Don’t you just hate Muslims? So did I.

Surrender.  That’s precisely how to describe it.  So many converts to Islam have said the same thing.   It’s not that I wanted to become Muslim.  I hated Islam.  I was running away from it.  But it was this persistent nagging of my soul that kept dragging me back.  While my brain was fleeing far away, my heart was magnetized to Islam and the intense need to get answers to life. 

I couldn’t understand how someone could betray their family, their way of life, their “Greekness” and become a traitor to our civilised culture.

I barely knew anything about Islam but I did know that whoever would sell their soul for some backward religion is wacko.  When I met Muslims in my university program, I was befuddled.  You can imagine the hot debates we had – trinity, salvation, women, violence and on and on.  

When I didn’t know the answer, my arrogance and defensiveness would kick in.  In retrospect, I think my debater could call my bluff, but respectfully didn’t.  So, what did I do?  The only sensible thing.  Go back to the church.  And I did.  I started to open up my dusty Bible that I received after graduating from Sunday school.  The inscription reads,

“Holy Bible presented to …. May this be an inspiration throughout your entire life.  God bless you.”

Signed, my teacher

Little does my teacher know her supplication was answered.  The Bible was the first step that led me to Islam.  I became obsessed with Christianity.  Of course, I was the only young person at church during the week and my mom was really proud of me. But something happened.  Things just didn’t make sense.  There was a clear contradiction between what my Muslim classmates were telling me and what I was studying.  And I needed to prove them wrong.  So, when no one was looking, I would sneak into the library to grab any information I could about Islam to attack them with it (this was pre-Google days people!).  I even met with my priest to see if he could clear up my confusion, but no success there.

After months of studying secretly and debate after debate, continuously searching for loop-holes so I can dismiss this weird religion and get my sanity back, inside me, I knew I was losing, even though I would never admit it, even to myself.  I was fighting a fight that couldn’t be won but I would die trying.

Until one day, I just knew there was no more.  And the only thing left for me to do was surrender to the truth.  Islam. 

No wonder Islam means surrender.

Islam does NOT mean peace

 

Contrary to popular belief amongst Muslims, Islam does NOT mean peace.  The actual word, Islam, has a very powerful meaning.  So, let’s get into it.

Arabic works by root words, containing a combination of root letters.  For example, the word for peace is salaam ( سلام ),

 

Once you know a root word, you can fairly easily know 100 derivative words because they all use the same root letters. These words make up a root family.

So, here’s the catch.  Even though the word Islam shares root letters salaam (s-l-m), it comes from a different root family so it does not carry the exact same meaning as salaam (peace) in Arabic or ειρήνη in Greek.

   

But it doesn’t stop there.  Because it uses the same root letters, it has a connotation of peace in its meaning as well.  In fact, it also includes connotations of other words too.  Five words in all. Watch this 1 min video for the five words:

 

 

So, next time you hear someone saying Islam means peace, you can say, hey, wait a minute,  the word Islam actually means:

 

Surrending your will to God’s will, submitting to God’s commandments, doing this in true obedience and sincerity and peace.

And so what do you predict the word Muslim means?

 

A Muslim (مسلم) is simply the one who surrenders their will to God’s will, submitting to God’s commandments, doing this in true obedience and sincerity and peace.

 

Are you a Muslim?