What does “Islam” mean? The word الإسلام [Islam] is an infinitive word derived from س ل م [silm] root in if‘al pattern and used as noun and infinitive. The word silm means “release/keeping away; and to be distant from fear, doubt, trouble, lack of peace, unhappiness, fight, war, pain, suffering, material and spiritual inconveniences, weakness and decaying, and all the negativities.” This word is also the root of salim, selam, teslim, Islam etc. The word’s “Islam” form means “strengthening” [removal from problems, worries, fear, unhappiness, fights, wars, and similar negative things]. Hence, the religion Islam means the “the religion that strengthens humans [entire range of principles that protects and secures people by putting a distance between them and problems, worries, war, weakness, spiritual illness, unhappiness, and similar things].”

1. 1
SURAH AN-NAS (THE MANKIND)
MECCAN PERIOD
Division: 35
1-5Say: “I seek refuge with the God of Humans,49 the Master of Humans and
Rabb [the Lord, the Cherisher, the Nurturer, the Sustainer] of humans from unseen
creatures, known creatures;50 from all of them, from the evil of the filthy whispers of
the mischievous enemy who whispers evil into the minds of people”!
(21/114, An-Nas/1-6)
49 Since the terms Jinn and Ins mentioned first here in the Qur’an, we wish to provide a
brief information thereof: In the folklore, Jinn is known as a creature which “like human, eats and
drinks, reproduces, believes, is sometimes employed by wise humans as slaves, has extraordinary
power and knowledge, possesses humans, does harm to those it pleases, is capable of making one a
saint, is a secret supporting force that inspires divine values, is unseen”; therefore, the Qur’an is
misunderstood. The term Jinn actually means “the covered creature; an entity or force which humans
cannot perceive with their sensory organs, but the very existence of which is absolute”. The antonym
of this term is Ins [Insan], on the other hand, means “an entity that can be perceived with five senses,
known, seen, familiar, capable of interaction, is never absent but permanently present”. The following
terms which are familiar to us are derivatives of the term Jinn: Jannah [A place floor of which is
hidden by foliage], Jinnah [Insanity, the one whose mind is hidden from himself], Janin [Fetus, -so
named as it is hidden within the womb of its mother-], Junnah [a shield used in the war –so named as
it covers and hides the individual from arrows and spears-].
We will see that the term Jinn is used in the Qur’an to mean “microorganisms, electricity,
magnet, ray, radiation, agent/spy, stranger, unidentified person”. We will also see that the terms Jinn
and Ins are used in the Qur’an together. When these antonyms are used together, meaning of words
differentiates, morphs and gets richer.
Deriving a new word from two antonyms that have broader meanings is a method utilized by
every language. For instance; when such antonyms as night and day, wet and dry, alive-dead, cats and
dogs, morning and evening, the earth and the heavens, good and bad, bitter and sweet, right and left,
forward and backward, up and down, width and height, black and white, small and large, life and
afterlife are used together idiomatically, the meaning of the newly formed phrase differentiates from
the specific meaning of the individual terms and gets richer.
When used together as a phrase, the antonyms Ins and Jinn mean “seen-unseen, known-
unknown, recognized-unrecognized, all and everything”. The Qur’an contains many examples
thereof.
50 Ilah, literal meaning of which is “to cover up oneself, hide, get used to and servitude,
used, in general, as a common name for any object that is “worshipped, adored, idolized”. The reason
to use Ilah in the meaning of “an entity that is worshipped” may be that this word is attributed to the
meaning of “one that supplied the needs, one that rewards the good deeds, one that gives peace and
comfort, sovereignty, one that rules and protects, one that spares in case of a disaster”.

2. 2
Ilah is used in the Qur’an to mean “an entity, divine or superstitious, that is worshipped by
people” and also “the true deity that is fit to be worshipped”.