The consensus so far 14:26 Jan 31, 2005
I can see from the suggestions that there is a near unanimity on "civilian" being translated to ����
The difficulty seems to be with "civil" as contrasted with "criminal." I have given the example of "civil courts," but I want to clarify that the adjective is used to modify other nouns as well -- civil law, civil lawyer, civil law suit, civil action, civil case, civil litigation, civil trial, etc. A translation of the word "civil" needs to keep that in mind.
In response to some of the answers, I would like to point out also that civil law is not restricted to family law. It covers all kinds of disputes that are not considered criminal. For example, a wrongful death law suit is civil, not criminal, even if the same event is at the same time being tried criminally as a murder case.
In pointing out the confusion in the use of the Arabic term ����, I am not trying to say that the English equivalent is free of overlap. On the contrary, the expression "civil law" in English is quite confusing, as it carries another meaning that is quite different from what I described above, namely the legal tradition that is traced back to Roman law, as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon tradition of "Common Law." For the purpose of this question, I am overlooking this confusing aspect.
Nesring has also pointed out another source of confusion, namely the misuse of the term "civil" by careless commentators, who seem to be mostly American. Their lapses are almost criminal. We need to shun such offenders and aim for a better measure of consistency in order to be able to construct such a phrase as "a civilian civil case," for instance. | 
