Glossary

To serve, worship and obey God as He has ordered, following Muhammad (peace be upon him); the sense is noble when God is the object and degrading otherwise.

The science of hidden defects in hadith: flaws in a report that look sound on the surface but weaken it.

The turban, a head-covering worn by many Muslim men and by some scholars as a mark of their calling.

The common and approved custom of a people, used in the absence of a contrary ruling as a basis from which law is derived

The people of the prophet Hud, destroyed for their arrogance, according to the Quran.

Everlastingness, being without end; the counterpart of azal, being without beginning.

Chapter 80 of the Quran, “He frowned”, in which God rebukes the Prophet for turning away from a blind man.

The dynasty that ruled the Muslim world from Baghdad from 750 to 1258.

Servant or slave of God: the name for a human being in relation to his Creator.

The person who serves God; the plural of ʿabd is ʿibād and that of ʿābid is ʿābidūn.

Washing before prayer: the minor wudu, the full bath (ghusl), and dry ablution (tayammum) where there is no water.

“Father of”: the form of name by which Arabs call a person after his eldest child, and its counterpart “Umm”, mother of.

A tree of Paradise named in the Quran (56:29).

Punishment, pain and suffering in this world or the next, which God inflicts on humans who violate His Shariah.

The call to prayer, proclaimed from the mosque five times a day.

Islam forbids treating an adopted child as one’s own by blood, and urges caring for orphans.

An early Christian view that Jesus became God’s Son by adoption.

Prostration and worship belong to God alone, not to sun, moon or any creature (41:37).

A single report about adult breastfeeding, understood by most scholars as a special case.

Sexual intercourse outside marriage, which the Quran forbids and surrounds with strict conditions of proof.

Patience in hardship: steadfastness, which the Quran promises God will reward without measure.

To succeed in one’s endeavour; the Quran uses it for the believers who attain lasting success.

The third of the five daily prayers, between mid-afternoon and sunset.

The point at which a Muslim becomes accountable for religious duties, at puberty.

The Quran forbids transgression, allows only proportionate defence, and urges forgiveness and the better response.

The covenant between God and humankind, by which people pledge obedience and God rewards or punishes accordingly; a lawful pledge between people is also binding.

The rulings and prescriptions taken directly from the text of the Quran, and the name of a genre of works that gather them.

The Prophet’s household, held in special honour by all Muslims.

The People of the Book: Jews and Christians, who received earlier scriptures.

A name of the Prophet, “the most praised”, which the Quran gives in 61:6.

A movement founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, which most Muslims do not count as part of Islam.

To keep oneself pure from illegitimate sexual contact; muḥṣin and muḥṣana name a man or woman who guards chastity.

The time that God has appointed for any event, above all the span of a life or the end of a nation.

“Your reward rests with God”: said to a person who deserves compensation, as a prayer that God repay what the person gave or lost.

A divine attribute meaning the Greater: God is greater than anything that can be named or compared, as in the takbir Allahu akbar.

A brother in faith; the plurals are ikhwah and ikhwān.

The Hereafter: the life after death, judgement, and the abode of reward or punishment.

The hereafter: the judgment, and the eternal consummation of that judgment in Paradise or Hell.

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

The firmest handhold: the indissoluble bond of Islam to which a believer holds fast.

A mosque and university in Cairo, founded about 970, and the best-known centre of Sunni learning.

One of God’s names, “the Mighty”, and the Egyptian title of an official in the story of Joseph.

The household of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), whom Muslims honour and include in their blessings on him.

The Sacred House, a name of the Kaaba in Mecca, toward which Muslims face in prayer and around which they circle in the hajj.

The informed, intuitive and critical sense by which a judge reaches verdicts that fulfil, or come closest to fulfilling, the purposes of the Shariah.

“All praise and thanksgiving be to Allah”: said after finishing eating, drinking or any other activity.

Those whose hearts are yet to be reconciled; the Quran lists them among the recipients of zakah.

A Jewish tribe of Medina, expelled in 625 after a plot against the Prophet.

The good example of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), which Muslims follow in worship, conduct and character.

The worlds: creation in its totality in space and time, of which God is the Lord.

A scholar of religion; the plural, ulama, is the learned class of Muslim societies.

A divine name meaning the All-Knowing, He whose knowledge extends to everything.

A divine name meaning the Highest, God being exalted above all creation and every comparison.

The Arabic word for God, used by Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians and Jews alike.

“God is greater”: the phrase that opens the prayer and the call to prayer, and is said in many other moments of life.

The invocation form of the name Allah, used to call on God in worship and prayer.

The Quran’s verses on alliance and friendship with Jews, Christians and others, which must be read with its call to justice and kindness.

Zakat is the obligatory share; sadaqa is voluntary giving beyond it.

The Greek letters that Revelation uses for “the first and the last”, a title the Quran also gives to God alone (57:3).

To do good or evil works in an active, participatory life, fully engaged with the processes of history.

Trust: a responsibility entrusted by God, and honesty in keeping what is entrusted.

A trust: what has been entrusted to a person, whether property, a secret or a duty.

To build or operate a land, site, building or piece of equipment so that it fulfils its purpose.

The word said at the end of a prayer; in Islam it is said after the opening chapter.

“May Allah bless you too”: the reply to naʿīman, a wish of comfort and well-being.

The Quran’s references to the human body are about God’s signs, and are not a textbook of anatomy.

The Muslim-ruled parts of the Iberian peninsula from 711 to 1492.

Beings created from light to serve God, whom Muslims are required to believe in.

The Quran praises those who restrain anger and forgive.

The Quran describes animals as communities like humans, as signs of God, and as creatures owed kindness.

“The Helpers”: the people of Medina who received the Prophet and his emigrant followers.

The Quran’s story of Solomon and the ant (27:18–19) and its use of a small creature as a sign.

Hatred of Jews, which Islam’s sources do not teach; the Quran distinguishes particular acts from a whole people.

The Quran says that a group who broke the Sabbath became “apes, despised” (2:65, 7:166); early commentators differed on whether this is literal.

The reasoned defence of a faith, which the Quran itself commands: to argue “in the best manner” (16:125).

Leaving Islam. The Quran gives no worldly penalty for it; the classical law did, and Muslim scholars still differ.

A messenger: a prophet sent with a message and, usually, a scripture to a people.

To reason, and by reasoning to arrive at knowledge (ʿilm).

To establish, hold or fulfil something; to make it present again.

Creed: the beliefs a Muslim holds about God, the prophets, the scriptures and the Last Day.

The person who reasons and by reasoning arrives at knowledge (ʿilm); plural ʿāqilūn.

To do justice; to act with fairness and equity.

The peninsula where Islam began, in which Jews, Christians and idol-worshippers lived before the Quran.

The language of the Quran, described in the Quran as “clear Arabic” (16:103).

Standard dictionaries for reading the Quran’s Arabic: Lane’s Lexicon, Hans Wehr, and the classical Lisān al-ʿArab.

A people of the Arabian peninsula; Muslim tradition traces them to Ishmael and to Qahtan.

The plain near Mecca where pilgrims stand on the ninth of Dhu al-Hijja, the heart of the Hajj.

Settling a dispute through a neutral third party, which the Quran commends.

Archaeology bears on Islam’s early history: the Dome of the Rock, early manuscripts, and the places named in the Quran.

The Quran names two arks: Noah’s ship and the Ark of the Covenant (tābūt).

The Quran mentions armour as a gift from God to David and as part of defence.

The occasions of revelation: the circumstances in which a verse was revealed.

The theological school of Abu al-Hasan al-Ash‘ari (d. 936) that became the most widely followed creed among Sunnis.

Accounts of the killing of several people who mocked the Prophet and fought against him, which scholars treat very differently.

The Quran invites its readers to study sun, moon and stars as signs, but it is not a textbook of astronomy.

The Quran’s “weight of an atom” (mithqāl dharra) means the smallest thing one can think of.

