Lev Navrozov
Monday, Jan. 7, 2002
Before and after Sept. 11, 2001, the most prominent television anchor,
journalist and authority on Islam and the Islamic world was CNN's chief
international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, who was born and grew up
in an Islamic country, Iran.
Thus, as a native of an Islamic country and assisted by Moslem professors
of Islam and Islamic clerics she hosted, she explained that the very word
"Islam" means "Peace" in Arabic, and this is what the Koran is all about.
Hence the 19 terrorists of Sept. 11, 2001 - or rather bin Laden and
al-Qaeda, who allegedly control these terrorists as their "operatives" -
were the enemies of Islam - Peace - which distorted its meaning into its
opposite: The worst kind of aggressive war - terrorist attacks to kill
innocent civilians.
That the word "Islam" means "Peace" was reiterated in unison by all
American (and one Canadian) Moslem professors of Islam and Islamic clerics
in the American mainstream media, following Sept. 11, 2001.
When Soviet Russia was viewed as a military threat, nearly all
"sovietologists" were born Americans, since who could be sure that a
former Soviet Russian was not a KGB agent? On the other hand, as of Sept.
11, 2001, nearly all "islamists" were born Moslems, since for an American
it is far more difficult to learn Arabic than Russian, a foreign yet
Indo-European language, just like French or German.
Naturally, after Sept. 11, 2001, the Moslems in the United States felt
defensive and began to assure the Americans that the word "Islam" means
"Peace." The result was the concerted Islamic propaganda of Islam as Peace
versus its enemies like bin Laden.
Thus, when a Washington Times columnist quoted on Oct. 3, 2001, historian
Paul Johnson to the effect that the "word 'Islam' does not mean 'peace,'
but 'submission,'" the "Moslem scholar" Saleh A. Mubarak declared in a
letter
published in the newspaper three days later, "I don't know historian Paul
Johnson ..." and the moral: "Don't ask a historian, ask a Moslem scholar."
He also advised the columnist to "go to the nearest college and take a
course in Islam 101." In short, an omniscient academic, for whom Arabic is
his mother tongue, pulled to pieces the evil prejudices of a lay
foreigner, an ignoramus, a savage.
The Moslem scholar's militant (rather than peaceful) demonstration that
the word "Islam" means "Peace" was the same as Amanpour's Islamic academy
on TV. The Arab greeting Salaam alaikem! means "Peace unto you!"
Obviously "Islam" and "Salaam" have the same root. See? So Islam means
Peace.
The demonstration must have seemed incontrovertible to many Americans who
had encountered the world-famous greeting and its no less famous
translation, "Peace unto you" in myriad books about Moslems.
So, Moslems do not hail one another by wishing health. The word "hail" in
the Germanic languages comes from the word "health," and the Russian
greeting Zdrastvui means "Be healthy," as does Sei gesund in German and
Yiddish. Now, Moslems, if we are to believe all those translations from
the Arabic, hail one another by wishing peace as against war. No wonder
Islam means Peace, and this is what the Koran is all about.
The only flaw in this demonstration is that the translation "Peace unto
you!" has been a mistranslation, misleading Westerners and Russians for
generations. Let us look at the word "peace" in An Arabic and English
Literary Dictionary, published in Beirut for Moslems:
Peace, [the word sulh in Arabic], sulh. See Quiet, Content, Amity,
Silence. (1)
That is, peace in the military and sociopolitical sense is sulh. The
dictionary illustrates this meaning by examples: "To make peace," "to
renew peace," "to sue for peace," "to infringe the peace," "to observe the
articles of peace." In all of these examples, sulh or its derivative
assulh is used.
But the English word "peace" also has other meanings: "quiet," "content,"
"amity," "silence," and, according to my Webster, "mental tranquility"
("his mind was at peace"), and here salaam comes into play. The
English-Arabic Conversational Dictionary defines the word as "safety
(from faults and defects of body and mind)." (2) That is, perfect bodily
health and perfect
mental tranquility or perfect peace of mind in the sense of perfect mental
tranquility.
But since there is no word in the languages of Christendom that would
combine the two notions (bodily health and mental tranquility), the
translators have been mistranslating
"Perfect-bodily-health-and-perfect-mental-tranquility unto you!" or
"Perfect bodily and mental health unto you!" as "Peace unto you!" and
readers in Christendom have been understanding the word "peace" in this
mistranslation in the sense of peace as against war, and certainly not in
the sense of perfect bodily and mental health wished in this famous
Islamic greeting.
Besides, the English-Arabic Conversational Dictionary warns Christians:
"This greeting is, however, used by Moslems only; towards and by
Christians it is never employed." (3) That is, its strict meaning is "Our
Islamic perfect bodily and mental health unto you, a Moslem, from me, a
Moslem."
This is just how an Islamic terrorist can greet his comrade-in-arms
without
diminishing, doubting, or questioning in any way what they perceive as the
supreme divine value of their terrorist attack on infidels in the name of
Islam. Nor is it clear why the Islamic terrorists should not live and die
in a state of Islamic perfect bodily and mental health, as wished in the
traditional Islamic greeting.
It is true that the word "islam" is of the same root as the word "salaam"
(bodily and mental health). But the English word "submission," for
example, is of the same root as "mission," but it does not mean "mission,"
or
"permission," or "admission."
My Oxford English Dictionary in 12 volumes, which is published and sold by
the Oxford University Press in Moslem countries as well, explains that the
word "islam" means in Arabic literally "resigning, surrendering." The verb
"aslama" means "he resigned or surrendered (himself)" and specifically,
"he became or was resigned or submissive to God." Hence the name of the
religion founded by Muhammad.
Arabic dictionaries, published in Moslem countries, define the name of
this religion as a person's resignation, submission, surrender (to the
God as
revealed to Muhammad). This gives that person salaam, perfect bodily and
mental health, and hence Moslems, that is, those who have thus resigned,
submitted, surrendered, wish one another salaam, perfect health of body
and mind, mistranslated into the languages of Christendom as "peace" and
hence misunderstood in Christendom as peace in the military sense, the
antonym of war.
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