Discover the meaning of the term Al-fayʾ (فَيء) in Islamic vocabulary.
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Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 3 min readWhat is obtained from them after war lays down its burden and the land becomes a land of Islam; its ruling is that it be for all the Muslims and is not fifth-shared.
Returning; 'fa'a yafi'u' when he returns. The fay' in the chapter of ila' (the oath of continence) is intercourse when able over it, otherwise one says 'fu'tu ilay-ha' (I returned to her). And also al-fay': the spoils.
The shadow from midday to sunset was named fay' for its returning from one side to the other, and the usage of zill prevailed for what is from sunrise to midday. Abu Ubayda, from Ru'ba: 'everything on which the sun was and then departed is fay', and what the sun was not on is shade.' In the abridged commentary on al-Wiqaya by Abu al-Makarim, may Allah have mercy on him: 'the fay' of midday is the shadow that things gain when the sun stands on the line of the day's middle; it varies in length and shortness by the variation of places and times, its greatest length at the sun's passing into Capricorn and its shortness at the passing into Cancer.'
In language: returning to a praiseworthy state; Allah, the Most High, said: 'until it returns to the command of Allah; then if it returns.'
What Allah, the Most High, returned to the people of His religion of the wealth of those who opposed them in religion without fighting, either by expulsion or by treaty, for the poll tax (jizya) or otherwise. The ghanima (booty) is more specific than it, and the nafl more specific than that; and the fay' is what the sun effaces, being from midday to the west, as the shade is what the sun casts, being from rising to midday.
What is obtained of the unbelievers without the marshaling of horses and riders.
The return to what one came from of rising up; thus mentioned al-Harali.