Allah! A Perfect Name to Personify His Glory
By Dr Basheer Ahmed Khan
Garden Grove, CA
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet but it will not evoke the same image that we associate with the name rose. Name personifies objects and perfect names not only evoke image of the object but also the qualities associated with it. Allah is one such perfect name.
However arrogant a man might be, he has always been on the lookout for a support that can make his life easy and give him an edge over others. He knows that there is A Power above him and everything else that is behind the functioning of this universe and his existence in it. He has called him with different names and found solace in it.
This Power revealed Himself to some human beings called prophets and gave His name to them. The actual name of God in Hebrew texts is YHVH which is difficult to pronounce and is therefore remembered as mere Tetragrammaton which means Four Letter. As there was admonition on its wrong pronunciation it was never invoked and as such the Jews forgot its pronunciation and the name altogether and use the name Jehovah, Yahweh and Hashem for this great power. Now Lord and God are the English name used by us for this Great Power whose spirit flows in us all. In Hinduism this entity was called Parmatma (Meaning Supreme Soul).
When Jacob (PBUH) recognized God, he had to ask Him His name (Genesis Ch 32 V 29). Moses (PBUH) had to ask Him again His name when he met Him (Exodus Ch 6 V 3). He was told “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh”, “I am that I am”. Jesus (PBUH) had to call Him Father for no other word in the vocabulary of the disciples would have explained this power better to them.
The Holy Spirit (Rooh ul Qudus), Archangel Gabriel (AS) introduced God to Muhammad SA as Rabb (Ch 96 V 1). Rabb is The One Who gives existence, protection, growth, progeny, and causes ultimate death to everyone and everything. We learn it from Qur’an that Allah is the Rabb (Ch 3 V 51) Who has created the galaxies, the earth and everything in it and is sustaining them(Ch 32 V 4, Ch 21 V 63).
Mulana Hameeduddin Farrahi (1855-1930) was the professor of Arabic at Aligarh Muslim University and later on became Rector of Madrasathul Islah Azamgarh. He was proficient in Hebrew which he learnt from Prof Joseph Harvey who was also a Professor at Aligarh. In his famous but incomplete exegesis, Nizam ul Qur’an, Maulana Farrahi writes: Al (The One) is the word of praise which was specific for Allah amongst the Arabs even before Nabi SA. He further says: According to Christian scholars Allah is EL as is used in Hebrew for Isra el, Ishma el, Emanu el etc. to denote servant of Allah, Allah heard, Allah is with us etc. He continues further and says that This EL according to orientalist scholars is derived from Elohim, a word which is loosely used both for God and men in the Bible. Maulana disputes that Allah is derived from the word Elohim on the ground that this word is used loosely for other as it is used for Allah (Psalms 82), and it is used in plural form which is against the grain of monotheism even when used out of respect.
Allah was the name given to Him by Allah Himself. Scholars of Islam say that Allah is the proper name (Ism-e Zaath) of Allah with no plural form and no gender attached to it. A power which is singular in His authority and universal in His nature can’t have a name which denotes a gender or suggest it has a partner; nor can it be associated with any nation, culture, and civilization.
Allah is not just a proper name, it also signifies the above mentioned important qualities which the people are looking for in God and therefore it is an Ism e Sifath, an adjective as well. Za-ki-reen who chant this name thousands of times every day go ecstatic understanding this quality of Allah that everything belongs to Him. They do not say Allah but say Al Lahoo. As per the rules of Arabic grammar in relation to the pronunciation of a noun in its nominative form Allah is pronounced as Al lahoo. Al Lahoo roughly translates into “The One to Whom everything belongs”. Allah is the proper name of the entity whose quality is Al lahoo that is everything belongs to Him and Him alone. Allah is therefore a self-descriptive name of the power to whom everything belongs and who has no gender and no partner. This is what God means to most of the people who believe in Him. More importantly, it is very easy to pronounce correctly as not to become guilty of invoking His name in vain.
Following are some of the revelations which were made to Nabi SA to establish the majesty and glory of Allah swt to substantiate His claim to this supreme glory.
Hoo-wal-lazee Khalkhas Samawathi Wal Arda Bil Haq (Ch 6 V 73), He is the one Who has created the skies and the earth on sound principles. Ala Lahul Khalkhu Wal Amr (Ch 7 V 54); in this verse Allah says: Beware that it is He who has created everything and His writ runs over His creation. In-nahu Yab da-ul khalkha Sum-ma Yu-e-duhu (Ch10 V 4). He is the One Who started the creation, and is repeating it. When one reads the likes of the above verses in Qur’an it becomes clear to him that it is Allah to whom everything belongs, and He alone deserves to be worshipped.
