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See also God

Keywords:

God, Islam, muslims

Description of this motif:

Allah means "the God". Allah is the islamic term for the one and only true God. Theoretically one might say that "Allah" and the christian "God" are the same. Both religions have only one god, and that god is regarded as the true God of all people. There are, however, important differences, among others that Allah is only one, which is at variance with the christian concept of trinity. In Islam Jesus thus is not the son of God, but merely a human, one of the profets. The Koran is the closest islamic equivalent to Jesus Christ.

Hans Christian Andersen only rarely mentions Allah, but the hungarian legend, which the jewish girl Sara is told in the story "The Jewish Girl", is about the differences between the christian God and Allah. The legend tells about a christian knight, that was captured and maltreated by a turkish Pascha (a title of honour for military and civil officials). The knight is ransomed, returns home, joins a crusade again and captures the very same pascha that held him prisoner. To the pascha's big surprise the knoght forgives him, and the turkisk man then begs to be tought the christian teachings in order to convert to christianity, in which retribution is forgiving and God is love.

Example :

Meanwhile the Beetle had been traveling on, and had sailed across the ditch on a cabbage leaf. That morning two persons came by, and when they saw the Beetle they picked him up, turned him over and over, and both looked very learned – especially one of them, a boy.

"Allah sees the black beetle in the black stone and in the black mountain," he said. "Isn't that in the Koran?"