GLOSSARY OF ARABIC, PERSIAN, AND URDU TERMS
Language designations refer to usage and transliteration, not to etymology: [A] = Arabic, [P] = Persian, [U] = Urdu.
‘adil : Upright, opposite of morally corrupt. [A]
‘adalat : Muslim court of law; uprightness. [P]
ara'ishvala : One who constructed the bright replicas of the Imam Husayn's tomb for use in Muharram ceremonies. [P]
ashraf : The "noble" castes among the Muslims in India, including Sayyids, Mughals (Iranians and Turks), Pathans (Afghans), and Shaykhs. [A]
ataliq : A guardian, tutor, master. [P]
bharbunja : Grain parcher. [U]
bay‘at : The oath of allegiance and obedience given by a Sufi adept to his master upon his initiation into a Sufi order. [P]
bid‘ah : A heretical innovation in Islamic doctrine. [A]
bihishti : A water carrier. [P]
bi-sharc : A Sufi order of the laboring classes whose members did not observe closely the strictures of Islamic law. [P]
dalil : Evidence for a ruling deriving from the divine Law. [A]
daral-harb : The Realm of War, an area where Muslims are not in political control. [A]
darbar : A royal audience where ceremonial offerings are made by inferiors to superiors and vice versa. [P]
daroghah : Head man or superintendent of any office or department. [U]
dhikr : The Sufi practice of chanting God's name and other religious formulas, often with hyperventilation. [A]
dhimmi : In Islamic law, a Jew or a Christian, protected as a member of a recognized religious community under Muslim rule, who must pay a minority tax but is exempt from military service. [A]
fatwa : A legal ruling given by a Muslim jurisconsult, or mufti. [A]
fawjdar : The chief magistrate of a district, with military responsibilities. [P]
hadith : An oral report transmitted by generations of Muslim scholars going back to the Prophet or the Imams; complements the Qur'an as a source of Islamic law. [A]
hakim : Physician in the tradition of "Greek" medicine going back through Avicenna to Galen and Aristotle. [A]
handasah : Geometry, draughtsmanship. [A]
haram : An action forbidden by Islamic law for the commission of which God will punish the believer. [A]
hay'at : Cosmography. [P]
ihtiyat : Caution, following the most strict of the major positions in any matter of law. [A]
ijazah : A certificate given by a teacher to his student that he has completed a certain book or course of study. These were most often given by Shi‘i ulama permitting the transmission by the student of Imami oral reports. Usuli masters sometimes bestowed ijazahs allowing ijtihad . [A]
ijtihad : The application of reasoned effort to the derivation of a ruling from the scriptural text, sometimes involving a limited sort of syllogism or analogy. A jurisprudential method rejected by early Imami Shi‘is but accepted by Usulis from the fourteenth century. [A]
‘illah : A common term, indicating the reason for which a divine law has been ordained, upon which a legal analogy may be based. [A]
imambarah : In North India, a large building wherein mourning sessions were held by notables to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Husayn. [U]
imam-jumcah : Leader of the Friday congregational prayers. [A]
ImamiShi‘ism: A branch of Islam believing that after the death of the Prophet his rightful religious and political successors should have been his son-in-law and cousin, ‘Ali, and the latter's eleven descendants through the Prophet's daughter, Fatimah. [A]
‘ishq : Overwhelming, passionate love, used by Sufi mystics to describe their highest feelings for God. [A]
jagir : The assignment of the government share of the produce of a large tract of land to an individual in lieu of salary for services rendered [P]
jahiz : The clothing and furniture that a bride brings to her husband's house. [A]
ja'ir Unjust. In Shi‘i jurisprudential thought any ruler other than the Imam is imperfect and so ultimately unjust. [A]
jat(Urdu zat ) : Roughly, caste. [U]
jihad : War for the sake of God and Islam In Imami Shi‘ism such a war was classically believed to be legitimately led only by an Imam, and after the last Imam disappeared the duty to wage it lapsed, except in self-defense. [A]
julahah : a weaver of coarse cloth. [P]
jumcah : Friday congregational prayers. [A]
kalam : Dialectical theology, cultivated by the rationalist Usulis but forbidden by the Akhbaris. [A]
karamat : Graces or miracles that Muslim holy men claimed to be able to perform. [A]
kashf : Mystical inspiration from God. [A]
khabar al-ahad : An oral report transmitted by only one scholar in each early generation of the Muslims. [A]
khanqah : A building where Sufis gathered for chanting and meditation sessions. [P]
khirqah : The patched cloak bestowed upon a Sufi adept by his master upon his initiation into a Sufi order. [A]
khums : A Muslim religious tax of 20 percent on certain kinds of income, which, among Shi‘is, is distributed to poor Sayyids. Usulis held that half the income from this tax should go to the religious jurisprudents. [A]
khutbah : Formula read at the Friday afternoon congregational prayers, into which the name of the ruler was often inserted. [A]
