Allah - An advanced look at God in Islam - 1 - Introduction

Islam is a monotheistic religion and Allah is the Arabic word for 'God'; (Allah == God).

Allah is the God of everything and He is all-powerful and all-knowing. Many non-Muslims have the idea that Allah is a different God to what they call God, but He is the same figure, the same God, but we just call Him 'Allah'. Allah is the same God of the Jews and Christians and the ones that speak Arabic call God Allah too! ¹ Muslims believe in ONE GOD (a principle called tawheed) and this God is the same God of all the Prophets - Moses, Abraham, Lot, David, Jesus, etc (PBUTA). Muslims differ to the Jews and Christians on what the concept of God is and also in His attributes.

It may come as a surprise to non-Muslims who read this article that although Muslims differ to the Jews and Christians about the nature of Allah, they also differ amongst themselves.

Different Muslims have different beliefs about God and these different Muslims' beliefs can be attributed to sect or creed. The different sects and creeds have different beliefs so this article aims to point these out. The aim is not to make a mockery of the sects or cause dispute and destroy unity, but to make the picture clearer to those who read this article. Allow me to make an important point: Not all the people who follow a certain
sect believe in the things that I attribute to the sects in this article.

Although it is surprising that the Muslims differ on the concept of God, the Christians and the Jews and other people of other faiths do as well. These differences between all people are common and to-be expected, and it features in all faiths so no-one can argue that Islam is worse in terms of these differences than other religions. In fact, if you asked a group of Christians to discuss the concept of God amongst themselves, they would come out from the discussion knowing that each person in the room has a different concept and understanding of God. They would also discover that there would be people in the room who have beliefs that are totally the opposite of theirs and they would discover some concepts that are new & alien to them! Yet they are still Christians. These differences are siginificant in Christianity because the Christians cannot agree what the relationship between Jesus (PBUH) and The Father constitutes, or their attributes. This is a major dispute on an ultimate concept of that religion, but in Islam such a thing does not exist.

In clear contrast, Islam is much more clearer and condensed on the issue and the differences; There are less gray areas and the Muslims agree on many many things. The reason you will see a lot of differences in the articles on Allah is because we are trying to point these out. The fine-tuning of these personal beliefs on Allah is the duty of every Muslim as you will see when you read the future article: The Pillars of Islam. Hence, after
you have read the articles, I hope you choose your Aqueedah, what you believe is correct.

Notes & References

¹ If you have a copy of the bible in Arabic (which I doubt you do) you will find that God is often referred to as Allah since the word Allah means God in Arabic. However, a lot of Christian and Jewish Arabs try to distinguish themselves from the Muslims and they say 'Rabb', which means Lord in Arabic, but this word is also used by Muslims, so it is not a clear indication of the faith of a person.