Islam Fundamental Principles and Teachings
Part One : Osool Al-deen Or (the Fundamental Principles of Islam)
The fundamental principles or beliefs of Islam (Os}ool al-Deen), [or the ‘pillars’ of Islam], are five:
Tawh}eed or the indivisible oneness of the supreme being and creator of all things.
‘Adl or the justice of the supreme being.
Nobowwah or the Prophethood.
Imamah or the Leadership of mankind.
Me‘a>d or Resurrection.
1. The Indivisible Oneness of Allah
Tawh{eed is the belief that the universe, all existence, has a deity who created them all, and brought everything into existence from non-existence and that he sustains and maintains everything.
Therefore creation, sustenance, bestowing, denying, death, life, sickness, health, etc. are all under His control and will: .Verily His command is that if He wills a thing, He says to it “Be”, and it becomes..4
The evidence for the existence of Almighty Allah is what we see around us; the sky and whatever there is in it; the illuminating sun, the bright moon, all other stars and galaxies, the clouds, the winds, the rain . . . and the earth and whatever in it such as the seas and rivers, the trees and fruits, the various kinds of precious minerals 4 The Holy Qur’an; Ya>seen (36): 82.
such as gold, silver, emerald and suchlike. As well as the various categories of animals; those that fly, and those that swim in water or those that walk or move on land in various forms, having distinctive sounds and similar and dissimilar shapes and sizes.
And then there is this astonishing being, the human, who has a variety of sensory powers such as hearing and seeing, smelling and tasting, touching as well the gut feeling or hunch, and has many organs and limbs such as eyes and ears, tongue and heart, hand and legs, and other states or aspects such as health, disease, contentment, anger, happiness, sadness, and suchlike.
All of these are evidence of the existence of an all-wise and omniscient deity, in whom we believe, whom we worship, from whom we seek help and in whom we trust and rely upon.
Almighty Allah and the Attributes of Beauty Allah, the Most High, has many attributes:
He is omniscient, He knows about all things big and small. He knows what people may have in their hearts.
He has the power and ability to do everything, He has the power of creation, of giving sustenance, and He has the power of life and death, and suchlike. He is forever living and never dies. He wills things that are useful, and He does not will things that are not useful.
He sees all things, He hears all sounds even if a whisper in the ears, or a thought or an imagination. His existence is from eternity to eternity; for He, exalted and high, alone who is eternal, perpetual, endless, and ceaseless. He was before everything else, then He created all the things, and He will live forever after them. The universe in its entirety is created by His power, in need of Him not only for its existence but also for its survival and continuance. Everything that is created is h}aadith [i.e.
an event, something that has taken place], and there is no qadeem [i.e. perpetual, a being that has always been and will eternally be] except for Almighty Allah. He speaks to any of His sincere servants whom He wills; such as His messengers, and the angels.
He is truthful and never breaks His promise. He is the Creator, the provider, the life giver, the source of bounties with the power to stop them also; He is Merciful, Forgiving, Mighty, Honourable, and Noble.
Almighty Allah and the Attributes of Majesty Allah – Immaculate and Most High – is free of all shortcomings: He is not matter, nor is He a composition [of other constituents]. He does not occupy any space. It is not possible to see Him, neither in this world nor in the hereafter.
He is not subject to effects, changes, or developments. So He does not feel thirsty or hungry, He never ages, ceases, sleeps, or is oblivious or unaware. He has neither partner nor peer, but He is One and Singular, Unique and Absolute, who takes neither spouse nor offspring. His attributes are the same as His Essence, they are not secondary to Him.
Thus, He is Omniscient, Almighty, along with all His other attributes, since eternity, unlike us who were ignorant at times and then acquired knowledge, or were weak at times and then became strong.
He is not in need of anything or anyone. He does not need any consultation, or helper, or assistant, or any troops, and suchlike.
2. Divine Justice
Divine justice means that Allah does not do any injustice to anyone and does not do anything that would be contrary to wisdom. Therefore, whatever He has created, or whatever amount of sustenance He has given to someone or withheld from someone are all on the basis of wisdom and on good grounds even though we do not know the reasons for.
It is like a physician prescribing a certain medicine for a patient; that we consider is good and useful even though we may not know all the evidence for its usefulness. If we see that Allah has granted someone wealth and He did not do so for someone else, or He made one to have certain qualities and not the other, or He caused someone to become sick and has kept another person healthy, and suchlike in all such cases we must believe that all such cases are based on some kind of benefit and wisdom even though we may not be aware of their benefit and wisdom.5
It is stated in a hadith, or tradition, that “Moses (A) asked Allah to let him know something about His Justice, which looks otherwise on the surface. Allah ordered him to go to a certain water fountain in the wilderness to monitor the events that would take place therein. When Moses (A) arrived at the fountain, he saw a horseman who had arrived at the fountain to freshen up. When the horseman left the scene, he forgot a bag of money behind.
