Quennel Gale's Article - "Allah"

The Arabic Name and Characteristic of "ALLAH" Did Originate From Mesopotamian Deities!

A Refutation to Mr. Mohd’s Article " Did The Arabic Name and Characteristic of "ALLAH"

Originate From Mesopotamian Deities? "

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An allegation was made by the Christian Critic Quennel Gale that from historical sources, it can be ascertained that the word "Allâh" for God in Arabic originates from pagan sources and have never been used in a monotheistic context. However, I have reasons to believe that he is making a false claim, based on a research I undertook upon myself using encyclopedias and etymology sources. This paper will also serve to prove that that the Arabic word for God, "ALLAH" as well as the Hebrew "ELOHIM" and Aramaic "ALAAHA" comes from the common Semitic word "EL" (Ancient Canaanite). Below, I have reproduced his arguments part by part (not by order in the Critic's original article) and my comments after each argument.

 Mr. Mohd’s claims are flaky at best. We will investigate his claims to actually see if Allah did come from Elohim and Alaaha.

The Religion of the Pagan Arabs

In trying to "prove" his delusion that Allâh has always been a pagan god, the Critic argues the following:

If you ask a Muslim how do they know that Allah is the one true God, they will go to Muhammad and the testimony in the Qur'an to prove their point. But if you look back in history, before Islam, you will never see at any point that Allah was just one alone...Allah’s monotheism is a myth. If the Muslim claims that you have proven that well "Allah had a family and was used in pagan worship but was just truly one"; can they actually prove that? No, because it’s not the truth historically.

Not only does the Critic show his ignorance of the origins of the word ALLAH in Arabic, but he also shows his ignorance of the religion of the pagan Arabs in pre-Islamic Arabia. Let's discuss it in brief here: To the pagan Arabs, ALLAH is the One True God of Abraham and Ishmael, and the Lord of the Ka`aba. This religion was originally pure monotheism in nature. However, the pagan Arabs tainted this simple monotheistic religion of worshipping Allâh alone by resorting to worship of idols as intercessors to worship Him. They would stand by an idol and, using it as an intercessor, worship Allâh.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mohd makes the same fallible argument that I talked about in my paper. Before Islam you never see that ALLAH was the god of Abraham, and Ishmael!!! This again is the basic Islamic argument used for this matter after the establishment of Islam. Mohd says this religion was pure in nature? Now one must see immediately this Islamic fallacy because we must ask him this question, Which religion was pure in nature in Arabia before Islam? Also what type of inscription evidence does Mohd present to actually show that Allah was worshipped alone without intercessors? None. Mohd thinks he can refute my article by taking piece by piece and leaving things out. So again how can you prove that the pagan Arabs tainted this monotheistic faith Mohd? On the testimony of Muhammad? We see already that Mr. Mohd starts out with a circular argument and then develops it

In an article of Infoplease.com, the following paragraph states the belief of the pagan Arabs:

...Arabic chronicles suggest a pre-Islamic recognition of Allah as a supreme God, with the three goddesses al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat as his "daughters".

Lets read this entire article in context to show you some points that Mr. Mohd tries to cover up:

Allah , [Arab.,=the God]. Derived from an old semitic root refering to the Divine and used in the Canaanite El, the Mesopotamian ilu, and the Biblical Elohim, the word Allah is used by all Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others. Allah, as a deity, was probably known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Arabic chronicles suggest a pre-Islamic recognition of Allah as a supreme God, with the three goddesses al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat as his “daughters.” The Prophet Muhammad, declaring Allah the God of Abraham, demanded a return to a strict monotheism. Islam supplements Allah as the name of God with the 99 most beautiful names (asma Allah al-husna), understood as nondescriptive mnemonic guides to the Divine attributes.

See S. Friedlander, Ninety-Nine Names of Allah (1978).

Now when we look at this quote in context, we see that it refutes Mr. Mohd’s argument. Notice that this source says that Arabic chronicles showed that Allah was supreme God WITH THE THREE GODDESSES AL-LAT, AL-UZZA, AND MANAT AS HIS DAUGHTERS!!! This source doesn’t say that Allah was the supreme God and was just worshipped monotheistically by himself as Mohd seems to try and promote. This was the exact point I was making in my Allah article. It was MUHAMMAD THAT DECLARED THAT ALLAH WAS THE GOD OF ABRAHAM AND DEMANDED A RETURN TO STRICT MONOTHEISM. So once again, Mohd’s great historical evidence is based upon what Muhammad said. We have already seen this refuted on my article of “Allah” since we obviously know that one witnesses isn’t sufficient to be a prophet and that a man who was bewitched into sleeping with himself can’t obviously be a world-renown historian.

Another article by Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000 regarding Allah states the following:

ALLAH...The term is a contraction of the Arabic al-ilah, "the God." Both the idea and the word existed in pre-Islamic Arabian tradition, in which some evidence of a primitive monotheism can also be found. Although they recognized other, lesser gods, the pre-Islamic Arabs recognized Allah as the supreme God.

Lets look at this source in greater detail:

Allah, Muslim name for the Supreme Being. The term is a contraction of the Arabic al-llah,"the God." Both the idea and the word existed in pre-Islamic Arabian tradition, in which some evidence of a primitive monotheism can also be found. Although they recognized other, lesser gods, the pre-Islamic Arabs recognized Allah as the supreme God.

What Mr. Mohd seems to leave out is that Allah was THE MUSLIM NAME FOR THE SUPREME BEING AND NOT THE PRE-ARABIC NAME OF THE SUPREME BEING!!! Mohd tries to use another Islamic fallacy by claiming that since Allah is the name of God based on Islam, that Allah was the name which the Pre-Islamic Arabs called God. This isn’t true

Muhammad’s original message was not a criticism of paganism. It was directed at people who already believed in a god name Allah or AL-ILAH “the god” (Watt, W. Montgomery, Muhammad Prophet & Statesman, Oxford Press).

Notice the word A GOD NAME!!! Allah was just one of the many names for God in the Arabic pantheon:

The name 'Allah' (from 'al-Illah' - the god or 'al-Liah' = the one worshipped) was well used in pre-Islamic times. It was rather a title than a name and, was used for a diversity of deities. (RESTE ARABISCHEN HEIDENTHUMS, p. 221 by J.Wellhausen). "While the rituals performed are still addressed to the respective deities, Allah is seen as the creator, the father and with that the superior Lord. But he is viewed to be too general, neutral and impersonal a Lord" (ibid p. 219). "Allah became the Islamic substitute for any idol" (ibid p. 85).

All said 'Allah', but each one had its own deity in mind. The expression 'the god' (al-ilah), which became the only usage, became the bridge to the concept of an identical god which all tribes had in common' (J.Wellhausen, p. 218)".

The Name Allah was just a generic expression used for idols!!! Mohd nor any of his sources can present you any evidence that Allah was the name of God like Yahweh, he just goes on the idea that since Allah is the high God and that the Arabs looked on him as the creator then he is just like Yahweh, which is something only Muhammad promoted. Muhammad didn’t even care about the name of Allah at first, read:

Muhammed at one point wanted to abandon the rather generic name of Allah for a more colorful one, but he later realized that Allah was holding the folks' attention just fine. (Hastings, James, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Scribners, NY pg. 248).

How Muhammed decided to keep Allah is simply a matter of which god he thought would be universally least offensive to any particular tribe of Arabs around Mecca. (Muller, Herbert J, The Loom of History, Harper and Brothers, NY pg. 264-265).

If Muhammad originally thought about Allah, like Muslims want us to believe then why did he want to change the name of the so-called Almighty God? He picked Allah because he believed that it wouldn’t offend any tribe. This is something Mohd seems to try and overlook.

In the Collier's CD-ROM Encyclopedia, more details could be found regarding how the pagan Arabs view Allah:

Archaeological, linguistic, and non-Arabic data support the view that there were among the Arabs, long before the emergence of Islam, worshipers of a supreme god known as Allah...leaves little doubt that the Meccans, despite their idolatry, recognized that Allah was Creator and Supreme Provider...Allah was recognized as a High God to whom the inhabitants of the desert and the townsfolk turned in all great difficulties. Two pagan bards, Nabighah and Labid, used the name "Allâh" in connection with the Supreme Deity, while the so-called Hanifs, in their search for an acceptable religion, rejected polytheism and sought freedom from sin by appeal to the will of Allah.

Mohd is repeating what I said throughout my paper, my article wasn’t about if Allah was the high god of Arabia but if Allah was the true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!!! I even said a zillion times that Allah was the high god this isn’t anything new. Muhammad is presenting a strawman argument and then is refuting it. I totally agree that archeological and linguistic and non-Arabia data support the view of Allah being the supreme god of the Arabs, read:

Allah was the highest deity, and his name was inscribed in stone by Jewish traders along the Arabian trade routes. These paganized Jews also called him Rahman, while the Arabs called him Allah. (Al-Qattan, Sheikh Ibrahim, Lecture on Monotheism, I P O Journal, Vienna, pg. 26-29) It is very clear that these sacred concepts, such as Allah, the Kaaba with its black stone, running around the Kaaba seven times, climbing mount Arafat, as well as the god-name Rahman, and stoning Satan, (which Muhammed got "by revelation") were salvaged from the dung heaps of ancient paganism in Arabia. (Gabrieli, Francesco, Muhammed and The Conguests of Islam, World Univ. Press, NY, Toronto, pg. 41). 

The name Rahman which the Arabs later took from the Jews is named after a pagan diety!!! All of Muhammad’s ideas about the Kaaba and the god-name Rahman can from ancient Arabian paganism. Mohd is basically saying that Allah is the true god because he was the supreme God. Anu was the supreme god of Sumer but I wonder would Mohd call him the true god too?

On the description of this "primitive monotheism" of Arabia, it says:

Evidence shows that Islam goes back to a primitive monotheistic belief of ancient Arabia. Though this early faith in Allah was not a monotheism complete with theological dogma, there was a continuous tradition among the peoples of the desert, or among some of them, that maintained a belief in an Originator, a Supreme Being. This High God was the guardian of their flocks, arbiter of ends, protector of their lives, sender of rain, and their defender against the hazards of fate.

