Abstract
Allahu Akbar (God is Great) is one of the most used terms among Muslims due to its repeated utterance in prayer rituals and various social and emotional contexts. However, after 9/11, it has become a symbol of terrorism in the non-Muslim world due to its use by terrorists and the media portraying it as an integral part of terrorism. This chapter examines the representation of this term in the British media with a view to comparing it to its actual meaning and usage among British Muslims. Three media articles are analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis followed by focus group discussions with Muslim professionals, young Muslims, and Islamic scholars and Imams applying Hall’s (1980) Encoding/Decoding model to investigate the reaction to these portrayals. The study finds overt Islamophobia in right-wing tabloids’ representation of the term, which led British Muslim participants in the study resolving to reclaim the term from its media misrepresentation.
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Al-Azami, S. (2023). Reclaiming the Spiritual Meaning of ‘Allahu Akbar’ from Media Misrepresentation. In: Al-Azami, S. (eds) Media Language on Islam and Muslims. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_12
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