In reply to Roger Harrison.

Mr. Harrison: a fair question. While linguistically it is true that the Arabic "Allah" simply means "the god (masculine plural)," historically and theologically it is undeniably the case that Allah has come to be associated almost entirely with the Islamic deity. I know my Arab Christian friends would argue that they were using "Allah" in liturgy and perhaps even Scriptural translations before the Muslims--but for most of the world, Allah is Islamic. My major point was to explode the myth that Muslims worship the same deity as Christians--which is certainly not the case.