In Nigeria, Allah is understood as the God of Muslims, while Yahweh or Jehovah is the Christian God. This understanding regard these deities as distinct or different in content and expression: Allah is the God of Muslims and the Qur'an and loves only Muslims; Yahweh and Jehovah are said to be the interchangeable names of the Christian God of the Bible, he loves Jews and Christians alone. But Islam and Christianity are considered as “Abrahamic religions”: religions that traced their legitimacy to Abraham and his ONE God. Now, are these deities different or the same God with different names?
Image: ses.edu
Abraham is historically said to be a Jewish patriarch who lived thousands of years ago in the Middle East. Abraham parents lived in times where people believed in many gods. In those days, some communities in the middle-east area worship many deities and gods, these deities and gods are graded. On the top was El or “God” who is the creator of the world, he was like Zeus in Greek myth, Jupiter in Roman, Chukwu in Igbo, Olorun in Yoruba and Ubangiji in Hausa. El was given revered attributes as El-Elyon (God Most High), El-Shaddai (God Almighty) etc. Under El, there are other Gods and deities.
Baal, Astarte, Moloch and Yahweh were said to be lesser gods compared to El, and under this rank of God there existed several deities. Abraham and his parent grew up worshipping these Gods until he was called by the “One supreme God!” Abraham abandoned his family and home and followed the “One Supreme God” whose name was sacred and unpronounceable, often written but not pronounced as “YHWH” – can you pronounce the name? The God with the unpronounceable name would hundreds of years later appear to Moses and introduce himself as “I Am That I Am”. Abraham’s descendant would later refer to the One God whose name cannot be mentioned as Adonai.
God the Father, by Cima da Conegliano, from wikipedia
But as time pass, the attributes of El of the old Jewish religious belief were attributed to Adonai or YHWH. Just as all the supreme Gods of traditional religions of every Nigeria community is the name of the “Christian God”. It was believed that Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, these two are claimed by Arabs and Jews respectively as their ancestors and true heirs of Abraham and his One God.
The Jews claim that the God of Abraham, YHWH or Adonai is their national God, and he had chosen them, all the blessings God bestowed on Abraham is their inheritance as “legitimate” heirs of Abraham and dismissing Ishmael as “illegitimate” and cursed child whose birth is unfortunate. YHWH or Adonai became the God of Jacob, Moses, Joshua and Jesus, the founder of Christianity.
Muslims before the Kaaba in Mecca, the Kaaba in pre-Islam days was the shrine dedicate to Allah and other gods.
Christian churchmen and scholars would find the written name YHWH challenging, so, they added vowels to the name and viola, they have Yahweh, romanticized as Jehovah. Christians and Jews worship the same God, whom they now call Yahweh and Jehovah, a God who is an embodiment of the attribute of an ancient middle eastern God name El and other deities. But is Yahweh and Jehovah the same as Allah?
Muslim woman praying to Allah
Before the emergence of Islam, like the Jews, the Arabs too worship many gods and deities. The most supreme God in the Arab pantheon was called Allah, and the Kaaba Shrine was built for Him but hosted other gods and deities. The name of the Arab God Allah was derived from “al” meaning “the” and “ilah” or deity or God, hence Allah means “the God.” The Arabic term “ilah” is related to El or Ela, the Hebrew and Aramaic words for God respectively. And the Jews are the original speakers of Hebrew and it’s successor language Aramaic – which Jesus and the Apostles speak.
The Arabs have been existing long before Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and Islam, the Arab name for God was Allah. The Prophet's father who died when Mohammed was still a child and who was not a Muslim was named Abdullah or Abd-Allah meaning “Servant of Allah”. The Arabic name for God is Allah: Before Islam, most Arabs practice paganism and there were Christians among them, even today, Christian Arabs name for God is Allah. In Nigeria, Christians in northern Nigeria call God Allah. They sometimes interchange it with “Ubangiji” the supreme deity in traditional Hausa religion. Islam only took up the name of the supreme deity in Arab national and traditional religion as the name most befitting of Abraham's monotheistic God, YHWH or Yahweh or Jehovah.
Jews praying to Yahweh at the temple in Jerusalem
Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah had their foundational origin in El, these names for God revered by the Jews, Christians and Muslims are linked to the God called Abraham out of polytheism, this indicates a common of origin of these names. This is why Judaism, Christianity and Islam are referred to as Judaic or Abrahamic religions: they have same god-ancestor(El) and human ancestor(Abraham); the share same being, that is existing as the ONLY God or deity in the world, who created the world and all dwelling on and without it. These religions have the same attributes for God.
Christians pray to Jehovah through Jesus Christ who is regarded as part of the Trinity that made up the ONE God, Jehovah
In this regard, Yahweh, Jehovah, and Allah are one and the same! They only differ in names due to language, as the God of Abraham in Igbo is still Chukwu, Olodumare, Ubangiji, and the name of God in your language. Whatever fault observed in any religion is the fault of interpreters and not God, no wonder Allah, Jehovah and Yahweh encouraged adherents to live peacefully and in love, this is evidence of One God and not numerous. Yahweh, Jehovah and Allah are different names of the same God. That is the truth. Importantly, the way to God differs but the true way to God is only through Jesus.
Thanks
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