Faith First: Īmān as the Foundation of Everything

Occasion: a transcript of a lecture delivered at Masjid Salahadeen on May 3, 2025.Source: transcript of a recorded lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — watch the original video on YouTube

The passage we recited tonight, said the lecturer, is about organizing the community: how we deal with the people around us and with the troubles we will face in our lives. Then he asked the room a question about its opening. If we had to file this passage under a heading (conduct, say, or treatment of others), what is it that Allah put at the very beginning? His answer: īmān. Allah began with īmān before anything else was said.^[1]

How the sūrahs begin

Go through most of the sūrahs of the Qurʾān, he said, and you will find that Allah opens in one of a few ways. Sometimes He calls the people, or draws their attention to the Book and its importance and what it holds. Sometimes He speaks of what is happening across the whole universe, or exalts Himself, subḥānahu. Sometimes He tells us about another kind of creation, such as the jinn rather than human beings. Sometimes the opening is an argument with the disbelievers, as when they are asked what they are asking about: the great news that is about to come to them.^[2] And sometimes a sūrah opens by mentioning a part of creation. All of this, he said, is given to us to increase the amount of īmān in our hearts.

Why do we need īmān at all?

Then the question he kept returning to: why do we need īmān? Do we really need it in our hearts? He answered from his own situation. Without belief in something, nobody does it. If I did not believe in my abilities, I would never sit in front of you and speak. It is the belief in myself that brought me here and gave me the strength to talk to you. But before that is belief in the One who gave me that strength. Without belief in Allah, he said, a person would stop the moment the people mocked him: he would stop his prayer, leave his message and go out. Because I believe in something, I do all these things with positive energy. Anyone who believes in an idea gives it his submission and his full power.

So why do we need īmān? To stay on in this world, he said, and to have a position in the next. He recalled what Allah tells us about those who already believe and do good: their reward is a shelter, a place to stay, and they enjoy it so much they want to go nowhere else.

The pillars of a civilisation rest on it

He reminded the audience that the sūrah is about the four pillars of civilisation, which he had mentioned many times: the human resources, the source of income, the sciences of different kinds, and the leadership. Each story in it hints at one of the pillars. But at the end of all of it, he said twice, without īmān nobody can do anything. Even the first pillar, the human resources, is introduced through a particular group of people who already believed in Allah at the beginning and then began to act. They looked for a way out of the oppression that came from the king. They are the example of the believers at the beginning of the sūrah, and at the end of it the mention of īmān returns.

What the sūrah asks of the community

He then moved through the verses at the beginning of the section he was reading. Do not eat ribā, he said; we need no further details, for we all know what ribā is and what it does in Muslim communities. Keep away from what is going to come one day and touch the disbelievers. And if there is a race in this world, the race should be toward Paradise, not toward money and dollars.^[3]

Then Allah spoke about the future of the Muslims. How can we have a great future for this community? Allah said: do not be afraid, do not be sad, do not underestimate yourselves, because you are (a word is missing in the transcript here). There is one condition only: you will be victorious if īmān fills your heart. Otherwise you will lose everything. If we look at our own situation in this period, he said, we find that we do not have that level of īmān to fulfil our duties toward Allah, to help the people and to make them winners (the transcript is broken at this point). Otherwise we will be like the Companions in that sūrah, where Allah mentions that some among them wanted this world. Because a few wanted this world and were thirsty for more money, the rest could not accomplish the result. The lecturer added that he did not want to say that about the Prophet ﷺ and his people, because in truth it was a good test for the Muslim community. And once we have that īmān, he said, we can have everything in our lives. Subḥān Allāh.

He went on to what Allah said about their wish: you used to ask Allah for the chance, and when He told them, do not worry, We will give you the chance to test you, they said, no, no, I am not ready right now. Allah was giving the community that test, he said, to show what the value of īmān is in our hearts.

What are we afraid of?

Allah gave another example. What are you afraid of? What is it that frightens you like this? What will happen at the end of the day? We will die. That is the last thing anyone can do to us. We will pass away and be in the grave. He went on to ask about avoiding all of that, facing the struggle in the Muslim community, and spoke of someone asking for my money, asking about my wallet; the transcript is broken here and the thread of the sentence cannot be recovered.

Back one step, to our homes

The lecturer noted that these days everybody is talking about voting and taking part with the wider society, and about showing our power and presenting ourselves as an effective people. He wanted to go back one step. What are we doing in our homes? How do we treat the people we deal with? He turned the question on himself: what are my manners among my neighbours? When I deal with people who are not Muslim, do I show them the manners of a real Muslim, or do I take advantage if I can? Which of the two are we doing? As Muslims we are showing our identity to others. How do they talk about us? Are we a people of etiquette? If we ask them for one simple word, will they say, this is the best kind of human being, or will they go on accusing us of many problems?

Then he asked the audience to imagine going to a judge in a family court and saying, please, this is a Muslim family; we will try to convince you, because Islam gives us the rules for relationships within the family. Why would he not answer us with the number of Muslim cases that pass before his eyes, and with what happens in our homes every day and night? When we go to him and say, can you be Muslims, he will say one of two things: either you are lying, and you cannot implement your religion because it cannot convince you to follow it; or your religion is false in itself, because you have nothing to show. These are cases that would never happen among other people, maybe, he said. It is shameful. Not because we are Americans, and not because we are human beings, but because we tell people we are Muslims and that we have the greatest religion in the world.

How do we increase īmān?

So, he said, how can we increase īmān in our hearts? First, try to keep Allah in your mind at all times. Whatever you are doing, keep Allah in your mind, and He will give you success.

He took the beginning of the Prophet's mission as the model. When you take a new position, you need training, and that was exactly the training of the Prophet ﷺ. Reading those āyāt, we see Allah telling him to remember his Lord all the time, by day and by night, and to stand in worship during the night. Once he had finished that, he was to go through the day, and not do anything without that remembrance of Allah.^[4]

He then pressed the point down to everyday life. It can be a small thing, he said: my wife texts me and expects an answer, and I may write one wrong word by mistake. Or I have two or three routes to come here by, and I choose one. When you apply this idea in your mind to every decision, small or large, to everything, that is īmān. Once we have īmān in our hearts, he said, we will never make any kind of mistake. At that time our children will see us as a real role model, and once they see us as a model they will follow our steps. That means they are already following the steps of the Prophet ﷺ, because we are trying to imitate him ﷺ. Otherwise, he said, we are killing ourselves.

The homework

He stopped there to ask himself and the room: what homework should we give ourselves? How can we remember Allah, subḥānahu wa-taʿālā, not only with our tongues, but with our minds, with our hearts and with our bodies?

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: the transcript is badly garbled at the opening. It names "Muḥammad" and "Āl ʿImrān" in the same breath, so the sūrah is not identified here. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: this appears to allude to the opening of Sūrat al-Nabaʾ (78:1–2); the speaker does not name it. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: the themes in this section (ribā, racing toward Paradise, "do not despair or grieve", "some of you want this world", the wish for the chance and then "not ready") correspond to passages in Sūrat Āl ʿImrān (around 3:130–152), but the transcript gives no verse numbers and no verse is quoted. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: the speaker does not name the sūrah; the description matches the early instruction to the Prophet ﷺ to remember his Lord by day and stand in the night prayer, found in Sūrat al-Muzzammil.