Anas — Name Meaning in Islam

Root: أ-ن-س (ʾ-n-s), "to be at ease in company, to grow familiar with someone". Anas is the verbal noun used as a name: friendliness, sociability, the warmth that comes of company — the opposite of waḥsha, the loneliness of an empty place.

From the same root: uns (intimacy, companionship), ins (humankind, the word paired with jinn), insān (a human being — though the lexicographers differ here, some deriving it from this root and others from n-s-y, "to forget"), ānisa, Īnās, and istiʾnās, the word the Qur'an uses for seeking leave before entering another household (an-Nur 24:27).

Who carried it: Anas ibn Malik, given as a boy to serve the Prophet ﷺ when he arrived in Madina, and who stayed in that service for about ten years. He is among the largest transmitters of hadith, and a great deal of what is known about the Prophet's ﷺ ordinary daily conduct — how he ate, how he spoke to children, how he dealt with a servant's mistakes — comes through him. He lived long and taught in Basra.

Spellings: Anas, Enes (Turkish), Anas (Indonesian), Anas (Urdu), Anass (Maghrebi), أنس.

Pronunciation: A-nas, both vowels short, stress on the first; it opens with a plain hamza, not ʿayn.

Feminine counterpart: Anisa (أنيسة), she whose company is pleasant.