Core Glossary
Core Glossary: 1 John (English/Greek → Urdu)
Curriculum: 1 John Core passage: 1 John 4:7–21 Destination language: Urdu (Perso-Arabic/Nastaliq)
This glossary consolidates every load-bearing term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md, drawn from all five chapters of 1 John. Terms marked [TM-REUSE] already exist in the baseline Romans/Galatians translation_memory.json and must be used exactly as recorded there — no alternative rendering is permitted for these. Terms marked [NEW] are newly seeded for 1 John and require entry into an updated translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json at Phase 1 Step 2+, with the risk tier below carried forward unchanged unless a human theologian review determines otherwise.
Risk tiers follow doctrine_risk_registry.json conventions: Critical (human theologian review, every occurrence) / High (human theologian review) / Medium (native speaker review) / Low (automated review).
1. God’s Nature (Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love)
| Term | Status | Greek | Transliteration | Urdu term | Risk | Primary passages | Risk reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God | [TM-REUSE] | θεός | theos | خدا | Critical | throughout | Reuse baseline exactly; never اللہ. See baseline god entry. |
| Love (God’s essential nature) | [NEW] | ἀγάπη | agapē | محبت (muhabbat) | High | 4:7-21; 2:5, 15; 3:1, 11-18 | Shared vocabulary with Islamic al-Wadūd and Sufi maḥabbah/ʿishq; must always be anchored to the concrete, historical, cross-shaped content of 4:9-10, never left as generic divine-attribute common ground. |
| ”God is love” (doctrinal statement) | [NEW] | ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν | ho theos agapē estin | خدا محبت ہے | Critical | 4:8, 16 | Claims love as God’s essential identity, not one of many attributes; must be taught with its full cross/incarnation-presupposing content (4:9-10), never as free-standing common ground. |
| Light | [NEW] | φῶς | phōs | نور (nūr) | High | 1:5, 7; 2:8-10 | Collides with Qur’an 24:35 (Āyat an-Nūr) and the Sufi Nūr Muḥammadī doctrine; must be anchored to 1 John’s own ethical content (moral purity, truthful confession, fellowship) rather than left as a cosmological/metaphysical light-claim. |
| Darkness | [NEW] | σκότος / σκοτία | skotos / skotia | تاریکی (tārīkī) | Medium | 1:5-6; 2:8-11 | Moral/relational darkness (sin, self-deception, hatred); standard vocabulary, lower risk than its counterpart. |
2. Fellowship with God and One Another
| Term | Status | Greek | Transliteration | Urdu term | Risk | Primary passages | Risk reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fellowship | [TM-REUSE] | κοινωνία | koinōnia | رفاقت | Low | 1:3, 6-7 | Reuse baseline exactly. Note 1 John’s dual vertical/horizontal structure (with God and with one another) as a teaching point. |
| Abide / remain | [NEW] | μένω | menō | قائم رہنا / رہنا (qā’im rahnā) | Medium | 2:6, 10, 14, 17, 24, 27-28; 3:6, 9, 14-15, 17, 24; 4:12-13, 15-16 | Central Johannine mutual-indwelling term; must convey ongoing relational communion, not mere duration, while avoiding any drift toward a Sufi wahdat al-wujūd-style ontological-merger reading. Native speaker + theologian review at first occurrence recommended. |
| Brother / brethren | [NEW] | ἀδελφός | adelphos | بھائی (bhā’ī) | Medium | 2:9-11; 3:10, 14-17; 4:20-21 | Distinguish from the Islamic ummah/ikhwān corporate-brotherhood concept; here it names a fellow member of God’s born-again family through faith in Christ specifically. |
| Word of life | [NEW] | ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς | ho logos tēs zōēs | زندگی کا کلام | High | 1:1 | Logos-Christology, tied directly to the Incarnation’s Critical collision with tawhid (Qur’an 112). |
3. Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
| Term | Status | Greek | Transliteration | Urdu term | Risk | Primary passages | Risk reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sin | [TM-REUSE] | ἁμαρτία | hamartia | گناہ | High | 1:7-10; 2:1-2, 12; 3:4-9; 5:16-17 | Reuse baseline exactly; see baseline’s individual-accountability-vs-inherited-condition caution. |
| Confess (sin) | [NEW] | ὁμολογέω (object: sins) | homologeō | گناہوں کا اقرار کرنا | Medium | 1:9 | Lower-risk sense of ὁμολογέω; must be kept doctrinally distinct in teaching material from the Critical-risk confession-of-Christ sense below, though the same Urdu verb root is used for both. |
| Confess (Jesus is the Son of God) | [NEW] | ὁμολογέω (object: Christological) | homologeō | اقرار کرنا | Critical | 2:23; 4:2-3, 15; 5:1, 5 | The object confessed (Christ’s Sonship, or his coming in the flesh) carries the full Critical risk of son_of_god/incarnation; the verb itself is low-risk, the content is not. |
| Forgive / forgiveness | [NEW] | ἀφίημι / ἄφεσις | aphiēmi / aphesis | معاف کرنا / معافی | High | 1:9; 2:12 | Shared vocabulary with Islamic maghfirah (direct divine pardon in response to repentance, without a mediating atonement); must be explicitly anchored to Christ’s atoning blood (1:7; 2:2), never left as an unmediated pardon claim. |
| Cleanse | [NEW] | καθαρίζω | katharizō | پاک کرنا | Medium-High | 1:7, 9 | Moral-relational cleansing through Christ’s blood; must not be assimilated to Islamic ritual-purity law (ṭahāra, wuḍūʾ/ghusl). Ties to baseline holy/پاک caution. |
| Propitiation / atoning sacrifice | [NEW] | ἱλασμός | hilasmos | کفارہ (kaffārah) | Critical | 2:2; 4:10 | Shared word with Islamic kaffārah (compensatory-payment logic discharging a specific obligation), a different mechanism from a God-provided, once-for-all substitutionary sacrifice; also presupposes the crucifixion (Qur’an 4:157 denial). Compound risk analogous to baseline redemption/curse. |
| Advocate | [NEW] | παράκλητος | paraklētos | مدافع (mudāfi’) | High | 2:1 | Deliberately distinguished from شفاعت (intercession, baseline Medium): Christ’s present advocacy is grounded in his own finished atoning work, contrasted with Islamic shafā’at’s future, permission-granted intercession model (chiefly Muhammad’s). |
4. Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
| Term | Status | Greek | Transliteration | Urdu term | Risk | Primary passages | Risk reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Love (mutual/ethical) | [NEW — see §1] | ἀγάπη / ἀγαπάω | agapē / agapaō | محبت / محبت کرنا | High | 3:11-18; 4:7-21 | See §1 entry; ethical, tested-in-action sense here (3:16-18). |
| Hate | [NEW] | μισέω | miseō | نفرت کرنا | Low | 2:9-11; 3:15; 4:20 | Standard vocabulary; direct moral antonym of love in the letter’s binary framework. |
| Liar | [NEW] | ψεύστης | pseustēs | جھوٹا | Low (tone: Medium) | 1:10; 2:4, 22; 4:20 | Low lexical risk; note the bluntness must not be softened per the baseline’s anti-dilution rule, despite honor/shame social sensitivity. |
| Cain and Abel | [NEW] | Κάϊν / Ἄβελ | Kain / Habel | قابیل / ہابیل | Medium | 3:12 | Shared proper names (cf. Qur’an 5:27-31’s parallel, differently-emphasized narrative); low-friction shared reference point. |
| Passed from death to life | [NEW] | μεταβεβήκαμεν ἐκ τοῦ θανάτου εἰς τὴν ζωήν | metabebēkamen ek tou thanatou eis tēn zōēn | موت سے زندگی میں منتقل ہونا | High | 3:14 | Ties to assurance_of_salvation (baseline Critical/High); a decisive, completed-transfer assurance claim. |
5. The Incarnation and Antichrist
| Term | Status | Greek | Transliteration | Urdu term | Risk | Primary passages | Risk reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Incarnation (“come in the flesh”) | [TM-REUSE, applied] | ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα | en sarki elēlythota | مجسم ہونا | Critical | 4:2-3; cf. 1:1-3 | Reuse baseline incarnation entry exactly. This is 1 John’s explicit doctrinal test for discerning true from false spirits — the letter’s single most load-bearing Incarnation reference. Historical nuance: written against docetic denial of Christ’s humanity, a different direction of error than Islamic theology’s typical denial of his deity; both should be named explicitly, not flattened together. |
| Son of God | [TM-REUSE] | ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ | ho huios tou theou | خدا کا بیٹا | Critical | 4:15; 5:5, 10, 20; cf. 2:22-23; 4:9 (μονογενής) | Reuse baseline exactly; mandatory eternal-not-begotten annotation every occurrence. |
| Only/unique Son | [NEW, extends TM] | μονογενής | monogenēs | اکلوتا بیٹا (aklautā beṭā) | Critical | 4:9 | Extends son_of_god; اکلوتا (“unique, one-of-a-kind”) preferred over any phrase suggesting literal generation. |
| Antichrist | [NEW] | ἀντίχριστος | antichristos | مخالفِ مسیح (mukhālif-e-Masīh) | Critical | 2:18, 22; 4:3 | Do not borrow دجال as primary rendering — collides with the specific, well-developed Islamic eschatological Dajjāl narrative (defeated by the returning ʿĪsā), structurally different from 1 John’s present, diffuse “spirit of antichrist.” If دجال appears in reader expectation, flag and distinguish explicitly; never present as simple equivalence. |
| Spirit of truth / spirit of error | [NEW] | πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας / πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης | pneuma tēs alētheias / pneuma tēs planēs | روحِ حق / روحِ گمراہی | Medium | 4:6 | Low risk on their own; keep terminologically distinct from روح القدس (Holy Spirit). |
| Test the spirits | [NEW] | δοκιμάζετε τὰ πνεύματα | dokimazete ta pneumata | روحوں کو پرکھنا | Medium-High | 4:1 | Doctrine: “Testing the Spirits.” Ensure πνεῦμα here (lower-case, generic “spirits”) is never confused with, or read as subjecting, روح القدس (the Holy Spirit) to testing. |
| Anointing | [NEW] | χρῖσμα | chrisma | مسح (mas’h) | High | 2:20, 27 | Shares root with مسیح (Masīh, baseline messiah, Critical); keep Christ’s unique Messianic anointing distinct from believers’ derivative, universal (not elite/esoteric) share in the Spirit’s anointing. |
6. Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
| Term | Status | Greek | Transliteration | Urdu term | Risk | Primary passages | Risk reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eternal life | [TM-REUSE] | ζωὴ αἰώνιος | zōē aiōnios | ابدی زندگی | High | 1:2; 2:25; 3:15; 5:11-13, 20 | Reuse baseline exactly; teach in continuity with نجات, not as a separate reward. |
| Savior (of the world) | [NEW, extends TM] | σωτήρ | sōtēr | نجات دہندہ (najāt dahindā) | Critical | 4:14 | Extends baseline salvation/نجات; carries forward the full najat/mizan contrast. Universal scope (“of the world”) must not be reframed via ummah/kafir categories. |
| Confidence / boldness | [NEW] | παρρησία | parrēsia | دلیری (dilerī) / اعتماد (e’timād) | High | 2:28; 3:21; 4:17; 5:14 | Ties to assurance_of_salvation (baseline Critical/High): a genuine, respectful point of contrast with Islamic theology’s characteristic uncertainty of one’s standing before the final mīzān-weighing. |
| Children of God | [NEW] | τέκνα θεοῦ | tekna theou | خدا کے فرزند (Khudā ke farzand) | High | 3:1-2, 10 | Deliberately uses فرزند, not بیٹا, to keep terminologically distinct from Christ’s unique Sonship (خدا کا بیٹا). |
| Born of God / new birth | [NEW] | γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ | gennaō ek tou theou | نئے سرے سے پیدا ہونا | Critical | 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18 | Mandatory clarifying annotation every occurrence, priority equal to Son of God: applied to ordinary believers, this risks compounding the begetting/shirk collision even beyond the Son of God title alone. Never render with literal پیدائش/جننا (begetting) language without the periphrasis and note. |
| Day of judgment | [NEW] | ἡμέρα τῆς κρίσεως | hēmera tēs kriseōs | عدالت کا دن (adālat kā din) | Medium-High | 4:17 | Shared eschatological ground with Islamic yaum ad-dīn/qiyāmat; avoid unqualified reuse of قیامت (reserved per baseline for Christ’s resurrection with its own distinguishing note). |
7. Overcoming the World
| Term | Status | Greek | Transliteration | Urdu term | Risk | Primary passages | Risk reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| World | [NEW] | κόσμος | kosmos | دنیا (dunyā) | High | 2:15-17; 3:1, 13; 4:1, 3-5, 9, 14, 17; 5:4-5, 19 | Distinguish Johannine moral/spiritual axis (world as fallen system opposed to God) from Islamic dunyā/ākhirah’s temporal/chronological axis; genuinely productive but distinct comparison point (cf. Sufi zuhd). |
