The word “Muslim” in the Bible:
A Linguistic and Theological Inquiry into
Isaiah 42:19
Mushafiq Sultan
One of the Qur’an’s central theological
assertions is that all prophets across human history were
sent with the same essential religion—islam—which denotes
submission to the will of God. The Qur’an explicitly names
this religion as the only one acceptable to God:
اِنَّ الدِّیۡنَ عِنۡدَ اللّٰهِ
الۡاِسۡلَامُ. (19:3)
Islam is the only
religion in God’s sight. (3:19)
وَ مَنۡ یَّبۡتَغِ
غَیۡرَ الۡاِسۡلَامِ دِیۡنًا فَلَنۡ یُّقۡبَلَ مِنۡهُ وَ هُوَ
فِی الۡاٰخِرَةِ مِنَ الۡخٰسِرِیۡنَ. (85:3)
And He who would
like to choose a religion other than Islam, it shall never
be accepted from him whatsoever and in the world to come he
will be from among the losers. (3:85)
This idea is further reinforced in
Qur’an 42:13, where the religion of Noah, Abraham, Moses,
Jesus, and Muhammad (peace be upon them all) is identified
as a unified, continuous path of divine guidance.
According to this framework, all those
who surrendered themselves to God’s will in earlier
dispensations—be they Israelites under Moses or disciples of
Jesus—may properly be termed Muslims in the Qur’anic sense.
This is consistent with the Qur’an’s broader conception of
religion as primordial and universal:
اَفَغَیۡرَ دِیۡنِ اللّٰهِ یَبۡغُوۡنَ وَ
لَهُ اَسۡلَمَ مَنۡ فِی السَّمٰوٰتِ وَ الۡاَرۡضِ طَوۡعًا وَّ
کَرۡهًا وَّ اِلَیۡهِ یُرۡجَعُوۡنَ. (83:3)
So, do these
people now seek a religion other than God’s even though all
things in the heavens and the earth are obedient to Him,
willingly or unwillingly and to Him shall they be returned.
(3:83)
It is thus difficult
to negate the existence of Islam (in the sense of
submission) in earlier times. The Bible, which is the most
substantial and authentic pre-Qur’anic religious source,
also emphasizes submission as the essence of true
religion.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus (pbuh)
says:
For I came down from
heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent
me. (John 6:38)
David (pbuh) similarly affirms in the
Psalms,
I delight to do your
will, O my God; your law is within my heart. (Psalm 40:8)
Teach me to do your
will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a
level path. (Psalms 143:10)
These and many other
examples highlight that submission to God’s will is the
essential trait of the truly faithful, mirroring the
Qurʾanic notion of islam. Yet, one might inquire whether
words like “Islam” or “Muslim” explicitly appear in sources
predating the Qur’an.
Qur’anic Reference to the Antiquity of
the Term Muslim
The Qur’an also supports the antiquity
of the designation Muslim. Qur’an 22:78
recalls the “way (millat) of Abraham (pbuh)” and adds:
هُوَ سَمَّىٰكُمُ ٱلْمُسْلِمِينَ مِن
قَبْلُ وَفِي هَـٰذَا …
It was he who had
earlier named you Muslim and in this [Qur’an] also [your
name is Muslim] …
Classical exegetes
differ as to whether the pronominal subject is God or
Abraham (pbuh), yet in either case the verse
unambiguously suggests that the identity of being a Muslim
predates the time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
The question then arises: do pre-Qur’anic
sources outside the Qur’an bear witness to this term’s
existence?
Isaiah 42:19 and the Hebrew Mešullam
One of the more striking textual
resonances with this Qurʿanic idea of Muslim is found in
Isaiah 42:19. The verse reads in Hebrew:
מי עור כי אם־עבדי וחרש כמלאכי אשלח מי עור
כמשלם ועור כעבד יהוה׃
mî ʿiwwēr kî ʾim‑ʿabdî
we‑hērēš k‑malʾakî ʾeshlah
mî ʿiwwēr k‑mešullam
we‑ʿiwwēr k‑ʿebed YHWH
This is variously translated in English
versions:
KJV: “Who is blind, but my servant? or
deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that
is perfect, and blind as the LORD’S servant?”
NRSV: “Who is blind but my servant, or
deaf like my messenger whom I send? Who is blind like my
dedicated one, or blind like the servant of the LORD?”
NIV: “Who is blind but my servant, and
deaf like the messenger I send? Who is blind like the one in
covenant with me, blind like the servant of the LORD?”
Isaiah describes the collective Israel
metaphorically as a blind and deaf servant entrusted with
divine guidance yet failing to uphold its covenant
responsibilities. Among the descriptive terms is the Hebrew
משלם (mešullam), closely resembling
the Arabic مسلم (muslim). The
Hebrew term מְשּׁוּלַם (mešullam) is
traditionally understood to mean “dedicated,” “perfected,”
or “one at peace,” derived from the root
ש‐ל‐ם (š-l-m), which bears meanings related to
completeness, reconciliation, and peace. The same root is
shared by the Hebrew word šalōm and the Arabic words salam
(peace) and muslim (one who submits), reflecting a broader
Semitic semantic field. The phonetic shift between Hebrew š
and Arabic s is regular in comparative Semitic linguistics,
as seen in other examples such as Hebrew šēm / Arabic ism
(name).
This linguistic correspondence has not
gone unnoticed by biblical commentators:
Mešullam and
Exegetical Works
Several Bible
commentaries discuss “mešullam” in
Isaiah 42:19:
Ellicott’s
Commentary for English Readers notes:
As he that is
perfect. — Strictly speaking, the devoted, or surrendered
one. The Hebrew meshullam is interesting, as connected with
the modern Moslem and Islam, the man resigned to the will of
God. The frequent use of this, or a cognate form, as a
proper name after the exile (1 Chron. ix. 21; Ezra viii. 6,
x. 15; Neh. iii. 4) may (on either assumption as to the date
of 2 Isaiah) be connected with it by some link of causation.
