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Why Do Copts Say Allah?
Hello, brothers and sisters!
I always ask myself why Egyptian Copts call "God" "Allah"? As they are always there in Egypt -- before Islam.
Thanks
I always ask myself why Egyptian Copts call "God" "Allah"? As they are always there in Egypt -- before Islam.
Thanks
Comments
idk tho...
akhadna el baraka... nehkor Allah!
Allah, in my experience, doesn't have any negative anotation when used nowadays, it's simply the word we use when we pray to God in Arabic!
The word "Allah/e-lah" means "God/a god" in english....as explained before.
what makes the word special is the way it's written. to confirm that this is our true GOD, we capitalize the "G". to Islam, they just choose to make up a new word, from the arabic, with the name. which i guess is fine to their concept of "no heaven if not reading arabic quran"
Thank you all! But, do Copts still use the word eVnou for God in private or in churches? Don't they prefer eVnou to Allah?
No. They grew up saying Allah. I don't think you would find them saying "al hamd ul efnoti!" or "in sha efnoti".
Get what I'm saying?
Allah in the Muslim faith = God the Father (God of the Old Testament)
The words God, Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah, etc., all refer to God of the Old Testament (Who's technical name is Elohim).
The faith does not make a difference - 'Allah' refers to the same entity no matter what.
Allah does mean God..Not Jesus but teh word god.
+mahraeel+
In China, when Jesuit missionaries arrived in Beijing at the end of the 16th century ( ie. late 1500s), they used an old Chinese term for 'Supreme Being, Tian-zhu. Tian means 'Heaven' and zhu means ' Lord'- thus, they worshiped 'the Lord of Heaven'
Others used Shang Di. Christianity spread quite quickly, especially since emperor Kang Xi recognised the Name, and believed it was the original God the founders of China had worshipped.
However, the Pope of Rome, did not agree with the use of the word, and that I will ask you to trace what happened. On the plaque over a Catholic Church, is. another word for God. "True Source of All Things'.
Since God just is Who He is, all names will fail. We should not imagine that any one word be fetting. But this demonstrates that Names sometimes can point to the world an eternal truth- a truth widespread, but is understood in completeness in Christ.
(This is a summary of a chapter from Marshall's book, 'The Truth Behind the New Atheism'.
In Christ.
The following NEWS is kind of strange and interesting:
www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-as-malaysia-catholic-newspaper,0,4312152.story
chicagotribune.com
Malaysia lifts ban on Catholic paper's Malay edition, but bars it from using word 'Allah'
8:10 AM CST, January 8, 2009
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia will lift a ban on the Malay edition of a Catholic newspaper if it agrees to stop using the word "Allah," an official said Thursday, but the editor of the paper rejected the precondition.
The Home Ministry ordered the Herald newspaper last week to stop printing its Malay edition for violating a 2007 ban on the use of the word "Allah," except to refer to the Muslim God. The newspaper had been using "Allah" as a translation for God, regardless of denomination, as is typical in Malay.
The dispute has become a touchstone for recent religious tensions in Malaysia, which is predominantly Muslim but prides itself on its ethnic harmony.
The government agreed Thursday to lift the ban. "If they stop printing the word 'Allah,' they can publish anytime," Che Din Yusoh, a senior official with the ministry's publications control unit, told The Associated Press.
But the editor of the Herald, the country's main Roman Catholic newspaper, said he will continue to use "Allah," raising the possibility of a fresh confrontation.
The Herald's English, Mandarin and Tamil editions — read mostly by the ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities — were not affected by the ban. Malay is the language of the majority Malay Muslims as well as indigenous Christian tribes in the eastern states of Sabah and Sarawak.
The Herald has challenged the "Allah" ban in court, saying the translation has been used for centuries in Malay and that the Arabic word is a common reference to God that predates Islam. It says the ban is unconstitutional and threatens the religious freedom of minorities. The government, meanwhile, says the use of the word by non-Muslims could confuse Muslims.
The court has not yet issued a ruling.
Herald editor Rev. Lawrence Andrew told the AP that the government has no right to impose preconditions.
"They cannot do it because it is in the court. It is our right ... to use the word Allah," he said, adding that he hopes the government will not change its mind now that he has said he intends to flout the condition.
Andrew had said earlier Thursday that he would stop using the word "Allah" but changed his position after talking to his lawyer.
The Herald has long been at odds with the government, which has accused it of overstepping its boundaries by commenting on politics and other sensitive issues.
http://mt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingwa_Maltija somebody says it is similar to Arabic
I think this is a great point that hits at the heart of this question. Another point is that the act of naming something or someone is a means of demonstrating dominance over that thing or person. One of the central reasons supposed that Our God chose to have no name, He just is. The word "Allah" has pagan origins, so does the word "God", and "El" et. al.
