PREPOSTEROUS FALSE CLAIMS MADE BY MEMBERS OF ISLAM:

[iris89]

[b][size=large]PREPOSTEROUS FALSE CLAIMS MADE BY MEMBERS OF ISLAM:

Some in Islam have taken a page from Adolph Hitler, Nazi leader, and are making preposterous false claims in the hopes that some of this false propaganda will stick. The following represents one of these wicked attempts to mislead.

JESUS WAS A MUSLIM
1. Jesus believed in only one ALLAH (John 17:3)
2. Jesus believed he was a Messenger of ALLAH (John 17:3, John 7:28, John 8:42)
3. Jesus Submitted his will ALLAH (Mark 3:31 – 35, matt 7:21)
4. Jesus was circumcised (Luke 2:21)
5. Jesus never ate & despised Pork
6. Jesus had a beard & dressed modestly like a Muslim
7. Jesus taught to rinse before Praying as Muslims do (John 13:10)
8. Jesus Prayed with his face on Ground. (Matthew 26:39)
9. Jesus used the greeting of peace & taught his disciples to greet each other (Luke 10:5, John 20:19)
10. Jesus forbade interest (Exodus 22:25)
11. Jesus fasted for more than a month (Matthew 4:2)
12. Jesus did not worship or wear the cursed cross.
13. Jesus never got drunk.
14. Jesus Preached Jihad (Luke 22:35 – 36)
15. Jesus said righteous deed is the only way to paradise (Matt 5:17– 20)
16. Jesus believed miracles were due to ALLAH (John 5:30)
17. Jesus did not believe in redemption by his blood (Matt 5:17 – 20)
[source - retrieved from email by rafaldariusz@gmail.com on 3/13/2014]

However, even a cursory read would clearly reveal their misleading untruths. To wit, Jesus (Yeshua) Christ was a natural Jew having been born into a Jewish family, NOT a Muslim family so there is no way he could be a Muslim. In fact, Islam did NOT even come into being until over 500 years after his death in the 7 th. Century. So any claim that anyone was a Muslim before this time is spurious, not being what it purports to be; false or fake. Also, any claim that he submitted to and/or believed miracles were due to Allah is likewise spurious.

In fact, this type of misleading propaganda clearly shows the need to know Almighty God’s personal name and why it matters.

As theologian Walter Lowrie wrote, “A man who does not know God by name does not really know him as a person.”

How true this is since people on earth worship many different gods and goddesses such as Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Athena, Allah, Krishna, Shiva, Lakshmi, Ganesha, Ashtoreth, Baal, Moleth, Baphomet, Thor; Al-Lat, Al-Uzza and Manat (daughter goddesses of Allah), etc. But only one God is real and the Creator of all there is and Exodus 6:3 tells his name as follows, “and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah (YHWH)I was not known to them.” [American Standard Version; ASV]. And Malachi 3:16 - 17 states, “Then they that feared Jehovah (YHWH) spake one with another; and Jehovah (YHWH) hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared Jehovah (YHWH), and that thought upon his name. 17 And they shall be mine, saith Jehovah (YHWH) of hosts, even mine own possession, in the day that I make; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” [ASV].

In fact Romans 10:13 states, “For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.” [ASV]; therefore, clearly showing the state of affairs that exist among most of earth’s inhabitants today. They have established many false religions to flatter themselves, but fail to subject themselves to the righteousness of Almighty God (YHWH). It is imperative that individuals give thought in these critical days that we begin to trust in the true God, per Isaiah 41:13 which states, “For I, Jehovah (YHWH) thy God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.” [ASV]. We should be driven to worship Almighty God (YHWH) out of love and not out of fear; why, for as 1 John 4:8 shows about our Creator that he, “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” [ASV].

How has the Creator’s great love for mankind been made known? 1 John 4:9 - 10 gives the answer, “Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” [ASV].

Yes, he loved mankind so much that he sent his Son, Jesus (Yeshua) Christ to earth to save all obedient mankind. As Jesus (Yeshua) Christ said at John 14:29, “Ye heard how I said to you, I go away, and I come unto you. If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the Father: for the Father is greater than I.” [ASV]. Also, he told one of his followers at John 20:13, “Jesus saith to her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father: but go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.” [ASV].

Obviously, it is impossible to really love someone who it is impossible to know or understand; therefore, to that end Almighty God (YHWH) has lovingly provided the Bible written by approximately 40 scribes/prophets under inspiration.

Almighty God (YHWH) never tried to hide his name or purpose from humans, but sought to make them knowledgeable of Him. To wit, as 1 Corinthians 14:33 states, “for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,” [ASV]. He has not hidden his identity from us as brought out at John 4:22 - 24, “Ye worship that which ye know not: we worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers. 24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” [ASV].

In fact, His book of guidance, the Bible, had over 40 individual writers, all of them Jews, who wrote under divine inspiration/guidance putting the thoughts of Almighty God (YHWH) into the words of men much as transcribing secretaries today taking transcription and then later typing it out. In other words one real author, Almighty God (YHWH), and many scribes each of whom wrote in his own style over a period of approximately 1,600 years. All of what people call or consider inconsistencies are really not such, but most often just a problem of translation and/or understanding, i.e., lack of understanding of what the original writer writing in his own language and culture meant/said in his original writing. What is remarkable, is the writers over such a period of time all wrote in harmony when writers of today can only stay on track even over short periods of a few days and/or weeks at most. This fact of harmony over a period so great as to almost stagger the imagination.

To the end of making truth known, I will undertake answering many of the misleading spurious items put forth in this member of Islam’s writing, “Jesus Was A Muslim.” They will be done in sequential order.

To learn more about Almighty God (YHWH) and the Bible, go to,

1) http://religioustruths.forumsland.com/

2) http://www.network54.com/Forum/403209/

3) http://religioustruths.lefora.com/

4) http://religioustruths.boardhost.com/

5) http://religious-truths.forums.com/

6) http://religioustruthsbyiris.createmybb3.com/

7) http://religioustruths.forumotion.com/

To enjoy an online Bible study called “Follow the Christ” go to, http://religious-truths.forums.com/defau...#post-1421

Your Friend in Christ Iris89

Francis David said it long ago, "Neither the sword of popes...nor the image of death will halt the march of truth. "Francis David, 1579, written on the wall of his prison cell." Read the book, "What Does The Bible Really Teach" and the Bible today, and go to http://www.jw.org/
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[iris89]

[b][size=large]Sequel #1 covering in great detail false Claim 1:

First comment was, “1. Jesus believed in only one Allah (John 17:3)” now let’s investigate why this claim is NOT so.

First, the scripture reads, “Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible: DRCB),

Now, Allah is the personal name of a specific god; whereas, in Arabic the word for ‘god’ is Ilah. The God spoken of in this scripture is NOT Allah, but Almighty God (YHWH). For more details on the scripturally mentioned God, go to http://religioustruthsbyiris.createmybb3...ad-41.html And read ‘On the Name of the True God of Abraham [By Gérard Gertoux, President of the French Bible Society] [YHWH]”

Now, let’s deal with the name of the old middle eastern Moon god, Allah, in my Digital Book:

A Digital Book On The False God Allah - The Old Middle Eastern Moon God:

Note: I can be contacted at iris89cheerful@gmail.com

The Contents of the Book:

Part 1 - Who Really Is 'Allah' The Supreme God Of The Makkans [Residents of Ancient Mecca]

Part 2 - The Facts on Allah

Part 3 - The Middle Eastern Moon God

Part 4 - The Family of Allah

Now Part 1:

Who Really Is 'Allah' The Supreme God Of The Makkans [Residents of Ancient Mecca]
INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS:

The Old Testament specifically denies the Muslim claim that the pre-Islamic Ishmaelites knew and worshiped the true God (YHWH) of Abraham. The data conclusively shows that as the timeline of the centuries unfolded the Ishmaelites forsook the God of their ancestors Abraham and Jacob, Yahweh or Jehovah (YHWH), for the worship of some false god. The false god whom they worshiped as the true God was quite possibly Baal. The data also shows that Hubal was the high god worshiped at Mecca, which is supportted by the view that he was the Allah of pre-Islamic times. He Allah or Hubal was the high god of the Makkans [residents of ancient Mecca]; although, they had many other gods and goddesses such as the daughter celestial goddesses of Allah who was the old middle eastern Moon god.

A great wall supposedly built by Dhul-Qarnayn literally meaning "He of the Two Horns", is a figure mentioned in the Qur'an, the sacred scripture of Islam, where he is described as a great and righteous ruler who built a long wall that keeps Gog and Magog from attacking the people of the West. Moreover, he is regarded by some Muslims as a prophet. The epithet was also familiar among the pre-Islamic Arabs [pagans per the prophet], who applied it to at least three different kings. Now this may seem strange to mention in the introduction, but is important as it clearly shows that Muhammad adopted pagan myths into the Quran as well as using Bible accounts as its framework. Accounts to prove he adopted this pagan myth are sound at the Cave chapter of the Quran at Sura 18:83-98 which will be dealt with shortly.

SURA 18:83-98 [CAVE CHAPTER OF THE QURAN] AND THE DHUL-QARNAYN:

[18.83] And they ask you about Zulqarnain. Say: I will recite to you an account of him.
[18.84] Surely We established him in the land and granted him means of access to every thing.
[18.85] So he followed a course.
[18.86] Until when he reached the place where the sun set, he found it going down into a black sea, and found by it a people. We said: O Zulqarnain! either give them a chastisement or do them a benefit.
[18.87] He said: As to him who is injust, we will chastise him, then shall he be returned to his Lord, and He will chastise him with an exemplary chastisement: And as for him who believes and does good, he shall have goodly reward, and We will speak to him an easy word of Our command.
[18.89] Then he followed (another) course.
[18.90] Until when he reached the land of the rising of the sun, he found it rising on a people to whom We had given no shelter from It;
[18.91] Even so! and We had a full knowledge of what he had.
[18.92] Then he followed (another) course.
[18.93] Until when he reached (a place) between the two mountains, he found on that side of them a people who could hardly understand a word.
[18.94] They said: O Zulqarnain! surely Gog and Magog make mischief in the land. Shall we then pay you a tribute on condition that you should raise a barrier between us and them
[18.95] He said: That in which my Lord has established me is better, therefore you only help me with workers, I will make a fortified barrier between you and them;
[18.96] Bring me blocks of iron; until when he had filled up the space between the two mountain sides, he said: Blow, until when he had made it (as) fire, he said: Bring me molten brass which I may pour over it.
[18.97] So they were not able to scale it nor could they make a hole in it.
[18.98] He said: This is a mercy from my Lord, but when the promise of my Lord comes to pass He will make it level with the ground, and the promise of my Lord is ever true.
[source - The Holy Qur'an, translated by M.H. Shakir and published by Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, Inc., in 1983.]

Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur'an.
Main article: Alexander in the Qur'an (Theory)
The story of Dhul-Qarnayn as described in the Qur'an follows very closely some passages of the Alexander Romance, a thoroughly embellished compilation of Alexander the Great's exploits from Hellenistic and early Christian sources which underwent numerous expansions and revisions throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Alexander Romance was enormously popular in the Hellenistic world, including Jewish communities, among which Alexander had practically gained the status of a folk hero[3]. Some adaptations containing all the elements of the Qur'anic account can be found in early Hellenistic documents, such as the Armenian recension of the Alexander Romance. Actually the main elements of the story (an iron gate constructed by Alexander blocking the passage of Scythian tribes; identification of said Scythians with Gog and Magog) can already be found in Josephus[4][5] and in Saint Jerome, although in fragmented occurrences (see Alexander in the Qur'an for details).

[1]For these reason the widely accepted view is that the (indirect) model for Dhul Qarnayn is Alexander the Great. The majority of medieval Muslim scholars were happy to identify Dhul-Qarnayn as Alexander. However, some Muslim scholars have asserted that the medieval scholars were mistaken and that Dhul-Qarnayn cannot be Alexander.

[2]Cyrus the Great as Dhul Qarnain
Main article: Cyrus the Great in the Qur'an (theory)
Some contemporary Muslim scholars, such as Maududi and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, have suggested that Dhul-Qarnayn is Cyrus the Great. This theory has been endorsed by Iranian scholars Allameh Tabatabaei [in his Tafsir al-Mizan) and Grand Ayatollah Makarim al-Shirazi (Bargozideh Tafseer-i Nemuneh, Vol 3, p69].

[3]The archaic Dhul-Qarnayn
Some early Islamic commentators stipulated that Dhul-Qarnayn must have been a contemporary of Abraham. Others postulated an Alexander who lived 2000 years before Alexander the Great.

[4]The Arab Dhul-Qarnayn
Two early Arabian kings were known as Dhul-Qarnayn: the northern Arabian king Al-Mundhir al-Akbar ibn Ma' as-Sama' (so called for his two curled locks), and the early South Arabian king Tubba' al-Aqran. South Arabian interpreters of the Qur'an argue that the Qur'anic Dhul-Qarnayn was their king Tubba'. Other supporters of the Yemeni Dhul-Qarnayn theory included (the Persian) Biruni in his Athar al-baqiyah, Asma'i in his Tarikh al-Arab ("History of Arab"), and Sirah of Ibn Hisham, among others.
Others have suggested that Dhul-Qarnayn could be the Egyptian pharoah Narmer , who unified northern and southern Egypt. Among supporters of the Arab Dhul-Qarnayn theory were Mughrizi in his book al-Khutat, and Allama Sayyed Habeddin al-Shahrestani.

[5]The angelic Dhul-Qarnayn
There are scattered references in which Ali ibn Abi Talib gives the epithet Dhul-Qarnayn. Since Dhul-Qarnayn was a righteous ruler, this may simply be a way of praising by Ali. Mughrizi also quotes Mukhtar ibn Abi Ubayd as saying that Ali always referred to Dhul-Qarnayn as "an angel without wings". The 8th century scholar Al-Jahiz, in his (???????), also writes of Dhul-Qarnayn being born to a human mother and angelic father.[source - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Of course this is the same kind of story/legend as that where the Quran took the old middle eastern Moon god, 'Allah,' and tried to blend him, a puppet celestial god of Satan, into the true God (YHWH) of Abraham; to wit, from epithets that were familiar among the pre-Islamic Arabs. Let's look at some facts from history and archaeology on this fact.

It should not come as a surprise that the word "Allah" was not something invented by Muhammad or revealed for the first time in the Quran.

The well-known Middle East scholar H.A.R. Gibb has pointed out that the reason that Muhammad never had to explain who Allah was in the Quran is that his listeners had already heard about Allah long before Muhammad was ever born [source - Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey, New York: Mentor Books, 1955, p.38].

One Muslim I have corresponded with said the following:
<<"You did not see what point I have written in my last post, allow me to explain in a better way. Dhul-Qarnayn may have a meaning but in the Quran it is given as he is a sort of a king or a leader. If you understood what I have said, I have said that the"wall" of Dhul-Qarnayn. We are not talking about names and where it's origin is from, we are talking about the Quran being the truth. If you do not see this then go get more information as we all say; we never stop learning.

ALLAH AS THE SUPREME GOD OF THE ANCINET PAGAN MAKKANS (RESIDENTS OF MECCA):

This section opens with a statement by a learned Muslim testifying to the fact that Allah was the supreme god of the ancient pagan Makkans (Residents of Mecca).

<<"The thing you said that about the Makkans knowing about Allah before Muhammed(S.A.W) is true. From prophet Ibrahim and Ismail to (S.A.W), Allah was was brought as the true God. The Makkans knew that Allah was a god, but they said that He was the supreme god from all the others, they would say that He was beyond the universe so they needed other small gods to transmit their prayers to Him. The Makkans were not angry at Allah but if you have searched the facts and so, they despised Muhammed(S.A.W), because they said that he was spreading the menace and dishonoring their gods. They did not say anything about Allah(S.T), for He was their supreme god and dishonoring it would bring badness over them. So we see that the other prophets before Muhammed(S.A.W) brought the information that Allah was the only true God but then, like every prophet, they listened then betrayed the prophets for their ignorance and changed it like they did to the bible, but the true religion will never fall(Islam). The prophet Muhammed(S.A.W) which had enemies but with the truth in his hands he succeeded on giving all the world the truth to save them from the hell fire, but still a lot of people do not except this as their arrogance is blinding them. You see now that the truth was given to the world, each one of the nations, but they disobeyed it and got punished for it as they didn't pass the test. Prophet Muhammed(S.A.W) brought them(Makkans) a book, he told them to worship only one god, he didn't tell them of how this god looked like and so on. This was a test for them to beleive in the truth as the shaitan will make it look as it is not the truth and everyone knew it that beleiving in something that is in the open, simple, and very understandable and not seeing of how their god looks like would be a challange but would also be rewarded greatly in the here after. Islam is the truth as they(Makkans/disbeleivers) knew that life is a test than you(an educated person) should know better.[source - a Muslim of learning]">>

So now we have established the fact that Allah was the supreme god of the ancient Makkans. Let's look at some of the facts related to the ancient pagan Makkans and their supreme pagan god Allah.

First the basic premise of this writer is false; to wit,
<<"We are not talking about names and where it's origin is from, we are talking about the Quran being the truth. If you do not see this then go get more information as we all say; we never stop learning.">>

Second his admittance that with respect the old middle eastern Moon god, 'Allah,' actually being the supreme god of the none worshippers of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, the Makkans:
<<"The thing you said that about the Makkans knowing about Allah before Muhammed(S.A.W) is true. From prophet Ibrahim and Ismail to (S.A.W), Allah was was brought as the true God. The Makkans knew that Allah was a god, but they said that He was the supreme god from all the others, they would say that He was beyond the universe so they needed other small gods to transmit their prayers to Him.">>

Dr. Arthur Jeffery, one of the foremost Western Islamic scholars in modern times and professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Columbia University, notes:

<<"The name Allah, as the Quran itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa">> [Islam: Muhammad, and His Religion, New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958, p. 85].

The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, states, <<"The origin of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity">> [Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, I:326, Hastings].

The Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, states, <<"The name Allah goes back before Muhammad">> [source - Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:41, Anthony Mercatante, New York, The Facts on File, 1983].

And, <<"The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god." It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic.">> [There is an interesting discussion of the origins of Allah, in "Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies" by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pp. 173-190].

And, Neither is Allah a Hebrew or Greek word for God as found in the Bible. Allah is a purely Arabic term used in reference to an Arabian deity.

Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326, T & T Clark, states:
<<"Allah" is a proper name, applicable only to their [Arabs'] peculiar God.">>'
[source - Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326].
According to the Encyclopedia of Religion:

And, <<"Allah" is a pre-Islamic name . . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel">> [source - Encyclopedia of Religion, I:117 Washington DC, Corpus Pub., 1979].

The Encyclopedia Britannica adds, <<"Allah is found . . . in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam">> [Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643].

The Encyclopedia of Islam is in agreement and say, <<"The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshipped, after a fashion, a supreme god called Allah">> [Encyclopedia off Islam, I:302, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1913, Houtsma].

This same encyclopedia went on to say, <<"Allah was known to the pre-Islamic . . . Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities">> [Encyclopedia off Islam, I:406, ed. Gibb].

And pre-Islamic poetry attest to this fact, <<"Ilah . . . appears in pre-Islamic poetry . . . By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to Allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry">> [Encyclopedia off Islam, III:1093, 1971].

And Dr. Kenneth Cragg, former editor of the very prestigious scholarly journal Muslim World and an outstanding modern Western Islamic scholar, whose works are generally published by Oxford University, comments:

<<"The name Allah is also evident in archeological and literary remains of pre-Islamic Arabia">> [The Call of the Minaret, New York: Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 31].

And the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on 02/28/2006), states, <<" Theories on the identity of Dhul-Qarnayn
According to Tafsir Ibn Kathir, a widely used 14th-century commentary on the Qur'an:
"The Quraysh sent An-Nadr bin Al-Harith and `Uqbah bin Abi Mu`it to the Jewish rabbis in Al-Madinah, and told them: `Ask them (the rabbis) about Muhammad, and describe him to them, and tell them what he is saying. They are the people of the first Book, and they have more knowledge of the Prophets than we do.' So they set out and when they reached Al-Madinah, they asked the Jewish rabbis about the Messenger of Allah. They described him to them and told them some of what he had said. They said, `You are the people of the Tawrah and we have come to you so that you can tell us about this companion of ours.' They (the rabbis) said, `Ask him about three things which we will tell you to ask, and if he answers them then he is a Prophet who has been sent (by Allah); if he does not, then he is saying things that are not true, in which case how you will deal with him will be up to you. Ask him about some young men in ancient times, what was their story For theirs is a strange and wondrous tale. Ask him about a man who travelled a great deal and reached the east and the west of the earth. What was his story And ask him about the Ruh (soul or spirit) -- what is it If he tells you about these things, then he is a Prophet, so follow him, but if he does not tell you, then he is a man who is making things up, so deal with him as you see fit.[1]
According to Maududi's conservative 20th-century commentary:
"This Surah was sent down in answer to the three questions which the mushriks of Makkah, in consultation with the people of the Book, had put to the Holy Prophet in order to test him. These were: (1) Who were "the Sleepers of the Cave"? (2) What is the real story of Khidr? and (3) What do you know about Zul-Qarnain? As these three questions and the stories involved concerned the history of the Christians and the Jews, and were unknown in Hijaz, a choice of these was made to test whether the Holy Prophet possessed any source of the knowledge of the hidden and unseen things. Allah, however, not only gave a complete answer to their questions but also employed the three stories to the disadvantage of the opponents of Islam in the conflict that was going on at that time at Makkah between Islam and un-belief.">> [source - the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on 02/28/2006]

ACCEPTANCE BY MUHAMMAD OF THE MAKKAH'S SUPREME GOD DID NOT MEAN PEACE WITH THE MAKKAH.

Let's consider the Attack by the Makkans against Muhammad by an impeccable Muslim source.
"The Prophet, after arriving in Madinah, first formed an alliance with the Jews. Next, he approached all the nearby tribes and tried to persuade them to make an alliance or at least enter into a no-war pact. Many did. Thus the small group evicted from Makkah assumed strategic importance.

The Makkans who had earlier planned to kill the Prophet, were now determined to annihilate this nascent community of Islam. Having failed in all other ways they decided on a military solution...
As soon as the Hudaybiyah Treaty was signed, the Prophet sent letters to various neighbouring Arab and non-Arab rulers, including Chosroes of Iran and Heraclitus of the Byzantine Empire. He invited them to Islam, and assured them that he did not covet their kingdoms or riches. They could retain both, but only if they surrendered themselves to serve and worship the One God.

The Quraysh, however, soon broke the Treaty of Hudaybiyah. It was, thus, time to deal with their continuing hostility. The Prophet marched to Makkah, and captured the town. The fall of Makkah witnessed unparalleled acts of mercy forgiveness and generosity. Not a single drop of blood was shed. Everybody who remained indoors was granted security of life and property. The Prophet forgave all who had been his bitterest foes all his life, who had persecuted him and planned to kill him, who had driven him out of Makkah, and who had marched thrice to Madinah to defeat the Muslims.
[source - The Secretary General Mansura, Multan Road, Lahore, Pakistan. Ph: 92-42-7844605-9 Fax: 92-42-5419504]

Also, <<"It had become impossible for the Prophet (peace be upon him) to preach and for the ummah to live securely in Makkah.">> [source - Ministry of Hajj Kingdom of Asudi Arabia]

And, <<"Tawheed al-'Ebaadah (Maintaining The Unity of Worship)
In spite of the wide implications of the first two categories of Tawheed, firm belief in them alone is not sufficient to fulfill the Islamic requirements of Tawheed. Tawheed ar-Ruboobeeyah and Tawheed al-Asmaa was-Sifaat must be accompanied by their complement, Tawheed al-'Ebaadah, in order for Tawheed to be considered complete according to Islaam. This point is substantiated by the fact that Allaah Himself has related in clear terms that the Mushrikoon (idolators) of the Prophet's time confirmed many aspects of the first two forms of Tawheed. In the Qur'aan Allaah tells the Prophet (saws) to say to the pagans:
"Say: 'Who is it that gives you all sustenance from the sky and earth, governs sight and hearing, brings forth life from dead (matter) and death from the living, and plans the affairs of man?' They will all say 'Allaah'."35
"If you asked them who created them, they would surely say, 'Allaah' "36
"If you asked them who brings down water from the sky and with it brings the earth to life after its death? They will most certainly say, 'Allaah'."37

The pagan Makkans all knew that Allaah was their creator, sustainer, their Lord and Master yet that knowledge did not make them Muslims according to God. In fact,">>[source - USC - MSA Compendium of Muslim Text]

WHAT GOD REALLY IS THE MOON GOD ALLAH?

Let's look at the facts from renown historical writings:

"Namely that "Allah" is synonymous with the god Hubal of the pagan Makkans! ... Generally, objects of worship belonged to three genres: metal and wooden" [source - Bismika Alllahuma » Hubal In The Worship of Pre-Islamic Arab ].

And, "At the time of Muhammad, the Ka'abah was OFFICIALLY DEDICATED to the god Hubal, a deity who had been imported into Arabia from the Nabateans in what is now Jordan. But the pre-eminence of the shrine as well as the common belief in Mecca seems to suggest that it may have been dedicated originally to al-Llah, the High God of the Arabs ..." [Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet [Harper San Francisco; ISBN: 0062508865; Reprint edition, October 1993], pp. 61-62;]

And, "Pre-Islamic Arabia also had its stone deities. They were stone statues of shapeless volcanic or meteoric stones found in the deserts and believed to have been sent by astral deities. The most prominent deities were Hubal, the male god of the Ka'ba, and the three sister goddesses al-Lat, al-Manat, and al-Uzza; Muhammad's tribe, the Quraysh, thought these three goddesses to be the daughters of Allah. Hubal was the chief god of the Ka'ba among 360 other deities. He was a man-like statue whose body was made of red precious stone and whose arms were of solid gold. (George W. Braswell, Jr., Islam Its Prophets, Peoples, Politics and Power" [Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, TN; July, 1996], p. 44]

And, "The name Allah was used as the personal name of the moon god, in addition to other titles that could be given to him.

Allah, the moon god, was married to the sun goddess. Together they produced three goddesses who were called "the daughters of Allah." These three goddesses were called Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat.

The daughters of Allah, along with Allah and the sun goddess were viewed as 'high" gods. That is, they were viewed as being at the top of the pantheon of Arabian deities.

Along with Allah, however, they worshipped a host of lesser gods and "daughters of Al-lah'" [Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:61]".

These female puppet celestial goddess, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat, "These were also called 'the Daughters of Allah' and were supposed to intercede before God. When the Apostle of God was sent, God revealed unto him [concerning them] the following:" [source - Al-Tabari, Jami' al-Bay'dn fi Tafsir al-Qur'an, Cairo, 1323-1330, vol. xxvii, pp.34-36. Also F. V. Winnett, "The Daughters of Allah," in The Moslem World, vol. xxx (1940), pp. 113-130.]

And, "In Arabia, the sun god was viewed as a female goddess and the moon as the male god. As has been pointed out by many scholars such as Alfred Guilluame, the moon god was called by various names, one of which was Allah! [Islam: Muhammad, and His Religion, New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958,, p. 7].

And, "The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god." It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic." [source - Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies" by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pp. 173-190].

Allah was also known as Hubel, ""Among the gods worshiped by the Quraysh, the greatest was Hubal
...
Some additional details on this cleromantic deity, the most powerful of the pagan idols of Mecca, is supplied by the Meccan historian Azraqi ...
Amr ibn Luhayy brought with him (to Mecca) an idol called Hubal from the land of Hit in Mesopotamia. Hubal was one of the Quraysh's greatest idols so he set it up at the well inside the Kab'a and ordered the people to worship it. Thus a man coming back from a journey would visit it and circumambulate the House before going to his family, and would shave his hair before it ... "[Peters, Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places [Princeton University Press, NJ, 1994], pp. 24-25]

And, ""Khuza 'ah thus shared the guilt of Jurhum. They were also to blame in other respects: a chieftain of theirs, on his way back from a journey to SYRIA, had asked the MOABITES to give him ONE OF THEIR IDOLS. They gave him HUBAL, which he brought back to the Sanctuary, setting it up within the Ka'bah itself; and it became THE CHIEF IDOL OF MECCA." [Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, Inner Traditions International, LTD. One Park Street, Rochestor Vermont 05767, 1983, p. 5].

And this Hubel or Allah the Moon god is indicated to be known by others as the Biblically condemned god, 'Baal.' Commenting on 'Abd al-Muttalib's rediscovery of the well of Zamzam and its treasures, Lings writes:
"... So 'Abd al-Muttalib continued to dig without any actual move being made to stop him; and some of the people were already leaving the sanctuary when suddenly he struck the well's stone covering and uttered a cry of thanksgiving to God. The crowd reassembled and increased; and when he began to dig out the treasure which Jurhum had buried there, everyone claimed the right to share in it. 'Abd al-Muttalib agreed that lots should be cast for each object, as to whether it should be kept in the sanctuary or go to him personally or be divided amongst the tribe. This had become the recognised way of deciding an issue of doubt, and it was done by means of divining arrows inside the Ka'bah, in front of THE MOABITE IDOL HUBAL ..." (Lings, p. 11; bold and capital emphasis ours)
'Amr then asked them to give him an idol he could take to Arab lands where it could be worshipped, and they gave him one named Hubal. This he brought to Mecca and set on a pedestal and ordered the people to worship and venerate it. (The Life of the Prophet Muhammad (Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya), Volume I, translated by professor Trevor Le Gassick, reviewed by Dr. Ahmed Fareed" [Garnet Publishing Limited, 8 Southern Court, south Street Reading RG1 4QS, UK; The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, 1998], p. 42]

Interestingly, Ibn Kathir shows that the god of Muhammad's family was Hubal, and that his grandfather even prayed to Allah by facing Hubal's idol! Ibn Ishaq stated, "It is claimed that when 'Abd al-Mutallib received such opposition from Quraysh over the digging of zamzam, he vowed that if ten sons were born to him who grew up and protected him, he would sacrifice one of them for God at the ka'ba."

"Eventually he had ten sons grown up whom he knew would give him protection. Their names were al-Harith, al-Zubayr, Hajl, Dirar, al-Muqawwim, Abu Lahab, al-'Abbas, Hamza, Abu Talib, and 'Abd Allah. He assembled them and told them of his vow and asked them to honour his pledge to God, Almighty and All-glorious is He. They obeyed, and asked him what he wanted them to do. He asked each of them to take an arrow, write his name on it and return to him.
"They did so and went with them inside the ka'ba to the site of their god Hubal, where there was the well in which offerings to the ka'ba would be placed. There, near Hubal, were seven arrows which they would use for divining a judgement over some matter of consequence, a question of blood-money, kinship, or the like. They would come to Hubal to seek a resolution, accepting whatever they were ordered to do or to refrain from." [source - The Life of the Prophet Muhammad (Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya), Volume I, translated by professor Trevor Le Gassick, reviewed by Dr. Ahmed Fareed [Garnet Publishing Limited, 8 Southern Court, south Street Reading RG1 4QS, UK; The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, 1998 , pp. 126-127].

"Allah (allah, al-ilah, the god) was the principal, though not the only, deity of Makkah. The name is an ancient one. It occurs in two South Arabic inscriptions, one a Minean found at al-'Ula and the other Sabean, but abounds in the form HLH in the Lihyanite inscriptions of the fifth century B.C. Lihyan, which evidently got the god from Syria, was the first center of the worship of this deity in Arabia. The name occurs as Hallah in the Safa inscriptions five centuries before Islam and also in a pre-Islamic Christian Arabic inscription found in umm-al-Jimal, Syria, and ascribed to the sixth century. The name of Muhammad's father was 'Abd-Allah ('Abdullah, the slave or worshiper of Allah). The esteem in which Allah was held by the pre-Islamic Makkans as the creator and supreme provider and the one to be invoked in time of special peril may be inferred from such koranic passages as 31:24, 31; 6:137, 109; 10:23. Evidently he was the tribal deity of the Quraysh." [Palgrave Macmillan, 2002; ISBN: 0-333-63142-0 paperback], pp. 100-101].

And, "Ibn Kathir noted that Muhammad's family worshiped Hubal, with the Oxford Dictionary of Islam stating that Hubal was the Quraysh's patron deity. If Hitti is correct regarding Allah being the Quraysh's' tribal deity then this provides additional proof that Allah was a name for Hubal. Note the following syllogism:

1. Hubal was the chief deity of the Quraysh.
2. Allah was the chief deity of the Quraysh.
3. Therefore, Hubal was Allah in pre-Islamic times.

There is another indirect piece of evidence which links Allah to Baal. Writer, Franz Rosenthal, while commenting on the mass confusion which surrounded the Muslims regarding the precise meaning of as-samad (Cf. 112:2), posits a possible origin for the word. He says:
... There is enough room for suspicion to permit us having a look at some outside evidence.

There, we encounter a noteworthy phenomenon: the not infrequent religious connotation of the root smd.

In Ugaritic, smd appears as a stick or club that is wielded by Ba'l. In the Kilammu inscription, line 15, we find b'l smd, apparently, b'l as the owner of his divine club. In the Bible, the adherence of the Israelites to Baal of Peor is expressed by the nip'al of the root smd. The verb is translated by the Septuagint heteleuse (Numeri 25:3, 5; Ps. 106:28). The use of the verb doubtlessly reflects North Canaanite religious terminology.

From Arabic sources, we learn that an idol of 'Ad was allegedly called samud, which brings us rather close to the environment of Muhammad
...
In view of this material, the suggestion may be made that as-samad in the Qur'an is a survival of an ancient Northwest Semitic religious term, which may no longer have been understood by Muhammad himself, nor by the old poets (if the sawahid should be genuine). This suggestion would well account for the presence of the article with the word in the Qur'an, and it would especially well account for the hesitation of the commentators vis-a-vis so prominent a passage. Such hesitation is what we would expect if we are dealing with a pagan survival from the early period of the revelation." [What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, & Commentary, "Some Minor Problems in the Qur'an", edited with translation by Ibn Warraq {Prometheus Books, October, 2002, Hardcover; ISBN: 157392945X}, part 5.2, pp. 336-337]

Let's face it the proper name 'Allah' was much in use in pre-Islamic times and applied to pagan deities, now it is shown that 'Allah' is indicated to be the same as the pagan deity condemned by the Bible, 'Baal.'
"Allah, the paramount deity of pagan Arabia, was the target of worhip 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 worshiped him as "Ilah," and the Bedouins as "al-Ilah" (the deity). With Muhammad he becomes Allah, God of the Worlds, of all believers, the one and only who admits of no associates or consorts in the worship of Him. Judaic and Christian concepts of God abetted the transformation of Allah 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." [Caesar E. Farah, Ph.D., Islam {Barron's Educational Series, 2000, sixth edition paperback} p. 28]

CONCLUSION:

Clearly Islam owes term 'Allah' to the pagan/heathen Arabs. "We have evidence that it entered into numerous personal names in Northern Arabia and among the Nabatians. It occurs among the Arabs of later times, in theophorus names and on its own. Wellhausen also cites pre-Islamic literature where Allah is mentioned as a great deity. We also have the testimony of the Koran itself where He is recognized as a giver of rain, a creator, and so on; the Meccans only crime was to worship other gods beside Him. Eventually, Allah was only applied to the Supreme Deity. "In any case it is an extremely important fact that Muhammad did not find it necessary to introduce an altogether novel deity, but contented himself with ridding the heathen Allah of his companions subjecting him to a kind of dogmatic purification ... Had he not been accustomed from his youth to the idea of Allah as the Supreme God, in particular of Mecca, it may well be doubted whether he would ever have come forward as the preacher of Monotheism." [Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not A Muslim {Prometheus Books, Amherst NY, 1995}, pp. 39-40, 42]

Ibn Warraq continues on, "Interesting is the name HUBAL (in Arabic and Hebrew script the vowels were not noted). This shows a very suspicious connection to the Hebrew HABAAL (= the Baal). As we all know this was an idol mentioned in the Bible (Num. 25:3, Hosea 9:10, Deut. 4:3, Josh. 22:17 and Ps. 106:28-29). Where was Baal worshipped? In Moab! It was the "god of fertility". Amr ibn Luhaiy brought Hubal from Moab to Arabia.

