Islām and submission in the Qur’ān and the Sabīl library

Islām is, in 3:19 below, the true religion with Allah. The edition the app uses keeps the word Islam there and renders its kin as submitting in others (2:128, 6:163); in two of the verses below (12:101, 41:33) it adds to “Muslim” the words “submitting to You” or “submitting to Allah”. In the verses below it is also something asked for: to be among those who submit, and to die submitting. This page sets out the testimony with which a person enters Islām, the five pillars as the narrations list them, and the verses in which the Qur’ān speaks of submitting. Every verse is shown with Tanzil’s Arabic and its meaning in the edition the app uses, and every narration is named by its collection and number at the end. Some verses are shown with the edition’s own notes beneath them; those are that edition’s words, not this page’s; some say what a word means and some give the edition’s own counsel, and this page has not checked them. The page gives no ruling.

The religion with Allah

The Qur’ān says that the true religion with Allah is Islām.

The testimony of faith

The library’s title The First Forty Days opens with an entry headed “The testimony of faith”: the words of the testimony, that there is no god but Allah and that Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allah, with their transliteration and meaning, and beneath them a line of the library’s own on when the testimony is enough. That line is the library’s, its scholarly review is pending, and this page gives no ruling on it: for what applies to your own situation, ask a scholar. The source line cites Muslim with the grade ṣaḥīḥ for a saying that Islām erases what came before it; in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ reports the Prophet ﷺ saying it to him when he came to accept Islām. The last line of the entry, “Then, on the first day”, heads the steps that follow it in the title, and is not a note on the testimony.

The five pillars

In the ḥadīth of Jibrīl, as ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb reports it in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, the Prophet ﷺ is asked about Islām and answers with five things: to testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allah, to establish the prayer, to give zakāh, to fast Ramaḍān, and to make the pilgrimage to the House for one who is able. Ibn ʿUmar reports the Prophet ﷺ saying that Islām is built upon five, and names five. In al-Bukhārī’s narration of it, and in two of Muslim’s, the pilgrimage comes before the fast; in another of Muslim’s, Ibn ʿUmar himself corrects a man who put the pilgrimage first, saying that this is how he heard it from the Prophet ﷺ.

The library’s Forty Ḥadīth of an-Nawawī sets out the five in its card on Ibn ʿUmar’s narration, but that title is a single entry with open questions in the library’s own checking, and it is not quoted here. Two of the library’s posters carry the pillars’ places in the order of Muslim’s narrations: the poster How to Pray is headed “The second pillar”, and the Ramaḍān poster “The fourth pillar”. The posters hold lines on rulings and on where the schools differ, which this page does not repeat.

Submitting

Islām in the Qur’ān is also a request. In one verse a du‘ā asks that the two who make it be made submitted to Allah, and a nation of their descendants too, and that they be shown their rituals and their repentance accepted. The du‘ā begins in the verse before it (2:127), where Ibrāhīm and Ismāʿīl, raising the foundations of the House, ask their Lord to accept it from them; this verse continues it. The edition’s note on it is shown with the verse.

And Ibrāhīm and Yaʿqūb enjoined it on their children, telling them that Allah had chosen this religion for them, and that they should not die except as Muslims.

Prayer, sacrifice, living and dying

Two verses name prayer, sacrifice, living and dying together. The Prophet ﷺ is told to say that his prayer, his sacrifice, his living and his dying are all for Allah, Lord of the worlds; that He has no partner; that this is what he has been commanded; and that he is the first to submit to Allah.

Dying as a Muslim

Besides 2:132, two more verses speak of dying as a Muslim. One tells the believers to fear Allah as He should be feared, and not to die except as Muslims.

The other is a du‘ā near the end of Sūrah Yūsuf: the speaker says to his Lord that He has given him authority and taught him something of the interpretation of dreams, and asks to be made to die as a Muslim and joined with the righteous.

Muslims named in the verses

One verse names Muslim men and women first in a list: believing, obedient, truthful, patient, humble, charitable and fasting men and women, those who guard their chastity and those who remember Allah much; for all of them Allah has prepared forgiveness and a great reward.

And another asks who is better in speech than one who calls to Allah, does righteous deeds, and says that he is one of the Muslims.

References

Verses of the Qur’ān, by sūrah and verse, shown above: 2:128; 2:132; 3:19; 3:102; 6:162–163; 12:101; 33:35; 41:33. Named in the prose: 2:127.

Narrations, by collection and number as sunnah.com numbers them: al-Bukhārī by the numbering of Fatḥ al-Bārī; Muslim by Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī’s numbers, with the letter sunnah.com adds where it divides one.

• Islām erases what came before it, to ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ: Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 121.
• The ḥadīth of Jibrīl, Islām and its five: Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 8a.
• Islām is built upon five: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 8; Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 16a, with Ibn ʿUmar’s correction of the order (in the Arabic; sunnah.com’s English leaves out his last words); Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 16b and 16c, with the pilgrimage before the fast.

From the Sabīl library: The First Forty Days, the entry “The testimony of faith”; the posters How to Pray and Ramaḍān, their headings, linked; the Forty Ḥadīth of an-Nawawī, linked, not quoted.

Where to go next

• The Qur’ān has every verse above in its sūrah, with its meanings.
• The First Forty Days is the title the testimony’s entry comes from; its step-by-step path is at Learn.
• Īmān and belief in the Qur’ān and the Sabīl library is the companion page on īmān, with the verse in which the Bedouins are told to say that they have submitted, because faith has not yet entered their hearts.
• Iḥsān and doing good in the Qur’ān and the Sabīl library is the companion page on iḥsān; it gathers 2:112 and 31:22, which join submitting to Allah with doing good.