In Islam sins are forgiven by God on repentance, without a blood sacrifice or the suffering of another.

Those in authority: the Quran tells Muslims to obey God, the Messenger and those in authority, and to refer disputes to God and the Messenger.

The Muslim who repeatedly turns back to God in repentance after any misdeed; plural awwābūn.

A divine name: the First, before whom there is nothing.

To interpret what is not plainly known, such as dreams or the hidden meanings of a text; verbal noun taʾwīl.

A sign, and the word for a verse of the Quran.

A divine name meaning the Great, the Mighty and the Glorious.

Withdrawal before ejaculation, a method of birth control that the Prophet’s Companions practised and that most jurists permit.

To ennoble a person by raising him in honour and standing in society, an act the Quran ascribes to God.

Resurrection, when all people are raised to face God’s judgment.

A Canaanite god whom the prophet Elijah rebuked his people for worshipping (37:125).

The Quran mentions Babylon in the story of Harut and Marut (2:102).

A document attributed to the first Mughal emperor, urging tolerance towards Hindus; its authenticity is doubtful.

A name in Psalm 84:6; the Quran uses a similar name, Bakka, for Mecca (3:96).

Speaking ill of someone in his absence, which the Quran compares to eating the flesh of one’s dead brother.

A divine name meaning the Beginner of all things; also given as al-Mubdiʾ.

The first major battle between the Muslims of Medina and Quraysh, in Ramadan, 2 AH (624).

A false or evil endeavour, spoiled by a false or evil intention, a false or evil result, or both.

The Quran has Pharaoh say “kindle a fire for me, Haman, upon the clay” (28:38); baked brick was in use in ancient Egypt.

A name of the Quran: that which has reached humankind from God.

A divine name meaning He who exists forever and remains after all else has passed away.

To fill with the grace and approval of God.

“May Allah bless you,” to one person (fīk) or several (fīkum), said as a compliment on any occasion.

A divine name meaning the Creator who brings things into being.

A name of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him): the bearer of glad tidings.

A divine name meaning He who sees everything.

The opposite of ḥaqq: the false in belief, and the evil or wrong in conduct.

A divine name meaning He who is hidden behind all phenomena; the opposite of al-Ẓāhir.

The nomination of the Khalifah by the leaders of the Ummah, or its endorsement by the community; also the pledge given to the Prophet (peace be upon him) at Madinah.

A name of the Quran: that which is clear and makes other things clear; also eloquence of expression.

A name of the Kaʿba, the first house built for the worship of God, raised by Ibrahim and his son Ismaʿil (peace be upon them).

A name for each verse of the Quran, and in the plural (bayyināt) for all its verses: the clear proof that establishes truth against falsehood.

The nomadic Arabs; the Quran speaks of some who were hypocrites and of others who believed (9:97–99).

Islam discourages begging when it can be avoided, and urges generosity to those who do beg.

The Quran’s statement that God neither begets nor is begotten (112:3), directed at the belief that God has a son in a literal sense.

The Quran’s battlefield command “strike the necks” (47:4) is about combat; the Prophet forbade mutilation, and Muslim scholars have condemned beheadings by extremists.

A Hindu text some Muslim writers cite as foretelling Muhammad; most scholars date the passage after Islam.

The scripture of Christians. Muslims honour the Torah and Gospel as revealed, and hold that the Bible as it is now includes later human additions.

Innovation in religion: adding to the faith what the Prophet did not teach.

The Quran refers to living things as signs of God, including that life began in water and that plants come in pairs.

A collective name for all conduct that God approves.

The Quran describes each birth as a new creation by God (39:6).

The Prophet encouraged marrying and having children, but this is not a strategy of takeover, and fertility in Muslim countries has fallen sharply.

Reports of black banners coming from Khorasan, used by the Abbasids and by modern extremist groups, which many scholars class as weak.

The Quran forbids mocking religion and reviling others’ gods, but sets no worldly punishment; Muslim law has differed.

Verse 8:72 distinguishes between believers who migrated and those who did not, and puts treaty obligations first.

The Quran forbids using money to gain a ruling over another’s property (2:188), and the Prophet cursed both who gives and who takes a bribe.

The Quran calls the believers brothers, and tells them to hold fast together and not to divide (3:103).

The Quran’s chapter “The Romans” (30) says the Byzantines, defeated by the Persians, would win “within a few years”.

The title the Arabs used for the Byzantine emperor, “Caesar of Rome”.

An American Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation founded in 1994.

A successor to the Prophet as leader of the Muslim community; the four rightly guided caliphs were Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali.

The land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan; the Quran speaks of “the Holy Land” promised to the Israelites.

The cave on the mountain outside Mecca where the Prophet used to retire and where the first revelation came.

A Muslim minority of Cambodia and Vietnam, mostly Shafi’i Sunnis, who suffered greatly under the Khmer Rouge.

A hadith compares playing chess to dyeing one’s hand in the blood and flesh of swine, but scholars have differed on it.

The Quran sets no minimum age of marriage but requires maturity (4:6); modern Muslim-majority countries have set minimum ages in law.

The Quran forbids infanticide, honours daughters, and asks that children be nursed and provided for.

Muslims have lived in China since the seventh century, and the Hui and Uyghurs are among the largest groups.

The Quran’s name for Christians; it praises their piety and disagrees with their doctrine.

Muslims honour Jesus’ birth, which the Quran tells in detail, but do not celebrate Christmas as a religious feast; scholars differ on greeting Christians at the season.

The Quran lists churches, synagogues and monasteries with mosques as places in which God’s name is much remembered, and which fighting is meant to protect (22:40).

Male circumcision is a practice that most Muslim jurists treat as required or strongly recommended; the Quran does not mention it, and female cutting is not required.

Quran 6:151–153 and 17:22–39 give moral commandments close to the Ten Commandments.

A body formed under the Muslim World League to promote the idea that the Quran foretells modern science.

The short phrases Muslims say daily: “peace be upon you”, “praise be to God”, “God willing”, “in the name of God”.

Young believers who fled persecution and slept in a cave for centuries, in Quran 18:9–26.

Those who met the Prophet, believed in him, and died as Muslims; the first generation of the community.

The Prophet’s sayings describe the child in the womb as written down by an angel, and the Quran affirms that God shapes it.

The Quran uses fasād for corruption of the earth and of society, and warns that wrongdoing brings its own harm (30:41).

The Quran commands keeping covenants and treaties, and tells of the covenant God took from the prophets and the Children of Israel.

Chapter 2, the longest, named for the story of the yellow cow (2:67–73).

The Quran says God created the heavens and the earth in six “days”, and gives “day” a wider sense than twenty-four hours.

The crescent is a late symbol, not found in the Quran or the first centuries of Islam; Ramadan is begun by sighting the new moon.

The Quran says Jesus was not killed or crucified, “but it was made to appear so to them” (4:157).

The Latin Christian wars of 1095–1291 to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land; Muslims remember them as a Frankish invasion.

The Prophet forbade cursing people, saying he was sent as a mercy and not a curser.

Local custom is respected where it agrees with the faith, but the Quran condemns following forefathers blindly.

The False Messiah of the end of time, described in hadith but not named in the Quran.

The verbal noun of ḍalla: error, going astray from God’s guidance.

A person who errs and strays from God’s straight path, especially in the course of history; plural ḍāllūn.

To err and stray from the straight path of God revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

Classical legal terms dividing the world into the “house of Islam” and the “house of war”, which are not in the Quran or hadith.

The date palm is named often in the Quran and was the food Mary was told to eat in labour (19:25).

A 2003 novel and 2006 film claiming that the divinity of Jesus was invented at Nicaea; historians reject its claims.

“Invitation”: calling people to Islam, which the Quran says should be done by wisdom and good counsel.

Hebrew manuscripts found near the Dead Sea from 1947, dated from about 250 BC to AD 70.

The Quran says every soul will taste death (3:185), and that God created death as well as life as a test.

