What the Qurʾān designates as “Islām” is not, in its own discursive register, a newly inaugurated religion, but a mode of action and orientation: submission, alignment, or covenantal surrender enacted by those addressed by revelation in the career of Muḥammad (c. 570–632 CE). Alongside the higher grade of faith or īmān, the Qurʾānic islām functions as a verbal noun describing an activity rather than a bounded confessional identity. One of the central interpretive problems in Qurʾānic studies is therefore semantic rather than doctrinal, for the term “Islām,” where it appears, neither operates as a proper noun nor attaches itself to a single community.
Framing the Problem: Islām as Action, Not Identity
This functional understanding of islām finds a striking medieval parallel in Jewish ethical literature composed in Arabic, most notably in the work of Rabbenū Baḥya ibn Paqūda (fl. late eleventh century), al-Hidāya ilā Farāʾiḍ al-Qulūb (“The Guide to the Duties of the Hearts”), composed c. 1080–1090 CE. The treatise was rendered into Hebrew as Ḥovot ha-Levavot by Yehudah ibn Tibbon (c. 1120–1190 CE), through whose translation it entered the canonical curriculum of medieval and later Judaism.
In this Hebrew form, the work continues to be studied in Orthodox yeshivōt to the present day and exercised notable influence on early Hasidism, including the teachings attributed to Israel ben Eliezer (Baʿal Shem Tov) (c. 1700–1760 CE) and his principal disciple Rabbi Yaʿaqov Yosef of Polonnoye (d. 1782 CE).
In the fourth gate of the Hidāya, devoted to tawakkul (absolute trust in God), Baḥya explicitly formulates the question: “In what manner are we obligated to practice istislām?” This usage is neither incidental nor metaphorical. By selecting the term istislām—denoting total surrender rather than mere compliance—Baḥya frames authentic Jewish religious life as an interior posture of complete relinquishment before God.
His answer defines istislām as the severing of all inner reliance upon created intermediaries—wealth, power, intellect, effort, or human patronage—while affirming God alone as the sole true cause. One may employ worldly means, Baḥya insists, but must not trust them; reliance belongs exclusively to God. Misplaced trust, he warns, results in the withdrawal of divine providence, as the individual is “handed over” to the object of his reliance.
Baḥya is careful to distinguish istislām from passivity. The surrendered individual continues to act responsibly in the world—working, planning, seeking remedies—but without attributing efficacy to those actions. The fruit of such surrender is not withdrawal from life but inner tranquility, freedom from fear of human beings, and liberation from humiliation, flattery, and anxiety.
In this sense, istislām is not an optional spiritual refinement but the consummation of faith itself: emunah lived to completion. The terminological overlap is therefore deliberate, for in Baḥya’s Judeo-Arabic lexicon, istislām functions as the existential realization of īmān, just as Hebrew emunah signifies not abstract belief but faithful steadfastness enacted through covenantal practice.
This semantic convergence is further illuminated by the fact that, well into the medieval period, Jews commonly designated themselves as maʾaminim (“believers”), or in Judeo-Arabic muʾminīn—precisely the Qurʾānic term for faithful monotheists. Faith (īmān or emunah) and surrender (istislām) were thus not markers of confessional difference but shared descriptors of authentic devotion to the One God.
Read against this background, Baḥya’s articulation of Judaism as istislām through the mitzvōt confirms that “Islam,” in its earliest semantic field, names a mode of faithful submission rather than a historically bounded religion—a meaning that resonates deeply with contemporaneous Jewish self-understanding articulated in Arabic ethical and pietistic literature.
This observation imposes a methodological constraint. If Islam is not defined internally as a discrete religion, then its meaning must be recovered contextually, by examining the historical groups explicitly named in the Qurʾānic audience. This study therefore approaches the activity of Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh (ca. 570/571–632 CE) not as the founder of a new religion, but as an orator operating within an already populated monotheist landscape. By reviewing the religious communities addressed by the Qurʾān—most notably the Ahl al-Kitāb—the argument seeks to reconstruct what islām meant to its original hearers before later imperial reinterpretation.
The problem this article addresses is the widespread assumption, both inside and outside the Islamic world, that the Qurʾān aimed to inaugurate a new religion. This assumption persists despite the Qurʾān’s own repeated rejection of novelty. Scholars differ widely in how the historical Muḥammad and his earliest community should be understood, particularly given the paucity of contemporaneous sources. The present argument proceeds by taking the Qurʾān’s self-descriptions seriously as historical data rather than dismissing them as theological rhetoric.
