»There is reason to believe that
murūʔaẗ originally describes the sum of the physical qualities of man and then by a process of spiritualisation and abstraction his moral qualities. After Islam, its meaning was extended thanks to the now pre-dominating moral focus. Broadly speaking, with the rightly-guided caliphs,
m. means chastity, good nature and observance of Qurʔānic laws, with the Umayyads,
m. implies politics, diplomacy, work, dignity and compassion, and with the early ʕAbbāsids,
m. implies merit and is contrasted with abjectness; with the moralists,
m. is identified with ↗
ʔadab in the meaning of good conduct. Becoming more and more abstract,
m. finally came to mean virtue. In law,
m. indicates the fact of abstaining from any act capable of offending religion although not constituting an illicit act. In the spoken language of today,
m. means ‘energy’ in Egypt (
miriwwaẗ) and Syria (
muruwwaẗ), as in the expression ‘so-and-so has not the
miriwwaẗ/muruwwaẗ to accomplish such a thing’.«
1