Iman is faith, and the interesting question is: faith in what? Most Sunni creeds consider faith to include belief in God, angels, his Books, his Messengers, the day of judgment, and destiny. The Shi‘i would add accepting the special status of the Family of the House— that is, Muhammad’s descendants through ‘Ali and Fatima. The Book is quite clear on the difference between saying one believes and actually believing: “The desert Arabs said, ‘We believe.’ Say, ‘You have not believed,’ but rather say, ‘We have submitted,’ for faith has not yet entered your hearts” (49:14). This brings out nicely the close links between islam (submission) and iman (faith). Submission is indeed a critical component of faith, even for those touched by prophethood: “Then, when they both had submitted, and he [Abraham] laid [his son] down on his forehead” (37:103). In some ways faith is easy to acquire since there are so many signs around us in nature and in the Qur’an itself that make a thoughtful person refl ect on their origins and design.
Those who do not appreciate these signs make more than an intellectual mistake: I shall turn away from My signs those who are unjustly proud upon the earth, and if they see the way of rectitude, they do not take it as a way, and if they see the way of error, they take it as a way; that is because they rejected Our signs and did not take suffi cient notice of them. (7:146) Faith is not just a refl ection of our thinking but also of our actions and character. Muslim theologians debated extensively the relationship between faith, actions, and sins. Are deeds required to establish faith? Not according to the Murji’ites, who argued that sin committed by one who has faith is no obstacle to remaining a Muslim. The Mu‘tazilites said that a believer who commits a major sin can no longer be considered either a believer but neither is she a disbeliever. They termed such a person a fasiq (transgressor), who is between the two stations of belief and unbelief, and represents someone who will remain eternally in hell. The Kharijites suggested that a Muslim who deliberately commits a sin becomes a disbeliever, and will remain forever in hell. But the position of most Sunnis is that a Muslim who has committed a sin is still a Muslim, not a disbeliever, although his faith is imperfect.
He will not remain forever in hell and we cannot infer from his actions that he is not a believer. After all, “Whoever does an atom’s weight of good shall see it” (99:7). An important school initiated by Abu Hanifa (d. 150/767) and provided with a solid intellectual foundation by al-Maturidi (d. 303/ 944) argued that even the worst sinner cannot be treated as an unbeliever; the decision as to whether she is really a believer should be left to God (9:106). The later Hanafi school, basing itself largely on the work of al-Maturidi, argued that iman or belief does not genuinely increase or decrease, unlike taqwah or piety which does fl uctuate. The Ash‘arites take the opposite view on iman, and they also argue that we are strictly limited in what we can work out by ourselves using reason alone. For the Maturidis, by contrast, we can even without religious instruction or revelation know that some things are just wrong. This has interesting implications for the fate of those who do not receive the message of Islam and then die. The Maturidis argue that how one ought to live is broadly so obvious that those who did not live appropriately will be sent to hell, despite their lack of revelation. The Ash‘arites would assign them elsewhere, since they cannot be blamed for their actions.
The Maturidi approach was strongly opposed by the Hanbalites, who cited hadith statements against the Murji’i hesitancy to defi ne belief. In particular, the Qur’anic idea of “judgment is God’s alone” (6:57, 12:40, 67) suggests that religious texts alone provide the answer to all such controversies. At the end of most accounts of iman which are sympathetic to the Murji’i perspective comes a political chapter, and this tends to argue for a quietist approach to an evil ruler. The Hanbali position is more revolutionary, often arguing that the believer does not owe allegiance to a sinful ruler if the latter can be classifi ed as kafi r (unbeliever); on the contrary, the Muslim may well have a duty of disobedience. The Hanafi , and so largely Murji’i, atmosphere of the Ottoman Empire was much better able to live with diversity than other Muslim regimes which insisted on the ruler being a certain sort of believer. If God is to decide on who is a believer or otherwise, and if he is going to wait until the individual dies before examining his heart, who are we to pronounce on the issue? Hanbalis, like the Kharijites, do point out that we can usually derive character from behavior. If the only thing of importance is the intention of the agent, then it would not matter whether those who pray are actually praying in the right direction or whether they are praying behind a just imam. One could abandon all ritual and good works if the only thing of signifi cance was intention (as some ridiculed the Murji’i doctrine, it would not matter if one bowed down in front of a shoe, provided that one had the right intention!), and there are many sayings of the Prophet and his Companions which emphasize the importance of correct action in any defi nition of being a Muslim. In this debate it is not obvious which protagonist is the more “rational” and which the more “traditional.” They each take themselves to be both reasonable and grounded in revelation.
Early Narratives of Mawlid and Prophetic Eternal Light
