Reference
Glossary of Terms
The key technical vocabulary of Islamic scripture, law, and hadith science used throughout these critiques. The first appearance of each term on an issue page links back here.
- ahad(āhād, khabar al-wahid)
- A “solitary” report transmitted through few chains. It yields probability, not certainty — a key fault line in hadith epistemology.
- fiqh
- Islamic jurisprudence — the human science of deriving legal rulings from the Quran, sunnah, consensus, and analogy.
- hadith(ahadith, aḥādīth)
- A report of Muhammad's words, actions, or tacit approvals. The hadith corpus is the second source of Islamic law after the Quran.
- ijma(ijmāʿ, ijma')
- The consensus of qualified scholars, treated in Sunni jurisprudence as a binding source of law.
- Injil(Injīl)
- The Gospel, as named by the Quran — spoken of as a revelation given to Jesus and present among Christians in Muhammad's day.
- isnad(isnād)
- The chain of narrators that transmits a hadith. Its reliability is the basis on which hadith are graded authentic or weak.
- mutawatir(mutawātir)
- A report transmitted by so many independent chains that collusion in error is deemed impossible — the gold standard of certainty in hadith science.
- naskh(abrogation)
- Abrogation: the principle that a later Quranic revelation can cancel or replace an earlier ruling. Classical scholars catalogued dozens to hundreds of abrogated verses.
- naskh al-tilawa
- “Abrogation of recitation” — the claim that some revealed verses were divinely removed from the Quran's text while their ruling (or memory) remained.
- qiraat(qirāʾāt, qira'at)
- The canonical variant readings of the Quran. Differences among them touch wording, not just pronunciation, complicating claims of a single perfect text.
- sahih(sahīh, saheeh)
- “Authentic.” The highest grade of hadith reliability; also the name of the two most authoritative collections (al-Bukhari and Muslim).
- sira(sīra)
- The traditional biography of Muhammad. The earliest surviving sira (Ibn Ishaq, via Ibn Hisham) dates to over a century after his death.
- sunnah
- The normative example of Muhammad — his sayings and practice — which Muslims are commanded to follow alongside the Quran.
- tafsir(tafsīr)
- Classical Quranic exegesis — the commentary tradition (al-Tabari, al-Razi, Ibn Kathir, etc.) that explains and contextualizes the text.
- tahrif
- The doctrine that Jews and Christians corrupted the earlier scriptures — invoked to explain why the Quran both affirms the Torah and Gospel and contradicts them.
- Tawrat(Tawrāt)
- The Torah, as named and affirmed by the Quran as a genuine revelation given to Moses.