Glossary

The dynasty of caliphs descended from the Prophet's uncle al-ʿAbbās, who overthrew the Umayyads in 750 and ruled from Baghdad until the Mongol conquest of 1258; a line of figurehead caliphs continued in Cairo until 1517. Shia histories record the imprisonment or killing of several Imams under ʿAbbasid rule.

See also: Umayyads, Caliph

“In the year of the Hijra”: years of the Islamic calendar, counted from the Prophet's emigration to Medina in 622 CE. The Islamic year is lunar, about eleven days shorter than the solar year, so 33 Islamic years make roughly 32 solar ones. Entries give AH dates with the CE equivalent, as in 61 AH / 680 CE.

See also: Hijra

“The people of the house”: the Prophet's family. Shia Muslims understand the phrase in Qurʾan 33:33 to mean above all ʿAlī, Fāṭima, al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, the “people of the cloak”, and the Imams descended from them; Sunni scholars usually include the Prophet's wives and wider kin as well.

See also: Imam, Hashimite

“The helpers”: the Muslims of Medina, from the tribes of Aws and Khazraj, who welcomed the Prophet and the emigrants from Mecca (the Muhājirūn) in 622.

See also: Hijra, Quraysh

Jewish books of the Second Temple period that are in the Greek Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible, among them Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and additions to Esther and Daniel. The Catholic and Orthodox churches count them as scripture (the “deuterocanonical” books); Protestant Bibles print them separately or leave them out; they are not part of the Jewish Bible.

See also: Septuagint, Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible

Belonging to the school of Sunni theology founded by Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 935–936), which became one of the main traditions of Sunni theology, alongside the Māturīdī and the textualist Atharī schools.

See also: Sunni

In this site's encyclopedia, an item written by the editors that compares how the traditions treat a person or event. Author's notes are marked as such and are kept separate from the items that report what each tradition says.

In Shia theology, the doctrine that God may change what had appeared to be decreed. Twelver theologians explain it as a change in what God makes known to people, not a change in God's knowledge.

See also: Shia

A religion founded in 19th-century Iran by Baháʼu'lláh (1817–1892), who followed the Báb (1819–1850). It regards Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muḥammad, the Báb and Baháʼu'lláh, among others, as Manifestations of God in a progressive revelation.

“Sons of”: a clan or tribe named after its ancestor, as in Banū Hāshim, “the sons of Hāshim”.

See also: Ibn, bint, Hashimite

A small lump of clay pressed with a seal to close a document. Several bullae from Iron Age Judah bear the names of officials and kings known from the Bible; some come from excavations, others from the antiquities market, where forgeries are a known problem.

From khalīfa, “successor” or “deputy”: the head of the Muslim community after the Prophet. Sunni Muslims honour the first four, Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān and ʿAlī, as the “rightly guided” caliphs. Shia Muslims hold that leadership belonged by the Prophet's designation to ʿAlī and the Imams after him.

See also: Imam, Sunni, Shia

Christian writers of the early centuries, roughly the 1st to the 8th, whose works shaped Christian doctrine and the interpretation of the Bible: among them Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and John of Damascus.

See also: Typology

The wedge-shaped script of ancient Mesopotamia, written on clay and stone. Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions in cuneiform name several kings of Israel and Judah.

Some nine hundred manuscripts, dating from about the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD, found between 1947 and 1956 in caves near Qumran by the Dead Sea. They include the oldest surviving copies of books of the Hebrew Bible, such as the Great Isaiah Scroll.

See also: Masoretic Text, Hebrew Bible

A religious community of Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan whose faith arose from Ismāʿīlī Islam in 11th-century Egypt and developed as a separate religion. The Druze honour many prophets, especially Jethro (Shuʿayb), and many identify Elijah with al-Khiḍr.

See also: Ismāʿīlīs

A personal prayer of supplication, as distinct from the five daily ritual prayers (ṣalāt).

The head of the Jewish community in Babylonia (Aramaic resh galuta), recognised by Persian and later Muslim rulers. Exilarchs claimed descent from King David through Jeconiah and Zerubbabel, and the office lasted into the ʿAbbasid period.

An Ismāʿīlī Shia dynasty that claimed descent from Fāṭima, the Prophet's daughter. Proclaimed in North Africa in 909, it ruled Egypt from 969, founding Cairo, until 1171.

See also: Ismāʿīlīs

The rabbinic discussion of the Mishnah which, together with the Mishnah itself, forms the Talmud.

See also: Mishnah, Talmud

A pool between Mecca and Medina where, on his way back from his last pilgrimage in 632, the Prophet took ʿAlī's hand and said, “For whomever I am his mawlā, ʿAlī is his mawlā.” Shia Muslims read the words as designating ʿAlī as his successor; Sunni Muslims generally read them as a call to love and support ʿAlī.