| Overcome / victory | [NEW] | νικάω / νίκη | nikaō / nikē | غالب آنا (ġhālib ānā) / فتح (fatḥ) | Medium-High | 2:13-14; 4:4; 5:4-5 | NEVER render with جہاد (jihād)-adjacent vocabulary; victory is grounded explicitly in faith in Christ’s finished work (5:4-5’s own grammar), not ongoing personal struggle/effort. |
| Lust/desire of the flesh | [TM-REUSE, applied] | ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκός | epithymia tēs sarkos | جسم کی خواہش | High | 2:16 | Reuse baseline flesh/جسم caution: self-reliant sinful desire, not the body itself; avoid body-negation asceticism reading. |
| Pride of life | [NEW] | ἀλαζονεία τοῦ βίου | alazoneia tou biou | زندگی کا غرور | Low-Medium | 2:16 | Standard vocabulary, low collision risk. |
| Idols | [TM-REUSE, applied] | εἴδωλα | eidōla | بت (but) | High | 5:21 | Reuse baseline works_of_the_flesh_idolatry/بت پرستی caution: genuine but differently-defined overlap with Islamic shirk condemnation (Trinity/Sonship themselves classified as shirk in Islamic theology — engage directly in comparative material). |
8. Testing the Spirits (additional terms not already listed under §5)
| Term | Status | Greek | Transliteration | Urdu term | Risk | Primary passages | Risk reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Testimony / witness | [NEW] | μαρτυρία / μαρτυρέω | martyria / martyreō | گواہی / گواہی دینا | Low | 1:2; 4:14; 5:6-11 | Standard, low-risk apostolic-testimony vocabulary. |
| Threefold witness (Spirit, water, blood) | [NEW] | τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα | to pneuma kai to hydōr kai to haima | روح، پانی، اور خون | Medium-High | 5:6-8 | Textual-critical note required: exclude the later Comma Johanneum Trinitarian addition (reflected in some traditional versions’ 5:7) from the primary translated text; earliest manuscripts support the shorter reading above. |
| Sin unto death | [NEW] | ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον | hamartia pros thanaton | موت کا باعث گناہ | Medium-High | 5:16-17 | Do not map onto the Islamic kabīrah/ṣaghīrah (major/minor sin) juristic taxonomy; read within 1 John’s own context (settled apostasy/denial of Christ). |
| The evil one | [NEW] | ὁ πονηρός | ho ponēros | شریر (sharīr) / ابلیس (iblīs) | Low-Medium | 3:8, 10, 12; 5:18-19 | Genuinely shared demonological ground (cf. Iblīs/Shaiṭān); low collision risk. |
| Commandment / new commandment | [NEW] | ἐντολή / καινὴ ἐντολή | entolē / kainē entolē | حکم / نیا حکم | Medium | 2:3-8; 3:22-24; 4:21; 5:2-3 | Keep distinct from شریعت (Torah/comprehensive-law, High risk); this is a specific relational directive from Christ tied to the love-command, not a legal system. |
| Lawlessness | [NEW] | ἀνομία | anomia | بے شریعتی (be-sharī’atī) | High | 3:4 | شریعت-root vocabulary carries the baseline law caution; anchor to sin as rebellion against God’s moral order generally, never to Islamic sharīʿah as a system, and distinguish from the Torah-specific works_of_the_law caution. |
Consistency Rules for This Book (extending the baseline’s Theological Consistency Rules)
| Rule | Rationale |
|---|---|
| خدا کا بیٹا is reserved exclusively for Christ’s Sonship; خدا کے فرزند is used for believers’ derivative childhood-status. Never interchange. | Prevents the γεννάω/τέκνα risk (compounding the Son of God collision) from spreading across every “children of God” reference in the letter. |
| نئے سرے سے پیدا ہونا (not a literal-begetting phrase) is the mandatory rendering for γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ at every occurrence, always with its clarifying note. | Highest-priority new annotation rule in this Language Package’s 1 John extension, parallel in priority to the baseline’s Son of God rule. |
| مخالفِ مسیح (not دجال) is the primary rendering for ἀντίχριστος. | Avoids importing the specific, structurally different Islamic Dajjāl narrative. |
| جہاد is forbidden for νικάω/νίκη (“overcome/victory”) language throughout. | Avoids militant/effort-based reframing of a faith-grounded, already-accomplished victory (5:4-5). |
| روح alone (never روح القدس) is used for the generic “spirits” being tested in 4:1, 6. | Prevents any implication that the Holy Spirit himself is subject to testing. |
کفارہ requires the same mandatory contrastive note as the baseline’s redemption/curse entries every time it appears (2:2; 4:10). | Compound Critical risk: shared word with Islamic kaffārah’s different compensatory logic, plus crucifixion-denial presupposition. |
| نور requires a clarifying note at first occurrence distinguishing 1 John’s ethical-relational content from Āyat an-Nūr and Nūr Muḥammadī cosmology. | Same annotation priority as محبت/“God is love.” |
This glossary must be loaded alongside the baseline translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json before any Phase 2 segment translation of 1 John begins. All [NEW] entries above are proposed for promotion into an updated translation_memory.json (version increment required) and bible_term_registry.json at Phase 1 Step 2, with risk tiers and review routing carried forward into an updated doctrine_risk_registry.json unchanged unless human theologian review determines otherwise.
Critical Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: خدا
Transliteration: k͟hudā
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Rejected alternatives: اللہ
Original: θεός
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 John’s repeated predications ‘God is light’ (1:5) and ‘God is love’ (4:8, 16) make this term especially load-bearing in this book, since both predications are then given content that collides with Islamic theology. Never اللہ.
Jesus
Approved rendering: یسوع
Transliteration: yasū’
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Rejected alternatives: عیسیٰ
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. Always یسوع مسیح (Yasu’ Masih) in running text, never bare عیسیٰ, per baseline. 1 John’s letter-long confessional test (‘that Jesus is the Christ,’ ‘that Jesus is the Son of God,’ ‘that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh’) repeatedly anchors the name yasū’ to this fuller New Testament content.
