#Islam

• Aniconism — The absence or prohibition of figurative, anthropomorphic, or zoomorphic representations of the divinity, saints, or living beings in sacred art and places of worship within certain religions. This cultural-religious practice prefers the use of abstract symbols, geometric motifs, calligraphy, or vegetative elements to evoke the divine presence without restricting it to an anthropomorphic form.
• Aniconism — A doctrine, movement, or belief system that prohibits or discourages the creation and worship of material images depicting divinity or other spiritual entities. Unlike iconoclasm, which involves the violent destruction of existing images, this concept represents a preventive conduct, preferring the manifestation of the sacred through the written word, holy texts, or non-representative symbols.
• Pre-Islamic — Existing, occurring, or belonging to the period before the emergence and spread of Islam (7th century AD). In historiography and philology, the term refers specifically to the culture, poetry, traditions, and tribal organization of the Arabian Peninsula from the era known as Jahiliyyah, as well as to pre-Islamic civilizations of the Middle East.
• Arab — Belonging to Arabia, its population, or states in the Middle East and North Africa, being specific to the culture, history, language, and Islamic or Semitic traditions of this geographical space; as a noun, it designates a person belonging to one of the Arabic-speaking peoples.
• Arabesque — As an adjective, it describes cultural, artistic, or linguistic elements specific to Arabs or the Islamic world; as a noun, it represents a complex linear ornament consisting of intertwined lines, floral, and geometric motifs characteristic of Islamic art, or a basic ballet position where the body is supported on one leg with the other extended backward.
• Arabesques — The plural form of the noun 'arabesc'; it represents a succession or an assembly of complex ornaments, consisting of intertwined lines, sinuous curves, floral or geometric motifs found in Islamic art, or the figures and successive movements executed by ballet dancers according to classical choreographies.
• Arabs — The entirety of the Semitic-speaking peoples inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, and North Africa, sharing a common history and a cultural heritage deeply marked by Islamic civilization. Capitalized, the term individualizes this global ethno-linguistic community in relation to other ethnic groups of the world.
• Arabia — A vast peninsula located in southwestern Asia, bounded by the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean, serving as the geographic, historical, and spiritual core of the Arab world and Islam. In common usage, the term can refer either to the entire geographic landmass of the Arabian Peninsula or, by contextual political shorthand, to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
• Arabdom — A collective noun designating the totality of populations of Arab origin or the global community of Arabic-speaking peoples sharing the same culture. In a historical and geopolitical context, it describes the cultural and ethnic sphere of the Middle East and North Africa.
• Arabic studies — A branch of Oriental studies that deals with the complex, scientific, and systematic study of the Arabic language, literature, history, philosophy, religion, and culture of Arabic-speaking peoples. This academic discipline provides the philological tools necessary to decipher the evolution of Islamic civilization and its historical links with European and global spheres.
• Arabization — The act of Arabizing and its result; the historical, political, or sociocultural process through which a population, region, or linguistic structure adopts the Arabic language, customs, culture, and identity specific to the Arab world. The phenomenon experienced major expansion starting in the 7th century with the spread of Islam, leading to lasting demographic and cultural transformations in the Middle East and North Africa.
• Al-Araf — The eschatological place of transition mentioned in the Quran (in the seventh chapter, named Al-Araf), described as a high wall, barrier, or mountain ridge situated between Paradise (Jannah) and Hell (Jahannam). It serves as a temporary waiting area for souls whose good and bad deeds are perfectly balanced upon weighing on Judgment Day, with the individuals there able to see both realms before being ultimately saved by divine mercy.
• Arafat — A plain and a granite mountain (Mount Arafat) located about 20 kilometers southeast of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, representing the central sacred site where Muslim pilgrims spend the afternoon of the 9th day of Dhu al-Hijjah (Day of Arafat) in prayer and repentance, a mandatory ritual (Waqf) without which the Hajj pilgrimage is invalid. In modern political history, the name is indissolubly linked to Yasser Arafat (1929–2004), the historic leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
• Ardabil — A proper name designating an ancient historical city and province in northwestern Iran, situated in a high mountainous region near the border with the Republic of Azerbaijan. The city is globally recognized structurally as the cradle of the Safavid dynasty and houses the famous spiritual complex and shrine of Sheikh Safi al-Din, a UNESCO World Heritage site, also famous for the historical production of Persian carpets displaying outstanding geometric complexity.
• Asar — A term with multiple meanings: in archaeology and mythology, it can refer to ancient altars or ritual stone structures; in an Islamic religious context, it represents the afternoon prayer or its designated time. Also, in Scandinavian archaeological terminology, it designates a deity from the Norse pantheon (adapted form for As).
• Ash'arite — A proper noun or historical adjective designating a follower, a member, or a specific doctrinal trait of the Ash'arite school of Islamic theology (founded by Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari in the 10th century); this scholastic philosophical and theological movement became the main pillar of Sunni orthodoxy, attempting to reconcile dialectical rationalism with the literal interpretation of sacred texts.
• at-Tib — The name of a historical valley or intermittent watercourse (wadi) located in the border region between Iraq and Iran, east of the Tigris River. Known in classical Islamic historical and geographical sources as a commercial and strategic transit area, the locality of at-Tib gave its name to an alluvial plain region, historically marked by border conflicts and ancient archaeological sites.
• Avempace — A lowercase spelling variant used in philosophical or historical texts to refer to the school of thought, commentaries, and scientific theories developed by the Andalusian philosopher Avempace; it represents the adaptation of his name as an epistemic common noun to denote a type of mystical rationalism or the physical model of motion that anticipated the modern concept of inertia. Its meaning oscillates between the author's own identity and his conceptual legacy in medieval Islamic and European philosophy.
• Avenzoar — The Latinized name of Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr (1094–1162), a famous Arab physician, surgeon, and polymath from Islamic Andalusia, widely regarded as one of the greatest clinicians of the Middle Ages. Unlike other contemporary philosophers, he focused almost exclusively on empirical medicine, introducing experimental methods, animal dissection, and drug testing; his main work, 'Kitab al-Taysir', translated into Latin, served for centuries as a reference textbook in European medical universities.
• Averroes — An early or popular Romanian graphic variant for Averroes, the Latinized name of Ibn Rushd (1126–1198), the most famous Arab philosopher, physician, and polymath from Islamic Andalusia; he is renowned in world history for his revolutionary commentaries on Aristotle's works, which laid the foundations of Western radical rationalism (Averroism). The spelling reflects a simplified phonetic adaptation found in some older encyclopedias or literary translations in the Balkan region.