I received some time ago several letters asking about the name of God. "Is Allah the name of God or the name of a god/demon?" Several people thought that the name of Allah, linked to Islam, is the God of Islam or the bad god.

My answer was:

1- The Name of Allah is the name of the true God:

a- The Moslems worship the true God who has been the God of the Ancient and New Testament. They confess that "in order to be a good Moslem, you have to be a good Jew and a good Christian", a statement of confessing to the truth of the other two religions.

b- The name of Allah was taking by the Moslems from the Christians who existed five centuries before the arrival of Islam. Arabs were mentioned in the book of Acts at the time of the Pentecost.

c- The existence of bad elements in any country or religion does not make that religion bad and hence does not make all moslems bad or all jews or chritians bad. People become bad when they do not follow the teaching of their religion.

d- Beauty and Truth is One. All religions reflect the beauty of God in a certain way and so does the Islam.

e- Moslems teach us that there are 99 names for Allah and that the 100th name is hidden. These names are adjectives of God and do not tell us the true entity of God.The 100th name may be the one that really is the name of God.

a- In the Semetic languages Vowels do not count. Consonants form the words. These consonants are not written because they are not important and they do make the word sick and ill. So if we look at the name of Allah and the name of Elohim we will find the following:
Allah = L + H, Elohim = L+H+M (we will ignore the M and come back to it later).
b- In the Semetic languages, word roots are formed of three letters. It was found later on that these three letters were formed of two two-letter verbs. A complete study was made by several scholars among which is Fr. Marmarji S.J. in Lebanon.

c- L+H= LH (pronounced 'lahh') means "to him". God, Allah or Yahweh is not the name of God, Allah and Yahweh. God is not the name. He exists and no one knows his name. If we know His name then we will possess Him and understand Him, then He is not God the Omnopotents the Existant etc..

d- So instead we say "to Him" be the glory. "To Him" be the praise Look at the book of Revelation 5:13: Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. It is safe to say that instead of saying God you can say "To Him"

e- Till our present day, Christians and Moslems replace the name of God with "Taala" (pronounced 'Tah-ah-lah') the excelsior, the most high.

a- Moses did not know the name of God even several hundred years after Abraham who is supposed to have known God and became the friend of God. Moses is from the descendents of Abraham, he is the leader and yet he did not know Him. The story is known where Moses says what is your name so I may tell them. God said "Yehyeh Asher Yehyeh" that means be who it be. He may have said I be who I am, or it is not your business to know my name. God definitely did not reveal his name to Moses. Moses used the verb to be in order to denote God, hence the word "existent" came to play a role. You have to know that the word of God when uttered does not go out in vain, it has to produce something. The "existent" has a triple chronological dimention in the semetic language. It means he who was, he who is and he who will be.Revelation again mentions these three dimentions.

b- The name got deformed adonai

Knowing a name or naming something means you are in command.

Adam names of all the animals (Gen 2:19) because God gave him power over all of them (Gen. 1:26). The father always gives the name to his sons indicating the power over children. God changes the names of Abraham and Sarah. He tells him to call his son Isaac.

Remember also: "You are my son, today I have called you.". When the name of the Lord is called. You are calling the person of the Lord.

That's why it is impossible for man to grasp God and understand Him. He is out of our reach. Knowing His real name is grasping Him.

On the other hand, we use the names God, Theos, Allah, Elohim to denote an entity that is ' "To Him" be the glory'. A name is not enough to denote His power and glory etc..

Elohim is the Hebrew name for Allah with the exception that it has an "M" at the end. "M" indicates the plural. And plural could indicate one of the following:

a- plural of respect. Addressing a person with plural denotes respect. A king, a prince, a president are all addressed in president. You find that in Arabic, French, Italian etc.. (It is self explanatory).

b- plural of plurality of Gods despite the belief in one God, the people of Israel continued to worship several gods. They worshiped the golden calf (Exodus 32:4), the Baal and Ashtaroth (Judges 2:13) others "the foolish" said there is no God. That's why they were worshiping the gods, the "elohim" not the "eloh". It is amazing how the sons of Abraham who is the worshiper of the One God have stayed polytheist for a long time.

Finally, the name of the one and only God, became the name of the plural of gods. Theologically now: "Elohim" is the name of the Only and One God.

c- Plurality of the persons (out of revelation) The Lord appeared in the form of three men and Abram addressed them as a singular.(Gen 18). We know now that God is one in three persons through the revelation of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Since the Bible is a revelation, then we have the knowledge of the person of God even through the layers of the Old Testament.

Our conflict on what God, Allah, Yahweh should be called in a futile conflict that revolves around something superficial that would never define the name of God which is the nature of God.

No language can say that they have the true name of the Entity that created the world. All what we can do is say "To Him" be the glory. Amen

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