Ideas
Beliefs, concepts, sciences and schools, explained in plain words.
What is in this wing so far: Roadmap: the full Ideas hall arrives in a later phase.
- Concept
Prophetic adab (proper conduct)
The body of proper conduct the believer is commanded in his words, deeds and relations with God and His servants; from the formula 'whoever believes in God and the Last Day' in Abu Hurayra's hadith Ibn Rajab derives that these traits are of the traits of iman and that deeds enter into iman, dividing the hadith's three commands into what belongs to God's rights — speaking good or keeping silent — and what belongs to His servants' rights — honouring the neighbour, withholding harm from him and honouring the guest; he transmits Aswad ibn Asram's report of the Prophet's counsel 'do not say with your tongue except what is good and do not extend your hand except to good', and that the tongue's uprightness is of the traits of iman; Abu Amr ibn al-Salah reports from Abu Muhammad ibn Abi Zayd, the Maliki imam of his time, that the conduct of goodness and all its reins branch from four hadiths: speaking good or keeping silent, leaving what does not concern one, 'do not become angry', and loving for one's brother what one loves for oneself. - 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. - Concept
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. - Concept
The Weepers (al-bakka'un)
Seven men of the Ansar and others who came to the Prophet asking for mounts to join the Tabuk campaign; when he had nothing to carry them, they turned back with tears streaming down their faces. - Concept
Social boycott (hajr) of the three
The boycott the Prophet ordered after Tabuk: he forbade the Muslims to speak to the three who had stayed behind, and people shunned them for fifty nights. - Concept
Reconciliation of hearts (al-mu'allafa qulubuhum)
A legal category of recipients of zakat and spoils established in Islamic law to reconcile hearts to the faith and cement communal stability; widely applied by the Prophet at al-Ji'rana through major grants of camels and silver to Meccan and Najdi tribal chiefs. - Concept
Truthfulness (sidq)
The theme Ka'b ibn Malik made the axis of his story: he told the Prophet the truth rather than offer a false excuse, then vowed to speak nothing but truth for the rest of his life. - Concept
Command, prohibition and capacity
The duty of complying with prohibitions by avoidance, and with commands according to one's capacity; in Abu Hurayra's hadith 'what I forbid you, avoid, and what I command you, do of it what you can' — its occasion, per Ibn Rajab, being the questioner who asked when hajj was imposed 'every year?' until he said it three times and was told 'had I said yes it would have been obligatory and you could not have managed'; Ibn Rajab derives from it the prohibition of asking about what is not needed, of asking out of obstinacy, frivolity or mockery, of asking about what God has hidden from His servants, and of questions on the lawful and unlawful that might draw stricter rulings, noting that licence to ask was for bedouins and delegations, not the residents of Medina. - Concept
Guaranteed loan (ariya madmuna)
A legal principle of property liability established in prophetic tradition when the Prophet borrowed one hundred coats of mail from Safwan ibn Umayya before Hunayn, assuring him: 'Not by force, but a guaranteed loan to be returned.' - Concept
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. - Concept
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. - Concept
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). - Concept
Emancipation of enemy slaves upon fleeing to Muslim lines
A legal principle in Islamic law of war established during the siege of Ta'if when the Prophet proclaimed: 'Whichever slave descends from the fortress to us is a free man', freeing over a dozen men including Abu Bakra as 'freemen of God' and refusing to return them upon Ta'if's submission. - Concept
The five pillars of Islam
The five acts on which Islam is built according to the sound hadith: the testimony that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God's messenger, establishing prayer, paying zakat, pilgrimage and fasting Ramadan. - Concept
Ghadab (anger)
The soul's agitation at offence or opposition, from which the sharia magnifies the call to guard; a man came to the Prophet saying 'counsel me' and he answered 'do not become angry', the man repeating his request several times and receiving the same answer — one route has 'teach me something and do not make it long that I may retain it', another 'point me to a deed that admits me to Paradise' — the answer one in every case; Ibn Rajab infers that repeating the answer to the renewed request shows anger to be the sum of evil and guarding against it the sum of good; Abu Amr ibn al-Salah reports from Abu Muhammad ibn Abi Zayd that 'do not become angry' is one of the four hadiths from which all the conduct of goodness branches, and among the definitions of good character are Ahmad's 'that you not become angry or fierce' and Ishaq ibn Rahuya's 'a cheerful face and not becoming angry'. - Concept
