8. THE MEANING OF THE RELIGION’S NAME: ‘ISLAM’
Further evidence that Islam is the true religion comes from the meaning of the word ‘Islam’ itself. Basically, the word ‘Islam’ is an Arabic word that denotes submission and obedience. As a religion, Islam has two meanings: general and specific. Islam, in general, refers to the religion which God revealed to all the prophets: the worship of God alone (monotheism) and the avoidance of paganism. This explains why, in the Qur’an, all prophets have called themselves Muslims. According to the Qur’an, all the prophets were Muslims; what they taught was nothing but earlier versions of Islam. Their sincere followers were Muslims as well. Consequently, one should not regard Islam as an innovation that was brought by Prophet Muhammad (blessings and peace be upon him). Instead, it should be regarded as the original message of Allah (in its fundamentals) to all the prophets throughout history. Specifically, the word ‘Islam’ also refers to the religion that was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (blessings and peace be upon him). None of the previous religions were specifically given this name by Allah, except for this last religion – Islam.
Islam was neither named after a person or a group of people, nor was it decided upon by later generations of humans. Indeed, the name ‘Islam’ was given by Allah Himself as is clearly mentioned in the Qur’an in many verses, for example: {Indeed, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islam…} (Qur’an 3: 19)
On the other hand, Christianity was named (by its followers) after Jesus Christ, and Judaism after the tribe of Judah. However, it is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible that the religion of the followers of Prophets Isaac and Moses (peace be upon them) and their descendants is called Judaism, or that the religion of the followers of Christ16 is called Christianity. In other words, the names ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity’ had no divine origin or approval. It was not until long after Jesus’ ascension that the name ‘Christianity’ was given to the religion of those claiming to be his followers. The same applies to Buddhism, which was named after Gautama Buddha, Confucianism after Confucius, and Hinduism after the Persian word for India, ‘Hind’, and so on.
Another reason for calling Christians, Buddhists and others as such is because their followers worship them (in the case of Christ and Buddha). However, Muslims are not called ‘Muhammadans’ because Muslims do not worship Muhammad (blessings and peace be upon him); they worship ‘Allah’ and submit to Him alone. In fact, this phenomenon of naming an ideology after a person has become so common that many mistakenly label Islam as ‘Mohammedanism’, although Muslims have never used, nor do they accept, such a label.
Source: (THE PURPOSE OF CREATION)
Compiled by Majed S. Al-Rassi
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