ISLAMIC BELIEF(Al-'Aqida)

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ISLAMIC BELIEF(Al-'Aqidah)

by Imam Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi (239-321 AH)

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Preface
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

Imam Tahawi's al-'Aqidah, representative of the viewpoint of ahl-al-
Sunnah wa-al-Jama'a, has long been the most widely acclaimed, and indeed 
indispensable, reference work on Muslim beliefs, of which this is an edited 
English translation .

Imam Abu Ja'far Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Salamah bin Salmah bin 'Abd al Malik 
bin Salmah bin Sulaim bin Sulaiman bin Jawab Azdi, popularly known as Imam 
Tahawi, after his birth-place in Egypt, is among the most outstanding 
authorities of the Islamic world on Hadith and fiqh (jurisprudence). He lived 
239-321 A.H., an epoch when both the direct and indirect disciples of the four 
Imams- Imam Abu Hanifah, Imam Malik, Imam Shafi'i and Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal - 
were teaching and practicing. This period was the zenith of Hadith and fiqh 
studies, and Imam Tahawi studied with all the living authorities of the day. He 
began as a student of his maternal uncle, Isma'il bin Yahya Muzni. a leading 
disciple of Imam Shafi'i. Instinctively, however, Imam Tahawi felt drawn to 
the corpus of Imam Abu Hanifah's works. Indeed, he had seen his uncle and 
teacher turning to the works of Hanafi scholars to resolve thorny issues of 
Fiqh, drawing heavily on the writings of Imam Muhammad Ibn al-Hasan 
al-Shaybani and Imam Abu Yusuf, who had codified Hanafi fiqh. This led Imam 
Tahawi to devote his whole attention to studying the Hanafi works and he 
eventually joined the Hanafi school.

Imam Tahawi stands out not only as a prominent follower of the Hanafi 
school but, in view or his vast erudition and remarkable powers of assimilation, 
as one of its leading scholars. His monumental scholarly works, such as Sharh 
Ma'ani al-Athar and Mushkil al-Athar, are encyclopaedic in scope and have long 
been regarded as indispensable for training students of fiqh.

Al-'Aqidah, though small in size, is a basic text for all times, 
listing what a Muslim must know and believe and inwardly comprehend.

There is consensus among the Companions, Successors and all the leading 
Islamic authorities such as Imam Abu Hanifah, Imam Abu Yusuf, Imam Muhammad, 
Imam Malik, Imam Shafi'i and Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal on the doctrines enumerated 
in this work. For these doctrines shared by ahl-al-sunnah wa-al-Jama'ah owe 
their origin to the Holy Qur'an and consistent and confirmed Ahadith - the 
undisputed primary sources of Islam.

Being a text on the Islamic doctrines, this work draws heavily on the 
arguments set forth in the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah. Likewise, the arguments 
advanced in refuting the views of sects that have deviated from the Sunnah, are
also taken from the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah.

As regards the sects mentioned in this work, a study of Islamic history 
up to the time of Imam Tahawi would be quite helpful. References to sects such 
as Mu'tazilah, Jahmiyyah, Qadriyah, and Jabriyah are found in the work. 
Moreover, it contains allusions to the unorthodox and deviant views of the 
Shi'ah, Khawarij and such mystics as had departed from the right path. There 
is an explicit reference in the work to the nonsensical controversy on khalq-al
-Qu'ran in the times of Ma'mun and some other 'Abbasid Caliphs.

While the permanent relevance of the statements of belief in al-'Aqidah 
is obvious, the historical weight and point of certain of these statements can 
be properly appreciated only if the work is used as a text for study under the 
guidance of some learned Person able to elucidate its arguments fully, with 
reference to the intellectual and historical background of the sects refuted 
in the work. Such study helps one to better understand the Islamic doctrines 
and avoid the deviations of the past or the present.

May Allah grant us a true understanding of faith and include us with 
those to whom Allah refers as 'those who believe, fear Allah and do good 
deeds'; and 'he who fears Allah, endures affliction, then Allah will not 
waste the reward of well-doers.'
Iqbal Ahmad A'zami
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In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the Worlds.

The great scholar Hujjat al-lslam Abu Ja'far al-Warraq al-Tahawi 
al-Misri, may Allah have mercy on him, said: This is a presentation of the 
beliefs of ahl-al-Sunnah wa al-Jama'ah, according to the school of the jurists 
of this religion, Abu Hanifah an-Nu'man ibn Thabit al-Kufi, Abu Yusuf Ya'qub 
ibn Ibrahim al-Ansari and Abu 'Abdullah Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani, may 
Allah be pleased with them all, and what they believe regarding the fundamentals 
of the religion and their faith in the Lord of all the Worlds.