Messiah
Approved rendering: مسیح
Transliteration: masīḥ
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Original: Χριστός
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. The Qur’an’s own use of al-Masīḥ for ʿĪsā lacks the full content 1 John assumes: divine Sonship (2:22-23), atoning death (2:2; 4:10), and the specific confession that Jesus IS this Christ (5:1) as the ground of new birth. Teach this fuller content explicitly at every occurrence in this book, never assume it is already shared.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: روح القدس
Transliteration: rūḥ al-qudus
Doctrine: Fellowship with God and One Another
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. Used for πνεῦμα in 4:13 (the Spirit given to believers as ground of assurance) — the co-equal, co-eternal, personal third Person of the Trinity, never assimilated to the Quranic identification of rūḥ al-qudus with the angel Jibreel. MUST be kept terminologically and visually distinct from the generic, lower-case ‘spirits’ being tested in 4:1, 6, for which روح ALONE (never روح القدس) is used — see spirit_of_truth_and_error and test_the_spirits entries below.
Father
Approved rendering: باپ
Transliteration: bāp
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 John repeatedly pairs ‘the Father’ with ‘the Son’ as a joint confessional unit (2:22-24) and calls God ‘the Father’ as the source of the Son’s sending (4:14) and, derivatively, of believers’ new birth — heightening the stakes of getting Father-Son relational language right every time it recurs.
Son Of God
Approved rendering: خدا کا بیٹا
Transliteration: k͟hudā kā beṭā
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ابن اللہ
Original: ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. This is 1 John’s own explicit confessional core (2:22-23; 4:15; 5:5, 10, 20) and recurs five to seven times in five short chapters, more densely than in any other book in this pipeline. RESERVED EXCLUSIVELY for Christ; never used for believers’ derivative childhood-status (see children_of_god below — absolute non-interchange rule). Mandatory eternal-not-begotten annotation every single occurrence, not merely at introduction.
Only Begotten Son
Approved rendering: اکلوتا بیٹا
Transliteration: aklautā beṭā
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: خدا نے اسے جنا ہے (literal-begetting construction — forbidden)
Original: μονογενής
Category: Christology
NEW for 1 John, extending son_of_god. Renders μονογενής in 4:9 (‘God sent his only/unique Son’). اکلوتا (‘unique, one-of-a-kind’) is preferred over any phrase suggesting literal generation, the exact claim denied at Qur’an 112:3 (‘He begets not, nor is He begotten’). Mandatory annotation every occurrence. Human theologian review required.
Incarnation
Approved rendering: مجسم ہونا
Transliteration: mujassam honā
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Rejected alternatives: اوتار
Original: ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο / ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα
Category: Christology
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. In 1 John this renders ‘come in the flesh’ (ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα, 4:2-3), THE letter’s own explicit doctrinal test for discerning true from false spirits, and underlies the eyewitness ‘seen…touched’ language of 1:1. Historical nuance mandatory in teaching material: 1 John 4:2-3 was written against a docetic denial of Christ’s real HUMANITY (opposite in direction from Islamic theology’s typical denial of his DEITY while affirming his humanity) — name both error-directions explicitly, never flatten into one generic statement. Mandatory human theologian review every occurrence.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: راستبازی
Transliteration: rāstbāzī
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Rejected alternatives: نیکی, تقویٰ
Original: δίκαιος / δικαιοσύνη
Category: Salvation
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. Applied in 1 John to right standing/practice flowing from new birth (2:29; 3:7, 10), not personal piety achieved to earn standing — retain the baseline’s contrast with تقویٰ-shaped ethical-spiritual achievement.
Salvation
Approved rendering: نجات
Transliteration: najāt
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Rejected alternatives: مکتی
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. Underlies 1 John’s نجات دہندہ (savior) and ابدی زندگی (eternal life) entries below; deliverance secured entirely through Christ’s atoning death and resurrection, never Allah’s mercy weighed against deeds at judgment (mizan). Explicit contrastive teaching required wherever load-bearing.
God Is Love
Approved rendering: خدا محبت ہے
Transliteration: k͟hudā muhabbat hai
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Original: ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν
Category: God
NEW for 1 John. The doctrinal-summary sentence of 4:8, 16 — love is not one attribute among many but God’s very essential IDENTITY. Islamic theology affirms Allah’s love (al-Wadūd) as one of ninety-nine names among many (alongside al-Jabbar, al-Qahhar, etc.), not as God’s singular defining essence. Must never be taught as free-standing common ground; always anchor forward to 4:9-10’s cross-shaped, Incarnation-and-atonement-presupposing content. Mandatory human theologian review every occurrence.
Confess Christ
Approved rendering: اقرار کرنا
Transliteration: iqrār karnā
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Original: ὁμολογέω (object: Ἰησοῦς ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ / ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα)
Category: Christology
NEW for 1 John. Renders ὁμολογέω with a Christological object (2:23; 4:2-3, 15; 5:1, 5) — confessing that Jesus is the Son of God, or that Christ has come in the flesh. The verb itself is low-risk; the CONTENT confessed carries the full Critical weight of son_of_god and incarnation. This is the single most doctrinally explosive confession a reader of this letter will encounter, heard by a Muslim reader as a direct claim of shirk (Qur’an 4:48, 4:116; 112:3). Mandatory human theologian review every occurrence.
Propitiation
Approved rendering: کفارہ
Transliteration: kaffārah
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Original: ἱλασμός
Category: Salvation
NEW for 1 John. Renders ἱλασμός (2:2; 4:10). COMPOUND CRITICAL RISK: کفارہ is shared vocabulary with Islamic theology’s own kaffārah doctrine, a compensatory act (fasting, feeding the poor, freeing a captive) discharging a SPECIFIC personal obligation STILL OWED — a different soteriological mechanism from a once-for-all, God-provided, substitutionary sacrifice covering all sin through the death of God’s own Son. Additionally presupposes the historical crucifixion Qur’an 4:157 denies occurred. No unshared alternative exists and a coined term would be unintelligible; retain کفارہ but require the SAME mandatory contrastive note at EVERY occurrence (2:2 AND 4:10), never merely at first occurrence. Mandatory human theologian review.
