:: an Arabic phrase meaning “God is great” ::
Not precisely.
It is an Arabic phrase meaning “Our moon-god, who goes by the name ‘Allah’, is great.”
Agreed. I was going to post something similar. I get tired of the media claiming the terrorists are shouting God is great when what they are actually shouting is “allah is great”. Allah being the specific name of their false god.
My understanding is that the key word is, not 'great', but translates to 'greatest'. In other words, separating the Islam deity from all other, in their view, fake religions not worth allowing the believers to live (if they pay jizya, we'll talk).