Core Glossary
James — Core Glossary (Koine Greek → Kashmiri)
Curriculum: James | Destination language: Kashmiri (Koshur), Perso-Arabic script
Companion document to: analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md
Governing authority: Baseline Romans translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, doctrine_risk_registry.json. Every term below marked “Reused (baseline)” is enforced exactly as recorded there; no alternative rendering is permitted. Every term marked “New (James)” is coined here for the first time and requires the same tier of human review the baseline models for comparable-risk terms before Phase 2 translation begins.
| # | English Term | Greek (translit.) | Kashmiri Rendering | Status | Risk | Doctrine(s) | Chapter(s) | Rejected Alternatives / Key Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Faith | πίστις (pistis) | ایمان (īmān) | Reused (baseline) | Critical | Faith and Works | 1, 2, 5 | Reuse baseline exactly. In James, object must remain personal trust in God/Christ; James 2 interrogates whether a bare doctrinal-assent version of ایمان (echoing Islamic default confessional sense) constitutes saving faith at all. |
| 2 | Works | ἔργα (erga) | عمل / اعمال (a’mal) | New (James) | Critical | Faith and Works | 1, 2 | Rejected: “good deeds” alone (too vague, loses the works/faith tension). Central collision risk: a’mal is the core Islamic deeds-weighing soteriological term; must always be taught as the fruit/evidence of grace-given faith, never its meritorious basis. Requires harmonization note with Romans grace/justification at every occurrence in 2:14-26. |
| 3 | Justified / Justification | δικαιόω / δικαίωσις (dikaioō/dikaiōsis) | راستباز ٹھہرایہ گیہ / راستباز ٹھہراونہٕ | Reused (baseline) | Critical | Faith and Works | 2 | Reuse baseline compound exactly. James 2:21,24 use the evidential/vindicating sense (faith shown genuine by works), NOT the forensic once-for-all declarative sense of Romans 4; mandatory harmonizing note required at every occurrence. |
| 4 | Righteousness | δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynē) | راستبازی (rāstbāzī) | Reused (baseline) | Critical | Faith and Works | 2, 3 | Reuse baseline exactly (Genesis 15:6 citation at 2:23 is the same text cited in Romans 4:3). |
| 5 | Imputed/Credited Righteousness | ἐλογίσθη … εἰς δικαιοσύνην | دِتمُت راستبازی (ditmut rāstbāzī) | Reused (baseline) | Critical | Faith and Works | 2 | Reuse baseline exactly. James 2:23 quotes the identical OT text as Romans 4:3 — proof James does not contradict justification-by-faith-apart-from-works-as-ground. |
| 6 | Grace | χάρις (charis) | فضل (faz’l) | Reused (baseline) | Critical | Faith and Works; Worldliness vs Friendship with God | 4 | Reuse baseline exactly. James 4:6 (“God gives grace to the humble”) must retain the baseline’s dual guard against Islamic deeds-weighed-mercy AND Trika shaktipat framings. |
| 7 | Mercy | ἔλεος (eleos) | رحم (raḥm) | New (James), using baseline’s designated synonym | High | Faith and Works; Favoritism and the Poor | 2 | Baseline permits رحم only as a supporting synonym for grace, never a replacement; in James 2:13 mercy is its own distinct concept (“mercy triumphs over judgment”) and must be taught as flowing from, not competing with, grace. |
| 8 | Law | νόμος (nomos) | شریعت (sharī’at) | Reused (baseline) | High | Favoritism and the Poor | 1, 2, 4 | Reuse baseline exactly. |
| 9 | Royal Law | νόμος βασιλικός (nomos basilikos) | بادشاہی شریعت (bādshāhī sharī’at) | New (James) | High | Favoritism and the Poor | 2 | Built on baseline شریعت; anchor explicitly to “love your neighbor,” not a comprehensive alternative legal code. |
| 10 | Perfect Law of Liberty | νόμος τέλειος τῆς ἐλευθερίας | آزادیہٕ ہٕنٛز کامل شریعت | New (James) | High | Faith and Works | 1 | Gospel-law producing free, willing obedience through the Spirit; not a Sharia-style code nor license for lawlessness. |
| 11 | Sin | ἁμαρτία (hamartia) | گناہ (gunāh) | Reused (baseline) | High | Faith and Works; Confession and Restoration | 1, 2, 4, 5 | Reuse baseline exactly. |
| 12 | Trial / Testing | πειρασμός (peirasmos) | آزمایش (āzmāyish) | New (James) | High | Trials and the Testing of Faith | 1 | Context-sensitive: reserve for God-permitted testing (1:2-3,12) only, not temptation-to-sin (see #13). Point of contact with Quranic divine-testing theme; James’s frame (maturity through God’s unchanging goodness) differs from fatalistic-endurance framing. |
| 13 | Temptation (to sin) | πειράζω/πειρασμός (peirazō) | گناہہٕ ورغلاونہٕ (gunāheh varghalāwun) | New (James) | High | Trials and the Testing of Faith | 1 | Second sense of the same Greek root; God never causes this (1:13). Must be kept visibly distinct from #12 in Kashmiri. |
| 14 | Steadfastness / Endurance | ὑπομονή (hypomonē) | ثابت قدمی (sābit qadamī) | New (James) | Medium | Trials and the Testing of Faith | 1, 5 | Confirm regional attestation with native speakers before wide deployment (per baseline’s own caution pattern). |
| 15 | Patience (eschatological waiting) | μακροθυμία (makrothymia) | صبر (sabr) | New (James) | High | Patience and the Lord’s Return | 5 | صبر is a central Islamic virtue-term (patient submission to qadar); James’s patience is specifically oriented to Christ’s promised bodily return and must be taught with that content explicit, not left as generic endurance. |
| 16 | Perfect / Complete / Mature | τέλειος (teleios) | کامل (kāmil) | New (James) | Critical | Trials and the Testing of Faith; Faith and Works | 1, 2, 3 | Direct collision with the Sufi doctrine of Insān-i-Kāmil (the Perfect Human, attained via mystical stations under a pir); must be taught as Spirit-produced maturity through trials received by grace, not mystical/ascetic attainment. |
| 17 | Wisdom | σοφία (sophia) | حکمت (ḥikmat) | New (James) | High | Wisdom from Above | 1, 3 | حکمت is a major Quranic/Sufi theological term; must be taught as God’s free gift given directly in response to simple faith-filled asking (1:5), not attained through Sufi ma’rifat/guru transmission. |
