Chapter One
The Belief of the Sunni, the way
of the Prophet
The Exposition of the Belief of the Sunni, way of the Prophet,
is embodied in two phrases of witnessing (Shahadah) which form one of the
Pillars of Islam.
We say - our success is from Allah - praise be to Allah the
Creator, the Restorer, the One who does whatever He wills. He whose Throne is
glorious and whose Power is Mighty; who guides the select amongst His
worshippers to the righteous path. He who grants them benefits once they affirm
His Oneness by guarding the articles of belief from the darkness of doubt and
hesitation. He who leads them to follow the way of His chosen Prophet Muhammad -
praise and peace be upon him - and to follow the example of his companions, the
most honored, by directing their footsteps to the way of truth. He who reveals
Himself to them in His Essence and in His Works by His fine attributes which
none perceive except the one who inclines his ear in contemplation. He who makes
known to them that He is One in His Essence without any associate, Single
without any equal, Eternal without a similar.
Nothing precedes Him, He is without any beginning. He is
Eternal with none after Him, Everlasting without any end, subsisting without
cessation, abiding without termination He has not ceased and He will not cease
to be described by the epithets of Majesty. At the end of time He will not be
subject to dissolution and decay, but He is the First and the Last, the Hidden
and Apparent, and He knows everything.
Allah is not a body possessing form, nor a substance
restricted and limited: He does not resemble other bodies either in limitation
or in accepting division.
He is not a substance and substances do not reside in Him; He
is not a quality of substance, nor does a quality of substance occur in Him.
Rather, He resembles no existent and no existent resembles
Him. Nothing is like Him and He is not like anything. Measure does not bind Him
and boundaries do not contain Him. Directions do not surround Him and neither
the earth nor the Heavens are on different sides of Him.
Truly, He is controlling the Throne in the manner in which He
said and in the sense in which He willed - in a state of transcendence that is
removed from parallel and touch, residence, fixity of location, stability,
envelopment, and movement.
The Throne does not support Him, but the Throne and those who
carry it are supported by the Subtleness of His Power and are constrained by His
Firmness. He is above the Throne and Heavens and above everything to the limits
of the earth with an aboveness which does not bring Him nearer to the Throne and
the Heavens, just as it does not make Him further from the earth.
Rather, He is Highly Exalted above the Throne and the Heavens,
just as He is Highly Exalted above the earth. Nevertheless, He is near to every
entity and is "nearer to the worshipper than his juggler vein" and He
witnesses everything since His nearness does not resemble the nearness of
bodies, just as His Essence does not resemble the essence of bodies.
He does not exist in anything, just as nothing exists in Him:
Exalted is He that a place could contain Him, just as sanctified is He that no
time could limit Him.
For, He was as before He had created time and place, and just
as He was, He is now. He is distinct from His creatures through His attributes.
There is not in His Essence any other than Him, nor does His Essence exist in
any other than Him.
He is Exalted from change and movement. Substance does not
reside in Him and the quality of substance do not befall Him. Rather, He is in
the attributes of His Majesty beyond cessation. And He is in the attributes of
His Perfection. He is not in need of an increase in perfection. In His Essence,
His Existence is known by reason (in this life).
In the Everlasting Life, His Essence is seen by the eyes of
the righteous as a favor from Him, and a subtlety as a completion of favors from
Him through their beholding His Gracious Face.
He is Living, Able, the Conqueror and All-subduing.
Inadequacy and weakness do not befall Him; slumber does not
overtake Him nor sleep; annihilation does not prevail over Him nor death. He is
the Owner of the visible and invisible Kingdom, and of Power and Might. His are
dominion, subjugation, creation, and command; the Heavens are rolled in His
Right and created things are subjugated in His Firmness.
He is Single in creating and inventing. He is Alone in
bringing into existence and innovating. He created all creatures and their
deeds, and decreed their sustenance and their life span; nothing decreed escapes
His Firmness and the mutations of the affairs does not slip from His Power.
Whatever He decrees cannot be numbered neither does His
Knowledge end.
He is Knowledgeable of all the known, encompassing all that
happens in the depths of earth to the highest heavens. He is Knowledgeable in
which there is not an atom that escapes His Knowledge in heaven and earth.
Rather, He knows the stamping of the black ant upon the solid
rock in the darkest night. He perceives the movement of a particle of dust in
mid-air. He knows the secrets and that which is more hidden.
He is the Overseer of the whispering of the self and the flow
of thoughts, and the most deepest concealment of the selves.
With a knowledge which is ancient from eternity and by which
He has not ceased to be described through the ages.
Not by a knowledge which is subject to updating
by occurring and circulating in His Essence.
