Glossary

caliph	'Successor'; a religious and political leader.



dhikr	A devotional remembrance of Allah through the recitation of his ninety-nine names and other devotional practices.



fana	'Extinction'; the sense of loss of self in mystical experience.



hadith	A 'recollection' of a act or saying of Muhammad.



Hajj	Pilgrimage to Mecca.



Hijra	'Flight'; Muhammad's escape from Mecca to Yathrib.



Id al-Adha	The Day of Sacrifice during the month of the Hajj, when an animal is sacrificed to recall the submission of Abraham.



Id-al-Fitr	A festival at the end of the month of Ramadan, during which people feast and visit friends and often visit graves of ancestors.



imam	A religious leader; specifically, one of the hereditary successors of Muhammad, venerated Shiite Islam.



Islam	'Submission'; the Muslim religion and the community of believers who have submitted themselves to Allah.



jihad	'Struggle'; the ideal of spreading Islamic belief and practice.



Kabah	'Cube'; the square shrine at the center of the great mosque in Mecca.



mihrab	The decorated niche inside a mosque that indicates the direction of Mecca.



minaret	A tower from which a chanter calls people to prayer.



mosque	A Muslim place of worship.



muezzin	A chanter who calls people to prayer.



Muslim	A person who submits to Allah.



qiblah	The direction toward Mecca; the direction toward which Muslims pray.



Qur'an	'Recitation'; God's words as revealed to and recited by Muhammad; an authorized edition of written words that appeared after Muhammad's death.



Ramadan	The month of fasting; the ninth month of the Muslim calendar.



Sharia	'Path'; the whole body of Islamic law, which guides a Muslim's life.



Shiite	A minority branch of Islam that holds Muhammad's genuine successors descended from his son-in-law Ali.



Sufism	A group of devotional movements in Islam.



Sunni	The majority branch of Islam, which holds that the genuine succession from Muhammad did not depend on hereditary decent from his son-in-law Ali.



sura	A chapter of the Qur'am.

2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
Any use is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of The McGraw-Hill Companies.