Your Guide to Essential Islāmic Vocabulary

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Your Guide to Essential Islāmic Vocabulary

Imam Marc Manley

Jan 22

 

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In a recent conversation with a new’ish Muslim, he lamented on how it can be confusing to understand the way Muslims talk about Islām, especially the way they describe certain acts in Islām: sunnah, ḥarām, ḥalāl, wājib, and the list goes on. He asked if I could make a video/post addressing this issue and I remembered that many moons ago I used to have on my personal website a list of different Muslim/Islāmic words, vocabulary, and phrases, but alas, my personal website has not been up and running for several years now (do people even do websites anymore?). So the following is the first of, in shā’ Allāh, many attempts to address this issue.

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For this project, I decided to start with something a bit more cerebral even though I know this can be a turn off for some. I feel that there is no avoiding this necessity and that before diving into the actual words themselves, I would like to set the scene by explaining that there’s an important backstory to how these words even came to be and that many of us, unwittingly, are employing these terminologies without fully understanding their initial intentions, distorting their meanings, and even out right misapplying their uses and applications. So I’ve started with a short introduction based on a selection of the illustrious Imām of the Mālikiyyah, Imām al-Qafaṣī, may Allāh have mercy on him. The imām, who’s name is Muḥammad bin ʿAbd Allāh bin Rāshid al-Bakrī al-Qafaṣī, lived from the middle of the 7th Century Hijrah to almost the halfway mark of the 8th Century and is the author of Lubāb al-Lubāb: fī bayān mā taḍammanathu abwāb al-Kitāb min al-arkān wa al-shurūṭ wa al-mawāniʿ wa al-asbāb (The Essence of the Essence – In explaining what the chapters of The Book encompass in terms of pillars, conditions, prohibitions, and causes), specifically his section on Concerning Rulings and Their Classifications (Fī al-Ḥukm wa aqsāmuhu). This short but insightful selection economically conveys the history of many important terms such as ḥarām and sunnah as well as, and perhaps most importantly, highlighting the need to remember the division between Revelation and man’s contemplation and interpretation of it.

Sunnah

Concerning Rulings and Their Classifications

The ḥukm (ruling) is the eternal address of Allah, the Exalted, related to the actions of the morally responsible, either through obligation or choice.

We exercised caution by specifying “Eternal” to avoid including the texts of the evidences pointing to the ḥukm, as they are post-Revelation, being the byproduct of men/scholars, and are not themselves the ḥukm (i.e., they are not the Eternal Speech of God). Otherwise, the evidence and what is indicated would become equivalent.

The author is making a subtle but significant distinction between dalīl(evidence) and madlūl (what the evidence indicates). He argues that these two must remain conceptually distinct:

1. Evidence, no matter how accurate, is the byproduct of created beings (men, scholars, etc.) which the author calls ḥādithah:

   1. The textual sources (e.g., Qur’ānic verses or ḥadiths) that serve as evidence for rulings are themselves created events. The Qur’an, as the eternal speech of Allah, is not created, but its physical text—as we interact with it—is temporal, meaning they come into existence when recited, written, or transmitted.

2. The ḥukm (ruling), however, is al-Qadīm (Eternal):

   1. The ḥukm, as the divine, eternal will of Allah, in relation to human actions (obligations, prohibitions, etc.), is considered eternal because it stems from Allah’s eternal knowledge and decree.

3. The risk of equating evidence (dalīl/adillah) and ruling (ḥukm):

   1. If the evidence (dalīl) and the ruling (madlūl/ḥukm) were considered the same, it would imply that the ruling itself is created. This would blur the lines between the temporal evidence and the eternal nature of divine rulings. Such ambiguity would undermine the distinction between Allah’s eternal attributes (e.g., His knowledge and will) and the created forms that express/interpret them.

4. Preserving the distinction:

   1. By specifying that the ḥukm is eternal and excluding the textual evidence from this definition, the author maintains the integrity of divine supremacy will in no way compromising the interpretations of Muslim jurists. The texts serve as pointers to the ruling but are not themselves the ruling.

Included in al-iqtiḍāʾ (demand/necessity) are:

1. The demand for existence, either with jazm (decisiveness), which is wājib (obligatory), or without decisiveness, which is mandūb (recommended).

2. The demand for non-existence, either with jazm (decisiveness), which is ḥarām (prohibited), or without decisiveness, which is makrūh (disliked).

In between these two extremes/categories is ibāḥah (neutrality/permissibility):

Wājib is that for which the doer is rewarded according to Islamic law, and the one who abandons it is punished. It is also referred to as farḍ, ḥatm, and lāzim.

Mandūb (recommended) is that for which the doer is rewarded, and the one who refrains is not blamed. If its reward is great, and the Prophet ﷺ performed it in groups and was consistent in doing so, it is called sunnah. If its reward is less, and he did not perform it in congregations, it is called a nāfilah (supererogatory act). If it falls between the two categories, it is called a faḍīlah (virtuous act).

The Ḥarām (prohibited) is that for which the doer is blameworthy, and the one who refrains from it is praiseworthy, provided that they refrain with the intention of complying with the command. And the Makrūh (disliked) is that for which the one who refrains is praiseworthy, but the doer is not blameworthy.

Mubāḥ (permissible) is that for which the doer is neither praised, nor is the one who refrains blameworthy. However, if one performs it with the intention of seeking Allah’s pleasure—such as a man being intimate with his wife to protect her chastity and to reflect upon the perfection of that pleasure as a sign of Allah’s perfect power—that one is rewarded. Similarly, if one eats with the intention of gaining strength for worship, they are also rewarded.

I have also recorded a video to help explain some of this material, as it may be a little dense to digest in one go. Additionally, for those interested, I have included here a PDF with the original Arabic text along with my translation. In shā’ Allāh, I hope to have part two out shortly. Please let me know if there are any terms in particular you would like explained.

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