Ethics and character

Family: Religion and custom · 268 entries

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Event

• Ali burns the village of Zarara where wine was sold

  between 656 and 661 CEAli passed a quarter of Kufa called Zarara where meat was sold and wine too, and ordered it set on fire, saying the wicked eat each other; the fire spread from its western side until it reached an orchard. Al-Sallabi takes the report from Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam's Kitab al-Amwal.

• Ali's rounds in the market of Kufa

  between 656 and 661 CEAli walked the Kufan market himself, told the traders to sell without swearing oaths, forbade adulteration and the selling of floating fish, decided disputes between sellers and buyers, and urged them not to refuse small profit lest they lose the greater.

• Ali moves the capital to Kufa

  36 AHAli moved the seat of government from Medina to Kufa, because Quraysh would not back him and its factions had scattered among Talha, Aisha and Muawiya; Kufa was a meeting point of peoples, a trade hub and a centre of learning. Al-Aqqad calls Kufa the fittest capital for a universal imamate of that age.

• Ali refuses to lead prayer while the caliph is besieged

  35 AHWhen the rebels surrounded Uthman in his house, people asked Ali to lead the prayer; he refused, saying he would not lead them while the imam was besieged, prayed alone and went home, leaving his sons with the sons of other companions to guard the caliph's house. Al-Aqqad reads this as a warning that attacking the caliph was an attack on every notable in Islam.

• Ali spares Amr ibn al-As after he was exposed

  37 AHAt Siffin Ali got the upper hand over Amr ibn al-As, who had fallen with his private parts exposed, and turned away without killing him, in the author's account of Ali's chivalry. Al-Aqqad counts this among the rarest acts of generosity, since Amr was more dangerous to Ali than an army.

Concept

• Ada' al-dayn (paying a debt: its ruling, the manner of payment, insolvency and the debts of the dead)

  Paying a debt in the form owed is obligatory by consensus. A debt due now must be paid on demand when the debtor can pay; a deferred debt is not due before its term. Payment is made in like items, with value owed where there is no like; a better payment is allowed when unconditioned. Remission, gift, assignment, set-off and settlement take the place of payment. A solvent debtor who refuses is compelled, imprisoned and his apparent property sold; the majority hold that a bankrupt is put under interdiction and his property divided among creditors, against Abu Hanifa. The insolvent is given respite, and his debt may be paid from zakat if he borrowed for himself in a lawful matter. A dead person's debt attaches to his estate and takes precedence over bequests and inheritance.

• Ada' al-shahada (performing testimony: the duty on request, the excused witness, and the wording)

  Giving testimony is a communal obligation: once enough witnesses give it the rest are released, and all are sinful if all refuse. It becomes an individual obligation where no one else can give it and the right depends on the witness. For purely human rights the duty arises only on the beneficiary's request, and testimony before a request is not allowed; for rights of God other than the hudud it is owed as a duty to God, and in the causes of the hudud concealment is recommended. A witness who is far away or who would be harmed is excused, and some hold the duty lapses when the judge is unjust. Most jurists require the word of testimony; the Malikis accept any word that shows knowledge.

• Manners of the Qur'an bearer

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy says that the bearer of the Qur'an is known by his night when people sleep, by his weeping when people laugh, by his silence when people engage in idle talk and by his humility when people are proud. He holds that he should be wise and forbearing, neither harsh nor careless.

• Biting and the liability for injury it causes (add)

  In the lexicon, add is gripping a thing with the teeth and holding it. If a person bites another without right and a wound results, the biter must pay the damages for the wound, assessed as a just award by experts. If one man bites another's hand and the bitten man pulls it free so that the biter's front teeth fall out, most jurists hold that there is no liability, relying on a prophetic judgement in such a case; the Shafi'is limit this to a bitten man who chose the easiest means of release, and the preferred Maliki view requires compensation.

• Adha (harm of a slight kind: removing harmful things and the duty not to harm)

  Adha in the lexicon is a slight unwelcome thing, and the jurists separate it from grave harm (darar). Harming is forbidden in principle and avoiding it is obligatory by agreement, unless it is set against a greater harm. Removing harmful things from Muslims wherever they are is recommended, a harmful animal may be killed to stop its harm even in the sanctuary, and it is not killed in enemy territory.

• Justice and grace (adl wal-fadl)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy distinguishes justice, a duty, from grace, which is recommended. He holds that recovering rights by lawful means follows from justice, that grace does not come from weakness, and he also takes up the occupation of land and holy places.

• Pardon (afw) in purity, worship, contracts and penalties

  In the lexicon, afw means removing or pardoning, and also abundance, going away and giving; the jurists use it mainly for dropping or overlooking a right. It is distinguished from pardon by forgiveness of the wrong (safh) and from the forgiveness of sins (maghfira), dropping a right (isqat) and settlement (sulh). Its ruling depends on the right: pardon is recommended where the right is purely the individual's; where the right belongs to God, as in the fixed punishments, there is no pardon once the matter is before the judge. In worship, the schools disagree on pardon for small amounts of impurity, such as blood, pus and street mud, on the interval between the two thresholds of the camel and the cattle tax, on some things that do not break the fast, and on forgotten wearing of sewn clothes or perfume during pilgrimage. In contracts, pardon of pre-emption, of a debt, and of a dower are treated. In retaliation, pardon is lawful and recommended; if one of several heirs pardons, the retaliation falls and the others' shares become money, by the consensus the text reports; the schools differ on the effect of pardon during injury, on the capacity of the pardoner, and on settlement for money. There is no pardon for the fixed punishments of adultery and theft; the jurists differ on slander, and pardon in discretionary punishment (ta'zir) is allowed where it concerns a person's right or the ruler's discretion.

• Covenant (ahd) and the duty to keep it; oath by the covenant of God

  In the lexicon, 'ahd is covenant, pledge, safe-conduct, guarantee and oath, and whatever is between people by way of agreement; it differs from the contract ('aqd) in that a covenant may be a binding pledge or a promise without binding force. Promise (wa'd) is a notice of something to be made in future, and bay'a is an oath of obedience. Islam requires keeping the covenant; the Prophet kept his covenants, breaking one is forbidden, and he counted breaking a covenant as treachery. Islam forbids wronging a covenant partner, and breaking a covenant before its term ends. An oath by God's covenant is an oath with the consequences of any oath, and the Shafi'is require that the swearer intended an oath by it.

• The covenant of God and oaths, and selling them for a little price

  Sha'rawi holds that the verse threatening those who sell God's covenant and oaths for a small price applies to anyone who sells a sign of God for gain, in any age or religion. He says the occasion of its revelation concerned a group of the People of the Book who professed faith and then denied it for food and clothing. He reads the word khuluq as a settled disposition in the soul.

• States of the believer (ahwal al-mumin)

  The four states of the believer as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents them: giving thanks at a gift, patience at a withholding, remembrance at knowledge and recollection, and stopping from sin; obedience calls for thanks, disobedience for seeking forgiveness, and blessing for humility.

• The inner enemy

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy lists the enemies that work against a person, among them a soul that commands evil, a dominant desire and an overpowering anger. He names four enemies, Iblis, the world, the self and desire, and holds that a servant is helped to guard against them when he is with God.

• Reason and heart

  Wajdi holds that a person must balance reason and heart together. Reason discerns truth from falsehood, while the heart gives the sensitivity that restrains a person from wrongdoing even when he knows its harm. He argues that scientific progress alone did not prevent wars, and that Islam educates both reason and heart and calls to reflection on the world and the self. This is the author's analysis, not the museum's verdict.

• Stinginess (bukhl)

  For al-Sha'rawi, stinginess is withholding from someone in need what God has given you. It is not limited to money: it covers strength to help the weak, knowledge, forbearance and every gift others lack. He holds that the miser dislikes seeing others generous, and that hoarded wealth is lost to its owner because it does not bear fruit.

• Joy and gladness (al-farah wal-surur)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy sets out joy and gladness: surur as gladness free from grief, the blameworthy farah linked with pride and boasting, faith as the greatest source of gladness, happiness sought through piety and contentment rather than travel or wealth, and a cheerful face as a prophetic manner.

• The manifest triumph (al-fawz al-mubin)

  The title of a series in which Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents a practical path to the manifest triumph through simple solutions, and sets out what stands in its way and what brings a person near it.

• The public right (al-haqq al-amm)

• Grief and worry (al-huzn)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy distinguishes grief over what has passed from worry about what is to come; he describes untreated grief as developing into kamad, bath, constriction of the chest and distress, and presents its remedies as prayer, reliance on God and love of God.

• Hoarding money (iktinaz)

• Media and the responsibility of its producers

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's position on programmes and channels that present superstition, fortune-telling and frivolity, the responsibility of those who make, present and sponsor them before God and people, and his view that they should not be watched.

• Public spending (al-infaq al-amm)

• Economy and balance in the Qur'an

• Extravagance and waste (israf)

• Greater sins (kaba'ir)

  Al-Sha'rawi gives the scholars' definition of a greater sin: one for which God threatens punishment in the next life or which carries a prescribed penalty. He holds that avoiding greater sins expiates lesser ones, and that persistence in a lesser sin makes it grave. He sets out a list of greater sins drawn from the Qur'an, and recounts an exchange in which Ja'far al-Sadiq enumerates them for Amr ibn Ubayd.

• Fear and grief for those who follow guidance

  Sha'rawi holds that whoever follows God's guidance has no fear or grief, because fear is expecting an evil that cannot be warded off and grief is losing what one loves, and the method leads to all good. He holds that grief joined with faith does not contradict it.

• Loss and gain in time (al-khusr)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's reading of Sura al-Asr as a measure of gain and loss in a person's life: a person is in loss unless he combines faith, righteous deeds, the call to truth and patience; he compares it with Sura al-Duha.

• Ownership in the Qur'an

• God's sovereignty and human ownership (al-mulk wal-tamalluk)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's teaching on the oneness of sovereignty: all sovereignty belongs to God, and what people hold of wealth, authority and health is a trust or a loan in their hands. He holds that a person owns himself through his will, and that provision is decreed, so one strives while believing it comes from God.

• Exemplary conduct in preaching

  Sha'rawi holds that preaching is not enough by words but needs example, that religious scholars alone are required to be exemplary, and that Islam spread by conduct before it spread by method and teaching.

• Bribery (al-rishwa)

• Tabattul (withdrawal from the world)

• Social solidarity and religious brotherhood

• Greed for worldly gain (takathur)

• Taqlid (blind imitation of inherited views)

• Whispering (al-waswasa)

  Sha'rawi holds that Satan's whisper seeks disobedience by any means, while the whisper of the self wants one particular thing; that Satan began his enmity to Adam by causing him to slip; and that forgetting was a disobedience in earlier communities.

• Openness as against secrecy in acts of worship, charity and public notice (alaniya)

  In the lexicon, alaniya comes from proclaiming and showing a thing, and is the opposite of secrecy. Public voice (jahr) is narrower than openness, and secrecy is what is hidden in the heart. Acts of worship divide by openness: some are prescribed to be public, such as the call to prayer, the sermon, jihad and enjoining good; some are better kept private, such as reciting silently in the silent prayer; and some may be either, such as charity. An obligatory alms-giving is better shown when there is no fear of showing off, so that others may follow it, while a voluntary gift is better hidden where display is feared. The faults of narrators, witnesses and those entrusted with charities and endowments must be made public when they affect their fitness, and the scholars hold this is not forbidden backbiting. The judge is recommended to proclaim the restraint of a bankrupt and to call witnesses to it, and one Shafi'i view makes it obligatory.

• Action (amal) and the five rulings that govern it

  In the lexicon, 'amal is a trade and an act; in the scholars' general usage it covers the acts of the limbs and of the heart, and some define it as bringing a thing about by speech or by deed. The five rulings govern it: what the Lawgiver requires as binding is obligatory, what he requires without binding is recommended, what he forbids bindingly is forbidden, what he discourages without binding is disliked, and what he leaves to choice is permitted. The servant is rewarded for obedience and punished for disobedience, unless God pardons him.

• The practice of the people of Medina ('amal ahl al-Madina) as evidence

  Jurists use the phrase 'practice of the people of Medina' for what the people of Medina agreed upon as a practice in the first three centuries, which the Prophet called the best, and which they inherited. The majority hold that the agreement of the people of Medina on a practice is not binding on those who disagree; Malik held it binding on others, and it is reported that he meant that their transmission should be preferred. The full treatment is in the legal-theory appendix.

• The word as a trust (amanat al-kalima)

  The word is a trust with a weight that can raise or lower its speaker. Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy surveys its forms, among them backbiting, tale-bearing and lying, and what is owed by those who speak in public.

• Deliberate act (amd), as against error, and its rulings

  In the lexicon, amd is the purpose and intention of a thing, and its opposite is error (khata'), an act done without purpose. Deliberate acts carry rulings: a deliberate omission of a pillar of prayer, or speech, or eating in it, voids the prayer; a deliberate eating, drinking or intercourse breaks the fast by agreement. Deliberate homicide is forbidden by agreement; the majority accept the repentance of the killer, while some early scholars deny it. A deliberate utterance of unbelief counts as apostasy; a divorce pronounced deliberately takes effect, while a slip of the tongue or a word said by one who has lost his reason does not. Lying about the Prophet deliberately is among the gravest sins, and the false oath (yamin ghamus) is a major sin; breaking an oath deliberately may be obligatory, recommended, permitted, disliked or forbidden according to the matter sworn about.

• Al-amr bil-maruf wal-nahy an al-munkar (commanding right and forbidding wrong)

  Commanding right and forbidding wrong, which the jurists call hisba, is part of the counsel that is religion. Al-Nawawi and Ibn Hazm report the consensus that it is obligatory. Most jurists call it a communal obligation; some make it an individual obligation in certain cases, some make it recommended, and some divide the cases. Its degrees are three: by hand, by tongue, by heart; its conditions include that the wrong be visible without spying and agreed to be wrong. A designated officer of hisba may be paid from the treasury, while the volunteer is not.

• Amrad (the beardless youth, and rulings on him)

  Amrad is a youth whose beard has not grown and who has not reached the age when it usually appears. The rulings on him concern looking, being alone, shaking hands, whether touching breaks ablution, and leading prayer. The rule is that whatever causes temptation is forbidden unless a public interest outweighs it.

• Hardship and fear of sin ('anat) in marrying a slave-woman

  In the lexicon, 'anat is hardship, ruin and sin; among the jurists it means adultery and lewdness, and this is how they read the Qur'anic permission to marry a slave-woman for one who fears 'anat. The jurists agree that a believing slave-woman may be married by one who cannot afford a free wife and fears 'anat, and this is the view of most scholars. Still, patience in avoiding such a marriage is better. The majority (Shafi'is, Hanbalis and the preferred Maliki view) hold that the basic rule is that marrying a slave-woman is forbidden unless the conditions are met, while the Hanafis allow it on lighter conditions. The Malikis allow marrying a slave-woman owned by one's own slave, with distinctions, but a master may not marry his own slave-woman, since ownership and being owned conflict.

• Reason as the basis of legal capacity and of the blood-money (aql)

  In the lexicon, aql is restraint and reason, the opposite of folly; it is also used for blood-money. As a term it is the power prepared to receive knowledge. The jurists agree that reason is the basis of legal obligation: acts of worship are not owed by the insane or anyone without reason, on the prophetic instruction that the pen is lifted from three. Those without reason cannot validly make property transactions, contracts or dissolutions of marriage, and their statements do not bind them or others; they lose their guardianship, though some acts with them are taken into account, such as destruction of property and nursing a child. Loss of reason by madness, fainting or intoxication breaks ablution. No retaliation is due for a blow that removes reason, but blood-money is due for its loss through injury.

• Wounding an animal that cannot be taken (aqr) and its effect on lawfulness and liability

  In the lexicon, aqr is wounding; a horse or camel is hamstrung with a sword by cutting its legs. The jurists use it in two senses: a wound in any part of the body of a wild animal that cannot be caught, and the cutting of an animal's legs. Wounding has an effect on whether the flesh of an animal may be eaten: a hunted animal that is caught by a wound is lawful when the conditions of the hunt are met, and an animal of domestic kind that runs wild and cannot be caught is lawful by wounding, according to the majority; the Malikis disagree on the wild animals of domestic kind. The Hanafis apply the same rule to an animal that attacks a man and cannot be restrained. On the spoils of war that cannot be carried away, the Shafi'is and Hanbalis forbid their wounding except to eat them, while some allow it in case of need. On the liability for a vicious dog that wounds a person or tears clothes, the Shafi'is and a view of Abu Yusuf hold the owner liable; Abu Hanifa does not, and Muhammad distinguishes whether the owner drove or urged it on; the Malikis divide liability for killing by intent and by the owner's knowledge.

• Honey: its medicinal use and zakat (asal)

  In the lexicon, asal is the saliva of the bee, which God made a healing for people; the Arabs use the word for anything found sweet. Using honey as medicine is permitted, and most scholars read the Qur'anic verse as saying that honey contains healing. The Hanafis and Hanbalis hold that a tenth is due on honey, relying on prophetic and early reports, and the Hanafis require that the bees be on tithe land; the Malikis and Shafi'is hold that honey carries no zakat. The Hanbalis and al-Zuhri set its threshold at ten faraq; Abu Hanifa requires a tenth on any amount; Abu Yusuf takes value as the measure.

• Stallion's service and its fee (asb al-fahl)

  In the lexicon, asb is the mating of a stallion, that is its covering of the female; it may also mean its semen or the fee for mating. The jurists agree that selling a stallion's service is not permitted, because the prophetic prohibition applies, and they explain that the service does not exist at the time of the contract. Hiring a stallion for service was forbidden by the majority of Hanafis, the sounder view among the Shafi'is and the basic Hanbali position; the Malikis allowed it for a fixed time or a fixed number of times, but not until the female conceives; the Hanbalis allowed it in cases of need, and the Maliki view matches the weaker Shafi'i opinion. Hiring is treated under «ijara».

