God Of Us All

During his recent visit to Britain, President Bush said that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, and this led to an uproar of sorts from evangelical Christian Americans. In fact, Richard Land wrote on Beliefnet that he believes President Bush "is simply mistaken" and said, "The Bible is very clear about this. There is only one true God and His name is Jehovah, not Allah."

This is not the first time evangelical Christians have made such a claim. Indeed, I have heard of churches that have placed signs saying: "Allah is not God." When I read these comments, I think to myself, "From where do these fellow Americans get this notion that Allah is not the same God of Christians and Jews?"

Perhaps they get tripped up over the name Allah itself. This word, which is Arabic for "The God," is nothing more than the personal name for God in Arabic. Some evangelical Christians have gone so far as to claim that Allah is the pagan Arab moon god that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) wanted the Arabs to worship. What rubbish.

Allah is the Lord, Creator, and Sustainer of the entire universe. He is the God of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Ishamel, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Jesus. He is the only God which Muslims worship, and he is the same God as that of Christians and Jews. In fact, Jesus himself is quoted by the Qur'an as saying to the Children of Israel: "It is Allah who is my Lord and Your Lord, so worship Him. This is a straight path" (3:51).

Every single one of my Arab Christian friends call God Allah, not Jehovah. When my Arab Christian friends and I part, we frequently say to each other, "Allah ma'akum," or "God be with you." If Land were to open up an Arabic translation of the Bible, he would find that the name for God would be none other than Allah.

Furthermore, I believe that the name Allah is contained in the Bible. The comparative religion scholar Huston Smith points out that many verses in the Old Testament refer to God as Elohim in Hebrew. The "im" in Hebrew is appended for respect, and thus, the name for God is Eloh, which is very similar to the Arabic Allah. In the She'ma, the most famous Jewish devotional phrase, the Hebrew says, "Adonai Alohaynu," which means "The Lord is our God." The "aynu" means "our," and thus "Alohaynu" can be translated as "our Aloh," again very similar to "our Allah."

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