الواجب
al-Wājib
The obligatory: a law or deed that the law requires, rewarded when done and punishable when left without excuse
What it means
Al-Wājib is what the law makes obligatory. It is the highest of the five legal categories (al-aḥkām al-khamsah): obligatory, recommended, permitted, disliked and forbidden. A person who performs an obligation is rewarded, and one who neglects it without excuse is held to account. The five daily prayers are an example. Most jurists treat wājib and farḍ as the same, while the Ḥanafī school reserves farḍ for what rests on a definitive text and wājib for what rests on a probable one. Jurists also distinguish a duty on every individual (wājib ʿaynī) from a duty on the community that is met when enough people do it (wājib kifāʾī).
Often misunderstood as
That it can be translated as “duty” without distinction, which hides the grades of obligation that the law keeps.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 53, listed as AL WĀJIB. The definition is restated here.