عمل
ʿAmala
To do good or evil works in an active, participatory life, fully engaged with the processes of history.
What it means
The verb ʿamila and its noun ʿamal cover deeds of every kind, good or evil, done by a person who takes part actively in the life of the world and its history. The Quran joins faith to action again and again, in the phrase “those who believe and do righteous deeds” (103:3), and it says that whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it, and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it (99:7–8). Islam therefore asks the believer to engage in the affairs of this life with faith and responsibility, since every deed is recorded and will be judged.
Often misunderstood as
Rendered “to work”, it loses the sense that every deed, good or evil, carries moral weight before God.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 41, listed as ʿAMALA. The definition is restated here.