The phrase, "no god but Allah"? proves "Allah" is not just another word for "God" to the Muslims. The transliterated phrase from Arabic reads, "La ilaha illAllah." A word for word translation into English would read: La [no] ilaha [god] ill [except or but] Allah [Allah]. The important thing to note is that the word "Allah" is a name and is not the word for god. If "Allah" were the word for god, then the phrase would read, "there is no allah but allah. Clearly it does not. The Qur'an itself claims that Allah is the personal name of the Islamic god: (017.110) "Say, Call Him Allah or call Him Ar-Rahman; whatever the name you call Him, all His names are beautiful." If "Allah" were the word for god, then Islam's god is nameless. There is also no evidence that the word "Allah" is a contraction of the words "al ilah," which means, "the god." If it were, then again, the phrase would read, "there is no allah but allah." As part of the first "Pillar of Islam," this issue is critical as Islam claims that the God of the Bible (whose name is Yahweh) and Allah are one in the same and that we all, therefore, worship the same god.
Che- can you give me your interpretationof this? Its from some reading Im doing currently. If you have a second.
Firstly, might I suggest reading something other than blatantly anti-islamic sources, Arthur Jeffrey is hardly what I would describe as an unbiased academic. The folks at www.bible.ca (who borrow from his texts liberally) are taking part in what I see too many supposedly religious people doing, that is negating other religions in an attempt to make theirs look good. Muslims do it, Christians do it and as soon as I recognise it in a text or on a website I hit the back button and keep looking because that's not intelligent academic material.
I wrote an entire post on the semantics of semetic languages with regards to this, and you have yet to refute or discuss any of the points I've made in my posts so I will do this and then I will stop until I see some dialogue or compromise on the issue because I feel you're wasting my time where I'm taking the time to address your points and you move on to another one and another one with no comment on my refutations.
The sentence I would focus on and blow this up would be the following:
There is also no evidence that the word "Allah" is a contraction of the words "al ilah," which means, "the god."
There is no evidence to truly support either claim, this is where one's faith matters. I have faith that the prophet was not trying to trick me into worshipping a moon God, I have faith that he was given the actual words of God to steer the people of the world back on track. If you think I'm foolish for believing such a thing (and you implied that it was of a certain foolishness that an angel could talk to Mohamed) you may wish to look at Christianity and realise that there is no exact science to doing this, it's intangible and faith gets you over the threshold of disbelief, as a Christian I thought you would know that. Though you've got a padre, and there are a number of priests (even the vatican recognises it) that accept and believe that the religions are so closely related they are looking at the same deity, the intagible, ineffible God.
The intent of this declaration is to affirm that there are no other Gods, an affirmation of monotheism, which at the time was a fading thing. I take refuge in what the intent clearly was not what I want it to be, as so many anti-semetics and anti-islamists choose to do.
Islam has stood for centuries and you nor anyone else here is going to be the one to bring it down, I am tempted to simply stop responding to your points because I think I cannot do the proper defence because I am very young and limited in my resources and you will come away from this convinced that Muslims are unbelieving savages who worship a pagan idol. I suggest if you still feel uncertain, talk to an Imam, go to any mosque, or for that matter talk to a priest and tell them how you feel and you will see how. I am quite honest when I say that I am new to religious studies, there are 60-70 year olds who are quite pious who have studied religious texts their entire life and they will not claim to know all of the answers, so I can only do my best.
Islam defends itself quite well if people take the quality time to actually do their own unbiased research rather than looking at material on the internet, sadly many people don't bother and misconceptions will continue to exist. I suggest you do the same or address some of the points in my previous posts before flinging more Biased material at me or moving on to other arguments before acknowledging a compromise or counter-point.
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Someone also asked about the different personas that God seems to take on in the different religions. Judaism and Islam tend to be religions of laws, do this, don't do that. So God appears to be quite strict, more like a parent. And truthfully if you look at Islam and Judaism you will see more similiarities than either shows with Christianity.
So God isn't more vengeful or strict with Muslims and Jews they just choose to adhere (or should) to a strict set of laws and works. Even Roman Catholicism is quite strict with rules, laws and works because it is arguably a more pure version of the primary religion which (i and others) contend is the root of all 3 Monotheistic faiths.
and finally,
Finally.. if having a pagan history and additions to one's religion makes it false.... then Christianity is doomed
Thankyou Padre you saved me a paragraph
) agree with is that God knows the actions of humans and is not neglectful of them. He rewards those who obey the commands of the Torah and punishes those who violate its prohibitions. The Torah itself will never be abrogated, nothing will be added to it or subtracted from it; God will never give another Law. 
) that they still are.
