IB World Religions 5.4.2. Statements of Belief: Creed and Practice Notes

5.4.2. Statements of Belief: Creed and Practice

The shahadah as creed

1. Islam's basic statement of belief is one sentence. The shahadah declares that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.
2. Muslims call it a testimony rather than a summary, and many also know it as the Kalimah, the word. Saying it sincerely, and before witnesses, is what makes a person a Muslim, and no further ceremony is required.
3. It is the first of the Five Pillars, and Muslims hold that the other four rest on it, since acts of worship count by the belief and the intention behind them.
4. The same words are the first a newborn hears, whispered into the ear, and the words a dying Muslim is helped to say.
5. Shi'ah Muslims commonly add a third clause, that 'Ali is the friend of Allah. Shi'ah scholars describe the addition as commendable rather than required, so the two clauses remain the creed shared across the branches.
6. The two clauses have a logic between them. The first states what Muslims hold about Allah, and the second states how they hold that they know it, since the message came through a messenger.

The wording of tawhid

1. The first clause is built as a denial followed by an exception: la ilaha, there is no god, and then illa Allah, except Allah. Muslims often point out that the sentence clears the ground before it builds.
2. What it denies is shirk, treating anything as a partner or equal to Allah, which Muslim teaching calls the one sin Allah will not forgive in a person who dies holding it.
3. What it affirms is tawhid, the oneness of Allah: one in being, one in lordship over creation, and one in the right to be worshipped.
4. The Qur'an describes Allah through names and attributes, the Merciful, the Just, the Hearing, the Seeing. Muslims recite ninety-nine of them as al-asma' al-husna, the most beautiful names, while holding that Allah is like nothing created.
5. The creed shapes what Muslim worship looks like. Mosques carry no image of Allah, and Muslim art turned instead to calligraphy, geometry and pattern.
6. It shapes conduct too. Muslim writers treat pride, fear of other people and love of wealth as forms of hidden shirk, since each puts something else where Allah belongs.

The six articles of faith

1. Sunni Muslims summarise required belief in six articles, known as iman mufassal, faith set out in detail: belief in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Last Day and qadar, the divine decree.
2. The list is drawn from the Qur'an and from the report known as the hadith of Jibril, in which the Prophet is asked what faith is and answers with these items.
3. Belief in the books includes the scriptures Muslims hold were revealed before the Qur'an, and belief in the messengers includes every prophet sent before Muhammad.
4. Belief in akhirah, the life to come, and in Yawm al-din, the Day of Judgment, commits Muslims to holding that this life is weighed. What the Qur'an says about that day is a subject in its own right.
5. Qadar is the hardest of the six. Muslims hold both that Allah knows and decrees all that happens and that people remain answerable for what they choose, and scholars have argued about how the two stand together since the first century of Islam.
6. Shi'ah Muslims usually organise belief differently, in five roots of religion, the usul al-din: tawhid, 'adl or divine justice, nubuwwah or prophethood, imamah or the leadership of the imams, and ma'ad, the return for judgment.
7. The two lists overlap almost entirely in content. The Shi'ah list makes divine justice and the imamate explicit, which is why they are stated separately rather than assumed.

Iman, Islam and ihsan

1. The hadith of Jibril gives Muslims their most used frame for belief and practice. A stranger, later identified as the angel Jibril, puts three questions to the Prophet, and the answers are islam, iman and ihsan.
2. Islam, submission, is answered with the acts: the testimony, prayer, alms, the fast of Ramadan and the pilgrimage. Submission is described in terms of what a person does.
3. Iman, faith, is answered with the six articles. Faith is described in terms of what a person holds to be true.
4. Ihsan is answered in one sentence: to worship Allah as though you see Him, and, since you do not see Him, knowing that He sees you.
5. Muslims read the three as layers rather than alternatives: the outward act, the inward belief, and the quality of attention that turns the act into worship.
6. Sufi teaching takes ihsan as its particular territory. Sufi orders exist to train that inward attention through remembrance and discipline, while keeping the law and the creed intact.
7. Later scholars used the same three parts to organise the whole curriculum, with fiqh for islam, 'aqidah for iman, and tasawwuf for ihsan.

Belief expressed in practice

1. Muslim teaching does not treat belief as private opinion. The Qur'an's recurring phrase pairs faith with conduct, speaking of those who believe and do righteous deeds.
2. The Five Pillars are the creed enacted. The testimony is spoken, salah states it five times a day, and sawm, zakah and hajj put it into the body, the calendar and the purse.
3. Niyyah, the intention formed before an act of worship, ties the two together, since Muslims hold that an act performed without intention is not ibadah, worship, at all.
4. Most Sunni scholars hold that faith increases with obedience and decreases with sin, so belief is something to be strengthened or neglected rather than simply possessed.
5. Early Muslims argued over the sharper form of the question. The Kharijites held that grave sin puts a person outside the community, and mainstream Sunni and Shi'ah teaching rejected that, leaving the judgment to Allah.
6. Because the creed is enacted, Muslims commonly describe Islam as a whole way of life, covering food as halal or forbidden, dress, trade, marriage and the shape of the ordinary day.

Teaching and reciting the creed

1. The creed is learned by repetition long before it is studied. Children memorise iman mujmal, faith in brief, and iman mufassal as short set phrases.
2. The adhan, the call to prayer, puts the creed into the air five times a day, since its lines are largely the shahadah set to a chant.
3. The Friday khutbah and the two Id sermons restate belief in front of the whole congregation, so the creed is heard communally as well as recited privately.
4. Converts, whom many Muslims prefer to call reverts, are received by reciting the shahadah before witnesses, usually at a mosque and often followed by a ritual washing.
5. The creed is written as well as spoken. The shahadah appears in calligraphy above mosque doorways, and Qur'anic statements of Allah's oneness are inscribed inside domes and around the mihrab.
6. At the end of life the creed returns to a single sentence, prompted gently by those attending a dying Muslim and recited again at the burial.
7. Muslims across the branches therefore share one short testimony. The differences between them show up in what is added around that sentence rather than in the sentence itself.