Ryan

I once had a professor who lowered student's grades according to a curve. There were about a dozen students in the class, and even though all of us averaged over 90% on graded assignments and tests, he assigned grades of D's and F's to several students on the lower end. He was tenured unfortunately, and I had a few friends who had to retake the course because they didn't get higher than 95%.

Reading your instructor's response is frustrating. My general rule of thumb is to avoid confrontation with an instructor who handles student grades immaturely, because I can't be certain they won't jeopardize my final grade in the course.

I understand that they are not the same word. If you want to be pedantic, the correct translation is "There is no God but [the] God." The point is that Allah is not a personal name like Jehovah, and it is deceptive to treat it as such.

One important note. It is a categorical error to translate the Shahada as "... no God but Allah." It should either be "no God but God" or "no Allah but Allah." Wikipedia uses the former as their translation.