The name 'Allah' (from 'al-Ilah' - 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. As we shall see later, an idol called Hubal was addressed as Allah. Muhammad's grandfather reportedly prayed to Hubal and addressed him as Allah. The deities al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat were called "the daughters of Allah" (Surah 53:19). "Allah was viewed, already before Muhammad, as the Lord of the Ka'ba, while, if not surely, but very probably, this sanctuary was devoted to Hubal, whose image was placed inside" (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" [Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not A Muslim {Prometheus Books, Amherst NY, 1995}, p. 219].

Therefore, "But the vague notion of Supreme (NOT SOLE) divinity which Allah seems to have connoted in Meccan religion was to BECOME both universal and transcendental; it was to be turned by the Kur'anic preaching, into the affirmation of the living God, the Exalted One." [Encyclopedia of Islam, 1960, p. 406; capital emphasis ours].

Part 2, The Facts on Allah:

The Fact on The Name "Allah"

It should not come as a surprise that the word "Allah" was not something invented by Muhammad or revealed for the first time in the Quran.

The well-known Middle East scholar H.A.R. Gibb has pointed out that the reason that Muhammad never had to explain who Allah was in the Quran is that his listeners had already heard about Allah long before Muhammad was ever born [Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey, New York: Mentor Books, 1955, p.38]

Dr. Arthur Jeffery, one of the foremost Western Islamic scholars in modern times and professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Columbia University, notes:

"The name Allah, as the Quran itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa" [Islam: Muhammad, and His Religion, New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958, p. 85]

The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god." It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic. (There is an interesting discussion of the origins of Allah, in "Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies" by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pp. 173-190)[source - Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pages 173-190]

Neither is Allah a Hebrew or Greek word for God as found in the Bible. Allah is a purely Arabic term used in reference to an Arabian deity. Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326, T & T Clark, states:

'"Allah" is a proper name, applicable only to their [Arabs'] peculiar God. '

According to the Encyclopedia of Religion:

'"Allah" is a pre-Islamic name . . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel' [Encyclopedia of Religion, I:117 Washington DC, Corpus Pub., 1979]

For those who find it hard to believe that Allah was a pagan name for a peculiar pagan Arabian deity in pre-Islamic times, the following quotations may be helpful:

"Allah is found . . . in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam" [Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643]

"The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshipped, after a fashion, a supreme god called Allah" [Encyclopedia off Islam, I:302, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1913, Houtsma]

"Allah was known to the pre-Islamic . . . Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities" [Enyclopedia of Islam, I:406, ed. Gibb]

"Ilah . . . appears in pre-Islamic poetry . . . By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to Allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry" [Encyclopedia of Islam, III:1093, 1971]

"The name Allah goes back before Muhammad" [Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:41, Anthony Mercatante, New York, The Facts on File, 1983]

"The origin of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity" [Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, I:326, Hastings]

To the testimony of the above standard reference works, we add those of such scholars as Henry Preserved Smith of Harvard University who has stated:

"Allah was already known by name to the Arabs" [The Bible and Islam: or, The Influence of the Old and New Testament on the Religion of Mohammed, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897, p. 102].

Dr. Kenneth Cragg, former editor of the prestigious scholarly journal Muslim World and an outstanding modern Western Islamic scholar, whose works are generally published by Oxford University, comments:

"The name Allah is also evident in archeological and literary remains of pre-Islamic Arabia" [The Call of the Minaret, New York: Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 31].

Dr. W. Montgomery Watt, who was Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University and Visiting Professor of Islamic studies at College de France, Georgetown University, and the University of Toronto, has done extensive work on the pre-Islamic concept of Allah. He concludes:

"In recent years I have become increasingly convinced that for an adequate understanding of the career of Muhammad and the origins of Islam great importance must be attached to the existence in Mecca of belief in Allah as a "high god." In a sense this is a form of paganism, but it is so different from paganism as commonly understood that it deserves separate treatment" [William Montgomery Watt, Muhammad's Mecca, p. vii. Also see his article, "Belief in a High God in Pre-Islamic Mecca", Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. 16, 1971, pp. 35-40]

Caesar Farah in his book on Islam concludes his discussion of the pre-Islamic meaning of Allah by saying:

"There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea that Allah passed to the Muslims from the Christians and Jews" [Islam: Beliefs and Observations, New York, Barrons, 1987, p. 28].

According to Middle East scholar E.M. Wherry, whose translation of the Quran is still used today, in pre-Islamic times Allah-worship, as well as the worship of Ba-al, were both astral religions in that they involved the worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars [A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran, Osnabruck: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1973, p. 36].

Also, I have shown 'Allah' is a proper name for the Moon god, and the title for any god in Arabic is 'Ilah.' The title god in Arabic is 'Ilah,' and not Allah. 'Ilah' is a title; whereas, Allah is a proper name of a specific 'Ilah,' so get a dose of reality. Also, several New Testament Bibles in Arabic the title ' Ar-Rab' means "The Lord" is used.

APPENDIX:

[1]Interestingly, here are the meanings of several important words in Arabic:

Jesus in Arabic is Yesua

Word in Arabic is Kalam

Spirit in Arabic is Ruh

God in Arabic is Ilah

The in Arabic is El

[2] Astral Religions
In Arabia, the sun god was viewed as a female goddess and the moon as the male god. As has been pointed out by many scholars such as Alfred Guilluame, the moon god was called by various names, one of which was Allah! (Islam, p. 7).

The name Allah was used as the personal name of the moon god, in addition to other titles that could be given to him.

Allah, the moon god, was married to the sun goddess. Together they produced three goddesses who were called "the daughters of Allah." These three goddesses were called Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat.

The daughters of Allah, along with Allah and the sun goddess were viewed as "high" gods. That is, they were viewed as being at the top of the pantheon of Arabian deities.

"Along with Allah, however, they worshipped a host of lesser gods and "daughters of Al-lah" [SOURCE - Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:61].

[3] The old middle eastern Moon god who has gone by many names is still well venerated. This is shown by "The Archeology of The Middle East" which states, "The religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters.

Archaeologists have uncovered temples to the Moon-god throughout the Middle East. From the mountains of Turkey to the banks of the Nile, the most wide-spread religion of the ancient world was the worship of the Moon-god. In the first literate civilization, the Sumerians have left us thousands of clay tablets in which they described their religious beliefs. As demonstrated by Sjoberg and Hall, the ancient Sumerians worshipped a Moon-god who was called many different names. The most popular names were Nanna, Suen and Asimbabbar. His symbol was the crescent moon. Given the amount of artifacts concerning the worship of this Moon-god, it is clear that this was the dominant religion in Sumeria. The cult of the Moon-god was the most popular religion throughout ancient Mesopotamia. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Akkadians took the word Suen and transformed it into the word Sin as their favorite name for the Moon-god. As Prof. Potts pointed out, "Sin is a name essentially Sumerian in origin which had been borrowed by the Semites." [source - The Archeology of the Middle East]"[additional references - "South Arabia's stellar religion has always been dominated by the Moon-god in various variations" (Berta Segall, The Iconography of Cosmic Kingship, the Art Bulletin, vol.xxxviii, 1956, p.77).; Isaac Rabinowitz, Aramaic Inscriptions of the Fifth Century, JNES, XV, 1956, pp.1-9; Edward Linski, The Goddess Atirat in Ancient Arabia, in Babylon and in Ugarit: Her Relation to the Moon-god and the Sun-goddess, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, 3:101-9; H.J.Drivers, Iconography and Character of the Arab Goddess Allat, found in Études Preliminaries Aux Religions Orientales Dans L'Empire Roman, ed. Maarten J. Verseren, Leiden, Brill, 1978, pp.331-51); Richard Le Baron Bower Jr. and Frank P. Albright, Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1958, p.78ff; Ray Cleveland, An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1965; Nelson Gleuck, Deities and Dolphins, New York, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1965).; Another Aramaic Record of the North Arabian goddess Han'Llat, JNES, XVIII, 1959, pp.154-55.[source - There is Only One True God by Iris the Preacher 2005]

Part 3, The Old Middle Eastern Moon God - Allah:

ANSWERS ON THE MOON GOD ALLAH

One individual asked,

I checked your website, http://www.freewebs.com/iris_the_preacher , and there's this sentence in the page that caught my attention:
"...Also, there is the false moon god Allah to contend with as put forth by Muslims."

FIRST, This individual was in error, as the Arabic word for deity or god is Ilah. Let's look at the facts from an encyclopedia,

?ilah is the Arabic for "deity". It is cognate to Northwest Semitic 'el and Akkadian ilu. The word is from a Proto-Semitic archaic biliteral ?-l meaning "god" (possibly with a wider meaning of "strong"), which was extended to a regular triliteral by the addition of a h (as in Hebrew Eloah). The word is spelled either ??? with an optional diacritic alif to mark the a (as is the case with Allah), or (more rarely) with a full alif, ???? .
The feminine is ?ilahah ????? "goddess", with the article, al-?ilahah ????? according to Lane's 1893 Lexicon referring to the great serpent in particular, "because it was a special object of the worship of some of the ancient Arabs", or the new moon (see also Allat).
In Islamic context, an ilah is the concept of a deity, lord or god and does not necessarily refer to Allah. The term is used throughout the Qur'an in passages detailing the existence of Allah as the only Ilah, and of the beliefs of non-Muslims in other Ilah(s).[source - Wikipedia free Encyclopedia]

SECOND, Here is some more enlightenment for you,

[source - The Archeology of the Middle East]"[additional references - "South Arabia's stellar religion has always been dominated by the Moon-god in various variations" (Berta Segall, The Iconography of Cosmic Kingship, the Art Bulletin, vol.xxxviii, 1956, p.77).; Isaac Rabinowitz, Aramaic Inscriptions of the Fifth Century, JNES, XV, 1956, pp.1-9; Edward Linski, The Goddess Atirat in Ancient Arabia, in Babylon and in Ugarit: Her Relation to the Moon-god and the Sun-goddess, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, 3:101-9; H.J.Drivers, Iconography and Character of the Arab Goddess Allat, found in Études Preliminaries Aux Religions Orientales Dans L'Empire Roman, ed. Maarten J. Verseren, Leiden, Brill, 1978, pp.331-51); Richard Le Baron Bower Jr. and Frank P. Albright, Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1958, p.78ff; Ray Cleveland, An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1965; Nelson Gleuck, Deities and Dolphins, New York, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1965).; Another Aramaic Record of the North Arabian goddess Han'Llat, JNES, XVIII, 1959, pp.154-55.

THIRD, Also, you should go read the following of which I am only posting the introduction,

Allah - the Moon God

The Archeology of The Middle East
The religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters. [source - Yeshua Communications Network]

You can read all at:

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/moongod.htm

FOURTH, You overlook this source which has many links on the subject, but here I will only quote the introduction,

Hubal and Allah the Moon God?

Islam: Truth or Myth? start page

Introduction to basic facts of history:

Moon worship has been practiced in Arabia since 2000 BC. The crescent moon is the most common symbol of this pagan moon worship as far back as 2000 BC.
In Mecca, there was a god named Hubal who was Lord of the Kabah.
This Hubal was a moon god.
One Muslim apologist confessed that the idol of moon god Hubal was placed upon the roof of the Kaba about 400 years before Muhammad. This may in fact be the origin of why the crescent moon is on top of every minaret at the Kaba today and the central symbol of Islam atop of every mosque throughout the world:
About four hundred years before the birth of Muhammad one Amr bin Lahyo ... a descendant of Qahtan and king of Hijaz, had put an idol called Hubal on the roof of the Kaba. This was one of the chief deities of the Quraish before Islam. (Muhammad The Holy Prophet, Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar (Pakistan), p 18-19, Muslim)
The moon god was also referred to as "al-ilah". This is not a proper name of a single specific god, but a generic reference meaning "the god". Each local pagan Arab tribe would refer to their own local tribal pagan god as "al-ilah".
"al-ilah" was later shortened to Allah before Muhammad began promoting his new religion in 610 AD.
There is evidence that Hubal was referred to as "Allah".
When Muhammad came along, he dropped all references to the name "Hubal" but retained the generic "Allah".
Muhammad retained almost all the pagan rituals of the Arabs at the Kaba and redefined them in monotheistic terms.
Regardless of the specifics of the facts, it is clear that Islam is derived from paganism that once worshiped a moon-god.
Although Islam is today a monotheist religion, its roots are in paganism.[source - Brother Andrew]

You can read all at and go also to the links, go to:

http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-moon-god.htm

FIFTH, One expert of Islam, Starjade, has a lot to say on the celestian Moon god, one of the puppet gods of Satan the Devil and the false prophet at:

http://www.geocities.com/end_of_times/chapterseven.htm

And,

http://www.geocities.com/end_of_times/su...hytwo.html

And,

http://www.geocities.com/end_of_times/surapge1.html

SIXTH, Now here is something else you should read to see the proof of what I stated in my two articles which incidentally were NOT about the Moon god, a puppet celestial god of Satan the Devil, but about the only true God (YHWH) maker of heaven and earth, a point you obviously missed. But since you made the challenge, I am answering it with abundant evidence of the obvious. Now here is an introduction to another important article on the subject,

Was Allah The Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan?
By Syed Kamran Mirza
Historical evidences, impartial logic, well versed references and all available circumstantial judgments can very well prove that-(a) Allah name of deity was pre-existed much before the arrival of Islam, ( Pre-Islamic Pagan peoples worshipped Allah as their supreme deity (moon-god). Allah's name existed in pre-Islamic Arab. In ancient Arab the Allah was considered to be the supreme God/deity (as Moon-God) and Arab Pagans worshipped Allah before Islam arrived.
Let us examine below some valid questions and answers :
Did the Pagan Arabs in pre-Islamic times worship 360 gods? Yes
Did the pagans Arabs worship the sun, moon and the stars? Yes
Did the Arabs built temples to the Moon-god? Yes
Did different Arab tribes give the Moon-god different names/titles? Yes
What were some of the names/titles? Sin, Hubul, Ilumquh, Al-ilah.
Was the title "al-ilah" (the god) used as the Moon-god? Yes
Was the word "Allah" derived from "al-ilah?" Yes
Was the pagan "Allah" a high god in a pantheon of deities? Yes.
Was he worshipped at the Kabah? Yes.
Was Allah only one of many Meccan gods? Yes
Did they place a statue of Hubul on top of the Kabah? Yes.
At that time was Hubul considered the Moon-god? Yes.
Was the Kabah thus the "house of the Moon-god"? Yes.
Did the name "Allah" eventually replace that of Hubul as the name of the Moon god? Yes.
Did they call the Kabah the "house of Allah"? Yes.
Were al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat called "the daughters of Allah"? Yes.
Yusuf Ali explains in fn. 5096, pg. 1445, that Lat, Uzza and Manat were known as "the daughters of God [Allah]"
Did the Qur'an at one point tell Muslims to worship al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat? Yes. In Surah 53:19-20.
Have those verses been "abrogated" out of the present Qur'an? Yes.
What were they called? "The Satanic Verses."[source - Was Allah The Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan?
By Syed Kamran Mirza ]

Now to read the complete article, go to:

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/skm30804.htm

SEVENTH, Go read, "English - Allah Had No Son" by Jack T. Chick LLC, which is an interesting cartoon that reveals the truth about the Moon god, 'Allah,'. You can view this at:

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0042/0042_01.asp

EIGHTH, And here is another item you should go read and also visit all of the links,

Archaeological photo gallery of the Arabian Moon-God
The names of the moon god in Arabia were Wadd, `Amm, Sin, Il Mukah, Hubal and Allah.
The crescent moon symbol of Islam is a remnant of ancient pagan moon worship.

Now go to:

http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-photos-m...alolgy.htm

NINTH, Go read the following also,

Allah, the moon god of the Kaba:
Islam Truth or Myth? ^ | Brother Andrew
Posted on 12/18/2002 6:24:27 AM PST by robowombat
Allah, the moon god of the Kaba:

Go read the entire article and visit links at:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/808560/posts

TENTH, Go read the following also,

Thoth
(Thot, Thout; Egyptian Djhowtey, Djehuti, Tehuti, Zehuti)
Egyptian moon god. Over time, he developed as a god of wisdom, and came to be associated with magic, music, medicine, astronomy, geometry, surveying, drawing and writing. Thoth was generally depicted in human form with the head of an ibis, wearing a crown consisting of a crescent moon topped by a moon disk. He could also be depicted wholly as an ibis or a baboon. Both the ibis and the baboon were sacred to him. His principal sanctuary was at Hermopolis (Khmunu) in the Nile delta region.

Go read the entire article at,

http://sobek.colorado.edu/LAB/GODS/throth.html

ELEVENTH, Go to,

Information Center

Go look at the many links on the subject of the Moon god at,

http://www.chick.com/information/religions/islam/

TWELTH, Go read,

Thoth, God of the Moon, Magic and Writing...by Caroline Seawright

Go look this article on the subject of the Moon god at,

http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoich...thoth.html

THIRTEEN, Go read,

ALLAH - The Moon God

The religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters.

Now look at this article at,

http://www.abrahamic-faith.com/moon-god.html

Sequel to ANSWERS ON THE MOON GOD ALLAH

Now let's look at more facts on the name of the old middle eastern celestial Moon god, "Allah,"

Allah is the name of the only God in Islam. Allah is a pre-Islamic name coming from the compound Arabic word Al-ilah which means the God, which is derived from al (the) ilah (deity). It was formerly the name of the chief god among the numerous idols (360) in the Kaaba in Mecca before Mohammed made them into monotheists. Today a Muslim is one who submits to the God Allah.
Islam means submission to (Allah), but originally it meant that strength which characterized a desert warrior who, even when faced with impossible odds, would fight to the death for his tribe. [source - Dr. M. Baravmann, The Spiritual Background of Early Islam, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1972]

And,

Many believe the word "Allah" was derived from the mid- eastern word "el" which in Ugaritic, Caananite and Hebrew can mean a true or false God. This is not the case, "The source of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity." [source - Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (ed. Hastings), I:326.]

And,

According to the Encyclopedia of Religion, Allah corresponded to the Babylonian god Baal, and Arabs knew of him long before Mohammed worshipped him as the supreme God. Before Islam the Arabs recognized many gods and goddesses, each tribe had their own deity. There were also nature deities. Allah was the god of the local Quarish tribe, which was Mohammed's tribe before he invented Islam to lead his people out of their polytheism. Allah was then known as the Moon God, who had 3 daughters who were viewed as intercessors for the people into Allah. Their names were Al-at, Al-uzza, and Al-Manat, which were three goddesses; the first two daughters of Allah had names which were feminine forms of Allah. Hubal was the chief God of the Kaaba among the other 360 deities. Hubal was the chief God of the Kaaba among the other 360 deities. Hubal was a statue likeness of a man whose body was made of red precious stones whose arms were made of gold. [source reference - Islam George Braswell Jr.]

And,

"Historians like Vaqqidi have said Allah was actually the chief of the 360 gods being worshipped in Arabia at the time Mohammed rose to prominence. Ibn Al-Kalbi gave 27 names of pre-Islamic deities...Interestingly, not many Muslims want to accept that Allah was already being worshipped at the Ka'ba in Mecca by Arab pagans before Mohammed came. Some Muslims become angry when they are confronted with this fact. But history is not on their side. Pre-Islamic literature has proved this." [source - G. J. O. Moshay, Who Is This Allah? (Dorchester House, Bucks, UK, 1994), pg. 138].

And,

History has shown Mecca and the holy stone al-Kaaba were holy sites for pre-Islamic pagan Arabs. The Kaaba in Mecca was formerly named Beit-Allah meaning House of Allah. We are told it was first built in heaven. This is in contradistinction to what Moses was instructed to build, something overlooked by the Muslims in their reading of the Bible.

The Koran tells us that Mohammed drove the other idols away; he made one God now the only god and he was its messenger. He kept the Kaaba as a holy, sacred place and confirmed that the black stone had the power to take away man's sins. He obligated every believer to make a pilgrimage to the stone at least once in his lifetime. (Sura 22:26-37) No Old Testament saint ever had a pilgrimage to the Kaaba and kissed its black stone despite stories that Abraham and Ishmael restored it.

[b]Mohammed used the name Allah which was formerly the name of a specific idol without ever distinguishing it from the idol the Meccan's were already worshipping.[/b] This was a modification of their former worship but never a complete break. He never did say for the people to stop their worship of the wrong Allah, for the right one. It can still be monotheism and not be the God of the Bible
Al-Lat which is a T at the end of the name of Allah, was represented by a square stone whose major sanctuary was in the city of Taif. In the sanctuary was a black stone in the town of Qudayd between Mecca and Medina. She was the goddess of fate, a female counterpart of Allah. Al-uzza was the goddess of east Mecca. It has been said there were human sacrifices made to her and Islamic tradition tells of a story of Mohammed's grandfather almost sacrificing his son the father of Mohammed to her. What prevented this was his seeking counsel from a fortune teller which told him to ransom his son with one hundred camels. Muslims look to this as the will of Allah to bring Mohammed into existence. (Reference Muhammad husain haykal, Hayat mohammed)

"The name Allah, as the Qur'an itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa." [source - Arthur Jeffrey, ed., Islam: Muhammad and His Religion (1958), p. 85.)]

.


Part 4, The Mythical Family of The Mythical God Allah:

The Family of Allah:

INTRODUCTION:

As we all know, the family of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Issac, Ishmael, Noah, Moses, etc., the creator of all there is, consist of himself; his only begotten Son, Jesus (Yeshua), referred to in the Bible as the Son of God at numerous places. As an example, at Matthew 14:33, "Then they that were in the ship came and worship

[iris89]

Part 2 of reply to false Claim 1.

Part 4, The Mythical Family of The Mythical God Allah:

The Family of Allah:

INTRODUCTION:

As we all know, the family of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Issac, Ishmael, Noah, Moses, etc., the creator of all there is, consist of himself; his only begotten Son, Jesus (Yeshua), referred to in the Bible as the Son of God at numerous places. As an example, at Matthew 14:33, "Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God." (Authorized King James Bible; AV). Also, the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Issac, Ishmael, Noah, Moses, etc., the creator of all there is, family of loyal angels in heaven and his family of loyal followers on earth.

Not only does the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Issac, Ishmael, Noah, Moses, etc., the creator of all there is, the real God have a family; the mythical god, "Allah" has a family also.

But there has been little said on the family of Allah. In fact, most do not know what was known in ancient Arabia, Allah was the male god and his wife was the female goddess. This is what Professor Guillaume had to say on this couple, <<<" In Arabia, the sun god was viewed as a female goddess and the moon as the male god. As has been pointed out by many scholars such as Alfred Alfred Guilluame, the moon god was called by various names, one of which was Allah!"[source - "Islam", by Professor Guillaume, p. 7].

This couple produced three goddesses, and they were the daughters of Allah and were called, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat. This is what the Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend had to say on them in brief, <<<" The name Allah was used as the personal name of the moon god, in addition to other titles that could be given to him.

Allah, the moon god, was married to the sun goddess. Together they produced three goddesses who were called "the daughters of Allah." These three goddesses were called Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat.

The daughters of Allah, along with Allah and the sun goddess were viewed as "high" gods. That is, they were viewed as being at the top of the pantheon of Arabian deities.

"Along with Allah, however, they worshipped a host of lesser gods and "daughters of Al-lah" [source - Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:61]>>>.

One writer said this of the family of Allah, <<<" Muslims usually argue that their 'Allah' is the same deity as the Judeo-Christian God. For sincere Jews or Christians, that statement ought to be considered as a profound blasphemy, since it destroys their concept of God. By accepting such a thesis one is admitting Islam as the true religion, above Judaism and Christianity. One has not come across any arguments that can prove that 'Allah' is just another name for the Judeo-Christian God. The Islamic scholar Caesar Farah states: "There is no reason, therefore, accept the idea that Allah passed to the Muslims from the Christians and Jews." (Ceasar Farah, Islam: Beliefs and Observations (New York, 1987), 28.) And as their characters are examined, they seem to be of a completely different nature and reveal contradicting scriptures.

'Allah', in fact, has a genealogy that can be traced through Yemen to Babylon, the mother of all idolatry. In Babylon, paganism began at the time of Nimrod, the alleged builder of the Tower of Babel. After the confusion of languages, Babylonian idolatry spread all over the world. Nimrod had been dei-fied and was known as Baal, Molech,.... and finally, as Allah. The Baal worship was conducted by sacrifices, prostrations and kissing the idol, (See I. Kings 19:18) which was the same type of service conducted at the Kaaba and other places in Arabia. There are also traces of a direct Baal worship among the Arabs: "And God helped him [King Uzziah of Juda] against the Philistines, and against the Arabians that dwelt in Gur-baal, and the Mehunims [probably Mineanites from Yemen]." (II Chron. 26:7) It was common to add Baal's name to the city where he was worshipped and thus it was obviously so in Gur. Inscriptions with Baal's name have been found in Central Arabia at some oasis where Arabian inhabitants had settled. The great scholar William Robertson Smith argues that the most developed cults of Arabia belong not to the pure nomads, but to these agricultural and trading settlements, which the Bedouin visited only as pilgrims, not to pay stated homage to the lord of the land from which they drew their life, but in fulfilment of vows. (William Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites. The Fundamental Institutions (London, 1902), 109.)

Concerning the Kaaba, Muslims' holiest place, Ibn Ishaq gives us an example of such fulfilment of vows, when he reports the story of a Jurhum woman who "had been barren and vowed to Allah that if she bore a son she would give him to the Kaaba as a slave to serve it and to look after it." (quoted in; Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 49.) In Mesopotamia, and consequently in all the known world, the firstfruits of the crops or cattle were sacrificed to the fertility god. A sacred plot of land was offered to the deity, where he could abide and accept their offerings. In Mecca, the earlier fertility god named Baal was replaced with desert gods, the Aramaic Allah and the Yemenite Hubal.

The ancient world usually worshipped a pantheon of gods, where higher and lesser gods battled for supremacy. All these pantheons had many similarities, for example, always including a relationship between a high male-god and a mothergoddess. Religious beliefs were often a spiritual form or the exaltation of the society the worshippers happened to be a part of. In primitive tribal societies, the family was the integral part which formed the basis of solidarity, wealth, protection and daily support. Thus, a family of deities was the normal state of worship.

In Arabian archaeology a large number of inscriptions on rocks, tablets and walls, have pointed to the worship of a family of four; one male and his three 'daughters' or goddesses. Those three goddesses are sometimes engraved together with Allah, represented by a crescent moon above them. But Allah was the 'Lord of the Kaaba... Lord of Manat, al-Lat, and al-Uzza...and even as 'Lord of Sirius'.'(Peters, Muhammad, 98.) His 'daughters' were his associates, helpers and were themselves worshipped, after the manner of ancient Babylonian customs and symbolised by astronomical symbols".[Source - Islam and Goddess Worship; http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/fem4.htm]>>>.

Now that we know who his family consisted of, let's look at the details:

DETAILS ON THE MOON GOD "ALLAH" :

Muslims believe that God revealed his final message to humanity through the Islamic prophet Muhammad via the angel Gabriel.[Reference - "Introduction" by Watton (1993)] They consider Muhammad to have been God's final prophet, the "Seal of the Prophets", and the Qur'an to be the revelations he received in his 23 years of preaching.[source - "Qur'an", Encyclopedia of Christianity (2001)] Muslims hold that all of God's messengers since Adam preached the message of Islam - submission to the will of the one God. To Muslims, Islam is the eternal religion, described in the Qur'an as "the primordial nature upon which God created mankind".[References - 19. ^ Qur'an Sura 30:30; and "Islam", Encyclopedia of Religion]. Furthermore, the Qur'an states that the proper name Muslim was given by Abraham.[Reference - Qur'an Sura 22:78; and "Tahrif", Encyclopaedia of Islam Online].

As a historical phenomenon, however, Islam was originated in Arabia in early 7th century.[Reference - "Islam", Encyclopedia of Religion]. Islamic texts depict Judaism and Christianity as prophetic successor traditions to the teachings of Abraham. The Qur'an calls Jews and Christians "People of the Book", and distinguishes them from polytheists. However, Muslims believe that parts of the previously revealed scriptures, the Tawrat (Torah) and the Injil (Gospels), had become distorted as indicated in the Qur'an - either in interpretation, in text, or both.[Reference - "Tahrif", Encyclopaedia of Islam Online]

Islamic belief has six main components - belief in God; his revelations; his angels; his messengers; the "Day of Judgement"; and the divine ecree.[References - Sahih Muslim 1:1; and "Iman", Encyclopaedia of Islam Online]

Allah, God, Islamic concept of God, and Tawhid [no Trinity]. The fundamental concept in Islam is the oneness of God (tawhid): monotheism which is simple and uncompounded, not composed or made up of parts.[Resource - "Tawhid", Britannica Concise Encyclopedia]. The oneness of God is the first of Islam's five pillars, expressed by the Shahadah (testification). By declaring the Shahadah, a Muslim attests to the belief that there are no gods but God, and that Muhammad is God's messenger.[Reference - Griffith (2006), p.248].

In Arabic, God is called Allah. Etymologically, this name is thought to be derived from a contraction of the Arabic words al- (the) and ilah (deity, masculine form) - al-ilah meaning "the God".[Source - "Allah", Encyclopaedia of Islam Online].

The first sura in a Qur'anic manuscript by Hattat Aziz Efendi, says, <<<"The Qur'an is considered by Muslims to be the literal word of God, and is the central religious text of Islam. It has also been called, in English, the Koran and, archaically, the Alcoran. The word Qur'an means "recitation".[Reference - a b c Teece (2003), pp.12,13]. Although the Qur'an is often referred to as a "book", when Muslims speak in the abstract about "the Qur'an", they usually mean the scripture as recited in Arabic rather than the printed work or any translation of it.[Reference - C. Turner (2006), p.42] Muslims believe that the verses of the Qur'an were revealed to Muhammad by God through the Angel Gabriel on numerous occasions between the years 610 and his death on July 6, 632.">>>[Note, much of the above was taken from the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia].

Now that the general concept of how Islam views "Allah" is hopefully understood, let's proceed with historical details on this mythical celestial god.

Many in Islam claim their god is the same as the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, and Jacob, creator of all there is, but this is not true as will be shown:

Origins of the word "Allah," let's look at the facts from renown historical sources:

The well-known Middle East scholar H.A.R. Gibb has pointed out that the reason that Muhammad never had to explain who Allah was in the Quran is that his listeners had already heard about Allah long before Muhammad was ever born [source - (Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey, New York: Mentor Books, 1955, p.38)].

Dr. Arthur Jeffery, one of the foremost Western Islamic scholars in modern times and professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Columbia University, notes:

"The name Allah, as the Quran itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa" [source - Islam: Muhammad, and His Religion, New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958, p. 85].

The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god." It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic. [source - There is an interesting discussion of the origins of Allah, in "Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies" by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pp. 173-190].

Neither is Allah a Hebrew or Greek word for God as found in the Bible. Allah is a purely Arabic term used in reference to an Arabian deity. [source - Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326, T & T Clark], states:

'"Allah" is a proper name, applicable only to their [Arabs'] peculiar God. '

According to the Encyclopedia of Religion:

'"Allah" is a pre-Islamic name . . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel' [source - Encyclopedia of Religion, I:117 Washington DC, Corpus Pub., 1979].

For those who find it hard to believe that Allah was a pagan name for a peculiar pagan Arabian deity in pre-Islamic times, the following quotations may be helpful:

"Allah is found . . . in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam" [source - Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643].

"The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshipped, after a fashion, a supreme god called Allah" [Encyclopedia off Islam, I:302, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1913, Houtsma].

"Allah was known to the pre-Islamic . . . Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities" [Encyclopedia off Islam, I:406, ed. Gibb).

"Ilah . . . appears in pre-Islamic poetry . . . By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to Allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry" (Encyclopedia off Islam, III:1093, 1971].

"The name Allah goes back before Muhammad" [source - Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:41, Anthony Mercatante, New York, The Facts on File, 1983].

"The origin of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity" [source - Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, I:326, Hastings].

To the testimony of the above standard reference works, we add those of such scholars as Henry Preserved Smith of Harvard University who has stated:

"Allah was already known by name to the Arabs" [source - The Bible and Islam: or, The Influence of the Old and New Testament on the Religion of Mohammed, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897, p. 102]

"Ilah is the Arabic for "deity". It is cognate to Northwest Semitic ' and Akkadian ilu. The word is from a Proto-Semitic archaic biliteral meaning "god" (possibly with a wider meaning of "strong"), which was extended to a regular triliteral by the addition of a h (as in Hebrew Eloah). ...[omitted as not English characters] with an optional diacritic alif to mark ...; (as is the case with Allah), or (more rarely) with a full alif...; .The feminine is;hah "goddess", with the article, al...[omitted as not English characters]; according to Lane's 1893 Lexicon referring to the great serpent in particular, "because it was a special object of the worship of some of the ancient Arabs", or the new moon (see also Allat).In Islamic context, an ilah is the concept of a deity, lord or god and does not necessarily refer to Allah. The term is used throughout the Qur'an in passages detailing the existence of Allah as the only Ilah, and of the beliefs of non-Muslims in other Ilah(s)."[source - Wikipedia free Encyclopedia]

[source - The Archeology of the Middle East]"[additional references - "South Arabia's stellar religion has always been dominated by the Moon-god in various variations" (Berta Segall, The Iconography of Cosmic Kingship, the Art Bulletin, vol.xxxviii, 1956, p.77).; Isaac Rabinowitz, Aramaic Inscriptions of the Fifth Century, JNES, XV, 1956, pp.1-9; Edward Linski, The Goddess Atirat in Ancient Arabia, in Babylon and in Ugarit: Her Relation to the Moon-god and the Sun-goddess, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, 3:101-9; H.J.Drivers, Iconography and Character of the Arab Goddess Allat, found in Études Preliminaries Aux Religions Orientales Dans L'Empire Roman, ed. Maarten J. Verseren, Leiden, Brill, 1978, pp.331-51); Richard Le Baron Bower Jr. and Frank P. Albright, Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1958, p.78ff; Ray Cleveland, An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1965; Nelson Gleuck, Deities and Dolphins, New York, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1965).; Another Aramaic Record of the North Arabian goddess Han'Llat, JNES, XVIII, 1959, pp.154-55.]

