God or Allah?

This is Tian, first row is how its written in Shang oracle bone inscriptions, second row is from Zhou dynasty bronze ware inscriptions, third example is standardized version by LiSi prime minister of Qin dynasty.

this is how Tian writes today

Tian in oracle bone writings,

this is a rock carving discovered in inner Mongolia

this is character Di in oracle bone writing

The English word God is translated as ShangDi(shang=above/on top of)

whereas allah is ZhenZhu(literally means real lord)

By the Zhou dynasty, Chinese rulers called themselves, Tian Zi,(son of heaven), if Tian has no difference in connotation to God or Allah other than difference in language, then Tian Zi should also be considered as Son of Gods

Which in China's case, was not true.

For one, Chinese Tian is a term strongly associated with astronomy and agriculture. Its a general term made on awareness of importance of natural force that can affect the development of agriculture. And the man who had most of those knowledge were leaders of Zhou(even earlier stage, chieftains of HuaXia). Its the difference that Shang Kings laterly relied these practice on special officials so that themselves were not necessarily knowledgable in astronomy&calculations, whereas the Zhou rulers were often in charge of these practice, thats where&why the notion Son of Heaven, thus Zhou's usage of Tian replaced Shang term of Di.

Another explanation of character Di is its depiction of pile of firewood which Shang make when they are offering ritual ceremony to Tian.

Tian in oracle bone writings is composed of two parts, one is a man, above him is an oversized head, probably reference to celestial body. As ancient Chinese believed that the heaven is round, the earth is square. As this

Jade Cong found in ShanXi province (2100 B.C)

and jade Cong of LiangZhu culture(3300-2000 B.C)

presents.

God is impersonationed being whos credited with creation of things. Tian has no such impersonation attribute.

Ancient agricultural Chinese believed Tian is a factor that man cant change or control, but man can make changes. Its an emphasize on man rather than Tian.

basically the concept of Tian is above/on top of man, Tian is same as Dian(top of) in oracle bones inscription, which a phrase Ji(illness)Tian, means ones head got illness, Tian here means the top of man.

but the heaven is also above/ on top of man.

this is late YangShao tomb which dates back 6500 years. Discovered in PuYang city, in HeNan province. The significance of this discovery is that they found earliest archaeological evidence of Chinese totem of dragon.

but thats only cultural significance of it, more to add is its astronomical&social significance. As they discovered contained in this series of tombs, the earliest Chinese astronomy map.

as in this picture, structure below the body is a depiction of the Dipper. In ancient China, a term Bi had two meanings, one is watch/clock, the other being hipbone. This archaeological discovery showed vividly why ancient Chinese used hipbone to refer clock.

because during the day, time is measured by the shadow of man, using hipbones to form stem part of the Dipper is representation of that practice(also ritual sacrifice, the hipbone dont belong to the master of the tomb, rather to a youngster whom with cut shows clearly unnatural death). While the stars of the Dipper can be observed clearly during the night.

The Dipper depiction is only part of this astronomical map, the tomb itself is square shaped with arched ceiling, a representation of Chinese concept of round heaven & square earth. Stars represented with shells are found within the tombs. The dragon to the east & the tiger to the west design formed basic concept of traditional Chinese belief of four symbols that divide the celestial body, which the Dipper is the central chamber. Also four governors of solar terms which are the Spring Equinox,summer solstice,the Autumnal Equinox&winter solstice were represented by dead bodies from other tombs which together with this one composed entire representation of the celestial body. As these knowledges are important to the development of agriculture. Also design of the Dipper might give an explanation why ancient Chinese believed 'union/harmony between Tian/heaven and man'.

Only son of heaven can be referred with the Dipper, experts believe the host of this tomb probably was an important HuaXia chieftain. As its accordant with historical texts state that city of PuYang was the birth place of HuaXia, once ruling centre of ZhuanXu(grandson of Huangdi). Legend has it that when Huangdi and ZhuanXu died, they ride dragon to heaven.

As discovered in another related tomb of this site,depiction(made of shells) a man riding on the back of dragon. Which is correlative to the legend. 

Tian is observation of the celestial body, it is above where men live, as it would affect agriculture, those who had the knowledge of Tian were men of important political&religious status.

