Talk:Allah

Allah's Gender
Muslims would probably object to Allah being called 'he', they believe he has no human qualities. "he is generally considered to be the same god as that of the Christians and Jews", the distinction "considered by muslims" should be added. --Stig 09:37, 5 October 2008 (CDT)


 * Allah most certainly is so male. The words "he" and "him" (in Arabic too), the same words used to refer to human males, are used all throughout the Quran in reference to Allah. Even the word Allah itself is a contraction of "the" (Al-) and the masculine form of "god" (ʾilāh). He may not be considered within Islam to be male in the same sense as humans have genders because of their physical features, but he is male in the sense of being masculine and is referred to exclusively with masculine terms. --Jaban 13:47, 5 October 2008 (CDT)


 * Ah ok, was just going by what I used to read on islamic sites, I did find this though
 * Q: Is Allah male or female?
 * A: Allah is neither male nor female. Arabic has no neuter, and the use of the masculine is normal in Arabic for genderless nouns. Not that I'm fussed either way.
 * --Stig 07:14, 6 October 2008 (CDT)

Old topic, resolved, but I was editing anyway so wanted to add a note to this: I reject the notion that Allah is referred to using masculine terms due to the lack of available gender-neutral terms. How many times can you find Allah referred to as "king" - even if it's true that there is no gender-neutral Arabic term for a person in charge, it could have been translated as "leader" or "head" or "ruler", but no, they chose a specifically male title. So I read what it says, not what a believer claims it means.--Jaban 08:11, 24 October 2009 (CDT)

Divergence of Abrahamic Religions
I do not understand the line in the article stating "before the religions supposedly diverged." What does this mean? Sanitarium 20:20, 23 October 2009 (CDT)


 * I think it's pretty clear that Islam, Christianity, and Rabbinic Judaism all diverged from the same religion (an earlier form of Judaism), and that they are all Abrahamic religions. However, it's just a digression from the topic at hand, and should be removed. It would be more fitting to write about that in an article on the evolution of religion.--Jaban 08:11, 24 October 2009 (CDT)

Problem of evil
I do not think this is relevant to an article on Allah. For example, Allah is talked of in the Quran as the "best deceiver" (3:54, 7:99, 8:30, 10:21, 13:42, etc...) and Allah causes people to go astray (ie. 6:39 & 14:4), predestination - Allah created people specifically to sin (ie 6:123-130). Allah created hell and made men predestining them to sin, simply to 'fill hell with them' (ie. 32:13). In Islam, it is a slave/master 'relationship' - Allah says to Muslims: "you are my slaves, if you don't like it, TOUGH." This is why Muslims feel so 'fortunate' to be 'born a Muslim' or to have converted, because Allah delights in deliberately leading people astray. So Allah IS evil - if the Muslim slaves don't like it, then tough!

Also, do you think Lane's Lexicon should be added to make clear the definition of ilah & Allah? Alif-Lam-Ha. I think Allah's '99 names' should merit a mention somewhere too. I wont edit this page because I'd probably just make another mess hehe sorry. Sanitarium 22:23, 28 October 2009 (CDT)