The word · Law & life
مُباح
Mubah
Neutral: neither rewarded nor blamed, permitted and left entirely to your choice.
Also written · Mubaah · Mobah · Jayiz · Ibahah · Ibaha · Jaiz · Jaa'iz · neutral · permissible · indifferent · allowed but not rewarded
The meaning
What Mubah means in Islam
Which colour you wear and what you eat for breakfast are mubah, and most of ordinary life sits inside this category. A mubah act can become worship through intention, since eating so as to have strength to pray is rewarded, and sleeping so as to rise for fajr is rewarded. This is where the maxim that matters are judged by their intentions does its quietest and most useful work.
Evidence · Editorial · Our own summary, drawn from the sources named
Read beside it
Words that sit beside it
- HalalPermitted. Anything revelation has not forbidden, which is the great majority of things.حَلال
- MustahabbRecommended: rewarded if done, with no blame for leaving it.مُسْتَحَبّ
- Niyyah (in law)Intention, which decides what an act legally is, not merely whether it is rewarded.النِّيَّة
- MakruhDisliked but not forbidden: leaving it is rewarded, doing it brings no sin.مَكْروه
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- DiyahBlood money: compensation paid to a victim's family for a killing or an injury.دِيَة
- HijabThe covering a Muslim woman wears in public, most often a headscarf with modest clothing.حِجاب
- MadhhabA school of law: a settled method of deriving rulings, carried by generations of scholars.مَذْهَب
- Mut'ahTemporary marriage for a fixed term, permitted in Twelver Shia law and prohibited in Sunni law.زَواجُ المُتْعة
- Sadd al-Dhara'iBlocking the means: forbidding something lawful because it reliably leads to something forbidden.سَدُّ الذَّرائِع