kotval : A mixture of police chief and urban administrator. [U]
madad-i macash : Grants of land to Muslim religious functionaries, scholars, and mystics for their support. [P]
madrash : Muslim institution of higher learning, seminary. [A]
majlis : A mourning session held for the martyrdom of Imam Husayn. [A]
marjac-itaqlid : A jurisprudent, or mujtahid, who is emulated by laymen in his rulings on the religious law. [P]
marsiyyah-khvan : A reciter of Shi‘i elegiac poetry. [P]
marthiyyah (Persian: marsiyyah ): Elegiac poetry mourning the Shi‘i martyrs, including the Imam Husayn, who died at the seventh-century battle of Karbala. [A]
macsum : Sinless: an attribute in Shi‘ism of the Prophet and the Imams. [A]
ma'tam : In North India, self-flagellation in mourning of the martyred Imam. [A]
mawlavi : A member of the Muslim religious learned class. [P]
minbar : A stairway-like pulpit from which preachers speak in the mosque. [A]
mucafi : A grant of land free of tax in perpetuity. [A]
mufti : A Muslim jurisconsult (English: mufti). [A]
muhaddith : An expert in the orally transmitted reports from the Prophet (and, in Shi‘ism, from the Imams), which, along with the written Qur'an, constitute Islamic scripture. [A]
mujtahid : A jurisprudent who practices ijtihad , or legal reasoning. [A]
munsarim : A manager, administrator, head clerk of a court of settlements. [A]
munshi A writer, secretary. [A]
mutcah : Temporary marriage, allowed in Shi‘i law (Persian: sighah ). [A]
mutakallim A practitioner of dialectical theology, or kalam . [A]
najis : In Shi‘i law, something ritually impure or polluted. [A]
naqqal : Storyteller, jester. [U]
nazim : Governor of a large province. [P]
nazranah : A religious gift or offering to a shrine or a holy man. [P]
qasabah : A small town or large village, averaging a population of 3,000, often with a fort, irrigation works, a water tank, and a tradition of literacy and local pride, acting as a seat for small Muslim landholders. [U]
qatci : A type of scriptural evidence that is conclusive for a particular ruling. [A]
qazi (Arabic: qadi ): Muslim religious-court judge. [P]
qiyas : The use of analogy or syllogism in jurisprudential reasoning, allowed by Usuli Shi‘is but forbidden by Akhbaris. [A]
rawzah-khvan : A reader of prose laments for the Shi‘i martyrs at Karbala. [P]
sadaqat : Voluntary pious contributions to the poor. [A]
sanad : A document certifying the grant of land or a perpetual stipend. [A]
Sayyid : A descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, owed special status among Muslims. [A]
sharicah : The divinely ordained system of laws in Islam. [A]
SunniIslam : The majority branch, which recognizes four orthodox successors to the Prophet, elected by an oligarchic council of the Quraysh tribe, including Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthman, and ‘Ali, and which takes a generally positive view of the Muslim monarchies that thereafter arose. [A]
suz-khvani : The soulful chanting of elegies for the Imam Husayn. [P]
tacalluqdar : A large rural landholder in Awadh. [P]
tabarra ': The Shi‘i practice of publicly cursing the first caliphs, whom they believe to have wrongfully usurped the leadership of the Muslim community from the Imam ‘Ali. [A]
tahsildar : A revenue collector for the government. [P]
taqiyyah : The Shi‘i doctrine that a believer must lie about his branch of Islam should he feel his life to be in danger. [A]
taqlid : Emulation; in Usuli Shi‘ism, the practice of laymen obeying the religious rulings of mujtahids, or expert jurisprudents. [A]
tariqah : An order of Sufi Muslims, which met together for group chanting and meditation, with a vaguely hierarchical structure within which many sorts of social relations existed, not only mystical ones. [A]
tavalla : Praising and blessing the Prophet and the Twelve Imams whom Shi‘is believe to be his legitimate successors. [P]
tava'if : Courtesan or prostitute. [U]
tacziyah-khanah : A small structure where the martyrdom of Imam Husayn was commemorated, as differentiated from the larger imambarah . [P]
‘ulama ': Muslim religious scholars (English: ulama). [A]
umara ': High notables. [A]
‘urf : Customary law, as differentiated from the divinely revealed Islamic law. [A]
vaciz : A preacher of sermons at a mosque. [P]
vujub-icavni : A religious duty incumbent on each believer. [P]
vujub-itakhyiri : An obligation of preference. [P]
wahdatal-wujud : The doctrine, adhered to by Muslim mystics, or Sufis, that existence is ultimately monistic in nature, rather than plural. Opponents of the doctrine branded it pantheistic. [A]
wajd : A state of mystical ecstasy. [A]
waqf : A pious endowment, alienating property for religious purposes in perpetuity. [A]
zakat : A Muslim religious tax for the poor. [A]
zamindar : A small or middle landholder in Awadh. [P]
zann : In jurisprudence, a considered opinion: differentiated from certain knowledge (cilm ) based on conclusive evidence. [A]
zarih : A replica of the tomb of Imam Husayn, also called in northern India a tacziyah . [P]
ziyarat : Religious visitation or pilgrimage. [P]
zuhd : Continence, asceticism. [A]
zuhr : Daily noon prayers. [A]