islam

the hierarchical structure of the Islamic-2

2008-03-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

When one thinks of the term “Islam” as used in the English
language to denote the whole tradition, one must think
not only of islām , but also of īmān and i .h sān . The teachings
of Islam have levels of meaning, and the religion consists of
a hierarchy that, destined to become the religion of a large
portion of humanity, had to accommodate the spiritual and
intellectual needs of the simplest peasant and the most astute
philosopher, the warrior and the lover, the jurist and the
mystic. Islam achieved this goal by making the teachings of
religion accessible on various levels from the most outward
to the most inward. But it preserved unity by insisting that
all of the members of its community share in the Sacred
Law and the central doctrine of al-taw .h īd summarized in
“ Lā ilāha illa’Llāh .” Their degree of penetration into the
meaning of Unity depended and continues to depend on the
intensity of their faith and the beauty of their soul. But in
submission to the One (al-islām) , all Muslims stand in the same manner
before God in a single community governed by the bonds of
brotherhood and sisterhood as well as amity. Paradoxically,
the multiple inner dimensions of the religion do not destroy
this unity, but in fact only strengthen it, because these inner
and higher modes of participation in the religion bring worshipers
ever closer to the One. Unity is thereby strengthened,
even in the more outward aspects of human life that all Muslims
share, whatever their degree of participation might be
in the understanding and practice of Islam.

the hierarchical structure of the Islamic-1

2008-03-24T13:27:00.000-07:00

Islām, Īmān, I . hsān
To understand the hierarchical structure of the Islamic
tradition better, we turn to the terms islām, īmān , and i .h sān ,
all of which are used in the text of the Quran and the .H adīth .
The fi rst means “surrender,” the second, “faith,” and the
third, “virtue” or “beauty.” All those who accept the Quranic
revelation and surrender themselves to God are muslim; that
is, they possess islām . Those who with intense faith in God
and the hereafter are often referred to in the Quran as
mu’min , that is, persons possessing faith, or īmān . Not every
muslim is mu’min , and to this day in the Islamic world this
distinction is kept clearly in mind. Those whom the Quran
calls mu .h sin are those who possess i .h sān , which, as mentioned
already, implies a high level of spiritual perfection,
the attainment of which allows human beings to live constantly
with the awareness of being in God’s presence; i .h sān is none other than that spiritual
teaching that has been preserved, transmitted, and promulgated
in Sufi sm.
A famous .h adīth known as the .h adīth of Gabriel gives a
defi nition of all these terms. The .h adīth , as transmitted by
‘Umar, is as follows:
One day when we were sitting with the Messenger of God
there came unto us a man whose clothes were of exceeding
whiteness and whose hair was of exceeding blackness;
nor were there any signs of travel upon him, although
none of us knew him. He sat down knee unto knee opposite
the Prophet, upon whose thighs he placed the palms
of his hands saying: “O Mu .h ammad, tell me what is the
surrender (islām).” The Messenger of God answered him
saying: “The surrender is to testify that there is no god but
God and that Mu .h ammad is God’s Messenger, to perform
the prayer, bestow the alms, fast Rama .d ān and make, if
thou canst, the pilgrimage to the Holy House.” He said:
“Thou hast spoken truly,” and we were amazed that, having
questioned him, he should corroborate him. Then he
said: “Tell me what is faith (īmān).” He answered: “To
believe in God and His Angels and His Books and His
Messengers and the Last Day, and to believe that no good
or evil cometh but by His Providence.” “Thou hast spoken
truly,” he said, and then: “Tell me what is excellence
(ih. sān).” H e answered: “To worship God as if thou sawest
Him, for if thou seest Him not, yet seeth He thee.” “Thou
hast spoken truly,” he said, and then: “Tell me of the
Hour.” He answered: “The questioned thereof knoweth
no better than the questioner.” He said: “Then tell me of
its signs.” He answered: “That the slave-girl shall give
birth to her mistress; and that those who were but barefoot
naked needy herdsmen shall build buildings ever higher
and higher.” Then the stranger went away, and I stayed a
while after he had gone; and the Prophet said to me: “O
‘Umar, knowest thou the questioner, who he was?” I said:
“God and His Messenger know best.” He said: “It was
Gabriel. He came unto you to teach you your religion .” 9

Islamic philosophical

2008-03-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

Islam is based on the Absolute, Allah, and not on the
messenger. Yet the love of the Prophet lies at the heart of
Islamic piety, for human beings can love God only if God
loves them, and God loves only the person who loves His
Prophet. The Quran itself orders human beings to venerate
the Prophet. In Muslim eyes, the love and respect for the Prophet
are inseparable from the love for the Word of God, for the
Quran, and of course ultimately for God Himself. There is
something of the soul of the Prophet present in the Quran,
and in a famous saying uttered before his death, the Prophet
asserted that he was leaving two precious heritages behind
for his community, the Quran and his family, both of which
represent his continued presence in the Islamic community
In Sufism and many schools of Islamic philosophical
thought, the inner reality of the Prophet, the “Muh.ammadan
Reality” (al- .H aqīqat al-mu .h ammadiyyah) , is identifi ed with
the Logos, God’s fi rst creation, which is the ontological principle
of creation as well as the archetype of all prophecy.
Sufi s assert that the inner reality of the Prophet was the fi rst
link in the prophetic chain and that his outward and historical reality
came at the end of the prophetic cycle to bring it to a
close. It was in reference to this inner reality that the Prophet
asserted, “I was a prophet when Adam was between water
and clay.”

