|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
"Muslim" - another politically correct neologism surreptitiously imposed upon us by Mahometans and their apologists ( full version?))Reader comment on item: Islamism's Unity in Tunisia Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Nov 4, 2012 at 02:50 I never know when a mutilated version of a comment of mine will pop up. This time it was again the case. The original comment ran so : DEBORAH THE JUDGE wrote : " ... like you, I believe in accurate titles and names, but for a different and deeper reason. Mahometanism is perfect for revealing the truth about its source." " Thanks a lot for your appreciative words. I am also a firm believer in accurate titles and names and I find words like "Islamism" as inaccurate, obscure and misleading as the self-aggrandizing definition of Mahometanism - "the religion of peace". Now take a look at another perfidious neologism which has been put into circulation to achieve a similar effect without ever suggesting we discuss or question its necessity or validity. I mean the ubiquitous little word "Muslim". I often wondered browsing older English dictionaries why next to "Mahometan" I saw "Moslem" and never "Muslim"? Maybe people at that time were so ignorant, incurious and lousy ? But were they?They had known and dealt with Mahometans and Mahometanism in all its forms for 13 centuries or so and yet felt no need to use alien and artificial names to denote things as we do today without ever realizing how recent our neologisms are and how they actually originated. Can our neologisms imply we are wiser than our ancestors who knew Mahometanism and Mahometans from first hand experience in Spain, Byzantium,Egypt, the Balkans,the Causasus,India etc.etc. ? I assert that the contrary is the case. Our neologisms just show how impoverished and unhistorical we have become by adopting them in our discourse. Let's look at why neologism "Muslim" was implanted onto the English language, almost totally replacing the good old words "Mahometan" and "Moslem". It turns out to be a dubious, politically motivated media trick just two or three decades old. 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. ...Journalists switched to Muslim from Moslem in recent years under pressure from Islamic groups." So as usually we made concessions , for if the Mahometans want something very much and you don't surrender, then you know ... Mahometanism shows its true colors, burns flags and portraits, kills ambassadors and passers-by, takes hostages, storms offices and primary schools and cuts off heads. Allowing the politically correct neologism "Muslim" to invade our minds we made concessions to Mahometans on the semantic level and thus unwittingly started playing their nefarious game according to their own fraudulent semantic rules which are pre-programmed to cheat and finish us off. This is why we should never ever make concessions to Mahometans on anything, least of all on how to call them and their so called "religion" and what to think of both. Our ancestors knew them quite well for 13 centuries and understood how to deal with them pushing them back. By rejecting just a few decades ago the precious millenium-old experience and vocabulary of our ancestors to please the Mahometans we have been driven into a corner and their demands grow the clearer they can see how weak-willed and foolish we are. Today they make us use beautiful names to call and describe Mahometanism. Tomorrow they will ask us why we haven't become Mahometans yet if praises of Mahometanism come from us and are such an obvious and self-evident experience in every paper and every speech we read and hear around us ? What will we answer if we don't oppose this erosion of semantics much more effectively than it is being effected by the corrupt political class, media and pop culture on behalf of Mahometans and Mahometanism ? Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". Reader comments (30) on this item
|
Latest Articles |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
All materials by Daniel Pipes on this site: © 1968-2024 Daniel Pipes. daniel.pipes@gmail.com and @DanielPipes Support Daniel Pipes' work with a tax-deductible donation to the Middle East Forum.Daniel J. Pipes (The MEF is a publicly supported, nonprofit organization under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Tax-ID 23-774-9796, approved Apr. 27, 1998. For more information, view our IRS letter of determination.) |