Muslims and Christians have debated their beliefs since the early centuries, sometimes in the courts of the caliphs.

“God is the best of schemers” (3:54): makr means a plan or counter-plan, and the verse is about God defeating the plots of those who plotted against Jesus.

The Quran says deeds are weighed (21:47) and that faith without good works is incomplete; the Prophet said the best are those done regularly even if small.

The Quran’s charge that some of the People of the Book made a god of Jesus (5:72–73), and the Christian reply that this is not what the Church teaches.

Muslims hold the Quran in great respect, and burning or defiling a copy gives deep offence; scholars have criticised violent reactions.

Remembrance of God: reciting His names and praises, in prayer and at other times.

Lowliness; the Quran uses it for the humiliation of wrongdoers and for the gentle humility believers should show each other and their parents.

A non-Muslim living under Muslim rule with the state’s pledge of protection.

“Religion”: the way of life and the accounting before God; also law, custom and obedience.

The normative, perfect religion that God ordained for humanity, covering faith, ethics, law, worship, institutions and judgment.

The studies concerned with the validity of the reporting of the Prophet’s words and acts, and of what is reported.

A silver coin; the Quran says Joseph’s brothers sold him “for a miserable price, a few dirhams” (12:20).

The Quran lifts the burden of duties that a person cannot bear, and urges care for the blind, the sick and the weak.

Knowledge of the unseen belongs to God alone (72:26), and divination is forbidden.

How Muslims understand verses that speak of God’s hand, face or throne, without making Him like His creatures.

The Quran allows divorce, with a waiting period, reconciliation, witnesses, and provision for the wife.

Blood money: compensation paid to the family of a person killed unintentionally, and sometimes accepted in place of retaliation.

The Quran allows hunting with trained dogs; hadith differ on the dog’s ritual purity, and the Prophet taught kindness to them.

The shrine on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, completed in 691–692 by the caliph Abd al-Malik, with some of the oldest inscriptions of the Quran.

The verse on men’s responsibility in the family which includes the word “strike”; its meaning has been debated and restricted by many scholars.

Verses such as 9:33 say God sent the Prophet “to make it prevail over all religion”; commentators differ on what “prevail” means.

The gift a husband gives his wife on marriage, which is hers alone.

In Islam a true dream can be a good tiding, and the Quran tells the dreams of Joseph and the king of Egypt.

Prayer of supplication: asking God directly for what one needs.

The part of the day from when the sun has risen high until noon, and the name of the supererogatory prayer offered in that time.

The nearer life of this world, whose values rank below those of the Hereafter, and by extension a life given over to pursuing such values.

The Quran describes the earth as spread out as a resting place for people; classical Muslim scholars knew it to be round.

In the Quran earthquakes are among the signs by which earlier peoples were destroyed, and chapter 99 describes the final quake.

“To God belong the east and the west” (2:115): no direction contains God, though prayer faces the Kaaba.

An early Jewish-Christian sect that kept the Jewish law and held that Jesus was a man chosen by God; some writers compare their view to the Quran’s.

The Prophet taught that the sun and moon eclipse by God’s decree and not for anyone’s birth or death, and prescribed a special prayer.

Islam makes seeking knowledge a duty, and Muslim societies built schools, libraries and universities.

The land of Joseph and of Moses, whose stories the Quran tells at length.

The two Muslim festivals: Eid al-Fitr, at the end of Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha, at the Hajj.

The Quran describes human creation from clay and then a drop, a clinging substance, and a lump, in stages (23:12–14).

The Quran tells believers to repel evil with good, to be just to enemies, and perhaps to turn enmity into friendship.

The Quran calls humans stewards (khalīfa) of the earth, forbids waste and corruption, and sets a balance (mīzān).

Envy, the wish that another lose what God has given him, is forbidden and condemned in the Quran (4:32, 113:5).

The Quran teaches the equality of all people before God (49:13) and commands justice (4:135); the rules of classical law, however, did draw distinctions of status.

The Quran’s teaching on character, justice, honesty and kindness in everyday life.

The Quran teaches that good and evil befall people as trials by God’s permission, and that a person is responsible for his own wrong.

Islamic tradition holds that envy can harm, and teaches protective prayers.

Muslims differ on evolution: many accept it for animals, and most hold that Adam was created directly.

The Quran calls Muslims a “middle community” and forbids excess in religion; Muslim scholars have condemned terrorism.

Muslim scholars separate the Quran’s own stories from the later tales, many from Jewish and Christian lore, that entered commentaries (isrāʾīliyyāt).

Shameful and indecent conduct, and especially unlawful sexual relations, which the Quran forbids.

To think and ponder, and in the end to perceive and know the patterns and will of God.

Success in reaching full conviction and realization of the divine will; the lasting success promised to those who obey God.

Islam forbids divination, but teaches the prayer of istikhara to ask God’s guidance in a decision.

The Quran stresses ties of kinship, obedience to parents and mercy to children, and speaks of families reunited in Paradise (13:23).

To understand the ordinances of God, His revelation and His patterns in creation, which makes it a synonym of ʿilm; also to know Islamic law and apply it properly.

A person of deep understanding of religion, used for a jurist and as a synonym of ʿālim; the plural is fuqahāʾ.

A poor person; the Quran uses it for those in need (9:60), and the term is also used of Sufi ascetics.

To commit sin, or to follow a course of sinfulness and evil that stops short of apostasy or blasphemy.

Said of God: to grant His servants victory over their enemies, or to open a way out of their difficulties, moral or material.

To beguile, mislead or draw someone away from the straight path, al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm.

The act of opening or granting, as in fataha, and the victory or breakthrough that is granted; the plural is al-futūḥāt.

The opening chapter of the Quran, recited in every unit of the prayer.

The opening surah of the Noble Quran.

A pause in revelation after the first revelations; some reports of the Prophet’s distress at that time are not from Aisha.

A legal opinion given by a qualified scholar (muftī) in answer to a question; it is not binding.

The letters of the Arabic alphabet that stand at the head of a number of surahs.

A compensation, such as feeding the poor, in place of a fast or for a failure in the pilgrimage.

Chapter 95, “The Fig”, swears by the fig and the olive, and by Mount Sinai and the safe city of Mecca.

The Quran’s rules on fighting are limited: against those who attack, in defence, with justice, and ending when they stop.

Thought and intellection in their general sense.

Verse 75:4 says God can restore the very fingertips of a person on the Day of Judgement.

Islamic jurisprudence: the scholars’ work of understanding and applying the sharia.

The Quran uses fire as a sign of God’s provision (56:71) and as the image of Hell.

Trial, persecution or turmoil; in the Quran, mainly the persecution of believers for their faith.

The innate disposition with which every person is born, inclined to recognise God.

The five basic acts of Islam: the declaration of faith, prayer, zakat, fasting in Ramadan and the pilgrimage.

The Quran says that God will make the Prophet recite so that he does not forget except what God wills (87:6–7), and some verses were caused to be forgotten.

God forgives all sins for those who repent; the Quran also urges forgiveness between people.

Islam teaches freedom of belief and liberation from servitude to anything but God; the Quran also retells the exodus from Egypt.

The day of congregational prayer, which the Quran says should interrupt trade for a time and then allow people to disperse for their work (62:9–10).

The Muslim rites for the dead: washing, shrouding, a funeral prayer, and prompt burial in a simple grave.

“The criterion”: the Quran’s name for itself and for the Torah, and the day of Badr.

The moral and material victories granted to Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his early followers, and so the conversion of whole populations to Islam.

The Quran forbids gambling with intoxicants and idols as “an abomination of Satan’s work” (5:90).

Hadith speak of children’s resemblance to parents and of a “vein” of ancestry, in the language of the time.

Islamic law forbids killing non-combatants; genocide by any ruler, Muslim or not, is condemned by its standard.

God’s act of forgiving, and His acceptance of the repentant person as restored in relation to Him.

A divine name meaning He Who always prevails, the One Who conquers.

