As-salāmu ʿalaykum (Arabic: السلام عليكم‎‎, Arabic pronunciation: [as'salaːmu ʕalajkum]) is a Muslim greeting in Arabic that means "Peace be upon you". The greeting is a standard salutation among Muslims and is routinely used whenever and wherever Muslims gather and interact, whether socially or within worship and other contexts. The typical response to the greeting is "Waʿalaykumu s-salām" ("and upon you, Peace", IPA: [waʕalajkum salaːm]). This greeting appears in greatly abbreviated forms in many languages from Malagasy to Urdu as some variant of salām (c.f. Persian, IPA: [sælɒm]).