المباح
al-Mubāḥ
In Islamic law, an act that is permitted and falls under none of the other categories, carrying neither reward nor blame.
What it means
Al-mubāḥ is the permitted, the fifth of the legal categories into which jurists grade human acts. The word comes from a root meaning to make allowable. An act in this class is neither commanded nor recommended, and neither discouraged nor forbidden. A person who does it or leaves it incurs neither reward nor blame, although the intention can raise a permitted act to an act of worship. The general principle held by most jurists is that the default for things and customs is permission unless a text forbids them. Eating lawful food, trading and travelling belong here. A person who eats to keep strong for worship is rewarded for the intention, not for the act itself.
Often misunderstood as
Describing it as “neither legitimate nor illegitimate” can suggest that the act is doubtful; the legal term means permitted, and it is lawful.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 53, listed as AL MUBĀḤ. The definition is restated here.