“‘Allah’ is not pagan term. It means ‘God'”

A comment responding to one of my blog posts (in which, shockingly, I advocate tolerance for Muslims and better understanding of Islam) has deployed the old pseudo-scholarly argument that Allah, the word commonly used for the Supreme Being among Muslims, refers to a pagan Arabian moon deity, utterly unrelated to the God of Christianity.

This is pure bilge.

In fact, I regard it as one of the most irritating and transparently false criticisms of Islam that I’ve ever seen.

I wrote a column about it some time ago, and perhaps it’s time to dust that column off yet again:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765619974/Allah-is-not-pagan-term-2-it-means-God.html?pg=all

The notion that Allah isn’t and cannot be the God of Christianity seems to have been generated (so far as I know) among certain Evangelical or Fundamentalist Protestants.  Indeed, among the same Protestant circles that routinely churn out hostile and intellectually dishonest screeds against Mormons.  That’s worth reflecting on.