al-Fatah: conquest.
al-Jabr: restoration, the origin of the word ‘algebra’.
al-Salaf al-Salih: the venerable ancestors.
ayatollah: a Shiite Muslim term for a senior legal interpreter of the Quran, not a clergyman in the Western sense but a religious authority with similar stature. There is no equivalent in Sunni Islam.
Bayt al-Hikmah: the House of Wisdom – the place of learning established in Baghdad by the Abbasid Caliphs.
colons (French): the French settlers in Algeria.
cuneiform: an early form of alphabet created by the Sumerians.
Dar al-Harb: the realm or abode of war used to refer to areas not ruled by Islamic law.
Dar al-Islam: the realm of Islam – the lands under the rule of Islam, past as well as present.
Dar al-Salaam: the realm of Peace – a newer concept, a realm where there is neither war nor Islamic control.
dervishme: the unpopular Ottoman practice of kidnapping Christian boys, converting them to Islam, and training them as administrators.
dhimmis: non-Islamic protected peoples.
Faqih: Supreme Leader, or interpreter of the Quran.
fatwa: a religious pronouncement; a ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority.
ferengi: Franks – the word used for all Crusaders.
fiqh: man-made justice.
Hadith: the recorded non-Quranic sayings of the Prophet.
Haj: the pilgrimage to Mecca, which all Muslims should make at least once.
haraka: the Islamic movement. The word is often used as a political term.
Harakat al-Tahrir al-Filistani: The Movement for the Liberation of Palestine.
hijra or (in Latin) hegira: the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in ad 622.
IDF: the Israeli Defence Force.
ijtihad: exercising individual interpretation as regards Muslim doctrine.
Intifada: literally means ‘uprising’ and refers to the Palestinian rebellion against Israeli rule since the late 1990s.
jahili: un-Islamic.
jahiliyya: ignorance of Islam.
jihad: a personal or military struggle. The term is often used to describe an Islamic holy war against unbelievers.
millet: the Ottoman system, in which everyone was classified by their religion, rather than by their ethnicity (except Jews, since theirs was a dual category).
mujadid: an interpreter of Islam.
outremer: means ‘beyond the sea’ and is the name given by the Crusaders to their territories in the Holy Land.
PLO: the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the main nationalist vehicle for Palestinian independence until Hamas won the elections of 2006. The PLO is essentially secular though most of its members are Muslims.
Rashidun: the ‘Rightly Guided Caliphs’, successors of Muhammad.
RSS: an extremist Hindu organization in India said to be responsible for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi.
salaf: the revered ancestors of the first Islamic century.
salafiyya or salafi: the disciples of the ancestors and the followers of the Golden Age of Islam.
SAVAK: the name for the secret police during the reign of the last Shah of Iran.
sharia: God-given Islamic law based on the Quran. In Saudi Arabia, it is part of the constitution. As it is God-given, it cannot be disputed.
Sharifs: bona fide descendants of the Prophet.
Shia’t Ali: now known as the Shia, and its adherents as Shiites. About 15 per cent of Muslims worldwide are Shiites, mainly in Iran and southern Iraq.
Shiism: the practice of Shia Islam, those Muslims awaiting the return of the Hidden Imam.
sunna: the example of the life of Muhammad. The term is not to be confused with Sunni, the 85 per cent of Muslims who agree with the authority of the first four Caliphs.
sura: a section of the Quran.
Tanakh (Hebrew): the Scriptures, also known as the Old Testament.
UAR: the United Arab Republic – the temporary union of Egypt and Syria in 1958, which lasted until the withdrawal of Syria in 1961.
ulema: the Muslim name for collective legal experts.
umma: the new Islamic community.
untermenschen (German): a Nazi term meaning ‘under men’ used to describe Slavs, Jews and other races the Nazis persecuted.
vilayet (Turkish): an administrative province in the Ottoman Empire.
Wafd: Egyptian Arab nationalists. The term literally means ‘delegation’.