Ummm, my first post! Why did I choose the name ‘Iman, Ihsan & Islam’ for my blog? Well the answer is quiet simple, Iman, Ihsan & Islam are three principles of Islamic faith you can’t have a whole picture of Islam and you can’t be following the perfect faith of Islam unless you fulfill the conditions of each.

Islam: comes from the root words; “peace”, “submission” and “whole”. You become whole by submitting to the oneness of God (Allah). Through being whole you are at peace.

Iman: has several meaning; “faith” “to learn”, “to fully observe one’s faith” or “to learn one’s faith”. The lexical meaning of Iman is affirmation of the tongue and confirmation in the heart.

Submission to the one God includes belief in the heart, profession by the tongue, and the body’s action towards consistent good deeds.

There are 6 articles of Iman in Islam and they are:

• To believe in God: this includes the oneness of God, and all his attributes
• To believe in the Unseen: There are things that hidden from us, that our minds can’t even conceptualize even the prophet (pbuh) had no knowledge of the unseen, let along him (pbuh) seeing the unseen.
• To believe in Revelation: we believe in the books that the prophets were sent with and we believe that the Qur’an is the last revelation from Allah sent to prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
• To believe in Prophethood: pretty self explanatory.
• To believe in the Day of Judgment: When every soul shall be questioned of its good/bad deeds and its conduct on earth. Depending on what the soul had achieved the soul will either be taken to hell or paradise by the mercy of God.
• To believe in the Divine Decree (destiny): We believe that God has full knowledge and control over all that occurs and there are several verses in the Qur’an that explain this matter. All that has been decreed by God is written in al-Lawh al-Mahfuz (the preserved tablet), everything in the world whether good or evil that occurs has been preordained by God and nothing happens except being permitted by the will of God. This is not to suggest a lack of presences of God’s indignation against evil, because every evil that occurs is a benefit for us that we may not be able to see. However, this is not to suggest that human beings do not have free will, in fact we do have free will; in that we choose between right and wrong, and thus we are responsible for out actions.

Iman is further broke down into 77 branches (which we will insha’allah look at some other time).

Ihsan: means “perfection”, “excellence”. In Islam Ihsan is to obtain excellence and perfection in our worship of God which will transform into perfection in our daily lives by adhering to the law and Sunnah of Allah and prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

Ihsan is to worship Allah has if we see him and if we can’t see him than he surely sees us, constantly over watching us.

The three principles of Islamic faith: Islam emphases on what one should d, Iman why one should do what he does and the concept of Ihsan is primarily associated with intention. A person can only achieve true Ihsan with the guidance of Allah who governs all things.