Those who have newly entered — Questions people ask about Islam

What happens to my past? Is it really wiped, or am I still judged for it?

Yes, it is wiped, and the word used for it is demolition, not hope. Amr ibn al-As, who had hated the Prophet more than anyone did, to the point of wishing he could kill him, drew his hand back at the moment of the pledge and made his own forgiveness a condition. He was told: "Do you not know that Islam demolishes what came before it?" 1 And the wiping is not merely a cancellation: "as for such, Allah will change their evil deeds to good deeds" 2. The Muyassar commentary reads that as erasure and replacement together: "God erases their evil deeds from them and puts good deeds in their place" 3. As for your sense of a back door, this very verse came down in answer to men who "had killed, and killed much, and committed fornication, and committed much of it," and who then came asking whether there was any atonement for what they had done 4; and with it came down "Say: O My slaves who have been prodigal to their own hurt! Despair not of the mercy of Allah" 5. Your question is the one the door was opened for, not the one that slips through it. But the condition is real, and it is stated in full: "Whoever does well in Islam is not held to account for what he did in the days of ignorance, and whoever does badly in Islam is held to account for the first and the last" 6. Ibn Rajab reconciles the two texts by taking the demolition as "referring to a complete and good Islam" 7. So the condition is placed in your future, not in the settlement of your past; the ten years are not a debt to be paid off in instalments 6 7.

1 We were present with Amr ibn al-As as he lay dying. He wept for a long time and turned his face to the wall, and his son kept saying: Father, did the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) not give you good news of such and such? Did he not give you good news of such and such? He turned his face towards us and said: The best thing we can count on is the testimony that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God. I have passed through three stages. There was a time when no one hated the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) more than I did, and there was nothing I wanted more than to get the better of him and kill him. Had I died in that state, I would have been one of the people of the Fire. Then, when God put Islam in my heart, I came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said: Stretch out your right hand, that I may pledge allegiance to you. He stretched out his right hand, and I drew my hand back. He said: What is the matter, Amr? I said: I want to make a condition. He said: What condition? I said: That I be forgiven. He said: Do you not know that Islam demolishes what came before it, that the migration demolishes what came before it, and that the pilgrimage demolishes what came before it? And after that there was no one dearer to me than the Messenger of God (peace be upon him), nor more revered in my eyes. I could not fill my eyes with the sight of him, out of awe for him, and if I were asked to describe him I could not, because I never filled my eyes with him. Had I died in that state, I would have hoped to be one of the people of the Garden. Then we took charge of affairs, and I do not know where I stand in them. So when I die, let no wailing woman and no fire follow me. When you have buried me, pour the earth over me gently, then stay around my grave for as long as it takes to slaughter a camel and distribute its meat, so that I may have your company and see what answer I give to the messengers of my Lord.

Amr ibn al-As · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 121 · Authentic our rendering

2 Save him who repenteth and believeth and doth righteous work; as for such, Allah will change their evil deeds to good deeds. Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.

Surat al-Furqan (The Criterion) 25:70 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

3 … But whoever repents of these sins with a sincere repentance, and believes with a firm faith joined to righteous deeds, God erases their evil deeds from them and puts good deeds in their place, because of their repentance and their remorse. And God is Forgiving to whoever repents, Merciful to His servants, in that He called them to repentance after they had defied Him with the gravest of sins.

Tafsir al-Muyassar — al-Furqan 25:70 our rendering · Open the passage

4 Al-Bukhari and Muslim reported from Ibn Abbas that some of the idolaters had killed, and killed much, and had committed fornication, and committed much of it; then they came to Muhammad (peace be upon him) and said: What you say and call to is good, if only you would tell us that there is an atonement for what we have done. So there came down the passage on those who call upon no other god alongside God, down to His words "Forgiving, Merciful"; and there came down "Say: O My slaves who have been prodigal to their own hurt", the verse.

al-Suyuti · Lubab al-Nuqul fi Asbab al-Nuzul, p. 162 our rendering · Open the passage

5 Say: O My slaves who have been prodigal to their own hurt! Despair not of the mercy of Allah, Who forgiveth all sins. Lo! He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.

Surat al-Zumar (The Troops) 39:53 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 A man said: Messenger of God, are we held to account for what we did in the days of ignorance? He said: Whoever does well in Islam is not held to account for what he did in the days of ignorance, and whoever does badly in Islam is held to account for the first and the last.

Abdullah ibn Masud · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 6921 · Authentic our rendering

7 … Imam Ahmad also transmitted it, in the wording: "Islam cuts off the sins that came before it." And this is to be taken as referring to a complete and good Islam, so as to reconcile it with the hadith of Ibn Masud that precedes it.

