Etymology
There is an excellent article in the LA Times today on Allah vs God
And “jihad” comes from the word “excel,” juhd or ijtihad in Arabic. It means a holy war or righteous struggle. Some schools in the Middle East, religious and secular, will hold jihads — or special intense programs to get students to accomplish something — to improve math scores and raise reading levels. Although most English usage I’ve come across refers only to an Islamic holy war, I have begun to see “jihad” as a synonym for crusade (originally a Christian holy war, broadened now) and a vigorous fight against something. In other words, jihad, this English word, might one day encompass its full Arabic meaning.
English has yet to incorporate these words fully, and history suggests it might never do so. The language is filled with words that are culture specific: “sahib,” “coolie,” “effendi,” “bey.” The word “emir” simply means prince in Arabic, but in English it is a prince or ruler of an Islamic state. When my sister in Beirut tells her daughter a bedtime story, the emir kisses the sleeping princess awake. No mother in the U.S. or Britain would let an emir anywhere near a princess’ lips. No princess will ever sing “Someday My Emir Will Come.”
That in some ways is how it should be. Language, after all, is organic. You can’t force words into existence. You can’t force new meanings into words. And some words can’t or won’t or shouldn’t be laundered or neutered. Language develops naturally.
I bring all this up, however, to get to the word whose connotation I would love to see changed — “Allah.”
Allah means God.
In Arabic, Muslims, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians all pray to Allah. In English, however, Christians and Jews pray to God, and Allah is the Muslim deity. No one would think of using the word “Allah” to talk about any other religion. The two words, “God” and “Allah,” do not mean the same thing in English. They should.
This isn’t about political correctness; it isn’t about language distortion.
[snip]
In these troubled times, creating more differences, further parsing so to speak, is troubling, even dangerous. I suggest we either not use the word Allah or, better yet, use it in a non-Muslim context.
Of course that’s exactly why those who are not ignorant that , , and are synonymous, use Allah as it makes Muslims “other” and that makes it OK to hate them. If I was a betting man, and I’m not, I’d bet that the overwhelming majority of Americans are simply unaware that Muslims pray to the exact same deity they do, and a somewhat smaller majority, the Rushbots of America, are no doubt equally confused about the Jewish God too.