The ghoul of Arabian folklore is not an Islamic belief; a hadith denies it.

The Quran does not call God “Father”, to rule out the idea that He has children, but calls Him Lord, Merciful and Loving.

Two destructive peoples that the Quran says were walled off by Dhu al-Qarnayn, to break out near the end of time (18:94–99, 21:96).

The Quran condemns hoarding gold and silver (9:34), and the Prophet forbade eating from vessels of gold or silver and gold ornaments for men.

The calf the Israelites worshipped while Moses was on the mountain; in the Quran it was made by al-Samiri, not by Aaron.

“None of you believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself” (hadith): the Muslim form of the rule of reciprocity.

Islam says goodness belongs to God: “God is good and accepts only what is good” (hadith).

The Quran calls the time between death and resurrection a barrier (barzakh, 23:100), and burial is simple.

The Quran condemns miserliness and hoarding, and promises success to those saved from the greed of their own souls.

Hadith differ on greeting Christians and Jews first; the Prophet greeted mixed gatherings, and most scholars allow it.

To guide to the truth and value of Islam.

A divine name meaning the ultimate Guide to truth and value.

A report of the sayings, actions or approvals of the Prophet Muhammad.

A hadith that falls short of the standard of soundness in its text, its chain of reporters, or both; there are as many kinds as there are defects.

A hadith of sound text whose reporters do not fully meet the test of reliability; it ranks between the ṣaḥīḥ and the ḍaʿīf.

A fabricated report, spurious in its text or its chain of reporters.

A hadith whose truth is established beyond question; the highest grade of report.

A divine name meaning the Keeper of all things; without the article, a person who has memorized the Quran.

A divine name meaning He Who keeps, constantly and for ever.

The Prophet’s hair was kept by some Companions as a keepsake; Muslims differ on the practice, and the Prophet wore his hair in the manner of his time.

To emigrate; to leave something unattended.

The Black Stone set in the corner of the Kaaba, which pilgrims touch or salute in the circling.

The pilgrimage to Mecca, required once in a lifetime of every Muslim who is able, and the fifth pillar.

A divine name meaning He Whose words and deeds constitute ḥikma, wisdom.

The Quran forbids carrion, blood, pork and meat over which a name other than God’s was invoked, and permits the rest.

A custom in parts of Afghanistan in which powerful men keep boys for sexual use; it is forbidden in Islam and condemned by Muslim scholars.

To praise God and thank Him for all His deeds.

The noun of ḥamada: praise of God, with thanks to Him for all His deeds.

A divine name meaning He Who is worthy of being the object of al-ḥamd, praise.

An upright monotheist who is neither Jew nor Christian: the Quran’s word for Abraham’s faith (3:67).

“The Truth” and “the right”: one of God’s names, and the word for a due.

A divine name meaning the ultimately True, Righteous and Real; also the quality of ultimate truth, righteousness and reality.

What the law forbids: a deed or thing that is prohibited.

A deed done with iḥsān that merits God’s pleasure; a good deed or deed of righteousness. The plural is al-ḥasanāt.

The resurrection and the bringing together of all people to receive judgment.

A divine name meaning He Who reckons human deeds and renders judgment on them.

The Quran forbids letting hatred of a people make one unjust, and tells Muslims to be kind to those who do not fight them.

The disciples of Jesus, whom the Quran calls the helpers of God, who said “we are Muslims” (3:52).

Two divine names: the Ever-Living, and the One Who gives life.

A title of respect, mostly in South Asia, for men of high standing in the religion.

The Quran describes Hell in vivid terms as a punishment for those who reject truth and do wrong; scholars hold that God is just and merciful in it.

Modest dress, and in particular the head covering worn by many Muslim women.

Emigration for the sake of faith, above all the Prophet’s move from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE.

The departure of Muhammad (peace be upon him) from Mecca to Yathrib, later Medina; also the name of the Islamic lunar calendar, counted from July 622 CE.

The Islamic lunar calendar, counted from the Prophet’s migration to Medina in 622.

Wisdom that rests on the revelation of God’s will.

The Final Judgment given by God, in which every human act is reckoned for its merit or demerit.

How scholars date and test the sources for Islam’s beginnings: the Quran, the biographies, the hadith, and outside witnesses.

The word the Israelites were told to say on entering the city, meaning “relief” or “forgiveness” (2:58, 7:161).

Islamic tradition forbids same-sex acts, from the story of Lot’s people; scholars have differed about the penalty and Muslim societies about how to treat people.

The blessings Muslims add after the name of a prophet: “peace be upon him” (A.S., PBUH, ﷺ).

The “wide-eyed” companions promised in Paradise; the Quran also promises pure spouses to all believers.

The Quran calls the home a place of rest (16:80) and tells believers to ask permission before entering another’s house (24:27).

Divine guidance: the direction God gives humankind through revelation, and the Quran’s own description of itself.

A treaty of 628 between the Prophet and Quraysh, which the Quran calls “a clear victory” (48:1).

The fixed punishments of Islamic law for a small number of offences, hedged with strict conditions.

The fixed limits and penalties set by God or the Prophet for six offences: intoxication, theft, armed rebellion, adultery, false accusation of adultery and apostasy.

A Chinese people who are Muslim and make up about half of China’s Muslims.

Conclusive proof: the unanswerable evidence of God’s work, revelation or purpose.

Judgement or rule: the Quran says that judgement belongs to God (12:40), and the word is also used for a ruling in law.

The Quran says God has honoured the children of Adam (17:70) and that all are of one origin (4:1, 49:13).

A battle in 630 in a valley near Mecca, where the Muslims were first routed and then won.

The Quran allows hunting with trained animals (5:4) but forbids it to pilgrims in the state of ihram (5:94–96).

The best reward God gives for virtue and righteousness; in the dual, al-Husnayayn, His rewards in this world and in the next.

Those who profess faith but do not believe, whom the Quran warns against in chapter 63 and elsewhere.

The inimitability of the Quran: the claim that no one can produce its like, which shows its divine origin.

Worship and devotion to God, in ritual and in the whole of a life lived for Him.

The devil, who refused to prostrate to Adam and now tempts humanity; in the Quran he is one of the jinn, not an angel.

The waiting period a woman observes after divorce or the death of her husband.

The state of consecration entered for the pilgrimage, with its simple dress and restrictions.

Excellence in faith and conduct: to worship God as though you see Him.

Consensus of the scholars of a period on a ruling; one of the sources of Islamic law.

Consensus: the agreement of qualified scholars on a ruling, accepted as a source of Islamic law after the Quran and Sunna.

Explicit consensus: agreement of the jurists stated openly, each by word or act, on a legal question.

Scholarly effort to reach a ruling from the sources, when the text does not state it plainly.

Independent reasoning by a qualified scholar to derive rulings from the Quran, the Sunna and the other legitimate sources.

Sincerity: pure devotion to God, with firm conviction and loyalty to Him and commitment to His will.

The high register in which the deeds of the righteous are recorded.

Knowledge of the patterns God has set in creation, in nature, in the person and in society, reached through the senses, intuition and reason.

Why many Muslims avoid images of the Prophet, and why the Danish cartoons of 2005–06 caused such anger.

A leader: the one who leads prayer, and a title of respected scholars.

Faith: belief in God, His angels, scriptures and messengers, the Last Day and the decree, which the Quran joins with righteous deeds.

The Quran says that Mary was protected from Satan at her birth, and that Jesus was born miraculously without a father.

The Quran sets fixed shares for family heirs and allows a bequest of up to a third.

The Gospel: the revelation God gave to Jesus, which the Quran says confirmed the Torah.

“I am about to supplicate, so say Amin”: the imam’s call for the congregation to join his prayer.

“If God wills”: said whenever one speaks of the future, in acknowledgement that outcomes rest with God.

Pleading on someone’s behalf before God, which is possible only by God’s permission.

