[Mrs. Don-o]

It's actually a little more complicated than that, since Arabic-speaking Christians do indeed use the name "Allah" (which means, in Arabic, THE God) for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and had been doing so for more than 500 years before Mohammad was born.

In other words, Chrstians have a better historic claim to the word "Allah" than Muslims do.

All that, though, has been pretty much buried under Muslim cultural hegemony -- at least in the West, where we so rarely see people from the ancient Arab Christian communities, which date back to Apostolic days.

[NYer]

In other words, Chrstians have a better historic claim to the word "Allah" than Muslims do.

Thank you for clarifying this very important misunderstanding.

Jesus, Mary and the Apostles spoke Aramaic. The word for God, in Aramaic, is Aloho. Aramaic, as you know, is a dead language; iow, it has not continued to evolve with contemporary times. There are a few small villages in the Middle East, where a form of Aramaic is still spoken. Among the Catholic Churches, 3 have retained Aramaic as their liturgical language. Next week, Pope Benedict XVI will visit Lebanon where he will meet with the hierarchy of several Eastern Catholic Churches. In the Middle East, the official language is Arabic. Hence, Aloho translated into Arabic is Allah. Those who watch the coverage of the pope's visit, will hear both forms in various liturgical hymns sung at the different liturgical and prayer services.