الحرام
al-Ḥarām
What the law forbids: a deed or thing that is prohibited.
What it means
Al-ḥarām is what God has forbidden, and in the law it is the fifth category of acts, set against ḥalāl, what is allowed. The jurists list five rulings for any act: obligatory, recommended, permitted, disliked and forbidden. A ḥarām act is to be avoided, and doing it is a sin. The Quran lists forbidden things such as shameful deeds and wrongful killing (7:33; 17:33).
The Quran warns against claiming a thing to be forbidden without proof: “Do not say falsely with your tongues, ‘This is lawful and this is forbidden,’ so as to invent lies about God” (16:116). For this reason the scholars hold that the default in food, dress and dealings is permission, unless a text forbids it. The same root names the sanctuary of Mecca, al-Ḥaram, and iḥrām, the state of the pilgrim.
Often misunderstood as
Translated “taboo”, which suggests an unexplained prohibition; the term is a legal ruling that rests on a text of revelation.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 53, listed as AL ḤARĀM. The definition is restated here.