See also: Imam, Naṣṣ

In Twelver Shia belief, the hiddenness of the twelfth Imam, Muḥammad al-Mahdī: the Minor Occultation (874–941), when he communicated through four deputies, and the Major Occultation since 941, which will last until his return.

See also: Mahdī, Twelvers, Qāʾim

Each of the four accounts of the life of Jesus in the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The first three are called the Synoptic Gospels because they share much of their material. In the Qurʾan, the Injīl is the scripture God gave to Jesus.

See also: Injīl, Tawrāt, Zabūr

A report of the words or deeds of the Prophet (and, for Shia Muslims, of the Imams), handed down with a chain of transmitters (isnād). The chief Sunni collections are those of al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Māja; the chief Shia collections are al-Kulaynī's al-Kāfī, Ibn Bābawayh's Man lā yaḥḍuruhu al-faqīh and al-Ṭūsī's two books, al-Tahdhīb and al-Istibṣār.

See also: Isnād, Ṣaḥīḥ

A reading from the Prophets that follows the reading from the Torah in the synagogue on Sabbaths and festivals.

See also: Torah

In the Qurʾan, a person of pure faith in the one God, inclined to neither idolatry nor sectarian error; Abraham is the ḥanīf above all. Muslim tradition also uses the word for monotheists in Arabia before Islam.

Belonging to Banū Hāshim, the Prophet's clan, descended from his great-grandfather Hāshim. The ʿAlids and the ʿAbbasids are both Hashimites, and the kings of Jordan use the name for their dynasty.

See also: Banū, Sayyid, sharīf

A Shia seminary of religious learning. The ḥawzas of Najaf in Iraq and Qom in Iran are the most important.

See also: Shia

The Jewish scriptures, called the Tanakh after its three parts: Torah (Law), Neviʾim (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings). Christians call these books the Old Testament and arrange them in a different order; Catholic and Orthodox Bibles also include the Apocrypha.

See also: Torah, Masoretic Text, Apocrypha

The emigration of the Prophet and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622, from which the Islamic calendar is counted.

See also: AH (Anno Hegirae)

“Son of” and “daughter of”, often shortened in names to b. and bt., as in ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, “ʿAlī son of Abū Ṭālib”. A chain of these names (the nasab) records a person's lineage.

See also: Kunya, Banū

“Leader”. In general Muslim use, the one who leads congregational prayer, or a leading scholar. In Shia Islam, the rightful leader of the community after the Prophet. Twelvers and Ismāʿīlīs hold that each Imam is designated by his predecessor and protected from sin; Zaydīs require neither designation nor ʿiṣma. Twelver Shia recognise twelve Imams, from ʿAlī to the hidden Mahdī, while Zaydīs and Ismāʿīlīs count the Imams differently.

See also: Twelvers, Zaydīs, Ismāʿīlīs, ʿIṣma, Naṣṣ

The Qurʾan's names for the scriptures God gave to Jesus (the Gospel), to Moses (the Torah) and to David (the Psalms).

See also: Gospel, Torah

Protection from sin and error. Twelver Shia hold that the prophets, Fāṭima and the Imams were protected from all sin and error; Ismāʿīlīs also ascribe ʿiṣma to their Imams, while Zaydīs do not. Sunni theologians generally hold that prophets were protected from major sins and from error in delivering revelation, and differ over whether they could commit minor or unintentional lapses.

See also: Imam

A branch of Shia Islam that follows the Imamate of Ismāʿīl, son of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, and his descendants. It includes the Nizārīs, whose Imam is the Aga Khan, and the Mustaʿlī–Ṭayyibīs, such as the Bohras of South Asia.

See also: Shia, Fāṭimids

The chain of named transmitters by which a hadith reached the person who recorded it. Hadith scholars judged a report largely by the reliability and continuity of its isnād.

See also: Hadith

Stories from Jewish and Christian tradition used by early Muslim storytellers and commentators to fill out the Qurʾan's accounts of the prophets. Later scholars, such as Ibn Kathīr, treated many of them with caution.

See also: Tafsir, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ

In the Qurʾan, beings created from smokeless fire, who, like humans, have free will and are accountable to God. Iblīs, who refused to bow to Adam, “was of the jinn” (18:50).

The cube-shaped shrine at the centre of the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, which Muslims believe Abraham and Ishmael built, and towards which they pray.

The Jewish mystical tradition that emerged in medieval Provence and Spain, whose central work is the Zohar, written in late 13th-century Spain.