Allah - the Moon God The Archeology of The Middle EastThe religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters. [source - Yeshua Communications Network]


"Hubal and Allah the Moon God?Islam: Truth or Myth? start page Introduction to basic facts of history:Moon worship has been practiced in Arabia since 2000 BC. The crescent moon is the most common symbol of this pagan moon worship as far back as 2000 BC. In Mecca, there was a god named Hubal who was Lord of the Kabah. This Hubal was a moon god. One Muslim apologist confessed that the idol of moon god Hubal was placed upon the roof of the Kaba about 400 years before Muhammad. This may in fact be the origin of why the crescent moon is on top of every minaret at the Kaba today and the central symbol of Islam atop of every mosque throughout the world: About four hundred years before the birth of Muhammad one Amr bin Lahyo ... a descendant of Qahtan and king of Hijaz, had put an idol called Hubal on the roof of the Kaba. This was one of the chief deities of the Quraish before Islam. (Muhammad The Holy Prophet, Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar (Pakistan), p 18-19, Muslim)The moon god was also referred to as "al-ilah". This is not a proper name of a single specific god, but a generic reference meaning "the god". Each local pagan Arab tribe would refer to their own local tribal pagan god as "al-ilah". "al-ilah" was later shortened to Allah before Muhammad began promoting his new religion in 610 AD. There is evidence that Hubal was referred to as "Allah". When Muhammad came along, he dropped all references to the name "Hubal" but retained the generic "Allah". Muhammad retained almost all the pagan rituals of the Arabs at the Kaba and redefined them in monotheistic terms. Regardless of the specifics of the facts, it is clear that Islam is derived from paganism that once worshiped a moon-god. Although Islam is today a monotheist religion, its roots are in paganism."[source - Brother Andrew]

Was Allah The Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan? By Syed Kamran Mirza Historical evidences, impartial logic, well versed references and all available circumstantial judgments can very well prove that-(a) Allah name of deity was pre-existed much before the arrival of Islam, ( Pre-Islamic Pagan peoples worshipped Allah as their supreme deity (moon-god). Allah's name existed in pre-Islamic Arab. In ancient Arab the Allah was considered to be the supreme God/deity (as Moon-God) and Arab Pagans worshipped Allah before Islam arrived. Let us examine below some valid questions and answers :Did the Pagan Arabs in pre-Islamic times worship 360 gods? YesDid the pagans Arabs worship the sun, moon and the stars? YesDid the Arabs built temples to the Moon-god? YesDid different Arab tribes give the Moon-god different names/titles? YesWhat were some of the names/titles? Sin, Hubul, Ilumquh, Al-ilah. Was the title "al-ilah" (the god) used as the Moon-god? YesWas the word "Allah" derived from "al-ilah?" YesWas the pagan "Allah" a high god in a pantheon of deities? Yes.Was he worshipped at the Kabah? Yes.Was Allah only one of many Meccan gods? YesDid they place a statue of Hubul on top of the Kabah? Yes.At that time was Hubul considered the Moon-god? Yes.Was the Kabah thus the "house of the Moon-god"? Yes.Did the name "Allah" eventually replace that of Hubul as the name of the Moon god? Yes.Did they call the Kabah the "house of Allah"? Yes.Were al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat called "the daughters of Allah"? Yes.Yusuf Ali explains in fn. 5096, pg. 1445, that Lat, Uzza and Manat were known as "the daughters of God [Allah]"Did the Qur'an at one point tell Muslims to worship al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat? Yes. In Surah 53:19-20.Have those verses been "abrogated" out of the present Qur'an? Yes.What were they called? "The Satanic Verses."[source - Was Allah The Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan? By Syed Kamran Mirza ]

"ALLAH - The Moon GodThe religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters."[source - www.abrahamic-faith.com/moon-god.html ]

"In fact the common symbol used in much of Islam, the Crescent Moon, like in the Green Crescent the Arab equivalent of the Red Cross, as used by the Ottomans, on most Mosques, etc. But here is what history and archaeology shows:

The symbol of the worship of the moon god in Arabian culture and elsewhere throughout the Middle East was the crescent moon.

Archaeologists have dug up numerous statues and hieroglyphic inscriptions in which a crescent moon was seated on top of the head of the deity to symbolize the worship of the moon god. In the same fashion as the sun is pictured above the Egyptian deity.

Now there are strong indicators that the heathen god, Baal, was the god of very early antiquity that actually evolved into the present day Moon god "Allah," by way of an intermediary figure, the god "Hubal al'iah." In fact in his name you can actually see how the name for the pagan Moon god became.

While the moon was generally worshiped as a female deity in the Ancient Near East, the Arabs viewed it as a male deity."[source - The Islamic Invasion by Dr. Robert Morey; Harvest Home Publishers, 1992. ISBN 0-89081-983-1]

"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."[source - Microsoft(r) Encarta(r) Online Encyclopedia 2000]

"Allah was also known as Hubel, ""Among the gods worshiped by the Quraysh, the greatest was Hubal

...

Some additional details on this cleromantic deity, the most powerful of the pagan idols of Mecca, is supplied by the Meccan historian Azraqi

...

Amr ibn Luhayy brought with him (to Mecca) an idol called Hubal from the land of Hit in Mesopotamia. Hubal was one of the Quraysh's greatest idols so he set it up at the well inside the Kab'a and ordered the people to worship it. Thus a man coming back from a journey would visit it and circumambulate the House before going to his family, and would shave his hair before it ... "[Peters, Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places [Princeton University Press, NJ, 1994], pp. 24-25]

""Khuza 'ah thus shared the guilt of Jurhum. They were also to blame in other respects: a chieftain of theirs, on his way back from a journey to SYRIA, had asked the MOABITES to give him ONE OF THEIR IDOLS. They gave him HUBAL, which he brought back to the Sanctuary, setting it up within the Ka'bah itself; and it became THE CHIEF IDOL OF MECCA." [Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, Inner Traditions International, LTD. One Park Street, Rochestor Vermont 05767, 1983, p. 5].

And this Hubel or Allah the Moon god is indicated to be known by others as the Biblically condemned god, 'Baal.' Commenting on 'Abd al-Muttalib's rediscovery of the well of Zamzam and its treasures, Lings writes:

"... So 'Abd al-Muttalib continued to dig without any actual move being made to stop him; and some of the people were already leaving the sanctuary when suddenly he struck the well's stone covering and uttered a cry of thanksgiving to God. The crowd reassembled and increased; and when he began to dig out the treasure which Jurhum had buried there, everyone claimed the right to share in it. 'Abd al-Muttalib agreed that lots should be cast for each object, as to whether it should be kept in the sanctuary or go to him personally or be divided amongst the tribe. This had become the recognised way of deciding an issue of doubt, and it was done by means of divining arrows inside the Ka'bah, in front of THE MOABITE IDOL HUBAL ..." (Lings, p. 11; bold and capital emphasis ours) 'Amr then asked them to give him an idol he could take to Arab lands where it could be worshipped, and they gave him one named Hubal. This he brought to Mecca and set on a pedestal and ordered the people to worship and venerate it. (The Life of the Prophet Muhammad (Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya), Volume I, translated by professor Trevor Le Gassick, reviewed by Dr. Ahmed Fareed" [Garnet Publishing Limited, 8 Southern Court, south Street Reading RG1 4QS, UK; The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, 1998], p. 42]

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." [source - Collier's CD-ROM Encyclopedia]

This Baal was considered in earliest times to be the supreme god of the people we now know as Arabs, and cultures usually always maintain there supreme god even though he/she may change his form or even name. Therefore, this is a very strong indicator that in all probability he evolved into Hubal al'iah who later evolved into Allah, but always remaining the supreme god of the people of the area.

"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." [source - Collier's CD-ROM Encyclopedia].

Notes: As can be readily seen from the foregoing, it is very likely that Baal evolved into Allah in progressive steps which are indicated to be as follows,

Baal evolved into Hubal al'iah and Hubal al'iah into Allah the middle eastern Moon god.

How so, the Meccans at the time were pagan heathens and worshipped this heathen god from time im-memorable in his various evolutionary forms. Of course this is the way heathen beliefs usually progress, but let's look once more at Allah as the modern Moon god.

Dr. W. Montgomery Watt, who was Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University and Visiting Professor of Islamic studies at College de France, Georgetown University, and the University of Toronto, has done extensive work on the pre-Islamic concept of Allah. He concludes:

"In recent years I have become increasingly convinced that for an adequate understanding of the career of Muhammad and the origins of Islam great importance must be attached to the existence in Mecca of belief in Allah as a "high god." In a sense this is a form of paganism, but it is so different from paganism as commonly understood that it deserves separate treatment" [William Montgomery Watt, Muhammad's Mecca, p. vii. Also see his article, "Belief in a High God in Pre-Islamic Mecca", Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. 16, 1971, pp. 35-40].

Caesar Farah in his book on Islam concludes his discussion of the pre-Islamic meaning of Allah by saying:

"There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea that Allah passed to the Muslims from the Christians and Jews" [Islam: Beliefs and Observations, New York, Barrons, 1987, p. 28].

According to Middle East scholar E.M. Wherry, whose translation of the Quran is still used today, in pre-Islamic times Allah-worship, as well as the worship of Ba-al, were both astral religions in that they involved the worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars [A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran, Osnabruck: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1973, p. 36].

But one part time Bible scholar pointed out in simple terms that there is no way that "Allah," could be the same as the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, and Jacob, creator of all there is, as follows:

1) If Allah is a proper name, then he could not be the same god (obviously)[as "YHWH" of the Bible], there is only one name declared as the universal name for all generations, and forever. (YHVH or YHWH)

2) If Allah is only a word for god in Arabic, then why did he never reveal that his name is YHWH [in the Quran]? There are many terms used in the Bible that refer to YHWH's attributes, but from the Scriptural standpoint, there is only one proper name, YHWH. Yet, in Muslim tradition, there are 99 Names for Allah. Thus, these two could not be the same.

THE FEMALE SUN-GOD WHO WAS ALLAH'S WIFE:

An opening statement, <<<" According to Middle East scholar E.M.Wherry, whose translation of the Koran is still used today, in pre-Islamic times Allah-worship, as well as the worship of Baal, were both astral religions in that they involved the worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars." [Source - A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran, Osnabrück: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1973, p.36].

Now in ancient Arabia, Allah's wife, the female celestial sun goddess, per Alfred Guilluame,"The sun-god was viewed as a female goddess and the moon god, "Allah," was viewed at the male god." [Reference - Islam, by Alfred Guilluame, p. 7].

<<<"Allah, the moon god, was married to the sun goddess. Together they produced three goddesses who were called 'the daughters of Allah'. These three goddesses were called Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat.

"The daughters of Allah, along with Allah and the sun goddess were viewed as "high" gods. That is, they were viewed as being at the top of the pantheon of Arabian deities" [Source - Robert Morey, The Islamic Invasion, Eugene, Oregon, Harvest House Publishers, 1977, pp.50-51].
One translator of the Qur'an said, <<<""Long before Muhammad's call, Arabian paganism was showing signs of decay. At the Ka'bah the Meccans worshipped not only Allah, the supreme Semitic God, but also a number of female deities whom they regarded as daughters of Allah. Among these were Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat, who represented the Sun, Venus, and Fortune respectively." [source - Koran, N.J. Dawood, And a translator of the].

One account involving the female sun-god is as follows, <<<"This 'Carthaginian Astarte' bears also the name of the 'mother of the gods.' When the mother of the Emperor Heliogabalus, Julia Soemias, was elevated to the position of goddess of heaven (and her son to the position of sun-god) she was given the official title 'Mother of the gods, Venus Urania, Queen Juno.' But in Nabataean inscriptions the 'mother of the gods' is also called Allat. Thus we have a right to assume that in Arabic circles Allat corresponded with the great Semitic goddess of motherhood, fertility and heaven, and especially with the form which she assumed in Western Semitic regions. In Taif, where her most important sanctuary was located, she was called simply Al Rabba, 'sovereign,' a title which be-longed also to Ishtar (Belit) and Astarte (Baalat). At the time of Mohammed's appearance Al 'Uzza received the most worship of the three goddesses. The name signifies 'the mighty, the honoured one,' and hence it really has much the same content as Al Rabba. In character too this goddess is very similar to Allat. Only in Northern Arabia does she seem to have retained more definitely her original connection with the planet Venus. Isaac of Antioch relates that the savage Arabs sacrificed boys and girls to the morning star, whom he also calls Al 'Uzza. He also accuses the Syrian ladies of climbing upon the roof at night and praying to the morning star to make their faces radiant Arith beauty. The Arab women do likewise. And yet, Isaac adds ironically, some of them are beautiful and some are ugly, just as are the women of all nations.' The Church Father Nilus relates that the Arabs worshipped the morning star, and on concluding a successful raid gladly sacrificed to it at dawn. Something very precious was used as a sacrifice, preferably a youth in the bloom of adolescence. In Nakhla, a few miles north of Mecca, Al 'Uzza had one of her chief sanctuaries. In the eighth year after the Hegira Mohammed sent the valiant Khalid, who later conquered Syria, with thirty horsemen to destroy this sanctuary. While Khalid was felling the last of the three sacred acacia-trees of the goddess, a naked black woman with flowing hair approached him. Her priest, who was present, cried out: 'Be courageous, Al 'Uzza, and protect thyself!' Khalid shook with terror, but took courage, and with one stroke cleft her head. Then she turned into a black cinder.'" [source - Mohammed: The man and his faith, Tor Andrae, 1936, Translated by Theophil Menzel, 1960, p13-30, Sweedish scholar]>>>.

Yusuf Ali: pgs. 1619-1623 "The Forms of Pagan Worship., said, <<<"It will be noticed that the sun and the moon and the five planets got identified with a living deity, god or goddess, with the qualities of its own.

Moon worship was equally popular in various forms...It may be noted that the moon was a male divinity in ancient India; it was also a male divinity in ancient Semitic religion, and the Arabic word for the moon (qamar) is of the masculine gender. On the other hand, the Arabic word for the sun (shama) is of the feminine gender. The pagan Arabs evidently looked upon the sun as a goddess and the moon as a god.

If Wadd and Suwa represented Man and Woman, they might well represent the astral worship of the moon and the sun...

The Pagan deities best known in the Ka'ba and round about Mecca were Lat, Uzza and Manat...They were all female goddesses.

In his explanation of why the Qur'an swears by the moon in Surah 74:32,
"Nay, verily by the Moon," Yusuf Alli comments, "The moon was worshipped as a deity in times of darkness"[source - Yusuf Ali, pgs. 1619-1623 and 5798, pg. 1644].

The other gods mentioned in the Quran are all female deities: Al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat, which represented the Sun, the planet Venus, and Fortune, respectively; at Mecca they were regarded as the daughters of Allah...As Allah meant 'the god', so Al-Lat means 'the goddess'."
[Source - Alfred Guilaume, Islam, (Penguin, 1956) pgs. 6-7].

As mentioned previously, Allah (the male Moon god) and the Sun-god (female)had three dauthers and these will be dealt with next.

THE DAUGHTERS OF ALLAH - THE MALE MOON GOD, AND THE FEMALE SUN-GOD:

<<<"As well as worshipping idols and spirits, found in animals, plants, rocks and water, the ancient Arabs believed in several major gods and goddesses whom they considered to hold supreme power over all things. The most famous of these were Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, Manat and Hubal. The first three were thought to be the daughters of Allah(God) and their intercessions on behalf of their worshippers were therefore of great significance.

Hubal was associated with the Semitic god Ba'l and with Adonis or Tammuz, the gods of spring, fertility, agriculture and plenty...Hubal's idol used to stand by the holy well inside the Sacred House. It was made of red sapphire but had a broken arm until the tribe of Quraysh, who considered him one of their major gods, made him a replacement in solid gold.

In addition to the sun, moon and the star Al-Zuhara, the Arabs worshipped the planets Saturn, Mercury, and Jupiter, the stars Sirius and Canopus and the constellations of Orion, Ursa Major and Minor, and the seven Pleiades.

Some stars and planets were given human characters,. According to legend, Al-Dabaran, one of the stars in the Hyades group, fell deeply in love with Al-Thurayya, the fairest of the Pleiades stars. With the approval of the Moon, he asked for her hand in marriage. "[Source - Khairt al-Saeh, Fabled Cities, Princes & Jin from Arab Myths and Legends, (New York: Schocken, 1985), p. 28-30.]>>>.


<<<"Along with Allah, however; they worshipped a host of lesser gods and
"daughters of Allah." [Source - Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:61}>>>.

<<<" One of the aspects of goddess worship that has survived in Islam, as well as, for example, in Roman Catholicism, 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.

Ancient Middle Eastern mythology often pictured the Mother goddess with a son, such as Isis-Horus in Egypt and Astarte-Tammuz in the Fertile Crescent. This mother-son worship was established throughout the world. In China there was the Mother Shingmoo, Hertha in ancient Germany, Nutria in ancient Italy (Etrusca), Indrani in India, Aphrodite in Greece, Venus in Rome, Cybele in Asia Minor and Carthage, Diana in Ephesus, Isis in Egypt etc.. In Hijaz, on the other hand, there was no harvest and thus no worship of fertility gods as such. Its patriarchal society soon changed the ancient mother-son worship to father-daughter worship. Allah was the father, and his daughters were Al-Lat, Manat and al-Uzza.
Al-Lat (Allat)

Al-Lat, the female version of the Aramaic Allah, was the 'Lady of the Temple' at the Semitic Pantheon of Palmyra, frequently mentioned in sources from ancient periods. Her cult was shared by the tribes of Bene Maazin and Bene Nurbel in that city. The former tribe probably provided the guardians or priests for her sanctuary, which was probably established after the Nabatean occupation of Syria, including Damascus, in 85 BCE. (Javier Teixidor, The Pantheon at Palmyra, 55-58.)

Al-Lat was the mother goddess (al-Ilahah), representing the sun. She was the mother figure among the gods and goddesses, the Great Earth Mother of ancient mythology, and the Astarte of the Arabs. Javier Teixidor states:

It is not surprising to find at Palmyra different names for the same deity. Allat ... Astarte ... all conceal one sole goddess, the female deity of heaven in whose cult Arab Palmyrenes as well as members of the western tribes were united. (Ibid, 61.)

She was brought to the Hijaz from Palmyra, probably through Teima. Alfred Guillaume states:

Al-Lat... is mentioned by Herodotus; in old Arabian inscriptions; and in the pre-Islamic poets; and was the great mother goddess who, under various names, was worshipped all over the ancient world. Ta'if, a town near Mecca, was the centre of her worship [in Arabia proper]. (Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 24, 38.)

In Ta'if there was a temple dedicated to al-Lat, (Guillaume, Islam, 7.) the city's deity, according to Ibn Ishaq, and she was represented by a square-stone. (Hitti, History of the Arabs, 98 ). The Mother goddess was often repres-ent-ed by a stone, mountain, cave, pillar or rock. Stones are among the oldest symb-ols of Mother worship, as Erich Neumann discussed in detail. (Erich Neumann, The Great Mother (Princeton, 1953/1991), 260.) The Meccans had been on friendly terms with the Ta'ifians, especially since most of their food was bought or grown in Ta'if, and that city was also the main commercial centre in the Hijaz, since it lay on the Yemen-Mesopotamia overland trading route. According to Ibn al-Khalbi:

Al-Lat stood in al-Ta'if and was more recent than Manat. She was a cubic rock beside which a certain Jew used to prepare his barley porridge. Her custody was in the hands of Banu Attab ibn Malik of the Thaqif, who had built an edifice over her.... The Quraysh, as well as all the Arabs, were wont to venerate al-Lat. They used to name their children after her, calling them Zayd al-Lat and Taym al-Lat. (Quoted in Peters, Muhammad, 110).

The Nabateans also venerated Allat as the 'mother of the gods', the same as the Urania of Hellenism. According to Tor Andrae:

Thus we have a right to assume that in Arabic circles Allat correspond-ed with the great Semitic goddess of motherhood, fertility and heaven, and especially with the form which she assumed in Western Semitic reg-ions. In Taif, where her most important sancturay was located, she was called simply Al Rabba, 'sovereign', a title which belonged also to Ishtar (Belit) and Astarte (Baalat). (Tor Andrae, Mohammad. The Man and His Faith (London, 1936), 17.)

When Muhammed conquered Mecca and some of its neighbouring tribes, he turned to Ta'if and its temple of al-Lat. A Muslim poet said about the attack on Ta'if:
Don't help al-Lat for Allah is about to destroy her.
How can one who cannot help herself be helped?
She was burned in black smoke and caught fire.
None fighting before her stones, is an outcast.
When the apostle descends on your land
None of her people will be left when he leaves.
(Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 588.)

Allat was the equivalent of Ishtar-Astarte in the mother-father Semitic cult worship. In contrast to the Fertile Crescent region, the Arabs worshipped her as the sun, not the moon which is masculine in Arabia. However, the Semitic cults connected the goddess worship with love, and thus, its absence with the opposite. As Erich Neumann states:
Withdrawal of love can appear as a withdrawal of all the functions constituting the positive side of the elementary character. Thus hunger and thirst may take place of food, cold of warmth, defenselessness of protection, nakedness of shelter and clothing, and distress of contentment.... Consequently, the symbols of exile and desert also belong to the present context. (Neumann, The Great Mother, 67-68.)
Thus, the Arabs were left with the loneliness of the desert and in order to make the best of the situation, the moon-goddess of the fertile lands was transformed into the sun-goddess of the desert. Al-Lat was the Great Mother who fed her children as necessary. But when it came to fortune the Arabs turned to Manat.

Manat

Manat is believed to be the Arabs' original goddess, appearing some time before al-Uzza and al-Lat. Her name appears in the house of Baal in 32 CE, but she originated much earlier among the Arabs. Manat seems to have arrived in Arabia from Palmyra, where she was worshipped along with Baal. She was venerated beside several other deities in a temple called 'the house of the gods,' (Teixidor, The Pantheon of Palmyra 3, 12-18 - The Pagan god, 116.) the Palmyran equivalent of the Kaaba. Manat was the controller of the Arabs' fortunes and the mystery of life and death. She was the chief deity of al-Aus and al-Khazraj and other pagan inhabitants of Yathrib (Medina). It seems that she was represented by a wooden image, which was covered in blood during her worship. (Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 38-39, 207.) Manat's sanctuary was in a place near Yathrib where the Aus and Khazraj visited on their way back from their pilgrimages to Mecca. Ibn al-Khalbi states:

The Aus and Khazraj, as well as those Arabs among the people of Yathrib and other places who followed their way of life, were accustomed to go on Hajj and observe the 'standing' at all the appointed places, but not shave their heads [as was customary during the pilgrimage]. At the end of Hajj, however, when they were about to return home, they would set out to the place where Manat stood, shave their heads and stay there for a while. (Quoted in Peters, Muhammad, 110.)

This goddess of fate and time in ancient paganism was revered and worshipped with the same zeal as the Mother figure itself. In Greece Moirai, the goddess of fate, was the daughter of the Night, as well as Moros and Erinyes (compare to al-Lat and al-Uzza). Attributed to the goddess of fate was the sharing of booty, land and labour between clans. She was concerned with birth, marriage and death and, in the relation with men, warfare and raids.

Manat was much revered by the Arabs but her worship was dwindling at the time of Muhammed, probably due to Jewish influence in Medina. This shows how easily the al-Aus and al-Khazraj tribes were willing to abandon their religion in favour of Islam.
Al-Uzza

Some 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.' (Ibid, 110.) Alfred Guillaume states that evidence 'for her worship from the fourth century AD is copious. Tradition states that in his youth Muhammad sacrificed a white sheep to her.' The Arabs offered human sacrifices to al-Uzza and
the blood of the victims was smeared or poured on them while the tribes-men danced round the stone... The devotees licked the blood, or dipped their hands in it, and thus a reciprocal bond held them to one another and the deity to whom the stone belonged. Nilus, a Christian writer, gives a fairly full account of such a sacrifice to Uzza. Though there is no trace of human sacrifices in the Quran, it is clear from the authority just quoted and from early Arab sources that human beings were sacrificed to these gods in Duma and Hira. (Guillaume, Islam, 8-9.)

Ibn Ishaq states that al-Uzza had a slaughter place (ghabghab), where the blood was poured out. An Arab poet said:
Asma' was given as a dowry the head of a little red cow Which a man of the Banu Ghanm had sacrificed He saw blemish in her eye when he led her away To al-Uzza's slaughter-place and divided her into goodly portions.
Muhammed had, according to tradition, sacrificed a sheep to her, and it might very well be that it had been done at Mount Hira, which was now Muhammed's place of devotion to the moon-god Allah and his daughter al-Uzza. It has been stated that the Arabs sacrificed infant boys and girls to the morning star, al-Uzza. (Andrae, Mohammed, 17-18.) Ibn al-Khalbi states:

The Quraysh as well as other Arabs who inhabited Mecca did not give to any of their idols anything similar to their veneration of al-Uzza. The next in order of veneration was Al-Lat and then Manat. (Peters, Muhammad, 111.)

During the armed confrontation between the Meccans and Muhammed at Badr (AH 2), the former carried al-Uzza's banner to battle. Tradition says that Muhammed sent Khalid ibn al-Walid, who later conquered Syria for Islam, to destroy al-Uzza's temple in Nakhla. There, some of the tribes of Quraysh and Kinana, and all the Mudar tribe, used to worship. When the guardian of al-Uzza heard that Khalid was approaching "he hung his sword on her, climbed the mountain on which she stood," and said:

O 'Uzza, make an annihilating attack on Khalid, Throw aside your veil and gird up your train

O 'Uzza, if you do not kill this man Khalid Then bear a swift punishment or become a Christian.

However, according to tradition, Khalid and his army destroyed the al-Uzza idol and returned to Muhammed. (Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 565-566.) When these idols had all been destroyed, 'Allah' reigned supreme in the Hijaz. The threefaced Mother Goddess had vanished from the visible sphere, but still lives in Muslim legends according to the 'Satanic verses'.".[Source - Islam and Goddess Worship; http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/fem4.htm]>>>.

So as can be seen, <<<" Allah, the moon god, was married to the sun goddess. Together they produced three goddesses who were called "the daughters of Allah." These three goddesses were called Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat.

The daughters of Allah, along with Allah and the sun goddess were viewed as "high" gods. That is, they were viewed as being at the top of the pantheon of Arabian deities.

"Along with Allah, however, they worshipped a host of lesser gods and "daughters of Al-lah" [source - Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:61]. >>>.
Now let's look at related items.

RELATED ITEMS:

<<<"The Moon was the great divinity of the Arabs. The Sarazens gave her the epithet of Cabar or the Great; her Crescent adorns to this day the religious monuments of the Turks. Her elevation under the sign of the Bull, constituted one of the principal feasts of the Saracens and the sabean Arabs. Each Arab tribe was under the invocation of a constellation Each one worshipped one of the celestial bodies as its tutelar genius.

"The Caabah of the Arabs was before the time of Mahomet, a temple dedicated to the Moon. The black stone which the Musulmans kiss with so much devotion to this day, is, as it is pretended, an ancient statue of Saturnus. The walls of the great mosque of Kufah, built on the foundation of an ancient Pyrea or temple of the fire, are filled with figures of planets artistically engraved. The ancient worship of the Arabs was the Sabismus, a religion universally spread all over the Orient. Heaven and the Stars were the first objects thereof.
"This religion was that of the ancient Chaldeans, and the Orientals pretend that their Ibrahim or Abraham was brought up in that doctrine. There is still to be seen at Hella, over the ruins of the ancient Babylon, a mosque called Mesched Eschams, or the mosque of the Sun. It was in this city, that the ancient temple of Bel, or the Sun, the great Divinity of the Babylonians, existed; it is the same God, to whom the Persians erected temples and consecrated images under the name of Mithras."[source - The Roots of Islam]>>>.

A NOTE, on the tribe into which Muhammad (pbuh) was born. <<<""The Quraysh tribe into which Mohammad was born was particularly devoted to Allah, the moon god, and especially to Allah's three daughters who were viewed as intercessors between the people and Allah.

"The worship of the three goddesses, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat, played a significant rôle in the worship at the Kabah in Mecca. The first two daughters of Allah had names which were feminine forms of Allah.

"The literal Arabic name of Muhammad's father was Abd-Allah. His uncle's name was Obied-Allah. These names reveal the personal devotion that Muhammad's pagan family had to the worship of Allah, the moon god" [source - Annonymous]>>>.

<<"The 'Satanic Verses'
The chapter of Muhammed's life the Muslims want to forget most of all is the affair of the 'Satanic verses', made worldfamous by Salman Rushdie's novel by the same name. The setting is Mecca, some years before the hijra, most likely in 619 CE, when Muhammed's protector, Abu Talib, and his wife, Khadija, had both died. The Meccans had become increasingly hostile towards him and ridiculed his mission in every possible way. What was probably worse, they tempted Muhammed by promising him fame and fortune if he would refrain from attacking their deities. Muhammed was unwilling to compromise his mission and declined their offer. Then the next temptation came, as al-Tabari narrates:
'If you will not do so, we offer you one means which will be to your advantage and to ours.' 'What is it?' he [Muhammed] asked. They said: 'You will worship our gods, al-Lat and al-'Uzza, for a year, and we shall worship your god for a year.' 'Let me see what revelation comes to me from my Lord' he replied. Then, the following inspiration came from the Preserved Tablet [the Koran which 'Allah' preserves in heaven]. (W. M. Watt and M. V. McDonald (transl. & annotators), The History of al-Tabari (volume IV: Muhammad at Mecca. New York, 1988), 107.)

The continuation al-Tabari adopted from Ibn Ishaq's narrative which stated:
When the apostle saw that his people turned their backs on him and he was pained by their estrangement from what he brought them from Allah, he longed that there should come to him from Allah a message that would reconcile his people to him. Because of his love for his people and his anxiety over them, it would delight him if the obstacle that made his task so difficult could be removed; so that he meditated on the project and longed for it and it was dear for him. Then Allah sent down 'By the star when it sets your comrades errs not and is not deceived, he speaks not from his own desire.' (Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 165.)
Then Muhammed's revelation continued: 'Have you thought upon Al-Lat and al-Uzza and on Manat, the third other? Are yours the males, and His the females?' (The Koran 53:19.) In a patriarchal society it was a shame to have only daughters, as Muhammed had only daughters and was embarrassed for this very reason. Thus 'Allah' would be imperfect due to his inability to procreate sons. Muhammed thus concluded that it would be better for 'Allah' to have no children at all.

Ibn Ishaq stated that Muhammed added: '... these are the exalted Gharaniq whose intercession is approved.' A Gharaniq was thought to be an angelic creature, who could fly at a great height, and thus were exalted above men. Muhammed's acceptance of the three daughters of Allah as being semi-divine delighted the Quraysh who prostrated themselves in the place of prostration (masjid - mosque) along with the Muslims.

When the Quraysh heard that, they rejoiced and were happy and delighted at the way in which he spoke of their gods, and they listened to him, while the Muslims, having complete trust in their Prophet in respect of the messages which he brought from God, did not suspect him of error, illusion or mistake. When he came to the prostration, having completed the Surah, he prostrated himself, the Muslims did likewise, following their Prophet, trusting in the message which he had brought and following his example. Those polytheists of the Quraysh and others who were in the mosque likewise prostrated themselves because of the reference to their gods which they had heard, so that there was no one in the mosque, believer or unbeliever, who did not prostrate himself. (Watt & McDonald, The History of al-Tabari, 108-109.)

Alfred Guillaume stated that all "of these interpolated words meant that the divine or semi-divine beings were inter-cessors with Allah, an office which in Islam is accorded only to Muhammad himself." The words Muhammed uttered, and were later deleted from the canonised version of the Koran, were a chant the Meccans used when they walked around the Black Stone. (Guillaume, Islam, 36.) Muhammed had now made serious compromises with paganism. And just as Catholicism solved this problem, Muhammad found only one solution, incorporate those competitors and everybody would be happy: the pagans for being able to indirectly worship their deities, and Islam (as Catholicism) by merging with paganism.

According to Muslim tradition, the Quraysh agreed to embrace Islam when those concessions had been made. Also, the Muslims who had earlier fled to Abyssinia, now returned and among them was Uthman, who later became a caliph. However, Muhammed then denied his previous revelation, which he said was nothing but 'Satanic verses.' The conversion of the Quraysh was thus withdrawn and this manoeuvre only strengthened the Meccan opposition. If this legend is true, which Muslims generally admit, we cannot be certain the rest of the Koran was not similarly inspired by Satan. It seems reasonable to assume that the 'whisperer' was the same in this case as in all others. One of the best established hadiths is the following speech from 'Allah' to Muhammed:
My servant [Muhammed] approaches me steadily through voluntary works of piety, until I come to love him; and when I love him I am his eye, his ear, his tongue, his foot, his hand. He sees through me, he hears through me, he speaks through me, he moves and feels through me. (Goldziher, Introduction, 42-43.)

If 'Allah' spoke and did everything through Muhammed, and vice versa, it is no wonder these 'Satanic verses' embarrass Muslims to this day. However, Muhammed found an escape route through another 'revelation'. He stated:

Never have we sent a single prophet or apostle before you with whose wishes Satan did not tamper. But Allah abrogates the interjections of Satan and confirms His own revelations. Allah is all-knowing and wise. (The Koran 22:52. (N. J. Dawood - with a replacement of Allah for God)).

Since we know that some verses contradict, or abrogate, others, we must conclude that several koranic passages were Satanic inspirations, which other verses have abrogated. If not, this verse is incorrect. But how could Satan manipulate Muhammed at almost any time, and utter koranic revelation through him at his will? Wherever the occult powers override true worship, the force behind the occult and New Age always marks its territory through images. Even the Islamic Crescent bears the mark of its founder, Mystery Babylon paganism.

The Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Hindus and American Indians, like the Babylonians, all believed that their gods were just representations of the one god. The ancient people, shortly after the flood, had a knowledge of the True God of Noah, Shem, and Abraham. But the worship of the True God of Noah, Shem, and Abraham soon became perverted into idolatry by the larger population when Nimrod tried to unite the whole world into a One World Government. Just as the ancients believed their various gods to be different expressions of the Only god, so did Muhammed, when he united the 360 gods at Mecca into just one god, Allah. .".[Source - Islam and Goddess Worship; http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/fem4.htm]

One more item to consider. MAKING THE WRONG ASSUMPTION WITH REGARD GOD'S (YHWH) NAME:

Some make an assumption which is not reasonable with respect the name of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, and Jacob, creator of all there is. Since the apostles were quoting Old Testament which even some making this false assumption admit contained "YHWH" at these places. One such individual said,
<<<" The name is used in a few Bibles in the NT either in its English forum or as the Tetragrammaton.

I am NOT asking about the use of "YHWH" in English translations of the Bible. I am asking about the use of "YHWH" in the Greek.

If I recall correctly Jesus Himself quoted an Old Testament Scripture that uses the term "YHWH" - in the Hebrew. Quoting David, Jesus said " 'The Lord said to my Lord.......'" Now in the Hebrew Old Testament "YHWH" is used in the first instance; while "ADONAI" is used in the second; in the GREEK New Testament the term "kurios" is used in both instances. The Greek text makes NO distinction between "YHWH" and "ADONAI".

Thus the apostles, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, made NO distinction btween "YHWH" and "ADONAI". Why not?">>>

Let's look at the facts:

First, <<<" "...the most common "error" made by most translators in the last 3500 years...is their elimination of heaven's revealed Name of the Most High, Yahweh(Jehovah)" -[source - quoted from - A. B. Traina; in the Preface of the Holy Name Bible].

Second, <<<"THE REASON GOD'S NAME IS MISSING FROM MANY BIBLES
"...the distinctive Hebrew name for God - usually transliterated Jehovah, is in this translation
represented by "LORD." - Today's English Version (preface). There are many different reasons why God's name was removed from the Bible. I will attempt to briefly discuss them here.
First off, it was a MISTAKE to remove God's Name from the bible. WHY ?

As Author of the Bible, Only God himself has the right to change or alter the Bible. God himself
gave mankind a warning - in his own Word - The Bible; to NOT add to - NOR take away from his Words. "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life." (Revelation 22:18,19)(NIV)-BibleGateway

- A MISTAKE - "...the suppression of The Name (Jehovah) has entailed upon the reader,
and especially upon the hearer, irreparable loss... its suppression was a MISTAKE..."
--Rotherham, 1, Ch. IV, 22-29 "...the most common "ERROR" made by most translators in the last 3500 years...is their elimination of heaven's revealed Name of the Most High, Yahweh (Jehovah)" - A. B. Traina; in the Preface of the Holy Name Bible "The substitution of the word "Lord" is most unhappy; for...it in NO WAY represents the meaning of the sacred name (Jehovah)..." - The 1872 edition of Smith's Bible Dictionary THE BASIC REASONS THAT TRANSLATORS REMOVED GOD'S NAME FROM THE BIBLE :

1. Anti-Semitic Feelings
The Jewish God of the Jewish Messiah was hated and despised by the Greeks and Romans.
When Christianity became a State Religion of Rome - All attempts to blot out the Hebrew origins of Jesus were employed - and Removing God's Name from the Bible was a major attempt to obscure Jesus' Jewish heritage. "Well, be assured that the God that the Jews worship - is the very same God that we worship. Their sacred writings, the Law and the Prophets, we revere and read aloud in our meetings. And because we worship this God of the Jews, the one thing we cannot be accused of is novelty." --Glimpses Issue #139 : Why Early Christians Were So Despised; Ken Curtis PH.D., Beth Jacobson, Diana Severance Ph.D., Ann T. Snyder and Dan Graves. (c)2003, by Christian History Institute. "The Octavius of Minicius Felix" ; 2nd century A.D.

