A
ʿadam: non-existence. Opposite of wujūd.
maʿdūm: non-existent. Opposite of mawjūd.
ahl al-qibla: lit. people of the qibla, or direction of prayer (Mecca). Refers, essentially, to all those who associate themselves with Islam or identify themselves as Muslims (as long as they recognize the qibla and, by extension, the basic rites of Islam, such as the daily prayer). The term, as it is often used, is deliberately agnostic with respect to the correctness or orthodoxy of the belief or practice of those to whom it is applied. One may concede that a person or group is part of ahl al-qibla while nonetheless judging that person or group to be wildly heterodox or dangerously astray.
aḥwāl (sing. ḥāl): “states.” Concept developed originally by the Muʿtazila as a theory regarding the nature of the divine attributes. Conceiving of God’s qualities as “states” rather than attributes proper was meant to avoid the implication of a plurality of eternal entities alongside God. The term was later adopted into the Ashʿarī theory of attributes.
ākhira: the hereafter, in contrast to the life of this world, or dunyā.
ʿāmm: general, generally applicable; generic; non-specialized.
ʿāmma: the general public, common people, non-specialists. Contrasted with khāṣṣa.
ʿaql: reason, intellectual faculty; (pl. ʿuqūl) intellect, mind.
ʿaqlī: rational (said, e.g., of a science, an indicant, a proof, an objection).
ʿaqliyyāt: rational matters; rational knowledge, conclusions derived through discursive reason.
al-ṣifāt al-ʿaqliyya: see ṣifa
ʿaql ṣarīḥ (also ṣarīḥ al-maʿqūl): pure, authentic, sound natural reason. The unadulterated native human capacity for sound reasoning. Held by Ibn Taymiyya to be fully congruent with naql ṣaḥīḥ, or authentic revelation.
maʿqūl: intelligible (adj.); (pl. maʿqūlāt) intelligible (n.), object of intellection or rational apprehension.
ʿuqalāʾ (sing. ʿāqil): people of intellect, rational persons, rational human beings, those endowed with reason.
ʿaraḍ (pl. aʿrāḍ): accident (phil., as opposed to substance).
ṭarīq (or ṭarīqat) al-aʿrāḍ: see ṭarīq
ʿarsh: throne, particularly God’s throne as mentioned in numerous verses of the Qurʾān.
aṣḥāb (sing. ṣāḥib): lit. companions. Refers to the direct students or immediate followers of a renowned figure.
asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā: the Most Beautiful Names of God (usually numbered at ninety-nine, drawn mostly from descriptions of God in the Qurʾān).
atbāʿ (sing. tābiʿ): general term referring to the followers of a renowned figure (subsequent to the generation of his direct students or immediate followers).
athar (pl. āthār; also maʾthūrāt): lit. trace, vestige. A verbal report transmitted from (maʾthūr ʿan) the Prophet or early generations of Muslims, typically not vetted through the mechanisms of formal ḥadīth criticism.
awwalī: primary, a priori.
awwaliyyāt: primary concepts, a priori premises or propositions.
ʿayn (pl. aʿyān): discrete, extra-mental entity; concrete entity; particular. “Concrete” here implies perceptibility, and perhaps also causal efficacy, but not necessarily materiality or corporeality.
fī al-aʿyān: existing as a discrete entity in the extra-mental world. Contrasted with fī al-adhhān.
muʿayyan: particular, particularized; (pl. muʿayyanāt) particular (n.), particular entity in the external world.
B
badīhī: self-evident, axiomatic, self-evidently true without need for inference or appeal to other evidence. Contrasted with naẓarī.
badīhiyyāt (also badāʾih, badāʾih al-ʿuqūl): self-evident axioms or principles of reason. Contrasted with naẓariyyāt.
basīṭ: simple, incomposite, not compound. Antonym of murakkab.
bāṭil: false, invalid; falsehood. Antonym of ḥaqq.
mubṭil: one who falsifies or invalidates; one who seeks to undermine something by declaring it false or invalid.
bāṭin: hidden, non-manifest; internal, inward, inner (as in ḥiss bāṭin, or internal perception); esoteric. Contrasted in all senses with ẓāhir.
Bāṭinī (pl. Bāṭiniyya): esotericist. One who claims that the revealed texts harbor a hidden, true meaning often at odds with their overt sense. Often used with specific reference to the Ismāʿīlīs.
bayān: see mubīn
bidʿa (pl. bidaʿ): a heretical innovation in religion, whether on the level of creed or practice. The direct opposite, in Ibn Taymiyya’s usage, of shirʿa.
bidʿī: “innovated” (as a departure from normative belief and practice). Contrasted by Ibn Taymiyya with sharʿī (revealed, scriptural) in reference not only to inauthentic ḥadīth and other textually transmitted religious material but also, in the realm of reason, to faulty assumptions, premises, and arguments that lead to erroneous conclusions.
mubtadiʿ: “innovator.” A purveyor of heretical innovations in religious matters.
bi-l-ḍarūra: see ḍarūrī
bi-l-iḍṭirār: see bi-l-ḍarūra, under ḍarūrī
bi-lā kayf: see kayfiyya
bi-nafsihi: see nafs
burhān (pl. barāhīn): proof; evincive proof, conclusive argument; demonstration, demonstrative proof.
D
dahriyya: lit. “eternalists.” Usually translated as “materialists.” Refers to the adherents of any belief that holds the material universe to be both eternal and ultimate and therefore denies the existence of a Creator.
dalīl (pl. adilla, dalāʾil): indicant, (piece of) evidence (rational or revealed); proof; argument. See also istidlāl.
dalāla: indication; proof value or fact of being a proof; signification, import, or meaning (of a word or expression).
madlūl: the thing indicated or proved; the thing or meaning signified by a word or expression, designatum.
ḍarūrī: necessary, immediate. Includes, for Ibn Taymiyya, any knowledge, even if inferential, that imposes itself on the mind such that the mind cannot repel or deny it once it is known.
ḍarūra (and iḍṭirār): necessity, immediacy, non-inferential quality (of a proposition or knowledge).
bi-l-ḍarūra (also ḍarūratan or bi-l-iḍṭirār): necessarily, by necessity; immediately, non-inferentially.
maʿlūm min al-dīn bi-l-ḍarūra: “known of necessity to be (part and parcel) of the religion.” Refers to beliefs, practices, commands, and prohibitions that are so well-known and germane to the faith that no Muslim, scholar or layman, can be unaware of them.
dawr: circularity (of an argument or, e.g., of causes and effects).
dhāt: essence; (very) self or being; (pl. dhawāt) entity. Dhāt translated as “essence” can refer to a thing’s quiddity, or essential qualities, as well as to the thing itself, its very being (that in which its qualities inhere). Synonymous, in all senses, with German Wesen.
dhātī: essential, pertaining to the essence or the very being of a thing.
dhawq: lit. tasting. Refers to the subjective experience of spiritual or other unseen realities or to the direct, intuitive apprehension of meta-rational truths; (pl. adhwāq) an instance of such an experience and/or the discrete knowledge acquired through it.
dhihn (pl. adhhān): mind; intellect.
dhihnī: mental, logical, in the mind (as opposed to externally existent; in this sense, contrasted with khārijī). See also muqaddarāt dhihniyya, under taqdīr.
fī al-adhhān: existing only in the mind, such as logical and mathematical principles and, according to Ibn Taymiyya, universal concepts. Contrasted with fī al-aʿyān or fī al-khārij.
dīn: religion; the religion of Islam, or submission to God; (pl. adyān) religion (generic). See also maʿlūm min al-dīn bi-l-ḍarūra, under ḍarūrī, and uṣūl al-dīn, under uṣūl.
dunyā: the life of this world, in contrast to the hereafter, or ākhira.