Prohibition of misappropriating spoils (ghulul)
A strict legal and ethical prohibition forbidding the misappropriation of spoils before equitable distribution; emphasized by the Prophet at al-Ji'rana holding up a tuft of camel hair and warning that ghulul brings disgrace and fire on the Day of Resurrection even down to a needle and thread. - Concept
The lawful, the unlawful and the doubtful
The division of rulings and things into plainly lawful, plainly unlawful, and doubtful matters between them that many people cannot assign to either side though the firmly grounded in knowledge are not in doubt; Ibn Rajab gives as plainly lawful the good foods — crops, fruits, cattle — and marriage and concubinage when acquired by a valid contract; as plainly unlawful carrion, blood, pork, wine, marriage within the prohibited degrees, silk for men and unlawful gains such as usury, gambling, theft and usurpation; and as doubtful what is disputed as to its lawfulness — animals such as horses, mules, donkeys and the dabb lizard, intoxicating-when-abundant drinks, and disputed transactions such as 'ina and tawarruq — this being Ahmad's and Ishaq's and other imams' explanation of the doubtful; whoever avoids the doubtful clears his religion and honour, and whoever falls into it is like a shepherd at the edge of God's sanctuary. - Concept
Haya' (modesty and shame)
The disposition that restrains a person from ugly deeds; in Abu Masud al-Badri's hadith in al-Bukhari: 'what people have retained of the speech of the first prophethood: if you feel no shame, do as you wish' — 'the speech of the first prophethood' meaning, for Ibn Rajab, what was handed down from the earlier prophets and inherited by people generation after generation until it reached the first of this community, one route adding 'nothing of the speech of the first prophethood reached people except this'; 'if you feel no shame, do as you wish' has two readings — not an imperative but censure: either threat and warning like 'do as you wish, for He sees what you do' and the hadith 'whoever sells wine, let him then carve up the pigs', the choice of a group including Abu al-Abbas Tha'lab, or an imperative in form carrying a statement — whoever lacks shame does whatever he wishes, shame being the only check on ugly deeds, like 'whoever lies about me deliberately, let him take his seat in the Fire' — the choice of Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam, Ibn Qutayba and Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazi, Abu Dawud reporting from Ahmad what indicates the same. - Concept
Love for one's brother
That the believer loves for his brother, and for people, what he loves for himself of good; in Anas ibn Malik's hadith 'none of you believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself' — Muslim's wording 'for his neighbour or his brother' — and in Ibn Hibban's version 'no servant reaches the reality of iman until he loves for people what he loves for himself of good'; Ibn Rajab explains that this addition clarifies that the negation of iman is a negation of attaining its reality and perfection rather than of its root, iman being often negated for the absence of some of its pillars and duties — loving good for one's brother, neighbour and people among them; Abu Amr ibn al-Salah reports from Abu Muhammad ibn Abi Zayd that 'the believer loves for his brother what he loves for himself' is one of the four hadiths from which all the conduct of goodness branches. - Concept
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. - Concept
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. - Concept
Goodness of Islam — leaving what does not concern one
Part of the goodness of a person's Islam is leaving what does not concern him in word and deed and confining himself to what does; Ibn Rajab explains that 'concerns him' means what his purposeful attention attaches to, and that the leaving is governed by the ruling of the sharia and Islam rather than by whim or the soul's desire — which is why the Prophet made it a mark of the goodness of one's Islam; when a person's Islam is sound it entails leaving all that does not concern him of the forbidden, the doubtful, the disliked, and the superfluous among the permissible for which he has no need, rising thereby to the station of ihsan, from which, together with watchfulness, is born modesty before God and the abandoning of all that occasions shame; Ibn Rajab calls it a great foundation of the foundations of proper conduct and cites Abu Amr ibn al-Salah reporting from Abu Muhammad ibn Abi Zayd, the Maliki imam of his time, that the conduct of goodness and all its reins branch from four hadiths: 'whoever believes in God and the Last Day, let him speak good or keep silent', this hadith, 'do not become angry', and 'the believer loves for his brother what he loves for himself'. - Concept
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. - Concept