The Qurʾān as Reminder, Not Revelation-in-Isolation
The Qurʾān repeatedly insists that Muḥammad’s message introduces nothing unprecedented. Rather than framing itself as a rupture, it positions itself as continuity—an act of recollection addressed to communities already familiar with Biblical narratives and covenantal obligations. This insistence appears not once but across multiple strata of the text, and it is articulated in language that explicitly denies prophetic novelty.
Nothing is said to you except what was said to the Messengers before you (Qurʾān 41:43).
mā yuqālu laka illā mā qad qīla li-r-rusuli min qablika.
مَا يُقَالُ لَكَ إِلَّا مَا قَدْ قِيلَ لِلرُّسُلِ مِنْ قَبْلِكَ.
This statement is not merely consolatory; it establishes a hermeneutical baseline. Muḥammad’s proclamation is framed as reiteration, not innovation. The same logic is expanded in passages that explicitly place his message within a continuous chain of prophetic instruction, linking it directly to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and ʿĪsā (commonly associated with the Gospel protagonist, Jesus).
He has ordained for you the religion which He enjoined upon Noah, and which We revealed to you, and which We enjoined upon Abraham, Moses, and ʿĪsā (Qurʾān 42:13).
Sharaʿa lakum mina ad-dīni mā waṣṣā bihi Nūḥan wa-alladhī awḥaynā ilayka wa-mā waṣṣaynā bihi Ibrāhīma wa-Mūsā wa-ʿĪsā.
شَرَعَ لَكُم مِّنَ الدِّينِ مَا وَصَّىٰ بِهِ نُوحًا وَالَّذِي أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَيْكَ وَمَا وَصَّيْنَا بِهِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَمُوسَىٰ وَعِيسَىٰ.
The cumulative effect of such passages is to deny any claim that Muḥammad’s proclamation represents a new confessional system. This denial is made explicit when Muḥammad is instructed to describe himself as non-innovative among messengers (Qurʾān 46:9).
Say: I am not a novelty among the Messengers.
qul mā kuntu bidʿan mina ar-rusuli.
قُلْ مَا كُنتُ بِدْعًا مِّنَ الرُّسُلِ
If the Qurʾān rejects novelty at the level of prophetic mission, it follows that its self-understanding must be something other than religious invention. This becomes clearer when the text repeatedly characterizes itself not as a replacement scripture, but as a zhikr—a reminder—addressed to people who already possess revelation (Qurʾān 36:10).
It is nothing but a reminder for the worlds.
In huwa illā dhikrun lil-ʿālamīn.
إِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا ذِكْرٌ لِّلْعَالَمِينَ
The Qurʾān’s rhetoric of remembrance presupposes a shared narrative memory. One cannot be reminded of what one has never known. This premise becomes decisive when the text speaks explicitly of the Torah as a present possession of its Jewish audience—“with them,” “between their hands”—rather than as a lost or corrupted artifact. The implication is unavoidable: Muḥammad’s role is cast as one of exhortation and recall within an existing scriptural economy, not as the architect of a new religion.
Islam, Muslim, and the Grammar of Verbal Religion
Within this framework of continuity, the Qurʾān’s use of the term Islam must be read grammatically before it is read doctrinally. Islam (al-islām) is the maṣdar—the verbal noun—of the verb aslama. The active participle Muslim designates one who performs that action. Crucially, the Qurʾān overwhelmingly uses the verbal form: aslama appears twenty-two times, while al-islām appears only eight times. Nowhere is Islam treated as a proper noun naming a discrete religious system.
This grammatical pattern is not accidental. In Arabic, the maṣdar does not denote an institution but the act itself—the occurrence of the verb. A literal, if cumbersome, rendering of al-islām would therefore be “the act of submitting.” The semantic range of the root s-l-m reinforces this reading, as it denotes wholeness, completion, and peace, paralleling its Hebrew cognate. The Qurʾān’s usage consistently reflects this verbal orientation.
This becomes unmistakable when the Qurʾān retrojects the designation muslim onto earlier prophetic communities.ʿĪsā’s disciples, for example, are explicitly described as muslimūn—not in anticipation of a later religion, but as a statement about their activity.
