Creed
Family: Belief and worship · 148 entries
Entries on this theme
Person
Zayd ibn Amr
c. 560 CEA Meccan seeker who rejected the idols of his people and sought 'the religion of Abraham' years before the Prophet's mission — the tradition's example of the hanif, the indigenous monotheist.Al-Ash'ari, Ali ibn Isma'il
874 CE · 260 AHA Basran theologian to whom the Ash'ari school of kalam is attributed. Little is known of his life beyond this.Abu al-Fadl Abd al-Wahid ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Tamimi al-Hanbali
Abd al-Wahid ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn al-Harith ibn Asad ibn al-Layth ibn Sulayman ibn al-Aswad ibn Sufyan, Abu al-Fadl al-Tamimi, head of the Hanbalis of Baghdad and their leading figure in his time. He related hadith from Abu Bakr al-Najjad, al-Baghawi and Ibn al-Ja'abi, and wrote on the principles of religion and its branches; among his best-known works is the Creed of Imam Ahmad. He was held in high regard by the caliph al-Qadir bi-Llah. He died in Baghdad in Dhu al-Qa'da of the year 410 and was buried beside the grave of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal; about fifty thousand people prayed over him.Ibn Barrajan, Abd al-Salam ibn Abd al-Rahman
An ascetic Sufi and theologian from the Maghrib, known for his preaching and for Sufism and kalam.Ibn Qudama al-Maqdisi
c. 1146 CE · 541 AHA Hanbali jurist of the Maqdisi family, titled Muwaffaq al-Din, author of Lum'at al-I'tiqad on the creed of Ahl al-Sunna on the way of the early generations.Al-Sharif al-Jurjani, Ali ibn Muhammad
1340 CE · 740 AHA scholar of philosophy, logic, theology and rhetoric, born in Taju and known as al-Sharif al-Jurjani.al-Khayali Ahmad ibn Musa Shams al-Din
1425 CE · 829 AHTheologian of the creed, a Rumi Hanafi and pupil of Khidr Bik; taught at the Sultan's madrasa in Bursa and then at Iznik; died there in 862 AH (1458 CE).Al-Bajuri, Ibrahim ibn Muhammad
1784 CE · 1198 AHA Shafi'i theologian and jurist, born in al-Bajur in the Minufiya province of Egypt. He memorized the Qur'an there and then moved to al-Azhar.Abu al-Mu'in al-Nasafi
Draft card for Abu al-Mu'in Maymun ibn Muhammad al-Nasafi, the leading eleventh-century Maturidi theologian author of Tabsirat al-Adilla, d. 1115; the biographical entry is not yet checked on the page.Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari
A Sunni theologian to whom the Ash'ari school is attributed, author of Maqalat al-Islamiyyin in which he sets out the position of the hadith scholars and Ahl al-Sunna and says he holds it; the edition of the book calls him the shaykh of Ahl al-Sunna wa'l-Jama'a.al-Baghdadi Abu Mansur Abd al-Qahir ibn Tahir
Theologian of Baghdad who wrote on the principles of faith, on the createdness of the Qur'an and on the interpretation of ambiguous reports, and on the sects.al-Baqillani
Draft card for Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Tayyib al-Baqillani, the Ash'ari theologian of Baghdad author of al-Insaf and I'jaz al-Qur'an who fixed the school's doctrine, d. 1013; the biographical entry is not yet checked on the page.al-Iji Adud al-Din
Adud al-Din Abu al-Fadl al-Iji, a scholar of kalam and legal theory and author of works in both fields; the sources report that he was imprisoned at the Dizmar fortress until he died there.al-Laqani
Draft card for Ibrahim ibn Ibrahim al-Laqani, the seventeenth-century Maliki theologian of Egypt author of Jawharat al-Tawhid, d. 1631; the biographical entry is not yet checked on the page.Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi
239 AHA Hanafi hadith scholar and jurist of Egypt from the tribe of Azd, said to have taken knowledge from about three hundred teachers; author of Mushkil al-Athar, Ma'ani al-Athar and the Tahawi creed.Ibn Abi al-Izz al-Hanafi
731 AHThe Hanafi chief judge Sadr al-Din, commentator on the Tahawi creed, called a chief judge on the title page of the edition.Ibn Taymiyya
661 AHThe Hanbali jurist and theologian titled Shaykh al-Islam Taqi al-Din, of Harran and Damascus, author of al-Aqida al-Wasitiyya, which he wrote in 698 AH.Qadi Abd al-Jabbar
Draft card for Qadi Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad al-Hamadhani, the Mu'tazili theologian and qadi of Rayy author of al-Mughni, d. 1025; the biographical entry is not yet checked on the page.Umar al-Nasafi
Draft card for Abu Hafs Najm al-Din Umar ibn Muhammad al-Nasafi, the Hanafi jurist and twelfth-century theologian author of the famous al-Aqida al-Nasafiyya, d. 1142; the biographical entry is not yet checked on the page.Wahb ibn Masarra (Andalusian Maliki jurist)
Wahb ibn Masarra ibn Mufarrij ibn Hakim, Abu al-Hazm, of the Maliki school, of the Tamim and of Wadi al-Hijara, a town in al-Andalus. He was a jurist, a transmitter of hadith, a hafiz and an expert in the men who transmitted it. In Cordova he heard from Ibn Wadah, Ubayd Allah, Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Faradi, Ahmad ibn Khalid, Muhammad ibn Qasim and Qasim ibn Asbagh among others; Abu Muhammad al-Qali'i and Abd al-Rahim ibn al-Ajuz transmitted from him. Ibn Farhun described him as a reliable and trustworthy imam, and in his lifetime people travelled to him for learning. His book «The Sunna and the Affirmation of Qadar and the Vision» is listed. The book gives his death as 346 AH.
Event
The Incident of the Slander (Hadith al-Ifk)
c. December 627 CE · Sha'ban 6 AHOn the return from the Expedition of al-Muraysi', Aisha was accidentally left behind when searching for a lost necklace and was escorted back to Medina by Safwan ibn al-Mu'attal; Abdullah ibn Ubayy orchestrated a malicious slander campaign that troubled the community for a month until verses of Surat al-Nur established her innocence.The Demolition of al-Uzza and Major Idols
c. January 630 CE · Ramadan 8 AHIn Ramadan 8 AH immediately following the conquest of Mecca, the Prophet dispatched detachments to obliterate the major pagan sanctuaries of Arabia: Khalid ibn al-Walid destroyed al-Uzza at Nakhla, Amr ibn al-As demolished Suwa' of Hudhayl, and Sa'd ibn Zayd al-Ashhali destroyed Manat at al-Mushallal.The cleansing of the Kaaba and destruction of idols
January 630 CE · Ramadan 8 AHUpon entering the sacred precinct, the Prophet circumambulated the Kaaba on his mount, toppled three hundred and sixty lead-fastened idols with his staff while reciting Qur'an 17:81, opened the sanctuary with Uthman ibn Talha's key, effaced the wall frescoes inside while reciting Qur'an 3:67, and had Bilal deliver the adhan from atop the roof.The Dhat Anwat incident
January 630 CE · Shawwal 8 AHOn the march to Hunayn the army passed the sacred tree Dhat Anwat, where pagans hung their weapons and held rites; some of the newly converted soldiers asked the Prophet to 'appoint for us a Dhat Anwat as they have one', and he rebuked the request, likening it to the Israelites' demand that Moses make them a god.The last sermon from the minbar
c. 25 May 632 CE · 7 Rabi' I 11 AHFive days before his death the Prophet, head bandaged, sat on the minbar and warned against taking graves as places of worship, offered himself to retaliation for any wrong, counselled generosity toward the Ansar 'accept from their well-doer and overlook their wrongdoer', spoke of a servant who chose what is with God, and ordered every door into the mosque shut except Abu Bakr's.The pen-and-paper incident
c. 26 May 632 CE · 8 Rabi' I 11 AHOn the Thursday four days before his death the Prophet said 'bring me [something] to write for you a document after which you will never go astray'; Umar said pain had overcome him and the Qur'an sufficed, the people of the house disputed, and the Prophet sent them away — an episode the traditions read differently.The Shahanshah laqab controversy
c. August 1038 CE · Ramadan 429 AHIn Ramadan 429 the laqabs 'Greatest Shahanshah, King of Kings' were proposed for Jalal al-Dawla and the caliph ordered the khutba with them; the crowd pelted the khatib with bricks and a fitna broke out. The jurists wrote opinions — al-Saymari and Abu'l-Tayyib al-Tabari permitting, al-Mawardi refusing — whereupon Jalal cut him off, then received him warmly on the feast day, telling him that only religion had moved him and that it had raised his standing in the king's heart.The recantation of Abu'l-Wafa' Ibn 'Aqil
August 1072 CE · 10 Muharram 465 AHOn Wednesday 10 Muharram 465, Abu'l-Wafa' Ali ibn 'Aqil — the most learned Hanbali of his age — appeared at the diwan with the Hanbali elders and made peace, writing out in his own hand a recantation: renouncing the doctrines of the innovators and the Mu'tazila, the keeping of their company and veneration of their imams, declaring unlawful all he had written of their teaching — including his treatise on the Night Journey ('a company of men said they are black bodies') and his profession of Hallaj's saintliness ('he was killed by the consensus of the jurists of his time and they were right; he erred') — witnessed by a great company, after which he went to make his peace with Sharif Abu Ja'far.
Concept
The people of the qibla and not declaring takfir for sin
al-Tahawi's principle of calling the people of the qibla Muslims and believers so long as they accept what the Prophet brought, and of not declaring any of them an unbeliever for a sin unless he declares it lawful.The hereafter: the grave, resurrection and reckoning
The Tahawi creed's articles on the punishment of the grave, the questioning by two angels, the resurrection, the reckoning, the bridge, the scale and the creation of Paradise and Hell.Islamic eschatology
Islamic eschatology is the part of the creed concerned with death, the signs of the Hour, resurrection, reckoning and recompense; the Tahawiyya and its Sharh devote a chapter to belief in the signs of the Hour, noting that scholars devoted whole works to its hadiths.Reason and heart
Wajdi holds that a person must balance reason and heart together. Reason discerns truth from falsehood, while the heart gives the sensitivity that restrains a person from wrongdoing even when he knows its harm. He argues that scientific progress alone did not prevent wars, and that Islam educates both reason and heart and calls to reflection on the world and the self. This is the author's analysis, not the museum's verdict.The Throne (al-Arsh)
The Throne in creed is the greatest of created things; al-Tahawi states that 'the Throne and the Footstool are real, and He is free of need of the Throne and what is beneath it'.Al-din al-qayyim (the upright religion)
Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds that God called this religion al-qayyim, because it has the highest value and because it sets human life straight.Absolute unseen (al-ghayb al-mutlaq)
Sha'rawi distinguishes the relative unseen, which others may know, from the absolute unseen, which has no precursors and which only God knows. He holds that God's knowledge covers what is secret, what is hidden and what is declared.«Be, and it is» (kun fa-yakun): creation by command, not by a mould
Sha'rawi explains that God created without a prior mould, so that the likeness among human beings comes from the word «be» and not from a shape cast in advance, while each person differs from others in fingerprints and traits. He reads qada' as judgment, decree and completion, and says the decreed matter exists in God's knowledge before it is known to people.God's sovereignty and human ownership (al-mulk wal-tamalluk)
Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's teaching on the oneness of sovereignty: all sovereignty belongs to God, and what people hold of wealth, authority and health is a trust or a loan in their hands. He holds that a person owns himself through his will, and that provision is decreed, so one strives while believing it comes from God.Provision as Lordship's gift and the imamate as the gift of divinity
Sha'rawi separates two gifts: provision is a gift of Lordship that believer and disbeliever both receive, because God called all creatures into life and secured their sustenance, while the imamate and the values of the way are a gift of divinity that only the believer receives. He reads Abraham's prayer for the land's safety and provision as a request that the blessing last, and holds that the enjoyment of this world is small however varied.Divine transcendence (tanzih): God above offspring and likeness
Tanzih, in Sha'rawi's account, is God's transcendence over likeness with His creatures in essence, attributes and acts. It includes denying that God has a son: a son is taken for the need to keep a kind alive, for help or for security of life, none of which applies to God, and everything in heaven and earth is subject to Him. He argues that a son is either a creature, and so not a god, or a god, and then there would be three gods.Blind imitation (taqlid)
Wajdi reports, without naming them, that scholars of Islam held the faith of a mere imitator unacceptable, because imitation can be of falsehood as well as truth. He reads Islam as calling each responsible person to use reason in inference and deduction, as protection against the rigidity that the ill-intentioned exploit. The statement is attributed to the author's report.Tasbih and taqdis (glorifying and sanctifying God)
Sha'rawi holds that tasbih is declaring God far from anything unfitting to His majesty, and taqdis is purifying Him of everything unfitting. He says the phrase is not said of any human, and that the angels' words acknowledge that all knowledge comes from God.Wala' and bara' among Muslims
The 'Al-Wasatiyya' episode on wala' and bara' inside the Muslim rank — among movements, madhhabs, sects, secular Muslims, and advocates of peace with Israel. The audience voted: 42% saw it easily turning into takfir; 63% endorsed disavowal of whoever calls for peace with Israel; and 63% saw the concept needing definition and research while 10% would abolish it entirely. The panel distilled the rule: love the Islam in a person and disavow his violation, not his person — Islam is degrees, not a single bar.Certainty and its degrees (yaqin)
Sha'rawi sets out certainty in three degrees: knowledge of certainty when the report comes from someone one trusts, sight of certainty when the matter has been seen, and truth of certainty when one enters into the reality of the thing. He cites the Surat al-Takathur, and says Abu Bakr accepted the night journey because it came from one he trusted.Allah (God the Unique: the Qur'anic God, his Oneness and his Names)
Allah, God the Unique, creator and Lord of judgment, is the centre of Islamic thought and its one reason for existing. The pre-Islamic Arabs knew him as one of the Meccan deities, probably the supreme god and certainly a creator-god. The Qur'anic preaching turned the vague notion of supreme divinity into the affirmation of the living God, one and unique, whose names are the 'most beautiful Names'.Aniconism in Islam
The avoidance of depicting sentient beings in formal Islamic art, especially in worship; a rule that channelled Islamic art toward calligraphy and ornament.Anniyya (thatness, existence)
A philosophical term from the particle 'anna, 'that', a literal rendering of Aristotle's 'that it is'; it means the fact that a thing exists, in contrast to its quiddity (mahiyya), and is used by Muslim philosophers in the sense of existence.Ansab (stone markers set up for worship, and the rulings on them)
Ansab is the plural of nasb, stones set up around the Ka'ba, at which the pilgrims called out and upon which offerings were slaughtered for other than God; some say it means anything worshipped apart from God. Idols differ from ansab in that idols are carved and painted while ansab are stones set up; on another view ansab and awthan are alike in being unshaped. The markers of the sanctuary mark its bounds and carry no sanctity. Making, selling and keeping idols is forbidden, and the jurists agree that making a shaped image of a human or animal is forbidden, and that a fee for it is not allowed.Creed and law (aqida and shari'a)
The division in which Mahmud Shaltut sets out Islam as two parts that cannot be realised without each other: creed, the theoretical part that must be believed first, and law, the regulations God set for a person's relation to God, fellow Muslims, other people, the cosmos and life; creed is the root on which law is built.The ten promised Paradise
The ten Companions whom the Prophet named and gave the good news of Paradise, to whom al-Tahawi bears witness: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, Talha, al-Zubayr, Sa'd, Sa'id, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf and Abu Ubayda.Signs of the Hour
al-Tahawi's statement of belief in the signs of the Hour: the coming of the Dajjal, the descent of Jesus son of Mary from heaven, the rising of the sun from its setting place, and the emergence of the beast of the earth from its place.The signs in the human being (ayat al-insan)
The signs of God in the human being, as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents them: the upright stature and the unique fingerprint, breathing and the harmony of creation, and perfection and decline in the body and the soul.Bid'a (religious innovation)
Introducing into religion what the Lawgiver's command did not bring; Ibn Rajab makes Aisha's hadith 'whoever introduces into this matter of ours what is not of it has it rejected' the scale of deeds in their outward form, as the hadith of intentions is their scale inwardly: every act not upon the command of God and His Messenger is thrown back at its doer, and whoever introduces into religion what God and His Messenger did not permit is no part of the religion; he pairs it with al-Irbad ibn Sariya's hadith 'beware of newly introduced matters, for every innovation is an error', deferring the detailed discussion of innovations to his commentary on it (hadith 28); in that commentary he reads 'beware of novelties, for every innovation is error' as a warning to the community against following invented matters, emphasised by the universal 'every innovation is error', and defines the intended innovation as what is introduced with no foundation in the Law to indicate it — whatever does have a legal basis is no innovation in the legal sense though it may be one linguistically; he couples it with Jabir's sermon report in Sahih Muslim 'the worst of matters are their novelties and every innovation is error', with his account of the Rightly Guided as those who know the truth and follow it — unlike the ghawi who knows and does not follow and the dall who does not know at all — and with his reading of 'you will see much disagreement' as foretelling the community's divergence in roots and branches (Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam pp. 581–601).Bid'a (innovation in religion)
As the extract presents Ibn Qayyim's view, an innovation is what is introduced into religion without God's or His Messenger's authority; innovations at graves revive an old polytheism; the innovator believes he honours the prophets and the righteous while contradicting their way; and the Companions and Successors did none of them.The descent of Jesus son of Mary before the Hour
Sha'rawi holds that the Prophet told that the son of Mary would come again. He relies on a hadith reported by al-Bukhari and Muslim, and argues that one who accepts the miraculous birth should not find his miraculous end unlikely.Sin (dhanb)
Dhanb in the legal-religious terminology is sin and what incurs accountability; the Kuwaiti Fiqh Encyclopedia treats repentance from sins, their expiation through istighfar and their kaffarat.God's bounty, given to whom he wills
Sha'rawi holds that bounty lies in God's hand and he gives it to whom he wills, so no one has a claim upon God. Every moment of life is a bounty from him, and he gives his mercy, through faith in his law, to whom he chooses. He presents this as the answer to those who wished to withhold the bounty from the believers.The difference between Adam's sin and Iblis's
Sha'rawi holds that Adam's error was heedlessness; that he confessed and repented, and God accepted his repentance; that Iblis was proud and answered the command with a refusal, which was disbelief; and that the inherited sin requiring a redeemer has no basis in his view.Fasiq
Fasiq in fiqh is one who departs from obedience through a grave sin or persistence in sin; the Kuwaiti Fiqh Encyclopedia treats fisq in the chapters on testimony, leading prayer and interdiction.Fitra (innate disposition)
In Muhammad Farid Wajdi's book, fitra is the human soul's disposition to religion, which he identifies with Islam itself. He defines religion as a natural sense of connection between the human being and the spirit of the universe. This is the author's philosophical reading, presented as his view and not as a consensus.Al-ghayb (the unseen)
Al-ghayb in the creed is what is beyond sense and perception of what God has informed; the Sharh al-Tahawiyya treats the unseen matters and warns against transgressing Qur'an and hadith in them.Ghayba (occultation)
Ghayba — the Twelver belief that the imam may withdraw from sight without ceasing to exist; for the twelfth imam this is the occultation of the Mahdi, who 'conceals himself in his time... then appears like a meteor in the darkness of night'.Veneration of graves
The veneration of graves: praying at them, supplicating and seeking help from their occupants, circling them, building on them and lighting lamps. As the extract of Ighathat al-Lahfan presents Ibn Qayyim's view, this was the origin of idol worship, leads to shirk, and is forbidden by hadith that is widely transmitted.Hanif (the description of Abraham)
