Iman (faith)

"Faith" in Gabriel's hadith is, as the Prophet said: "That you believe in God, His angels, His books, the meeting with Him and His messengers, and that you believe in the resurrection" ¹. It is the second rank after Islam in the questioning, followed by ihsan.

In Abu Hurayra's account recorded by al-Bukhari, Gabriel asks "What is faith?" and the Prophet answers with the six things just named: God, the angels, the books, the meeting with God, the messengers, and the resurrection ¹. The Qur'an has a verse mentioning their like: al-Baqara 285.

Al-Bukhari opened the "Book of Faith" with a chapter whose heading is the Prophet's saying "Islam is built on five", saying at the chapter's start: "and it is word and deed; it increases and decreases" ². Then he set a chapter titled "Of those who say faith is deed", supporting it with a Qur'anic verse ³. Al-Bukhari's position — the position of the people of hadith — is that faith includes deed and accepts increase and decrease.

Next in the Book of Faith comes a chapter titled "The matters of faith" ⁴.

Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi says: "Faith is affirmation by the tongue and conviction in the heart" ⁵. And: "Faith is one; its people are equal in its foundation, and they excel one another by awe, piety, opposing desire and keeping to what is best" ⁶. He sets out that faith is belief in God, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Last Day, and the decree — its good and evil from God ⁶. He holds that a servant leaves faith only by denying what brought him into it ⁵; 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" ⁷. 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); 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" ⁷; with the verses of faith's increase; and with the hadith of bringing out of the Fire whoever has an atom's weight of faith in his heart ⁸. His wording is nearer to what al-Bukhari transmitted from those who make deed part of faith, differing from al-Tahawi's wording, which confines it to affirmation and conviction.

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" ⁹. 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 ¹⁰.

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" ¹¹. 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"; that Islam is the testimony that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God's messenger; and "Islam, for them, is not faith" ¹². Then he says: "And they affirm that faith is word and deed, increasing and decreasing; they do not say created nor uncreated" ¹². 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 ¹³. He mentions the Karramis' school (affirmation by the tongue alone) and Jahm's school (knowledge by the heart), describing both as plainly corrupt ^{13 14}.

He then sums up: faith is either what the heart, tongue and limbs perform — as the majority of the Salaf held — or the heart and tongue without the limbs, as al-Tahawi reported from Abu Hanifa and his companions; or the tongue alone, with the Karramis; or the heart alone — knowledge with Jahm, or conviction with al-Maturidi ¹⁴. He says: "The difference between Abu Hanifa and the remaining imams of the people of the Sunna is formal" — for whether the limbs' deeds are necessary to the heart's faith or part of it, with agreement that the committer of a major sin does not leave faith but is under God's will, is "a verbal dispute upon which no corruption of belief follows" ¹⁴.

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.