فتنة
Fitna
Trial, persecution or turmoil; in the Quran, mainly the persecution of believers for their faith.
What it means
The root means to test, as gold is tried in fire. The Quran says God tests people with good and evil as a trial (21:35). In the verses on fighting it means persecution: “fitna is worse than killing” (2:191, also 2:217).
Often misunderstood as
That “fight them until there is no fitna” (2:193) means fighting until everyone converts.
What the sources say
The verse continues: “if they cease, there is no hostility except against the wrongdoers” (2:193). The fighting is to stop persecution, and the Muslims in Mecca had been tortured and driven out for their belief. It sits in the same chapter that says there is “no compulsion in religion” (2:256) and is read together with it.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 42, listed as FITNAH. The definition is restated here.