Amal — Name Meaning in Islam

Root: أ-م-ل (ʾ-m-l), "to hope, to look forward to". Amal is the plain verbal noun: hope itself — not the act of hoping so much as the thing hoped for held steadily in mind. It is worth separating from the near-identical ع-م-ل (ʿ-m-l), "to work", which gives ʿamal, deed. The two names look alike in English letters and are entirely different words in Arabic.

From the same root: āmāl (hopes, the plural), taʾammul (contemplation, unhurried reflection — the same root turned inward), maʾmūl (that which is hoped for), muʾammal (expected, awaited). The Qur'an uses the word directly: in al-Kahf 18:46, enduring good works are described as better in reward and better in amal; in al-Hijr 15:3, people are left to eat and enjoy themselves while hope distracts them — the same word, once as something worth building on and once as something that can lull.

Spellings: Amal, Emel (Turkish), Amal (Indonesian and Urdu), Amal or Amel (French and Maghrebi), أمل.

Pronunciation: A-mal, stress on the first syllable. It opens with a hamza, a light glottal catch, the same closure that begins the English word "apple" when spoken carefully. Both vowels are short.

Masculine counterpart: Amal is occasionally given to boys in Arab usage; there is no separate masculine form.