The word · Law & life
النِّيَّة
Niyyah (in law)
Intention, which decides what an act legally is, not merely whether it is rewarded.
Also written · Niyyah · Niyya · Niyat · Niyyat · Neeyah · Niyah · Niyet · intention · legal intention · actions are by intentions · qasd · al-umur bi-maqasidiha
The meaning
What Niyyah (in law) means in Islam
The Prophet said that actions are only by their intentions, and jurists turned this into the first of the great legal maxims: matters are judged by their objectives. It settles whether a wash is a bath or a wudu, whether money handed over is a gift, a loan or a repayment, and whether ambiguous words of divorce take effect. In worship the intention lives in the heart; in contracts what you say and do binds you as well, because other people have relied on it.
Evidence · Sunnah · Established in the authentic Sunnah
Read beside it
Words that sit beside it
- NiyyahThe intention in the heart that turns an ordinary act into an act of worship.نِيَّة
- Qawa'id FiqhiyyahLegal maxims: short principles that gather the pattern behind thousands of separate rulings.القَواعِدُ الفِقْهِيَّة
- 'AqdA contract: a binding agreement formed by an offer and its acceptance.عَقْد
- TalaqDivorce pronounced by the husband, which Islamic law permits but treats as a last resort.طَلاق
More from Law & life
- 'AwrahThe part of the body that must be covered, which varies by person and by setting.عَوْرة
- FardObligatory: required by decisive evidence, and sinful to abandon without an excuse.فَرْض
- 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
- MukallafA person legally responsible: sane, and past the age of puberty.مُكَلَّف
- RiddahApostasy: abandoning Islam after having accepted it.رِدَّة