Antichrist
Approved rendering: مخالفِ مسیح
Transliteration: mukhālif-e-masīḥ
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Rejected alternatives: دجال (forbidden as primary rendering)
Original: ἀντίχριστος
Category: Eschatology
NEW for 1 John. Renders ἀντίχριστος (2:18, 22; 4:3). THE MOST ACUTE NEWLY-INTRODUCED COLLISION RISK IN THIS BOOK. Islamic eschatology has its own well-developed, specific figure and narrative — ad-Dajjāl (‘the Deceiver’), a FUTURE, SINGULAR false messiah defeated by the returning ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ — widely known in South Asian Muslim popular and formal religious culture. 1 John’s ‘spirit of antichrist’ is a PRESENT, DIFFUSE, doctrine-denying force already at work (4:3), structurally different from the Dajjāl narrative. Do NOT use دجال as the primary rendering; use the transparent compound مخالفِ مسیح (‘opponent of the Messiah’) instead. Mandatory distinguishing note naming دجال directly at first occurrence (2:18), never presented as simple equivalence. Mandatory human theologian review every occurrence.
Savior
Approved rendering: نجات دہندہ
Transliteration: najāt dahindā
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: σωτήρ
Category: Salvation
NEW for 1 John, extending baseline salvation/نجات entry. Renders σωτήρ in 4:14, ‘Savior of the world.’ Carries forward the full najat/mizan contrast (deliverance through Christ’s atoning death and resurrection, not deeds weighed against mercy) AND a universal-scope claim in the same clause — a compound-risk verse requiring BOTH the salvation contrastive note and the universality note simultaneously; ‘of the world’ must never be reframed via ummah/kafir categories.
Born Of God
Approved rendering: نئے سرے سے پیدا ہونا
Transliteration: na’e sire se paidā honā
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: خدا نے اسے جنا ہے (literal-begetting construction — forbidden)
Original: γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ
Category: Salvation
NEW for 1 John. Renders γεννάω ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ (2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18). ARGUABLY THE SINGLE LARGEST TRUE VOCABULARY GAP IN THIS BOOK: applied to ORDINARY BELIEVERS (not Christ alone), a literal begetting-rendering would sound like a claim that many human beings are or become literal offspring of God — broader and stranger-sounding than the unique messianic Sonship title alone, and adjacent to the same tawhid-collision named in Qur’an 112:3. Use the periphrastic ‘to be born anew’ at all five occurrences, fixed, never revisited per-segment. Mandatory clarifying note EVERY occurrence, same priority tier as son_of_god. Human theologian review required every occurrence.
High Risk Terms
Faith
Approved rendering: ایمان
Transliteration: īmān
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: πίστις / πιστεύω
Category: Faith
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. The object of ایمان must always be explicit — in 1 John, belief that Jesus specifically is the Christ (5:1), and trust in God’s demonstrated love in the Son’s sending (4:16) — never left as generalized creedal assent compatible with the six articles of Islamic faith.
Sin
Approved rendering: گناہ
Transliteration: gunāh
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Original: ἁμαρτία
Category: Sin
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 John 1:8-10’s claim that DENYING one has sin is itself self-deception, and 3:4’s definition of sin as ἀνομία (lawlessness, fundamental rebellion), both extend beyond Islamic theology’s individual-accountability-only framework (fitrah, natural purity).
Flesh
Approved rendering: جسم
Transliteration: jism
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Rejected alternatives: نفس (risks importing the Sufi nafs-discipline system)
Original: σάρξ
Category: Sin
Inherited from Galatians package, unchanged. 1 John uses σάρξ in TWO distinct senses that must be distinguished in teaching material: (1) sinful, self-reliant desire (ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκός, 2:16 — see lust_of_the_flesh below), and (2) Christ’s real human nature assumed in the Incarnation (‘come in the flesh,’ 4:2-3 — ties to the incarnation entry). Must not collapse into body-negation asceticism in sense (1).
Eternal Life
Approved rendering: ابدی زندگی
Transliteration: abadī zindagī
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: ζωὴ αἰώνιος
Category: Eschatology
Inherited from Galatians package, unchanged. 1 John explicitly ties eternal life to present-tense assurance (‘that you may KNOW that you have eternal life,’ 5:13; also 1:2, 2:25, 3:15, 5:11-13, 20), reinforcing the assurance-of-salvation doctrine strongly. Must be taught in continuity with نجات, never as a separate reward earned by works.
Holy
Approved rendering: پاک
Transliteration: pāk
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Rejected alternatives: طاہر
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. Underlies the پاک کرنا (cleanse) entry below. Never طاہر (ritual-purity/wudu-adjacent); this is moral-relational purity accomplished through Christ’s blood.
Sanctification
Approved rendering: تقدیس
Transliteration: taqdīs
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Rejected alternatives: پاکیزگی
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. Background doctrine for 1 John 3:3’s ἁγνίζει (‘purifies himself’) — self-purification in hope of Christ’s appearing, the believer’s active response to a work the Spirit accomplishes, distinct from Islamic ritual-purity law.
Law
Approved rendering: شریعت
Transliteration: sharī’at
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Rejected alternatives: توریت
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. 1 John’s own ἀνομία (lawlessness, 3:4) shares this root — see lawlessness entry below, which is broader and more generic than this Torah-specific term and must not be confused with it, nor with Islamic sharī’ah as a comprehensive legal-religious system.
Grace
Approved rendering: فضل
Transliteration: faz̤l
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Rejected alternatives: رحمت, احسان, کرم
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. Underlies 1 John 4:10’s grace-priority shape (‘not that we loved God, but that he loved us’) and 4:19 (‘we love because he first loved us’) — the same doctrinal shape as فضل: favor/love given prior to and apart from human merit or approach, contrasted with soteriological frameworks in which divine favor responds to human devotion.
