Allah: A Generic Name Or A Lover’s Name – OpEd
Islam should be a religion of peace; yet in Malaysia the word Allah is being used to inflame Muslims to attack Christians and Sikhs. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, (also published on the Muslim website Islamicity 2/17/15) the former deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibraham states:
“Malaysia has once again resurfaced in international headlines for the wrong reasons. Over the last two weeks, arsonists and vandals attacked 10 places of worship, including Christian churches and Sikh temples. The ill treatment of minority groups in Muslim countries is often worse than the actions Muslims decry in the West.
The attacks were provoked by a controversy over the use of the word “Allah” by Malaysia’s Christian community, which numbers over two million, or about 10% of the population.
“In late 2007, the Home Ministry banned the use of the word Allah by the Herald, a Catholic newspaper, and later confiscated 15,000 copies of Malay-language Bibles imported from Indonesia in which the word for God is translated as “Allah.” A Dec. 31, 2009 ruling by the Kuala Lumpur High Court overruled the earlier ban, asserting constitutional guarantees regarding the freedom of religion in Malaysia.
Since then, an already tense situation boiled over, largely due to incitement by a few reckless politicians, and the mainstream media. For example, the nation’s largest Malay-language daily, inflamed Muslim religious sentiments by accusing non-Muslims of desecrating the name of the “Muslim” God.”
Is the name Allah simply a generic name for any and every deity in every religion? This is the way we use the word God in English.
But no Muslim would ever call Zeus: Allah! Or is the name Allah more like the name Jesus, who is the God Christians pray to?
The answer is to make a conscious distinction between God’s personal name that is used in prayer and all the other so-called names of God which are really appellations. For those religions that trace their prophets back to Prophet Abraham, and his two sons Ishmael and Isaac, the many names of God simply describe different aspects or attributes of the one God’s multifaceted personality.
All of God’s names except one are appellations: titles and descriptions. Thus to say that God is a King or Judge describes one of many ways God acts. To say that God is the Prince of Peace or the Compassionate One is to describe one of God’s many character or personality traits.
While each name is only one of the many appellations of the one universal creator of space and time; Christianity, Islam and Judaism also have one Divine name that is always in the believer’s heart and soul especially during prayer.
Because Hebrew and Arabic are brother languages many of the titles of God not only describe the same attribute, they even sound the same.
Most of the similarities between Christian, Jewish and Muslim appellations of God reflect similar philosophical views of God’s attributes. But the personal (prayer) name each religion uses reflects the unique religious experience of its believers and its sacred scriptures.
The words El, Elah, Elohei and Elohim are all pre Abrahamic West Semitic generic terms for a God or for many Gods. In these various forms they appear almost 3,000 times in the Hebrew Bible.
But the most important name of the one God, the name that God himself reveals to Moses at the burning bush, is YHVH: which appears more than 6,800 times in the Hebrew Bible.
In Exodus 3:13-15, Moses said to God, “If I go to the Israelites and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’—what should I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh”.
Ehyeh is the verb “to be” future tense singular and means I will/could/might/may be/become Who I may/could/will/might be/become i.e. Ehyeh is The God of Potentialities, The God of Possibilities, The Living God of Becoming and Transforming, the One who can liberate Israel from bondage in Egypt.
The Torah continues, “God also said to Moses, “You must say this to the Israelites, Ehyeh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial from generation to generation.’ (Exodus 3:13-15)
When Jews speak of God in the third person, God’s name is YHVH– “the One who causes being and becoming, the One who brings unrealized potential into existence.”
This name was spoken publicly from the time of Moses and throughout the centuries of the 1st Temple of Solomon, but it was replaced by Adonai (Lord) before the beginning of the 3rd c. B.C.E., because God’s actual Holy name was eventually considered too holy to utter audibly even in prayer.
In later centuries even the substitution was considered too holy to utter; and the custom among pious Jews to this day is not to use any name for God at all (except in prayer); but to say HaShem–the name (of God) when speaking about God.
The difference between the personal intimate name of God the believer uses in prayer and when reciting his or her holy scripture, and all other names; is a measure of the believers piety and love of the God of his or her own religion.
When Christian believers speak about Jesus they are referring to the “Divine Son of God” When Jews or Muslims speak about Jesus they are referring not to God, but to a man of God.
When Jews do not utter the name YHVH they are referring to the God of their ancestors; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel. Neither Christians or Muslims connect to God this way.
When Muslims use the word Allah they may mean the one God they worship and adore; who sent Prophet Muhammad to proclaim the Qur’an. Or they may mean the same one God; who sent Jesus to proclaim the Gospel and Moses to proclaim the Torah. As the Qur’an states: “Allah spoke directly to Moses” (Qur’an 4:164)
Thus, for Muslims the word Allah is both a generic; and a personal name when spoken with devotion and love by a Muslim.
Is there then no special appellation that all three Abrahamic religions can use? I believe there is. It is the name that Abraham’s Egyptian wife uses for God, which appears only three times in the Book of Genesis, and nowhere else. Muslims believe that Muhammad is a direct descendant of Abraham and Hagar; so this name could have great meaning to them. Since few Christians and Jews know or use this name today it is equally new to them.
So Hagar’s name for God has the potential to become more important in the future as Christians, Jews and Muslims learn more about each other’s religions. This name is El Ro’ee and the incident is referred to directly in the Holy Bible and indirectly in the Holy Qur’an.
El Ro’ee means A God Who Sees Me. It also is the name for a well where Isaac, Abraham’s younger son dwells (Genesis 25:11) and it the well that kept Hagar alive so that she could give birth to Abraham’s older son Ishmael.
“Then she (Hagar) called the name of YHVH, who had spoken to her, El Ro’ee, ‘You are a God who sees me’; for she said, ‘Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?’ Therefore the well was called Beer-laHai-roee; the well of the Living One (Al-Hayy) who sees me. Behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael…” (Genesis 16:13-15)
Neither Sarah nor Hagar/Ha-jar are mentioned by name in the Qur’an, but the story of Ha-jar’s exile from Abraham’s home is traditionally understood to be referred to in a line from Ibrāhīm’s prayer in the Qur’an (14:37): “I have settled some of my family in a barren valley near your Sacred House.”
Muslim tradition relates that when Hā-jar ran out of water, and Ismā’īl, an infant at that time, began to die; Hā-jar panicked and ran between two nearby hills, Al-Safa and Al-Marwah repeatedly searching for water. After her seventh run, Ismā’īl hit the ground with his heel and miraculously caused a well to spring out of the ground called Zamzum Well. It is located a few meters from the Kaaba in Mecca.
Perhaps these two Torah names of God, El Ro’ee- The God Who Sees Me and Hai (Hayy) Ro’ee-The Living One Who Sees Me; which are Hagar’s names for God, and the name for the Zamzum well ‘Beer-laHai-roi’; the well of the Living One (Hayy) who sees me; can help bring Christians, Jews and Muslims to see each other better and thus become closer together in the future.
That would be an excellent example of the power of God’s name.
