Allah (English pronunciation: /ˈælə/, /ˈɑːlə/ or /əlˈlɑː/; Arabic: الله Allāh, IPA: [ʔalˤˈlˤɑːh] ( listen)) is the Arabic word for God (al ilāh, literally “the God”).
I was surprised by recent comments by one of the Republican nomination contenders that he would rather have a nation under God than under Allah because I had always understood that Allah was the word for God in the Arabic language, just like Dieu in French, Gott in German, Dios in Spanish, and so on. So there is only one God though he may be referred by people in different cultures by different names.
So, this being an intelligent man who made the statement, I realized that he must be putting more into the words, that he was really referring to specific religions that worship God in different ways rather than to God himself. What he meant was that he wanted, say, a Christian nation, more than just a nation under God.
And there is a huge leap between the first and the second propositions. There is nothing wrong with having our nation under God but, for those of us who so value our Constitution, everything wrong with the second.
We know that the First Amendment to the Constitution contains what is known as The Establishment Clause, which simply states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” So, if you value our Constitution, as I do, you understand that it expressly prohibits a State, or government, sponsored religion.
Apparently our Founding Fathers knew better than some of our candidates that Jesus always stayed away from politics, even to the point of allowing Himself to be crucified rather than intervening with secular powers.
Furthermore, isn’t that what the people we are fighting are trying to do, or have done? Iran, the Taliban, Isis …, Sharia Law, all about bringing religion into government. We see the results with our own eyes.
Our Founding Fathers knew full well that religion and politics don’t mix and that religious freedom was a right to be cherished and protected. They knew this to the point that they wrote it into the First Amendment to the Constitution, the first of the Bill of Rights, one step ahead of the Second Amendment, so strongly defended by many, which enshrines the right to bear arms.