• Effects of sin (athar al-maasi)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy lists the effects of disobedience: darkness in the face, emptiness in people's hearts, and lack of contentment with God. He sets against them the effects of obedience, such as light in the face and love in people's hearts, and says that sins take away blessings. He holds that one should look at the greatness of the One disobeyed, not at the smallness of the sin.

• Resolve and its legal effect (azm)

  In the lexicon, azm is the resolve of the heart to act, and it also means patience and perseverance. As a technical term it is an inclination to a thing with a settled intention to do it. Hamm is the first stage of azm, and azm is the end point of hamm. The jurists agree that a person is not punished for evil thoughts that he neither acts on nor speaks, and that one who resolves on an evil and does not do it incurs no penalty, while a resolve on a good act is recorded as a good deed before it is done. They differ on whether a firm resolve to commit a sin is itself punished: some say not, many scholars say yes. A firm resolve never to return to the sin is a condition of repentance. Related questions on resolving to perform a wide-time obligation or to abstain from what is forbidden are treated in the legal theory appendix.

• Selling self and wealth to God (bay al-nafs wal-mal ila Allah)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents the giving of self and wealth in the way of God as a contract of sale in which God is the buyer and Paradise the price, and advises the Muslim to renew the contract every day.

• Shuyu' (undivided common ownership: sale, division, zakat, pledge, gift, lease and endowment of a shared thing)

  Shuyu' is the right of two or more persons in one thing without a division of shares; the jurists call it partnership. An undivided share may be sold, and the judge must divide the common property at the request of the partners, unless the division would destroy its purpose. The partners pay zakat on a common property as one owner, according to the majority. The majority allow its pledge, gift and endowment, and the jurists differ on pledging and endowing what can be divided and on leasing it to a stranger; the partner has the right of pre-emption after a sale, by consensus.

• Shura (consultation: its ruling, the Prophet's consultation, consultation of judges, the duty of the adviser, and the succession by council)

  Shura is seeking and reviewing opinion. The jurists differ on its ruling: al-Nawawi and Ibn 'Atiyya hold it obligatory, others recommended. The Prophet consulted his companions in matters without a text, such as the call to prayer, war stratagems and the captives of Badr, but not where the law is clear. A judge may consult on points on which the jurists differ, and is not bound to the advice he receives. The adviser must be sincere, naming the good and the faults, including faults that make a marriage or partnership unlawful. The head of state may make succession a matter for a fixed council, as 'Umar did.

• Rules of consumption

• Shahwa (desire: its effect on touch and ablution, on fasting and pilgrimage, on looking, on marriage by touch and on the breaking of the marriage bond)

  Shahwa is the longing of the self for pleasant things. Al-Mawardi held that the self should be given a measured share of what is lawful. It has effects in law. The Hanafis break ablution by touch only with gross contact; the Malikis and Hanbalis limit breach by touch to touch with desire; the Shafi'is make any contact of skin a breach. Emission by sustained looking breaks the fast in the view of the Malikis and Hanbalis but not in that of the Hanafis and Shafi'is. Looking with desire at a woman is forbidden, whether she is a stranger or one's kin, except one's wife. The Hanafis hold that touch or look with desire makes a marriage forbidden as in the case of unlawful intercourse.

• Dissuading others from fighting

  In language, takhdhil means to make someone let down a companion and hold back from helping him; as a term it means turning people away from raiding and making them indifferent to going out. Dissuading the fighters is forbidden by any means, speech or act. A commander should not take a dissuader or a rumour-spreader with him, and such a person gets no share of the spoils.

• Shakk (doubt in law: its kinds, the rule that certainty is not removed by doubt, and its effect on worship, contracts, penalties and evidence)

  Shakk is hesitation between two possibilities, whether they are equal or one prevails. The rule of the jurists is that certainty is not removed by doubt, that doubt about a shortfall is treated as a shortfall, and that doubt about an addition is treated as an addition. Doubt has different effects according to its origin: a slaughtered animal whose slaughter is in doubt is forbidden; the worshipper builds on certainty in prayer, circumambulation and fasting; divorce is not effective on mere doubt about whether it was pronounced; penalties are averted by doubt; and concessions do not rest on doubt. The schools differ on some cases, such as doubt about a breach of ablution after certainty of purity, the number of rak'as, and the number of divorces.

• The world (dunya)

  In Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's lessons the world is compared to a large store where a person fills his cart and pays the bill at the end. The Sheikh holds that money may be a pillar of happiness but that happiness itself cannot be bought with it. He urges accepting every stage of life with its merits and accepting people's natures as they are.

• Economy as moderation

• Shahadat al-zur (false testimony: its proof, its punishment, the effect of a judgement based on it, and the repentance of the false witness)

  False testimony is the giving of testimony known to be false in order to reach a falsehood. It is a major sin and forbidden by law. It is proved by the witness's own admission, by evidence against him, or by his testifying to what is certainly false. The jurists agree that a false witness is disciplined, though they differ on how: the Hanafis publicise him, and some beat and imprison him. A judgement based on false testimony takes effect outwardly, not inwardly, according to the majority, and the witnesses must make good what it caused; for a deliberate killing the Shafi'is and Hanbalis apply retaliation while the Hanafis and most Malikis owe blood money. A witness who repents, after a period in which his repentance shows, is accepted by the majority.

• The transience of the world (fana al-dunya)

  The transience of the world in Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's teaching in the series 'Al Fawzu Al Moubeen': the world is a temporary visit after which people return to their abode, and it is fickle and does not last; the parable of the flawed palace; the fall of tyrants; the world measured by a person's span within it; and Noah's saying about the world with two doors.

• Fisq (going out of God's law)

  Sha'rawi holds that fisq originally means the date leaving its skin, and that the religion took the word as a description of one who goes out of God's law. He distinguishes a partial fisq, that of a disobedient believer who fails in one part of the law, from the greatest fisq, which is turning from the whole community of faith after the covenant and the testimony.

• The trial of wealth (fitnat al-mal)

• Curiosity about others (fudul)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds that fudul, following and asking about what does not concern a person in other people's affairs, is a plague among people. He gives the example of someone who keeps asking about a watch on another's wrist until he leads him into lying, and he calls for teaching children from a young age to leave it.

• Ghabn (undervaluation) in sale

• Ghadd al-basar (lowering the gaze)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds that lowering the gaze protects insight, that many incidents begin with a glance, and that a passing thought should be rejected at once.

• Shukr (gratitude to God and to people: its meaning, its rulings, its virtue and its opposite)

  Shukr is the acknowledgement of a kindness, its spreading and praise of its doer. It is made by the tongue, the heart and the limbs; thanking God means using His favours in what pleases Him. Thanking God is obligatory in general, and much thanks is recommended. It applies to favours received, to the removal of harm, and to hardship borne with patience. Its virtue is clear in the Qur'an and the sunna, and its opposite is ingratitude. Whoever does not thank people does not thank God, and to repay a kindness in deed is the root of thanks; if one cannot, a good word is enough.

• Gifts to officials (hadaya al-ummal) and the rule against them

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds that public money is a trust in the hands of the ruler and official, and that accepting gifts because of one's office comes close to bribery.

• Hadhayan (delirium: its effect on acts and testimony)

  Hadhayan in the lexical sense is speech without sense, in illness or otherwise; technically it is speaking without reflection. It differs from lagh, speech with no legal weight, and from laghat, noisy talk whose meaning is intended. All scholars agree that the divorce of one who has lost his reason, without intoxication, does not take effect; the Hanafis hold that the words of one whose speech is mostly delirious carry no weight. The Malikis hold that one who divorces in delirium and later says he did not notice is not bound, unless evidence shows his reason was sound; if he says something happened that he did not understand, Ibn Naji holds the divorce binds him, and al-Dardir objects that a sick man may imagine things and speak accordingly. Among the conditions of uprightness, the Hanafis require little idle talk and delirium; a man given to lying or delirium is not accepted as a witness.

• Hadiyya (gift)

  Hadiyya in the lexical sense is a thing of value sent to another as an honour; technically it is the transfer of a thing to another without return, a kind of gift (hiba) that differs in that it is carried to the recipient as a courtesy. It is complete when the giver sends it and the recipient takes it; no formula is required. The giver may retract before receipt, in the view of the majority. Where a gift comes in a container, the container is returned or held in trust depending on custom. At a circumcision or wedding, gifts suited to children go to the child, and others follow the kinship of the giver to the father or the mother. Gifts that officials and judges receive by virtue of office are forbidden; the Prophet's saying 'the gifts of officials are plunder' is cited. The imam may not accept gifts, according to the jurists. The mufti, preacher and teacher may accept, though it is better to refrain.

• Hajr (abandonment and shunning: its rules for a believer, a sinner, an innovator and a wife)

  Hajr in the lexical sense is the opposite of joining; technically it is leaving what must be attended to, and a person's separation from another in body, speech or heart. Abandoning what God has forbidden is commanded, on the saying 'the emigrant is one who abandons what God has forbidden'. It is forbidden for a Muslim to shun his Muslim brother for more than three nights; most jurists allow shunning for three nights, and some count shunning beyond that among the major sins except toward one who has left the brotherhood of Islam. Whether shunning ends by written messages to an absent person, or by greeting, the jurists differ. The better of the two who shun is the one who greets first. Shunning a non-Muslim is allowed, and a husband may shun a rebellious wife in bed until she obeys. Shunning openly sinful or innovating people as correction is recognised, and the jurists give several rulings on it and three on the one who sins in secret.

• Halq (shaving and cutting hair)

  Halq lexically is removing hair, and also names the throat; istihdad is shaving the pubic area and naf't is plucking hair at its roots. For Hanafis the sunna for a man's head is parting or shaving; for the Malikis shaving the head is a permitted innovation outside the state of ihram; for the Shafiis there is no harm in it for cleanliness; Ahmad has two reports on its dislike. Shaving part of the head (qaza') is disliked; a woman may not shave her head except out of necessity among the Hanafis and Malikis. Most jurists recommend shaving a newborn's head on the seventh day and giving the weight of the hair in silver in alms; the Hanbalis do not shave a girl's hair. For the Hanafis shaving the moustache is a sunna; for the Malikis it is trimmed not shaved; for the Shafiis shaving it is disliked; for the Hanbalis trimming or clipping its edge is sunna; shaving the beard is forbidden. A person in ihram may not shave his own head or another's until both have finished the rite. Shaving or cutting the hair to leave ihram is a rite for the Hanafis, Malikis, the more authoritative Shafii view and the Hanbali school, and a mere release from a prohibition for some Shafiis and Ahmad in one report. Shaving the whole head suffices by agreement; the Hanafis accept a quarter of the head with dislike; the Shafiis accept three hairs; the Malikis and Hanbalis reject shaving part of the head. A woman cuts rather than shaves for leaving ihram. Shaving the pubic hair is recommended for men as part of the natural practice, and shaving the armpit is permitted for one who finds plucking hard. Most jurists recommend shaving a convert's head; the Hanafis and Hanbalis forbid shaving a dead person's head, the Malikis dislike it, and the Shafiis in the sounder view do not shave it. The word also names the throat, to which rules on fasting and suckling attach. The entry closes at the next headword, halla (حلّ), on p.7270.

• Hamiyya (diet and abstention in illness)

  Hamiyya lexically means prohibition, to keep the sick from what harms him, and it is a lawful form of treatment on the hadith that God sent a cure for every disease except old age. Ibn al-Qayyim takes as its root the Quranic permission to tayammum for the sick, who is kept from water; the narration of Umm al-Mundhir relates the Prophet's order to Ali to avoid food and to take barley and soup; and Umar kept a sick man from food until he sucked a date-stone. Diet must follow the principles of medicine and sound experience.

• Hamm (resolve or intention of the heart, and its legal effect)

  Hamm in the legal sense is the resolve of the heart to do something, good or bad, before doing it; it is stronger than a passing thought. Most scholars hold that one who resolves on a good deed and does not do it has a full good deed recorded, and one who resolves on an evil deed and leaves it has a good deed recorded if he left it for God's sake; the jurists differ on the reward of one who left it for another reason. Al-Baqillani and others hold that the resolve that is not recorded is the passing thought without settled purpose, while a firm resolve is held against the person; they differ on whether a firm resolve to commit an act of the limbs is punished, some holding that it is punished by reproach rather than by torment. Some jurists hold one who resolves on sin within the Sacred Precinct is held to account, while others hold the pardon for resolve general in and outside the Precinct. Resolving on unbelief, or firmly intending it for the future, is held by al-Nawawi and others to be unbelief at once, but a passing whisper does not count.

• Hardship (haraj)

  Hardship (haraj) means narrowness in the lexicon; jurists use it for whatever causes narrowness to the body, the soul, or both. For the usulis it is a graded notion, and only what the lawgiver has counted as hardship is taken into account. It is distinguished from the concession (rukhsa), a permission granted for an excuse while the forbidding cause remains; from the strict rule (azima), what God imposes on the servants; from toil (mashaqqa); from necessity (darura), a state in which one would die or nearly die without what is forbidden; and from need (haja), a lack that, if unmet, produces great corruption. Hardship is removed by the law, on the basis of the verses ”God desires ease for you and not hardship” and ”He has laid no hardship on you in religion”; the maxims ”hardship brings ease” and ”necessities permit forbidden things” are drawn from this.

• Envy (hasad)

  Envy (hasad) is wishing that a blessing be taken from another; the community agrees it is forbidden. Admiring (ghibta) is wishing for a like blessing without wishing it removed from its owner; it is praised in obedience and lawful in what is lawful. Its causes are enmity, wanting to be above others, pride, astonishment, fear of losing aims, love of rank, and a grudging soul. It has four grades: wishing the blessing removed without wanting it for oneself; wishing it removed in order to take it; wishing for its like and, failing that, wishing it removed; and admiring. Envy is forbidden by the Qur'an, the Sunna and reason, and God commanded seeking refuge from the envier's evil when he envies. It is excepted when the blessing is in the hands of an unbeliever or a sinner who would use it for disobedience. Its cure is knowledge that envy harms the envier in this world and the next and does no harm to the envied, and the Prophetic remedies of refuge, charms and blessing.

• Hawa (desire, and the duty to resist it)

  Hawa in the technical sense is the inclination of the soul towards pleasures it relishes, without the call of the law. It differs from shahwa (appetite) in that hawa concerns opinions and beliefs, while shahwa concerns obtaining pleasurable things. Hawa that agrees with the law is praised, and that which opposes it is blamed; the law forbids following the blamed kind. The jurists divide the followers of hawa into those whose unbelief is to be declared and those who are not; they differ on the acceptance of the testimony of the first, while most accept the testimony of the misguided but not the Khattabiyya. Al-Ghazali divides hearts into three kinds, and scholars count opposing one's own desire the greatest struggle. Two causes lead to following desire: the strength of its rule, and the reluctance to think clearly when things are unclear.

• Hawal (squint of the eye)

  Hawal (squint) is lexically a whiteness at the far corner of the eye with the black at the near side; the jurists apply the word to one who has it. Awar is loss of sight in one eye, ashan is poor sight by night or day, and zufr is a whiteness appearing in the pupil. In marriage, the majority hold that squint gives no right to annul unless safety was stipulated; if safety was stipulated and found absent, the Malikis and one Hanbali view give the right to annul, while the Hanafis do not give it for a missing stipulated quality. A squint-eyed sheep may be sacrificed unless the squint prevents sight, and an injury to the eye that causes squint carries assessed compensation.

• Hawd (basin of water and its rules)

  Hawd lexically is a gathering of water. The jurists divide still water into much and little: much water is not made impure by an impurity falling in one part of it unless its colour, taste or smell changes; little water is the reverse. The Shafiis and Hanbalis fix much water at two qullas, the Malikis set no limit, and the Hanafis measure by shape, the square basin being ten by ten cubits with the cloth-measure, the round one forty-eight cubits in one view. On depth, some measure it by whether the earth under the hand is exposed when water is lifted, and others by whether the hand reaches the floor when filled.

• Hawqala (the saying 'no might nor power save in God')

  Hawqala lexically is walking briskly; in common use it is the saying 'there is no might or power except in God'. Its meaning: no movement or ability except by God's will, or no turning from sin except by His protection and no power for obedience except by His help. A listener to the call to prayer should say the hawqala at the two calls 'come to prayer' and 'come to success', according to the Hanafis, Shafiis and Hanbalis; the Malikis have another view. It is recommended in other cases too: in danger, in sickness, when fearing the evil eye, at omens, on waking at night, and after prayer. The entry closes at the next headword, hawl (حول), on p.7419.

• Hay'a (the recommended forms of prayer, and the dignified offenders)

  Hay'a in the lexical sense is the outward state a thing is in, sensed or understood. In prayer the Shafi'is divide its acts into pillars (arkan), sunan that sahw prostration repairs, and hay'at that it does not repair and to which the worshipper does not return; they liken the prayer to a person, the pillar to the head, the condition to life, the sunan to the limbs and the hay'at to the hair. By the Shafi'i count there are more than fifteen hay'at, including raising the hands at the opening takbir, at bowing and at rising from it, placing the right palm on the left, seeking refuge before recitation, saying amin, the glorification in bowing and prostration, and the postures of sitting. The Hanbalis list hay'at as matters of manner: the fingers, the placing of the right hand over the left below the navel, the gaze at the place of prostration, and measured recitation. In discipline, most jurists lighten the punishment for the dignified, the people of religion and piety, relying on the saying 'pardon the lapses of the dignified except in the hadd punishments'. The jurists differ: some admonish but do not discipline a first lapse; Ibn Abd al-Salam holds the dignified are not punished at all, and al-Adhra'i disputes him.

