Encyclopedia of Islam

See also  a

khbari

  s

chool

; 

colonialism

;  g

UlF

s

tates

; o

ttoman

 

dynasty

; s

elJUk

 

dynasty

; s

hiism

.

Further reading: Thabit Abdullah, A Short History of 

Iraq: From 636 to the Present (London: Pearson/Long-

man, 2003); Hugh Kennedy, When Baghdad Ruled the 

Iraq

  

371  J

---

World: The Rise and Fall of Islam’s Greatest Dynasty

(Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2005); Kanan 

Makiya,  Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Yitzhak 

Nakash,  The Shiis of Iraq (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton 

University Press, 1994); Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq

(London: Penguin Books, 1992); Vali Nasr, The Shia 

Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future

(New York: W.W. Norton, 2006).

Isa

  See j

esus

.

islah

  See 

renewal

 

and

 

reform

 

movements

.

Islam

The name for the second-largest religion in the 

world after Christianity, Islam is a word formed 

from the Arabic consonants s-l-m. It is related to 

the Arabic word for “peace,” salam, which is one 

of the 99 most beautiful 

names

 

oF

  g

od

 and also 

a cognate of the Hebrew word shalom. One of 

the names for 

paradise

 in Arabic is Dar al-Salam,

House of Peace. Using these consonants to form 

the verbal noun islam creates the meaning “to 

enter into a state of peace,” which is convention-

ally translated into English as “surrender” or 

“submission.” The word muslim is an active par-

ticiple based on the same word; hence, a Muslim 

is literally “one who enters a state of peace,” “one 

who surrenders,” or “one who submits.” Islam, 

therefore, is an action that brings two parties 

into a peaceful relationship, the one who sur-

renders and the one to whom one surrenders. In 

most contexts, it describes a relationship between 

humans and one sovereign God, but it can also 

describe a relationship between all creation and 

the divine creator. According to Islamic teachings, 

surrender to God leads to eternal salvation.

Unlike names of other major religions such 

as Hinduism and Buddhism, which were coined 

by Western scholars in the 18th and 19th centu-

ries,  Islam has been used by Muslims as a name 

for their own religion since the early centuries of 

their history. The term occurs seven times in the 

q

Uran

 in passages usually dated to the Medinan 

period of m

Uhammad

’s career (between 622 and 

632), when he and his followers increasingly had 

to differentiate their religious beliefs and practices 

from those associated with others, especially Jews, 

Christians, and polytheists. The most well-known 

verse where Islam occurs in the Quran is Q 5:3:

Today those who have disbelieved in your reli-

gion [din] are miserable, so do not fear them. 

Fear me. Today I have perfected your religion 

for you, bestowed my grace upon you, and 

chosen Islam for you as your religion.

These words were accompanied by com-

mandments concerning dietary laws, 

haJJ

 rituals, 

and relations with people of other religions. They 

indicate that toward the end of Muhammad’s life, 

probably when he performed the farewell pil-

grimage (ca. 632), Islam was being represented 

as a set of specific religious practices legislated 

by God. These practices placed Muslims in jux-

taposition to those who practiced disbelief, the 

kafirs.

The idea of submission to God through out-

ward actions was linked in the Quran not only to 

fearing God but also having 

Faith

 (iman). Indeed, 

the Arabic words for faith-belief (iman) and 

believer (mumin) and related terms occur much 

more frequently in the Quran than the words 

islam and muslim. Iman alone occurs 44 times, and 

the term for believers (muminun-muminin) occurs 

179 times. The meanings of these words some-

times overlap in quranic usage, but in the 

hadith

they become more distinguishable. In the Hadith 

of g

abriel

, for example, islam was expressly iden-

tified with the F

ive

  p

illars

 (testimony of faith, 

prayer

, 

almsgiving

, 

Fasting

, and hajj), while iman

was identified with belief in God, 

angel

s, 

holy

books

, prophets, and J

Udgment

 d

ay

. The specifics 

of Islam as practice were subsequently developed 

K  372  

Isa

---

primarily in the contexts of religious law, the 

sharia

, which sought to encompass all facets of 

life in the Muslim community. The cornerstones 

of Islamic belief were captured in the 

shahada

:

