word choice - What is the difference between 'Muslim" and 'Islamic'?


I have seen 'Muslim' and 'Islamic' both used as adjectives to describe things relating to Islam. Is there a nuanced difference between the two words?


I know that 'Muslim' can also be used as a noun, as in:



Muslims as the people who practice Islam.



But, are the following sentences both correct? Are they equivalent?



The Quran is the Muslim holy book.


The Quran is the Islamic holy book.



Now that I have written this question, and tried to think of examples, perhaps Islamic is only an adverb?


Would both of these sentences be correct?



Islamic people practice Islam.


Muslim people practice Islam.




Answer



Muslim or Moslem is always referring to a man, meaning "one who submits", with a female form Muslima, while Islamic denotes "belonging to Islam".


Therefore, instead of saying



Muslim people practice Islam.



one can also say



Muslims practice Islam.



but not



Islamics practice Islam.



and it would be more correct to say



The Quran is the Muslim's holy book.



In Arabic, Muslim is the participle of the verb with the infinitive Islam.


Muslim - male Muslima - female Islamic person/people - plural non gender


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

commas - Does this sentence have too many subjunctives?

verbs - "Baby is creeping" vs. "baby is crawling" in AmE

time - English notation for hour, minutes and seconds

etymology - Origin of "s--t eating grin"

grammatical number - Use of lone apostrophe for plural?

etymology - Where does the phrase "doctored" originate?

single word requests - What do you call hypothetical inhabitants living on the Moon?