We’ve been discussing the Beautiful Names of Allah Almighty and today I’d like to discuss the Name As-Salam which is translated to the word peace.
This word salam is derived from the root word s-l-m and its various derived forms and it’s presented over hundred times in the Quran.
This word connotes safety, peace, security, well-being, contentment, tranquility, and also perfection.
When we’re talking about the Name As-Salam, the perfection is because of Allah’s perfection in His essence and all of His attributes and actions. He has no imperfection so this Name also embodies that.
Inner Peace
So let’s start thinking about inner peace.
Allah is As-Salam, the Source of Peace, in fact He is the only source of peace.
So when it comes to human beings and our psychological make up or our emotional make up, all of us, what are we seeking other than peace in our lives? We see people striving for to get a better job so that we can have ease in our life, so that they can stop struggling.
It’s basically what every human being hopes for is peace. And you see a lot of people that feel inner turmoil, they don’t know why they are here on earth, they don’t know what they’re doing, they feel depressed, they feel worried, they feel anxious, anxiety.
Cure for Anxiety
In fact a lot of people these days are having problem with anxiety that means that it become so common that if you web search about it, you going to find thousands of pages about people who suffer from that.
All of these anxiety, everyone is striving and searching for peace and tranquility well-being in their lives but there is only one source for that and that’s Allah Almighty.
So when we talk about the word As Salam, there are many words derived from it and one of those words is Islam. And what it means when people talk about Islam being peace it is because and the word salam (peace) and Islam are derived from the word s-l-m. So what it means is that a person can attain peace, tranquility, well-being, by surrendering, submitting to the Lord of the worlds by following His guidance that He has provided.
So once one accepts the existence of God and the fact that they have been created by Him for a purpose and then they accept that He has actually sent guidance to ease our completion of that purpose of life recognizing all of that and actually following that guidance does in fact lead to a deep feeling of inner peace.
In addition to that related to Islam, the Muslims who are trolling along and moving forward and we have a hope for the future as well.
Submit to Allah
So while we do experience a level of peace and tranquility and well-being by submitting and surrendering in Islam to As-Salam (The Source of Peace), Allah Almighty we also have our eyes on something else beside this world, we’re looking to the Akhirah (the Hereafter). And Allah Almighty has called Paradise Dar As-Salam (the Home of Peace). So we’re all moving forward, we have that goal and that aspiration in mind as well.
So while we’re submitting to Allah and His guidance on earth, we’re also seeking after the true peace that can be attained only in the next life in Dar As-Salam, Paradise.
May Allah grant us all the best place in Jannah. Ameen.
Through Islam, one can experience a beautiful kind of tranquility, happiness that I personally think is impossible to acquire and attain without Islam, without submitting to God, without knowing one’s purpose, knowing one’s Creator and having a guide mind, a GPS to follow throughout life, and to have understanding where we’re coming from and where we’re going and why it’s all happening in the first place. So I think that it gives a lot of peace and tranquility that’s impossible to find elsewhere.
So that’s in the individual level, and in personal inner level.
External Peace
If you think about Salam in an external level, we think about maybe world peace for example or peace in our communities and in this case as well, Allah Almighty is the only source of peace.
The chapter that contains this name of Allah Almighty is Al-Hashr. If you read this chapter, which I recommend everyone of you do after completing this audio talk, get a look at it.
So you’ll find actually what’s been discussed in that chapter is conflict. It’s about war, it’s about people fighting, and it’s about the hypocrites who are playing both sides, like we’re Muslims but we’re going to support the enemies against the Muslims and this is about this strife and conflict that happened a long ago.
So what you find in the chapter is that Allah Almighty is talking about how some people wrong themselves. They’re seeking the wrong thing, they’re looking the wrong places.
And when this happening is that they strive to strategize to get this person against that person… really all works were against themselves. So even if they conflict they going to accomplish something, they think they’re smart, they think they’re slick and they try to harm others, or they’re trying to gain something and they don’t care on to be harming others in the way…
What happens is that they’re hurting themselves so that one of the things Allah mentions, you find in the couple verses in that chapter, and so He’s talking about how to protect ourselves as well from our own actions and realize that people who maybe harming us that even it seems that they’re maybe harming us, they’re actually harming their own selves.
I think that’s really profound and I think it has profound effect on our mentality, on our psychology, and on giving us tranquility in our lives that there is only one source of peace that is Allah Almighty.
And when you see people wanting to harm you, or harm Islam, or whatever it may be, and they realize that they actually are harming themselves and that Allah can grant peace. This also provides a great amount of tranquility to the soul.
Spread Peace
So in addition to discussing conflict and you know people try to harm each other, and the fact that they’re harming their own selves, Allah also talks about the believers and He talks about spreading peace amongst one another and He talks about the Ansar (the helpers) and they preferred the Makkans who fled Makkah, fled persecution to them, they preferred them over their own selves.
It’s talking about brotherhood and love, and it’s talking about providing peace and security to one another.
I think that it’s something so important and obviously really needed in the world today.
Let’s start in our families, let’s provide peace and security to one another in our families.
Let’s prefer each other to our own selves.
And let’s prefer our communities to our own selves.
Let’s stat doing good; let’s start spreading peace throughout the world wherever we go and whatever little way that we can.
And let’s try to keep in mind that Allah, the Source of Peace, no peace can come except from Him.
So when we cry about the things going on the world around us, or when our lives are in turmoil, what we really need to do is to call on Him, call on As-Salam, cry to Him, pour your heart out… all of your fears, your anxieties, your worries, your pain that you suffer when you see the things happening in the world… pour that all out to As-Salam and ask Him to provide you peace, and ask Him to provide our Ummah peace, and the world peace.
And remember that embodied in this name As-Salam, is also safety and that Allah’s creatures, we, are safe and secure from any injustice from our Lord.
We’ll not suffer any injustice whatsoever from Allah.
May Allah help us to surrender and submit ourselves in Islam to Him. And may we experience and acquire true peace by doing so.
May He help us to be patient throughout our trials.
May He help us to be people who spread peace in the world wherever we go and whatever we do.
And above all, may we remember that Allah is the source of all peace and safety.
May He give us safety in this world and the next and bring us to the best home Dar As-Salam, a place truly of peace free from all pain and worry.
And I pray that we are able to hear the greeting of our Lord welcoming us and saying As Salamu Alaykum.
Ameen.
(From Discovering Islam archives)