“There is no god but God and Muhammad is his 

messenger.” Other aspects of faith were expressed 

in the Quran, the hadith, and later creedal state-

ments. The inward and experiential aspect of 

Islam was explored in more depth by Sufi mystics. 

theology

, however, never attained the promi-

nence in Islamic religion that it held in Christian-

ity. Muslims were held more answerable for their 

wrongful acts than for unorthodox beliefs.

Although Muslims see Islam as a unique 

monotheistic religion, they also believe that it is 

one of a group of Abrahamic religions interlinked 

through a common mythic lineage to the ancient 

biblical patriarch and quranic prophet a

braham

.

The Quran, for example, mentions the millat 

Ibrahim, the religion of Abraham, eight times. It 

states, “Who is better in religion than he who 

submits himself completely to God while doing 

what is right and follows, as a believer in one God, 

the religion of Abraham?” (Q 4:125). This verse 

links Abraham’s religion with performing an act 

of submission. Elsewhere in the Quran, Abraham 

asks God to make him, his son, and their descen-

dants his submitters (or Muslims, Q 2:128). 

Islam, therefore, is seen as the one true religion 

proclaimed by Abraham and all the other prophets 

until Muhammad. Jews and Christians are consid-

ered to be p

eople

 

oF

 

the

 b

ook

 who, like Muslims, 

believe in one God and possess sacred scriptures 

that came from the same heavenly source, the 

“mother of the book” (Q 43:4).

One consequence of this belief concerning 

other religions was that wherever Muslims ruled, 

People of the Book were guaranteed “protected” 

(

dhimmi

) status under the sharia, as long as they 

paid their taxes, recognized the authority of the 

Muslim ruler, and did not proselytize Muslims. 

Muslim authorities in i

ndia

 even recognized Hin-

dus as People of the Book with their own prophets 

and scriptures. Of course, history has shown that 

these protections were not always observed, how-

ever. Muslims understood that their religion could 

not accept disbelief and 

idolatry

, but they also 

recognized that Islam obliged them to establish 

relations with followers of other religions. This 

outlook was also reflected in a concept the ulama 

called the dar al-Islam (house of Islam), a desig-

nation for territories ruled by Muslims but that 

included protected non-Muslim resident commu-

nities. This realm was opposed to the dar al-harb

(house of war), which was not under Muslim 

rule and which under certain conditions could be 

made a target for 

Jihad

.

ISlAM IN WESTErN EyES

Understandings of Islam among Europeans and 

Americans have been shaped by the historical 

interactions of Muslims and non-Muslims through 

the centuries. During the Middle Ages—the era 

of the c

rUsades

 and the Christian conquest 

of Spain—many Europeans saw Islam as the 

heretical or idolatrous religion of the enemy. 

They regarded Muhammad as a demon named 

Mahound, a false prophet or a magician and 

charlatan. In his Divine Comedy, the famed Italian 

poet Dante Alighieri (d. 1321) placed Muhammad 

and his cousin Ali in the level of hell reserved for 

people who caused religious division and dissent. 

Other Christian writers called Muslims pagans, 

gentiles, Saracens, or Moors, terms that usually 

connoted the superiority of Christianity, which 

they saw as the one true religion. Admittedly, a 

handful of medieval scholars sought a deeper, 

more accurate understanding of Islam, but others 

studied it to refute its truth claims and to convert 

Muslims. Negative European understandings of 

Islam continued in the 15th and 16th centuries, 

when Europe was confronted with the threat of 

invasion by the Ottoman Empire. Turkish armies 

seized Constantinople (i

stanbUl

) in 1453 and 

soon gained control of much of eastern Europe 

and the eastern Mediterranean. The words Turk

and  Muslim became synonymous, usually with 

negative connotations.