So let’s start with this fact: For more than a thousand years people have been drawn to Islam’s message of peace. And the very word itself, Islam, comes from “salaam”--peace.The standard greeting is “salaam alaikum”--peace be upon you. And like so many faiths, Islam is rooted in a commitment to compassion and mercy and justice and charity. Whoever wants to enter paradise, the Prophet Mohammad taught, let him treat people the way he would love to be treated.

Many people have wrongly attempted to equate the word Islam with peace by showing that Islam, meaning 'submission', shares a root word with Salaam, meaning 'peace'. But if such relationships between the meanings of Arabic words can be created then that would imply that there is a relationship between one of the derivations of the infinitive Salama, meaning the stinging of the snake or tanning the leather, and Salam, meaning peace; a relationship which obviously does not exist.