He is the Willer of all existence and the Planner of all
contingent things. There is nothing that occurs in His visible or invisible
world except by His prior planning and His execution whether it is little or
plenteous, small or large, good or evil, benefit or harm, belief or unbelief,
gratitude or ingratitude, prosperity or loss, increase or decrease, obedience or
disobedience all is according to His Wisdom and Will, what He wills occurs and
what He does not will does not occur. There is not a glance of the onlooker nor
a stray thought that is not subject to His Will.
He is the Creator at first, the Restorer, the Doer of
whatsoever He wills. There is none that rescinds His command, and none that
supplements His decrees, and there is no escape for a worshipper from disobeying
Him, except by His Help and Mercy, and none has power to obey Him except by His
Will. Even if mankind, jinn, angels, and devils were to unite to try to move the
weight of an atom in the world or to render it still, without His Will they
would fail.
His Will subsists in His Essence amongst His Attributes. He
has not ceased to be described by it from eternity, willing, - in His Infinity -
the existence of the things at their appointed time which He has decreed. So
they come into existence at their appointed times as He has willed in His
Infinity without precedence or delay. They come to pass in accordance with His
Knowledge and His Will without variation or change.
He directs matters not through arrangement of thought and
awaiting the passage of time, and so no affair occupies Him from another affair.
He - the Most High - is the Hearer, the Seer. He hears and
sees.
No audible thing, however faint, escapes His Hearing, and no
visible thing, however minute, is hidden from His Sight.
Distance does not prevent His Hearing and darkness does not
obstruct His Seeing. He sees without a pupil and eyelid, and hears without the
meatus and ears, as He perceives without a heart, and seizes without limbs, and
creates without an instrument, since His attributes do not resemble the
attributes of the creation, and as His Essence does not resemble the essence of
creation.
He - the Most High - speaks, commanding, forbidding,
promising, and threatening, with a speech from eternity, ancient, and
self-existing.
Unlike the speech of the creation, it is not a sound which is
caused through the passage of air or the friction of bodies; nor is it a letter
which is enunciated through the opening and closing of lips and the movement of
the tongue.
And that the Koran, the original Torah, the original Gospel of
Jesus, and the original Psalms are His Books sent down upon His Messengers,
peace be upon them.
The Koran is read by tongues, written in books, and remembered
in the heart, yet it is, nevertheless ancient, subsisting in the Essence of
Allah, not subject to division and or separation through its transmission to the
heart and paper [by this he meant that the movement of the reciter's tongue and
his management of the flow of air in his mouth and ear etc., or the writer's
inscription upon paper, all of which are created. Whereas the logic of Ghazali
addresses what is beyond this human quality and dimension of time and physic.
Thereby he refers to the Koran before one's movement of the tongue or
transcription onto paper. Most errors have come from our human dimensions, and
that we try to describe Divine attributes through our own limited human
attributes - Darwish]. Moses - Allah praised him and gave him peace - heard the
Speech of Allah without sound and without letter, just as the righteous see the
Essence of Allah - the High - in the Hereafter, without substance or its
quality.
And since He has these qualities, He is Living, Knowing,
Willing, Hearing, Seeing and Speaking with life, power, knowledge, will,
hearing, sight, and speech, not solely through His Essence.
He, the Exalted, the High, there is no existence except Him,
unless it occurs by His action and proceeds from His Justice, in the best,
perfect, complete and just ways.
He is Wise in His verdicts. His justice is not to be compared
with that of worshippers, because it is conceivable that the worshipper is
unjust when he deals with properties of other than his own. But, harm is not
conceivable from Allah - the High - because He does not encounter any ownership
of other than Himself, in which His dealing could be described to be harmful.
Everything besides Him, children of Adam and jinn, angels and
devils, heaven and earth, animals, plants, and inanimates, substance and its
quality, as well as things perceived and things felt, are all originated things
which He created by His Power and before they were nothing, since He existed in
Eternity alone and there was nothing whatsoever with Him.
So He originated creation thereafter as a manifestation of His
Power and a realization of that which had preceded of His Will and the
realization of His Word in eternity, not because He had any need or necessity
for it.
He is magnanimous in creating and inventing and in imposing
obligations, not doing it through necessity.
He is Gracious in beneficence and reform, though not through
any need. Munificence and Kindness, Beneficence and Grace are His, since He is
able to bring upon His creatures all manner of torture and to try them with all
kinds of pain and affliction. Even if He should do this, it would be justice
from Him, it would not be vile, it would not be tyrannous.
He - the Mighty, the Glorified - rewards His believing
worshippers for their acts of obedience according to generosity and
encouragement rather than according to their merit and obligation. For there is
no obligation upon Him in any deed towards anyone and tyranny is inconceivable
in Him. For there is no right upon Him towards anyone.
