The first pillar of Iman establishes the baseline belief in Islam: the belief in God.
This belief in God is made up of four parts. First, we believe He exists. Once we have that established, we believe He is One in His Lordship, One His Right to be worshiped alone, without any partners, and One in His Names and His Attributes. It’s very simple, really, but given all the idol worship in our collective human history, it seems like we sometimes get the wrong idea about God, decide on strange methods of worship and all.
As the Creator, God knows this about us, knows that we’ll get it wrong, or not get it at all, and so out of His Mercy—and One of His Blessed Names in Arabic is “Ar Rahman,” the Most Merciful One—we believe He gifted us prophets and messengers to remind us of Him, teach us how to worship Him, and receive and relay messages from Him.
This is the second pillar of Iman: the belief in the prophets and messengers, may the peace of God be upon them all.
Who are these prophets and messengers, and what does this belief entail? Read on: you might be surprised… Continue reading “Six Pillars: 2”