Ḥarām, Makrūh and Mubāḥ

Those are the positive categories, the commandments, so to speak. In the negative category stands the opposite of farḍ, the opposite of the obligation to do — and that is ḥarām. Ḥarām is an act prohibited by Allah (swt) and His Messenger (peace be upon him) through the Holy Qurʾān and the mutawātir ḥadīth: adultery, shirk, disobedience to one's parents, lying, cheating, usury, bribery, oppression, injustice, terrorism, giving up hope in the mercy of Allah (swt), not fasting in the month of Ramaḍān, backbiting, slandering, wastage and wasting, using drugs, stealing, and the wearing of pure silk and gold by men, among others — all of them forms of ḥarām. Every Muslim knows what the ḥarām things are, and they are in fact limited: there is not an unlimited number of them. They are there for a purpose. There is ḥikmah, wisdom, behind every prohibition of Allah (swt); a person could study them one by one and write books on them, for in every prohibition, every ḥarām that Islam declares ḥarām, there is always a benefit to the individual, to society, and to the family — always great wisdom. Ḥarām, everybody knows.

Makrūh, not many people know. Makrūh is the opposite of mustaḥabb: an act which is absolutely disliked, detested, abhorred — technically, the opposite of the sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), the opposite of mustaḥabb — and disliked acts divide into two categories. One is the ordinary makrūh, the merely disliked, called makrūh tanzīhī, and close to ḥalāl: a person has just crossed the borderline of the ḥalāl and entered the area where the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) never practised. But there are some makrūh acts which are very close to ḥarām, and these are called makrūh taḥrīmī — very close to ḥarām, absolutely dangerous; a person doing them is playing with fire, and is going to get hurt. Suppose, for example, that for no reason whatsoever a person is feeling lazy — watching the telly, on the internet, or playing with the idiot box, the Xbox, whatever it is called — while the ʿaṣr prayer is passing. He knows it is passing, and going very fast; he is supposed to pray on time, and he deliberately leaves the prayer to the last minute, the last ten seconds of it, the last two minutes before the sun is about to go down. That is makrūh taḥrīmī. Or a person is bursting to go to the toilet, his wuḍūʾ very old, really suffering from stomach cramps, holding himself and dancing about, and he says that he is too lazy to make wuḍūʾ — Allāhu akbar — and prays his prayer, holding everything in throughout it. What kind of prayer is that? It is makrūh taḥrīmī, close to ḥarām. A person is supposed to take a proper wuḍūʾ, and to stand before Allah (swt) and pray with a tranquil heart, a peaceful mind, and a rested body.

Mubāḥ is an act which is permissible. Everything in Islam is in fact permissible — everything in life is permissible until it is otherwise decreed. Everything is mubāḥ unless there is a law of the sharīʿah which says it is not; everything is ḥalāl, every action is ḥalāl, unless there is an injunction in the sharīʿah, the sacred law, which says that it is ḥarām, or makrūh taḥrīmī, or that it is best to keep away from such-and-such. The basis of the law is kullu shayʾ — everything — is mubāḥ. These are neutral acts: acts which earn no reward, and whose omission warrants no punishment; simple, neutral acts. Scratching one's head — what is it? Farḍ? Wājib? Sunnah? Ḥarām? Makrūh? Mustaḥabb? None of these: it is simply mubāḥ. Or wearing a white garment — that is sunnah, of course; wearing a grey one, or an outfit suited to one's own character and liking, a designer label that is permissible in Islam, is mubāḥ, and ḥalāl. It is not ḥarām; mubāḥ means permissible, and a person may do it without any concern whatsoever. Standing, eating, blinking, rubbing one's nose, and the like, are all mubāḥ acts.