Islam: The Next American Religion?

Michael Wolfe is the author of numerous of books of poetry, fiction, travel, and history, some of his works include "The Hajj" (1993), a first-person travel account, and “One Thousand Roads to Mecca" (1997), an anthology of 10 centuries of travellers writing about the Muslim pilgrimage. In April 1997, he hosted a televised account of the Hajj from Mecca for Ted Koppel's "Nightline". In 2002 he produced a two-hour documentary, "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet," which won a 2004 Cine Award Special Jury Prize for best documentary and was aired around the world in a dozen languages on the National Geographic Channel. During the same year Wolfe helped produce "Taking Back Islam," a collection of articles by 40 Muslims responding to the 9/11 crisis. The collection won a 2003 Wilbur Award for best book of the year on a religious theme.

Islam: The Next American Religion?

by Michael Wolfe

The U.S. began as a haven for Christian outcasts. But what religion fits our current zeitgeist? The answer may be Islam.
Americans tend to think of their country as, at the very least, a nominally Christian nation. Didn't the Pilgrims come here for freedom to practice their Christian religion? Don't Christian values of righteousness under God, and freedom, reinforce America's democratic, capitalist ideals?
True enough. But there's a new religion on the block now, one that fits the current zeitgeist nicely. It's Islam.
Islam is the third-largest and fastest growing religious community in the United States. This is not just because of immigration. More than 50% of America's six million Muslims were born here. Statistics like these imply some basic agreement between core American values and the beliefs that Muslims hold. Americans who make the effort to look beyond popular stereotypes to learn the truth of Islam are surprised to find themselves on familiar ground. Is America a Muslim nation? Here are seven reasons the answer may be yes.
Islam is monotheistic. Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christians. They also revere the same prophets as Judaism and Christianity, from Abraham, the first monotheist, to Moses, the law giver and messenger of God, to Jesus - not leaving out Noah, Job, or Isaiah along the way. The concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition only came to the fore in the 1940s in America. Now, as a nation, we may be transcending it, turning to a more inclusive "Abrahamic" view.

Islam is democratic in spirit. Islam advocates the right to vote, educate yourself and pursue a profession. The Qur'an, on which Islamic law is based, enjoins Muslims to govern themselves by discussion and consensus. In mosques, there is no particular priestly hierarchy. With Islam, each individual is responsible for the condition of her or his own soul. Everyone stands equal before God. Americans, who mostly associate Islamic government with a handful of tyrants, may find this independent spirit surprising, supposing that Muslims are somehow predisposed to passive submission. Nothing could be further from the truth. The dictators reigning today in the Middle East are not the result of Islamic principles. They are more a result of global economics and the aftermath of European colonialism.
Islam contains an attractive mystical tradition. Mysticism is grounded in the individual search for God. Where better to do that than in America, land of individualists and spiritual seekers? Surprising as it may seem, America's best-selling poet du jour is a Muslim mystic named Rumi, the 800-year-old Persian bard and founder of the Mevlevi Path, known in the West as the Whirling Dervishes.
Islam is egalitarian. From New York to California, the only houses of worship that are routinely integrated today are the approximately 4,000 Muslim mosques. That is because Islam is predicated on a level playing field, especially when it comes to standing before God. The Pledge of Allegiance (one nation, "under God") and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (all people are "created equal") express themes that are also basic to Islam.
Islam is often viewed as an aggressive faith because of the concept of jihad, but this is actually a misunderstood term. Because Muslims believe that God wants a just world, they tend to be activists, and they emphasize that people are equal before God. These are two reasons why African Americans have been drawn in such large numbers to Islam. They now comprise about one-third of all Muslims in America.
Meanwhile, this egalitarian streak also plays itself out in relations between the sexes. Muhammad, Islam's prophet, actually was a reformer in his day. Following the Qur'an, he limited the number of wives a man could have and strongly recommended against polygamy. The Qur'an laid out a set of marriage laws that guarantees married women their family names, their own possessions and capital, the right to agree upon whom they will marry, and the right to initiate divorce. In Islam's early period, women were professionals and property owners, as increasingly they are today. None of this may seem obvious to most Americans because of cultural overlays that at times make Islam appear to be a repressive faith toward women - but if you look more closely, you can see the egalitarian streak preserved in the Qur'an finding expression in contemporary terms. In today's Iran, for example, more women than men attend university, and in recent local elections there, 5,000 women ran for public office.