Afterwards, a boy came to the fountain, saw the bag by the fountain, with all eagerness and happiness picked it up and hurriedly left the scene. Then a blind man came to the fountain to wash himself for prayer, and at this time the horseman came back searching for his bag of money, and when he did not find it, he accused the blind man of taking it. Consequently a dispute flared up between the horseman and the blind man, and eventually the horseman killed the blind man, and left the scene.
Moses was astonished at all this. Allah then revealed to Moses (A) that the horseman had stolen the bag of money from the father of the boy (who had found the bag of money left behind at the fountain by the horseman.) In this way the property was returned to the rightful owner. The blind man had previously killed the father of the horseman and therefore the horseman at the end punished the killer of his father.”6
This is how Allah’s justice and wisdom works, even though it may look some how far from the conventional rules.
3. Prophethood
When Almighty Allah created man, He wished him happiness and prosperity in this world, and felicity and paradise for the hereafter. And this cannot be achieved unless mankind has a programme that coincides with his mind and nature, and a course that is in harmony with his body and soul.
And such a comprehensive programme that addresses all the requirements of the mind and nature, and the complete course that attends to the entire needs of the body and soul may not be perfected except by the creator of man who is well aware and knowledgeable of all his needs and requirements.
And since Almighty Allah wished happiness for man when He created him, it is necessary for Him to perfect this comprehensive programme to bring about happiness to him, and to send this programme to the masses by those of his creation and servants who are trustworthy, who are immune to error, negligence and forgetting, purified from deficiencies and sins – who are none other than the prophets and messengers, peace be upon them. Thus, a prophet is the human being whom Almighty Allah reveals to. And so a prophet conveys from Almighty Allah without the 5 Needless to say many cases of poverty, disease, and suchlike are due to mankind’s inappropriate dealing and management.
intermediary of any human being. The prophets are of two kinds of status:
(1) The Mursal Prophets
The mursal or dispatched prophets were those who were commissioned to guide people out of darkness to light, out of falsehood to the truth, from myths and superstition to reality, and out of ignorance to knowledge.
(2) The non-mursal Prophets
They were those prophets who received divine revelations for themselves only and they had not received orders to preach such revelations to people.
In total there were one hundred and twenty four thousand prophets but the mursal prophets among them were just a few. The first of the prophets was Prophet Adam (A) and the last of them was Prophet Muhammad (S).
The mursal prophets are in two categories,
- Olul-Azm prophets,
- non-Olul-Azm prophets.
The Olul-Azm prophets are universal prophets whom Almighty Allah had sent to the east and west of the Earth, and to the whole of mankind. The non-Olul-Azm prophets are those who have been sent to limited areas, or specific territories, particular groups or nations.
The Olul-Azm prophets are five:
i. Noah, (Nuh}) peace be upon him, ii. Abraham, (Ibra>him) peace be upon him, iii. Moses, (Mosa>) peace be upon him, iv. Jesus, (Esa>) peace be upon him, v. Muhammad, peace be upon him and his pure progeny.
6 Bihhar al-Anwar, vol. 61, p117.
The followers of Moses (A) are the Jews, and the followers of Jesus (A) are the Christians, and the followers of Muhammad (S) are the Muslims. However, Islam has abrogated and superseded all the previous religions, and therefore one may not persist on them, and it is imperative upon all to follow the Teachings of Islam, as Almighty Allah says:
.Whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers.7 Therefore Judaism and Christianity are false and Islam remains the Law of Allah until the Day of Judgment and will never be abrogated or superseded.
The Final Prophet
Therefore, Prophet Muhammad (S) is the last of all prophets, and the religion revealed to him, which is Islam, abrogates other religions and supersede them all, and that his Law – the shari’ah – remains effective and valid until the Day of Judgment, and it alone is the law capable to bring happiness to mankind, and realise his hopes and dreams in this world and in the hereafter.
Similarly he – the prophet Muhammad – is the symbol of leadership for mankind and the perfect example and complete model for the essence of the good and the virtue. Therefore it is imperative upon all the Muslims – rather all the peoples of the world if they wished good for themselves – to follow his model in his way of life, and adopt his morals and ethics, peace be upon him and his pure progeny. In order to know some of his historical background, it is necessary to mention some of his traits8:
7 The Holy Qur’an; The Family of ‘Emran (3): 85 8 For more details see the books “for the first time in the history of the world”, vols. 1-2, “a scented bouquet of the life of the seal of the prophets”, “the He is Muhammad the son of Abdullah, and his mother is Aminah bint Wahab.
He was born in Mecca at the dawn of Friday on the seventeenth day of the month of Rabi’-I in the year of the Elephant9, and that was during the reign of Khosrau I or Chosroes I (also known as Anushirwan the Just in Persian), the Just King of Persia.