Allah is Rab-bul- Aa-lameen (Ch 1 V 1). By which it means that Allah is The Creator, The Master, The Provider, The Controller, The Nourisher and Destroyer of everything and everyone in this universe. Allah is as much the Rabb of Muslims who believe in Him as he is the Rabb of those who don’t believe in Him. It is the same Allah who brings rain to give food on a land inhabited by both believers and non-believers. He is the one who has created believers and non-believers in the wombs of their mothers (Ch 39 V 6); He is the one who is providing air, water, food and all the comforts of life to both the believers and non-believers. He is providing to everyone and no One can stop His provision from anyone (Ch 17 V 29). Even though He does not like those who do not believe in Him and His authority and likes those who believe in Him, Allah is not bothered by the disbelief of the disbelievers and continues to provide them (Ch 29 V 7).
Prosperity or adversity which a man faces in this life is only a test to see if he recognizes Allah both in prosperity and in adversity or turns away from Him in arrogance when rich or in disgust when adversity strikes. This way Qur’an gave the concept of a Universal God of believer, non-believers, rich, poor, white, black, and yellow. Unfortunately we have lost it by interpretation of the words which are not true to their spirit.
Testimony to Faith
After recognizing the above entity “ALLAH” the person declares his commitment to Him in a statement of allegiance which is Kalima e Thay-yaba, the statement of faith. The statement of faith which Muslims make is: La E-la ha Illa-Allah. There is no E-la ha except Allah. The term E-laha which is translated as worship actually is a compound word which comprises of E-la and Ha. E-la means towards, and Ha means to long for, to yearn for, to crave and to desire. Therefore E-laha means towards whom one turns with awe, with hope and fear and seeks all his needs. This is worship. Therefore in this statement of faith Muslims are affirming that No One is worthy of worship, except Allah, the One to whom everything belongs.
By translating this statement of faith into its implied meaning, there is no one worthy of worship except Allah; Muslims have made the Universal entity Allah to whom everything belongs into a personal deity. Furthermore by translating this statement as there is no God except Allah, Muslims have antagonized people of other faiths who think that they believe in the same God under a different name. Thus we have diluted the profound meaning of this statement of faith and have made it another name in the pantheon of gods. This is much against the teachings of Islam and Qur’an. Allah says in Qur’an that He is the Only “Elah”,object of reverence whom the people turn to in the hour of their need, despair and ecstasy, no matter whatever denomination of religion they claim to profess (Ch 2 V 163). Allah further says that He is the Lord of those who believe in Him and also those who do not believe in Him (Ch 42 V 15), and that He is their Elah as well as Elah of the people of books (Ch 29 V 46).
We Muslims should make it clear that Allah who is the object of our longing, our craving our desire and our worship is not our personal deity but that Universal entity; The One to Whom everything belongs, and Who controls everything and that is what our statement of faith means. Then those who have conceptualized God as an entity with these qualities would be more willing to embrace this generalized statement representing the true nature of God and feel an affinity for Islam rather than oppose it.
Allah can be a Uniting Factor between All Faiths
If we want His will to be done on this earth as it is done in heaven, which is the objective of followers of every religion on the face of the earth then we have to make the beginning by giving Him the correct name representing His attribute. We must not give this universal God a personal name representing the sect to which we belong. As explained above Allah is the correct name for this Universal God; and worship is not a ritual for solace but the right way to seek it by turning towards the One to Whom everything belongs with hope and reverence. The only thing cultural about this name is that it is in Arabic because it was revealed to a prophet whose language was Arabic.
This self-defining name Allah (To Whom everything belongs) with a neutral gender and with no plural form has all the ingredients to satisfy a person to name the entity to whom his consciousness has reached as the cause and force behind his life in this universe. This was the name which Allah had given to Himself from the day He revealed Himself. This name was lost and changed by people who did shirk by attributing the real power and domain that this name entails to other entities. Allah has several other names with He has given to Himself but they each personify a quality of His (Ch 7 V 180)
Using another quality of Allah, Al Samad (Free and Independent of others), Persian used word Khoda for Allah. Persians who belonged to one of the oldest civilizations answered to the doubt of the skeptics of their time who had asked this question: If God has created everything then who created God. They answered He is from Self (Khod) and He is therefore Khoda and they called Him Khoda.
For Islam to regain its prestige it is essential that we present the universality of its message by adhering to the correct spirit of its tenets and terms rather than make them parochial slogans. By establishing a brotherhood based upon the Oneness of our Creator and oneness of our ancestor, Adam, and by establishing justice between us we can surmount all the problems that confront us.
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