List of Islamic terms in Arabic

It is sometimes difficult to separate concepts in Islam from concepts specific to Arab culture, from the language itself. The Qur'an is expressed in Arabic and traditionally Muslims deemed it untranslatable, though this view has changed somewhat in recent decades. Concepts that derive from both Islam and Arab tradition, which are expressed as words in the Arabic language, and are sufficiently specific to these to require their own articles here, are:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

B

  • barakah - spiritual wisdom and blessing transmitted from master to pupil

C

  • caliph - literally successor; refers to the successor of the prophet Muhammad, the ruler of the Islamic world

D

  • dajjal - the Islamic counterpart to the Antichrist
  • da'wa - the call to Islam
  • dervish - a Sufi ascetic
  • dhimmi - Jews and Christians (and sometimes others), whose right to practice their religion is tolerated within an Islamic society, but with lower legal status.

F

H

  • hadith - recorded saying or tradition of the prophet Muhammad validated by isnah; with sira these comprise the sunnah and reveal shariah
  • halal - lawful, permitted, good, beneficial, praiseworthy, honourable
  • hafiz - someone who knows the Quran by heart. Literal translation = memorizer.
  • haj or hajj - pilgrimage to Mecca - the fifth Pillar of Islam
  • hanif - the 5 monotheist prophets Adam, Abraham/Ibrahim, Moses/Musa, Jesus/Isa, Mohammed.
  • haram - (with a long a) forbidden. Antonym fard. (with a short a) sanctuary.
  • hijab - veiling for the sake of modesty
  • hijra - literally migration, Muhammad's and his followers' emigration from Mecca to Medina
  • hima - wilderness reserve, protected forest, grazing commons, important to khalifa
  • hudna - temporary cease fire for tactical reasons.
  • hudud - Literally, limits or boundaries. Usually refers to limits placed by God on man; penalties of the Islamic law which are described in the Quran

I

J

K

  • kafir - one who refuses to submit to God; polytheists or atheists
  • kalam - Islamic theology
  • khalifa - Man's trusteeship and stewardship of Earth; Most basic theory of the Caliphate; Flora and fauna as sacred trust; Accountability to God for harms to nature, failure to actively care and maintain. Three specific ways in which khalifa is manifested in Muslim practice are the creation of haram to protect water, hima to protect other species (including those useful to man), and by resisting infidel domination over Muslim lands, in jihad.
  • kufr - atheism, the sin of ingratitude to Allah

L

  • lanat - curse

M

  • madhab - school of religious jurisprudence, school of thought
  • madrasa - school, university
  • mahdi - someone kind of savior or Messiah
  • masum
  • miraj - see isra
  • muhajabah - woman who wears hijab
  • mujahid - a fighter for islam
  • munaqabah - woman who wears niqab
  • murshid - a Sufi teacher

N

P

  • purda - not an Arabic term; means "curtain" in Persian. Metaphorically refers to the practice of secluding women.

Q

S

  • shahid - martyr, often used in modern times for deaths in a political cause (including victims of soldiers, deaths in battle, suicide bombers, etc.)
  • salah - daily obligatory prayer - the second Pillar of Islam
  • salat - five time a day prayer
  • sema
  • shahadah - The expression of faith: La ilaha illa Allah ("There is no god but God") - the first Pillar of Islam
  • shaikh - a spiritual master
  • sharia or shariah, literally means the path to a watering hole; the eternal ethical code and moral code based on Quran and sunnah; basis of fiqh
  • sawm - fasting during Ramadan - the third Pillar of Islam
  • shia - the second largest branch of Islam, followers of Ali and his successor as Imam
  • shirk - idolatry, the sin of believing in any divinity except Allah
  • shura - consultation. majlis ash-shura - advisory council
  • sira - life or biography of the Prophet Muhammad; his moral example - with hadith this comprises the sunnah
  • sufi - a Muslim mystic; Sufism (tasawwuf) is to most an integral part of Islam, but does not derive directly or only from Muhammad himself
  • sunnah - literally path or example; sunnah annabi is what the Prophet has done or said or agreed to; He is considered as the best human moral example by Muslims, the best man to follow;
  • sunni - the largest branch of Islam, having no single central authority
  • sura - chapter; the Quran is comprised of 114 suras

T

  • tafsir - exegesis, particularly such commentary on the Quran
  • tajwid - special manner of reading the Quran. When you do it, you get more rewards for your reading.
  • taqlid - blind imitation of precedent, normally of a classical jurist of fiqh, contrast to ijtihad and ijma which imply status for the community and lay public.
  • taqiyya - the mostly Shia principle that one is allowed to hide one's true belief in certain circumstances.
  • tasawwuf or sufism
  • tarkib
  • tariqa - a Muslim religious order, particularly a Sufi order
  • tartil - slow and measured (meditative) recitation of the Koran
  • tawheed - monotheism; affirmation of oneness of God; its opposite is shirk

U

  • ulema or ulama - the leaders of Islamic society, including teachers, Imams and judges
  • ummah or umma - the global community of all Muslim believers; international personhood of Islam
  • urf - custom of a given society, leading to change in the fiqh

W

Z

  • zakat - tax, alms as a Muslim duty; the fourth Pillar of Islam. Neither charity nor derived from Islamic economics, but a religious duty and social obligation.
  • zina' - sexual activity outside marriage (covering the English words adultery and fornication)

NOTE: Wikipedia is not a general Arabic-to-English dictionary. The list above includes only those concepts sufficiently specific to Islam or Muslim culture to merit their own full articles. The prime purposes of this list are to disambiguate multiple spellings, make note of spellings no longer in use for these concepts, define the concept in one line to make it easy to pin down the one you're looking for, and provide a guide to unique concepts of Islam all in one place.

There is an English/Arabic dictionary on wiktionary.

Other notes

The English word algorithm is derived from the name of the inventor of algebra - an Arabic word like alchemy, alcohol, azimuth, nadir, zenith and oasis, which mean the same as in English.

Arabic numerals are what we use in English ("0", "1", "2",...). The modern Arabs in Arabia generally use the Hindi numerals.

Some English words or phrases would translate very poorly into Arabic for cultural reasons, for instance the English word "crusade" would most likely be interpreted as meaning "genocide", and "infinite justice" would most likely be interpreted as meaning "divine judgement" - adl in Arabic implying Allah's justice. Probably it is best to avoid such terms for anything one intends to translate into Arabic, or knows will be translated.

Some Islamic concepts are usually referred to in Persian or Turkic. Those are typically of later origin that the concepts listed here - for completeness it may be best to list Persian terms and those unique to Shia on their own page, likewise Turkic terms and those unique to the Ottoman period on their own page, as these are culturally very distinct.

References

Related articles


Google
Home   Alphabetical Listing   Quote


This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.