Bismillah: In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful.

When we hear the word Islam we take it to mean a major, monotheistic religion, professed by roughly 1.3 billion people in the world today. For some, this is simply the religion of their birth, for others the religion of their choice. For many, Islam appears as a strange, exotic, and even disturbing collage of images portrayed through the media.

The term Islam itself, however, carries a specific meaning in Arabic, a meaning that points to the nature of this major faith, and indicates the essential quality that should be foremost in any sincere adherent of this religion.  Islam, based on the verb aslama, means to surrender one’s whole being to God. Islam is thus the act of surrendering to God, and the related term Muslim is someone who makes this surrender and declares “Thy will be done.” The condition that results from this act of surrender is salaam (another term based on the “s-l-m” root), which means peace, a peace bestowed on a humble heart that recognizes none other than God as the centre of its existence. A Muslim makes this surrender by his lips, verbally witnessing that “there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger.” A Muslim makes this surrender with his body, prostrating his forehead to the ground in daily prayer. And most importantly, a Muslim makes this surrender in his heart, the spiritual organ that determines the entire state of the believer, of sincerity or insincerity.

 The term Islam is thus the most basic definition of a sublime spiritual truth that has attracted and nourished countless generations of Muslim believers: surrender your being entirely to God, recognize that He is at the centre of the universe, and you will find a spiritual peace that can be attained by no other means. This surrender is distinct from suppression or humiliation, psychological states that distance a human being from God, and disturb rather than heal the soul. True spiritual surrender frees the human being from the tyranny of the human ego, that aspect of man which if left undisciplined strives itself to be the centre of existence, subjecting whatever it can to its limitless grasping. True spiritual surrender is also distinct from the projection of one’s ego or anger through a set of religious doctrines, Islamic or otherwise. Likewise, spiritual peace is different from modern “feel good about yourself” philosophies that can be used to justify virtually any state of moral confusion as “creative self-expressions”, as long as they are not “violent” or “unhealthy”.  Spiritual peace is also distinct from passivity in the face of larger moral and spiritual deceptions, and may require active efforts to repent, heal, change and firmly cling to a larger spiritual reality. Salaam, true spiritual peace, comes from an experiential vision of God’s larger pattern in creation, of His balance and harmony pervading all of existence, and of finding one’s actual place in this pattern. This place, according to Islam, is not at the centre, but rather centred on God. The start of all human greatness, according to Islam, is not in impressive technology, power or domination over anything, but in the total surrender of the heart to God. Many actions may be attributed to Islam or committed by Muslims in its name. Yet the spiritual reality that has sustained generations of faithful, despite these abuses, is that God grants His faith and His peace only to the pure, humble, surrendered heart.

“Yea indeed: Whoever surrenders (aslama) his whole being unto God and is a doer of good, his reward is with his Sustainer. There is no fear upon them, and nor will they grieve." (Quran 2:112)

Barbara (Masumah) Helms

(Courtesy of the Standard Freeholder, April 1, 2006)