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(a.), Muruwwa , a term used especially in pre-Islamic and early Islamic usage. In the Arabic language there are a number of terms the meaning of which is imprecise (cf. Ibn Fāris, al-Ṣāḥibī , Cairo 1910, 34-8). The word murūʾa is one of these. Indeed, we are assailed on all sides by a host of differing post-Islamic definitions and contradictory pronouncements ( aḳwāl ) regarding it. These definitions and pronouncements will be found in the various dictionaries and in Abū Manṣūr al-T̲h̲aʿālibī, Mirʾāt al-murūʾāt , Cairo 1898, 32 pp.; al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, al-Bayān wa ’l-tabyīn …