Now one must ask Mr. Mohd this question, what type of source is this without the name of the Edition, etc? I don’t even know what year this Encyclopedia was written. That’s fine though. Notice in this link that it says that THIS EARLY FAITH IN ALLAH WAS NOT A MONOTHEISM COMPLETE WITH THEOLOGICAL DOGMA. This says it all, early faith in Allah wasn’t monotheistic even Mohd’s source says this!!! He is basically going on the tradition among some people claiming that Allah was monotheistic!! The earliest account of Ancient Arabia by a non-Arabic historian is from Herodotus. Islamic sites love to use Herodotus account of early Arabia, here is what his account says. Note is one of the world’s most accurate and highly respected historians:

The Arabs keep such pledges more religiously than almost any other people. They plight faith with the forms following. When two men would swear a friendship, they stand on each side of a third: he with a sharp stone makes a cut on the inside of the hand of each near the middle finger, and, taking a piece from their dress, dips it in the blood of each, and moistens therewith seven stones lying in the midst, calling the while on Bacchus and Urania. After this, the man who makes the pledge commends the stranger (or the citizen, if citizen he be) to all his friends, and they deem themselves bound to stand to the engagement. They have but these two gods, to wit, Bacchus and Urania; and they say that in their mode of cutting the hair, they follow Bacchus. Now their practice is to cut it in a ring, away from the temples. Bacchus they call in their language Orotal, and Urania, Alilat. . . .There is a great river in Arabia, called the Corys, which empties itself into the Erythraean sea. (Herodotus, Translated by J Enoch Powell, pg. 200 1949)

Where is the name “Allah” at? If Allah was such a well-known deity, how come we find no such mention of him? Simple, Allah was just one of the many other deities and only Muhammad promoted him to be the same God of the Bible. Even in the earliest accounts of Pre-Islamic Arabia, we find no mention of Allah being the NAME OF THE SUPREME GOD. Allah was just a generic title, and even Muhammad wanted to get rid of it at first. Alilat is the Babylonian name of Allat!!! This is shown from the Pre-Islamic Arab language, mentioned by Herodotus!!! What was Oratal? Here is what he was:

Orotal is simply a corruption of Allah, or Allah Ta’al, God Most High (Zwemmer, Samuel. The Muslim Doctrine of God; a.m. Tract Society, pg. 24; NY).

You see, Allah wasn’t known as Allah. He was known by other names before he was Allah. That is why Orotal is present because it later evolved into Allah.

Rev. St. Clair Tisdall, the author of The Original Sources of The Qur'an, despite unfailingly launches anti-Islamic attacks against the Qur'an does admit in his book the following:

For the word Allah, containing as it does the definite article, is a proof that those who used it were in some degree conscious of the Divine Unity. Now Muhammad did not invent the word, but, as we have said, found it already in use among his fellow countrymen at the time when he first claimed to be a Prophet, a Divinely commissioned messenger. Proof of this is not far to seek. Muhammad's own father, who died before his son's birth, was called Abdu'llah, "Servant of Allah." The Ka'bah or Temple at Mecca seems long before Muhammad's time to have been called Baitu'llah or "House of Allah."

 It is clear that contrary to what the Critic is claiming, the pagan Arabs had always recognized ALLAH as the Supreme Deity and the Lord of the Kaa`ba. Yet, he is trying to claim the opposite of what historians have acknowledged about pre-Islamic Arabia.

This is another strawman argument by Mr. Mohd since I mentioned above and in my article that Allah was the High deity, I know that Muhammad didn’t invent the word, neither did I said he ever did. If Mohd believes that I didn’t say this or that I claimed other wise then I challenge him to go to my article and find where I said it. Now lets look more into this issue. Lets see some examples of where Allah was found before Muhammad, Islam and Arabia:

Since Allat was busy in the Babylonian inscription and cuneiform accounts, we know very well that Allah was on hand at least as a grammatical "other." Muller reports, in 400 BC, in nearby Persian writings, that they wrote, "Allah is exalted" among other gods. This was found across the river from Babylon, but it shows how Allah had moved his influence well beyond Babylon. (Muller, Herbert J, The Loom of History, Harper and Brothers, NY, pg. 264)

It is also interesting to find that Rammanu, who was Rimmon of Assyria, Brahman of India, and Rahman of Islam, was also known in Babylon as IL-hallabu. (Langdon, Stephen H, The Mythology of All Races, Vol V, Archeological Institute of America, Boston, 1931 pg. 39) The IL and Allah root are very obvious. This shows that Allah and Allat were well entrenched in Babylon as were all of the cults of the Middle East.

Persia existed long before Islam, and around this time circa 400 b.c. we see that the Arabs as reported by Herodotus didn’t even call the high god while In Persian writing, they showed that Allah was exalted among other gods!!! The name Rahman which Muhammad used to describe Allah comes from the Babylonian pagan god also. Also lets look into Allah and the Kaaba:

Another one of Allah’s daughters was Al-Uzza. Sources say that al-Uzza was brought to Mecca by the Quraysh and enjoined to the already established Kaaba worship, but she probably was a local deity in Mecca since the time of ‘Amr ibn Lubayy. In Muhammed’s time, al-Uzza was the most important of the Meccan local deities, perhaps save for ‘the Lord’ Hubal. Her main sanctuary was in a valley called Hurad, just outside Mecca. ‘It was complete with a haram and a sacrificial altar.’ (Peter, Muhammad, pg. 110).

The least offensive name of the god in Mecca was Allah according to Muhammad’s biographer, Ibn Hisham. He admits that the pagan Kinanah and Kouraish tribes called the supervising god of the Kaaba IHLAL (Van Netton, Allah Divine Demonic, pg. 94).

This is very striking indeed because it shows how gods (in this case Uzza) was brought from other lands but most importantly it reveals the most important local deity. This deity was Hubal, which is “the Lord”. This is amazing because Hubal who was Baal was known by the Arabs before Islam and even during Muhammad’s time as Allah!! In Islamic history Allah is known as ‘THE LORD’ of the Kaaba. This is very interesting because Hubal was the high deity, Allah was also known as the high god of the Arabs and then Ibn Hisham says that the LEAST OFFENSIVE NAME was Allah. If the least offensive name was Allah, this clearly tells us that the god of Mecca had more than one name. Note how IHLAL is found here this isn’t the same spelling like Allah “AL-ILAH” this was a different name of a deity present.. They called the Kaaba “BEIT- ALLAH”, house of the god! From document evidence we see that Hubal was the most important deity worshipped at the Kaaba, not ALLAH!!! Allah was just a term universal that was used to describe any god of the Arabs!!! Before Muhammad, Allah was ever type of God, which was shown earlier above. Note how again we see the linkage of Allah and Baal! Both were lord of the Kaaba and it was mention that the LEAST OFFENSIVE NAME WAS ALLAH and not THE ONLY NAME WAS ALLAH. This is found in Islamic history. Muhammad’s own biographer mentioned about this matter. Notice how we mentioned earlier that Muhammad wanted to change the name of Allah and that his message was directed at people who believed that the god deity name was Allah instead of Paganism.

Yes "IL" Comes from "ENLIL"

The Critic argues the following points:

 The root form of the name of the earth god in Sumer is found in Enlil, the primal god. If we drop the gender prefixes from Enlil and his consort Ninlil, we are left with the root, "LIL." This is reduced later in many cultures to "IL." (Some "scholars" have tried to say that IL is EL, but the root form of IL is LIL, so this notion just won't work. Of course these "scholars" have no respect for the Bible unless it supports their presuppositions.) The system of putting prefixes before the god names were used in the Hamatic cultures like Sumer. After the god / goddess moved on to Semitic cultures such as Assyria and Semitic Babylon, a suffix was attached after the "LIL" or "IL" root.

Actually, the Critic had committed a mistake here. Enlil was a storm lord (in Sumerian: EN = lord; LIL = storm) and his consort Ninlil (NIN = lady), not an air god. His name is rendered in Akkadian simply by Bel (Akkadian: BELUM - means lord). As "lord of the storm" he was closely connected with mountains, and eventually with the earth itself. The Arabic for "god" is ILAH. Hence, how LIL = storm in Sumerian can be related to ILAH = god in Arabic is beyond me. Even if we were to drop the gender prefixes, as the Critic suggests, it would still not prove that ILAH originates from the Sumerian word for storm! So to say otherwise would be fallacious.

Mr. Mohd makes a grave error in this statement, notice the comments from my article, I said the root for IL is LIL, I never ever said that LIL meant God like IL did!!! Mr. Mohd seems to know nothing about linguistic, historical and etymology!! Because the original meaning of a word wasn’t what the derived word means doesn’t mean that this word isn’t the derivative of the later word. For example look at the word dough for English compared to its earlier Indo-European root.

The word “dough" and (the ultimately Latin loan-word) "fiction" are historically related through regular developments, which took place independently in Germanic and Italic, from the same ancestral Indo-European root reconstructed as *dheigh- "knead, fashion". (ETYMOLOGY AND ELECTRONICS: THE AFROASIATIC INDEX; By Gene Gragg, Professor of Near Eastern Languages The Oriental Institute, The University of Chicago (This article originally appeared in The Oriental Institute News and Notes, No. 149, Spring 1996)

We already see the fallacy by Neophyte Mohd on this issue in him trying to say that IL isn’t LIL since LIL meant storm, and IL when added to ALLAH MEANT GOD! He makes the first most common mistake in his research. The word that dough originated from “dheigh” meant “knead, fashion” but this word never meant that in English, even though this word came from “dheigh”!! You see the fallacy of Mohd’s argument!!! Now, here is my paper on LIL and the findings from the Babylonian Pantheon. Used from cited sources written this year in 2000!!!

LIL

The root word LIL is originally in the Babylonian god Enlil.

