Bilal — Name Meaning in Islam

Root: ب-ل-ل (b-l-l), "to moisten, to wet". Bilāl is what wets and relieves: the water or milk that moistens a dry throat, and by extension any easing of thirst.

From the same root: ball and balal (moisture), balīl (a damp wind), iblāl (recovery from illness, as though a fever had been cooled), and the old Arabic idiom balla raḥimahu — literally "he moistened his ties of kin", meaning he kept them alive with kindness instead of letting them dry out.

Who carried it: Bilal ibn Rabah, born in Makkah to an enslaved Abyssinian mother, tortured in the open sun for refusing to leave Islam, and bought and freed by Abu Bakr. When the call to prayer was instituted in Madina the Prophet ﷺ chose his voice for it, so he is the first muezzin of Islam; on the day Makkah was taken he gave the call from the roof of the Kaaba. The sources report the Prophet ﷺ telling him he had heard the sound of his footsteps ahead of him.

Spellings: Bilal, Bilel, Belal, Bilal (Turkish), Bilal (Indonesian, Urdu), Bilel (Tunisian), بلال.

Pronunciation: bi-LĀL, stress on the long second syllable; both ls are light, not the dark l of English "ball".

Feminine counterpart: none in common use from this root.