2. Support of Trinitarian Doctrine When Rome voted to adopt the Trinity doctrine of
the numerous Pagans in her empire - The Name of God - YHWH (translated Jehovah in English) - interfered and hindered the Newly Adopted teaching That Jesus was the Almighty God - Jehovah. Rome paid her translators to remove God's name almost Seven Thousand Times (7,000) from the Bible. "In the first two centuries nearly all the various readings of the New Testament came into existence, the majority of them by deliberate alteration of the text...in the
interests of (the trinity) dogma..." -the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics; The Bible in the Church "Codex B (Vaticanus)...was altered by a later hand in more than two thousand places. Eusebius, therefore, is not without grounds for accusing the adherents of....the newly-risen doctrine of the trinity of falsifying the Bible..." -(Fraternal Visitor 1924, p. 148;
translated from Christadelphian Monatshefte). "The removal of the Tetragrammaton (Jehovah)
from the New Testament and its replacement with the surrogates KYRIOS and THEOS blurred
the original distinction between the Lord God and the Lord Christ, and in many passages
made it impossible which one was meant. As time went on...it was often impossible to distinguish between them. Thus it may be that the removal of the Tetragrammaton (Jehovah)
contributed signific

[iris89]

[b][size=large]Part 3 reply to false Claim 1

contributed significantly to the later...Trinity " - George Howard, Bible Scholar ;
The Name of God in the New Testament, BAR 4.1 (March 1978), pg 15`
"It was they who demanded, in effect, that Christianity be "updated" by blurring
or even obliterating the long-accepted distinction between the Father and the Son."
- When Jesus Became God by Richard E. Rubenstein, p.74

3. MONEY
Because the God of Christ - The Jewish God, Jehovah, was not popular with the world of mankind, they sought to remove him from their Bibles. Bible translators knew that for their Bibles to be purchased they would need to appeal to their readers. They also knew, that if they used God's Divine Name Jehovah, then people would not purchase their Version and thus
they would lose money. God's name Jehovah/Yahowah appears in the original hebrew
text about 7000 times, but the NIV fails to mention it even once. When asked about this, Edwin H. Palmer, Th.D., Executive Secretary for the NIV's committee wrote : "Here is why we did not : You are right - that Jehovah is a distinctive name for God and ideally we should have
used it. But we put 2 1/4 million dollars into this translation and a sure way of throwing that
down the drain is to translate, for example, Psalm 23 as, 'Yahweh (Jehovah) is my shepherd.'
Immediately, we would have translated for nothing. Nobody would have used it (or purchased it). Oh, maybe you and a handful [of] others. But a Christian has to be also wise and practical. We are the victims of 350 years of the King James tradition. It is far better to get two million to read it- that is how many have bought it to date- and to follow the King James, than to have two thousand buy it and have the correct translation of Yahweh(Jehovah)
. . . It was a hard decision, and many of our translators agree with you." - The Reason NIV removed Jehovah's Name Edwin H. Palmer, Th.D., Executive Secretary for the NIV's committee

"The situation today, where many translations... exists largely because of the amount of money
to be gained..." -(The Preservation of the Bible By Faithful Churches) --By Charles V. Turner

4. MAN MADE "TRADITION"
It was a tradition of the Jews to avoid using God's name altogether. They stopped all mention of him. No longer using God's Divine Name, they no longer used it in their prayers, even making it a sin to say his name out loud. They considered it "blasphemy" to utter the name of God, ehovah. Many translators admit to following this "Jewish Tradition" and have thus removed Jehovah's name and replaced it with Titles such as "LORD" and "GOD" - all in capitals - to show that they have removed God's name in those places. Jesus condemned the man-made tradition of the Jews.
Following their lead in this - would be directly against Jesus' Teachings on this issue. "...Yahweh (Jehovah), is the proper personal name of the God of Israel...the term Adonai, 'My Lord' was later used as a SUBSTITUTE. The word LORD in the present version represents
the TRADITIONAL usage." - New American Bible (Catholic) Introduction to the O. T., Page XI. "In this translation we have followed the orthodox Jewish TRADITION and substituted 'the Lord' for the name 'Yahweh' (Jehovah)" -- Preface - 1935 Bible ; J. M. Powis Smith and Edgar J. Goodspeed, "Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? ...Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. "
(Matthew 15:3,6)(NIV)-BibleGateway

5. SUPERSTITION
During the time when Israel was in slavery to Babylon, she absorbed and adopted many Babylonian customs and ideas. One of these was the "Superstition" against using the name of a God - for fear that bad things would happen to them. As the Babylonians called their Chief
God - Marduk by the title "LORD" so as not to offend him, so too - the Jews adopted this idea in reference to Jehovah God. "When the Yisraeli (Israelites) came out of Babylonian captivity, they brought along with them the Babylonian culture, and along with it Babylonian beliefs and
superstitions. One of these pagan Babylonian practices or beliefs was called "ineffability." This was the SUPERSTITION against using the name of a deity for fear of something bad happening to them. The idea was that if you said the name of a deity he or she would notice you. The pagan practice of ineffability was further reinforced by Greek Hellenization." -(b.Pes. 50a) (b.Kidd. 71a). "The avoidance of the original name of God (Yehowah) both in speech and, to a certain extent, in the Bible.....first arose.....in Babylonia. According to Dalman (l.c. pp. 66 et seq.)," -The Jewish Encyclopedia TETRAGRAMMATON; by Crawford Howell Toy, and Ludwig Blau

"The idea that only the priest could utter The NAME of The HEAVENLY FATHER, and that he was to disguise or hide it from the common people, came from the idea that the NAME was "ineffable" or "unutterable". However this was a pagan doctrine that they adopted from the Egyptians, Babylonians, and the Greeks..." -THE FINAL REFORMATION; KOSTER P.54, P112

Marduk was, therefore, a very important god of Babylon. In the first millennium BCE, his name was considered so holy, that it was almost never pronounced; instead, people said and wrote Bêl, 'LORD'. Herodotus correctly calls the supreme god of Babylon Bêl ("lord"), because his real name was not pronounced. -[Herodotus, Histories 1.181-2; tr. Aubrey de Sélincourt]. "The ineffability of divine names was on old idea in Egypt... the name of Osiris himself was said to be ineffable...the name Marduk of Babylon was also declared ineffable. The Greeks avoided the names of their deities and preferred to call them by the titles Kurios and Theos." -The Final Reformation By Dr. Koster; pp. 54 and 112 "...But at least by the third century B.C.E. the pronunciation of the name YHWH (Jehovah) was avoided, and Adonai, "the Lord," was substituted for it..." - Encyclopedia Judaica (p. 679). "The Hebrews considered The Name of God to be 'ineffable' and substituted in reading Adonai (My Lord)." -Columbia Encyclopedia Vol. 2 under the subject 'God'


6. "JEHOVAH" IS NOT THE HEBREW WAY TO SAY GOD'S NAME
Some Bible Translators say that they have removed God's name from the Bible - because Jehovah is not
the proper way to say God's name in Hebrew. This reasoning is merely an excuse and not a reason
at all. For if this reason was valid, then we would also have to remove Jesus name from the Bible,
since the name "Jesus" is not the way that it was written or spoken in Hebrew either. Many Hebrew
names are written in the Bible - which are not as they were in Hebrew and yet we do not remove them.
Therefore this reasoning is truly invalid. Examples of Jewish names in the Bible which are translated
into English - much differently than their original Hebrew couterparts - are : Jesus, Jeremiah, Jonah,
Joel, Jerusalem, Joshua, etc. "... the Committee... is, omitting the name of God (because) the word 'Jehovah' does not accurately represent any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew..." - The Preface of the Revised Standard Version

Thus, the Hebrew "ye-ru-sha-LA-yim" became "Jerusalem"; "ye-ri-HO" became Jericho; and "yar-DEN" become "Jordan". Hebrew personal names such as "yo-NA" became "Jonah", "yi-SHAI" became "Jesse" and "ye-SHU-a" became "Jesus". Likewise "YHWH, Yahweh, or Yehowah" became "Jehovah" in english.

7. GOD DOESN'T NEED A NAME
God does not need to be distinguished from other gods. Some translators have made this statement. Who are we to say that God doesn't need a name ? God deemed it necessary to name all the stars in the heavens, and to place his name upon people that he liked, and upon places that were important to him. His own word the Bible - emphasizes the importance of a name. The translators of the Bible did not remove Satan's name from the Bible - nor did they remove the names of numerous false gods from the Bible.
"the use of any proper name for the one and only God... is entirely inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church." -the preface of the Revised Standard Version; Under reasons (excuses) for the removal of God's personal name - Jehovah "He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name." (Psalms 147:4)(NIV)-BibleGateway, "Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by name... The everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth..." (Isaiah 40:26,28)(ASV)-BibleGateway "A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold." (Proverbs 22:1)(NIV)-BibleGateway, "A good name is better than oil of much worth..." (Ecclesiastes 7:1)(NLV)-BibleGateway


"...The Sacred Name Yahovah was revealed to man by Yahovah Himself and is not a man-given name" -(see II Apol., 10, 13; Trypho, 126, 127). In the Bible, refusing to mention the name of a god
means refusing to worship this god (Ex 23:13) and that is why Satan incited the Israelites,
by means of the prophets of Baal, not to use the Name of Jehovah (Jr 23:27). "Yahweh (Jehovah) is the name that indicates the God of the Hebrews. Where the Philistines worshipped Dagon, the Egyptians, Amon, and the Ammonites, Milcom, the Hebrews worshipped YAHWEH (Jehovah). The title 'god' (elohim) is ALSO applied to false deities in the Scriptures as well as Yahweh (Jehovah), hence is NOT a term by which one can be distinguished from the others. When the voice said, 'I am Yahweh (Jehovah),' there was no doubt in any listener's mind as to the identity of the speaker. He was the God of the Hebrews. So far as is known, no other peoples called their god by this name." - Review and Herald, December 16, 1971

"In the Scriptures there is the closest possible relationship between a person and his name, the two being practically equivalent, so that to remove the name is to extinguish the person. (Num. 27:4; Deut. 7:24)
To forget God's name is to depart from Him." -Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary, p. 571 (1964)[source -http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=RemovingGodsName&tab=weblogs&uid=329800252 ]

[[Special notes and sources of additional information:
"non-superstitious Jewish translators always favored the name Jehovah in their translations of the Bible.
On the other hand one can note that there is NO Jewish translation of the Bible with Yahweh." To go more indepth on this, check out the works of Dr. Gerard Gertoux, one of the greatest living Hebrew scholars, and President of the French Bible Society. (Association Biblique de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits). He has written several books on the subject. For a quick abstract of his latest book, go to,

On the Name of the True God of Abraham [By Gérard Gertoux, President of the French Bible Society] at,

http://religioustruthsbyiris.createmybb3...ad-40.html

And, The Importance of The Personal Name of Almighty God (YHWH), Creator of All There Is:

INTRODUCTION - Part 1:

FIRST, Many do NOT understand anything about the Bible and you really know nothing about the word of Almighty God (YHWH). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia on page 9932 clearly identifies the true genuine god in few words as follows:

"JEHOVAH

je-ho'-va, je-ho'-va."

Now here is an article of mine to assist your understanding and learning:

Discourse on The Name of God (YHWH) You Worship Does Matter:

The Bible clearly shows that it does matter at Exodus 6:3 in the Authorized King James Bible (AV), "And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them." (AV). In fact, one man, Gerard Gertoux , the President of the French Bible Society, wrote an entire book on the subject of God's (YHWH) name, "The Name of God Y.eH.oW.aH Which Is Pronounced As It Is Written I_Eh_Ou_Ah ." A brief advertisement for his book said:

"Can we be certain how God's Name was originally pronounced? Was it pronunced "Yahweh" as many modern scholars have thought? What has been the history of this name down through the ages? How and why should this affect us as individuals? How and why should this effect our translations of God's Word today? A recent scholarly study of this most important subject is as broad as it is deep, yet can be followed by all those who are notably interested in the greatest Name in the universe, Jehovah and are willing to put forth an effort commensurate with such a study as this. We only recommend those books that will add to our appreciation of Jehovah and His Word the Bible. This book by Gerard Gertoux will undoubtedly do these. 328 pages, University Press of America."

Yet some say, "Actually, it really doesn't matter, considering [name removed] believes the same Messiah as you do (in a way; only that he believes he is the same person as God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, which you don't believe as being triune).

He also believes the same God as you do (see above message).

So why, especially if the only person who speaks to you here is [name removed], would you distinguish which God you are talking about?"

But, if this were true, Why would God (YHWH) say as he did at Exodus 6:3, "and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah I was not known to them." (American Standard Version; ASV)? Obviously, God's (YHWH's) name is important to him or he would not have stated what he did at Exodus 6:3.

Now, if his name as expressed in Ancient Hebrew as YHWH [English transliteration of four Ancient Hebrew consonants] in the original Old Testament over 6,000 times as testified to in the English version of a Italian article published on the catholic magazine, edited from Dehonian friars, "Rivista Biblica", year XLV, n. 2, April-June 1997, p. 183-186. Bologna, Italy which said,

"English version of a Italian article published on the catholic magazine, edited from Dehonian friars, "Rivista Biblica", year XLV, n. 2, April-June 1997, p. 183-186. Bologna, Italy.For a long time it was thought that the divine Tetragrammaton YHWH, in Hebrew written with the letters YHWH (which recurs over 6800 times in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament) did not appear in the original writings of the New Testament. In its place it was thought that the writers of the New Testament had used the Greek word for LORD, KYRIOS. However, it seems that such an opinion is wrong. Here below are some factors to consider:

1) The Tetragrammaton in the Greek Version of Old Testament, the Septuagint (LXX).
One of the reasons produced to support the above mentioned opinion was that the LXX substituted YHWH (YHWH) with the term KYRIOS, (kurios) which was the equivalent Greek of the Hebrew word ADONAY used by some Hebrews when they met the Tetragrammaton during the Bible reading.

However, recent discoveries have shown that the practice of substituted in the LXX YHWH with KYRIOS started in a much later period in comparison with the beginning of that version. As a matter of fact, the older copies of the LXX keep the Tetragrammaton written in Hebrew characters in the Greek text..." [source - Dehonian friars, "Rivista Biblica", year XLV, n. 2, April-June 1997, p. 183-186. Bologna, Italy.]

INTRODUCTION - Part 2 [The Technical]:

Many do not know Almighty God (YHWH) personal name, and some even think his personal name is titles such as Lord, God, etc. due to failure to recognize the difference between a personal name and a title.

Yet others argue over how his personal name should be pronounced since in the original ancient Hebrew it consisted of four consonants now called the Tetragrammaton, and written in English as "YHWH." The truth of course is that arguing over how it should be pronounced is a fruitless pursuit as no one today knows how it was said in ancient times, and since it consisted of all consonants it really gives us no definitive answer with respect to how it should be pronounced. But the purpose of a personal name is to identify a particular person or being, the exact pronunciation is not the important thing; the important thing is whether it, regardless of pronunciation clearly identifies a particular person or being. In the case of "YHWH", the Tetragrammaton, it clearly identifies the Creator of all there is.

Yes some Bibles translate the Tetragrammaton as Jehovah, and others translate it as Yahweh or something similar.

The fact is, The most-and least-frequently occurring names found in the Hebrew Bible or in major English translations such as the King James Version (KJV) and the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

The four most popular one-word names are Yahweh (6,800 times); Elohim (2,600 times); Adonai (439 times); and El (238 times). But, Almighty God (YHWH) identified himself to Abraham at Exodus 6:3 an YHWH which many English translators in error translated as Jehovah, instead of more likely Yahweh or similar translations. Of course, it would be very unlikely that Jehovah could be the way his name was pronounced in ancient Hebrew as this language had no "J" sound.

In fact, the world's greatest living expert, Dr. Gérard Gertoux, President of the French Bible Society, has written an entire book on the subject, but does not give a definitive with respect to how it was pronounced in ancient times.

In recent years there have been a number of Sacred Name Bible Publications on the subject. So intense has this movement been that it has become almost common domain in religious education and institutions to reinsert forms of Almighty God (YHWH) personal name more in harmony with increasing understanding with regard to ancient Hebrew.

One Jewish source, Tsleeleem Shofar Qeheelah, said the following:

<<<" In Hebrew Scripture, we see that the Name Yehowah first appears in Genesis 2:4, which reads as follows: "These are the births of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that Yehowah 'Elohim made earth and heavens." Abraham, who is claimed by many religions the Hebrew, Muslim and Christian, to be their father, knew and called upon the Name. Please see Genesis 22:14; "And Abraham called the name of the place, 'Yehowah Yireh,' as it is said to this day, "On the mountain Yehowah provides." >In Exodus 3:14-15 we see that Moses was given his identification papers to go back into Egypt to bring out the nation Yisra'el. Yehowah sealed His plan with the Name when giving it to Moses so that He, Moses, could be identified as coming on behalf of Yehowah. The Yisra'elites in Egypt , although in slavery, would have known the Name. Exodus 3:14-15: And 'Elohim said to Moses, "I Am that which I Am." And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Yisra'el, 'I Am has sent you." [source - Tsleeleem Shofar Qeheelah, Shofar Sounds,

Asher Intrater, in his article of April 12, 2007 called, "Yahweh or Yehovah" said,

<<<"... The root of the name YHVH in Hebrew means "to be." The letter V may well have been pronounced more like the sound W in ancient times. However, between the V or W pronunciation there is no difference in meaning, and therefore virtually no significance, in my opinion.

Biblical Hebrew was written only in consonants, as we see in the letters YHVH. Therefore, the main question of pronunciation concerns which vowel (points) to add to the consonants. The vowels can make a difference in the meaning. If we add the vowels - "e"-"o"-"a"- to the consonants, we receive the name YeHoVah...."[source - "Yahweh or Yehovah", by Asher Intrater, in his article of April 12, 2007, at http://revive-israel.org/2007/yahweh_yehovah.htm on 2/15/2008]>>>

Clearly shows the variations with respect how Almighty God (YHWH) personal name should be pronounced really have "no difference in meaning" in his opinion.

In fact, <<<" The majority of Bible versions have changed the holy Name to the titles God and Lord. You can restore it when you read the Scripture, however. In many King James Bibles, whenever you see the words LORD or LORD GOD in capital letters in the Old Testament, the Masoretic Hebrew Script has the Hebrew characters for Yahweh, hwhy.
[source - Yahweh's New Covenant Assembly, at http://www.ynca.com/Mini%20Studies/mistaken_j.htm on 02/15/2008]>>>.

MANY EXPERTS AND VERY CREDIBLE SOURCES HAVE WEIGHED IN ON THE SUBJECT:

Many very credible sources have weighed in on the subject, some of which are as follows, in brief:

The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text, A New Translation, Jewish Publication Society of America, Max Margolis editor-in-chief: At Exodus 6:3 the Hebrew Tetragrammaton appears in the English text.

The Church of God Daily Bible Study, What Is God's Name?, by Wayne Blank, at http://www.keyway.ca/htm2002/20020610.htm on 02/15/2007]

American Heritage Dictionary: "Yahweh_A name for God assumed by modern scholars to be a rendering of the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton."

The Oxford Cyclopedic Concordance: "Jehovah_ the name revealed to Moses at Horeb. Its real pronunciation is approximately Yahweh."

The International Bible Encyclopedia of King James Version: "Jehovah - It is believed that the correct pronunciation of this word is 'Yahweh.'"

Davis Dictionary of the Bible: "Jehovah - The Tetragrammaton is generally believed to have been pronounced Jahweh, Yahweh..." [Source - http://www.yaim.org/missing_j.htm]

"The Jehovah's Witness' 1984 booklet, "The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever", writes on page 7 that, "The truth is, nobody knows for sure how the name of God was originally pronounced.""
[Source - http://www.logon.org/english/s/p240.html].

"The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967, vol. 14, page 1065, after discussing the usual meanings given to God's name, states: "All these explanations, however, overlook the fact that in Ex 3:14 a merely folk etymology of the name, based on the qal form of the verb `to be,' is given. Grammatically, because of its vocalization, yahweh can only be a hi`phil or causative form of this verb, with the meaning `He causes to be, He brings into being.' Probably, therefore, yahweh is an abbreviated form of the longer, yahweh aser yihweh, `He brings into being whatever exists.' The name, therefore, describes the God of Israel as the Creator of the universe."

And in fact, the Son of Almighty God (YHWH), Jesus' (Yeshua's) name actually contains his Father's name according to numerous credible publications as follows:

Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion: "Jesus (The Name) -Matthew's Gospel explains it as symbolic of His mission, 'For He will save His people from their sins.' This agrees with its popular meaning as 'Yahweh saves...'" p. 1886.

"In some way, various modern peoples who received the J from the Romans have lost the original sound, and have substituted something very different. We retain the former sound in our word 'hallelujah,' but we generally give the letter the disagreeable soft sound of G. Yod is the initial of the name Jesus. It is unfortunate that a name so dear and so sacred is pronounced in a manner so different from that of the original word. The latter sounded very much as if it were Yashoo-ah, and was agreeable to the ear. Our sounds of J and hard S are the most disagreeable in our language, and they are both found in our pronunciation of this short name, although they did not exist in its original," pp. 122-123.
[source - http://www.ynca.com/Mini%20Studies/mistaken_j.htm on 02/15/2008]

The Anchor Bible Dictionary: "Jesus [Gk. Iesous]. Several persons mentioned in the Bible bear this name, which is a Greek form of Joshua (Heb. Yehosua; cf. the Gk of Luke 3:29; Acts 7:45; Heb. 4:8)...'Jesus Christ' is a composite name made up of the personal name 'Jesus' (from the Gk Iesous, which transliterates Heb/Aram yesu(a), a late form of Hebrew yehosua, the meaning of which is 'YHWH is salvation' or 'YHWH saves/has saved')..." (III, p. 773).

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature: "Import of the Name. -There can be no doubt that Jesus is the Greek form of a Hebrew name...Its original and full form is Jehoshua (Num. 13:16). By contraction it became Joshua, or Jeshua; and when transferred into Greek, by taking the termination characteristics of that language, it assumed the form Jesus" (vol. 4, pp. 873-874)..

The New International Dictionary of The Christian Church: "Jesus Christ, The Founder of Christianity bore 'Jesus' (the Greek form of Joshua or Jeshua) as His personal name; 'Christ' (Gk. Christos, 'anointed') is the title given Him by His followers..." (p.531).

The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia: "Jesus (Iesous) is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew 'Joshua' (ucwhy, Yehoshua) meaning 'Jehovah is salvation.' It stands therefore in the LXX and Apoc for 'Joshua,' and in Acts 7:45 and Heb. 4:8 likewise represents the OT 'Joshua.' In Mt. 1:21 the name is commanded by the angel to be given to the son of Mary, 'for it is he that shall save his people from their sins...It is the personal name of the L-rd in the Gospels and in the Acts...'" (Vol. 3, p.1626).

Mercer Dictionary of the Bible: "Jeshua: An Aramaic form of the name Joshua, meaning 'Yahweh is salvation.' It occurs only in postexilic biblical literature, which supports the later origin of the name. Joshua, the son of Nun, is referred to in one passage as Jeshua (Neh. 8:17)" (p.444).

Newberry Reference Bible (on Matt. 1:24): "Jesus, Heb. Joshua, or Jehoshua. Compare Num. 13:8, 16, where 'Oshea,' verse 8, signifying 'Salivation,' is altered in v.16 to 'Jehoshua,' 'the Salvation of Jehovah,' or 'Jehovah the Savior.'"

Holman Bible Dictionary: "Jesus Christ: Greek form of Joshua and of title meaning 'Yahweh is salvation' and 'the anointed one' or 'Messiah.'" (p.775).

New International Dictionary of the New Testament Theology, "OT Iesous is the Gk. Form of the OT Jewish name Yesua, arrived at by transcribing the Heb. And adding an -s to the nominative to facilitate declension. Yesua (Joshua) seems to have come into general use about the time of the Babylonian exile in place of the older Yehosua. The LXX rendered both the ancient and more recent forms of the name uniformly as Iesous. Joshua the son of Nun, who according to the tradition was Moses' successor and completed his work in the occupation of the promised land by the tribes of Israel, appears under this name...It is the oldest name containing the divine name Yahweh, and means 'Yahweh is help' or 'Yahweh is salvation' (cf. the verb yasa, help save). Joshua also appears in one post-exilic passage in the Heb. OT (Neh. 8:17) as Yesua the son of Nun, and not as in the older texts, Yehosua" (Vol. 2, pp.330-331).

The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary: "The given name Jesus means 'savior,' it is the Greek equivalent of Jeshua (Heb. Yesua, from yehosua 'Yahweh saves' [=Joshua]. Christ is the title, indicating that he is the 'anointed one,' the Messiah from Hebrew masiah)." ..."Jeshua (Heb. Yesua 'Yahweh is salvation')" (p.573).

The Bible Almanac: "The name Jesus (which is identical with Joshua and means 'God is Savior') emphasizes His role as the Savior of His people (Mat. 1:21). Christ is the New Testament equivalent of Messiah, a Hebrew word meaning 'anointed one'..." (p.522).

The Classic Bible Dictionary (Jay P. Green), page 633, under Jesus: "Jesus is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew 'Joshua,' meaning 'Jehovah is salvation.' It stands therefore in the LXX and Apocrypha for 'Joshua,' and in Acts 7:45 and Heb. 4:8 likewise represents the OT Joshua."
Author Green also comments on the Greek word "Christ:" "Christ (Christos) is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Messiah, meaning anointed."
Thus we see that the Savior's name as well as the descriptive title "Messiah" have been undermined and appear in Greek in changed form. Our Savior has been stripped of His Israelite roots.

The SDA Bible Dictionary, page 565: "Jesus Christ [Gr. Iesous] (a transliteration of the Aramaic Yeshua, from the Heb. Yehoshua, 'Joshua,' meaning 'Yahweh is Salvation'), Christos (a translation of the Heb. Mashiach, 'Messiah,' meaning anointed or anointed One).] The English form 'Jesus' comes from the Latin."

In Strange Facts About the Bible, author Garrison notes on page 81: "In its English form, 'Jesus' goes back to church Latin Iesus which is a transliteration of the Greek Iesous. But in its original Hebrew form it was Y'hoshua ('Yahweh saves'), frequently abbreviated to Joshua..."

Ian Wilson's Jesus: The Evidence, says on page 66; "'Yeshua', as Jesus would actually have been addressed, means 'God saves', and is merely a shortened form of the more old fashioned 'Yehoshua ('Joshua' of the Old Testament)."

New Bible Dictionary (edited by J.D. Douglas) reads under Jesus: "The name Jesus is not strictly a title for the person who bore it. It is, however, a name with a meaning, being a Greek form of 'Joshua', i.e. 'Yahweh is salvation'. The NT writers were well aware of this meaning (Mt. 1:21). The name thus indicated the function which was ascribed to Jesus, and this later found expression in the title Saviour..." (p.584).

A Dictionary of the Bible, by James Hastings: "Jesus -the Greek form (Ihsous) of the name Joshua (ucwhy) or Jeshua. Jeshua - Yahweh is salvation or Yahweh is opulence" (pp.603-602).

New International Dictionary of the Christian Church: "Jesus Christ, The Founder of Christianity bore 'Jesus' (the Greek form of Joshua or Jeshua) as His personal name; 'Christ' (Gk. christos, 'anointed') is the title given Him by His followers..." (p. 531).

The greatest living expert on the subject of Almighty God (YHWH) personal name, Dr. Gérard Gertoux
President, Association Biblique de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits, said in an abstract on September 2003 about his book devoted to the subject, the following:

<<<"God's name, which one finds about 7000 times in the Bible under the form YHWH, possesses the unique and remarkable circumstance of not having been vocalized by nearly all translators. With this name being unpronounceable under its written form YHWH, some overconfident (or overzealous?) translators refused to confirm this paradox and preferred to vocalize it with an approximated form. Obviously, in every case, the proposed vocalizations were very rigorously criticized. A review of the past twenty centuries will allow us to appreciate the reasonings which favored or opposed the vocalization of God's name and to understand the origin of the controversy and the paradox of a name which can be written without being able to read it aloud.

<Before our common era.>

The first translation of the Bible, called the Septuagint, was made by Jews at the beginning of the third century before our era. However, out of superstitious respect, these translators preferred to keep the Tetragram YHWH written in Hebrew within the Greek text. There was, however, one exception: a Jewish translator who preferred to insert it under the vocalized form Iaô (Iaw), which became well known at this time because the historians Varro and Diodorus Siculus quoted it in their books (History I:94:2; Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum). In spite of these precise testimonies, the form of Iaô found limited use and was very often slandered: a paradox of magnitudes. The great prophet Jeremiah explained that the objective of the false prophets was to cause people to forget the Name (Jr 23:27), an attempt nevertheless dedicated to be defeated (Ps 44:20; 21) because God reserves his Name for his servants (Is 52:6) and naturally for those who appreciate it (Mal 3:16). Abraham, who is the father of those who have faith, took pleasure in proclaiming this Name according to Genesis 12:8 and initiated a respectable biblical custom.

Furthermore, according to the prophet Joel, it is even obligatory to proclaim this Name in order to be saved during the great and formidable day of God (Jl 2:32). According to Exodus 23:13, refusal to pronounce a god's name is a refusal to worship the god in question, so refusal to pronounce the True God's name means a refusal to worship him (Jos 23:7). In spite of these exactitudes, the translators of the Septuagint self-justified their choice not to vocalize the Name, even going so far as to modify the verses of Leviticus 24:15, transforming them into : "(Å ) a man who will curse God will bring the offence, but in order to have named the name of the Lord, he would have to die absolutely, the entire assembly of Israel should stone him with stones; the alien resident as the native, in order to have named the name of the Lord, he would have to die absolutely."

Paradoxically, as noted by Philo, a Jewish philosopher of the first century, to name God was worse than to curse him (De Vita Mosis II:203-206). The Talmud points out that they had started to remove these names (Yah, Yahu) that had been stamped on jars in order to protect their holiness ('Arakin 6a; Shabbat 61b). Out of respect, the Name was to be avoided in conversation, as proven by these remarks from Jewish books written in the second century BCE: "Do not accustom into the habit of naming the Holy One" and "someone who is continually swearing and uttering the Name will not be exempt from sin" (Si 23:9,10). It was held that the privilege of pronouncing the Name was strictly reserved for use inside the Temple (Si 50:20) and that it should not be communicated to foreigners (Ws 14:21).">>>.

NOW WHY IS THE USE OF GOD'S (YHWH) PROPER NAME IMPORTANT?

FIRST, Its use is important to show proper respect to our Creator, Almighty God (YHWH),which literally means 'He who causes to be.' Why is this so? He made it a point to the original faithful men he used as scribes, more than 40 he used to put the thoughts of God (YHWH) into the language of mem, to make his proper name that he wished to be known by known to them.

Even mere humans wish to be addressed by name and not by "man," "boy," or whatever, and many take offense when they are not. Now, if mere men take offense at NOT being addressed by their proper name; how much more so would the Creator, Almighty God (YHWH) maker of all there is.

SECOND, It is necessary to use God's (YHWH's) proper name to identify which god you are speaking about by the use of his transliteration name in English, YHWH, to identify him as the one and only true God (YHWH) creator of heaven and earth as there are over 2,000,000 false gods [Hindus have for example many gods]. In other words, we should distinguish him from the many false gods that there are, and from false creedal creeds that dishonor him. Let's look briefly at one of one of these false gods:

"'The Archeology of The Middle East'
The religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion.

Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters.

Archaeologists have uncovered temples to the Moon-god throughout the Middle East. From the mountains of Turkey to the banks of the Nile, the most wide-spread religion of the ancient world was the worship of the Moon-god. In the first literate civilization, the Sumerians have left us thousands of clay tablets in which they described their religious beliefs. As demonstrated by Sjoberg and Hall, the ancient Sumerians worshipped a Moon-god who was called many different names. The most popular names were Nanna, Suen and Asimbabbar. His symbol was the crescent moon. Given the amount of artifacts concerning the worship of this Moon-god, it is clear that this was the dominant religion in Sumeria.

The cult of the Moon-god was the most popular religion throughout ancient Mesopotamia. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Akkadians took the word Suen and transformed it into the word Sin as their favorite name for the Moon-god. As Prof. Potts pointed out, "Sin is a name essentially Sumerian in origin which had been borrowed by the Semites."

In ancient Syria and Canna, the Moon-god Sin was usually represented by the moon in its crescent phase. At times the full moon was placed inside the crescent moon to emphasize all the phases of the moon. The sun-goddess was the wife of Sin and the stars were their daughters. For example, Istar was a daughter of Sin. Sacrifices to the Moon-god are described in the Pas Shamra texts. In the Ugaritic texts, the Moon-god was sometimes called Kusuh. In Persia, as well as in Egypt, the Moon-god is depicted on wall murals and on the heads of statues.

He was the Judge of men and gods. The Old Testament constantly rebuked the worship of the Moon-god (see: Deut. 4:19;17:3; II Kngs. 21:3,5; 23:5; Jer. 8:2; 19:13; Zeph. 1:5, etc.) When Israel fell into idolatry, it was usually the cult of the Moon-god. As a matter of fact, everywhere in the ancient world, the symbol of the crescent moon can be found on seal impressions, steles, pottery, amulets, clay tablets, cylinders, weights, earrings, necklaces, wall murals, etc. In Tell-el-Obeid, a copper calf was found with a crescent moon on its forehead. An idol with the body of a bull and the head of man has a crescent moon inlaid on its forehead with shells.

In Ur, the Stela of Ur-Nammu has the crescent symbol placed at the top of the register of gods because the Moon-god was the head of the gods. Even bread was baked in the form of a crescent as an act of devotion to the Moon-god. The Ur of the Chaldees was so devoted to the Moon-god that it was sometimes called Nannar in tablets from that time period.

A temple of the Moon-god has been excavated in Ur by Sir Leonard Woolley. He dug up many examples of moon worship in Ur and these are displayed in the British Museum to this day. Harran was likewise noted for its devotion to the Moon-god. In the 1950's a major temple to the Moon-god was excavated at Hazer in Palestine. Two idols of the moon god were found. Each was a stature of a man sitting upon a throne with a crescent moon carved on his chest .

The accompanying inscriptions make it clear that these were idols of the Moon-god. Several smaller statues were also found which were identified by their inscriptions as the "daughters" of the Moon-god. What about Arabia? As pointed out by Prof. Coon, "Muslims are notoriously loath to preserve traditions of earlier paganism and like to garble what pre-Islamic history they permit to survive in anachronistic terms."

During the nineteenth century, Amaud, Halevy and Glaser went to Southern Arabia and dug up thousands of Sabean, Minaean, and Qatabanian inscriptions which were subsequently translated. In the 1940's, the archeologists G. Caton Thompson and Carleton S. Coon made some amazing discoveries in Arabia. During the 1950's, Wendell Phillips, W.F. Albright, Richard Bower and others excavated sites at Qataban, Timna, and Marib (the ancient capital of Sheba). Thousands of inscriptions from walls and rocks in Northern Arabia have also been collected.

