A beginner's walk through the core beliefs of Islam, from who Allah is to what comes after death, the signs before the Last Day, and the everyday qualities the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, called branches of Imaan.
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Aqaaid means beliefs: the convictions that make someone a Muslim, distinct from fiqh, the practical law of how to worship. Getting a point of fiqh slightly wrong is a correctable mistake; getting aqaaid wrong, who Allah is, or what a Muslim believes about the Last Day, is a different order of problem, because these are the beliefs a person's whole relationship with Allah rests on. That is why this reading tracks its source closely wherever a belief is actually being stated, rather than retelling it loosely in our own words the way the library's other readings do. Wherever this reading numbers or lists a belief, that is the booklet's own statement of it; the prose framing each section is ours.
It adapts Basic Aqaaid (Beliefs of a Muslim), written by the late Moulana Ilyaas Ahmed Bayat for the Jamiatul Ulama (KZN) Ta'limi Board. The notes behind it were first taught on a two year course for newly Muslim reverts in Isipingo Beach, South Africa, before being compiled into a book for anyone starting out in Islam, so an adult revert reading it here is exactly the reader it was written for from the start.
It covers what every Muslim is asked to believe: Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, the angels, the books Allah revealed, the prophets, the Sahaabah, taqdeer, the Last Day and everything that follows it, and what takes a person out of Islam altogether. It then covers the signs that come before that Last Day, and closes with a list of more than seventy everyday qualities the source treats as branches of Imaan in their own right, from belief in Allah down to clearing a harmful object off the road.
Everything else in this reading rests on this section. The Kalimah is the sentence that opens the door to Islam, and the beliefs about Allah that follow it are the ones every other belief in this booklet assumes.
The Kalimah is the declaration that there is no god but Allah, and that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is His messenger. Every belief in this reading builds on it.
Most chapters of the booklet end with a short Arabic tag in the page margin; read in order, chapter by chapter, those tags spell out this formula, one clause at a time, as each topic in this reading is covered.
The booklet states these plainly, one after another. What follows tracks that list closely, because this is exactly the kind of statement where paraphrase risks changing what is actually being taught.
Bismillah and Surah al-Ikhlas, 112:1 to 4
The booklet closes this section with the short surah that sums all of it up, given here in its own translation.
In the name of Allah, the Kind, the Merciful. Say: He is Allah, the One. Allah, the Independent. He did not give birth, nor was He born. And there is none like Him.
Belief in Allah and belief in His final messenger are bound together in the Kalimah itself. This section turns to what the booklet teaches about the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, specifically.
These beliefs, too, are given as a direct list in the source, and are carried here the same way.
Angels are part of the unseen creation every Muslim is asked to believe in, not a figure of speech. This is what the booklet teaches about what they are, who the four best known of them are, and how they are involved in a person's own life.
There are four especially well known angels, peace be upon them all: Jibraaeel, Mikaaeel, Izraaeel and Israafeel.
Jibraaeel brought Allah's books, orders and messages to all the prophets, and was also sent to help the prophets fight against their enemies in war. He is the leader of all the angels.
Mikaaeel is in charge of food and rain. Other angels work under him, in charge of the winds, the clouds and the rivers.
Izraaeel takes away life with the command of Allah, and many angels work under him: some take the lives of pious people, some take the lives of sinners and disbelievers. He is also known as Malakul Maut, the angel of death.
Israafeel will blow the soor, the trumpet, on the Day of Qiyaamah. The sound will destroy and kill everything in the universe. When he blows it a second time, everything will come back to life by the command of Allah.
Two angels are with every person: one writes down every good deed and the other every bad deed. They are known as the Kiraaman Kaatibeen.
Two angels ask three questions of every person after death: Munkar and Nakeer. They ask who is your Rabb, your Lord, what is your religion, and who is your Nabi, your prophet.
Every Muslim is accompanied by an angel who encourages them toward good, named Mulhim.
There are angels in charge of Jannah, of Jahannam, of the skies, of the earth, of the Arsh, the throne of Allah, of the old, of the young, and countless others with different responsibilities besides.
The malaaikah are the friends of the Muslims. They make dua for us and take care of us, and we should not chase them away by committing sins. They are sensitive: they run from a person who speaks lies, and they do not enter a home that keeps pictures of animate beings or a dog.
Allah revealed His guidance to different prophets, in different books, at different times. This is what the booklet teaches about those books, and about what makes the last of them different from the rest.
The booklet gives the Qur'an its own chapter, because of what makes it different from every book revealed before it.
Belief in every prophet Allah sent is one belief, not many separate ones; doubting even a single one breaks it.
The booklet names the following, peace be upon them all: Aadam, Nooh, Idrees, Ibraheem, Isma'eel, Ishaaq, Hood, Ya'qoob, Yusuf, Moosa, Saalih, Ayyoob, Dawood, Ilyaas, Shu'aib, Loot, Yahya, Zakariyya and Isa.
The prophets sometimes performed miracles with Allah's help. The booklet gives five examples, followed by four miracles of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, in particular.
The day everything in this world will come to an end.
The booklet turns next to a single chapter on taqdeer.
Death is not the end. This is what the booklet teaches about what comes after it: rising again, having our deeds weighed, the intercession we hope for, the pond and the bridge we must cross, and the two destinations of Jannah and Jahannam.
The Sahaabah are the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and how a Muslim is asked to regard them is itself a matter of belief.
A handful of further beliefs round out this part of the booklet.
The booklet closes Part 1 with a direct list of what counts as kufr and shirk, or leads toward them.
These actions either result in kufr and shirk, lead toward kufr and shirk, or are the customs of the kuffaar and mushrikeen.
No one knows when Qiyaamah will come, but the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, told us its signs. The booklet divides them into minor signs, which began with his own birth and end with the coming of the Mahdi, and major signs, which begin with the Mahdi's coming and end with the blowing of the soor.
The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said: 'There are over seventy things connected to Imaan. The highest of which is the Kalimah, Laa ilaaha illal laahu, Muhammadur Rasulullah, and the lowest is to remove a harmful object from the road. Modesty (Hayaa) is part of Imaan.' The booklet closes with the list Moulana Ashraf Ali Thaanwi compiled beneath this hadith: more than seventy everyday qualities, grouped by the heart, the tongue and the body.
Adapted from Basic Aqaaid (Beliefs of a Muslim) by the late Moulana Ilyaas Ahmed Bayat, Jamiatul Ulama (KZN) Ta'limi Board. Anything here you would like walked through in person, ask at class. A teacher will happily go step by step with you.