F
falāsifa (sing. faylasūf): the Muslim Peripatetic philosophers, including al-Kindī, al-Fārābī, Ibn Rushd, and, most saliently, Ibn Sīnā.
fāsid: (1) invalid, unsound; (2) false, wrong; (3) foul, corrupt. In the first two senses, opposite of ṣaḥīḥ and, in the third, opposite of ṣāliḥ.
fasād: invalidity, unsoundness; falseness, wrongness; corruption. See also mafsada.
fī al-adhhān: see dhihn
fī al-aʿyān: see ʿayn
fī jiha: see jiha
fī al-khārij: see khārijī
fiʿl (pl. af ʿāl): act, action.
fī makān: see makān
fī nafs al-amr: see nafs
fiqh: law, jurisprudence. See also uṣūl al-fiqh, under uṣūl.
faqīh (pl. fuqahāʾ): legal scholar, jurisprudent.
fitna (pl. fitan): discord, dissension; trial; temptation.
fiṭra: the innate or original, God-given, normative disposition of the human being; God-given natural human constitution. Ibn Taymiyya ascribes a significant role to fiṭra as a cognitive-moral faculty that has the ability to recognize truth from falsehood and right from wrong, and the ability to distinguish between sound and unsound rational premises.
fiṭrī: innate, normative, stemming from the original, God-given, normative human disposition.
G
ghāʾib: see ghayb
ghayb: a Qurʾānic term referring to the unseen realm, in contrast to the shahāda, or visible realm. Includes anything that lies beyond our empirical access at the current time, including past and future events in the empirical world, in addition to the ontological realm of the unseen proper, the realm of beings such as angels and jinn as well as God.
ghāʾib: unseen, lying beyond our current empirical access. Contrasted with shāhid.
ghayr maḥsūs: see ḥiss
ghulāh (also ghālūn): extremist sectarians.
H
ḥadd (pl. ḥudūd): definition.
ḥādith (also muḥdath): temporally originated, non-eternal; created. Contrasted with qadīm.
ḥawādith (also muḥdathāt): temporally originated things or events, that which has come into existence after not being.
ḥudūth: temporal origination, non-eternality, createdness (e.g., ḥudūth al-ʿālam: createdness/non-eternality of the world). Contrasted with qidam.
muḥdith: that which creates, brings about, or causes temporal things to exist (i.e., God).
ḥads: intuition.
ḥadsiyyāt: matters known by intuition.
ḥāfiẓ (pl. ḥuffāẓ): master of ḥadīth, known for the large quantity of ḥadīth expertly memorized. Also used to refer to someone who has memorized the entire Qurʾān.
ḥifẓ: memory; expert mastery of ḥadīth (including expert memorization of a large number thereof).
ḥāl: see aḥwāl
ḥāll (fī): see ḥulūl
ḥaqīqa (pl. ḥaqāʾiq): the true or essential ontological reality of an existent thing, its modality of being or how it exists; the “real” or literal sense of a word or expression. Contrasted in this latter sense with majāz.
ḥaqq: true, real; truth. Antonym of bāṭil.
al-Ḥaqq: God (the Ultimately True or Real).
ḥashwī (pl. ḥashwiyya): crass literalist (whose literalism leads to blatant theological anthropomorphism).
hawā (ahwāʾ): caprice, whim; preconceived bias, obstinate personal opinion; stubbornly clinging to a preconceived opinion in the face of countervailing evidence.
hayūlā (Greek ύλη/hyle): prime matter.
ḥayyiz (pl. aḥyāz): the portion of space occupied by a thing possessing dimension.
mutaḥayyiz: occupying space; spatially extended. “Occupying space” is appropriate in the context of kalām, which conceives of space as existing in its own right independent of objects which then come to occupy it. “Spatially extended” is appropriate in the context of the Aristotelian conception of space as the extension of objects themselves (a conception shared by Ibn Taymiyya).
taḥayyuz: the fact of occupying space or being spatially extended.
ḥifẓ: see ḥāfiẓ
hijra: refers to the emigration of the Prophet Muḥammad and his nascent community from Mecca to Medina in the year 622 CE. The Islamic (lunar) calendar is referred to as the hijrī calendar because it begins in this year (i.e., AH 1 = 622 CE).
ḥiss: sensation, sense perception. Divided, according to Ibn Taymiyya, into an outer (ẓāhir) and an inner (bāṭin) capacity to sense.
ḥiss bāṭin: internal sensation.
ḥiss ẓāhir: external sensation, perception through the external senses.
maḥsūs: perceptible, sensible, perceivable.
ghayr maḥsūs: imperceptible, insensible, unperceivable.
ḥujja (pl. ḥujaj): argument; proof.
ḥukm (pl. aḥkām): (logic) judgement; proposition; qualification, predication; characteristic; (law) judgement; ruling.
ḥulūl (fī): lit. entering or being inside of; inhering in, being immanent in, indwelling; supervening in or upon. As a theological term, can be translated as “pantheism” (sometimes also as “incarnation[ism],” depending on the context). Opponents of the doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd (such as Ibn Taymiyya), for instance, typically charge that it entails ḥulūl, the notion that God is immanent in, one with, or indistinguishable from the universe.
ḥāll (fī): inherent or immanent (in); indwelling (in); supervening (in or upon).
ḥusn al-naẓar: see naẓar
I
iḍāfī: relational, relative (and, in this sense, synonymous with nisbī). Sometimes used in the more specific sense of “co-relative.”
iḍmār: implicit signification; ellipsis.
iftiqār: see muftaqir
iḥtiyāṭ: (law) precaution. Exercising legal scrupulousness to avoid all possibility of falling outside the bounds of the revealed law (Sharīʿa).
ijmāʿ: consensus, juristic or scholarly consensus, communal consensus. Carries a strong sense of normativity, whether in the field of law, practice, or creed.
ijmāl: ambiguity caused by the use of equivocal language (i.e., that fails to clarify the meaning of a vague term or to distinguish between the like or overlapping meanings of a polysemous expression). Similar, in this sense, to tashābuh.
mujmal: vague or ambiguous (with respect to speech, a word, or an expression). Similar, in this sense, to mutashābih (and mushtabih).
ikhtilāf: difference of opinion, point of disagreement; that which distinguishes two otherwise similar things. Contrasted in this latter sense with tashābuh (and related terms). Latter sense also rendered by the phrase mā bihi al-ikhtilāf, the opposite of mā bihi al-ishtirāk.
ilāhiyya: see ulūhiyya
ilāhiyyāt: metaphysics (lit. [the science of] divine things). Primarily used in philosophical works. Largely synonymous with mā baʿda al-ṭabīʿa.
ilḥād: deviation, heterodoxy, heresy; disbelief; atheism.
mulḥid (pl. malāḥida): someone who holds a deviant or heretical position that entails a denial of fundamental tenets of the faith; disbeliever; atheist.
ʿilm: knowledge; (pl. ʿulūm) field of knowledge or science; Wissenschaft. Opposite of jahl.