The Quran prohibits intoxicants in stages, and calls them “an abomination of Satan’s handiwork” (5:90).

The second call, given just before a congregational prayer begins; from the root meaning to establish.

A place named in the Quran as the home of the ancient people of ‘Ad, “of the pillars”.

The Quran says God “sent down” iron, and gives it the title of the fifty-seventh surah.

Jesus, son of Mary: the Messiah and a mighty messenger of God in Islam.

Submission to God, the name the Quran gives to the religion of all the prophets.

Banking and investment that avoid interest (ribā) and speculation, using profit-sharing, sale and leasing instead.

Prejudice, hostility or discrimination against Muslims because of their faith.

The belief that God protected the prophets from major sin and from error in conveying His message.

The chain of narrators by which a report is traced back to its source.

The Prophet’s night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and back to Mecca, named in Quran 17:1.

The Quranic name of the prophet Jacob, and of his descendants, the Children of Israel.

To exploit the weak or to impose domination over them; the act of the oppressor toward the vulnerable.

To seek God’s forgiveness by asking Him to cover and pardon one’s sins.

To be arrogant by falsely supposing oneself greater than others, and above God’s command.

Asking God’s forgiveness, which the Quran urges and links with blessing and relief.

Juristic preference: setting aside an established ruling for a case because another ruling is fairer.

Arrogant power: the excessive and unjust claim to greatness made by tyrants.

Presumption of continuity: an established ruling or state remains in force until evidence shows that it has changed.

Mankind’s commission to build up the earth and human society in line with the patterns God revealed to the Prophet.

Spending days in the mosque in devotion, especially in the last ten days of Ramadan.

Might and honour: the high standing that belongs to God, to His Prophet and to the believers.

A divine name: the Almighty, whose might determines everything in truth.

A reform movement among Muslims of the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth century.

The “age of ignorance”: the Arabia before the Prophet, marked by idol worship, tribal feud and the burying of daughters.

The order in which God’s law does not govern; also the Arabia that preceded Islam.

A group or congregation, and the name of several Muslim movements.

A state of major ritual impurity, and any act that brings it about, which requires a full bath before prayer.

The science of assessing hadith narrators: their faults (jarḥ) or their reliability (taʿdīl).

To repay each person on the Day of Judgement: reward for a life of virtue, or punishment for a life of sin.

The holy city of Jews, Christians and Muslims, whose Al-Aqsa Mosque was the first direction of Muslim prayer.

The Quran honours Jews as People of the Book and descendants of the prophets, and it speaks of them in praise and in criticism.

Striving in the cause of God, which includes the moral struggle, and, under strict rules, defensive fighting.

Unseen beings made from smokeless fire, who like humans have free will and can believe or disbelieve.

A tax paid by non-Muslim adult men under Muslim rule, in return for protection and exemption from military service.

The tax paid by non-Muslim adult men of means in an Islamic state, in place of the zakat required of Muslims.

A long, loose outer garment, open at the front, worn over other clothes.

Judgement in the Quran: God’s judgement on the Last Day, and the duty to judge with justice among people.

The mountain on which the Quran says Noah’s ark came to rest.

Friday congregational worship, held at noon with a sermon, and the name of the day itself.

Fair dealing: the Quran commands justice even toward those one dislikes.

The cube-shaped House in the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, built by Abraham and Ishmael, toward which Muslims face in prayer.

To proclaim, in the prayer or otherwise, that God is the Greater: to say Allāhu akbar.

To deny in declared words that God is God, that Muhammad is His Prophet, or that the Quran is wholly God’s truth and revelation.

One who rejects or denies the truth; literally, one who covers it up.

A fragrant, cooling spring in Paradise, named in the Quran (76:5).

A divine name: the All-Aware, who knows the inner reality of all things.

What is foul and evil: whatever goes against God’s will and is judged bad and wrong.

The feminine form of khabīth, meaning a deed, word or thing that is foul, impure or bad; its plural is khabāʾith.

The vicegerent of God in space and time; the word is also used for the successor who leads the Muslim community.

A small modern movement following Rashad Khalifa (d. 1990) that accepts only the Quran, and which Muslim scholars regard as outside the mainstream.

A divine name meaning the Creator, the One who brings things into being from nothing and gives each its measure.

An early group who seceded from Ali’s army after Siffin (657), and who held that a Muslim committing a major sin ceases to be a believer.

Fear of God in Islam is joined with hope and love, and the Prophet taught that God’s mercy outstrips His wrath.

An oasis north of Medina, where Muslims fought a campaign in 628–629 against a fortified group of the Jewish tribe of Banu Nadir and others.

The good, meaning whatever is good in the sight of God, including wealth, deeds, and what leads a person to Him.

To bring shame and disgrace on a person who breaks the commandments of God, in this world and in the next; the verbal noun is khizy.

The institution of man as God’s vicegerent on earth, and the government that continued the worldly rule of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

The Quran forbids killing and says that taking one life unjustly is as if one had killed all of humanity.

Kindness to parents, kin, neighbours, orphans and the poor, a duty throughout the Quran.

The word for “book” in Arabic, used for the Quran, for earlier scripture and for God’s record of all things.

“The Book”, used in the Quran for the Quran itself; the word also names earlier scriptures and the record of what God has decreed.

Seeking knowledge is a duty in Islam, from the first word of revelation, “Read”.

A Sufi order founded by Najm al-Din Kubra (d. 1221) in Central Asia, which is also found among Muslims in China.

Disbelief, or ingratitude: literally “covering” the truth, in the heart or in deed.

The scriptures God revealed: the Torah, the Psalms, the Gospel and the Quran.

The Night of Power in Ramadan, “better than a thousand months”, on which the Quran began to be revealed.

The five schools of Islamic law, each a body of method and rulings built by a founding jurist and his students.

The “guided one” whom many Muslims expect near the end of time to restore justice.

Terms for the Quran’s Meccan and Medinan verses and surahs, those revealed before and after the move to Medina.

In Islamic law, an act that is disliked and discouraged but not forbidden.

In Islamic law, an act that is recommended and rewarded but not required; also called mustaḥabb or sunnah.

The Quran mentions the manna and quails God gave the Israelites in the wilderness, and their asking for herbs and onions instead (2:57, 2:61).

A verse whose ruling has been replaced by a later verse, which is called al-nāsikh.

The ultimate purposes of Islamic law: the protection of religion, life, reason, honour and property.

Marriage is a solemn covenant in Islam, based on mutual consent, a dowry, and mercy between the spouses.

The Quran says that those killed in God’s way are alive with their Lord (3:169).

Mary, mother of Jesus: the only woman named in the Quran, which gives her a chapter.

“What God has willed”: said on seeing something good or admirable, to credit it to God.

The oft-repeated verses of the Quran, understood as the seven verses of the first surah, al-Fātiḥah.

What is known to be good, and so is desirable and required of everyone; the opposite of al-munkar.

The holy city of Islam, birthplace of the Prophet and site of the Kaaba.

The ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) through the heavens and his return, which came before the move to Medina.

The niche in a mosque wall that shows the direction of Mecca, toward which worshippers pray.

The Quran asks both men and women to guard their gaze and chastity and to dress modestly.

A place of prostration: the house of prayer, and the centre of community life.

The Quran honours mothers for the hardship of carrying and bearing children.

A collection of hadith whose items are arranged alphabetically, for example by the names of the Companions or the teachers.

A man who has iman, faith; the plural is muʾminūn.

A woman who has iman, faith; the plural is muʾmināt.

In Islamic law, an act that is permitted and falls under none of the other categories, carrying neither reward nor blame.

The past participle of baraka: blessed, meaning something that God has given increase and good.

“May it be blessed”: said when someone acquires something new or marks a happy event.

A name of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), “the one wrapped in his cloak”, with which God addresses him in the Quran (74:1).

A person who has succeeded in his or her commitment to Islam; the plural is muflihūn.

A person who moves from one place to another for the sake of Islam; the plural is muhājirūn.