WhenʿĪsā sensed disbelief from them, he said: Who are my helpers unto God? The disciples said: We are God’s helpers; we believe in God; and bear witness that we are submitting ones (Qurʾān 3:52; cf. 5:111).
falammā aḥassa ʿĪsā minhum al-kufra qāla man anṣārī ilā Allāh qāla al-ḥawāriyyūna naḥnu anṣāru Allāh āmannā bi-Allāh wa-shhad bi-annā muslimūn.
فَلَمَّا أَحَسَّ عِيسَىٰ مِنْهُمُ الْكُفْرَ قَالَ مَنْ أَنصَارِي إِلَى اللَّهِ ۖ قَالَ الْحَوَارِيُّونَ نَحْنُ أَنصَارُ اللَّهِ آمَنَّا بِاللَّهِ وَاشْهَدْ بِأَنَّا مُسْلِمُونَ
Here, “muslim” cannot plausibly denote adherence to a later doctrinal system. It describes a posture of obedience and alignment toward God. The same logic applies when Abraham, his sons, and Jacob’s household are described as muslimūn.
And Abraham enjoined upon his sons, and so did Jacob: O my sons, God has chosen for you the judgment, so do not die except as submitting ones (Qurʾān 2:132–133).
wa-waṣṣā bihā Ibrāhīmu banīhi wa-Yaʿqūbu yā banīya inna Allāha iṣṭafā lakumu ad-dīna fa-lā tamūtunna illā wa-antum muslimūn.
وَوَصَّىٰ بِهَا إِبْرَاهِيمُ بَنِيهِ وَيَعْقُوبُ يَا بَنِيَّ إِنَّ اللَّهَ اصْطَفَىٰ لَكُمُ الدِّينَ فَلَا تَمُوتُنَّ إِلَّا وَأَنتُم مُّسْلِمُونَ.
Here, the Qurān clearly tells us that the Children of Israel were literally muslimin. In each case, the term functions descriptively, not nominally. It denotes what one does, not what one is called. The later transformation of Islam into a proper noun, designating a closed religious identity, therefore represents a semantic rupture rather than a natural development of Qurʾānic usage.
Islām and Īmān: Degrees of Religious Activity Rather Than Confessional Boundaries
In addition to the verbal grammar of Islam, the Qurʾān introduces a second, more demanding category of religious orientation: Īmān. The relationship between these two terms is neither synonymous nor redundant. Rather, the Qurʾān consistently treats Islam as a lower threshold of obedient activity, and Īmān as a higher, interiorized state of faith and certitude. This distinction is critical, because it demonstrates that even within the Qurʾān’s own evaluative framework, Islam does not function as the apex of religious life, let alone as a comprehensive religious identity.
This hierarchy is articulated with unusual clarity in Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt, where the Qurʾān corrects a premature claim to belief by a group described as al-Aʿrāb. Because the verse is frequently flattened in translation, it must be rendered carefully from the Arabic.
The Arabs say: “We believe.” Say: You do not believe; rather say, “We have submitted,” for belief has not yet entered your hearts. But if you obey God and His Messenger, He will not deprive you of anything from your deeds. Truly, God is Forgiving, Merciful (Qurʾān 49:14).
Qālati al-aʿrābu āmannā qul lam tuʾminū wa-lākin qūlū aslamnā wa-lammā yadkhuli al-īmānu fī qulūbikum wa-in tuṭīʿū Allāha wa-rasūlahu lā yalitkum min aʿmālikum shayʾā inna Allāha ghafūrun raḥīm.
قَالَتِ الْأَعْرَابُ آمَنَّا ۖ قُل لَّمْ تُؤْمِنُوا وَلَٰكِن قُولُوا أَسْلَمْنَا وَلَمَّا يَدْخُلِ الْإِيمَانُ فِي قُلُوبِكُمْ ۖ وَإِن تُطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ لَا يَلِتْكُم مِّنْ أَعْمَالِكُمْ شَيْئًا ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ
The distinction could not be more explicit. Islām (aslamnā) is acknowledged as a real, if minimal, form of obedience, but it is sharply distinguished from Īmān, which “has not yet entered the heart.” Islam, in this formulation, has no salvific guarantee on its own; it is an external posture that may or may not mature into faith. This alone undermines any claim that the Qurʾān treats Islam as a complete religious identity in the later sense.
