Biblical Hebrew Forum

["yahua'sef" <gs02wmr AT panther.Gsu.EDU>]

On Sun, 20 Jun 1999 Numberup AT worldnet.att.net wrote:
> However, orthodox (Sunni) Muslim scholars insist that "Allah" does not mean 
> "the God"
> and is not formed by a contraction of al (the) + ilah (god).  It should not 
> be
> overlooked that Syriac ("Christian Aramaic") pronounces the word as "Alaha" 
> (as in the
> Peshitta), and this is a more probable influence upon the Arabic, 
> especially the
> Arabic of Muhammad ibn Abdullah, to whom the Qur'an was given.

Shalum(aramaic).

I don't think this is all that accurate. Sunni Muslims actually *do*
insist that "Allah"(alif, laam, laam, he) is in fact the conjugation of
the definite article 'AL'(alif Lam) and "ilah"(alif lam he), and
that "ilah" is the cognate word for "Eloh" in Hebrew. After the
contraction, it no longer means "the god," but simply "God."

I suppose the question is which came first - Biblical Hebrew, Biblical
Aramaic, Arabic, Amharic(of the Semetic Languages) - and from where did
the influence or "borrowing" of terminology actually stem from? I had
always thought that they were ALL derivatives of Phoenician/Canaanite
civilization. But I am not sure of the timeline.

shalum!


Wondell M. Rachman