I agree, unless Arabic was just one language in a long rotation of languages into which the Pledge of Allegiance was translated and read and the list wasn't just "politically correct" languages like Arabic and Spanish, but included Hebrew, French, German, Russian, Greek, Latin,. . . or was selected explicitly to represent the native tongues of the ancestors of every student attending the school.
What would have been truly outrageous would have been for the Pledge to have been said in English with the word God replaced by "Allah". When speaking Arabic, Allah, the elision of Al Ilah, is the equivalent of the English God or the Greek ho theos, the definite article in either Greek or Arabic indicating the uniquely existing God, as distinct from a god, the way the capital letter does in English, and is used by Arabic speaking Christians as well as Muslims. To use the Arabic word when speaking in another language is to accept the Muslim conceit that the Arabic word is the proper name of God, and thus to accept the Mohammedan (mis-)conception of God.
Very well stated.
The pupils sought the permission of Principal Lopez, who previously had allowed the Pledge to be read out in French and Spanish.
Further, I would add that English-speaking Christians are so used to using "God" as the name of the Judeo-Christian deity that we have largely forgotten that our deity has a name, variously given as Yahweh, Jehovah, the Tetragrammaton YHWH, etc. We so often use "God" as a proper name that we may forget that other religions may have similar constructs.
But overall, in America "Allah" is most often understood as the name of the Muslim deity, not just a descriptor. Consequently, I think this high school principal should be ridden out of town on a rail. Tarred and feathered, if possible.
“..... unless Arabic was just one language in a long rotation of languages into which the Pledge of Allegiance was translated and read .....”
WHAT? ENGLISH is the ONLY language that the pledge should EVER be recited in. PERIOD!
Agreed. Although there are some ignorant buffoons on this forum who think otherwise, Allah is Arabic for God and the Koran specifically states that Allah is the God of Abraham. The same God worshiped by Christians and Jews. The reason to be upset about this is more subtle than mere semantics.