The Noble Prophetic Mission
He received divine revelation on the twenty-seventh day of the month of Rajab at the age of forty. Archangel Gabriel, peace be upon him, one of Almighty Allah’s elite angels, descended upon him while he was in cave H{ara>’ in the Meccan mountains, and revealed to him five verses from the surah of ‘alaq:
.In the name of Allah, the Beneficent the Merciful, Read in the Name of your Lord who created, Created man from a clot (of congealed blood), Read, and your Lord is most bountiful, Who taught by the pen, Taught man that that he knew not.10.
After that, from mount S{afa>, from within the Grand Mosque11, and from other public places the Prophet Muhammad began preaching the divine message to the people, guiding them to Almighty Allah, perfumed way of life”, and “Muhammad and the Qur’an” by the late Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Shirazi.
9 The year of the Elephant, circa 570 CE, is in reference to the year when Abrahah, king of the Yemen, decided to invade Mecca and demolish the Ka’bah in a bid to pave the way for making his capital city the centre for trade and the focal point for religious festivities. This episode is referred to in the holy Qur’an in the surah of the Elephant, #105.
10 On various occasions the entire content of the Qur’an was revealed to the Messenger of Allah – .We brought it down on the night of Qadr. – and thenceforth, in a gradual process particular verses, ayahayat, were revealed on the occasions of various events. The occasion of this revelation was the first instance of the ‘official’ or ‘public’ revelation of the Holy Qur’an. Editor. 11 The Grand Mosque is that that houses the Ka’bah.
and inviting them to believe in Him, saying to them “O people! Say la ila>ha illal-la>h – there is no god but Allah – you will prosper”.12
The Meccans were polytheists and idolaters, and as their leaders had personal interests in polytheism and idolatry, and in order to protect their interest they opposed him, they began mocking him and ridiculing him, and caused him great sufferings, and as the prophet persisted on his attempts to guide them the polytheists persisted on causing him greater and greater hardship and hurt him to the extent that he said, “No other prophet was hurt as much as I have been hurt.”13
Only a few people from Mecca accepted his Divine message and the first among them was Imam Ali (A) and then the Prophet’s wife, Khadijah (A) and then a few others.
The first to believe in him amongst the men was Ali ibn Abu T{a>lib, peace be upon them, and from amongst the women was Khadijah bint Khoweilid peace be upon her.
When the prophet’s persecution at the hands of the polytheists mounted, the prophet migrated to the Medinah, and this migration is marks the starting point of Muslim calendar.14
In Medinah the number of Muslims increased, and their strength and valour augmented, and by the grace of the prophet’s outstanding and beautiful teachings and the wise and generous laws of Islam, they became a model of moral and human values, and an example for progress and civilisation such that they exceeded and excelled all other civilisations and religions – the divine ones and the non-divine.
12 Manaqib Al Abi T{alib, by ibn Shahr Ashoub, vol. 1, p56. 13 Kashf al-Ghummah, by Ali ibn Esa al-Erbeli, vol. 2, p537 14 The lunar calendar used by the Muslims. The word hijri is in reference to the hijrah or migration of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, which was about 621CE.
During his abode in Medina, the Prophet (S) faced wars and conflicts all of which were defensive wars in a bid to repel the aggressions of the polytheists, Jews and Christians against the Muslims. In all of those conflicts the Prophet would always adopt the policy of peace, mercy, forgiveness, and moral virtues with his enemies. Therefore in all of the some eighty such conflicts [that took place] the total number of casualties on both sides – the Muslims and their opponents – was not more than fourteen hundred, as recorded by history.
The Sorrowful Demise
From the first day of his divine mission until his death, the divine revelation always supported him. Archangel Gabriel, peace be upon him, the Trustee of the revelations, used to reveal the Qur’an from Almighty Allah bit by bit on various occasions until [the revelation of] this great book was complete [for the people] in twenty-three years. He then ordered for this book to be compiled and collated, and thus it was compiled and ordered during his lifetime, peace be upon him and his pure progeny, just as it is today without any addition or deletion.
Indeed, the Prophet used to formulate and organise the religious and worldly affairs of the Muslims; he used to teach them the Divine Book and wisdom, he used to show them the laws of worship and obedience, business and transaction, social coexistence, politics, economics, and various other issues from amongst the teachings of Islam.
After the perfection of the religion, which was by appointing Ali ibn Abi T{a>lib as the Commander of the Believers (Amir al- Mo’mineen) and the Leader of the Pious (Imam al-Muttaqeen) and the (caliph) Successor to the Prophet, which took place on the Day of Ghadir on the eighteenth day of the month of Dhil-H{ijjah of the year of the Farewell Hajj, and the Almighty Allah revealed .Today I have perfected your religion for you, completed My grace upon you and approved Islam as a religion for you.15, Allah’s Messenger (S) suddenly fell seriously ill and died as a result of this particular illness on the twenty-eighth day of the month of S{afar, year 11 Hijri.