| 18 | Wisdom from Above | σοφία ἄνωθεν (sophia anōthen) | مٲیُک حکمت (mā’yuk ḥikmat) | New (James) | High | Wisdom from Above | 3 | Positive pole of the wisdom contrast; pure, peaceable, gentle, impartial, sincere. |
| 19 | Earthly / Unspiritual / Demonic Wisdom | ἐπίγειος, ψυχική, δαιμονιώδης | زمینی / نفسانی / شیطانی | New (James) | High | Wisdom from Above | 3 | نفسانی (“of the nafs/lower self”) invokes Sufi tazkiyat al-nafs psychology; genuine point of contact but James’s remedy is direct petition to God, not prescribed ascetic self-purification. |
| 20 | Double-minded | δίψυχος (dipsychos) | دو دِلہٕ (do-dila) | New (James) | Medium | Trials and the Testing of Faith | 1 | Descriptive compound; unstable prayer rooted in divided allegiance. |
| 21 | Poor | πτωχός (ptōchos) | غریب (gharīb) | New (James) | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 1, 2 | Socially loaded given regional economic realities; handle pastorally. |
| 22 | Rich | πλούσιος (plousios) | دولتمند (daulatmand) | New (James) | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 1, 2, 5 | See #21; ch.5 usage additionally concerns economic injustice/wage fraud, culturally sensitive. |
| 23 | Favoritism / Partiality | προσωπολημψία (prosōpolēmpsia) | رُوی داری (rūy-dārī) | New (James) | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 2 | Descriptive compound (“face-favoring”). |
| 24 | Neighbor | πλησίον (plēsion) | ہمسایہٕ (hamsāya) | New (James) | Low | Favoritism and the Poor | 2 | Standard term. |
| 25 | Heirs of the Kingdom | κληρονόμοι τῆς βασιλείας | خُدایُک بادشاہتُک وارث | New (James), built on baseline | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 2 | Built on baseline خُدایُک بادشاہت. |
| 26 | Kingdom of God | βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ | خُدایُک بادشاہت | Reused (baseline) | Medium | Favoritism and the Poor | 2 | Reuse baseline exactly. |
| 27 | Word (implanted word) | λόγος / ἔμφυτος λόγος | کلام / دِلہٕ لاگمُت کلام | New (James) | Medium-High | Trials and the Testing of Faith | 1 | کلام resonates with Islamic Ilm al-Kalām; anchor to the saving gospel message, not abstract theological discourse. |
| 28 | Doer of the Word / Hearer only | ποιητὴς λόγου / ἀκροατής | کلامُک عمل کرنہٕ وول / صرف سُننہٕ وول | New (James) | High | Faith and Works | 1 | First appearance of عمل; render consistently with ch.2’s “works.” |
| 29 | Religion (pure and undefiled) | θρησκεία (thrēskeia) | پاک عبادت (pāk ‘ibādat) | New (James) | High | Faith and Works (practical outworking) | 1 | Avoid دین (Islam’s comprehensive religious-legal system term); James defines true religion as lived ethical devotion, not ritual/institutional observance. |
| 30 | Orphans / Widows | ὀρφανός / χήρα | یتیم / بیوہٕ | New (James) | Low | Favoritism and the Poor | 1 | Strong positive point of contact with Quranic orphan-care ethics; note explicitly. |
| 31 | Father of Lights | Πατὴρ τῶν φώτων | نُورَن ہٕند باپت | New (James), built on baseline | High | Trials and the Testing of Faith | 1 | Built on baseline باپت; “Nūr” language risks conflation with Sufi Nūr Muhammadī cosmology — clarify Creator-of-heavenly-lights sense. |
| 32 | Tongue | γλῶσσα (glōssa) | زبان (zabān) | New (James) | Low | Taming the Tongue | 3 | Standard term. |
| 33 | Teacher | διδάσκαλος (didaskalos) | استاد (ustād) | New (James) | Medium | Taming the Tongue | 3 | Clarify accountability principle applies within the church specifically. |
| 34 | Likeness of God | ὁμοίωσις θεοῦ | خُدایُک مشابہت | New (James) | Critical | Taming the Tongue | 3 | Affirms real personal creaturely distinctness from God; directly contradicts Trika non-dualism (pratyabhijna); handle sensitively re: Islamic tanzih (divine transcendence) debates too. |
| 35 | Blessing / Cursing | εὐλογία / κατάρα | برکت / بددُعا | New (James) | Low-Medium | Taming the Tongue | 3 | برکت carries Sufi shrine-blessing resonance; clarify ordinary verbal blessing sense here. |
| 36 | Jealousy / Selfish Ambition | ζῆλος / ἐριθεία | حسد / خودغرضی | New (James) | Medium | Wisdom from Above | 3 | Root of earthly/demonic wisdom. |
| 37 | Fruit of Righteousness | καρπὸς δικαιοσύνης | راستبازیہٕ ہٕند پھَل | New (James), built on baseline | Medium | Wisdom from Above | 3 | Built on baseline راستبازی. |
| 38 | World / Worldliness | κόσμος (kosmos) | دُنیا (duniyā) | New (James) | Low-Medium | Worldliness vs Friendship with God | 4 | Standard term; risk lies in the doctrinal contrast, not the word itself. |
| 39 | Friendship with the World / Enmity with God | φιλία τοῦ κόσμου / ἔχθρα τοῦ θεοῦ | دُنیا سٕتی دوستی / خُدا سٕتی دشمنی | New (James) | High | Worldliness vs Friendship with God | 4 | Deliberate literary mirror of “friend of God” (#41); preserve the parallel. |
| 40 | Adulteresses (spiritual) | μοιχαλίδες (moichalides) | زناکار (zanākār) | New (James) | Medium | Worldliness vs Friendship with God | 4 | Covenantal-marriage metaphor of unfaithfulness to God; handle with pastoral sensitivity. |
| 41 | Friend of God | φίλος θεοῦ (philos theou) | خُدایُک دوست (khudāyuk dōst) | New (James) | Critical | Faith and Works; Worldliness vs Friendship with God | 2, 4 | Direct collision with Arabic ولی (walī, “friend of God”), the standard Sufi saint-title; never render with وَلی. Describes covenant intimacy through faith-righteousness available to every believer, not an elite venerated sainthood tier. |
| 42 | Proud / Humble | ὑπερήφανος / ταπεινός | مغرور / عاجز | New (James) | Medium | Worldliness vs Friendship with God | 4 | Dispositional condition for grace (#6). |
| 43 | Submit / Resist the Devil | ὑποτάσσω / ἀνθίστημι / διάβολος | خُدایہٕ تابع بننہٕ / شیطانس مقابلہٕ کرنہٕ | New (James) | Medium | Worldliness vs Friendship with God | 4 | شیطان is genuinely shared vocabulary; clarify remedy is submission-produced resistance, not amulet/ta’wīz practices. |
| 44 | Draw Near to God | ἐγγίζω τῷ θεῷ | خُدایہٕ نزدیک گژھُن | New (James) | High | Worldliness vs Friendship with God | 4 | Genuine point of contact with Sufi qurb devotional concept; clarify Christ-mediated relational access, not a progressively-attained ascetic station. |
