Mu' meneen Brothers and Sisters,

As Salaam Aleikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.  (May Allah's Peace, Mercy and Blessings be upon all of you)

One of our brothers/sisters has asked this question:

My question is about Arabic language. Recently I have learned that Jews are saluting each other by saying "As Salaam Aleikum (shalom aleykem or something like that)".  Is Arabic closely related to Habra. Or are Muslims using some words in Habra as a part of our religion?

Thank you and regards

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Answer:

Is Arabic related to Hebrew?

In the name of Allah, We praise Him, seek His help and ask for His forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides none can misguide, and whoever He allows to fall astray, none can guide them aright. We bear witness that there is no one (no idol, no person, no grave, no prophet, no imam, no dai, nobody!) worthy of worship but Allah Alone, and we bear witness that Muhammad(saws) is His slave-servant and the seal of His Messengers.

We obviously do not speak or have much knowledge of the ‘Hebrew’ language. But it is indeed true that the greetings of the Jews towards each other is indeed ‘Shalom’, which means ‘peace’ or ‘Salaam’ in Arabic. Hebrew obviously pre-dates Arabic as a language, as the Divine Scriptures like the Torah and the Gospel were revealed by Allah Subhanah in Hebrew to the Prophets of the Bani Israel. It is indeed possible and probable that some words from ancient Hebrew were imported and used in the Arabic language.

For example a number of alphabets of the Arabic language are extremely similar to the alphabets of the Hebrew language, like the Hebrew alphabets vav, he, alef, noon, meem, lamed (for laam), kaf, shin, qof, fe are all Hebrew alphabets which correspond to a similar Arabic alphabhet.

Another example of the similarity of words can be found in the way the word God is written in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew name for God is ‘Yahweh’, but is also written in abbreviated form as Yahh, or El-Yahh (which when pronounced is extremely close to the Arabic term ‘Allah’).

Thus it is extremely probable that the Arabic term ‘Salaam’ is from the Hebrew language.

Your Brother in Islam,

Burhan