Mohammed didn’t think he was preaching something new; he believed he was renewing what Abraham (and countless other prophets) had said, so he zeroed in on the Ka’ba. This, he said, should be Mecca’s only shrine: the temple of Allah. Al means “the” in Arabic, and lah, an elision of ilaah, means “god.” Allah, then, simply means “God.” This is a core point in Islam:
