▪ Jeffery1938, 175-76: »The denom. vb.s
sallama and
ʔaslama with their deriv.s are also used not uncommonly in the Qurʔān, though the primitive vb. ↗
salima does not occur therein. – The root is comSem, and is widely used in all the Sem tongues. The sense of ‘peace’, however, seems to be a development peculiar to Hbr and Aram and from thence to have passed into the SSem languages. Hbr
šālôm is ‘soundness’, then ‘peace’;
1
Aram
šᵊlāmā ‘security’, Syr
šᵊlāmā ʻsecurity; peace’. The Eth [Gz]
tasālama, however, is denominative,
2
so that
salām doubtless came from the older religions. Similarly [SAr]
slm 3
is to be taken as due to Northern influence, the
s like Eth [Gz]
s (instead of [SAr]
ś / s2 and [Gz]
ś), being parallel with the
slm of the Saf inscriptions. – In the Aram area the word was widely used as a term of salutation, and in this sense we very frequently find
šlm in the Nab and Sinaitic,
4
and
slm in the Saf inscriptions.
5
From this area it doubtless came into Ar
6
being used long before Islam, as Goldziher has shown (
ZDMG, xlvi, 22 ff.). There can be little doubt that
sallama ʻto greet’, etc., is denominative from this, though Torrey,
Foundation, would take the whole development as purely Ar.«
▪ Lane: The primary acceptation of
salām is synonymous with
salāmaẗ, as is also
salam, ‘safety, security, immnunity,
or freedom, from faults, defects, in perfections, blemishes,
or vices, and from evils of any kind: (TA:)
or [simply] safety, security, immunity,
or freedom’.
▪ van Arendonk/Gimaret:
7
vn. from
salima ‘to be safe, uninjured’, used as subst. in the meaning of ‘safety, salvation’, thence ‘peace’ (in the sense of ‘quietness’), thence ‘salutation, greeting’ (cf. Fr
salut).
▪ Fronzaroli#4.10b, Huehnergard2011, Dolgopolsky2012#2046: From Sem *
šalām‑ ‘unharmed state (Dolgopolsky), health (Fronzaroli), well-being, welfare, peace (Huehnergard)’, from Sem *ŠLM ‘to be whole, sound’.
▪ Klein1987 thinks that the Hbr cognate of Ar
salām, Hbr
šālôm, stands to Hbr ŠLH/W as Hbr
ʕērôm ‘naked’ stands to Hbr ʕRH ‘to lay bare’. Accordingly, he assumes a development of the base Hbr ŠLM from the base ŠLH/W ‘to be quiet, tranquil, at ease’
8
through the medium of
šālôm. Should one try to translate this idea into a general Sem frame? Dolgopolsky2012#2046, at least, also thinks that Sem *ŠLM perhaps is an extension in
*-m from a bi-consonantal theme AfrAs *ŠLW ‘to be untroubled/safe, be at ease; to stay quietly, be at rest’.
▪ For a possible IE connection (cf., e.g., Lat
salus etc.) and a Nostr dimension as assumed by Dolgopolsky2012#2046, cf. ↗SLM and ↗
salima.
EtymArab
ʔ
