Refuting Islam

Critical Response to Foundational Questions About Islam

Who or What Is Allah, and How Is the Islamic Concept of God Different from That in Other Religions?

A Critical Examination of Islam’s Concept of God

Islam claims to worship the same God as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, but closer examination reveals that the Islamic conception of “Allah” is not only different in form but fundamentally incompatible in essence with the God of the Bible or classical theism. The Qur’anic Allah appears as a radically singular, impersonal, and often arbitrary being — whose portrayal, when scrutinized, presents serious theological, moral, and philosophical difficulties.

1. Is Allah Simply the Arabic Word for God?

It is often claimed that Allah is just the Arabic name for “God,” used even by Arab Christians and Jews. However, the Qur’an treats “Allah” not as a generic term, but as the specific name of a deity who reveals a very distinct set of attributes, commands, and historical claims that conflict with Judeo-Christian revelation.

In the Qur’an, Allah denies fatherhood (Qur’an 112:3), denies the divinity of Jesus (Qur’an 5:72–73), and rejects the Trinity as blasphemy (Qur’an 4:171, 5:73) — directly opposing the most essential tenets of biblical theism.
Thus, invoking Abraham or Moses does not establish continuity; it only deepens the contradiction between Islam’s claim of continuity and its categorical denial of core biblical truths.

🡺 Conclusion: Allah, as described in the Qur’an, is not merely a linguistic variant of the biblical God but a redefinition that departs drastically from both Jewish monotheism and Christian Trinitarianism.

2. Tawḥīd vs. Biblical Monotheism

The doctrine of Tawḥīd — the absolute oneness of Allah — is the bedrock of Islamic theology. Yet this radical monotheism leads to a theological abstraction of God that makes Him ultimately unknowable and disconnected.

No Personal Relationship: While the Bible describes God as a loving Father who enters covenantal relationship with His people (Exodus 19, Hosea 11, John 1:12), Allah is never called “Father” and never portrayed as entering into mutual relationship.
No Immanence: The God of the Bible walks with Adam, speaks to Moses “as one speaks to a friend,” and indwells believers through His Spirit. In contrast, Allah is transcendent to the point of being untouchable, unseeable, and unapproachable.

🡺 **Tawḥīd results not in pure monotheism but in monadic isolation: a God who is utterly alone and incapable of love unless creation exists to receive it — which leads to serious philosophical dilemmas (see below).

3. Is Allah “Loving” in Any Coherent Sense?

Islam claims Allah is al-Wadūd (the Loving), but this attribute is always conditional in the Qur’an and is never rooted in God’s essence:

“Allah does not love the wrongdoers…” (Qur’an 3:57)
“Allah does not love the treacherous…” (Qur’an 8:58)
“If you love Allah, follow me and Allah will love you…” (Qur’an 3:31)

There is no concept in Islam of unconditional, self-giving, sacrificial love — the kind that loves even enemies (cf. Matthew 5:44; Romans 5:8).
Moreover, before creation, Allah had nothing to love. If Allah is eternally alone, whom did He love before He created anything?

🡺 Problem: A God who becomes loving only after creating is not eternally loving — thus failing the test of perfection. In contrast, the triune God of Christianity has love eternally flowing between Father, Son, and Spirit (John 17:24).

4. Arbitrariness and The Problem of Divine Voluntarism

Islamic theology has historically tilted toward divine voluntarism, particularly in Ashʿarite thought — the belief that good and evil are defined solely by Allah’s will, not by any inherent moral order.

In Islam, Allah can forgive or punish as He wills, lead astray or guide whomever He chooses (Qur’an 14:4; 16:93), without reference to justice or consistency.
Classical scholars like al-Ghazālī affirmed that Allah is not bound even by His own promises — if He sends the righteous to Hell, it is still “just” because He willed it.

🡺 This raises grave concerns:

Is Allah morally intelligible?
Can any moral knowledge be grounded if good and evil are arbitrary?
Can a believer trust a god who is not bound by character but only by command?

5. Absence of Divine Self-Disclosure

In Christianity, God reveals Himself personally: through covenants, prophets, and ultimately the Incarnation of Jesus Christ — “the exact representation of God’s being” (Hebrews 1:3). In Islam, Allah remains forever veiled:

Allah has no name that speaks to relationship (no “Father,” no “Friend,” no “Redeemer”)
Allah never speaks directly to mankind apart from dictation (Qur’an 42:51)
No one has ever seen or will see Allah — not even Muhammad during the Miʿraj, according to most Sunni interpretations

🡺 The result is a distant deity who is obeyed but never intimately known. Allah’s unknowability becomes a theological void, not a mystery of majesty.

6. A God Without Self-Sacrifice

The God of the Bible reveals His deepest nature by entering into human suffering, bearing the cost of justice Himself on behalf of humanity. In Islam:

There is no atonement
No divine self-giving
No bearing of sin
No concept of substitutionary mercy

Allah forgives arbitrarily or conditionally, but justice and mercy are never reconciled through self-sacrifice.

🡺 This is not just a different concept of God; it is a reduction of the divine to raw power and distant command — with no redemptive love, no incarnation, and no personal engagement with human suffering.

7. Conclusion: A Fundamentally Different God

While Islam claims to affirm the same God as that of the biblical prophets, its description of Allah constitutes a wholly different deity:

No Trinity — hence no eternal love
No incarnation — hence no personal self-revelation
No Fatherhood — hence no familial relationship
No assurance of mercy — hence no relational trust

Allah in Islam is not the biblical God misunderstood. He is a new god introduced in the 7th century with attributes that negate those of the God revealed in prior Scripture.

If Islam is to claim continuity with biblical faith, it must explain why its concept of God negates the essential attributes of love, relationship, and redemptive self-sacrifice that define the God of the Bible. Until then, it must be acknowledged: Islam worships a different god.