Sha'rawi holds that the root of hanif is a bend in the lower legs, and that the sense was then carried over to anything crooked. A hanif is therefore one who turns away from the crookedness of his people. He affirms that Abraham was upright, but came into a world of idolatry and crookedness, and was a hanif by turning away from it. He adds that prophets come only where there is a deep corruption of belief and law.Haya (modesty)
Haya is the disposition that restrains from the disgraceful; Bukhari gives it a chapter 'haya is part of faith', and the Kuwaiti Fiqh Encyclopedia treats the rulings connected to it.Guidance (indication and help)
Sha'rawi holds that guidance has two kinds. Guidance of indication, which God gives to all people by showing them the way, and guidance of help and ease, which is given to whoever believes and responds, so that God increases his guidance and helps him to obey. He gives the example of a policeman who points a traveller to the road and then helps him more if he is thankful. He reads the question in the verse about how God could guide those who disbelieved after believing as a denial of the guidance of help, not of indication.Love of the Companions and how to speak of them (in the Tahawi creed)
al-Tahawi's statement that the Prophet's Companions are loved, that none is disowned, that they are mentioned only well, and that whoever speaks well of them, of the Prophet's wives and of his descendants has cleared himself of hypocrisy.The world's createdness or eternity
The eternity debate as al-Mas'udi stages it: Indian and Greek eternalists' great-year recurrence, the naturalists' hot-wet generation against cold-dry corruption, then his own kalam proof from the world's finite parts to a formless Maker — followed by the peoples' world-ages: the Jews' scriptural six thousand years, the Christians' agreement, and the Sabians' Greek doctrine.The sanctity of a Muslim's blood
The inviolability of the blood of one who testifies that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is His messenger, lifted in only three cases as in Ibn Masud's hadith in the two Sahihs — 'the previously-married adulterer, a life for a life, and the one who abandons his religion, leaving the community' — Uthman's version in al-Tirmidhi, al-Nasa'i and Ibn Majah running 'disbelieves after his Islam, commits adultery after being chaste, or kills a soul without due cause', with one of al-Nasa'i's routes spelling out the ruling in each; Ibn Rajab calls these three the claim of Islam by which blood may lawfully be shed, transmits that killing for each is agreed among Muslims, that Muslims agree the previously-married adulterer's hadd is stoning until death — the Prophet having stoned Ma'iz and the Ghamidiyya woman — that stoning stood among what was abrogated from the Quran's wording, and that Ibn Abbas derived it from al-Ma'ida's 'you used to hide of the scripture'; Umar's version adds his fear that a time would come when people, not finding stoning in God's book, would stray by abandoning an obligation God sent down.A good ending (husn al-khatima)
In his lesson Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy takes up good and bad endings of life, and says that people die on what they lived by and are raised on what they died on. He mentions that Abu Hamid al-Ghazali devoted a chapter to good and bad endings. He tells of people on whose tongues, in the death throes, came what they were used to in life, such as a singer, an auctioneer and a chess player (needs_source).Ibada (worship)
Ibada in the sharia is a comprehensive name for the acts of the heart and limbs that God loves and approves; the Kuwaiti Fiqh Encyclopedia treats the rulings of worship in its opening books, from the intention that vitiates worship to seeking others' help in it.Idol worship in the Jahiliyya and its rites
The rites of idol worship among the Arabs of the Jahiliyya as al-Raheeq al-Makhtum lists them: devotion and appeal to the idols as intercessors with God, pilgrimage, circumambulation and prostration to them, slaughter for them and in their names, a share of food, crops and cattle set aside for them, vows, and the consecrated animals; most were introduced by Amr ibn Luhayy and thought a good innovation rather than a change of Ibrahim's religion, and the Qur'an rejects them in al-An'am, al-Ma'ida, al-Zumar and Yunus.Ihsan (excellence in worship)
The third level named in the hadith of Jibril after islam and iman, defined by the Prophet as worshipping God as though you see Him, for even if you do not see Him, He sees you. In his commentary on Shaddad ibn Aws's hadith 'God has prescribed ihsan upon everything' Ibn Rajab extends it from the station of watchful worship to a ruling written upon all things — reaching excellence even in execution and slaughter — noting that the wording of 'writing' entails obligation for most jurists and usul scholars.Ilm al-kalam (speculative theology)
Ilm al-kalam — the new discipline of speculative theology that coalesced in the first Abbasid era; Ahmad Amin traces its rise to internal causes (the Qur'an's own engagement with rival creeds, the post-conquest turn to reflection) and external ones (foreign cultures and religions).The Imamate
The Imamate — the axis of Imami doctrine per al-Kafi: the imam shares the prophets' link to God, the earth is never without a hujja, and 'the imamate is the station of the prophets, God's caliphate, the reins of religion'.Iman (faith)
Belief in the articles of the creed as the Prophet set them out in the hadith of Jibril: belief in God, His angels, His book, meeting Him, His messengers and the resurrection; al-Bukhari's chapter heading on the words "Islam is built on five" states that iman is speech and action, which increases and decreases.Islam (the religion and the term)
The name of the religion the Prophet Muhammad taught; in Gabriel's hadith its meaning is to worship God without associating anything with Him, to establish prayer, pay the obligatory alms and fast Ramadan; it is also described as a structure built on five pillars.Protection (ismah): divine protection, sanctity of life and the marriage bond
In the lexicon, ismah is the act of preventing and protecting; the jurists also use it of the marriage bond, as in the Qur'anic reference to the bonds with unbelieving women. As a term it has three senses: the protection God gives a person from sins; the protection that makes a person and his property sacred, so that retaliation or compensation is due on violating it; and the protection that makes violating it sinful without retaliation or compensation. The text states that the messengers are protected from sins after their mission, and that on their prior state the sound view it records is that they were free of every defect. Sacredness of life and property is gained by the testimony of faith, and by a covenant of protection such as a treaty or safe-conduct. The marriage bond ends by annulment, as for apostasy or defect, or by divorce; the husband normally holds the power of divorce, and a wife holds it when he delegates it to her or when she stipulated it.Infallibility of the Imams (Twelver Shi'a)
Twelver Shi'i doctrine that the imams are infallible from childhood to death, and that infallibility is a condition of the imamate. Presented here as the position the author rebuts, with the Shi'i sources and the author's rebuttal both recorded.Istidraj (respite that leads on)
Istidraj, as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy defines it, is God continuing His favour to a servant who falls short in His service, so that he is led on without knowing. He quotes a verse about respite without naming it.Istiqama (steadfast uprightness)
Standing firm upon faith and obedience after the words 'I believe in God'; in Sufyan ibn Abdullah al-Thaqafi's hadith he asked the Prophet for comprehensive words of Islam he would not need to ask anyone after him about and was answered 'say: I believe in God, then stand firm' — one route 'say: my Lord is God, then stand firm' — its meaning for Ibn Rajab drawn from 'those who say our Lord is God then stand firm' in Fussilat and al-Ahqaf; Abu Bakr is reported glossing 'then stood firm' three ways: 'they associated nothing with God', 'they did not turn to a god other than Him', and 'they stood firm that God is their Lord'; a weak al-Nasa'i route through Anas adds 'people have said it then most of them disbelieved, and whoever dies upon it is of the people of istiqama'; and in the hadith's continuation in al-Tirmidhi and al-Nasa'i, when he asked 'what do you most fear for me?' and 'what shall I guard against?', the Prophet took hold of his own tongue — 'this' — or gestured to it, making guarding the tongue among the greatest things istiqama watches.Istiwa (God's rising over the Throne)
