“‘Allah’ Is Not Pagan Term. It Means ‘God'”

Arabic OT and NT — I own this edition of the Arabic Bible, along with several others. Uniformly and unavoidably, where the English Bible reads “God,” they read “Allah.”
(Wikimedia Commons)

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.

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