  »  We say about Allah's unity believing by Allah's help - that Allah is One, 
 without any partners.

  »   There is nothing like Him.

  »   There is nothing that can overwhelm Him.

  »   There is no god other than Him.

  »   He is the Eternal without a beginning and enduring without end.

  »   He will never perish or come to an end.

  »   Nothing happens except what He wills.

  »   No imagination can conceive of Him and no understanding can comprehend Him.

  »   He is different from any created being.

  »   He is living and never dies and is eternally active and never sleeps.

  »   He creates without His being in need to do so and provides for His creation 
 without any effort.

  »   He causes death with no fear and restores to life without difficulty.

  »   He has always existed together with His attributes since before creation. 
 Bringing creation into existence did not add anything to His attributes 
 that was not already there. As He was, together with His attributes, in 
 pre-eternity, so He will remain throughout endless time.

  »   It was not only after the act of creation that He could be described as 
 'the Creator' nor was it only by the act of origination that He could he 
 described as 'the Originator'.

  »   He was always the Lord even when there was nothing to be Lord of, and 
 always the Creator even when there was no creation.

  »   In the same way that He is the ' Bringer to life of the dead', after He has 
 brought them to life a first time, and deserves this name before 
 bringing them to life, so too He deserves the name of 'Creator' before He
 has created them.

  »   This is because He has the power to do everything, everything is dependent 
 on Him, everything is easy for Him, and He does not need anything. 
 'There is nothing like Him and He is the Clearer, the Seer'. (al-Shura 
 42:11)

  »   He created creation with His knowledge.

  »   He appointed destinies for those He created.

  »   He allotted to them fixed life spans.

  »   Nothing about them was hidden from Him before He created them, and He knew 
 everything that they would do before He created them.

  »   He ordered them to obey Him and forbade them to disobey Him.

  »   Everything happens according to His degree and will, and His will is 
 accomplished. The only will that people have is what He wills for them. 
 What He wills for them occurs and what He does not will, does not occur.

  »   He gives guidance to whoever He wills, and protects them, and keeps them 
 safe from harm, out of His generosity; and He leads astray whoever He 
 wills, and abases them, and afflicts them, out of His justice.

  »   All of them are subject to His will between either His generosity or His 
 justice.

  »   He is exalted beyond having opposites or equals.

  »   No one can ward off His decree or put back His command or overpower His 
 affairs.

  »   We believe in all of this and are certain that everything comes from Him.

  »   And we are certain that Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) 
 is His chosen servant and selected Prophet and His Messenger with whom 
 He is well pleased.

  »   And that he is the seal of the prophets and the Imam of the godfearing and 
 the most honoured of all the messengers and the beloved of the Lord of 
 all the Worlds.

  »   Every claim to prophethood after Him is falsehood and deceit.

  »   He is the one who has been sent to all the jinn and all mankind with truth 
 and guidance and with light and illumination.

  »   The Qur'an is the word of Allah. It came from Him as speech without it 
 being possible to say how. He sent it down on His Messenger as 
 revelation. The believers accept it, as absolute truth. They are certain 
 that it is, in truth, the word of Allah. It is not created, as is the 
 speech of human beings, and anyone who hears it and claims that it is 
 human speech has become an unbeliever. Allah warns him and censures him 
 and threatens him with Fire when He says, Exalted is He: 'I will burn 
 him in the Fire.' (al-Muddaththir 74: 26) When Allah threatens with the 
 Fire those who say 'This is just human speech' (al-Muddaththir 74: 25) 
 we know for certain that it is the speech of the Creator of mankind and 
 that it is totally unlike the speech of mankind.

  »   Anyone who describes Allah as being in any way the same as a human being 
 has become an unbeliever. All those who grasp this will take heed and 
 refrain from saying things such as the unbelievers say, and they will 
 know that He, in His attributes, is not like human beings.

  »   'The Seeing of Allah by the People of the Garden' is true, without their 
 vision being all-encompassing and without the manner of their vision 
 being known. As the Book of our Lord has expressed it: 'Faces on that 
 Day radiant, looking at their Lord'. (al-Qiyamah 75: 22-3) The explanation 
 of this is as Allah knows and wills. Everything that has come down to us 
 about this from the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, 
 in authentic traditions, is as he said and means what he intended. We do 
 not delve into that, trying to interpret it according to our own 
 opinions or letting our imaginations have free rein. No one is safe in 
 his religion unless he surrenders himself completely to Allah, the 
 Exalted and Glorified and to His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant 
 him peace, and leaves the knowledge of things that are ambiguous to the 
 one who knows them.

