Is Allah the same God as the God of the Bible? The question is asked in good faith and bad, and it has a clear answer in language, in history and in the Qur’an itself.
In this article
The word
Allāh (ٱللَّه) is the Arabic word for God, formed from the article al- and ilāh, a god, and related to the Hebrew Elohim and the Aramaic Alaha. Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians have always used it: the standard Arabic Bible opens with the words that in the beginning Allāh created the heavens and the earth.1
The God of Abraham
The Qur’an tells Muslims how to speak to Jews and Christians: in the best manner, affirming what was revealed to both, and declaring that ‘our God and your God is one’.2 It invites them to a common word: to worship none but God and to set up no partner beside Him.3 On this view there is one God, the God of Abraham, who spoke to Moses and to Jesus and finally to Muhammad.
۞ وَلَا تُجَـٰدِلُوٓا۟ أَهْلَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبِ إِلَّا بِٱلَّتِى هِىَ أَحْسَنُ إِلَّا ٱلَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا۟ مِنْهُمْ ۖ وَقُولُوٓا۟ ءَامَنَّا بِٱلَّذِىٓ أُنزِلَ إِلَيْنَا وَأُنزِلَ إِلَيْكُمْ وَإِلَـٰهُنَا وَإِلَـٰهُكُمْ وَٰحِدٌ وَنَحْنُ لَهُۥ مُسْلِمُونَ ٤٦
And do not argue with the People of the Scripture except in a way that is best, except for those who commit injustice among them, and say, “We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you. And our God and your God is one; and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him.”
Qur’an 29:464
The same God, described differently
Christians who deny that Muslims worship the God of the Bible usually mean that Muslims reject the Trinity. That is a disagreement about what God is like, and Jews and Christians have it too: Judaism also rejects the Trinity, yet few would say that Jews worship another god. The Qur’an’s description of God, one, eternal, neither begetting nor begotten, stands closest of all to the first commandment of the Torah and to the Shema that Jesus himself quoted as the greatest commandment.5
The verse therefore answers the question from the Qur’an’s side with a plain yes. Allah is the God of Abraham, and the Qur’an asks the people of the earlier scriptures only to worship Him alone.
Further reading: Monotheism in the Abrahamic religions, Do they worship the same God?.
Notes on Allah
- Genesis 1:1, Arabic Bible, Van Dyck translation (Beirut, 1865). ↩
- Qur’an 29:46, trans. Saheeh International; Arabic text from Quran.com. ↩
- Qur’an 3:64, trans. Saheeh International; Arabic text from Quran.com. ↩
- Qur’an 29:46, trans. Saheeh International; Arabic text from Quran.com. ↩
- Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:29; Qur’an 112:1-4. ↩