The concepts of al-halal and al-haram in the Arab-Muslim culture : a translational and lexicographical study

This paper aims at providing sufficient definitions of the concepts of al-Halal and al-Haram in the Arab-Muslim culture, illustrating how they are treated in some bilingual Arabic-English dictionaries since they often tend to be provided with inaccurate, lacking and sometimes simply incorrect definitions. Moreover, the paper investigates how these concepts are linguistically reflected through proverbs, collocations, frequent expressions, and connotations. These concepts are deeply rooted in the Arab-Muslim tradition and history, affecting the Arabs' way of thinking and acting. Therefore, accurate definitions of these concepts may help understand the Arab-Muslim identity that is vaguely or poorly understood by non-speakers of Arabic. Furthermore, to non-speakers of Arabic, these notions are often misunderstood, inadequately explained, and inaccurately translated into other languages