‘Alla’ in Malta - "Lily's Room"

The Malta Independent Online （fvella@independent.com.mt）
Christianity during Arab rule
by Francesca Vlla

A recently discovered document that the University of Malta will publish later this year shows that there was a Christian community with its own bishop in Gozo at the end of Arab rule, The Malta Independent has learnt.
Monsignor Dr Joseph Bezzina, the head of the university’s Department of Church History, Patrology and Paleochristian Archaeology, said Christianity may not have stopped being practised during the 220-year Arab conquest of the Maltese archipelago.
While very little documentation relating to the two centuries of Arab rule in Malta survives today, it is said that the islands were almost exclusively Muslim by religion and Arab by language during this period (870-1091).
The consolidation of the Normans’ control over the islands in 1127 marked the beginning of the “latinisation” process, gradually changing an Arab cultural influence to a European one.
Mgr Dr Bezzina stopped short of giving further details on the document that bears evidence of the practice of Christianity at the end of Arab rule.
Count Roger I had made an initial attempt to establish Norman rule in Malta at the end of the Arab rule, and he is said to have been greeted by the few native Christians. Count Roger II succeeded in 1127, but Arab influence probably lasted much longer.
Clearly, the main Arab influence that lasted till today lies in the semitic roots of the Maltese language, including a large number of religious terms, the most noticeable being the word for God in Maltese, Alla.
Mgr Dr Bezzina explained that while the word Allah is exclusive to the Koran, the holy scripture of Islam, when the Maltese started developing a separate language at the end of Arab rule, the accent of the word Allah moved from the last to the first syllable, on the initial “À”.
By the passage of time, the Maltese also stopped pronouncing the aspirated final “h”, hence the eventual establishment of the word Alla. Interestingly, there is a current debate in Malaysia where a Catholic Church has petitioned the courts to use the word ‘Allah’ in services. The small community in a predominantly Muslim country argues that the official word for God in Malaysian is ‘Allah’ and they should be allowed to use it.