Brief definitions of terms used across this site. Arabic and Hebrew terms are given in transliteration.
Terms
- Abrahamic religions: traditions that trace a spiritual or historical link to Abraham, principally Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
- Apocrypha: books found in the Greek Old Testament but outside the Hebrew Bible; Catholic and Orthodox churches call most of them deuterocanonical.
- Aramaic: a Semitic language related to Hebrew, used in parts of Daniel and Ezra, the Talmud and the Targums, and, as Syriac, by several Eastern churches.
- BCE and CE: Before the Common Era and Common Era, the dating labels used on this site.
- Canon: the list of books a community accepts as scripture.
- Covenant: a binding relationship between God and people, central to the Hebrew Bible.
- Creed: a formal statement of Christian belief, such as the Nicene Creed.
- Eucharist: the Christian rite of bread and wine, also called Holy Communion or the Mass.
- Fiqh: Islamic jurisprudence, the human understanding of divine law.
- Gemara: the rabbinic commentary on the Mishnah, written largely in Aramaic; with the Mishnah it forms the Talmud.
- Gospel: “good news”; also each of the four accounts of Jesus’ life in the New Testament.
- Ḥadīth: a report of the words or deeds of the Prophet Muhammad.
- Ḥajj: the pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the Five Pillars of Islam.
- Halakhah: Jewish religious law.
- Ḥanīf: in the Qur’an, a pure monotheist, a title given to Abraham.
- Hijrah: the Prophet’s migration from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE.
- Imam: a leader of congregational prayer; in Shia Islam, also a divinely guided leader of the community.
- Kaaba: the cube-shaped shrine at the centre of the Great Mosque in Mecca.
- Kashrut: the Jewish dietary laws.
- Messiah: “anointed one”; a figure of Jewish hope, identified by Christians and Muslims with Jesus.
- Midrash: rabbinic interpretation of scripture.
- Mishnah: the first written compilation of Jewish oral law, around 200 CE.
- Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
- Peshitta: the standard Syriac translation of the Bible.
- Qiblah: the direction of the Kaaba, which Muslims face in prayer.
- Rabbi: a Jewish teacher and interpreter of the law.
- Ṣalāh: the five daily ritual prayers of Islam.
- Septuagint: the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures.
- Shabbat: the Jewish day of rest, from Friday evening to Saturday evening.
- Shahādah: the Muslim declaration of faith.
- Shema: the Jewish declaration of God’s oneness, recited morning and evening.
- Shirk: in Islam, associating partners with God, the gravest sin.
- Sunnah: the example of the Prophet Muhammad.
- Sūrah: a chapter of the Qur’an.
- Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke, which share much material.
- Syriac: a dialect of Aramaic with its own alphabet, the classical language of several Eastern churches.
- Tafsīr: exegesis of the Qur’an.
- Talmud: the Mishnah together with its commentary, the Gemara.
- Tanakh: the Hebrew Bible.
- Targum: an Aramaic translation of a book of the Hebrew Bible.
- Tawḥīd: the oneness of God, the foundation of Islamic belief.
- Torah: the five books of Moses; more broadly, all Jewish teaching.
- Trinity: the Christian doctrine of one God in three persons.
- Ummah: the worldwide community of Muslims.