The prophet (ﷺ) said: “Faith consists of sixty to seventy odd branches, the best of which is to declare there is no God but Allah and the least of which is to remove something harmful from the road, and modesty is a branch of faith.” [Bukhari]
Imam al Bayhaqi (a renowned scholar of hadith) compiled a list of 77 branches of imane – let us explore this list.
We must first distinguish between a Muslim and a believer. Imane is more inclusive than Islam; so every believer is a Muslim, but not every Muslim is a believer. Imane is more specific with regards to its people. It is broken down as:
Speech of the tongue, belief of the heart, and action of the limbs. It increases with obedience, and it decreases through sin.
1. Belief in Allah: This is the core of true imane – to testify that there is no entity worthy of worship except Allah. This is done through speech, belief in the heart and actions – without these, one is not a true believer.
“Indeed this, your religion, is one religion, and I am your Lord (Allah), so worship Me.” 21:92
2. To believe that everything other than ALLAH was non-existent. Thereafter, Allah created these things and subsequently they came into existence: A true believer understands that the universe was not always here. It did not form itself. It was not a matter of chance that everything fell into place. It was designed and curated in every slight detail by Allah the almighty.
“And [in] the alternation of night and day and [in] what Allah sends down from the sky of provision and gives life thereby to the earth after its lifelessness and [in His] directing of the winds are signs for a people who reason.” 45:5
“It is Allah who made for you the earth a place of settlement and the sky a ceiling and formed you and perfected your forms and provided you with good things. That is Allah, your Lord; then blessed is Allah, Lord of the worlds.” 40:64
3. To believe in the existence of angels (Mala’ikah): True believers believe in the existence of angels; not as they are portrayed in modern society, but as a creation of Allah that do not have the free will that humans and jinn possess. They follow the commands of Allah without their own will.
4. To believe that the books sent to the prophets were true. However all the books are now invalid apart from the Qur’an: The various holy books sent by Allah to His prophets throughout history were valid in their time. They came with the same message as the Qur’an, but through the times they were slowly changed through various methods by the corrupted people until the basis of the word of Allah was no longer there. The Qur’an is the last remaining unchanged word of Allah.
5. To believe that all the prophets are true, but as the prophet Muhammad’s (ﷺ) ummah we are commanded to follow him alone: Allah Himself does not compare between His prophets. They were all His beloved creations who were sent with the same core message to the people which is to worship none other than Allah. We as believers must understand that they were all true prophets of Allah; we take lessons from their stories mentioned in the Qur’an but as an ummah we must follow the teachings of His last prophet Muhammad (ﷺ).
“The Messenger has believed in what was revealed to him from his Lord, and [so have] the believers. All of them have believed in Allah and His angels and His books and His messengers, [saying], “We make no distinction between any of His messengers.” And they say, “We hear and we obey. [We seek] Your forgiveness, our Lord, and to You is the [final] destination.” 2:285
“And verily, We have sent among every Ummah (community, nation) a Messenger (proclaiming): “Worship Allah (Alone), and avoid (or keep away from) all false deities” Then of them were some whom Allah guided and of them were some upon whom the straying justified. So travel through the land and see what the end of those who denied (the truth) was.” 16:36
Allah knows best.