Enlil is one of the Great Gods of Mesopotamia, bearing the epithets of "the father of the gods", "king of heaven and earth", "king of all lands", "establisher of kingship". His name, usually translated as Lord Air, appears in the earliest Sumerian texts (Jemdet-Nasr period) and already in a prominent place in the Old Sumerian pantheon lists (Fara), but its meaning is disputed: air, wind and breath of the universe (inspiration, spirit perhaps). In terms of genealogy, according to the oldest account of creation, or the Eridu model, He is said to be the firstborn of An and Ki, the Earth Mother, and the first of the Anunnaki, the Great Mesopotamian gods. He is also sometimes described as the descendant of Enki (not to be confounded with Ea/Enki) and Ninki as Lord and Lady Earth. Enlil´s city is Nippur, the religious capital of Mesopotamia, and His main temple there is called the E-Kur. Apart from royal inscriptions, Enlil (or his epithets or temples) feature prominently in the personal names from all periods of Mesopotamian history. He is the subject of numerous Sumerian liturgical hymns and Babylonian prayers. As one of the great gods, He was worshipped in many other cities,such as Ashur, Babylon, Kullaba, Uruk, Elam, etc.

Enki´s consort is Ninlil, and their story is told in a Sumerian myth called Enlil and Ninlil, which can be found in tablets from the Old and Middle Babylonian periods. Enlil and Ninlil is perhaps the most passionate of all descent stories in world mythology, and I urge you to explore it further. Ninlil´s and Enlil´s offpring include Nanna/Sin, the Moon God, Nergal, Lord of Battle, Diseases and Lord of the Underworld and Ningiszida, Lord of the Good Tree, among others. A lighter Sumerian composition reconstructed from an Old Babylonian version from Nippur pairs Enlil with a young goddess called Sud. As in Enlil and Ninlil, the young god makes advances to her, and is indignantly rejected. Sud disappears into her parent´s house, and Enlil returns to Nippur, but sends his vizier Nusku to officially ask for Sud´s hand. A caravan loaded with gifts leaves Nippur, led by the goddess Aruru/Ninmah. Sud accepts Enlil and is led to the Ekur, where they consumate the marriage on the "shining bed". Enlil calls her then Nintu, the Lady who Gives Birth, Ashnan (Grain) and finally Ninlil, the great wife of Enlil, queen of Nippur. I would risk an educated guess that Aruru/Ninmah´s acceptance to the wedding confers to the young goddess the epithets which from now on She will share with Aruru/Ninmah, who is also Ninhursag-Ki.

Enlil is next to Anu in rank, but embodying energy and force rather than the calm authority of Anu, states Thorkild Jacobsen in The Treasures of Darkness. The title "en" stands for Lord in the sense of control and active power, thus being the main agent of his father Anu. It is not certain what the Sumerian element lil originally stood for; later bilingual lists denote a relationship with ersetu, country, earth, as well as wind, dust-storm. Enlil´s throne is the Duku, or holy mound. (Lishtar, “Gateways to Babylon, Part II - Lords of Passion, Courage, Magic and Joy, Enlil- Lord Air/Wind, Master of the Divine Word, Inspirer and Empowerer”, pg. 1, 2000)

Enlil would be considered to be like the Babylonian equivalent to the Canaanite EL, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The LIL in Enlil literally means “air”. This LIL root shows how both Enlil and Ninlil were Air deities. Notice that the only meaning for LIL came from later lists, and they applied it to air, earth, etc. By these list. The original meaning of LIL was uncertain therefore to try and say that LIL isn’t the first cognate of IL is fallible due to the fact that in etymology, words that are linguistically related rarely mean the same thing anyway. As well as the term air, earth, etc were later inventions onto LIL. Note: In the Allah article, “LIL” is NEVER DESCRIBED AS MEANING “god” as per se because the term god can refer to a variety of things. However through archeological and linguistical evidence mentioned in the article, we see that “LIL” did evolve later to be shortened up into “IL” which became the god root of many deities.

Ancient Sumerian god names concurrently inscribed in the same epigraphs with much more recent god names, is in an inscription in stone from Al-Ula in Northern Arabia, circa 500 BC, just 1000 years before Muhammad. In the same Semitic language dialect, and in the same time frame, are two other names of the gods- Mar-Allah, meaning Lord-god, and Adar'IL, a Sardonic contraction using the root form of the name for god from Sumer, LIL.

This shows that the basic IL or LIL root form survived for 2500 years, appearing in both names in ancient and recent forms! In Jawf, in the same area and time frame, the feminine form for Allah is found commonly as in Ham'illat (ILAT is the goddess). Also, in inscriptions near oases, Allah and Allat (sometimes ILAT) appear with no descriptive attachments, either in appeals for help in travel, or as part of the signature of the suppliant (like Abdallah-- IL root in name!). What does this mean? This means that IL and Allah shared the reverence of the ancient Sumerians, circa 3000 BC, and the northern Arab tribes in 500 BC. Survival time-- 2500 years. (Winnett, F V, and Reed, W L, Ancient Records From North Arabia, Univ. of Toronto, 1970 [This is a key source for epigraphs.] pg. 79,126-127 / 245,253b. Winnett has done some of the best and most recent work in inscription interpretation.)

The importance of “LIL” is still Imperative for us to discuss. LIL which means “Air” is the perfect cognate to describe Allah. A god is a male deity with so-called supernatural powers that is thought to control some part of nature or reality or to personify some for or activity. The first deities in the Babylonian Pantheon were air deities. Anu was the first and he was the heaven-god. Enlil was next in line as a type of Air deity. Here is where we see “LIL” come into play. The LIL denotes air and from understanding ENLIL, we see how LIL (air) is deitized into a force which becomes the quality of Enlil himself.

To better apprehend the complexity of Enlil it is necessary first to get back in time to the roots of our soul ancestors´perception of the world. As the firstborn of Ki and Anu, Enlil is the manifestation of force and energy, symbolised by the strength and renewal of the Spring winds. Adapa of the Twin Rivers Rising added that wind/air can be analogous to spirit, and we will see that Enlil in The Phoenician Letters is the Inspired Word that is born from silence and devotion, which is also Unstoppable, or as put in a hym: "Enlil, whose command is far-reaching, whose Word is holy, the Lord whose pronouncement is unchangeable, who forever decrees destinies", because His is the gift to name all that is, which will becomes Form/Reality when moulded by Enki.

As the physical manifestation of Anu´s and Ki´s energy on earth, Enlil establishes Himself as the greatest of the young gods by creating and giving to humankind the agricultural implements that would provide Mesopotamians with the means to work the land for crops, the pickax, the hoe and the plow. (Lishtar, “Gateways to Babylon, Part II - Lords of Passion, Courage, Magic and Joy, Enlil- Lord Air/Wind, Master of the Divine Word, Inspirer and Empowerer”, pg. 1-2, 2000)

This “LIL” force in Enlil (air) falls right in line with the basic definition of “god”. Enlil physically personifies LIL through his creation of the plow, the pickax, and the hoe. Note: LIL also relates to earth, which explains why Enlil is also called the earth god. LIL, as mentioned by Adapa of the Twin Rivers in the above source is analogous to spirit!!! Analogous means similar in or alike, in a way that permits the drawing of an analogy. This is very interesting since spirit, when referring to a god diety means any supernatural being etc, such as a ghost for example!!! It is vital principle or animating force within a person. Note how Enlil is the manifestation of spring winds in Babylonian mythology. This goes right along with god deities because they were in most cases, the physical force of something in nature. This further shows us that LIL was a supernatural being, when contracted into Enlil. This is strengthened even more when we look at the definition of spirit—That which constitutes ONE’S UNSEEN, INTANGIBLE BEING.

LIL of Enlil meant more than just regular air, it practically constituted and characterized and dietized the god himself. This is strengthened even more when we see that Enlil is the lord of “LIL”. En = LORD and LIL = air or wind, etc. This LIL was the root that made Enlil the supernatural being he was and its not shocking at all that LIL, which is analogous to spirit (a supernatural being when dealing with gods, ghost, etc.) later derived to become IL. The common root for many Babylonian deities including Allah.

Babylon, the name which is Greek, is a rendering of the Babylonian bab-Ili; plural bab –ilani, which in turn translates the earlier Sumerian name ka’-dingir-ra, gate of god: (Tyndale, New Bible Dictionary pg. 111 2nd ed. 1982).

Babylon’s name is Babil, which is even present in Arabic for the name of Babylon!!! In Hebrew it is Babel but the Babylonian equivalent was babIL, Babylon means gate of God, IL in this word means god!!! This matter of LIL is proved even further when we see the origin of the word spirit. The English word comes from Norman French, which in turn came from the Latin word spiritus. Spirit is also breath of a god, inspiration, from spirare, to breathe. This word and definition of this type is even shown in ancient Semitic languages such as Hebrew, one of the oldest Semitic languages.

In Hebrew Ruwach is used for the word spirit 226 times in the O.T. This word has 3 basic definitions, 1. breath, 2. wind and 3. life-spirit. The word for breathe is a verb that deals directly with air. It’s definitions are to inhale and exahale air. To be alive; to live to move or blow gently as air. Another definition of “breathe” is to make apparent; to manifest. This last definition fits in perfect with spirit, since they are usually manifested to people. We must remember that LIL in the godname of Enlil is the root that is likened to a spirit, which in the case of deities, is a supernatural being type. Further evidence about LIL being deitized even more is seen in Ancient Cunieform texts:

Texts from the period of the Third Dynasty of Ur which may record earlier practices, say that the king of Sumer was proclaimed or confirmed by the Divine Assembly at Nippur, and that Enlil was said to bestow the divine authority, given to him by his father Anu, to the legitimate leader of the country. This function is acknowledged in many royal inscriptions. In Akkadian texts (from Old Babylonian period onwards), the concept of Enlil´s authority is known as ellilu´tu or Ellilship. Like Anu, Enlil could promote other deities by conferring Ellilship upon them (thereby sanctioning the elevation of "new gods", such as Marduk and Ashur). In this capability, one of His epithets is Nunnamir, or the "well-respected". (Lishtar, “Gateways to Babylon, Part II - Lords of Passion, Courage, Magic and Joy, Enlil- Lord Air/Wind, Master of the Divine Word, Inspirer and Empowerer”, pg. 1-2, 2000)

From the Akkadian text we see that LIL becomes more less like air and more towared the meaning of a god. If you break down the name ellilu’tu, which is Ellilship, you find out that this word means to promote NEW GODS. The EL in this name refers to El which is God in Hebrew and Caanan, is present here. Enlil became Ellil (note how the change of names due to culture) in Babylon with the “EL” being identified as “god” by some Babylonian god experts. Here again we see how LIL root is even more deitized. But unlike the Hebrews, El is never used as god in any cuneiform text or in Sumeria period!! The word for god in Babylon, along with IL is ILU!!!!

