Islam

Etymology

It is borrowed from Arabic إِسْلَام (ʾislām, “submission, surrender (to the will of God)”),^[2][3][4][5] partly through Ottoman Turkish, in which it also meant a Muslim.^[2] The Arabic noun of action is from أَسْلَمَ (ʾaslama, “he submitted, he surrendered”),^[2][5][6][7] the causative form of a verb meaning to be safe or secure,^[2][5][8] from a root meaning whole or intact,^[1] and related to سَلَام (salām, “peace”), the source of salaam.^[5][9] The same verb is the source of Muslim.^[2][10] The American Heritage Dictionary traces the Arabic verb further to Syriac, to a verb meaning to make peace or surrender.^[11] In 1603 Richard Knolles wrote that the Turks called themselves “Islami”, "men of one mind", a form that may have come through a language of Ottoman-ruled eastern Europe.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Muslim: 1613, in Samuel Purchas's Pilgrimage, a sense now archaic and rare.^[2][3] The religion itself is recorded from 1625, also in Purchas.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense "a Muslim" died out in the early 19th century, leaving the name of the religion.^[3][2] Barnhart and Etymonline date that name only to the 1810s, Barnhart to Shelley's The Revolt of Islam (1818),^[9][5] and Merriam-Webster to 1817.^[4] Before it, English called the faith Mahometry (late 15th century), Muhammadism (1610s) and Islamism (1747).^[5] The word also came to mean the Muslim world and its civilization.^[3][4][12] From 1854 it is also used of a particular form of the religion.^[2] The adjective Islamic dates from 1791, formed after French islamique.^[9]

Timeline

• 1613 – a Muslim (now archaic).^[2]
• 1625 – the Muslim religion.^[2]
• 1791 – Islamic.^[9]
• 1818 – in the title of Shelley's The Revolt of Islam.^[9]
• 1854 – a particular form of the religion.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The monotheistic religion of Muslims, based on belief in one God, Allah, and in Muhammad as his prophet, with the Qur'an as its scripture.^[12][4][2]
2. Muslims as a whole and their civilization.^[12][4]
3. The countries or part of the world where Islam is the main religion.^[12][4]
4. A particular form or interpretation of the religion.^[2]
5. (archaic) A Muslim.^[2][3]

Word family

• Islamic
• Islamite

Related words

• Islamize
• Islamism
• Islamic calendar
• Muslim
• Moslem
• Mussulman
• salaam
• shalom

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins