Nobody should be allowed to say Allah without protest. If somebody says Allah in casual conversation, they should be met with scoffs, eye-rolls, and dirty looks. Muslims should say ilah instead.
While I typically try to avoid divisive comments in these light-hearted communities, this is a fairly informative one, especially in the context of etymology.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilah
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allah#Etymology
We should also not be condoning scoffing at someone based on their understanding. Perhaps these could be opportunities to educate people that are unfamiliar with the differences.
I am very happy for Muslims to talk about their ilah. But when they say Allah, they are choosing to say the other gods are fake for no reason. We could be having a completely unrelated conversation about, say, Ramadan, and the Muslim just has to say “by the way your gods are fake” in a single word just to be an asshole. It’s rude. It’s mean. It’s unnecessary.
I think a lot of people downvoted my comment because they don’t understand Arabic etymology and they think I’m being Islamophobic. But this isn’t about Islam, it’s about the way many Muslims choose to talk about every other religion. And yes, many Muslims don’t know the etymology of the word either. Which is why they should be educated and told to do better. Allah is a slur. We should make it clear it’s not acceptable to say in polite company.
I also hate it when Christians choose to use “god” as a proper noun. I’ve got in lots of fights with people on Lemmy about that.