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Islam presents three primary terms for prayer, ṣalāt (ritual prayer), duʿāʾ (personal supplication) and dhikr (mystical recollection; see remembrance; memory; ṣūfism and the qurʾān), all of which are rooted in the qurʾānic language. These qurʾānic terms were eventually chosen to designate principal Muslim prayer practices which derive many of their characteristic features from the encounter of Islam with the cultural environment of the Middle East, particularly in the early centuries of its development, as well as that of territories Islam eventually conque…

The Qurʾān is the most recent of the major sacred scriptures to have appeared in the chronology of human history. It originated at a crucial moment in time when Muḥammad proclaimed it in the northwestern half of the Arabian peninsula during the first quarter of the seventh century c.e. The Qurʾān exhibits a significant relationship to the biblical tradition, the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, while it shows no literary affinity to the sacred literatures of Hinduism and Buddhism and little to Zoroastrian sacred writings (see scripture and the qurʾān ). The elements of the bib…

“Allāh,” the name for God in Islam, is generally taken to mean “the God,” God plainly and absolutely (Watt, The use, 245-7). The name is commonly explained linguistically as a contraction of the Arabic noun with its definite article, al-ilāh shortened into Allāh by frequency of usage in invocation. Actually, “Allāh” is not understood to be a proper name like any other, rather it is the name of the nameless God, next to whom there is no other. Allāh is mentioned only in the singular, no plural can be formed of the name. God, however, is not understood in Islam as an abstra…

An agreement between persons or parties; theologically, the promises of God offered to representatives of humanity as revealed in the scriptures. The Qurʾān employs two principal terms for the idea of covenant, mīthāq and ʿahd, using each in the singular. ʿAqd, the term that is used in Islamic law for the legal act of a contract, a will or other forms of bi- or unilateral declarations, has only a slim qurʾānic basis: Twice the cognate nominal form is used for the marriage contract, i.e. the “knot of marriage” ( ʿuqdat al-nikāḥ,q 2:235, 237; see marriage and divorce ); once the plural, ʿuqūd, is…

b. Moḥammad Ṭūsī (1058-1111), one of the greatest systematic Persian thinkers of medieval Islam and a prolific Sunni author on the religious sciences (Islamic law, philosophy, theology, and mysticism) in Saljuq times. Overview of entry: i. Biography, ii. The Eḥyāʾ ʿolum al-dīn, iii. The Kīmīā-ye saʿādat, iv. Minor Persian works, v. As a Faqīh, vi. Ḡazālī and Theology, vii. Ḡazālī and the Bāṭenīs, viii. Impact on Islamic Thought.A version of this article is available in printVolume X, Fascicle 4, pp. 358-377blod:ḠAZĀLĪ, ABŪ ḤĀMED MOḤAMMAD, b. Moḥammad Ṭūsī (450-505/1058-1111), …