عبد
ʿAbada
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.
What it means
The verb ʿabada joins worship and service in a single act. When God is its object, it names the highest and most honourable thing a human being can do: to serve Him, worship Him and obey what He has ordered, following the example of Muhammad (peace be upon him). When the object is anything other than God, the same verb takes its lowest and most degrading sense, since it then describes the slavery of a person to a creature, an idol or a passion. The Quran says that humans and jinn were created to worship God (51:56), and the believer says in every prayer, “You alone we worship” (1:5). The nouns ʿibādah and ʿabd come from this root.
Often misunderstood as
Translating it as “worship” alone hides that it covers obedience and service in the whole of life, ritual included.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 38, listed as 'ABADA. The definition is restated here.