Sha'rawi holds that istiwa attributed to God is not to be understood in the human sense, because God's attributes are not like those of creatures. He asks that the verse be affirmed while God is declared free of likeness.Jihad (fighting in the way of God, in fiqh)
In fiqh, jihad is fighting the enemy. The Kuwaiti encyclopedia sets out its ruling (obligatory in general, and personally obligatory in certain cases), the duty to call the unbelievers to Islam before fighting, the conditions for its obligation, the rules for those who join it (parents, creditors, the sick, women), flight from battle, treachery, mutilation and burning, truces and the use of the enemy's property.Major sins (kaba'ir)
Kaba'ir is the plural of kabira, which the jurists define as any sin the law threatens heavily or whose harm is great. Most scholars divide sins into minor and major and agree that major sins are forbidden; most do not confine the list to a fixed number. A believer who commits a major sin does not leave the faith; if he dies without repentance his fate is in God's hands, and he is not eternal in the Fire. Major sin ends the trust placed in a person's testimony until he repents. Most jurists hold that minor sins are forgiven by avoiding major sins. Shirk nullifies good deeds, persistence in a minor sin makes it major in judgement, and intercession is hoped for the people of major sins.The Qur'an as the speech of God (in the Tahawi creed)
al-Tahawi's statement that the Qur'an is the speech of God, which began from Him without how, sent down on His messenger as revelation, and is not created like human speech.The common word (the shared call to monotheism)
Sha'rawi reads the verse that invites the People of the Book to a word common to both sides as a call to worship God alone. He argues that shirk does not hold up to reason, since creation shares nothing with the Creator, and that no one may share in governing once God has sent his law. If the invitation is refused, the believers are to testify to their own submission to God.Marvel of a saint (karama)
In the lexicon karama is honour; in the terminology it is an extraordinary event that appears at the hand of a person known for righteousness who does not claim prophethood. The word also means dignity, and hospitality to a guest. Most Sunni scholars allow such marvels to appear at the hands of a righteous believer, who is then called a friend of God (wali), and they say it has occurred. A claim of a thing that is impossible by custom is not accepted in law, even if it is possible by marvel. The law guards human dignity, and urges honouring guests, scholars, the elderly and those who carry the Qur'an.Karamat (marvels of the friends of God)
al-Tahawi's statement that one believes in the marvels reported of the friends of God and what is sound from reliable narrators, while a single prophet remains better than all the friends of God.The creation of man
In Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's lessons the creation of man follows successive stages: dust mixed with water into clay, then fermented mud, then dried clay, and the soul is breathed in at the end; he draws on this as evidence for the resurrection.The createdness of the Qur'an
A question of creed over which the mihna took place in the days of Imam Ahmad. Ibn Badran's book reports the Imam's position and the positions of the sects that opposed him, and how the Jahmiyya divided over the question.Finality of prophethood
The doctrine that Muhammad is the last of the prophets and that any claim to prophethood after him is error, as al-Tahawi states it.The endings of deeds (khawatim)
That deeds are weighed by their endings; in his commentary on Ibn Masud's hadith Ibn Rajab explains 'deeds are but by their endings' as meaning that what counts is the state — sound or corrupt — in which the deed ends, that an evil ending comes through a hidden inward corrupting trait in the servant that people do not see, and that 'endings are the legacy of what preceded'; hence the early generations' intense fear of a bad ending and their fear that lesser hypocrisy might overcome them at the end and carry them into greater hypocrisy, while the Prophet often prayed 'O turner of hearts, make my heart firm on Your religion'.The rightly-guided caliphate and its order (in the Tahawi creed)
al-Tahawi's statement that the caliphate after the Prophet is established first for Abu Bakr, then Umar, then Uthman, then Ali, whom he calls the rightly-guided caliphs and the guided imams.Disbelief (kufr)
Kufr means concealing in the lexicon; in the law it is denying what is known of the religion of Muhammad by necessity. It is the gravest sin, and its penalty in the next world is eternal Fire. A person forced to utter a word of disbelief is not a disbeliever while his heart is at peace with faith, though patience is better. The jurists give three views on whether disbelievers are addressed by the detailed rules of the law; the Muslims must call disbelievers to Islam before fighting them. On conversion, the rights of God fall away, while human rights that were accepted by the debtor remain. The book also treats the impurity of the disbeliever, touching the mushaf, entering mosques, deathbed prompting, guardianship, marriage, wills, hire, partnership, waqf and the aid of disbelievers in war.La ilaha illa Allah
Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds that 'la ilaha illa Allah' is the highest branch of faith, that the Companions understood it and lived its ethics, and that the nation advances only by understanding what it requires.God's love attaches to deeds, not to persons
Sha'rawi reads the verse that God loves the God-conscious people who keep their covenant as tying love to the deed and the attribute, not to the person. No one may assume that divine love is fixed to him by his person. He draws on the story of Noah's son to say that persons do not descend from lineage and that worth lies in righteous deeds.The doctrine of the awaited Mahdi (al-mahdiyya)
The Mahdiyya — the awaited twelfth imam who fills the earth with justice; opposed in the Umayyad claim to a 'Sufyani' and absorbed in the Abbasid coining of a 'Mahdi' of their own.Nasiha (sincere counsel)
Wishing good for the one counselled and standing for him in the ways of good in will and deed; in Tamim al-Dari's hadith 'the religion is nasiha' — to God, His book, His messenger, the leaders of the Muslims and their common folk — Ibn Rajab cites al-Khattabi that the root of nash in the language is purity, its meaning toward God being sound belief in His oneness and sincere intention in worshipping Him, toward His book faith in it and acting on what is in it, toward His messenger believing his prophethood and offering him obedience in what he commanded and forbade, and toward the generality of Muslims guiding them to their welfare; and he transmits Ibn al-Salah's detailed exposition of each, the pledge of Jarir ibn Abdullah 'to establish prayer, give zakat and counsel every Muslim', Abu Dawud's report that it is one of the hadiths around which jurisprudence revolves, and Muhammad ibn Aslam al-Tusi's that it is a quarter of the religion.Niyya (intention in deeds)
The purpose and will behind an act; Ibn Rajab notes that intention has two senses in scholars' usage: distinguishing acts of worship from one another and from habits — the sense dominant in the jurists' books — and distinguishing the aim intended by the act, whether for God alone or for other than Him — the sense dominant among the early generations and companion to sincerity; al-Shafi'i is reported to have called the hadith 'actions are but by intentions' a third of knowledge entering seventy chapters of jurisprudence, and al-Bukhari opened his Sahih with it.How belief is established
