Discover the meaning of the term Al-ghra (غرة) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 3 min readAmong slaves: the one whose price is half of one-tenth of the blood-money (diya).
With fatha: deception, that is, 'to beguile'; with damma: in Persian, 'the first day of the month, or the second, or the third, or the white before the horse's legs, which has greater worth'. In the Qamus: al-ghurra, with damma: the male slave and the female slave; of the month, the night of the new moon; of the crescent, its first appearance; of the teeth, their whiteness and foremost rank; of merchandise, its best pick; of a people, its noble; of grapes, what ripens first of the clusters; of a man, his face; and whatever appears to your sight as light or dawning, its ghurra has appeared. In the Kifaya: ghurrat al-mal, its best pick, like the noble horse and camel, the male slave and the female slave.
Of anything: its beginning and its noblest part; plural ghurar. Of a man: his face. Of a people: its noble and its master. Of the teeth: their whiteness and foremost rank. Of the month: the night of the new moon. Of the crescent: its first appearance. Of merchandise: its best pick and its chief. A white blaze on the horse's forehead. The male slave or the female slave: Abu 'Amr ibn al-'Ala' said: a white male slave and a white female slave; a rare usage.
A slave given in satisfaction for the killing of a fetus.
With kasra: the quality by which one is beguiled, its surface fair and its end ugly. It is said: ghurra is heedlessness within wakefulness, and gharar heedlessness within wakefulness together with drowsiness; originally ghar, the visible trace of a thing, whence the horse's ghurra (white blaze); and by the horse's ghurra and its fame, a generous and famous man was called aghar.
With damma: the male slave and the female slave, each one's price being half the diya; with kasra: heedlessness.