Posted on 09/13/2010 1:34:04 PM PDT by paterfamilias
Is it Muslim or Moslem?
When Baby Boomers were children it was Moslem. The American Heritage Dictionary (1992) noted, "Moslem is the form predominantly preferred in journalism and popular usage. Muslim is preferred by scholars and by English-speaking adherents of Islam." No more. Now, almost everybody uses Muslim.
According to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, "Moslem and Muslim are basically two different spellings for the same word." But the seemingly arbitrary choice of spellings is a sensitive subject for many followers of Islam. Whereas for most English speakers, the two words are synonymous in meaning, the Arabic roots of the two words are very different. A Muslim in Arabic means "one who gives himself to God," and is by definition, someone who adheres to Islam. By contrast, a Moslem in Arabic means "one who is evil and unjust" when the word is pronounced, as it is in English, Mozlem with a z.
For others, this spelling differentiation is merely a linguistic matter, with the two spellings a result of variation in transliteration methods. Both Moslem and Muslim are used as nouns. But some writers use Moslem when the word is employed as an adjective.
Journalists switched to Muslim from Moslem in recent years under pressure from Islamic groups. But the use of the word Moslem has not entirely ceased. Established institutions which used the older form of the name have been reluctant to change. The American Moslem Foundation is still the American Moslem Foundation (much as the NAACP is still the NAACP--the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The journal The Moslem World--published by the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut--is still The Moslem World.
(References at link)
That does it for me. I vote for "Moslem"
I didn’t know that... “Moslem” it’ll be!
either will be a tranliteration of the Arabic letters into the latin. Is it Hannukah or Channukah?
Maybe Moslem sounds too much like Mazel Tov?
Because it’s not anything any normal American has ever had more than a passing interest it, and nobody really cared what the most “correct” word was.
Or maybe Mohammedan, Mohammedans, and Mohammedanism? That’s the old way!
Hear Hear.
I shall henceforth, call it Moslem.
Before Muslim.... Before Moslem.....
It was Mohammedanism.
Um....what isn't?
Chi-lee is now Chee-lay.
Porto is now Pwerto.
Pack-ih-stan is now Pah-kee-stahn.
Peking is now Bay-zhing
Bombay is now Mumbai
Pseudo-intellectual posturing.
Yes. Whatever will offend the sonzabitches the most.
I simply refer to them as “murderous back stabbing stone age baby raping savages” and everyone knows to whom I’m referring.
If i said what i usually called em,,, id be banned.
I figured for the same reason they now all say Cheelay and Pahkestahn. I have noticed people from foreign countries never try to pronounce our words the way we do tho.
A lot of Bitish Colonial literature from the sub-continent refers to it as “Mahometanism”.
Towelhead works for me.
Pedophile-worshippers is the most accurate I think. But knowing the definitions, it’ll be mozlim.
Well, “muslim” is an anagram for “Uh, Slim”
And Obama is slim and says “uh” all the time.
I have also seen the terms “musselman” and “mohammedan” used though not much today. I have also seen Mohammed named “Mahound”.
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