BAITU ʾL-LĀH (بيت الله). “The House of God.” A name given to the Meccan mosque. [[MASJIDU ʾL-HARAM].]
BAITU ʾL-MĀL (بيت المال). Lit. “The House of Property.” The public treasury of a Muslim state, which the ruler is not allowed to use for his personal expenses, but only for the public good.
The sources of income are: (1) Zakāt, or the legal tax raised upon land, personal property, and merchandise, which, after deducting the expense of collecting, should be expended in the support of the poor and destitute. (2) The fifth of all spoils and booty taken in war. (3) The produce of mines and of treasure-trove. (4) Property for which there is no owner. (5) The Jizyah, or tax levied on unbelievers. (Hidāyah, Arabic ed., vol. i. p. 452.)
AL-BAITU ʾL-MAʿMŪR (البيت المعمور). Lit. “The Inhabited House.” A house in the seventh heaven, visited by Muḥammad during the Miʿrāj or night-journey. It is said to be immediately over the sacred temple at Makkah. [[MIʿRAJ].]
BAITU ʾL-MIDRĀS (بيت المدراس). “The House of Instruction.” A term (used in a tradition given by Abū Hurairah) for a Jewish school. (Mishkāt, xvii. c. xi.) In Heb. בֵּית הַמִּדְרָשׁ.
AL-BAITU ʾL-MUQADDAS (البيت المقدس). “The Holy House.” A name given to the temple at Jerusalem. [AL-MASJIDU ʾL-AQSA.]
BAITU ʾL-QUDS (بيت القدس). Lit. “The House of Holiness.” A term used by the Ṣūfīs for the heart of the true seeker after God when it is absorbed in meditation. (ʿAbdu ʾr-Razzāq’s Dictionary of Ṣūfī Terms.)
BAIʿU ʾL-WAFĀʾ (بيع الوفاء). The word wafā means the performance of a promise, and the Baiʿu ʾl-Wafāʾ is a sale with a promise to be performed. It is, in fact, a pledge in the hands of the pawnee, who is not its proprietor, nor is he free to make use of it without the permission of the owner. There are different opinions about the legality of this form of sale, but it is now the common form of mortgage in use in India, where it is usually styled Baiʿ bi-ʾl-wafā. (See Baillie’s Muḥammadan Law of Sale, p. 303.)
AL-BAIYINAH (البينة). Lit. “The Evidence.” A title given to the XCVIIIth Sūrah of the Qurʾān, in which the word occurs.
BAʿL (بعل), Heb. הַבַּעַל, i.e. “Lord.” The chief deity worshipped by the Syro-Phœnician nations. It is known to the Muḥammadans as an idol worshipped in the days of the Prophet Elisha. (See G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hah.)