ʿilmī: epistemic; cognitive, cognitional. More generally, “scientific,” based on or having to do with ʿilm, or knowledge.
imkān: see mumkin
imtināʿ: see mumtaniʿ
inniyya: a thing’s being or the fact that it is (its “thatness”), in contrast to its māhiyya (essence, quiddity), or what it is (its “whatness”).
inqisām: see munqasim
intifāʾ: the absence or non-existence of a thing, the fact that something does not obtain or is not the case. Contrasted with thubūt.
intisāb: see muntasib
intizāʿ: abstracting, abstraction (e.g., of universal concepts from particulars). See also tajrīd, under mujarrad.
ishtibāh (and ishtabaha): see tashābuh
ishtirāk: sharing, co-sharing (as in the partaking of universals in the particulars that are instantiations of them).
qadr mushtarak: common element, common factor (in which two or more things share). Also referred to by the phrase mā bihi al-ishtirāk, the opposite of mā bihi al-ikhtilāf.
ishtirāk (lafẓī) / ishtirāk al-alfāẓ: homonymy or polysemy; equivocity.
lafẓ mushtarak: homonym or polyseme; equivocal term.
ishtirāk al-asmāʾ: equivocity of terms.
ishtirāk maʿnawī: May be translated as “analogical signification.” This refers to one word being applied analogically (with the same meaning) to two things that nevertheless differ substantially in their underlying ontological reality. For example, “knowledge” with respect to both God and us means “cognition of a knowable,” but it applies to God in a necessary and perfect manner, while it applies to us contingently and deficiently. Ibn Taymiyya appeals to the concept of ishtirāk maʿnawī to preserve the comprehensibility of revealed language about God while attempting to avoid assimilationism, or tashbīh.
isnād (pl. asānīd): chain of transmission (particularly of a ḥadīth report).
isnād ṣaḥīḥ: an authentic chain of transmission. A ḥadīth with an isnād ṣaḥīḥ enjoys the highest level of epistemic probability, falling short only of the complete certainty (yaqīn) afforded by tawātur.
istiʿāra: metaphor. See also majāz.
istiʿdād: disposition, potentiality; capacity; preparedness, receptivity.
istidlāl: inference, reasoning; argumentation; deduction, demonstration. See also dalīl.
istighātha: lit. entreating for help. Refers to the practice of beseeching the Prophet Muḥammad or a deceased pious figure after him (see walī) to intercede on one’s behalf with God for the fulfillment of one’s need. Though permitted by some scholars, Ibn Taymiyya condemned istighātha (and the related practice of tawassul) as a violation of the principle of tawḥīd.
istiḥsān: juristic preference. A method of legal reasoning in which the ruling engendered by a strict analogy (qiyās) is set aside in favor of an alternative ruling judged preferable on the basis of a relevant text, consensus, or necessity.
iṣṭilāḥ: technical usage; (pl. iṣṭilāḥāt) (also muṣṭalaḥ, pl. muṣṭalaḥāt) technical term.
iṣṭilāḥī: technical (said of a term, meaning, or usage).
istiṣḥāb (also istiṣḥāb al-ḥāl): (law) presumption of continuity, whereby a previously existing state is presumed to continue in the present unless the contrary is established. For example, inheritance may not be claimed from a missing person until it is proved that he is dead (as his previous living state is presumed still to obtain until the establishment of positive evidence to the contrary).
istiṣlāḥ: (law) Refers to the consideration of benefit, or maṣlaḥa, in deciding the legal status (whether permitted or prohibited) of a thing or an action, particularly in cases not covered by the Qurʾān, Sunna, or juristic consensus (ijmāʿ).
maṣlaḥa mursala: textually unattested benefit. Refers, in the context of istiṣlāḥ, to the consideration of benefits that are not explicitly indicated in the Qurʾān or Sunna.
istiwāʾ: settling; sitting, being seated. Used specifically in reference to God’s “settling on the throne” (al-istiwāʾ ʿalā al-ʿarsh). Whether God’s istiwāʾ should be understood literally or interpreted figuratively through taʾwīl was a major point of contention among various schools of theology.
ithbāt: affirmation, specifically of the divine attributes; affirmationism (as a doctrine affirming the reality of the divine attributes). Contrasted with nafy, taʿṭīl, and tajahhum.
muthbita (also muthbitūn): “affirmationists.” Those who affirm the reality of the divine attributes. Contrasted with nufāh, muʿaṭṭila, and jahmiyya.
iʿtibārī: notional; mentally considered, posited in the mind (as opposed to something that exists externally, irrespective of our mental consideration of it).
iʿtibār: mental consideration, notion, being of reason (ens rationis).
J
jadal: dialectic; argumentation, controversy.
jahl (also jahāla): ignorance; not knowing. Opposite of ʿilm. The Qurʾān associates faith (īmān) with knowledge, while contrasting this latter only to ignorance (and not, e.g., to belief).
Jāhiliyya: the Age of Ignorance (in reference to the period of idolatry and iniquity prior to the advent of Islam).
jahmī (pl. jahmiyya): “negationist.” One who denies the reality of the divine attributes. The name is derived from Jahm b. Ṣafwān. Jahmiyya is largely synonymous with nufāh or muʿaṭṭila, but carries a stronger polemical charge. Contrasted with muthbita.
tajahhum: the doctrine of the jahmiyya, negationism. Adopting a doctrine that entails denying the reality of the divine attributes. Synonymous with nafy and taʿṭīl. Contrasted with ithbāt.
jawāz: possibility; permissibility.
jāʾiz: possible; permissible.
jawhar (pl. jawāhir): substance; atom (in the context of kalām).
jawāhir maʿqūla: intelligible substances.
jiha (pl. jihāt): lit. direction; (tech.) directionality or spatial location.
fī jiha: lit. in a direction; (tech.) spatially located, referring to a thing’s being in a (particular) direction vis-à-vis other objects such that it can be pointed to as being here or there. Occurs in the theological debate regarding whether God is spatially located (fī jiha) with respect to creation (and whether we can, therefore, point to Him as being literally “up there” with respect to the world).
jism (pl. ajsām): body.
tajsīm: corporealism (a subset of tashbīh). Attributing a body or corporeal properties to God. See also tashbīh.
mujassim: corporealist, one who attributes a body or corporeal properties to God.
jumhūr (pl. jamāhīr): the majority, large majority (e.g., of scholars who hold a particular view); the masses, the common people.
juzʾī: particular, a particular. Contrasted with kullī, referring to a universal.
juzʾ (pl. ajzāʾ): part.
K
kadhib: falsehood (incl. of an assertion or proposition); lying, mendacity.
makdhūb: fabricated (said especially of a forged or unsound ḥadīth report).
kalām: speech, discourse; discursive or rational theology.
mutakallim (pl. mutakallimūn): speaker; theologian (specifically one who engages in systematic discursive theology).
kashf: unveiling, spiritual unveiling. See also mushāhada.
kayfiyya (also kayf): the modality or qualitative reality of a thing’s existence, its “how.”
bi-lā kayf: the theological position of affirming seemingly anthropomorphic attributes of God mentioned in revelation, negating their similarity to human attributes but refraining from inquiry into their precise nature or modality.
khabar (pl. akhbār): report; instance of reporting. Can also refer, in a general sense, to revelation (in consideration of the fact that it reaches us, ultimately, by way of verbal reports or transmission).
al-ṣifāt al-khabariyya: see ṣifa
khalaf: the later scholars. Juxtaposed to the Salaf, or early normative forebears.
khārijī (also fī al-khārij): externally existent, existing in the world outside the mind. Contrasted with dhihnī (mental, logical) or fī al-adhhān.
khāṣṣa: specialists (in contrast to the ʿāmma, the non-specialist general public); the elite.
kullī: universal. Contrasted with juzʾī, referring to a particular.
kulliyyāt: universals, universal concepts.
kulliyyāt mujarrada: abstract(ed) universals. Those universal concepts abstracted by the mind from extant particulars.
kunh: quintessential nature, inner core or essence.
kursī: God’s “footstool,” mentioned in the Qurʾān in addition to the divine throne, or ʿarsh.