Other meanings given to it have been “perfect” as in the
Authorised Version, “confident,” “recompensed,”
“meritorious.”
The Pulpit
Commentary observes:
As he that is
perfect; rather, as he that receives reward from me (see
Prov. xi. 31; xiii. 13). The word used is connected
etymologically with the Arabic muslim (our “Moslem”); but it
does not appear to have had the sense of “surrender” or
“submission” in Hebrew.
George A. F. Knight
offers a particularly illuminating discussion that explores
multiple interpretive possibilities:
The shocking
reality, however, is that “he with whom the all-embracing
covenant has been made” cannot grasp the majesty of his
calling. These ten words seek to translate just the one word
dedicated in Hebrew. My translation is but one of several
possible ways of rendering it. If the root is m-sh-l, then
the word has to do with “reporting in story form.” If it is
sh-l-m, then it might be vowelled to mean “he who has been
granted shalom, peace.” But in DI’s
day, the root sh-l-m conveyed the idea of wholeness,
completeness, fullness, comprehensiveness, and the like. Yet
“peace” implies all these things. Solomon (from this root)
was meant to be the man with the whole heart (1 Kings 11:4).
A generation before DI’s day, Ezekiel had declared that God
said to Israel “I will make with them a complete, total,
comprehensive covenant” (34:25; 37:26). Today we have to
learn to distinguish between what our newspaper means by
peace and what DI meant by the word. On the other hand,
others have translated this four-consonant word by “devoted”
or “dedicated” in that it may be vowelled in a manner
similar to the Arabic word muslim, “he who is devoted to
God.” Others suggest that the word might be rendered by
“rewarded”, or “paid”, and so “hired”, all of these being
adjectives added to the noun servant. Whatever way we decide
to translate it, we should note that it has become an
epithet for Israel, in the same way as has Jeshurun at 44:2.
In his commentary on
Isaiah, Cheyne renders mešullam as “the surrendered
one.” Further explaining this word, he writes:
[the surrendered
one] One might almost say, “as the Moslem,” for the
prophet’s word (mĕshullam) is closely akin to the Arabic
muslim (Moslem), i.e., “he that devoteth or submitteth
himself (to God).” Comp. Emerson: “A more surrendered soul,
more informed and led by God.” Apparently this word became a
favourite among the pious Jews in later times. It appears as
a proper name in Ezra viii. 16, x. 15, 29, and the fem.
Meshullemeth (before the Exile), 2 Kings xxi. 19. Comp. also
the frequent expression lēbh shalēm, “a perfect (= devoted)
heart.”
Cheyne further
points out that Mĕshullam and Meshullemeth were often
adopted as a personal names among Jewish men and women, akin
to “Muslim” and “Muslimah” in Arabic-speaking contexts.
These scholarly
resources confirm that mešullam connotes “devoted” or “one
in covenantal loyalty,” and is likely used in Isaiah 42:19
in a deeply ironic way: the “devoted one” has become
spiritually blind.
Historical Reception in South Asian
Bible Translations
The first complete
Urdu (Hindustani) translation of the Bible was published in
Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1843. The second volume, covering
Job through Malachi, contains the following translation of
Isaiah 42:19 directly from the Hebrew text:
اندھا کون ہے مگر میرا بندہ۔ اور کون ایسا
بہرا ہے جیسا میرا رسول جسے میں نے بھیجا، کون مسلم کا سا
اندھا اور عبداللہ کا سا اندھا ہے۔
Who is blind but My
servant? And who is as deaf as My messenger whom I have
sent? Who is as blind as “Muslim,” and as blind as
“Abdullah”?
This rendering
demonstrates the interpretive transparency with which South
Asian translators of the nineteenth century viewed the
semantic link between mešullam and muslim. Whether
deliberate or incidental, the translation reflects a
theological insight that aligns with Qurʾanic affirmation of
the term’s antiquity.
Conclusion
Isaiah 42:19 offers compelling
linguistic and theological evidence for the pre-Qur’anic
usage of a term closely resembling muslim—mešullam—to
describe one wholly devoted or surrendered to God. Mešullam
in Isaiah 42:19 is a rare but profoundly theological
epithet, commonly rendered as “the wholly-devoted one.” Its
lexical and phonetic features, when viewed through the lens
of historical Semitic linguistics, reveal a striking
resemblance to the Arabic word muslim— “one who
submits”—once the standard phonological shifts between
cognate Semitic languages are taken into account. This
observation, though philologically subtle, has not gone
unnoticed: Biblical commentators have drawn attention to
this parallel, in some cases explicitly identifying the
Hebrew mešullam with the Arabic muslim. Within the context
of Isaiah 42:19, this association gains theological weight,
as the verse appears to confront Israel with the very title
that encapsulates its divinely ordained vocation—complete
submission to God. The rhetorical force of the verse thus
lies in its implicit critique: Israel, as the supposed
mešullam, is indicted not for ignorance but for failing to
embody the ideal of submission inherent in its own calling.
When viewed in light of Qur’anic
affirmations that islam—understood as total surrender to the
divine will—has been the consistent and perennial message of
all true prophets, the resonance between mešullam and muslim
acquires intertextual significance. Isaiah 42:19, in this
view, becomes a potent scriptural witness to the continuity
of God’s call to submission from the Abrahamic legacy,
through the biblical prophetic tradition, and culminating in
the mission of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Far
from being a linguistic coincidence, the convergence of
these terms across Hebrew and Arabic may reflect a deeper
theological unity that transcends the historical divisions
between the scriptural communities.
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