See also: Zohar

An honorific name of the form “father of” or “mother of”, usually naming the eldest child: the Prophet was Abū l-Qāsim, “father of al-Qāsim”.

See also: Ibn, bint

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, founded in the United States in 1830 by Joseph Smith. Besides the Bible, its scriptures include the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price.

“The rightly guided one”: the restorer whom most Muslims expect to fill the earth with justice before the end of time, with whom, in the hadith, Jesus will return. Twelver Shia identify him with the hidden twelfth Imam, Muḥammad son of al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī; most Sunnis expect a descendant of the Prophet who has yet to appear.

See also: Ghayba (occultation), Qāʾim, Twelvers

A small baptising community of southern Iraq and south-western Iran, now largely in exile, with scriptures in Mandaic, a form of Aramaic. They revere John the Baptist as their greatest and last prophet, though not as the founder of their religion.

The standard Hebrew text of the Bible, with the vowels, accents and notes fixed by the Masoretes between about the 7th and 10th centuries. The Leningrad Codex of 1008 is the oldest complete manuscript.

See also: Hebrew Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls

“Anointed one”. In Judaism, the future king of David's line who will restore Israel and bring an age of peace. Christians hold that Jesus is the Messiah (in Greek, the Christ). The Qurʾan also calls Jesus al-Masīḥ, the Messiah, while differing from Christianity over who he is.

Rabbinic interpretation of the Bible, both legal and narrative, and the collections that preserve it, such as Genesis Rabbah (about the 5th century) and Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer (about the 8th or 9th century).

See also: Talmud, Targum

The first written code of Jewish oral law, compiled around 200 CE under Rabbi Judah the Prince and arranged in six orders and 63 tractates.

See also: Talmud, Tosefta, Gemara

Muḥarram is the first month of the Islamic year. Its tenth day, ʿĀshūrāʾ, is the anniversary of al-Ḥusayn's martyrdom at Karbalāʾ in 680, which Shia Muslims mourn throughout the first ten days of the month. Many Sunnis fast on ʿĀshūrāʾ, following the Prophet's practice.

“Prophet” and “messenger”. Muslim scholars commonly hold that every messenger is a prophet but not every prophet is a messenger: a messenger is sent with a scripture or a law for a people.

See also: Ulū l-ʿazm

In Shia thought, the explicit designation of an Imam by the Prophet or by the previous Imam.

See also: Imam, Ghadīr Khumm

The Eastern Orthodox churches (among them the Greek, Russian, Serbian and Romanian), in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Oriental Orthodox churches (Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Armenian, Syriac and Malankara), which did not accept the Council of Chalcedon of 451.

Jewish writings of about 300 BC to 300 AD, some reworked by Christians, that are attributed to biblical figures but are not in the Bible: among them 1 Enoch, Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Lives of the Prophets. 1 Enoch and Jubilees are scripture in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

See also: Apocrypha

“The one who rises”: a title of the Mahdī in Shia tradition.

See also: Mahdī

“Stories of the prophets”: a genre of Muslim writing that retells the lives of the prophets from Adam to Jesus, drawing on the Qurʾan, hadith and other traditions. Among the best known are the collections of al-Thaʿlabī and Ibn Kathīr.

See also: Isrāʾīliyyāt

The tribe that controlled Mecca in the Prophet's time, and to which he belonged, through the clan of Hāshim.

See also: Hashimite

The writings of the rabbis of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages: the Mishnah, the Tosefta, the two Talmuds, the Midrash collections and the Targums.

See also: Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash, Targum

“Return”: the Shia belief that some of the dead, both righteous and wicked, will return to life in this world in the time of the Mahdī, before the Day of Resurrection.

See also: Mahdī

“Sound”: the highest grade of a hadith whose chain and text are judged reliable; also the title of the two most respected Sunni collections, those of al-Bukhārī and Muslim.

See also: Hadith, Isnād

A small community living at Mount Gerizim near Nablus and in Holon in Israel, who hold that they descend from the northern Israelites. Their scripture is their own version of the Torah, and Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem, is their holy place.

Titles for descendants of the Prophet through al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn. Usage varies by region: in some places sharīf is used chiefly for Ḥasanīs and sayyid for Ḥusaynīs.

See also: Hashimite, Ahl al-Bayt

The Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, begun by Jews in Alexandria in the 3rd century BC. It was the Bible of the early Church and remains the Old Testament of the Eastern Orthodox churches. Scholars abbreviate it LXX.

See also: Apocrypha, Masoretic Text

From shīʿat ʿAlī, “the party of ʿAlī”: Muslims who hold that leadership of the community after the Prophet belonged, by his designation, to ʿAlī and then to Imams among his descendants. The largest branch is the Twelvers; others include the Zaydīs and the Ismāʿīlīs.

