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It is not righteousness [birr] that you turn your faces to the East
and the West [in prayer]; but righteous is he who believeth
in God and the Last Day and the angels and the Scripture and
the prophets; and gives wealth, for love of Him, to kinsfolk
and to orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and to those
who ask, and to set slaves free; and observes proper worship
and pays the poor-due; and those who keep their treaty when
they make one, and the patient in tribulation and adversity
and time of stress. Such are they who are sincere. Such are the
pious. (Al-Baqarah, 2:177)
You will not attain unto righteousness [birr] until you spend of
that which you love. And whatsoever you spend, God is Aware
thereof. (Aal-‘Imran, 3:92)
The Prophet Muhammad summed up the relation between
faith and good works as follows: “None of you has faith until you love
for your brother what you love for yourself”.28 “None of you has faith
until you love for your neighbour what you love for yourself”.29
(2) From Islam to Iman
How does faith in God grow in the hearts of those who do not
believe? That is to say, how is the psychological transition from
Islam to Iman made? Thus also: how can people who do not believe
in God, come to believe in God? This is an all-important question
that has bedevilled humanity for millennia. We have cited earlier
the Qur’anic verse:
The Arabs of the desert say: ‘We believe (amanna)’. Say
you [Muhammad]: ‘You believe not’, but say rather ‘we
submit (aslamna)’, for faith has not yet entered your hearts.
Yet if you obey God and His Messenger, He will not withhold
28 Sahih Al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Iman, no. 13.
29 Sahih Muslim, Kitab Al-Iman, Bab Al-Dalil ‘ala min Khasail Al-Iman.…, Vol. 1, p. 67
or Vol. 1, p. 17, no. 45 or no. 71 and 72.
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