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 books, meeting Him, His messengers and the resurrection; al-Bukhari's chapter heading on the branches of iman states that it is speech and action, which increases and decreases. - Concept
Islam (the religion and the term)
The name of the religion the Prophet Muhammad taught; in the best-known 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. - Concept
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. - Concept
Connectedness of the isnad and proven hearing
The condition held by a majority traditionist school for accepting a chain as connected: that each narrator's hearing of, or meeting with, his own informant be proven — not mere contemporaneity and 'an'ana; Ibn Rajab sets out this principle plainly in his takhrij of 'fear God wherever you are': the view of al-Bukhari, his teacher Ali ibn al-Madini, Abu Zur'a, Abu Hatim and others that a hadith connects only with proven meeting, Ahmad's wording indicating the same and al-Shafi'i stating it in the Risala — all contrary to Muslim's position; the application is Maymun ibn Abi Shabib, the chain's reporter from Abu Dharr and Mu'adh: al-Fallas found no 'I heard' in any of his Companion reports, Abu Hatim declared his routes from Abu Dharr and A'isha unconnected, Abu Dawud held he reached neither A'isha nor Ali — still less Mu'adh — and al-Bukhari narrates nothing from him in his Sahih nor Muslim except in his introduction; hence al-Hakim's grading of the hadith as sound on the two Shaykhs' condition is, for Ibn Rajab, mistaken on both counts, and al-Daraqutni preferred its mursal route. - Concept
The army of hardship (jaysh al-usra)
The name Ibn Hisham records for the army of the Tabuk expedition, in a report about Uthman ibn Affan spending a thousand dinars on it. - Concept
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. - Concept
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. - Concept
Kasb (acquisition) and capacity
al-Tahawi's statement that the acts of servants are by God's creation and the servants' acquisition, and his distinction of two kinds of capacity: the one that comes with the act, and capacity in health and means which precedes it. - Concept
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. - Concept
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'. - Concept
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. - Concept
Husn al-khuluq (good character)
Treating people with what pleases them in word and deed while withholding harm — the third clause of 'fear God wherever you are': 'and keep company with people in good character' — which together with taqwa combines God's rights and His servants' rights, a combination Ibn Rajab calls rare, sustained only by the most complete of prophets and the truthful; its summit, as God describes the muttaqun, is giving freely and bearing hurt — 'who spend in ease and hardship, who restrain their anger and pardon people' — and revelation reports 'the most complete of believers in faith are the best of them in character', that it is the heaviest thing laid in the scales, raising its owner to the rank of the one fasting and praying, the best gift given a Muslim and what makes them most beloved to God and nearest to the Prophet in station; among its definitions: Ahmad's 'that you not become angry or fierce' and, in another report, 'that you bear what comes from people', Ishaq ibn Rahuya's 'a cheerful face and not becoming angry', and some scholars' 'restraining anger for God, showing openness and cheer except to the innovator and the flagrant, pardoning the erring except for discipline or establishing a hadd, and withholding harm from every Muslim and covenanted person except to change an evil or take what is due for the wronged without transgression'. - Concept
The phrase "la yanbaghi" in Imam Ahmad's words
The expression "la yanbaghi" ("it is not proper") in Imam Ahmad's words: is it understood as prohibition or as dislike? His companions differed over it, an example of disagreement over the school's wording. - Concept
The emigrants to Abyssinia
Ibn Ishaq's term for the Companions who emigrated to Abyssinia; the sira groups them by how they returned: those carried to Khaybar on the two ships, those who arrived after Badr or later, and those who died in Abyssinia, then the women and those born there. - Concept
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. - Concept
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. - Concept
Prohibition of killing women, children and non-combatant labourers in war
A foundational rule of Islamic laws of war proclaimed by the Prophet at the Battle of Hunayn upon seeing a slain woman: 'She was not one to fight', ordering Khalid ibn al-Walid never to kill children, women, or hired labourers. - Concept
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. - Concept
The reports from Imam Ahmad
The statements transmitted from Imam Ahmad on a single question, and how his companions reconciled them and preferred one over another; they are the school's foundation in jurisprudence. - Concept