Islam shares America's new interest in food purity and diet. Muslims conduct a month long fast during the holy month of Ramadan, a practice that many Americans admire and even seek to emulate. Muslims also observe dietary laws that restrict the kind of meat they can eat. These laws require that the permitted, or halal, meat is prepared in a manner that emphasizes cleanliness and a humane treatment of animals. These laws ride on the same trends that have made organic foods so popular.
Islam is tolerant of other faiths. Like America, Islam has a history of respecting other religions. In Muhammad's day, Christians, Sabeans, and Jews in Muslim lands retained their own courts and enjoyed considerable autonomy. As Islam spread east toward India and China, it came to view Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism as valid paths to salvation. As Islam spread north and west, Judaism especially benefited. The return of the Jews to Jerusalem, after centuries as outcasts, only came about after Muslims took the city in 638. The first thing the Muslims did there was to rescue the Temple Mount, which by then had been turned into a garbage heap.
Islam encourages the pursuit of religious freedom. The Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock is not the world's first story of religious emigration. Muhammad and his little band of 100 followers fled religious persecution, too, from Mecca in the year 622. They only survived by going to Madinah, an oasis a few hundred miles north, where they established a new community based on a religion they could only practice secretly back home. No wonder then that, in our own day, many Muslims have come here as pilgrims from oppression, leaving places like Kashmir, Bosnia, and Kosovo, where being a Muslim may radically shorten your life span. When the 20th century's list of emigrant exiles is added up, it will prove to be heavy with Muslims, that's for sure.
Who knows? Perhaps it won't be long now before words like salat (Muslim prayer) and Ramadan join karma and Nirvana in Webster's Dictionary, and Muslims take their place in America's mainstream.
(Beliefnet 2001/08/9) - edited

Aqidah -The Islamic Belief by Imam Abu Ja'far Tahawi

 Aqidah of Imam Tahawi

Aqidah -The Islamic Belief

Imam Abu Ja'far Tahawi

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the Worlds.

The great scholar Hujjat al-lslam Abu J'afar al-Warraq al-Tahawi al-Misri, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

"This is a presentation of the beliefs of ahlu's-Sunnah wa'l-jamaa'ah, according to the school of the jurists of this religion, Abu Hanifah an-Nu'man ibn Thabit al-Kufi (ra), Abu Yusuf Ya'qub ibn Ibrahim al-Ansari (ra) and Abu Abd-Allah Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani (ra) and what they believe regarding the fundamentals of the religion and their faith in the Lord of all the Worlds.

Allah (awj)

1- We say about Allah's unity believing by Allah's help that Allah is One, without any partners. 

2- There is nothing like Him.

3- There is nothing that can overwhelm Him.

4- There is no god other than Him.

5- He is the Eternal without a beginning and enduring without end.

6- He will never perish or come to an end.

7- Nothing happens except what He wills.

8- No imagination can conceive of Him and no understanding can comprehend Him.

9- He is different from any created being.

10- He is living and never dies and is eternally active and never sleeps.

11- He creates without His being in need to do so and provides for His creation without any effort.

12- He causes death with no fear and restores to life without difficulty.

13- He has always existed together with His attributes since before creation. Bringing creation into existence did not add anything to His attributes that was not already there. As He was, together with His attributes, in pre-eternity, so He will remain throughout endless time.

14- It was not only after the act of creation that He could be described as 'the Creator' nor was it only by the act of origination that He could he described as 'the Originator'.

15- He was always the Lord even when there was nothing to be Lord of, and always the Creator even when there was no creation.

