Discover the meaning of the term Al-ḍrwra (ضرورة) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 1 min readDerived from 'darr' (harm), which is what befalls without any possibility of repelling it.
It is the distress (shidda) that cannot be repelled, the hardship and the need. The necessary (daruri) is all that one needs and cannot do without; its plural: daruriyyat. Among the usulis: the things indispensable to the establishment of the interests of religion and this world, such that if they were lost, the affairs of this world would no longer run straight, but in corruption, collapse, and loss of life; and in the hereafter, loss of salvation and felicity, with return to manifest loss.
They are: the preservation of religion, of the self, of reason, of lineage, and of property. [al-Misbah al-munir p. 138, al-Mu'jam al-wasit 1/558, al-Muwafaqat 2/8, al-Mustasfa 1/287].
Derived from 'darr' (harm), which is what befalls without any possibility of repelling it; it also means what needs no inquiry or inference, being known to the common people.