See also: Imam, Twelvers, Zaydīs, Ismāʿīlīs

A biography of the Prophet. The earliest major one was written by Ibn Isḥāq (d. about 767) and survives mainly in the edition of Ibn Hishām (d. about 833).

The mystical tradition of Islam, concerned with the inner purification of the soul and nearness to God, and organised from the 12th century onward in orders (ṭarīqas).

From ahl al-sunna wa-l-jamāʿa, “the people of the Prophet's practice and the community”: the majority of Muslims, who accept the caliphate of Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān and ʿAlī in that order and generally follow one of the four Sunni schools of law (Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī).

See also: Caliph, Shia

A chapter of the Qurʾan, of which there are 114, and a verse. References are given as sūra:verse, so 19:30 is the thirtieth verse of Sūrat Maryam.

Commentary on the Qurʾan. Among the classical commentators cited here are al-Ṭabarī (d. 923), al-Qurṭubī (d. 1273), al-Rāzī (d. 1210) and Ibn Kathīr (d. 1373), and the Shia commentators al-Ṭūsī (d. 1067) and al-Ṭabrisī (d. 1153).

See also: Isrāʾīliyyāt

The Mishnah together with the rabbis' discussion of it, the Gemara. The Babylonian Talmud (completed around the 6th century) is cited by tractate and folio side, as in Sanhedrin 98a; the Jerusalem Talmud (around 400) is cited by chapter and paragraph.

See also: Mishnah, Gemara

Concealing one's faith or practice when under threat. It is discussed by Sunni and Shia scholars alike, and is associated especially with the Shia, who often lived under hostile rulers.

An Aramaic translation of the Bible, often expanded with interpretation, such as Targum Onqelos on the Torah, Targum Jonathan on the Prophets, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan.

See also: Midrash

“God-bearer”: a title of Mary affirmed by the Council of Ephesus in 431, and widely used in the Orthodox and Catholic churches.

The five books of Moses, Genesis to Deuteronomy; in a wider sense, the whole of Jewish teaching, written and oral.

See also: Hebrew Bible, Injīl, Tawrāt, Zabūr

A collection of early rabbinic teachings, arranged like the Mishnah and supplementing it.

See also: Mishnah

The Christian doctrine that the one God exists as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, formulated at the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381).

The largest branch of Shia Islam (Ithnā ʿAshariyya), which recognises twelve Imams, from ʿAlī to Muḥammad al-Mahdī, the last of whom is in occultation. This tree's line on Ishmael's side follows the Twelver Imams.

See also: Imam, Ghayba (occultation)

Reading people and events of the Old Testament as “types” that foreshadow Christ and the Church: Isaac carrying the wood, Joseph betrayed and exalted, Jonah's three days in the fish.

See also: Church Fathers

“Those of firm resolve” (Qurʾan 46:35): the greatest messengers, most commonly counted as five, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muḥammad.

See also: Nabī, rasūl

The dynasty of caliphs who ruled from Damascus from 661 to 750; al-Ḥusayn was killed at Karbalāʾ under the Umayyad caliph Yazīd. A branch of the family ruled in Córdoba until 1031.

See also: ʿAbbasids, Caliph

The dating of creation to 4004 BC by the Irish archbishop James Ussher in 1650, calculated chiefly from the ages in the Hebrew text of Genesis. This tree uses it for Adam to Abraham as a traditional chronology, not as historical dating.

“Legatee” or “executor of the will”: in Shia thought, the successor each prophet appoints, such as Seth for Adam; ʿAlī is the Prophet's waṣī.

See also: Imam, Naṣṣ

“Guardianship” or “authority”; in Shia thought, the spiritual and worldly authority of the Imams, and the believers' loyalty to them.

See also: Imam

A Kurdish-speaking religious community of northern Iraq, Syria and the diaspora, who venerate God and seven holy beings led by Tawûsî Melek, the Peacock Angel.

A branch of Shia Islam named after Zayd, son of the fourth Imam, who rose against the Umayyads in 740. Zaydīs hold that any learned and pious descendant of al-Ḥasan or al-Ḥusayn who claims the Imamate openly may be Imam; Zaydī imams ruled parts of Yemen, with interruptions, from 897 until the revolution of 1962.

See also: Shia, Imam

A visit to the shrine of a prophet, Imam or saint, and the prayer of greeting recited there.

The central work of Kabbalah, a mystical commentary on the Torah in Aramaic, which appeared in Spain in the late 13th century.

See also: Kabbalah