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The term Deen al-Islam

Reader comment on item: Arabist Snobs
in response to reader comment: Multiple meanings of S-L-M

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Aug 15, 2014 at 17:33

David you wrote

Actually, the word Islam is not at all related to peace.

Very true

The verbal root S-L-M has multiple meanings among which are "peace", "surrender", and "submission."

Very true

Islam means "submission [to the will of Allah]",

Not true the Ulama early on realized that the word Islam could very well be a foreign word (the Qur'an and Allah and Sura and Muhammad are all foreign words) because if Islam really means submission/surrender to Allah then it should have been called الاستسلام لله or al-Istislam (to Allah) or the submission/surrender to Allah

from the verb aslama "to submit."

Well the Arabs starting point when dealing with a root is to use the masculine present tense form of the verb in question so it really should be يِسلمْ or Yeslam instead of اسلما or Aslama as this is really past tense and indeed if you search the word اسلما you will get يِسلمْ

http://www.almaany.com/home.php?language=arabic&lang_name=%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A&word=%D8%A3%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7

And if you read al-Tabari exegesis of Q9:29 and here is a link

http://www.quran-for-all.com/t-9-3-29.html

It is very clear that the Islamic term دين الاسلام or what we understand now as the religion of Islam must be read as دين or deen and this is from Syriac ܕܝܢܐ or Deena and this word means "what is true and right" as in to judge (religion is secondary meaning of the word deen) as for the word islam is must be from Syriac ܫܠܡܘܬܐ or Shalmouta and the primary meaning of this word is really consensus or to agree or in Arabic الاتفاق or the agreement

So the religion Islam really means to agree/judge on what is true (See Luexenberg) and this has nothing to do with either peace or submission/surrender

Submission is semitically distinct from peace.

Very true and it is too bad that those that do not understand the Semitic root system do not realize that very different words can share the same root

Submitting....

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