Six Pillars: 2

The first pillar of Iman establishes the baseline belief in Islam: the belief in God.

This belief in God is made up of four parts. First, we believe He exists. Once we have that established, we believe He is One in His Lordship, One His Right to be worshiped alone, without any partners, and One in His Names and His Attributes. It’s very simple, really, but given all the idol worship in our collective human history, it seems like we sometimes get the wrong idea about God, decide on strange methods of worship and all.

As the Creator, God knows this about us, knows that we’ll get it wrong, or not get it at all, and so out of His Mercy—and One of His Blessed Names in Arabic is “Ar Rahman,” the Most Merciful One—we believe He gifted us prophets and messengers to remind us of Him, teach us how to worship Him, and receive and relay messages from Him.

This is the second pillar of Iman: the belief in the prophets and messengers, may the peace of God be upon them all.

Who are these prophets and messengers, and what does this belief entail? Read on: you might be surprised… Continue reading “Six Pillars: 2”

Six Pillars: 1 (c)

The belief in God is of the highest importance in Islam. God exists, and He is One in His Lordship and His right to be worshipped alone, without any partners: Tawheed ar-Rubbubiyyah and Tawheed al-Uloohiyyah. It took me a bit, as I expected, but if God wills, today I’ll get through the last aspect of God’s Oneness quickly… At last we come to Tawheed al-Asma was-Sifaat, the Oneness of God’s Names and Attributes. Continue reading “Six Pillars: 1 (c)”

Six Pillars: 1 (c)

So far, I think we’re mostly in agreement: God exists. He created all. He is the Lord of all and He is alone in His Lordship. As far as I understand it, the Abrahamic faiths—the religions that share Abraham, peace be upon him, as a prophet—agree that God exists and that He is the Lord of all. There might be some disagreement on His Oneness in His Lordship, but this next part—His Oneness in His right to be worshipped, alone, without any partners—here’s where the real disagreement starts… Continue reading “Six Pillars: 1 (c)”