L
lafẓ (pl. alfāẓ): (1) utterance; (2) word, term, expression, vocable; (3) verbal form, wording, language; (4) (also talaffuẓ) verbalization, verbal recitation, vocal pronunciation (of the Qurʾānic text). Contrasted, in sense (3), with maʿnā.
lafẓ mushtarak: see ishtirāk
lāzim: (li) concomitant to, entailed or implied by; (pl. lawāzim) concomitant (n.); consequent (n.); (logical) consequence, implication.
talāzum: mutual concomitance, mutual entailment, mutual implication.
mutalāzim(ān): mutually concomitant, mutually entailing, mutually implied.
M
mā baʿda al-ṭabīʿa: metaphysics (lit. what is beyond [‘meta’] nature [or physics]). Primarily used in philosophical works. Largely synonymous with ilāhiyyāt.
mā bihi al-ikhtilāf: see ikhtilāf
mā bihi al-ishtirāk: see ishtirāk
madhhab (pl. madhāhib): school, school of thought (especially legal); doctrine, position, teaching (of a person or school).
madlūl: see dalīl
maʿdūm: see ʿadam
mafhūm: sense, meaning, signification; linguistic implication, implied meaning; (pl. mafāhīm) concept.
mafsada (pl. mafāsid): detriment. Opposite of maṣlaḥa. See also fasād, under fāsid.
māhiyya: essence, quiddity. What a thing is (its “whatness”) as opposed to that it is (its inniyya, or “thatness”).
maḥsūs: see ḥiss
majāz: non-literal or figurative meaning of a word or expression, in contrast to its ḥaqīqa (“real” or literal) sense. Often translated by the more specific term “metaphor,” which is, more properly speaking, istiʿāra.
makān (pl. amkina, amākin): place.
fī makān: subject or confined to place; existing in a (specific) place
makdhūb: see kadhib
maʿnā (pl. maʿānī): (1) meaning, signification; (2) notion, concept, intentional object; (3) quality, property; (4) entity. Often contrasted, in the first sense, with lafẓ.
ṣifāt al-maʿānī: see ṣifa
al-ṣifāt al-maʿnawiyya: see ṣifa
maqāṣid (sing. maqṣid): aims, intentions, objectives; higher objectives or purposes (of the revealed law, or Sharīʿa).
maʿqūl: see ʿaql
maʿrifa (pl. maʿārif): knowledge; cognizance, cognition. Also, experiential knowledge or the knowledge of familiarity, in contrast to knowledge of a propositional kind (similar to French connaître vs. savoir, German kennen vs. wissen, or Persian shenākhtan vs. dānestan). Can therefore refer by extension to spiritual gnosis, or direct, experiential knowledge of God.
marjūḥ: non-preponderant (in reference to the non-literal meaning of a word in contrast to its primary or obvious sense); less probative, of lesser probative value (in reference to the weaker of two positions, arguments, or pieces of evidence). Contrasted in both senses with rājiḥ. See also tarjīḥ.
maṣlaḥa (pl. maṣāliḥ): benefit (personal or public); interest, good; common good. The promotion of maṣlaḥa among the general public, as opposed to purveying knowledge of ultimate truth, is considered by the philosophers to be the main purpose and value of revealed religion. Opposite of mafsada.
maṣlaḥa mursala: see istiṣlāḥ
mathal (pl. amthāl): parable (such as the amthāl mentioned in the Qurʾān), allegory; analog; likeness or similitude.
tamthīl: the use of parable or allegory, allegorization; analogy; likening or striking a similitude.
maʾthūr and maʾthūrāt: see athar
matn (pl. mutūn): the text of ḥadīth, as opposed to its isnād, or chain of transmission.
mawjūd: see wujūd
mawqūf: contingent (ʿalā, on).
mawṣūf: see ṣifa
milla (pl. milal): religion, religious community.
miqdār: measure; quantity; dimension; magnitude, volume, spatial expanse.
mirāʾ: disputation, disputatiousness.
mirya: doubt.
al-mīthāq: the “primordial covenant,” referenced in Q. al-Aʿrāf 7:172, in which God caused all human souls ever to be to bear witness against themselves that He is their Lord.
muʿaṭṭila: see taʿṭīl
muʾawwal: see taʾwīl
muʿayyan: see ʿayn
mubāyana: being distinct and separate from, particularly with respect to God’s distinction and separateness from creation.
mubāyin: distinct and separate (li, from), especially of God with respect to creation.
mubīn: clear, manifest (particularly with respect to the meaning of revelation).
bayān: clarity (particularly of the meaning of revelation); (also tibyān) elucidation, clarification.
muftaqir (ilā): lit. in want or need (of); (tech.) ontologically dependent (on).
iftiqār: lit. want, need; (tech.) ontological dependence (of one entity on another). More literally, the ontological “poverty” of one thing in relation to another, as in the case, for instance, of creation in relation to God.
muḥāyith: co-located, occupying the same space or location.
muḥdath: see ḥādith
muḥdith: see ḥādith
muḥkam: lit. firmly established, solid; (tech.) determinate (in meaning). A Qurʾānic term often translated as “clear” or “unambiguous” in reference to verses that are understood to be determinate in meaning and meant in a literal sense (and, hence, not open to figurative interpretation through taʾwīl). Contrasted with mutashābih.
mujarrabāt: experiential matters, matters known through observation or experience (such as astronomy).
mujarrad: abstract; abstracted from matter or from particulars.
tajrīd: abstraction (as in tajrīd al-kulliyyāt ʿan al-muʿayyanāt, or the abstraction of universals from particulars; also tajrīd al-rūḥ ʿan al-badan, referring to the “abstraction” or dissociation of the soul from the body upon death). Sometimes rendered as intizāʿ.
kulliyyāt mujarrada: see kullī
mujassim: see jism
mujmal: see ijmāl
mulḥid: see ilḥād
mumāthala: similarity or likeness. Synonymous with mushābaha.
tamthīl: likening or assimilating God to created beings (synonymous in this sense with tashbīh). Also, allegory.
mumkin: possible (as opposed to impossible), contingent (as opposed to necessary). Contrasted with mumtaniʿ (impossible) and wājib (necessary).
imkān: possibility, contingency.
mumtaniʿ: impossible. Contrasted with mumkin (possible, contingent) and wājib (necessary).
imtināʿ: impossibility.
munqasim: divisible.
inqisām: divisibility.
muntasib (ilā): someone affiliated or associated (with) (e.g., a doctrine, religion, school of thought, scholarly authority).
intisāb (ilā): affiliation or association (with) (e.g., a doctrine, religion, school of thought, scholarly authority).