| 45 | Lawgiver and Judge | νομοθέτης καὶ κριτής | شریعت دِنٕ وول تہٕ منصف | New (James), built on baseline | Medium | Worldliness vs Friendship with God | 4 | Built on baseline شریعت. |
| 46 | ”If the Lord wills” | Ἐὰν ὁ Κύριος θελήσῃ | اگر خُداوند چاہے | New (James), built on baseline | Medium | Worldliness vs Friendship with God | 4 | Reuse خُداوند exactly; near-parallel to “Inshā’Allāh” — retain full Lordship content, not mere cultural filler. |
| 47 | The Lord’s Coming / Return | παρουσία τοῦ Κυρίου | خُداوندُک اننہٕ | New (James), built on baseline | Critical | Patience and the Lord’s Return | 5 | Reuse خُداوند exactly. Rare genuine overlap with Islamic eschatology’s return of ʿĪsā, but with sharply different content/role; teach the full preceding Christology (crucified, risen, divine, exalted Lord) explicitly, not as shared ground by default. |
| 48 | Oaths | ὀμνύω (omnyō) | قسم کھَنہٕ (qasam khyanah) | New (James) | Medium | Patience and the Lord’s Return | 5 | Point of contact with Islamic oath-law (yamīn); retain James’s specific point favoring simple truthfulness. |
| 49 | Elders of the Church | πρεσβύτεροι τῆς ἐκκλησίας | کلیسیایہٕ بزرگ | New (James), built on baseline | High | Prayer and Healing | 5 | Reuse کلیسیا exactly; always qualify بزرگ with کلیسیایہٕ to avoid Sufi pir/buzurg shrine-authority resonance. |
| 50 | Anoint with Oil | ἀλείφω ἐλαίῳ | تیل مَلنہٕ | New (James) | Medium | Prayer and Healing | 5 | Simple accompanying symbolic act; not a sacramental/shrine-mediated channel of barakat. |
| 51 | Prayer of Faith | εὐχὴ τῆς πίστεως | ایمانہٕ ہٕنٛز دُعا | New (James), built on baseline | Critical | Prayer and Healing | 5 | Reuse ایمان exactly; دُعا is central shared vocabulary with strong regional shrine-based healing-prayer culture — teach that effectiveness rests on God’s sovereign will through Christ, not a walī’s intercessory barakat. |
| 52 | Save / Heal (dual sense) | σῴζω / ἐγείρω | نجات / اُٹھاونہٕ | New (James), built on baseline | Critical | Prayer and Healing | 5 | Reuse نجات exactly; must disambiguate physical healing vs. eternal salvation per occurrence; guard against prosperity-gospel-adjacent misreading. |
| 53 | Confess (sins to one another) | ἐξομολογέομαι (exomologeomai) | گناہہٕ اقرار کرنہٕ | New (James) | High | Confession and Restoration | 5 | Distinguish from sacramental priestly confession (foreign here) and from the exclusively vertical Islamic tawbah model; this is mutual, voluntary, communal confession alongside direct repentance to God. |
| 54 | Prayer of a Righteous Person (effectual) | δέησις δικαίου ἐνεργουμένη | راستباز مِنِشہٕ ہٕنٛز زوردار دُعا | New (James), built on baseline | High | Prayer and Healing | 5 | Built on baseline راستبازی. |
| 55 | Of Like Nature (as we are) | ὁμοιοπαθὴς ἡμῖν | اسان ہِنٛد چھِ ہِیو مِنش | New (James) | Medium | Prayer and Healing | 5 | Corrective against superhuman-saint (walī) intercessory expectations. |
| 56 | Turn Back / Wander (from the truth) | ἐπιστρέφω / πλανάω | گمراہ مِنِشس واپس آننہٕ | New (James) | High | Confession and Restoration | 5 | گمراہ is a heavily loaded Islamic term (departure from the straight path); clarify restoring agency is loving human correction used instrumentally by God’s grace, not independent human-merit salvation. |
| 57 | Save a Soul from Death / Cover a Multitude of Sins | σῴζει ψυχὴν ἐκ θανάτου / καλύπτει πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν | نجات / گناہن ہٕنٛز کثرت پوش کرنہٕ | New (James), built on baseline | High | Confession and Restoration | 5 | Reuse نجات; proverbial description of restoration’s effect flowing from God’s prior grace, not a meritorious transaction. |
| 58 | Glory (of Christ) | δόξα (doxa) | جلال (jalāl) | Reused (baseline) | Critical | Favoritism and the Poor (Deity of Christ) | 2 | Reuse baseline exactly; “our Lord Jesus Christ, [Lord] of glory” (2:1) is a direct deity-of-Christ affirmation. |
| 59 | Lord | κύριος (kyrios) | خُداوند (Khudāwand) | Reused (baseline) | Critical | Patience and the Lord’s Return; Faith and Works | 2, 5 | Reuse baseline exactly. |
| 60 | Abraham | Ἀβραάμ (Abraam) | ابراہام (Ibrāhām) | New (James) | Medium | Faith and Works | 2 | Distinguish from Quranic ابراہیم (Ibrāhīm) per baseline’s David/Israel precedent. |
| 61 | Isaac | Ἰσαάκ (Isaak) | اِضحاق (Iz’ḥāq) | New (James) | Critical | Faith and Works | 2 | MAJOR FLASHPOINT: mainstream Islamic tradition popularly identifies Ismail, not Isaac, as the intended sacrifice; requires explicit historical/theological note distinguishing Genesis 22 from the Islamic Ismail tradition. |
| 62 | Altar | θυσιαστήριον (thysiastērion) | قربان گاہ (qurbāngāh) | New (James) | Medium | Faith and Works | 2 | Point of contact with Eid al-Adha qurbani vocabulary; anchor to the specific Genesis 22 narrative. |
| 63 | Rahab (the prostitute) | Ῥαὰβ ἡ πόρνη | راحب کسبی (Rāḥab kasbī) | New (James) | Medium | Faith and Works | 2 | Handle directness of source text with pastoral care; specific historical OT figure (Joshua 2). |
| 64 | Demons | δαιμόνια (daimonia) | بد روحہٕ (bad rūḥeh) | New (James) | High | Faith and Works | 2 | Avoid دیو (Hindu/Zoroastrian-tinged) and جنّ (broader, morally-mixed Islamic category); define as uniformly fallen, God-hostile spirits. |
| 65 | One God (Shema/Tawhid-echoing confession) | εἷς ὁ θεός (heis ho theos) | اکہٕ خُدا (akh Khudā) | New (James) | Critical | Faith and Works | 2 | Near-verbatim overlap with Islamic Tawhid/Shahada; must be taught explicitly as insufficient correct-doctrine-alone, illustrated by the demons, never softened into ecumenical affirmation of shared creed as saving. |
| 66 | Spirit (natural, human life-principle) | πνεῦμα (pneuma) | روح (rūḥ) | New (James) — disambiguated from baseline holy_spirit | High | Faith and Works | 2 | MUST NOT be rendered پاک روح (reserved exclusively for the Holy Spirit per baseline); this is the ordinary human animating life-principle in the body/spirit analogy of 2:26. |
| 67 | Body | σῶμα (sōma) | جِسم (jism) | New (James) | Low | Faith and Works | 2 | Standard term. |
