Featured Content Page about: muslim

A Muslim , ˈmʊslɪm, is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means ''one who submits (to God)''. ''Muslim'' is the participle of the same verb of which ''Islam'' is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah. Muslims believe that Islam existed long before Muhammad and that the religion had evolved with time from the time of Adam until the time of Muhammad and was completed with the revelation of verse 3 of Surah al-Maeda:''This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion''.The Qur'an describes many Biblical prophets and messengers as Muslim: Adam, Noah (Arabic: ''Nuh''), Moses and Jesus and his apostles. The Qur'an states that these men were Muslims because they submitted to God, preached his message and upheld his values. Thus, in Surah 3:52 of the Qur'an, Jesus’ disciples tell Jesus, ''We believe in God; and you be our witness that we submit and obey (''wa ashahadu bil-muslimūna'').''

Muslims consider making ritual prayer five times a day a religious duty (''fard'') (see the section on Ismāˤīlīs below for exceptions); these five prayers are known as ''fajr'', ''dhuhr'', ''ˤasr'', ''maghrib'' and ''ˤishā'''. There is also a special Friday prayer called ''jumuˤah''. Currently, the number of Muslims is estimated to be between 1.25 and 1.84 billion.

Etymology

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''. In a religious sense, ''Al-Islām'' translates to ''faith, piety'', and ''Muslim'' to ''one who has (religious) faith or piety''.

The feminine form of ''muslimun'' is muslimatun .

Other words for Muslim

The ordinary word in English is ''Muslim'', pronounced /'mʊs.lɪm/ or /'mʌz.ləm/. The word is pronounced /'mʊslɪm/ in Arabic. It is sometimes transliterated ''Moslem'', which some regard as offensive.

Until at least the mid-1960s, many English-language writers used the term ''Mohammedans'' or ''Mahometans''. Muslims argue that the terms are offensive because they allegedly imply that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God.

English writers of the 19th century and earlier sometimes used the words ''Mussulman'', ''Musselman'', or ''Mussulmaun''.date=January 2009 Variant forms of this word are still 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''.

Islam

Most Muslims accept as a Muslim anyone who has publicly pronounced the ''Shahadah'' (declaration of faith) which states,

Ash-hadu an laa ilaha illa-lah

Wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah

''I bear witness there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah

and I bear witness, Muhammad is His final messenger''.

Currently, there are between one and two billion Muslims, making it the second largest religion in the world.

Muslim and mu'min

One of the verses in the Qur'an makes a distinction between a ''mu'min'', a believer, and a Muslim:

According to the academician Carl Ernst, contemporary usage of the terms ''Islam'' and ''Muslim'' for the faith and its adherents is a modern innovation. As shown in the Quranic passage cited above, early Muslims 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. Ernst writes:

For another term in Islam for a non-Muslim who is a monotheist believer (usually applied historically in a pre-Islamic context), see hanif.