16- In the same way that He is the 'Bringer to life of the dead', after He has brought them lo life a first time, and deserves this name before bringing them to life, so too He deserves the name of 'Creator' before He has created them.

17- This is because He has the power to do everything, everything is dependent on Him, everything is easy for Him, and He does not need anything. "There is nothing like Him and He is the Hearer, the Seer." (ash-Shura 42/11)

18- He created creation with His knowledge.

19- He appointed destinies for those He created.

20- He allotted to them fixed life spans.

21- Nothing about them was hidden from Him before He created them, and He knew everything that they would do before He created them.

22- He ordered them to obey Him and forbade them to disobey Him.

23- Everything happens according to His degree and will, and His will is accomplished. The only will that people have is what He wills for them. What He wills for them occurs and what He does not will, does not occur.

24- He gives guidance to whoever He wills, and protects them, and keeps them safe from harm, out of His generosity; and He leads astray whoever He wills, and abases them, and afflicts them, out of His justice.

25- All of them are subject to His will between either His generosity or His justice.

26- He is exalted beyond having opposites or equals.

27- No one can ward off His decree or put back His command or overpower His affairs.

28- We believe in all of this and are certain that everything comes from Him.

Muhammad (saw)

29- And we are certain that Muhammad (saw) is His chosen servant and selected Prophet and His Messenger with whom He is well pleased.

30- And that he (saw) is the seal of the prophets and the Imam of the god-fearing and the most honored of all the messengers and the beloved of the Lord of all the Worlds.

31- Every claim to prophet-hood after Him is falsehood and deceit.

32- He is the one who has been sent to all the jinn and all mankind with truth and guidance and with light and illumination.

The Qur'an

33- The Qur'an is the word of Allah. It came from Him as speech without it being possible to say how. He sent it down on His Messenger as revelation. The believers accept it, as absolute truth. They are certain that it is, in truth, the word of Allah. It is not created, as is the speech of human beings, and anyone who hears it and claims that it is human speech has become an unbeliever. Allah warns him and censures him and threatens him with Fire when He says Exalted is He: "I will burn him in the Fire." (al-Muddaththir 74/26) When Allah threatens with the Fire those who say: "This is just human speech!" (al-Muddaththir 74/25) we know for certain that it is the speech of the Creator of mankind and that it is totally unlike the speech of mankind.

Attributes

34- Anyone who describes Allah as being in any way the same as a human being has become an unbeliever. All those who grasp this will take heed and refrain from saying things such as the unbelievers say, and they will know that He, in His attributes, is not like human beings.

Ru'yah

35- The Seeing of Allah by the People of the Garden is true, without their vision being all-encompassing and without the manner of their vision being known. As the Book of our Lord has expressed it: "Faces on that Day radiant, looking at their Lord." (al-Qiyamah 75/22-23) The explanation of this is as Allah knows and wills. Everything that has come down to us about this from the Messenger (saw) in authentic traditions, is as he said and means what he intended. We do not delve into that, trying to interpret it according to our own opinions or letting our imaginations have free rein. No one is safe in his religion unless he surrenders himself completely to Allah (awj) and to His Messenger (saw) and leaves the knowledge of things that are ambiguous to the one who knows them.

Iman

36- A man's Islam is not secure unless it is based on submission and surrender. Anyone who desires to know things which it is beyond his capacity to know, and whose intellect is not content with surrender, will find that his desire veils him from a pure understanding of Allah's true unity, clear knowledge and correct belief. And that he veers between disbelief and belief, confirmation and denial and acceptance and rejection. He will he subject to whisperings and find himself confused and full of doubt, being neither an accepting believer nor a denying kafir.

37- Belief of a man in the "seeing of Allah by the people of the Garden is not correct if he imagines what it is like, or interprets it according to his own understanding since the interpretation of this seeing" or indeed, the meaning of any of the subtle phenomena which are in the realm of Lordship, is by avoiding its interpretation and strictly adhering to the submission. "This is the din of Muslims." Anyone who does not guard himself against negating the attributes of Allah, or likening Allah to something else, has gone astray and has failed lo understand Allah's Glory, because our Lord (swt) can only possibly be described in terms of Oneness and Absolute Singularity and no creation is in any way like Him.