Glossary Summary Statistics
| Risk Tier | Count | Review Routing |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 13 | Human theologian review required for every occurrence (terms #2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 16, 34, 41, 47, 51, 52, 58, 65) |
| High | 21 | Human theologian review required (terms #7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 27/28 combined, 29, 31, 39, 44, 49, 53, 56, 57, 59, 64, 66) |
| Medium | 27 | Native speaker review recommended |
| Low | 6 | Automated review sufficient |
| Total distinct terms tracked | 67 |
Notes for Phase 2 Translation Memory Integration
- All terms marked “Reused (baseline)” must be loaded directly from the existing Romans
translation_memory.json; do not create duplicate or divergent entries for James. - All terms marked “New (James)” must be added to a James-specific extension of
translation_memory.json(or a new versioned file) before Phase 2 segment translation begins, following the same JSON schema, risk-tiering, andalternatives_rejectedconventions as the baseline. - Terms #2 (works), #16 (perfect/kāmil), #41 (friend of God), #47 (the Lord’s coming), #51 (prayer of faith), and #65 (one God) are flagged as the six highest-priority new Critical terms for this curriculum, given their direct collision potential with core Islamic theological vocabulary (a’mal, Insān-i-Kāmil, walī, ʿĪsā’s eschatological return, du’ā/shrine intercession, and Tawhid/Shahada respectively) and, in the case of #16 and #41, with Sufi Rishi sainthood categories specifically. These require the same escalation-to-human-theologian routing the baseline establishes for its own Critical terms.
- Term #34 (likeness of God) additionally requires Kashmir Shaivism (Trika)-specific handling alongside its Islamic-context handling, per this Language Package’s dual-audience mandate.
This document is the analysis/08 companion to analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md. Both must be loaded together with the baseline Romans Language Package before any Phase 2 James translation work begins.
Critical Risk Terms
Faith
Approved rendering: ایمان
Transliteration: īmān
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: یقین (certainty/conviction, too intellectual/impersonal alone)
Inherited from Romans package exactly. In James 2:14-26, the object (personal trust in Christ) must remain explicit; James interrogates whether a bare doctrinal-assent version of ایمان (echoing the Islamic default confessional sense) constitutes saving faith at all.
Grace
Approved rendering: فضل
Transliteration: faz’l
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Rejected alternatives: شکتی پات (shaktipat, never use), رحم (mercy, supporting synonym only, never a replacement)
Inherited from Romans package exactly. James 4:6 (‘God gives grace to the humble’) must retain the baseline’s dual guard against an Islamic deeds-weighed-mercy reading and a Kashmir Shaivite shaktipat reading. Never re-glossed for James.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: راستبازی
Transliteration: rāstbāzī
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: تقویٰ (piety, too works-oriented)
Inherited from Romans package exactly. James 2:23 cites the identical Genesis 15:6 text Romans 4:3 cites as the ground of Abraham’s righteousness, received by faith prior to and apart from his later works.
Justification
Approved rendering: راستباز ٹھہرایہ گیہ
Transliteration: rāstbāz ṭharāyi gyi
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: معافی (forgiveness alone, too narrow)
Inherited from Romans package exactly (compound form). CRITICAL DIVERGENCE OF SENSE: James 2:21,24 use this identical compound in an evidential/vindicating sense (faith already present shown genuine by works) rather than Romans’ forensic once-for-all declarative sense. A mandatory harmonizing note is required at every occurrence in James 2 distinguishing the two senses, or the two curricula will appear to contradict one another.
Imputed Righteousness
Approved rendering: دِتمُت راستبازی
Transliteration: ditmut rāstbāzī
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: حاصل کرمُت راستبازی (earned righteousness, explicitly rejected)
Inherited from Romans package exactly. James 2:23 quotes the identical Genesis 15:6 citation as Romans 4:3; this is the linchpin proving James does not teach works-based justification, since Abraham’s righteousness was credited roughly three decades before the Genesis 22 offering of Isaac.
Glory
Approved rendering: جلال
Transliteration: jalāl
Doctrine: Deity and Lordship of Christ (Lord of Glory)
Inherited from Romans package exactly. James 2:1 (‘our Lord Jesus Christ, [Lord] of glory’) is a direct high-Christological affirmation equating Jesus with divine glory; must not be anchored loosely as a free-floating divine attribute.
Lord
Approved rendering: خُداوند
Transliteration: Khudāwand
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Rejected alternatives: مالِک (owner/master, reserve for ordinary human authority contexts)
Inherited from Romans package exactly. Used at James 2:1 (Lord of glory), 4:15 (‘if the Lord wills’), and 5:7-8,11,14-15 (the Lord’s coming, the elders’ prayer). Must never be softened toward a venerated-teacher (pir) reading.
Jesus
Approved rendering: یِسوع
Transliteration: Yisū’
Doctrine: Deity and Lordship of Christ (Lord of Glory)
Rejected alternatives: عیسیٰ (Quranic form, reserve only for explicit interfaith-dialogue contexts)
Inherited from Romans package exactly. James 2:1 names ‘our Lord Jesus Christ’; یِسوع must be used consistently, never عیسیٰ, to avoid suggesting the Quranic figure is interchangeable with the biblical Jesus.
Messiah
Approved rendering: مسیح
Transliteration: Masīḥ
Doctrine: Deity and Lordship of Christ (Lord of Glory)
Inherited from Romans package exactly. Shared Quranic vocabulary for Isa; mainstream Islamic theology denies Christ’s divinity, atoning death, and resurrection while still using this title. James 2:1 and 5:7-8 build on this shared word while teaching very different content.
