Beauties of Islam - Who is Allah? [episode 3/3] (Sheikh Yusuf Estes)

islam is you're watching the beauties of islam i'm your host yusuf estes and for the next few minutes we want to talk about the real beauty of islam when i say that i'm talking about the correct understanding of who almighty god is he is the beauty of islam and his way the way to reach him is the beauty of islam his recitation his communication with us is the beauty of islam the connection that we have with him is the beauty of islam and all of this in the arabic language is easily understood by someone who is an arab someone that speaks the arabic language but for someone like us you know we don't know it we miss a lot of the nuance of the words and so now let us begin to understand from the linguistic point of view what what we're talking about we say allah and people say allah okay so that's god to the muslims some say it's not even the god of the christians and so on it's just a god some even said it's a moon god but let us now look at the linguistic of the word allah it in itself is the beauty of islam because the word in arabic doesn't mean god just in case you thought it did it doesn't because we have a word in arabic for the word in english god it's called ilah ilah god god ilah that's the word but when we speak about the one and only god the one that's to be worshipped the god of adam the god of abraham and the god of moses god of jesus christ peace be upon him and the god of muhammad peace be upon him we're talking about essentially the only god that's worthy to be worshipped no other god now what would be the proof of this i realize that we have a lot of detractors who will say no no no that's not true i don't believe it let's uh get a proof from the english translation of the bible that's a good place to start around the earth there are many hotels in motels and almost every one of them that you go to there's a drawer beside the bed that when you open it up you'll find a book in there and you'll take it out now what is that book and you already know the answer it's the bible it's the gideon publication of the king james version of the bible the gideons are very proud of it because they've translated into so many languages if you'll turn a few pages right in the beginning you'll find examples of the translation to chinese and korean and into urdu the language of pakistan you'll find it into tamil you'll find it translated into afrikaans language which happens to be the first and the second language translated to is arabiyah arabic and there is an example of each one of these languages from the verse in the gospel of john chapter 3 verse 16. and you know it very well for god so loved the world that's how it begins and if you look in the arabic language the example that they gave in that bible it says allah allah that's what it says for allah so loved the world so if it's not the same god then why all over the entire earth everywhere i go i find this exact same word being used in the bible of the christians now you might say oh well uh what about the old testament well just in case you would like to check it out you can obtain a copy of this from our website it's called the beauties of islam let me spell it out for you it starts with beauties of islam.com go there and see for yourself the example is right there page one of the book of genesis of the very beginning of the quran page 1 has 17 verses and there's the word allah 17 times so just as it's the god for the children of israel in arabic language and it's the god for the arabs who are christians it's also the same god for the muslims the word is allah why allah why is it important to have this particular word and why don't we have it in english well those are good questions and when we come back from the break i want to get into those and show you the proof so that you'll be able to see for yourself that this is exactly the god and why we don't have it in english language so stay right where you are we're going to be right back with more about the beauties of islam learning how to recite the quran properly learning the meaning of what we recite concluding the camp from the verses which we recite trying to implement what we learn in our daily life would listen to the participants and the guests will take your phone calls we're going to recite life we'll listen to your citation and we'll correct it according to the rules and regulations which we'll state in each episode now your dream will come true you're watching the beauties of islam and we've been talking about the word allah and we've discovered it's a word that's actually used by the christians and jews in their bible and by the way i have on the internet the the bible in arabic language i have it there on our website beauties of islam.com so you can check it for yourself now i want to come to the etymology of the word it comes from the word elah and ila means god but god is defined as what anything that's worshiped whether it be something you can see or you don't see something you can touch or not touch something that you can hear or not hear a god could be anything a god could be a rock a stick a stone a bone a god could be something that you could make with your hands a god can be something you could use your imagination for it could be a human being a god could be anything god god could be anything but there is no word in english for allah so when you translate the word allah to be god you've actually diminished the meaning of allah that's why whenever you translate the bible from english to arabic you need to use the word allah instead of god with a big g which now gives us a clue to the problem in the english language they only have one word god little g-o-d it means something worshiped it could be idols images pictures statues it could be human beings it could be anything this is god's little g-o-d-s but when you mean the god you have to capitalize the g you have to make a big g now what happens if you're going to start the sentence with the word god you have to make a big g anyway don't you so you wouldn't know if it was god big god or god a little god just any old god you wouldn't know also whenever you're speaking to someone they can't see the letters so when you say god which god what god are you talking about in arabic though it's clear when you say illah okay he's talking about a god and allah is an ilah but he's also alilah the only illah and when you say allah this firms it up and there's no doubt in anybody's mind that you're talking about the one and only god a couple of points about that before we leave the topic the word allah in the arabic language cannot be made plural there can't be more than one okay that perfectly fits the unique god of the believers because there's not more than one he's only one there's no god beside god second point is this it can't be made female or male there's no gender to the word in arabic all the words have gender all words have gender but this particular word is only having gender because of arabic language not because allah has gender i give you an example it always says like allah this means allah he is but when we say he it's out of respect for allah because allah is without gender because he's not like his creation not male not female additionally we find that the examples in quran for instance when allah is talking about himself you'll find it says means we and allah refers to himself as he all says he says what does that mean he's saying that we created and throughout the quran you find allah referring to himself as we our and us and right away you're gonna say okay if that's not plural then what is in fact this is the royal we used by a king or a queen when they're giving decrees we have it in english too so you can understand the king says we decree the following and he's talking about himself it's the royal we now i thought about this quite a bit and i was trying to think how could i give a better example after all most of us myself included never met a king never met a queen and so i'm not really familiar with that usage although it's there i'm not sure what you're talking about so then in studying the english language we find that it's true that we do that when we speak to someone directly watch this when i say for instance this cup okay i would say this is a cup this is a cup of tea a nice cup of tea too i would say this book is i would say those uh artifacts are those are this is these are so i'm saying is an r did you catch this now these things are this is now when i speak to a human being how do i do this well i will say you guys all of you are all of you are a.r.e but when i speak to somebody directly do i say you is or you are i will say you are why simply because this is the respect honor and dignity that i'm giving there's no plural there when i say to you you are my friend you are a lovely person but why am i saying are why aren't i saying is you is my friend you is a lovely person you'll say man this guy doesn't know english language and in fact that's how we can understand this usage of we and our when allah is talking about himself this is the same as when i say i i don't say i is i say i am and again it's to show the not plural but rather the specific nobility dignity and honor that you give to the one who's speaking about himself and to the one he's speaking to and in the same way that's exactly what allah is doing when he says and other examples throughout the quran so now what we've learned is that allah's name itself is the perfect name for allah it is something that is so fantastic to describe who he is and who he isn't the one and only god there is none other like him nothing like unto him allah and at the same time the dignity the royalty the honor that's due him is contained in his name not like anything else not male not female and yet he is the all allah the only god so much more coming up on other episodes visit our website to get more details about this beauties of islam.com until next time peace

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Keywords: allah, muslim, moslem, quran, koran, islamic, islam, muhammad, mohammed, jihad, hijab, nasheed, bible, trinity, atheist, peace, religion, one, god, monotheist, hindu, christian, jesus, christ, jew, sufi, salafi, shiite, shia, sunni, why, muslims, faith, belief, believe, kuran, death, practices, akbar, arab, savior, heaven, hell, sunnah, hadith, prophet, messenger, rasul, mosque, deen, holy, convert, revert, arabic, dawah, lecture, halal, haram, iman, worship

Id: g01akdwfdXQ

Length: 14min 18sec (858 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 16 2009