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 295 our rendering · Open the passage

8 … What I hold is that the wronged man's right is not cancelled by another's, and that the door I described is no erasure of the debt but a second entry alongside which the payment of the first is demanded. And this is the claim of a school which I state so that you may know where I stand, not so as to argue against you with it; and whoever has read forgiveness as a closing of the ledger has described something I do not defend.

After the tenth year our rendering · Open the passage

We were present with Amr ibn al-As as he lay dying. He wept for a long time and turned his face to the wall, and his son kept saying: Father, did the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) not give you good news of such and such? Did he not give you good news of such and such? He turned his face towards us and said: The best thing we can count on is the testimony that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God. I have passed through three stages. There was a time when no one hated the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) more than I did, and there was nothing I wanted more than to get the better of him and kill him. Had I died in that state, I would have been one of the people of the Fire. Then, when God put Islam in my heart, I came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said: Stretch out your right hand, that I may pledge allegiance to you. He stretched out his right hand, and I drew my hand back. He said: What is the matter, Amr? I said: I want to make a condition. He said: What condition? I said: That I be forgiven. He said: Do you not know that Islam demolishes what came before it, that the migration demolishes what came before it, and that the pilgrimage demolishes what came before it? And after that there was no one dearer to me than the Messenger of God (peace be upon him), nor more revered in my eyes. I could not fill my eyes with the sight of him, out of awe for him, and if I were asked to describe him I could not, because I never filled my eyes with him. Had I died in that state, I would have hoped to be one of the people of the Garden. Then we took charge of affairs, and I do not know where I stand in them. So when I die, let no wailing woman and no fire follow me. When you have buried me, pour the earth over me gently, then stay around my grave for as long as it takes to slaughter a camel and distribute its meat, so that I may have your company and see what answer I give to the messengers of my Lord.

Amr ibn al-As · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 121 · Authentic our rendering

A man said: Messenger of God, are we held to account for what we did in the days of ignorance? He said: Whoever does well in Islam is not held to account for what he did in the days of ignorance, and whoever does badly in Islam is held to account for the first and the last.

Abdullah ibn Masud · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 6921 · Authentic our rendering

The strongest objection

Wiped by a word. Ten years in which you hurt particular people, with names and faces, and then you are told that what came before has been demolished, so where are they in this demolition? A religion that clears the offender without the consent of the one he wronged has not given you justice; it has given you exemption. The sense of a back door is well placed: you have put nothing right for anyone. You have only swapped the party you answer to for a more merciful one.

It does not clear him, and that is not the claim. A right owed to another person is not cancelled by repentance, and the book states this in the face of anyone who reads forgiveness as a closing of the ledger: "What I hold is that the wronged man's right is not cancelled by another's, and that the door I described is no erasure of the debt but a second entry alongside which the payment of the first is demanded" 8. The hadith itself bears this out: whoever does badly after entering is held to account for the first and the last 6. So the wiping is no exemption from conduct, and no exemption from returning to people what was taken from them. As for the back door, it would be a back door only if the entry were secret. Amr ibn al-As stood at that door in the open, bargaining, making forgiveness his condition before he would pledge, and his condition was granted 1.

How do I actually convert? Is there a ritual, witnesses, paperwork, a mosque I must go to?

No — there is no ritual, no two witnesses, no paperwork, and no mosque you have to go to. What brings you in is a sentence you say yourself, with your own tongue: I bear witness that there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God. The first of the five things Islam is built on is "the testimony that there is no god but God" 1. In Ibn Rajab's words it is "the work of the tongue," and whoever affirms it "becomes a Muslim in law," and is then "required to carry out the remaining traits of Islam" 2. It takes effect in that same moment, not after some procedure: "Islam does not accept being suspended on a condition; if he suspends it on a condition, it takes effect at once" 3. Prayer, the zakat and what comes after them follow entry; they are not conditions for it 4. Nobody has to be present with you. Among the Companions "a man would become Muslim before his wife, and his wife before him," and between the conversion of Zaynab and that of her husband there were "more than eighteen years" 5. The Messenger's own role in the text is this: "and if they turn away, then it is thy duty only to convey the message (unto them)" 6 — "nothing is upon me except the conveying" 7. Conveying, not entering anyone into a register. As for the room where you are filmed saying it, the text does not know that as a condition: the Qur'an names "a believing man of Pharaoh's family, who hid his faith" 8, and the commentary reads: "a man of Pharaoh's family who believed in God, concealing his faith, said in rejection to his people" 9 — the description of faith holds for him while he is hiding it from every single person. And as for what comes after this minute: "begin with the smallest thing that lasts… nobody makes it a condition on you that your questions be finished first" 10.

