 Regional variants of the word Allah occur in both pagan and Christian pre @-@ Islamic inscriptions . Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in pre @-@ Islamic polytheistic cults . Some authors have suggested that polytheistic Arabs used the name as a reference to a creator god or a supreme deity of their pantheon . The term may have been vague in the <unk> religion . According to one hypothesis , which goes back to Julius <unk> , Allah ( the supreme deity of the tribal federation around Quraysh ) was a designation that consecrated the superiority of <unk> ( the supreme deity of Quraysh ) over the other gods . However , there is also evidence that Allah and <unk> were two distinct deities . According to that hypothesis , the Kaaba was first consecrated to a supreme deity named Allah and then hosted the pantheon of Quraysh after their conquest of Mecca , about a century before the time of Muhammad . Some inscriptions seem to indicate the use of Allah as a name of a <unk> deity centuries earlier , but we know nothing precise about this use . Some scholars have suggested that Allah may have represented a remote creator god who was gradually eclipsed by more <unk> local deities . There is disagreement on whether Allah played a major role in the <unk> religious cult . No iconic representation of Allah is known to have existed . Muhammad 's father 's name was <unk> @-@ Allāh meaning " the slave of Allāh " . 
