Propaganda and Allah

[A. Maberry]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2001, James A. Landau wrote:
>
> 1.  see the OED2.  Yes, "Allah" literally means "the God"
> 2.  referring to the Deity of Islam, of course there is no need for a plural,
> and most cultures ascribe grammatical gender if not quasi-biological gender
> to their deities.  However, I am sure there is some means in Arabic to refer
> to "the gods of the ancient Greek pantheon"

A minor point but in looking at OED2 online, while the etymology points to
an origin "the (true) God" the definition implies that it is now taken as
just "God". It doesn't actually say that Allah is the Deity of Islam,
but defines Allah as "The name of the Deity among Muslims".
I assume the Deity (with capital) is, as the OED2 defines it: 3. "A
supreme being as creator of the universe; the Deity [in bold italics], the
Supreme Being, God."

allen
maberry at u.washington.edu