The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Islam: Chapter 4

1. What is intriguing / interesting / insightful about the benefits of Islam forbidding the use of any representations of Allah? More about this later as well.

Muslim ideas of god cannot be affected by social changes. The corpus of literature and the arts produced in Islamic civilization are also strangely absent of divine imagery. Although many other religions have prohibitions against making pictures and statues depicting God, only Islam has succeeded so well that the concept is unknown.

2. How in some ways is the God of Islam similar to the Hindu concept of Bramha?

Allah, like Brahma, encompasses everything and all the energy in the universe. Both are also undefinable in their characteristics. 

3. What is the meaning of the phrase "La ilaha ill Allah" and what are some of the implications of this phrase? (What reasons do Muslims give for this steadfast belief?)

It means: “There is no god other than God.” Muslims are also taught that He is not the God of a chosen people nor can any racial or ethnic community lay claim to His exclusive attention. This rejects the Christian Trinity Theory and the Jewish belief that God is sympathetic only to Jews.  

4. Why can't Muslims blame anyone or anything (such as Shaytan) at the time of their judgment?

Muslims believe that all wrong-doing is solely their fault, therefore no one else can be blamed. Shaytan has no real power but only the ability to make suggestions. 

5. What, according Muslim beliefs, is the role of Jesus and how is he much like Adam? What then are the reasons they do not accept Jesus as the son of God or redeemer of sin?

Islam considers Jesus to be a prophet of God, born of the Virgin Mary as a special miracle from God. Muslims accept the Virgin birth but consider the lack of a father in Jesus’ creation as being on the same level as the lack of parents in Adam’s creation. Muslims do not take Jesus’ birth as a sign of godhood or as a sign that Jesus was the son of a god. Islam flatly rejects any notion of original sin and says we are all born pure. Yes, Adam and Eve sinned, the Qur’an says, but God forgave them when they asked for His mercy. No sin was passed on to their descendants. Thus, it is our cumulative faith and actions that determine our salvation.

6. If Muslims are forbidden from depicting God in any way, how do they then conceptualize Allah?

They conceptualize Allah through his qualities and his nature. This allows them to focus on the divine rather than an image of the divine. 

7. Why is "He" used to describe Allah if you cannot attribute physical traits to God?

n Arabic there is no word for “it,” so the pronoun “He” is used to refer to God, with the full understanding that Allah is not a male. Interestingly enough, the base word Elah, which means a god, is a feminine word (the ah ending signifies femininity in Arabic); yet when you take the proper name Allah (the God) and use the masculine pronoun Hoowa (He is), you are canceling out both male and female genders. The phrase Hoowa Allah combines both genders and thus each negates the other. This is the closest thing to “it” that you can get in Arabic and applies to no other words in that language.