The ILU god comes right out of the LIL showing clearly how the Ancient Babylonians understood how LIL stood for more than just air, but more like a pseudo deity. Note the term Pseudo denotes in this case deception or similarity and not fake since obviously the Ancient Babylonians wouldn’t give Enlil the “air” qualities if they were false.

Thirdly and not least important is the fact that Enlil represents the allmighty forces and powers which are beyond human comprehension and control. In this sense Enlil embodies the full range of powers given to him by Anu and the Assembly of the Great Gods of Mesopotamia, the Igigi and the Anunnaki.(IBID, pg. 3)

What are these almighty forces and powers of Enlil? It is LIL! The almighty force that Enlil represents is “air” or “wind” which is LIL! Enlil is the master of divine word, inspirer and empowerer. These characteristics are found in the term “god” but yet they are what LIL in Enlil symbolizes, since Enlil is the personified force of Spring Winds (LIL)! These almighty forces were LIL which were endowed on Enlil by Anu (the first air-like god of heaven). The term almighty force describes a god like being; these forces were LIL. This root made Enlil what he was in the Ancient Sumerian Pantheon and by studying the origin of LIL you see how this word later evolved to be called “IL” the word for god as in Babil. Lets not forget original word for god in Babylon “ilu” which is found right in the heart of LIL in ellILU ‘tu. Ellilu’ tu, Ellilship is sanctioning the elevation of new gods. This is very important process because it shows that LIL meant more than just air when found in Enlil due to the fact that these new gods weren’t all air deities as well as that great promotions must to have been much greater than being put higher in the air, which is something the cuneiform inscriptions give no evidence of being at all.

The elevation of new gods meant higher godship or greater positions as bigger gods. This became more apparent when we see that Ellilship means “elevating new god”. Where would this idea of new gods come from? Simple the ILU in Ellilu ‘tu due to the fact that El never is written or expressed as god in Babylonian nor is found in cuneiform texts, but ILU is found zillions of times as god. LIL was air showing how these god deities were connected to the heavens while ILU which is found right in the middle of LIL was god. This is why Ellilship meant elevation of new gods because as we mentioned before, ilu was god in Babylon. With this being said, we now understand how LIL is analogous to a spirit (supernatural being) and we see that LIL is shown right in the word Ellilship when dealing with promoting newer deities. Many people think that the word for God has to descend from the same type of word from an earlier parent language. On the surface, LIL looks less like this assumption but once you began to look at LIL closely you see that it is virtually identical to “god” due to the fact that this root was the almighty personified force that Enlil represented as well as being compared right in line to a spirit (a supernatural being). The first gods in ancient cultures were air gods (loosely used to describe deities that were named after things in the sky). Heaven is in the sky, the sun and the moon were in the sky and the ancients original thinking about these gods reflected how they named them. Even though today we know that the sun and the moon aren’t in the physical air, the only way you can see them was if you look up in the air at them. Heaven referred in many instances to the air in Ancient near east cultures also.

The Babylonians seemed to have thought in this way because Anu, the heaven god gave to Enlil his powers. Enlil was lord of the air. This clearly shows us how heaven and the sky as well as the air (LIL) coincided in Babylonian thought. Allah came along this line, he was the sun god, which fits in line with LIL thought. LIL (air) is what Enlil physically personifies. It is LIL that makes ENLIL what he is falling in line with being analogous to spirit, due to the fact that this LIL was considered ALMIGHTY. This isn’t the common air up there.

End of LIL Section

Yes "AL-ILAH" of the Pagan Meccans Synonymous With "BAAL" of Babylon!

Earlier, the Critic listed out the differences of "EL" and "BAAL", from his earlier pre-conceived notion that "BAAL" which originates from "ENLIL", is the same "ALLAH" of the Pagan Arabs, because ILAH "originates" from the same root as "ENLIL". As has been shown, "ILAH" cannot originate from "LIL" because the root word of "LIL" means "storm", not "god".

We’ve already seen in great detail the fallacy of Mr. Mohd’s argument, he thinks that a word doesn’t derive from an earlier if the earlier one meant something different. This is a gross error, which shows just how much a neophyte Mohd is on this issue.

The following is excerpted from Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia's article on the pagan god Baal:

The Semitic word baal, meaning owner or master, was also used in ancient religions for lord or god, and it is still defined as a Canaanite or Phoenician deity. Among the greatest of the Semitic peoples' deities were Baal and Astarte both symbols of fertility. Baal, the god of the sun, was supposed to make crops grow and flocks increase. Astarte, the goddess of the moon, was identified with passionate love.

Look closely at this post of Mohd, the highlighted part of his post shows that Baal which meant master or lord WAS ALSO USED IN ANCIENT RELIGIONS FOR LORD OR GOD!!! This is the same thing I said in my paper close to the end. Mohd thinks he can refute my argument by repeating my own words!!!! We will look more on this baal issue later on. Now look at Allah and Baal closely:

In Babylon, Baal was the high god. This derived from LIL/IL of Sumer, which was mentioned earlier. The breakdown of the name is BA' ILAH, and the goddess is BA' ILAT. Langdon reports that Astarte was also Ba' Alot or Beltis, the wife consort of Gebel, another LIL derived god of Babylon. (Langdon, Stephen H, The Mythology of All Races, Vol V, Archeological Institute of America, Boston,1931 pg. 66-67; Graves, Robert, Latousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, Pub. Paul Hamlyn, London, 1959 pg. 80)

Three historical sources used to show this matter. Read about Astarte now:

More evidence in showing how Allah was present in pagan Sumer but under a different name is shown by his wife Allat and his daughter Manat. Allat was the equivalent to Ishtar – Astarte in the mother father Semitic cult worship (Islam and Goddess Worship, pg. 15).

Here is more:

One of the aspects of goddess worship that has survived in Islam is the rosary. Through the ages the worshippers of goddesses had used the rosary for prayers and it is still in use in the worship of female deities all over the world, for example by Hindus in India. The rosary is connected with fertility worship when the deity’s name is repeated over and over again. (Compare to Matthew 6:7-13 and Acts 19:34.) It is called tasbih or subha in Arabic, and simply means ‘an object which one praises.’ The Muslim rosary is supposed to contain 99 beads, representing the titles of ‘Allah’, but usually it only has 33 beads, slipped through one’s fingers three times. (Compare to the Koran 7:180.) This pagan custom, which is dated to Astarte worship from about 800 BCE, still survives in Islam as well as in many other cults around the world. (Goddess worship and Islam pg. 13)

Mr. Mohd incriminates himself badly with this one, dealing with Astarte.

On the places where Baal is worshipped, the same article says:

 The religion of Baal was spread by Phoenician sailors throughout the Mediterranean world (see Phoenicians). Baal cults grew up in Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Carthage, and Spain. Baal and Astarte, under different names, were worshiped in Babylonia and Assyria.

Mr. Mohd incriminates himself further with this because he has just proved my above statements!!! Baal did began in Babylon which I talked about in my Allah article and his wife Astarte was the direct equivalent to Allat. Mr. Mohd can’t present a single source that shows that Allah was in Arabian inscriptions alone without any daughters or consorts. Basically all he has to go upon is the idea of Muhammad, which we saw earlier was flaky at best.

Regarding on how Baal was worshipped by its devotees, it continues:

The priests taught that Baal was responsible for droughts, plagues, and other calamities, and they made sacrifices to appease the angry god. Bullocks, goats, sheep, and sometimes humans were burned alive.

I mentioned that too in my article at the end!!! Mr. Mohd thinks he can refute my 33 page paper by hitting and missing certain points. 

In the Collier's CD-ROM Encyclopedia, we find the following information on Baal:

Referred to as Aliyan (I Prevail), Baal triumphed over the champions he encountered in battle. He came to be distinguished by the name of the locality in which he was adored and by the special character or function attributed to him. Every major aspect of religious life could, moreover, develop the cult of its own Baal. In general, he was credited with being the male author of fertility in soil and flock, and offerings in kind were presented to him at proper festivals.

That I know also, I discussed about this too in my article:

From what we have gleaned above on the pagan Arabs' religion on ALLAH as well as on BAAL, the following can be concluded about Baal:

· BAAL, god of the sun, is the pagan symbol of fertility. This is not a characteristic of what the pagan Arabs believe about ALLAH, who is the Supreme Deity and Lord of the Kaa`ba.

Read:

Ba`al is also identified as Hadad, an Akkadian and Babylonian god of the sky, clouds, and rain, both creative, gentle showers and destructive, devastating storms and floods. Like the Canaanite Ba`al, Hadad holds and hurls thunder-bolts. Haddad rides a bull. (Qadash Kinahnu – A Canannite Phoenician Temple pg. 7).

Baal was also known as a weather god and just like Allah he impregnated the earth by raining down rainstorms and being responsible for the vegetation growing (Qadash Kinahnu, a Canaanite-Phoenician Temple; The Temple of the Deities –Room one, the Major Deities in the Myths of Ugarit, pg 7-9).

To show more how Mr. Mohd is a neophyte on this issue read this:

Allat was a Babylonian, or earth and moon goddess. Her consort Allah was simply the god who impregnates the earth. (Langdon, Stephen H, The Mythology of All Races, Vol V, Archeological Institute of America, Boston, 1931 pg. 5-19)

The origin of Allah and Allat were as sun and moon deities. (Zwemmer, (Ed) The Daughters of Allah, By Winnett, F V, MWJ, Vol. XXX, 1940, pg. 120-125).

We see here again that Allah’s origins was Babylonian and that Islamic claims of him are non-existent.

• BAAL was a warrior-god, which ALLAH is not considered so by the pagan Arabs.
• BAAL was worshiped in Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Carthage and Spain. Nowhere was it said that he was worshiped in Arabia, as was ALLAH.
• Sacrifices to BAAL included burning humans. ALLAH was never given human sacrifice or any sacrifice by burning.