• Haya (modesty)

  Haya (modesty) is lexically a change and recoil that comes upon a person from fear of what would bring blame; in the law it is a quality that moves a person away from ugly acts and words and prevents negligence toward one with a right. The article separates it from khajal (shame showing in the face), from badhaa (foul speech), and from waqaha (brazenness). Among the sayings: modesty is part of faith, and modesty adorns whatever it is in. The article goes on to the rulings on modesty and is not complete on these pages. The sayings on modesty make it a branch of faith, a thing that brings only good, a form of duty toward God who must be guarded in head and belly and remembering death; modesty that keeps one from learning religion is not legal modesty. Modesty before wrongdoers and not commanding right is weakness, not modesty; a sum taken from another only out of modesty is like usurped property and must be returned.

• Hayat (life and its beginning and end)

  Hayat (life) is the opposite of death, a temperament that brings sensation and motion; in God's case it is an attribute that suits Him. The article separates it from ruh, nafs, istihlal (crying out at birth, a sign of life) and death. The first human life began with the breath of the spirit into Adam; the jurists agree that the life that counts for the offspring begins when the spirit is breathed into the foetus, but they differ on the date. The majority hold that the foetus's life before ensoulment is legal, shown in inheritance and bequest; some hold life begins when the drop settles in the womb, and full legal life begins at a live birth. Life ends with the departure of the spirit, and one sign of death is the fixed gaze. Life is to be kept by what sustains it and by refraining from what destroys it; the guarding of souls ranks just below religion among the necessities, and the compelled may eat what is forbidden only as far as it saves him from death. Self-injury is forbidden, and so is killing another without right; killing is wilful, quasi-wilful or by error, and the life harmed is lasting, settled or the dying throes. Harm to a foetus: if the child is born dead there is a ghurra, if born alive and then dies there is a full blood-money with expiation. For inheritance, life must be proved: the unborn inherits on two conditions; people who die together do not inherit from each other on the majority view; if one is known to have died first and the order is unclear, the estate is held in suspense. Slaughter needs settled life; a foetus born crying out is treated as living for washing, prayer and inheritance, and the schools differ when it does not. Repentance is accepted until the soul reaches the throat (gharghara).

• Hayawan (animal: food, slaughter, zakat and care)

  Hayawan (animal) in the Quran is the life that does not end in death; technically it is a growing, sensing body that moves by will, distinguished from dabba (a creature that crawls), bahima (a beast without discernment) and ni'am (grazing livestock). Eating is lawful for animals in general, except pigs by consensus; the majority forbid beasts with fangs and birds with talons, while a Maliki view allows every animal except humans and pigs. Lawful animals must be slaughtered properly, fish and locusts need no slaughter; zakat is due on camels, cattle and sheep only; and the owner must feed and water his beasts. Most jurists hold a rider liable for what the beast tramples with its hoof or foot but not for what it kicks with its tail or leg; a beast injured is compensated, and Umar fixed a quarter of its value for an injured eye; other rulings on animals are placed under sale, salam, pre-emption, hire, found property and hunting.

• Hazl (jest in speech, and its effect on contracts, acts and belief)

  Hazl is jest, the opposite of seriousness; technically it is when a word is used without intending its meaning, literal or figurative. It is distinct from play (la'ib), banter (mizah), error (khata') and forced compliance (talja'). Jest does not affect capacity or choice of the act, but it does affect choice of the legal effect, so the act is taken as valid cause while the ruling is not desired. For contracts that can be cancelled, the Hanafis disagree: Abu Hanifa gives priority to the party who claims the jest was dropped, while the two companions hold the contract void when both agreed to proceed in jest. The Shafi'is hold a jester's sale valid in the sounder view, and the Hanbalis in the prevailing view void. For contracts that cannot be cancelled, such as divorce, manumission, return to a wife and vows, most jurists hold that jest and seriousness are equal, relying on the saying 'three things, in jest or earnest, are binding: marriage, divorce and return'. The Malikis differ in some cases. Most jurists hold a jester's marriage valid, while the Malikis hold it binding, and some hold it not binding where proof of jest exists. On khul' (divorce for compensation), Abu Hanifa and the two companions differ on whether the divorce takes effect and the compensation is due. The Hanbalis hold a gift or endowment made in jest void, and the Hanafis hold a bequest void for jest. Jest in admission: the Hanafis void it; the Shafi'is and Hanbalis hold the admission binding even if made in jest. In belief, a Muslim who speaks words of unbelief in jest is held to have apostatised by the majority, and a non-Muslim who professes Islam in jest is held a Muslim in the view of the Hanafis and Shafi'is; Ibn al-Qayyim holds the speaker bound by the words outwardly. Slander made in jest is punished by hadd according to the Shafi'is, and by discretionary punishment according to the Hanafis if the speaker habitually jests in that way.

• Subra (a heap of goods sold by the whole without measure: its sale, the sale of a sa' from it, and the conditions of validity)

  A subra is a heap of food; the jurists use the word for anything whose parts are alike. Its sale by the whole, without measure, is valid, on conditions: the seller must not cheat by putting poor or wet goods inside, its parts must be alike, the buyer must see it, and both parties must not know its measure. The sale of a heap except one sa' is valid if its sa's are known and void if they are not, since the Prophet forbade the sale of the exception (thunya). Selling a heap at a price per sa' with a condition of adding or taking away a sa' is void.

• Hiba (gift: its pillars, the parties, the thing given, possession, return and conditions)

  Hiba in the lexical sense is giving a thing to another without return; technically it is transferring property without return at once. It differs from the wider atiya, from hadiya in that most jurists require acceptance in a gift, and from sadaqa, which seeks reward in the hereafter. Gifts are lawful by the Qur'an, the sunna and consensus, recommended, forbidden when meant for sin, aid to wrongdoing or bribery, and disliked when meant for show. The pillars are, for most jurists, the two parties, the thing given and the formula; for the Hanafis only the formula. The donor must be competent; the schools differ on the debt-bound, the feeble-minded, a dying man's gift beyond a third, and a father's gift of his son's property for a return. The gift of an unauthorized donor is void for most, suspended on approval for the Hanafis; a drunkard's gift depends on whether the drink was lawful. The thing given must exist, be owned by the donor and have value; most jurists disallow gifts of the non-existent or unknown, while the Malikis allow what can be moved. The schools differ on giving a debt to a third party and on an undivided share. On possession: the Hanafis, Shafi'is and one Hanbali view require it, with donor's leave and no encumbrance; the Malikis hold the gift binding by the contract, and a Hanbali view accepts an unpossessed gift of what is not measured. On the formula: the Hanafis count the offer alone as the pillar, the majority the offer and acceptance; acceptance may be by act; delayed acceptance is allowed by the Malikis and Hanbalis; a conditional gift is refused by the Hanafis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis. Conditions attached to a gift: the majority void an invalid condition and keep the gift; the Malikis, Shafi'is and one Hanbali view void both. A gift for a return: most jurists allow it, the Shafi'is in the weaker view and one Hanbali view forbid it; its nature is a sale by the Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis, and a gift begun and sale completed by the Hanafis. Whether a return is due without stipulation: the Hanafis, Shafi'is and the Hanbali school do not require it except by statement; the Malikis and one Hanbali view require it by custom. Retraction: the majority forbid it except for the father in his son's gift; the Malikis extend it to the mother and ascendants; the Hanafis allow it with disapproval. Impediments to retraction: for the Hanafis, the thing's destruction, its passing out of the donee's hands, a joined increase, a return, kinship, marriage, alms, the death of either party, or change in the thing; for the Malikis, an increase or decline, a debt contracted on account of the gift, or the donee's illness; for the Shafi'is, leaving the donee's control; for the Hanbalis, leaving his ownership, others' interest in it, or an increase. A retraction is a dissolution for the Hanafis when made by judgment or by mutual consent (Zufar holds consent a new gift); the retracted thing returns to the donor, and the donee who holds it after retraction is not liable unless he exceeded.

• Hija' (satire and insult in verse: its rules)

  Hija', in the lexical sense, is the opposite of praise: it is abuse and enumeration of faults; the word also means spelling out the letters of a word. It differs from sabb (abuse, which is wider), from qadhf (accusing a free Muslim of unchastity or of a false lineage), and from ghiba (backbiting, said in the absence of the person). Most jurists allow satirising an unbelieving non-protected person and an apostate, since the Prophet bade Hassan ibn Thabit satirise the unbelievers, and forbid satirising a Muslim; the Shafi'is except an innovator and an open sinner; the Hanafis allow satire of a hypocrite. Satirising the dead is judged as satirising the living. If two men abuse each other, the sin falls on the one who began, and retaliation is allowed to the extent of the wrong. The imam may discipline one who satirises people without right.

• The wise sayings attributed to Ali

  A set of maxims attributed to Ali, collected by al-Sallabi in numbered sayings such as 'the night prayer is a splendour in the day', 'kindness is a treasure', 'the best of people is the one who benefits people', and 'death is the polish of hearts'; the book treats them as one of Ali's tools for teaching, with sermons and poems.

• Forbearance (hilm)

  In Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's lessons, forbearance is first a quality of God: He is forbearing and does not hasten punishment even for criminals. He urges the believer to be forbearing with people, and gives as an example an Arab who stayed calm when a wager was set to provoke him (needs_source).

• High aspiration (himma)

  High aspiration as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents it: great souls exert themselves for their aims, the person with a goal does not settle for what is base, and aspiration shows in asking, in giving and in setting a clear goal; with a saying of Ibn al-Jawzi whose attribution is not yet verified.

• Grudge (hiqd)

  Hiqd is a settled resentment: anger held back when one cannot yet take revenge, which turns inward and becomes enmity, suspicion or a wish for retaliation. It differs from envy (wishing a blessing removed from another) and from anger itself, of which it is the residue. Its ruling follows its motive: resentment born of envy and rancour without right is blameworthy, and the Qur'an censures hypocrites who bite their fingertips in rage at the believers' unity. The saying 'the believer is not a grudge-holder' is traced by al-Iraqi to al-Fudayl ibn Iyad and not to the Prophet. Gifts and handshakes are named as remedies. Resentment toward an oppressor who cannot be stopped, or toward an unbeliever harming Muslims, is not blameworthy; the wronged may forgive or take his right.

• Greed (hirs)

  In Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's lessons, greed is the craving for money and the world; he gives the image of one who drinks sea water and grows thirstier, and holds that wishes never end and that billions buy no more than a loaf of bread (his view).

• Hisba: enjoining good and forbidding wrong

  Hisba (the office of enjoining good and forbidding wrong) is, for most jurists, enjoining good when it is seen to be neglected and forbidding wrong when it is seen to be done. It differs from judgeship in that the muhtasib deals with acknowledged rights and not with denial; it adds the power to act on wrong without a plaintiff, and judgeship calls for patience while hisba calls for awe. It is distinct from fatwa, from testimony, and from the redress of grievances (mazalim), which ranks above it, and hisba comes after judgeship. Hisba is a duty in general: when it concerns an obligation or a prohibition it is obligatory for the able, and when it concerns a recommended or disliked matter it is recommended. It is an individual duty of the ruler, and a communal duty for others as far as they are able and safe. The conditions of the muhtasib: Islam, legal capacity, knowledge, justice (which the majority require of the office-holder but not of the volunteer), capacity, and maleness for many. The office-holder is paid from the public treasury. The etiquette: refusing gifts, touring the markets, gentleness and patience, and concealing faults where possible. Good is what is known to be right; wrong is what the law forbids, including the disliked forbidden. Good concerns God's rights, such as the Friday prayer, congregational prayer and the call to prayer, and concerns human rights, such as the public water supply and the rights of debtors. A wrong that the muhtasib may act on must be forbidden and visible to him without spying. Concealing the faults of those who slipped is preferred by most jurists except where God's penalties apply, and the innovators of misleading heresies may be confronted.

• Hujna (hybridness, in the fiqh sense: spoils shares and speech)

  Hujna is defect and ugliness in the lexical sense; the hajin among horses is the foal of a non-Arab mare by a stallion, and among people the one born of an Arab father and a non-Arab mother. Good speech avoids naming disgusting defects directly and uses euphemism. On the share of a hybrid horse in the spoils, the Hanafis, Malikis and Shafi'is give it the same share as an Arab horse; the Hanbalis distinguish: an Arab horse (ateeq) earns its rider three shares, while a hajin, a muqraf and a birdhawn earn two shares, one for the rider and one for the horse. The Hanbali position relies on a report from Khalid ibn Ma'dan, transmitted as mursal in Abu Dawud's Marasil.

• A Muslim's rights over a fellow Muslim (huquq al-muslim ala akhihi)

  A Muslim's duties toward a fellow Muslim, as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents them in one lesson of his series on rights: greeting, visiting the sick, congratulating and consoling, avoiding backbiting, and standing by one's brother.

• Rights and duties (huquq wal-wajibat)

  Rights and duties as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents them: the loss of rights blocks success, duties are discharged before claims are made, and rights are considered according to one's roles in life.

• Good opinion of God and optimism (husn al-zann billah)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents good opinion of God as the believer's hope in good and in relief; he defines istibshar as expecting good, criticises pessimism, cites the story of Jacob, and holds that despair is not a quality of the believer.

• The smile (ibtisama)

  In Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's lessons the smile is a doorway to good dealing: he urges a person to begin a meeting with a smile, a greeting of peace and a kind enquiry. He relates that the Prophet smiled at a man who came in while he was angry. He holds that a smile at an enemy shows the smiler's strength.

• Idhan (anointing with oil or perfume: its general ruling, the Friday and festival occasions, and the cases where it is forbidden)

  Anointing (idhan) is smearing oneself with oil or perfume that contains no impurity. It is generally recommended for a person, and especially for the Friday prayer, the festivals and gatherings; women are excluded from it when they attend the Friday prayer, and it is forbidden or disliked in ihram, seclusion, fasting and mourning. Anointing objects is permitted if they are free of impurity; an impure substance is disputed.

• Idkhar (saving and storing wealth: the state's reserves, individuals' savings, zakat and hoarding)

  Saving (idkhar) is setting wealth aside for a time of need; hoarding is wealth whose zakat is unpaid, and stockpiling is withholding goods to await a rise in price. Saving unpaid wealth above the nisab is forbidden by agreement, saving below it is permitted, and the view on saving surplus after zakat is paid divides the majority, which permits it, from Abu Dharr, who forbids it. For the state there are views: forbidding saving, saving surplus against calamities, or beginning with the people of the town. Whoever holds a surplus of staples must give it to one in urgent need.

• Misleading others and bearing their burden

  Sha'rawi holds that misguidance has several senses: going astray and being lost in a thing, failing to reach the truth, and knowing the law and then turning from it. Someone who misleads and also misleads others increases his burden by leading others astray. He uses this to distinguish two verses about bearing burdens. He reads the verse about a group among the People of the Book who wished to lead the believers astray as saying they lead only themselves astray, without success in the wider aim.

• The wrapping of found property (ifas) and its use as a mark

  In the lexicon, ifas is the container in which money is kept, of leather or cloth, and it is also the cap of a bottle; as a term it is the container in which found property is kept. The ifas is one of the marks by which found property is recognised, on the basis of a prophetic instruction to know the tie and the container, announce the find for a year and then keep it or let it go. Most jurists hold that knowing the ifas alone does not entitle a claimant to the property; it must be joined with the other marks, such as the tie, the weight, the number, the kind, or most of them. The Malikis distinguish: a claimant who knows the ifas and the tie is given the find without oath, on the preferred view; one who knows only the ifas must wait while others may come; Asbagh requires an oath from one who knows the count and weight.

• Chastity and restraint (iffa)

  In the lexicon, iffa is restraint from what is unlawful or unbecoming; a man or woman is chaste when he or she refrains from forbidden things. The word ihsan (protection or chastity) has four senses: chastity, marriage, freedom and Islam, and is wider than chastity. Islam guards human dignity, so begging is forbidden to one who has enough, and permitted to the truly needy within limits. Believers are praised for chastity and forbidden to approach what leads to adultery; the means of chastity are marriage for those able to bear its cost and fasting for those who cannot. The jurists hold that one who can afford marriage, whose desire is strong, and who fears adultery must marry. They differ on whether a man must provide chastity for his ascendants and descendants. The majority hold that one partner's adultery does not bar the chaste from marrying the other; the Hanbalis require, for a woman, that her waiting period end and that she repent.

• Ihana (humiliation, as a wrong against persons and faith and as a penalty)

  Ihana is lexically the act of abasing, from the verb hana, to be humbled, and it is one of the forms of mockery and contempt. For the jurists it arises in two ways: as a wrong that invites a penalty, which is unbelief when it touches faith or the law, such as bowing to an idol or throwing a copy of the Qur'an into filth, and sin when it touches people unjustly, such as insult or beating; and as a penalty fixed by the law, such as the humiliation of protected non-Muslims in paying the poll tax, or a light penalty for one who insults another, in proportion to the rank of the person. It arises chiefly in the chapters on apostasy, slander and discretionary punishment.

• Ikhlaf (breaking a promise or a covenant)

  Ikhlaf means, in the lexicon, failing to keep a covenant; covenants are stronger than promises, and the jurists use the word in this sense. Some distinguish promise from covenant, limiting covenant to what God has required or forbidden. Breaking a covenant is forbidden; breaking a promise is recommended to keep according to the majority and obligatory according to some. One who promises intending to break it is sinful and shows a branch of hypocrisy. Effects in judgement: the Hanafis hold a promise binding in judgement only if it is conditional; the Malikis hold it binding when the promisee has taken on a financial obligation on its strength; the Hanbalis hold it not binding in judgement. Breaking a stipulation counts as breaking the contract or gives an option.