A question in the principles of religion: by what proof is belief established? Mahmud Shaltut, reporting the theologians and jurists, holds that the required faith needs a conclusive proof; rational proof ending in sense or necessity gives certainty, transmitted proof gives certainty when it is mutawatir in transmission and clear in meaning, and a single report (ahad) does not establish creed for the majority of the verifying scholars.Qadar (divine decree)
The Tahawi creed's belief that God created by His knowledge and decreed measures and terms, that all things happen by His will and judgement, with a warning against probing the secret of the decree.Qareen
The qareen in hadith is the jinn companion assigned to every person; Muslim reports 'there is not one of you but is assigned a qareen from the jinn'.Quranism
Quranism is a modern current that restricts religious authority to the Qur'an alone and questions the authority of hadith; academic study traces the debate over hadith authority since the nineteenth century.Raj'a (the return to the world)
Raj'a — the doctrine that after the Mahdi's appearance the imams and their opponents return to this world for retribution, then die and rise on Judgement Day; earliest attributed to Ibn Saba'.Rasul (the messenger): the duty to convey, the penalty for insulting messengers, the prohibition on sacrifice in a messenger's name, and the Prophet's protected pastures
Rasul in the lexicon is one sent to carry a message; in technical use it has two senses: one sent from one person to another with money or a message, and one of the messengers of God, a free male to whom God revealed a law and whom He commanded to convey it. The messenger must convey the call, and those who receive it must believe in and obey the messengers. The scholars agree that whoever insults or mocks a messenger disbelieves, and the insulter of the Prophet is killed. An animal may not be slaughtered in the name of the Messenger of God. The Prophet set aside pastures at al-Naqi' for the horses of the Muslims and at al-Rabadha for camels of charity, and the majority forbid later rulers to cancel what he protected. Envoys of the enemy who come with a message are safe until they deliver it.Ridda (apostasy from Islam): its conditions, its forms, the repentance of the apostate, and its effects on property, marriage and worship
Ridda in the lexicon is turning back from a thing; in law it is a Muslim's unbelief by an explicit word, a word implying it, or an act containing it, and it can only be committed by a sane, adult and free person. Abu Hanifa and al-Shafi'i do not count a child's apostasy in one view, the Malikis and a famous Hanbali view count it; a child is not killed before puberty; a madman's apostasy is not valid; a drunk man's apostasy is not counted by the Hanafis, while the Shafi'is and Ahmad count it. One who is compelled to speak unbelief does not become an unbeliever, by the verse excepting the compelled whose heart is at peace in faith. Apostasy happens by belief, speech, act or omission: associating others with God, throwing the Qur'an in filth, prostrating to an idol, and abandoning prayer in denial. Insulting God is unbelief by agreement; insulting the Prophet is apostasy for the Hanafis and Hanbalis, and for the Shafi'is apostasy with an added hadd, while the acceptance of the repentance of the insulter is disputed. The apostate is asked to repent, and if he does not he is killed by the imam; the female apostate is killed by the majority and not by the Hanafis. A marriage of an apostate is void; a spouse's apostasy annuls the marriage for the Hanafis; the apostate's property is disputed as to whether it passes away. The deeds of the apostate are annulled, and the jurists differ on the condition of this, and on repeating the pilgrimage and the missed prayers.Riya (ostentation)
Riya in the legal-religious terminology is displaying one's deeds to be seen by people; the Kuwaiti Fiqh Encyclopedia counts it among the forbidden inward acts with malice, envy, pride and self-admiration.The vision of God in the hereafter
al-Tahawi's statement that the vision of God by the people of Paradise is true, without encompassing or how, accepting what is in the sound hadith and refraining from interpretation by opinion.The agonies of death (sakarat al-mawt)
In episode 8 of his Tafsir, Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy sets out a picture of the soul's departure at death, saying that the Nazi'at are the angels who tear out the souls of disbelievers with force and that the Nashitat draw out the believer's soul gently. He notes that the Prophet told Aisha that death has agonies. He says the angel of death does not come alone but with two groups of angels, angels of mercy and angels of punishment.Intercession
al-Tahawi's belief that the intercession God has kept for the Prophet's community is true, and that those of the monotheists who committed grave sins are brought out of the Fire by God's mercy and the intercession of intercessors.The shahada
The testimony that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God's messenger, named first in the hadith 'Islam is built on five' that lists what Islam is built on.God's testimony to His own oneness
Sha'rawi holds that God's testimony that there is no god but Him came before the testimony of any creature, that the self's testimony to itself is the strongest, and that God's knowledge encompasses the finest things.Shirk (associating partners with God)
As the extract presents Ibn Qayyim's view, shirk is the gravest wrong; calling on the dead, seeking their intercession and making them intermediaries are among its doors; and intercession is granted only by God's permission and acceptance, not by taking intercessors.The submission of creation (willing and unwilling)
Sha'rawi holds that all that is in the heavens and the earth has submitted to God, willingly or unwillingly. For beings not under obligation, willing submission is the obedience of subjection, and unwilling submission is what the human has no choice over, such as birth, death and sickness. He holds that the chosen submission of the believer is to match God's law by doing and refraining, and that the universe is in harmony when the human is in harmony with it. He rejects reading unwilling submission as compulsion in religion.The angels' prostration to Adam
Sha'rawi holds that the prostration to Adam was obedience to God's command and not worship of Adam; that worship is obedience to commands and avoidance of prohibitions; that those who prostrated were the ones with a task toward the human; and that Iblis answered the command with a refusal, which was disbelief.The law of destruction: punishment of nations
God's punishment of rebellious nations as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents it: wind, the shout, earthquakes and volcanoes; the earthquake read between science and divine reminder; and individual sins as a departure from the path. The speaker's view is recorded without the museum weighing it.Obedience to those in authority and not rebelling (in the Tahawi creed)
al-Tahawi's position: no rebelling against the imams and rulers even if they are unjust, obeying them is part of obeying God so long as they do not command disobedience, and the pilgrimage and jihad continue with them.Disavowal (tabarri) of the Companions in Twelver Shi'a sources
Twelver Shi'i sources, as the author quotes them, hold that most Companions apostatised after the Prophet, except a few, and require disavowal of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Mu'awiya and the Prophet's wives. Presented here with the Sunni rebuttal (the Companions' adala and the prohibition of insulting them) and the author's account of what Ali and the imams of the Prophet's family are reported to have said.Tafwid (delegating the knowledge of the manner of the attributes)
Affirming the words of the attributes in the Qur'an and the Sunna while not inquiring into their manner, and delegating knowledge of their reality to God, as Ibn Qudama sets out in Lum'at al-i'tiqad; Sunni scholars differ on whether the early generations denied knowledge of the meaning or only of the manner.Takfir