Reliefs and votive bowls used in worship of the "daughters of Allah" have also been discovered. The three daughters, al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat are sometimes depicted together with Allah the Moon-god represented by a crescent moon above them. The archeological evidence demonstrates that the dominant religion of Arabia was the cult of the Moon-god.

In Old Testament times, Nabonidus (555-539 BC), the last king of Babylon, built Tayma, Arabia as a center of Moon-god worship. Segall stated, "South Arabia's stellar religion has always been dominated by the Moon-god in various variations." Many scholars have also noticed that the Moon-god's name "Sin" is a part of such Arabic words as "Sinai," the "wilderness of Sin," etc. When the popularity of the Moon-god waned elsewhere, the Arabs remained true to their conviction that the Moon-god was the greatest of all gods. While they worshipped 360 gods at the Kabah in Mecca, the Moon-god was the chief deity. Mecca was in fact built as a shrine for the Moon-god."[source - The Archeology of The Middle East].

THREE, His Son's name is Jesus or Yeshua, English transliteration of Ancient Hebrew which literally means 'JHWH is Salvation.' Now with respect Jesus (Yeshua) it is absolutely necessary, also, to distinguish him from the many false messiahs that appear. In fact, all the children of Saturn were considered/called messiah's by the ancient Romans. Here is a little on that,

"In Roman Mythology, Saturn was the ancient god of agriculture. He was the husband of Ops, goddess of plenty. His children included Jupiter, ruler of the gods; Juno, goddess of marriage; Neptune, goddess of the sea; Pluto, god of the death, and Ceres, goddess of the grain. Saturn was shown as a man with a beard, in art, and carrying a sickle (resemblance to her glaive?) or an ear of corn."

NEED TO DISTINGUISH YHWH FROM FALSE CREEDAL CONCEPTS OF GOD (YHWH):

There are many creedal creeds that paint or posture God in strange surreal forms that are both false and dishonoring to the true God (YHWH) the maker of all there is such as he exist in three modes or manifestations or he is made up of either two or three individual spirit beings, etc.; however, only three of these will be considered as follows:

"[ONENESS THEOLOGY]
They believe that the Father (YHWH), the Son, Jesus (Yeshua or YHWH saves) and the Holy Spirit are the same God with no distinction in person or being. That only one God simply manifests himself in these three ways at different times.

Uniqueness - They believe that they are unique in that they conform strictly to the objective of having only one God where as others have more than one God. In many aspects it is similar to Modalism, but theologically speaking it is considered a distinct creedal doctrine. However, many writers fail to differentiate between Modalism and
Oneness Theology and this is an error.

[SABELLIANISM THEOLOGY OR MODALISM]
God is three only in relation to the world, in so many "manifestations" or "modes." The unity and identity of God are such that the Son of God, Jesus (Yeshua or YHWH saves) did not exist before the incarnation; because the Father (YHWH) and the Son, Jesus (Yeshua or YHWH saves) are thus one, the Father (YHWH) suffered with the Son, Jesus (Yeshua or YHWH saves) in his passion and death.

Uniqueness - They believe that God is one in earthly manifestations, but not heavenly. [Branham's Bible Believers, Inc.][ to Branham's 1189 page book "Conduct, Order, Doctrine of the Church," the "First thing is to straighten out you on your 'trinity' Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. "God is like a three-foot rule... The first twelve inches was God, the Father; the second twelve inches, God, the Son, the same God; the third twelve inches was God, the Holy Ghost, the same God," (pp.182 & 184). Branham clarifies his position in a speech given October 2, 1957 when he exclaims, "See, there cannot be an Eternal son, because a son had to have a beginning. And so Jesus had a beginning, God had no beginning," (Ibid, p.273).]
[[Note, this has much in common with Oneness Theology]]

[TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY]
They believe that there is one but God made up of three separate and distinct persons of but one indivisible essence. That these three persons existed from eternity, and are co-equal in power and substance. These individuals are known as Father (YHWH), Son, Jesus (Yeshua or YHWH saves) and the Holy Spirit. The undivided essence of God belongs equally to each of the three persons. The Church (Catholic, Orthodox, and most Protestants) confesses the Trinity to be a mystery beyond the comprehension of man.

Uniqueness - They see a distinction in the persons of God, but hold that there is but one God. It is a mystery, i.e., they are not able to explain it."[ source - Discourse on John 1:1 + Appendix by a PhD Theologian who wishes to remain Anonymous in 1999].

Of course the followers of these distorting creedal creeds say it does NOT matter what name you call God (YHWH), but as we have seen this is NOT so and an outright lie in keeping with John 8:44, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." (AV).

Interestingly, the last creedal distortion with respect God (YHWH) is clearly shown as WRONG by two scriptures about his Son, Jesus (Yeshua) himself as follows:

John 5:26 For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; (AV)

John 6:57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. (AV)

By the words of Jesus, Jesus was not eternal; he was given to have life in himself and lives because of the Father. An eternal being cannot be given to have life in themselves, and they do not depend on others to live. Clearly showing the deceitful creedal doctrine of two or three gods in one is false.

TRUTH MADE TO APPEAR INCONSEQUENTAL BY SOME WHEN IT IS REALLY VITAL:

As previously mentioned in the Introduction, one individual said, "Actually, it really doesn't matter, considering [individuals] believes the same Messiah as you do (in a way; only that he believes he is the same person as God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, which you don't believe as being triune)." Yet this is nothing but a deceptive lie. As previously shown, it matters greatly, and proper respect must be shown to our Creator, Almighty God (YHWH).

Even the purveyors of false creedal creeds know it matters a lot and they are very fearful of the truth, and what the Apostle John said at John 8:32, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (AV). They leaders of groups that teach these false creedal beliefs do all they can to prevent their members from knowing the truth with regard the facts about God (YHWH) including trying to keep his proper name from being known or making it appear that you can call him anything you want and that is okay. Like one believer in these false creedal creeds said, "Actually, it really doesn't matter." This sentiment of course fosters complacency and makes it appear that sound doctrine is NOT important, but Titus 2:1 shows this to be just another lie or untruth, "But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:" (AV).

Now let's look at some of the wicked atrocities these purveyors, who falsely claim to be footstep followers of Jesus (Yeshua) the Prince of Peace, of false creedal creeds have committed to silence those telling the truth. These very atrocities give salient testimony to the fact that it really does matter. Here are some representative examples from over 100,000 actual occurrences of wicked atrocities committed by purveyors of false creedal creeds to silence the voice of truth and fact:

[1] "This is where the theologian Michael Servitus comes in. In 1546 he wrote a book on spiritual regeneration. He attacked the doctrine of the Trinity. He thought the Nicene Creed dishonored the idea of redemption. That was dangerous thinking during the Protestant Reformation.

Servitus -- almost incidentally -- described the regeneration of blood in the lungs. It was part of his theology of regeneration. But it was quite accurate. Servitus told us just what Harvey did, 85 years later.

Servitus sent a copy of his book to Calvin. Calvin took it very badly. He ordered Servitus's arrest and trial as a heretic. A tribunal sentenced Servitus to burn in a fire fueled by slow-burning green wood and his own books. "[source - MICHAEL SERVITUS, by John H. Lienhard ]

[2] "Standard Number One: Commandment Nine, "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness," and Commandment Six, "Thou Shalt Not Murder." According to Hebrews 4:12, This not only includes actual murder, but the desire to murder or have murdered. In other words, a person or a Church (group of people) can have murder committed for them, and they don't actually have to get their hands bloody. All they have to do is desire for a murder to occur (murder is the "Intent of Their Hearts")!

The written history of the "Inquisition" is specific in its' details; and some of those details are as follows:

The Inquisition was a medieval Catholic church court instituted to seek out and prosecute heretics (heretics, by Catholic definition, were almost always Sabbath Keeping Sabbatarians). The Church worked in conjunction with the military powers of the land (Kings & Queens) to accomplish their misdeeds. Papal documents as well as the Second, Third, and Fourth Lateran councils (1139, 1179, 1215) prescribed imprisonment (with torture), and confiscation of property as punishment for heresy and threatened to excommunicate princes (Kings & Queens) who failed to punish heretics. They were notoriously harsh, and their procedures resulted in unbelievable tortures, most often resulting in excruciating death; "The Crusaders" were the soldiers used by the inquisition to round up the so called Sabbatarian heretics. The Sabbatarians (Any and All Seventh Day Sabbath Keepers) were burned at the stake, buried alive, had their feet burned off, and were hacked into pieces by the Crusaders. The Inquisition was defended during the Middle Ages by appeal to biblical practices and to the Catholic church father (the "So Called") saint Augustine (354-430AD.), who chose to interpret Luke 14:23 as endorsing the use of physical force against so called heretics.

Luke 14:23 (a physical to Spiritual parallel or anthropomorphism)
23 The lord said to the servant, 'Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my (Spiritual) house may (ultimately) be filled.

Note: The word Compel, as used in Luke cannot go against Yahweh's Laws of Love. Therefore, the wicked saint Augustine used physical force, when Matthew intended for them to use Moral argument to convince people to come into G_d's house. A True Saint would have known this, but a True Power Hungry Heretic would not care. So here we have an example of a True Heretic (saint Augustine) pretending to be a Saint, and torturing True Saints (Sabbath Keepers) and calling them heretics. One last thought on this standard: Sabbatarians, as a group, never murdered, tortured or persecuted anyone; but, whenever they try to make the Truth Known, they are quickly called "Catholic Bashers." What will Yahweh be called, when He destroys the True Heretical Catholic-christians (Christopagans) from off the face of the Earth?

King Louis IX of France (1229 AD) called Sabbath Keepers heretics.

Catholic canon (Law) #3 (1229 AD) (The Council of Toulouse) Quote: The Lords of the different districts shall search the villas and woods for the hiding places of the Sabbath Keeping heretics.

Standard Number Two: Commandment Four, "Keep The Seventh Day Sabbath Holy." True Believing Sabbatarian Congregations are Overt and not Covert. Why? Mainly, because True Believers have nothing to hide, they are not deceptive, use secret codes or hide behind clever semantics. Additionally, True Believers are humble and obedient to the Words of Yahweh. True Believers are not heretics, who at first pretend to be True Believers, and then over a period of time change their beliefs. The Seventh Day Sabbath was observed as a Holy Day of Convocation, even by the Catholic church, and it wasn't until the Catholic church imagined that they had the power to change the Laws of Yahweh that those "In Power" re-invented "The Lord's Day," and started enforcing Sunday as their "Day of Rest." Revelation 1:10, Acts 2:20, 1 Corinthians 5:5, 1 Thess. 5:2, and 2 Peter 3:10 are the only places in the Bible that the "Lord's Day" is even mentioned, and those who are Spiritually enlightened know that this is always referring to the (future) Day of "The First Resurrection" when "The Last Trumpet" will sound, and the kingdoms of this Earth become the kingdom(s) of The Son(s) of Yahweh.

Revelation 1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet

So when and how did the Catholic-Christian (Christopagan) church begin to reveal its' true identity? History records that the Catholic-Christian church began to show her true colors about the late third or early fourth century.

However, the Catholic-Christian church in Scotland remained loyal to The Saturday Sabbath well into the tenth century, according to: "Adamnan Life of St. Columbs" 1874, p.96 by W.T. Skene; "History of The Catholic church in Scotland," Vol. 1, p.86, by Bellesheim (a Catholic Historian); "The Rise of The Mediaeval Church," p.237, by Flick; "History of Scotland From The Roman occupation," Vol. 1, p.96, by Andrew Lang; and "Celtic Scotland" Vol. 2, pp.330-349.

The Seventh Day Sabbath prevailed in the Catholic church in Wales until 1115AD. when St. David's Cathedral seated its very first Roman Catholic indoctrinated bishop.

Roman Catholic canon (Law) #26 (305 AD) of The Council of Elvira, Spain, reveals that the church in Spain observed the Seventh Day Sabbath, but were at odds with the church in Rome, because the Rome church had already imposed a Sabbath Fasting Period (to make the True Sabbath unpopular with the masses).

Catholic canon (Law) #16: On Saturday the Gospels and Scripture shall be read aloud.

Catholic canon (Law) #29: Catholic-Christians shall not JUDAIZE (a Jew Hater statement) and be idle on the Sabbath, but shall work on that day, but shall not work on the (re-invented) "Lord's Day."

Pope Sylvester (314-335AD.) was the first to order that the Catholic church "Fast" (go hungry and thirsty) each and every Sabbath (Friday at sunset to Saturday at sunset). This was a major change in the Sabbath (and not according to Holy Scripture), and was done to make the Sabbath less appealing than Sunday. Of course, this only psychologically affected the members of The Catholic church, as True Believers (Sabbatarians) continued to keep the True Sabbath according to G_d's Word.

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[iris89]

[b][size=large]Part 4 reply to false claim 1

Pope Innocent (402-417) made fasting on The Sabbath a binding law for all in subjugation (psychological and legal slavery) to the Catholic church.

Pope Gregory I (590-604 AD.), according to epistles #1 and #B 13:1, called all those within the Catholic church who forbid working on the Saturday Sabbath, "Antichrists."

Catholic canon (Law) #13: "Council of Friaul," Italy, 791AD., Sunday, the so called "Lord's Day," became a commanded observance (purely CULT tactics).
...

Conclusion: I could continue for days on this subject, but I doubt that very many people would take the time to read it all. Kind of like owning a Bible, which you don't even read. Did you know that having a Bible is a privilege, that not many people have had through the centuries.

Catholic canon Law #14 (of the thirteenth century in France) "Lay members are not allowed to possess the books of the Old or the New Testaments."

Now why would a so called Christian church prohibit their members from having access to the word of YHWH? Could it be because ignorant members are easier for cults to lie to and control, and because control is power, and power relates to profit and vanity? Yes! But more importantly, it relates to "The Will of Satan."

My friends, this Roman Government sponsored church and its' christian harlot daughter churches have not only failed to represent the True Children of G_d, but have murdered them. Has this church group changed its' spots or truly repented of their sins? No! For even now they are trying to regroup and regain the powers that they once had. Have you not heard of Ecumenism? The Catholic church is a threat to all True Sabbatarian Believers everywhere. Will we wait in disbelief as the Jews did in World War II? I pray not!

Finally, can any True Believer, follow any of the holiday traditions or ritual practices belonging to or coming out of The Catholic church? Absolutely Not! Why? Because this church is the original "Cult Church" and The Mother of Christian (Christopagan) harlots as mentioned in Revelation 17:4-6. They have perverted every Holy Tradition of Yahweh, mistranslated scripture, replaced Yahweh's Weekly Sabbath with Sunday and Yahweh's Annual Sabbath Holy Days with pagan holidays (Xmas & Easter/Ishtar, etc...), suppressed the study of scripture, murdered True Believers and Jews, assisted Hitler in World War II, perverted the "Breaking of Unleavened Bread" at Passover to the unbroken Sun Wafer of the "Eucharist" at Ishtar/Easter Time and other non-Holy days, and the list goes on. How can any brain conscious human being ever place even an ounce of faith in this perverted religious system.

Revelation 17:4-6
4 The woman (spiritual harlot / false church) was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of (Spiritual) abominations (read Ezekiel & Jeremiah), even the unclean things of her (Spiritual) sexual immorality (with pagan gods and goddesses),
5 and on her forehead a name written, "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE (Spiritual) PROSTITUTES (Christianity & others) AND OF THE (Spiritual) ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH."

6 I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the (TRUE) saints (Sabbatarians), and with the blood of the martyrs of Yahshua (The TRUE Messiah). When I saw her, I wondered with great amazement.

NOTE: This woman is Spiritual Babylon, which was pure paganism (false religions) prior to The Messiah, but was covertly transferred to The Catholic church (Mother of Christianity) even before The Messiah's Sacrifice.[source - The Mother of All Cults
by Dan J. Love, Minister, SCY]

[3] The burning at the stake of Durmaid in 1542 in Ireland by Catholic authorities for preaching that there is only ONE SUPREME GOD who is indivisible and not made of parts and/or other gods in keeping with Mark 12:32, "And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:" (AV).

Now we can see from these wicked atrocities and many more like them that it really DOES matter with regard to what god we call on. For this reason, these purveyors, who falsely claim to be footstep followers of Jesus (Yeshua) the Prince of Peace, of false creedal creeds have committed to silence those telling the truth. These very atrocities give salient testimony to the fact that it really does matter.

However, many have been complacent and feel it does NOT matter, and as we have seen say just that. But in reality this is just a cover-up for something that really does matter. This is similar to the cover-up some wish to do with respect the occurrence of the Holocaust. One individual, the head of the Neo Nazi group in Latvia, said with respect the Holocaust during which millions of Jews were murdered by the Nazis, "Oh, the Jews and the Nazis had a few small differences, but nothing of significance." Major differences and atrocities should NOT be sweeped under the table; the truth should be told; but evil purveyors of falsehoods will go to great lengths to sweep truths under the table. Be on guard.

THE RESTORATION OF ALMIGHTY GOD (YHWH) NAME MOVEMENT:

At the present time many religious groups are quite active with respect restoring Almighty God (YHWH) personal name in new Bible translations and religious writings. The first Bible translations to do so were as follows, using Exodus 6:3 as an example scripture:

And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as the Almighty *God; but by my name Jehovah I was not made known to them. (DARBY 1884 VERSION; DARBY).

and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH I was not known to them. (English Revised Version; ERV).

and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name Jehovah {The Hebrew word (four Hebrew letters: HE, VAV, HE, YOD,) remained in the English text untranslated; the English word 'Jehovah' was substituted for this Hebrew word. The footnote for this Hebrew word is: "The ineffable name, read Adonai, which means the Lord."} I made Me not known to them. (1917 Jewish Publication Society Old Testament)

and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah I was not known to them. (American Standard Version; ASV).

I appeared, therefore, unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as GOD Almighty,--although, by my name Yahweh, was I not made known to them; (Rotherham Bible of 1902; RB).

And I used to appear to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but as respects my name Jehovah I did not make myself known to them. (New World Translation; NWT).

Yo me aparecí a Abraham, a Isaac y a Jacob como Dios Todopoderoso; pero con mi nombre Jehovah no me di a conocer a ellos. (Spanish, 1989 Reina-Valera Actualizida; RVA89)

y me aparecí a Abraham, a Isaac y a Jacob como Dios Omnipotente, mas en mi Nombre el SEÑOR (YHWH) no me notifiqué a ellos. (1999 Segradas Escritures Version Antigua, SEV).

and I appear unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty; as to My name Jehovah, I have not been known to them; (Young's Literal Translation; YLT).

Now here is a foreword on one of the latest Bibles to restore the sacred name,

<<<"Sacred Name Bible, SNB, 1976, published by the Tyndale House, Cambridge, UK.

This is a revision of the Rotherham Version. Since many people have been misinformed concerning the true name of the Most High and His Son, this revised version's aim is to bring to light a clearer and deeper understanding of this wonderful Name which has been suppressed for many years. This version concerns the True Name and Titles of the Creator and His Son. The Name of the Heavenly Father or His Son is given in capital letters. The pronoun standing for the Name begins with a capital. It is not the first version to bring out the Name and the Titles of the Creator and His Son.

The Hebrew reader could see YHWH as reverently transcribed by the Hebrew copyist, but was instructed not to pronounce it. However, he could utter a less sacred name, e.g., Adonay, Elohim, and El. When LORD and GOD are printed with small capitals, they stand for the Name. Otherwise, they do not.

The Name was suppressed because of the fear that it is too holy to be pronounced. This fear sprang from interpretations of Exodus 20: 7 and Leviticus 24: 16. This version is restoring the Name because of an interpretation of Isaiah 52:6.

The King James Version forms of paragraphing and center references are used."[source - http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion...ns/snb.htm, on 2/15/2008] >>>

Interestingly in this Bible, the Sacred Name Bible, John 1:1-3 was rendered as follows:

John 1:1-3, "Originally was the Word, and the Word was with YAHVAH; and the Word was YAHVAH.

The same was originally with YAHVAH. All things through Him came into existence, and without Him came into existence not even one thing: that which hath come into existence." Herein, committing an error of logic and grammar in saying the Word, Jesus (Yeshua) was with his Father, Yahvah, and then saying the Word was his Father, Yahwah, which of course is not possible as you can not be with someone and be that someone also clearly showing a bad translation by Trinitarians who had to translate badly or expose their false doctrine for what it is; to wit, Almighty God (YHWH) dishonoring false pagan doctrine.

The Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, says of one group trying to restore the divine personal name, the following,

<<<" Yahweh's Restoration Ministry is a Christian religious organization based in Holts Summit, MO. Their stated goal is to return to Bible teachings that have been neglected through the centuries.
The ministry was founded in 1999 by Alan Mansager, a long-time minister in the Sacred Name Movement and a presenter on the TV program Back to the Truth, which was seen across the country in the late 1990s.
Their main beliefs include the observance of the seventh day (Saturday) Sabbath, the annual Feasts of Leviticus 23, and the necessity of using the original Hebrew and Aramaic names of Yahweh for God and Yahshua for Jesus. They reject anything connected to paganism, which they believe includes celebration of holidays such as Christmas and Easter. Instead, they observe the Holy Days mentioned in the Old Testament such as Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles.[source - Yahweh's Restoration Ministry, by Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]>>>.

CONCLUSION - The None Technical, Part 1:

Believe no creedal creeds. Accept only the Bible as the word of God (YHWH), and accept it all the way, not half way as do the creeds, both the New Testament and the Old Testament. Why? Because it is the only book God (YHWH) ever used over 40 faithful men as scribes under inspiration to put the thoughts of God (YHWH) into the words of men.

As noted in this article, the purveyors of false creedal creeds have committed many atrocities in the name of Jesus (Yeshua) and His Father, Almighty God (YHWH) which is wickedness and blasphemy of the highest order. Today, notice how the followers of false creedal creeds either try to sweep under the table the fact that truth really does matter and/or are very nasty and make false accusations and tell lies about those telling Biblical truths that show up their falsehoods and creedal mysteries such as Oneness, Modalism, the Trinity, the Duality, the Hindu Trinity, etc.

Remember John 8:44, " Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." (AV), and John 8:32, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (AV).

CONCLUSION - Technical, Part 2:

Of what many consider the closest pronunciation to the tetragrammaton, the personal name of Almighty God (YHWH), the Encyclopedia Britannica says,

<<<" Yahweh - the God of the Israelites, his name being revealed to Moses as four Hebrew consonants (YHWH) called the tetragrammaton. After the Exile (6th century BC), and especially from the 3rd century BC on, Jews ceased to use the name Yahweh for two reasons. As Judaism became a universal religion through its proselytizing in the Greco-Roman world, the more common noun Elohim, meaning "god," tended to replace Yahweh to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel's God over all others. At the same time, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered; it was thus replaced vocally in the synagogue ritual by the Hebrew word Adonai ("My Lord"), which was translated as Kyrios ("Lord") in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament.

The Masoretes, who from about the 6th to the 10th century worked to reproduce the original text of the Hebrew Bible, replaced the vowels of the name YHWH with the vowel signs of the Hebrew words Adonai or Elohim. Thus, the artificial name Jehovah (YeHoWaH) came into being. Although Christian scholars after the Renaissance and Reformation periods used the term Jehovah for YHWH, in the 19th and 20th centuries biblicalscholars again began to use the form Yahweh. Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, had used a form like Yahweh, and this pronunciation of the tetragrammaton was never really lost. Other Greek transcriptions also indicated that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh."[source - the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Yes, as can be seen, Almighty God's (YHWH's) should be restored in all new Bible translations in both the Old and New Testament. However, the exact pronunciation of it in ancient times is not the important thing, the important thing is using a personal name that clearly identifies Almighty God (YHWH) personal name, and the transliteration of it in various languages can take many forums such as the following:

YHVH YHWH Yahweh Yahveh Yaveh Yaweh Jehova Jehovah Jahova Jahovah Yahova Yahovah Yahowah Jahowa Jahowah Yahavah Jahavah Yahowe Yahoweh Jahaveh Jahaweh Yahaveh Yahaweh Jahuweh Yahuweh Jahuwah Yahuwah Yahuah Yah Jah Yahu Yahoo Yaohu Jahu Yahvah Jahvah Jahve Jahveh Yahve Yahwe Yauhu Yawhu Iahu Iahou Iahoo Iahueh
Jeshua, Yeshua, Yeshuah, Yehshua, Yehshuah, Yeshouah, Y'shua, Y'shuah, Jeshu, Yeshu, Yehoshua, Yehoshuah, YHVHShua, YHVHShuah, Yhvhshua, Yhwhshua, YHWHShua, YHWHShuah, Yhvhshuah, Yhwhshuah, Yahvehshua, Yahwehshua, Yahvehshuah, Yahwehshuah, Yawhushua,Yahawshua, Jahshua, Jahshuah, Jahshuwah, Jahoshua, Jahoshuah, Jashua, Jashuah, Jehoshua, Jehoshuah, Yashua, Yashuah, Yahshua, Yahshuah, Yahushua, Yahushuah, Yahuahshua, Yahuahshuah, Yahoshua, Yahoshuah, Yaohushua, Yaohushuah, Yauhushua, Iahoshua, Iahoshuah, Iahushua, Iahushuah, YAHO-hoshu-WAH [source - RESTORATION OF THE SACRED NAME, A "Bible Revelations" Presentation , http://www.revelations.org.za/NotesS-Name.htm on 02/15/2008]

[3] Actual Answer to A None Believer in Almighty God (YHWH)

You falsely claimed and without any evidence that they, the Inspired Writers of the New Testament wrote their accounts to comply with the Old Testament which is an outright lie as they recorded reality as it happened. In fact, there was a specific case where one of their references was not understood fully until I did original research on it and found it a composite recording of fulfillment of prophecy. To wit, you make grandiose false claims with zero accreditable backing, and that is entirely wrong and misleading. You are just seeking to deny the obvious reality that there is a higher intelligence than man who created the universe and all that is in it, Almighty God (YHWH), the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, and Jacob, creator of all there is. So get real.

Discourse On Anti-God Individuals Asking Question On Composite Scriptures in The New Testament:

APPENDIX:

Also, for further details, go to:

Here is a very interesting item received from a French Bible scholar on God's (YHWH's) name: [and its in English]

By Gérard Gertoux
President, Association Biblique de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits
September 2003

God's name, which one finds about 7000 times in the Bible under the form YHWH, possesses the unique and remarkable circumstance of not having been vocalized by nearly all translators. With this name being unpronounceable under its written form YHWH, some overconfident (or overzealous?) translators refused to confirm this paradox and preferred to vocalize it with an approximated form. Obviously, in every case, the proposed vocalizations were very rigorously criticized. A review of the past twenty centuries will allow us to appreciate the reasonings which favored or opposed the vocalization of God's name and to understand the origin of the controversy and the paradox of a name which can be written without being able to read it aloud.

BEFORE OUR COMMON ERA

The first translation of the Bible, called the Septuagint, was made by Jews at the beginning of the third century before our era. However, out of superstitious respect, these translators preferred to keep the Tetragram YHWH written in Hebrew within the Greek text. There was, however, one exception: a Jewish translator who preferred to insert it under the vocalized form Iaô (Iaw), which became well known at this time because the historians Varro and Diodorus Siculus quoted it in their books (History I:94:2; Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum). In spite of these precise testimonies, the form of Iaô found limited use and was very often slandered: a paradox of magnitudes. The great prophet Jeremiah explained that the objective of the false prophets was to cause people to forget the Name (Jr 23:27), an attempt nevertheless dedicated to be defeated (Ps 44:20; 21) because God reserves his Name for his servants (Is 52:6) and naturally for those who appreciate it (Mal 3:16). Abraham, who is the father of those who have faith, took pleasure in proclaiming this Name according to Genesis 12:8 and initiated a respectable biblical custom.

Furthermore, according to the prophet Joel, it is even obligatory to proclaim this Name in order to be saved during the great and formidable day of God (Jl 2:32). According to Exodus 23:13, refusal to pronounce a god's name is a refusal to worship the god in question, so refusal to pronounce the True God's name means a refusal to worship him (Jos 23:7). In spite of these exactitudes, the translators of the Septuagint self-justified their choice not to vocalize the Name, even going so far as to modify the verses of Leviticus 24:15, transforming them into : "(Å ) a man who will curse God will bring the offence, but in order to have named the name of the Lord, he would have to die absolutely, the entire assembly of Israel should stone him with stones; the alien resident as the native, in order to have named the name of the Lord, he would have to die absolutely."

Paradoxically, as noted by Philo, a Jewish philosopher of the first century, to name God was worse than to curse him (De Vita Mosis II:203-206). The Talmud points out that they had started to remove these names (Yah, Yahu) that had been stamped on jars in order to protect their holiness ('Arakin 6a; Shabbat 61b). Out of respect, the Name was to be avoided in conversation, as proven by these remarks from Jewish books written in the second century BCE: "Do not accustom into the habit of naming the Holy One" and "someone who is continually swearing and uttering the Name will not be exempt from sin" (Si 23:9,10). It was held that the privilege of pronouncing the Name was strictly reserved for use inside the Temple (Si 50:20) and that it should not be communicated to foreigners (Ws 14:21).

FROM FIRST TO FIFTH CENTURY

Flavius Josephus, who understood the priesthood of this time very well, made it clear that at the time the Romans attacked the Temple the Jews called upon the fear-inspiring name of God (The Jewish War V:43 . He wrote he had no right to reveal this name to his reader (Jewish Antiquities II:275); however, he did give information of primary importance on the very pronunciation he wanted to conceal. However, in his work The Jewish War V:235, he stated: "The high priest had his head dressed with a tiara of fine linen embroidered with a purple border, and surrounded by another crown in gold which had in relief the sacred letters; these ones are four vowels." This description is excellent; moreover, it completes the one found in Exodus 28:36-39. However, as we know, there are no vowels in Hebrew but only consonants.

Regrettably, instead of explaining this apparent abnormality, certain commentators (influenced by the form Yahweh) mislead the readers of Josephus by indicating in a note that this reading was IAUE. Now, it is obvious that the "sacred letters" indicated the Tetragram written in paleo-Hebrew, not Greek. Furthermore, in Hebrew these consonants, Y, W, and H, do serve as vowels; they are, in fact, called "mothers of reading" (matres lectionis). The writings of Qumrân show that in the first century Y used as a vowel served only to indicate the sounds I and É, W served only for the sounds Ô and U, and a final H served for the sound A. These equivalences may be verified in thousands of words.
Additionally, the H was used as a vowel only at the end of words, never within them. So, to read the name YHWH as four vowels would be IHUA, that is IEUA, because between two vowels the H is heard as a slight E. Eusebius quoted a writer of great antiquity (before 1200 BCE?) called Sanchuniathon who spoke about the Jews in chapter four of his work entitled Phoenician History. Philo of Byblos translated this work into Greek at the beginning of our era, and Porphyry was familiar with it. Sanchuniathon maintained that he got his information from Ieroubal the priest of IÉÜÔ (Ieuw), that is the Jerubbaal found in Judges 7:1. According to Judges 7:1, Jerubbaal was the name of Judge Gideon who was a priest of Jehovah (Jg 6:26; 8:27), probably written IÉÜÔA (Ieuwa) in Greek.

Irenaeus of Lyons believed that the word IAÔ (Iaw in Greek, [Iah] in Latin) meant "Lord" in primitive Hebrew (Against Heresies II:24:2), and he esteemed that the use of this Hebrew word IAÔ to denote the Name of the unknown Father was intended to impress gullible minds in worship of mysteries (Against Heresies I:21:3). Furthermore, the Greek concept of an anonymous god, mainly supported by Plato, being mixed in with the Hebrew concept of the God with a personal name, engendered absolutely contradictory assertions. So, Clement of Alexandria wrote in his book (Stromateon V:34:5) that the Tetragram was pronounced Iaoue while writing and then later that God was without form and nameless (StromateonV:81:6).

In the same way, Philo a Jewish philosopher of the first century had good biblical knowledge and knew that the Tetragram was the divine name pronounced inside the temple, since he related: "there was a gold plaque shaped in a ring and bearing four engraved characters of a name which had the right to hear and to pronounce in the holy place those ones whose ears and tongue have been purified by wisdom, and nobody else and absolutely nowhere else" (De Vita Mosis II:114-132). However, in the same work, paradoxically, he explains, commenting on Exodus 3:14 from the LXX translation, that God has no name of his own (De Vita Mosis I:75).

The Christian translators (of heathen origin) not understanding Hebrew exchanged the Tetragram with Lord; Marcion in 140 C.E. even modified the expression "Let your Name be sanctified" into "Let your spirit be sanctified." On the other hand, some Christians (of Jewish origin) such as Symmachus kept the Tetragram written in Hebrew inside the Greek text (in 165). Eusebius clarified that Symmachus was an Ebionite, that is a Judeo-Christian, and that he had drafted a comment on Matthew's book (Ecclesiastical History VI:17). However, the Judeo-Christians were completely rejected after 135 of our era by the "Christians" as Jewish heretics.

Since the whole of translations were made according to the Septuagint, many readers ignored the problem of the vocalization of the Name. However, Jerome, who realized the first Latin translation directly from the Hebrew text, noted in his commentary on Psalm 8:2: "The name of the Lord in Hebrew has four letters, Yod He Waw He, which is the proper name of God which some people through ignorance, write P I P I (instead of h w h y) in Greek and which can be pronounced Yaho." Augustine of Hippo wrote around 400 that "Varro was rightly writing that the Jews worship the god Jupiter" (De consensu evangelistarum I:22). His remark proves that he probably confused the name of Jupiter (Ioue) with the Hebrew name of God Iaô, or perhaps Ioua.

FROM SIXTH TO ELEVENTH CENTURY

Some oriental Christians, due to their knowledge of the Hebraic language, prevented a complete disappearance of the name. Thus, Severi of Antioch used the form IÔA (Iwa) in a series of comments in chapter eight of John's gospel (Jn 8:5 , pointing out that it was God's name in Hebrew, a name that one finds also in the front pages of a codex of 6th century (Coislinianus) to assign the Invisible or the Unspeakable. It is interesting to note that Matthew's gospel in Hebrew was found in a work dated from the 6th to the 9th centuries (Nestor's book) and was attributed to the priest Nestorius, in which God's name appears under the Hebraic shape "The Name" (Hashem) instead of the usual "Lord." In commenting on a work of Severi of Antioch, the famous scholar James of Edesse made clear around 675 in a technical comment that the copyists of the Septuagint (of his time) were divided over whether to write the divine name Adonay and keep it within the Greek text in the form P I P I (corresponding in fact to the Hebrew name YHYH as he mentioned) or to translate it as Kurios and write it in the margin of the manuscript.

These quotations are exceptional, however, because even the famous translator Albinus Alcuini specified that although God's name was written Jod He Vau Heth, it was read Lord because this name was ineffable. Things began to change when translators again made translations directly from Hebrew and not from a translation. The first was doubtless the famous Karaite Yefet ben Eli who translated the Bible into Arabic. In copies of this translation (made around 960), one finds at times the Tetragram vocalized Yahwah (or Yahuwah), a normal transcription of the Hebrew shape Yehwah of this time (or Yahowah whom one finds in some codices within Babylonian punctuation) because in Arabic there are only three sounds: â, î, and û. The shape Yahuwah was apparently understood Yah Huwa "Oh He" in Arabic because it seems so in a manuscript dated 10th century.

Some famous imams, such as Abu-l-Qâsim-al-Junayd who died in 910 and now known as Fahr ad-Din Râzî, while knowing that God had 99 beautiful names explained that the supreme name (ism-al-a'zam) of God was Yâ Huwa not Allah. A follower of al-Junayd, the Soufi Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallâj (857-922), asserted: "Here are the words of which sense seemed ambiguous. Know that temples hold by His Yâ-Huwah and that bodies are being moved by His Yâ-Sîn. Now Hû and Sîn are two roads which end into the knowledge of the original point." Yâ-Sîn is a reference to the Sura 36 and Yâ-huwah wrote y'hwh in Arabic and makes reference to the Hebrew Tetragram. Al-Hallâj was rejected as a madman by his teacher al-Junayd and was executed in Bagdad as a heretic.

IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY

The works of two Jewish scholars marked a decisive bend in the vocalization of God's name. In order to contend with influences of philosophy, Gnosticism, mystical, and even astrological beliefs which became increasingly influential [mainly due to the third century work entitled Sepher Yetsirah (Book of Forming) which speculated on the letters of the divine names], Maimonides, a Jewish scholar and famous talmudist, put forward a whole new definition of Judaism. His reasoning centered on the Name of God, the Tetragram, which was explained in his book entitled The Guide of the Perplexed, written in 1190. There he exposed the following powerful reasoning: the God of the philosophers did not require worship only polite acknowledgement of his existence since it would be impossible to establish relations with a nameless God (Elohim).

Then he proved that the Tetragramaton YHWH is the personal name of God, that is to say the name distinctly read (Shem hamephorash), which is different from all the other names such as Adonay, Shadday, Elohim (which are only divine titles having an etymology) because the Tetragram has no etymology. Maimonides knew well the problem of the pronunciation since Jewish tradition stated that it had been lost. On the other hand, he also knew that some Jews believed in the almost magical influence of the letters or the precise pronunciation of divine names, but he warned his readers against such practices as being pure invention or foolishness. The remarkable aspect of his argumentation lies in the fact that he managed to avoid controversy on such a sensitive subject.

He asserted that in fact it was only true worship which had been lost and not the authentic pronunciation of the Tetragram, since this was still possible according to its letters. To support this basic idea (true worship is more important than correct pronunciation), he quoted Sotah 38a to prove that the name is the essence of God and that is the reason it should not be misused; then he quoted Zechariah 14:9 to prove the oneness of this name and also Sifre Numbers 6:23-27 to show that the priests were obliged to bless by this name only. Then, to prove that pronunciation of the Name did not pose any problem in the past and that it had no magical aspect, he quoted Qiddushin 71a, which said that this name was passed on by certain rabbis to their sons.

Also, according to Yoma 39b, this pronunciation was widely used before the priesthood of Simon the Just, so proving the insignificance of a magical concept; at this time, the Name was used for its spiritual, not supernatural, aspect. Maimonides insisted on the fact that what was necessary to find was the spirituality connected to this Name and not the exact pronunciation. In order to demonstrate this important idea of understanding the sense and not the sound conveyed by this name, he quoted a relevant example. Exodus 6:3 indicates that before Moses the Name was not known. Naturally, this refers to the exact meaning of the Name and not its pronunciation because it would be unreasonable to believe that a correct pronunciation would have suddenly been able to incite the Israelites to action unless the pronunciation had magical power, a supposition disproved by subsequent events.

It is interesting to observe that Judah Halevi, another Jewish scholar, put forward almost the same arguments in his book The Kuzari published some years before in 1140. He wrote that the main difference between the God of Abraham and the God of Aristotle was the Tetragram. He proved also that this name was the personal name of God and that it meant "He will be with you." To show once again that it was the meaning of this name which was important and not the pronunciation, he quoted Exodus 5:2 where Pharaoh asked to know the Name, not the pronunciation which he used, and the authority of this Name. He pointed out that the letters of the Tetragram have the remarkable property of being matres lectionis, that is the vowels associated with other consonants, much as the spirit is associated with the body and makes it live (Kuzari IV:1-16). Judah Halevi specified in his work that the yod (Y) served as vowel I, the waw (W) served as O, and that the he (H) and the aleph (') served as A. According to these rudimentary indications, the name YHWH could be read I-H-O-A "according to its letters" (H is never used as vowel inside words; in that exceptional case, the letter aleph is preferred). A French erudite, Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, explained that the best pronunciation of the divine Name according to its letters was Ihôah, and when he began to translate the Bible (Genesis, chapters I to X), he systematically used the name Ihôah.

The expression pronounced "according to its letters" which Maimonides used is strictly exact, only in Hebrew (vowel letters as pointed out by Judah Halevi). Joachim of Flora gave a Greek transliteration of the Tetragram I-E-U-E in his work entitled Expositio in Apocalypsim that he finished in 1195. He also used the expression "Adonay IEUE tetragramaton nomen" in another book entitled Liber Figurarum. The vocalization of the Tetragram was improved by Pope Innocent III in one of his sermons written around 1200. Indeed, he noticed that the Hebrew letters of the Tetragram Ioth, Eth, Vau (that is Y, H, W) were used as vowels and that the name IESUS had exactly the same vowels I, E, and U as the divine name. He also drew a parallel between the name written IEVE, pronounced Adonai, and the name written IHS but pronounced IESUS. These remarks on the Name concerned only a circle very restricted by medieval intellectuals.

Furthermore, Pope Innocent III (1160-1216) did not make known in the Catholic world that God's name was Ieue and not Lord; the Hebrew scholar Judah Hallevi (1075-1141) did not denounce the Jewish superstition to replace the name Ihôa by the substitute Adonay; the Soufi al-Hallâj (857-922) did not reveal in the Moslem world that Yâhuwa was the proper noun of Allah, etc.

FROM THIRTEEN TO FIFTEENTH CENTURY

From the thirteenth century, knowledge of the Hebrew language would progress considerably, involving notably the role of matres lectionis. For example, the famous scholar Roger Bacon wrote in his Hebraic grammar that in Hebrew there are six vowels "aleph, he, vav, heth, iod, ain" close to the usual Masoretic vowel-points. (The French erudite Fabre d'Olivet also explained in his Hebrew grammar the following equivalence: aleph = â, he = è, heth = é, waw = ô/ u, yod = î, aïn = wo).

Raymond Martini, a Spanish monk, excellent Hebrew scholar, and a very good connoisseur of Talmud, impressed by the arguments of Maimonides, was involved in controversy with the Jews in his book Pugio fidei in 1278 on the fact that God's name could be pronounced; he used the form Yohoua. However, in 1292, his pupil Arnauldus of Villenueva, keen on Cabal, returned to the dumb (speechless) form of IHVH. On the other hand, Porchetus de Salvaticis, an admirer of Raymond Martini, enriched his arguments and used several times the form Yohouah in his book Victoria Porcheti adversus impios Hebraeos in 1303. However, the convert Abner of Burgos used (between 1330 and 1340) the form Yehabe in his book Mostrador de Justicia. Another convert, Pablo of Burgos preferred the dumb structure YHBH (in 1390).

The first scholar who gave exactly and clearly the reasons of his choices of vocalization was cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. In 1428, he dedicated moreover his first sermon on John 1:1 in which he explained, based on rabbi Moyses's works, the various names of God (Adonai, Jah, Sabaoth, Schaddai, etc.) and the meaning of the Tetragram, which he vocalized Iehoua. In this sermon, he began to develop the idea that Jesus was the "speakable" element (the Word) of the "unspeakable (ineffable)" God. He explained in another sermon, written around 1440, that the name of Jesus means "savior," pronounced Ihesua in Hebrew, and this name "Savior" is also the Word of God. He indicated that the unspeakable name is Ihehoua in Hebrew.

In two other sermons, written in 1441, he pursued the connection between the unspeakable Greek Tetragram, spelled Iot, He, Vau, He, and the "speakable" name of Ihesus which he often wrote Ihûs. Then, in a sermon written in 1445, he explained in detail the grammatical reasons permitting a link between these two names. God's name is the Greek Tetragram which is spelled in Hebrew Ioth, He, Vau, He; these four letters serve as vowels, corresponding to I, E, O, A in Greek because in this language there is no specific vowel for the sound OU (the letter U in Greek is pronounced as the French Ü). So, in Greek, the transcription IEOUA would be more exact and would better reflect the OU sound of the Hebrew name I-e-ou-a, becoming in Latin Iehova or Ihehova, because the letter H is inaudible and the vowel U also serves as a consonant (V).

He noted finally that the Hebraic form IESUA of the name "Jesus" is distinguished from the divine name only by a holy letter "s" (shin in Hebrew) which is interpreted as the "elocution" or the Word of God, also the salvation of God. He would continue this parallel between God's name (Ieoua) and the name of Jesus (Iesoua) in yet another sermon. However, towards the end of his life, he wrote several important works (De Possest in 1460, Non Aliud in 1462, etc.), to explain the purely symbolic character of God's name which had all names and so none in particular. Contrary to his books, his sermons were not widely diffused
.
In 1474, Marsilio Ficino proposed the name Hiehouahi in his book De Liber Christiana Religione XXX. Johannes Wessel Gansfort, the spiritual father of Luther, preferred, around 1480, to vocalize God's name Iohauah in his work Oratione III:3:11-12. However, once more, the influence of the Christian Cabal engendered a big mess in the vocalization of God's name under the excuse of making improvements!

For example, by 1488, Paulus de Heredia suggested in his Epistle of Secrets vocalizing the Tetragram in Yehauue because its presumed Hebraic meaning was, according to him, "He will make be" or "He will generate" (future piel of the verb to be). John Reuchlin proposed in 1494 in his De Verbo Mirifico to move closer to the Latin Tetragram IHVH towards the name of Jesus which he presumed to be written IHSVH (the link with the Greek name Iesue which he supported supposes Ieue as the vocalization of God's name). John Pico della Mirandola in his Disputianum Adversus Astrologos (in 1496) fustigated the heathens who used the name Jupiter for plagiarizing God's name (Jove father). Friend of Mirandole, Agostino Justiniani clarified in 1516 in his translation of the Psalms that the Tetragram was pronounced as Jova (or Ioua).

IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, this situation had become extremely vague. The translator Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples indicated in 1509 in his comments on the Psalm LXXII that the Hebrew Tetragram was pronounced as it was written, that is in Latin I-He-U-He or Ihevhe (while noticing that the Hebrew name of Jesus was Ihesvha and concluding it should have been Ihesvhe). When he published in 1514 Nicholas of Cusa's sermons, he used instead the shape Iehova, according to the original manuscripts. In 1516 in Justiniani's Bible, one could read from the shape Ioua, etc.

In order to clear up the variants of pronunciation of the Tetragram, Pietro Galatino dedicated a good part of his work entitled De Arcanis Catholice Ueritatis (Concerning Secrets of the Universal Truth), published in 1518, to explain the (Hebraic) reasons for this pronunciation. First, he quoted profusely from the book of Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, especially chapters 60-64 of the first part, as a reminder that the Tetragram is the proper name of God and that it can be pronounced according to its letters. However, he demonstrated that the pronunciation Ioua, accepted in his time, was inaccurate, and he gave the reasons why. He explained, for example, that the proper name Iuda, written hdwy (YWDH), was an abbreviation of the name Iehuda written hdwhy (YHWDH).

All Hebrew proper names beginning in YHW- [why] are moreover always vocalized Ieh-. Consequently, if the Tetragram were really pronounced Ioua, it would have been written in Hebrew hWy (YWH), which was never the case. So, because the Tetragram is written hwhy (YHWH), one should hear the letter H inside the Name. He concluded that, because this name is pronounced according to its letters, the best transcription was the form I-eh-ou-a (Iehoua) rather than the form I-ou-a used, for example, by Agostino Justiniani, a friend of Pico della Mirandola, in his polyglot translation of Psalms published in 1516. If Galatino had transcribed the Masoretic form directly, he would have obtained Yehouah and not Iehoua.

In 1526, Luther wrote in a sermon on Jeremiah 23:1-8: "This name Iehouah, Lord, belongs exclusively to the true God." He will write in 1543, with characteristic frankness: "That they [the Jews] now allege the name Iehouah to be unpronounceable, they do not know what they are talking about (...) if it can be written with pen and ink, why should it not be spoken, which is much better than being written with pen and ink? Why do they not also call it unwriteable, unreadable or unthinkable? All things considered, there is something foul."
However, when he published in 1534 his complete translation of the Bible based on the original languages, he did not use God's name that he knew well, but preferred to use the substitute HERR (Lord). Another example of this vacillating attitude is John Calvin. In most of his books and sermons, he regularly encouraged his readers not to use God's name! For example in 1555 in his comment on Deuteronomy 5:11, he condemned the use of God's name. However, a few years before, in 1535, he prefaced Olivetan's Bible which used the name Iehouah, and a few years later in 1563 when he published his comments on the five books of Moses, he systematically used the form Iehoua, including it in the biblical text, and he denounced in his comment on Exodus 6:3 the Jewish superstition which lead to replacing Iehouæ with Adonaï. The excellent Hebrew scholar Sebastian Münster used the name Iehova in his Hebraic grammar (in 1526), a name which he introduced moreover into his Latin translation of the Bible in 1534.

Tyndale was the first to introduce it in several places into his English translation in 1530. Servetus in his Trinitatis Erroribus (in 1531) strongly defended the shape Iehouah against the shape Yehauue, "He will make to be," because the name Iehouah is close to the Hebrew theophoric name Iesua (Jesus). Cardinal Giacoma de vio Cajetan used it constantly in his comments on the Pentateuch in 1531. The translator Pierre Robert Olivétan introduced it in some places of his French translation in 1535, clarifying in the foreword (Apology of the translator) that this vocalization Iehouah expressed the sound of the letter H better than Ioua. François Vatable used it in his translation in 1545. The first who systematically used the name Iehouah was certainly the German scholar Martin Bucer in his Latin translation of Psalms in 1547; then Robert Estienne used it in all the Bible in 1557, as did also the Spanish translator Casiodoro de Reina in 1569.

The shape Iehouah was widely used; however, there were some exceptions. The Italian translator Antonio Brucioli preferred the shape Ieova in 1541; the French translator Sébastien Casteillon preferred the shape Ioua in 1555, clarifying in a comment on Matthew 1:21 that if the Latin name of Jesus was Josue, this theophoric name could be improved into Iosua involving the vocalization Ioua, effectively close to Ioue (Jupiter). He restored the argument by clarifying that if the heathens had used by chance God's name, then with stronger reason, Christians had reason to do so. The translator Benito Arias Montano, afraid of favoring a name of heathen origin, preferred to use systematically the name IA in his translation of Psalms in 1574. The name Iehouah seemed to have won in part and to be necessarily characterized in the Bible; however, a large-scale attack against this vocalization was going to begin towards the end of the sixteenth century.

The first antagonist was Archbishop Gilbert Genebrard, who, in his book written in 1568 to defend the Trinity, dedicated several pages to the name in an effort to refute S. Casteillon, P. Galatin, S. Pagnin, and others. First of all, he rejected Chateillon's Ioua using Saint Augustine's explanation, via Varro, that the Jews had worshiped Ioue (Jupiter!), and, therefore, the use of Ioua was a return to paganism. In the foreword to his commentary on Psalms, he went so far as to state that the name Ioua was barbarian, fictitious, and irreligious. Concerning the writings of Clement of Alexandria ("Iaou"), Jerome ("Iaho") and Theodoret ("Iabe"), he considered these as mere variations of Ioue, and these testimonies appeared unreliable because, at the time they were written, the Jews had not pronounced the Name for several centuries. Lastly, he claimed that P. Galatin (as well as S. Pagnin), who had used the form "Iehoua," had not accounted for the theological meaning "He is" when searching for the right pronunciation.

Indeed, since the translation of the Septuagint, it was known that the definition of the divine Name was essentially "He is." Genebrard tried to confirm this definition due to his knowledge of the Hebrew language. So, since in Exodus 3:14 God calls himself "I am," (in Hebrew Ehie), one should say, when speaking about God, "He is," that is in Hebrew Iihie. Grammatically, the form Iihie was likely derived from a more archaic form Iehue, suggested in 1550 by Luigi Lippomano. Genebrard then pointed out that Abbot Joachim of Flora used this more exact form ("Ieue") in his book on the Apocalypse. Genebrard's explanation, although unable to convince, impressed many because of its intellectual approach, and, during the century that followed, Bible commentators often noted this form Iehue (or Iiheue) when using the more accepted Iehoua.

However, in spite of the masterly presentation, it remained theoretic because of lack of early proof (later, to mitigate this discrepancy, Protestant theologians re-examined the historical evidence of the first centuries). Genebrard's major contribution was to introduce the theological meaning of the Name into the search for its pronunciation, a process that provoked a profusion of new pronunciations due to the ever increasing knowledge of the Hebrew language and its history. Furthermore, Cardinal Robert Bellarmin asserted in 1578 that the form Iehoua was erroneous because it had the vowels e, o, a, of the qere Adonay (a, o, a becoming e, o, a for grammatical reasons!)

FROM SEVENTEENTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURY

Jan Drusius published in 1603 a long article dedicated to the pronunciation of the Name. His main arguments were that the Masoretic punctuation of the Tetragram could not be used as a basis for pronouncing the Name because it was a qere; so the form Iehovih, resulting from the qere elohim, would be nonsense. He thus concluded that Iehovah was also a barbarism. He repeated the same arguments as Genebrard against Ioua and then reminded his audience that according to the best grammarians of his time the expression "He is" should be pronounced Ieheve. This form is found in Johannes Merceri's Thesaurus and that of Santes Pagnino under the Hebrew form YeHeWeH (West Aramaic Peal imperfect) meaning "He will be" which is now pronounced YiHWeH.

He then theorized, using a few examples that the form Ieheve (or Iihveh) resulted from an archaic Iahave (or Iahveh), and, in conclusion, he noted that this form Iahave was identical to the Samaritan pronunciation Iave given by Theodoret. Louis Cappel dedicated almost one hundred pages to the pronunciation of the Name in one of his articles published in 1650. As well as resuming many of Drusius' arguments, he explained a few new ideas. He maintained that the first syllable was certainly Iah- because many names had lost their initial vowel, for example, Nabô had become Nebô, but he noted that the most ancient witnesses (hence the most reliable) usually used Iaô. He preferred Iahuoh to Iahave or Iahue.

However, the form Iahue eventually took over for two important reasons; first of all, it retained the first syllable Ia- as determined by the most ancient sources (it was also similar to the versions provided by Epiphanius, Theodoret, and Clement of Alexandria), and, above all, it was close to a grammatical form beginning with Ya-, meaning "He will cause to be" or "He will make exist," first suggested by Johannes Leclerc around 1700. This form would be a hypothetical imperfect hiphil, vocalized YaHaYeH, resulting from an archaic [?] YaHaWeH. The cabalistic approach was in fact more "scientific" (!) because it was based on the probable imperfect piel form YeHaWeH, meaning "He will make to be" or "He will cause to become." This very complicated explanation intended to justify the form Yahweh disconcerted some translators who had used the "simplistic" Iehoua.

Some nostalgic translators returned to a form "according to its letters," so the German translator Johann Babor used Ihoua (in 1805), the French translator Antoine Fabre d'Olivet used Ihoah (in 1823), the Latin translator Augustine Crampon used Jova (in 1856), etc.; however, the "scientific" shape Yahweh began to appear in force in the Bible towards the end of nineteenth century and competed with the "religious" shape Iehoua. For example, the agnostic translator Eugène Ledrain insisted (in 1879) on using the shape Yahweh because this name was in agreement with the meaning "He causes to be" or "He causes to become," a name which he systematically used in his translation finished in 1899. Other translators breached the barrier and used the name Yahweh as those of Emphasized Bible (187 , Rodwell (1881), Addis Documents of the Hexateuch (1893), Banks J.S (1895), Rotherdam (1897), Leidse Vertaling (1899), etc.

In front of this growing mess, the religious leaders decided to produce a qualitative translation directly from the masoretic text which would benefit most from all of the projections acquired in the study of languages. The first to initiate the banns (proclamations?) was the French Jewish translator who, by leaning on the works of the famous German grammarian Gesenius, chose systematically to return the Tetragram to Iehovah (1856). Then the Russian orthodox translator also systematically chose to render the Tetragram with Jehovah (1867), as did the American Protestant translators (1901), and finally the French Catholic translators who made the same choice (1904). This choice is surprising for two reasons. First of all, it was unanimous in spite of serious religious differences, and then it was decided in a very controversial context where Yahweh seemed to prevail.

IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY

One could have been led to believe that with the unanimous weight of religious authorities, the name Jehovah was going to be necessary, but such was not the case. To the contrary, religious authorities, and once more unanimously, utterly denied their first choice. It seems, by observing the histories of the various choices, that scientific arguments were not the only ones in play. Indeed, one can determine that the first translators who introduced the name Jehovah into the Bible were either Walden's sympathizers, such as François Vatable or Pierre Robert Olivétan, or they were anti-Trinitarian proponents, such as Michel Servetus or Sébastien Casteillon.

The first who attacked violently the name Jehovah were Catholic theologians as the archbishop Gilbert Génébrard or the cardinal Robert Bellarmin. When Walden's movement was completely absorbed by the Protestant reform, Catholic authorities started again in addressing this name Jehovah, which was this time violently attacked by Protestant theologians, as Jan Drusius or Louis Cappel. Finally, when the Watch Tower, magazine of the Jehovah's Witnesses since 1879, gradually drew attention to the use of this name, numerous translators wished to distance themselves from this movement. The descent became even more important when these students of the Bible took the Jehovah's Witnesses' name in 1931.

In the end of the twentieth century, the majority of translators have abandoned the form of Jehovah in their translations; it is a thorn to note that the shape Yahweh, which was used to eliminate it, is today considered absurd by the grammarians because all the arguments which served to support it are false. Indeed, the Greek witnesses in Iaô correspond to the Trigram YHW and not to the Tetragram YHWH as widely showed by the Elephantine letters. The dropping of the first vowel (a becoming e) cannot be invoked because this change took place in the third century before our era, and the Septuagint, which kept track of this phenomenon, did not preserve any theophoric names (without exception) beginning with Ia-. Finally, the causative shape of the verb to be, "He causes to be" or "He causes to become," invented to justify a verbal shape beginning with Yah-, has never existed and will never exist.

Furthermore, this form is trebly absurd, as the translators Pirot and Clamer point out. First of all, the metaphysical notion o***od "who is" or "who causes to be" is too much abstracted with regard to the time when it is supposed to appear (the time of Moses) and corresponds better with the philosophic thinking of the Greeks. On the other hand, the notion o***od who "will be" with his people is a very concrete idea which the Talmud often developed and is in agreement with the biblical context. Secondly, the notion o***od who "causes to be" would have to be expressed, of necessity, by the shape yehaweh (future piel in Hebrew). Finally, in Exodus 3:14, as mentioned in a note in the Jerusalem Bible, the grammatical shape used without a shadow of a doubt is a future shape qal (which one can translate by "I shall be," therefore "He will be").
It is amusing to note that the form of Yahweh, which was supported by some of the most brilliant theologians, the most competent grammarians, the most eminent Biblicists, the most prestigious dictionaries, is known finally to be inaccurate. The king Solomon, who is presented as having received God's wisdom, nonetheless never quoted the Tetragram in his famous book called Ecclesiastes but mysteriously used a rare grammatical shape yhw' for yhwh (Qo 11:3), which appears only once in all the Bible. At the height of the irony, Biblicists translate this shape into "it will be" (Bible of the King James, Darby, etc.), which is the elementary meaning of the Tetragram. The translators of the Septuagint themselves translated this shape into "He will be" (estai). Furthermore, the Hebrew vocalization of this word, kept by the Masoretes, is "Yehou[a]," which constitutes the natural vocalization of the Tetragram.

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[iris89]

[b][size=large]Part 5 reply to false claim 1

[2] What Is Almighty God (YHWH) Personal Name?


THE TECHNICAL WITH RESPECT "J":

One anonymous scholar said,

<<<"... Because there is no J sound in the Hebrew, the prefix "Je" does not exist in Hebrew. The combination word "Jesus" is not Greek, it's not Hebrew. In fact, it is completely without philological meaning in any language. Yet, Gabriel told Mary and Joseph that the Messiah's Name, being given from the very highest Authority in the heavens, was special. It had a specific connotation, a precise and very important MEANING. The angel said He would be given this Name because "He shall save His people from their sins." Scholars acknowledge that the name given through Gabriel was the Hebrew Yahshua. (See any good study Bible with marginal notes on Matt. 1:21 and Luke 1:31, as well as the Biblical sources listed here.) "Yahshua" means "Yahweh is salvation."
It must be noted that whenever a message was given from on high, it was to those who understood Hebrew, which is called by some the "heavenly language." Thus, when the angel told Joseph, a Jew, that the Savior would be born of Mary, a Jewess, that he was to call the baby a specific name, this name would hardly have been a Latin-Greek name such as Jesus! How His name came to us as Jesus in our English Bible such as the King James instead of Yahshua is interesting.
The Savior's true Name in Hebrew letters look like this: ucwhy. Read from right to left, as in all Semitic languages, His Name begins with a (y) (known in English Bibles as "jot," Mat. 5:18, but in the Hebrew is the yothe or yod).

Yothe carries the sound of i as in machine. This "ee" sound is then followed by an a, which is much like an "ah" sound. This diphthong is pronounced "ee-ah" or "Yah," which is the short form of the Heavenly Father's name "Yah-weh." We see it in the suffix "halleluYah" and in the names of many people of Scripture (IsaYah, JeremiYah, ObadiYah, ZechariYah, ZephaniYah, etc.).

Add the suffix "shua" (meaning "salvation") and we have Yahshua, the "Salvation of Yah."

That the language spoken was Hebrew is clear from Matthew 1:23, where the Savior is referred to as Emmanuel, a purely Hebrew word meaning "El with us," and is so transliterated for us in that passage.

You can see for yourself that the name of your Savior was Yahshua by referring to Strong's Concordance Greek Dictionary. Look up the name "Jesus" in Strong's, which shows that it first appears in Matthew 1:1, with the reference No. 2424. Turn to the Greek Dictionary in the back of Strong's (Greek, because it is in the New Testament)...">>>

<<<"Yahshua, like His contemporaries, most likely spoke Hebrew, Bivin, the director for the Jerusalem School for the Study of the Gospels, also believes that the original account of Yahshua's life was written in Hebrew, not Greek of Aramaic. In addition, he and his Jerusalem scholars agree that by considering the Evangels Hebraic, many textual difficulties are cleared up, strongly suggesting that the Evangels were first written in Hebrew.

Even Martin Luther recognized the Hebrew roots of the New Testament. He wrote in Tischreden, "Although the New Testament was written in Greek, it is full of Hebraisms and Hebrew expressions. It has therefore been aptly said that the Hebrews drink from the spring, the Greeks from the stream that flows from it, and the Latins from the downstream pool" (translated by Pinchas E. Lapide in Hebrew in the Church, p.10).

Where is the justification for changing the Savior's Name? Even in a Greek context, there is no J or J sound in the Koine or in any Greek dialect known. The Greek New Testament of the Bible provides the basis for our present Latin and English translations. Obviously the J came from another source, as Greek has no phonetic equivalent of the letter J in its 24 characters of the alphabet. Neither does Hebrew. The words judge, journal, jack, jam, jet, jog, etc., likely would all be spelled beginning with the Greek iota (English I) and would be pronounced as "ee." In English the letter j would be replaced by the letter i. We would read iudge, iournal, iack, iam, iet, iog, etc. Some orthographers would prefer that these examples begin with today's letter y instead of i.

We cannot ignore the fact that there was no letter J in ANY language until around the 15th century, and therefore must conclude that the name "Jesus" never existed before 500 years ago. Let us not forget that we read from a Hebrew Bible. It is the account of Yahweh's dealing with His people Israel. Yahweh spoke to a people who understood Hebrew. Yahweh is the Mighty One of the Hebrews. Remember also that there was no Jew before the time of Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. So the Sacred Name is not Jewish.

The seeker of truth must not shy from the Hebrew roots of true Biblical faith, for we are children of Abraham, a Hebrew (Gen. 14:13). Hebrew means to "cross over," and we are to "cross over" the falsity and error of this world and join in pure worship of Yahweh and His Son Yahshua." [source - September 12, 1986 issue of The Washington Times, in an article by David Bivin]>>>.


Now to know the truth, go to:

1) http://religioustruths.forumsland.com/

2) http://www.network54.com/Forum/403209/

3) http://religioustruths.lefora.com/

4) http://religioustruths.boardhost.com/

5) http://religious-truths.forums.com/


Your Friend in Christ Iris89

Francis David said it long ago, "Neither the sword of popes...nor the image of death will halt the march of truth."Francis David, 1579, written on the wall of his prison cell." Read the book, "What Does The Bible Really Teach" and the Bible today!

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[iris89]

[b][size=large]
Sequel #2 covering in great detail false Claim 2, with mostly the same detail used in Sequel #1 because Rafaldariusz is basically way out in left field again:

Now let’s investigate Rafaldariusz’s second claim, “2. Jesus believed he was a messenger of Allah (John 17:3, John 7:28, John 8:42)”

First we shall look at this three scriptures:

John 17:3, “And, this, is the age–abiding life, That they get to know thee, the only real God, and him whom thou didst send, Jesus Christ.” (Rotherham Bible)

John 7:28, “Jesus therefore cried in the temple, teaching and saying, Ye both know me, and know whence I am; and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not.” [American Standard Version; ASV]

John 8:42, “Jesus therefore said to them: If God were your Father, you would indeed love me. For from God I proceeded and came. For I came not of myself: but he sent me.” (Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible: DRCB),

In reality the answer for all of these are actually the same and already contained in my comment of your #1 comment, so I will repeat my answer to #1.

Go to

http://religioustruthsbyiris.createmybb3...d-184.html

AND read reply to false Claim 1.

To learn more about Almighty God (YHWH) and the Bible, go to,

1) http://religioustruths.forumsland.com/

2) http://www.network54.com/Forum/403209/

3) http://religioustruths.lefora.com/

4) http://religioustruths.boardhost.com/

5) http://religious-truths.forums.com/

6) http://religioustruthsbyiris.createmybb3.com/

7) http://religioustruths.forumotion.com/

To enjoy an online Bible study called “Follow the Christ” go to, http://religious-truths.forums.com/defau...#post-1421

Your Friend in Christ Iris89

Francis David said it long ago, "Neither the sword of popes...nor the image of death will halt the march of truth. "Francis David, 1579, written on the wall of his prison cell." Read the book, "What Does The Bible Really Teach" and the Bible today, and go to http://www.jw.org/!
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[iris89]

[b][size=large]Hi Everyone

I have just received an email from this member of Islam whose false claims I have been answering and showing their error. Here is my answer to this email before I continue with posting my debunking replies to his 17 false claims.

It seems that you are failing to comprehend my input on the false claims you made; to wit, they clearly show you in error and the claims completely false with respect Jesus (Yeshua) being a Muslim. I believe your problem stems from the following, which I will keep simple to help you understand.

FIRST, Your failure to comprehend that ‘god’ is simply a title just like president is and does not identify anything until referenced to a particular entity, i.e., Baal, Allah, Jehovah (YHWH), etc.

SECOND, Now with respect to the false god Allah, Allah is a contraction of the Arabic definite article ‘al’ (the), and ‘Ilah’ (god); thus ‘al-ilah’ = Allah to form a personal name of the old middle eastern Moon god who had three daughter goddesses as follows, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat, "These were also called 'the Daughters of Allah' and were supposed to intercede before God. When the Apostle of God was sent, God revealed unto him [concerning them] the following:" [source - Al-Tabari, Jami' al-Bay'dn fi Tafsir al-Qur'an, Cairo, 1323-1330, vol. xxvii, pp.34-36. Also F. V. Winnett, "The Daughters of Allah," in The Moslem World, vol. xxx (1940), pp. 113-130.]

THIRD, Almighty God (YHWH) is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses who created the earth and every thing else that exist. Known in English as Jehovah or Yahweh, “For Jewish people YHWH is the most holy name of God, as written in the ancient Hebrew language. The language has no vowels, so the pronunciation is not agreed on. However, most academics agree that "Yahweh" is one guess of how to say it, but probably is not correct.
It has also been pronounced as "Jehovah" in English, or "Yehowa" in Hebrew. This is because Hebrew pointing, or vowel symbols, are often put under the YHWH, making יְהֹוָה. The vowels used come from the Hewbrew word for lord, "Adonay", "A", "O" and "A", spelling "YaHoWaH". [source - retrieved from http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/YHWH on 3/16/2014]

FOURTH, These two distinct gods are NOT ONE AND THE SAME. One, Allah is nothing but the pagan old middle eastern Moon god worshipped in the middle east by Ishmaelites (Arabs) long before the birth of the false prophet Muhammad. The other, Almighty God (YHWH) is the creator not only of mankind, but all that exist.

FIFTH, with respect your Claim #16, “16. Jesus believed miracles were due to ALLAH (John 5:30)”

Now let’s look at John 5:30, “I cannot of myself do any thing. As I hear, so I judge. And my judgment is just: because I seek not my own will. but the will of him that sent me.” (Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible: DRCB)

You are completely out of line. First, Jesus (Yeshua) was sent by his Father, Almighty God (YHWH) NOT the old middle eastern Moon god, Allah. You obviously does not comprehend, John 8:42, “Jesus (Yeshua) said to them, " Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me." (Authorized King James Bible; AV), because, Allah, the old middle eastern Moon god had no sons, but only three daughter goddesses, “ It is an undeniable fact of history that before Muhammed was born, in the Pagan Arabian religion,Allah was the name of the principal deity in Mecca who had three daughters (S53:19/20): Uzzah; Lat; Manat.” [source - retrieved from http://www.inthenameofallah.org/Daughter...Allah.html on 3/15/2014]

SIXTH, As you NOW should clearly discern, your claims are completely out of line with reality, and you should see the need, if you are a discerning man to get out of the false religion of Islam and become a GENUINE follower of Jesus (Yeshua) Christ.

To learn more about Almighty God (YHWH) and the Bible, go to,

1) http://religioustruths.forumsland.com/

2) http://www.network54.com/Forum/403209/

3) http://religioustruths.lefora.com/

4) http://religioustruths.boardhost.com/

5) http://religious-truths.forums.com/

6) http://religioustruthsbyiris.createmybb3.com/

7) http://religioustruths.forumotion.com/

To enjoy an online Bible study called “Follow the Christ” go to, http://religious-truths.forums.com/defau...#post-1421

Your Friend in Christ Iris89

Francis David said it long ago, "Neither the sword of popes...nor the image of death will halt the march of truth. "Francis David, 1579, written on the wall of his prison cell." Read the book, "What Does The Bible Really Teach" and the Bible today, and go to http://www.jw.org/!
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[iris89]

[b][size=large]Sequel #3 covering in great detail false Claims 3 and 4:

This will deal with two of Rafaldariusz’s claims, Claims 3. and 4.

Now let’s investigate your third claim, “3. Jesus submitted his will to Allah (Mark 3:31 – 35, Matthew 7:21)”

First we shall look at these two scriptures:

Mark 3:31 – 35, “There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.
32 And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.
33 And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren?
34 And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.” (Authorized King James Bible; AV)

Matthew 7:21, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.” [American Standard Version; ASV]

rafaldariusz@gmail.com

Hi Rafaldariusz

In reality the answer for all of these are actually the same and already contained in my comment of your #1 comment, so I will repeat my answer to #1.

“I am an ordained minister of the Gospel and an independent researcher, and somehow I came across a copy of your “Jesus was a Muslim’ in which your first comment was, “1. Jesus believed in only one Allah (John 17:3)” now let’s investigate why this claim is NOT so.

