İnsanlık öteden beri kendi varoluşunu anlamaya çalışmış bu da nihayetinde onu Tanrı fikriyle buluşturmuştur. Dolayısıyla Tanrı fikri antik çağlardan beri insanlığın ortak paydası olmuştur. Bu Varlığa ilişkin imgeler geliştirme ve bir tasavvur oluşturma gayreti de zorunlu olarak ortaya çıkmıştır. Şüphesiz ki insanın dış dünya ve kendi tecrübesinden bağımsız bir tanrı algısına sahip olması mümkün değildir. Dolayısıyla bu durum tanrının fiilleri üzerinden Tanrıyı tanıma çabasını gerektirmiştir. Sami geleneğine bakıldığında tek kaynaktan gelen vahiy sebebiyle, tanrı tasavvurunun oluşumunda etkili olan ortak epistemolojik alanlardan biri esmadır. Konu Yahudiler ve Müslümanlar özelinde ele alındığında, her iki din mensubunun Kutsal kitapları Tevrat'ın (daha kapsamlı haliyle Tanah) ve Kur'an'ın karşılıklı bir okumaya tabi tutulup incelenmesi gerekmektedir. Söz konusu incelemeyle Yahudi geleneğinde ilahi isimlerin farklı nosyonları bulunduğu ve Tanrı'nın tüm isimlerinin aynı derecede kutsal olmadığı sonucuna ulaşılır. Bu isimler arasında Yahve, ism-i âzam kabul edilmiş ve on emirdeki yasağın bu isme yönelik olduğu düşünülmüş ve Tevrat'ı okurken Yahve ismiyle karşılaşıldığında Adonai şeklinde telaffuz edilmesi Yahudi bilginlerce uygun görülmüştür. Kur'an'da ise bu durumun aksi müşahede edilmektedir. Allah son vahiyle adının çokça anılmasını istemiş ve en güzel isimlerin (Esmâü'l-Hüsnâ) O'na ait olduğunu söylemiştir. Kur'an'da en çok zikredilen ismin Allah lafzı olmasının yanında daha sonra âlimler Allah'ın 99 ismi olduğuna ittifak etmişlerdir. Müslümanlar Allah'ı isimleri aracılığıyla tanıma çabasında olmuşlar ve Allah'ın isimlerinin fiillerinden bağımsız olmadığı iddiasında bulunmuşlardır. Bu da sıfatlar ve isimler etrafında bir dizi tartışmayı beraberinde getirmiştir. Çalışmamızda Sami dini geleneğin iki unsuru olan Yahudilerin ve Müslümanların sahip oldukları Tanrı tasavvurları tanrının isimleri bağlamında değerlendirilmiş ve esmâ konusunun her iki dini gelenekte farklılığa sebebiyet verip vermediği tartışılmıştır

Humankind did his best to understand his existence on earth and this effort brought him together with the idea of God or deity, and this process rendered God as the main common denominator of all from the very beginning. And to create an image about this Being necessarily followed this process. It goes without saying that it is not possible at all to create an image without the outer world and experience. So, we can conclude that the deeds of God or phenomenal world is the backbone reference for this image or conception. When we take the Semitic tradition into account, we can easily suggest that the main background for this image or conception is common epistemological frame which includes God’s names. So, in order to compare each tradition in this regard it is unavoidable to evaluate the Holy Books of these two traditions separately, i.e. Torah (and its extended form Tanakh) and the Qur’an successively. After a close scrutiny, it will come out that God’s whole names are not taken equally holy in Jewish tradition. Yahwah was considered the greatest name of God, and the prohibition of uttering the name of God in twelve commandments is linked with this name. And when they come across with this name in Torah, because of this ban, they replaced Adonai instead. The Holy Qur’an has totally different perspective about God’s names. The Holy Qur’an mentions the most beautiful names of God (asmâ Allah al-husnâ) and ask people to utter these names to reminisce Him. The fact that the name God is the one which has most reference in the Holy Qur’an, Muslim scholars almost agree that God has ninety-nine names. They made their effort to create the conception of God through these names and in order to get an objective conceptualization they linked these names to the acts of God, which showed themselves in the phenomenal world. Naturally this brought a hot debate among scholars around the attributes and names of God. Considering this framework, we tried in our paper to evaluate the conception of God in both tradition within the context of the names of God on the one hand and discussed whether the debates around asmâ caused discrepancies in both traditions Conception of God is the effort of understanding the relations of God-World relations in general and God-human relations in particular. From epistemological point of view two conceptions of God come forth. The first one is the conception put forward by the Holy Books. The second one is the conception which humans developed through their epistemic capabilities and in their sociological, psychological and anthropological milieu. Historically the conception of God in Jewish tradition started with henotheism or monolatry. It is claimed that antique Israel had monolatry in the basis of religion until the