On the names pf God subject, I just rung up my Afghan pal Azizi for a bit of background. He says he knows Muslims, Jews and Christians have the same God, and in his home language s of dariand Pashtun he uses the terms Allah(of Arabic origin) or "khouda" for all three.(cognate, as linguists say, with God, Dari and Pashtun are like English, German, Gaelic etc Indo-european languages, Arabic isnt).I asked ih e had a general word for a god, as "something to be worshipped, as opposed to Allah". He said he might use "khouda" in that sense,but not Allah. He might use the Arabic word maboud with that meaning, if discussing theology. He was a bit vague when I asked what word he would use to describe what a Hindu worshipped, say.First he said, "I would use the name of the thing, like Cow. I said they had a lot of Gods, cows were just sacred". Then he suggested bagwan, or possibly khouda. Then he came up with a real gem, and said that in the Bollywood movies he watches the Indians say "Upperwallah" for a god.At that point we had a laugh and moved onto to gossip. Just thought I'd share that with everybody. Azizi is very wise, especially about Americans and Osama and the minutiae of politics East of Suez, he is my big teacher.