We have all heard by now that Allah simply means "god." This statement is meant to calm those of us who want to see something sinister in Islam that could connect to demon spirits. We hear that the Arabians who know our Lord, call that Lord, Allah.

The word itself comes from the Arabic "al-ilah", the god. It is like "El" in Hebrew, and is truly a generic term. Also, we must add, it is Arabic, not related to Hebrew.

There seems to be no question that Muhammad wanted his people to worship one god. He himself chose that god out of the pantheon at the Ka'aba. But the fact that there was a pantheon should raise a few eyebrows. Was this chosen god to be merely the best, or the only god? You have often heard Muslims crying out Allahu Akbar . It means that God (Allah) is greater. Strange. Should they not be saying that God is greatest, or the only God? Greater. Greater than whom, I wonder?

Consider: If there was to be one god, the god to be worshiped by all the people, he would have to be the one already called "god", or "allah." In the context of 7th century Arabia, and in keeping with the widespread worship of the moon, the one true god, the only great god of the day, would have to be the moon god.

To clarify, when we in America talk of the one God, we are referring to the Judaeo- Christian God. We mean Jahweh, or Jesus. The context of this nation demands it. But when Arabs said "God" or "Allah" long centuries ago, they were speaking in reference to the prevailing deity of the time, even though the word itself means just “god.”.

Therefore, it is not acceptable to write off all Islamic paganism by saying that "Allah" means "god." Allah, to the Arabs of that day, meant the moon god. The greatest god. Then, per Muhammad, the onlygod.

One internet source claims that "before Muhammad, Allah was not considered the sole divinity by Meccans." But he was the creator of the world and the giver of rain. He had some fellow-gods in those days, perhaps his underlings. He even had sons and daughters, 3 of whom were worshipped locally: al-ʿUzzā, Manāt and al-Lāt. Muhammad's father's name was ʿAbd-Allāh , "the slave of Allāh".

Muhammad seems to have totally transformed Allah for purposes of his own, but the identity of this god was still recognizable to his followers. Arabs could follow him because of the name “Allah”. Christians and Jews might be able to get on board based on Muhammad’s attempted, but unconvincing, links from his “Allah” to the Bible’s “Yahweh.” That was his plan, anyway.

So who is this “Allah”?

Like the moon he originally represented,

· He is not male or female.

· He has no children

· He is cold and impersonal

· He is distant

· He is austere

He is created either by the enemy of our souls, or Muhammad, or both. He is not the loving Father of the Bible who had a son that died for the sins of the world.

And, Who is Allah to the Muslim?

Questions begin to line up when digging deeper into Islamic history.

Why was Muhammad's God named after one known to be a pagan deity in his own tribe? Why is Allah never defined in the Koran? Why did Muhammad assume that even pagan Arabs knew who Allah was?

We know the moon-god was Sin in other cultures. But his title, if not his name, was al-ilah or “the god.” Muhammad’s job was simply to elevate Al-Ilah or Allah, to the only god, not just the chief one. As one internet source suggests Muhammad's thinking process:

"I am not taking away the Allah you already worship. I am only taking away his wife and his daughters and all the other gods." Muhammad thus attempted to have it both ways. To the pagans, he said that he still believed in the Moon-god Allah. To the Jews and the Christians, he said that Allah was their God too. But both the Jews and the Christians knew better and that is why they rejected his god Allah as a false god."

As for connecting things to Yahweh, the theory in Islam goes that Allah was truly the god of Abraham, but that worship of him became corrupted and took the form of what we see in Arabia before Muhammad came along. Muhammad then just corrected the lies that were told about Him, and elevated Him to top status, even abolishing the worship of heavenly bodies altogether.

The Biblical record has it that Ishmael, the son of Abraham, would be a wild man whose hand would be against everyone and everyone's hand against him. This seems to fit the tribes of Ishmael who did indeed settle in Arabia, who did indeed corrupt the worship of the one true God over the centuries, and who continue to fulfill the description of wild Ishmael to this day by adopting Arabia’s pagan then reformed (by Muhammad/Koran) religion.

But Abraham was not promised Arabia by the Lord. There is no connection to Arabia at all by the promised people. They are to inhabit Canaan's land, and it will be known forever as Israel. The original promise covers from the Nile to the Euphrates, a territory that David and Solomon the Jews did indeed possess. Arabia is not within those borders, and to emphasize this more, a queen from that peninsula visited Solomon in all his glory and received his blessing. Her land was Sheba, in Arabia.