The Qurʾān further complicates modern confessional assumptions by locating Īmān not exclusively within Muḥammad’s immediate following. In Sūrat Āl ʿImrān, the text explicitly states that some among the Ahl al-Kitāb attain the rank of Muʾminīn, while others do not. Once again, careful translation is essential.
You are the best community brought forth for humankind: you enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in God. And if the People of the Book had believed, it would have been better for them. Among them are believers, but most of them are lawless (Qurʾān 3:110).
kuntum khayra ummatin ukhrijat li-n-nāsi taʾmurūna bi-l-maʿrūfi wa-tanhawna ʿani al-munkari wa-tuʾminūna bi-Allāhi wa-law āmana ahlu al-kitābi la-kāna khayran lahum minhum al-muʾminūna wa-aktharuhumu al-fāsiqūn.
كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ ۗ وَلَوْ آمَنَ أَهْلُ الْكِتَابِ لَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَّهُم ۚ مِّنْهُمُ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَأَكْثَرُهُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ
This verse overturns later exclusivist readings at their root. The Qurʾān does not say that Īmān is restricted to Muḥammad’s followers; on the contrary, it acknowledges that some among the Ahl al-Kitāb already inhabit this higher state. The implication is unavoidable: one may be a Muʾmin without belonging to Muḥammad’s immediate community. Islam, in its verbal sense, is therefore not a gatekeeping identity but a minimal ethical posture within a broader covenantal ecology.
The Qurʾān further defines Īmān by its object. Belief is not limited to God and Muḥammad, but necessarily includes prior revelation. This requirement is articulated directly in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ.
O you who believe! Believe in God and His Messenger and the Book which He sent down upon His Messenger, and the Book which He sent down before. And whoever disbelieves in God, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day has indeed strayed far away (Qurʾān 4:136).
yā ayyuhā alladhīna āmanū āminū bi-Allāhi wa-rasūlihi wa-al-kitābi alladhī nazzala ʿalā rasūlihi wa-al-kitābi alladhī anzala min qablu wa-man yakfur bi-Allāhi wa-malāʾikatihi wa-kutubihi wa-rusulihi wa-al-yawmi al-ākhiri fa-qad ḍalla ḍalālan baʿīdā.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا آمِنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ وَالْكِتَابِ الَّذِي نَزَّلَ عَلَىٰ رَسُولِهِ وَالْكِتَابِ الَّذِي أَنزَلَ مِن قَبْلُ ۚ وَمَن يَكْفُرْ بِاللَّهِ وَمَلَائِكَتِهِ وَكُتُبِهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ فَقَدْ ضَلَّ ضَلَالًا بَعِيدًا
Here the Qurʾān is explicit: belief entails acceptance of earlier scriptures, not merely acknowledgment of Muḥammad’s message. This coheres precisely with the Qurʾān’s repeated insistence that it confirms, rather than replaces, the Torah. The text goes so far as to chastise Jews who approach Muḥammad for judgment when they already possess revelation.
But how do they come to you for judgment while they have the Torah, in which is God’s judgment? Yet even after that they turn away—and they are not believers (Qurʾān 5:43).
wa-kayfa yuḥakkimūnaka wa-ʿindahumu al-tawrātu fīhā ḥukmu Allāhi thumma yatawallawna min baʿdi dhālika wa-mā ulāʾika bi-al-muʾminīn.
وَكَيْفَ يُحَكِّمُونَكَ وَعِندَهُمُ التَّوْرَاةُ فِيهَا حُكْمُ اللَّهِ ثُمَّ يَتَوَلَّوْنَ مِن بَعْدِ ذَٰلِكَ ۚ وَمَا أُولَٰئِكَ بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ
The force of this rebuke depends entirely on the Torah’s continuing authority. The Qurʾān does not speak of a corrupted text but of a scripture “they have,” one that still contains divine judgment. This reading is reinforced immediately thereafter, when the Torah is described as containing “guidance and light.”
Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light (Qurʾān 5:44).
innā anzalnā al-tawrāta fīhā hudan wa-nūrun.
إِنَّا أَنزَلْنَا التَّوْرَاةَ فِيهَا هُدًى وَنُورٌ
Taken together, these passages establish a consistent Qurʾānic picture: Islam is a minimal posture of obedience; Īmān is a deeper state of faith; and true belief necessarily affirms prior revelation. The Qurʾān itself recognizes Muʾminīn among the Ahl al-Kitāb, and it presumes the continuing validity of the Torah as possessed by Jews in Muḥammad’s time.
