Islam
- 1The religion of Muslims, a monotheistic faith in the Abrahamic tradition founded on the Qur'an and the teachings of Muhammad.
Islam spread rapidly across the Arabian Peninsula during the seventh century.
He has practiced Islam since childhood, fasting each year during Ramadan.
Note
The name describes an act rather than a person: English borrowed it around 1610 from Arabic ʔislām, "submission, surrender", the verbal noun of ʔaslama, built on the consonant root s-l-m. As the name of the faith it is capitalized, takes no article and is usually uncountable (Islam teaches, never an Islam teaches). A plural, Islams, does exist, but it is the exception.
- 2The Muslim world as a whole; the lands, peoples, and cultures within the sphere of influence of the Muslim religion.
Coffee houses spread across Islam long before the drink reached Europe.
Pilgrims and traders moved along the roads that bound Islam together, from Morocco to Central Asia.
Note
Here the name of a faith stretches to cover a whole civilization, and it behaves like the name of an empire or a region. Jacques Verger, in A History of the University in Europe (2003), sets Islam beside the Roman Empire, Byzantium and China as a civilization with its own higher learning. Geographic company gives it away: across Islam, throughout Islam. Muslimdom covers the same ground without being mistaken for the faith itself.
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Origin
Borrowed around 1610 from Arabic إِسْلَام (ʔislām, "submission, surrender"), a verbal noun of أَسْلَمَ (ʔaslama), from the root س ل م (s-l-m).