The difficulty here is that we have it so ingrained in our minds to use names to refer to things that it is hard to even think about something without having assigned a name to it. We use words to refer to the Almighty because we have no other way of talking about him. We just need to remember that the word we use is not his name.
I think it is of ultimate importance for us to select words that are not tainted by anything. I'm sure anyone would agree that using unsanctified words is out of the question . . . We wouldn't want to refer to Him as "The Big G" right? . . . Just as important, I think our word choice shouldn't be tainted by our distaste for other people. If we specifically avoid the word "Allah" just to be separated from Islam, I think our word choice is tainted by hatred. If Islam comes to mind when praying to God we ought to pray for their health and well being just like when anyone else comes to mind. At the same time if our word choice invariably tainted, if we think of the associated Pagan god when we say "Allah" then maybe another choice is in order.
George
Thank you all for your efforts! I still don't get why they had to change the Coptic name and adopt the Arabic one.
Huh?? ???
1. God doesn't have a name. "God" is a generic word we use to refer to him, so is "Allah", so is "Elohim", so is "Bathala" (says the Spanish missionaries in the phillipines) ;)
2. Who changed the Coptic word? When singing/praying in Coptic we use the Coptic word; when singing/praying in Arabic we use the Arabic word; When singing/praying in English we use the English word; When singing/praying in Tagalog we use the Tagalog word; etc...
George
Please allow me to bring back this theme. It is amazing how the world is blind to go on tolerating such an apartheide society like in Malaysia. Please read below. Why do Christians over there insist on using "Allah" for God? Can't they just use, "Jehovah" "Elohim" or "El-Shaddai"?
More Than 15,000 Bibles Confiscated in Malaysia
yes the pegan arabs did worship an ido called allat , even muhammads fathers real full name was Abd-Allat , the Servent of Allat , and Allat had 2 daughter 3oza and 3ola or whatever.
Today we do use Allah but it refers to the God of Abraham Ellohim. The muslims allah is not the same God as the Christian and Jewish God... at all! dont let muslims fool you, the Quran is clear and the god of the Quran reject Christ as son so he is not God the Father as some people said.
It is good to use "trinity" as the name of God. In the Ethiopian Church, we use "Egziabher" to refer to the biblical God. That is a name that refers to Unity and Trinity as well as God's saving grace.
Egzi = meand Lord (God the Son)
Ab = means Father (God the father)
Her = means compassionate, comfortor (God the Holy Spirit)
Again -
Egzia - means savior, liberator
bher - means the world
In that case, it refers to Jesus Christ- the Savior of the World.
Again-
Egzi - means leader, ruler
a - means "of"
bher- means land or world
It refers to His Kingdom, His kingship.
We can continue drawing out meanings from this wonderful word.
There is no way that this name refers to any other God than the biblical one. Muslims in Ethiopia sometimes use the word Egziabher. But Christians never use the word "Allah"- because it doesn't explicitly and unambigously refer to the Lord.
My suggestion = Use this word!! :))
It is such an amazing word!!
when we will be smart enought to pray in amharic, we will say Ezgiabher!
God relates to everyone in all the world without removing them from their culture or language. none of my muslim friends mistake me for a muslim, nor are they confused when i say Allah when speaking arabic, they know the differences between our religions, indeed, this is something we easily discuss.
i think the malaysians should be allowed to use the term allah when speaking malay, it is their language, and they should not think it's a problem that the language has been influenced so much by arabic. after all arabic is similar to aramaic and hebrew, which are the languages Jesus knew when on earth. if you see 'the passion of the Christ' in aramaic, (with an arabic-speaker if you are not one), you will see the great similarities to arabic.
The important differentiation here is WHAT IS THAT GOD WE ARE TALKING ABOUT?!.....and that is the difference between almost all religions. A religion is the belief of the laws that are between Mankind and "god." Our faith knows that God (of course not as much but atleast better than many many other religions).
Some Christian philosophers think that Islam have the same God....ALLAH, simple because the whole religion is of the Jewish God, who is also our God as Christians. But their understanding of that God is different.
The god of the Quran and the God of the bible are completely different. Allah being contrived from AI-Llah the moon god. I wonder if there is any philological relationship between Allah and other Semitic terms for "God" such as Eloah (Hebrew) and Alaha (Aramaic/Syriac)?
http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/should-you-be-able-to-call-your-god-whatever-you-want/