muqaddarāt dhihniyya: see taqdīr
muqallid: see taqlīd
murād: meaning, intended meaning (of speech or a speaker); intention or objective.
murajjiḥ: see tarjīḥ
murakkab: see tarkīb
musammā (pl. musammayāt): nominatum, the object or concept to which a noun (ism) refers.
mushābaha: see tashābuh
mushabbih: see tashbīh
mushāhada: that which is observed; spiritual witnessing, direct witnessing of unseen realities (through kashf, or spiritual unveiling).
mushakhkhaṣ: individuated.
tashkhīṣ: individuation.
mushtarak: see ishtirāk
mutaʾakhkhirūn: the later authorities of a pursuit or discipline. In the context of Ashʿarī kalām, “al-mutaʾakhkhirūn” refers to the generations following (and possibly including) al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085). Contrasted with mutaqaddimūn.
mutaḥayyiz: see ḥayyiz
mutakallim: see kalām
mutalāzim(ān): see lāzim
mutaqaddimūn: the early authorities of a pursuit or discipline. In the context of Ashʿarī kalām, “al-mutaqaddimūn” refers to al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935 or 936) and the first several generations after him, up to (and possibly including) al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085). Contrasted with mutaʾakhkhirūn.
mutaṣawwar: see taṣawwur
mutashābih and mushtabih: see tashābuh
mutawātir: see tawātur
muthbita (and muthbitūn): see ithbāt
muṭlaq: absolute; unconditioned (specifically in reference to a universal concept considered apart from any particularizing factors).
N
nafs: (pl. anfus) self; (pl. nufūs) soul.
al-nafs al-nāṭiqa: the rational soul.
nafsī: essential, proper to the very being of a thing.
ṣifa nafsiyya: see ṣifa
bi-nafsihi: by virtue of itself (as in wājib bi-nafsihi, or necessary by virtue of itself). See also qāʾim bi-nafsihi, under qāʾim.
fī nafs al-amr: in and of itself, intrinsically.
nafy: negation, specifically of the divine attributes; negationism (as a doctrine that entails negating or also, for Ibn Taymiyya, reinterpreting figuratively through taʾwīl) some or all of the divine attributes in order to avoid tashbīh. Largely synonymous with taʿṭīl or tajahhum. Contrasted with ithbāt, or affirmationism.
nufāh: “negationists.” Those who deny the reality of the divine attributes (or also, for Ibn Taymiyya, reinterpret them figuratively through taʾwīl). Often used interchangeably with muʿaṭṭila or jahmiyya. Contrasted with muthbita.
naql: lit. transmission. Refers in the Darʾ primarily to revelation, consisting of the (transmitted) texts of the Qurʾān and authenticated prophetic ḥadīth. Largely synonymous with samʿ and with sharʿ.
naqlī: revelational, scriptural. Largely synonymous with samʿī and sharʿī.
naql ṣaḥīḥ (also ṣaḥīḥ al-manqūl): authentic divine revelation, as preserved and transmitted in the form of the Qurʾān and the body of authenticated prophetic ḥadīth. Held by Ibn Taymiyya to be fully congruent with ʿaql ṣarīḥ, or pure, authentic, sound natural reason.
naẓar: discursive reasoning, rational or discursive inference; rational inquiry.
naẓarī: discursive, inferential (in contrast to badīhī); theoretical (as in al-ʿaql al-naẓarī: theoretical reason).
naẓariyyāt: propositions or knowledge derived through discursive inference or other rational inquiry. Contrasted with badīhiyyāt.
ḥusn al-naẓar (also naẓar ḥasan): sound reasoning, sound rational inference. The conclusions of ḥusn al-naẓar, according to Ibn Taymiyya, are always found to be in accord with revealed knowledge.
nuẓẓār: translated as “rationalists.” Refers to those who engage in systematic discursive reasoning, especially in the realm of theology. Normally used by Ibn Taymiyya in reference to rationalistically inclined mutakallimūn like al-Rāzī.
nisbī: relational, relative. Often synonymous with iḍāfī.
Q
qāḍī (pl. quḍāh): judge.
qāḍī al-quḍāh: chief justice (lit. judge of judges).
qadīm: eternal, beginningless, pre-eternally existent. Contrasted with ḥādith (or muḥdath).
qidam: eternality, beginninglessness, pre-eternal existence. Contrasted with ḥudūth.
qadr mushtarak: see ishtirāk
qāʿida (pl. qawāʿid): term used by Ibn Taymiyya to refer to a treatise (such as al-Qāʿida al-Murrākushiyya). Otherwise means rule; base, basis.
qāʾim: subsisting, subsistent (bi, in).
qāʾim bi-nafsihi (or bi-dhātihi, pl. qāʾima bi-anfusihā/bi-dhātihā): self-subsisting, existing by virtue of itself (said of God); self-standing (said of other entities), independent, existing as a discrete entity independent of other things (in contrast, e.g., to a concept, which subsists in the mind, or an attribute, which subsists in a substance or entity). Etymologically parallel and semantically equivalent to German selbständig.
qāma bi: to subsist in (as attributes in a substance or entity).
qalb (pl. qulūb): heart; also, mind. Considered a primary seat of cognition, involved in both discursive reasoning and primary rational intuition as well as the moral-cum-cognitive intuitions grounded in fiṭra.
al-qānūn al-kullī (also qānūn al-taʾwīl): the “universal rule” of the later theologians for reinterpreting figuratively or suspending judgement on the meaning of scripture when it is found to conflict with reason.
qānūn al-taʾwīl: see al-qānūn al-kullī
qarāʾin (sing. qarīna): circumstantial or contextual evidence; context (by which to understand the meaning of a linguistic utterance). In this latter sense, synonymous with siyāq/siyāq al-kalām.
qarāʾin maʿnawiyya: the non-verbal context of an utterance (indispensable, according to Ibn Taymiyya, for determining the meaning of a word in any given instance of verbal communication).
qarn (pl. qurūn): generation. For Ibn Taymiyya, the term “Salaf” refers to the first three generations (qurūn) of Muslims, namely, the Prophet’s Companions (ṣaḥāba), the Successors (tābiʿūn), and the Successors of the Successors (tābiʿū al-tābiʿīn).
qasīm (pl. aqsimāʾ, qasāʾim, qusamāʾ): counterpart.
qaṭʿī: definitive, conclusive (said of an argument, piece of evidence, or other indicant of knowledge). Contrasted with ẓannī.
qaṭʿ: definitiveness, conclusiveness. Contrasted with ẓann.
qaṭʿiyyāt (also qawāṭiʿ): definitive matters, propositions of conclusive certainty. Contrasted with ẓanniyyāt.
qawl (pl. aqwāl, aqāwīl [pej.]): statement; position, doctrine.
al-qāʾilūna bi …: those who hold the position/adhere to the doctrine of …
qidam: see qadīm
qiyās (sometimes pluralized as maqāyīs): analogy, legal analogy, analogical inference; syllogism, syllogistic demonstration; (occasionally) rational inference more generally.
qiyās al-khalf: indirect proof or syllogism (a species of proof by contradiction). Involves assuming the opposite of a proposition p, showing that −p leads to a contradiction, and therefore concluding p. Converse of the reductio ad absurdum, which starts by assuming a proposition p, then shows that p leads to a contradiction or absurdity and therefore concludes −p.