1 Islam is built upon five: the testimony that there is no god but God, the establishment of prayer, the giving of the zakat, the pilgrimage, and the fast of Ramadan.

Abd Allah ibn Umar · al-Albani · Sahih al-Nasa'i 5016 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

2 The first of these is the testimony that there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God, and it is the work of the tongue … whoever affirms the two testimonies becomes a Muslim in law; and once he has entered Islam by that, he is required to carry out the remaining traits of Islam

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami' al-'Ulum wa-l-Hikam, p. 97 our rendering · Open the passage

3 If he pronounces the two testimonies and then says 'if God wills,' or says 'I am a Muslim, if God wills,' his Islam is valid on the spot … for Islam does not accept being suspended on a condition; if he suspends it on a condition, it takes effect at once

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya · I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in 'an Rabb al-'Alamin, p. 54 our rendering · Open the passage

4 What is meant is that whoever has become a Muslim by entering Islam is then commanded to establish the prayer, and after that to give the zakat … for the two words of testimony, by themselves, protect the one who pronounces them, and by them he becomes a Muslim

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami' al-'Ulum wa-l-Hikam, p. 229 our rendering · Open the passage

5 Among the Companions it was always the case that a man would become Muslim before his wife, and his wife before him, and it is not known of a single one of them that he and his wife pronounced their Islam together, letter for letter … He became Muslim at the time of al-Hudaybiya, while she had become Muslim at the beginning of the mission, so between their two conversions there were more than eighteen years

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 123 our rendering · Open the passage

6 And if they argue with thee, (O Muhammad), say: I have surrendered my purpose to Allah and (so have) those who follow me. And say unto those who have received the Scripture and those who read not: Have ye (too) surrendered? If they surrender, then truly they are rightly guided, and if they turn away, then it is thy duty only to convey the message (unto them). Allah is Seer of (His) bondmen.

Surah Aal-i-Imraan (The Family of Imraan) 3:20 · Open the passage

7 And say to them, and to the idolaters of the Arabs and others: if you submit, then you are on the straight path, on guidance and truth; and if you turn away, your reckoning is with God, and nothing is upon me except the conveying — and I have conveyed it to you and established the proof against you.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah Aal-i-Imraan (The Family of Imraan) 3:20 our rendering · Open the passage

8 And a believing man of Pharaoh's family, who hid his faith, said: Would ye kill a man because he saith: My Lord is Allah, and hath brought you clear proofs from your Lord? If he is lying, then his lie is upon him; and if he is truthful, then some of that wherewith he threateneth you will strike you. Lo! Allah guideth not one who is a prodigal, a liar.

Surah Ghafir (The Forgiver) 40:28 · Open the passage

9 And a man of Pharaoh's family who believed in God, concealing his faith, said in rejection to his people: How can you hold it lawful to kill a man who has committed no crime in your eyes except that he says, My Lord is God

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah Ghafir (The Forgiver) 40:28 our rendering · Open the passage

10 The answer in two lines: begin with the smallest thing that lasts, and do not go back into the same setting that took you out. And you may come back with an open question still in your hand — nobody makes it a condition on you that your questions be finished first.

23. What if you wanted to come back? · Open the passage

11 The wandering Arabs say: We believe. Say (unto them, O Muhammad): Ye believe not, but rather say "We submit," for the faith hath not yet entered into your hearts. Yet, if ye obey Allah and His messenger, He will not withhold from you aught of (the reward of) your deeds. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Surah Al-Hujuraat (The Inner Apartments) 49:14 · Open the passage

12 Say to them, O Prophet: do not claim complete faith for yourselves, but say: we have submitted; faith has not yet entered your hearts

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah Al-Hujuraat (The Inner Apartments) 49:14 our rendering · Open the passage

13 So that it be known that faith is the agreement of the heart with the tongue; and if the tongue alone does this, it is called submission and is not called faith

Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti · al-Itqan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 237 our rendering · Open the passage

14 Whoever considers what is in the established biographies and reports — that many of the People of the Book and of the idolaters testified to his messengership, and that he was truthful, yet this testimony did not bring them into Islam — knows that Islam is something beyond that: that it is not knowledge alone, nor knowledge and affirmation alone, but knowledge, affirmation, submission, and commitment to obeying him and to his religion, outwardly and inwardly

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 557 our rendering · Open the passage

Islam is built upon five: the testimony that there is no god but God, the establishment of prayer, the giving of the zakat, the pilgrimage, and the fast of Ramadan.

Abd Allah ibn Umar · al-Albani · Sahih al-Nasa'i 5016 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

This is a convenience, not an answer. You are telling me that a sentence I whisper in an empty room makes me a Muslim — and your own book answered a people who said its like and declared their claim false. So what you are offering is a procedure with no content: a word nobody hears, which binds the one who says it to nothing, and for which neither he nor you hold any evidence that it happened at all.