the quran -4

2008-03-24T13:05:00.001-07:00

The text of the Quran consists of 114 chapters (sūrahs)
divided into the Meccan and the Medinan, that is, those
revealed to the Prophet when he was in Mecca and those
after he migrated to Medina. The very fi rst verses revealed
are those of the chapter entitled “Bloodclot” (al-‘Alaq) ,
which open chapter 96 of the Quran .

the quran -3

2008-03-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

The Quran was at fi rst an aural revelation before becoming
written in book form. The Prophet fi rst heard the Word
of God and then uttered it to his companions, who memorized
the verses and wrote them on parchments, camel
bones, and skins. According to the Islamic tradition, the
Prophet was unlettered (al-ummī) , which on the highest level
means that his soul was pure and virginal, undefi led by
human knowledge and worthy of receiving the Divine Word.
When the archangel Gabriel fi rst appeared to the Prophet,
the sound of the first verse of the Quran reverberated
throughout the space around him. This aspect of the reality
of the Quran remains very much alive to this day. Not only
is the Quran a book written often in the most beautiful calligraphy
and read throughout one’s life, but it is also a world
of sacred sound heard constantly in Islamic cities and towns. Its sounds reverberate throughout the spaces
within which men and women move and act in their
everyday lives, and there are many who have memorized the
text and recite it constantly without reference to the written
word. The art of chanting the Quran, which goes back to the
Prophet, is the supreme acoustic sacred art of Islam and
moves devout Muslims to tears whether they are Arabs or
Malays.

the quran -2

2008-03-24T12:58:00.001-07:00

The name of the sacred scripture of Islam by which it has
become famous, especially in the West, is the Quran, or
Koran, from the Arabic al-Qur’ān , which means “The Recitation.”
But the sacred text has many other names, each
referring to an aspect of it. It is also known as al-Furqān ,
“The Discernment,” for it contains the principles for both
intellectual and moral discernment. Another of its wellknown
names is Umm al-kitāb , “The Mother Book,” for it is
the ultimate source of all knowledge and the prototype of
the “book” as container of knowledge. It is also known as
al-Hudā , “The Guide,” for it is the supreme guide for people’s
journey through life. In traditional Islamic languages,
it is usually referred to as the Noble Quran (al-Qur’ān almajīd
or al-karīm) and is treated with the utmost respect as
a sacred reality that surrounds and defi nes the life of Muslims
from the cradle to the grave. The verses of the Quran
are the very fi rst sounds heard by the newborn child and the
last the dying person hears on his or her way to the encounter
with God.
In a sense, the soul of the Muslim is woven of verses and
expressions drawn from the Quran. Such expressions as
inshā’ Allāh , “If God wills,” al -.h amdu li’Llāh , “Thanks be
to God,” and bismi’Llāh , “In the Name of God,” all used by
Arab as well as non-Arab Muslims alike, punctuate the
whole of life and determine the texture of the soul of the Muslim. Every legitimate
action begins with a bismi’Llāh and ends with an al-
.h
amdu li’Llāh , while the attitude toward the future is always
conditioned by the awareness of inshā’ Allāh , for all depends
on the Divine Will. These and many other formulas drawn
from the Quran determine the attitude toward the past, the
present, and the future and cover the whole of life. The daily
prayers that punctuate the Muslim’s entire life, from the age
of puberty until death, are constituted of verses and chapters
from the Quran, while Islamic Law has its root in the sacred
text. Likewise, all branches of knowledge that can be legitimately
called Islamic have their root in the Quran, which
has served over the centuries as both the fountainhead and
the guiding principle for the whole of the Islamic intellectual
tradition.

the quran -1

2008-03-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

The Quran is the central theophany of Islam, the verbatim
Word of God revealed to the Prophet by the archangel
Gabriel and transmitted by him in turn to his companions,
who both memorized and recorded it. It was later assembled
in its present order under the instruction of the Prophet and
written down in several manuscripts. During the caliphate
of ‘Uthmān a few years after the death of the Prophet, the
defi nitive text was copied in several examples and sent to the four corners
of the newly established Islamic world. There exists only
one version of the text of the Quran, one that is agreed on by
all schools of Islam, a text considered to be sacred in its
entirety, not only in meaning but also in form.

Islam is a religion and a civilization

2008-03-24T12:52:00.001-07:00

Islam is both a religion and a civilization, a historical
reality that spans over fourteen centuries of human history
and a geographical presence in vast areas stretching over the
Asian and African continents and even parts of Europe. It is
also a spiritual and metahistorical reality that has transformed
the inner and outer life of numerous human beings
in very different temporal and spatial circumstances. Today
over 1.2 billion people from different racial and cultural
backgrounds are Muslim, and historically Islam has played
a signifi cant role in the development of certain aspects of
other civilizations, especially Western civilization.

Islam and Contraception

2008-03-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

Islam and Contraception
Contraceptives are generally allowed in Islam as long as they only prevent the fertilization
of the egg. Destruction of an already fertilized egg crosses the line. Therefore,
abortion pills and such have been declared forbidden by modern Islamic scholars.
The entire process after fertilization is considered sacrosanct, as the following passage
from the Qur’an illustrates:
“O People! If you have any doubts about the
Resurrection, [consider] that We created you out
of dust, then out of sperm, then out of a clinging
thing, then out of a morsel of flesh—partly
formed and partly unformed—in order that We
may make clear [Our Power] to you. We cause
whom We will to rest in the womb for an appointed
term then We bring you out as babies
then [foster you] so you can reach your age of
full strength. Some of you are called to die early
and some are sent back to the feeblest old age
so that you know nothing after having known
[much].” (Qur’an 22:5)