al-qiyās al-mustaqīm: (when contrasted with qiyās al-khalf) direct proof or syllogism, i.e., the standard form of the syllogism that draws a direct inference from premises to conclusion (as opposed to establishing a conclusion based on the absurdity or contradictoriness of its opposite).
qiyās al-tamthīl: analogy, legal analogy; analogical syllogism. Otherwise known simply as qiyās. The term qiyās al-tamthīl seems to be specific to Ibn Taymiyya, who was keen to make the point that analogy, proceeding from particular to particular, and the syllogism, proceeding from universal to particular, are essentially equivalent, the one readily being converted into the other. Juxtaposed with qiyās al-shumūl.
qiyās al-shumūl: Ibn Taymiyya’s term for a categorical syllogism, which he juxtaposes with qiyās al-tamthīl.
qiyās al-ghāʾib ʿalā al-shāhid (also al-qiyās bi-l-shāhid ʿalā al-ghāʾib): drawing an analogy between the seen and the unseen realms, drawing an inference or transferring a judgement from the seen to the unseen.
quwwa (pl. quwā): potency, potentiality; capacity; faculty (as in al-quwwa al-ʿāqila: the rational faculty).
bi-l-quwwa: potential, potentially, in potentia.
bi-l-fiʿl: actual, actually, in actu.
R
rājiḥ: preponderant (in reference to the primary or most obvious meaning of a word); more probative, of greater probative weight (in reference to the stronger of two positions, arguments, or pieces of evidence). Contrasted in both senses with marjūḥ. See also tarjīḥ.
raʾy: reasoned or considered opinion. As a technical term, refers specifically to earlier, less formalized methods of legal reasoning.
rūḥ (pl. arwāḥ): spirit, soul.
ruʾya: seeing, vision. Specifically, the beatific vision, or seeing of God in the hereafter.
S
ṣaḥāba (sing. ṣaḥābī): the Companions of the Prophet Muḥammad.
ṣaḥīḥ: correct; valid, sound (as opposed to fāsid); authentic (said, e.g., of a transmitted text, specifically a text of revelation). See also naql ṣaḥīḥ and ṣaḥīḥ al-manqūl, under naql.
sajʿ: rhymed prose.
Salaf (also al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ): the normative early community, pious forebears. Confined, for Ibn Taymiyya, to the first three generations of Muslims, those of the Companions (ṣaḥāba), the Successors (tābiʿūn), and the Successors of the Successors (tābiʿū al-tābiʿīn). Juxtaposed with the khalaf, or later scholars.
salb: negation; stripping away.
al-ṣifāt al-salbiyya: see ṣifa
ṣāliḥ: good, right; wholesome, healthful; righteous. Opposite of fāsid.
samʿ (also samāʿ): hearing, sense of hearing; revelation (in consideration of the fact that it comes to us, in the first instance, through our hearing of the revealed text of the Qurʾān and the prophetic ḥadīth). Nearly synonymous in this latter sense with naql (lit. “transmission”) as well as with sharʿ.
samʿī: revealed, revelational, scriptural. Largely synonymous in this sense with naqlī and sharʿī.
samʿiyyāt: a term referring collectively to the revealed texts (which have come to us by way of “hearing”), namely, the Qurʾān and the body of authenticated prophetic ḥadīth.
samāʿ: see samʿ
al-Ṣāniʿ: the Maker, the Creator, God. Non-Qurʾānic term used, however, by both philosophers and theologians alike.
ṣarīḥ: pure, unadulterated, clear. See also ʿaql ṣarīḥ and ṣarīḥ al-maʿqūl, under ʿaql.
shabīh: see tashābuh
shahāda: a Qurʾānic term referring to the visible or seen realm to which we have customary empirical access, contrasted with the habitually unseen realm, or ghayb.
shāhid: seen, visible; existing in the realm to which we have empirical access. Contrasted with ghāʾib.
shakk (pl. shukūk): doubt.
sharʿ: lit. revealed law, lex. Also commonly used as a synonym of dīn with reference to the religion as a whole. Can also refer to revelation specifically, which is the most common usage of the term in the Darʾ. Synonymous in this latter sense with naql and samʿ.
sharʿī: revealed, revelational, prescribed by or known on the basis of revelation. Often synonymous with naqlī and samʿī. Frequently contrasted with ʿaqlī (rational), but set by Ibn Taymiyya in contrast to bidʿī (innovated) instead.
sharīʿa (pl. sharāʾiʿ): revealed law; normative law of a (religious) community. Can also refer, in some contexts, to religion, or revealed religion, more generally. Largely synonymous with shirʿa.
Sharīʿa: the revealed law of Islam.
sharāʾiʿ [also]: religious practices; (religious) laws, ordinances; religious teachings or precepts.
shirʿa: revelation, scripture; scriptural or revealed religion. Largely synonymous with sharīʿa. Also refers, in Ibn Taymiyya’s usage, to that which is scripturally or religiously legitimated or approved. In this latter sense, the direct opposite of bidʿa.
shirk: idolatry, polytheism, paganism.
shubha (pl. shubuhāt, shubah): specious objection or counterargument; doubt or confusion; point of doubt or confusion (caused by specious objections or counterarguments raised against a doctrine, belief, or other affirmation).
ṣifa (pl. ṣifāt): attribute, quality.
mawṣūf: the entity qualified by an attribute or quality.
al-ṣifa al-nafsiyya: “attribute of the essence.” That which defines or describes what a thing is in itself without any additional qualification. In the case of God, this attribute is existence itself.
al-ṣifāt al-salbiyya: attributes of negation (often called “negative attributes”). Attributes that negate the ascription of a quality to the entity in question. God’s oneness, for example, is a negation of multiplicity; His self-sufficiency is a negation of need; His eternality is the negation of a beginning or end to His existence; etc.
ṣifāt al-maʿānī: real, or “entitative,” attributes. Specifically, God’s attributes, such as life, knowledge, power, and will, considered as real entities (maʿānī) subsisting in His essence.
al-ṣifāt al-maʿnawiyya: predicative attributes, or attributes of predication. Namely, the qualifications entailed by the presence of the real attributes (such as God’s “being powerful,” a ṣifa maʿnawiyya entailed by His real attribute of power).
al-ṣifāt al-ʿaqliyya: rational attributes. Those divine attributes that can be known through reason independently of revelation, such as God’s existence, eternality, oneness, life, knowledge, power, and will.
al-ṣifāt al-khabariyya: revealed attributes. Refers to those divine attributes that cannot be derived through reason but can only be known on the basis of revelation. Often refers specifically to those revealed attributes that lay at the center of the controversy over tashbīh and taʾwīl, such as God’s hands, eyes, face, or settling on the throne.
siyāq (also siyāq al-kalām): context (i.e., in light of which the meaning of a linguistic utterance is understood). Synonymous in this sense with qarīna/qarāʾin.
sūra (pl. suwar): chapter of the Qurʾān (as in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, the Chapter of Women).
ṣūra (pl. ṣuwar): form; image.