38- He is beyond having limits placed on Him, or being restricted, or having parts or limbs. Nor is He contained by the six directions as all created things are.

al-Mi'raj

39- The Ascent through the heavens is true. RasulAllah (saw) was taken by night and ascended in his bodily form, while awake, through the heavens, to whatever heights Allah willed for him. Allah ennobled him in the way that He ennobled him and revealed to him what He revealed to him: "and his heart was not mistaken about what it saw." (al-Najm 53/11) Allah blessed him and granted him peace in this world and the next.

al-Hawd

40- The Pool which Allah will grant the Prophet as an honor to quench the thirst of his Ummah on the Day Of Judgement, is true.

Shafa'ah

41- The intercession, which is stored up for Muslims, is true, as related in the (consistent and confirmed) ahadith.

The covenant

42- The covenant 'which Allah made with Adam (as) and his offspring' is true.

Paradise and the Hell

43- Allah knew, before the existence of time, the exact number of those who would enter the Garden and the exact number of those who would enter the Fire. This number will neither be increased nor decreased.

al-Qadha and al-Qadar

44- The same applies to all actions done by people, which are done exactly as Allah knew they would be done. Everyone is cased to what He was created for and it is the action with which a man's life is sealed which dictates his fate. Those who are fortunate are fortunate by the decree of Allah, and those who are wretched are wretched by the decree of Allah.

45- The exact nature of the decree is Allah's secret in His creation, and no angel near the Throne, nor Prophet sent with a message, has been given knowledge of it. Delving into it and reflecting too much about it only leads to destruction and loss, and results in rebelliousness. So be extremely careful about thinking and reflecting on this matter or letting doubts about it assail you, because Allah has kept knowledge of the decree away from human beings, and forbidden them to enquire about it, saying in His Book: "He is not asked about what He does but they are asked." (al-Anbiya 21/23) So anyone who asks: "Why did Allah do that?" has gone against a judgment of the Book, and anyone who goes against a judgment of the Book is an unbeliever.

Types of Knowledge

46- This in sum is what those of Allah's friends with enlightened hearts need to know and constitutes the degree of those firmly endowed with knowledge. For there are two kinds of knowledge: knowledge which is accessible to created beings, and knowledge which is not accessible to created beings. Denying the knowledge which is accessible is disbelief, and claiming the knowledge which is inaccessible is disbelief. Belief can only be firm when accessible knowledge is accepted and inaccessible knowledge is not sought after.

al-Lawh (the Tablet) and al-Qalam (the Pen)

47- We believe in al-Lawh (the Tablet) and al-Qalam (the Pen) and in everything written on it. Even if all created beings were to gather together to make something fail to exist, whose existence Allah had written on the Tablet, they would not be able to do so. And if all created beings were to gather together to make something exist which Allah had not written on it, they would not be able to do so. The Pen has dried having written down all that will be in existence until the Day of Judgment. Whatever a person has missed he would have never got it, and whatever one gets, he would have never missed it.

48- It is necessary for the servant to know that Allah already knows everything that is going to happen in His creation and hits decreed it in a detailed and decisive way. There is nothing that He has created in either the heavens or the earth that can contradict it, or add to it, or erase it, or change it, or decrease it, or increase it in any way. This is a fundamental aspect of belief and a necessary element of all knowledge and recognition of Allah's oneness and Lordship. As Allah says in His Book: "He created everything and decreed it He a detailed way." (al-Furqan 25/2) And He also says: "Allah's command is always a decided decree." (al-Ahzab 33/38) So woe to anyone who argues with Allah concerning the decree and who, with a sick heart, starts delving into this matter. In his delusory attempt to investigate the Unseen, he is seeking a secret that can never be uncovered, and he ends up an evil-doer, telling nothing but lies.

al-Arsh (the Throne) and al-Kursi (the Chair)

49- al-Arsh (the Throne) and al-Kursi (the Chair) are true.

