Discover the meaning of the term Al-mbaḥ (مباح) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 2 min readThat whose two sides are equal.
That whose two sides are equal, that is, the doing and the leaving.
In language: the declared and permitted. In 'al-Badr al-Munir' it is said: 'bahha al-shay' buhan' (on the pattern of qala): it appeared; it takes the preposition, one says 'baha bi-hi sahibuhu' (its owner divulged it); and with the hamza too: one says 'abahahu wa abaha al-rajul malahu': he gave leave of taking and leaving and made it open on both sides; 'istabahahu al-nas': the people resorted to it. In law: in 'Sharh al-Kawkab al-Munir' it comes: 'the mubah: a deed permitted by the Lawgiver (free of praise and blame).' In 'Mizan al-Usul': 'the mubah: that whose doing and leaving are equal in the Sharia'; and this is voided by the doing of beasts and the insane.
That for whose doing one is not rewarded, nor for whose leaving punished.
It is that whose two sides are equal, meaning that whose doing carries no reward and whose leaving no punishment.
The opposite of the forbidden. In the jurists' terminology: that in which there is no sin, even if obligatory (al-Nawawi). In the usulists' terminology: that whose two sides are equal by the Sharia (al-Nawawi). With the Shafi'is: that which faces the unlawful, embracing the obligatory, the recommended and the disliked. With the Zahiris: that whose doing and leaving involve no disobedience; it is of three kinds: recommended, whose doing is rewarded and whose leaving is no disobedience; disliked, whose leaving is rewarded and whose doing is no disobedience; and unrestricted, whose doing and leaving are neither rewarded nor disobedience.