The present article attempts at compiling a concise historical-legal dictionary of the legal custom or ‘adat practiced by Muslim highlanders in the North-East Caucasus from the 14th to the 20th centuries. It contains 108 terminological and phraseological items that the author gathered from documents as well as normative and narrative texts, including inscriptions. Characteristic for these terms and expressions is the inaccurate use of Arabic morphology and semantics. The author argues that these inaccuracies reflect the cultural translation of Dagestani historical realities into Arabic. The legal vocabulary of Dagestani ‘adat texts was created by Shari‘a judges as well as teachers and students of madrasas - that is, by persons with a rather good knowledge of classical Islamic legal literature - for members of their own rural communities and confederacies. ‘Adat agreements that had been concluded at meetings of the confederations were thereby translated into Arabic and written down in the margins of mosque Qur