Adeel Malik
Shibli Zaman, having a proclivity for Semitic linguistics enabled him to study the Biblical texts from a unique perspective. Here is his remarkable factual finding of how the God that Jesus referred to in the Bible was indeed Allah.
This is for those people who say “Allah” is any other than the very God called to in the Bible and the very One who sent Jesus Christ and whom he worshiped:
Allah has been the name of God since the first verse of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, Genesis. It says:
(בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ)
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
The word for “God” here is Elohim (אלהים). In ancient Semitic languages there exists the royal plural called pluralis majestatis in Latin. The predicate verb for “created” (“bara” in Hebrew) which is associated with the subject noun of “Eloh” is SINGULAR. So we’re clearly talking about a Singular God referred to with a royal plural. The actual name is “Eloh” which is the same as the Arabic “Allah”.
In Hebrew it is spelled in the Hebrew letters Alef (א), Lamed (ל), Het (ה). In Arabic it is spelled Arabic letters Alef (ا), Lam, (ل), Ha (ه).
Only a blind person couldn’t see that these words are identical. So the God of the Old Testament from the very first verse of the very first chapter of the very first book is ALLAH.
Read also: “We Palestinian Christians say Allahu Akbar”
But there’s more. Jesus did not speak King James English. He may have been familiar with Greek if he engaged in trade at all, but his native tongue would have been Aramaic. And throughout Jesus’ life up until the very moment he was on the cross, he called his God “Allah”.
The Gospel of John 17:3 states:
“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
The Aramaic for this is:
Syriac script
(ܐܢ̱ܬܿ ܐܠܗܐ ܕܿܫܪܪܐ ܒܿܠܚܘܼܕܼܝܟܿ܃ ܘܡܢ ܕܿܫܕܿܪܬܿ ܝܫܘܼܥ ܡܫܝܚܐ܂)
Hebraic script
(אנת אלהא דשררא בלחודיך ומן דשדרת ישוע משיחא)
Transliteration:
anta ALLAHA d’srara b’alkhudayk wa man d’sadart Eeso`a Masikha. (There was no “shin” in Galilean Aramaic in the First Century)
Also, the Jewish SHEMA recited in Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic (Yemeni Jews especially) uses Allah obviously.
So here Jesus himself is referring to the ONLY TRUE GOD as Allah in the phrase “Allaha d’srara b’alkhudayk” which literally translates into “God the True, Alone”.
So if you insult Allah, you worship some god other than the “ONLY TRUE GOD that Jesus said had sent him! You are, indeed, of those folk about whom Jesus Christ said:
“On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’”
[Matthew 7:22-23]
So if you say “Allah” is anything other than the proper name of God, you are an enemy to Jesus Christ and the God who sent him.
Shibli Zaman has a deep appreciation for different cultures and is literate in several languages such as Arabic, Persian, Pashto and Urdu. Surprising for a Muslim, he is also adept in Hebrew and Aramaic. He holds a gold medal in Bible Memory from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“O people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians): Come to a word that is just between us and you, that we worship none but Allah, and that we associate no partners with Him, and that none of us shall take others as lords besides Allah. Then, if they turn away, say: “Bear witness that we are Muslims.”
[Qur’ān 3:64]