This conceptual framework is echoed, albeit in later literary form, in the well-known Ḥadīth Jibrīl, which preserves the tripartite structure of Islam, Īmān, and Iḥsān. While later in documentation, its doctrinal architecture coheres strikingly with the Qurʾānic hierarchy already observed. Islam is defined externally, Īmān internally, and Iḥsān as a state of spiritual excellence beyond both. Whatever one concludes about the historical transmission of this report, its internal logic confirms rather than contradicts the Qurʾānic distinction.
At this stage, the cumulative conclusion is unavoidable. The earliest recoverable meaning of Islam was not confessional, not exclusive, and not institutional. It named an activity that could occur within multiple communities already bound to the God of Abraham. The later transformation of this verb into a noun—designating a closed religious identity—represents a secondary development, one that coincides historically with the needs of imperial governance rather than with the Qurʾān’s own semantic field.
Sacred Time and the Imperial Rewriting of Pilgrimage
The transformation of Islam from a verb into a noun did not occur only at the level of language or doctrine. It was accompanied—and rendered durable—by the reconfiguration of sacred time itself. Calendars are not neutral instruments; they encode theology in motion.
In the Qurʾānic register, time remains embedded in the created order, governed jointly by sun and moon, seasons and cycles. This framework aligns seamlessly with Biblical conceptions of moʿadim, appointed times that bind worship to agricultural rhythm, cosmic order, and communal memory. The Qurʾān’s earliest strata presuppose precisely such a lunisolar horizon, continuous with late antique Near Eastern practice.
God is the One who made the sun a radiance and the moon a light, and determined for it phases, so that you may know the number of years and the reckoning (Qurʾān 10:5).
huwa alladhī jaʿala al-shamsa ḍiyāʾan wa-al-qamara nūran wa-qaddarahu manāzila li-taʿlamū ʿadada al-sinīna wa-al-ḥisāb.
هُوَ الَّذِي جَعَلَ الشَّمْسَ ضِيَاءً وَالْقَمَرَ نُورًا وَقَدَّرَهُ مَنَازِلَ لِتَعْلَمُوا عَدَدَ السِّنِينَ وَالْحِسَابَ.
The reference to sinīn or “years” is decisive. A purely lunar system does not generate stable years without intercalation; it produces perpetual drift. The Qurʾānic language therefore presupposes a calendrical logic in which lunar months remain tethered to the solar year. This assumption is further reinforced by the Qurʾān’s repeated reference to “well-known months” for pilgrimage, language that presumes communal familiarity grounded in seasonal predictability rather than abstract enumeration.
The ḥajj is [in] months well known; so whoever undertakes the ḥajj therein, let him not engage in lewdness, wickedness, or disputation during the ḥajj (Qurʾān 2:197).
al-ḥajju ashhurun maʿlūmātun fa-man farada fīhinna al-ḥajja fa-lā rafatha wa-lā fusuq wa-lā jidāl fī al-ḥajj.
الْحَجُّ أَشْهُرٌ مَعْلُومَاتٌ فَمَنْ فَرَضَ فِيهِنَّ الْحَجَّ فَلَا رَفَثَ وَلَا فُسُوقَ وَلَا جِدَالَ فِي الْحَجِّ.
Within this calendrical world, the early synchronism between the Muslim fast of ʿĀshūrāʾ and the Jewish fast of Yom Kippur becomes historically intelligible rather than anomalous. Multiple early reports attest that Muḥammad fasted on this day with the Jewish community of Madīnah, upon being told that it commemorated Mosaic deliverance.
Whatever later tradition attempted to do with these reports, their evidentiary weight lies precisely in their embarrassment: they preserve a memory of shared sacred time between communities that later orthodoxy sought to differentiate sharply. Such coincidence is only possible within a lunisolar framework in which penitential days remain seasonally anchored.
As I explain in my work The Ka`bah as a Jewish Sukkah: Why Muhammad Prayed Towards Jerusalem and Mecca (2011), this synchronism provides a crucial calibration point. If ʿĀshūrāʾ coincided with Yom Kippur—10 Muḥarram with 10 Tishrei—then the pilgrimage cycle necessarily followed suit. In the Biblical calendar, Yom Kippur culminates the penitential season and immediately precedes the autumn pilgrimage festival of Ḥag Ṣukkōt.
