The words, explained

Fajr

الفجر

The dawn prayer, the first of the five daily prayers. Its window opens at true dawn — when the first light spreads horizontally across the horizon — and closes at sunrise.

Imsak

الإمساك

The moment a fasting person stops eating and drinking, at the start of Fajr. Many timetables print imsak a few minutes before Fajr as a precaution; the two are not the same entry.

Shuruq

الشروق

Sunrise. It is not a prayer time but marks the end of the Fajr window, and the short forbidden period after it during which prayer is not offered.

Dhuhr

الظهر

The midday prayer, beginning once the sun has passed its zenith and a shadow starts to lengthen again. On Fridays the congregational Jumu'ah prayer takes its place.

Asr

العصر

The afternoon prayer. Its start depends on shadow length, and this is where the schools differ: the Hanafi calculation begins Asr when an object's shadow is twice its length, the others at one length.

Maghrib

المغرب

The sunset prayer, offered just after the sun's disc has fully set. For a fasting person it is also the moment of iftar.

Isha

العشاء

The night prayer, beginning once the red twilight has faded. In high latitudes where twilight never fully ends in summer, calculation methods apply an approximation rule instead.

Qibla

القبلة

The direction of the Kaaba in Mecca, which a Muslim faces in prayer. On a map it is the great-circle bearing from your position, which is why it can point further north than a flat map suggests.

Kaaba

الكعبة

The cubical building at the centre of the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca. It is the point the qibla refers to, and the focus of the circumambulation performed during hajj and umrah.

Rak'ah

ركعة

One unit of prayer: standing and reciting, bowing, and two prostrations. Each of the five prayers has a set number of obligatory rak'ahs — two at Fajr, four at Dhuhr, Asr and Isha, three at Maghrib.

Wudu

الوضوء

The ritual washing performed before prayer: hands, mouth, nose, face, forearms, head and feet. It remains valid until broken by specific events, so one wudu can cover several prayers.

Tayammum

التيمم

A dry substitute for wudu using clean earth or dust, permitted when water is unavailable or when using it would harm you. It stands in for both wudu and ghusl.

Qada

القضاء

A prayer or fast made up after its proper time has passed. Missed Ramadan fasts are made up day for day before the next Ramadan where possible.

Qasr

القصر

The shortening of a four-rak'ah prayer to two while travelling. The distance and duration that make someone a traveller differ between the schools.

Jam'

الجمع

Combining two prayers in one time slot — Dhuhr with Asr, or Maghrib with Isha — permitted for travellers and, in most schools, in cases of genuine hardship.

Madhhab

مذهب

A school of Islamic jurisprudence. The four Sunni schools are Hanafi, Shafi'i, Maliki and Hanbali; for prayer timing the practical difference is the Asr calculation.

Witr

الوتر

An odd-numbered prayer offered after Isha, before dawn. The Hanafi school treats it as obligatory (wajib); the other schools consider it a strongly encouraged sunnah.

Sunnah

السنة

The practice of the Prophet Muhammad. As a prayer category it means the voluntary units offered before or after an obligatory prayer, distinct from the fard units.

Fard

فرض

An obligation. The fard prayers are the five daily prayers; leaving one requires making it up, unlike a voluntary prayer.

Dhikr

ذكر

The remembrance of God through repeated short phrases such as subhanallah, alhamdulillah and allahu akbar. A tasbih — a loop of beads, or a counter — keeps the count.

Du'a

دعاء

A personal supplication, in any language and at any moment. It is distinct from salah, the formal prayer with fixed times and movements.

Surah

سورة

A chapter of the Qur'an. There are 114, arranged roughly from longest to shortest rather than chronologically.

Ayah

آية

A verse of the Qur'an. References are written as surah:ayah — so 2:255 is the 255th verse of Surah al-Baqarah, known as Ayat al-Kursi.

Juz

جزء

One of thirty roughly equal parts of the Qur'an. Reading a juz a day completes the whole in a month, which is why the division is used during Ramadan.

Hijri calendar

التقويم الهجري

The Islamic lunar calendar, counted from the migration to Medina in 622 CE. Its year is about eleven days shorter than the Gregorian one, so Ramadan moves earlier each year.

Ramadan

رمضان

The ninth month of the Hijri calendar, during which adult Muslims fast from dawn to sunset. It ends with Eid al-Fitr.

Suhoor

السحور

The meal taken before dawn on a fasting day, ending at imsak. Taking it is a sunnah even if only a sip of water.

Iftar

إفطار

The meal that breaks the fast, taken immediately after the Maghrib call to prayer. It is traditionally opened with dates and water.

Taraweeh

التراويح

The voluntary night prayers offered in congregation during Ramadan, after Isha. Eight or twenty rak'ahs are both established practices.

Laylat al-Qadr

ليلة القدر

The Night of Decree, described in the Qur'an as better than a thousand months. It falls in the last ten nights of Ramadan, most often sought on the odd-numbered ones.

Zakat

الزكاة

The obligatory annual charity, ordinarily 2.5% of qualifying wealth held for a lunar year. It is one of the five pillars.

Nisab

النصاب

The minimum wealth at which zakat becomes due, defined historically as the value of 87.48 g of gold or 612.36 g of silver. Below it, no zakat is owed.

Halal

حلال

Permitted. Applied to food it covers both the ingredient and how it was produced — meat must come from an animal slaughtered according to Islamic rules.

Haram

حرام

Forbidden. In food the clearest cases are pork, blood, carrion, alcohol and meat not slaughtered according to Islamic rules.

Mashbooh

مشبوه

Doubtful — neither clearly permitted nor clearly forbidden, usually because an ingredient's origin is unstated. Gelatine and mono- and diglycerides are the common examples.

Hadith

حديث

A report of something the Prophet Muhammad said, did or approved. Each is graded by the reliability of its chain of transmission, which is why a collection's name is always cited with it.

Asma-ul Husna

أسماء الله الحسنى

The ninety-nine names of God, each naming an attribute. They are used in du'a and in dhikr.

Fatwa

فتوى

A formal legal opinion given by a qualified scholar in response to a specific question. It is bound to the circumstances it was asked about, which is why a fatwa found online may not apply to you.

Definitions describe common usage across the four Sunni schools. Where the schools differ on a point, the difference is named rather than smoothed over.