  »   A man's Islam is not secure unless it is based on submission and surrender. 
 Anyone who desires to know things which it is beyond his capacity to know, 
 and whose intellect is not content with surrender, will find that his 
 desire veils him from a pure understanding of Allah's true unity, clear 
 knowledge and correct belief. and that he veers between disbelief and 
 belief, confirmation and denial and acceptance and rejection. He will he 
 subject to whisperings and find himself confused and full of doubt, being 
 neither an accepting believer nor a denying rejecter.

  »   Belief of a man in the 'seeing of Allah by the people of the Garden 
 is not correct if he imagines what it is like, or interprets it according 
 to his own understanding since the interpretation of this seeing' or 
 indeed, the meaning of any of the subtle phenomena which are in the realm 
 of Lordship, is by avoiding its interpretation and strictly adhering to 
 the submission. 'This is the din of Muslims. Anyone who does not guard 
 himself against negating the attributes of Allah, or likening Allah to 
 something else, has gone astray and has failed to understand Allah's Glory,
 because our lord, the Glorified and the Exalted, can only possibly be 
 described in terms of Oneness and Absolute Singularity and no creation 
 is in any way like Him.

  »   He is beyond having limits placed on Him, or being restricted, or having 
 parts or limbs. Nor is He contained by the six directions as all created 
 things are.

  »   Al-Mi'raj (the Ascent through the heavens) is true. The Prophet, may Allah 
 bless him and grant him peace, was taken by night and ascended in his 
 bodily form, while awake, through the heavens, to whatever heights Allah 
 willed for him. Allah ennobled him in the way that He ennobled him and 
 revealed to him what He revealed to him, 'and his heart was not mistaken 
 about what it saw' (al-Najm 53:11). Allah blessed him and granted him 
 peace in this world and the next.

  »   Al-Hawd, (the Pool which Allah will grant the Prophet as an honour to 
 quench the thirst of His Ummah on the Day Of Judgement), is true.

  »   Al-Shifa'ah, (the intercession, which is stored up for Muslims), is true, 
 as related in the (consistent and confirmed) Ahadith.

  »   The covenant 'which Allah made with Adam and his offspring' is true.

  »   Allah knew, before the existence of time, the exact number of those who 
 would enter the Garden and the exact number of those who would enter the 
 Fire. This number will neither be increaser nor decreased.

  »   The same applies to all actions done by people, which are done exactly as 
 Allah knew they would be done. Everyone is cased to what he was created 
 for and it is the action with which a man's life is sealed which dictates 
 his fate. Those who are fortunate are fortunate by the decree of Allah, 
 and those who are wretched are wretched by the decree of Allah.

  »   The exact nature of the decree is Allah's secret in His creation, and no 
 angel near the Throne, nor Prophet sent with a message, has been given 
 knowledge of it. Delving into it and reflecting too much about it only 
 leads to destruction and loss, and results in rebelliousness. So be 
 extremely careful about thinking and reflecting on this matter or letting 
 doubts about it assail you, because Allah has kept knowledge of the 
 decree away from human beings, and forbidden them to enquire about it, 
 saying in His Book, 'He is not asked about what He does but they are 
 asked'. (al-Anbiya' 21: 23) So anyone who asks: 'Why did Allah do that?' 
 has gone against a judgement of the Book, and anyone who goes against a 
 judgement of the Book is an unbeliever.

  »   This in sum is what those of Allah's friends with enlightened hearts need 
 to know and constitutes the degree of those firmly endowed with 
 knowledge. For there are two kinds of knowledge: knowledge which is 
 accessible to created beings, and knowledge which is not accessible to 
 created beings. Denying the knowledge which is accessible is disbelief, 
 and claiming the knowledge which is inaccessible is disbelief. Belief 
 can only be firm when accessible knowledge is accepted and inaccessible 
 knowledge is not sought after.

  »   We believe in al-Lawh (the Tablet) and al-Qalam (the Pen) and in everything 
 written on it. Even if all created beings were to gather together to 
 make something fail to exist, whose existence Allah had written on the 
 Tablet, they would not be able to do so. And if all created beings were to 
 gather together to make something exist which Allah had not written on 
 it, they would not be able to do so. The Pen has dried having written 
 down all that will be in existence until the Day of Judgement. 
 Whatever a person has missed he would have never got it, and whatever one 
 gets, he would have never missed it.

