Dutch Roman Catholic Bishop Tiny Muskens had an epiphany. In a flash it came to him. One easy concession and all would be well with the world. “Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn’t we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? What does God care what we call him? It is our problem. The Bishop proposed that “people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding.” He divulged that in Indonesia, where he served for eight years, priests already use the word ‘Allah’ while celebrating Mass.

A survey found that 92% of the Dutch people think Bishop Tiny is a nut. The sentiments in the streets of Amsterdam were expressed by Welmoet Koppenhol in a letter to the editor. “Sure. Let’s call God Allah. Let’s call a church a mosque and pray five times a day. Ramadan sounds like fun.”

Other than being an amusing story about a Dutch crank, this does raise the question of how would we go about comparing God and Allah? What can we actually compare? We can’t just schedule interviews and ask them both difficult questions. We can know them only through their respective scriptures and the behavior of their followers.

The Bible and the Koran are like day and night. When Muhammad recited the Suras that eventually became the Koran, he set out to “correct” the corrupted Jewish and Christian scriptures. Thus the Koran, by design, contradicts the other scriptures on everything from historical accounts to moral imperatives.

The Koran specifically states that the Bible is a perversion of the true scriptures. Muhammad, Islams prophet, taught that Allah handed Moses the Koran, but the Jews changed it and it became the Bible. For instance, the Koran claims that Abraham was ordered to sacrifice Ishmael not Isaac as told in the Torah. The Koran also states that Christians who claim that Jesus was crucified, are lying infidels who should be crucified. In the Koran, Jesus is but a prophet not quite at Muhammad’s level. There are thousands of other examples of irreconcilable differences.

The same infallible God would not have produced two contradictory scriptures and claim that they are both true. Thus logically, Allah and Jehovah, the Judeo-Christian God, can not be the same.