Allah
Arabic word for God
Allah ( A(H)L-ə, ə-LAH; Arabic: الله, IPA: [ɑɫˈɫɑː] ) is the Arabic language term for God, and is mainly used for God in Islam as well as other monotheistic conceptions of the God of Abraham. Outside of Arabic languages, it is principally associated with Islam (in which it is also considered the proper name of the Islamic God), although the term was used in pre-Islamic Arabia and continues to be used today by Arabic-speaking adherents of any of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism and Christianity. It is thought to be derived by contraction from al-ilāh (الاله, lit. 'the god') and is linguistically related to other Semitic God names, such as Aramaic (ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ ʼAlāhā) and Hebrew (אֱלוֹהַּ ʾĔlōah).
The word "Allah" now conveys the superiority or sole existence of one God, but among the pre-Islamic Arabs, Allah was the supreme deity and worshipped alongside lesser deities in a pantheon. Many Jews, Christians, and early Muslims used "Allah" and "al-ilah" synonymously in Classical Arabic. The word is also frequently, albeit not exclusively, used by Bábists, Baháʼís, Mandaeans, Indonesian Christians, Maltese Christians, and Sephardic Jews, as well as by the Gagauz people.
Etymology
The etymology of the word Allāh has been discussed extensively by classical Arab philologists. The majority of scholars consider it to be derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- and ilāh "deity, god" to al-lāh meaning "the deity, the God" as in the contraction of al-ʾilāt to Allāt. In some sources, the contracted and un-contracted forms are used interchangeably. Originally, ʾilāh was used as an epithet for the West Semitic creator god ʾIlu (the Ugaritic version of El), before being adopted as the proper name itself for this god.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Allah” is arabic word for God. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Allah, Arabic and word, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “arabic word for God” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q234801. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Allah” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.