The Qurʾānic sequence mirrors this structure with striking fidelity: penitence, standing, forgiveness, sacrifice, and pilgrimage cohere into a single ethical arc. Once this framework is acknowledged, the original profile of the Ḥajj becomes legible not as an abstract rite but as an Abrahamic transformation of the autumn ingathering festival.
The prophetic imagination attached to Ṣukkōt is unambiguous. It is the feast of ingathering, the ritual climax of the agricultural year, and the eschatological moment when all nations are envisioned as ascending together before the universal Sovereign. This is not merely a Jewish festival among others; it is the canonical horizon of covenantal universalism.
And it shall come to pass that all the nations which came against Yerushalayim shall go up year by year to worship the King, Ha-Shem Tzevaʾot, and to keep the Feast of Ṣukkōt (Zekharyah 14:16).
ve-hāyāh kol ha-gōyim ha-baʾīm ʿal Yerushalayim yaʿalū mi-dei shānā ve-shānā le-hishtaḥavōt le-Melekh YHVH tzevaʾot ve-laʿasot Ḥag ha-Ṣukkōt.
וְהָיָה֩ כׇל־הַגּוֹיִ֨ם הַבָּאִ֜ים עַל־יְרוּשָׁלִַ֗ם יַעֲל֣וּ מִדֵּ֤י שָׁנָה֙ בְּשָׁנָ֔ה לְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֹ֛ת לְמֶ֥לֶךְ יְהוָ֖ה צְבָא֑וֹת וְלָחֹ֖ג אֶת־חַ֥ג הַסֻּכּֽוֹת׃
Read against this background, the Qurʾānic proclamation of the ḥajj “among mankind” resonates unmistakably with the Biblical vision of universal ascent. The shared Semitic root ḥ-g-g—Hebrew Ḥag, Arabic Ḥajj—marks not only linguistic continuity but a common ritual grammar: procession, circling, temporary dwelling, and communal presence before God. In both traditions, pilgrimage is not merely travel; it is ʿaliyah—ascent into judgment, accountability, and reconciliation (Qurʾān 22:27).
Proclaim the Ḥajj among mankind: they will come to you on foot and on every lean camel, coming from every distant pass.
Wa-adhdhin fī al-nāsi bi-l-Ḥajji yaʾtūka rijālan wa-ʿalā kulli ḍāmirin yaʾtīna min kulli fajjin ʿamīq.
وَأَذِّنْ فِي النَّاسِ بِالْحَجِّ يَأْتُوكَ رِجَالًا وَعَلَىٰ كُلِّ ضَامِرٍ يَأْتِينَ مِن كُلِّ فَجٍّ عَمِيقٍ
The crucial distinction, however, lies in the direction of universality. Prophetic universalism is centrifugal: nations ascend freely into a shared ethical horizon that relativizes power, ethnicity, and kingship before divine sovereignty. Imperial universalism is centripetal: subjects are drawn inward toward a single administrative center whose claim to universality rests on dominion rather than judgment. The Caliphal re-engineering of pilgrimage represents the decisive substitution of the latter for the former.
This substitution required more than ritual adjustment; it required calendrical rupture. By abolishing intercalation and enforcing a strictly lunar calendar, the Umayyad state severed pilgrimage from harvest, penitence from season, and sacred time from creation. What had been Biblically intended as a covenantal rhythm shared across all communities became a rotating spectacle untethered from agricultural reality. Time itself was nationalized. The result was a pilgrimage that could function year-round as a revenue engine and symbol of imperial sovereignty, rather than as a seasonal enactment of universal accountability.
The implications of this transformation are structural. The same political logic that noun-ified the verb aslama into “Islam” also enclosed pilgrimage within an imperial calendar. A living verb was frozen into a noun; a universal ascent was narrowed into a parochial rite; cosmic time was replaced by administrative time. In each case, the effect was the same: prophetic judgment was rendered inert, and covenantal diversity was subordinated to state control.
Recovering the Verb Beneath the Caliphate’s Noun
What emerges from this analysis is a coherent historical pattern rather than a collection of anomalies. The earliest recoverable meaning of Islam was not confessional, not exclusive, and not institutional. It named an activity—submission, alignment, covenantal obedience—that could occur within multiple communities already bound to the God of Abraham. The Qurʾān itself insists that it brings nothing new, that it reminds rather than replaces, and that true Īmān transcends communal boundaries.
