Muselman

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A historical term once used to describe a follower of the Islamic faith ; a word found in older texts referring to a person practicing Islam ; archaic label for a Muslim individual in past literature
2. An outdated designation for someone adhering to Islam, common in earlier European writings ; a former appellation for an Islamic believer in historical contexts ; a term historically employed to identify a Muslim person
3. A now rarely used expression for a person professing the Islamic religion, seen in older documents ; a past synonym for a Muslim used particularly in Western sources ; an antiquated term for an individual of the Islamic faith found in classical writings

Etymology: "Muselman" is an old English spelling of "Muslim," and its history is mostly a story about how spelling and pronunciation drifted apart. The Arabic word "muslim" means "one who submits" to God, derived from the verb "aslama," "to submit." European travelers and writers borrowed the term in the early modern period, and English spellings varied widely: "Mussulman," "musselman," and "muselman" all appear, reflecting attempts to render the Arabic sound with English letters. The form "muselman" is a respelling that preserves the unstressed vowel of the Arabic word as the English speakers heard it, rather than as a modern reader would expect. Over time, the modern spelling "Muslim" came to be preferred, and the older variants fell out of use, leaving them as markers of the period when English writers were still working out how to represent an unfamiliar word.