The god Allah was just the modern version of Baal, usually these deities change some of their characteristics, so I understand how Allah can gain as well as lose some characteristics, such as being a warrior. Baal was worshipped in Arabia as Allah, see the evidence above about Hubal. Also in my original Allah article I did show how Allah was given human sacrifice, so this lets me know that Mr. Mohd, tries to ignore key issues on my site. If they didn’t think of Baal as Allah, like Mr. Mohd claimed then how come Hubaal was the most important diety in the Kaaba and then Allah was the Lord of the kaaba?

So can we say that ALLAH is actually the pagan god BAAL? Based on what is seen above, we can conclude that the answer is no. Obviously the differences in terms of characteristics of the pagan gods with the pagan Arabs' view of ALLAH are glaring, even if we do accept the original argument of the Critic that the Arabic word ILAH comes from the word LIL of Sumer.

This is also false since the idea of this being glaring began with Muhammad, who originally wanted to discard the name of Allah for a more colorful one. The Arabs thought of Allah as one of the many deities in the Pantheon. Allah by the time of Muhammad had became just generic weak god in the pantheon:

The fact that Allat was the consort of Dusares (rather than Allah) in Phoenicia and North Arabia simply shows how weak Allah had become in the pantheon. (Langdon, Stephen H, The Mythology of All Races, Vol V, Archeological Institute of America, Boston, 1931 pg. 14-17; Hastings, James, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Scribners, NY pg. 664 )

Now to show you how the word Baal did derive from a god term read this:

About 1350 BC the Phoenician inscriptions at Ras Shamrah revealed the entry in full force of Ba'al. Ba'al was derived from Ba-ili, meaning "of the godhead." He arrived with the Phoenicians when they migrated from the Negev south of Israel into their historic home. His most obvious name in Phoenicia was Baal-Lebanon. We see the LIL root in Ba'al, but he also had a son name Aleyin. He was the god of springs and water for fertile crops. Here again may be an IL form. (Graves, Robert, Latousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, Pub. Paul Hamlyn, London, 1959 ,75-76 ,).

Baal’s derivation came from the word which meant “the godhead”. Baili in some later usages were translated to mean master but the linguistical meaning was godhead.

Fallacy of Equivocation

We’ve seen that EnLIL, the air god’s attributes were given over to Baal. Allah at the time of Muhammad was the high god, while Allat was his consort. Enlil in Sumer was the same thing while Ninlil was his consort. In Babylon, Baal was the high god. This derived from LIL/IL of Sumer, which was mentioned earlier. The breakdown of the name is BA' ILAH, and the goddess is BA' ILAT. Langdon reports that Astarte was also Ba' Alot or Beltis, the wife consort of Gebel, another LIL derived god of Babylon.

The efforts of the Critic trying to find a similarity between ENLIL and BAAL with that of ALLAH here is built around the (mis)conception that the goddess ALLAT, or AL-LAT of the pagan Arabs is the consort of ALLAH. But this is already false. Why? Because the goddess ALLAT, or AL-LAT of the pagan Arabs is not the consort of ALLAH. AL-LAT is, along with AL-UZZA and AL-MANAT, are the three daughters of ALLAH to the pagan Arabs.

This is wrong again, Mr. Mohd needs to go back and Study Islamic history, I have been studying this for a long time. I mentioned in my article that Allat was the consort of Allah and I also said that she along with the others were also daughters!!! Mr. Mohd didn’t read all my paper to see this and he used this to try and downplay the historical archeological sources that I presented at this part of the article.

Surely the Critic can do better than just throwing assumptions at us. For this important claim, i.e. that AL-LAT is the so-called consort of ALLAH, he offers no quote of an authority, no diagram, no illustration and no specific detail. He does not say when, where or by whom this information is derived. Does the Critic expect his readers to accept his most important point on faith alone? Usually we take at face value what a writer says, because we expect him to tell the truth. We have been seeing again and again that with the Critic, we cannot afford that risk.

Mr. Mohd must not know how to read real well I did show cited evidence to prove my point, read:

Allah at the time of Muhammad was the high god, while Allat was his consort. Enlil in Sumer was the same thing while Ninlil was his consort. In Babylon, Baal was the high god.(Langdon, Stephen H, The Mythology of All Races, Vol V, Archeological Institute of America, Boston,1931 pg. 66-67; Graves, Robert, Latousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, Pub. Paul Hamlyn, London, 1959 pg. 80)

First he overlooks my source right in the vicinity and then he says that I didn’t show any cited evidence!!! Absolutely amazing!!

Obviously, we can see here that the Critic is committing the fallacy of equivocation. He takes a term which meant one thing in a certain context and the same term which means another thing in a new context and pretends that since the term is the same the meaning is also the same. He argues that the Enlil of Sumer had a consort, Baal of Babylon had a consort and the false notion that the High God Allâh of the Meccan Arabs had a consort, therefore they are one and the same god having consorts.

First Mr. Mohd says this notion is false without presenting any cited evidence to prove that it is false read:

In times of great stress, or pleadings, the Northern Arabs used the god-form, FHLH, which meant, "so, O Allah." The goddess form used just as often was FHLT which meant, "so, O Allat." This shows that Allah was well established in North Arabia and that he had a consort, or lady friend of high esteem, named Allat. ILAHA was used for the sun god. This shows that Allah was the sun god figure and Allat was the moon goddess. (Hastings, James, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Scribners, NY pg. 248)

It seems like Mohd’s best rebuttal is to ignore some parts to make his argument look good. Only the unsuspected would believe such a weak argument.

To see how this fallacy works, consider this argument for illustration:

The Japanese believed their emperor to be the Son of God. Christians also believe in the Son of God.

That way of saying things implies that Christians believe in the Japanese emperor. That, of course is not true. Now consider Quennel Gale's argument:

The pagan storm lord Enlil of Sumer had a consort. Baal of Babylon had a consort. The High God Allâh of the pagan Meccan Arabs also had a consort

If no one knows that Allâh of the pagan Arabs never had a consort, the Critic would therefore get away with his implication that Allâh was therefore the same god as is ENLIL and BAAL. But this is no more truer than to say that Christians believe in the Japanese emperor.

Mr. Mohd’s argument becomes suspect right here because Christianity existed long before Japan did and Baal and Sumer existed long before Mecca, Muhammad or Islam. Apparently he didn’t see my above source before this section.

Mohd's Folly

The Critic Quennel Gale thinks that if he can prove that what the pagan Arabs at the time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) called upon as Allâh are actually that of Mesopotamian deities such as ENLIL and BAAL, then he will have proved that what he has presented are

...cited evidence on my Allah link that disproves the idea of Allah being the original God of the Arabs.

Perhaps we can help rescue him from his folly by pointing to what he has already acknowledged. He admitted and reiterated many times throughout his articles that al-ilah means "the god". Well, in that case, when a message about the true God comes to them what are they supposed to call the true God? The non-god? Of course they will call Him by the names and titles they already know for deity. But they will be no longer calling out to their pagan gods although they are still using the same title or name meaning deity.

Before attempting to rescue anybody Mr. Mohd must prove that he can read my whole article before commenting. He doesn’t even know that Allah is the one true god. He is again going on the testimony of Muhammad.

If the Critic still cannot understand this we can draw his attention to the Old Testament which uses the ancient Babylonian and Canaanite name for god "El" besides the One True God of the Bible. We do not accuse the Old Testament, however, in that case of idolatry. So why does the Critic seek to insult the Qur'ân in this way?

I discussed this in the El section of my Article. El was Canaanite, but the forerunner of the Hebrew language was the Canaanite language!!! I showed this in the paper. Therefore Unlike Allah, El was always the property of the Hebrews whos language originated from the Canaanite language.

Or, we can draw his attention to the New Testament. There God is referred to many times as ho theos (). Does the Critic realise that the worshippers of Jupiter referred also to Jupiter as ho theos? Would he then accuse the New Testament writers of reviving the worship of Jupiter?

No I don’t since Christians don’t call God “God”, we call God Yahweh!!! The Muslims call God “Allah” this sets them up for a great fall since Allah was a known pagan deity.

Or, read Acts chapter 17. Athens was a major centre of idolatry, but the people there also worshipped what they called "an unknown god." When Paul had an opportunity to address them, he spoke thus:

"Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: To An Unknown God. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you." (Acts 17:22-23)

Would the Critic take issue with Paul for this? You see what Paul has done. He noticed an altar dedicated to an unknown god and realized that in addition to all their idols, they also worshipped the true God. Their problem, however, was that they did not know enough about the true God, and Paul aimed to now fix that with his preaching.

Another fallacy in Mr. Mohd’s argument since Allah was never AN UNKNOWN GOD like Yahweh which these people inscribed. Unknown doesn’t have a name and can’t be referred to other pagan deities since it was UNKNOWN!! Paul revealed the truth to them. Allah wasn’t unknown, which Mohd even stated so to try and compare this with Allah is like comparing apples to oranges!!

In a similar way the pagan Arabs worshipped 360 idols, but they also worshipped the true God. Their problem was that they did not know enough about the true God. So God commissioned his Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to fix that with his preaching.

How do Mohd know that Allah is the one true God? There was no evidence before Islam, this is another circular argument that he uses after Islam to try and incorporate back into Pre-Islam!!!! Only Muhammad as even Mohd’s own sources stated that Allah was the one true God! Even Arabic inscriptions since the beginning of time show Allah as just the ONE TRUE GOD, there are many supreme gods in many cultures!! Allah has always been represented with partners. Until Mohd can show us that this was never the case, then he has proven nothing.

The message of Paul to the Athenians and of Muhammad to the Arabians was not that they should forget about the unseen god in whom they believed. The message was that they should come to accurate knowledge about Him.

So, it can be agreed that what the Critic is presenting to disprove the whole message of the religion of Islam is absurd and fallacious right from the onset. The Critic is drowning in his own argument and could even lose his own faith if someone else were to patent his methods.

Muhammad never preached his message, since his first message wasn’t directed towards paganism, like Paul (Shown earlier up top) Nor was Allah ever known as an UNKNOWN god. Muhammad even wanted to abandon the name Allah, as shown above, so Mr. Mohd’s arguments are just futile attempts based on what Muhammad claimed after he decided that Allah was less controversial to his tribesmen.

So Who Is "ALLAH"?

The Critic many times reiterated that

...before Muhammad, Allah was never worshiped as a single monotheistic god, so we clearly see that Allah has always been pagan, his monotheistic characteristics were the invention of Muhammad.

In answer to this allegation, let us turn to what the Sierra's Reference Encyclopedia says about the word Allâh and its origins:

ALLAH, the name of the Supreme Being in the Islamic religion. The word is a contraction of the Arabic al-ilah ("the God"); the idea and the word are rooted in primitive Arabian tradition in which traces of a simple monotheism are evident.

Once again, no refernce pages sited, but that’s fine. The best this source shows that there were traces of simple monotheism were evident, it didn’t come out and say that IT WAS WITHOUT A DOUBT MONOTHEISTIC. This contradicts Mohd’s earlier source which states that Muhammad declared Allah the God of Abraham! (Like Yahweh)

The Prophet Muhammad, declaring Allah the God of Abraham, demanded a return to a strict monotheism. Islam supplements Allah as the name of God with the 99 most beautiful names (asma Allah al-husna), understood as nondescriptive mnemonic guides to the Divine attributes.

See S. Friedlander, Ninety-Nine Names of Allah (1978).

This is where Allah became known as the ONE TRUE GOD LIKE YAHWEH, AFTER THE SOLE TESTIMONY OF MUHAMMAD!! Too bad the Bible says that one witness, isn’t enough to claim anything.

The article on the word Allah at Infoplease.com says:

Allâh; Pronunciation: [al´u, ä´lu] [Arab.,=the God]. Derived from an old semitic root refering to the Divine and used in the Canaanite El, the Mesopotamian ilu, and the Biblical Elohim...

Note: In Assyrian, Ilu is God, while Ilatu means "goddess".

Mr. Mohd incriminates himself even more because the the IL root is found in Allah only and not EL. What is this great semitic root of Mohd’s? EL is Canaanite while ILU is Mesopotamian, but this great root that Mohd’s seems to try and pull over us isn’t even named or mentined!! The closest info we get to this argument is that the root refers to divine but yet we don’t see what this root looks like or is!! Is it because Mohd’s sources don’t known? However I can show you from cited evidence my sources of the root that was in Allah, read:

There are many more inscriptions that show evidence of how the whole of Southern Arabia was saturated with the consciousness of the high god who was a LIL / IL derived deity. (Jamme, A W F, Sabaean Inscriptions From Mahram Bilqis (Marid), Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, 1962, pg. ix, x, 28, 52-54, 105-106, 132-133, 144-145, 176-177)

Apparently Mr. Mohd thinks that he can downplay the inscriptions found right in Arabia by going to a article which doesn’t even tell us what the root is!!! Ladies and Gentlemen, if the inscription evidence says the opposite of what you claim then the inscriptions prove to be more valuable.

Encyclopedia Britannica (1992) says:

Etymologically, the name Allâh is probably a contraction of the Arabic al-Ilah, "the God". The name's origin can be traced back to the earliest Semitic writings in which the word for god was Il or El, the latter being an Old Testament synonym for Yahweh.

In Caesar Farah's book, it says:

Allâh, the paramount deity of pagan Arabia, was the target of worship in varying degrees of intensity from the southernmost tip of Arabia to the Mediterranean. To the Babylonians he was "Il" (god); to the Canaanites, and later the Israelites, he was "El'; the South Arabians worshipped him as "Ilah," and the Bedouins as "al-Ilah" (the deity). With Muhammad he becomes Allâh, God of the Worlds, of all believers, the one and only who admits no associates or consorts in the worship of Him. Judaic and Christian concepts of God abetted the transformation of Allâh from a pagan deity to the God of all monotheists. There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea that "Allah" passed to the Muslims from Christians and Jews.

This passage clearly says that the God who was called Ilah in Southern Arabia was called El by the Israelites. This fact would certainly ruin the Critic's entire 'ILAH is from LIL root of Mesopotamian deities' theory. Why should the Critic, after all, let his readers know that according to two of the Gospels, Jesus was on the cross calling out to El who, if the Critic is right, is the ENLIL of Islam?

Notice in the Encyclopedia Britannica source that they said IL or EL, however Mohd sources doesn’t tell you which came first, read:

"Among the Northern Arabs of early times, particularly in the region of Safa, the word EL 'God' was still very commonly used as a separate name of the Deity." The IL and ILAH formations came much later. This means that EL was used by Arabs at one time as the name of God. This would be verified in the Bible, where the father of the Arabs, Ishmael, was given a name with the name of God, EL, in it.(Hastings, James, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol 1, p. 664)

This encyclopedia is just telling you after El was in place, that Ilah was worshipped. This historically came after EL was in Arabia. My Arabic friend Farid talked about their were Arabic inscriptions found 2 centuries before Islam used By Arabic Christians which used EL for God instead of Allah, as Muslims would like us to believe.

Farid wrote:

-------------------------------

Greetings,

Recently Father Pecerillo, a famous Franciscan Archiologist, found more than twenty churches in Madaba at the south of Jordan. From the Forth Century we found houses in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine with this inscription in Arabic “Bism El-Lah al Rahman al Rahim” which showed that Christians were the first to use this name so as to indicate their belief in the Holy Trinity, more than two hundred years before Islam.

Salam

Farid

This is amazing since if Allah was always known as the true god then surely these Arabic Christians would’ve used him in their inscriptions.

Based on what we have seen, it is obvious that ALLAH, which is a contraction of AL=the and ILAH=god, comes from a common Semitic root, EL or ILU/IL for the word (g)od.

EL isn’t IL, EL would be the Canaanite equivalent to IL, from Sumer. This is even refuted by the Arabic Quran which uses IshmaEL for the son of Abraham, read:

2.127 YUSUFALI: And remember Abraham and Isma'il raised the foundations of the House (With thisprayer): "Our Lord! Accept (this service) from us: For Thou art the All-Hearing, the All-knowing.

PICKTHAL: And when Abraham and Ishmael were raising the foundations of the House,(Abraham prayed): Our Lord!Accept from us (this duty). Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Hearer, the Knower.

SHAKIR: And when Ibrahim and Ismail raised the foundations of the House: Our Lord! accept from us; surely Thou art the Hearing, the Knowing:

2:127.Wa-ith yarfaAAu ibraheemu alqawaAAida mina albayti wa-ismaaaEELu rabbana taqabbal minna innaka anta alssameeAAu a1AAa1eemu.

Here is what Mr. Qahwash, an Arabic expert said to me about the EE in IshamEL:

Dear friend

thank you for your message

I like to say that as it is on the page "Transliteration Table" we used AA for the letter # 18 in Arabic which is ayn . the ee is for the vowel ya/.it is pronounced as in feet. Also I did not translate the text but rather transliterate it.so it is like Arabic but in English letters. thank you again..salam.

Therefore the EE in Ishmael in the Arabic Quran doesn’t read as IL (god root in Arabic) but EEL which is similar to EL in Hebrew. Note: Ishmael means “GOD HEARS” in Hebrew with the EL being God. This same word is copied right into the Arabic text. Mohd doesn’t know Arabic and he even tried to misspell Ishmael to prove his point. This goes right along with the cited source of EL being used as God first in Arabic before Allah.

Professor Carleton S. Coon in his book, Southern Arabia, states:

The god Il or Ilah was originally a phase of the moon god, but early in Arabian history the name became a general term for god, and it was this name that the Hebrews used prominently in their personal names, such as Emanu-el, Israel, etc...

So what do you know? According to Professor Coon's statement here, the same name which in Southern Arabia that was originally a phase of the moon god and later became a general term for god (Ilah) was also used in Hebrew names like Emanu-el, which the Critic considers a name for Jesus (pbuh)! Should we now make the claim that the name Emanu-el has actually a pagan heritage?

Notice the fallacy of Mohd’s argument. He shows that Allah did come from a pagan deity but what he doesn’t know was that EL was always known as GOD and as the Supreme God of all gods. Allah wasn’t from Mohd’s source, he shows that Allah was known as a pagan moon god deity which later became to be God. He refutes himself because this was the exact same thing I was trying to show in my Allah article. Mohd thinks that he can refute my paper then come back and show that IL was indeed a pagan deity!!! Unlike IL, EL was always known as the supreme god, Il was found first in Babylonian god deities for example like Ilumquh!!! Mohd’s great argument is that Il became to be known as God like Yahweh after it was in existence for awhile!! I said the same thing in my paper!!!

The following table depicts the common Semitic root word for (g)od, which is El or Ilu and was used in reference to different deities besides the Only True God:

In his picture for the evolution of God Mohd seems to try and paint the picture that EL and ILU are the same, El was the name of God in Canaan, and ILU was the name of God in Babylon. How could El be the same God as the Bible when ILU is found only in pagan deities while EL was always used for God outside of Babylonia? Read:

J J M Roberts, in his list of god / goddess names, has shown very clearly that the IL and ILUM roots are the foundation of nearly all god names in Mesopotamia before UR III. (Roberts, J J M, The Earliest Semitic Pantheon, Johns Hopkins Univ, Baltimore, 1972, all)

You see my reader this IL root from Allah stems from Pagan Sumer. El and Canaan aren’t in Mesopotamia. God destroyed Babylon because he hated the false deities of them, but yet Mohd wants us to believe that it’s okay to serve a god that came from that same pagan background!!! If God thought Il was so fine then why destroy a Babylon and their false gods?

And the next table shows the common Semitic words used in reference to The One True (G)od.

 It is interesting to note that the Aramaic word "Alaaha", which is the word for God in the language that Jesus spoke, is certainly more similar in sound to the word "Allah" than the English word "God". This also holds true for the various Hebrew words for God, which are "Elah" and "Eloah", and the plural form "Elohim". The reason for these similarities is that Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic are all Hamito-Semitic languages with common origins.

Mr. Mohd again shows his ignorance of these languages since AL in Allah is the definite article which is equivalent to God while Alaaha in Aramaic is without the definite article. The equivalent to this would be HaAlaaha!! Also Elah is never translated as God in Hebrew read this:

Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible is Elah the name of God. It is the name of a man and the name of an oak tree. (Pictorial Ency. of the Bible, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, Vol. 5.)