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. - Concept
Sabr (patience and steadfast endurance)
Holding the soul to God's obedience, away from disobedience, and through His painful decrees; in the commentary on Ibn Abbas's counsel Ibn Rajab records that contentment is a recommended excellence while patience is binding upon the believer, God having commanded it and promised a vast reward, that in patience over what one dislikes lies much good since the affliction written upon the servant, borne patiently, yields much good — Amr mawla Ghafra's route adding 'if you can work for God with contentment in certainty then do, and if not, then in patience over what you dislike lies much good'; the servant needs God's aid for performing the commands, abandoning the forbidden and bearing all decreed things in the world, at death and through the terrors of the barzakh and resurrection — none can aid that but God, and whoever truly seeks His aid is aided, as in 'strive for what benefits you, seek God's help and do not flag'; 'victory is with patience' covers both jihads, the outward enemy and the inward — the patient triumphs and the fretter is captured or slain — and Ibn al-Mubarak's saying 'whoever is patient, how little he needs to endure, and whoever frets, how little he enjoys', followed by 'relief is with affliction' and 'with hardship is ease'. - Concept
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. - Concept
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. - Concept
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. - Concept
Staying behind from the Tabuk expedition
Ibn Ishaq's classification of those who did not march with the Prophet to Tabuk: bedouin asking to be excused, the weepers who found no mount, men who stayed behind without doubt such as Abu Khaythama, and the hypocrites and doubters by his description. - Concept
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. - Concept
Tawba (repentance)
The concept around which the story of the three left behind turns: God's acceptance of their repentance after fifty nights, and what Ka'b ibn Malik counted as his repentance: giving up his wealth and leaving lying. - Concept
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. - Concept
Tayyib (purity and lawfulness)
The attribute of deeds, wealth, words and beliefs that God accepts — tayyib, the pure — as opposed to khabith, the foul; in his commentary on Abu Hurayra's hadith 'God is pure and accepts only what is pure' Ibn Rajab explains tayyib as the pure, God being exalted above all defect, and transmits two readings of 'He accepts only what is pure': a specific reading confining it to alms — only lawfully gained charity being accepted, as in the hadith 'no one gives charity of pure earnings but God accepts only the pure' — and a broader reading making purity a condition of deeds through freedom from corrupting motives such as showing off and conceit, and of wealth through lawfulness, since deeds, words and beliefs are all described as pure or foul; hence the Quran's contrast between the good word like a good tree and the foul word like a foul tree, and the Prophet's description as one who permits the pure things and forbids the foul. - Concept
Wara' (scrupulosity)
Stopping at doubtful matters, guarding against them, and leaving what causes unease for what does not; this meaning appears in Ibn Rajab's commentary on two of the Forty hadiths: al-Nu'man ibn Bashir's 'the lawful is clear and the unlawful is clear and between them are doubtful matters' with 'whoever guards against the doubtful has cleared his religion and honour', and al-Hasan ibn Ali's 'leave what makes you doubt for what does not', whose meaning Ibn Rajab says reduces to standing fast at the doubtful and avoiding it; it is supported by a weak report from Wathila ibn al-Asqa' in which, asked who is scrupulous, the Prophet answered 'the one who stops at the doubtful', and by another weak report that 'the scrupulous Muslim leaves the lesser sin for fear of the greater' and that the heart is agitated by the unlawful and rests in the lawful; among the sayings of the early generations he cites Ibn Masud's 'why turn to what troubles you when four thousand things around you do not?' and Umar's 'leave both usury and suspicion', meaning what you suspect to be usury even without certainty. - Event
The delegation of Najran
c. 631 CE · 9 AHSixty riders of Christian Najran came to Medina in 9 AH led by the Aqib, the Sayyid and Bishop Abu Haritha; when they declined Islam the Prophet offered the mutual invocation of God's curse (mubahala) with Fatima, al-Hasan and al-Husayn, they asked instead for terms, and a treaty granted them God's protection in exchange for two thousand garments a year. - Event
Ka'b ibn Zuhayr's pardon and recitation of Banat Su'ad
c. 630 CE · 8 AHWarned by his brother Bujayr after the Prophet's return from al-Ta'if, the poet Ka'b ibn Zuhayr came to Medina, announced himself in the mosque, was spared despite an Ansari's request to strike his neck, and recited his apology-ode Banat Su'ad before the Prophet. - Exhibit
