Istiqāmah in the Qurʾan

Abū Bakr (may God be pleased with him) saw white hairs in the beard of the Prophet ﷺ while he was still in the prime of the daʿwah, and said in astonishment: "O Messenger of God, you have aged!" The Prophet ﷺ answered with a reply that pointed neither to advancing years nor to the fatigue of travel, but to specific verses: "Hūd and its sisters have turned me grey."^[1] Which verse in Sūrat Hūd was of such weight that it drew grey into the face of one who does not speak from mere desire? The answer, according to more than one who commented on this hadith, is a single verse: "So stand firm (fa-staqim) as you have been commanded, you and those who have turned back with you, and do not transgress" [Hūd: 112]. One command, of five words, weighed more heavily upon the Prophet ﷺ than twenty years of conveyance, denial, and siege: "Stand firm."

A circle within a circle

The root "q-w-m" is among the widest-occurring roots in the Qurʾan, recurring around six hundred and sixty times; but most of this count is far from our subject, for three hundred and eighty-three of them belong to the word "qawm," meaning a nation or a community, with no connection to moral uprightness. The circle this article examines is narrower and finer: the verb "istaqāma" — on the pattern of seeking and striving (istafʿala) — occurring ten times in nine places^[2]; the active participle "mustaqīm," occurring thirty-seven times, most of them in the fixed construction "the straight path" (al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm) that recurs like a refrain across the suras; the adjective "qayyim" (five times, as in "the upright religion"); and the noun "aqwam" (four times, meaning the most correct and most firm). This circle alone is our direct verbal witness. As for "establishing prayer" (iqāmat al-ṣalāh), "the Day of Standing" (yawm al-qiyāmah), and "al-Qayyūm," they are derivatives of the same root but other forms with distinct meanings; we will return to them as an illuminating thematic connection, not a direct verbal witness to uprightness in particular.

From the standing of the body to the standing of the heart

The root sense of "q-w-m" is erectness and standing, the opposite of falling, prostration, and sitting; one says "the man stood" (qāma al-rajul) when he rose erect after having been seated or lying down. The pattern "istafʿala" in "istaqāma" carries the sense of seeking and striving: that a person strive to attain that uprightness for himself and preserve it, not that it be a state that comes to him by chance. So "the road stood straight" (istaqāma al-ṭarīq) when it did not bend, and "the man stood firm upon the matter" (istaqāma ʿalā al-amr) when he held to it and swerved from it neither right nor left. Hence "uprightness" (istiqāmah) in the human being is akin to an inner standing of the heart that corresponds to the outward standing of the body: as the body stands erect and does not bend, the heart stands erect upon the truth and does not incline.

One standing, three stages

This original sense — erect standing — is what gathers, by way of thematic connection rather than direct verbal witness, three different stages in the Qurʾan, all from the same root. The first is the standing of the body in prayer: "And stand before God devoutly obedient" [al-Baqarah: 238], and "the establishment of prayer" that recurs dozens of times as a condition for success. The second is the standing of creation on the Day of Resurrection: "the Day when people will stand before the Lord of the worlds" [al-Muṭaffifīn: 6], when every human being stands alone, with no support and no lineage. The third is the standing of the heart upon uprightness in daily life, which is the subject of this article. It is as if the Qurʾan draws a single image of standing in three degrees: a daily bodily standing (prayer), an extended standing of the heart (uprightness), and a final, inescapable standing (the Resurrection); and uprightness is the bridge that links the first standing to the third — for whoever is accustomed to standing before God in his daily prayer is the more able to stand for Him in the whole affair of his life, and the more firm when he stands before Him alone on the Day when neither wealth nor sons avail. Among the striking thematic connections too is that the adjective "qayyim" — close in derivation to uprightness — was used to describe the religion itself in the very place in Sūrat al-Rūm that bore the verse of the fiṭrah and the verse of ḥanīfiyyah together [al-Rūm: 30]: "That is the upright religion (al-dīn al-qayyim)," and it recurred in verse 43 of the same sura. It is as if a single sura gathers, in adjacent places, three of the concepts of this series: a ḥanīfiyyah that is the continuous inclination, a fiṭrah that is the sound origin upon which that inclination rests, and an upright religion that is the goal of the uprightness attained by whoever is truthful in his inclination.

A command that weighs, and a firmness that is rewarded

The verse that turned the Prophet ﷺ grey [Hūd: 112] is not alone in carrying this weight. In Fuṣṣilat the command recurs in a broader form: "Your God is but one God, so stand firm toward Him and seek His forgiveness" [Fuṣṣilat: 6] — as if seeking forgiveness was mentioned after uprightness in acknowledgment that complete uprightness with no shortcoming is unattainable, so uprightness is inseparable from seeking forgiveness, not its opposite. In the same place in the sura comes the verse of reward: "Indeed, those who have said, 'Our Lord is God,' and then stood firm — the angels descend upon them, [saying]: Do not fear and do not grieve" [Fuṣṣilat: 30], and it recurs in meaning in al-Aḥqāf: 13. Striking in this very verse is that the saying alone — "Our Lord is God" — did not bring about the descent of the angels; rather the reward came suspended upon "then stood firm." The first claim is a necessary but insufficient condition, and the subsequent uprightness is what verifies the claim. In another place the matter is left to the human being's choice with no compulsion: "for whoever among you wills to stand firm" [al-Takwīr: 28], so uprightness is affirmed as an offered gift, not an imposed decree.

