Which brings up the interesting question -— before Islam was born, prior to Muhammad — how did the people in that region refer to GOD ?
I’m sure most were polytheistic, but there SHOULD BE monotheists in the Arab region. How was God referred to in their language ?
In China for instance, long before Buddhism and Taoism, the Chinese had a concept of one God who they refer to as Shang Di ( Emperor of Heaven ). The missionaries who went to China to preach the Gospel have always used this term and it is still used in the Chinese Bible.
I wonder what term was used to refer to THAT one God in Arabic BEFORE Muhammad formed Islam....
If they don’t want the designation ALLAH to be used, then how the heck are Christians to refer to God ?
The use of the word ‘Allah’ in reference to God predates the birth of Mo and his lunatic cult.
The word Allah was simply an Arabic word referring to the One God of Christianity (and, obviously, of Judaism before it). Mohammed probably came from a pagan tribe that had many deities, but most of North Africa was Christian (or Jewish) at that time and had been for so for centuries. When Mohammed was creating his syncretist cult, he obviously drew upon the Christian/Jewish concept of one God (Allah, in Arabic). He didn’t use the name of one of his tribe’s deities, which he could have done.
This also gave his cult a little more scope, and when he launched his attacks on Christians (who already used the word Allah or some variant thereof), it confused them and at the same time made it easier for them to bow to superior military force and “convert” to his new religion.