Salvation
Approved rendering: نجات
Transliteration: najāt
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Rejected alternatives: جنت (paradise as destination, never a stand-alone gloss), موکش (moksha, never for Shaivite readers), پرتیبھِجنا (pratyabhijna, never as substitute)
Inherited from Romans package exactly. James 5:15’s σῴζω is a deliberately dual-sense verb (physical healing AND/OR eternal salvation); this baseline Critical term must be reserved for the eternal-salvation sense specifically, disambiguated per occurrence from physical healing (see save_heal below), so its full weight is never casually diluted.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: پاک روح
Transliteration: pāk rūḥ
Doctrine: Human Spirit Distinct from the Holy Spirit
Rejected alternatives: روح القدس (Ruh al-Qudus, never use interchangeably without explicit distinction)
Inherited from Romans package exactly, and reserved EXCLUSIVELY for the third Person of the Trinity. James 2:26 uses πνεῦμα for the ordinary human animating life-principle in the body/spirit analogy (‘as the body apart from the spirit is dead’); this occurrence must be rendered with the separate term روح (see spirit_human below), NEVER پاک روح, to avoid conflating an everyday illustrative analogy with Trinitarian doctrine.
Father
Approved rendering: باپت
Transliteration: bāpath
Doctrine: God’s Unchanging Goodness (Father of Lights)
Inherited from Romans package exactly. Forms the base of James 1:17’s ‘Father of Lights’ (نُورَن ہٕند باپت); requires care given ‘Father’ as a divine name is unfamiliar in Muslim-majority context and can sound close to attributing offspring to God.
Works
Approved rendering: عمل / اعمال
Transliteration: ‘amal / a’māl
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: “good deeds” alone (too vague, loses the faith/works tension)
The single most consequential new coinage in this Language Package extension. عمل/اعمال is the core Islamic deeds-weighing soteriological term (a’mal weighed on the mizan against divine mercy). Must be taught at every occurrence in 2:14-26 as the necessary evidence and fruit of a faith already granted by grace (فضل) and already reckoned righteous (دِتمُت راستبازی), never the meritorious basis of standing before God. First appears at James 1:22-25 (‘doer of the word’) and must be rendered consistently through 2:14-26.
Perfect Mature
Approved rendering: کامل
Transliteration: kāmil
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
Recurs at James 1:4, 1:17 (implicitly), 1:25, 2:22, 3:2. کامل directly invokes the Sufi doctrine of الانسان الکامل (Insan-i-Kamil, the Perfect/Complete Human attained through mystical stations under a pir’s guidance, a major category in the Kashmiri Rishi tradition). Must be taught explicitly, at EVERY occurrence not only the first, as Spirit-produced maturity through trials and received by grace, never a mystical attainment reached through ascetic stages or guru-transmission.
Likeness Of God
Approved rendering: خُدایُک مشابہت
Transliteration: Khudāyuk mushābahat
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
James 3:9. Directly contradicts Kashmir Shaivism’s non-dualist claim that individual consciousness is IDENTICAL, undivided Shiva-consciousness (pratyabhijna), not merely ‘like’ God. Also requires care regarding mainstream Islamic tanzih (God’s utter transcendence) sensitivities around any likeness-language. State clearly this is relational/moral likeness (dignity, rational-moral capacity, stewardship), never ontological identity or physical resemblance.
Friend Of God
Approved rendering: خُدایُک دوست
Transliteration: khudāyuk dōst
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: وَلی (wali, the standard Sufi saint title, NEVER use)
James 2:23; mirrored negatively at 4:4. Direct terminological collision with Arabic وَلی, the standard Sufi title for a venerated saint honored at a shrine in the Kashmiri Rishi tradition. Must state plainly this names covenantal intimacy through faith-righteousness available to EVERY believer, not an elite venerated sainthood tier with miracle-working intercessory authority. Never render with وَلی.
Lords Coming
Approved rendering: خُداوندُک اننہٕ
Transliteration: Khudāwanduk anun
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Rejected alternatives: nuzul-i-Isa-derived transliterated eschatological vocabulary (avoid, imports a different eschatological role for Christ)
James 5:7-8. Reuses خُداوند exactly. Rare and striking terminological overlap: mainstream Islamic eschatology affirms the return of Isa before the Day of Judgment, but as a subordinate, righteous final prophet who defeats the Dajjal and eventually dies a natural death, not as the divine, once-crucified-and-risen sovereign Judge. Because the crucifixion/resurrection is already denied by mainstream Sunni reading of Quran 4:157, this phrase must carry the full preceding Christology explicitly at every occurrence, never assumed as shared ground merely because ‘Isa’s return’ sounds familiar.
Prayer Of Faith
Approved rendering: ایمانہٕ ہٕنٛز دُعا
Transliteration: īmāneh hanz du’ā
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
James 5:15. Reuses ایمان exactly. دُعا is the standard, deeply resonant Islamic term for personal petitionary prayer, and Kashmir’s Rishi Sufi dargahs are widely visited specifically for healing intercession through a wali’s dua and barakat. Must teach explicitly that the prayer’s effectiveness rests directly on God’s sovereign will through Christ, not on the merit, status, or intercessory blessing-power (barakat) of the one praying, whether elder or saint.
Save Heal
Approved rendering: نجات / اُٹھاونہٕ
Transliteration: najāt / uṭhāwun
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
James 5:15. Reuses باseline نجات for the eternal-salvation sense only. Deliberately dual-sense verb (σῴζω/ἐγείρω) covering both physical healing and eternal salvation; must be disambiguated per occurrence with an explicit contextual note so the weight of the Critical salvation term is not diminished, and readers do not conclude faith mechanically guarantees physical healing (a prosperity-gospel-adjacent misreading).
Isaac
Approved rendering: اِضحاق
Transliteration: Iz’ḥāq
Doctrine: Faith and Works
James 2:21. MAJOR FLASHPOINT: mainstream Islamic tradition (though the Quran 37:99-113 itself does not name the son) is popularly and in most tafsir understood to identify the intended sacrifice as Ishmael, widely taught in regional Islamic religious education and commemorated at Eid al-Adha. This divergence from Genesis 22’s explicit naming of Isaac must be stated plainly with an explicit historical/theological note, not smoothed over or discovered by the reader as an unexplained contradiction.
One God
Approved rendering: اکہٕ خُدا
Transliteration: akh Khudā
Doctrine: Correct Doctrine Alone Is Not Saving Faith
Rejected alternatives: direct transliteration of the Shahada wording (never use — far more severe collision than a Kashmiri paraphrase)
James 2:19. Near-verbatim overlap with the Islamic Tawhid/Shahada confession. Must be taught explicitly and immediately as insufficient for salvation if unaccompanied by transformed living, illustrated by demons holding the identical correct doctrine while trembling in terror. Must never be softened into an ecumenical affirmation of shared creed as saving.