Thats why the Zhou kings replaced the Shang's concept, as they were more engaged personally in these agricultural related astronomy and calculations, they began to associated themselves with Tian, then called themselves son of Heaven, As if there is a blood relation. But for the Shang, Tian has no blood relation with the Shang Kings, Di might has, as many of those Dis Shang offered rituals were Shang's earlier kings. But they are only messengers of Tian who live in the Tian/above man.

You are quite right as far as not being a muslim, most of the people around the globe think that Allah is male in gender, but infact I really don't think that light (noor) has any gender as we beleive that Allah is made of light and as powerful light that no one can see.

That's not a bad idea at all to have more than 99 attributive names for Allmighty Allah as the more you describe about Allah the less it is. So I aggree with that comment but by adding the word Attributive along names.

nope, Al Ilah is pronounced Al Ilah, Allah is pronunced Allah. there is difference.

its a name of the only God as  muslims belive and as Christan and Jewish Arabs belive and the name of the Supreme God as other Arabs before islam belived.

yes i was talking about the pronounciation, and my point was that Allah is a world used only for the Only God.

while the term Al Ilah can be used for anything that is worshipped, like if i made a statment saying "Al Ilah end al Egreeq Zeus" iam saying The god of the Greek is Zeus,

if i said "Allah end al egreeq Zeus" it wont be correct and will sound wrong because as i said Allah is a name for specific God who is belived to be the one and the only.

while Al Ilah can be used as "The God" for anything other than Allah that is worshipped.

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about the orgin

its root from Ilah, but as i described above its not refering to any God anymore and can be used only when refereing to the only God ( as belived be Judaisism, christianity and islam)

Ilah's root is semitic.

I would like to respond you with simple words that it depends on ones mentality, idealogy and way of thinking. So you understand it in that way and I in my way.

On the other hand is it right ot call you "Shamali Sar'ai" which in pashto refers to "Northman", I guess no, it isn't right so my point is to say that why not to use the original word "Allah" instead of its translation "God"?

And I am sorry to say that those ones weren't really a satisfying answer so I guess the Subject of the Thread keeps the same.

Originally posted by Northman Indeed, and I will defend your right to your choice (nomatter what reason you may have). You started out in this thread - wanting us to challenge your statement, quoting scriptures etc. More people did challenge the statement in more ways (background, logic etc.), proving that there could be equal good reasons for using other names. Now, maybe when you feel a bit cornered, you turn the discussion into a matter of choice. No problem with that either. The problem is - noone is saying your choise is wrong or invalid - but you still challenge all other choices - wont accept or respect them to be equal valid to yours. But when everything comes to an end - that choice is also your priviledge May Allah be with you - peace.

Dear Northman,
First of all I would say that I really do respect others opinions and choices and never say that they might be wrong. What I started and say is (you may see my first post of this thread) that MUSLIMS should stop using the word GOD instead of Allah, I never pointed out others while others did so, but I really do like most of those comments as you can see that I have appreciated some of those comments which were really informative.

Now that I used the word "Choice" in my previous post, it was because I wanted to tell you that you (all of you) are also right regarding to your mentality, belief and way of thinking.

But I still would want my muslim brothers and sister to think about it and why really not to use "Allah" instead of "God".

I don't have anything with the "God" as well in Pashto also use "Ceshtan" and "Khudawand".

The points was and is that the word "God" has plural form where there is only ONE Allah. It also has gender selection (God and Goddess) and Allah has no gender.

Those are the points which made me think about the word "God"!

Another point I came across was the point that was brought up by some fellow thinkers on this site... the topic as I understand changed from God and Allah being two diffrent identities... which I should disagree...

you see, if you examine the languages they are all very close to eachother ... when we start somewhere on Earth and draw a dot and listen to the native person from that point speak, then draw a big circle and listen to the people around him speak and then a bigger circle and so on... you can easily see how a word from one language slowly changes to a new word in a bigger circle... Now if you do that to Arabic word Allah and get to a place where people speak English and say God you'll see that God is infact the word Allah with slight modifications here and there... but there is one thing to remember... when you're doing this excersise you should remember to always count in the "dead languages" because they play a key role in connecting everything together ... infact this is how I learned English