The Caliphate’s distortion of Muḥammad’s vision did not consist primarily in inventing new doctrines, but in domesticating existing ones. By transforming Islam into a noun, pilgrimage into a state spectacle, and sacred time into an imperial calendar, the Caliphal order neutralized the most destabilizing element of the Qurʾānic proclamation: the claim that covenantal ethics stand in judgment over power itself. Empires do not refute prophecy; they preserve its shell while hollowing out its core.
Yet the Qurʾānic text still bears the imprint of the older horizon. Its verbal grammar, its calendrical assumptions, its affirmation of prior revelation, and its vision of pilgrimage “among mankind” continue to testify against the very imperial structures that later claimed its authority. To recover islām as a verb is therefore not an exercise in nostalgia but a critical act of historical remembrance—one that reopens the possibility of covenantal universality against the closure imposed by Caliphal sovereignty.
Conclusion: Islam Was a Verb Before Empire Turned It into a Noun
Islam did not begin as a religion. It began as an act.
Before courts, creeds, borders, and banners, islām named a movement of alignment—an action of turning oneself toward the One God already known to Jews, Christians, and other monotheists of late antiquity. The Qurʾān did not arrive proclaiming novelty, but remembrance; not replacement, but recall. It spoke to people who already knew Abraham, Moses, and the Torah that lay “between their hands.” It did not announce a new confessional identity. It summoned ethical obedience.
That summons was verbal.
The Qurʾān overwhelmingly uses aslama as a verb. Islam (al-islām) appears only as a verbal noun—the act of submitting—not as the name of a religion. The Qurʾān retroactively calls Abraham, Jacob, the disciples of ʿĪsā, and their followers muslimūn, not because they adhered to a future system, but because they enacted submission to God. Islam, in its earliest meaning, described what one does, not what one is called.
Even within the Qurʾān, Islam is not the summit. Īmān—faith, trust, certitude—is higher. Islam is external obedience; Īmān is internal conviction. The Qurʾān explicitly rebukes those who claim belief prematurely and instructs them instead to say, “We submit,” because faith has not yet entered their hearts. Islam is the minimum. Īmān is the goal.
And Īmān is not monopolized.
The Qurʾān repeatedly affirms that some among the Ahl al-Kitāb are Muʾminīn. True believers exist beyond Muḥammad’s immediate community. The Torah is not treated as corrupted or obsolete; it is described as present, authoritative, and filled with “guidance and light.” Muḥammad is not portrayed as its abrogator, but as a reminder calling people back to what they already possess.
This was the original horizon: That horizon did not survive empire.
When the Caliphate arose, it faced a problem no prophet faces but every empire does: how to govern diversity. Empires require boundaries, registers, taxation, and enforcement. A verb cannot be taxed. An activity cannot be conscripted. A porous covenant cannot be administered. So the verb was frozen into a noun.
Islam became a thing.
At the same time, sacred time itself was captured. The Qurʾānic calendar presupposes sun and moon, seasons and years, penitence and harvest. Early Islam shared sacred days with Jews. ʿĀshūrāʾ coincided with Yom Kippur. Pilgrimage followed the autumn cycle, aligning with the Biblical Feast of Ingathering. Ḥajj originally stood where Sukkot stood: a universal ascent of nations into ethical accountability before God.
This too was intolerable to empire.
The Umayyad state severed pilgrimage from harvest, abolished intercalation, and enforced a purely lunar calendar. Time was nationalized. Pilgrimage was misdated. A prophetic festival of universal ascent was transformed into a rotating imperial spectacle. The shell of the rite remained; its covenantal core was hollowed out.
This was not accidental. It was structural.
Empires do not refute prophecy. They domesticate it. They preserve its language while neutralizing its judgment. They turn verbs into nouns, ethics into identity, memory into spectacle. The Caliphate did not merely inherit Muḥammad’s authority; it enclosed it.
To recover Islam as a verb is therefore not reformist nostalgia. It is historical repair. It is the refusal to let empire have the last word over prophecy. It is the insistence that submission to God cannot be owned by a state, calendared by a dynasty, or monopolized by a confession.
Islam was never meant to be a noun you belong to.
It was an action you live.
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