High Risk Terms
Law
Approved rendering: شریعت
Transliteration: sharī’at
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Inherited from Romans package exactly. Used across James 1, 2, and 4 (the perfect law of liberty, the royal law, the lawgiver and judge); distinguish the Mosaic Law’s redemptive-historical role from a comprehensive Sharia-style life-code at every occurrence.
Sin
Approved rendering: گناہ
Transliteration: gunāh
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
Inherited from Romans package exactly. Tracked from desire (James 1:14-15) through mutual confession (5:16) throughout the letter.
God
Approved rendering: خُدا
Transliteration: Khudā
Doctrine: Correct Doctrine Alone Is Not Saving Faith
Inherited from Romans package exactly. James 2:19’s ‘God is one’ (اکہٕ خُدا) uses this term in a confession verbally near-identical to the Shahada/Tawhid; must be taught explicitly as insufficient for salvation apart from transformed living.
Church
Approved rendering: کلیسیا
Transliteration: kalīsiyā
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Rejected alternatives: مسجد (mosque, never use), مندر (temple, never use)
Inherited from Romans package exactly. Forms the base of James’s ‘elders of the church’ (کلیسیایہٕ بزرگ, James 5:14); must remain clearly distinct from both mosque and temple, and from any Sufi order/shrine institutional structure.
James Author
Approved rendering: یعقوب
Transliteration: Ya’qūb
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Scripture in Abraham’s Faith
Rejected alternatives: حضرت یعقوب (honorific form reserved for the Quranic patriarch, avoid for the epistle’s human author James)
NEW: the book title itself is a flashpoint requiring explicit handling. The epistle’s traditional title in Urdu/regional Bible convention is ‘یعقوب کا خط’ (the Letter of Ya’qub/James), but یعقوب (Ya’qub/Jacob) is also the standard Arabic-Quranic name for the patriarch Jacob (Yaqub), a revered prophet in Islamic tradition, and ‘James’ the New Testament author (Jesus’s half-brother and Jerusalem church leader) is an entirely different historical figure sharing only the Hebrew root name. This curriculum must state explicitly, at first use of the book title, that this James/Ya’qub is not the Quranic patriarch, to prevent readers defaulting to the Quranic Yaqub narrative cycle.
Mercy
Approved rendering: رحم
Transliteration: raḥm
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
The baseline designates رحم only as a supporting synonym for فضل (grace), never a replacement, given mainstream Islamic soteriology’s deeds-weighed-mercy frame. James 2:13 (‘mercy triumphs over judgment’) treats mercy as its own distinct point immediately preceding the Faith and Works argument; must be taught as flowing from, not competing with, grace already secured by faith.
Royal Law
Approved rendering: بادشاہی شریعت
Transliteration: bādshāhī sharī’at
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Built on باseline شریعت. Anchor explicitly to the single command ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ (James 2:8), not a comprehensive alternative legal code paralleling Sharia.
Perfect Law Of Liberty
Approved rendering: آزادیہٕ ہٕنٛز کامل شریعت
Transliteration: āzādyeh hanz kāmil sharī’at
Doctrine: Faith and Works
James 1:25. Must be taught explicitly as the gospel’s law of love fulfilled through the Spirit, producing free, willing obedience (cf. baseline obedience_of_faith), not a Sharia-style comprehensive code nor a license for lawlessness. Contains the first occurrence of کامل in the book.
Trial
Approved rendering: آزمایش
Transliteration: āzmāyish
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
James 1:2-3,12: God-permitted external testing that produces steadfastness and maturity. Must be kept lexically DISTINCT from ‘temptation’ (below) or James 1:13’s ‘God tempts no one’ collides confusingly with 1:2’s ‘count it all joy.’ Point of contact with the Quranic theme of divine testing of believers, but James’s frame (maturity through God’s unchanging goodness, 1:17) differs from a fatalistic qadar-endurance frame and must be taught with that distinction explicit.
Temptation
Approved rendering: گناہہٕ ورغلاونہٕ
Transliteration: gunāheh varghalāwun
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
James 1:13-14: enticement to sin, which God never causes. Second sense of the same Greek root as ‘trial’ (above); must be rendered with a visibly distinct Kashmiri term so readers do not conclude God causes moral temptation.
Patience
Approved rendering: صبر
Transliteration: sabr
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
James 5:7-8. صبر is one of the most central Islamic virtue-terms (patient submission to God’s decreed will/qadar). James’s patience is specifically oriented toward Christ’s promised bodily return, illustrated by the farmer awaiting the harvest, and must be taught with that specific christological/eschatological content explicit, not left as generalized fatalistic endurance.
Wisdom
Approved rendering: حکمت
Transliteration: ḥikmat
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
James 1:5. حکمت is a major Quranic/Sufi theological term (hikmah, ma’rifat). No viable paraphrase exists (the loanword is fully naturalized). Must be taught as God’s free gift given directly in response to simple faith-filled asking, not attained through Sufi ma’rifat (mystical gnosis) via a pir’s transmission or ascetic discipline.
Wisdom From Above
Approved rendering: مٲیُک حکمت
Transliteration: mā’yuk ḥikmat
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
James 3:17. Built on حکمت; the positive pole of the ch.3 wisdom contrast: pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, sincere. Requires the same ma’rifat-framing guard as ‘wisdom’ above.
Earthly Wisdom
Approved rendering: زمینی / نفسانی / شیطانی
Transliteration: zamīnī / nafsānī / shaitānī
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
James 3:15-16. نفسانی directly invokes the Sufi psychological category of the nafs (lower self), central to tazkiyat al-nafs (purification of the self) in the Rishi tradition. Genuine point of contact (false wisdom IS rooted in self-centeredness), but James’s remedy is simply asking God directly for wisdom in faith (1:5), not a prescribed ascetic self-purification regimen.
Word Implanted
Approved rendering: کلام / دِلہٕ لاگمُت کلام
Transliteration: kalām / dila lāgmut kalām
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
James 1:18,21-23. کلام resonates with the Islamic theological category of Kalamullah and the discipline of Ilm al-Kalam; must be anchored explicitly to the saving gospel message received by faith, not abstract theological discourse.
Doer Of Word
Approved rendering: کلامُک عمل کرنہٕ وول / صرف سُننہٕ وول
Transliteration: kalāmuk ‘amal karun wol / sirf sunun wol
Doctrine: Faith and Works
James 1:22-25. First appearance of عمل (works) in the book; must be rendered consistently with the chapter 2 core-passage usage so the doer/hearer distinction and the Faith-and-Works argument remain visibly linked.
Religion
Approved rendering: پاک عبادت
Transliteration: pāk ‘ibādat
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: دین (Islam’s comprehensive religious-legal system, avoid)
James 1:26-27. Must be stated explicitly as lived ethical devotion (caring for orphans/widows, staying morally unstained), not ritual/institutional observance; avoid دین to prevent implying direct system-to-system competition with Islam rather than James’s practical-ethical point.