50- He is independent of the Throne and what is beneath it.

51- He encompasses everything and is above it, and what He has created is incapable of encompassing Him.

52- We say with belief, acceptance and submission that Allah took Ibrahim (as) as khalil (an intimate friend) and that He (awj) spoke directly to Musa (as).

53- We believe in the angels, and the Prophets, and the books which were revealed to the messengers, and we bear witness that they were all following the manifest Truth.

Ahl Qiblah

54- We call the people of our qiblah Muslims and believers as long as they acknowledge what the Prophet (saw) brought, and accept as true everything that he said and told us about.

vain talk

55- We do not enter into vain talk about Allah nor do we allow any dispute about the religion Of Allah.

The Speech of Allah

56- We do not argue about the Qur'an and we bear witness that it is the speech of the Lord of all the Worlds which the Trustworthy Spirit (i.e., Jibril) came down with and taught the most honored Of all the Messengers, Muhammad (saw). It is the speech of Allah and no speech of any created being is comparable to it. We do not say that it was created and we do not go against the jamaa'ah of the Muslims regarding it.

Takfir concerning sin

57- We do not consider any of the people of our qiblah to be unbelievers because of any wrong action they have done, as long as they do not consider that action to have been lawful.

58- Nor do we say that the wrong action of a man who has belief does not have a harmful effect on him.

59- We hope that Allah will pardon the people of right action among the believers and grant them entrance into the Garden through His mercy, but we cannot be certain of this, and we cannot bear witness that it will definitely happen and that they will be in the Garden. We ask forgiveness for the people of wrong action among the believers and, although we are afraid for them, we are not in despair about them.

between hope and mercy

60- Certainty and despair both remove one from the religion, but the path of truth for the people of the qiblah lies between the two (e.g., a person must fear and be conscious of Allah's reckoning as well as be hopeful of Allah's mercy).

61- A person does not step out or belief except by disavowing what brought him into it.

Iman

62- Belief consists of affirmation lay the tongue and acceptance by the heart.

Sunnah

63- And the whole of what is proven from RasulAllah (saw) regarding the Shari'ah and the explanation (of the Qur'an and of Islam) is true.

64- Belief is, at base, the same for everyone, but the superiority of some over others in it is due to their fear and awareness of Allah, their opposition to their desires, and their choosing what is more pleasing to Allah.

Awliya of Allah

65- All the believers are 'friends' of Allah and the noblest of them in the sight of Allah are those who are the most obedient and who most closely follow the Qur'an.

Articles of Iman

66- Belief consists of belief in Allah. His angels, His books, His messengers, the Last Day, and belief that the Decree -both the good of it and the evil of it, the sweet of it and the bitter or it- is all from Allah.

Messengers

67- We believe in all these things. We do not make any distinction between any of the messengers, we accept as true what all of them brought.

68- Those of the Ummah of Muhammad (saw) who have committed grave sins will be in the Fire, but not forever, provided they die and meet Allah as believers affirming His unity even if they have not repented. They are subject to His will and judgment. If He wants, He will forgive them and pardon them out of His generosity, as is mentioned in the Qur'an when He says: "And He forgives anything less than that (shirk) to whoever He wills." (an-Nisa 4/116); and if He wants, He will punish them in the Fire out of His justice and then bring them out of the Fire through His mercy, and for the intercession of those who were obedient to Him, and send them to the Garden. This is because Allah is the Protector of those who recognize Him and will not treat them in the Next World in the same way as He treats those who deny Him and who are bereft of His guidance and have failed to obtain His protection. O Allah, You are the Protector of Islam and its people; make us firm in Islam until the day we meet You.

Prayer behind Ahl Qiblah

69- We agree with doing the prayer behind any of the people of the qiblah whether right-acting or wrong-acting, and doing the funeral prayer over any of them when they die.

70- We do not say that any of them will categorically go to either the Garden or the Fire, and we do not accuse any of them of kufr (disbelief), shirk (associating partners with Allah), or nifaq (hypocrisy), as long as they have not openly demonstrated any of those things. We leave their secrets to Allah.

