Islamic greeting (of salaam)‎ : a religious, historical, and sociolinguistic perspective

Abstract EN

Islam has attached an evident great significance to greeting and made it part of the ethical system of the Muslim personality and manners with all their personal, interpersonal and social dimensions in addition to the religious ones.

Concerning the last dimension, Muslims are guided by the Quran and Sunnah (or prophetic tradition) to make greeting perfect.

As Islamic manners are done with different canons: compulsory and recommended (Wajib and Mustahab), and, forbidden and disliked (Muharaam and Makrooh), greeting is also controlled by them.

Greeting of Islam is ruled by these canons with relation to some variables like: rank, manner, position, medium, age, number, gender, tone, and religion of the greeted person.

The canons extend not only to control Muslims greetings of each other but also to the greetings of non-Muslims, places, and even dead people.

This extends the importance of the act of greeting to be not only a prerequisite to interaction or communication, but also a religious duty upon which one's act could be sinning or rewarded.

Socially, greeting function differs with different religions and cultures.

Muslim societies became civilized to the extent in which different forms of greeting became acceptable; still, Muslims tend to use the greet of Islam due to commitment to their religion and love to be rewarded for that.

In this study, a brief historical account is given about the greet of Islam (salaam) focusing on the religious value that governs it semantically, syntactically and pragmatically in a socio/linguistic analysis to show how the act of greeting is governed by different canons and variables so that to be a religious act and not merely serve a pragmatic function.