Takfir is declaring a Muslim to be an unbeliever; the Kuwaiti Fiqh Encyclopedia devotes a section to the rulings on takfir and takfir of a Muslim, treating it as among the gravest and most restricted of judgements.The transmigration of souls
The doctrine al-Mas'udi reports from the early Greek and Indian philosophers — Plato among them — that the soul is a self-knowing, body-managing substance whose 'death' is its managed passage from body to body.Taqiyya (dissimulation)
Taqiyya — the Shi'i doctrine of protective dissimulation: 'nine-tenths of religion is taqiyya' in al-Kulayni's report; the secret system by which imams' followers concealed their designs, and which generated the esoteric reading of speech.Taqwa (God-consciousness)
That the servant sets between himself and what he fears a guard to shield him — his taqwa of his Lord being a guard against what he dreads of His anger, displeasure and punishment, namely doing His obedience and avoiding disobedience; this is Ibn Rajab's root definition in the commentary on 'fear God wherever you are'; taqwa is ascribed to God's name as the guarding against His wrath — the greatest of what is guarded against — and to His punishment like the Fire and His time like the Day of Resurrection; complete taqwa includes doing the obligations and leaving the forbidden and the doubtful, its highest degree adding the recommended and leaving the disliked; among the early generations: Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz held taqwa is not fasting the day or praying the night but leaving what God forbade and performing what He imposed, Talq ibn Habib that it is working in obedience upon light from God hoping His reward and leaving disobedience upon light fearing His punishment, Abu al-Darda' that its perfection is guarding to an atom's weight until some of the lawful is left as a screen from the unlawful, al-Thawri that they were called muttaqun for avoiding what need not be avoided, and Ibn Masud glossed 'fear God as He should be feared' as being obeyed and not disobeyed, remembered and not forgotten, thanked and not denied; taqwa is God's counsel to the first and the last and His messenger's bequest to his community — he counselled the commander of every expedition with it, told Abu Dharr 'I counsel you with taqwa, for it is the head of the whole matter', and the pair 'taqwa of God and good character' is what most admits people to Paradise.Tasweer (making and keeping images, and the view on living beings)
Tasweer is making an image; a likeness is what matches a thing and reproduces its form, three-dimensional or flat, and may be fleeting, like a reflection or a shadow. Making images of man-made objects is lawful by agreement; of inanimate creation, lawful unless made for worship; of plants, lawful by the majority (Mujahid alone forbade fruit-bearing trees). The prohibition concerns images of living beings. On images of humans and animals the jurists give three views; one permits them except a worshipped idol, another permits flat images but forbids three-dimensional ones with shadow when complete in limbs, and the entry proceeds to the third.Tatayyur (taking omens of ill luck)
Tatayyur is taking an omen of ill luck from a bird or the like, which Islam abolished. Whoever believes the sight causes the outcome has committed unbelief; whoever feels dread but trusts God is not harmed. A good omen is lawful, and good opinion of God is commanded.Tawaffi (taking in full, and the taking of souls)
Sha'rawi holds that the root tawaffa basically means taking a thing in full. Death and sleep are two of its senses. He separates death from killing, since killing breaks the body while death takes the soul and leaves the body whole, and he reads the verse addressed to Jesus in Al Imran 55 through this sense, adding that the Arabic 'and' does not imply order between the events.Divine success (tawfiq) and abandonment (khidhlan)
Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy defines tawfiq (divine success) as God not leaving the servant to himself, and khidhlan (abandonment) as God leaving him to himself. He says every good comes by God's tawfiq and every evil by His khidhlan, and that when God loves a person He sows the seed of tawfiq in his heart.Tawhid (the oneness of God)
Affirming that God is one and without partner or likeness; al-Tahawi opens his statement of the creed with it, saying God is one with no partner, nothing like Him and no god but Him.The Twelve Imams (Twelver Shi'a)
Twelver Shi'i doctrine that the imamate passes by explicit designation (nass) of God through the Prophet, through twelve named imams from Ali ibn Abi Talib to Muhammad ibn al-Hasan. The author lists the imams and rebuts the scriptural and hadith arguments used for the doctrine.Usul al-Din (fundamentals of the religion)
Usul al-din is the term for what Muslims believe and hold as religion before their Lord; commentators on the Tahawiyya explain the text's purpose as 'setting out what they believe in the fundamentals of the religion and hold before the Lord of the worlds'.God's promise (wa'd Allah)
God's promise as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents it in the tenth lesson of 'Al Fawzu Al Moubeen': God is truer than any promise and His promise to the believers of Paradise is true; the example of the father and the son; what the past tense in the verse signifies; what reassures the believer about the promise; and a comparison between God's promise and people's keeping of their own word.Common origin of the message of the prophets
Wajdi holds that Islam, in its social and creedal foundations, is not a new religion but the one revealed to Noah and the prophets after him, and that differences among religions come from the distortion of what was sent down. He also reads the trust of God's vicegerency on earth as open to any people who command right and forbid wrong, not limited to one race. This is the author's view and is attributed to him.Zandaqa (heresy)
Zandaqa — the accusation of freethinking/heresy that ran through the first Abbasid era, levelled truly and falsely; Ahmad Amin frames the struggle between doubt and faith as an all-out war fought by ruse, sword and disputation alike.Visiting graves
Visiting graves is lawful for the sake of remembering the hereafter, greeting those buried and praying for them, as the Prophet allowed. Visiting in order to pray there, circle the grave or seek help from its occupant is, in Ibn Qayyim's view as the extract presents it, an innovation and a form of shirk.Injustice (zulm)
Injustice (zulm) for many scholars is placing things outside their place; others defined it as disposing of another's property without permission — a sense transmitted from Iyas ibn Mu'awiya — which makes it impossible for God since all He does is disposal within His own dominion, in the manner of Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali's answer to Imran ibn al-Husayn on the divine decree; commenting on 'I have forbidden injustice to Myself' in the sacred hadith, Ibn Rajab explains it as His restraining injustice from His servants, noting that on the first definition the hadith shows God is able to commit injustice but does not, out of grace, bounty, generosity and beneficence, and that His creating His servants' deeds — injustice among them — does not attribute injustice to Him, since He is described only by His own acts; he transmits a report halted at Ubayy ibn Ka'b and similarly from Ibn Masud and Zayd ibn Thabit — 'were God to punish the people of His heavens and His earth He would do so without injustice to them' — while flagging its chain; the injustice forbidden between servants is of two kinds: injustice to one's own soul, whose greatest form is association — 'association is indeed a tremendous injustice' (Luqman 13) — then sins great and small, and injustice to others, the subject of 'I have made it forbidden among you', witnessed by the Farewell Pilgrimage sermon declaring blood, property and honour sacred, by Ibn Umar's 'injustice will be darknesses on the Day of Resurrection' and by Abu Musa's 'God grants respite to the wrongdoer until, when He seizes him, He does not let him escape'.
