Is It Permissible to Call Another Human Being ‘Lord’?

﷽

The Question / السؤال

During our Friday Night Halaqah a young man asked me if it were permissible to refer to another human being a “lord” after hearing it in a British-period television show. He found this odd and potentially disturbing as Muslims refer to God with the Arabic word rabb (رب) which is commonly translated as Lord.

The Answer / الجواب

Keeping and Kneading the Bread

First, let’s ascertain as to whether the word lord has always been exclusively reserved for God.

In English the word “lord” comes from the Old English hlāford, meaning “master or head of a household”. In fact if we dive a bit deeper we see it comes from hlāf which literally meant the “keeper of the loaf [of bread!]”.

Oddly enough, perhaps a century later, the term “lady” emerges with its roots to be found in the Old English hlæfdige, meaning “mistress of a household” but also literally tied to “the one who kneads bread”. Perhaps in a world of scarcity s/he who kneads/guards the bread is a pretty important person. I digress.

Eventually lord came to refer to a ruler, superior, nobility or landowner. This should not be mistaken that a human lord was a euphemism for God as the supreme Ruler. How it made its way into the realm of theology is another discussion. For the sake of our post here we can confidently answer that lord does not always equal/apply to God.

Is Rabb The Same As ‘Lord’?

Ibn Hishām, the famous scholar of prophetic biography, relates an account related to the backstory of Sūrah al-Fīl (The Elephant) in which the grandfather of the Prophet Muḥammad ‎ﷺ engages with Abrahah, the Yemeni Christian ruler who served as a vassal for the Aksumite kingdom of Ethiopia, who sought to destroy the Kaʿbah:

قَالَ لَهُ عَبْدُ الْمُطَّلِبِ: إِنِّي أَنَا رَبُّ الْإِبِلِ، وَإِنَّ لِلْبَيْتِ رَبًّا سَيَمْنَعُهُ.
فَقَالَ أَبْرَهَةُ: مَا كَانَ لِيَمْتَنِعَ مِنِّي.
قَالَ عَبْدُ الْمُطَّلِبِ: أَنْتَ وَذَاكَ.

“ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib said to Abrahah: ‘I am the lord (rabb) of the camels, and the House has a Lord (rabb) who will protect it.’
Abrahah said: ‘It will not be protected from me.’
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib replied: ‘That is between you and Him.’”

We can see here an interchange between ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib referring to himself as a “lord” and also referring to God as “the Lord of the House”. This demonstrates that even in Arabic the word was not exclusively reserved for God.

Another example is that of ʿAdī bin Ḥātim, a Companion of the Prophet ‎ﷺ and a former Christian himself, objecting to the accusation the Qurʾān made of Jews and Christians taking their monks and rabbis as “lords besides Allah”:

ٱتَّخَذُوٓا۟ أَحْبَارَهُمْ وَرُهْبَـٰنَهُمْ أَرْبَابًۭا مِّن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ وَٱلْمَسِيحَ ٱبْنَ مَرْيَمَ وَمَآ أُمِرُوٓا۟ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُوٓا۟ إِلَـٰهًۭا وَٰحِدًۭا ۖ لَّآ إِلَـٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ۚ سُبْحَـٰنَهُۥ عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ

“They have taken their rabbis and monks as well as the Messiah, son of Mary, as lords besides Allah, even though they were commanded to worship none but One God. There is no god except Him. Glorified is He above what they associate with Him!”

Upon hearing this ʿAdī objected saying “we did not worship them! (innā lasnā naʿbuduhum/إنا لسنا نعبدهم)”. And while the Qurʾānic refutation of their actions stands it was not a linguistic critique.

Conclusion

Given that there is not a 100% equivalency between the English lord and the Arabic rabb and that not every utterance of lord, in either language, can be taken as an inference for a theological point, I see no harm in doing so so long as the intention is not to consign to others what is only to be consigned to God.