, the term alâh-â would have been well-known, and one would expect them to have Arabicized it by dropping the final ‘-â’ vowel.

Even to the layperson, the difference between Alah and Allah is minimal, and only the most dishonest person would fail to see the connection between the two.  As Brown comments: “It is normal for words to undergo some alteration when they are borrowed into another language.”

As for the doubling of the letter -l, Brown argues that this “was most likely prompted by…the Arab tradition of using epithets to refer to deities,” as in al-uzza instead of simply uzza.  The definite article al- (the) was added to the names of deities, and this may well have been the case for the Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians.  Herein lies a great debate of whether or not the word Allah comes from the contraction al-ilah (The God), as well as the argument raised by Islamophobes that the word “alah” in the Bible is used as a generic term for “god”–even a false god–whereas Allah is the personal name of God for the Muslims.

Neither of these arguments is very relevant: whatever the case, it was the pre-Islamic Christians of Arabia who used the term Allah as the name of God.  So even if it is true that the Bible did not use “alah” as the personal name of God, several hundreds of years later the Jews and Christians of Arabia were referring to their god by the name Allah.  Therefore, Muhammad was only following the convention of the Judeo-Christian tradition as it had developed in the Arabian peninsula. To this day, Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians refer to God as “Allah,” using it as a name–as God and not god.  Both then and now did (and do) Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians most commonly refer(red) to God as Allah; Muhammad would of course refer to the Judeo-Christian God as they themselves most commonly referred to Him as.

The (irrelevant) argument is raised for example by Evangelical author Timothy C. Tennent who writes:

On the one hand, Christians understand the word “Allah” as a broad term for God in the Bible, but not for the tetragrammaton YHWH, which is the convenantal name for God in the Old Testament.

Do Christians in their day-to-day lives, at home and in church, commonly refer to God as “God” or do they routinely use “the tetragrammaton YHWH?”  All one has to do is listen to any Christian alive today, go to any church or listen to any Christian television channel, to see quite clearly that the most common way in which Christians invoke and refer to God is “God”–not “the tetragrammaton YHWH.”

Even Tennent himself refers to “God” as “God” throughout the very same book he makes the argument in, as well as on his website.  Just as Christians in the English-speaking West most commonly refer to their deity as “God,” so too do Arabic-speaking Christians refer to their deity as “Allah”–and so too did they hundreds of years ago in Arabia–and it only makes sense (indeed, it can be no other way) that Muhammad would refer to their God using the most commonly used word they themselves used.  Insisting that Muhammad should have used “the tetragrammaton YHWH” seems absurd when it is considered that the Jews and Christians themselves did not commonly do so.

*  *  *  *  *

Regardless of its exact etymological origin, the undeniable fact is that Arabic-speaking Christians used the term Allah for God long before the Prophet Muhammad was born.  Amazingly, this is a fact that even Yoel Natan, author of Moon-O-Theism and the greatest proponent of the moon-god theory, could not deny.  Natan thus entitles a section of his book as “The Title Allah As Used by Jews and Christians in Pre-Islamic Arabia.”  Natan writes on p.594 of Volume 1 of his book (emphasis added):

Though Arab Christians spoke the Arabic language and they used the appellation Allah, meaning “the God,” they clearly were Trinitarian.

Natan admits that the Christians in pre-Islamic Arabia named their children Abdullah, which means “servant (or slave) of God.”  He continues:

Arab Christians also used the theophoric name ‘Abdullah (“Servant of Allah”) as a baptismal name.

Even while he concedes that the Jews and Christians in pre-Islamic Arabia used the term Allah for God, Natan insists that the Prophet Muhammad was referring to another Allah when he invoked the term!  What a fantastic explanation, especially when the Quran itself commands the Muslims:

Do not argue with the People of the Book [the Jews and Christians] except in the kindest possible manner, save those of them who are oppressive, and say: “We believe in what was revealed to us and what was revealed to you; our God and your God are one and the same, and to Him do we submit ourselves.” (Quran, 29:46)

What more proof is needed?  This Quranic verse alone suffices to refute the moon-god theory, and makes it clear that Muslims worship the same God as the Jews and the Christians.  The Quran offers religious criticisms of Judaism and Christianity, each time referencing Allah as the God of the Jews and the Christians.  For example, the Quran says:

The Christians say, “The Christ is Allah’s son.”  Such are the sayings which they utter with their mouths! (Quran, 9:30)

Elsewhere, the Quran says:

O People of the Book, do not exaggerate in matters of your religion, and do not say anything about Allah except the truth: the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was nothing more than a messenger of Allah…Allah is only one Allah. (Quran, 4:171)

The fact that the Allah of the Quran is mentioned in relation to the Christian dogma of the Trinity and with relation to Jesus–coupled with the fact that “Allah is only one Allah”–proves that the early Muslims worshiped the same God as Jews worshiped and whom Christians refer to as God the Father.

