"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah?".
"Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all
say that from now on we will name God Allah?" So said Tiny Muskens,
a Dutch Catholic bishop, who went on television recently to broadcast
his novel idea, which he says could ease tensions between Holland's
Christians and its unassimilated Muslims. There is no inherent
theological problem with Muskens's idea: "Allah" is the
Arabic term for God, and Christians living in Muslim-majority countries
frequently use the word as such. It is the fawning nature of
Muskens's suggestion that repels: Why would the Dutch use a word
for God other than the Dutch term (which is, incidentally, God)?
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