The Etiquette of Greeting (Salam) in Islam

A look at salam in Islamic teaching, drawn from the Quran and authentic hadith.

A hadith recorded in Sahih Muslim has a companion asking the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ what act of Islam is best. His answer named two things together: feeding people, and greeting with salam both those you know and those you do not know – pairing the ordinary act of greeting a stranger with feeding the hungry as among the very best deeds a Muslim can perform.

A Prerequisite for Genuine Faith and Love

A hadith recorded in Sahih Muslim describes the Prophet ﷺ teaching that believers will not enter Paradise until they believe, and they will not truly believe until they love one another, before adding a practical suggestion for achieving that love: spread salam among yourselves. Scholars point to the structure of this hadith as treating the simple habit of greeting others as a genuine mechanism for building the mutual affection Islamic teaching considers essential to a healthy community, not merely a symbolic afterthought once that affection already exists.

Multiplied Reward for a Fuller Greeting

A hadith recorded by Abu Dawud and al-Tirmidhi describes a man greeting the Prophet ﷺ with “Assalamu alaikum,” peace be upon you, and being credited with ten rewards. A second man added “wa rahmatullah,” and the mercy of Allah, and was credited with twenty. A third added “wa barakatuh,” and His blessings, and was credited with thirty. Scholars cite this account as illustrating that the fuller, more complete form of the greeting was actively encouraged, with reward scaling directly to how much was said, rather than treating the shortest version as sufficient by default.

Who Initiates: A Small Etiquette With Real Structure

A hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim describes a specific order of precedence the Prophet ﷺ taught for who should initiate the greeting: the one riding should greet the one walking, the one walking should greet the one sitting, and a smaller group should greet a larger one. Scholars have read this ordering as encouraging humility specifically from whoever holds the more comfortable or elevated position in a given moment – the rider over the walker, for instance – rather than leaving initiation to whoever happens to feel like speaking first.

Greeting Even Someone Already Known

A hadith recorded by Abu Dawud describes the Prophet ﷺ teaching that if a person meets someone, parts from them briefly, and then meets them again shortly after, they should offer salam again – treating the greeting not as a formality reserved for a first encounter of the day but as something appropriately repeated, underscoring that its purpose was ongoing goodwill rather than a single administrative courtesy.

Extending It to Children

A hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari describes Anas ibn Malik (RA) recounting that the Prophet ﷺ would pass by children and offer them salam – a detail scholars cite as evidence that the greeting was never treated as a formal courtesy reserved for adults or social equals, but extended deliberately to those with the least social standing to demand it, modeling the same habit of universal, unearned courtesy the practice was meant to instill more broadly.

Why Salam Is Called by a Name of Allah

Classical scholarship points out that the word used in the greeting, salam, peace, is also one of the names by which Allah describes Himself in Surah al-Hashr, which lists as-Salam among His attributes (59:23) – meaning the greeting Muslims exchange dozens of times daily is, in effect, invoking one of Allah’s own names as a blessing upon the person being addressed, rather than simply wishing them well in a generic sense. A hadith recorded by Abu Dawud describes the Prophet ﷺ teaching that spreading this greeting was one of the practices most closely tied to sustaining brotherhood among believers specifically because of the content of what was actually being said, not only the social ritual of speaking it. Scholars have used this connection to explain why classical teaching discourages replacing the full greeting with an abbreviated wave, a nod, or a generic “hello” among Muslims even where local custom might otherwise favor a shorter exchange, since doing so quietly drops the specific invocation of peace that gives the greeting its religious content in the first place.

This theme connects directly to our article on The Prohibition of Backbiting (Gheebah) in Islam. Readers wanting to verify the primary sources directly can consult Quran.com for the full Quranic text and hadith references.