ضال
Ḍāll
A person who errs and strays from God’s straight path, especially in the course of history; plural ḍāllūn.
What it means
Ḍāll is the active participle of ḍalla: one who has gone astray. Faruqi describes him as a person who strays from the straight path of God, especially as that falls within human history. The plural is ḍāllūn, which takes the form ḍāllīn when it follows a preposition or serves as an object. The word is a general description of error and carries no claim about any one group.
The word occurs in the last verse of the Fatiha, where Muslims ask to be guided to the straight path and not the path of those who have earned anger or of those who have gone astray (al-ḍāllīn) (1:7). Since the chapter is recited in every cycle of prayer, every Muslim repeats this petition many times a day. Interpreters differ on whom the phrase singles out, and many read it as a warning against all error.
Often misunderstood as
That the word is an insult for non-Muslims, when it names a condition of straying that anyone can fall into.
What the sources say
Some early commentators related the two groups in 1:7 to particular communities, while others read both as general types of error.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 36, listed as ḌĀLL. The definition is restated here.