Is Allah God?

Good question. Stolen from my post on the FredTalk website.

Allah is a monotheistic religion, but there is no direct corrolation between the Judeo-Christian God and the Muslim Allah. If I am not mistaken, the name Allah stems from the old Meccan pagan moon-god.

The name Allah does have Hebrew roots from the word elohim, which has an early polytheistic root (which Muslims have capitalized on in their 99 names for Allah). This is a good article explaining the word:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05393a.htm

Here is another good resource on who Allah is and where the historical roots of the name come from. Keep in mind that it is a Muslim resource, but good information that you can draw your own conclusions from nonetheless:

http://answering-islam.org.uk/Index/A/allah.html

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01316a.htm

I would argue that Allah and God are two rather distinct monotheistic traditions that – although they share a very distant root – are two divergent concepts. Allah therefore cannot be the Christian God.