  »   It is necessary for the servant to know that Allah already knows everything 
 that is going to happen in His creation and has decreed it in a 
 detailed and decisive way. There is nothing that He has created in 
 either the heavens or the earth that can contradict it, or add to it, or 
 erase it, or change it, or decrease it, or increase it in any way. This is 
 a fundamental aspect of belief and a necessary element of all knowledge 
 and recognition of Allah's oneness and Lordship. As Allah says in His 
 Book: 'He created everything and decreed it he a detailed way'. (al-Furqan 
 25: 2) And He also says: 'Allah's command is always a decided decree'. 
 (al-Ahzab 33: 38) So woe to anyone who argues with Allah concerning the 
 decree and who, with a sick heart, starts delving into this matter. In 
 his delusory attempt to investigate the Unseen, he is seeking a secret 
 that can never be uncovered, and he ends up an evil-doer, telling nothing 
 but lies.

  »   Al-'Arsh (the Throne) and al-Kursi (the Chair) are true.

  »   He is independent of the Throne and what is beneath it.

  »   He encompasses everything and is above it, and what He has created is 
 incapable of encompassing Him.

  »   We say with belief, acceptance and submission that Allah took Ibrahim as 
 an intimate friend and that He spoke directly to Musa.

  »   We believe in the angels, and the Prophets, and the books which were 
 revealed to the messengers, and we bear witness that they were all 
 following the manifest Truth.

  »   We call the people of our qiblah Muslims and believers as long as they 
 acknowledge what the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, 
 brought, and accept as true everything that he said and told us about.

  »   We do not enter into vain talk about Allah nor do we allow any dispute 
 about the religion Of Allah.

  »   We do not argue about the Qur'an and we bear witness that it is the speech 
 of the Lord of all the Worlds which the Trustworthy Spirit came down 
 with and taught the most honoured Of all the Messengers, Muhammad, may 
 Allah bless him and grant him peace. It is the speech of Allah and no 
 speech of any created being is comparable to it. We do not say that it was 
 created and we do not go against the Jama'ah of the Muslims regarding it.

  »   We do not consider any of the people of our qiblah to he unbelievers 
 because of any wrong action they have done, as long as they do not 
 consider that action to have been lawful.

  »   Nor do we say that the wrong action of a man who has belief does not have 
 a harmful effect on him.

  »   We hope that Allah will pardon the people of right action among the 
 believers and grant them entrance into the Garden through His mercy, but 
 we cannot be certain of this, and we cannot bear witness that it will 
 definitely happen and that they will be in the Garden. We ask forgiveness 
 for the people of wrong action among the believers and, although we are 
 afraid for them, we are not in despair about them.

  »   Certainty and despair both remove one from the religion, but the path 
 of truth for the people of the qiblah lies between the two (e.g. a 
 person must fear and be conscious of Allah's reckoning as well as be 
 hopeful of Allah's mercy).

  »   A person does not step out or belief except by disavowing what brought 
 him into it.

  »   Belief consists of affirmation lay the tongue and acceptance by the heart.

  »   And the whole of what is proven from the Prophet, upon him be peace, 
 regarding the Shari'ah and the explanation (of the Qur'an and of Islam) 
 is true.

  »   Belief is, at base, the same for everyone, but the superiority of some 
 over others in it is due to their fear and awareness of Allah, their 
 opposition to their desires, and their choosing what is more 
 pleasing to Allah.

  »   All the believers are 'friends' of Allah and the noblest of them in 
 the sight of Allah are those who are the most obedient and who most 
 closely follow the Qur'an.

  »   Belief consists of belief in Allah. His angels, His books, His messengers, 
 the Last Day, and belief that the Decree - both the good of it and the 
 evil of it, the sweet of it and the bitter or it - is all from Allah.

  »   We believe in all these things. We do not make any distinction between 
 any of the messengers, we accept as true what all of them brought.

  »   Those of the Urnmah of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, 
 who have committed grave sins will be in the Fire, but not forever, 
 provided they die and meet Allah as believers affirming His unity even 
 if they have not repented. They are subject to His will and judgement. If 
 He wants, He will forgive them and pardon them out of His generosity, as 
 is mentioned in the Qur'an when He says: 'And He forgives anything less 
 than that (shirk) to whoever He wills' (al-Nisa' 4: 116); and if He 
 wants, He will punish them in the Fire out of His justice and then bring 
 them out of the Fire through His mercy, and for the intercession of 
 those who were obedient to Him, and send them to the Garden. This is 
 because Allah is the Protector of those who recognize Him and will 
 not treat them in the Next World in the same way as He treats those who 
 deny Him and who are bereft of His guidance and have failed to obtain 
 His protection. O Allah, You are the Protector of Islam and its people; 
 make us firm in Islam until the day we meet You.

