Islam

The name of the religion of Muslims is derived from an Arabic root meaning “peace.” In this form, it means “submission,”

to the will of God. In the message of the Qur’an, humans are told that following correct action brings the surety of reward. In this sense, the “peace” was understood by the early Muslims as a lack of the anxiety associated with polytheism, in which the individual is unsure of which deity to assuage and whether any action would produce positive results. Muslim commentators believe that Islam is the original, authentic monotheistic worship of God and that Muhammad was the last of the line of Muslim prophets sent to humankind to preach Islam. Islam is also understood as the name of the religion of God. In Q. 5:3 we read, “This day have I perfected for you your religion, dın, and completed My favor on you and chosen for you Islam as a religion.” The word for religion, dıˆn, means also the debt or obligation that the believer owes to Allaˆh, so Islam implies a series of actions as well as belief. This is seen in Q. 49:14–15: “The dwellers of the desert say: We believe.

Say: You do not believe but say, We submit; and faith has not yet entered into your hearts; and if you obey Allah and His Apostle, He will not diminish aught of your deeds; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. The believers are only those who believe in Allah and His Apostle then they doubt not and struggle hard with their wealth and their lives in the way of Allah; they are the truthful ones.” In other words, faith, ıˆmaˆn, for a Muslim results in the interior change of the person, submission, islam, which results in the outward deed that demonstrates the person’s Islam. The relationship between deed and faith has resulted in Islam having fewer creeds than Christianity and striking a balance between belief and action. This is seen in the centrality of Islamic law, (sharıah) as the main expression of the individual’s religion, and Islam becomes all-pervasive in its sacralization of daily life. Thus, even the most mundane and seemingly secular acts fit within sharıah and are part of what it means to be a Muslim. The location of the Muslim within the law also indicates an additional feature of the religion, the connection with community. Muslims understood both from the Qur’an and from the Prophet’s example that the obligation, dıˆn, was to fellow humans as well as to God. The ideal of the solitary
mystic is less frequent in Islam than in, for example Christianity or Hinduism, because of the community connection. Modern reformers invoke this sense when they call for is lahand tajdıd. Many additional words and terms are derived from the same Arabic root, s-l-m, the most frequent of which is the greeting Salam, “Peace.”

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