There is a place that widens the circle of uprightness to what is beyond individual worship, to include fidelity to covenants among nations: "So as long as they stand firm toward you, stand firm toward them" [al-Tawbah: 7], in the context of the treaties of the Muslims with some of the idolaters. In this very verse the form "istaqāma" occurs twice in a single sentence, once for the other party and once for the Muslims themselves, as if the Qurʾan affirms that uprightness is not a purely religious virtue practiced in isolation, but a character trait that extends to fidelity to contract and word even with one who differs in religion, so long as he is upright in his fidelity. Whoever supposed that uprightness is confined to prayer and fasting and the private lot of the individual missed this verse, which makes the truthfulness of social and political dealing part of the very core of uprightness, not a margin upon it.

A comprehensive word and a fear of the tongue

Sufyān ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Thaqafī (may God be pleased with him) asked the Prophet ﷺ: "O Messenger of God, tell me in Islam a statement about which I need ask no one after you." The answer was: "Say: I believe in God, then stand firm" — narrated by Muslim^[3]. Sufyān did not seek brevity in words, but the essence of the whole religion in a single statement by which he could dispense with asking anyone other than the Prophet ﷺ after him; so the answer came in two halves and no third: an affirmation by the heart, and adherence in deed. And when Sufyān asked in the remainder of the hadith, "What do you fear most for me?" the Prophet ﷺ took hold of his own tongue and said, "This"^[3]; thus he linked the uprightness of all the limbs to the uprightness of the tongue in particular, for it is the most prone to slips and the most hidden from oversight.

The heart is a king, and the limbs are its soldiers

In his exposition of the hadith "I believe in God, then stand firm," Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī made clear that the root of uprightness is the uprightness of the heart upon tawḥīd; he said: "When the heart stands firm upon the knowledge of God, and upon fearing Him, revering Him, loving Him, and relying upon Him, all the limbs stand firm in obedience to Him; for the heart is the king of the members, and they are its soldiers."^[4] Uprightness, for him, is not an isolated act added to others, but an inevitable result of a prior uprightness in the heart; if the king stands firm, his soldiers obey him, and if he inclines, they deviate after him. He added that the greatest thing whose uprightness is to be watched after the heart is the tongue, because it is the heart's interpreter and expresser — which is precisely what the hadith made clear when it singled out the tongue for mention over the rest of the limbs. From another angle, it is observed in the composition of the verse of Fuṣṣilat that uprightness came conjoined to the saying by "then" (thumma), not by "and" (wāw), a particle that indicates delay and interval; as if uprightness is a process extended in time that follows belief and does not cease, not an event that occurs once and is then folded away.

Why does uprightness weigh more heavily than belief?

Many ask: why was "stand firm" heavier upon the Prophet ﷺ than "believe," when belief is the foundation? The answer is that the claim is said once and tested every moment; belief is an acknowledgment uttered in a moment, while uprightness is a commitment whose renewal is demanded in every decision: in dealing when no one is watching, in the word when silence or flattery is easy, and in wealth when the forbidden is available with no visible overseer. This explains why it is easy for many to declare their belief in a loud voice on a single occasion, while it is hard for them to stand firm in a small daily detail that no one sees. Uprightness, as the hadith drew it by tying it specifically to the tongue, begins with the most trivial of the limbs in people's estimation and the most dangerous with God: a word said in backbiting, a promise broken with no compunction, a jest carrying a slight lie. Whoever supposed that uprightness is a test in major sins alone missed that it begins from where no one holds him to account but himself.

In the social dimension disclosed by the verse of al-Tawbah, there is a contemporary image no less pressing: many who are keen on the uprightness of individual worship are lax in fidelity to a commercial contract, or the truthfulness of a professional promise, or trustworthiness in dealing with one who differs from them in religion or opinion — as if uprightness for them were a narrow circle not exceeding the walls of the mosque. The Qurʾan, in commanding uprightness toward those with whom the Muslims made covenants from outside their own community, cuts off the way to this truncated conception: uprightness is a single, indivisible character trait, tested in the prayer niche as it is tested in the contract of sale, and in the promise watched over by none but God and the one to whom it was given.

Conclusion

From the standing of the body in prayer, to the standing of the heart in uprightness, to the standing of creation on the Day of Resurrection, the Qurʾan draws a single image of firmness in three degrees. What turned the Prophet ﷺ grey was not an event but an extended, unending command: "Stand firm" — not "you have stood firm," nor "you will stand firm" — a present command, renewed in every moment, for whoever believes in God and then wills to stand firm. And God is sufficient for us, and an excellent Trustee He is.