[SunStar]

Is it Al Qaida or Al Qaeda? I've seen it both ways.

U.S. Government spells the organization "Al Qaeda", and the leader "Usama Bin Laden".

[RAT Patrol]

Thanks for the info, SunStar.

[DWPittelli]

Is it Al Qaida or Al Qaeda? I've seen it both ways.

U.S. Government spells the organization "Al Qaeda", and the leader "Usama Bin Laden".

Arabic words can be spelled a number of ways, with no standard "right" way for most. For example, there are over 50 ways to spell Muammar Khaddafi, and he's refused to state his favorite. It's actually a problem in that our list of terrorist names sometimes misses a person due to changing names.

[Mamzelle]

Since it's translating from a language with different alphabet, and a confusing any-vowel-goes language at that, there isn't s standard spelling. Muslim used to be Moslem.