Mr. Mohd’s great evidence for this was from Ahmeed Deedat!!! Also El and Elohim aren’t linguistically related to ILU since EL would mean the same thing as EL in Caanaan!!! EL, Elohim, or EL-Elyon are not found in any local pagan form along the path of ancient history outside of holy usage in the Bible and by pre-Islamic Semites. Also, this Allah of Islam is not Elah of the Bible unless Allah was a son of Esau named Duke Elah (Genesis 36:41) or was Allah one of the kings of Israel? (I King 16:6-8,13-14). This was shown to me by Christoper B. Siren, a guy who know a lot about ancient Sumeria. Mohd’s great reasoning is that EL is Il based on the fact that BABEL was called BABIL in Sumer, Il has always meant God in Sumer while EL hasn’t. El is only mentioned as God in the Canaanite language!! Also Hebrew and Aramaic aren’t Hamito-Semitic languages, this is a gross error, which Mohd can’t even verify by any Semitic books on languages!! Arabic is the Hamito-Semitic language, Mohd confuses the two and then equates them together because they are in the same family of Semitic languages. Hebrew isn’t Hamtic but Arabic is along with being Semitic, which show why the IL, ILU roots are found in Arabic and not Hebrew which uses the Semitic EL for God.

It should also be noted that in translating the Bible into English, the Hebrew word "Eloah" is translated variously as "God", "god" and "angel"! This imprecise language allows different translators, based on their preconceived notions, to translate the word to fit their own views.

This is another gross error, Eloah is never translated as angel. Angel in Hebrew is Malak!!! How can Mohd try to rebuttal something when he has no experience studying the Semitic languages??

The Arabic word "Allah" presents no such difficulty or ambiguity, since it is only used for Almighty God alone.

Another gross error which came into effect after Islam only:

"At first Allah was the title used within each individual tribe to address its tribal deity instead of its proper name. All said 'Allah', but each one had its own deity in mind. The expression 'the god' (al-ilah), which became the only usage, became the bridge to the concept of an identical god which all tribes had in common' (J.Wellhausen, ESTE ARABISCHEN HEIDENTHUMS p. 218)".

Additionally, in English, the only difference between "god", meaning a false god, and "God", meaning the One True God, is the capital "G". In the Arabic alphabet, since it does not have capital letters, the word for God (i.e. Allah) is formed by adding the equivalent to the English word "the" (Al-) to the Arabic word for "god/God" (ilah). So the Arabic word "Allah" literally it means "The God" - the "Al-" in Arabic basically serving the same function as the capital "G" in English. Due to the above mentioned facts, a more accurate translation of the word "Allah" into English might be "The One-and-Only God" or "The One True God".

I already know this, I don’t see the point in Mohd trying to post this to me I talked about the name Allah in great detail on my article.

More importantly, it should also be noted that the Arabic word "Allah" contains a deep religious message due to its root meaning and origin. This is because it stems from the Arabic verb ta`allaha (or alaha), which means, "to be worshipped". Allah is often referred to as Allah taa`la or "the One most high". Thus in Arabic, the word "Allah" means "The One who deserves all worship". This, in a nutshell, is the Pure Monotheistic message of Islam. You see, according to Islam, "monotheism" is much more than simply believing in the existence of "only One God" - as seemingly opposed to two, three or more. If one understands the root meaning of the word "Allah", this point should become clear. One should understand that Islam's criticism of the other religions that claim to be "monotheistic" is not because they are "polytheistic" in the classic sense, but because they direct various forms of worship to other than Almighty God. It should also be noted that many non-Muslims are unaware of the distinction between simply believing in the existence of only One God and reserving all worship for Him alone.

Lets look at Allah’s root meaning and origin in Arabia from historical inscriptions:

The Arabs of Saba in South Arabia inscribed HLH in some of their inscriptions for the high god. With the vowels supplied this becomes Hallah, and later, Allah. Hitti reports that this inscription was also found in the Lihyan inscriptions in North Arabia, its origin was Assyria. (Hitti, Philip, History of The Arabs, London, 1950 pg.100-101)

So is Assyria Arabia Mohd? Assyria existed long before Arabian civilization!! The first close name to Allah was Hallah!!! Allah is just a later evolution of the name from Pagan Assyria!!

Many Christians are painfully unaware of this point, and thus you often find them asking how Muslims can accuse the followers of Jesus, peace be upon him, of being "polytheists" when they were all "monotheistic Jews". First of all, it should be clarified that the word "polytheist" doesn't really sound right in this context, since to many it implies simply believing in the existence of more than one God. So in an Islamic context, "associators", "man-worshippers" or "creature worshippers" might be more accurate and appropriate terms - especially since Christians believe Jesus to be both "100% God and 100% man", while still paying lip-service to God's "Oneness". However, as we're previously touched upon, what is really at the root of this problem is the fact that Christians - as well as the members of other religions - don't really know what "monotheism" means - especially in the Islamic sense. Whenever I ask the Christians in many of the dialogues I have participated, they invariably limit "monotheism" to believing in the existence of "One Sovereign and Creator God". Islam, however, teaches much more than this.

Commenting on Islam's strong monotheism, the Collier's CD-ROM Encyclopedia says:

The belief in such a god is not surprising in view of the well-established hypothesis that monotheism is not a product of polytheism nor, in the history of the Near East, an offshoot of the pagan religions of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran, Anatolia, Greece, or Syria. The belief in one God that inspired Muhammad is not derived from primitive Arabian beliefs, nor is it a full carryover from Biblical religion, for it had a strong native foundation. It differed, furthermore, from the great religions of antiquity those of Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Phoenicia in its basic affirmation of one true God.

So Islam is not based on the pagan Arabs' religion which was added with idolatry, and that the original and pure worship to Allâh was based on simple monotheism, that He is the Supreme Deity.

The reason why this isn’t a carry over is because Christians believed in the trinity and Muslims didn’t. Notice that this again contradicts Mr. Mohd’s earlier source which said that Arabia had PRIMITIVE BELIEFS IN MONOTHEISM!! So if this isn’t the case which this source now claims then that means before Muhammad, Allah along with ever other pagan deities were just a whole pantheon of gods which was later abolished by Muhammad. Once again, Mohd’s sole argument rest upon Muhammad.

On who uses the Arabic word Allâh, the article at Infoplease.com says:

...the word Allah is used by all Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others.

Wrong again, my Arabic Christian friends says that they can also use the words El or Elohim for God!!! Even the Christian Arabs before Islam used EL which was shown in the inscriptions from Arabic churches that my Arabic friend pointed out.

The Encyclopedia Britannica (1992) on the same topic states:

Allâh is the standard Arabic word for "God" and is used by Arab Christians as well as by Muslims.

This again contradicts Mohd’s earlier arguments since the word for god in Arabic is “ILAH” while Allah is “THE GOD”

The complete name of Allah before it is contracted to the shorter form, is "AL-ILAH." "ILAH" is the masculine root word for Allah, or "god", in Arabic. "AL ILAT" is the feminine resulting in Allat. (Hitti, Philip, History of The Arabs, London, 1950, 8)

Al is “the” in Arabic, while ILAH is God!!!

Alfred Guillaume, in his book entitled Islam, states:

In Arabia Allâh was known from Christian and Jewish sources as the one God, and there can be no doubt whatever that he was known to the pagan Arabs of Mecca as the supreme being.

I know about Guillaume too, but from which sources did he show Mohd? Also what page number is this and when was this published? Here is what Guillaume said about in this source:

Muhammad's inspiration and religious experiences are remarkably similar to those found in some form of spiritism. Shamanism, for example in notorious for fostering periods of mental disruption as well as spirit-possession. Significantly, Muhammad experienced shaman-like encounters -(Alfred Guillaume, Islam, New York: Penguin Books, 1977, pp. 24-25, 37, 56, passim; cf. Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman, New York: Bantam, 1980). Other experts on spiritism noted that spirit possession frequently leads to the kinds of experiences that Muhammad had.

Muhammad himself first believed that his revelations might be the result of his possession by a jinn, an evil spirit. Several noted scholars on Islam (Sir Norman Anderson- Islamic authority and Alfred Guillaume- a Oxford- educated Professor of Arabic at both Princeton and the University of London-there he was Head of the Department of the Near and Middle East In the School of Oriental and African Studies), and even one of Muhammad's closest relatives- have commented on his experiences. His foster mother, Halima, said this "in answer to a direct question from his mother I admitted that I thought that he was possessed by a devil... (Guillaume, Islam, p. 25).

Mohd’s prophet had common experiences similar to shamans so again this is another reason why Muhammad’s claim to Allah being like Elohim isn’t true.

In Kenneth Cragg's book, entitled The Call of the Minaret, we find the following, which concludes all the above:

Since both Christian and Muslim faiths believe in One supreme sovereign Creator-God, they are obviously referring when they speak of Him, under whatever terms, to the same Being.

This is also false and Yahweh himself debunks this:

Yet the problem arises from the fact that Muslims insist that Allah is not a title, but the personal name of the God of Islam. This becomes problematic since according to the Holy Bible the name of the God of Abraham is Yahweh/Jehovah, not Allah:

God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am Yahweh (YHVH) and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty; BUT BY MY NAME, YAHWEH, I did not make myself known to them.”; Exodus 6:2-3. 

Yahweh specifies his name and what it is, this is equivalent to THE LORD, NOT THE GOD!!!

Conclusion

In concluding this point, it should be mentioned that Arabic-speaking Muslims who believe in Pure Tawheed, Arabic-speaking Christians, the idol worshippers of Mecca and (so-called) Muslims who believe in "Wahdat al-Wujud" all use the word "Allah". However, does this guarantee all of them proper belief in "Allah"? Certainly not, because if they have a corrupt concept of "Allah" it doesn't matter what word they use! Please click here to see the word "Allah" being used in the Arabic Bible.

For one thing Tawheed, about Allah being just one isn’t even mentioned in the Quran!! Another thing this idea about Allah being in the Bible was also dealt with, this argument, Mr. Mohd stole from Osama Abdullah. Mohd still can’t prove to you that Allah was use before El as God first. Also he even refuted himself by showing that Allah was originally a moon deity!!

