Discover the meaning of the term Al-wlaʾ (ولاء) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 4 min readIt is an inheritance to which a person is entitled by reason of the manumission of a slave in his possession, or by reason of the contract of clientage (muwalat).
One of the effects of manumission, derived from wali in the sense of kinship; one says: between the two of them is wala, that is, a lawful kinship arising from manumission or clientage. Hence the Prophet's saying: 'Wala is flesh like the flesh of lineage', its bond like the bond of lineage.
With kasra: in language, continuity; in religious law: one act following upon another such that the first limb does not dry, for example in ablution in moderate weather: if one dries the face and hands with a cloth before washing the feet, the wala is not broken. Contrary to what is held in the Tuhfa and the Ikhtiyar, that one should not occupy oneself between the acts with another act of worship: on their view, drying breaks the wala; hence the masters forbade it (see al-Zahidi). It is an emphatic sunna in ablution.
In language: aid and love. Al-Raghib said: wala and tawalli are two things' coexisting from a point onward with nothing between them not of themselves; the sense is borrowed for nearness of place, of relation, of religion, of friendship, of aid and of creed. In religious law: mutual support through the wala of the freedwoman ('ataqa) or the wala of clientage (muwalat). In the Hidaya: wala is of two kinds. (a) The wala of the freedwoman, called the wala of favor (ni'ma); its cause is manumission of a slave in one's ownership, soundly, so that even if a kinsman manumits a slave, the wala comes to him by inheritance. (b) The wala of clientage, whose cause is the contract; hence one says 'the wala of the freedwoman and the wala of clientage', the name following its cause. The wala of manumission means that when one manumits a male or female slave one becomes 'asaba to him or her in all rulings of 'asaba in the absence of blood 'asaba: inheritance, guardianship in marriage, interdiction and the rest. Ibn 'Arfa did not define wala, resting content with the Prophet's definition: 'Wala is flesh like the flesh of lineage; it is neither sold nor given'.
Clientage. Al-walaya (with fatha): aid. Al-wilaya (with kasra): kinship. Rank, mark. Power. The territory administered by the governor. Aid. In religious law: making one's word prevail over another, whether the other consents or not. (al-Jurjani). Al-wali: whoever holds a charge or performs it, masculine or feminine; the feminine may also be formed with ha': waliyya. Plural: awliya. The defender. In the Quran: 'God is the defender of the believers' (Al 'Imran, 68). The master. The friend, the ally. In the Glorious Book: 'O you who believe, take not the Jews and the Christians for allies; they are allies one of another, and whoever of you takes them for allies is of them; God guides not the wrongdoing people' (al-Ma'ida, 51). The obedient: one says the believer is God's wali. The follower. The partner. The paternal cousin. Keeper of lineage. The neighbor. The manumitter. With the doctors of the principles of religion: he who knows God by His names and attributes as far as he is able, constant in acts of obedience, shunning disobedience, and turning away from indulgence in pleasures and passions. (Ibn 'Abidin).
With kasra of the waw: from wala, following and succession. The succession of acts: a second act following the first without interruption between them.