In response to a few posts in no particular order…..
First, as other’s mention, Jesus is most definitely mentioned in the Qur’an, but obviously under the Arabic version of his name; Isa. Furthermore, it’s curious to note that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is referenced more in the Qur’an than she is in the Bible.
Allah is the same word as the Hebrew El/Eloah, which comes from a more common Semitic ‘il. All of these forms simply mean ‘god’. It’s the same root word in every Semitic language. The Hebrew tetragrammaton (YHWH) is supposedly a personal name, not a generic name. You can’t assume just because the reference is different, it’s a completely different deity.
Muslims worship the same God of Abraham, Noah, and Adam. The Arabs became a separate people from the Jews, but a separate people does not automatically equate to a different deity. There are three Abrahamic religions; not two.
All three religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) have a very different understanding of ‘God’ (though there is quite a bit of overlap between all three) and a very different methodology for worshiping, but they are all worshiping the same deity; the God of Abraham, Noah and Adam.
Some will also state that the Christian God (as evidenced in the NT) is a triune God, whilst in Islam there is only a unitarian God. However, what most seem to conveniently leave out is that Judaism, like Islam, does not acknowledge a triune God either. Do Jews therefore worship a different deity than Christians?
Still others like to point out the references to violence in the Qur’an, but somehow fail to notice that there is actually more violence depicted in the OT of the Bible than in the entire Qur’an.
Again, all three religions have a very different understanding of God – just because it’s a totally different understanding than yours does not mean a different deity.
That said, there is a school of thought that puts forth the idea that the God of the OT is not the same as the NT – in the OT, the Jews were a collective group of tribes that were in the process of founding a nation. They required a God of war; one who would lead them to accomplish the founding of their nation; a God to be feared by their enemies. The Jews chose a deity from the Semitic pantheon (YHWH) and (in theory anyway) followed just this deity as at this time, they were also in the process of becoming a monotheistic culture.
By the time we get to the NT, we see a completely different God – there was no longer a need for a war God, we now see a more pastoral/agricultural God; the concept of a “(good) shepherd”, to quote a phrase, “a more kinder, gentler” God.
Somewhere between the OT and the NT, it seems the Jewish nation, once founded and established, abandoned the war God and chose a new ‘national deity’; one that was more suited to an agricultural/pastoral society.
There is, of course, the concept of “progressive revelation”, but it seems just a sort of a very convenient way to explain an obvious discrepancy
If this view were indeed true, i.e. that somewhere between the OT and NT, the Jews switched national deities, then it could definitely be argued that Jews and Christians do indeed worship a different God than that of Islam, since Islam still worships the war God of the OT while Jews, and subsequently Christians, worship the God of NT which is a different deity.
Still other schools of thought note that ‘El’ was the chief god of the Caananite pantheon, whereas YHWH was a war god associated with other war and storm gods. YHWH it seems was not part of the original Caananite pantheon but was introduced from elsewhere. Over time, both seem to have morphed into a single deity with characteristics of both.
Again, with this view, it could be reasonably argued that the God of Islam is represented solely by the war God, YHWH, while the Jewish and Christian God is a blend of both YHWH and El; thus, the two are not really one in the same.
Obviously for most, the above is rather radical and not a viable option, but it does lend support to the ‘different deity’ theory.
As far as eating what you want in your own home (i.e. pork and other non-halal meat) – I ‘get it’, but would hope that common courtesy would prevail and one would respect the beliefs and traditions of another. If the person were a Jew instead of a Muslim who wished to practice keeping kosher, would you do the same thing?
I am not Muslim, and I certainly recognize that Islam has its fanatics, just as, frankly, Christianity and other religions have theirs. Perhaps, however, if we started to recognize and acknowledge the similarities between these two faiths, we might have much less Islamophobia in our world. You can’t judge an entire religion on the behavior of one group of extremist fanatics.
I get where the OP is coming from – it seems like a difficult decision; each wishes to keep to their faith traditions as they understand them, but it would seem that a bit of mutual respect for each other’s traditions needs to prevail here. It’s not indicated whether she is praying in Arabic or not, but if she is, and it's a rote type prayer (and not more a personal prayer) perhaps you could start by asking her what she is saying so as to gain a bit of understanding of what a typical Muslim prayer consists of.