When speaking English, it's ok to refer to "Allah" as God.

I think that a lot of monotheistic English speakers forget that the word "God" isn't a name, but more like a description of WHAT they are. not who they are. absolutely any deity can be referred to as God, because the two words are the same thing. a God is a Deity. a Deity is a God. it's not the name of any specific Deity from any specific religion. no religion has the monopoly on referring to their God as God.

When I am speaking about God, I am speaking about my God, the God that inspired the Bible, that had contact wilth Adam and Eve, Abraham, is the Father of Jesus Christ. I do not consider Allah to be God. i consider him what the Muslims regard as their god, just as those idols that are referred to as gods by other beliefs. And I do think that Arabs who become Christians have a hard time because now they have to use the English or another language word instead of Arabian when saying God. It is what the word emphasizes. For instance, when I hear the word Allah, I think that in the reference of the Muslim faith not that it is Arabian for God.

Technically allah is the ancient pagan "moon god" of the arab tribes. It is not the same god that the christians of the world worship. Somewhere along the line the muslims took this name to be their current god. It is not the god of the Jews and it was not the god of your jesus, because he too was a Jew. He was monotheistic not pagan. When did the christian testament stop being Holy and the qu'ran start being holy? Explain this to me. Have the christians given up their religion to give way to the muslim god as superior to theirs?

Not only do the words mean the same thing but from what I have heard and read the Koran and the Bible say pretty much the same thing and the same kind of nuts intentionally misinterpret it. If I am speaking to someone who is Islamic, though, I would say Allah out of consideration for him or her. Just like a Buddhist might say "God" to me instead of "Buddha". He knows they are the same God but respects me enough to want to make me comfortable.

That is technically true. The problem is, they believe that the very word, that actually Arabic word "allah", is the holy name of god.. as in "Allah". Capital 'a', like a proper title, or name. So like someones named "Grace" goes to Spain. Her name isn't suddenly gracia, which is the Spanish translation of 'grace'. No, her name is still Grace. That's kind of how the Islamists see "Allah". It's his actual divinely dictated name. And to call him anything else, is to deny those divine Arabic letters that make up "Allah". Now of course, as a Christian, Yehoshua is the non-translated Hebrew name of Jesus. We don't believe that the name, the individual letters in arrangement are of significance, compared to the person of Jesus, and what he did. It is what he said, and did, that make the difference. So a translation of his name into English, does not cause us a problem.

It is, as Owl and others have pointed out, the same as saying God since it is only a description. In Islam, there are 100 attributes of God, which are the basis for most names used in many Muslim countries. One attribute, or name, remains unknown. What you call your God shouldn't be an issue unless you are preaching! Interesting point for me is that a couple of days ago, two American members in another topic here, claimed that there were no Arabs, Indians or Pakistanis living in their state. With such a lack of knowledge, it is not surprising to me that there will be religious tensions in America.

I do not think Yahweh and Allah are the same one.. But then again some christian concepts of Yahweh are not who I see as Yahweh, the Father either..

I don't know very much Arabic but I believe that 'Al' is the definite article and that the literal translation of 'Allah' is something like 'The One', in other words it is a description rather than a name. In English, the word 'god' is the name of a class of things (and can be plural). Christians (or rather, anyone who holds that there is only one god) make it specific by capitalizing the first letter. Perhaps those Muslims who object to the translation of 'Allah' by 'God' do so because they do not believe that the person they worship and refer to (in Arabic) as 'Allah' is the same/identical with the person whom English speakers refer to as 'God'. For many people the distinction is of no consequence but for a few it is a matter of great offence. As with many other similar situations, the real problem is that some people will take offence where none was intended (or even suggested) and that problem belongs to the people taking offence rather than to the supposed offender.

Well, it's no wonder. I think they believe their Allah is not the same as our God. And most of us believe the reverse also.

I certainly agree with you. We have to consider that "Allah" and "God" are synonymous. It is just a religious terminologies. Hence, Allah, God, Yahweb, Lord Almighty are one and the same. It is just a matter of language translation.

A rose by any other name... all the best urban

I will always use Allah when I speak to a Child of Islam about G-d.It is just out of respect.

Well, in my opinion it is acceptable. They both mean the same thing. The terminology is just a technicality. It would seem that anyone getting up in arms over which term is used is simply looking to strike up an argument rather than to listen and discuss the topic at hand. Getting worked up over a word (at least in this case) would seem to me to be inappropriate.

No reason can be justified to get into arms. The essence of every religion should be tolerance

Yes, of course both ‘God’ and ‘Allah’ should be acceptable as the thousands of other names used by people of thousand other languages and culture. However, I feel it has more to do with a sense of belonging than anything else. The people who protest when you say ‘God’ instead of ‘Allah’, may or may not be aware of the futility of different names for the same identity, but most of them would take umbrage coz it would mean a deviation from their own culture, tradition, language…a way of life which they want to hang on to, about which they are quite proud yet insecure and which they want to protect and promote at any cost in any alien land. Also, it’s a sense of brotherhood and every time they support ‘God’ instead of ‘Allah’, maybe they feel they are betraying their brotherhood, their faith, their Islamic culture (which promotes only Arabia and nothing else)…they cant or don’t want to differentiate between religion and culture. I’ve seen this in India too…if you know then India is mainly a Hindu nation and across the country, the main term for God for Hindus is Bhagwan… so you would find that all Muslim Indian refer to God as Allah and all Christian Indians refer to God as ‘God’…funny but then, Muslims and Christians would never say ‘Bhagwan’ and belittle their own faith just as Hindus would never say God / Allah. What’s funnier is that you would find many Hindus praying at churches or tombs of Muslim holy men wherein they would take the name of Bhagwan but never Allah / God!

Thats really interesting. I was reading a romance book awhile ago and the one character kept referring to Allah. I assumed it was a different god that he believed in. Thats neat to realize that its the same god but a different languages way of saying the name. I personally dont have a problem with anyones religion weather they believe in god or a different god entirely.

Thank you for this. I have found it incredibly interesting to read both your words and the comments of others on this topic. Even if Allah and God were not the same word in different languages I believe they are interchangeable anyways because at the heart of all religion it is the same. People trying to strive to become morally stronger and better and realizing that we cannot achieve this by ourselves we have someone bigger than us that created everything that can show us the way. Names have been changed to work with different languages and rituals are different for cultures to be more comfortable with. Some even break up their deity into several deities. But, in the end it's all the same. Try reading stories of creation, or of the great flood in several different religions they all have a similar story. To me it is proof that we are all connected and what matters is that we have some sort of belief in our hearts and this will help us all strive to be better people.

I don't know about Arabic, but for me "God" is universal translate of "Allah", "Lord", etc.It just a matter of languange.

Allah have a 99 names and God not one of them.But if you live in America this is not a problem mean God instead of Allah.Most important to respect.Thank you