Man Terrorizes Everyone at Christmas Tree Lighting by Screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’
DEC 12, 2022 6:00 PM
BY ROBERT SPENCER
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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, “Allahu akbar.” Everyone present was terrified, contravening the American media dictum that “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 “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 “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. “Allahu akbar” actually means “Allah is greater,” a subtle but important difference. Rather than simply being a proclamation of the greatness of the divine, “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.
This proclamation therefore also means that Islam is superior to all other religions and everything else, for while the use of the word “Allah” is not restricted to Muslims alone, those who proclaim “Allahu akbar” generally have in mind the God of the Qur’an, and are proclaiming his superiority over all other Gods. This was made abundantly clear a few years ago in Malaysia when Christians were forbidden to use the word “Allah” to refer to the God of Christianity.
But the Italians in Sora weren’t terrorized by a simple assertion of the superiority of Islam. The phrase has come to be associated with terrorism for one very good reason: terrorists often shout it when they’re in the act. Just a few weeks ago in France, a Muslim previously convicted of terrorism screamed “Allahu akbar” as he attacked a police officer. Also in France recently, a Muslim migrant proclaiming, “Allahu akbar” hit one gendarme with a faucet and bit another. In Belgium, a knife-wielding Muslim who was also screaming, “Allahu akbar” said he was going to kill everyone in a hospital emergency room. In the same country, another Muslim shouting, “Allahu akbar” stabbed one police officer in the neck, killing him, and wounding another. In Germany, a Muslim on a Berlin train screamed “Allahu akbar” and “I will kill all Germans.”
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