So what is the origin of Allah? Allah was not an invention or revelation brought to Muhammad during his visits to the caves outside of Mecca, because Allah existed long before Muhammad showed up on the scene.
According to W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad's original message was not a criticism of paganism. It was directed at the people who already believed in a god named Allah, or Al-ILAH "the god ascends."
Muhammad encouraged the people of Mecca to retain this generic god in the Kaaba as he directed their attention to Allah, then he threw all of the other gods out. The evolving monotheism of Mecca was vague as to Allah's role, so Muhammad had very little trouble tailoring his new religion to their tastes.
(Watt, W Montgomery, Muhammad, Prophet and Statesman, Oxford Press, 25-26. )
The Satanic Verses allowed the Meccan’s to keep Allat, Al-Uzza, and Manat. This helped to wean the Meccan’s off of their pantheon slowly, leaving them their three favorite goddesses until Allah's monotheism could be enforced later by the sword.
(Noss, John B, Man's Religions, 6th Edition, Macmillan, NY, 1980, 499, )
At that point Muhammad revised Sura 53 to exclude the three goddesses, and Allah was left standing alone, the monotheistic heir to the estate.
James Hastings, in his Encyclopedia of Religion, says that Muhammed at one point wanted to abandon the rather generic name of Allah for a more colorful one, but he later realized that Allah was holding the people’s attention just fine.
(Hastings, James, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Scribners, NY ,248 ,)
When Muhammad came to Mecca to clean up the Kaaba, and was throwing all of the gods out, except for Allah, the paintings of Jesus and Mary on the inside walls of the Kaaba persuaded him to include Mary and Jesus in the new cult. So that's why Surah 5:116 mentioned Mary.
How Muhammad decided to keep Allah is simply a matter of which god he thought would be universally least offensive to any particular tribe of Arabs around Mecca.
(Muller, Herbert J, The Loom of History, Harper and Brothers, NY, 264-265,)
After all, it was the Kaaba, the building, which was most sacred, rather than the contents. Even today the mosque (which originally was the pre-Islamic name in Arabic and Aramaic for a building holding an idol) is now void of images and symbols.
It is the building itself which is sacred.
The least offensive name of the gods in Mecca was Allah according to Muhammad's biographer, Ibn Hisham. He admits that the pagan Kinanah and Kouraish tribes called the supervising god of the Kaaba, IHLAL. And they called the Kaaba, "Beit Allah," "house of Allah."
This is henotheism where a chief executive god presides over many junior gods on behalf of the ruling tribe living around the god house.
The Greek historian Herodotus from about 450 BC, tells us that the Northern Arabians had a god and goddess named Orotal and Alilat.
(Herodotus, Translated by J Enoch Powell, 1949 , 200 ,)
Orotal is simply a corruption of Allah, or Allah Ta'al, God Most High.
(Zwemmer, Samuel, The Moslem Doctrine of God, Am. Tract Society, NY , 24 , )
Islamic Sheikh, Ibrahim Al-Qattan, in a lecture given to the International Progress Association in Vienna, said that the religion of Arabia can be traced by the epigraphic and inscription evidence back to 500 BC, or 1000 years before Muhammad.
He said that they had gods named Baal Shamin, Dhu-Samawi, Rahman and Allah, which they got from Syria and Persia.
According to Sheikh Ibrahim, Allah was the highest deity, and his name was inscribed in stone by Jewish traders along the Arabian trade routes. These paganized Jews also called him Rahman, while the Arabs called him Allah.
(Al-Qattan, Sheikh Ibrahim, Lecture on Monotheism, I P O Journal, Vienna ,26-29 ,)
It is very clear that these sacred concepts, such as Allah, the Kaaba with its black stone, running around the Kaaba seven times, climbing mount Arafat, as well as the god-name Rahman, and stoning Satan, (which Muhammad got "by revelation") were salvaged from the ancient paganism in Arabia.
(Gabrieli, Francesco, Muhammad and The Conguests of Islam, World Univ. Press, NY, Toronto , 41 ).
The clear dominance of the Meccan thought of Muhammad's day was that Allah was the high god, nothing else. His celestial, or solar, role had even fallen on hard times by 600 AD in the Kaaba, while Allat was much more dominant up the road at Taif. Some have claimed that Allat was Wallat wasn't in Islam, but Surah 53 and historical inscriptions say otherwise. The star and crescent of Islam are clearly based upon the moon goddess, Allat, and the astral goddess, Al-Uzza.
Allat and Al-Uzza figure in Sura 53 in what is called "the Satanic verses," which Muhammad initially gave, but it was later deleted.
The moon and Venus connection to Allat and Al-Uzza are one of the most embarrassing matters for the Mullahs of Islam.