المكروه
al-Makrūh
In Islamic law, an act that is disliked and discouraged but not forbidden.
What it means
Al-makrūh is one of the five legal categories that jurists use to grade human acts. It names an act that the law dislikes and advises against. A person who avoids it is rewarded, and a person who does it is not punished, although the habit of doing it is discouraged. The word comes from a root meaning to dislike. The category lies between the permitted (mubāḥ) and the forbidden (ḥarām). Jurists of the Hanafi school further divide it into a stronger and a lighter kind, while others treat it as one. In practice, the category teaches a Muslim to keep a margin of caution from what is forbidden.
Often misunderstood as
Because of the root meaning, it is sometimes translated “hated”, but the legal term is milder: a discouraged act that carries no punishment.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 53, listed as AL MAKRŪH. The definition is restated here.