ضلال
Ḍalāl
The verbal noun of ḍalla: error, going astray from God’s guidance.
What it means
Ḍalāl is the noun for the act of ḍalla, to go astray. Faruqi lists it simply as the verbal noun of that verb. It names the state of someone who has strayed from the straight path that God has shown. The Quran uses it in several settings. It warns those who turn away from God’s message, and in the Fatiha the believers ask to be guided to the straight path, not that of those who have gone astray (1:7). The word is therefore tied to the main petition of every prayer. In ordinary Arabic it can mean being lost in a literal sense, and the Quran uses it of both senses.
Often misunderstood as
That it means only “sin” in the sense of a moral lapse, when it describes losing the way altogether.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 36, listed as ḌALĀL. The definition is restated here.