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Ilah
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ʾilāh is the Arabic for "deity". It is cognate to Northwest Semitic ’ēl and Akkadian ilu. The word is from a Proto-Semitic archaic biliteral ʾ-l meaning "god" (possibly with a wider meaning of "strong"), which was extended to a regular triliteral by the addition of a h (as in Hebrew Eloah). The word is spelled either إله with an optional diacritic alif to mark the ā (as is the case with Allah), or (more rarely) with a full alif, إلاه .
The feminine is ʾilāhah إلاﻫﺔ "goddess", with the article, al-ʾilāhah اﻻﻻﻫﺔ according to Lane's 1893 Lexicon referring to "the great serpent" in particular, "because it was a special object of the worship of some of the ancient Arabs", or "the new moon" (see also Allat).
In Islamic context, an ilah is the concept of a deity, lord or god and does not necessarily refer to Allah. The term is used throughout the Qur'an in passages detailing the existence of Allah as the only Ilah, and of the beliefs of non-Muslims in other Ilah(s). A sentence that reads, "Satan is Ilah to his worshippers," is therefore valid, since Ilah means "a god", but Allah is the personal name of the One Supreme God or The God. It is suggested by Arabic dictionarians that the word "Ilah" is derived from an ancient pre-Arabic word, "Allah," the name of God, since the word "Allah" is not grammaterized as all words in Arabic to return to its origin, while the word Ilah could be rooted to the verb, "Aliha," meaning worship.
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