al-Ghazali - Freedom and Fulfillment

Some useful terms:

Fatwã: a ruling or opinion on a point of holy law issued by a mufti (an authoritative specialist in Islamic law, competent to issue a fatwã)

Fiqh: the technical term for the science of Islamic law; jurisprudence

(Al-Ghazali was primarily a faqîh, a specialist in fiqh, a combination of canon lawyer and moral theologian]

Hadîth: a tradition relating an action, utterance, or decision of the Prophet.  The corpus of Hadîth constitutes one of the major sources of Islamic law.

Hajj : the pilgrimage to Mecca, required of a Muslim at least once in a lifetime.

Hijra: the migration of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in A.D. 622

Imãm: a leader, especially in prayer, and hence by extension the sovereign head of the universal Islamic state and community.

Jihãd: literally effort or striving. Name commonly given to the Holy War for Islam against the unbelievers.  Greatly misunderstood concept.  A duty, on the communal and the individual level Greater jihad refers to internal striving (personal struggle to be righteous and follow the path ordained by God); lesser jihad to external striving.

Ka'ba: a cubelike building, almost in the center of the great mosque in Mecca.  The Black Stone, venerated as a sacred object, is inside the building, built into the walls at the eastern corner.

Kãfir : an unbeliever, that is, one who does not accept Islam.

Qibla: the direction of Mecca, toward which Muslims turn in prayer.

Sadaqa: alms, probably from the Hebrew sedãqã; sometimes used in the general sense of almsgiving and sometimes, more technically, as a synonym of zakãt (the alms tax, one of the five basic duties of a Muslim).

ShÎ'a: party or faction, specifically the party of 'Ali, the kinsman and son-in-law of the Prophet.  The ShÎ'a began as a group of Muslims who advocated the claims of 'AlÎ, and later his descendants, to the Caliphate.

SunnÎ: a Muslim belonging to the dominant majority group in Islam, sometimes loosely translated "orthodox."  A SunnÎ is a follower of the Sunna, the accepted practice and beliefs of the Islamic community, based on the precedents of the Prophet, his Companions, and his accredited successors, as established and interpreted by the consensus (ijmã) of the learned.

'Ulamã': plural of 'ãlim, a scholar, specifically in religious subjects.  The term 'ulamã' is used to describe the class of professional men of religious learning who form the nearest Muslim to a clergy.

Umma: an Arabic term meaning approximately "community," used of both religious and ethnic entities.  The term was commonly used for the religio-political community of Islam as a whole.

(From Islam: From the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, ed. and tran. Bernard Lewis.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).