This brings us to a more important point: It should be clearly reasoned out that what Islam is primarily concerned with is correcting mankind's concept of Almighty God. What we are ultimately going to be held accountable at the end of our life is not whether we prefer the word "Allah" over the word "God", but what our concept of God is. Language is only a side issue. A person can have an incorrect concept of God while using the word "Allah" and likewise a person can have a correct concept of God while using the word "God". This is because both of these words are equally capable of being misused and being improperly defined. As we've already mentioned, using the word "Allah" no more insinuates belief in the Unity of God than the use of the word "God" insinuates belief in the Trinity - or any other theological opinion. Naturally, when God sends a revelation to mankind through a prophet, He is going to send it in a language that the people who receive it can understand and relate to. Almighty God makes this clear in the Qur'an, when He states:

"Never did We send a Messenger except (to teach) in the language of his (own) people in order to make (things) clear to them."

(Qur'an, Chapter 14 - "Abraham", Verse 4)

Once again in order for Mohd to prove that this was God he would have to show us that Gabriel was there to actually give Muhammad the words from God. Read:

Aisha could not see Gabriel

Bukhari 4.440

'Aisha said that the Prophet said to her "O 'Aisha' This is Gabriel and he sends his (greetings) salutations to you." 'Aisha said, "Salutations ... and addressing the Prophet she said, "You see what I don't see."

This is very important for the reader to recognize, “Muhammad saw a spirit in which nobody else saw.” This again is precarious because in order to believe that Gabriel came we would have to accept only the testimony of Muhammad. It’s one thing to be visited by an angel and you are by yourself but to claim that one came without anybody else seeing him in the same room is another story. Muhammad was hallucinating or he was bewitched into seeing things that wasn’t there. Either way why should we accept his testimony about Allah? You can’t even verify that Gabriel was present. Even Muhammad’s companions didn’t see him, which leaves him as a witness unto himself.

Other people recognize "Gabriel" as a person they knew.

Bukhari 4.827

I got the news that Gabriel came to the Prophet while Um Salama was present. Gabriel started talking (to the Prophet and then left. The Prophet said to Um Salama, "(Do you know) who it was?" (or a similar question). She said, "It was Dihya (a handsome person amongst the companions of the Prophet )." Later on Um Salama said, "By Allah! I thought he was none but Dihya, till I heard the Prophet talking about Gabriel in his sermon.” .....

Very strange, if we go on Muhammad’s testimony we are supposed to say that this was Gabriel when Um Salama saw “Dihya” a known companion of the Prophet!!! Why didn’t she recognize Gabriel? The 3 wise men recognized the angel and didn’t mistake his identity. However Muhammad thought that his own companion was Gabriel!!! Since nobody else thought it was Gabriel and saw him as a known friend, this shows us that Muhammad was bewitched into believing that Dihya was Gabriel, or that he was hallucinating like the little kid on the Six Sense.

To say that Muslims worship a different "God" or to invalidate the whole religion just because they refer to God as "Allah" is just as specious as saying that French people worship another God because they use the word "Dieu", that Malay-speaking people worship a different God because they call upon "Tuhan", Spanish-speaking people worship a different God because they say "Dios" or that the Hebrews worshipped a different God because they sometimes call Him "Yahweh". Certainly, reasoning like this is quite preposterous! It should also be mentioned, that claiming that any one language uses the only the correct word for God is tantamount to denying the universality of God's message to mankind, which was to all nations, tribes and people through various prophets who spoke different languages.

This isn’t the case and this isn’t ehat I was talking about in my article, I showed how Allah wasn’t the original name of God in Arabic, even Mohd showed it with his post about Allah being a moon deity but LATER CAME TO BE USED AS THE WORD GOD!! EL was used first, so again Mohd is basing his argument on Muhammad who was a witness to himself.

Before I conclude, however, I would like to ask the readers to ask themselves what they think the motives are behind all of these irrational lies? If Islam was just some false belief with complicated doctrines that didn't make any sense, would so many people, from Western scholars to Christian missionaries, have to tell so many untruths about it? If Islam were from the Devil, you do not need the Devil's ways to defeat it: explaining the truth would be enough. Yet, lies like this are common among missionaries. The reason is that the Ultimate Truth of Islam stands on solid ground and its simple yet unshakable belief in the Unity of God is beyond reproach. Due to this, Christians can never criticize its monotheistic convictions directly, but instead make-believe things about the religion that are not true so that people lose the enthusiasm to learn more. If Muslims are able to introduce Islam in the suitable method to people in the West, it surely might make many people reconsider and re-evaluate their own beliefs. It is quite likely that Christians, when they find out that there is a universal religion in the world that teaches people to worship and love God, while also practicing Pure Monotheism, would at least feel that they should re-examine the basis for their own beliefs and doctrines.

What solid ground does Islam stand on? None, Mohd can’t even verify that Muhammad even saw Gabriel nor talked with God personally. Infact Muhammad was bewitched by a Hypocrite!!

From the Hadith of Bukhari, Volume 7, # 660.

Narrated Aisha:

Magic was worked on Allah's Apostle so that he used to think that he had sexual relations with his wives while he actually had not (Sufyan said: That is the hardest kind of magic as it has such an effect). Then one day he said, "O 'Aisha do you know that Allah has instructed me concerning the matter I asked Him about? Two men came to me and one of them sat near my head and the other sat near my feet. The one near my head asked the other. What is wrong with this man?' The latter replied the is under the effect of magic The first one asked, Who has worked magic on him?' The other replied Labid bin Al-A'sam, a man from Bani Zuraiq who was an ally of the Jews and was a hypocrite.' The first one asked, What material did he use)?' The other replied, 'A comb and the hair stuck to it.' The first one asked, 'Where (is that)?' The other replied. 'In a skin of pollen of a male date palm tree kept under a stone in the well of Dharwan' '' So the Prophet went to that well and took out those things and said "That was the well which was shown to me (in a dream) Its water looked like the infusion of Henna leaves and its date-palm trees looked like the heads of devils." The Prophet added, "Then that thing was taken out' I said (to the Prophet ) "Why do you not treat yourself with Nashra?" He said, "Allah has cured me; I dislike to let evil spread among my people." This Tradition is also found in Bukhari 4.490, 7.658, 7.660, 7.661, 8.89, 8:400.

If Muhammad thought he was having sex and he wasn’t, this means that he was off somewhere having sex with himself!!! How can a hypocrite bewitch a prophet of God? This is a question that Mohd has failed to answer, this was also part of my article too. Maybe he is too afraid about it’s implications on Muhammad’s claim to prophethood. Is this the light he and other Muslims want us to follow? We see that Mohd can only answer pieces that are easy for him to answer, allot of my material in my Allah article hasn’t even been touched on yet by Mr. Mohd. His link is http://members.xoom.com/lordexarkun/Islam/AllahOrigin.html

My Allah article link is http://www.geocities.com/queball23/Allah.html

Compare his so-called great rebuttal to my article and you will see just how much he has failed to address as well as answer anything here. He presents nothing great in this paper.

Appendix

Here are some comments about the Allah Article. This comes from Ghassan Hanna, a direct descendant of the Akkadian people, Note: he is more familiar with this language then many people including Mr. Mohd, and he knows even more than I do on Ancient Babylonian history and note his comments about IL and LIL and other things in the Allah article, he would’ve quickly pointed out so-called errors like Mohd claimed to have done. This shows you dear reader that the highly educated know about these types of material. Webmaster Chaldeans On Line http://www.chaldeansonline.net Here is some of his comments on it in his long post to my email.

Dear Quennel,

Thanks for this nice article. It sure had a lot of information to gain from. Apart from the work on the origin of Allah which the Arabs use, I did truly enjoy the many Sumerian and Akkadian words that you referenced. It made so many words clearer to me in my language Syriac (neo-Aramaic). Actually, it proved to me how we the current descendents of the Assyrians and Babylonians of antiquity still use many of our Fathers' Akkadian words.

OK, my comments (please, accept them with all my respect for your impressive work. I might be direct or sometimes sarcastic, but they're meant with good intentions and respect for your person, and once again a lot of appreciations for your excellent work): Back to the original subject of IL, remember the Arabs (as every one in the Middle East) was influenced by the Mesopotamian culture and not by the local and hardly active Cannanite culture. Well, now adays some "history rewriters" are claiming Egyptian culture to be Hebrew, so I guess along the same lines, someone is trying to give a numb culture like the Cannanite some "Viagra"…

Also, Arabic is a derivative of Aramaic (just as the Hebrew was). Aramaic, became the "lingua franca" of the entire Middle East from around 750 BC till Mohammed's successors forced it to shrink to small pockets in Mesopotamia and replaced it with Arabic. Aramaic transferred the culture of the people of Mesopotamia (Assyrians and Babylonians who spoke different dialects of it). Hence, once again, should not be surprised to see Mesopotamian deities be worshipped or their names used in the entire Middle East. Actually, Ali bin Abi Taleb (Fourth Muslim Khalif, son-in-law and a cousin of Mohammed) was known to say "We Arabs are from Mesopotamia" (he used a different word for Mesopotamia that I don't recall)…

You make a valid point when you speak about Mohammed "rehabilitation of the pagan Gods in Mecca". You're right, by using Mecca to start with is a "continuation of worshipping the temple of the pagan Gods of Arabia"…

Thanks once again for the opportunity to read your article. You sure have spent a lot of time to research your subject and present a convincing argument as to the origin of Allah to be rooted in Mesopotamian LIL. I have a lot of praise to make, which I did not state here (sorry!). I guess I only mentioned my "disagreements". So, excellent work so far. I will continue to read the rest of the article tomorrow (or actually later on today!!!).

Take care,

Ghassan Hanna

Also some more comments from Walid a Palestinian Arab, whose father teaches Islamic studies:

The Allah article is very interesting. It agrees with what the Bible calls Mystry Babylon since all false religions in reality originate from Babylon.

What I wonder about is if the city of seven hills in Revelation is Mecca or Vatican? What do you think? I always thought that Allah and Islam is of Sumerian origin.