The Source of Peace - As-Salām
As-Salām, The Source of All Peace and Safety
We all understand “salaam” to mean peace, but this word has a number of dimensions, and they all relate to God's Name as-Salaam. The root s-l-m also means to be free from defect. Salaama means safety. So how are these meanings interrelated and how does that manifest in God's Beautiful Name? God's actions are free from fault or blemish; He is flawless. As human beings, we try to seek and create what is flawless because we have a natural affinity towards it. And precisely what disturbs us and prevents a peaceful existence is when we put all of our hopes in the imperfect. We depend on other human beings as we should depend on God, and when we are disappointed in them, we are broken. We may get angry or frustrated when things don’t work out the seemingly perfect way we wanted. But that is because people and things are not perfect. And when we let go of that, and understand that we all have faults, we are in a better position to work in our environment and try to make it better. The lack of perfection does not cause us to despair. We understand that it is only God who is Flawless. We seek peace from the Flawless Source of Peace by attempting to remove the blemishes from our heart, and we are then granted peace insha’God (God willing). We free ourselves from the shackles of resentment, self-righteousness and rage. We start to do this by humbling ourselves to God Almighty and realizing that everything comes from Him. The anger in our hearts only harms us and shows discontent with the divine decree. We need to let go. As the Prophet ﷺ said: “Know that what has passed you by was not going to befall you; and that what has befallen you was not going to pass you by,” [Tirmidhi]. We are told in the Qur’an of “the Day when there will not benefit [anyone] wealth or children. But only one who comes to God with a sound heart” (Qur’an, 26:88-89). The sound heart is “qalb saleem”, from the same root of God's Name as-Salaam. We are also given an example of the one who had such a heart: “And indeed, among his kind was Abraham, when he came to his Lord with a sound heart.” (Qur’an, 37:83-84)