71- We do not agree with killing any of the Ummah of Muhammad (saw) unless it is obligatory by Shari'ah to do so.

Rebelling against the Muslim Ruler

72- We do not recognize rebellion against our Imam or those in charge of our affairs even if they are unjust, nor do we wish evil on them, nor do we withdraw from following them. We hold that obedience to them is part of obedience to Allah (jj) and therefore obligatory as long as they do not order to commit sins. We pray for them right guidance and pardon from their wrongs.

Ahlu's-sunnah wa'l-Jamaa'ah

73- We follow the Sunnah of the Prophet and the jamaa'ah of the Muslims, and avoid deviation, differences and divisions.

74- We love the people of justice and trustworthiness, and hate the people of injustice and treachery.

75- When our knowledge about something is unclear, we say: "Allah knows best."

Wiping over the khuffs

76- We agree with wiping over leather socks (in wudu) whether on a journey or otherwise, just as has come in the (consistent and confirmed) ahadith.

77- Hajj and Jihaad under the leadership of those in charge of the Muslims, whether they are right or wrong-acting, are continuing obligations until the Last Hour comes. Nothing can annul or controvert them.

Kiraman Katibin

78- We believe in Kiraman Katibin (the noble angels) who write down our actions for Allah has appointed them over us as two guardians.

Malak al-Mawt

79- We believe in the Angel of Death who is charged with taking the spirits of all the worlds.

the punishment in the grave

80- We believe in the punishment in the grave for those who deserve it, and in the questioning in the grave by Munkar and Nakir about one's Lord, one's religion and one's prophet, as has come down in ahadith from RasulAllah (saw) and in reports from the Companions (ra).

81- The grave is either one of the meadows of the Garden or one of the pits of the Fire.

Resurrection

82- We believe in being brought back to life after death and in being recompensed for our actions on the Day of Judgment, and al-Ard, having been shown them and al-Hisab, brought to account for them. And Qira'at al-Kitaab, reading the book, and the reward or punishments and in al-Sirat (the Bridge) and al-Mizan (the Balance).

83- The Garden and the Fire are created things that never come to an end and we believe that Allah created them before the rest of creation and then created people to inhabit each of them. Whoever He wills goes to the Garden out of His Bounty and whoever He wills goes to the Fire through His justice. Everybody acts in accordance with what is destined for him and goes towards what he has been created for.

84- Good and evil have both been decreed for people.

Tawfiq

85- The capability in terms of Tawfiq (Divine Grace and Favour) which makes an action certain to occur cannot be ascribed to a created being. This capability is integral with action, whereas the capability of an action in terms of having the necessary health, and ability, being in a position to act and having the necessary means, exists in a person before the action. It is this type of capability which is the object of the dictates of Shari'ah. Allah (jj) says: "Allah does not charge a person except according to his ability." (al-Baqarah 2/286)

Responsibility

86- People's actions are created by Allah but earned by people.

La hawla wala quwwata illa billah

87- Allah (jj) has only charged people with what they are able to do and people are only capable to do what Allah has favored them. This is the explanation of the phrase: "There is no power and no strength except by Allah." We add to this that there is no stratagem or way by which anyone can avoid or escape disobedience to Allah except with Allah's help; nor does anyone have the strength to put obedience to Allah into practice and remain firm in it, except if Allah makes it possible for them to do so.

The will of Allah (swt)

88- Everything happens according to Allah's will, knowledge, predestination and decree. His will overpowers all other wills and His decree overpowers all stratagems. He does whatever He wills and He is never unjust. He is exalted in His purity above any evil or perdition and He is perfect far beyond any fault or flaw. "He will not be asked about what He does but they will he asked." (al-Anbiya 21/23)

Ahl Qubur

89- There is benefit for dead people in the supplication and alms-giving of the living.

90- Allah responds to people's supplications and gives them what they ask for.