There exists a multitude of Quranic verses that associate the Allah of Islam with God the Father of Christianity.  In yet another verse, for instance, Jesus says:

“O Children of Israel!  Worship Allah my Lord and your Lord.” (Quran, 5:72)

Even if we accept the fantastic explanation offered by Yoel Natan, that there somehow existed at least two Allah’s (one belonging to the Jews and Christians and the other to the moon-god worshiping pagans), the Quran itself is proof that the Islamic Allah aligns with the Judeo-Christian Allah.  Over twenty “prophets of Allah” are mentioned in the Quran, each corresponding to a prophet in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  For example, Adam (as in Adam and Eve found in the Judeo-Christian tradition) is mentioned in the following verse in relation to Allah:

The similitude of Jesus before Allah is as that of Adam; He created him from dust, then said to him: “Be!” And he was. (Quran, 3:59)

Adam ate from the forbidden tree in Paradise due to Satan’s influence, and he was thus sent to earth “for a time.”  Adam turned to repentance to Allah, who subsequently forgave him:

Then Adam received word from his Lord, who accepted his repentance, for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.  (Quran, 2:37)

After forgiving Adam, Allah gave the following advice to Adam, his wife, and all his progeny:

“When guidance comes to you from Me, as it certainly will, no fear or sorrow will be felt by those who heed it.” (Quran, 2:38)

This statement of Allah to the first human being is considered the guiding principle of Islam, and the key to attaining eternal salvation.  Whoever follows the guidance from Adam’s Lord and Creator will have eternal success.  Based on the fact that this Quranic story corresponds closely (albeit with minor variations) to that found in the Judeo-Christian tradition, it can clearly be seen that the Allah of Islam is the same God as the God of Adam and Eve found in the Bible.

The Quran then speaks of Noah, another “prophet of Allah:”

We sent Noah to his people. He said, “My people, worship Allah!  You have no god other than Him.” (Quran, 7:59)

So, the Islamic Allah is the same God as the God of Noah, who is of course the God of the Bible.

Allah is also the God of Abraham, which is why Islam is an Abrahamic faith.  In the Quran–just as in the Bible–Abraham rejects the gods and idols that his father worships, and he says to his father:

“I dissociate myself from you and whatever you invoke besides Allah. I will pray only to my Lord.” (Quran, 19:48)

An even clearer proof that the Islamic God is not the moon-god (and another “I sunk your battleship” argument to the moon-god theory) is found in the story of Abraham.  Before Abraham rejects the idolatry of his father, he had considered worship of the moon (as well as the sun and the stars) only to explicitly reject it:

When the night grew dark over him he saw a star and said, “This is my Lord,” but when it set, he said, “I do not like things that set.”  And when he saw the moon rising he said, “This is my Lord,” but when it too set, he said, “If my Lord does not guide me, I shall be one of those who go astray.” Then he saw the sun rising and cried, “This is my Lord! This is greater.” But when the sun set, he said, “My people, I disown all that you worship beside Allah. Behold, I have turned my face as a true believer towards Him who created the heavens and the earth. I am not one of the idolaters.” (Quran, 6:76-79)

How could it possibly be any more evident that the Allah of the Quran is the same God as found in the Bible?

So too does the Quran make it clear that the Allah of the Quran is the God of other Biblical prophets and figures, including Lot, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, and John the Baptist.  On the other hand, not a single reference is made of Allah being the moon-god nor is a single moon-god story reference made in respect to Allah.  In fact, the Quran explicitly rejects moon-worship in more than a half-dozen verses.  Therefore, even if we accept (for argument’s sake only) the tenuous claim that there existed two Allah’s (a ludicrous argument to begin with), the Quranic Allah is linked to the Allah of the Biblical figures and not the moon.

Based on this absurd two-Allah theory, Yoel Natan argues:

When Christians used the title Allah, they had “The God” of the Bible in mind.  By contrast, Abdullah was also the name of Muhammad’s pagan father.  He however was named after Allah the Makkan moon-god…

As we have seen, the evidence does not bear out Natan’s claim.  Clearly, the Quran had “The God” (Allah) of the Bible in mind, evidenced by the explicit statement to the Christians stating that “our God (Allah) and your God (Allah) are one and the same” (Quran, 29:46), as well as the multitude of verses that affirm the Abrahamic tradition by linking Allah to the Biblical prophets.  On the other hand, the Quran rejects the moon-god in multiple verses.

