Arabic Language Grog Question

[Shmavis]

Excuse my late response, but after some discussion and searching, the phonetic translation of the phrase is, "La Ilaha Illa Allah, Muhammad Rasulu Allah." This can be taken to mean "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the prophet of God." or "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah." It can be translated in a few other ways, but I offer these two versions.

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by Zalgiris 1410:

[snip]

So are you arguing that Islam used to be polytheistic or not - I can't really tell from your response. If so, what's your evidence - pre-Islamic worship of the Kaaba is well known, but I know of no evidence that Islam ever considered it to be another god.

[FAI]

Originally posted by Shmavis:

Excuse my late response, but after some discussion and searching, the phonetic translation of the phrase is, "La Ilaha Illa Allah, Muhammad Rasulu Allah." This can be taken to mean "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the prophet of God." or "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah." It can be translated in a few other ways, but I offer these two versions.

Muslims prefer the last translation. Somehow there's a subtle (but significant) difference between "god" and "Allah", especially for non-Arab speaking Muslims. Allah is exclusively Islamic, while "god" is the generic word for other deities.

[Philippe]

Originally posted by Andrew H.:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Zalgiris 1410:

[snip]

So are you arguing that Islam used to be polytheistic or not - I can't really tell from your response. If so, what's your evidence - pre-Islamic worship of the Kaaba is well known, but I know of no evidence that Islam ever considered it to be another god. </font>

[Zalgiris 1410]

Thanks you Philippe for explaining about this in the direction I was implying. I'm not really actually arguing that Islam is polytheistic Andrew H. OTOH of course I find these tantalizing contraditions and curiousities intreging enough to entertain my interest in & enjoy poking holes in Islam's supposed absolute mono-theism. Both in order to sure up and soothe my atheism I find this fun to do and I'm glad to encounter all this polyglotism of mono-Islamism, I'm particularly partial to all the influence of dualistic Zoroastrianism in Shi'iaism and in the other major monotheistic religions from the Near East!

O'h BTW did you know that Mithras was supposedly crucified to death on what date, the 25th of December or summer solstice or then abouts so would you have guessed by Jove!