Father Of Lights
Approved rendering: نُورَن ہٕند باپت
Transliteration: nūran hind bāpath
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
James 1:17. Built on baseline باپت. ‘Nūr’ (light) is a major Islamic theological term (Allah as An-Nur) and central to Sufi Nur Muhammadi cosmology (the pre-existent Light of Muhammad). Must state plainly this names God’s creatorship of the literal heavenly luminaries, unchanging unlike them, not an allusion to Nur Muhammadi or any created/emanated light-being.
Friendship With World Enmity With God
Approved rendering: دُنیا سٕتی دوستی / خُدا سٕتی دشمنی
Transliteration: duniyā sati dōstī / Khudā sati dushmanī
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
James 4:4. Deliberate negative literary mirror of خُدایُک دوست (‘friend of God,’ 2:23) and must preserve that parallel intact in Kashmiri. Not a call to reject ordinary social/cultural life but a warning against rival, idolatrous ultimate allegiance.
Draw Near To God
Approved rendering: خُدایہٕ نزدیک گژھُن
Transliteration: Khudāyeh nazdīk gatshun
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
Rejected alternatives: قرب (the loanword itself, avoid — immediately activates the Sufi maqamat framework)
James 4:8. Genuine point of contact with the major Sufi devotional concept of qurb (nearness to God, the central goal of the Sufi path). Must clarify biblical nearness is immediate, relational access granted through Christ’s mediating work, not a station (maqam) progressively attained through ascetic stages under a pir’s direction.
Elders Of Church
Approved rendering: کلیسیایہٕ بزرگ
Transliteration: kalīsiyayeh buzurg
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
Rejected alternatives: bare بزرگ standing alone (never permitted, always qualify)
James 5:14. Reuses کلیسیا exactly. بزرگ carries strong resonance in the Kashmiri Rishi Sufi tradition as a title for a venerated spiritual master or shrine-associated saint; MUST always be qualified as کلیسیایہٕ بزرگ, never left standing alone, to avoid the reader defaulting to a Sufi pir/buzurg shrine-authority framework.
Confess Sins
Approved rendering: گناہہٕ اقرار کرنہٕ
Transliteration: gunāheh iqrār karun
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
James 5:16. اقرار is a standard Arabic-derived term also present in Islamic tawbah (repentance) vocabulary. Must clarify this is mutual, voluntary, communal confession among believers for the sake of restoration and healing, distinct from a sacramental priestly confession and from the exclusively vertical Islamic tawbah model directed to God alone without a human intermediary.
Prayer Of Righteous
Approved rendering: راستباز مِنِشہٕ ہٕنٛز زوردار دُعا
Transliteration: rāstbāz minisheh hanz zordār du’ā
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
James 5:16-18. Built on baseline راستبازی; grounds confidence in prayer in righteousness received by faith and God’s active working, not the pray-er’s independent spiritual authority, illustrated by Elijah.
Turn Back Wander
Approved rendering: گمراہ مِنِشس واپس آننہٕ
Transliteration: gumrāh minishas wāpas ānun
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
James 5:19-20. گمراہ is an extremely loaded Islamic theological term (departure from al-sirat al-mustaqim, the straight path). Must clarify the restoring agency is loving human correction used instrumentally by God’s grace, never independent human effort or merit accomplishing another’s salvation.
Save Soul Cover Sins
Approved rendering: نجات / گناہن ہٕنٛز کثرت پوش کرنہٕ
Transliteration: najāt / gunāhan hanz kasrat posh karun
Doctrine: Confession and Restoration
James 5:20, the letter’s closing promise. Reuses baseline نجات. Must be distinguished from an Islamic deeds-weighing frame in which the restoring act itself earns merit/covers sin transactionally; the covering described is proverbial, describing the loving restorative effect of the act, flowing from God’s own prior grace already secured in Christ, not its meritorious cause.
Demons
Approved rendering: بد روحہٕ
Transliteration: bad rūḥeh
Doctrine: Correct Doctrine Alone Is Not Saving Faith
Rejected alternatives: دیو (Persian/Hindu-tinged ‘demon/giant’, avoid), جنّ (broader Islamic category including morally-mixed or even Muslim beings, avoid)
James 2:19. James’s daimonia are uniformly hostile, fallen spirits with perfect, terrified theological accuracy and zero saving relationship to God — a narrower and more specific category than جنّ, requiring explicit definition at first use.
Spirit Human
Approved rendering: روح
Transliteration: rūḥ
Doctrine: Human Spirit Distinct from the Holy Spirit
Rejected alternatives: پاک روح (reserved exclusively for the Holy Spirit, NEVER use here)
James 2:26. The ordinary human animating life-principle in the body/spirit analogy (‘as the body apart from the spirit is dead’), NOT the Holy Spirit. Must be kept lexically distinct from پاک روح so as not to conflate this everyday illustrative analogy with Trinitarian doctrine.
Medium Risk Terms
Peace
Approved rendering: امن
Transliteration: amn
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Inherited from Romans package exactly. In James 2:16 (‘go in peace’), the phrase is used IRONICALLY as a hollow verbal blessing substituted for concrete material help; this ironic register must be preserved, not smoothed into a sincere benediction. Retains the baseline’s conflict-sensitivity caution.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: خُدایُک بادشاہت
Transliteration: Khudāyuk bādshāhat
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
Inherited from Romans package exactly. James 2:5 names the poor as ‘heirs of the kingdom’ (خُدایُک بادشاہتُک وارث); distinguish from any territorial-political framing given the region’s contested-sovereignty history.
Prophet
Approved rendering: پیغمبر
Transliteration: paighambar
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
Inherited from Romans package exactly. James 5:10 cites ‘the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord’ as examples of patient suffering; Elijah (5:17-18) is treated as a specific prophetic example of effectual prayer, distinct from the broader category.
Steadfastness
Approved rendering: ثابت قدمی
Transliteration: sābit qadamī
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
James 1:3-4; 5:11. Patient perseverance under pressure, the fruit trials produce. Confirm regional attestation with native speakers before wide deployment, per the baseline’s own caution pattern for comparable coinages.
Double Minded
Approved rendering: دو دِلہٕ
Transliteration: do-dila
Doctrine: Trials and the Testing of Faith
James 1:6-8; 4:8. Descriptive compound (‘two-hearted’) describing the unstable doubter’s divided allegiance; use consistently across both occurrences.
Poor
Approved rendering: غریب
Transliteration: gharīb
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
James 1:9-11; 2:1-6. Socially loaded given regional economic realities; handle pastorally, not merely abstractly.
