Allah as Moon-god

Allah as Moon-God is a claim put forth by some critics of Islam that the Islamic name for God, Allah, derives from a pagan Moon god in local Arabic mythology. The implication is that "Allah" is a different God from the Judeo-Christian deity and that Muslims are worshipping a "false god". The claim is most associated with the Christian apologist author Robert Morey, whose book The moon-god Allah in the archeology of the Middle East is a widely cited source of the idea that Allah is a moon-god. It has also been promoted in the cartoon tracts of Jack Chick. The use of a lunar calendar and the prevalence of crescent moon imagery in Islam is said to be the result of this origination.

Islamic scholars have rejected these claims, one even calling them "insulting". It is argued that "Allah" is just the word for "God" in Arabic, which ultimately derives from the same root as the Hebrew words "El" and "Elohim", both used in the Book of Genesis. Sociologist Lori Peek writes that, "Allah is simply the Arabic word meaning God. In fact people who speak Arabic, be they Christians, Jews or Muslims, often say 'Allah' to describe God, just as God is called 'Gott' in German and 'Dieu' in French." While other gods were certainly referred to using this epithet, this is equally true of the Hebrew words. The Biblical commandment You shall have no other gods before me uses the same word, "Elohim", to refer to the "other" gods that is used for the creator god. It is also true of the English, French and other European-language words for God. Indeed, the English word "God" evolved from pagan Germanic terms for invocation; the Latin word Deus, from which "Dieu" derives, can be traced to the same root as Dyeus, which gives the names of the ancient Indo-European divinities Zeus, Jove and Dyaus Pitar.

List of lunar deities

In mythology, a lunar deity is a god or goddess associated with or symbolizing the moon. These deities can have a variety of functions and traditions depending upon the culture, but they are often related to or an enemy of the solar deity. Even though they may be related, they are distinct from the solar deity. Lunar deities can be either male or female, but are usually held to be the opposite sex of the corresponding solar deity.

Moon in religion and mythology

The monthly cycle of the moon, in contrast to the annual cycle of the sun's path, has been implicitly linked to women's menstrual cycles by many cultures, as evident in the links between the words for menstruation and for moon in many resultant languages. Many of the most well-known mythologies feature female lunar deities, such as the Greek goddesses Phoebe, Artemis, Selene, and Hecate as well as the Chinese goddess Chang'e.

Male lunar gods are also frequent, such as Sin of the Mesopotamians, Mani of the Germanic tribes, and the Japanese god Tsukuyomi. These cultures usually featured female Sun goddesses. There are also many lunar deities that were prevalent in Greek and Egyptian civilizations. For example, Ibis and Chonsu of Thebes were both lunar deities. Thoth was also a lunar deity, but his character is considerably more complex than Ibis and Chonsu. Set represented the Moon in the Egyptian Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days of papyrus Cairo 86637.