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Arabic ilah

A reference page linking a name, group, or concept to the materials that discuss it.

The Arabic common noun meaning “god” or “deity”, with the plural aliha.

‘Deity’ and ʾilāh in a modern typographic illustration of the Arabic word. An image of a word, not a representation of a divine figure or a witness from an ancient inscription
‘إله’ and ʾilāh in a modern typographic illustration of the Arabic word. An image of a word, not a representation of a divine figure or a witness from an ancient inscriptionIL Archive · CC BYLicense · Image source

Text

Ilah is an Arabic common nounCommon nounA word naming a class of things, such as “god”, rather than one particular individual.Glossary · Click to read the explanation for a deity, with the plural aliha. It is linguistically related to other Semitic divine terms. This lexical relationship must be distinguished from religious identity: a word’s history does not establish that its referents or the beliefs attached to them remained unchanged. [1]

References and notes

  1. Celene Ibrahim, Islam and Monotheism, Cambridge University Press (2022) The God in Islamic Theology excerpt consulted while preparing the article; link to the book, which was not read in full. Return to the text ↑

Research history

Substantive changes are retained here. Minor copy edits remain in the internal operational log.

  1. Edition 2 · 10 October 2026 · editor:aladmin

    Substantive record update

    Read this revision in its original language (Arabic)

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IL Archive, «Arabic ilah», Edition 2, https://ilarchive.com/en/entities/ilah