Jalaluddin the great, not 'great the great'

Let’s just say that Madan Dilawar doesn’t do his state, state government or political party any favour when he showcases his arsonist’s streak. The Rajasthan education minister, perhaps owing to some trauma experienced when he was in school, has stated that any textbook in Rajasthan schools describing Akbar as ‘the great’ will be burned. He mentioned that his government has checked that no mention of the great Mughal with that descriptor appears. So, the proposed libricide is more of a guarantee and challenge than an anti-Mughal version of removing ‘un-German’… sorry, ‘un-Rajput’ works.

Dilawar, though, is right to be cross about ‘great’ as an epithet being attached to the emperor’s name. Jalaluddin Muhammad bore the title ‘Akbar’, which itself means ‘great(est)’ – thus ‘Allahu Akbar’, or ‘god is great(est)’ – in Arabic. To refer to the third Mughal emperor as ‘Akbar the Great’ is essentially saying ‘Great(est) the Great’ – which is super silly. Like saying ‘kirana store‘, even as kirana itself means ‘small, family-owned shop’. Or calling rapper Shawn Corey Carter a.k.a. Jay-Z, ‘Jay-Z the Z’. Dilawar should pitch his discontent as a rightful war against tautologies, rather than any moral judgement against the great Mughal, whom we should show our admiration for by calling him simply ‘Akbar’, like we call Muhammad Ali ‘The Greatest’.