As for Muhammad’s father Abdullah, the Prophet Muhammad renounced him for his idolatry just as Abraham renounced his father; to this effect, the Prophet Muhammad said to another man whose father was also an “unrepentant” idolater: “my father and your father are in Hell” (Sahih al-Muslim, Book 1, #398).  The Prophet Muhammad renounced his father not because his father believed in Allah, but because he associated other gods and idols alongside Him.

If Muhammad really believed in the moon-god, then why are the Biblical prophets mentioned in the Quran promised eternal salvation in Paradise whereas his idol- and (supposedly) moon-worshiping father Abdullah is condemned to damnation in Hell?  (To make matters worse for Yoel Natan, there is no proof that Muhammad’s father worshiped the moon at all, although it is irrelevant since Muhammad renounced him altogether.)

In any case, the idea that there existed two different Allah’s–a Judeo-Christian Allah and a pagan Allah–is absurd.  Rather, the pre-Islamic pagans of Arabia were henotheistic, not purely polytheistic, in belief.  As mentioned before, this means that they believed in one supreme God who created the world, but also in lesser gods who carried out day-to-day affairs.  This supreme God they believed in was Allah, who was also the same god as that of the Jews and Christians.  Unlike the Jews and the Christians, however, Allah was of nominal importance to the pre-Islamic pagans of Arabia; He was believed to be a remote god who had faded from relevance after He created the world and set it into motion.

It is easy to imagine how it came to be that the pagans of Arabia believed in the God of the Jews and Christians, whom Arabic-speaking adherents referred to as Allah.  As Judaism and Christianity spread into Arabia–and Jewish and Christian communities became a part of the Arabian milieu–the pagans of Arabia were introduced to the name, concept, and deity of Allah.  Just as the foreign god Hubal had been accommodated by the pagans, so too was the God of Israel absorbed into their pantheon.

In a similar way that the foreign god Hubal became supremely important to the pre-Islamic Arabs so too did Allah reach “high god” status; the Judeo-Christian emphasis on Allah as the creator of everything was accepted, although Allah retired from the world and delegated his duties to lesser gods.  It would be the Prophet Muhammad who renounced these lesser gods and called to the singular worship of Allah.  Islam came as an absolute form of monotheism, rejecting the trinitarianism of the Christians and the henotheism of the Arabs, and affirming the absolute oneness of God.

Please make sure to read Page I and II first, which were recently published.

Robert Morey’s primary “proof” that Allah refers to the pagan moon-god is that “Allah” was known to the pre-Islamic Arabs.  Argues Morey on p.47 of The Islamic Invasion:

By this time it should not come as a surprise that the word “Allah” was not something invented by Muhammad or revealed for the first time in the Quran…

For those people who find it hard to believe that Allah was a pagan name for a peculiar pagan Arabian deity in pre-Islamic times, the following citations may be helpful:

Allah is found…in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam (Encyclopedia Britannica).

The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshipped, after a fashion, a supreme god called allah (Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. Houtsma).

Allah was known to the pre-Islamic Arabs: he was one of the Meccan deities (Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. Gibb).

…

He goes on to quote several more such quotes to buttress his argument.  He summarizes his three main arguments, and two of these involve the above point:

1. In Pre-Islamic times, “Allah” was used by pagan Arabs in reference to one of 360 gods worshipped at the Kabah.

2. This “Allah” may have been a high god or even the top deity among the gods but he was not viewed in the monotheistic sense as the only true deity.

Morey bellows on p.45:

A Serious Threat

We are aware that these kinds of questions and the historical research that they generate pose a serious threat to the religion of Islam…

We understand the agony of Muslims over this issue.  They are in a tight spot…

Robert Morey’s self-congratulatory chest-thumping is ill-founded: Muslims are not in “agony” over what Morey considers “a serious threat to the religion of Islam.”  In fact, Muslims have always known that the pre-Islamic Arabs worshiped Allah.  Muslim jurists, Quranic commentators, and Islamic scholars from time immemorial have discussed this in-depth.  Indeed, it is even a central part of Islamic theology, which is openly embraced.  It is stated explicitly in the Quran itself.  Morey’s belief that this would “pose a serious threat to the religion of Islam” is only a reflection of his ignorance of Islam, Islamic theology, and the Quran.

