To followers of Islam, Allah does not just represent God, but also encompasses an entire concept, a religious scholar told audience members Wednesday evening at an Islamic Awareness Week event.

Imam Alaeddin El Bakri, an expert on Islam from Fresno, Calif., shared his insights on Allah in a presentation that tackled five fundamental questions: Who is Allah? Where is Allah? What is Allah? Why is Allah? And when is Allah?

“When someone asks ‘Who are you?,’ they are asking something deep through that,” El Bakri said. “They want to know much more about you. They don’t want to just know your name.”

Dressed in a light green thowb, a traditional Middle Eastern robe, El Bakri spoke to a crowd of about 70 people in Harris Hall as part of the ninth annual Islam Awareness Week, sponsored by the Muslim-cultural Students Association and other student groups.

Allah is “a unique word that in itself does not have meaning,” El Bakri said. Unlike its equivalent in English, the word “Allah” does not denote gender or number, nor does it have a capital or lower-case letter.

Questions such as “What, where, when, or why is God?” do not apply to Allah, according to El Bakri. To do so would be to limit Allah to material things he has created, El Bakri said.

“He is not a reaction,” El Bakri said. “He is the one who started the action.”

El Bakri said it is more important than ever for Muslims to understand that faith must be based in logic that the mind can comprehend.

“I do not believe the Koran has asked people to have blind faith in the Koran,” he said.

The Koran could benefit modern scientists because Islam is a faith rooted in the pursuit of knowledge, El Bakri said.

Only recently have Islamic rulers limited the knowledge of their people, El Bakri said, recalling historical Islamic intellectual achievements such as the first university, the first hospital and the mathematical concept of zero.

Muslims’ belief in Allah unites them with the rest of humankind, El Bakri said.

“Throughout history, the common thing that united humankind worldwide is the idea of worshipping God,” he said.

Although McCormick freshman Chi Yin Cheung has no religious affiliation, he said El Bakri’s speech helped him see the value in exploring different ideas.

“It provides an insight into what other religions and other cultures may hold for us,” Cheung said.

McSA member Zainab Khan, a Weinberg freshman, said El Bakri’s speech reminded her that “we always need God and take God for granted.”

Though El Bakri began by stating that “Who is Allah?” cannot be answered, he took a crack at providing some solution at the end of his speech.

“He is one of a kind, one without a beginning and an end; he is the maker of all mankind,” he said.