Lexically, 'Iman signifies the acceptance and confirmation of something with one's heart, while Islam signifies obedience and submission. 'Iman pertains to the heart; so does Islam, but it is related to all the other parts of the human body as well. From the point of view of the Shari'ah, however, 'lman is not valid without Islam, nor Islam without 'Iman. In other words, it is not enough to have faith in Allah and the Holy Prophet (salallahu 'alayhi wa sallam) in one's heart unless the tongue expresses the faith and also affirms one's allegiance and submission. Similarly, an oral declaration of faith and allegiance is not valid unless one has faith in one's heart. In short, 'Iman, and Islam have different connotations from the lexical point of view. It is on the basis of this lexical distinction that the Holy Qur'an and Hadith refer to a difference between the two. From the point of view of the Shari'ah, however, the two are inextricably linked together, and one cannot be valid without the other - as is borne out by the Holy Qur'an itself.

When Islam, or an external declaration of allegiance, is not accompanied by 'Iman or internal faith, the Holy Qur'an terms it as Nifaq (hypocrisy), and condemns it as a greater crime than an open rejection of Islam:

"Surely the hypocrites will be in the lowest depths of Hell." 14:145)

In explanation of this verse let us add that so far as the physical world goes, we can only be sure of the external state of a man, and cannot know his internal state with any degree of certainty. So in the case of men who orally declare themselves to be Muslims without having faith in their heart, the sharpah requires us to deal with them as we would deal with a Muslim in worldly affairs; but in the other world their fate would be worse than that of the ordinary disbelievers. Similarly, if 'Iman or acknowledgment in the heart is not accompanied by external affirmation and allegiance, the Holy Qur'an regards this too as kufr or rejection and denial of the Truth - speaking of the infidels, it says:

"They know him (that is, the Holy Prophet salallahu 'alayhi wa sallam) as they know their own sons." (2:146)

or in another place:

"Their souls knew them (the signs sent by Allah) to be true, yet they denied them in their wickedness and their pride." (27:14)

My respected teacher, 'Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Anwar Shah sed to explain it thus - the expanse which 'Iman and Islam have to cover in the spiritual journey is the same, and the difference lies only in the beginning and the end; that is to say, 'lman starts from the heart and attains perfection in external deeds, while Islam starts from external deeds and can be regarded as perfect when it reaches the heart.

To sum up, 'Iman is not valid, if acknowledgment in the heart does not attain to external affirmation and allegiance; similarly, Islam is not valid, if external affirmation and allegiance does not attain to confirmation by the heart. Imam Ghazzaali Imam Subki both have arrived at the same conclusion, and in 'Musamarah', Imam Ibn al-Humaam reports the agreement of all the authentic scholars in this respect.

[Note: Today one finds a very wide-spread confusion, sometimes amounting to a total incomprehension, with regard to the distinction between Islam and 'Iman, essentially under the influence of Western modes of thought and behaviour and, to be more specific, that of the ever-proliferating Protestant sects and schools of theology. Since the middle of the 19th century there have sprouted in almost every Muslim country a host of self-styled Reformists, Revivalists, Modernists et al, each pretending to have understood the "real" Islam for the first time, and each adepting an extremist, though untenable, posture with regard to Islam and 'Iman. On the one hand, we have people claiming that Islam is only a matter of the "heart" (a word which has during the last four hundred years been used in the West as an equivalent of "emotion" or, worse still, of "emotional agitation") or of "religious experience" (a very modish term brought into currency by William James). As a corollary, they stubbornly refuse to see the need for a fixed ritual or an ethical code, all of which they gladly leave to social exigency or individual preference. They base their claims on the unquestioned axiom that religion is "personal" relationship between the individual and "his" God. It is all too obvious that this genre of Modernist "Islam" is the progeny of Martin Luther with cross-pollination from Rousseau.

On the other hand, we have fervent and sometimes violent champions of Islam insisting on a merely external performance of rituals - more often on a mere conformity to moral regulations, and even these, of their liking. They would readily exclude, and are anyhow indifferent to, the internal dimension of Islam. A recent modification of this stance (in the wake of a certain Protestant pioneering, it goes without saying) has been to replace divinely ordained rituals by acts of social service or welfare, giving them the status and value, of acts of worship. Counselling on divorce, abortion, premarital sex and the rest of the baggage having already become a regular part of the functions of a Protestant cl'ergyrnan, it would not be too fond to expect, even on the part of our Modernists, the speedy inclusion of acts of entertainment as well.

There is still another variety of deviationists, more visible and vociferous than the rest, and perhaps more pervasive and pernicious in their influence, finding easy credence among a certain section of Musliims with a sloppy western-style education. While dispensing with the subtle distinctions between Islam and 'Iman, they reduce Islam itself to a mere system of social organization, or even to state-craft. According to their way of looking at things, if Muslims fail to set up a social and political'organization of a specified shape, they would cease to be Muslims. Applied to the history of Islam, this fanciful notion would lead to the grotesque conclusion that no Muslim had ever existed.

