Ḥadīth of Gabriel:
Belief in Allah ﷻ –ʿAQĪDAH
This article will focus on the first pillar of Faith [ʾĪmān], which is our belief in Allah ﷻ. We will explore the ways in which our knowledge of faith [ʿAqīdah] helps us to understand reality through the senses [al-hawās], the intellect [al-ʿaql], and revelation [al-waḥy]. However, we must first begin with understanding how the great scholars of Islam have gathered the knowledge of Faith [ʾĪmān] and compiled it into a body of work/science called ʿAqīdah.
ʿAqīdah also has the meaning of a contract of belief just like the time before creation or pre-eternity [azzal] when all the souls were called forth from the loins of Adam عليه السلام [ʿalayhi salām: Peace be upon him] and their first agreement with Allah ﷻ was made:
“(Recall) when your Lord brought forth their progeny from the loins of the children of ’Adam, and made them testify about themselves (by asking them,) “Am I not your Lord?” They said, “Of course, You are. We testify.” Qurʾān: The Heights [Al ʾAʿrāf] 7:172
It is a declaration in the belief that Allah ﷻ is our Lord and Allah ﷻ has placed this belief in our natural instinct [fitra].
There is none born but is created to his true nature (Islam). It is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Magian quite as beasts produce their young with their limbs perfect. Do you see anything deficient in them? Then he quoted the Qur’an. “The nature made by Allah in which He has created men there is no altering of Allah’s creation; that is the right religion” (ar-Rum:30)” Saḥīḥ Muslim 2658b
The History of how our Belief in Allah [ʿAQĪDAH] was compiled
Knowledge of the Oneness of Allah ﷻ [Tawhīd] has not changed since prophet Adam عليه السلام [ʿalayhi salām: peace be upon him].
Every Messenger of Allah came with the same message which was to believe in the oneness of Allah ﷻ. Law [fiqh] has changed for each prophet, but the belief regarding Allah ﷻ has been the same for Adam عليه السلام, Noah [Nuh] عليه السلام, Abraham [Ibrāhīm] عليه السلام, Muhammad ﷺ [ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wasallam: May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him] as well as all of the other prophets/messengers sent to mankind.
“We surely sent a messenger to every community, saying, ‘Worship Allah and shun false gods.’ But some of them were guided by Allah, while others were destined to stray. So, travel throughout the land and see the fate of the deniers!” Qurʾān: The Bee [An-Naḥl] 16:36
Allah ﷻ sent messengers to mankind (human and jinn) to teach them to worship Him ﷻ. Allah ﷻ has told us this in the Qurʾān.
“I did not create jinn and humans except to worship Me.” Qurʾān: Scattering [Winds] [Al-Dhāriyāt] 50:56
All the messengers were sent with the same message to worship Allah ﷻ and submit to Him ﷻ as Muslims:
“We did not send before you any messenger but We revealed to him that there is no God but I, so worship Me.” Qurʾān: The Prophets [Al-ʾAnbiyāʾ] 21:25
“We did raise a messenger among every people, with the message: “Worship Allah and stay away from the Rebel (the Satan).” Then, there were some among them whom Allah guided, and there were others against whom deviation (from the right path) was established. So, travel on earth and see how was the fate of those who rejected (the prophets). ” Qurʾān: The Bee [An-Naḥl] 16:36
“When his Lord said to him, “Submit!” He said, “I submit myself to the Lord of all the worlds.” (131) And Ibrahim exhorted the same to his sons, and so did Ya‘qub (Jacob): “My sons, Allah has certainly chosen for you the Faith. So, let not death overtake you but as Muslims.” Qurʾān: The Cow [Al Baqarah] 2:131-132
“Still, if you turn away, then, I did not demand any reward from you. My reward is with none except Allah, and I have been commanded to be among those who submit [muslimīn].” Qurʾān: Yunus [Yūnus] 10:72
