Fawāids |Qur'ān | Authentic Sunnah

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Abū Mutīʿ said: “Abū Hanīfah said: One should say: ‘I am truly a believer,’ because he does not doubt his īmān. I said: ‘Will his īmān be like the īmān of the angels?’ He said: ‘Yes.’” (Fiqh al-Absat pg. 46)

Shaykh Sālih Āl al-Shaykh said in explanation of Al-Tahāwī’s statement:

“And īmān is one, and its people are, in its root equal.”

“This statement of his [i.e. al-Tahāwī’s] is an affirmation of the doctrine of Abū Hanīfah and his companions — who are termed the Murjiʾat al-Fuqahāʾ — that īmān is one..

…[and] that in the root of īmān, believers are equal — so they made the īmān of [ordinary] people like the īmān of the Prophet, like the īmān of Abū Bakr, like the īmān of Muhammad (ﷺ); rather, like the īmān of all the messengers together; rather, they made it like the īmān of all the angels together.” (Jāmi’ Shurūh ‘Aqīdah Al-Tahāwiyyāh 2/844)

Shaykh Sālih al-Fawzān said: “This [statement of Al-Tahāwī] is a mistake, because faith is not one, and the people of faith are not equal. There is disparity in faith. It increases and decreases, the Murjiʾah falsely believe that faith is static.

Belief in the heart is also not the same amongst the people. The faith of Abū Bakr al-Siddīq is not like that of one of the sinners among the Muslims, because a sinning Muslim has very weak faith, whereas the faith of Abū Bakr al-Siddīq amounts to the faith of the entire Ummah. So people are not the same in the essence (asl) of faith, either. This is in terms of its essence (asl).

Likewise, when it comes to action: there is disparity between people in terms of actions…” (Sharh ‘Āqīdah Al-Tahāwiyyāh pg. 143-144)

Imām ibn Battah said: “So beware — may Allāh have mercy on you — of whoever says: (a) ‘I am a believer, with Allāh.’ (b) ‘And I am a believer who has completed his īmān.’ (c) And whoever says: ‘My īmān is like the īmān of Jibrīl and Mīkāʾīl.’ For these are Murjiʾah — people of misguidance, deviation, and departure from the [true] religion.” (al-Ibānah 1/438)

Walīd ibn Muslim said: “…and they [al-Awzāʿī, Mālik, Saʿīd ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azīz] would rebuke of whoever says that he has completed his īmān, and that his īmān is like the īmān of Jibrīl.” (al-Sunnah 1/549)

Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāh said: “Whoever says: my īmān is like the īmān of Jibrīl and Mīkāʾīl — he is worse than the Murjiʾ.” (al-Sunnah by Harb pg. 63)

Harb al-Karmānī said: “Whoever claims that his īmān is like the īmān of Jibrīl or the angels, he is a Murji’, and he is more wicked than a Murji’ because he is a liar. And whoever claims that people do not differ in their īmān, he has verily lied.” (al-Sunnah pg. 19)

Imām al-Ājurrī said: “Beware — may Allāh have mercy on you — of the statement of whoever says that his īmān is like the īmān of Jibrīl and Mīkāʾīl. And whoever says: “I am a believer with Allāh,” and “I am a believer who has completed [his] īmān” — all of this is the madhhab of the people of al-Irjāʾ.” (al-Dharī’ah 2/151)

Imām Abū ‘Ubayd said: “As for the view of whoever says: [my īmān is] like the īmān of the angels and the prophets — I take refuge in Allāh! – This is not the way of the scholars, and dislike of it has come down explained from several of them [i.e. the Salaf]…

… Nāfi’ ibn ʿUmar al-Jumahī, who said: I heard Ibn Abī Mulaykah — a man had said to him: “There is a man in your gatherings who says: ‘My faith is like the faith of Jibrīl!’” He (Ibn Abī Mulaykah) disapproved of this…”

[In another narration: Ibn Abī Mulaykah said: “I met thirty of the Companions of the Prophet (ﷺ), every one of them fearing hypocrisy (nifāq) for himself — not one of them would say that he was upon the faith (īmān) of Jibrīl and Mīkāʾīl.” Al-Bukhārī in his Sahīh and al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr]

And how could it be within anyone’s scope to liken mankind to the angels, when Allāh has rebuked the believers, in more than one place in His Book, with the severest of rebuke, and threatened them with the harshest of threats — while nothing of that is known to have been done to the angels?

So He threatened them with the Fire in one verse [al-Nisāʾ: 29–30], warned them of war in another [al-Baqarah: 278–279], frightened them with [His] wrath/anger in a third [al-Saff: 2–3], and held their slowness against them in a fourth [al-Hadīd: 16] — yet throughout all of this He names them believers. So how, then, do these [people] resemble Jibrīl and Mīkāʾīl, given their standing with Allāh?! I truly fear that this [belief/statement] is an instance of audacity against Allāh, and ignorance of His Book.” (Kitāb al-Īmān pg. 41-44, Abridged, Slightly Adapted)