Faith
Faith, linguistically, means belief, and idiomatically: saying with the tongue, believing with the jinn (the heart), and acting with the limbs (the limbs). Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal said: Faith is speech and action, it increases and decreases. Imam Al-Baghawi said: The Companions, the Followers, and the Sunni scholars after them agreed that actions are part of faith… and they said: Faith is speech, action, and belief. Oh, from the explanation of the Sunnah. Imam Al-Shafi’i said – as in explaining the foundations of Sunni belief -: The consensus among the Companions, and the followers after them from whom we have come to know: is that faith: speech, action, and intention, and one of the three is not sufficient for the other.
There is no difference between their saying: Faith is speech and action, or speech, action and intention, or speech, action and belief.
All of this is due to differences in diversity. Whoever among the predecessors said: Faith is speech and action, meant the words of the heart and tongue, and the action of the heart and limbs.
And whoever increases belief, sees that the wording of a statement can only be understood as the apparent statement, or fears that, then belief in the heart increases.
And whoever said: speech, action and intention, he said: speech covers: belief (the saying of the heart) and the saying of the tongue, and as for action, it may not be understood as intention (the action of the heart), so he added that.
The summary of the above regarding the truth of faith in legal terminology is that it is composed of words and actions, and words are of two types: the words of the heart, which is belief, and the words of the tongue, which is speaking the word of Islam (the Shahada). Work is of two types: the work of the heart, which is its intention and sincerity, and the work of the limbs.
If these four are removed, faith in its entirety is removed, and if belief in the heart is removed, the rest of the parts will not benefit, because belief in the heart is a condition for its belief and its being beneficial.
If the work of the heart disappears with the belief of truthfulness, then this is the subject of the battle between the Murji’ah and the Sunnis. The Sunnis are unanimously agreed that faith has disappeared, and that belief is of no use if the work of the heart, which is loving it and submitting to it, is not beneficial, just as it did not benefit Satan, Pharaoh, his people, the Jews, and the polytheists who They believed the Messenger was truthful, and even acknowledged it secretly and publicly, and said:He is not a liar, but we do not follow him, nor do we believe in him. See: Prayer and the ruling on one who abandons it, by Imam Ibn al-Qayyim.
Many texts from the Qur’an and Sunnah indicate that faith is speech, action and belief, some of which we will mention briefly, including: God Almighty’s saying: “And when faith enters into your hearts” [Al-Hujurat: 14], and God Almighty’s saying: “But God has endeared faith to you and has beautified it in your hearts.” [Chambers: 7], these two verses indicate thatFaith has its origin in the heart, and this includes the words and actions of the heart, and faith must have the words of the tongue. As evidenced by the words of the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace: I have been commanded to fight people until they bear witness that there is no god but God, and if they say it, their blood and their wealth will be protected from me, except by the right of Islam, and their reckoning will be with God Almighty. Narrated by Bukhari and Muslim. Imam Al-Nawawi said after this hadith: The Sunnis, including hadith scholars, jurists, and theologians, agreed that the believer who is judged to be one of the people of the Qiblah, and will not abide eternally in Hell, is only one who believes in his heart the religion of Islam firmly, free of doubts, and pronounces the two testimonies of faith. If he confines himself According to one of them, he was not from the people of the qiblah at all.