“My Lord, You have given me power to rule and the knowledge of interpreting events. O Creator of the heavens and the Earth, You are my guardian in this world and the Hereafter. Make me die a Muslim and make me join the righteous.” Qurʾān: Yusyf [Yūsuf] 12:101
“She said, “My Lord, I had surely wronged myself, and now I submit, along with Sulaiman, to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds.” Qurʾān: The Ants [Al-Naml] 27:44
“O our Lord, pour out patience upon us, and cause us to die as Muslims (those who submit to you.)” Qurʾān: The Heights [Al ʾAʿrāf] 7:126 (Spoken by the sorcerers to Firawn, when they became muslim)
“So, when ‘Isa sensed disbelief in them, he said: “Who are my helpers in the way of Allah?” The disciples said: “We are helpers of Allah. We believe in Allah; so be our witness that we are Muslims.” Qurʾān: Family of Imran [Al-E-ʿImrān] 3:52
The scholars say that in order to worship Allah ﷻ we must know Him ﷻ. We can know Allah ﷻ through His ﷻ Creation, His ﷻ noble attributes revealed in the holy Qurʾān and from the teachings of our beloved Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. And those who know Allah ﷻ realise that they will never be able to reach the true reality of Allah ﷻ but our duty is to try and know Him ﷻ through His ﷻ attributes and beautiful Names.
Each prophet received a revelation from Allah ﷻ, which they then taught to their people through the scriptures. Likewise, our prophet Muhammad ﷺ taught his companions [Ṣaḥāba] who taught those who met the companions [tābiʿīn], and they then taught the those that met them [atba tābiʿīn]. These are the three generations the Prophet ﷺ called ‘the best generation to have ever lived on earth’. They are known as the Salaf. The Salaf taught ʿAqīdah in the original form the Prophet ﷺ taught, through Qurʾānic and logical proofs.
During the Umayyad and Abāsy caliphates, Islam spread out from the Arabian Peninsula and around the world. The Muslims spreading Islam started engaging with people who were influenced by other religious and theological beliefs, such as Greek philosophy or Christianity, which had anthropomorphic beliefs (attributing human characteristics to God). This stirred up confusion and confliction about the essentials of the Islamic creed which in turn affected the ideology of the Muslim nation [Ummah].
People who embraced Islam with previous anthropomorphic beliefs started to interpret some verses in the Qurʾān and the Sunnah in a way that gave Allah ﷻ an image, which meant there was innovation taking place in the Muslim world. Muslims across the world aligned themselves to different groups, forming sects. It became critical for the Sunni scholars to devise a name for themselves which distinguished them from these new false ideologies. They called themselves the people who follow the ways [sunnah] of the Prophet ﷺ and majority [Ahlu Sunnah wal Jamāʿah]. This name came from a narration [ḥadīth] where the Prophet ﷺ said:
It was narrated from ‘Awf bin Malik that the Messenger of Allah(ﷺ) said: “The Jews split into seventy-one sects, one of which will be in Paradise and seventy in Hell. The Christians split into seventy-two sects, seventy-one of which will be in Hell and one in Paradise. I swear by the One Whose Hand is the soul of Muhammad, my nation will split into seventy-three sects, one of which will be in Paradise and seventy-two in Hell.” It was said: “O Messenger of Allah, who are they?” He said: “The main body.” – Sunan Ibn Mājah 3992 [Book 36, Ḥadīth 67, Vol. 5, Book 36, Ḥadīth 3992]
The Salaf who were known as the first three generations of Muslims called themselves Muslim simply because at the time, they did not have people who changed the essential creed of Islam. However, the believers who came after the Salaf are known as the Khalaf. The scholars of the Khalaf were the ones who codified the authentic belief taught by the Prophet ﷺ and the first three-generations.
Around the year 300 AH, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī رَحْمَةُ الله عليه [raḥmatullāhi ʿalayhi: May the Mercy of Allah be upon him] ,a scholar in Basra, Iraq and ʾAbū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī رَحْمَةُ الله عليه in Samarqand both wrote the traditional creed of Sunni Islam as it was taught by the Prophet ﷺ. The work of both of these scholars became the main sources of theology for Sunni Muslims in the same way we have schools of Law, such as Shāfiʿī, Hanafi, Mālikī, and Hanbali. The ʿAqīdah of both Ashʿarī and Māturīdī has an authentic chain of transmission that goes generation after generation all the way back to Prophet Muhammad ﷺ without any external influence. They have both come to the same conclusions with minor differences that do not negate from the essential creed of Islam.
How to Know Allah through His Attributes
Essential/Divine Attributes [As-ṢifĀt adh-DhĀtiyya]
There are six essential attributes that belong only to Allah ﷻ.
| Attributes [Arabic]: | Attributes [English]: | Meaning: | Evidence |
| Al-Wujūd | Existence | Allah exists | “Indeed, I am Allah. There is no deity except me, so worship me, and establish prayer for My remembrance.” Qurʾān: Ta-Ha [Ṭā Hā] 20:14 |
| Al-Qidam | Beginninglessness | Allah has no beginning | “He is the First and the Last, the Most High and the Most Near, and He has perfect knowledge of all things.” Qurʾān: Iron [al Hadīd] 57:3 |
| Al-Baqāʾ | Everlastingness | Allah has no end | “Whosoever is on it [the earth] will perish, only the Supreme Essence of your Glorious and Gracious Lord will remain forever.” Qurʾān: The Lord of Mercy [ar-Rahmān] 55:26 – 27 |
| Mukhālafatun lil-Ḥawādith | Dissimilar to creation | None compares with Allah [not similar to anything] | “And there is none comparable unto him.” Qurʾān: Purity (of Faith) [Al-Ikhlāṣ]112: 4 “There is certainly nothing like Him.” Qurʾān: The Poets [Ash-Shuʿarāʿ] 42: 11 |
| Qiyām Binafsih | Self- Sufficient | Allah is unneedy of anything | “Oh Mankind, you stand in need of God and God is self-sufficient and praiseworthy.” Qurʾān: The Creator [Fātir] 35:15 |
| Al-Waḥdāniyyah | Oneness | Allah has no partners | “Say: He is Allah, the One!” Qurʾān: Purity (of Faith) [Al-Ikhlāṣ] 112:1 |
The first attribute of Allah ﷻ is al-Wujūd – Allah ﷻ exists. This is the most important attribute of Allah ﷻ because all His ﷻ other attributes depend on it. The mind refuses to accept Allah’s ﷻ nonexistence.
There are three kinds of existence [WujŪd]:
| Attributes [Arabic]: | Attributes [English]: | Meaning: |
| Wājib al-Wujūd | The Necessary Existence | Allah always exists, and will continue to exist infinitely. This attribute belongs only to Allah. |
| Mamnūʿ al-Wujūd | Impossible to Exist | Allah having another partner or likeness to him is impossible. This does not exist and can never exist. |
| Mumkin al-Wujūd | Possible Existence | That it may or may not exist. Its existence relies on something causing it to exist, i.e. Allah. This category is for the creation. |
Positive attributes/Attributes of perfection [As-ṢifĀt ath-ThubŪtiyya]
There are seven positive attributes of Allah ﷻ. Al-Māturīdī رَحْمَةُ الله عليه also added an eighth attribute (Takwīn):
| Attributes [Arabic]: | Attributes [English]: | Meaning: | Evidence: |
| Ḥayāt | Life | Allah is All-living | “Allah there is no God except Him, the Ever-living, the Sustainer of existence.” Qurʾān: Family of Imran [Al-E-ʿImrān] 3:2 |
| ʿIlm | Knowledge | Allah is All-knowing | “And he is the knower of all things.” Qurʾān: The Cow [Al Baqara] 2:29 |
| Irāda | Will | Allah is All-willing | “All it takes when he wills something ˹to be˺ is simply to say to it be and it is”. Qurʾān: Ya Sin [Yā Sīn] 36:82 |
| Qudrah | Power | Allah is All-powerful | “Truly Allah has power over all things.” Qurʾān: The Cow [Al Baqara] 2:109] |
| As-Samīʿ | Hearing | Allah is All-hearing | “There is nothing like him, He is the Hearing the Seeing”. Qurʾān: The Poets [Ash-Shuʿarāʿ] 42:11 |
| Al-Baṣīr | Sight | Allah is All-seeing | “There is nothing like him, He is the Hearing the Seeing”. Qurʾān: The Poets [Ash-Shuʿarāʿ] 42:11 |
| Kalām | Speech | Allah is All-Speaking | “And to Moses Allah spoke directly.” Qurʾān: Women [An-Nisāʾ] 4:164 |
| Takwīn | Formation | Allah forms everything | “Verily We have created everything according to (Our) predestination.” Qurʾān: The Moon [Al Qamar] 54:49 |
The latter eight attributes of Allah ﷻ are also seen in the creation. Allah ﷻ has granted us these characteristics but unlike us, Allah ﷻ has no weakness or defect in His ﷻ essence, attributes and actions.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF BELIEF
Imām al-Ghazālī رَحْمَةُ الله عليه wrote about the foundations of belief in his collection Revivial of the Religious Sciences [Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn]:
“1. To believe in His transcendence: He is without body and form, free of restriction, limitation and resemblance, not divisible. Nothing is like Him and He is not like anything. He is not limited by measure, space and time. He is free from diligence, rest and change. Everything is in His grasp. He is above the ʿArsh (throne) above heaven and above everything. He is nevertheless below the deepest depth. Yet He is near, very close to a thing, nearest to the jugular vein of a man. He’s not in anything and nothing is in Him. He is beyond space and beyond time. He is now as He was before. He expresses Himself through His creatures and not by existence. He is free from change, increase or decrease.
2) To believe in His power and existence. He is Ever-living, All-powerful, Almighty, the great Destroyer. He is free from faults and failures, slumber, sleep, disease, death. He fixed the provision and death of created beings and nothing can escape from His power. His power and His might are above everything.
3) To believe in His knowledge. His knowledge is without limit and He knows everything. Whatever happens between the deepest abyss of the earth to the highest heaven is within His knowledge. The smallest atom in the earth or in heaven is not outside His knowledge. Every thought good or bad is within His knowledge.
4) To believe in His will. Nothing comes into being small or great, good or evil, benefitting or not benefitting, faith or infidelity, known or unknown, profit or loss, sin or virtue without His order, power and will. What He wills comes into being. What He does not will comes not into being. If mankind, jinn, angels and devil want to remove an atom from its proper place, they won’t be able to do it without His will. His will lies naturally in His attributes which are unlimited.
5) He hears and sees. His hearing and sight are all pervading. Nothing however scanty can escape His hearing and nothing however subtle can go from His sight. Distance is no barrier to His hearing and seeing, rather distance and nearness are all equal to Him. Darkness cannot obstruct His sight. He sees without eyes, catches without hand and creates without instrument. His attributes are not like those of the created beings as His being is not like that of the created.
6) To believe in His words. Allah speaks without sound. It is eternal, ancient and self-existing, unlike the talks of the created. It does not take the help of words and languages through the movement of lips. The Quran is recited by tongue, written in papers and preserved in heart, nevertheless it is eternal existing with the eternity of Allah. [It is not a creation; it is one of Allah’s ﷻ attributes that is eternal.] The Bible, the Gospel and Psalms are His Books to His Prophets. Hazrat Moses heard His words without sound and language and the Righteous will see Him in the hereafter without body and space.
7. To believe in His actions. There is no creator of actions except He and nobody is outside His judgement.
8. To believe in the other words. It is to attest to the prophethood of Muhammad. God sent the unlettered Quraishite Prophet Muhammad as an apostle to all the Arabs and non-Arabs, to the jinn and men and by his law he abrogated all the other laws. He gave him superiority to all other Prophets and made him leader of mankind and did not make complete any faith with the words of Tawhīd, till it was followed by the attestation that Muhammad is His servant and apostle.
