What believers hold: God, angels and the end

A creed states articles one by one. Read the expectations and notice which articles name a central tenet and which concern the end. Then ask which ones a student of another tradition would recognise.

Read one hadith as three sources give it. Ibn Khuzayma narrates it from Ibn Umar with the words: "Islam is built on five: the testimony that there is no god but God, establishing the prayer, giving zakat, fasting Ramadan, and the Hajj to the House" ². The record of the five pillars notes that elsewhere in his book the Hajj comes before the fast ³, that al-Bukhari's version gives the hajj before the fast of Ramadan ⁴, and that in the first version Ibn Umar cites the hadith to a man who asked him about his not going on campaign ². The editor of the al-Bugha edition explains that these five are to Islam as supports to a building, which cannot exist without them ⁴, and Ibn Rajab divides them into a deed of the tongue, bodily deeds, a deed of wealth, and one compounded of both ⁵. The record reports the difference of order and does not explain it.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam, as the record of the pillars reports it, says that the schools put the emphasis differently when they say what religion, din, is: the Maturidis make faith part of religion, the Ashari school stresses the prescriptions to be observed, and for the Hanbali school the Qur'an and authentic tradition are the foundation ⁶. Ibn Taymiyya is reported as quoting traditions that call the prayer the basis of religion, and the modern writer Rashid Rida as describing religion as worship together with avoidance of wrongdoing and just social relations ⁶. The article lists five pillars and notes that some authorities add a sixth, jihad ⁷, while the author of its entry on ibadat says jihad is not one of the five fundamental obligations, though it clearly has a religious character ⁸. The record gives no verdict among these.

The record of tawhid presents the positions of al-Tahawi's creed, Ibn Qudama's Lum'at al-I'tiqad, Ibn Taymiyya's al-Wasitiyya and what al-Ash'ari related of the people of hadith and sunna, each attributed to its book, and says that the sayings of the Maturidis and the remaining Sunni and non-Sunni schools have not yet been added and that the entry needs specialist review before promotion. In the same record the Encyclopaedia of Islam notes that Ibn Khuzayma and the Imami al-Shaykh al-Mufid used the expression ahl al-tawhid for the whole body of Muslims, while the Mu'tazila and the Almohads kept it for themselves ⁹. One word can name a wider or a narrower group depending on who uses it. Al-Tahawi's list of the articles on the end, from the resurrection to the reckoning, the Sirat and the Scale, is likewise a statement attributed to his book ¹⁰.

The hadith of the pillars lists five acts ², while al-Tahawi opens his creed with God's oneness and goes on to articles that include the resurrection, the reckoning, the Sirat and the Scale ^11 10. If a class had to write one paragraph on the central tenets of Islam, which of the two kinds of text should it start from, why, and what would the paragraph lose?

• The five pillars: the wording of the hadith in its versions, Ibn Rajab's commentary, and the Encyclopaedia of Islam's accounts of din and ibadat.
• Tawhid: what al-Tahawi, Ibn Qudama, Ibn Taymiyya and al-Ash'ari say, and what the Encyclopaedia of Islam says of the word.
• The hereafter: the resurrection, the reckoning, the Sirat and the Scale in al-Tahawi's creed, and how Ibn Qudama and Ibn Taymiyya set them out.