Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ From ↗marʔ ‘man’.
▪ A key concept of pre-Islamic and Islamic culture. According to EI², the meaning of murūʔaẗ is somewhat “imprecise”—which, however, is not unusual with ‘super’- or ‘meta’-concepts of a comparable importance). “There is reason to believe that m. originally describes the sum of the physical qualities of man and then by a process of spiritualisation and abstraction his moral qualities.”¹
▪ Related concepts: among others, cf. ↗ʔadab, ↗ʔaḫlāq, ↗ḍiyāfaẗ, ↗fakhr, ↗ḥamāsaẗ, ↗ḥilm, ↗ʕirḍ, ↗karam, ↗ṣabr.

1. EI², Index of Terms, s.v.

hist

»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

1. EI², Index of Terms, s.v.

cogn

See ↗MRʔ and ↗marʔ.

See ↗marʔ.

–

See ↗marʔ.

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