[jackibutterfly]

Thanks so much, Mrs. Don-o. The reason I’m asking is that the Catholic Church says that muslims & Christians worship the same God, which I don’t believe is true. I’ve read that mohammad took one of the 13(?) pagan gods they worshiped at that time, the moon god, to worship as their one god. If so, where can I find the source?

[Mrs. Don-o]

As I mentioned, Arabic-speaking Christians used the term Allah for almost half a millennium before Muhammad was even born. If anything, Muhammad's use of 'Allah" was a cultural appropriation from Christianity.

The APostles miraculously spoke Arabic to the Arabic-speaking Jews at Pentecost (Acts 2:11)

"[We are] both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, and yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God."

and thus the One True God has been called Allah since Pentecost.

Muhammad identified the God he was worshiping as Allah (same as the Christian God/Allah), the Creator of all that exists, the giver of Moral Law, the God of Ibrahim, Ishaq, and Yaqub (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), the God of Moses and of David (Musa and Dawud), the God of Mary and of Jesus (Maryam and Isa).

So clearly this is the Christian and Jewish God.

However, there are a lot of untrue things said about this God/Allah in the Koran, chief of which is that God (Allah) 'neither begets nor is he begotten': an explicit denial of the Trinity.

One could say the Jews deny the Trinity, too; but this is not made explicit in the Jewish Sacred Scriptures. The Korean makes it explicit: "Say not 'Three' --- Cease! (it is) better for you! --- Allah is only One Allah."

So this is the Christian God, culturally appropriated from the Arabic-speaking Christians, but seriously distorted.

They also believe in Isa (Jesus) but deny that He is the Son of God. Interestingly, though, they believe in His Second Coming: they believe He will come back on the Last Day to be the Judge of all mankind.

So it is the same God (since there is only one God, we all know that); but there is a mix of truth and falsehood about Him in their so-called Scriptures; there are basically erroneous things taught about Him in the Koran.

[Mrs. Don-o]

My point here is that you can pursue the Moon God angle if you want, but it may not make the point you want it to make, since the Christians too used the word "Allah" for 500+ years before Muhammad raided his first caravan.

And Arabic-speaking Christians (e.g. Melkite and Assyrian Christians in the Middle East, as well as millions of Christians in Indonesia and Malaysia) still to this day use the word "Allah" for the God of the Bible. As in, "We believe in Allah, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit")