[PJMedia] It happened recently in the Italian town of Sora. As workers were putting up Christmas lights in the town center, a man ventured by and began screaming, "holy shit! Allahu akbar." Everyone present was terrified, contravening the American media dictum that "holy shit! Allahu akbar" is an entirely benign phrase that shouldn’t worry anyone. How did these Italians get so Islamophobic?
The Italian-language publication FrosinoneToday reported that the onlooker’s shouts of "holy shit! Allahu akbar" as workers put up Christmas lights and lit them caused "real ’moments of fear,’" and that "once he was gone, having literally terrorized everyone present with the equally classic exclamation associated with terrorism, the young man continued to rail against the lights."
Why was everyone terrorized? The phrase "holy shit! Allahu akbar" is routinely translated in the English-language media as "God is great," a resoundingly uncontroversial phrase by any standard. In reality, however, that is a mistranslation. "holy shit! Allahu akbar" actually means "Allah is greater," a subtle but important difference. Rather than simply being a proclamation of the greatness of the divine, "holy shit! Allahu akbar" is actually a proclamation of superiority: what is being said is that Allah, the God of Islam, is greater than your god, or your government, or your atheistic belief system, or your society and culture, or anything else that you may love and admire. Whatever it is, Allah is greater. |