Al-

The Arabic definite article, “the”, which explains why the same name is spelled in several ways.

What it means

al- assimilates before certain letters, called “sun letters”, so it is written al-Rahman but pronounced ar-Rahman, and ash-Shams for “the sun”. Writers choose either form, so al-Tabari and at-Tabari are one man, and al-Ghazali and Ghazali are the same. This glossary uses the written form.