• Ikhtiyal (strutting pride in gait, dress and building)

  Ikhtiyal means pride or self-admiration in the lexicon, and the jurists treat it as one form of arrogance. The ruling is prohibition and it is counted among the major sins. It appears in gait when it exceeds moderation, in dress when there is no reason for excess, in riding and in building; in war it can be praised as a means of terrifying the enemy. Handsome clothes and mounts are not pride unless they are intended as pride; a woman may let her garment down by a span or, at most, a cubit.

• Ikhtiyar (choice, free election by the responsible agent)

  Ikhtiyar is, in the lexicon, preferring one thing to another; as a technical term, the intention toward a matter that lies between existence and non-existence and is within the agent's power, by preferring one side. The Hanafis separate choice from consent: non-compelling coercion spoils consent but not choice, while compulsion that removes the will removes consent and spoils choice. A valid choice needs responsibility and independence of intention; it is spoiled when a condition of responsibility is missing or when it rests on another's choice. Choice is given by the lawgiver, as in the choice of the one who cleans after relieving himself, or by another party, and only the right-holder or his lawful deputy may grant it. Rights of God leave the responsible person no choice, while in rights of people he has choice by the lawgiver's grant. Choice is a condition of reward and punishment and was prescribed for the interests of people, individual and collective. Its places of discussion are scattered through the books of law, from purification and prayer to pilgrimage, zakat, divorce, custody, pre-emption, jihad and discretionary punishment.

• Habituation to luxury (ilf al-rafaha)

  What Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy calls habituation to luxury, children's growing accustomed to indulgence, which he regards as a blight; with his view that true poverty is poverty of the heart, a statistic on celibacy not yet verified, and a polemical comparison the museum does not adopt.

• Imtihan (use, handling and scorned work)

  Imtihan in the lexical sense is serving another or using and wearing a thing out; the jurists use the word in both senses, as trade and as wear. It differs from contempt or disdain, since contempt is treating a thing as worthless, and imtihan does not imply that. In some cases, such as Friday and the feasts, one is asked to wear something other than work clothes.

• Imtina' (abstaining from an act)

  Imtina' in the lexical sense is refraining from a thing, or being strong and protected by one's people; the technical sense keeps these two. Refraining from what is forbidden is obligatory; refraining from what is obligatory is forbidden; refraining from what is recommended is disliked; refraining from what is disliked is recommended; refraining from what is lawful is lawful.

• Imtishat (combing the hair)

  Imtishat is combing the hair, in the lexical and the juristic sense. A man is recommended to comb his hair and beard, and a woman her hair, following the report of a man with untidy hair whom the Prophet told to tidy himself. A man in ihram may not comb if it removes hair; a widow in mourning may not comb with oil or perfume, and the Hanafis forbid a narrow comb.

• Inheritance of prophethood (by deeds, not by blood)

  Sha'rawi holds that religious leadership and belonging to the prophets come not by blood or lineage but by applying the law in letter and spirit. He builds this on Abraham's request that leadership remain in his descendants, on the answer that a covenant does not reach the wrongdoers, and on the story of Noah's son, of whom God said that his deeds were not righteous. He presents this without a verdict under his own name.

• Inversion of values (inqilab al-qiyam)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy paraphrases a passage on the reversal of values, in which the self takes the place of the intellect, injustice of justice and ignorance of knowledge. He says that in such times those with the reversed qualities are the ones pointed to.

• Shafa'a (intercession: good and bad, in the hereafter, for prescribed penalties, and the gift it may bring)

  Intercession is speaking on another's behalf so that a person gains a benefit or is spared harm. It is good when the law approves it, and bad when it is for what the law dislikes or forbids. The Sunni community agree that intercession will take place in the hereafter for believers who have sinned, and the scholars list five kinds of it. Intercession for a prescribed penalty is forbidden once the case has reached the ruler and permitted before that; it is allowed, and even recommended, for discretionary penalties unless the person interceded for is a wicked one. Taking a gift for intercession is unlawful when it is for a forbidden purpose, to drop a right, or to aid oppression, and the jurists differ where it lifts a wrong.

• Inthar (warning before a harm, a penalty or an act)

  Inthar is informing and warning, and mostly used for warning of evil. Its ruling depends on where it is used. A blind man must be warned from falling into a well; unbelievers who have not heard the call must be warned before fighting; an apostate is recommended to be given three days to repent; a rebellious wife may be admonished; and warning is forbidden where it causes greater harm. It is a right of every Muslim within commanding right and forbidding wrong, and the officer of hisba is bound to it.

• Intimidation (takhwif) and coercion

  Takhwif is causing a person to fear, and inindhar is narrower because it also states the source of the fear. Intimidation counts as coercion when it threatens killing, severe beating or long imprisonment, according to the Hanafis and Malikis, while for lesser beating or imprisonment the rank of the victim decides. Intimidation can cause a death or a miscarriage, which then carries liability.

• The invisible hand and its precedence in Islamic thought

• Honour (ird)

  In the lexicon, ird means the self and the lineage: a person of clean honour is one free from blemish, and the plural is a'rad. When the word is paired with self, blood or property, it means only lineage, and lineage is the usual sense in the jurists' use of the word. Lineage, for the jurists, is the distinction inherited from forebears and the nobility of descent. The law protects life, honour and property, and prescribes punishments and retaliation for them; the jurists agree that defending self, honour and property against an aggressor is lawful. They agree that defending honour in the sense of chastity is obligatory, and that whoever abandons it commits a sin. Where a man finds another committing adultery with his wife and kills him, the jurists hold that there is neither retaliation nor blood-money. On defence, the majority require defending oneself and permit defending property, while some permit both.

• Islamic economics: doctrine, system and science

• Exploiting the need of the needy

• Trusteeship of wealth (istikhlaf)

• Doing work well (itqan al-amal)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's teaching on doing work well and fulfilling one's duty to the employer, as part of trust and worship: he compares a sincere employee who guards his time and salary with one who does the minimum, and speaks of lateness at work and of work done in the service of people.

• Visiting the sick (iyada)

  In the lexicon, iyada means visiting in general, but the word became fixed for visiting the sick. The jurists differ on its ruling. The majority hold it a sunna or recommended act, which may rise to an obligation for some persons. Ibn Alan of the Shafiis calls it a communal sunna, and others a communal obligation; al-Nawawi reports a consensus that it is not an individual obligation. For the Malikis it is recommended if others perform it, and otherwise a communal obligation; it is an individual obligation on the one whose maintenance the sick person is owed. Visiting a man of religious innovation is disliked, and forbidden to a scholar when it leads to harm such as encouraging the public to follow him. Visiting a sinner is allowed in the sounder view; visiting a non-Muslim is allowed if his conversion is hoped for, and visiting a protected non-Muslim is allowed; on visiting a Magian there are two opinions. Many reports praise it: on the Day of Judgment God reproaches the servant who did not visit a sick person, and one who visits a Muslim brother stays in the fruit-gathering of Paradise until he returns. Etiquette: do not stay long unless the patient is not burdened and at ease; come near, lay a hand on the body, ask about his condition, speak words that gladden him, counsel patience, and ask for his prayer. The visitor may bring something refreshing such as basil or fruit, give charity if the patient is needy, encourage repentance and a will if this does not distress him, and if the patient fears death, remove the fear by recalling his good deeds. Visiting is recommended at any suitable time, for any illness, without a set interval from its onset, and right after the news of the illness. It is for all Muslims; kin and acquaintances have the stronger claim, and a neighbour is one near enough that custom expects affection and enquiry. An enemy who knows or suspects the patient dislikes his entry, and whose sight would harm him beyond what is usual, should not visit or it is disliked. If the patient craves food the visitor should give it, unless it harms him; he may not compel him to eat.

• Iyafa: augury by birds, and the aversion to food

  In the lexicon, iyafa means disliking food or drink, and also the augury of birds: reading omens of good or ill from their names, cries and flight paths. Augury by birds was an Arab custom in the pre-Islamic era; Islam abolished it, returned the matter to God's absolute will and to the fixed laws of creation. A report counts augury, bird-omens and the drawing of lines as a form of falsehood, a matter treated under the heading of omens. In the sense of aversion to food, a report from Khalid ibn al-Walid tells of a dish of lizard set before the Prophet, which he withdrew from because it was not common in his people's land and he was not used to it; Khalid then ate it in his presence and he did not forbid it, which shows it is lawful and that his withdrawal was from unfamiliarity.

• Major sins (kaba'ir)

  Kaba'ir is the plural of kabira, which the jurists define as any sin the law threatens heavily or whose harm is great. Most scholars divide sins into minor and major and agree that major sins are forbidden; most do not confine the list to a fixed number. A believer who commits a major sin does not leave the faith; if he dies without repentance his fate is in God's hands, and he is not eternal in the Fire. Major sin ends the trust placed in a person's testimony until he repents. Most jurists hold that minor sins are forgiven by avoiding major sins. Shirk nullifies good deeds, persistence in a minor sin makes it major in judgement, and intercession is hoped for the people of major sins.

• Lying (kadhib)

  Lying (kadhib) is, in its lexical sense, reporting a thing contrary to what it is. The rule is prohibition by the Qur'an, the Sunna and consensus, but it may be permitted or obligatory according to its purpose: in war, in reconciling people, between spouses, and to repel an oppressor from property or honour, with caution kept wherever possible. Lying about God or His Messenger is a major sin, and forged dream reports count as lying about God. Claiming another father, disowning one's own child, a ruler deceiving his subjects, and false witness and the false oath are all major sins. Lying is forbidden even in joking and in play with children.

• Restraining the self (kaff al-nafs)

  In the terminology of the usulis, restraining the self is ceasing from what is forbidden. It is an act that the law can address, so a prohibition presupposes that the soul is inclined to the forbidden act; a prohibition cannot be addressed before the soul desires it. Restraint from the forbidden earns reward, and some require that it be done with the intention of obedience. Leaving is wider, since it covers what is commanded, forbidden and rights.

• Disliked acts (karaha)

  Karaha is dislike in the lexicon and, in the terminology, a demand to abstain from an act that is not firm. It divides into dislike of prohibition (karaha tahrimiyya), which is close to forbidden, and dislike of reprehension (karaha tanzihiyya), where leaving the act is better. The word may also mean the forbidden itself, or a thing whose prohibition is doubtful. For al-Zarkashi, leaving the better (khilaf al-awla) is a grade of dislike; the Imam al-Haramayn held that the distinction is a later invention.

• Generosity (karam)

  For Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy, generosity (karam) is to give without asking to whom one gives or how much. He holds that this meaning truly applies only to God, who provides for everyone and leaves the sun, the rain and the air for them.

• Earning a living (kasb)

  Kasb is, in the terminology, an action that brings a benefit or removes a harm. Earning enough for oneself and one's dependants is an obligation; earning beyond that is recommended to help the poor and kin, and permitted for more wealth and comfort while keeping faith and honour. The jurists discuss whether wealth or poverty is better; whether earning or devoting oneself to worship is better; the best kinds of earning (jihad first, then agriculture, then trade, then craft); begging by one able to earn (forbidden, though if given it may be taken); compelling an indebted man to earn (the Hanbalis allow it, others not); the earning of children; working in a mosque (disliked); and what to do with wealth gained unlawfully, which is returned to its owners or given away. Wealth inherited of unknown source is lawful by consensus.

• Restraining anger (kazm al-ghayz)

  For Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy, restraining anger is a deed of great standing with God. Pardon is its fruit, patience with an offender is the real test, and anger that is not restrained can ruin homes.

• Al-kharaj bil-daman (yield follows liability)

• Fear of God (khawf)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy relays from Ibn Abbas that sitting with one who makes you fear God, so that you find safety on the Day of Resurrection, is better than sitting with one who reassures you, so that you find fear on that Day (needs_source). He says God does not combine two securities or two fears on His servant: whoever fears in this world is given security in the next. He holds that Islam is simple and that we have complicated its matters, and he explains not hoping for the reckoning as not fearing it.

• Khida'a (deception; its place in the law)

  Khida'a (deception) lexically is showing the opposite of what one hides, or guile with the intent of harm; war is a deceit. It is distinguished from treachery (ghadr, breaking a covenant), undervaluation (ghabn, which concerns sale), breach of trust (khiyana), delusion and inducement (ghurur, taghrir), and deceitful adulteration (ghish). Deceiving a treaty-bound enemy is forbidden; if the imam senses treachery by clear signs he must announce the end of the truce before fighting; after that, deceit in war is lawful, since war is deceit, and equivocation is allowed when a lawful purpose requires it.

• Pride (kibr)

  Pride (kibr) is, in the lexicon, greatness. In the jurists' terms it is a trait of the self by which a person sees himself above those he looks down on; in the Sunna it is refusing the truth out of arrogance and despising people. All agree it is a major sin, and the prohibition is textual. Its signs are many, among them lowering the face, strutting, disdaining to sit with the poor, reclining while eating and trailing one's robe out of vanity. The ruling on these signs depends on intention and custom: what marks out the proud is disliked, and what is done without pride is not objectionable. Treating pride is an individual duty, and its method is to uproot it by knowing oneself and one's Lord, then to treat its causes such as lineage, beauty, strength, wealth and knowledge.

• Keeping secrets and trusts

  For Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy, keeping secrets is among the first of trusts. He criticises the spreading of the secrets of homes and gatherings, and recounts the story of Abu Bakr and Umar on keeping a secret.

• Dislike and aversion (kurh)

  Kurh is hardship in the lexicon and is the opposite of love. It has two kinds: what the nature shrinks from, and what reason or the law shrinks from. It may be obligatory, as in hating unbelief and sin; forbidden, as in hating Islam, the Prophet or the Companions for their virtue; or permitted, as in disliking a divine decree that is a sin while accepting the decree. Hating Islam or the Prophet is disbelief, and so is hating the Helpers and the Companions for their support of religion. An imam who is disliked by most of his congregation for a just reason is disliked as an imam. A husband may bear with a wife he dislikes for a fault in her character, short of immorality; a wife may seek khul' from a husband she fears she cannot obey God with.

• La ilaha illa Allah

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds that 'la ilaha illa Allah' is the highest branch of faith, that the Companions understood it and lived its ethics, and that the nation advances only by understanding what it requires.

• God's love attaches to deeds, not to persons

  Sha'rawi reads the verse that God loves the God-conscious people who keep their covenant as tying love to the deed and the attribute, not to the person. No one may assume that divine love is fixed to him by his person. He draws on the story of Noah's son to say that persons do not descend from lineage and that worth lies in righteous deeds.

• The Prophet's love for all creation

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy calls for emulating what the Prophet loved in his words and deeds, describes his engagement with the whole of creation, recounts the story of the palm trunk, mentions the names he gave the things in his house, and explains the burden that was lifted from him.

• The disliked (makruh)

  The disliked (makruh) is, in the lexicon, the opposite of the beloved, and what the nature and the law reject. The usul scholars define it as what is sought to be left without blame for doing it. It is opposed to the obligatory and to the recommended, and differs from the forbidden in that doing it is not blamed. The word has several senses in usul. The Hanafis split it into disliked as reprehensible (tanzih), which is closer to permitted, and disliked as near prohibition (tahrim), which is closer to forbidden; Muhammad ibn al-Hasan holds that a near-prohibition founded on a probable text is forbidden. The usul appendix has the discussion of its ruling.

• Shahid (martyr: the rank of martyrs, the kinds of martyr, washing and prayer over the dead, the shroud and burial)

  In the jurists' usage a martyr is a Muslim who dies in fighting the unbelievers or because of it, and some other people are counted with him in matters of the hereafter. His rank with God is high, as the Qur'an and the sunna show. The jurists divide martyrs into the martyr of this world and the next, who dies advancing in battle so that God's word is highest, and the martyr of the next world only, who dies of a bowel disease, plague, drowning or the like. The jurists differ on washing and praying over the martyr of the battlefield: the Shafi'is and Malikis forbid both, the Hanafis require washing, the Hanbalis forbid washing; he is buried in his clothes after the weapons are removed. Two or three may be buried in one grave.

• Responsibility (mas'uliyya)

  Responsibility as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents it: each person is answerable for what is entrusted to his care, from the family and work to religion and homeland, and in his account it is a field of fiqh beside worship and transactions.

• Ma'siya (disobedience, sin)

  In the Kuwaiti encyclopedia's account, disobedience (ma'siya) is lexically leaving obedience and in the jurists' technical sense a forbidden act intended in itself. It differs from a slip (zalla), which is not intended in itself. Jurists divide sins into minor and grave, a view some deny, and by the soul's inclination. Their effects include worldly penalties, spiritual deprivation and punishment in the hereafter. Repentance is obligatory at once; persistence is condemned; concealment is recommended except where a hadd is involved. Contracts for hiring, endowment, bequest and vows for sin are invalid, and zakat is not given to a traveller on a sinful journey.

• Shaarib (the moustache) and the rules on it

  The shaarib is, in language, the active participle of drink, and the term also names the hair that flows over the mouth; its plural is shawarib. The moustache is washed with the face in ablution and every hair and skin of it is covered with water in the bath of major impurity. Trimming it is part of the fitra by sound report, and a sunna for the jurists; the schools differ between cutting, shaving and close trimming. Removing it is forbidden to a pilgrim in the state of consecration; for the dead the jurists differ, and injury to it carries a just assessment.

• Muraawada (gentle drawing of people toward the right)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds that muraawada is gently drawing a creature out of its natural state, illustrated by the camel coaxed to drink, and that it is the Prophet's manner in commanding and advising.

• The self-reproaching soul (nafs lawwama)

  Sha'rawi holds that the human soul contains a faith-cell which wakes after heedlessness and reproaches its owner for a fault, bringing him back to the law. This is the self-reproaching soul. If that reproach is absent, the soul commands evil, and the surrounding community becomes the place where a person is turned back by the good cells within it.

