Not a Mohammedan

Assalaamu alaikum [Peace be to you],

Imagine if I call the American people Washingtonians. for example, "I met a Washingtonian yesterday". or "the Washingtonian president went to Europe". or "I have many Washingtonian friends"...
that sounds silly, no? it looks like they are followers of George Washington...
Americans already have a word to describe them. there is no need to invent a new one for that. right?

Same with Muslims...

According to Islamic belief, the Prophet Mohammed was the last Messenger of God. He, like all of God's prophets and messengers - such as Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, John the baptist and Jesus -peace be upon them all- was only a human being. But many Christians came to the mistaken assumption that Muslims worship Mohammed by formulating an incorrect analogy - the Christians worship Jesus so Muslims must be worshipping Mohammed. This is one of the reasons that they called Muslims by the incorrect name "Mohammedans" for so many years! what helped spread this misconception in the west is the writings of many Western historians and religious scholars who authored a number of books about Islam, Muslims and the Middle east in the past centuries...

Muslims strongly dislike the word Mohammedanism and insist on the word Islam. It's true that Muslims revere Mohammed -peace be upon him- as a glorious Prophet but they insist on making clear that he is not a god and does not deserve to have their religion named for him. They feel that Islam is the only correct name chosen by the God for the right path he decided for mankind. The Arabic word "Islam" means total submission to the will of the God. the word "Muslim" means he who submits to the will of the God. more on the meaning of the word Islam can be found in the description here:

Mohammed -peace be upon him-, like Jesus -peace be upon him-, never claimed divine status. He called people to worship only the Almighty God, and he continually emphasized his humanity so that people would not fall into the same errors as the nations who came before and took humans as partners in worship with the Almighty God. In order to prevent his deification, the Prophet Mohammed always said to refer to him as "the Messenger of God and His servant".
Muslims strive to follow the great example of Mohammed -peace be upon him-, but they do not worship him in any way.

Additionally, Islam teaches Muslims to respect all of God's prophets and messengers - but respecting and loving them does not mean worshipping them. All true Muslims realize that all worship and prayer must be directed to Almighty God alone. Suffice it to say that worshipping Mohammed or anyone else along with Almighty God is called shirk and considered to be the worst sin in Islam. Even if a person claims to be Muslim, but they worship and pray to other than Almighty God, this cancels and nullifies their Islam. The Declaration of Faith of Islam (said when someone converts to Islam) makes it clear that Muslims are taught only to worship God. This declaration is as follows: "There is nothing divine or worthy of being worshipped except for Almighty God, and Mohammed is the Messenger and Servant of God".

The words "Mohammedan" and "Mohammedanism" reflect total ignorance of the meaning of the words Islam, Muslim, and the Message of the prophet Mohammed -peace be upon him-. if you are a non-Muslim and you want to refer to Islam and Muslims, don't fall in the mistake of using wrong terminology.


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I hope that's beneficial...

Wassalaamu alaikum