Rich
Approved rendering: دولتمند
Transliteration: daulatmand
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
James 1:9-11; 2:1-6; 5:1-6. Culturally and economically sensitive; ch.5 usage additionally concerns wage-fraud injustice and requires pastoral care.
Favoritism
Approved rendering: رُوی داری
Transliteration: rūy-dārī
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
James 2:1-9. Descriptive compound (‘face-favoring/partiality’); tie explicitly to God’s own impartiality.
Heirs Of Kingdom
Approved rendering: خُدایُک بادشاہتُک وارث
Transliteration: Khudāyuk bādshāhatuk wāris
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
James 2:5. Built on baseline خُدایُک بادشاہت; connects to the baseline adoption doctrine’s full inheritance-rights sense.
Teacher
Approved rendering: استاد
Transliteration: ustād
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
James 3:1. استاد/pir/murshid teacher-roles carry heavy spiritual authority in the Rishi Sufi tradition; clarify this accountability principle concerns Christian teachers within the church specifically, not a general critique of other traditions’ teacher-roles.
Blessing Cursing
Approved rendering: برکت / بددُعا
Transliteration: barkat / baddu’ā
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
James 3:9-10. برکت carries strong Sufi shrine-blessing resonance (spiritual power transmitted via a saint or relic); here it denotes ordinary verbal blessing of God, not shrine-mediated spiritual power — clarify at first use.
Jealousy Ambition
Approved rendering: حسد / خودغرضی
Transliteration: hasad / khud-gharzī
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
James 3:14-16. Bitter jealousy and selfish ambition, the root of earthly/demonic wisdom and disorder; standard descriptive terms, no major collision.
Fruit Of Righteousness
Approved rendering: راستبازیہٕ ہٕند پھَل
Transliteration: rāstbāzyeh hind phal
Doctrine: Wisdom from Above
James 3:18. Built on baseline راستبازی; consistency with Romans usage required.
World
Approved rendering: دُنیا
Transliteration: duniyā
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
James 4:4. Standard term; the doctrinal risk lies in the contrast James draws (the world as a system of values hostile to God), not the word itself.
Adulteresses Spiritual
Approved rendering: زناکار
Transliteration: zanākār
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
James 4:4. Covenant-breaking unfaithfulness to God, echoing Old Testament marriage-covenant imagery (e.g. Hosea); handle with pastoral sensitivity as covenantal/spiritual metaphor, not a literal charge.
Proud Humble
Approved rendering: مغرور / عاجز
Transliteration: maghrūr / ‘ājiz
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
James 4:6. The dispositional condition for receiving or being opposed by God’s grace; standard descriptive terms.
Submit Resist Devil
Approved rendering: خُدایہٕ تابع بننہٕ / شیطانس مقابلہٕ کرنہٕ
Transliteration: Khudāyeh tābi’ banun / Shaitānas muqābalah karun
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
James 4:7. شیطان is genuine shared vocabulary across Islamic and Christian usage; clarify the biblical remedy is submission-to-God-produced resistance, not ritual protective practices such as ta’wiz amulets common in regional folk-Islamic devotion.
Lawgiver Judge
Approved rendering: شریعت دِنٕ وول تہٕ منصف
Transliteration: sharī’at dyon wol tey munsif
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
James 4:12. Built on baseline شریعت; grounds the prohibition on judging/slandering one another in God’s sole authority.
If The Lord Wills
Approved rendering: اگر خُداوند چاہے
Transliteration: agar Khudāwand chāhe
Doctrine: Worldliness versus Friendship with God
James 4:15. Reuses خُداوند exactly. Near-verbatim parallel to the omnipresent Islamic devotional phrase ‘Insha’Allah’; retain the specific Lordship content rather than allowing the phrase to become a merely reflexive cultural filler emptied of theological weight.
Oaths
Approved rendering: قسم کھَنہٕ
Transliteration: qasam khyanah
Doctrine: Patience and the Lord’s Return
James 5:12. قسم is a significant category in Islamic law/ethics as well (yamin); note the point of contact while retaining James’s specific point that simple truthfulness should render oaths unnecessary.
Anoint With Oil
Approved rendering: تیل مَلنہٕ
Transliteration: tel malun
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
James 5:14. Resonates with dargah/shrine-based healing-oil practices in regional Sufi devotional life; must be clarified as a simple accompanying act to prayer offered directly to God, not a sacramental or shrine-mediated channel of a saint’s barakat.
Like Nature As Us
Approved rendering: اسان ہِنٛد چھِ ہِیو مِنش
Transliteration: asy hind chhu hyow minish
Doctrine: Prayer and Healing
James 5:17. Deliberately emphasizes Elijah’s ordinary, full humanity; corrects the Sufi tendency, especially in shrine devotion, to regard wali figures as possessing superhuman intercessory status distinct from ordinary believers.
Abraham
Approved rendering: ابراہام
Transliteration: Ibrāhām
Doctrine: Faith and Works
Rejected alternatives: ابراہیم (Ibrāhīm, the Quranic form, avoid — risks defaulting the reader to the Quranic Ibrahim narrative cycle)
James 2:21-23. Analogous to the baseline’s David/Israel treatment: distinguish from the Quranic ابراہیم so the reader engages the Genesis covenant narrative rather than assuming the Quranic Ibrahim narrative as shared background.
Altar
Approved rendering: قربان گاہ
Transliteration: qurbāngāh
Doctrine: Faith and Works
James 2:21. Point of contact with Islamic sacrificial vocabulary (qurbani, Eid al-Adha); must be anchored to the specific Genesis 22 narrative, not general sacrificial practice.
Rahab
Approved rendering: راحب کسبی
Transliteration: Rāḥab kasbī
Doctrine: Faith and Works
James 2:25. A second, deliberately contrasting example to Abraham. Handle the source text’s directness with pastoral care while noting this concerns a specific historical Old Testament figure (Joshua 2), not contemporary social commentary.
Low Risk Terms
Neighbor
Approved rendering: ہمسایہٕ
Transliteration: hamsāya
Doctrine: Favoritism and the Poor
James 2:8. Standard term for the object of the royal law’s command; minor risk.
Orphans Widows
Approved rendering: یتیم / بیوہٕ
Transliteration: yatīm / bewah
Doctrine: Faith and Works
James 1:27. Strong positive point of contact with Quranic orphan-care ethics; note explicitly as shared ethical ground rather than obscuring it.
Tongue
Approved rendering: زبان
Transliteration: zabān
Doctrine: Taming the Tongue
James 1:26; 3:1-12. Standard term for the organ of speech and, by metonymy, speech itself.
Body
Approved rendering: جِسم
Transliteration: jism
Doctrine: Faith and Works
James 2:26. Standard term; the visible half of the body/spirit analogy illustrating that faith without works is dead.
Referenced passages