• Nakhwa: chivalry and the knightly code

  In al-Aqqad's reading of Ali ibn Abi Talib, nakhwa is the knightly code: courage joined with generosity, restraint from wrongdoing and from treachery, and a refusal to insult. The author uses it as the key to much of Ali's conduct in war and policy, and holds that it was innate and also taught in the Hashemite household rather than affected.

• Namimah (tale-bearing)

  Namimah is, in the lexicon, going between people to stir strife; in the term, carrying speech from its speaker to another to cause harm. It is a grave sin, forbidden by the Qur'an, the Sunna and consensus. The tale-bearer must repent; the hearer must not believe him, must forbid him and advise him, must hate him for God's sake, and must not think ill of the one reported.

• Narcotics and drugging

  Takhdir is a numbness that comes over some limbs or the whole body; a narcotic makes a person lose consciousness in varying degrees, as with henbane, hashish and opium. Most jurists forbid taking narcotics that cloud the mind, distinguish use for treatment from use without excuse, and discuss purity, sale, the validity of acts and penalty.

• Naw' (kind or species, and its effect on zakat and exchange)

  Naw' in the lexical sense is a kind or class; the Jurist al-Jurjani defined it as a term for many different things by their individuals. Kind matters for zakat: if the animals are of one kind, the zakat is taken from that kind; most jurists allow substituting a sheep for a goat and the reverse, taking value into account, while the Hanafis require the same kind. If the kinds differ, the Hanbalis and the sounder Shafi'i view let the owner give what he chooses, proportioned by value, while the Hanafis join the kinds together. For crops and fruit, kinds are joined to complete the threshold; joining gold and silver is disputed. The exchange of ribawi goods of different kinds is referred to the chapter on usury.

• Nawa'ib (extraordinary levies on the people: their rightful and unjust forms)

  Nawa'ib are the plural of nawaiba, a calamity or an extraordinary matter that befalls people. In the Hanafi usage the term can mean a rightful levy, such as one the imam imposes to equip the army or ransom captives when the treasury has no money, or an unjust exaction. Imposing a levy is obligatory when there is public benefit and the treasury cannot meet it, the jurists citing the Qur'anic command to strive with one's wealth and self (surat al-Tawba, ayah 41). A permitted form is a fee for escort or guard that does not burden the people. An unjust levy need not be paid, and Ibn Abidin held that paying unjust levies helps the oppressor. Guaranteeing a rightful levy is permitted by Hanafi agreement, and the Hanafis differ on guaranteeing unjust ones. The Hanafis allow one who pays another's levy with his leave to reclaim it.

• Nazar (looking) and its rulings

  Nazar, in the lexicon, is the sense of sight or considering a thing with the eye; it can also mean keeping or contemplating, and ru'ya (seeing) is narrower. Its rulings vary with the person looked at. For a man looking at a young foreign woman, all of her body except the face and hands is forbidden by agreement, and the face and hands carry four views. Looking with desire is forbidden in every case, and looking at a girl with desire is forbidden at any age; a man may look without desire at a mahram's places of adornment. Looking is allowed for need, such as proposing, treatment, judging, testimony, dealing and teaching, only to the extent of the need. The first unintended glance is forgiven.

• Niyaha (wailing over the dead: its ruling, the dead's punishment, and hire)

  Niyaha in the lexical sense is wailing aloud, as in keening; the jurists' definitions differ: for the Hanafis it is weeping with praise of the dead, its good qualities enumerated; for the Shafi'is and most Malikis it is raising the voice in lament, even without weeping; for the Hanbalis it is raising the voice in lament with a chanted or rhymed cry. It differs from weeping, elegy, condolence and the announcement of death. The majority hold wailing forbidden; the Hanafis hold it disliked in the sense of forbidden. The prophetic prohibitions are many, including the report of Umm Atiyya at the pledge and that of Aisha on throwing dust into the mouths of mourners. Some Malikis allow loud weeping over a dying man when no ugly words are added. Most jurists hold that the dead is punished for wailing over him only if he bequeathed it; some reports from Umar and Ibn Umar take it otherwise, and the jurists interpret the hadith. A bequest to wail is void and forbidden. The imam must discipline a wailing woman according to the majority; others counsel and give respite without beating. Hire for wailing is void, and its earnings are unlawful according to the majority; the Hanafis allow a fee where custom makes it expected.

• Niyya (intention: its place in worship, contracts and oaths, its conditions and time)

  Niyya in the lexical sense is intention. For the Hanafis it is the purpose of obeying and drawing near to God in enjoining the act; for the Malikis the heart's purpose in what one does; for the Shafi'is intending a thing together with doing it; for the Hanbalis the heart's resolve to perform an act of worship seeking God. It differs from azm, which precedes the act. Acts commanded in their form, such as prayer, purification, fasting and the rites, need intention, since their purpose is to honour God by doing them; those whose purpose is met by performance alone, such as repaying debts, do not. Most jurists hold intention a condition of worship; most Shafi'is a pillar of it. Acts that could be confused with another of their kind, such as the obligatory prayers and fasting, need specification; it is not required in the pilgrimage, the purifications and zakat. The schools differ on whether intention in ablution, the major ablution and tayammum must be of obligation or merely of purification; the majority hold intention a condition of ablution, the Hanafis a sunna, and removing filth needs none according to the majority. The schools differ on specifying obligation, performance or making up in prayer, fasting, zakat, the pilgrimage and expiations; the Shafi'is require specification where acts could be confused. Intention is real or constructive: the real one is a condition at the start of worship, the constructive one suffices for its continuance. Intention cannot be delegated; the schools differ on combining intentions and on splitting intention over the parts of ablution and worship. In fasting, zakat and the pilgrimage the schools differ on the time and the sufficiency of intention. In contracts, intention matters for allusive wording: a clear divorce takes effect without intention, an allusive one only with it; likewise return, zihar, waqf, marriage, emancipation and retaliation; in oaths the Hanafis follow the intention of the swearer if wronged and of the one who demands the oath if he is the wrongdoer. In jihad, slaughter, hunting and the finding of lost property, intention affects the ruling; hunting is owned by taking even without intention, but the finder who intends to appropriate becomes liable.

• Nutq (speech)

  Nutq, in the lexicon, is speech; logic (mantiq) and expression (ibara) are related words, and expression is narrower. Speaking the two testimonies is required of one able to do so, since it is what gives a person the rights of a Muslim in worldly rulings; one who believes in the heart but is able and does not speak is not treated as a Muslim by agreement, though jurists differ on his standing before God. Speech is a condition for the validity of contracts and releases such as marriage, sale and divorce, and a sign may stand for speech in the case of one unable to speak. If an injury destroys speech entirely, the full blood-money is due; partial loss is dealt with separately.

• Opportunity cost and choosing between benefits

• Placing the hand on the hip (takhassur)

  Takhassur is placing the hand on the side of the hip. In prayer most jurists regard it as disliked (makruh tanzihi), while the Hanafis hold it disliked as unlawful (makruh tahrimi), since it departs from the transmitted form of prayer. It is allowed in a real need, to the extent of the need. Outside prayer it is disliked as the manner of the proud. For the Friday sermon, leaning on a staff or bow is recommended by the Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis.

• Poetry (shi'r): its permissibility, limits, teaching, recitation and the rulings that touch poets

  Shi'r in language means knowledge; the word came to be used for measured and rhymed speech because of its worth. In law it is speech that is rhymed and metred, composed on purpose. The jurists agree it is permissible unless it contains something forbidden; some hold that knowing the pre-Islamic poetry is a communal duty for understanding the Qur'an and the sunna. It is recommended when it praises God and the Prophet or gives moral counsel, forbidden when it is obscene, satirises without right or is pure lies, and disliked when a man indulges in it so much that it distracts him from the remembrance of God. They differ on learning it, reciting it in the mosque, earning by it and accepting the testimony of a poet.

• Production in Islam

• Profit in Islam

• Maximisation of profit and minimisation of loss

• Private and public interest and the invisible hand

• Qarunism (the doctrine of the rich who forget the Giver)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds that Qarunism is a doctrine of life, the rich man who hoards and forgets the Giver and does not see the poor's right in his wealth, and that it recurs through history.

• Hardness of heart and its ailments

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy says that no punishment is greater for a servant than hardness of heart and distance from God. He names excess food, sleep, talk and mixing with people as harms to the heart, and says that the heart is revived by remembrance and watered by reflection.

• The rabbaniyyun (training and belonging to the Lord)

  Sha'rawi holds that belonging to the Lord means that what the trainer teaches from the scripture is ascribed to God. Being rabbani requires receiving the text of the law and then understanding it through study together. He answers the claim that people might be made to worship prophets or angels by saying that no law is given by anyone other than God, and presents this without a verdict.

• Raqs (dancing): its ruling, its conditions, the dancer's testimony, and the hire for it

  Raqs (dancing) in the lexicon is quick movement and agitation; technically it is swaying, bowing and rising in measured motions. Those who allow it cite the hadith of the Abyssinians who played with their spears in the Prophet's mosque; the Hanafis, Malikis and Hanbalis dislike it as baseness, folly and a loss of manly dignity, and Ibn Taymiyya forbids making it a worship. It is forbidden when accompanied by something unlawful, such as drinking or exposing the private parts, and the Shafi'is allow it only where it is fitting and free of affectation. The testimony of a dancer is rejected for loss of manly dignity; the Shafi'is and Hanbalis count habitual and frequent dancing. Hiring someone to dance follows its ruling: if the dance is forbidden the hire is forbidden.

• The rational economic man

• Rayba: suspicion, doubt, and their legal effects in Islamic jurisprudence

  Rayba denotes suspicion and doubt, and the juristic meaning aligns with its lexical usage. It is recommended to leave matters that induce suspicion and adopt what is clear of doubt out of scrupulous caution, and rulers are advised to overlook private faults and refrain from seeking suspicions among the public so as not to corrupt them. Entertaining groundless suspicion against someone of apparent righteousness is forbidden, while suspicion is not ruled out regarding those who openly display wrongdoing. Suspicion impacts waiting periods and establishing pregnancy, whereby a woman in doubt regarding pregnancy waits out a full gestation period of nine months according to the Malikis until doubt is dispelled. In judicial proceedings, suspicion among witnesses warrants their separation by the judge for individual examination prior to character witness verification in order to ascertain truth.

• Rifq (gentleness): its ruling, God's gentleness to His servants, gentleness to parents, neighbours, followers, servants and animals

  Rifq in the lexicon is gentleness, softness in the act and firmness in the purpose; it is the opposite of harshness. In general it is recommended, but it is obligatory with parents and forbidden with fighting unbelievers. God has laid on His servants only what they can bear and has granted them concessions, and the believer is told to take from the supererogatory what he can keep up. Kindness to parents and neighbours is commanded; the imam should shorten the prayer for the weak; in crowded rites one should not push others; and in changing wrong one should be gentle with the ignorant. The Prophet urged kindness to servants, feeding them from one's own food, and forbade torturing animals and shooting at living creatures for a target; the owner must feed the animal and may not overload it.

• Ritha' (praising the dead in verse or speech): its meaning and its ruling

  Ritha' in the lexicon is compassion for the dead, weeping, praise and recounting his virtues, and in the jurists' sense it is praising the dead and recounting his good qualities. It is distinguished from ta'bin, weeping and praising the dead, and from nadb, recounting his virtues. The Hanafis allow an elegy in verse or prose, but dislike excessive praise, especially at the funeral; al-Nawawi disliked recounting the dead's ancestors, and preferred asking forgiveness for him. The Hanbalis count as forbidden wailing whatever stirs grief through preaching or recited verse.

• False rumour and verification (tathabbut) in Islam

  In the book's definition a rumour is a report that spreads without being verified, and it is usually meant to unsettle souls and destroy trust. The author holds that rumours are as old as humanity, used by adversaries against the prophets and against those they oppose, and counts Iblis as the first to use them, in his whisper to Adam. Verification of reports, in the Qur'anic command of Surat al-Hujurat, is presented as the most effective remedy.

• Sama' (hearing) and its rulings

  In the lexicon sama' means perceiving by the sense of hearing, and it carries the senses of answering, understanding and accepting; the technical sense does not depart from them. The jurists treat hearing in several separate rulings: joining the congregation for one who hears the call to prayer, reading aloud in prayer, listening to the Friday sermon, the prostration of recitation, hearing a claim before a judge, testimony by hearing, listening to singing, the Qur'an, hadith and idle talk.

• Samt (direction, bearing) and facing the qibla

  In the lexicon samt means a direction or aim, and musamata means facing or being opposite; one who faces the qibla is said to have musamata it. It also means following the right path and the bearing of the good, and tasmit means invoking blessing on a sneezer. The technical sense does not depart from this. Facing the qibla is, by agreement of the jurists, a condition for the validity of prayer for one able to do it.

• Sanad (a written instrument of right, and the chain of narrators)

  In the lexicon sanad is whatever one leans on and relies on. In the technical sense it has two uses. The first is a written instrument by which rights are secured: to be relied on for proof it must state the right and its amount, bear the name of the person entitled, be sealed and signed by the debtor, and be free from forgery and alteration, with its hand confirmed by experts. A sound instrument that meets these conditions counts as a written confession. The second use is the chain of narrators of a hadith leading to its text; the conditions for accepting it are treated under the entry on isnad.

• Saving and investment

• Sawm (pasturing livestock, and bidding in sale)

  In language sawm is offering goods for sale; the jurists use it for pasturing on open pasture and for a seller offering goods to a bidder who wants them for less. Among the conditions for zakat on livestock, most jurists require that the animals be pastured on open land. Bidding before agreement on the price is lawful; after agreement it is disliked by the Hanafis and forbidden by the Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis.

• Complaint to God (shakwa ila Allah)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy says that the ignorant complain about God to people, while whoever knows his Lord does not complain of Him to creatures. He holds that complaint should be made to God alone, not to every small or great person.

• Shariid (a strayed animal, and its sale, hire and slaughter)

  In language shariid is a strayed thing: a camel that bolts and runs off. The word fits animals, while aabiq (the runaway) fits people. The jurists agree that selling a strayed animal, or any thing the seller cannot deliver, is forbidden, and so is hiring it out. For most jurists, when a tame lawful animal goes wild and cannot be slaughtered at the usual place, it may be lawfully eaten after a wound of any kind that brings death, on the report of Rafi' ibn Khadij about a camel that bolted and was struck by a man's arrow. The Malikis, Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, al-Layth and Rabi'a hold that a strayed animal is lawful only when slaughtered at the usual place.

• Partnership (sharika)

• Sharika (partnership: ownership and contract, its kinds, conditions, effects and end)

  Sharika in language is mixing two shares; in the technical sense there are two kinds: ownership partnership, in which two or more hold one thing or its equivalent in common, and contract partnership, in which two parties' properties are mixed or by ruling, so that each may dispose of the other's share. Contract partnership divides by equality into mufawada (full partnership) and 'inan (limited), and by object into partnerships of capital, of labour and of joint standing. Its general and special conditions differ between the schools; among the general ones, the profit must be a known proportion, and a fixed sum of profit for one partner voids it. The partnership has effects: joint ownership of capital and income, a partner's hand is a trust, profit is due by capital, work or guarantee, and it ends by withdrawal, denial, madness, death, apostasy and similar causes; a partnership that lacks a condition is invalid.

• Shart (a condition in law: its kinds, and its effect on contracts)

  In language shart is the binding of a thing and its obligation, and also a sign, as in the signs of the Hour; in the technical sense it is what the absence of which entails absence, while its presence entails neither presence nor absence in itself. The usulis distinguish a condition that acts as a cause, one that has the force of a cause, a condition that is a name and not a ruling, and a condition that is a plain sign, as ihsan in fornication. A made condition is either conditional (ta'liq) or restricted (taqyid); a conditional one requires that the thing conditioned on be future and uncertain. A valid restricted condition concerns an attribute of the object, what the contract requires, what suits it, what a text permits, or what custom has settled; a defective or void condition either voids the contract or leaves it valid, according to the school.

• Shu'um (ill omen) and tatayyur (taking omens)

  In language shu'um is ill, and tashaum is expecting ill; the Arabs used to take omens from birds that flew by, to left or right, and the law forbade this with the words there is no tatayyur and no hamah. Some Hanbalis hold tashaum disliked but not fal, and others hold omen-taking among the grave sins. The hadith names three things where ill omen lies: the horse, the woman and the house; Aisha denied that the Prophet said it and read it as a custom of the time of ignorance, while Malik, Ibn Qutayba and some hadith scholars read it at face value.

• Shubha (doubt that averts a penalty, and avoiding doubtful matters)

  In language shubha is likeness. In the technical sense it is what is not certainly known to be lawful or unlawful, or what resembles the established without being established. The Hanafis and Shafi'is divide shubha into shubhat al-mahall (in the object, ownership) and shubhat al-fi'l (in the act, a mistaken belief); the Hanafis add shubhat al-'aqd (in the contract's form) and the Shafi'is shubhat al-tariq (a disagreement of jurists). The law urges avoiding doubtful matters, and the jurists grade the avoidance from obligatory to disliked.

• Gratitude (shukr)

  In Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's lessons, gratitude is owed for blessings people overlook: general ones such as air, water, security and health, and private ones such as wealth and a home. He holds that patience and gratitude are the two halves of faith (his statement, needs_source).

• Sinn (the tooth) and retaliation and compensation for it

  In the lexicon sinn is a single tooth, a piece of bone set in the jaw, and the sinn of a thing is any toothed, pointed part of it. The jurists agree that retaliation is due for a deliberately extracted tooth where equal matching is possible, and that the diya of each tooth is five camels. They differ on breaking a tooth, on extracting the tooth of one who has not yet shed his milk teeth, on the timing of retaliation, and on a tooth that grows back after extraction. Most jurists allow a man to fit a gold or silver tooth, and filing the teeth apart for beauty is forbidden.

