Shifa — Name Meaning in Islam

Root: ش-ف-ي (sh-f-y), "to heal, to cure". Shifāʾ is the verbal noun: healing — and in Arabic it is the recovery itself, the end of the illness, rather than the medicine that brought it about. That distinction matters to the name: shifāʾ is the outcome, not the treatment.

From the same root: shafā (he healed), yashfī (he heals), shāfī (healer — and ash-Shāfī as an attribute of God in supplication), mustashfā (hospital, literally the place where healing is sought), istashfā (to seek a cure), and tashaffā. The word runs through the Qur'an: an-Nahl 16:69 describes honey as a drink in which there is healing for people; Yunus 10:57 calls the revelation a healing for what is in the breasts; and in ash-Shu'ara 26:80 Ibrahim says of his Lord that when he falls ill, it is He who cures him.

Who carried it: ash-Shifa bint Abdullah, a Companion of the Quraysh remembered as one of the few women of Makkah who could read and write, and who taught that skill to others in Madina.

Spellings: Shifa, Shifaa, Şifa (Turkish), Syifa (Indonesian), Shifa (Urdu), Chifa or Shifa (French and Maghrebi), شفاء.

Pronunciation: shi-FĀʾ, stress on the second syllable. It ends on a hamza, a clean glottal stop, so the last vowel is cut off sharply rather than trailing away.

Masculine counterpart: none in common use.