Allah is Yahweh

From the archives of my old blog... 

Is Allah the same as Yahweh?

While discussing Allah with some Christians, I made the statement that Allah is the same as Yahweh... and this apparently set a whole bunch of people off who had to tell me I was wrong. I read the Qur'an last year and I cannot possibly understand how anyone could read this book and say Allah is a different god from Yahweh.

I'm trying to trade information on Twitter with people about it, but 140 characters sucks for any real conversation, so I decided to post here. Keep in mind that I'm not saying any of the content of the Torah, or the Old Testament or the New Testament or the Qur'an is TRUE. I'm merely saying the claims made in the Qur'an make it painfully and unmistakably obvious that when Muhammad is referring to Allah he is referring to Yahweh.

A couple of things to keep in mind while reading scriptures from the Qur'an is who is speaking. The general structure of the Qur'an is that the archangel Gabriel is relaying messages from Allah to Muhammad. Muhammad is supposedly just dictating what Allah is revealing via Gabriel. 

So, let's just jump right in:

Qur'an 2:136:
Say, [O believers], "We have believed in Allah and what has been revealed to us and what has been revealed to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the Descendants and what was given to Moses and Jesus and what was given to the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him."

Abraham worshipped Yahweh... so did Ishmael... and Isaac... and Jacob... and Moses. So when the Qur'an says Allah revealed things to each of those prophets, do you think the Qur'an is saying all of those guys happened to be personal prophets of a completely different God? That doesn't make a lot of sense.

I think the inclusion of Jesus throughout the Qur'an is one of the reasons Christians (and others) vehemently reject the idea that Allah is Yahweh. Muslims believe that Jesus was a prophet of Allah and they do not believe in the Trinity. Christians worship Jesus as God and Jesus IS Yahweh according to the Trinity dogma. The important point is that Jews, Christians and Muslims may worship God differently and may each believe the others are worshipping God incorrectly, but they all are worshipping the same God.

Each of the following images of the Moon look different from each other, but they are all images of the same Moon. Just like Jews, Christians and Muslims may describe the qualities or messages of God differently, but they are all referring to the same God. 

Let's talk about some of the stories in the Qur'an...

Adam and Eve

Qur'an 7:11-25:
¹¹ And We have certainly created you, [O Mankind], and given you [human] form. Then We said to the angels, "Prostrate to Adam"; so they prostrated, except for Iblees (Satan). He was not of those who prostrated.
¹² Allah said, "What prevented you from prostrating when I commanded you?" Satan said, "I am better than him. You created me from fire and created him from clay."
¹³ Allah said, "Descend from Paradise, for it is not for you to be arrogant therein. So get out; indeed, you are of the debased.
¹⁴ Satan said, "Reprieve me until the Day they are resurrected."
¹⁵ Allah said, "Indeed, you are of those reprieved."
¹⁶ Satan said, "Because You have put me in error, I will surely sit in wait for them on Your straight path.
¹⁷Then I will come to them from before them and from behind them and on their right and on their left, and You will not find most of them grateful [to You]."
¹⁸ Allah said, "Get out of Paradise, reproached and expelled. Whoever follows you among them - I will surely fill Hell with you, all together."
¹⁹And "O Adam, dwell, you and your wife, in Paradise and eat from wherever you will but do not approach this tree, lest you be among the wrongdoers."
²⁰ But Satan whispered to them to make apparent to them that which was concealed from them of their private parts. He said, "Your Lord did not forbid you this tree except that you become angels or become of the immortal."
²¹ And he swore [by Allah] to them, "Indeed, I am to you from among the sincere advisors."
²² So he made them fall, through deception. And when they tasted of the tree, their private parts became apparent to them, and they began to fasten together over themselves from the leaves of Paradise. And their Lord called to them, "Did I not forbid you from that tree and tell you that Satan is to you a clear enemy?"
²³ They said, "Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers."
²⁴ Allah said, "Descend, being to one another enemies. And for you on the earth is a place of settlement and enjoyment for a time."
²⁵He said, "Therein you will live, and therein you will die, and from it you will be brought forth."

I'm pretty sure the Bible says Yahweh created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and told them to eat of all of the fruit except one! And one of God's Angels rebelled (Satan/Iblees)... so God expelled Satan from Heaven... but decided not to destroy him until Judgement Day and will fill Hell with anyone who follows Satan... and Satan tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit... and when Adam and Eve ate the fruit they became ashamed and covered their genitals... and God ejected them from paradise.