Love
Approved rendering: محبت
Transliteration: muhabbat
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Original: ἀγάπη / ἀγαπάω
Category: God
NEW for 1 John. Renders ἀγάπη as God’s essential disposition/nature (4:7-21; 2:5, 15; 3:1, 11-18). محبت is unavoidable, standard Urdu vocabulary, but is also live theological/devotional vocabulary in Islamic tradition (Allah as al-Wadūd, Qur’an 11:90, 85:14) and Sufi maḥabbah/ʿishq. Genuine bridge word, NOT forbidden, but every doctrinally load-bearing use must be anchored to the concrete, historical, cross-shaped content of 4:9-10 (God sending his Son to die as ἱλασμός), never left as an undefined divine-attribute term compatible with either tradition’s own account of ‘God’s love.‘
Light
Approved rendering: نور
Transliteration: nūr
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Original: φῶς
Category: God
NEW for 1 John. Renders φῶς, the second of the letter’s two defining predications of God’s nature (1:5; developed 2:8-10). Collides with Qur’an 24:35 (Āyat an-Nūr, ‘Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth’) and the Sufi doctrine of Nūr Muḥammadī (the pre-existent ‘Light of Muhammad’ from which creation is said to derive in some traditions). خدا نور ہے must never be taught as free-standing cosmological common ground; anchor to 1 John’s own ethical content — moral purity, truthful confession (1:9), fellowship conditioned on walking in the light (1:7) — never a metaphysical light-substance claim. Mandatory clarifying note at first occurrence.
Word Of Life
Approved rendering: زندگی کا کلام
Transliteration: zindagī kā kalām
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Original: ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς
Category: Christology
NEW for 1 John. Renders ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς (1:1), Christ himself as the eternal, life-giving message personally seen, heard, and touched by the apostolic witnesses. Ties directly to Logos-Christology and thus to the Incarnation’s Critical collision with tawhid (Qur’an 112); the emphatic ‘seen…looked upon…touched’ language is a direct anti-docetic, pro-incarnational claim.
Forgiveness
Approved rendering: معافی
Transliteration: mu’āfī
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Original: ἀφίημι / ἄφεσις
Category: Salvation
NEW for 1 John. Renders ἀφίημι/ἄφεσις (1:9; 2:12). معافی is the correct, necessary term for 1 John’s own doctrine, but is also the ordinary Islamic term for Allah’s maghfirah, granted through mercy in direct response to repentance, WITHOUT a mediating atonement. Must be explicitly anchored to Christ’s atoning blood (1:7; 2:2) every doctrinally load-bearing occurrence, never left as an unqualified statement compatible with direct, unmediated divine pardon.
Cleanse
Approved rendering: پاک کرنا
Transliteration: pāk karnā
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Original: καθαρίζω
Category: Sanctification
NEW for 1 John. Renders καθαρίζω (1:7, 9; 3:3). Moral-relational cleansing through Christ’s blood, paired with forgiveness; must never be assimilated to Islamic ritual purification law (ṭahāra, wuḍūʾ/ghusl), a legal-ritual category, not a blood-atonement category. Pair explicitly with ‘the blood of Jesus’ language (1:7) every doctrinally load-bearing use.
Advocate
Approved rendering: مدافع
Transliteration: mudāfi’
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Rejected alternatives: شفاعت (rejected as primary — imports Muhammad’s future, permission-based intercession doctrine), پیراکلیت (transliteration — opaque to target reading level)
Original: παράκλητος
Category: Salvation
NEW for 1 John. Renders παράκλητος (2:1), Christ’s present-tense pleading before the Father grounded in his own finished atoning work. Deliberately distinguished from شفاعت (baseline intercession entry, Medium): Islamic shafā’at most prominently centers on Muhammad’s FUTURE intercession for his community at the Day of Judgment, granted by Allah’s permission, not grounded in the intercessor’s own atoning death. Introduce with a one-line functional gloss at first occurrence distinguishing tense and grounds. Genuine, instructive point of doctrinal contrast to be taught explicitly.
Love For Brethren
Approved rendering: محبت
Transliteration: muhabbat
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: ἀγάπη / ἀγαπάω (ethical, tested-in-action sense)
Category: Church
NEW for 1 John. Same Urdu term as the divine-nature sense (see love above), here functioning as a diagnostic ETHICAL TEST (3:11-18; 4:7-21): love professed for God but contradicted by hatred of a brother makes one a جھوٹا (liar, 4:20). Must not be softened; 1 John’s binary moral categories (light/darkness, love/hate) admit no neutral middle ground, and this bluntness must be preserved despite real honor/shame social force.
Passed From Death To Life
Approved rendering: موت سے زندگی میں منتقل ہونا
Transliteration: maut se zindagī mẽ muntaqil honā
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: μεταβεβήκαμεν ἐκ τοῦ θανάτου εἰς τὴν ζωήν
Category: Salvation
NEW for 1 John. Renders μεταβεβήκαμεν ἐκ τοῦ θανάτου εἰς τὴν ζωήν (3:14), a decisive, completed transfer of spiritual state evidenced by love for the brethren. Ties directly to assurance-of-salvation doctrine, contrasting with a soteriological framework in which ultimate standing remains unknown until final judgment. Treat as a fixed compound phrase, kept identical wherever cross-referenced with 5:13.
Test The Spirits
Approved rendering: روحوں کو پرکھنا
Transliteration: rūḥõ ko parakhnā
Doctrine: Testing the Spirits
Original: δοκιμάζετε τὰ πνεύματα
Category: Church
NEW for 1 John. Renders δοκιμάζετε τὰ πνεύματα (4:1). Use روح ALONE (never روح القدس) for the generic ‘spirits’ being tested, to avoid any appearance of subjecting the Holy Spirit himself to a testing procedure — a syntax-level fencing rule, not merely a glossary preference. The letter’s given criterion for testing (confessing Christ come in the flesh, 4:2-3) ties this doctrine directly to the Incarnation’s Critical collision point.
Anointing
Approved rendering: مسح
Transliteration: mas’h
Doctrine: The Incarnation and Antichrist
Original: χρῖσμα
Category: Sanctification
NEW for 1 John. Renders χρῖσμα (2:20, 27), the Spirit’s indwelling, teaching presence given to all believers to discern the antichrists’ error. مسح shares its root with مسیح (Masīh, Critical) — deliberately kept visible because shared-root recognition is doctrinally useful here (believers derivatively share Christ’s own anointing), PROVIDED it is fenced against an elite/esoteric-gnosis over-reading (2:20 explicitly says ‘all of you,’ not a spiritual elite comparable to Sufi maʿrifah granted only to adepts).