  »   We agree with doing the prayer behind any of the people of the qiblah 
 whether right-acting or wrong-acting, and doing the funeral prayer over 
 any of them when they die.

  »   We do not say that any of them will categorically go to either the Garden 
 or the Fire, and we do not accuse any of them of kufr (disbelief), shirk 
 (associating partners with Allah), or nifaq (hypocrisy), as long as they 
 have not openly demonstrated any of those things. We leave their secrets 
 to Allah.

  »   We do not agree with killing any of the Ummah of Muhammad, may Allah bless 
 him and grant him peace, unless it is obligatory by Shari'ah to do so.

  »   We do not recognize rebellion against our Imam or those in charge of our 
 affairs even if they are unjust, nor do we wish evil on them, nor do we 
 withdraw from following them. We hold that obedience to them is part of 
 obedience to Allah, The Glorified, and therefore obligatory as long 
 as they do not order to commit sins. We pray for them right guidance and 
 pardon from their wrongs.

  »   We follow the Sunnah of the Prophet and the Jama'ah of the Muslims, and 
 avoid deviation, differences and divisions.

  »   We love the people of justice and trustworthiness, and hate the people of 
 injustice and treachery.

  »   When our knowledge about something is unclear, we say: 'Allah knows best'.

  »   We agree with wiping over leather socks (in Wudu) whether on a journey or 
 otherwise, just as has come in the (consistent and confirmed) ahadith.

  »   Hajj and jihad under the leadership of those in charge of the Muslims, 
 whether they are right or wrong-acting, are continuing obligations until 
 the Last Hour comes. Nothing can annul or controvert them.

  »   We believe in Kiraman Katibin (the noble angels) who write down our 
 actions for Allah has appointed them over us as two guardians.

  »   We believe in the Angel of Death who is charged with taking the spirits 
 of all the worlds.

  »   We believe in the punishment in the grave for those who deserve it, and in 
 the questioning in the grave by Munkar and Nakir about one's Lord, one's 
 religion and one's prophet, as has come down in ahadith from the Messenger 
 of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and in reports from 
 the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them all.

  »   The grave is either one of the meadows of the Garden or one of the pits of 
 the Fire.

  »   We believe in being brought back to life after death and in being 
recompensed for our actions on the Day of Judgement, and al-'Ard, having 
 been shown them and al-Hisab, brought to account for them. And Qira'at 
 al-Kitab, reading the book, and the reward or punishments and in al-Sirat 
 (the Bridge) and al-Mizan (the Balance).

  »   The Garden and the Fire are created things that never come to an end and 
 we believe that Allah created them before the rest of creation and then 
 created people to inhabit each of them. Whoever He wills goes to the 
 Garden out of His Bounty and whoever He wills goes to the Fire through 
 His justice. Everybody acts in accordance with what is destined for him 
 and goes towards what he has been created for.

  »   Good and evil have both been decreed for people.

  »   The capability in terms of Tawfiq (Divine Grace and Favour) which makes an 
 action certain to occur cannot be ascribed to a created being. This 
 capability is integral with action, whereas the capability of an action 
 in terms of having the necessary health, and ability, being in a position 
 to act and having the necessary means, exists in a person before the 
 action. It is this type of capability which is the object of the 
 dictates of Shariah. Allah the Exalted says: 'Allah does not charge a 
 person except according to his ability'. (al-Baqarah 2: 286)

  »   People's actions are created by Allah but earned by people .

  »   Allah, the Exalted, has only charged people with what they are able to do 
 and people are only capable to do what Allah has favoured them. This is 
 the explanation of the phrase: 'There is no power and no strength except 
 by Allah.' We add to this that there is no stratagem or way by which 
 anyone can avoid or escape disobedience to Allah except with Allah's 
 help; nor does anyone have the strength to put obedience to Allah into 
 practice and remain firm in it, except if Allah makes it possible for 
 them to do so.