So, do you think the Qur'an is saying a completely different God from Yahweh just happened to also create the same first two people who are named Adam and Eve and he just happens to put them in the same garden paradise and one of the angels rebels against God just like in the Old Testament and this totally different God tells the same Adam and Eve they can eat from every tree except for one and the same angel who rebelled in the Old Testament rebels in the Qur'an and tempts Adam and Eve into eating of the forbidden fruit just like in the OT which causes them to become ashamed and hide their genitals... just like the Old Testament?

Or is the God in the Old Testament the same as the God in the Qur'an and the Qur'an is reminding the reader of the story of Adam and Eve? Isn't it fairly obvious that Allah is Yahweh?

Moses

Qur'an 28:30-32
³⁰ But when he came to it, he was called from the right side of the valley in a blessed spot - from the tree, "O Moses, indeed I am Allah, Lord of the worlds."
³¹ And [he was told], "Throw down your staff." But when he saw it writhing as if it was a snake, he turned in flight and did not return. [Allah said], "O Moses, approach and fear not. Indeed, you are of the secure.
³² Insert your hand into the opening of your garment; it will come out white, without disease. And draw in your arm close to you [as prevention] from fear, for those are two proofs from your Lord to Pharaoh and his establishment. Indeed, they have been a people defiantly disobedient."

Sura 28 (think of a sura as a chapter or a book within the Qur'an) talks all about Moses. How he was given up by his mother and put into the river.. taken in by the Pharaoh's family.. killed a dude.. had to flee, etc, etc.

Again, do you think the Qur'an is referring to a completely different Moses who was commanded to do all of the same things by Yahweh as he was commanded to do by Allah.... or maybe it was the same Moses, but a second god, Allah, commanded Moses to do all the same things that Yahweh had commanded him to do?

It seems rather silly to think that all of these verses are referring to a completely different God doing all the same things with all of the same Prophets.

Again, I'm not saying any of these stories are true. I'm not saying the Bible is true. I'm not saying the Qur'an is true. I'm only providing evidence that the Qur'an is referring to the same supernatural entity as the Bible does.

The Children of Israel

What does the Qur'an have to say about Jews? In 2:122, Allah (via Gabriel via Muhammad supposedly) says:

Qur'an 2:122
O Children of Israel, remember My favor which I have bestowed upon you and that I preferred you over the worlds.

Do you think that the Qur'an is saying Allah and Yahweh both picked the Children of Israel as the preferred, chosen people? No, of course not, it's saying.. over and over again... that Allah is the one who took all of the same actions as the entity known as Yahweh, because they are the same entity (according to the Qur'an).

Arguments Against

The people on Twitter who seem unnaturally driven to deny that three Abrahamic religions do not worship the same God have been forward a couple of arguments against the idea. These are not straw men arguments I made up so that I could knock them down, they are actual arguments presented to me.

This awful argument was sent to me via Twitter but is also propagated by the Evangelical Christian website, answeringislam.org.

http://answeringislam.org/Responses/Abualrub/allahs_identity.htm
My own personal view regarding the use of the word Allah is that if treated as a generic noun, a common noun denoting any deity, then it is acceptable as a reference for the true God of the Holy Bible. However, Islamic theology does not treat Allah as a generic noun, but views it as their god's own personal name. ... The fact that Muslims view the name Allah as a proper noun, as opposed to a common noun descriptive applicable to any deity, and that the Quran nowhere uses the name Yahweh in connection to god, is sufficient evidence to show that we are not dealing with the same God revealed in the Holy Bible.

I think this is one of the silliest arguments I've heard. If I told a story about how The President of the United States signed a Bill called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010... the logic of this argument states that I'm referring to some other person than Barack Obama because I haven't specifically mentioned him by name. They are the same stories and the Qur'an refers to Jews, Christians and Muslims as "People of the Scripture." They all worship the God of Abraham, which was Yahweh.

I also heard this from theists who preach at me on Twitter:

 
This is completely irrelevant. It does not matter in the slightest that the New Testament says there will not be any other relevations from God. That's a judgement about the truth of the claims. I'm not claiming that Allah or Yahweh exist, I'm claiming the Qur'an considers Allah and Yahweh to be the same thing and I've clearly shown that to be true.

Conclusion

It's impossible for me to understand that anyone who has actually read the Qur'an could possibly think that, from the Qur'an's perspective, Yahweh and Allah are different. People, like those at answeringislam.org, want to spend a great deal of time talking about the intricasies of translations and such. While translation is important, they are looking for any tiny speck of semantic they can hang their ideas on because it is an idea they desperately WANT to believe. However, in order to do this they have to blindly ignore all of the direct statements made in the book.

Judiasm, Christianity and Islam are all Abrahamic religions. They may worship differently and they may envision God differently, but they all refer to the same entity when they refer to God.