Allah

Allah is the Arabic word for God.

It is derived from the oldest name for God in the Semitic world, a word consisting of just two letters, aleph and lamed (in Hebrew) or aleph and lam (in Arabic), and is pronounced 'il in Babylonia and 'el in ancient Israel. From this is derived the generic term for "god", which in the case of Hebrew is almost always expressed in the plural as 'elohim, which also signifies "God." In Arabic "God" is signified by compounding the definite article al with ilah ('god') to give Allah, "the god," i.e. God. Early Jewish and Christian writings in Arabic used Allah as the name for "God," i.e. the one supreme God. It was also the name by which pre-Islamic heathen Arabs referred to God; otherwise Muhammad's use of it in the Qur'an would have been unintelligible.

The word Allah is, therefore, not Islamic in any true sense, although in peninsular Malaysia, e.g., the Islamic authorities have hegemoniously usurped the word to itself and passed a law that prohibits non-Muslim from using the term. In that it is a "bad law" that arrogates to itself what it has no right to do so, non-Muslims are, in principle, not obliged to obey it. In practice every non-Muslim should seek every legal course available to restore the injustice of the cause. Christians, however, obey additionally the law of love, and may choose to avoid using the term for the sake of peace of society, especially in a place like Malaysia, where the Muslims authorities seem to feel under threat from even the most innocuous of incidences. Most Muslims, however, do not seem threatened or offended when the word is used in personal conversations with them; nonetheless, Christians should remain sensitive and, if the use of the word is deemed inappropriate, to avoid it. There are always more than one way to say the same thing.