A person who has received guidance (hudā) from God; the plural is muhtadūn.

A person who practises jihad, that is, who strives in the cause of God; the plural is mujāhidūn.

A divine name meaning the One who answers prayer.

The active participle of ikhlāṣ: a person who is sincere in devotion to God; the plural is mukhliṣūn.

The science that studies hadith that seem to conflict, with the aim of reconciling them.

What is wrong and unacceptable, condemned by the sharia and not merely a matter of social custom; the opposite of al-maʿrūf.

A written copy of the Quran bound between two covers.

Muslim scholars have differed about music: some forbid instruments, many allow singing and the frame drum, and Muslim civilisations have produced much music.

A collection of hadith arranged by the Companion who reported them, such as the Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

The people regarded as weak, who are exploited and oppressed by the powerful of the earth.

The science that studies the method by which hadith are examined, graded and accepted or rejected.

A divine name meaning the One whose help is sought, and whose help alone is finally effective.

One who acts out of taqwa, the conscious fear and awareness of God; the plural is muttaqūn.

A name of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), “the one enwrapped”, used by God in the Quran (73:1).

“May you be blessed.” It is said to a person who has just bathed, shaved or had a haircut.

A prophet: one who receives God’s message word for word, is ordered to convey it, and exemplifies its precepts in his own life; plural anbiyā’.

The verses of the Quran whose content revokes a ruling or meaning in another verse, which is then called al-mansūkh.

Abrogation: the replacing of one ruling by a later one, as God wills.

An American movement founded in the 1930s whose beliefs, including that a man was God in person, are not accepted by mainstream Muslims.

To bring down from heaven to earth, the verb used in the Quran for God’s sending down of revelation.

“There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256): faith cannot be forced.

The Quran commands care for orphans and warns against consuming their property (4:10).

The Quran condemns pagan Arab customs of dedicating certain animals to their gods (5:103).

The Quran teaches through similes, including that of a gnat (2:26), a grain that multiplies (2:261) and a spider’s house (29:41).

The garden of the righteous, described in the Quran with gardens, rivers, companions and, above all, God’s good pleasure.

Those on the elevations (al-aʿrāf) between Paradise and Hell on the Day of Judgement (7:46–49).

Muslim thinkers translated and developed Greek philosophy and science, and Islamic thought has a long tradition of reasoned enquiry.

The idols the Meccans worshipped: al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat, and Wadd, Suwa, Yaghuth, Yauq and Nasr, named in the Quran.

The Quran’s rule for prisoners taken in battle: release them with grace or for ransom (47:4).

Humans chosen by God to deliver His guidance; the Quran names twenty-five and says there were many more.

God’s knowledge and decree of all things, held together with human responsibility for choices.

To measure, assign and bring about according to plan; also to be able to make something happen.

The reports and narratives of those who relate, as in qaṣṣa; in the Quran, accounts of earlier peoples.

To relate reports or matters about earlier times, especially about earlier prophets.

The direction of Makkah al-Mukarramah, which Muslims face in salah.

The recognised modes of reciting the Quran, taught by an unbroken chain of teachers.

The law of equal retribution for killing and injury, with the strong encouragement to forgive or accept compensation.

The retributive and compensatory punishment prescribed for homicide and for injury to a person.

Justice, equity and uprightness in all dealings; the verbal noun of aqsaṭa.

Analogical reasoning, by which a ruling in the sources is applied to a new case sharing the same cause.

Reasoning by analogy from the Quran and the Sunnah, as a source of Islamic law.

The act of sitting during the salah.

God’s final revelation to Muhammad (peace be upon him), given in Arabic, memorized and recited from the start, and written in its present form by order of Uthman.

The recited scripture of Islam, revealed to Muhammad and kept in memory and in writing.

The leading tribe of Mecca, guardians of the Kaaba and the tribe of the Prophet.

A Jewish tribe of Medina whose siege and judgement in 627 followed their breach of the pact during the Battle of the Trench.

A divine name: the One who is deeply and sympathetically concerned with the lot of human beings.

A divine name: the loving Lord and commanding Master, used in the forms Rabbī (my Lord) and Rabbanā (our Lord) when calling on God.

The Quran makes colour and language signs of God’s creation, and no ground of superiority (49:13, 30:22).

To be pleased; used of God’s pleasure with His servants and theirs with Him.

A divine name: the One who is always merciful.

With its derivatives, to consider or act with sympathy and mercy.

A divine name: the Merciful, whose mercy embraces all creation.

To bow in worship, as required in Islamic worship; the root of rukūʿ and rakʿah.

The calligraphy and orthography of the written Quran.

A people named twice in the Quran as destroyed after rejecting their prophet; who they were is not known.

Nouns from one root for a person devoted to al-risālah, the commission to convey God’s message.

The title of Muhammad (peace be upon him), the Prophet; “the Messenger”.

A divine name: the One who grants rizq, the sustenance every creature needs.

Islam does not call for blind belief; the Quran calls on people to reflect, reason and examine claims.

Usury: gain taken from a loan at the borrower’s expense, which the Quran forbids.

The pleasure of God, which believers seek; the noun from raḍiya.

The science that studies the narrators of hadith, in so far as they are narrators.

An evil deed, or a thing that God has prohibited.

God’s commissioning of a human being to convey and exemplify His message, and the life lived in loyalty to that task.

The transmission of hadith: the reporting of the words, deeds, descriptions and attitudes of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

What God grants a person out of His material bounty: sustenance, provision and livelihood.

The bow in the salah; a single unit of the prayer, with its bow, is a rakʿah.

The seven ways, or modes, in which certain words of the Quran were revealed and may be pronounced.

To resist evil or tragedy and remain firm in adherence to the cause of Islam; the root of ṣabr, patience.

To glorify God and declare Him free of every fault, with praise and thanks for what He has done.

One who keeps firm against evil and hardship and holds to Islam under pressure; the plural is sabirun.

Two small hills beside the Kaaba between which pilgrims walk seven times in the Hajj and Umra.

“Sound”: the highest grade of a hadith, and the title of the two most trusted hadith collections.

A hadith collection whose reports meet strict standards of soundness; the name is given to the two sahihs and to the other four main collections.

To prostrate in worship of God, with forehead, nose, palms, knees and toes on the ground.

To make something subservient to human beings by God’s command, so that they may use it with gratitude.

The ritual prayer, performed five times a day, the second pillar of Islam.

The obligatory ritual prayer: the five daily prayers that every adult Muslim must perform; neglecting them without excuse is a sin.

A voluntary ritual prayer offered in addition to the obligatory ones; it earns reward when performed and carries no blame when omitted.

A ritual prayer that follows the example of the Prophet and is strongly encouraged; Muslims who omit it are not punished but forgo its reward.

Peace; God’s peace, meaning His greeting and blessing, and the greeting that Muslims give one another.

A name of God: the Source of peace, safety and blessing, who grants security to His creatures.

The righteous deeds that God calls on men and women to perform, which earn the reward of Paradise.

To perform the ritual prayer of Islam, which every adult Muslim must offer five times a day at set hours.

A name of God: the All-Hearing, who hears every call and responds to those who turn to Him.

Fasting from dawn to sunset in Ramadan, one of the five pillars.

The Quran forbids plotting in secret for sin and enmity, and allows private counsel for good (58:9).

The Quran allows defence against attack and tells believers to take precautions, within the limits of justice.

To intercede with God on the Day of Judgement, which only those to whom He grants permission may do.

Intercession with God: a plea made on behalf of another, which on the Day of Judgement is possible only with God’s permission.

To bear witness that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is His servant and messenger.

The declaration of faith, witnessing that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is His servant and messenger; also the words of that declaration.

A name of God: the Appreciative, ever worthy of thanks, who rewards even a little good generously.

To lay down law: God’s act of legislating for any matter of human life, personal, family or public.

The whole body of God’s law in Islam: its worship and ritual, its ethics, and its legal rules.

