Fascinating. So what else are we not hearing?
Well, in my Religious Ethics class last year, I learned that Allah is just the Muslim word for God. It's not a special name for God--they're really referring to the same God that Christians are. But most US translators leave the word God as Allah. The teacher claims that this is a deliberate ploy to place emotional distance between us and the Muslim world--if they translated it as God, people might think "you know, I believe in God. They believe in God. Maybe we're not as different as I thought." But by leaving it as Allah, people are more likely to think "I don't want any part of their pagan god. I would never believe any of that heresy."
I don't want to sound like a crackpot conspiracy theorist, but you do have to remember that a lot of stuff that comes over, especially via official channels, is translated by the State Department. They have a vested interest right now in making sure the American public does not feel sympathetic towards the mideastern world.