Theologically, Muslims don’t believe that Muhammad brought the Arabs something “new.”  The Quran itself repeatedly asserts this, saying that the Prophet Muhammad was “not told anything that the previous messengers were not told” (Quran, 41:43); in fact, the Quran commands Muhammad: “Say, ‘I am nothing new among God’s messengers’” (Quran, 46:9).  Instead, the Prophet Muhammad came to simply remind the Arabs and all of humankind what they had been earlier taught by God’s prophets but which they had forgotten, perverted, and discarded.  Indeed, the Quran is called “the Reminder” for this very reason:

We have sent down to you this Reminder to make clear to the people what was sent to them aforetime, that perhaps they may reflect. (Quran, 16:44)

The Quran teaches that Adam, the first human being and prophet of God, built the Kaaba in Mecca.  Eventually, Abraham and his first-born son Ishmael rebuilt the Kaaba on its original foundations.  Ishmael is said to have settled in the Arabian peninsula, and he thus became the forefather of the Arabs.  Muslims thus believe that the early Arabs were monotheists who worshiped the one true God, and who followed the same religious tradition as Abraham and his son Ishmael.  Later, however, the Arabs fell into a state of jahiliyyah (ignorance), and forgot, perverted, and discarded the religion of Abraham.  They associated other gods with God (Allah) and thus became polytheists.

Muslims have always believed that the pagan Arabs were “fallen monotheists.”  Having thus understood Islamic theology, it is no surprise at all that the pre-Islamic Arabs knew of (and worshiped) Allah.  The Quran didn’t condemn the pagan Arabs for rejecting Allah; rather, it condemned them for associating other gods in the worship of Him.  Robert Morey’s “discovery” is thus only 1,400 years old and inconsequential.

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Where Robert Morey and other anti-Muslim Evangelicals are completely mistaken, however, is their claim that Allah represented “one of the many idols in the Kabah.”  There is no proof at all for this.  As Prof. Jonathan P. Berkey notes on p.42 of The Formation of Islam, Allah “represented a remote creator god” who “apparently played little role in religious cult;” instead, the pre-Islamic pagans of Arabia worshiped lesser gods that took the form of various idols.  Professor Robert F. Shedinger writes on p.76 of Was Jesus a Muslim?:

Pre-Islamic Arab society was also polytheistic.  While there was a belief in a supreme creator deity called Allah (an Arabic phrase that simply means “the God”), most members of the society believed that Allah was a remote, detached deity who had little concern for human affairs.  So pre-Islamic Arabs worshiped a host of lesser deities, mostly in the form of idols carved from wood and stone.

Prof. Roger W. Stump writes on p.60 of The Geography of Religion (emphasis added):

Allah appears to have been identified within this context as a remote, creator god but was not the object of tribal worship.

The pagans of Arabia neglected the worship of Allah and directed their prayer to their more tangible idols.  In this regard, the Quran chastises them in verses 23:84-94 for focusing their worship on other gods even while they acknowledged Allah as the supreme creator God.  Similarly, in verse 29:65 the Quran chastises the pagans for calling on their idols on a day-to-day basis and only calling on Allah when in extreme distress.  ”The object of tribal worship” thus became focused on the practical idols in the Kaaba as opposed to the nominal belief in Allah.  In other words, -doxy may have rested with Allah, but -praxy was directed towards the lesser gods.

It is true that the Kaaba was associated with Allah, but Allah was not an idol within the Kaaba.  When the early Muslims conquered Mecca, the Prophet Muhammad destroyed all the idols within the Kaaba.  There was no idol called Allah, evidenced by the fact that no discussion can be found about whether or not such an idol would be spared and the others destroyed.  Professor William E. Phipps writes on p.21 of Muhammad and Jesus (emphasis added):

The Ka’ba contained hundreds of sacred rocks and statues from many Arabian tribes, but no images of Allah. No special cult was associated with Allah.  In the pre-Islamic era, Allah was recognized as the creator of the world and as the giver of rain.  He was revered but was considered to be aloof, so popular piety was usually directed elsewhere.

Compare this to Robert Morey’s claim:

An Allah idol was set up at the Kabah along with all the other idols…Since the idol of their moon god, Allah, was at Mecca, they prayed toward Mecca. (p.52)

This, the basic premise of Morey’s moon-god theory, is nothing but fabrication.  Allah was not one of the idols in the Kaaba.  Yes, the pagans recognized Allah as the supreme creator god, but they believed him to be a remote god who retired from and was aloof from his creation.  The pre-Islamic pagans of Arabia therefore focused their cultic worship on lesser gods represented by over three-hundred idols in the Kaaba.  Muhammad “cleansed” the Kaaba by destroying all of these idols, rejecting all lesser deities, and calling the Arabs to the worship of Allah alone.