Confidence Boldness
Approved rendering: دلیری
Transliteration: dilerī
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Original: παρρησία
Category: Salvation
NEW for 1 John. Renders παρρησία (2:28; 3:21; 4:17; 5:14), confident, unashamed standing before God grounded in union with Christ, not personal merit. Names a genuine, respectful point of doctrinal contrast: in Islamic soteriology, no one — including a devout, practicing Muslim — can be fully certain of standing before Allah until the deeds-weighing (mīzān) at qiyāmat; presumed assurance in this life is considered by many strands of Islamic teaching to overreach. Teach explicitly as a named contrast, never smoothed over or softened for politeness.
Children Of God
Approved rendering: خدا کے فرزند
Transliteration: k͟hudā ke farzand
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: خدا کے بیٹے (forbidden — would collide with son_of_god)
Original: τέκνα θεοῦ
Category: Salvation
NEW for 1 John. Renders τέκνα θεοῦ (3:1-2, 10), believers’ derivative childhood-status through new birth. Deliberately uses فرزند, NOT بیٹا, to keep an absolute terminological firewall from خدا کا بیٹا, reserved exclusively for Christ’s unique Sonship. This distinction must be enforced as a non-negotiable rule across every 1 John document; flag any draft using بیٹا for believers anywhere in this book as an automatic error, not a stylistic variant.
Day Of Judgment
Approved rendering: عدالت کا دن
Transliteration: adālat kā din
Doctrine: Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Life
Rejected alternatives: قیامت (forbidden here — reserved by the baseline specifically for Christ’s own resurrection with its own distinguishing note)
Original: ἡμέρα τῆς κρίσεως
Category: Eschatology
NEW for 1 John. Renders ἡμέρα τῆς κρίσεως (4:17). Genuinely shared eschatological ground with Islamic yaum al-qiyāmah/yaum ad-dīn, but قیامت must not be reused here — an inter-book consistency safeguard protecting the Romans baseline’s hard-won resurrection/qiyamat distinction. Teach the shared expectation of a final day while anchoring Christian confidence about that day specifically in Christ, not deeds-weighing.
World
Approved rendering: دنیا
Transliteration: dunyā
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Original: κόσμος
Category: World
NEW for 1 John. Renders κόσμος (2:15-17; 3:1, 13; 4:1, 3-5, 9, 14, 17; 5:4-5, 19). دنیا is the only natural, unavoidable Urdu word; the risk is conceptual-axis confusion, not lexical. Islamic ethical discourse organizes dunyā against ākhirah (this life vs. the next) — a TEMPORAL axis. Johannine κόσμος organizes along a MORAL/SPIRITUAL axis (the present fallen order opposed to God, vs. life and truth from God). Make the axis-difference explicit wherever 2:15-17 is taught; note the productive but non-identical resonance with Sufi zuhd (renunciation of worldly attachment).
Overcome Victory
Approved rendering: غالب آنا
Transliteration: ġhālib ānā
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Rejected alternatives: جہاد (ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN for this concept)
Original: νικάω / νίκη
Category: World
NEW for 1 John. Renders νικάω/νίκη (2:13-14; 4:4; 5:4-5). جہاد is absolutely forbidden here — a specific, loaded Islamic technical term for religious struggle/exertion (in some usages, armed struggle) that would import an effort-based, potentially militant connotation exactly backward from 5:4-5’s own grammar, which grounds victory explicitly in faith in Christ’s ALREADY-ACCOMPLISHED finished work, appropriated by trust, not achieved through ongoing struggle. غالب آنا/فتح alone, always tied explicitly to 5:4-5’s faith-grounding.
Lust Of The Flesh
Approved rendering: جسم کی خواہش
Transliteration: jism kī k͟hwāhish
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Original: ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκός
Category: World
NEW for 1 John, extending the Galatians-baseline flesh/جسم entry. Renders ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκός (2:16), one of the threefold description of ‘what is in the world.’ Names self-reliant, sinful human desire/orientation, not the physical body as such; must not collapse into body-negation asceticism.
Idols
Approved rendering: بت
Transliteration: but
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Original: εἴδωλα
Category: Sin
NEW for 1 John, extending the baseline works_of_the_flesh_idolatry/بت پرستی caution. Renders εἴδωλα (5:21), the letter’s abrupt closing exhortation. Genuine but differently-defined overlap with Islam’s own gravest sin category, shirk (Trinity and Christ’s Sonship are themselves classified as shirk in Islamic theology) — engage directly in comparative-theology material, especially given the juxtaposition with four chapters of Sonship affirmation immediately preceding this closing verse.
Lawlessness
Approved rendering: بے شریعتی
Transliteration: be-sharī’atī
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Original: ἀνομία
Category: Sin
NEW for 1 John. Renders ἀνομία (3:4), 1 John’s own definition of sin itself (‘sin is lawlessness’). Carries the full baseline caution attached to شریعت (shared with Islam’s own comprehensive legal-theological term). Must be anchored to sin as rebellion against God’s MORAL order generally, as 1 John itself defines it — never assimilated to a claim about Islamic sharī’ah as a system, and distinguished from the Torah-specific works_of_the_law caution already flagged in the Galatians baseline (this term is broader and more generic than that Mosaic-specific one).
Medium Risk Terms
Darkness
Approved rendering: تاریکی
Transliteration: tārīkī
Doctrine: God is Light and God is Love
Original: σκότος / σκοτία
Category: Sin
NEW for 1 John. Renders σκότος/σκοτία (1:5-6; 2:8-11). Moral-relational darkness (sin, self-deception, hatred of a brother), lower risk than its counterpart نور; must not be read as a rival evil-substance opposed to light in a cosmological sense.
Abide
Approved rendering: قائم رہنا
Transliteration: qā’im rahnā
Doctrine: Fellowship with God and One Another
Rejected alternatives: رہنا (bare form, insufficient on its own)
Original: μένω
Category: Church
NEW for 1 John. Renders μένω, the central Johannine mutual-indwelling term (2:6, 10, 14, 17, 24, 27-28; 3:6, 9, 14-15, 17, 24; 4:12-13, 15-16). Must convey ongoing RELATIONAL communion, not mere duration, while explicitly guarding against any drift toward a Sufi wahdat al-wujūd (‘unity of being’) style ontological-merger reading in which the Creator-creature distinction dissolves. 1 John’s abiding is relational/covenantal communion between two distinct persons, never metaphysical fusion. Native speaker + theologian review at first occurrence (2:6) and at the doctrinally dense cluster (4:12-16).