T
tabādur (ilā al-dhihn): occurring first (to the mind). Said of that meaning, among several meanings of a polysemous word, that first comes to mind upon hearing the term outside a particular context.
tabdīl: alteration (of meaning). Term used by Ibn Taymiyya in reference to two sub-categories of altering the meaning of revelation in the face of an alleged rational contradiction, namely, al-wahm wa-l-takhyīl (see wahm) and al-taḥrīf wa-l-taʾwīl (see taḥrīf).
tābiʿūn (sing. tābiʿī): the Successors (i.e., the generation immediately following that of the Prophet and his Companions).
tābiʿū al-tābiʿīn (also atbāʿ al-tābiʿīn): the Successors of the Successors (i.e., the second generation after that of the Prophet and his Companions).
tafrīq: disseverance, disassembling, taking apart.
tafsīr: Qurʾānic exegesis.
tafwīḍ: lit. consigning, entrusting. Suspension of meaning, that is, denying the literal meaning of a Qurʾānic verse or ḥadīth taken to entail anthropomorphism but consigning or entrusting (“tafwīḍ”) its true meaning to God rather than proffering a particular figurative interpretation through taʾwīl.
taḥayyuz: see ḥayyiz
taḥrīf: alteration, change; distortion.
al-taḥrīf wa-l-taʾwīl (rendered as “taḥrīf and taʾwīl”): term used by Ibn Taymiyya to denote the philosophers’ and theologians’ use of what he considers unjustified figurative interpretation of revelation in the face of an alleged rational contradiction.
ṭāʾifa (pl. ṭawāʾif): faction (political or ideological, including in reference to religious creeds or sects).
tajahhum: see jahmī
tajrīd: see mujarrad
tajsīm: see jism
takāfuʾ al-adilla: equivalence, or equipollence, of proofs. The fact of two or more proofs or arguments for different positions appearing to have equal probative weight, resulting in an inability to decide the matter at hand.
takalluf: unnaturalness of manner, unnatural strain and affectation.
takhṣīṣ: particularization (of a general, or ʿāmm, lexical term or legal ruling); God’s act of determining or specifying the particular attributes of a thing, including the thing’s very instantiation through “specifying” it with the attribute or quality of existence over that of non-existence.
takhyīl: “imaginalization” or imaginative evocation. Refers to the philosophers’ doctrine that statements in revelation pertaining to, e.g., the afterlife are not literally true but only imaginative representations of abstract realities that lie beyond the grasp of non-philosophers. See also al-wahm wa-l-takhyīl, under wahm.
talāzum: see lāzim
tamthīl: see mathal and mumāthala
tanzīh: God’s incomparability or radical dissimilarity to any created thing; affirming God’s incomparability or dissimilarity by declaring Him free of (“tanzīh”) creaturely attributes. Often translated as “transcendence,” which entails that God is wholly beyond and independent of the material universe or any characteristics thereof. Contrasted (positively) with tashbīh.
taqdīr: supposition, assumption, hypothesis.
muqaddarāt dhihniyya: mental hypotheses; suppositions, hypotheticals. Objects, relations, or states of affairs hypothesized by the mind, without regard to the possibility of their existence in the external world.
taqlīd: imitation, blind imitation; (law) legal conformism. Following a position or opinion on the basis of authority. In theology, this refers to belief in God absent any rational reflection whatsoever, resulting (for most theologians) in an absence of valid belief. Upon the perception of basic rational reasons for believing in God, a person ceases to be a muqallid. In law, a person may practice taqlīd either with or without possessing knowledge of the underlying evidence in support of the legal doctrines of one’s school.
muqallid: an “imitator,” someone who practices taqlīd.
ṭarīq (and ṭarīqa, pl. ṭuruq): method, way; also, argument.
ṭarīq (or ṭarīqat) al-aʿrāḍ: the way/method of proving the existence of God from the temporal origination of accidents or, more simply, the argument from accidents. See also ʿaraḍ.
tarjīḥ: (linguistic) determination of the preponderant, or dominant, meaning of a polysemous word (see also rājiḥ and marjūḥ); (ontological) selection (and instantiation) of a specific quality or state from a potentially infinite set of possibilities. A thing only is, for example, because its existence has been selected and instantiated, through tarjīḥ, over its non-existence.
murajjiḥ: that which selects and instantiates a specific quality or state from a potentially infinite set of possibilities. In a theological context, God is the ultimate murajjiḥ as sufficient cause for the existence and particular characteristics of the universe and all that it contains.
tarkīb: composition, compositeness.
murakkab: composed, composite. Antonym of basīṭ.
tasalsul: infinite regress.
tasalsul al-ʿilal (or al-tasalsul fī al-ʿilal): infinite regress of causes, infinite causal regress.
tasalsul al-āthār (or al-tasalsul fī al-āthār): infinite regress of effects.
tasalsul al-fāʿilīn (or al-tasalsul fī al-fāʿilīn): infinite regress of agents.
tasalsul al-shurūṭ (or al-tasalsul fī al-shurūṭ): infinite regress of conditions (as opposed to strict causes, or ʿilal).
tasalsul al-ḥawādith (or al-tasalsul fī al-ḥawādith): infinite regress of (temporally originated) events.
tasalsul al-ḥarakāt (or al-tasalsul fī al-ḥarakāt): infinite regress of motions.
taṣawwuf: Sufism; Islamic mysticism. More generally, purification of the heart and actions through spiritual and moral discipline of the soul. Synonymous, in this latter sense, with tazkiya.
taṣawwur (pl. taṣawwurāt): conception, conceptualization.
mutaṣawwar: conceived, conceptualized (as in mutaṣawwar fī al-dhihn: conceived of or conceptualized in/by the mind).
taṣdīq: assent (logic); (pl. taṣdīqāt) assertion, judgement; proposition.
tashābuh (and ishtibāh): (1) (also mushābaha) similarity or likeness; (2) ambiguity caused by the use of equivocal language (i.e., that fails to clarify the meaning of a vague term or to distinguish between the like or overlapping meanings of a polysemous expression); (3) indeterminacy (in meaning). Contrasted in the first sense with ikhtilāf. Similar in the second sense to ijmāl.
tashābaha (and ishtabaha): (1) to be alike or similar; (2) to be vague, ambiguous, equivocal (said of speech, a word, or an expression); (3) to be indeterminate (in meaning).
mutashābih (and mushtabih): (1) (also mushābih) similar, like; (2) vague or ambiguous (with respect to speech, a word, or an expression). Similar in this sense to mujmal; (3) indeterminate (in meaning). Often translated, in this last sense, as “figurative” or “metaphorical” with respect to Qurʾānic verses whose literal meaning is understood to entail tashbīh and that must therefore be interpreted figuratively through taʾwīl. Contrasted, in the first sense, with mukhtalif and, in the second and third senses, with muḥkam.
shabīh: like, likeness (of).
tashbīh: “assimilationism.” The ascription to God of attributes shared by created beings in a way that fails to uphold His utter dissimilarity to material or temporal entities (synonymous in this sense with tamthīl). A particularly offensive form of tashbīh is tajsīm, or corporealism. Contrasted (negatively) with tanzīh.
mushabbih: “assimilator.” Someone who ascribes material, temporal, or other creature-like qualities to God. Sometimes translated as “anthropomorphist,” though this is too narrow as tashbīh includes the likening of God to any created entity, not just human beings.
tashkhīṣ: see mushakhkhaṣ
taʿṭīl: lit. nullification. Refers, in a theological context, to the denial (especially the comprehensive denial) of the reality of the divine attributes. Largely synonymous with nafy or tajahhum. Contrasted with ithbāt.
muʿaṭṭila: those who “annul” or deny the reality of the divine attributes. Largely synonymous with nufāh and jahmiyya. Contrasted with muthbita.