The path of God: the ethical and legal way set out in the Quran and the Prophet’s example.

Associating partners with God: giving to anything in creation what belongs to God alone.

The Quran says that jinn used to listen at the heavens and now find guards and flames (72:8–9).

Mutual consultation in decisions of the community, praised in the Quran (42:38).

Truthfulness and sincerity; the verbal noun of sadaqa, to speak the truth and keep one’s word.

The biography of the Prophet Muhammad, as written by early Muslim historians.

The straight path of righteousness revealed through the Prophet Muhammad for humanity’s guidance, usually joined to al-Mustaqim.

The Quran regulated an existing institution and urged freeing slaves; Muslim scholars today hold that slavery is forbidden.

The Quran’s rules on property taken in war, with a fifth for charity and a rule against its staying among the rich.

Glory be to God: a declaration that God is free of every fault, said in praise or wonder on any occasion.

Glory be to Him: an invocation that Muslims say or write whenever God is mentioned.

Glory be to Him and may He be exalted: said after the name of God, and abbreviated SWT in English texts.

The inner, devotional dimension of Islam, centred on remembrance of God and purification of the heart.

Prostration in the ritual prayer, with the forehead on the ground; the singular is sajda.

The Prophet’s example: his way of acting, which Muslims follow beside the Quran.

The path and example of the Prophet Muhammad, made up of what he said, did, approved or condemned.

The sunna of action: what the Prophet Muhammad did and taught his Companions to do, as Muslims have practised ever since.

The sunna of speech: the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad that lay down guidance for Muslims.

Discretionary punishments that the Islamic judiciary decides as fitting for an offence that has no fixed penalty in the law

To repent to God for sins and resolve not to repeat them; the verbal noun is tawba.

To display oneself, one’s beauty or one’s wealth out of vanity; the verbal noun is tabarruj.

To devote oneself wholly to God, in purity and single-minded worship; the noun is tabtil.

A follower: a Muslim of the generation after the Companions who met and learned from them; the plural is al-tabiun.

Commentary on the Quran: explaining what its verses mean and how they were understood.

A short commentary on the whole Quran, written by two scholars both named Jalal al-Din.

Interpretation of the Quran by the free exercise of the interpreter’s own reasoning, as distinct from interpretation handed down from the Prophet and earlier generations

To exceed all limits by seizing illegitimate power or by enforcing rules that violate the Shariah

Noun from the verb tagha, naming the overstepping of all limits and used for a tyrant; the plural is tughah

The state of purity, and the body of law on ritual and physical cleanliness and the means of attaining it

The Quranic charge that some of the earlier scriptures were altered or misread by their custodians.

Declaring another Muslim to be an unbeliever, which classical scholars treated with extreme caution.

To recite the Quran; the verbal noun is tilawah

Any message that God has sent down to humanity through the prophets; the verbal noun of nazzala, to send down

The message sent down through Muhammad (peace be upon him), that is, the noble Quran

Concealing one’s belief to escape persecution or grave harm; a concession, not a licence to deceive.

God-consciousness: living mindful of God, as one who guards oneself against wrongdoing.

Measured, melodious recitation of the Quran, carried out according to the rules of pronunciation known as tajwid

The act of subjecting or subduing; the verbal noun of sakhkhara, used of Allah making nature serviceable to human beings

The closing of the salah with the greeting of peace, al-salamu alaykum wa rahmat Allah, said to the right and then to the left

The rite of circling the Kaaba seven times, anticlockwise, performed in the Hajj and the Umrah

Absolute confidence that Allah is the cause of all that is or will be, together with reliance upon Him as such

The oneness of God: one Creator and Sustainer, to whom worship belongs alone.

A divine name: He Who accepts repentance again and again, and Himself turns to His servants in mercy

To be exalted above all things, which only God can be; used after His name to affirm His transcendence.

The people of the prophet Salih in the north of Arabia, destroyed after they killed the she-camel; their rock-cut tombs are at al-Hijr (Hegra).

The reward that Allah grants for good deeds, above all on the Day of Judgement

Chapter 105 refers to an attack on Mecca by an army with elephants, in the year the Prophet was born.

The Quran requires honest weights, written contracts and fair dealing in trade.

The siege of Medina in 627 by Quraysh and allied clans, which the Muslims withstood behind a trench.

The community of Muslims, united by faith across nations and cultures.

The Prophet is called ummī, “unlettered”, and the Quran uses ummiyyūn for the unlettered and for gentiles.

The lesser pilgrimage, which can be made at any time of year.

The sources of Islamic law: the Quran, the Sunnah, consensus and analogy, together with the principles for using them

Islamic jurisprudence: the method of deriving laws from the sources of Islam and of establishing their juristic validity

The good and normative example of the Prophet (peace be upon him), whose conduct makes up the sunnah

The divine promise of reward for good deeds; it is Allah’s part of the covenant (ʿahd, mithaq) between Him and humanity

The divine promise of punishment for evil deeds; it is part of Allah’s covenant (ʿahd, mithaq) with humanity

Revelation: God’s communication to His prophets.

Revelation: the verbatim communication of a verse or more from Allah to the Prophet, as in the case of the noble Quran

Face, or by extension direction, aspect or path; said of Allah it means His Face, or His sake

The obligatory: a law or deed that the law requires, rewarded when done and punishable when left without excuse

A “friend” or protector; and the title of a righteous person close to God.

Friend, ally or protector; used of one close to Allah and often rendered saint, with the plural awliya

The Quran speaks of rain as God’s sign, which gives life to dead land.

Standing upright in the salah; the same word names the standing at Arafat in the Hajj

Certainty about the truth of Islam and its claims, needing no further proof

That which is possible without hardship; ease

A divine name: He Who is manifest, evident through all phenomena

Obligatory almsgiving: a fixed share of one’s savings, given to those in need each year.

One who commits injustice (zulm): a wrongdoer or oppressor; the plural is zalimun

Doubt, suspicion or conjecture in the weightier matters of religion and ethics; the opposite of iman and yaqin

Adornment: a thing or act of beautification regarded as a source of enjoyment

The act of committing injustice; wrongdoing, which puts something where it does not belong

Moses’ brother and a prophet in the Quran, who stood by him before Pharaoh.

An uncle of the Prophet and a Companion, ancestor of the Abbasid caliphs.

The Prophet’s father, who died before he was born.

The Prophet’s grandfather, who cared for him after his mother’s death.

The son of Adam who was killed by his brother, in the Quran’s story of the first murder.

The friend of God and father of prophets, honoured by Muslims, Jews and Christians.

The Prophet’s closest friend and the first caliph (632–634).

Sulayman ibn al-Ash’ath al-Sijistani (817–889), compiler of the Sunan, one of the six canonical collections of hadith.

A Companion from the tribe of Ghifar, known for his asceticism and for his stand against hoarding of wealth.

Al-Nu’man ibn Thabit (699–767), the jurist of Kufa from whom the Hanafi school, the largest of the four Sunni schools, takes its name.

A Companion who narrated more hadith than any other, and was a close companion of the Prophet for his last years.

A leader of Quraysh and a bitter enemy of the Prophet, killed at Badr.

A leader of Quraysh who fought the Muslims for years, then accepted Islam at the conquest of Mecca.

The Prophet’s uncle, who raised him after his grandfather’s death and protected him from Quraysh.

The first human being and, in Islam, the first prophet.

Two names of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), meaning the praiseworthy and the praised, for his virtue and righteousness.

The Prophet’s wife and a scholar of the first generation, one of the major narrators of hadith.

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111), the theologian, jurist and Sufi, author of The Revival of the Religious Sciences.

A Sufi of Baghdad (c. 858–922), executed for saying “I am the Truth”, whom some Muslims honour as a martyr and others as a heretic.

A scholar of Kufa (d. around 819) who wrote on Arab genealogy and on pre-Islamic religion, including The Book of Idols.