PROOF OF BELIEF
Imān, or belief, is founded upon four pillars, each of which has got ten bases.
- First Pillar: It is the knowledge of the essence of Allah and it is established upon ten bases. They are the knowledge and belief that Allah is existing, eternal, ancient, without form, without bey, without length and breadth, without any special direction, occupying no space, or object of vision in the next world and He is one without any partner.
- Second Pillar: It is to have knowledge of His attributes and to believe them. He is All-powerful, All-knowing, living for ever, willing, hearing, seeing, speaking, eternal in words, knowledge and will and free from changes of events.
- Third Pillar: It is to have knowledge and faith in His works which are established over ten bases. They are that men’s actions are created, willed and fixed by Allah, that He is kind to creatures, free from imposing works beyond power of men, that He punishes men, does what He wills, that there is nothing obligatory on Him, that He sent apostles and that our Prophet was helped by miracles and that his Prophethood will last till the Day of Resurrection.
- Fourth Pillar. It is to believe in the things accepted on authority. It is to believe in the truth of Resurrection, questions by Munkar and Nakir, punishment of the grave, the Balance, the Bridge, Paradise, Hell, the true Imams, excellence of the companions in accordance with chronological order and qualifications of being an Imam.
GOD’S ATTRIBUTES
[10 basic princples:]
- Allah is Almighty as He said: He is powerful over all things. (15:120) He is truthful as the world is perfect with His designs and well-regulated.
- Allah is eternal.
- Allah is everlasting without end
- Allah is without form not occupying any space and free from space, motion and rest. Its proof is this. Every form occupies a space and moves and stays in it. Body has got motion and rest which are the character of originated things. What is not free from changes is an originated thing. If a man says that Allah has got body and occupies space, he commits blunder for using such words.
- Allah is not composed of a body having different substances. When He does not occupy any space, He has got no body as everybody is limited by space and composed of different substances. The substances of the body are not free from division, composition, motion, rest, form and quantity. These are the qualities of an originated thing. If it were possible to believe that the Creator of the world has got a body, then it would be possible to attribute divinity of the sun and moon and other heavenly bodies. If a designer wishes to make a body without the substance of body, he will commit a mistake.
- Allah has got no length and breadth as these are the attributes of a body which is an originated thing.
- Allah is not confined within any direction as He created direction; [He is not] above or below, right or left, front or behind.
- Allah is seated upon His Throne, that is upon power. It is not inconsistent with the attribute of His grandeur and the symptoms of origination and annihilation. This is what is meant by the following verse of the Quran: Then He ascended to heaven and it was then but smoke. (41:10). It means His dominion and power. The people of truth accepted this interpretation as the people of untruth were compelled to accept the interpretation of these words of Allah: He is with you wherever you are. (57:4) This means that He encompasses everything. This is supported by the following Hadith: “The head of a believer is within two fingers of the Merciful,” meaning within His power of might. It is also supported by the following Hadith: “The Black Stone is the right hand of Allah in the earth,” meaning it is established as an honour in the earth. If its meaning is taken literally, it becomes possible to believe that He has got a body – and the Throne is also a body limited by space. This is impossible.
- Allah is free from form, space and direction. He is an object to be seen in the hereafter as He said: “On that day shall faces beam with light looking towards their Lord.” (57:22) He is not visible in this world as Allah said: “Vision does not comprehend Him, but He comprehends vision.” (6:103); also because of the following verse: Allah addressed Moses saying: “You cannot see Me.” (7:139)
- It is that Allah is one without any partner, single without any like. He is unique in every new creation, innovation and inventions. There is nothing like Him. The Quran says: “Had there been any other God therein, they would have gone to ruin.”(21:22) If the first God willed something, the second would have been compelled to him. This means that he would have no supreme power. If the second is to oppose the first, he would be powerful and the first would be weak, rather than an almighty God.
Iman [faith] is subject to increase and decrease. It increases by good deeds and decreases by evil deeds. We should all have courtesy and entrust all actions to Allah.”
