Discover the meaning of the term Asthr (استحر) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 3 min readIstahra the cock: to crow in the last part of the night (sahar). As-hara: to travel at the time of sahar. Tasahhara: to eat the suhur in the month of Ramadan; it is also said: tasahhara as-suhur: to eat it. As-sahar: the sahar; the last of the night just before dawn (plural: ashar, suhur). In the Noble Quran: 'And in the hours of the night they seek forgiveness' (Adh-Dhariyat, 18); the white that overlays the black; the edge of the thing. As-sahr: everything attached to the gullet: heart and lung (plural: ashar, suhr, suhur). As-suhr: the sahar. As-sihr: deception (plural: ashar, suhur); everything subtle in form and fine; falsehood and lying; madness. In the Noble Revelation: 'Pharaoh said to him: indeed I think you are bewitched, O Musa (mashur)' (Al-Isra', 101), that is: mad. In the usage of the Law: everything whose cause is hidden and which appears to the imagination other than it truly is, and which belongs to illusion and deception (Fakhr al-Din al-Razi). In terminology: the practice by evil souls of acts and words from which follow things contrary to custom (khawariq lil-'adah) (al-Bajirmi). According to the Malikis: speech by which other than Allah is magnified, and to which destinies and creatures are attributed. According to the Hanbalis: knots (formulas), incantations and speech which the sorcerer utters, or writes, or an act he performs that affects the body of the bewitched, or his heart, or his mind, without direct contact with him. As for the reality of sihr, a group of scholars, among them Ibn Hazm, some Hanafis and some Shafi'is, held that it is illusion without reality. The generality of scholars said that it has a reality: that is the position of the people of the Sunnah, as mentioned by Imam al-Maziri. As-sahur: the food of sahar and its drink. In the noble hadith: 'Take the suhur, for in the suhur there is blessing.' As-sidrah: the lote tree (plural: sidr); a variety that grows in the countryside whose leaf is used in washing, for it kills vermin and makes the hair lather; whenever the word is used alone in the chapter of washing, the pounded leaf is meant.