  »   Everything happens according to Allah's will, knowledge, predestination 
 and decree. His will overpowers all other wills and His decree overpowers 
 all stratagems. He does whatever He wills and He is never unjust. He is 
 exalted in His purity above any evil or perdition and He is perfect far 
 beyond any fault or flaw. 'He will not be asked about what He does but 
 they will he asked.' (al-Anbiya' 21: 23)

  »   There is benefit for dead people in the supplication and alms-giving of 
 the living.

  »   Allah responds to people's supplications and gives them what they ask for.

  »   Allah has absolute control over everything and nothing has any control 
 over Him. Nothing can be independent of Allah even for the blinking of 
 an eye, and whoever considers himself independent of Allah for the 
 blinking of an eye is guilty of unbelief and becomes one of the people of 
 perdition.

  »   Allah is angered and can be pleased but not in the same way as any creature.

  »   We love the Companions of the Messenger of Allah but we do not go to 
 excess in our love for any one individual among them nor do we disown 
 any one of them. We hate anyone who hates them or does not speak well of 
 them and we only speak well of them. Love of them is a part of Islam, part 
 of belief and part of excellent behavior, while hatred of them is 
 unbelief, hypocrisy and rebelliousness.

  »   We confirm that, after the death of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah 
 bless him and grant him peace, the caliphate went first to Abu Bakr 
 al-Siddiq, may Allah be pleased with him, thus proving his excellence and 
 superiority over the rest of the Muslims; then to 'Umar ibn alKhattab, 
 may Allah be pleased with him; then to 'Uthman, may Allah be pleased 
 with him; and then to 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, may Allah be pleased with him. 
 These are the Rightly-Guided Caliphs and upright leaders.

  »   We bear witness that the ten who were named by the Messenger of Allah, 
 may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and who were promised the Garden 
 by him, will be in the Garden, as the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless 
 him and grant him peace, whose word is truth, bore witness that they would 
 he. The ten are: Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthman, 'Ali, Talhah, Zubayr, Sa'd, 
 Sa'id, 'Abdur-Rahman ibn 'Awf and Abu 'Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah whose title 
 was the trustee of this Ummah, may Allah be pleased with all of them.

  »   Anyone who speaks well of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, may 
 Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his wives and offspring, who 
 are all pure and untainted by any impurity, is free from the accusation 
 of hypocrisy.

  »   The learned men of the first community and those who followed in their 
 footsteps - the people of virtue, the narrators of the Ahadith, the 
 jurists and analysts- they must only be spoken about in the best way and 
 anyone who says anything bad about them is not on the right path.

  »   We do not prefer any of the saintly men among the Ummah over any of the 
 Prophets but rather we say that any one of the Prophets is better than 
 all the awliya' put together.

  »   We believe in what we know of Karamat, the marvels of the awliya' and in 
 authentic stories about them from trustworthy sources.

  »   We believe in the signs of the Hour such as the appearance of the Dajjal 
 and the descent of 'Isa ibn Maryam, peace be upon him, from heaven and 
 we believe in the rising of the sun from where it sets and in the 
 emergence of the Beast from the earth.

  »   We do not accept as true what soothsayers and fortune-tellers say, nor 
 do we accept the claims of those who affirm anything which goes against 
 the Book, the Sunnah and the consensus of the Muslim Ummah.

  »   We agree that holding together is the true and right path and that 
 separation is deviation and torment.

  »   There is only one religion of Allah in the heavens and the earth and 
 that is the religion of Islam. Allah says: 'Surely religion in the sight 
 of Allah is Islam'. (Al'Imran 3:19) And He also says: 'I am pleased 
 with Islam as a religion for you'. (al-Matidah 5:3)

  »   Islam lies between going to excess and falling short, between Tashbih 
 (likening of Allah's attributes to anything else), and Tatil (denying 
 Allah's attributes), between fatalism and refusing decree as proceeding 
 from Allah and between certainty (without being conscious of Allah's 
 reckoning) and despair (of Allah's mercy).

  »   This is our religion and it is what we believe in, both inwardly and 
 outwardly, and we renounce any connection, before Allah, with anyone 
  who goes against what we have said and made clear.

We ask Allah to make us firm in our belief and seal our lives with 
it and to protect us from variant ideas, scattering opinions and evil 
schools of view such as those of the Mushabbihah, the Mu'tazilah, the 
Jahmiyyah the Jabriyah, the Qadriyah and others like them who go against 
the Sunnah and Jama'ah and have allied themselves with error. We renounce 
any connection with them and in our opinion they are in error and on the 
path of destruction.

We ask Allah to protect us from all falsehood and we ask His Grace 
and Favour to do all good.
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