Is Allah same as God? The irony of monotheistic religions!

Submitted by Prashant (United States), May 23, 2012 at 02:09

Dear Dr Pipes,

Your reader Raveena Sharma from India repeats a thought that Hindu Indians have repeated billions of times. Raveen said that she thought that God was only one and people gave Him different names.

It is an irony that three major monotheistic religions of the world cannot agree whether there is only one God or many while Hindus who worship the God in hundreds of forms can so easily agree that there is only one God.

I have lots of respect for Judaism because it formally established monotheistic worship as a sufficient religion doctrine. Christianity and Islam essentially took the Jewish idea and attempted to establish a monopoly on God.

For me, as a Hindu, the question whether Allah and God are the same things or different is relatively easy to answer: If you use Allah to make God wrong, Allah not only becomes different from God but also nullifies himself. Similarly, if God makes Allah wrong, he becomes meaningless. And they are same if they unite people instead of diving them.

Finally, and by the way, if God can have 2 names why cant He have many shapes and forms?

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