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| 'Remembering' God's name. In group devotional exercises, Sufis repeat it in rhytmic chant. The devotees often dance in a circle. |
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| Non-Muslim religious minorities accorded tolerated status in Islamic society. Jews and Christians as scriptural communities were termed ahl al-kitab, "People of the Book". |
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| "Passing away", a supreme stage of ecstasy in the Sufi mystical tradition. |
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| A Sufi ascetic, from the Arabic word for "poor"; the corresponding Persian word is darvish. |
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| The short, oft-recited opening surah of the Qur'an, which praises God as lord of the universe and the day of judgement and asks for divine guidance. |
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| A ruling issued by a traditional religio-legal authority, who is termed a mufti. |
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| Jurisprudence, the principles of law. The body of specific regulations is termed the shari'ah, while fiquh is the more theoretical analysis of them. |
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| Hiding ("occultation"), from which, according to "Twelver" or Imami Shi'i expectations, the Mahdi is eventually to return. |
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| Texts containing traditional reports of Muhammad's words and example, taken by Muslims as foundation for conduct and doctrine. A hadith is an individual unit of the literature, and the Hadith is the literature considered as corpus. |
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| The annual pilgrimage to Makkah. |
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| Ritually acceptable, in the context particularly of the slaughter of animals for meat. |
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| A type of pre-Islamic Arab with monotheistic tendencies. The hanifs are mentioned separately from the Jews of Arabia and also cannot be conclusively connected with the Christian community. |
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| "Forbidden", especially a forbidden action. A related word, pronounced differently, is haram, "reserved", especially a sanctuary space. Practices in other religions described by the word "taboo" have the same pair of connotations. |
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| A woman's veil or head covering. |
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| Muhammad's migration from Makkah to establish a community in Madinah. With dates, the abbreviation AH stands for Latin for "year of the hijrah", counting 354-day lunar years from the event in 622CE. |
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| The holiday that celebrates breaking the month-long daylight fast at the end of Ramadan. The festival traditionally occurs following the actual sighting of the new moon. |
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| The consensus of the community's religio-legal scholars, used as a principle for extending application of Islamic law. Some schools made more extensive use of it than others. |
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The process of developing legal opinions. References to "closing the gate of ijtihad' imply a fixing of the legal system, hence restricting the scope of change. |
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"Twelvers", Shi'is who recognize as legitimate heirs to the Prophet's authority a succession of twelve imams, the last of whom, who is expected to return as the Mahdi, has been in occultation since 874. |
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| "Seveners", Shi'is whose lineage runs through Isma'il as the seventh Imam and continues to the present in the Indo-Islamic leader, the Agha Khan. |
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| The pedigree or chain naming the transmitters of a unit of hadith, with which the individual unit begins. |
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| Ignorance or barbarism, a muslim term characterizing Arabia before Islam as unredeemed before the preaching of the Qur'anic message. |
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| Struggle in defence of the faith. Muslims regard military jihads or "holy war" as responses to threats to the community's security or welfare, but also speak of spiritual jihads aimed at improving moral conduct in society. |
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| Spirits or demons (the singular is jinni). |
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The poll tax levied on non-Muslims in the early caliphate. It promised protection and exemption from military service. It could be avoided if one converted to Islam, which many did, but then one would have the obligation of zakat. |
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Classical Islamic shoclastic theology. The enterprise involved the rational investigation of the status of revelation and of divine power and goodness. Theology contrasted with law, where fiqh investigated the actions expected of humans. |
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| Rejection of Islam (etymologically, "ingratitude"). The implication is that a Muslim is someone who gratefully acknowledges God's favour, and that someone who repudiates Islam denies that God is gracious. |
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| The Shi'i twelfth Imam, understood in his role as the "rightly guided one", who will return at an unspecified future date from hiding, to restore righteousness and order to the world. |
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| The person whose voice from the mosque calls people to prayer. The premodern caller ascended the stairs of a minaret so that his voice could be heard; today, the call is amplified electronically. |
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| A jurist issuing religio-legal decisions or fatwas. |
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| A rationalist early Muslim theological school that attempted to promote, even enforce, symbolic understandings of Muslim tenets. The conservative response committed Islamic theology to a strict literal reading on numerous points. |
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| The Persian and Urdu term for a Sufi master, referred to as a shaykh by Arabic speakers. |
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| The direction of Makkah, faced in a mosque by a niche inside the wall nearest Makkah. |
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| Reasoning by analogy, a principle in development of Islamic law. Of the four Sunni schools the Hanafi (first under 'Abbasid and then under Ottoman patronage) made the most liberal use of it, while others restricted it. |
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| The month throughout which Muslims fast during daylight hours. |
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| The prescribed daily prayers, said five times during the day (added voluntary prayers are called nawafil). |
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| Declaring one's faith, "bearing withness" as a Muslim. The brief declaration formula is a twofold profession of faith: in God as the only god, and in Muhammad as God's prophet. |
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| The specific regulations and conduct of Islamic law (jurisprudence, or theoretical discussion of the law, is fiqh). |
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| Arabic for a senior master, especially of mystical devotion. In Sufi contexts in Persian and Urdu, the shaykh is also referred to by the corresponding term pir. |
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| One of the two main divisions of Muslims who trace succession to the Prophet's authority through imams in the lineage of 'Ali. Today they make up about one-sixth of the world's Muslims. |
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| The aggregate "life-example" of Muhammad's word and deed, constituting for Muslims a guide to proper conduct. The Hadith literature is the principal source for its details. |
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| One of the two main divisions of Muslims; they trace succession to the Prophet's authority through the institution of the caliphate, which lasted until the twentieth century. Today they constitute about five-sixths of all Muslims. |
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| A chapter of the Qur'an. There are 114 in total, arranged in decreasing order of length, apart from the first one, the Fatihah. |
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| Commentary on the Qur'an. |
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| Following the ijtihad or legal opinion of a particular jurist. |
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| The organized following or brotherhood of a Sufi saint. |
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| (plural, awliya') Term for a Sufi saint. It means "friend", implying that the respected spiritual masters were intimate friends of God. |
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| A charitable endowment, such as for the upkeep of a mosque or for community welfare purposes. |
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| The prescribed welfare tax of 2.5% of one's accumulated wealth, collected by central imperial treasuries in earlier times but now donated to charities independently of state governments (additional voluntary almsgiving is termed sadaqah). |
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