First, the scripture reads, “Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible: DRCB),

Now, Allah is the personal name of a specific god; whereas, in Arabic the word for ‘god’ is Ilah. The God spoken of in this scripture is NOT Allah, but Almighty God (YHWH). For more details on the scripturally mentioned God, go to http://religioustruthsbyiris.createmybb3...ad-41.html And read ‘On the Name of the True God of Abraham [By Gérard Gertoux, President of the French Bible Society] [YHWH]”

Now, let’s deal with the name of the old middle eastern Moon god, Allah, in my Digital Book:

A Digital Book On The False God Allah - The Old Middle Eastern Moon God:

Note: I can be contacted at iris89cheerful@gmail.com

The Contents of the Book:

Part 1 - Who Really Is 'Allah' The Supreme God Of The Makkans [Residents of Ancient Mecca]

Part 2 - The Facts on Allah

Part 3 - The Middle Eastern Moon God

Part 4 - The Family of Allah

Now Part 1:

Who Really Is 'Allah' The Supreme God Of The Makkans [Residents of Ancient Mecca]
INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS:

The Old Testament specifically denies the Muslim claim that the pre-Islamic Ishmaelites knew and worshiped the true God (YHWH) of Abraham. The data conclusively shows that as the timeline of the centuries unfolded the Ishmaelites forsook the God of their ancestors Abraham and Jacob, Yahweh or Jehovah (YHWH), for the worship of some false god. The false god whom they worshiped as the true God was quite possibly Baal. The data also shows that Hubal was the high god worshiped at Mecca, which is supportted by the view that he was the Allah of pre-Islamic times. He Allah or Hubal was the high god of the Makkans [residents of ancient Mecca]; although, they had many other gods and goddesses such as the daughter celestial goddesses of Allah who was the old middle eastern Moon god.

A great wall supposedly built by Dhul-Qarnayn literally meaning "He of the Two Horns", is a figure mentioned in the Qur'an, the sacred scripture of Islam, where he is described as a great and righteous ruler who built a long wall that keeps Gog and Magog from attacking the people of the West. Moreover, he is regarded by some Muslims as a prophet. The epithet was also familiar among the pre-Islamic Arabs [pagans per the prophet], who applied it to at least three different kings. Now this may seem strange to mention in the introduction, but is important as it clearly shows that Muhammad adopted pagan myths into the Quran as well as using Bible accounts as its framework. Accounts to prove he adopted this pagan myth are sound at the Cave chapter of the Quran at Sura 18:83-98 which will be dealt with shortly.

SURA 18:83-98 [CAVE CHAPTER OF THE QURAN] AND THE DHUL-QARNAYN:

[18.83] And they ask you about Zulqarnain. Say: I will recite to you an account of him.
[18.84] Surely We established him in the land and granted him means of access to every thing.
[18.85] So he followed a course.
[18.86] Until when he reached the place where the sun set, he found it going down into a black sea, and found by it a people. We said: O Zulqarnain! either give them a chastisement or do them a benefit.
[18.87] He said: As to him who is injust, we will chastise him, then shall he be returned to his Lord, and He will chastise him with an exemplary chastisement: And as for him who believes and does good, he shall have goodly reward, and We will speak to him an easy word of Our command.
[18.89] Then he followed (another) course.
[18.90] Until when he reached the land of the rising of the sun, he found it rising on a people to whom We had given no shelter from It;
[18.91] Even so! and We had a full knowledge of what he had.
[18.92] Then he followed (another) course.
[18.93] Until when he reached (a place) between the two mountains, he found on that side of them a people who could hardly understand a word.
[18.94] They said: O Zulqarnain! surely Gog and Magog make mischief in the land. Shall we then pay you a tribute on condition that you should raise a barrier between us and them
[18.95] He said: That in which my Lord has established me is better, therefore you only help me with workers, I will make a fortified barrier between you and them;
[18.96] Bring me blocks of iron; until when he had filled up the space between the two mountain sides, he said: Blow, until when he had made it (as) fire, he said: Bring me molten brass which I may pour over it.
[18.97] So they were not able to scale it nor could they make a hole in it.
[18.98] He said: This is a mercy from my Lord, but when the promise of my Lord comes to pass He will make it level with the ground, and the promise of my Lord is ever true.
[source - The Holy Qur'an, translated by M.H. Shakir and published by Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, Inc., in 1983.]

Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur'an.
Main article: Alexander in the Qur'an (Theory)
The story of Dhul-Qarnayn as described in the Qur'an follows very closely some passages of the Alexander Romance, a thoroughly embellished compilation of Alexander the Great's exploits from Hellenistic and early Christian sources which underwent numerous expansions and revisions throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Alexander Romance was enormously popular in the Hellenistic world, including Jewish communities, among which Alexander had practically gained the status of a folk hero[3]. Some adaptations containing all the elements of the Qur'anic account can be found in early Hellenistic documents, such as the Armenian recension of the Alexander Romance. Actually the main elements of the story (an iron gate constructed by Alexander blocking the passage of Scythian tribes; identification of said Scythians with Gog and Magog) can already be found in Josephus[4][5] and in Saint Jerome, although in fragmented occurrences (see Alexander in the Qur'an for details).

[1]For these reason the widely accepted view is that the (indirect) model for Dhul Qarnayn is Alexander the Great. The majority of medieval Muslim scholars were happy to identify Dhul-Qarnayn as Alexander. However, some Muslim scholars have asserted that the medieval scholars were mistaken and that Dhul-Qarnayn cannot be Alexander.

[2]Cyrus the Great as Dhul Qarnain
Main article: Cyrus the Great in the Qur'an (theory)
Some contemporary Muslim scholars, such as Maududi and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, have suggested that Dhul-Qarnayn is Cyrus the Great. This theory has been endorsed by Iranian scholars Allameh Tabatabaei [in his Tafsir al-Mizan) and Grand Ayatollah Makarim al-Shirazi (Bargozideh Tafseer-i Nemuneh, Vol 3, p69].

[3]The archaic Dhul-Qarnayn
Some early Islamic commentators stipulated that Dhul-Qarnayn must have been a contemporary of Abraham. Others postulated an Alexander who lived 2000 years before Alexander the Great.

[4]The Arab Dhul-Qarnayn
Two early Arabian kings were known as Dhul-Qarnayn: the northern Arabian king Al-Mundhir al-Akbar ibn Ma' as-Sama' (so called for his two curled locks), and the early South Arabian king Tubba' al-Aqran. South Arabian interpreters of the Qur'an argue that the Qur'anic Dhul-Qarnayn was their king Tubba'. Other supporters of the Yemeni Dhul-Qarnayn theory included (the Persian) Biruni in his Athar al-baqiyah, Asma'i in his Tarikh al-Arab ("History of Arab"), and Sirah of Ibn Hisham, among others.
Others have suggested that Dhul-Qarnayn could be the Egyptian pharoah Narmer , who unified northern and southern Egypt. Among supporters of the Arab Dhul-Qarnayn theory were Mughrizi in his book al-Khutat, and Allama Sayyed Habeddin al-Shahrestani.

[5]The angelic Dhul-Qarnayn
There are scattered references in which Ali ibn Abi Talib gives the epithet Dhul-Qarnayn. Since Dhul-Qarnayn was a righteous ruler, this may simply be a way of praising by Ali. Mughrizi also quotes Mukhtar ibn Abi Ubayd as saying that Ali always referred to Dhul-Qarnayn as "an angel without wings". The 8th century scholar Al-Jahiz, in his (???????), also writes of Dhul-Qarnayn being born to a human mother and angelic father.[source - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Of course this is the same kind of story/legend as that where the Quran took the old middle eastern Moon god, 'Allah,' and tried to blend him, a puppet celestial god of Satan, into the true God (YHWH) of Abraham; to wit, from epithets that were familiar among the pre-Islamic Arabs. Let's look at some facts from history and archaeology on this fact.

It should not come as a surprise that the word "Allah" was not something invented by Muhammad or revealed for the first time in the Quran.

The well-known Middle East scholar H.A.R. Gibb has pointed out that the reason that Muhammad never had to explain who Allah was in the Quran is that his listeners had already heard about Allah long before Muhammad was ever born [source - Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey, New York: Mentor Books, 1955, p.38].

One Muslim I have corresponded with said the following:
<<"You did not see what point I have written in my last post, allow me to explain in a better way. Dhul-Qarnayn may have a meaning but in the Quran it is given as he is a sort of a king or a leader. If you understood what I have said, I have said that the"wall" of Dhul-Qarnayn. We are not talking about names and where it's origin is from, we are talking about the Quran being the truth. If you do not see this then go get more information as we all say; we never stop learning.

ALLAH AS THE SUPREME GOD OF THE ANCINET PAGAN MAKKANS (RESIDENTS OF MECCA):

This section opens with a statement by a learned Muslim testifying to the fact that Allah was the supreme god of the ancient pagan Makkans (Residents of Mecca).

<<"The thing you said that about the Makkans knowing about Allah before Muhammed(S.A.W) is true. From prophet Ibrahim and Ismail to (S.A.W), Allah was was brought as the true God. The Makkans knew that Allah was a god, but they said that He was the supreme god from all the others, they would say that He was beyond the universe so they needed other small gods to transmit their prayers to Him. The Makkans were not angry at Allah but if you have searched the facts and so, they despised Muhammed(S.A.W), because they said that he was spreading the menace and dishonoring their gods. They did not say anything about Allah(S.T), for He was their supreme god and dishonoring it would bring badness over them. So we see that the other prophets before Muhammed(S.A.W) brought the information that Allah was the only true God but then, like every prophet, they listened then betrayed the prophets for their ignorance and changed it like they did to the bible, but the true religion will never fall(Islam). The prophet Muhammed(S.A.W) which had enemies but with the truth in his hands he succeeded on giving all the world the truth to save them from the hell fire, but still a lot of people do not except this as their arrogance is blinding them. You see now that the truth was given to the world, each one of the nations, but they disobeyed it and got punished for it as they didn't pass the test. Prophet Muhammed(S.A.W) brought them(Makkans) a book, he told them to worship only one god, he didn't tell them of how this god looked like and so on. This was a test for them to beleive in the truth as the shaitan will make it look as it is not the truth and everyone knew it that beleiving in something that is in the open, simple, and very understandable and not seeing of how their god looks like would be a challange but would also be rewarded greatly in the here after. Islam is the truth as they(Makkans/disbeleivers) knew that life is a test than you(an educated person) should know better.[source - a Muslim of learning]">>

So now we have established the fact that Allah was the supreme god of the ancient Makkans. Let's look at some of the facts related to the ancient pagan Makkans and their supreme pagan god Allah.

First the basic premise of this writer is false; to wit,
<<"We are not talking about names and where it's origin is from, we are talking about the Quran being the truth. If you do not see this then go get more information as we all say; we never stop learning.">>

Second his admittance that with respect the old middle eastern Moon god, 'Allah,' actually being the supreme god of the none worshippers of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, the Makkans:
<<"The thing you said that about the Makkans knowing about Allah before Muhammed(S.A.W) is true. From prophet Ibrahim and Ismail to (S.A.W), Allah was was brought as the true God. The Makkans knew that Allah was a god, but they said that He was the supreme god from all the others, they would say that He was beyond the universe so they needed other small gods to transmit their prayers to Him.">>

Dr. Arthur Jeffery, one of the foremost Western Islamic scholars in modern times and professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Columbia University, notes:

<<"The name Allah, as the Quran itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa">> [Islam: Muhammad, and His Religion, New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958, p. 85].

The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, states, <<"The origin of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity">> [Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, I:326, Hastings].

The Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, states, <<"The name Allah goes back before Muhammad">> [source - Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:41, Anthony Mercatante, New York, The Facts on File, 1983].

And, <<"The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god." It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic.">> [There is an interesting discussion of the origins of Allah, in "Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies" by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pp. 173-190].

And, Neither is Allah a Hebrew or Greek word for God as found in the Bible. Allah is a purely Arabic term used in reference to an Arabian deity.

Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326, T & T Clark, states:
<<"Allah" is a proper name, applicable only to their [Arabs'] peculiar God.">>'
[source - Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326].
According to the Encyclopedia of Religion:

And, <<"Allah" is a pre-Islamic name . . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel">> [source - Encyclopedia of Religion, I:117 Washington DC, Corpus Pub., 1979].

The Encyclopedia Britannica adds, <<"Allah is found . . . in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam">> [Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643].

The Encyclopedia of Islam is in agreement and say, <<"The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshipped, after a fashion, a supreme god called Allah">> [Encyclopedia off Islam, I:302, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1913, Houtsma].

This same encyclopedia went on to say, <<"Allah was known to the pre-Islamic . . . Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities">> [Encyclopedia off Islam, I:406, ed. Gibb].

And pre-Islamic poetry attest to this fact, <<"Ilah . . . appears in pre-Islamic poetry . . . By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to Allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry">> [Encyclopedia off Islam, III:1093, 1971].

And Dr. Kenneth Cragg, former editor of the very prestigious scholarly journal Muslim World and an outstanding modern Western Islamic scholar, whose works are generally published by Oxford University, comments:

<<"The name Allah is also evident in archeological and literary remains of pre-Islamic Arabia">> [The Call of the Minaret, New York: Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 31].

And the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on 02/28/2006), states, <<" Theories on the identity of Dhul-Qarnayn
According to Tafsir Ibn Kathir, a widely used 14th-century commentary on the Qur'an:
"The Quraysh sent An-Nadr bin Al-Harith and `Uqbah bin Abi Mu`it to the Jewish rabbis in Al-Madinah, and told them: `Ask them (the rabbis) about Muhammad, and describe him to them, and tell them what he is saying. They are the people of the first Book, and they have more knowledge of the Prophets than we do.' So they set out and when they reached Al-Madinah, they asked the Jewish rabbis about the Messenger of Allah. They described him to them and told them some of what he had said. They said, `You are the people of the Tawrah and we have come to you so that you can tell us about this companion of ours.' They (the rabbis) said, `Ask him about three things which we will tell you to ask, and if he answers them then he is a Prophet who has been sent (by Allah); if he does not, then he is saying things that are not true, in which case how you will deal with him will be up to you. Ask him about some young men in ancient times, what was their story For theirs is a strange and wondrous tale. Ask him about a man who travelled a great deal and reached the east and the west of the earth. What was his story And ask him about the Ruh (soul or spirit) -- what is it If he tells you about these things, then he is a Prophet, so follow him, but if he does not tell you, then he is a man who is making things up, so deal with him as you see fit.[1]
According to Maududi's conservative 20th-century commentary:
"This Surah was sent down in answer to the three questions which the mushriks of Makkah, in consultation with the people of the Book, had put to the Holy Prophet in order to test him. These were: (1) Who were "the Sleepers of the Cave"? (2) What is the real story of Khidr? and (3) What do you know about Zul-Qarnain? As these three questions and the stories involved concerned the history of the Christians and the Jews, and were unknown in Hijaz, a choice of these was made to test whether the Holy Prophet possessed any source of the knowledge of the hidden and unseen things. Allah, however, not only gave a complete answer to their questions but also employed the three stories to the disadvantage of the opponents of Islam in the conflict that was going on at that time at Makkah between Islam and un-belief.">> [source - the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on 02/28/2006]

ACCEPTANCE BY MUHAMMAD OF THE MAKKAH'S SUPREME GOD DID NOT MEAN PEACE WITH THE MAKKAH.

Let's consider the Attack by the Makkans against Muhammad by an impeccable Muslim source.
"The Prophet, after arriving in Madinah, first formed an alliance with the Jews. Next, he approached all the nearby tribes and tried to persuade them to make an alliance or at least enter into a no-war pact. Many did. Thus the small group evicted from Makkah assumed strategic importance.

The Makkans who had earlier planned to kill the Prophet, were now determined to annihilate this nascent community of Islam. Having failed in all other ways they decided on a military solution...
As soon as the Hudaybiyah Treaty was signed, the Prophet sent letters to various neighbouring Arab and non-Arab rulers, including Chosroes of Iran and Heraclitus of the Byzantine Empire. He invited them to Islam, and assured them that he did not covet their kingdoms or riches. They could retain both, but only if they surrendered themselves to serve and worship the One God.

The Quraysh, however, soon broke the Treaty of Hudaybiyah. It was, thus, time to deal with their continuing hostility. The Prophet marched to Makkah, and captured the town. The fall of Makkah witnessed unparalleled acts of mercy forgiveness and generosity. Not a single drop of blood was shed. Everybody who remained indoors was granted security of life and property. The Prophet forgave all who had been his bitterest foes all his life, who had persecuted him and planned to kill him, who had driven him out of Makkah, and who had marched thrice to Madinah to defeat the Muslims.
[source - The Secretary General Mansura, Multan Road, Lahore, Pakistan. Ph: 92-42-7844605-9 Fax: 92-42-5419504]

Also, <<"It had become impossible for the Prophet (peace be upon him) to preach and for the ummah to live securely in Makkah.">> [source - Ministry of Hajj Kingdom of Asudi Arabia]

And, <<"Tawheed al-'Ebaadah (Maintaining The Unity of Worship)
In spite of the wide implications of the first two categories of Tawheed, firm belief in them alone is not sufficient to fulfill the Islamic requirements of Tawheed. Tawheed ar-Ruboobeeyah and Tawheed al-Asmaa was-Sifaat must be accompanied by their complement, Tawheed al-'Ebaadah, in order for Tawheed to be considered complete according to Islaam. This point is substantiated by the fact that Allaah Himself has related in clear terms that the Mushrikoon (idolators) of the Prophet's time confirmed many aspects of the first two forms of Tawheed. In the Qur'aan Allaah tells the Prophet (saws) to say to the pagans:
"Say: 'Who is it that gives you all sustenance from the sky and earth, governs sight and hearing, brings forth life from dead (matter) and death from the living, and plans the affairs of man?' They will all say 'Allaah'."35
"If you asked them who created them, they would surely say, 'Allaah' "36
"If you asked them who brings down water from the sky and with it brings the earth to life after its death? They will most certainly say, 'Allaah'."37

The pagan Makkans all knew that Allaah was their creator, sustainer, their Lord and Master yet that knowledge did not make them Muslims according to God. In fact,">>[source - USC - MSA Compendium of Muslim Text]

WHAT GOD REALLY IS THE MOON GOD ALLAH?

Let's look at the facts from renown historical writings:

"Namely that "Allah" is synonymous with the god Hubal of the pagan Makkans! ... Generally, objects of worship belonged to three genres: metal and wooden" [source - Bismika Alllahuma » Hubal In The Worship of Pre-Islamic Arab ].

And, "At the time of Muhammad, the Ka'abah was OFFICIALLY DEDICATED to the god Hubal, a deity who had been imported into Arabia from the Nabateans in what is now Jordan. But the pre-eminence of the shrine as well as the common belief in Mecca seems to suggest that it may have been dedicated originally to al-Llah, the High God of the Arabs ..." [Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet [Harper San Francisco; ISBN: 0062508865; Reprint edition, October 1993], pp. 61-62;]

And, "Pre-Islamic Arabia also had its stone deities. They were stone statues of shapeless volcanic or meteoric stones found in the deserts and believed to have been sent by astral deities. The most prominent deities were Hubal, the male god of the Ka'ba, and the three sister goddesses al-Lat, al-Manat, and al-Uzza; Muhammad's tribe, the Quraysh, thought these three goddesses to be the daughters of Allah. Hubal was the chief god of the Ka'ba among 360 other deities. He was a man-like statue whose body was made of red precious stone and whose arms were of solid gold. (George W. Braswell, Jr., Islam Its Prophets, Peoples, Politics and Power" [Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, TN; July, 1996], p. 44]

And, "The name Allah was used as the personal name of the moon god, in addition to other titles that could be given to him.

Allah, the moon god, was married to the sun goddess. Together they produced three goddesses who were called "the daughters of Allah." These three goddesses were called Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat.

The daughters of Allah, along with Allah and the sun goddess were viewed as 'high" gods. That is, they were viewed as being at the top of the pantheon of Arabian deities.

Along with Allah, however, they worshipped a host of lesser gods and "daughters of Al-lah'" [Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:61]".

These female puppet celestial goddess, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat, "These were also called 'the Daughters of Allah' and were supposed to intercede before God. When the Apostle of God was sent, God revealed unto him [concerning them] the following:" [source - Al-Tabari, Jami' al-Bay'dn fi Tafsir al-Qur'an, Cairo, 1323-1330, vol. xxvii, pp.34-36. Also F. V. Winnett, "The Daughters of Allah," in The Moslem World, vol. xxx (1940), pp. 113-130.]

And, "In Arabia, the sun god was viewed as a female goddess and the moon as the male god. As has been pointed out by many scholars such as Alfred Guilluame, the moon god was called by various names, one of which was Allah! [Islam: Muhammad, and His Religion, New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958,, p. 7].

And, "The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god." It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic." [source - Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies" by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pp. 173-190].

Allah was also known as Hubel, ""Among the gods worshiped by the Quraysh, the greatest was Hubal
...
Some additional details on this cleromantic deity, the most powerful of the pagan idols of Mecca, is supplied by the Meccan historian Azraqi ...
Amr ibn Luhayy brought with him (to Mecca) an idol called Hubal from the land of Hit in Mesopotamia. Hubal was one of the Quraysh's greatest idols so he set it up at the well inside the Kab'a and ordered the people to worship it. Thus a man coming back from a journey would visit it and circumambulate the House before going to his family, and would shave his hair before it ... "[Peters, Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places [Princeton University Press, NJ, 1994], pp. 24-25]

And, ""Khuza 'ah thus shared the guilt of Jurhum. They were also to blame in other respects: a chieftain of theirs, on his way back from a journey to SYRIA, had asked the MOABITES to give him ONE OF THEIR IDOLS. They gave him HUBAL, which he brought back to the Sanctuary, setting it up within the Ka'bah itself; and it became THE CHIEF IDOL OF MECCA." [Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, Inner Traditions International, LTD. One Park Street, Rochestor Vermont 05767, 1983, p. 5].

And this Hubel or Allah the Moon god is indicated to be known by others as the Biblically condemned god, 'Baal.' Commenting on 'Abd al-Muttalib's rediscovery of the well of Zamzam and its treasures, Lings writes:
"... So 'Abd al-Muttalib continued to dig without any actual move being made to stop him; and some of the people were already leaving the sanctuary when suddenly he struck the well's stone covering and uttered a cry of thanksgiving to God. The crowd reassembled and increased; and when he began to dig out the treasure which Jurhum had buried there, everyone claimed the right to share in it. 'Abd al-Muttalib agreed that lots should be cast for each object, as to whether it should be kept in the sanctuary or go to him personally or be divided amongst the tribe. This had become the recognised way of deciding an issue of doubt, and it was done by means of divining arrows inside the Ka'bah, in front of THE MOABITE IDOL HUBAL ..." (Lings, p. 11; bold and capital emphasis ours)
'Amr then asked them to give him an idol he could take to Arab lands where it could be worshipped, and they gave him one named Hubal. This he brought to Mecca and set on a pedestal and ordered the people to worship and venerate it. (The Life of the Prophet Muhammad (Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya), Volume I, translated by professor Trevor Le Gassick, reviewed by Dr. Ahmed Fareed" [Garnet Publishing Limited, 8 Southern Court, south Street Reading RG1 4QS, UK; The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, 1998], p. 42]

Interestingly, Ibn Kathir shows that the god of Muhammad's family was Hubal, and that his grandfather even prayed to Allah by facing Hubal's idol! Ibn Ishaq stated, "It is claimed that when 'Abd al-Mutallib received such opposition from Quraysh over the digging of zamzam, he vowed that if ten sons were born to him who grew up and protected him, he would sacrifice one of them for God at the ka'ba."

"Eventually he had ten sons grown up whom he knew would give him protection. Their names were al-Harith, al-Zubayr, Hajl, Dirar, al-Muqawwim, Abu Lahab, al-'Abbas, Hamza, Abu Talib, and 'Abd Allah. He assembled them and told them of his vow and asked them to honour his pledge to God, Almighty and All-glorious is He. They obeyed, and asked him what he wanted them to do. He asked each of them to take an arrow, write his name on it and return to him.
"They did so and went with them inside the ka'ba to the site of their god Hubal, where there was the well in which offerings to the ka'ba would be placed. There, near Hubal, were seven arrows which they would use for divining a judgement over some matter of consequence, a question of blood-money, kinship, or the like. They would come to Hubal to seek a resolution, accepting whatever they were ordered to do or to refrain from." [source - The Life of the Prophet Muhammad (Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya), Volume I, translated by professor Trevor Le Gassick, reviewed by Dr. Ahmed Fareed [Garnet Publishing Limited, 8 Southern Court, south Street Reading RG1 4QS, UK; The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, 1998 , pp. 126-127].

"Allah (allah, al-ilah, the god) was the principal, though not the only, deity of Makkah. The name is an ancient one. It occurs in two South Arabic inscriptions, one a Minean found at al-'Ula and the other Sabean, but abounds in the form HLH in the Lihyanite inscriptions of the fifth century B.C. Lihyan, which evidently got the god from Syria, was the first center of the worship of this deity in Arabia. The name occurs as Hallah in the Safa inscriptions five centuries before Islam and also in a pre-Islamic Christian Arabic inscription found in umm-al-Jimal, Syria, and ascribed to the sixth century. The name of Muhammad's father was 'Abd-Allah ('Abdullah, the slave or worshiper of Allah). The esteem in which Allah was held by the pre-Islamic Makkans as the creator and supreme provider and the one to be invoked in time of special peril may be inferred from such koranic passages as 31:24, 31; 6:137, 109; 10:23. Evidently he was the tribal deity of the Quraysh." [Palgrave Macmillan, 2002; ISBN: 0-333-63142-0 paperback], pp. 100-101].

And, "Ibn Kathir noted that Muhammad's family worshiped Hubal, with the Oxford Dictionary of Islam stating that Hubal was the Quraysh's patron deity. If Hitti is correct regarding Allah being the Quraysh's' tribal deity then this provides additional proof that Allah was a name for Hubal. Note the following syllogism:

1. Hubal was the chief deity of the Quraysh.
2. Allah was the chief deity of the Quraysh.
3. Therefore, Hubal was Allah in pre-Islamic times.

There is another indirect piece of evidence which links Allah to Baal. Writer, Franz Rosenthal, while commenting on the mass confusion which surrounded the Muslims regarding the precise meaning of as-samad (Cf. 112:2), posits a possible origin for the word. He says:
... There is enough room for suspicion to permit us having a look at some outside evidence.

There, we encounter a noteworthy phenomenon: the not infrequent religious connotation of the root smd.

In Ugaritic, smd appears as a stick or club that is wielded by Ba'l. In the Kilammu inscription, line 15, we find b'l smd, apparently, b'l as the owner of his divine club. In the Bible, the adherence of the Israelites to Baal of Peor is expressed by the nip'al of the root smd. The verb is translated by the Septuagint heteleuse (Numeri 25:3, 5; Ps. 106:28). The use of the verb doubtlessly reflects North Canaanite religious terminology.

From Arabic sources, we learn that an idol of 'Ad was allegedly called samud, which brings us rather close to the environment of Muhammad
...
In view of this material, the suggestion may be made that as-samad in the Qur'an is a survival of an ancient Northwest Semitic religious term, which may no longer have been understood by Muhammad himself, nor by the old poets (if the sawahid should be genuine). This suggestion would well account for the presence of the article with the word in the Qur'an, and it would especially well account for the hesitation of the commentators vis-a-vis so prominent a passage. Such hesitation is what we would expect if we are dealing with a pagan survival from the early period of the revelation." [What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, & Commentary, "Some Minor Problems in the Qur'an", edited with translation by Ibn Warraq {Prometheus Books, October, 2002, Hardcover; ISBN: 157392945X}, part 5.2, pp. 336-337]

Let's face it the proper name 'Allah' was much in use in pre-Islamic times and applied to pagan deities, now it is shown that 'Allah' is indicated to be the same as the pagan deity condemned by the Bible, 'Baal.'
"Allah, the paramount deity of pagan Arabia, was the target of worhip 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 worshiped him as "Ilah," and the Bedouins as "al-Ilah" (the deity). With Muhammad he becomes Allah, God of the Worlds, of all believers, the one and only who admits of no associates or consorts in the worship of Him. Judaic and Christian concepts of God abetted the transformation of Allah 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." [Caesar E. Farah, Ph.D., Islam {Barron's Educational Series, 2000, sixth edition paperback} p. 28]

CONCLUSION:

Clearly Islam owes term 'Allah' to the pagan/heathen Arabs. "We have evidence that it entered into numerous personal names in Northern Arabia and among the Nabatians. It occurs among the Arabs of later times, in theophorus names and on its own. Wellhausen also cites pre-Islamic literature where Allah is mentioned as a great deity. We also have the testimony of the Koran itself where He is recognized as a giver of rain, a creator, and so on; the Meccans only crime was to worship other gods beside Him. Eventually, Allah was only applied to the Supreme Deity. "In any case it is an extremely important fact that Muhammad did not find it necessary to introduce an altogether novel deity, but contented himself with ridding the heathen Allah of his companions subjecting him to a kind of dogmatic purification ... Had he not been accustomed from his youth to the idea of Allah as the Supreme God, in particular of Mecca, it may well be doubted whether he would ever have come forward as the preacher of Monotheism." [Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not A Muslim {Prometheus Books, Amherst NY, 1995}, pp. 39-40, 42]

Ibn Warraq continues on, "Interesting is the name HUBAL (in Arabic and Hebrew script the vowels were not noted). This shows a very suspicious connection to the Hebrew HABAAL (= the Baal). As we all know this was an idol mentioned in the Bible (Num. 25:3, Hosea 9:10, Deut. 4:3, Josh. 22:17 and Ps. 106:28-29). Where was Baal worshipped? In Moab! It was the "god of fertility". Amr ibn Luhaiy brought Hubal from Moab to Arabia.

The name 'Allah' (from 'al-Ilah' - 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. As we shall see later, an idol called Hubal was addressed as Allah. Muhammad's grandfather reportedly prayed to Hubal and addressed him as Allah. The deities al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat were called "the daughters of Allah" (Surah 53:19). "Allah was viewed, already before Muhammad, as the Lord of the Ka'ba, while, if not surely, but very probably, this sanctuary was devoted to Hubal, whose image was placed inside" (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" [Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not A Muslim {Prometheus Books, Amherst NY, 1995}, p. 219].

Therefore, "But the vague notion of Supreme (NOT SOLE) divinity which Allah seems to have connoted in Meccan religion was to BECOME both universal and transcendental; it was to be turned by the Kur'anic preaching, into the affirmation of the living God, the Exalted One." [Encyclopedia of Islam, 1960, p. 406; capital emphasis ours].

Part 2, The Facts on Allah:

The Fact on The Name "Allah"

It should not come as a surprise that the word "Allah" was not something invented by Muhammad or revealed for the first time in the Quran.

The well-known Middle East scholar H.A.R. Gibb has pointed out that the reason that Muhammad never had to explain who Allah was in the Quran is that his listeners had already heard about Allah long before Muhammad was ever born [Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey, New York: Mentor Books, 1955, p.38]

Dr. Arthur Jeffery, one of the foremost Western Islamic scholars in modern times and professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Columbia University, notes:

"The name Allah, as the Quran itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa" [Islam: Muhammad, and His Religion, New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958, p. 85]

The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god." It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic. (There is an interesting discussion of the origins of Allah, in "Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies" by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pp. 173-190)[source - Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pages 173-190]

Neither is Allah a Hebrew or Greek word for God as found in the Bible. Allah is a purely Arabic term used in reference to an Arabian deity. Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326, T & T Clark, states:

'"Allah" is a proper name, applicable only to their [Arabs'] peculiar God. '

According to the Encyclopedia of Religion:

'"Allah" is a pre-Islamic name . . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel' [Encyclopedia of Religion, I:117 Washington DC, Corpus Pub., 1979]

For those who find it hard to believe that Allah was a pagan name for a peculiar pagan Arabian deity in pre-Islamic times, the following quotations may be helpful:

"Allah is found . . . in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam" [Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643]

"The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshipped, after a fashion, a supreme god called Allah" [Encyclopedia off Islam, I:302, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1913, Houtsma]

"Allah was known to the pre-Islamic . . . Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities" [Enyclopedia of Islam, I:406, ed. Gibb]

"Ilah . . . appears in pre-Islamic poetry . . . By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to Allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry" [Encyclopedia of Islam, III:1093, 1971]

"The name Allah goes back before Muhammad" [Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:41, Anthony Mercatante, New York, The Facts on File, 1983]

"The origin of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity" [Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, I:326, Hastings]

To the testimony of the above standard reference works, we add those of such scholars as Henry Preserved Smith of Harvard University who has stated:

"Allah was already known by name to the Arabs" [The Bible and Islam: or, The Influence of the Old and New Testament on the Religion of Mohammed, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897, p. 102].

Dr. Kenneth Cragg, former editor of the prestigious scholarly journal Muslim World and an outstanding modern Western Islamic scholar, whose works are generally published by Oxford University, comments:

"The name Allah is also evident in archeological and literary remains of pre-Islamic Arabia" [The Call of the Minaret, New York: Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 31].

Dr. W. Montgomery Watt, who was Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University and Visiting Professor of Islamic studies at College de France, Georgetown University, and the University of Toronto, has done extensive work on the pre-Islamic concept of Allah. He concludes:

"In recent years I have become increasingly convinced that for an adequate understanding of the career of Muhammad and the origins of Islam great importance must be attached to the existence in Mecca of belief in Allah as a "high god." In a sense this is a form of paganism, but it is so different from paganism as commonly understood that it deserves separate treatment" [William Montgomery Watt, Muhammad's Mecca, p. vii. Also see his article, "Belief in a High God in Pre-Islamic Mecca", Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. 16, 1971, pp. 35-40]

Caesar Farah in his book on Islam concludes his discussion of the pre-Islamic meaning of Allah by saying:

"There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea that Allah passed to the Muslims from the Christians and Jews" [Islam: Beliefs and Observations, New York, Barrons, 1987, p. 28].

According to Middle East scholar E.M. Wherry, whose translation of the Quran is still used today, in pre-Islamic times Allah-worship, as well as the worship of Ba-al, were both astral religions in that they involved the worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars [A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran, Osnabruck: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1973, p. 36].

Also, I have shown 'Allah' is a proper name for the Moon god, and the title for any god in Arabic is 'Ilah.' The title god in Arabic is 'Ilah,' and not Allah. 'Ilah' is a title; whereas, Allah is a proper name of a specific 'Ilah,' so get a dose of reality. Also, several New Testament Bibles in Arabic the title ' Ar-Rab' means "The Lord" is used.

See Part 2 of Sequel #3[/size][/b]

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[b][size=large]Part 2 of Sequel #3

APPENDIX:

[1]Interestingly, here are the meanings of several important words in Arabic:

Jesus in Arabic is Yesua

Word in Arabic is Kalam

Spirit in Arabic is Ruh

God in Arabic is Ilah

The in Arabic is El

[2] Astral Religions
In Arabia, the sun god was viewed as a female goddess and the moon as the male god. As has been pointed out by many scholars such as Alfred Guilluame, the moon god was called by various names, one of which was Allah! (Islam, p. 7).

The name Allah was used as the personal name of the moon god, in addition to other titles that could be given to him.

Allah, the moon god, was married to the sun goddess. Together they produced three goddesses who were called "the daughters of Allah." These three goddesses were called Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat.

The daughters of Allah, along with Allah and the sun goddess were viewed as "high" gods. That is, they were viewed as being at the top of the pantheon of Arabian deities.

"Along with Allah, however, they worshipped a host of lesser gods and "daughters of Al-lah" [SOURCE - Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:61].

[3] The old middle eastern Moon god who has gone by many names is still well venerated. This is shown by "The Archeology of The Middle East" which states, "The religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters.

