الله
Allāh
The Arabic word for God, used by Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians and Jews alike.
What it means
Allah is the Arabic name for the one God, the Creator of everything. It is not the name of a separate Arab deity. Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews used the same word for God before Islam and use it today, and Arabic translations of the Bible render “God” as Allah.
The Quran describes God by many names, “the most beautiful names” (7:180): the Compassionate, the Merciful, the Creator, the Forgiving. Its shortest statement of who He is comes in chapter 112: He is Allah, One; the Eternal Refuge; He neither begets nor is begotten; and there is none comparable to Him.
Arabic grammarians derive the word from al-ilāh, “the God”. It is closely related to the Aramaic Alāhā and the Hebrew Eloah, which is expected for sister languages and is no problem for Muslims: the word for God has been shared among the Semitic languages for thousands of years.
Often misunderstood as
That Allah is the name of a pagan moon god, or a different god from the God of the Bible.
What the sources say
The pre-Islamic Arabs knew Allah as the creator, though they joined partners to Him: asked who created the heavens and the earth, they would say “Allah” (Quran 29:61, 31:25). The Quran does not introduce a new god. It calls people back to worshipping Him alone, and tells Muslims to say to Jews and Christians, “our God and your God is one” (29:46).
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 23, listed as ALLAH. The definition is restated here.