Iman (faith)

"Faith" in Gabriel's hadith is, as the Prophet explained: "That you believe in God, His angels, His book, the meeting with Him, His messengers, and that you believe in the resurrection" ¹. It is the first of the questions in the hadith, followed by Islam and then ihsan.

In Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him)'s account the questioner, who is Gabriel in the form of a man ³, asks "What is faith?" and the Prophet answers with the six things: God, the angels, the books, the meeting with God, the messengers, and the resurrection ¹. The Qur'an has a verse that mentions some of these: al-Baqara 285.

Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi says: "Faith is affirmation by the tongue and assent in the heart" ⁴. For the detail see the people of the qibla and no takfir for sin.

Ibn Qudama al-Maqdisi says: "Faith is saying with the tongue, acting with the limbs, and conviction in the heart; it increases with obedience and decreases with disobedience" ⁵. He supports it with the verse of Surat al-Bayyina that worshipping God, sincerity of heart, establishing prayer and giving zakat are of the religion (al-Bayyina 5) ⁵, and with the hadith "Faith is some seventy branches — the highest the testimony that there is no god but God, the lowest removing harm from the path" ⁵. His wording is nearer to al-Bukhari's "speech and action" ², and differs from al-Tahawi's, which confines faith to affirmation and assent.

Ibn Taymiyya says: "Among the principles of the people of the Sunna is that religion and faith are word and deed: the word of heart and tongue, the deed of heart, tongue and limbs; and that faith increases with obedience and decreases with sin" ⁶. Of the sinner among the people of the creed he says: "They do not strip the sinful believer of faith entirely, nor hold him in the Fire forever"; for him he is "a believer deficient in faith" or "a believer in his faith, a sinner by his major sin" — neither given the unqualified name nor stripped of the name unqualifiedly ⁷.

In "the account of the sum of the saying of the people of hadith and sunna" in Maqalat al-Islamiyyin, Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari presents what the people of hadith and sunna hold, ending: "And in all we have mentioned of their saying we speak, and to it we go" ⁸. He relates there that faith for them "is belief in God, His angels, His books and His messengers, and in the decree — its good and evil, its sweet and bitter"; and that Islam is the testimony that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God's messenger; and that "Islam, for them, is not faith" ⁹. Then he says: "And they affirm that faith is word and deed, increasing and decreasing; they do not say created nor uncreated" ⁹. This is near in wording to the definition of faith in Lum'at al-I'tiqad and al-Wasitiyya, differing from al-Tahawi's wording.

Ibn Abi al-Izz says: "People have differed much over what the name faith applies to": Malik, al-Shafi'i, Ahmad, al-Awza'i, Ishaq ibn Rahawayh and the rest of the people of hadith, of Medina and of the Zahiris, and a group of the mutakallimun held it is "conviction in the heart, affirmation by the tongue and action by the limbs"; "many of our companions" held what al-Tahawi stated; some of them say the tongue's affirmation is "an extra pillar, not original" — to which Abu Mansur al-Maturidi inclined ¹⁰. He mentions the Karramis' school, which holds affirmation by the tongue alone ¹⁰.

This entry presents what is documented from Sahih al-Bukhari, the 'Aqida al-Tahawiyya, Lum'at al-I'tiqad, al-Wasitiyya, Maqalat al-Islamiyyin and Ibn Abi al-Izz's Sharh al-Tahawiyya. Al-Maturidi's sayings from his own books and the rest of the Sunni and non-Sunni schools' sayings have not yet been added; no judgement between the two definitions is made here.

The Sheikh holds that God does not want from people a faith of mere witnessing and verbal testimony but a faith in the unseen ¹¹. For that reason he says that the faith of one who believes too late is not accepted: one who does not pray would not be accepted if he prayed then, and likewise those who associate partners with God, even if they became certain at that point that the Messiah is a human being and that Muhammad is the Messenger ¹¹.

The Sheikh warns against wavering faith and says that the servant who worships God on an edge gains nothing from it ¹².

The Sheikh gives a familiar example from families: a man who does not pray and a woman who refuses the headscarf, who are nonetheless of excellent character ¹³. He asks whether their good character makes up for the prayer and the headscarf ¹³.

The Sheikh compares this to a pupil expelled from school for refusing some subjects, and says the believer takes the religion whole ¹⁴. He notes that Bani Israel were faulted for believing in part of the Book and rejecting part of it, as though one believed in two pages and rejected the third, whereas we believe in the whole Book ¹⁴.

The Sheikh says that faith has an outward and an inward part: the outward is speech of the tongue and deeds of the limbs, and the inward is the heart's assent ^{15 16}.

He says that every believer is a Muslim, but not every Muslim is a believer, and he quotes a verse about the desert Arabs, not named by him ¹⁷.

The Sheikh holds that the inward faith shows itself only through the outward, except in some cases, such as coercion or fear for one's life ^{18 19}.

He holds that leaving the outward act when nothing prevents it is a sign of corruption within ²⁰.

He says that obedience increases faith and disobedience reduces it, and that a faith which does not move its holder to act is open to doubt ^{21 22}.

He says that faith increases and decreases: obedience increases it and sin reduces it ²³.

The Sheikh speaks of the branches of faith. He says faith has some sixty branches, the highest of which is the testimony that there is no god but God and the lowest of which is removing harm from the road, and that shame is one of its branches (needs_source: the number) ²⁵. He holds that the Muslim society must return to the branches of faith, that the first of them is the testimony, and that Abu Jahl understood its meaning ²⁶.

The Sheikh says that faith requires the unseen, so that one cannot linguistically say "I believe" of what stands visibly before one's eyes ²⁷. He likens faith to a ray of light that fills a vessel, and he cites a report that the Prophet described Mu'adh as filled with faith to the marrow of his heart ²⁸. He holds that the first step of faith is to love one's Lord, since He is most worthy of love, and that faith is a security for a person in this world that continues into the next ²⁹.

He places the measure of faith in outward submission to God's law and inward surrender to His decree ³⁰, and says that faith is not appearance but what settles in the heart and is made true by deeds ³¹. The Sheikh holds, as his own opinion, that the most refined hearts are the most faithful, and that the believer's heart is soft ³².