Is God a Man?
And is his proper name Allah?
“Is God a Spirit or a Man? God is a man and we just cannot make Him other than man, lest we make him an inferior one; for man's intelligence has no equal in other than man. His wisdom is infinite; capable of accomplishing anything that his brain can conceive. A spirit is subjected to us and not we to the spirit. Habakkuk uses the pronoun "He" in reference to God. This pronoun "He" is only used in the case when we refer to a man or boy or something of the male sex.”
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad-Message To The Blackman
This statement is a basic belief of the followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. It is central in our foundation for our studies. Because on this premise we begin to understand “self” and “the knowledge of self.” And we also believe that God, is One God whose proper name is Allah.
Let us first look at the use of the name Allah. Allah is an Arabic word, which literally translated means “the God”. However in footnote no. 2 in the Maulana Muhammad Ali translation of the Holy Quran says, “Allah, according to the most correct of the opinions respecting it, is a proper name applied to the Being Who exists necessarily by Himself, comprising all the attributes of perfection, the al being inseparable from it, not derived. Al-ilah is a different word, and Allah is not a contraction of al-ilah. The word Allah is not applied to any being except the only true God, and comprises of all the excellent names.” The National Latino Rep. Muhammad Abdullah Muhammad told me once, “A work (or word in this instance) can not be translated literally. One has to internalize the original concept and translate its basic concept according to the nuances of the language into which is being translated.”
If we believe that the proper name of God is Allah, proper meaning:
1. Belonging to one; one's own; individual.
2. Belonging to the natural or essential constitution
3. Befitting one's nature, qualities, etc.; suitable in all respect; appropriate; right; fit; decent.
When we study the etymology; the history of words, tracing out their origin, primitive significance, and changes of form and meaning, of the name Allah we find that the root word “Al” is used as the definitive article in all three languages Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. In Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, the name Alaha, refers to the divine, sacred unity, oneness, the all, the ultimate power/potential, the one with no opposite. Related to Elohim or Elah, which is based on the same root word El or Al, which translated literally means, the sacred.
This information leads us to ask if the Spanish language is comprised of three languages, Latin, Greek and yes Arabic. Most notable is “La Virgen de Guadalupe”, The Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico, the name Guadalupe derives from Vad-al-hub an Arabic word meaning, river of light or river of love. So does the Spanish language give us other insights into the name of God? Now we have accreted the fact that the names of God in Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic are based on the same root word El or Al. The word el in Spanish means in English;
him a pronoun of the masculine gender, the objective case of he.
The Latin root of him is nomin or nominare (to name)
Going back to the Spanish el which root is Latin el is;
ille illa illud (older forms olle and ollus) pron. [that , that yonder, that one]; emphatically, [that well-known].
Paying particular attention to the second form, illa (Latin) in respects to illah (Arabic), and the Spanish word for her is ella in Latin the root for her, like him, is also illa. Here we have two words el and ella, both Spanish, whose Latin root word is the same for the Arabic word illah (deity, lord, god) and the Hebrew for God elah.
The Holy Quran;
15.26 And surely We created man of sounding clay, of black mud fashioned into shape.
15.28 And when thy Lord said to the angels: I am going to create a mortal of sounding clay from black mud fashioned into shape.
Now here we find the creation of a man, fashioned into shape with black mud. And we know that man is created in the image and likeness of God. In our Student Enrollment, the questions asked by Master Fard Muhammad (the God in person) to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the question is asked. Who is the Original man? (Answer) The Original Man is the Asiatic black man; the Maker; the Owner; the Cream of the planet Earth-God of the Universe.
The Bible
Colossians 1:15-17
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
In closing, I have shown how the roots of language conceal the truth that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has shown us. Through the proper understanding of both the Holy Quran and Bible we can decipher the knowledge once lost to us.
