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A Muslim is an adherent of the religion of Islam. Literally, the word means "one who submits (to God)". In a religious sense, however, Al-Islām translates to "faith, piety", and Muslim to "one who has (religious) faith or piety". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islām is the infinitive. The Arabic muslimun is the stem IV participle of the triliteral S-L-M, "to be whole, intact". A literal translation would be "one who wants or seeks wholeness", where "wholeness" translates islāmun. The feminine form is Muslimah. Currently, there are an estimated 1.4 billion Muslims, making it the second largest religion in the world.[1]
 Muslims are found throughout various parts of the world, including China. |
2. "Muslim" is sometimes spelled "Moslem", which some regard as offensive.[1] English writers of the 19th century and earlier sometimes used the words Mussulman, Musselman, or Mussulmaun, with variant forms still being used by many Indo-European languages. These words are similar to the Turkish, Bosnian, Kurdish, Persian, French, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Hindi and Portuguese words for "Muslim". Until at least the mid-1960s, many English-language writers used the term Mohammedans or Mahometans.[1] However, many Muslims argue that the terms are offensive because they allegedly imply that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God.
4. Muslims believe that:
- there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allāh;
- Islam existed long before Muhammad and that the religion had evolved with time, from the time of Adam until the time of Muhammad;
- making ritual prayer five times a day to be a religious duty; these five prayers are known as fajr, dhuhr, ˤasr, maghrib and ˤishā'. There is also a special Friday prayer called jumuˤah.
However, most Muslims accept as a Muslim anyone who has publicly pronounced the Shahadah that states, "There is no god except God and Muhammad is His Messenger."
5. According to the academician Carl Ernst, contemporary usage of the terms "Islam" and "Muslim" for the faith and its adherents is a modern innovation. Faith is one of the major topics of the Qur'an, mentioned hundreds of times in the Qur'an, while the term "Islam" occurs only eight times. Early Muslims also distinguished between the Muslim who has "submitted" and does the bare minimum required to be considered a part of the community, and the mu'min, the believer, who has given himself or herself to the faith heart and soul. In fact, one of the verses in the Qur'an does make a distinction between a mu'min, a believer, and a Muslim:
- The Arabs of the desert say, "We believe." (tu/minu) Say thou: Ye believe not; but rather say, "We profess Islam;" (aslamna) for the faith (al-imanu) hath not yet found its way into your hearts. But if ye obey [God] and His Apostle, he will not allow you to lose any of your actions: for [God] is Indulgent, Merciful ('The Koran 49:14, Rodwell). more... at Wikipedia