Two figures: the philosopher Yaqub al-Kindi (d. around 873), and the author of a debated Christian apology.

Muslim tradition has often identified him with Dhu al-Qarnayn, but the Quran does not name him.

The Prophet’s mother, who died when he was six.

A pre-Islamic poet-warrior and the hero of an Arab epic.

A Palestinian political leader (d. 2004); an entry in the source index, not a religious authority.

A fourth-century priest of Alexandria who taught that the Son was created, and was condemned at Nicaea.

The American astronaut. A story that he heard the call to prayer on the moon and became a Muslim is a legend with no support.

A twentieth-century Orientalist (1892–1959) who studied the early texts and the foreign words of the Quran.

Abu al-Hasan al-Ash’ari (d. 935), founder of the school of theology that most Sunnis follow.

The wife of Pharaoh, praised in the Quran as a model of faith, who raised Moses.

The name the Quran gives to Abraham’s father (6:74), and the Bible’s Terah.

The angel of death, whose name comes from later tradition and not from the Quran or the sound hadith.

A holy man of Punjabi folklore, whose stories belong to local tradition and not to Islamic teaching.

A Canadian Muslim scholar and teacher, born in Egypt, known for English-language presentations of Islam.

A Christian monk whom the young Muhammad is said to have met on a trading journey to Syria.

The Biblical seer whom some commentators identify with the man described in Quran 7:175–176.

A companion of Paul in Acts; a late “Gospel of Barnabas” in which Muhammad is foretold is not an early text.

An American missionary and writer (1855–1936) who wrote on Islam and documented the Armenian massacres.

A thirteenth-century Shafi’i scholar of Shiraz, author of a widely-read short commentary on the Quran.

A former slave from Abyssinia who became the first muezzin of Islam.

A Saudi scholar (1910–1999) who was Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia from 1993.

A Coptic priest known for satellite television programmes in Arabic that are critical of Islam.

A French surgeon (1920–1998) who wrote a popular book arguing that the Quran agrees with modern science.

Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari (810–870), compiler of Sahih al-Bukhari, the most respected hadith collection.

A Punjabi Sufi poet (1680–1758), whose verse on divine love is sung across South Asia.

An Italian scholar (1869–1935) whose Annali dell’Islam collected the early Muslim sources in order.

King David, honoured in the Quran as a prophet and king to whom God gave the Psalms.

A South African teacher of Indian origin (1918–2005) known for debates and writings on Muslim-Christian questions.

A prophet named in the Quran among the steadfast (21:85, 38:48), whose identity is not given.

A Hui Muslim leader (1823–1872) who led the Panthay rebellion against the Qing in Yunnan, and ruled from Dali as “Sultan Sulayman”.

An American scholar of the New Testament (b. 1955), whose books on its manuscripts are often cited in Muslim-Christian argument.

Elijah, a prophet of Israel who the Quran says called his people from Baal to God.

Elisha, a prophet named among the righteous (6:86, 38:48).

An American scholar of Islam at Georgetown University, a leading writer and commentator, whom some criticise and others admire.

Bishop of Caesarea (c. 260–340), author of the first history of the Church.

Adam’s wife, who in the Quran shares Adam’s mistake and his repentance.

A prophet of Israel; some commentators link the Quran’s story of the thousands who left their homes and were revived (2:243) with his vision.

The Quran says “the Jews say Uzayr is the son of God” (9:30); Muslim commentators relate this to a particular group.

The Prophet’s youngest daughter, wife of Ali and mother of Hasan and Husayn.

The angel who brings God’s revelation to the prophets; Muslims believe he brought the Quran to Muhammad.

A German rabbi (1810–1874), founder of Reform Judaism, who wrote in 1833 that the Quran drew on Jewish sources.

A Jewish historian (1900–1985) of the Cairo Geniza, author of A Mediterranean Society, a record of the medieval Jewish and Muslim world.

The Quran’s story of David’s defeat of Goliath, in the kingship of Talut (Saul).

A wife of the Prophet, daughter of Umar, who kept the first written collection of the Quran.

A Palestinian leader who collaborated with the Nazis; the SS Handschar division was a small part of the Muslims who fought in the war.

Hagar, mother of Ishmael, whose search for water for her son is remembered in the rite of Safa and Marwa.

Pharaoh’s minister in the Quran, whom Pharaoh tells to build a tower (28:38).

The Prophet’s uncle and foster-brother, called “the Lion of God”, killed at Uhud in 625.

A Canadian religious journalist and author whose books argue against traditional Christianity; some Muslim writers cite him.

Two figures named in the Quran as teaching magic at Babylon as a test (2:102); Muslim scholars reject the later story that they were fallen angels.

The Prophet’s elder grandson (625–670), who made peace with Muawiya to end the civil war.

The Prophet’s poet, who answered the satires of the Quraysh in verse.

The Byzantine emperor (610–641), who according to Muslim sources received a letter from the Prophet inviting him to Islam.

A name that comes up in polemics between Muslims and Christians; Islam judges deeds and not labels.

The prophet sent to the people of ʿĀd (7:65–72, 11:50–60), who rejected him.

A Nestorian Christian physician (809–873) who led the translation of Greek works into Arabic for the Abbasid court.

The Prophet’s younger grandson (626–680), killed at Karbala, whose death Muslims regard as a great crime.

A cousin of the Prophet (d. around 687) who became one of the great early scholars of Quranic interpretation.

The earliest major biographer of the Prophet (d. around 767), whose work survives mainly in Ibn Hisham’s edition.

A blind Companion of the Prophet who served as a muezzin and as his deputy in Medina.

The infant son of the Prophet and Mariya, who died at about eighteen months.

A prophet the Quran describes as truthful and raised to a high station.

The name of the family of Mary, whom the Quran says God chose, and after which the third surah is named.

A prince of the Kinda tribe in the sixth century, usually reckoned the greatest of the pre-Islamic poets.

Son of Abraham and Sarah and father of Jacob, named as a prophet in the Quran.

Son of Abraham and Hagar, a prophet and messenger who helped his father raise the Kaaba.

A Christian craftsman of Mecca whom opponents claimed taught the Prophet, a charge the Quran answers.

Son of Isaac and father of Joseph, a prophet whose patience in grief the Quran praises.

A great scholar of Medina (d. 765), a descendant of the Prophet and a teacher admired by Muslims of every school.

A prophet who is held up as the model of patience in affliction.

An eighth-century Christian theologian (d. around 749) who wrote one of the first Christian descriptions of Islam.

The prophet swallowed by a fish, who called out in the darkness and was saved; the tenth surah is named for him.

Son of Jacob, whose story, told in surah 12, the Quran calls “the best of stories”.

A Baghdad scholar and Sufi (d. 910) known as “the master of the group”, who kept the Sufi path in line with the law.

The first wife of the Prophet and the first person to accept Islam.

A servant of God, named in the Quran only as one of “Our servants” (18:65), whose journey with Moses is told in chapter 18.

An Egyptian Christian woman sent as a gift by the ruler of Egypt, and the mother of the Prophet’s son Ibrahim.

The prophet most often named in the Quran, to whom God spoke and gave the Torah.

The final prophet of Islam (570–632), to whom the Quran was revealed.

Noah, the prophet who called his people for 950 years and was saved from the flood in the ark.

The king of Egypt who opposed Moses, a figure of tyranny and pride in the Quran.

A man of Moses’ people whom the Quran gives as the example of wealth that leads to arrogance.

A Persian Companion who is said to have advised digging the trench around Medina.

Shuayb, the prophet of Midian, sent to a people who cheated in trade; the “Companions of the Thicket” are linked to them.

Solomon, son of David, honoured in the Quran as a prophet-king with power over the winds, the jinn and the birds.

The second caliph (r. 634–644), known for justice, who expanded the state from Egypt to Persia.

John the Baptist, the son of Zechariah, whom the Quran praises as a prophet, noble and chaste.

A prophet and the father of Yahya (John), who prayed for an heir in his old age.