Glossary of Key Terms

‘adl: Justice.
 
ahkam: (plural of hukm) Legal rulings.
 
bulugh: Age of puberty, once a girl or a boy reaches sexual maturity.
 
Da‘wah: (lit. making an invitation) The preaching of Islam.
 
fiqh: (lit. understanding, knowledge) The science of understanding Shari‘ah; also used to refer to the huge amount of literature produced by Muslim jurists.
 
hadith: (lit., report, account, statement) In the Islamic tradition, a hadith is a report about what Prophet Muhammad said, practised, approved or disapproved. A hadith report consists of two parts; the first gives a list of narrators of the report and the second part the text. The jurists and the collectors of hadith differed in their criteria about the normativity of a hadith.
 
haram: One of the five categories of Shari‘ah connoting that which is forbidden or sinful.
 
‘ibadat: A category of fiqh rulings that deals with ritual and spiritual acts.
 
‘iddah: (lit. counting) Waiting period that a woman must observe before she can remarry of about three menstrual cycles (for a divorced woman) or four months 10 days (for a widowed woman).
 
ihsan: Kindness.
 
izzat: (Urdu) Honour.
 
jinn: (female jinnia) Invisible being.
 
khul‘: Divorce by redemption initiated by the wife, generally through payment or compensation to the husband.
 
ma‘ruf: A Qur’anic concept that refers to that which is commonly known to be right and just.
 
mahr: Dower, or the goods and/or cash due from the groom to the bride as part of the marriage contract. It may be given at the time of the marriage ceremony or promised to be paid at a later date or be paid upon divorce or the death of the husband, or divided into prompt and deferred portions.
 
mawaddah: Qur’anic concept that means love.
 
mu‘amalat: A category of fiqh rulings that deals with social and contractual acts.
 
nafaqah: Maintenance of wife during marriage, and, if she is divorced, throughout the ‘iddah period, including shelter, food and clothing.
 
nikah: Literally, act of coitus, sexual intercourse. The term is commonly used to refer to marriage.
 
nushuz: Marital discord caused by either spouse.
 
qadi: An Islamic judge. A qadi is distinguished from a mufti, the former being a legal authority who is appointed by the state and thus represents the state. The ruling of a qadi is binding for the parties and is enforceable; the mufti only gives advice, which is not enforceable in a court of law.
 
qist: Equity.
 
qiwamah: Juristic concept that sanctions men’s authority over women. This concept entails a set of obligations for men and women in marriage: men are supposed to provide for and protect women and children; women in turn must obey men.
 
rahmah: Qur’anic concept that means compassion.
 
rushd: The age of legal majority, when a girl or a boy acquires the legal capacity to enter into contracts and reaches the intellectual maturity to handle her or his own property and affairs.
 
sadaaq (or sadaqah): Dower (see mahr).
 
sakinah: Qur’anic concept that means serenity.
 
Shari‘ah: (lit., water source, the way, the path) The path or way given by God to human beings, the path by which human beings search God’s Will. Commonly misinterpreted as ‘Islamic law’, Shari‘ah is not restricted to positive law per se but includes moral and ethical values and the jurisprudential process itself.
 
Shi‘a: (lit. party or faction) Historically a branch of Islam whose followers are the majority in Iran and Iraq, with substantial minorities in several other countries.
 
Sunnah: (lit. the way or course or conduct of life). The term refers to the example of the Prophet Muhammad embodied in his statements, actions and those matters that he silently approved or disapproved as reported in hadith literature. Sunnah is acknowledged as a primary source of Islamic law after the Qur’an.
 
talaq: The term refers to the unilateral act that takes legal effect through the repudiation of the wife by the husband. This form of divorce, which is the most commonly practised, does not require the wife’s consent.
 
wali: Guardian (for marriage) or the person who has the authority to contract marriage on behalf of the bride; this role is to be undertaken— according to some schools of law—by the father, paternal grandfather or other male relative.
 
wilayah: Juristic concept that refers to the right and duty of male family members to exercise guardianship over their dependent wards (female or male). This often translates into fathers having the right of guardianship over their daughters in contracting their marriages, and the privileging of fathers over mothers in guardianship of their children.
 
zina: Sexual intercourse between parties not married to each other.