Aslim Taslam
Encyclopedia
Salvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...
", taken from the letters sent by the Islamic Prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
to various kings and rulers in which he urged them to convert to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
.
Letters of Muhammad
MuhammadMuhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
, according to the usually told Islamic historiography, sent ambassadors with such letters to Heraclius
Heraclius
Heraclius was Byzantine Emperor from 610 to 641.He was responsible for introducing Greek as the empire's official language. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Africa, successfully led a revolt against the unpopular usurper Phocas.Heraclius'...
the emperor of Eastern Roman Empire, Chosroes II the emperor of Persia, the Negus
Negus
Negus is a title in Ge'ez, Tigrinya, Tigre and Amharic, used for a king and at times also a vassal ruler in pre-1974 Ethiopia and pre-1890 Eritrea. It is subsequently used to translate the word "king" in Biblical and other literature...
of Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, Muqawqis
Muqawqis
Al-Muqawqis is mentioned in Islamic history as a ruler of Egypt, who corresponded with the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He is often identified with Cyrus, Patriarch of Alexandria, who administered Egypt on behalf of the Byzantine Empire. However, this identification is challenged as being based on...
the ruler of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Harith Gassani
Harith Gassani
Harith bin Abi Shamir Al-Gassani was an Arab Christian governor of Sham which was in the domain of the Byzantine Empire. He was a contemporary of the prophet Muhammad and King of Damascus now in modern day Syria. He received a letter from Muhammad where he was invited to Islam...
the governor of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
and Munzir ibn Sawa
Munzir ibn Sawa Al Tamimi
Munzir ibn Sawa Al Tamimi was the ruler of Bahrain and Qatar during the age of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. In the 7th century AD, when Muhammad and his companions started preaching Islam throughout the world, the message of Islam was sent by Muhammad to Munzir ibn Sawa Al Tamimi.Prior to Islam,...
the ruler of Bahrain
Bahrain
' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...
. The account as transmitted by Muslim historians reads as follows
Western Translation
Arabic translation
The letter to Chosroes II is similar except that it refers to MagiMagi
Magi is a term, used since at least the 4th century BC, to denote a follower of Zoroaster, or rather, a follower of what the Hellenistic world associated Zoroaster with, which...
ans instead of the Arisiyin.
Similar Letters of Leaders from Muslim countries
On September 17, 2006, in response to the Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversyPope Benedict XVI Islam controversy
The Regensburg lecture was delivered on 12 September 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg in Germany, where he had once served as a professor of theology. It was entitled "Glaube, Vernunft und Universität — Erinnerungen und Reflexionen"...
, characterized by Gazan clerics as "the result of his hatred for Islam and not the result of ignorance." one of them, Sheikh
Sheikh
Not to be confused with sikhSheikh — also spelled Sheik or Shaikh, or transliterated as Shaykh — is an honorific in the Arabic language that literally means "elder" and carries the meaning "leader and/or governor"...
Imad Hamato, called on the pope to "repent and ask for forgiveness" and said: "We want to use the words of the Prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
and tell the pope: aslim taslam."
In May 2006, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, sent a similar letter to former US President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
saying aslim taslam.
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
sent a handful of such letters both to USA and Europe saying aslim taslam
Adam Gadahn, an American-born Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
convert from Al Qaeda, sent a video to the American people and said aslim taslam.
Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian Cleric Hassan Abu Al-Ashbal issued a similar statement aslim taslam to President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
.
Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
spokeperson, Ismail Yusanto said to Nikolas van Dam, the Dutch ambassador for Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
that the Dutch government is responsible for the Fitna (film)
Fitna (film)
Fitna is a 2008 short political, propaganda film by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders with his view on the religion of the Islam. Approximately 17 minutes in length, the movie shows selected excerpts from Suras of the Qur'an, interspersed with media clips and newspaper cuttings showing or...
of Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders is a Dutch right-wing politician and leader of the Party for Freedom , the third-largest political party in the Netherlands. He is the Parliamentary group leader of his party in the Dutch House of Representatives...
and said aslim taslam.
Critical responses
In response to the aslim taslam invitation to submit to God by IslamIslam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, the Italian author and journalist Oriana Fallaci
Oriana Fallaci
Oriana Fallaci was an Italian journalist, author, and political interviewer. A former partisan during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career...
asserted the rejoinder "lan astaslem
Lan astaslem
lan astaslem is an Arabic phrase meaning "I will not surrender". The term is used in reference to Aslim Taslam .- As resistance statement :...
" meaning "I will never surrender/I will never submit/I will never be a Muslim".
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is an American conservative blogger, political commentator, and author. Her weekly syndicated column appears in a number of newspapers and websites. She is a Fox News Channel contributor and has been a guest on MSNBC, C-SPAN, and national radio programs...
has taken up this slogan as a response to the WTC terrorist attacks
See also
- Iyyakum wajahannamIyyakum wajahannamIyyakum wa-jahannam is a phrase meaning "beware of Hell" that is taken from various speeches by the Islamic prophet Muhammad to people urging them to convert to Islam....
- DawahDawahDa‘wah or Dawah usually denotes the preaching of Islam. Da‘wah literally means "issuing a summons" or "making an invitation", being the active participle of a verb meaning variously "to summon" or "to invite"...
- WikiBook: Learn Arabic
- Dictionary of Modern Written ArabicDictionary of Modern Written ArabicThe Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic is an Arabic-English dictionary compiled by Hans Wehr and edited by J Milton Cowan.First published in 1961 by Otto Harrassowitz in Wiesbaden, Germany, it was an enlarged and revised English version of Wehr's German Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache...
- Glossary of Islamic terms in Arabic