time of Elias, which means in the beginning Jews accepted more than one God but worshipped only their tribal God. Chronologically scrutinized the issue of divinity in the Qur’an is tackled as it was tackled in the undistorted form of Torah. The conception of god of the people before Islam in the Arab geography is the conception of deus otiousus. The detailed information about God in the Qur’an is given in Surah Ihlâs which was revealed in 21th row successively. In the very first verse of this Surah it is said: “Say: Your Lord is a unique one.” And in the last verse of the Surah, the term ‘ahad/a unique one’ is used especially to signify that God is beyond all similarities and resemblance when compared to creatures. God’s Names in Judaism and Islam In Jewish tradition, divine names have different notions. God’s names are not equally holy. The greatest and the most holy name is Y-hw-h (the Tetragrammaton). To utter this name which is comprised of four consonants loudly is banned. In addition, as the Hebrew alphabet did not contained vowels in its structure its pronunciation has been forgotten. The holy name can only be uttered by chief Kohan on Yom Kippur the holiest day of the year. So only the term Adonai(y) (My Lord/Kyrios) is uttered when the name Y-h-w-h is come across. As the both languages, Hebrew and Arabic, belong to the same language family, the concept of God is common and when etymologically examined the followings meet us: Ilah in Arabic, laha in Syriac, alaha in Aramaic, elohim in Hewrev. The tem Allah in Hebrew comes from the same root as Eloha and Elohim come, yet it is accepted not as the name of God but His attribute. Maimonides considers the root of Allah as elihe (to divine) as an attribute which means one who is worshipped. In the Qur’an, the corollary word for Yahwah is Allah. The name Allah has a focal point in the Qur’an. There is none comparable to it both in rank and importance. The name Allah contains all others, while other names purely signify the meaning they are allocated to like the names Âlim (All-knowing), Qâdir (All-powerful). The name Allah can be attributed none but God. This is very clearly uttered in Surah Mary, verse 65: “Do you know anybody else whose name is worth remembering beside God”, which shows the uniqueness of the name on the one hand and shows that it does not have a plural form whatsoever. Anthropomorphic Sayings Both in Torah and in the Qur’an The Holy Qur’an frequently uses metaphors in order to make the subject matter understood by the addressee and it goes without saying that when He describes himself this is the most witnessed case and He uses some humane characteristics to refer to Himself. When commenting all these reports Muslim scholars found themselves either at anthropomorphic or at transcendent side. So, the Torah and the Qur’an have parallel narrations when describing God to human mind. Even so, we can easily claim that the Qur’an’s conception of God is much more abstract and transcendent when compared to Torah, which contains concrete descriptions. Although the Jewish scholars of Medieval times tried to interpret and comment these narrations metaphorically, there are inevitably exceptions. So, it seems it is common among Jewish and Muslim scholars to use a metaphoric language or refer to hermeneutics to comment these names. Conclusion The distinction between Jewish and Muslim conception of God arises from their historically distinct milieu. And accordingly, while Muslims from the very beginning Muslims sustained their conception on a monotheistic line, Jewish people diverged occasionally from monotheism to henotheism but finally found their way to monotheism. The fact that there many anthropomorphic expressions regarding God in Torah created a risk of deviating from true path and falling into anthropomorphism for the Jews. And this led Jewish scholars to develop a transcendent doctrine when commenting these names. And this brought the two traditions to a common line which is metaphoric one that requires a hermeneutical interpretation of the holy scripture. God has not been named in the Torah and in the Qur’an as it takes us two different and divergent conceptions. On the contrary, they are common in their emphasis the only God. The reason for that is they have their scriptures from one and same divine source. That is the natural outcome of the fact that the Divine manifested Himself in different languages as Absolute, Creator, Absolute Sovereign, Omni-Potent, etc. All names are different but the signified is One. When compared to Torah, the names of God are multiple in the Qur’an, which means God introduced Himself to humanity deeply in the last revelation. And these multiple names caused much more clear understanding of God and this led much more accurate conception of God.