Brother
Approved rendering: بھائی
Transliteration: bhā’ī
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: ἀδελφός
Category: Church
NEW for 1 John. Renders ἀδελφός (2:9-11; 3:10, 14-17; 4:20-21). بھائی is the correct, warm familial term, but must be distinguished from the adjacent Islamic concept of universal Muslim brotherhood (ikhwān, part of the broader ummah concept already flagged Medium in the baseline). 1 John’s ‘brother’ is narrower: a fellow member of God’s born-again family through faith in Christ specifically, not a claim about brotherhood with all humanity or co-religionists generically.
Confess Sin
Approved rendering: گناہوں کا اقرار کرنا
Transliteration: gunāhõ kā iqrār karnā
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Original: ὁμολογέω (object: sins)
Category: Sin
NEW for 1 John. Renders ὁμολογέω with sins as its object (1:9), the lower-risk sense of this verb. Must be kept doctrinally distinct in teaching material from confess_christ below, even though the same Urdu verb root (اقرار) serves both — tag occurrences by OBJECT confessed, not by verb, for review routing.
Cain And Abel
Approved rendering: قابیل / ہابیل
Transliteration: qābīl / hābīl
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: Κάϊν / Ἄβελ
Category: Covenant
NEW for 1 John. Renders Κάϊν/Ἄβελ (3:12), the illustrative negative example of hatred leading to murder. Established, shared proper names, also present in the Qur’an’s own parallel narrative (Sūrah al-Mā’idah 5:27-31), which differs somewhat in detail and emphasis. Low-friction shared reference point; no direct doctrinal collision.
Spirit Of Truth And Error
Approved rendering: روحِ حق / روحِ گمراہی
Transliteration: rūḥ-e-ḥaq / rūḥ-e-gumrāhī
Doctrine: Testing the Spirits
Original: πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας / πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης
Category: God
NEW for 1 John. Renders πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας / πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης (4:6), the two ultimate sources behind competing spiritual claims. Low risk on their own; must be kept terminologically and visually distinct from روح القدس (Holy Spirit, Critical) — use روح alone in these constructions, never a form beginning like or abbreviating روح القدس.
Threefold Witness
Approved rendering: روح، پانی، اور خون
Transliteration: rūḥ, pānī, aur k͟hūn
Doctrine: Testing the Spirits
Rejected alternatives: the Comma Johanneum’s expanded Trinitarian formula (5:7 in some traditional editions — not primary text)
Original: τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα
Category: Christology
NEW for 1 John. Renders τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα (5:6-8). Primarily a textual-critical risk: follow the earlier, better-attested shorter text as the primary translation; the later Comma Johanneum Trinitarian addition (reflected in some traditional versions’ 5:7) is widely regarded as a later insertion and should not be presented as primary text, though it may be footnoted for readers encountering it elsewhere.
Sin Unto Death
Approved rendering: موت کا باعث گناہ
Transliteration: maut kā bā’is gunāh
Doctrine: Confession and Forgiveness of Sin
Original: ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον
Category: Sin
NEW for 1 John. Renders ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον (5:16-17), likely persistent, unrepentant apostasy/denial of Christ. Must NOT be mapped onto the Islamic kabīrah/ṣaghīrah (major/minor sin) juristic taxonomy, a distinct, independently developed category with its own criteria. Read strictly within 1 John’s own letter-context (cf. 2:19’s departure-language), not resolved falsely via the Islamic taxonomy’s clean categories.
Commandment
Approved rendering: حکم
Transliteration: ḥukm
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: ἐντολή / καινὴ ἐντολή
Category: Church
NEW for 1 John. Renders ἐντολή/καινὴ ἐντολή (2:3-8; 3:22-24; 4:21; 5:2-3), a formal, authoritative directive from Christ, especially to believe in him and love one another. Must not be conflated with شریعت (baseline High-risk Mosaic-Law term); this is a specific relational directive tied to the love-command, not a re-institution of a legal system.
Low Risk Terms
Fellowship
Approved rendering: رفاقت
Transliteration: rifāqat
Doctrine: Fellowship with God and One Another
Rejected alternatives: امت
Original: κοινωνία
Category: Church
Inherited from Romans package, unchanged. In 1 John, κοινωνία is explicitly BOTH vertical (with the Father and Son, 1:3) AND horizontal (with one another, 1:7), and is conditioned on walking in the light (1:7); preserve this dual structure in teaching material. Never امت.
Hate
Approved rendering: نفرت کرنا
Transliteration: nafrat karnā
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: μισέω
Category: Sin
NEW for 1 John. Renders μισέω (2:9-11; 3:15; 4:20), the direct moral antonym of love in the letter’s binary framework. Standard vocabulary, no significant competing sense.
Liar
Approved rendering: جھوٹا
Transliteration: jhūṭā
Doctrine: Love for the Brethren as Evidence of New Birth
Original: ψεύστης
Category: Sin
NEW for 1 John. Renders ψεύστης (1:10; 2:4, 22; 4:20). Low lexical risk, but the bluntness of this diagnostic statement must NOT be softened per the baseline’s general anti-dilution rule, even though it will land with real social force in honor/shame-sensitive contexts. Pastoral framing (how it is taught) is distinct from translation accuracy (how it is rendered) — see 02_cultural_context.md.
Pride Of Life
Approved rendering: زندگی کا غرور
Transliteration: zindagī kā g͟harūr
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Original: ἀλαζονεία τοῦ βίου
Category: World
NEW for 1 John. Renders ἀλαζονεία τοῦ βίου (2:16), arrogant self-display regarding possessions/status; standard vocabulary, low collision risk.
Testimony
Approved rendering: گواہی
Transliteration: gawāhī
Doctrine: Testing the Spirits
Original: μαρτυρία / μαρτυρέω
Category: Faith
NEW for 1 John. Renders μαρτυρία/μαρτυρέω (1:2; 4:14; 5:6-11), formal, credible testimony including apostolic eyewitness testimony and the Spirit’s own witness. Standard, low-risk vocabulary.
Evil One
Approved rendering: شریر
Transliteration: sharīr
Doctrine: Overcoming the World
Rejected alternatives: ابلیس (available as an optional specific-reference variant, not the default)
Original: ὁ πονηρός
Category: Sin
NEW for 1 John. Renders ὁ πονηρός (3:8, 10, 12; 5:18-19), a title for Satan/the devil. Demonology is broadly shared ground between the traditions (cf. Iblīs/Shaiṭān); low collision risk.
Referenced passages