ظلم
Ẓulm
The act of committing injustice; wrongdoing, which puts something where it does not belong
What it means
Ẓulm is injustice or wrongdoing. Classical definitions describe it as putting a thing in a place that is not its own. The act may be done to others, to oneself or to Allah. The Quran counts the worship of anything besides Him as a great ẓulm (31:13). Ismail al Faruqi derives it from the verb ẓalama, with the doer called a ẓālim. Islamic teaching treats it very seriously. A divine saying reported in Sahih Muslim has Allah say that He has forbidden ẓulm to Himself and has made it forbidden among people, and a saying recorded in the Sahih collections says that it will be darknesses on the Day of Resurrection.
Often misunderstood as
That it is only injustice done to other people, when the Quran also names wrong done to oneself and wrong against Allah.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 38, listed as ẒULM. The definition is restated here.