As for His right to be obeyed it is obligatory and binding
upon all creatures because He made it obligatory upon them through the tongues
of His prophets and not by reason. But He sent His prophets and showed their
truthfulness through explicit miracles, and they conveyed His commands and
prohibitions as well as His promises and threats. So it became obligatory upon
all creatures to believe them and what they brought.
Allah sent the unlettered, of Quraish, Prophet Muhammad -
praise and peace be upon him - with His Message for Arabs and non-Arabs alike,
to the jinn and humanity. Therefore Allah superseded other religions by the
Religion of Prophet Muhammad - praise and peace be upon him - except that which
He confirmed amongst them.
He favored Prophet Muhammad over all other prophets and made
him the master of mankind, and declared incomplete any profession of faith which
attests to Oneness, which is "
There is no god except Allah,
" unless it is followed by the witness to the Messenger, which is your
saying, "Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." He obligated all nations
to believe in everything he informed of the affairs of here and the Hereafter.
Allah will not accept the belief of any one (worshipper) until
he believes in that which the Prophet informed of the affairs that occur after
death, the first of which is the question of the angels Munkar and Nakeer. These
are two awesome and terrifying beings who will make the deceased sit up in the
grave, both soul and body; they will ask him about the Oneness of Allah and
about the Message, asking, "Who is your Lord, and what is your Religion,
and who is your prophet?" They are also known as the two examiners of the
grave and their questions are considered as the first trial after death.
Again, one should believe in the punishment of the grave, and
that it is real and that His Ruling is just over both the body and soul in
accordance with His Will.
And one should believe in the Scale with the two pans with its
indicator - the magnitude of which is like the stages of the Heavens and the
earth - in it, the deeds are weighed by the Power of Allah, and its weights or
measures are the mustard seed and the atom, in order to establish exact justice.
The records of good deeds will be placed in a fine image in
the scale of light, and then the balance will be heavy according to its rank
with Allah, by His Virtue.
The records of the evil deeds will be cast in an evil image in
the scale of darkness, and they will be light in the balance through the Justice
of Allah.
One should believe also that the Bridge is real; it is a
Bridge stretched over Hell, sharper than the edge of the sword and finer than a
hair. The feet of the unbelievers slip on it, according to the decree of Allah -
the Exalted - and they will fall into the Fire; but the feet of the believers
stand firm upon it, by the Grace of Allah, and so they are driven into the
Everlasting residence.
And one should believe in the frequented pool, the Pool of
Prophet Muhammad - Allah has praised and given him peace. From which the
believers will drink before entering Paradise and after crossing over the
Bridge. Whoever drinks a single mouthful from it will never thirst again. Its
width is the distance of one month's journey; its waters are whiter than milk
and sweeter than honey. Around it are ewers in number like the stars of the sky,
and into it flow two springs from al-Kawthar.
And one should believe in the Judgement and the distinctions
between those in it, that some will be closely questioned, that some will be
treated with forgiveness and that others will enter Paradise without questioning
- these are the nearest.
Allah will ask whomsoever He will of the prophets concerning
the deliverance of the Message, and whosoever of the unbelievers concerning
their rejection of the Messengers; and He will ask the innovators concerning the
way of the Prophet (sunnah) and the Muslims concerning their deeds.
One should believe that the believer in the Oneness of Allah
(if he enters Hell on account of his sins) will be released from Hell fire after
he has been punished, so that there will not remain in Hell one single believer.
One should believe in the intercession of the prophets, of the
learned, and of the martyrs, then the rest of the believers - each according to
his influence and rank before Allah.
Whosoever remains of the believers and has no intercessor will
be released through the Grace of Allah, the Mighty, the Glorified.
Therefore not one single believer will abide in Hell forever;
whosoever has in his heart the weight of an atom of belief will be brought out
from there.
One should believe the virtues of the Companions - may Allah
be pleased with them - and their different ranks, and that the most excellent of
mankind, after the Prophet - Allah praised and gave him peace - is Abu-Bakr, and
then `Umar, and then `Uthman, and then `Ali - may Allah be pleased with them -
and one should think well of all the Companions and praise them, just as Allah -
the Mighty, the Glorified - and His Prophet praised them all - Allah has praised
the Prophet and given him peace -. All these were reported in the news and
witnessed traditions (of the Prophet). Therefore whosoever believes in all this
and believes in it without doubting will be among the people of truth and the
congregation of the Way of the Prophet (sunnah), and indeed has separated
themself from the followers of error and party of innovation.
So we ask Allah to perfect our faith and make us steadfast in
the Religion for us and for all Muslims through His Mercy. Truly He is the Most
Merciful. And may the praise of Allah be upon our Master Muhammad and upon every
chosen worshipper.
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