Islam in Thirty Minutes
An introductory trail for those who have not known Islam before: the meanings of Islam, iman and ihsan, the five pillars and how they are performed, then who the Prophet is, how the message began and where the Hijri calendar starts. - Group
The Hanbali school (madhhab)
One of the four Sunni schools of law, named after Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal; it gives precedence to the revealed text, transmitted reports and the fatwas of the Companions, and was preserved and written down by his students after him, foremost among them al-Khallal and al-Kharaqi. - Person
Imam al-Nawawi
The jurist and ascetic Imam Abu Zakariyya Yahya al-Nawawi; compiler of the 'Arba'un', forty-two concise hadiths built on Ibn al-Salah's twenty-six, which became one of the most memorised and commented collections in Islam. - Person
Ibn al-Salah
The hadith master Abu Amr ibn al-Salah; author of the dictation 'al-Ahadith al-Kulliyya', twenty-six comprehensive hadiths on which al-Nawawi built his 'Arba'un'. - Person
Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali
c. 1335 CE · Rabi' I 736 AHThe Hanbali hadith master and jurist Zayn al-Din Abu al-Faraj Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad, known as Ibn Rajab after his grandfather Rajab; born in Baghdad in 736 AH, moved to Damascus in 744, travelled for learning to Egypt, the Hijaz and Jerusalem, and died in Damascus in 795 AH. Author of 'Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam'. - Person
Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
c. 980 CE · c. 370 AHPersian polymath (c. 980–1037) whose Canon of Medicine and Book of Healing shaped medicine and philosophy across the Islamic world and Europe for centuries. - Practice
Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca)
The journey to the Sacred House at Mecca to perform prescribed rites, one of the five pillars; the Qur'an makes it a duty for those who are able to make the way there, and tells of the call to proclaim it to the people. - Practice
Salah (the prescribed prayer)
The prescribed prayer, five times in the day and night, one of the five pillars of Islam; the Qur'an commands establishing it and calls it a timed obligation on the believers, and the hadith adds that other prayers are voluntary. - Practice
Fasting in Ramadan
Fasting through the month of Ramadan; the Qur'an prescribes it and says that whoever witnesses the month should fast it, with a number of other days for the sick and the traveller. - Practice
Zakat (obligatory alms)
The obligatory alms, one of the five pillars; the Qur'an pairs it with prayer and names its recipients in the verse on alms, among them those whose hearts are to be reconciled, and the hadith of Jibril calls it the 'obligatory' alms to set it apart from voluntary giving. - Work
al-Ahadith al-Kulliyya
A dictation session by the hadith master Abu Amr ibn al-Salah gathering the comprehensive hadiths on which the religion is said to turn — twenty-six in all — which al-Nawawi took and expanded into his 'Arba'un'. - 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. - Work
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. - Work
al-Arba'un al-Nawawiyya (Nawawi's Forty)
The famous collection of concise hadiths that Imam Abu Zakariyya Yahya al-Nawawi took from Ibn al-Salah's 'al-Ahadith al-Kulliyya' (twenty-six hadiths) and expanded to forty-two, naming it 'al-Arba'un'; widely memorised and much commented upon. - Work
Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam
Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali's (d. 795 AH) commentary on fifty hadiths: the twenty-six of Ibn al-Salah's 'al-Ahadith al-Kulliyya', which al-Nawawi brought to forty-two in his 'Arba'un', plus eight hadiths Ibn Rajab added himself to reach fifty, naming it Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam. - Work
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. - Work
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. - Work
Nur al-Iqtibas fi Mishkat Wasiyyat al-Nabi li-Ibn Abbas
A standalone treatise by Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali devoted to the commentary of Ibn Abbas's hadith 'O boy, I shall teach you words: guard God and He will guard you...', the nineteenth of al-Nawawi's Forty; in the Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam Ibn Rajab says the hadith comprises great counsels and universal maxims among the religion's most important matters and that he 'devoted a large separate portion to its commentary' — the printed book bearing this title. - Work
Banat Su'ad (the Burda of Ka'b ibn Zuhayr)
Ka'b ibn Zuhayr's celebrated apology-ode beginning 'Su'ad has departed, and today my heart is love-sick', recited before the Prophet in Medina; it pleads for pardon and praises the Prophet as a light and an unsheathed sword of God. - Work
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.