This from the AP:
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Compare the AP to the UK’s Telegraph:
Just for the record: “Allahu Akbar” does not mean “God is great.” That’s Allahu kabir.
“Allahu Akbar” means “Allah is greater”.
Even though “Allah” means “the God” and is used by most Arabic-speaking Christians to refer to the God of Christianity, when jihadis use the phrase, they mean to emphasize the superiority of Islam and its god – hence it would be more precise to leave the word untranslated and render the phrase “Allah is greater” in English.
And to say “God is great” in Arabic would require a different word — Allahu kabir, because akbar is the elative, or comparative and superlative, form of kabir.
Thus a Christian equivalent of “Allahu akbar” would not be “Jesus is great” or, to use an actual Christian phrase, “Jesus is Lord.’ In its variety of connotations and uses, it corresponds roughly to the Evangelical/Pentecostal use of “Praise the Lord”; however, that phrase contains none of the notions of superiority that are inherent in “Allahu akbar.”