• Siyasa (governance under the law, in the Mawsu'a)

  In language siyasa is the upkeep of a thing in the way that sets it right. The technical sense has two meanings: a general one, the government of the state and of power, meaning the guidance of people to what saves them and the management of their affairs; and a penal one, where the ruler acts for a benefit he sees without a specific text. The Hanafis, Malikis and Hanbalis hold that the ruler may pursue siyasa in managing people's affairs within the criteria of the law; siyasa is divided into unjust, which the law forbids, and just, which it allows. It rests on the sovereignty of the law, consultation and justice; it covers the imamate and its duties, the appointment and oversight of agents, the treasury, the army, the judiciary and zakat administration; and penal siyasa such as discretionary punishment, exile and killing in certain crimes.

• Shamm (smelling: its rulings in fasting and pilgrimage, hiring for scent, injury to the sense of smell, and proof of drinking wine)

  Shamm is the perception of scents by the nose. It may be obligatory, as when witnesses smell the mouth of a drunkard to find the smell of wine; forbidden or disliked, as the use of perfume by a pilgrim according to some; or permitted, as the smelling of lawful flowers and perfumes, except that smelling a perfume worn by a foreign woman is forbidden. The Hanafis and Malikis hold that a fasting person who lets incense reach his throat breaks his fast, while smelling air carrying the scent of roses does not. The schools differ on hiring something for its smell and on injury to the sense of smell, where retaliation is due if possible and otherwise full blood money in the majority view.

• Stepping over people's necks (takhatti al-riqab)

  Takhatti al-riqab is stepping over people to reach a place further in. Its rulings vary: the imam may do it at the Friday gathering when he has no other way; others may do it only out of need; it is disliked outside prayer where it harms no one and forbidden where it harms. It is forbidden to make someone rise from his place to sit in it, and one who has to leave may step over people.

• Sunna (the way, the practice of the Prophet, and the legal grades of the recommended)

  In language sunna means a way, custom or conduct, praiseworthy or blameworthy, and then came to mean the upright praiseworthy way. For the jurists it names what is requested without binding obligation, set against the obligatory, the compulsory, the forbidden, the disliked and the permitted; the Hanafis distinguish the sunna of guidance (emphasised) from the supplementary sunnas. For the usulis it is what came from the Prophet in speech, act or tacit approval, and by chain of transmission it is divided into mass-transmitted, widely transmitted and single-report.

• Ta'addi (transgression against persons, property, honour and the state, and the transfer of a cause)

  Ta'addi is injustice and overstepping of right. It has two senses: attack on another's right, and the transfer of a ruling to another place. Every kind is forbidden and carries sin and liability, and may bring a penalty or discipline. Usurpation, destruction and theft oblige return or the value; a depositee is liable only for negligence or wrong; a pledge and a loan are disputed; an agent is trusted. Attack on a person requires retaliation or blood-money; attack on honour is forbidden and may be resisted. The transfer of a cause (ta'addi al-'illa) is its extension to branches, and fire spreading beyond one's land is liable.

• Ta'arud (conflict between proofs, and how one is preferred)

  Ta'arud is the mutual resistance of two proofs; if they can be joined they are joined, otherwise one is preferred. It is mostly used for conflicting testimony, and the schools differ on the grounds of preference: the Hanafis do not weigh numbers or extra probity, the Malikis weigh probity, strength of proof, date and cause of ownership, the Shafiis prefer the holder's proof, and the Hanbalis in the known view prefer the claimant's. In rights of God that doubts avert, the stronger proof prevails in averting.

• Tacbir (expressing one's will: speech, deed, writing, gesture, silence)

  Tacbir is expression; the root of expressing will is speech, since consent is hidden in the heart, so the law attaches to the visible word, and the formula is a pillar of contracts. It may be by deed, as in exchange where the majority accept it and the Shafiis largely do not; by writing, which concludes contracts and makes a divorce when legible; by gesture for the dumb by agreement; and by silence for a grown virgin's consent, on the hadith «her consent is her silence». Laughter and weeping count with their signs.

• Ta'dhib (torment or punishment beyond the lawful: the prisoner, the thief, animals)

  Ta'dhib is inflicting punishment or harm. The basis is prohibition, since it punishes without right. It is lawful in discipline, the fixed penalties, retaliation and discipline by the ruler; the Hanafis allow cauterising for treatment when it is needed; and the jurists allow burning enemies in war when they cannot be taken otherwise, but not after capture. A captive may be made to reveal hidden property, and is not tormented at the start; an accused man of known goodness is not punished, one of unknown standing is detained, and one known for wrongdoing may be detained and beaten according to some. Torment of animals by starving them or using a living creature as a target is forbidden; branding and training are lawful to the extent of need.

• Ta'rid (allusion in speech: a veiled proposal in the waiting period, a charge of slander, protection of a Muslim from his pursuer, and a judge's allusion to retraction)

  Ta'rid is allusion, the opposite of plain statement: speech that may carry the intended sense or another. A veiled proposal to a widow in her waiting period is lawful by agreement; to one divorced irrevocably the Malikis, the more known Shafii view and one Hanbali view allow it, while the Hanafis forbid it. Allusion to slander is punished by the hadd for the Malikis if the context shows it, by discipline only for the Hanafis, and for the Shafiis is slander only if meant and the words can bear it. One may allude to kill a seeker who would take a Muslim back to unbelief. The judge may allude to a confessor to retract, in the sounder Shafii view, and it is recommended by the Hanafis and Hanbalis.

• Tadbib (binding a vessel or tool with metal, esp. gold or silver)

  Tadbib is repairing a vessel or the like with a clamp of iron, silver or gold. It differs from inlay, which is by cutting into the surface for decoration, and from gilding, which is a coat of gold or silver water. The Hanafis allow tadbib and the use of a bound vessel with dislike, avoiding the place of the hand and the mouth. The Malikis, in the preferred view, forbid it in all cases. The Shafiis and Hanbalis forbid gold absolutely and large silver clamps that are ornamental without need; a small silver clamp for need is allowed, on the hadith of the Prophet's cup mended with a silver chain. Beyond need, the sounder Shafii view disliked it.

• Tadhakkur (remembering and its legal effect)

  In law, tadhakkur is the recollection that governs the effect of forgetting and inattention on rulings. The Hanbalis and Malikis do not void the prayer of one who ate forgetfully, the Hanafis do, and the Shafi'is distinguish little from much. A fast is broken by eating forgetfully in the Maliki view, but not in the majority view. For a judge or a witness, most jurists rely on remembrance, not on handwriting.

• Tadhfif (finishing off a wounded person)

  Tadhfif is finishing off a wounded person to kill him, and its rule varies with the setting. In war it is allowed on wounded unbelievers. Against wounded rebels the jurists differ: the Hanafis allow it if the rebels have a group to return to, the Malikis by the interest of the fight, the Shafi'is by whether a group is near, and the Hanbalis not after the fight is over. In hunting, most jurists allow an animal whose life is only in its movement to be lawful without finishing it off.

• Tadhkiya (ritual slaughter and taking of game)

  Tadhkiya is the lawful cause that makes the flesh of a land animal that is slaughtered allowed to eat. It covers slaughter, throat-cutting at the base of the neck, wounding an animal beyond reach, and hunting. Most jurists require that the one who slaughters be a Muslim or a People of the Book, and discerning; they require the naming of God at the time, unless it was forgotten. A tooth or nail still attached to the body may not be used; fish and locusts are lawful without it.

• Tadlis (concealment of a defect in a contract)

  Tadlis is hiding a defect in goods from the buyer. Among the hadith scholars it has two kinds, concealing the chain of narration and concealing the name of a teacher. Tadlis is forbidden by text, and gives a right of option in every exchange, by the majority of jurists, provided the deceived party did not know of the defect before the contract. The deceiver is disciplined by discretionary penalty. In marriage the majority hold that a right of annulment arises, unlike the Hanafis.

• Optimism (tafaul)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds that Islam rests on optimism, in contrast with the pessimism of the Arabs before Islam, that the Qur'an and the Sunna push towards optimism against despair, and that the Muslim is optimistic by nature.

• Checking and spying (tahassus and tajassus)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy distinguishes tahassus, checking a matter with one's senses, from tajassus, entering into people's affairs, which he says is forbidden. He narrates Umar's encounter with men drinking wine, a narration that is partly garbled in the recording.

• Takaful and insurance

• Takhannuth (effeminacy in a man)

  Takhannuth is the swaying and softening of a man's speech, walk and dress in the manner of women. Deliberate effeminacy is forbidden, and a narration has the Prophet cursing men who imitate women; it draws a ta'zir penalty. The rulings differ between the naturally effeminate and the one who does it on purpose: a naturally effeminate man who cannot give it up is not blamed and may lead prayer by most jurists, while one who does it deliberately is counted a sinner, and his imamate is disputed.

• Mixing truth with falsehood (talbis al-haqq)

  Sha'rawi holds that talbis means putting one thing into another so that the appearance changes, as a garment is worn over the body. He reads the verse as referring to an attempt by some People of the Book to mix truth with falsehood. In his view this included altering the scriptures and denying the good tidings of the Prophet that they contained. He says this concealment was not hidden from their own learned men.

• Taraddi (an animal that falls and dies, and its lawfulness)

  Taraddi is falling from a height to a lower place; the mutaraddiya is an animal that has fallen into a well or from a mountain. The Qur'an forbids such an animal unless it is slaughtered in the lawful way, and the emergency slaughter is by wounding one that cannot be reached. For game that falls into water or from a height, the schools differ: the Hanafis forbid it if it fell into water, and the Hanbalis forbid it when the water would kill its kind.

• Taradi (mutual consent in a contract)

  Taradi is the agreement of the two parties to make a contract without compulsion, and it is the basis of valid contracts. It fails through compulsion, jest, pretence and deception. The Hanafis and Malikis hold a contract binding on offer and acceptance; the Shafi'is and Hanbalis hold it binding only when the parties part.

• Tarbiya (education and upbringing)

  Al-Bari sets out definitions of education by Plato, Aristotle, Pestalozzi, Herbart and Kant, and argues that they all come back to Plato's: supplying body and mind with all possible perfection. He holds the Prophet's education higher, since its aim is to complete noble character (pp. 18-19). These definitions are as the author attributes them; they were not checked against the philosophers' texts.

• Tarika (the estate of a deceased person)

  The estate is what a deceased person leaves of property and rights; for the Hanafis it is property alone. It passes to the heirs on the owner's death, and the rights attached to it are paid in order: the burial, the debts, the bequest, and then the division among heirs. The schools differ on its passing when debts take the whole estate, on the dying man's gifts and on undoing a division.

• Tark (abstention, and its legal effects)

  Tark is restraining oneself from an act. For most usulis it is an act, so obligation applies to it; Abu Hashim holds it is not an act. Abstaining from what is forbidden is obligatory, and failing a duty is disciplined by discretionary penalty. Once a fixed penalty is established before the judge it cannot be waived, while a right of a person may be waived. The schools differ on liability for abstaining from protecting property or life.

• Tarmim (repair of endowed property, rented property and pledged property)

  Tarmim is repair. It arises for endowed property, rented property and pledged property. For an endowment the Hanafis, Malikis and Shafi'is repair from its income; the Hanbalis follow the founder's stipulation. In a lease the landlord repairs the building according to the Hanafis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis. In a pledge the pledgor pays for keeping the pledge, and the pledgee pays for guarding it.

• Tarshid (release from guardianship after proof of sound judgement)

  Tarshid is lifting restraint from a minor after testing him. Sound judgement means soundness in property for the Hanafis, Malikis and Hanbalis, and soundness in religion and property for the Shafi'is. A minor may be tested in trade, the time of the test is disputed, and the test is obligatory for the Shafi'is and Hanbalis. The rule varies by guardian, sex and case, and no particular words are required except in Maliki usage.

• Tarsim (restriction of a person's movement)

  In the jurists' usage tarsim is narrowing a person's freedom and limiting his movement so that he cannot go from one place to another. Testimony to the confession of one who is imprisoned or under tarsim is not accepted, since coercion is presumed, and his confession of a right that carries a penalty is not valid.

• Tasadduq (mutual attestation of a claim)

  Tasadduq is two parties, or the claimant and the party claimed against, confirming each other's word; it is the opposite of contradicting. It binds when it concerns human rights or rights of God that doubts do not avert; for rights of God that doubts avert, such as the hadd penalties, it counts only with proof. It is valid from a sane, free adult, by word, sign, writing or silence, and the one confirmed must be entitled. Marriage is not proved by mutual confirmation for non-Malikis, since witnesses are required; the waiting period is a right of God and not dropped by confirmation; a wife's confirmation of her husband's claim to poverty stands in place of proof. Retracting a confirmation is not accepted for human rights, but a confession to a hadd may be retracted.

• Tasarruf (a legal disposition: act or statement by one's will)

  A tasarruf is what proceeds from a person by his will and on which the law builds various rulings. It is wider than an obligation or a contract. It is either an act, such as seizure or receiving, or a statement; a statement is either a contract, which needs the will of two parties, such as sale, hire or marriage, or a non-contractual statement: some carry a creating will, such as an endowment or a divorce, and some are pure, such as a claim or an acknowledgement. Worship, exchanges, gifts, restrictions, obligations, waivers, authorities, proofs and wrongs all fall under it; the conditions of its validity are given in the entries for each kind.

• Tasbil (dedicating a thing's benefit to a good cause, an endowment term)

  Tasbil is making a thing a way to a good cause; it is also used for endowment. For the Shafi'is and Hanbalis the word is explicit for an endowment; the Hanafis need an intention; the Malikis hold that making a thing a way of good implies giving its substance in alms unless a sign shows that the endowment of the thing or its use is meant. It is a recommended act of nearness to God by agreement.

• Tashbib (amatory verse about women or boys)

  Tashbib is the opening of a poem with amatory lines about women; the words nasib and ghazal mean the same. It is forbidden to write verse about a named woman who is unlawful to the poet, or about a beardless boy; describing the lascivious features of an unlawful non-mahram woman is forbidden. Verse about one's own wife or slave-girl is lawful unless it describes her private parts or what should stay hidden. Verse about an unnamed woman is lawful unless it is obscene or gives clues to identify her; names such as Layla and Su'ad do not identify anyone, as Ka'b ibn Zuhayr recited his poem before the Prophet.

• Tashbih (comparison in legal speech: zihar, slander, abuse)

  The ruling on tashbih depends on where it is used. Likening one's wife, or a common part of her, to a woman forbidden to him for ever is zihar: forbidden by the text, with intercourse forbidden before expiation by consensus and, for most jurists, any sensual contact short of intercourse. In slander, an explicit accusation of adultery is slander that carries the hadd penalty; an allusive one is slander for Malik, but not for Abu Hanifa and al-Shafii unless the slanderer meant slander. It is not lawful to liken a fellow Muslim to something he dislikes; the abuser is punished with ta'zir, and most jurists punish likening a person to base animals.

• Tashhir (publicly exposing or disgracing someone)

  Tashhir is publicising or spreading something, and its ruling depends on who does it and on the person exposed. The rule is that disgracing one Muslim before others by naming faults is forbidden; it is forbidden when the person is innocent of what is said of him, or when he has the fault but does not flaunt it and his exposure does no harm to others, since that is backbiting. A man may not expose himself. It is lawful to expose one who openly flaunts a sin; it is recommended or required to warn against those whose trustworthiness is impugned, such as narrators, witnesses and innovators whom people follow, with a sincere intention. The ruler may publicise a punishment as ta'zir or with the hadd, for example by carrying out hadd punishments in public and making a false witness known.

• Tashmit (replying to a sneezer)

  Tashmit is praying for a sneezer's good and blessing once he has praised God. All agree that the sneezer praises God and is answered only if he does; the one present should remind a sneezer who forgot. Among the Shafiis it is a sunna; for the Hanafis and one Hanbali view a duty; for the Malikis and the known Hanbali view a communal obligation, with an-Nawawi preferring that each who hears answers, and some saying an individual duty. Within prayer, answering a sneezer breaks it for most jurists, as it is human speech, while praising God silently does not; it is disliked in the lavatory and, for the Hanafis and Malikis, during the sermon; a sneezer is not answered beyond three sneezes unless he has a cold.

• Tasir (fixing prices in the market by authority)

  Tasir is the ruler's or his deputy's fixing of a price for people, and compelling them to trade at it. The four schools take its basic rule to be prohibition; it is allowed on conditions: when sellers overcharge grossly, when people need the goods, when goods are hoarded, or when traders collude. The schools differ on what it covers, on the importer and the hoarder, and a sale against a fixed price is valid for most with discipline.

• Tasmiya (naming: giving a name to a child, and the rules on names)

  Tasmiya in the language comes from height or from a mark. The jurists use it in four senses: saying «in the name of God», giving a proper name to a child or to anything else, fixing the consideration in contracts, and identifying by name as against leaving a thing vague. The father has the better right to name a child, and if the parents differ the father's choice is preferred. The schools differ on the time: the Malikis hold that a child is named on the seventh day after the aqiqa sacrifice, and a child whose guardian cannot afford the aqiqa may be named at any time; the Shafi'is recommend the seventh day; the Hanbalis report two views. For a stillborn child, Abu Hanifa's view is that he is not named, the Malikis agree, the Shafi'is say his naming is not to be omitted, and the Hanbalis say he may be given a name fit for either sex. A child who dies after birth and before he is named is named. Names built on the divine names are recommended, and the most beloved to God are Abdullah and Abd al-Rahman. Naming after prophets is allowed according to most jurists. Names that people think ill-omened, such as Rabah, Yasar, Najah and Aflah, are disliked, and names that people shrink from, such as Harb and Murra, are disliked too. The names of God that belong to Him alone are forbidden, and so is every name built on a servitude to anything other than God, such as Abd al-Uzza or Abd al-Ka'ba. Changing a name is allowed and changing an ugly name to a good one is recommended. Naming tools, mounts and garments, and naming stars after Arabic words, is permitted; renaming a forbidden drink to escape its ruling does not lift the prohibition.