91- Allah has absolute control over everything and nothing has any control over Him. Nothing can be independent of Allah even for the blinking of an eye, and whoever considers himself independent of Allah for the blinking of an eye is guilty of unbelief and becomes one of the people of perdition.

Anger and Pleasure of Allah (awj)

92- Allah is angered and can be pleased but not in the same way as any creature.

Sahabah (ra)

93- We love the Companions of RasulAllah (saw) but we do not go to excess in our love for any one individual among them nor do we disown any one of them. We hate anyone who hates them or does not speak well of them and we only speak well of them. Love of them is a part of Islam, part of belief and part of excellent behavior, while hatred of them is unbelief, hypocrisy and rebelliousness.

Khulafa ar-Rashidin

94- We confirm that, after the death of RasulAllah (saw) the caliphate went first to Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (ra) thus proving his excellence and superiority over the rest of the Muslims; then to Umar ibn al Khattab (ra); then to Uthman (ra); and then to Ali ibn Abi Talib (ra). These are the Rightly-Guided Caliphs and upright leaders.

Ashara-i Mubashhara

95- We bear witness that the ten who were named by RasulAllah (saw) and who were promised the Garden by him, will be in the Garden, as RasulAllah (saw) whose word is truth, bore witness that they would he. The ten are: Abu Bakr (ra), Umar (ra), Uthman (ra), Ali (ra), Talhah (ra), Zubayr (ra), Sa'd (ra), Sa'ed (ra), Abdu'r-Rahman ibn Awf (ra) and Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah (ra) whose title was the trustee of this Ummah.

96- Anyone who speaks well of the Companions of RasulAllah (saw) and his wives and offspring, who are all pure and untainted by any impurity, is free from the accusation of hypocrisy.

Salafu's-Saalih

97- The learned men of the first community and those who followed in their footsteps -the people of virtue, the narrators of the Ahadith, the jurists and analysts- they must only be spoken about in the best way and anyone who says anything bad about them is not on the right path.

Messengers and the Awliya of Allah

98- We do not prefer any of the saintly men among the Ummah over any of the Prophets but rather we say that any one of the Prophets is better than all the awliya put together.

Karamat

99- We believe in what we know of Karamat, the marvels of the awliya and in authentic stories about them from trustworthy sources.

The Signs of the Hour

100- We believe in the signs of the Hour such as the appearance of the Dajjal and the descent of Isa ibn Maryam (as) from heaven and we believe in the rising of the sun from where it sets and in the emergence of the Beast from the earth.

Magicians

101- We do not accept as true what soothsayers and fortune-tellers say, nor do we accept the claims of those who affirm anything which goes against the Book, the Sunnah and the consensus of the Muslim Ummah.

the Reward and the Punishment

102- We agree that holding together is the true and right path and that separation is deviation and torment.

Islam

103- There is only one religion of Allah in the heavens and the earth and that is the religion of Islam. Allah says: "Surely religion in the sight of Allah is Islam." (Al-i Imran 3/19) And He also says: "I am pleased with Islam as a religion for you." (al-Maidah 5/3)

104- Islam lies between going to excess and falling short, between Tashbih (likening of Allah's attributes to anything else), and Ta'til (denying Allah's attributes), between fatalism and refusing decree as proceeding from Allah and between certainty (without being conscious of Allah's reckoning) and despair (of

Allah's mercy).

105- This is our religion and it is what we believe in, both inwardly and outwardly, and we renounce any connection, before Allah, with anyone who goes against what we have said and made clear.

We ask Allah to make us firm in our belief and seal our lives with it and to protect us from variant ideas, scattering opinions and evil schools of view such as those of the Mushabbihah, the Mu'tazilah, the Jahmiyyah the Jabriyah, the Qadariyah and others like them who go against the Sunnah and Jamaa'ah and have allied themselves with error. We renounce any connection with them and in our opinion they are in error and on the path of destruction.

We ask Allah to protect us from all falsehood and we ask His Grace and Favour to do all good."

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Al-Furqan Foundation

Science leads to Islam - Scientist converts to Islam