Mohammedan (also spelt
Muhammadan,
Mahommedan,
Mahomedan or
Mahometan) is a term used as both a
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
and an
adjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent...
meaning belonging or relating to either the religion of
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
or to that of the
Islamic prophetMuslims regard as prophets of Islam those non-divine humans chosen by Allah . Mere humans rely on revelation or tradition to identify prophets....
MuhammadMuhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh , is the founder of the religion of Islam [ إِسْلامْ ] and is regarded by Muslims as a messenger and prophet of , the last and the greatest law-bearer in a series of Islamic prophets as taught by the...
; a term largely rejected by the
Muslim worldThe term Muslim world has several meanings. In a cultural sense it refers to the worldwide community of Muslims, adherents of Islam. This community numbers about 1.3-1.5 billion people, roughly one-fifth of the world population. This community is spread across many different nations and ethnic...
as a
misnomerA misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue. Such incorrect terms sometimes derived their names because of the form, action, or origin of the subject becoming named popularly or widely referenced—long before their true natures were known.- Sources of misnomers...
The term is now largely superseded by
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
,
Moslem or
Islamic, but was commonly used only in Western literature until at least the mid-1960s.
Mohammedan (also spelt
Muhammadan,
Mahommedan,
Mahomedan or
Mahometan) is a term used as both a
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
and an
adjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent...
meaning belonging or relating to either the religion of
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
or to that of the
Islamic prophetMuslims regard as prophets of Islam those non-divine humans chosen by Allah . Mere humans rely on revelation or tradition to identify prophets....
MuhammadMuhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh , is the founder of the religion of Islam [ إِسْلامْ ] and is regarded by Muslims as a messenger and prophet of , the last and the greatest law-bearer in a series of Islamic prophets as taught by the...
; a term largely rejected by the
Muslim worldThe term Muslim world has several meanings. In a cultural sense it refers to the worldwide community of Muslims, adherents of Islam. This community numbers about 1.3-1.5 billion people, roughly one-fifth of the world population. This community is spread across many different nations and ethnic...
as a
misnomerA misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue. Such incorrect terms sometimes derived their names because of the form, action, or origin of the subject becoming named popularly or widely referenced—long before their true natures were known.- Sources of misnomers...
The term is now largely superseded by
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
,
Moslem or
Islamic, but was commonly used only in Western literature until at least the mid-1960s. (See for instance the second edition of
A Dictionary of Modern English UsageA Dictionary of Modern English Usage , by Henry W. Fowler, is a style guide to British English usage, pronunciation, and writing. Ranging from plurals and literary technique to the distinctions among like words , to foreign-term use, it became the standard for most style guides that followed —...
by
HW FowlerHenry Watson Fowler was an English schoolmaster, lexicographer and commentator on the usage of the English language...
, revised by
Ernest GowersSir Ernest Arthur Gowers GCB GBE Hon. D.Litt Hon. ARIBA was a British civil servant, now best known for work on style guides for writing the English language....
(Oxford, 1965)).
Muslim is more commonly used today than
Moslem, and the term
Mohammedan is generally considered archaic or in some cases even offensive. According to the
SOEDThe Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, often abbreviated to SOED, is a scaled-down version of the Oxford English Dictionary. It comprises two volumes rather than the twenty needed for the full second edition of the OED...
(1973),
Mohammedan was in use by 1681, along with the older term
Mahometan that dates back to at least 1529.
The
Online Etymology Dictionary reports that the earliest form in English of the name of Muhammad was
Mahum (c.1205), which was originally confused for "an idol", while Wyclif has
Macamethe (c.1380). In Christian Western Europe, until the 13th century or so, there was a
mistaken belief among some ChristiansDuring the Middle Ages, the Christian world held a largely antagonistic view of Muhammad. This partly represented lack of knowledge about the Muslim prophet, but also stemmed from the claim that Islam had adopted an aggressive and violent approach to expanding its influence...
that Muslims worshiped Mahomet, while some considered him a
hereticHeresy is proposing some unorthodox change to an established system of belief, especially a religion, that conflicts with the previously established opinion of scholars of that belief such as canon. It is sometimes confused with apostasy which is disaffiliation from orthodoxy and blasphemy which is...
. Other European literature in the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
referred to Muslims as
pagansPagans may mean:* Paganism, a group of religions* Order of the Vine, a druidic faction in the "Thief" video game series* Pagans Motorcycle Club, a motorcycle club* The Pagans, a 1970s American punk band...
or by sobriquets such as the
paynim foe. Depictions such as those in the
Song of Roland represent Muslims worshipping Muhammad as a god, or worshipping various deities in the form of "
idolsIn the practice of religion, a cult image is a man-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents. Cultus, the outward religious formulas of "cult", often centers upon the treatment of cult images, which may be dressed, fed or paraded, etc...
", ranging from
ApolloIn Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Olympian deities...
to
LuciferLucifer is a Latin word, literally meaning "light-bearer", that was used as a name for the "day star" or "Morning Star" that precedes the rising of the sun. The name is frequently given to the Devil in Christian convention...
, but ascribing to them a chief deity known as "
TermagantIn Medieval Europe, Termagant was the name given to a god that the Europeans believed Muslims worshipped.-Origin of the concept:European literature from the Middle Ages often referred to Muslims as pagans, or by sobriquets such as the paynim foe...
".. When the
Knights TemplarThe Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar or the Order of the Temple , were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...
were being tried for heresy, reference was often made to their worship of a demon
BaphometBaphomet is an imagined pagan deity, revived in the 19th century as a figure of Satanism. It first appeared in a late twelfth century Provençal poem as a corruption of "Muhammad", but later it appeared as a term for a pagan idol in trial transcripts of the Inquisition of the Knights Templar in the...
, which was notable by implication for its similarity to "Mahomet". These and other variations on the theme were all set in the "temper of the times" of what was seen as a Muslim-Christian conflict as Medieval Europe was building a concept of "the great enemy" in the wake of the quickfire success of the Muslims through
a series of conquestsMuslim conquests , also referred to as the Islamic conquests or Arab conquests, began after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad...
shortly after the fall of the
Western Roman EmpireThe Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire, from its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, today widely known as the Byzantine Empire....
, as well as the lack of concrete information in the West about the
mysterious EastOrientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists. An "Orientalist" may be a person engaged in these activities, but it is also the traditional term for any scholar of Oriental studies...
.