List of Islamic terms in Arabic

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:

• adab[?]
• adhan (call to salat[?] (prayer))
• adl[?] - justice especially distributive justice: social, economic, political, environmental
• Allah - literally "The God" (Allah is thus God in Arabic)
• al-urf[?] - custom of a given society, leading to change in the fiqh
• akhra[?]
• akhirah[?] - the afterlife, and accountability for present deeds
• alim[?] - literally who knows, means scientific (who knows science) or a theologian (who knows religion), similar to Japanese sensei "teacher"
• caliph - Islamic ruler
• fana[?] - sufi term
• fard[?] - obligatory, you have to do it. praying 5 times a day is fard
• fatwa (فتاوى) - legal opinion of a qualified [jurist]] (ulema) binding on him and on those who follow his taqlid[?].
• fiqh - jurisprudence built around the shariah by custom (al-urf[?])
• hadith - recorded saying or tradition of the prophet Muhammad validated by isnah; with sira these comprise the sunnah and reveal shariah
• halal - lawful, permittd, good, beneficial, praiseworthy, honourable
• hafiz - someone who knows the Quran by heart
• haj or hajj - pilgrimage
• hanif[?]
• haram - forbidden. Antonym fard; Also describes inviolate natural zones around towns.
• hijra - Muhammad's and his followers emigration from Mecca to Medina
• hima - wilderness reserve[?], protected forest, grazing commons, important to khalifa
• 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
• ibadah[?] - worship, but not limited to ritual: all expressions of servitude to Allah from pursuit of knowledge living a pious life, helping, charity, humility
• ihram[?]
• ijma - the consensus of either the ummah (or just the ulema) - one of four bases of Islamic Law. More generally, political consensus itself.
• ijtihad - exerting oneself to the utmost to comprehend, form opinion, and adjust to change.
• ilm[?] - all varieties of knowledge, usually a synonym for science
• imam - the man who leads the prayer
• imamah[?]
• Islam - Peace, submission to God, natural inclination of humans and nature
• isnad - chain of transmitters of any given hadith
• isnah - process of validing the hadith; citation methodology
• isra[?]
• istislah[?] - public interest - a source of Islamic Law.
• jahiliya[?]
• jamia[?] - litterary group, means also community, espectially the muslim community
• jihad - struggle. Any earnest striving in the way of Allah, involving personal, physical, intellectual or military effort, for righteousness and against wrong-doing;
  • "Lesser Jihad" means just holy war to free Muslims from oppression (only)
  • "Greater Jihad" internal struggle with the self for soul (nafs[?])
• kaffir[?] - unbeliever
• 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.
• kufr[?] - "cover" - what the kaffir[?] seeks in denying Islam, lying to oneself
• lanat[?]
• madhab[?] - school of thought
• madrasa[?] - school, university
• mahdi
• masum[?]
• miraj[?]
• Mudarabah[?] - profit-sharing[?]; principle of Islamic economics
• Musharakah[?] - partnership; principle of Islamic economics
• nafs[?] - soul, desire: control of one's nafs is the Greater Jihad[?]
• nahw[?] - Arabic grammar
• purda[?]
• qiyas[?] - analogy - foundation of legal reasoning and thus fiqh
• salah[?] - daily obligatory prayer - one of the Five Pillars of Islam
• salat[?] - prayer
• sema
• shaikh
• 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
• shawm or sawm[?] - fasting during Ramadan - one of the Five Pillars of Islam
• shia
• shura - cooperation and consultation for the benefit of the community; council for this purpose; consultation as a political principle
• 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
• 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.
• tasawwuf or sufism
• tarkib[?]
• tariqa
• tartil[?]
• tawheed - monotheism; affirmation of one-ness of God; its opposite is shirk
• ulema or ulama - class of religious teachers
• umma[?] or ummah - the global community of all Muslim believers; international personhood of Islam
• wahdat al-wujud[?]
• warraqeen[?] - traditional scribe, publisher, printer, notary and book copier
• zakat - purifying tax on wealth; alms as a Muslim duty; one of the Five Pillars of Islam; neither charity nor derived from Islamic economics, but a religious duty and social obligation.

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

• Suzanne Haneef[?], What Everyone Should Know about Islam and Muslims, (Kazi Publications, Chicago), popular introduction
• Ziauddin Sardar[?], Muhammad for Beginners, Icon Books, 1994, some sloppiness, from very modern Sufi point of view.