Satan is called Shaitan in Arabic, Persian and many other languages. Why is God

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   Dip Mtraposted 9 years ago

   Satan is called Shaitan in Arabic, Persian and many other languages. Why is God called differently?

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   lawrence01posted 9 years ago

   He's called Iblis in the Qur'an and only really called Shaitan in the Arabic translation of the Bible and some of the vernacular so that westerners will know whom they are talking about (The great Shaitan)
   
   When Christianity came to the different groups they didn't change the name for God that the people used but carried on using the same word for God that the people had always used.
   
   Example the Arab word for God is Allah and is used in both the Qur'an and the Bible. The problem comes when the word for God was also a personal name for a deity (like Shiva for the Hindus) then the Christians had to find a word that would describe his attributes yet not be associated with one deity.
   
   As Satan was the arch enemy of God in the Bible there was no problem keeping the same name in a lot of places as most hadn't heard that name. Most religions didn't have an arch enemy for their deities *they were both good and bad).

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      Dip Mtraposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Lawrence for the information. Shaitan is used to name the devil in India as well, but then India has been the confluence of many languages through its repeated invasions and conquests. I just got wondering. Thanks for the insight.

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   peachpurpleposted 9 years ago

   chinese it is called " sa dan", in bahasa malaysia it is called "Syaitan", in Tamil it is called "cattan"

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      Dip Mtraposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, they all sound similar. Cattan, Syaitan, sa dan, shaitan, sheytan, satan etc. But when it comes to God, we have different names. Lawrence above has given a great explanation,  that most religions didn't have any arch enemy for their deities.

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      lawrence01posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      As I got thinking about it the thought occurred that all the places mentioned had Christians who could have taken the idea (Persia and India had Christians from the 1st Century with the Apostle Thomas planting the churches there)

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   Dip Mtraposted 9 years ago

   Thanks Lawrence, once again. However, as I understand, Persian predates English, and Sanskrit, the original Vedic Indian language, is the precursor to many Indo-European languages including Italic, Hellenic and German. Please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages for further details. Moreover, during Christ time, they spoke in Aramaic, so Satan, Shaitan etc must have evolved independently and earlier. I think so, though it needs further research.

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