Archaeologists have uncovered temples to the Moon-god throughout the Middle East. From the mountains of Turkey to the banks of the Nile, the most wide-spread religion of the ancient world was the worship of the Moon-god. In the first literate civilization, the Sumerians have left us thousands of clay tablets in which they described their religious beliefs. As demonstrated by Sjoberg and Hall, the ancient Sumerians worshipped a Moon-god who was called many different names. The most popular names were Nanna, Suen and Asimbabbar. His symbol was the crescent moon. Given the amount of artifacts concerning the worship of this Moon-god, it is clear that this was the dominant religion in Sumeria. The cult of the Moon-god was the most popular religion throughout ancient Mesopotamia. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Akkadians took the word Suen and transformed it into the word Sin as their favorite name for the Moon-god. As Prof. Potts pointed out, "Sin is a name essentially Sumerian in origin which had been borrowed by the Semites." [source - The Archeology of the Middle East]"[additional references - "South Arabia's stellar religion has always been dominated by the Moon-god in various variations" (Berta Segall, The Iconography of Cosmic Kingship, the Art Bulletin, vol.xxxviii, 1956, p.77).; Isaac Rabinowitz, Aramaic Inscriptions of the Fifth Century, JNES, XV, 1956, pp.1-9; Edward Linski, The Goddess Atirat in Ancient Arabia, in Babylon and in Ugarit: Her Relation to the Moon-god and the Sun-goddess, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, 3:101-9; H.J.Drivers, Iconography and Character of the Arab Goddess Allat, found in Études Preliminaries Aux Religions Orientales Dans L'Empire Roman, ed. Maarten J. Verseren, Leiden, Brill, 1978, pp.331-51); Richard Le Baron Bower Jr. and Frank P. Albright, Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1958, p.78ff; Ray Cleveland, An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1965; Nelson Gleuck, Deities and Dolphins, New York, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1965).; Another Aramaic Record of the North Arabian goddess Han'Llat, JNES, XVIII, 1959, pp.154-55.[source - There is Only One True God by Iris the Preacher 2005]

Part 3, The Old Middle Eastern Moon God - Allah:

ANSWERS ON THE MOON GOD ALLAH

One individual asked,

I checked your website, http://www.freewebs.com/iris_the_preacher , and there's this sentence in the page that caught my attention:
"...Also, there is the false moon god Allah to contend with as put forth by Muslims."

FIRST, This individual was in error, as the Arabic word for deity or god is Ilah. Let's look at the facts from an encyclopedia,

?ilah is the Arabic for "deity". It is cognate to Northwest Semitic 'el and Akkadian ilu. The word is from a Proto-Semitic archaic biliteral ?-l meaning "god" (possibly with a wider meaning of "strong"), which was extended to a regular triliteral by the addition of a h (as in Hebrew Eloah). The word is spelled either ??? with an optional diacritic alif to mark the a (as is the case with Allah), or (more rarely) with a full alif, ???? .
The feminine is ?ilahah ????? "goddess", with the article, al-?ilahah ????? according to Lane's 1893 Lexicon referring to the great serpent in particular, "because it was a special object of the worship of some of the ancient Arabs", or the new moon (see also Allat).
In Islamic context, an ilah is the concept of a deity, lord or god and does not necessarily refer to Allah. The term is used throughout the Qur'an in passages detailing the existence of Allah as the only Ilah, and of the beliefs of non-Muslims in other Ilah(s).[source - Wikipedia free Encyclopedia]

SECOND, Here is some more enlightenment for you,

[source - The Archeology of the Middle East]"[additional references - "South Arabia's stellar religion has always been dominated by the Moon-god in various variations" (Berta Segall, The Iconography of Cosmic Kingship, the Art Bulletin, vol.xxxviii, 1956, p.77).; Isaac Rabinowitz, Aramaic Inscriptions of the Fifth Century, JNES, XV, 1956, pp.1-9; Edward Linski, The Goddess Atirat in Ancient Arabia, in Babylon and in Ugarit: Her Relation to the Moon-god and the Sun-goddess, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, 3:101-9; H.J.Drivers, Iconography and Character of the Arab Goddess Allat, found in Études Preliminaries Aux Religions Orientales Dans L'Empire Roman, ed. Maarten J. Verseren, Leiden, Brill, 1978, pp.331-51); Richard Le Baron Bower Jr. and Frank P. Albright, Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1958, p.78ff; Ray Cleveland, An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1965; Nelson Gleuck, Deities and Dolphins, New York, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1965).; Another Aramaic Record of the North Arabian goddess Han'Llat, JNES, XVIII, 1959, pp.154-55.

THIRD, Also, you should go read the following of which I am only posting the introduction,

Allah - the Moon God

The Archeology of The Middle East
The religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters. [source - Yeshua Communications Network]

You can read all at:

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/moongod.htm

FOURTH, You overlook this source which has many links on the subject, but here I will only quote the introduction,

Hubal and Allah the Moon God?

Islam: Truth or Myth? start page

Introduction to basic facts of history:

Moon worship has been practiced in Arabia since 2000 BC. The crescent moon is the most common symbol of this pagan moon worship as far back as 2000 BC.
In Mecca, there was a god named Hubal who was Lord of the Kabah.
This Hubal was a moon god.
One Muslim apologist confessed that the idol of moon god Hubal was placed upon the roof of the Kaba about 400 years before Muhammad. This may in fact be the origin of why the crescent moon is on top of every minaret at the Kaba today and the central symbol of Islam atop of every mosque throughout the world:
About four hundred years before the birth of Muhammad one Amr bin Lahyo ... a descendant of Qahtan and king of Hijaz, had put an idol called Hubal on the roof of the Kaba. This was one of the chief deities of the Quraish before Islam. (Muhammad The Holy Prophet, Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar (Pakistan), p 18-19, Muslim)
The moon god was also referred to as "al-ilah". This is not a proper name of a single specific god, but a generic reference meaning "the god". Each local pagan Arab tribe would refer to their own local tribal pagan god as "al-ilah".
"al-ilah" was later shortened to Allah before Muhammad began promoting his new religion in 610 AD.
There is evidence that Hubal was referred to as "Allah".
When Muhammad came along, he dropped all references to the name "Hubal" but retained the generic "Allah".
Muhammad retained almost all the pagan rituals of the Arabs at the Kaba and redefined them in monotheistic terms.
Regardless of the specifics of the facts, it is clear that Islam is derived from paganism that once worshiped a moon-god.
Although Islam is today a monotheist religion, its roots are in paganism.[source - Brother Andrew]

You can read all at and go also to the links, go to:

http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-moon-god.htm

FIFTH, One expert of Islam, Starjade, has a lot to say on the celestian Moon god, one of the puppet gods of Satan the Devil and the false prophet at:

http://www.geocities.com/end_of_times/chapterseven.htm

And,

http://www.geocities.com/end_of_times/su...hytwo.html

And,

http://www.geocities.com/end_of_times/surapge1.html

SIXTH, Now here is something else you should read to see the proof of what I stated in my two articles which incidentally were NOT about the Moon god, a puppet celestial god of Satan the Devil, but about the only true God (YHWH) maker of heaven and earth, a point you obviously missed. But since you made the challenge, I am answering it with abundant evidence of the obvious. Now here is an introduction to another important article on the subject,

Was Allah The Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan?
By Syed Kamran Mirza
Historical evidences, impartial logic, well versed references and all available circumstantial judgments can very well prove that-(a) Allah name of deity was pre-existed much before the arrival of Islam, ( Pre-Islamic Pagan peoples worshipped Allah as their supreme deity (moon-god). Allah's name existed in pre-Islamic Arab. In ancient Arab the Allah was considered to be the supreme God/deity (as Moon-God) and Arab Pagans worshipped Allah before Islam arrived.
Let us examine below some valid questions and answers :
Did the Pagan Arabs in pre-Islamic times worship 360 gods? Yes
Did the pagans Arabs worship the sun, moon and the stars? Yes
Did the Arabs built temples to the Moon-god? Yes
Did different Arab tribes give the Moon-god different names/titles? Yes
What were some of the names/titles? Sin, Hubul, Ilumquh, Al-ilah.
Was the title "al-ilah" (the god) used as the Moon-god? Yes
Was the word "Allah" derived from "al-ilah?" Yes
Was the pagan "Allah" a high god in a pantheon of deities? Yes.
Was he worshipped at the Kabah? Yes.
Was Allah only one of many Meccan gods? Yes
Did they place a statue of Hubul on top of the Kabah? Yes.
At that time was Hubul considered the Moon-god? Yes.
Was the Kabah thus the "house of the Moon-god"? Yes.
Did the name "Allah" eventually replace that of Hubul as the name of the Moon god? Yes.
Did they call the Kabah the "house of Allah"? Yes.
Were al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat called "the daughters of Allah"? Yes.
Yusuf Ali explains in fn. 5096, pg. 1445, that Lat, Uzza and Manat were known as "the daughters of God [Allah]"
Did the Qur'an at one point tell Muslims to worship al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat? Yes. In Surah 53:19-20.
Have those verses been "abrogated" out of the present Qur'an? Yes.
What were they called? "The Satanic Verses."[source - Was Allah The Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan?
By Syed Kamran Mirza ]

Now to read the complete article, go to:

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/skm30804.htm

SEVENTH, Go read, "English - Allah Had No Son" by Jack T. Chick LLC, which is an interesting cartoon that reveals the truth about the Moon god, 'Allah,'. You can view this at:

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0042/0042_01.asp

EIGHTH, And here is another item you should go read and also visit all of the links,

Archaeological photo gallery of the Arabian Moon-God
The names of the moon god in Arabia were Wadd, `Amm, Sin, Il Mukah, Hubal and Allah.
The crescent moon symbol of Islam is a remnant of ancient pagan moon worship.

Now go to:

http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-photos-m...alolgy.htm

NINTH, Go read the following also,

Allah, the moon god of the Kaba:
Islam Truth or Myth? ^ | Brother Andrew
Posted on 12/18/2002 6:24:27 AM PST by robowombat
Allah, the moon god of the Kaba:

Go read the entire article and visit links at:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/808560/posts

TENTH, Go read the following also,

Thoth
(Thot, Thout; Egyptian Djhowtey, Djehuti, Tehuti, Zehuti)
Egyptian moon god. Over time, he developed as a god of wisdom, and came to be associated with magic, music, medicine, astronomy, geometry, surveying, drawing and writing. Thoth was generally depicted in human form with the head of an ibis, wearing a crown consisting of a crescent moon topped by a moon disk. He could also be depicted wholly as an ibis or a baboon. Both the ibis and the baboon were sacred to him. His principal sanctuary was at Hermopolis (Khmunu) in the Nile delta region.

Go read the entire article at,

http://sobek.colorado.edu/LAB/GODS/throth.html

ELEVENTH, Go to,

Information Center

Go look at the many links on the subject of the Moon god at,

http://www.chick.com/information/religions/islam/

TWELTH, Go read,

Thoth, God of the Moon, Magic and Writing...by Caroline Seawright

Go look this article on the subject of the Moon god at,

http://www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoich...thoth.html

THIRTEEN, Go read,

ALLAH - The Moon God

The religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters.

Now look at this article at,

http://www.abrahamic-faith.com/moon-god.html

Sequel to ANSWERS ON THE MOON GOD ALLAH

Now let's look at more facts on the name of the old middle eastern celestial Moon god, "Allah,"

Allah is the name of the only God in Islam. Allah is a pre-Islamic name coming from the compound Arabic word Al-ilah which means the God, which is derived from al (the) ilah (deity). It was formerly the name of the chief god among the numerous idols (360) in the Kaaba in Mecca before Mohammed made them into monotheists. Today a Muslim is one who submits to the God Allah.
Islam means submission to (Allah), but originally it meant that strength which characterized a desert warrior who, even when faced with impossible odds, would fight to the death for his tribe. [source - Dr. M. Baravmann, The Spiritual Background of Early Islam, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1972]

And,

Many believe the word "Allah" was derived from the mid- eastern word "el" which in Ugaritic, Caananite and Hebrew can mean a true or false God. This is not the case, "The source of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity." [source - Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (ed. Hastings), I:326.]

And,

According to the Encyclopedia of Religion, Allah corresponded to the Babylonian god Baal, and Arabs knew of him long before Mohammed worshipped him as the supreme God. Before Islam the Arabs recognized many gods and goddesses, each tribe had their own deity. There were also nature deities. Allah was the god of the local Quarish tribe, which was Mohammed's tribe before he invented Islam to lead his people out of their polytheism. Allah was then known as the Moon God, who had 3 daughters who were viewed as intercessors for the people into Allah. Their names were Al-at, Al-uzza, and Al-Manat, which were three goddesses; the first two daughters of Allah had names which were feminine forms of Allah. Hubal was the chief God of the Kaaba among the other 360 deities. Hubal was the chief God of the Kaaba among the other 360 deities. Hubal was a statue likeness of a man whose body was made of red precious stones whose arms were made of gold. [source reference - Islam George Braswell Jr.]

And,

"Historians like Vaqqidi have said Allah was actually the chief of the 360 gods being worshipped in Arabia at the time Mohammed rose to prominence. Ibn Al-Kalbi gave 27 names of pre-Islamic deities...Interestingly, not many Muslims want to accept that Allah was already being worshipped at the Ka'ba in Mecca by Arab pagans before Mohammed came. Some Muslims become angry when they are confronted with this fact. But history is not on their side. Pre-Islamic literature has proved this." [source - G. J. O. Moshay, Who Is This Allah? (Dorchester House, Bucks, UK, 1994), pg. 138].

And,

History has shown Mecca and the holy stone al-Kaaba were holy sites for pre-Islamic pagan Arabs. The Kaaba in Mecca was formerly named Beit-Allah meaning House of Allah. We are told it was first built in heaven. This is in contradistinction to what Moses was instructed to build, something overlooked by the Muslims in their reading of the Bible.

The Koran tells us that Mohammed drove the other idols away; he made one God now the only god and he was its messenger. He kept the Kaaba as a holy, sacred place and confirmed that the black stone had the power to take away man's sins. He obligated every believer to make a pilgrimage to the stone at least once in his lifetime. (Sura 22:26-37) No Old Testament saint ever had a pilgrimage to the Kaaba and kissed its black stone despite stories that Abraham and Ishmael restored it.

[b]Mohammed used the name Allah which was formerly the name of a specific idol without ever distinguishing it from the idol the Meccan's were already worshipping.[/b] This was a modification of their former worship but never a complete break. He never did say for the people to stop their worship of the wrong Allah, for the right one. It can still be monotheism and not be the God of the Bible
Al-Lat which is a T at the end of the name of Allah, was represented by a square stone whose major sanctuary was in the city of Taif. In the sanctuary was a black stone in the town of Qudayd between Mecca and Medina. She was the goddess of fate, a female counterpart of Allah. Al-uzza was the goddess of east Mecca. It has been said there were human sacrifices made to her and Islamic tradition tells of a story of Mohammed's grandfather almost sacrificing his son the father of Mohammed to her. What prevented this was his seeking counsel from a fortune teller which told him to ransom his son with one hundred camels. Muslims look to this as the will of Allah to bring Mohammed into existence. (Reference Muhammad husain haykal, Hayat mohammed)

"The name Allah, as the Qur'an itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa." [source - Arthur Jeffrey, ed., Islam: Muhammad and His Religion (1958), p. 85.)]

.


Part 4, The Mythical Family of The Mythical God Allah:

The Family of Allah:

INTRODUCTION:

As we all know, the family of the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Issac, Ishmael, Noah, Moses, etc., the creator of all there is, consist of himself; his only begotten Son, Jesus (Yeshua), referred to in the Bible as the Son of God at numerous places. As an example, at Matthew 14:33, "Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God." (Authorized King James Bible; AV). Also, the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Issac, Ishmael, Noah, Moses, etc., the creator of all there is, family of loyal angels in heaven and his family of loyal followers on earth.

Not only does the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Issac, Ishmael, Noah, Moses, etc., the creator of all there is, the real God have a family; the mythical god, "Allah" has a family also.

But there has been little said on the family of Allah. In fact, most do not know what was known in ancient Arabia, Allah was the male god and his wife was the female goddess. This is what Professor Guillaume had to say on this couple, <<<" In Arabia, the sun god was viewed as a female goddess and the moon as the male god. As has been pointed out by many scholars such as Alfred Alfred Guilluame, the moon god was called by various names, one of which was Allah!"[source - "Islam", by Professor Guillaume, p. 7].

This couple produced three goddesses, and they were the daughters of Allah and were called, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat. This is what the Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend had to say on them in brief, <<<" The name Allah was used as the personal name of the moon god, in addition to other titles that could be given to him.

Allah, the moon god, was married to the sun goddess. Together they produced three goddesses who were called "the daughters of Allah." These three goddesses were called Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat.

The daughters of Allah, along with Allah and the sun goddess were viewed as "high" gods. That is, they were viewed as being at the top of the pantheon of Arabian deities.

"Along with Allah, however, they worshipped a host of lesser gods and "daughters of Al-lah" [source - Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:61]>>>.

One writer said this of the family of Allah, <<<" Muslims usually argue that their 'Allah' is the same deity as the Judeo-Christian God. For sincere Jews or Christians, that statement ought to be considered as a profound blasphemy, since it destroys their concept of God. By accepting such a thesis one is admitting Islam as the true religion, above Judaism and Christianity. One has not come across any arguments that can prove that 'Allah' is just another name for the Judeo-Christian God. The Islamic scholar Caesar Farah states: "There is no reason, therefore, accept the idea that Allah passed to the Muslims from the Christians and Jews." (Ceasar Farah, Islam: Beliefs and Observations (New York, 1987), 28.) And as their characters are examined, they seem to be of a completely different nature and reveal contradicting scriptures.

'Allah', in fact, has a genealogy that can be traced through Yemen to Babylon, the mother of all idolatry. In Babylon, paganism began at the time of Nimrod, the alleged builder of the Tower of Babel. After the confusion of languages, Babylonian idolatry spread all over the world. Nimrod had been dei-fied and was known as Baal, Molech,.... and finally, as Allah. The Baal worship was conducted by sacrifices, prostrations and kissing the idol, (See I. Kings 19:18) which was the same type of service conducted at the Kaaba and other places in Arabia. There are also traces of a direct Baal worship among the Arabs: "And God helped him [King Uzziah of Juda] against the Philistines, and against the Arabians that dwelt in Gur-baal, and the Mehunims [probably Mineanites from Yemen]." (II Chron. 26:7) It was common to add Baal's name to the city where he was worshipped and thus it was obviously so in Gur. Inscriptions with Baal's name have been found in Central Arabia at some oasis where Arabian inhabitants had settled. The great scholar William Robertson Smith argues that the most developed cults of Arabia belong not to the pure nomads, but to these agricultural and trading settlements, which the Bedouin visited only as pilgrims, not to pay stated homage to the lord of the land from which they drew their life, but in fulfilment of vows. (William Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites. The Fundamental Institutions (London, 1902), 109.)

Concerning the Kaaba, Muslims' holiest place, Ibn Ishaq gives us an example of such fulfilment of vows, when he reports the story of a Jurhum woman who "had been barren and vowed to Allah that if she bore a son she would give him to the Kaaba as a slave to serve it and to look after it." (quoted in; Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 49.) In Mesopotamia, and consequently in all the known world, the firstfruits of the crops or cattle were sacrificed to the fertility god. A sacred plot of land was offered to the deity, where he could abide and accept their offerings. In Mecca, the earlier fertility god named Baal was replaced with desert gods, the Aramaic Allah and the Yemenite Hubal.

The ancient world usually worshipped a pantheon of gods, where higher and lesser gods battled for supremacy. All these pantheons had many similarities, for example, always including a relationship between a high male-god and a mothergoddess. Religious beliefs were often a spiritual form or the exaltation of the society the worshippers happened to be a part of. In primitive tribal societies, the family was the integral part which formed the basis of solidarity, wealth, protection and daily support. Thus, a family of deities was the normal state of worship.

In Arabian archaeology a large number of inscriptions on rocks, tablets and walls, have pointed to the worship of a family of four; one male and his three 'daughters' or goddesses. Those three goddesses are sometimes engraved together with Allah, represented by a crescent moon above them. But Allah was the 'Lord of the Kaaba... Lord of Manat, al-Lat, and al-Uzza...and even as 'Lord of Sirius'.'(Peters, Muhammad, 98.) His 'daughters' were his associates, helpers and were themselves worshipped, after the manner of ancient Babylonian customs and symbolised by astronomical symbols".[Source - Islam and Goddess Worship; http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/fem4.htm]>>>.

Now that we know who his family consisted of, let's look at the details:

DETAILS ON THE MOON GOD "ALLAH" :

Muslims believe that God revealed his final message to humanity through the Islamic prophet Muhammad via the angel Gabriel.[Reference - "Introduction" by Watton (1993)] They consider Muhammad to have been God's final prophet, the "Seal of the Prophets", and the Qur'an to be the revelations he received in his 23 years of preaching.[source - "Qur'an", Encyclopedia of Christianity (2001)] Muslims hold that all of God's messengers since Adam preached the message of Islam - submission to the will of the one God. To Muslims, Islam is the eternal religion, described in the Qur'an as "the primordial nature upon which God created mankind".[References - 19. ^ Qur'an Sura 30:30; and "Islam", Encyclopedia of Religion]. Furthermore, the Qur'an states that the proper name Muslim was given by Abraham.[Reference - Qur'an Sura 22:78; and "Tahrif", Encyclopaedia of Islam Online].

As a historical phenomenon, however, Islam was originated in Arabia in early 7th century.[Reference - "Islam", Encyclopedia of Religion]. Islamic texts depict Judaism and Christianity as prophetic successor traditions to the teachings of Abraham. The Qur'an calls Jews and Christians "People of the Book", and distinguishes them from polytheists. However, Muslims believe that parts of the previously revealed scriptures, the Tawrat (Torah) and the Injil (Gospels), had become distorted as indicated in the Qur'an - either in interpretation, in text, or both.[Reference - "Tahrif", Encyclopaedia of Islam Online]

Islamic belief has six main components - belief in God; his revelations; his angels; his messengers; the "Day of Judgement"; and the divine ecree.[References - Sahih Muslim 1:1; and "Iman", Encyclopaedia of Islam Online]

Allah, God, Islamic concept of God, and Tawhid [no Trinity]. The fundamental concept in Islam is the oneness of God (tawhid): monotheism which is simple and uncompounded, not composed or made up of parts.[Resource - "Tawhid", Britannica Concise Encyclopedia]. The oneness of God is the first of Islam's five pillars, expressed by the Shahadah (testification). By declaring the Shahadah, a Muslim attests to the belief that there are no gods but God, and that Muhammad is God's messenger.[Reference - Griffith (2006), p.248].

In Arabic, God is called Allah. Etymologically, this name is thought to be derived from a contraction of the Arabic words al- (the) and ilah (deity, masculine form) - al-ilah meaning "the God".[Source - "Allah", Encyclopaedia of Islam Online].

The first sura in a Qur'anic manuscript by Hattat Aziz Efendi, says, <<<"The Qur'an is considered by Muslims to be the literal word of God, and is the central religious text of Islam. It has also been called, in English, the Koran and, archaically, the Alcoran. The word Qur'an means "recitation".[Reference - a b c Teece (2003), pp.12,13]. Although the Qur'an is often referred to as a "book", when Muslims speak in the abstract about "the Qur'an", they usually mean the scripture as recited in Arabic rather than the printed work or any translation of it.[Reference - C. Turner (2006), p.42] Muslims believe that the verses of the Qur'an were revealed to Muhammad by God through the Angel Gabriel on numerous occasions between the years 610 and his death on July 6, 632.">>>[Note, much of the above was taken from the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia].

Now that the general concept of how Islam views "Allah" is hopefully understood, let's proceed with historical details on this mythical celestial god.

Many in Islam claim their god is the same as the true God (YHWH) of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, and Jacob, creator of all there is, but this is not true as will be shown:

Origins of the word "Allah," let's look at the facts from renown historical sources:

The well-known Middle East scholar H.A.R. Gibb has pointed out that the reason that Muhammad never had to explain who Allah was in the Quran is that his listeners had already heard about Allah long before Muhammad was ever born [source - (Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey, New York: Mentor Books, 1955, p.38)].

Dr. Arthur Jeffery, one of the foremost Western Islamic scholars in modern times and professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Columbia University, notes:

"The name Allah, as the Quran itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa" [source - Islam: Muhammad, and His Religion, New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958, p. 85].

The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god." It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic. [source - There is an interesting discussion of the origins of Allah, in "Arabic Lexicographical Miscellanies" by J. Blau in the Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. XVII, #2, 1972, pp. 173-190].

Neither is Allah a Hebrew or Greek word for God as found in the Bible. Allah is a purely Arabic term used in reference to an Arabian deity. [source - Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326, T & T Clark], states:

'"Allah" is a proper name, applicable only to their [Arabs'] peculiar God. '

According to the Encyclopedia of Religion:

'"Allah" is a pre-Islamic name . . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel' [source - Encyclopedia of Religion, I:117 Washington DC, Corpus Pub., 1979].

For those who find it hard to believe that Allah was a pagan name for a peculiar pagan Arabian deity in pre-Islamic times, the following quotations may be helpful:

"Allah is found . . . in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam" [source - Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643].

"The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshipped, after a fashion, a supreme god called Allah" [Encyclopedia off Islam, I:302, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1913, Houtsma].

"Allah was known to the pre-Islamic . . . Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities" [Encyclopedia off Islam, I:406, ed. Gibb).

"Ilah . . . appears in pre-Islamic poetry . . . By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to Allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry" (Encyclopedia off Islam, III:1093, 1971].

"The name Allah goes back before Muhammad" [source - Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:41, Anthony Mercatante, New York, The Facts on File, 1983].

"The origin of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity" [source - Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, I:326, Hastings].

To the testimony of the above standard reference works, we add those of such scholars as Henry Preserved Smith of Harvard University who has stated:

"Allah was already known by name to the Arabs" [source - The Bible and Islam: or, The Influence of the Old and New Testament on the Religion of Mohammed, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897, p. 102]

"Ilah is the Arabic for "deity". It is cognate to Northwest Semitic ' and Akkadian ilu. The word is from a Proto-Semitic archaic biliteral meaning "god" (possibly with a wider meaning of "strong"), which was extended to a regular triliteral by the addition of a h (as in Hebrew Eloah). ...[omitted as not English characters] with an optional diacritic alif to mark ...; (as is the case with Allah), or (more rarely) with a full alif...; .The feminine is;hah "goddess", with the article, al...[omitted as not English characters]; according to Lane's 1893 Lexicon referring to the great serpent in particular, "because it was a special object of the worship of some of the ancient Arabs", or the new moon (see also Allat).In Islamic context, an ilah is the concept of a deity, lord or god and does not necessarily refer to Allah. The term is used throughout the Qur'an in passages detailing the existence of Allah as the only Ilah, and of the beliefs of non-Muslims in other Ilah(s)."[source - Wikipedia free Encyclopedia]

[source - The Archeology of the Middle East]"[additional references - "South Arabia's stellar religion has always been dominated by the Moon-god in various variations" (Berta Segall, The Iconography of Cosmic Kingship, the Art Bulletin, vol.xxxviii, 1956, p.77).; Isaac Rabinowitz, Aramaic Inscriptions of the Fifth Century, JNES, XV, 1956, pp.1-9; Edward Linski, The Goddess Atirat in Ancient Arabia, in Babylon and in Ugarit: Her Relation to the Moon-god and the Sun-goddess, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, 3:101-9; H.J.Drivers, Iconography and Character of the Arab Goddess Allat, found in Études Preliminaries Aux Religions Orientales Dans L'Empire Roman, ed. Maarten J. Verseren, Leiden, Brill, 1978, pp.331-51); Richard Le Baron Bower Jr. and Frank P. Albright, Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1958, p.78ff; Ray Cleveland, An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1965; Nelson Gleuck, Deities and Dolphins, New York, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1965).; Another Aramaic Record of the North Arabian goddess Han'Llat, JNES, XVIII, 1959, pp.154-55.]

Allah - the Moon God The Archeology of The Middle EastThe religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters. [source - Yeshua Communications Network]


"Hubal and Allah the Moon God?Islam: Truth or Myth? start page Introduction to basic facts of history:Moon worship has been practiced in Arabia since 2000 BC. The crescent moon is the most common symbol of this pagan moon worship as far back as 2000 BC. In Mecca, there was a god named Hubal who was Lord of the Kabah. This Hubal was a moon god. One Muslim apologist confessed that the idol of moon god Hubal was placed upon the roof of the Kaba about 400 years before Muhammad. This may in fact be the origin of why the crescent moon is on top of every minaret at the Kaba today and the central symbol of Islam atop of every mosque throughout the world: About four hundred years before the birth of Muhammad one Amr bin Lahyo ... a descendant of Qahtan and king of Hijaz, had put an idol called Hubal on the roof of the Kaba. This was one of the chief deities of the Quraish before Islam. (Muhammad The Holy Prophet, Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar (Pakistan), p 18-19, Muslim)The moon god was also referred to as "al-ilah". This is not a proper name of a single specific god, but a generic reference meaning "the god". Each local pagan Arab tribe would refer to their own local tribal pagan god as "al-ilah". "al-ilah" was later shortened to Allah before Muhammad began promoting his new religion in 610 AD. There is evidence that Hubal was referred to as "Allah". When Muhammad came along, he dropped all references to the name "Hubal" but retained the generic "Allah". Muhammad retained almost all the pagan rituals of the Arabs at the Kaba and redefined them in monotheistic terms. Regardless of the specifics of the facts, it is clear that Islam is derived from paganism that once worshiped a moon-god. Although Islam is today a monotheist religion, its roots are in paganism."[source - Brother Andrew]

Was Allah The Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan? By Syed Kamran Mirza Historical evidences, impartial logic, well versed references and all available circumstantial judgments can very well prove that-(a) Allah name of deity was pre-existed much before the arrival of Islam, ( Pre-Islamic Pagan peoples worshipped Allah as their supreme deity (moon-god). Allah's name existed in pre-Islamic Arab. In ancient Arab the Allah was considered to be the supreme God/deity (as Moon-God) and Arab Pagans worshipped Allah before Islam arrived. Let us examine below some valid questions and answers :Did the Pagan Arabs in pre-Islamic times worship 360 gods? YesDid the pagans Arabs worship the sun, moon and the stars? YesDid the Arabs built temples to the Moon-god? YesDid different Arab tribes give the Moon-god different names/titles? YesWhat were some of the names/titles? Sin, Hubul, Ilumquh, Al-ilah. Was the title "al-ilah" (the god) used as the Moon-god? YesWas the word "Allah" derived from "al-ilah?" YesWas the pagan "Allah" a high god in a pantheon of deities? Yes.Was he worshipped at the Kabah? Yes.Was Allah only one of many Meccan gods? YesDid they place a statue of Hubul on top of the Kabah? Yes.At that time was Hubul considered the Moon-god? Yes.Was the Kabah thus the "house of the Moon-god"? Yes.Did the name "Allah" eventually replace that of Hubul as the name of the Moon god? Yes.Did they call the Kabah the "house of Allah"? Yes.Were al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat called "the daughters of Allah"? Yes.Yusuf Ali explains in fn. 5096, pg. 1445, that Lat, Uzza and Manat were known as "the daughters of God [Allah]"Did the Qur'an at one point tell Muslims to worship al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat? Yes. In Surah 53:19-20.Have those verses been "abrogated" out of the present Qur'an? Yes.What were they called? "The Satanic Verses."[source - Was Allah The Moon God of Ancient Arab Pagan? By Syed Kamran Mirza ]

"ALLAH - The Moon GodThe religion of Islam has as its focus of worship a deity by the name of "Allah." The Muslims claim that Allah in pre-Islamic times was the biblical God of the Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The issue is thus one of continuity. Was "Allah" the biblical God or a pagan god in Arabia during pre-Islamic times? The Muslim's claim of continuity is essential to their attempt to convert Jews and Christians for if "Allah" is part of the flow of divine revelation in Scripture, then it is the next step in biblical religion. Thus we should all become Muslims. But, on the other hand, if Allah was a pre-Islamic pagan deity, then its core claim is refuted. Religious claims often fall before the results of hard sciences such as archeology. We can endlessly speculate about the past or go and dig it up and see what the evidence reveals. This is the only way to find out the truth concerning the origins of Allah. As we shall see, the hard evidence demonstrates that the god Allah was a pagan deity. In fact, he was the Moon-god who was married to the sun goddess and the stars were his daughters."[source - www.abrahamic-faith.com/moon-god.html ]

"In fact the common symbol used in much of Islam, the Crescent Moon, like in the Green Crescent the Arab equivalent of the Red Cross, as used by the Ottomans, on most Mosques, etc. But here is what history and archaeology shows:

The symbol of the worship of the moon god in Arabian culture and elsewhere throughout the Middle East was the crescent moon.

Archaeologists have dug up numerous statues and hieroglyphic inscriptions in which a crescent moon was seated on top of the head of the deity to symbolize the worship of the moon god. In the same fashion as the sun is pictured above the Egyptian deity.

Now there are strong indicators that the heathen god, Baal, was the god of very early antiquity that actually evolved into the present day Moon god "Allah," by way of an intermediary figure, the god "Hubal al'iah." In fact in his name you can actually see how the name for the pagan Moon god became.

While the moon was generally worshiped as a female deity in the Ancient Near East, the Arabs viewed it as a male deity."[source - The Islamic Invasion by Dr. Robert Morey; Harvest Home Publishers, 1992. ISBN 0-89081-983-1]

"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."[source - Microsoft(r) Encarta(r) Online Encyclopedia 2000]

"Allah was also known as Hubel, ""Among the gods worshiped by the Quraysh, the greatest was Hubal

...

Some additional details on this cleromantic deity, the most powerful of the pagan idols of Mecca, is supplied by the Meccan historian Azraqi

...

Amr ibn Luhayy brought with him (to Mecca) an idol called Hubal from the land of Hit in Mesopotamia. Hubal was one of the Quraysh's greatest idols so he set it up at the well inside the Kab'a and ordered the people to worship it. Thus a man coming back from a journey would visit it and circumambulate the House before going to his family, and would shave his hair before it ... "[Peters, Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places [Princeton University Press, NJ, 1994], pp. 24-25]

""Khuza 'ah thus shared the guilt of Jurhum. They were also to blame in other respects: a chieftain of theirs, on his way back from a journey to SYRIA, had asked the MOABITES to give him ONE OF THEIR IDOLS. They gave him HUBAL, which he brought back to the Sanctuary, setting it up within the Ka'bah itself; and it became THE CHIEF IDOL OF MECCA." [Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, Inner Traditions International, LTD. One Park Street, Rochestor Vermont 05767, 1983, p. 5].

And this Hubel or Allah the Moon god is indicated to be known by others as the Biblically condemned god, 'Baal.' Commenting on 'Abd al-Muttalib's rediscovery of the well of Zamzam and its treasures, Lings writes:

"... So 'Abd al-Muttalib continued to dig without any actual move being made to stop him; and some of the people were already leaving the sanctuary when suddenly he struck the well's stone covering and uttered a cry of thanksgiving to God. The crowd reassembled and increased; and when he began to dig out the treasure which Jurhum had buried there, everyone claimed the right to share in it. 'Abd al-Muttalib agreed that lots should be cast for each object, as to whether it should be kept in the sanctuary or go to him personally or be divided amongst the tribe. This had become the recognised way of deciding an issue of doubt, and it was done by means of divining arrows inside the Ka'bah, in front of THE MOABITE IDOL HUBAL ..." (Lings, p. 11; bold and capital emphasis ours) 'Amr then asked them to give him an idol he could take to Arab lands where it could be worshipped, and they gave him one named Hubal. This he brought to Mecca and set on a pedestal and ordered the people to worship and venerate it. (The Life of the Prophet Muhammad (Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya), Volume I, translated by professor Trevor Le Gassick, reviewed by Dr. Ahmed Fareed" [Garnet Publishing Limited, 8 Southern Court, south Street Reading RG1 4QS, UK; The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, 1998], p. 42]

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." [source - Collier's CD-ROM Encyclopedia]

This Baal was considered in earliest times to be the supreme god of the people we now know as Arabs, and cultures usually always maintain there supreme god even though he/she may change his form or even name. Therefore, this is a very strong indicator that in all probability he evolved into Hubal al'iah who later evolved into Allah, but always remaining the supreme god of the people of the area.

"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." [source - Collier's CD-ROM Encyclopedia].

See Part 3 of Sequel #3[/size][/b]