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Wasat (the middle, moderation, the choice)

وَسط

Wasat in the jurists' usage has three senses: the moderate, the choice, and what lies between two ends. 12 The general rule is that what is due in each kind is its middling part; as an example, the zakat on livestock is the middling animal, on the report "but from the middle of your property". 23 Flogging for penalties and discretionary punishment uses a middling whip, neither new and cutting nor worn and painless; stones for stoning are the size of a palm; and the feeding in expiation is of the middle quality of food eaten by one's household, a point on which the jurists differ in detail. 34 In the sense of choice, wasat is used of the middle prayer, on whose identity the jurists differ at length. 4 In the sense of what lies between two ends, it is recommended that the imam stand in the middle of the row; standing at its right or left wing is reported as contrary to the sunna. Women's imam stands in the middle of the women's row. Eating from the middle of a dish or bread is disliked, and sitting in the middle of a circle is disliked by most jurists and forbidden by some Shafi'is. 456

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At a glance

Era
The Prophetic Era
Region
Global / Diaspora
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Worship and the pillarsLaw and courts

People and things also explored

God's debt (dayn Allah): obligations owed to God that remain in the liability· Slaughter (dhaba'ih): the lawful killing of animals for food in fiqh· Gold (dhahab) in the rulings· Taste (dhawq) in the rulings: fasting, injury to it, and oaths· Halak (destruction of property and its legal effect)· Hay'a (the recommended forms of prayer, and the dignified offenders)· The no-harm maxim· The Prophet's written charge to Amr ibn Hazm on sending him to Yemen

Sources

  1. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.17187
  2. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.17188
  3. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.17189
  4. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.17190
  5. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.17191
  6. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.17192
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Wasat (the middle, moderation, the choice)”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/concept/wasat-fiqh/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-23.

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Ideas

Beliefs, concepts, sciences and schools, explained in plain words. Related

God's debt (dayn Allah): obligations owed to God that remain in the liability

God's debt is a right of God that stays in the liability of the obligated person, with no human claimant: vows, expiations, the zakat of fast-breaking, pilgrimage, fasting, and a prayer whose time has passed, all of which must be made up. A right of God becomes a debt in the liability when its time passes before performance, when the due property is destroyed, or when the person was unable to perform it when it fell due. Financial debts to God may be paid by a proxy by agreement; bodily worship may not be done for the living, and the schools differ on proxies for the dead. The schools also differ on whether it binds the estate of the dead, whether it blocks zakat, and whether it lapses through hardship, apostasy or death.