The prophet’s was } i (executor of his will and the teachings revealed to him) and caliph (successor) Imam Ali (A) undertook the task of preparing the Prophet’s body for burial, and buried him in his house, in the holy city of Medinah where his holy shrine stands today.
Allah’s Messenger (S), in all his states and in every situation was an exemplary model and an example of the highest merit in trust and sincerity, truthfulness and honesty, high morals and noble disposition, knowledge and forbearance, kindness and forgiving, generosity and bravery, abstinence and piety, modesty and virtue, justice, humbleness and striving.
His body and physique was in the best and most beautiful shape possible with total balance and excellence, and his face was bright, radiant and attractive. Similarly, his heart and high spirit was in the peak of spiritual perfection, his morals and etiquettes were most perfect they could possibly be, and his way of life, conduct, teachings, and practices were luminous and bright like a shining sun in the middle of the day.
In short, he was the collection of all excellence and noble traits, the focal point of honour and dignity, source of knowledge and justice, and piety and virtue. He was the axis of religion and civilization, the world and the hereafter. There has never been a man like him before, and there will never come anyone like him in the future.
This is the Prophet of the Muslims, and this is the religion of Islam . . . his religion is the best of all religions, and his book is the best of all books, just as the Almighty said, .Falsehood shall not come 15 The holy Qur’an, The Table Spread (5): 3.
to it from before it nor from behind it; a revelation from the Wise, the Praised One.16.
Hadith from Allah’s Messenger
‘The example of my Ahl al-Bayt is that of Noah’s ark; whoever boards it is saved and whoever turns away from it drowns.’ ‘O people! I have left behind for you that which if you adhere to, you will never go astray: the Book of Allah (i.e. the Qur’an) and members of my Ahl al-Bayt . . .’
‘Indeed, He who dies with the love of Al-Muhammad (the descendants of Muhammad) in his heart, he dies a martyr, Indeed He who dies with the love of Al-Muhammad in his heart, he dies and his sins are forgiven, Indeed, He who dies with the love of Al-Muhammad in his heart, he dies as a repentant, Indeed, He who dies with the love of Al-Muhammad in his heart, he dies as a faithful whose faith has been perfected, Indeed, He who dies, with the love of Al-Muhammad in his heart, the angel of death, as well as Munkar and Nakir17 give him the good news of Paradise,
Indeed, He who dies, with the love of Al-Muhammad in his heart, he is received in Paradise just as a bride is received in her (new) house.’
‘Cursed is he who burdens others with his responsibilities and lives off them.’
‘On the Day of Judgement, one will not move one step unless he is questioned about four things:
About his life and what he spent it on, About his youth and what he used it for, About what he earned, where he earned it from, and how he spent it, 16 The holy Qur’an, (41): 42. 17 They are the angels of the grave.
About the love of us, the Ahl-ul-Bayt’.
‘My Lord has recommended nine things to me:
Sincerity in private and in public,
Justice and equity in contentment and in anger,
Moderation in poverty and in wealth,
To forgive he who transgressed against and oppressed me,
To give to he who deprived me,
To keep bond with he who severed ties with me,
To contemplate when I am silent,
To say dhikr, [remember Allah and adhere to His laws, orders and creations] when I talk,
To take heed and learn when I observe.’
‘O Aba Dharr! Value five things before five others:
Value your youth before your old age,
Value your health before your sickness,
Value your wealth before your poverty,
Value your calm (time) before your hectic (time),
Value your life before your death.’
‘O servants of Allah! You are like the patients and the Lord of the worlds is like the physician. The interest of the patient lies in (implementing) what the physician knows and administers, and not in what the patient desires or suggests. Therefore obey the command of Allah so that you would be amongst the victors.’
‘O Muslim people! Avoid adultery at all cost! For it has six features; three of which are applicable to this world and three to the hereafter. As for those of this world, it (adultery) destroys dignity, brings about poverty, and shortens the life span. And as for those of the hereafter, it brings about the wrath and anger of Allah, severity and graveness of judgement, and eternity and perpetuity in the hell fire.’
‘Whoever from you observes something evil (in society) must change it physically; if he is not able, then he must object to it verbally, and if that is not possible, he must object to it by his heart, (he must not remain indifferent) for this is the lowest status of faith.’
‘He who drinks alcohol is similar to he who worships an idol. He who drinks alcohol, Allah would not accept his prayers for forty days, and if he dies within those forty days, he would have died an infidel.’
‘The looking (of a man at a woman and vice versa) is a poisonous arrow from Satan’s arrows. He who avoids it in fear of Almighty Allah, Allah would bestow upon him a faith the wetness of which he can find in his heart.’