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who would object to this interpretation to produce an
Arabic word besides Islam and Salam as the equivalent of
the shalom, and also to find for us another word in Hebrew
besides shalom that would convey and express the same
meaning as Islam. It is impossible to produce another
such an equivalent. Therefore, we are forced to admit that
shalom is the same as “salam” or “peace” in the abstract,
and “Islam” as a religion and faith in the concrete.
4. As the Quran in (chap. ii.) Expressly reminds us
that Abraham (pbuh) and his sons and grandsons were the
followers of Islam; [1].
That they were neither Jews nor Christians; that they
preached and propagated the worship and the faith in the
one God to all the peoples among whom they sojourned or
dwelt, we must admit that not only the Jews, but several
other nations that descended from the other sons of
Abraham (pbuh) and many tribes converted and absorbed by
them, were also Muslims; that is to say, believers in Allah
and resigned to His will. There were the people of Esau,
the Edomites, the Midianites, and numerous other peoples
living in Arabia, who knew God and worshipped Him like
the Israelites. These peoples had also their own prophets
and religious guides like Job, Jethro (the father-in-law of
the Prophet Moses (pbuh) , Balaam, Hud (pbuh) , and many
others. But they, like the Jews, had taken to idolatry until
it was totally eradicated by the Prince of the prophets. The
Jews, in about the fifth century B.C., produced the greater
portion of their canonical books of the Old Testament,
when the memories of the conquest of the land of Canaan
by Joshua, the temple and Jerusalem of Solomon (pbuh) ,
were events buried in the past epochs of their wondrous
[1] Qur-án,3: 67. Abraham was not a Jew nor yet a Christian; but he was Upright,
and bowed his will to Allah.s (Which is Islam), and he joined not gods with Allah.
Qur-án, 3: 68. Without doubt, among men, the nearest of kin to Abraham, are those
who follow him, as are also this Prophet and those who believe: And Allah is the
Protector of those who have faith.)Editors›(.