• Tasriya (leaving a beast's udder unmilked to deceive a buyer)

  Tasriya is when a seller deliberately leaves a she-camel or other beast unmilked before sale so the buyer thinks it gives much milk. It is forbidden by consensus when intended to deceive, as deceit and harm. It is a defect that gives the buyer an option according to Malik, al-Shafii, Ahmad and Abu Yusuf, and not according to Abu Hanifa. The compensation for the milk is a sa of dates according to Ahmad and the sounder Shafii view, a sa of the staple food of the town according to Malik, and the value of the milk according to Abu Yusuf. The buyer must not have known before buying, the seller must have intended it, and the beast must be returned after milking.

• Tasweed (making black or making a sayyid: honouring with the title sayyid, and dyeing or dressing in black)

  Tasweed has two senses that the jurists treat: the first is honouring someone with the title sayyid, and the second is dyeing with black, the opposite of white. Under sovereignty they discuss the title for the Prophet in prayer and outside it, for others, for the hypocrite, and whether sayyid may be said of anyone but God. Under black they discuss dyeing with it, wearing it in mourning, condolence and dress, and blackening the face in discretionary punishment. Most schools dislike dyeing with black except in jihad and differ on the detail; the Shafi'is hold it forbidden.

• Taswiya (equality and levelling: rows, bowing, zakat shares, wives, judges, gifts, shuf'a, public places, graves)

  Taswiya means justice and fairness in the language; its opposite is injustice. In the jurists' use it means equality in many matters: levelling the rows and the back in bowing in prayer, equal shares among the eight categories in zakat, equal turns among wives, equal treatment of two litigants before the judge, equal gifts among children, equal shares among those entitled to pre-emption, equal use of public places, and levelling the grave. Equal turns among wives and equal treatment of litigants are required by agreement; the other matters range between obligation and recommendation according to the school. On equal gifts to children, the Hanbalis hold it obligatory and the majority hold it recommended.

• Tatawwu (voluntary acts beyond the obligatory, in worship and in giving)

  Tatawwu is giving freely; for the jurists it is what goes beyond the obligatory and the required, and the sunna, the recommended, the nafl and the desirable are used as the same word by most of them. It has counterparts among acts of worship, such as prayer, fasting, zakat, pilgrimage and holy war, and it covers giving, lending, endowment, bequest and lending of goods. It is recommended as a rule, and may become obligatory, such as giving food to one in dire need, or forbidden or disliked at times of prohibition. Its doer must be a Muslim, sane and discerning in worship, and sane, adult and of sound judgement in giving. The Malikis and Shafiis hold prayer the best of bodily worship, the Hanbalis holy war.

• Tatfful (entering another's meal uninvited)

  Tatfful is entering another person's place to eat his food without his leave or knowledge of his consent, or with consent presumed by a sound sign. It is forbidden for the Malikis, Shafiis and Hanbalis, and makes a person a sinner if repeated, on the hadith «whoever is invited and does not come has disobeyed God and His messenger, and whoever enters uninvited enters as a thief and leaves as a plunderer». The testimony of a habitual uninvited guest is rejected, because it is base and lacking in manliness.

• Tatfif (short measure or weight in trade)

  Tatfif is the short-changing in measure and weight, a loss by which the seller betrays, and it is the opposite of full measure. It is forbidden, a form of treachery and of eating wealth falsely, and God pronounced woe upon the short-changers and ordered full measure. Ibn Hajar reports that the scholars count it among the major sins. The market inspector must prevent it, punish and expose those who are caught, and disputes that lead to denial are for the judges.

• Humility (tawadu')

  In Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's lessons, humility is the first principle of taqwa: a believer does not look down on anyone, sees himself as lesser before an older person who has served God longer, and knows his own faults before others'.

• Tazayyun (adornment, and its rules)

  Tazayyun is taking adornment. The rule is recommendation. It is forbidden for a man or woman to imitate the other, for a man to wear gold or silk, and to decorate mosques with endowed funds, and it is obligatory for a wife to adorn herself for her husband when he asks. The widow in her waiting period may not adorn herself, and bodily alterations that change God's creation, such as tattooing and plucking, are forbidden.

• Ta'zir (discretionary punishment)

  Ta'zir is, in language, repelling, preventing, aiding, honouring or disciplining; in law it is a penalty not fixed by the lawgiver, due as a right of God or of a person for every wrong that has no hadd and generally no expiation. It differs from the hadd, retaliation and expiation in that the judge chooses its measure to suit the case; a hadd is averted by doubt while ta'zir is established even by doubt; a child is not liable to a hadd but may be disciplined; and some jurists hold a hadd lapses with time while ta'zir does not. It may combine with a hadd, retaliation or an expiation in known cases, and it is divided into a right of God and a right of a person, according to which interest predominates. Most jurists leave its measure to the ruler's judgement. Harm that may destroy a limb or life is forbidden, so the face, the private parts, the belly and the chest may not be struck, and the beard may not be shaved.

• Tazkiya (attestation of witnesses' uprightness)

  Tazkiya in judging is attesting that witnesses are just. It is done secretly and openly. The schools differ on whether it is required: the Hanafis judge by apparent uprightness unless the opponent impugns it, and exempt the fixed penalties and retaliation; others require it in every matter, with disputes over the number and the qualities of the attestors. Impugning and attesting, their conflict and the statement of cause, and the uprightness of a narrator of hadith are treated under this entry.

• Tazwij (contracting a marriage, and who may contract it)

  Tazwij is a contract that gives a man enjoyment of a woman and makes lawful her enjoyment by him in a lawful way. Its ruling varies with the person: obligatory, forbidden, disliked, recommended or permitted. A free, adult, sound-minded man may contract his own marriage; a minor or a madman is contracted by his guardian by compulsion. On a woman contracting her own marriage the jurists differ: most require a guardian, while the Hanafis let an adult sane woman contract for herself.

• Tazwir (forgery and falsification, including false testimony)

  Tazwir is making a thing look other than it is, decorating it so that the hearer takes falsehood for truth. It is forbidden in testimony, in acts, in coin, weights and measures, and in documents. Exceptions are lying in war, soothing one's wife, and reconciling people. In false testimony the schools differ on whether a ruling takes effect outwardly and inwardly, and on whether retaliation or blood-money is owed by the false witnesses.

• Shahada (testimony in law: its meaning, its basis, the duty to give it, and the conditions of the witness)

  In legal usage, testimony is a statement by one person of another's right against a third party, in the session of the judge, made with the word 'I testify'. It is a legal proof that obliges the judge to rule accordingly. Giving and bearing testimony is a communal duty, becoming individual where the right is at risk; its basis is the Qur'an, the sunna and consensus. Its conditions are of bearing and of giving. The witness must be sane, of age, free, Muslim, sighted, able to speak, upright and attentive, with the schools differing on some of these; a non-Muslim is not accepted except for a bequest on a journey according to one view, and a child only in wounds and killing according to some.

• Theories of interest and their critique

• Time as an economic resource

• Long hope (tul al-amal)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy says that wasting time comes from long hope, because a person assumes that tomorrow will come. He holds that following desire turns one from the truth, and that long hope makes one forget the Hereafter.

• Dust of ores (turab al-maadin)

  Dust of ores is what falls from the ore itself without mixing with another substance. Its rulings concern water changed by it, tayammum, zakat and selling one part for another. The schools differ on tayammum with ores: the Hanafis allow it with what neither melts nor softens; the Shafi'is and Hanbalis allow only clean earth or sand with dust; the Malikis allow it while the ore is not moved from its place. Zakat is due on gold and silver by agreement.

• Goldsmiths' dust (turab al-sagha)

  Goldsmiths' dust is the ash found in the workshops of goldsmiths, with no knowing what gold or silver is in it. The schools differ on selling it: the Hanafis forbid selling silver dust for silver, the Shafi'is forbid it before it is refined, the Malikis forbid it for its gross uncertainty, and the Hanbalis forbid selling it for its own kind.

• Warranty (uhda) in sale and in pre-emption, and the defect

  In sale, 'uhda is the seller's guarantee of the price or of the title when the object is claimed by a third party. In pre-emption it is the return of ownership to the pre-emptor or buyer; in the option for a defect it is the guarantee when a defect appears. In pre-emption the Shafi'is and Malikis place the warranty on the seller if the pre-emptor took the property from him; the Hanafis place it on the buyer when the property was sold by someone other than the seller. For defects, the year and the three-day warranties differ: a defect arising in the buyer's hands and one present at the seller's both give a right of return.

• Self-admiration (ujb)

  Self-admiration is taking pride in one's own deed, knowledge or opinion. Al-Sallabi quotes Ali: self-admiration is a plague of minds, and cites Ibn Taymiyya that it is the associating of the self, where show is the associating of creatures.

• Punishment (uquba): fixed, retaliatory and discretionary

  In the lexicon, uquba is a penalty, a noun from 'iqab; as a term it is the penalty fixed for a wrong, or what falls on a person as a deserved consequence of an offence. Penalties are classed by kind, as retaliation, fixed punishment (hadd) and discretionary punishment (ta'zir); by whether the right belongs to God, to people, or to both; and by whether they are complete, incomplete or carry an element of worship. Other penalties include the ghurra for a foetus and the arsh for an injury, and the killer's loss of inheritance and bequest, on the prophetic instruction that the killer has no share in the inheritance. The fixed punishments are determined by the law: illicit intercourse, false accusation, drinking, theft and brigandage, and by disagreement, apostasy and rebellion. Discretionary punishment is not fixed by the law and serves to deter and reform; flogging, imprisonment and reproof are allowed, while maiming, slapping the face, burning and shaving the beard are not. Some jurists allow penalties of different kinds to be combined for one offence, and penalties of the same kind and cause overlap.

• The eight principles of education in the Qur'an and Sunna

  Al-Bari draws eight principles of education from the Qur'an and the Sunna: freedom of the servant from intermediaries before God, general equality, the call to knowledge, that creed does not oppose reason, that religion was legislated for human good, freedom of inquiry, shura and counsel, and that deeds are the basis of happiness. His aim is a person who knows his Lord, acts on his knowledge and benefits his community (pp. 8-9). This is the author's own framing.

• Withdrawal from people (uzla)

  In the lexicon, uzla is a noun from i'tizal, avoiding a thing with the body or the heart; as a technical term it is withdrawal from mixing with people by seclusion and cutting off. It differs from khalwa, being alone with oneself. Scholars agree that withdrawal is better in times of trial and corruption, unless one can remove the trial, in which case one must strive to remove it. Outside such times they differ: most jurists and hadith scholars prefer mixing with people while being safe from their harm, while some prefer withdrawal for its safety, and the ruling varies with the person. Withdrawal has benefits, such as devotion and avoiding the sins that company often brings, and a loss, namely the benefits that come from help of others. Writers on spirituality give etiquette for the one who withdraws, including wishing others safety from one's own evil rather than one's safety from theirs, and leaving blameworthy traits.

• Values of the Islamic economy

• Wa'd (promise, fiqh)

  Wa'd, lexically, is used for good and for evil; 'idda is the promise. Technically it is the statement that a good thing will reach someone in the future. Related words: 'ahd, a promise tied to a condition, which calls for fulfilment, while wa'd calls for carrying it out; wa'y, a promise firmly bound by the one who promises, which Abu Hilal al-Askari says is not limited to a time, while the promise may be. Fulfilling a promise: a promise of a forbidden thing must not be fulfilled and must be broken; a promise of an obligatory thing must be fulfilled; a promise of a permitted or recommended thing ought to be fulfilled, since fulfilment is part of good conduct, and the book cites the praise of Isma'il in sura Maryam for keeping his promise. On the fulfilment of a promise of a permitted act, there are seven views. The first: fulfilment is obligatory, held by Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, Ibn Shubruma, a Hanbali view chosen by Ibn Taymiyya and a Maliki view, citing sura al-Saff (cited by sura only) and the hadith that the sign of the hypocrite is three, including breaking a promise. The second: obligatory unless there is an excuse, the view of Ibn al-'Arabi, who relies on the report of Zayd ibn Arqam that one who promises meaning to keep it and does not is not sinful; al-Tirmidhi weakens that report because two of its transmitters are unknown. The third: obligatory before God but not in court, the view of Taqi al-Din al-Subki. The fourth: recommended; omitting it loses the merit and is a strongly disliked act, but not a sin. This is the view of most Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis; al-Nawawi calls fulfilment strongly recommended and breaking it strongly disliked. Ibn Muflih says it is not obligatory, since a promise is like a gift before possession; al-Jassas says it is better to fulfil it when possible. The fifth: a bare promise is not obligatory, but a conditional one is binding; this is the Hanafi view, and the Majalla of Ottoman law, article 84, states that promises in the form of conditions are binding. The book gives the example: a man who says pay my debt from your money, and is not held if he does not; a man who says sell this to so-and-so and if he does not pay I will, is held to pay, since the condition gives the promise force. Those who deny the duty read the blame in sura al-Saff as directed at one who promises while intending to break it, and read the hadith on the hypocrite as directed at one who intends to break the promise at the time of promising, not one who is prevented by something later; al-Ghazali says this. The sixth view: a promise tied to a cause that the promisee has entered must be kept, as a contract must be; if the promisee has not begun the cause, the promiser owes nothing. An example: a man promises to lend the price of a house which the promisee then buys, or to lend a dower on which the promisee marries relying on the promise. This is the well-known and preferred Maliki view, which al-Qarafi attributes to Malik, Ibn al-Qasim and Sahnun. The seventh view: a promise tied to a cause must be kept by judgement, whether or not the promisee has entered the cause; a promise not tied to a cause need not be kept. Asbagh, as al-Baji reports, distinguishes: if the promise is explicit, as when one says 'I will lend you my mount to a place' and the other says 'I will lend it tomorrow', he judges it binding; if it is vague, as when one asks for a loan of a hundred without giving a need, he does not. The ordinary Maliki view runs against this. Promising with a reservation: most jurists hold it is best to add 'if God wills', following the verse of sura al-Kahf, since the promiser does not know whether he will fulfil it. Al-Ghazali holds the reservation better; al-Jassas holds that a promise without it is disliked; the Hanbalis hold a promise without it forbidden. Mutual promising (mu'ada): a promise made by both sides, where a promise made by one alone is an 'idda. The Malikis, on the principle of blocking means, forbid promises about what cannot be done at the moment: for example, promising marriage during the waiting period, promising to sell food before receiving it, promising a sale at the time of the Friday call, or selling what one does not possess. On promising currency exchange, the Malikis have three views: permitted, forbidden (the better-known view), and disliked. Al-Wansharisi explains the difference: the prohibition applies where the contract itself is forbidden, while the exchange contract is not forbidden in itself. Al-Shafi'i says two men may promise to exchange silver and later trade it.

• God's promise (wa'd Allah)

  God's promise as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents it in the tenth lesson of 'Al Fawzu Al Moubeen': God is truer than any promise and His promise to the believers of Paradise is true; the example of the father and the son; what the past tense in the verse signifies; what reassures the believer about the promise; and a comparison between God's promise and people's keeping of their own word.

• Wada' (farewell: taking leave of the traveller, and the rites of departure)

  Wada' is the verbal noun of taking leave; the one who departs is the one who is taken leave of, since he is the one parting. A traveller is advised to take leave of his family, brethren and friends and ask their prayers, and the one who sees him off says: 'I entrust you to God, who does not lose what is entrusted to Him'; Ibn Umar reported the words 'may God keep your faith, your trust and the last of your deeds'. It is recommended to pray two rak'as before leaving, and to pray for those who go out to fight in God's way. The Hanafis forbid a man kissing the mouth of another man; a Shafi'i view recommends kissing a returning traveller of the same sex. The pilgrim takes leave of the House by the farewell circuit (tawaf al-wada').

