adhan—Call to prayer.
ʿalim (pl. ʿulamaʾ)—A scholar.
baraka—Blessing, spiritual grace.
bori—Spirit possession among the Hausa.
daʾira or dahira—In Senegal, religious associations of the Muridiyya brotherhood.
dar al-harb—“The land(s) of war,” part of the world not governed by Muslims and the shariʿa (q.v.).
dar al-Islam—“The land(s) of Islam,” referring to the part of the world governed by Muslims and the shariʿa (q.v.).
dara or daara—Community, used in particular in Senegal of the agricultural communities of the Muridiyya brotherhood, in contract with the mostly urban daʾiras of the same country.
dhikr—“Remembering” God, reciting the names of God; a religious service practiced by all mystical brotherhoods.
faqih (pl. fuqahaʾ)—An ʿalim who is learned in fiqh (q.v.).
fatwa—A legal pronouncement handed down by a Muslim jurisconsult.
fiqh—The science of religious law (shariʿa, q.v.).
hadith—Prophetic tradition; an account of what the Prophet said or did; second in authority to the Quran.
hajj—The pilgrimage to Mecca; one of the five pillars of Islam.
hajji—A pilgrim, or a sobriquet of one who completed the hajj.
hijra—The emigration of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina; emigration from land(s) of unbelief (kufr).
ijaza—Authorization given by a mentor to transmit knowledge, or to teach a specfic text.
jamaʿa—Community, often used of agricultural settlements.
jeli—Maninka hereditary profession, oral historian-musician. Also known as griot.
jihad (fi sabil Allah)—“Struggle for God’s sake”; mostly used for religiously sanctioned war. In West Africa, common name for a series of Fulani-based revolutions from Senegal to Cameroon in the nineteenth century.
jizya—The poll-tax levied on non-Muslims by Muslim authorities.
khalifa (pl. khulafaʿ)—“Representative”; the Arabic word for “caliph,” it also means a regional leader or head of a breakaway branch within a sufi brotherhood (higher than muqaddam and shayh, qq.v.)
khalwa—A retreat, often for forty days.
khutba—The sermon given during the Friday prayers by a mosque official, the khatib.
madhhab—“Rite” or “school of law”; one of the four major divisions of Sunni Islam, which differ in some points of law and performance of the ritual prayers.
madrasa—A college, where the Islamic sciences are taught.
mahdi—“The rightly guided one”; the restorer of religion and justice, who will rule before the end of the world.
mallam—Hausa, from Arabic muʿallam (teacher): Islamic scholar (ʿalim).
marabout—Saint and charismatic religious personality, derived from murabit, a warrior-monk who inhabited a ribat (q.v.). Equivalent of shaykh (q.v.); sufi leader.
mawlid—Celebration of the birthday of the Prophet, a saint, or a sufi shaykh (q.v.).
mganga—Swahili term for a ritual specialist and/or healer.
muʾadhdhin—The one who does the adhan (call to prayer).
mudir—A specialized Swahili term applied to mid-level officials of the Zanzibar Sultanate.
mufti—A jurisconsult who gives fatwa (q.v.).
muqaddam—Leader of a sufi brotherhood.
murid—Student, follower of a sufi brotherhood. Alt.: tilmidh (pl. talamidh).
mwalimu or walimu—A Swahili term for a religious teacher of any kind.
mwanavyuoni or wanazuoni—A more specialized Swahili term for a religious scholar (ʿalim, q.v.).
nazir—Supervisor.
pepo—Swahili term for a spirit that “visits” one possessed.
qadi—A Muslim judge, a scholar who is employed by an Islamic regime to render judgments in a court based on the shariʿa (q.v.).
qasida (pl. qasaʾid)—A verse form often associated in Africa with eulogies of important religious leaders.
ribat—Originally, a fortified convent on the frontiers of Islam; one of the terms (like zawiya, q.v.) denoting the residence of mystics.
samaʾ—A concert of spiritual or devotional music.
sanduq—In Sudan, rotating credit associations.
shahada—Islam confession of faith, which states that “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His messenger.”
shariʿa—The religious law of Islam.
sharif (pl. shurafaʾ)—This refers to a putative descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, or of his near family.
shaykh—An honorific term applied informally to a highly esteemed (male) personage. A patriarch or a religious scholar, or head of a sufì lodge (zawiya, q.v.).
sufì—A Muslim mystic, who often belongs to one of the mystical brotherhoods.
sunna—A normative custom of the Prophet or of the early Muslim community, as set forth in the hadith (q.v.).
tafsir—Exegesis of the Quran.
tariqa (pl. turuq)—A mystical path or “Way” to an experience of God by the sufì (q.v.); often organized as a brotherhood.
ʿulamaʾ—Scholars (sing. ʿalim).
wali (pl. awliyaʾ)—A holy person, a saint.
wilaya or walaya—“Friendship with God,” the status of saint (wali, q.v.).
wird (pl. awrad)—Prayer ritual that is distinctive for and identity marker of a sufì Way (tariqa, q.v.).
zakat—The alms tax obligatory for all Muslims.
zar—Literally, “the red wind”; in countries of northern Africa and the Middle East, the term extends to associations of men and/or women who practice healing rituals that may include spirit possessions and counsel clients as healers.
zawiya (pl. zawaya)—The residence of mystics, like ribat (q.v.); also, clerical tribes of the Sahara.