Contrary to Hooper's one-God claim, Christians and Muslims don't really worship the same God. Although both religions are monotheistic -- and if there's just one God, there's just one God -- Christians believe Jesus was the Son of God and Muslims think otherwise.

That's not a small doctrinal difference. In fact, at the risk of exhausting the obvious, Christianity doesn't exist without, um, Christ. Of course we could rewrite the Apostle's Creed to include Muhammad: "I believe in Allah the Father Almighty ... and in Muhammad, his favorite prophet ... "

The possibilities are infinite, really. Alternatively, we could pretend to be sane and suggest that everybody go to his or her own house of worship, pray to his or her own version of the Creator, and otherwise get a grip.

Changing Western language, symbols and making other accommodations to ease relations between old Europe and new isn't only a conciliatory gesture or even mere appeasement. It is submission by any other name.

Language may be a manmade limitation, as Janaan Hashim said, speaking for the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, which endorses Muskens' idea. But language is not meaningless. The words we use to define and express ourselves are the fundaments of cultural and social identity. John Stuart Mill put it this way: "Language is the light of the mind."

Muskens, who retires in a few weeks, conceded that his idea likely wouldn't catch on right away. We might need another 100 years or so, but he predicted that, eventually, Allah will be the word.

Given that European Muslims are procreating at three times the rate of non-Muslims -- and given the "logarithmic rate" of growth of jihadist ideology in the U.S., according to a new report by the New York Police Department's Intelligence Division -- it may be sooner than that.

Peace be upon us.