All His Messengers from Adam to Muhammad—may God bless him and grant him peace—are truthful (sadiqun) and trustworthy (umana’) and they conveyed what they were commanded to convey to the creation. All human perfection is necessarily theirs and all human imperfections are impossible for them. Permitted to them are eating (akl), drinking (shurb), marriage (nikah), buying (bay‘a) and selling (shara’), and illness (marad) which does not lead to imperfection.
The angels are all preserved from wrong-action (ma‘sumun). They do not disobey God in anything He commands and they carry out all that they are commanded to do. They are of light (nuraniyun), neither male nor female. They do not eat and they do not drink.
The Books from Heaven (al-kutub al-samawiya) are all true and real (haqq wa sidq). Death at its appointed time is true. The questioning by Munkar and Nakir of the inhabitants of the graves and other than them is true.1 The punishment of the grave is true. The ease of the grave is true. The Day of Rising is true. The awakening of the dead (ba‘th al-amwat) on that day is true. The gathering of the people (jam‘ al-nas) in one place on that day is true. The giving of the books (‘ita’ al-kutub) is true. The weighing of deeds (wazn al-‘amal) is true. The reckoning (hisab) is true. The narrow bridge (sirat) is true. Drinking from Kawthar is true.2 The Fire (nar) is true. The endlessness of the Fire with its people (dawam al-nar ma‘ ahlihi) is true. The Garden (janna) is true. The endlessness of the Garden with its people (dawam al-janna ma‘ ahlihi) is true. The vision (ru’yat) of Him by the believers in the Afterlife—may He be exalted—is true. Everything that Muhammad—may God bless him and grant him peace —came with is true.
These are the roots of the Religion. God—may He be exalted—has confirmed them all, those concerning divinity (ilahiyat), prophecy (nabawiyyat) and the after-world (sam‘iyat), in the Vast Qur’an. All who are obligated (mukallaf) must believe in them just as they came to us. The belief of the common people in all these roots becomes, in the case of the elite, knowledge. This is because of the difficulty the common people have in understanding proofs. As it was said by ‘Izz al-Din, Sultan of the scholars, in The Foundations of the Sciences and the Islam of the People: “for that reason the Messenger of God—may God bless him and grant him peace—did not make those who became Muslims delve in these things. Instead he would make them firm since it was known that they would be separated from him. This was the way with the right-guided khalifs, and the guided scholars still establish them in this way.”
As for those who are among the people of inner sight (ahl al-basira), they must reflect on these roots in order to abandon blind following (taqlid) and become convinced with the eye of the heart. This is in order that the religion of the people of inner sight should be based on clear vision, particularly for the one who reaches the station of calling others to Him. He said—may He be exalted—“Say: This is my way. I call to God with inner sight. I and whoever follows me” (Q 12:108). Here ends the definition of the roots of the religion. Oh God, give us success in following the sunna of Your Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace. Oh God, bless our Master Muhammad and the family of our Master Muhammad and grant them peace.
The Sciences of Behavior (‘Ulum al-mu‘amala)
The Sciences of Behavior was written sometime between 1780 and 1785, in a period when the shehu and his growing circle of disciples were developing more elaborate and detailed teaching on the practical elements of the faith and how to pair them with the cultivation of excellent character. While The Sciences of Behavior by Dan Fodio is clearly not a commentary on Ghazali’s The Revival of the Sciences of Religion, the latter work is one of the principal sources that Dan Fodio engages in writing on ethical comportment.
The shehu’s text is organized according to the structure of the famous Hadith of Gabriel, wherein the Prophet Muhammad and many of his most illustrious disciples are visited by what appears to be a stranger who asks about islam (submission), iman (faith), and ihsan (spiritual excellence). Sitting knee to knee with this stranger, the Prophet answers his questions, and the companions are astonished that having questioned him, the man had the nerve to confirm his answers by saying, “you have spoken truth.” When the stranger left, the Prophet revealed to his companions that the visitor was none other than the Angel Gabriel himself, transmitter of the Qur’an. The report contains a concise summary of the basics of practice (islam) and belief (iman), and it is often used to structure teaching on the contents of the religion. Sufis often focus on the Prophet’s definition of ihsan: “it is to worship God as though you see Him, for if you do not see Him, know that He sees you.” Here we have reproduced only the section on Ihsan, since the sections on Iman are similar to the contents of the Kitab usul al-din, while the sections on Islam enter into minute details about daily worshipping activities.
Ihsan: The science of tasawwuf (Sufism)
Every responsible person must learn enough of this science to enable him to acquire praiseworthy qualities and to keep him from blameworthy qualities.
The purification of the heart from the whisperings of Shaytan
This is achieved by four things: The first is to seek refuge with God from shaytan, and to reject the thought which occurs. The second is to remember God with the heart and the tongue. The third is to reflect on the proofs of the people of the sunna. These are not mentioned by the philosophers or the Mu‘tazalis. The fourth is to question one who knows the sunna.
The purification of the heart from conceit (‘ujb)
Conceit is one of the blameworthy qualities which it is forbidden to have. God Most High said, “Do not praise yourselves. He has more knowledge of the one who guards himself out of fear” (Q 53:32).
Much harm arises out of conceit. Conceit leads to pride, forgetting wrong actions, presumption about acts of worship (‘ibada), forgetting the blessing of God, self-deception, feeling safe from the anger of God, believing that you have a station with God, and self-justification by action, concept, and knowledge. These and things like them are part of the harm which results from conceit.
As far as its reality is concerned, you should know that without a doubt, conceit is due to an attribute of perfection. A man may have one of two states in his self-perfection of knowledge and ‘ibada.
One state is that he is fearful that what he has obtained will vanish, be uprooted, and stripped away from him. This person is not conceited. The other state is that he is not fearful that it will vanish. He is happy about it because it is a blessing from God, not because it is related to himself. He also is not conceited. There is, however, a third state which is conceit. This is that he does not fear for what he has. He is happy with it, sure of it. His joy in it is because it is a perfection and a blessing, not because it is a gift from God Most High. His joy in it is because it is his attribute and it is attributed to him. His joy is not because it is related to God since it comes from Him. Conceit is presumption about blessing, relying on it, and forgetting its relationship to the Giver of blessing. This makes clear the reality of conceit.
As far as its cure is concerned, know that the cure for every fault is its opposite.