From Arabic hidayah, meaning guidance or right direction.
Hidaya is an Arabic name of profound theological weight, derived from the root 'h-d-y,' meaning 'to guide,' 'to lead to the right path,' or 'to bestow guidance.' The noun 'hidāya' — guidance, right direction — is one of the most frequently invoked concepts in Islamic religious life. The opening chapter of the Quran, Surah Al-Fatiha, centers on the prayer 'ihdina al-sirāt al-mustaqīm' — 'guide us to the straight path' — recited in every unit of Muslim daily prayer.
To name a child Hidaya is thus to embed into her identity the most fundamental aspiration of Islamic spiritual life. The name gained additional cultural currency through 'Al-Hidaya,' the influential twelfth-century compendium of Hanafi Islamic jurisprudence by the Central Asian scholar Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani. This text, composed in Samarkand around 1197, became one of the most widely studied legal manuals in the Islamic world, used in madrasas from Morocco to Indonesia for over eight centuries.
Its title transformed 'hidaya' from a purely spiritual term into a synonym for authoritative knowledge and legal wisdom. As a given name, Hidaya is most common in Arab, Somali, Sudanese, and South Asian Muslim communities, where it functions as a quiet but powerful declaration of parental hope. Unlike more ornamental names, Hidaya is a name of intention — naming a daughter 'guidance' suggests that she herself will be a source of direction and wisdom for those around her, a living answer to the prayer she carries in her name.