Deity

In religious belief, a deity (ⁱ/ˈdiː.ᵻti/ or ⁱ/ˈdeɪ.ᵻti/) is either a natural or supernatural being, who is thought of as holy, divine, or sacred. Some religions have one supreme deity, while others have multiple deities. A male deity is a god (though "God" is used in a gender-neutral way in monotheistic religions), while a female deity is a goddess.

C. Scott Littleton's Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology defined a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life". Historically, various cultures have conceptualized a deity differently than a monotheistic God. A deity need not be omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent or eternal. A monotheistic God is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent and eternal.

Deities are depicted in a variety of forms, but are also frequently expressed as having human form. Deities are often thought to be immortal, and are commonly assumed to have personalities and to possess consciousness, intellects, desires, and emotions comparable but usually superior to those of humans.

Ilah

ʾIlāh (Arabic: إله‎; plural: آلهة ʾālihah) is an Arabic term meaning "deity" or "god". The feminine is ʾilāhah (إلاهة, meaning "goddess"); with the article, it appears as al-ʾilāhah الإلاهة. It appears in the name of the monotheistic god of Islam as al-Lāh, translated, that is, "the god". It is also used by Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews, but also use other terms such as Rabb, or "Lord" - a title also used by Muslims for Allah - similar to the Hebrew use of Adonai, which is the most frequently used by Jews of all languages, along with HaShem or "the Name". Amongst Christians, Yasu - an Arabic transliteration of the name of the Christian Jesus - Yahweh, or Shaddai, translated, that is, "Almighty", are common, with some other names and titles generally borrowed as transliterations from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. In Malaysia, it is illegal for Christians, Jews, or any other non-Muslim to refer to their God as "Allah".

ʾIlāh is cognate to Northwest Semitic ʾēl and Akkadian ilum. The word is from a Proto-Semitic archaic biliteral ʔ-L meaning "god" (possibly with a wider meaning of "strong"), which was extended to a regular triliteral by the addition of a h (as in Hebrew ʾelōah, ʾelōhim). The word is spelled either إله with an optional diacritic alif to mark the ā only in Qur'anic texts or (more rarely) with a full alif, إلاه.