These are only a few examples of the intellectual distortions produced by
refusing to define Islam and 'Iman clearly and ignoring the distinction between the two. Contrary to all such modernizing deviations, Islam in fact means establishing 'a particular relationship of obedience and servitude with Allah. This relationship arises neither out of vague "religious experiences" nor out of social regimentation; in order to attain it, one has to accept all the doctrines and to act upon all the commandments specified In the Holy Qur'an, the Hadith and the Shari'ah. These doctrines and
commandments cover all the spheres of human life, individual or collective, right up from acts of worship down to social, political and economic relations among men, and codes of ethics and behavlour, morals and manners, and their essential purpose is to produce in man a genuine attitude of obedience to Allah. If one acts according to the Shari'ah one, no doubt, gains many worldly benefits, individual as well as collective. These benefits may be described as the raison d'etre of the commandments, but are in no way their essential object, nor should a servant of Allah seek them for themselves in obeying Him, nor does the success or failure of a Muslirn as a Muslim depend on attaining them. When a man has fully submitted himself to the commandments of Allah in everything he does, he has already succeeded as a Muslim, whether he receives the related worldly benefits or not. End note]

"And who believe in what has been revealed to you, [O Muhammad], and what was revealed before you, and of the Hereafter they are certain [in faith]." [2:4]

This verse speaks of some other attributes of the God-fearing, giving certain details about faith in the unseen with a special mention of faith in the Hereafter. Commenting on this verse, the blessed Companions 'Abdullah ibn Mas'ood and 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas (radiallahu anhum), have said that in the days of the Holy Prophet (salallahu 'alayhi wasallam) God-fearing Muslims were of two kinds, - those who used to be associators and disbelievers but accepted Islam, and those who used to be among the people of the Book (that is, the Jews and Christians) but embraced Islam later on; the preceding verse refers to the first group, and this verse to the second.

Hence this verse specifically mentions belief in the earlier Divine Books along with belief in the Holy Qur'an, for, according to the hadeeth, people in the second group deserve a double recompense. Firstly, for believing in and following the earlier Books before the Holy Qur'an came to replace them, and secondly, for believing in and following the Holy Qur'in when it came as the final Book of Allah. Even today it is obligatory for every Muslim to believe in the earlier Divine Books except that now the belief has to take this form: everything that Allah has revealed in the earlier Books is true (excepting the changes and distortions introduced by selfish people), and that it was incumbent upon the people for whom those Books had been sent to act according to them, but now that all the earlier Books and Shari'ahs have been abrogated, one must act according to the Holy Qur'an alone.

[Note: Exactly as predicted by a Hadith, today we see all around us a
proliferation of "knowledge" and of "writing". One of the dangerous forms
the process has taken is the indiscriminate translation at least into European languages and the popularization of the sacred books of all possible religious and metaphysical traditions - not only the Hindu, the Chinese or the Japanese, but also the Shamanic or the Red Indian.

The lust for reading sacred books has virtually grown into a mania, specially
among the modern young people with their deep sense of being uprooted and disinherited, and all considerations of aptitude have been contemptuously set aside. In these circumstances, Muslims with a Western orientation are naturally impelled to ask themselves as to what they can or should make of such books which sometimes seem to offer similarities and parallels to the Holy Qur'an itself, and more often to the Sufi doctrines. The problem has already attained noticeable proportions, for in 1974 the government of Turkey found it necessary to ban the entry of certain Hindu sacred books like the Bhagavadgita and Upanishads.

The correct doctrinal position in this respect is that it is obligatory for every Muslim, as an essential part of the Islamic creed, to believe in all the prophets and messengers of Allah and in the Divine Books (not in their distorted forms, but as they were originally revealed) that have specifically been mentioned by their names in the Holy Qur'an, and also to believe that Allah has sent His messengers and His books for the guidance of all the peoples and all the ages, and that Muhammad (salallahu 'alayhi wasallam) is the last prophet and the Holy Qur'an the final Book of Allah which has come down to replace the earlier Books and Shari'ahs.

As to the question of the authenticity and divine origin of a particular book held in reverence by an earlier religion or metaphysical tradition, a Muslim is
not allowed to affirm such a claim unequivocally, nor should he unnecessarily reject such a possibility. In so far as the contents of the book concerned agrees with what the Holy Qur'an has to say on the subject, we
may accept the statement as true, otherwise spiritual etiquette requires an average Muslim to keep quiet and not meddle with things which he is not likely to understand.

As for reading the sacred books of other traditions, it should be clearly borne in mind that a comparative study of this nature requires a very special aptitude which is extremely rare, and hence demands great caution. A cursory reading of sacred books, motivated by an idle curiosity or by a craze for mere information, may very well lead to an intellectual disintegration or to something still worse, instead of helping in the "discovery of the truth" and the acquisition of "peace" which a comparative study is widely supposed to promise. Even when the aptitude and the knowledge necessary for the task is present, such a study can be carried out only under the supervision of an authentic spiritual master. In any case, we cannot insist too much on the perils of the enterprise. End note]

» Posted by Seifeddine-M on 4th January 2011

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