Group
Ibadiyya
The Ibadiyya — followers of Abdallah ibn Ibad, the one Khariji branch to survive, in North Africa, Oman, Hadramawt and Zanzibar, with a kalam touched by the Mu'tazila and a fiqh of its own.Imamiyya
The Imamiyya — with the Zaydiyya one of the two surviving branches of Shi'ism; its chief division the Twelvers, and the Ismailis the branch tracing imamate through Isma'il to the hidden imams and the Fatimid da'wa.Khawarij
The Khawarij — a sect whose doctrine turns on kufr and iman like the Murji'a but in the opposite direction; per al-Ash'ari's Kitab al-Farq, what unites them is takfir of Ali, Uthman, the people of the Camel and the two arbitrators, and the duty of rising against unjust rulers.Murji'a
A sect holding that faith is speech without deed, that it neither increases nor decreases, and that people do not differ in it; the book describes their view as it relays it from the People of the Sunna, and rules it void. Ahmad Amin presents the question from the inside: the basis of irja' is how faith is defined. Religion has three elements, assent of the heart, profession of the tongue and action of the limbs. Some Murji'a confined faith to assent of the heart, arguing that iman means tasdiq in the lexicon; others made it two pillars, assent and profession, and they nearly all agree that deed is no pillar of it. Irja' began simple and naive in the Umayyad period, and as doctrines grew philosophical in the Abbasid age, irja' became philosophical too.Mu'tazila
A kalam sect that holds the views of the Qadariyya, denies the punishment of the grave, intercession and the Pool, and holds that people's deeds are not in the Preserved Tablet; the book describes their doctrines as it relays them, and their own words have not yet been added. According to al-Mas'udi, the Mu'tazila of Basra and Baghdad agreed on five principles: tawhid, that God is not like things, neither body, accident, element, part nor substance, and is not perceived by the senses in this world or the next; justice, that God does not will corruption and does not create people's acts, which they perform by the power He gave them; the promise and the threat, that He does not forgive the grave sinner without repentance; the intermediate position, that the grave sinner is neither believer nor unbeliever but is called a sinner, and it is by this principle that the Mu'tazila were named; and enjoining good and forbidding evil, by the sword or less, with no distinction in their view between fighting the unbeliever and fighting the sinner. Whoever holds these five principles is a Mu'tazili. The Mu'tazila held that the imamate is a choice of the community, not a designation by God of a named man, and that it is permissible among Quraysh and among others of probity; they cited Umar's remark that, had Salim, freedman of Abu Hudhayfa, been alive, no doubt would have troubled him and he would not have entrusted the matter to the council. Al-Mas'udi also records that the Mu'tazila agreed on five principles, and that whoever holds them is a Mu'tazili, while one who holds most or fewer does not merit the name: tawhid, justice, the promise and the threat, the intermediate position, and enjoining good and forbidding evil; it is from this last principle that the name al-i'tizal came.Qadariyya
A sect to which is ascribed the view that people have capacity (istita'a) and will over their acts, and that their knowledge of those acts does not precede God's knowledge; the book describes their view as it relays it, and compares it with the doctrines of the People of the Book and the Magians.
Question
Work
al-Aqida al-Tahawiyya (the Tahawi creed)
A short statement of the creed of Ahl al-Sunna wa'l-Jama'a by Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi, who presents it as the creed of the jurists of the community Abu Hanifa, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan; about 134 articles from tawhid to a warning against sects.al-Aqida al-Wasitiyya
A statement of the creed of Ahl al-Sunna wa'l-Jama'a written by Ibn Taymiyya in 698 AH at the request of one of the judges of Wasit, which was discussed at a session in Damascus in 705 AH.The Farewell Sermon
The sermon delivered at Arafat on 9 Dhu al-Hijja 10 AH and repeated in substance at Mina on the Day of Sacrifice: sanctity of life, property and honour; the abolition of pagan vengeance and usury; counsel on women; the sufficiency of the Book of God; no prophet after him; and the witnessed testimony 'O God, bear witness'.Lum'at al-I'tiqad
A short statement of the creed of Ahl al-Sunna on the way of the early generations by the Hanbali Muwaffaq al-Din Ibn Qudama al-Maqdisi, running from God's attributes, speech and vision to belief in what the Prophet reported, the Companions, the caliphate and avoiding innovators.Maqalat al-Islamiyyin wa-Ikhtilaf al-Musallin
A book by Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari setting out the positions of the Muslim sects and the theologians, whose first volume closes with a report of the position of the hadith scholars and Ahl al-Sunna that he then says he holds.Risalat al-Tawhid (The Treatise on the Oneness of God)
A treatise on the science of Tawhid by Muhammad Abduh, with an introduction by Muhammad Imara in the Dar al-Shuruq edition. It covers God and His attributes, humanity, prophecy and the Qur'an, and the editor counts it among Abduh's most important texts.Sharh al-Tahawiyya fi al-Aqida al-Salafiyya
A long commentary on the Tahawi creed by Ibn Abi al-Izz al-Hanafi that, at each article, reports the positions of the sects and schools and discusses them.
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