Covered in this lesson:

Question 156 – How many branches of īmān are there? – and its answer.

Question 157 – How did the scholars explain in detail these branches? – and its answer.

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Notes (produced by Abū Yahyā Imrān Rafīq):

Q156. Answer of Shaykh Hāfidh Al-Hakamī (d.1377H, rahimahullāh): Allāh, the Most High, said: “It is not al-Birr (piety/righteousness) that you turn your faces towards east and (or) west (in prayers); but Al-Birr is (the quality of) the one who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the Angels, the Book, the Prophets and gives his wealth, in spite of love for it, to the kinsfolk, to the orphans, and to Al-Masakin (the poor), and to the wayfarer, and to those who ask, and to set slaves free, performs As-Salat (Iqamat-as-Salat), and gives the Zakat, and who fulfill their covenant when they make it, and who are As-Sabirin (the patient ones, etc.) in extreme poverty and ailment (disease) and at the time of fighting (during the battles). Such are the people of the truth and they are Al-Muttaqun (pious)” (2:177).

And the Prophet (صَلَّى ٱللَّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) said, “Īmān has seventy (and in another narration sixty) odd branches, the greatest of them is the saying, “Lā ilāha illallāh”, and the lowest of them is to remove something harmful from the road, and modesty is a branch of īmān.” [Sahīh al-Bukharī 9 and Sahīh Muslim 35b]

– Commentary of Shaykh Ahmad al-Najmī (d.1429H, rahimahullāh): This ayāh has combined qualities and characteristics of believers. These are mighty, no other āyah has combined all of these characteristics in the likes of this āyah. Then shaykh quotes parts of the āyah piece by piece and comments upon it.

– Commentary of Shaykh Sālih ibn ‘Abdil-‘Azīz Aal ash-Shaykh (hafidhahullāh): Īmān is a general term in which there is included Islām, īmān is more broad than Islām and Islām is a part of īmān. Hadīth mentions a similitude to a tree. When we look at a tree we see it has branches and sub-branches, there is the highest branch and the lowest branch and various branches in between. Highest – “Lā ilāha illallāh” is something that we say but that speech that we say follows on from the belief that we hold (so belief and speech). Lowest – to remove something harmful from the road/ground is an action of the limb. Modesty is an action of the heart. This similitude and specific examples given are such that other branches can be derived from the ones mentioned.

Q157. Answer of Shaykh Hāfidh Al-Hakamī (d.1377H, rahimahullāh): A group of scholars and commentators of hadīth enumerated them and authored many books and benefitted the ummah greatly. However, to know all of these branches is not a condition of īmān, rather we must have a generalised belief in them, and they are all found in the Book and the Sunnah. It is upon the servant to fulfil the commands found in these branches and to avoid the prohibitions found therein, and that we believe in whatever knowledge or information is brought through the reports. And whoever does so, these branches of īmān have been completed. To say definitively that these (seventy-odd) branches (that scholars such as al-Bayhaqī or al-Halīmī listed) are what Messenger specifically intended, we cannot say that.

– Commentary of Shaykh Ahmad al-Najmī (d.1429H, rahimahullāh): It’s not so much that you need to go and memorise and enumerate all the branches of īmān to act upon them, if you act upon the commands that you know from Allāh and His messenger and avoid the prohibitions that were revealed and you believe in the reports that come in what Allah and His Messenger said, then this person has brought all the branches of īmān in relation to him, to what he knows.

– Commentary of Shaykh Sālih Al-Fawzān (hafidhahullāh): īmān has pillars and it has branches, this is what the hadith establishes. When words Islām and īmān mentioned together (in same sentence) then they have a specific meaning, when they are mentioned in isolation to each other then they both contain each other’s meaning. So when we have Islām on its own, it is with the meaning of īmān also – the whole religion. When mentioned together, Islām is outward actions and īmān is internal (inner beliefs and actions of the heart which aren’t seen).

– Shu’bah is a part of something. Highest branch is “Lā ilāha illallāh” which is ra’sul Islām (chief part of Islām) and the chief part of īmān as well. Lowest branch (which is the least amount) is to remove something harmful from the ground/path, this is anything that annoys or harms people which could be thorns, stones, filth, etc. Hayā (modesty) is something that adds beauty to a person’s character and adorns it, and it prevents them from that which makes them impure and not refined. This type of hayā leads a person to goodness and prevents them from evil, this is praiseworthy but there is another type of hayā which makes you withhold from doing good and from seeking knowledge and from asking about things which have become difficult for you to understand, this is now a blameworthy type of hayā. Scholars derive from this hadīth that īmān is speech of the tongue, belief of the heart and action of the limbs.

– What’s the difference between a pillar and a branch? The pillars must be brought, if one pillar is absent then the whole of īmān is absent. As for the remaining branches outside of the pillars, then they are the things that perfect īmān but īmān does not cease if they are not brought.