Mubah

Mubāḥ (Arabic: مباح) is an Arabic word roughly meaning "permitted",^[1] which has technical uses in Islamic law.

In uṣūl al-fiqh (Arabic: أصول الفقه, lit. 'principles of Islamic jurisprudence'), mubāḥ is one of the five degrees of approval (ahkam):

farḍ/wājib (واجب / فرض) - compulsory, obligatory
mustaḥabb/mandūb (مستحب) - recommended
mubāḥ (مباح) - neutral, not involving God's judgment
makrūh (مكروه) - disliked, reprehensible
ḥarām/maḥzūr (محظور / حرام) - forbidden

Mubah is commonly translated as "neutral" or "permitted" in English.,^[2]^[3] "indifferent"^[4] or "(merely) permitted".^[4]^[5] It refers to an action that is not mandatory, recommended, reprehensible or forbidden, and thus involves no judgement from God.^[2] Assigning acts to this legal category reflects a deliberate choice rather than an oversight on the part of jurists.^[3]

In Islamic property law, the term mubāḥ refers to things which have no owner. It is similar to the concept res nullius used in Roman law and common law.^[6]

References

^ Hans Wehr, J. Milton Cowan (1976). A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (3rd ed.). Spoken Language Services. p. 81.
^ ^a ^b Vikør, Knut S. (2014). "Sharīʿah". In Emad El-Din Shahin (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 2014-06-04. Retrieved 2017-05-20.
^ ^a ^b Wael B. Hallaq (2009). Sharī'a: Theory, Practice, Transformations. Cambridge University Press (Kindle edition). p. Loc. 2160.
^ ^a ^b Baber Johansen (2009). "Islamic Law. Legal and Ethical Qualifications". In Stanley N. Katz (ed.). The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
^ Juan Eduardo Campo, ed. (2009). "Halal". Encyclopedia of Islam. Infobase Publishing. p. 284.
^ Ersilia Francesca (2009). "Possession. Yad in Islamic Law". In Stanley N. Katz (ed.). The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.