• Wadi'a (deposit)

  The deposit (wadi'a) is property placed with another to keep; the Hanbalis add: without return. Making someone a depositary is granting another custody of one's property; the Hanbalis add: as a gift. It is close to the loan of use, since the hand in both is a trust for some jurists, and to found property, since the finder's hand during the year is a trust; it differs from usurpation, which is seizing property by force and wrong. Its lawfulness rests on the sunna and on general consensus, and a report orders the return of trusts to their owner. On the ruling for some cases the text gives two opinions, prohibition and disapproval, and the printed preference is disapproval. On its nature there are two views: most jurists (Malikis, Hanbalis and, in the preferred view, Shafi'is) call it a restricted agency, since the depositary keeps but does not dispose; the Hanafis describe it as an express or implied grant to another of custody over one's property; some Shafi'is call it a mere permission, which makes the holder a trustee rather than a depositary. If the depositor withdraws, on the permission view the withdrawal is void and the deposit stands; on the contract view the deposit ends and the property stays in hand as a trust that must be returned once possible. Its three features: it is a contract either party may end at will, it is a trust contract rather than a guarantee, and it is gratuitous in origin. The pillars are the formula, the two parties and the object according to most jurists; the Hanafis count an offer and an acceptance, which may be express, by allusion, or by act. The depositary may not charge for keeping unless agreed, customary, or a professional; the Hanbalis forbid stipulating a fee for the deposit itself. Capacity for the depositor is discernment according to the Hanafis and full adulthood, sanity and good judgement according to most jurists; a deposit made by a child or an insane person is not valid, and the depositary who takes it bears liability. On a discerning child there are four views. Most Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis hold that a child cannot be a depositary at all, so a loss in his hands brings no liability; the Hanafis allow a child licensed to trade; Ibn Rushd allows a discerning child to act as an agent; Ibn Arafa allows it when the holder expects him to keep it. The object must be property for the Hanafis and Malikis, which excludes carrion and blood; for the Shafi'is and Hanbalis it must be property or specially owned, which excludes forbidden wine and instruments of play. Most jurists allow deeds and documents to be deposited, and most allow immovable property, against Ibn Arafa, who requires movables. The deposit is a trust in the depositary's hand, so there is no liability without transgression or negligence, a view held by most jurists and reported as consensus by Ibn al-Mundhir. For the Hanafis a paid depositary is liable for avoidable loss, while Malikis and Shafi'is make no such distinction. A stipulation that the depositary bears liability is void according to most jurists, and a stipulation that excludes liability for transgression is void for the Hanafis and Shafi'is. The depositary's word on loss is accepted with his oath according to most jurists; the Shafi'is and Hanbalis require proof of an apparent cause such as fire or flood, while for the Malikis, in the preferred view, only an accused depositary swears. His word on return is accepted with his oath according to most jurists; for the Malikis he needs witnesses if he took the deposit as a security. The increase of a deposit belongs to its owner, by consensus. Upkeep falls on the owner. When milk or fruit is at risk of spoiling, the Hanafis allow sale with the judge's permission, and a sale without one is valid where no judge can be reached. When the owner is absent, the Hanafis and Shafi'is refer the matter to the judge, and the Hanbalis let the judge spend from the owner's property or sell, rent or borrow for him. On spending without the judge's leave there are three views: the Hanafis and Shafi'is give no right of recovery, the Malikis allow recovery of proven costs, and the Hanbalis allow it under conditions. The depositary must keep the deposit as he keeps his own property; where the owner has named a place he must keep it there, a lesser place makes him liable, and an equal or better place does not. Where no place is named, he keeps it in a place customarily safe for such goods, and the standard varies with time and place. The depositary may keep the deposit himself or with dependants whom he trusts with his own property; placing it with others is a transgression for most jurists. When the owner has been absent for long, there are four views on how long to keep it: the Hanafis keep it until the owner's death or life is known; the Malikis wait as long as such a person could live and then pass it to heirs or give it in charity; the Shafi'is keep it or hand it to the judge and, once hope is lost, to the public treasury; the Hanbalis allow charity with intent to guarantee repayment. The deposit must be returned at once on demand; delay without excuse makes the depositary liable if it is lost. Recognised excuses include night, prayer, and a fear for one's safety, which the Hanafis extend to moral threats. Return is made by letting the owner take the deposit where it lies, without carrying it to his house. If the depositary dies and the deposit is found in his estate, it is a trust in his heirs' hands, which they must return to the owner. Destroying a deposit without the owner's leave is forbidden and makes the depositary liable by consensus; if the owner ordered its destruction there are two views. Replacing a destroyed deposit does not remove liability for the Hanafis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis; the Malikis excuse fungible goods that are replaced in kind. Giving a deposit to a third party without leave or excuse is a transgression that makes the depositary liable, although some allow it for a trusted person when there is a real need. Mixing a deposit with other goods so that it can still be separated brings no liability; where separation is impossible or hard, the Hanafis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis hold the mixer liable, and the Malikis hold him liable when the goods differ in kind. Travel with the deposit is allowed with the owner's leave; without it the jurists differ on liability according to safety, need and ability to return. Trading with the deposit without leave is a transgression that makes the depositary liable, and there are five views on the profit: to the owner, to the public treasury, to be given in charity, to the depositary, or to be shared between them. Use with leave is lawful; use without leave is a transgression that brings liability and, for the Malikis and Shafi'is, payment of the customary hire. Lending, renting, pledging or selling the deposit without leave is a transgression that brings liability; for the Hanafis a sale without leave stands only if the owner approves. Denial of a deposit after the owner's demand makes the depositary a usurper and liable, and the Hanafis set seven conditions for this. Waste, neglect of an animal entrusted to him, forgetting the deposit, and failure to name it in a will when death is near can all bring liability, though the jurists differ on the detail. The contract ends by death or insanity of either party, by withdrawal or removal of the depositary, by transfer of the property, or by denial; the property then stays with the holder as a trust that must be returned. Disputes over the deposit cover whether a depositary may sue a usurper to recover it, and how several depositaries share custody and loss. Where the depositor and the depositary disagree on the terms of the deposit, on what was received, or on who owns a deposit claimed by two people, the jurists give rules on proof, oath and division.

• Wafa' (fulfilment, fiqh)

  Wafa', lexically, is the opposite of betrayal: completion, discharge, and bringing a thing to full measure; 'awfa al-kayl' is to complete the measure. Technically it is keeping to the way of mutual help, keeping covenants and maintaining the forms of affection in private and in public. The scholars explain the verse of sura al-Ma'ida on fulfilling contracts as keeping what the contract requires and acting on its consequences. The jurists use the word for handing over the thing contracted, for judgement and for payment. Related words: istifa' (taking one's right in full), isqat (releasing a right without a holder or a claimant), and ibra' (releasing a debt owed to oneself). All lead to the discharge of the obligation; the difference is that wafa' is done by the one who owes and istifa' by the one who is owed. The ruling varies by the act. First, what must be fulfilled: contracts, once complete with their conditions, such as delivering the goods and paying the price or wage; lawful conditions, on the saying that Muslims are bound by their conditions, while a condition contrary to the book of God is void; and vows of obedience. Second, what is recommended: good deeds such as bequests and gifts, which are donations that cannot be compelled; a bare promise, not tied to a need or a cause, is recommended to keep, but becomes obligatory when a need requires it, as Ibn 'Abidin reports from Jami' al-Fusulayn; the well-known Maliki view is that a promise is binding and may be enforced once the promisee has entered upon something because of it. Third, what is permitted: a vow to do a permitted act, such as eating, drinking or sleeping, whose validity the jurists debate. Fourth, what is forbidden: a vow of disobedience, forbidden by agreement, on the saying of 'A'isha that whoever vows to disobey God must not disobey Him; an oath to do a forbidden act or omit a duty is to be broken with expiation, not kept; and unlawful conditions. Who may fulfil: the one who is accountable, that is adult and sane, since the duty arises from acts he undertakes by his choice, whether they need two wills, as sale does, or one, as an oath or vow. How fulfilment is achieved: in contracts by handing over the thing; by returning the thing when the term ends, the contract is dissolved or the thing is shown to be another's; and by doing the work required, as a hired worker does. Ways of fulfilment: it is achieved by handing over the thing contracted, such as the goods and the price in a sale; by returning the thing when the contract ends or is dissolved; by the worker doing the work required; and by a transfer of debt (hawala) when its conditions are met. Paying another's debt: this is valid with or without the debtor's permission by agreement; the Malikis add that it must be done kindly to the debtor, and forbidden if the creditor means to harm him. Paying or guaranteeing a dead man's debt: valid where the dead man left something to pay from; where he was insolvent, the majority of jurists hold that guaranteeing and paying it is valid, citing the report of Abu Qatada, who guaranteed the debt of a dead man who left no means; Abu Hanifa does not allow the guarantee of an insolvent dead man's debt, but a gift of payment is valid. The causes of non-payment: (a) procrastination, which is injustice by a wealthy debtor, on the saying 'the procrastination of the rich is injustice', and such a debtor deserves punishment, on the saying that his reputation and punishment are lawful for the one who can pay; the jurists agree that means should be used to make a solvent debtor pay, and differ on some of them. (b) Insolvency: if proved by evidence the debtor is released and not imprisoned, on the verse of sura al-Baqara (cited by sura only). (c) Bankruptcy, when debts exceed assets: the majority hold that the judge must declare him bankrupt when the creditors ask, and may sell his property by compulsion. Priority in fulfilment: (a) God's rights, such as zakat and its eight categories, whose order the jurists dispute. (b) rights attached to an estate: the burial and shroud first, then debts, whether owed to God or to men, then bequests, and the rest to the heirs. (c) charity and bequests: the best charity is what exceeds one's need and that of one's dependants, on the saying 'the best charity is from surplus wealth, and begin with those you support'; and the best charity is to kin, as al-Sarakhsi notes for keeping ties of kinship. Charity to kin is better than to strangers, since it is both charity and the keeping of ties, on the saying 'the best charity is to a near kinsman who is hostile'. The Shafi'is hold the better course is to give to the nearest first, and that the most hostile are better to win over. On bequests, the Shafi'is and Hanbalis prefer the nearest non-heir, then a foster relation, then in-laws, then a client, then a neighbour, the Hanbalis taking neighbours nearest first. The Hanafis hold that a bequest to one's relatives is understood to go to two or more of each kin whose marriage is forbidden, excluding parents and children, nearest first; Abu Yusuf and Muhammad divide it in thirds. The Malikis favour the needier and more distant relative, by a larger share but not the whole, unless the testator says otherwise.

• Wajh (the face: washing in ablution, tayammum, covering and looking, and the face in supplication)

  Wajh in the lexical sense comes from confronting; it is the front of anything, and in a person it runs from the hairline down to the chin and across between the earlobes. Washing the face is required in ablution, and wiping it is a pillar of tayammum by agreement. Most jurists hold that a free adult woman's face is not an intimate part, while some Hanbalis hold it is; looking at a woman's face with desire, or where temptation is feared, is forbidden. Jurists rebuke a young woman who uncovers her face before unrelated men out of fear of temptation; some Shafi'is and Hanbalis hold that the men must lower their gaze and the woman is not obliged to cover her face in the street. Striking or branding the face is forbidden, in man or beast, by the Prophet's prohibition. The Hanafis and Malikis forbid a pilgrim in ihram from covering his face, while the Shafi'is and Hanbalis allow it. The Hanafis and, in the accepted view, the Shafi'is allow wiping the face with the hands after supplication, and the Shafi'is recommend it.

• Wajib (the obligatory: kinds, grades and how it is discharged)

  The obligatory (wajib) in the technical sense is, for the Hanafis, what is required by evidence that admits doubt, and for the majority what the law blames one for omitting in some respect. The Hanafis hold the fard to be what is established by certain evidence and the wajib by probable evidence, such as the alms of the breaking of the fast and the sacrifice; for the majority the two terms are synonymous in the law. The grades of obligation differ, for the Shafi'is by the blame attached to omission, and for the Hanafis by the strength of the evidence. An obligation is individual or collective, specific or optional, timed or untimed; a timed one is narrow or broad, and is immediate or may be delayed. If an obligation is missed through delay it must be made up, or repaired by expiation; the insane, the menstruating and the child are excused the making up for reasons of mercy. On exceeding an obligation, the schools differ: the Hanafis rule on what the law specifies, the Malikis dislike the excess, and the Shafi'is and Hanbalis distinguish an excess that can be separated from one that cannot. For the Shafi'is an obligation may arise and then fall away when the cause and the bar conflict.

• Wasl al-sha'r (hair extensions: the ruling on joining hair)

  A wasila is a woman who joins her hair to another's, and a mustawsila is one for whom this is done at her request. The majority hold joining human hair forbidden, whether a woman's or a man's, on the reports of Asma bint Abi Bakr, Ibn Umar and Mu'awiya, since human hair is held in honour. A Hanafi view and a Hanbali view dislike it, and one Hanbali view permits it with the husband's leave. On joining animal hair the jurists differ: the Hanafis and one Hanbali view allow it, the Malikis and the Hanbali school forbid it, and the Shafi'is distinguish clean from unclean hair and a married woman from an unmarried one. On joining with material other than hair, such as cloth, the Hanafis and Hanbalis allow it, the Malikis forbid it, and the permission is attributed to Ibn Abbas, Umm Salama and Aisha. The Malikis hold the prohibition is not limited to women, since it alters God's creation.

• Waswasa (whispering doubts and scrupulosity)

  Waswasa and wiswas in the lexicon mean a faint sound. In jurists' usage it has four senses: the passing thought and the hesitation within it; what Satan casts into a person's mind; the scruple that comes from excessive caution and scrupulousness, so that a person repeats an act many times; and the waswas, a man whose mind is disordered. A passing thought is forgiven to this community as long as no word or deed follows, so that a thought of theft or of divorce brings no sin and no divorce or vow takes effect, on the report that God overlooks for my community what its souls whisper. Repelling passing thoughts in prayer is lawful, and attentiveness is a virtue; Hanbali jurists differ on whether a prayer is void when whispering dominates it: Ibn Taymiyya says no, while Ibn Hamid and Ibn al-Jawzi say yes. Satanic whispering is repelled by remembrance of God, and al-Ghazali divides it into three kinds according to its source. Believers too suffer whispers of unbelief; Ibn Taymiyya holds that such a whisper that the believer hates and repels is a sign of pure faith, while one who answers it may fall into unbelief or hypocrisy. The scruple that comes from excess in caution is an exit from scrupulousness into rigidity; the jurists note that a matter not contested by two sound indicators is either clearly lawful or clearly forbidden, and that a bare imagined possibility carries no weight. Examples given include refusing marriage in a large city for fear of an unmentioned close relative, and the cases in the sunna of the woman who claimed to have suckled the groom and of the instruction to Sawda to veil from her half-brother. Al-Juwayni and Ibn al-Jawzi describe the practices of such people, including wasting water and washing clean clothes again and again, and note that the law is easy. The cause is a mistaken reading of the principle of caution and of avoiding doubtful things; the remedy is to follow the path of the early generations and avoid rigidity, as the Prophet warned against excess in religion and in ablution. Rules for the scrupulous person: a visible impurity is removed by peeling it off and the washes are counted as three for him; urinating where one bathes is disliked; sprinkling the private parts after cleansing is recommended by the Shafi'is and Hanbalis to cut off doubt, and the Hanafis allow that the one who is often troubled should sprinkle and then disregard any doubt. If doubt about the intention in ablution is mere imagination, the person continues without repeating; the Malikis hold that a scrupulous person's doubt counts as nothing; and a follower keeps pace with the imam and lags only for a real physical reason. A waswas who is out of his mind cannot divorce and his words cannot be apostasy; Ibn al-Qayyim reports this as agreed.

• Wathiqa (documentary security for a right: witness, writing, pledge and surety)

  Wathiqa in the lexical sense is the making firm of a matter; technically it is what is taken to secure a right against loss through denial, forgetting, insolvency or other hazards. Its basis is the Qur'anic verses on debt and the Prophet's saying 'the guarantor is liable'. There are three kinds: witness against denial, pledge and surety against insolvency, and writing against forgetting. Most jurists hold the command to write a recommendation, not an obligation, since Muslims sell on deferred prices without writing or witness, while some, including al-Tabari, hold it obligatory. The purpose of writing and witness is that a debt whose payment is deferred suffers forgetting and denial. A pledge is property held as security for a debt, to be paid from its price if the debtor cannot pay; a surety joins the guarantor's liability to that of the debtor, so the right holds against both.

• Wujub (obligation as a state of the duty-bearer, and the difference from performance)

  Wujub in the lexical sense is affirmation and binding, a falling to the ground, and death; for the jurists it is the occupation of the duty-bearer's obligation by the duty, and for the usuli scholars it is the link of the command to the acts of the responsible person. Command (iljab) is the demand of an act with a prohibition of leaving it, and the obligatory is the act of the person himself; when a ruling is attributed to the lawgiver it is called iljab, and when attributed to the person it is called wujub. The Shafi'i Zarkashi holds no difference between wujub and wujub al-ada (obligation to perform), while most Hanafis distinguish them: wujub is the debt laid on the person, and wujub al-ada is the demand to discharge it.

Person

• Al-Walid ibn al-Walid ibn al-Mughira

  Al-Walid ibn al-Walid ibn al-Mughira was the brother of Khalid ibn al-Walid; Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy mentions him in his lesson and says that his brother's fame has overshadowed him. The Sheikh calls him a student of the Messenger of God.

• Bal'am ibn Ba'ura

  Bal'am was one of the scholars of Bani Israel, as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy mentions him. The Sheikh says that he travelled a long road in knowledge and guidance, so that when he deviated his deviation was equally long.

• Pharaoh (Firawn)

  Pharaoh as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy mentions him in the series 'Al Fawzu Al Moubeen': his dream, which his counsellors read as the loss of his kingdom to a boy from the Children of Israel; his arrogance in what he said; a comparison between the sending of Musa to him and the sending of the prophets to their peoples; and what the Sheikh says of his words to Musa about his upbringing.

• Qarun

  Qarun as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy mentions him in the series 'Al Naba Al Safi': a man who credited his wealth to his own knowledge and forgot God's favour, who oppressed his people and was unfit to lead them, and an example the Sheikh brings up when speaking of responsibility and of repeating proud words.

• Zayd al-Khayr

  Zayd al-Khayr is a figure related by Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy in his lesson: the Prophet asked him what he felt and he said that he loves good and the people of good. The Sheikh sees in this a sign that God wills good for the servant in the hereafter.

Practice

• Manners of the gathering (adab al-majlis)

  Manners of the gathering as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents them: keeping what is said in a gathering as a trust, good listening and speech, avoiding backbiting, and the manners of visiting and of staying, with sayings, some of them unattributed.

• Honouring the guest (ikram al-dayf)

  Honouring the guest among the Arabs as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents it: welcome without questioning, generosity without pretence, and the host sharing his food with the guest, with stories and sayings, some of them unattributed.

What is missing? Tell us · A theme is open when it has a reviewed guide, 10 questions, 25 entries across 5 classes, and voices from several traditions and regions.

Controversial topics

• Sexuality and gender diversity
• Converts and those who leave
• Images and figural art
• Takfir and its critics
• Dissent, heresy and freethought
• Conquest and its debates
• Violent extremism and the Muslim response
• Islam and atheism or secular thought