Muslim
A
Muslim (
Arabic: مسلم,
Turkish:
Müslüman,
Persian and Urdu: مسلمان) is an adherent of
Islam. The feminine form of Muslim is
Muslimah. Literally, the word means "one who submits to
God". There are approximately 1.31 billion Muslims worldwide.
Most Muslims accept as a fellow Muslim (brother/sister) anyone who has publicly pronounced the
Shahada, which states, "There is only one God and
Muhammad is His messenger."
Muslims believe that the basics of Islam existed long before Muhammad, and describe many Biblical figures as Muslims, because they are said to have submitted to God and preached His message as
prophets.
The word Muslim is an Arabic
agent noun formed from the
causative (Form IV) of the tri-consonantal root S-L-M سلم (be at peace), which is أَسÙ'Ù„ÙŽÙ…ÙŽ meaning "to submit" or "to surrender". The plural form is "Muslimeen" (مسلمين) in Arabic and "Muslims" in English. The word Islam is the corresponding abstract noun, meaning "submission [to God]." "Moslem", an old-fashioned transliteration generally avoided at present, approximates the
Persian pronunciation of the word; "Musulman" (with various spellings) is based on the corresponding
Urdu form.
The Qur'an offers several illustrations of the word's usage, and of the resulting ambiguity in English translation, as exemplified in two translations of verse :
Pickthall: "And when Abraham and Ishmael were raising the foundations of the House, (Abraham prayed): Our Lord! Accept from us (this duty). Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Hearer, the Knower. Our Lord! And make us submissive unto Thee and of our seed a nation submissive unto Thee, and show us our ways of worship, and relent toward us. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Relenting, the Merciful."
Yusuf Ali: "And remember Abraham and Isma'il raised the foundations of the House (With this prayer): "Our Lord! Accept (this service) from us: For Thou art the All-Hearing, the All-knowing. Our Lord! make of us Muslims, bowing to Thy (Will), and of our progeny a people Muslim, bowing to Thy (will); and show us our place for the celebration of (due) rites; and turn unto us (in Mercy); for Thou art the Oft-Returning, Most Merciful."
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Muslim woman wearing the Hijab (headscarf) |
Until the late 1980s, the term
Moslem was commonly used. Muslims do not recommend this spelling because it is often pronounced "mawzlem" // which sounds somewhat similar to an Arabic word for "oppressed" (
Za'lem in
Arabic). The word is pronounced // in Arabic, but often // in English. The word is now most commonly written "Muslim".
Many English-language writers used to call Muslims
Mohammedans or
Mahometans. Muslims consider this terminology offensive, as it suggests that they worship the prophet
Muhammad rather than
God. It is also seen as too similar to
Christians as followers and worshippers of
Christ.
English writers of the 19th century and earlier sometimes used the words Mussulman, Musselman, or Mussulmaun. Variant forms of this word are still used by many
Indo-European languages. These words are similar to the French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese words for "Muslim."
One of the verses in the Qur'an makes a distiction between a
mu'min. a believer, and a
Muslim::(
Rodwell 49:14)
The Arabs of the desert say, "We believe." (tu/minoo) Say thou: Ye believe not; but rather say, "We profess Islam;" (aslamna) for the faith (al-eemanu) hath not yet found its way into your hearts. But if ye obey God and His Apostle, he will not allow you to lose any of your actions: for God is Indulgent, Merciful.
According to the Western academician Carl Ernst, contemporary usage of the terms "Islam" and "Muslim" for the faith and its adherents is a modern innovation. As shown in the Quranic passage cites above, early Muslims distinguished between the Muslim, who has "submitted" and does the bare minimum required to be considered a part of the community, and the mu'min, the believer, who has given himself or herself to the faith heart and soul. Ernst writes:
"The Arabic term islam
itself was of relatively minor importance in classical theologies based on the Qur'an. If one looks at the works of theologians such as the famous al-Ghazali (d. 1111), the key term of religious identity is not islam
but iman
, or faith, and the one who possesses it is the mu'min
, or believer. Faith is one of the major topics of the Qur'an; it is mentioned hundreds of times in the sacred text. In comparison, islam
is a relatively less common term of secondary importance; it only occurs eight times in the Qur'an. Since, however, the term islam
had a derivative meaning relating to the community of those who have submitted to God, it has taken on a new political significance, especially in recent history." [Ernst, Carl, ]Following Muhammad'', University of North Carolina Press, 2003, p. 63
There are some groups that consider themselves Muslims, but are not accepted as Muslim by the majority of Muslims. For example, neither Sunni nor Shi'a Muslims accept
Ahmedis or adherents of the
Nation of Islam as fellow Muslims. Some Sunni regard the
Shi'a and the
Alawī sects as non-Muslim. There have also been numerous instances in which some Sunnis have declared other Sunnis to be unbelievers, some Shi'a have declared other Shi'a the same. The act of declaring other Muslims, who profess Islam, to be unbelievers is called
takfir and doing so is considered blasphemy within Islam.
Timeline of events relating to the cartoons depicting mohammed
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Islam*
List of Muslims*
Muhammad*
Muslim World*
Musulman*
Qur'an