tawassul: lit. taking means or seeking an intermediary. Refers to the practice of supplicating God through (or by the intermediation of) the Prophet Muḥammad or a deceased pious figure after him (see walī). This typically involves mentioning the righteous person’s name and/or rank while petitioning God for one’s need. Though permitted by the majority of classical scholars, Ibn Taymiyya condemned this type of tawassul (and the related practice of istighātha) as a violation of the principle of tawḥīd.
tawāṭuʾ: collusion or conscious agreement. Used specifically in the definition of tawātur, where a report is considered mutawātir if, at every level of transmission, it has been conveyed by a number of people so large and disparate as to preclude the possibility of their having colluded or consciously agreed on a forgery.
tawātur: recurrent mass transmission of a report, beginning at its origin, on such a wide scale as to preclude the possibility of collusion or conscious agreement on a forgery. Normally applies to the domain of transmitted verbal reports (especially ḥadīth), but Ibn Taymiyya expands the concept of tawātur significantly to make it the final guarantor of his entire epistemic system.
mutawātir: recurrently mass transmitted on such a wide scale as to preclude the possibility of collusion or conscious agreement on a forgery.
tawḥīd: oneness of God, divine unicity; affirming the existence of one, singular God with no plurality; monotheism. Ibn Taymiyya distinguishes three subcategories of tawḥīd: (1) tawḥīd al-rubūbiyya, or the “oneness of lordship,” referring to God’s status as sole Creator, Master, and Sustainer of the universe; (2) tawḥīd al-ulūhiyya, or the “oneness of divinity or Godhood,” referring to God’s worthiness of being worshipped, loved, and obeyed for His sake, alone and without partner; and (3) tawḥīd al-asmāʾ wa-l-ṣifāt, or the “oneness of names and attributes,” referring to the fact that God’s divine names and attributes are solely and uniquely His and are not shared in or partaken of by any creature.
taʾwīl: a Qurʾānic term meaning explication or elucidation, or referring to the realization, fulfillment, or outcome of a matter. As a later technical term, taʾwīl refers to the figurative or metaphorical (re)interpretation of a text, particularly Qurʾānic verses and ḥadīth reports whose obvious sense is thought to entail anthropomorphism.
muʾawwal: refers to the non-apparent, non-literal sense of a word that is given precedence over the overt meaning in an instance of taʾwīl. Contrasted with ẓāhir.
tazkiya: Purification of the heart and actions through spiritual and moral discipline of the soul. Synonymous with taṣawwuf (in this sense only).
thiqa: term used to designate a reliable authority in ḥadīth transmission.
thubūt: (1) the real or factual existence of something, the fact that something obtains or is the case; (2) (of transmitted texts, especially revelation) authenticity, established textual integrity. Contrasted in the first sense with intifāʾ.
thābit: factually existing; obtaining or being the case; (with respect to transmitted texts, especially revelation) authentic, of established textual integrity.
tibyān: see mubīn
U
ulūhiyya (also ilāhiyya): divinity, Godhood. More fundamentally, being worthy of worship, love, and obedience as a god.
ʿuluww: lit. height, highness; being above. Refers to God’s being above the created universe (ʿuluww Allāh ʿalā khalqihi). Whether God’s ʿuluww should be understood literally or interpreted figuratively through taʾwīl was a major point of contention among various schools of theology.
umma (pl. umam): nation. Refers primarily to the collective body of Muslims, conceived as a religious/religio-political community distinct from other human groupings.
ʿuqalāʾ: see ʿaql
ʿurf: convention; linguistic convention (of a speech community, indispensable for determining the meaning of a given utterance).
uṣūl (sing. aṣl): principles; foundations.
uṣūl al-dīn: the principles or foundations of religion, in reference to the sources and justificatory grounds for belief. Sometimes translated as “theology,” but not necessarily in the formal sense of discursive kalām.
uṣūl al-fiqh: foundations of jurisprudence, legal theory.
W
waḍʿ: (1) convention; (2) a word’s putative initial assignation to a given meaning; the meaning to which a word is considered to have been initially assigned; coinage (of a new term with a particular meaning).
waḥdat al-wujūd: the “unity of being.” Mystical doctrine associated with the Sufi school of Muḥyī al-Dīn b. ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), criticized as entailing pantheism (ḥulūl) by its opponents. Ibn Taymiyya strongly opposed the doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd.
wahm: estimation. The ability to apprehend the meaning of sensible objects, draw inferences therefrom, and act accordingly (like a sheep sensing the danger of a nearby wolf and fleeing). Also, the ability to experience an event or state as real in the mind irrespective of its actual occurrence in the outside world.
al-quwwa al-wahmiyya: the estimative faculty.
wahmiyyāt: products of the estimative faculty; events or states experienced as real in the mind irrespective of their occurrence in the outside world.
al-wahm wa-l-takhyīl (rendered as “wahm and takhyīl”): term used by Ibn Taymiyya for the philosophers’ doctrine that statements in revelation pertaining to, e.g., the afterlife are not literally true but only imaginative representations of abstract realities that lie beyond the grasp of non-philosophers.
wajh (pl. wujūh): aspect, angle, consideration; point, argument, point of argument (used by Ibn Taymiyya in reference to his discrete arguments against the universal rule).
wājib: necessary (as a qualification of ontological modality, the opposite of possible or contingent); obligatory (as a moral-legal qualification of acts). Contrasted, in the first sense, with mumkin (possible, contingent) and mumtaniʿ (impossible).
wājib al-wujūd: the Necessarily Existent, God.
wujūb: necessity (ontological); obligatoriness, being obligatory (moral-legal).
walī (pl. awliyāʾ): lit. close friend (of God). Righteous person of high spiritual rank, saint.
waqf: suspension of judgement. Refraining from committing to one of two or more opposing views, arguments, or positions.
wāqifa: those who hold an agnostic stance on a question by suspending judgement or refraining from committing to a particular view on it.
waraʿ: moral scrupulousness, scrupulous piety; pious restraint (from committing actions of even slightly questionable moral probity).
waṣf (pl. awṣāf): description.
wujūb: see wājib
wujūd: existence. Opposite of ʿadam.
mawjūd: existing, existent (opposite of maʿdūm); (pl. mawjūdāt) existent (n.), existing thing, being, entity.
Y
yaqīn: certainty, certitude. Contrasted with ẓann.
yaqīnī: certain, known with certainty, definitive. Contrasted with ẓannī.
yaqīniyyāt: certain premises; matters known with certainty. Contrasted with ẓanniyyāt.
Z
ẓāhir: (1) apparent, manifest; (2) external, outward, outer (as in ḥiss ẓāhir, or external sensation); (3) the apparent, obvious, or literal meaning of a word, expression, or text. Contrasted in the first two senses with bāṭin and in the third with muʾawwal.
ẓann: inconclusiveness, probability (in contrast to yaqīn or qaṭʿ). Can be translated in some contexts as conjecture, supposition, or even suspicion.
ẓannī: inconclusive, probabilistic, non-definitive; suppositional, conjectural; suspect. Contrasted with yaqīnī or qaṭʿī.
ẓanniyyāt: non-certain or probabilistic premises; probabilistic or non-definitive matters; matters of supposition or conjecture. Contrasted with yaqīniyyāt or qaṭʿiyyāt/qawāṭiʿ.