True — the words alone are not enough, and the text says it more bluntly than you just did: "The wandering Arabs say: We believe. Say (unto them, O Muhammad): Ye believe not, but rather say 'We submit,' for the faith hath not yet entered into your hearts" 11. The commentary reads: "do not claim complete faith for yourselves, but say: we have submitted; faith has not yet entered your hearts" 12, and al-Suyuti puts it this way: "faith is the agreement of the heart with the tongue; and if the tongue alone does this, it is called submission and is not called faith" 13. Ibn al-Qayyim goes further: many of the People of the Book testified to his messengership, "yet this testimony did not bring them into Islam… but rather knowledge, affirmation, submission, and commitment to obeying him and to his religion, outwardly and inwardly" 14. But the thing required over and above the words is a submission that begins after them — not the presence of two men, and not a stamp on a form. What the text warned against is a heart that contradicts the tongue, not a word with no audience. You say you read for months and were convinced: the flaw the objection presses is not your flaw, and the evidence you are asking about is something you owe yourself, not something anyone else is owed against you 14.

Do I have to do everything at once from day one?

No — and the order you are asking for is stated in the texts, not invented. When the Prophet sent Mu'adh to Yemen he told him to make "the first thing you call them to be the worship of God"; then, "when they have come to know God," the five daily prayers; then, "when they have done that," the zakah — three stages, and the condition for each one is that the stage before it has been reached. And Ramadan, the thing you are afraid of, was not made obligatory at the beginning of Islam at all. Ibn al-Qayyim says that weaning souls from what they are accustomed to is "among the hardest and most difficult of matters," so its obligation was delayed until after the Hijrah, "once souls had settled upon the oneness of God and upon prayer," and "they were moved to it by degrees" — in fact it was first imposed as a choice between fasting and feeding a poor person for each day, and only later became binding 1. As for drink, it is the very example used for this question: al-Suyuti relates from A'ishah, in al-Bukhari, that the lawful and the forbidden came down only after "people had turned to Islam," and that "had the first thing to come down been 'do not drink wine,' they would have said: we will never give up wine" — that is your objection in its own words, read in the revelation before you raised it 2. Your fear of hypocrisy was reached by the text before you got to it: "Religion is ease, and no one makes this religion hard upon himself but it overcomes him. So aim straight, draw near, and take glad tidings" — the one who is overcome is the one who strains the religion and loads himself beyond his capacity, and drawing near is accepted by name 3. And as for where to start, the rule in the book is this: "So choose the smallest thing you are able to do every day without heroics. The only condition is that it be repeated, not that it be large." 4

1 Since weaning souls from what they are accustomed to and from their desires is among the hardest and most difficult of matters, its obligation was delayed to the middle period of Islam, after the Hijrah, once souls had settled upon the oneness of God and upon prayer and had grown familiar with the commands of the Qur'an; they were moved to it by degrees. ... It was first imposed by way of a choice between it and feeding a poor person for each day, then it was moved from that choice to the fast being binding.

Ibn al-Qayyim - Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, p. 28 our rendering · Open the passage

2 From this last report a further wisdom is drawn for the Qur'an being sent down in portions: it is more conducive to its being accepted when it comes down by degrees, unlike what would have been the case had it come down all at once, for many people would have shrunk from accepting it because of the many obligations and prohibitions in it. ... This is made clear by what al-Bukhari relates from A'ishah, who said: the first of it to come down was a surah from the shorter surahs, in which Paradise and the Fire are mentioned; then, when people had turned to Islam, the lawful and the forbidden came down. And had the first thing to come down been 'do not drink wine,' they would have said: we will never give up wine; and had 'do not commit fornication' come down, they would have said: we will never give up fornication.

al-Suyuti - Al-Itqan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 122 our rendering · Open the passage

3 Religion is ease, and no one makes this religion hard upon himself but it overcomes him. So aim straight, draw near, take glad tidings, and seek help by setting out in the early morning, in the late afternoon, and in a part of the night.

Abu Hurayrah - al-Bukhari - Sahih al-Bukhari 39 - authentic (sahih) our rendering

4 So choose the smallest thing you are able to do every day without heroics. The only condition is that it be repeated, not that it be large.

23. What if you wanted to come back? · Open the passage

5 O ye who believe! Come, all of you, into submission (unto Him); and follow not the footsteps of the devil. Lo! he is an open enemy for you.

Surat al-Baqarah 2:208 - Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 O you who have believed in God as Lord, in Muhammad as prophet and messenger, and in Islam as religion: enter into all the ordinances of Islam, acting upon all its rulings, and leave nothing of them; and do not follow the paths of Satan in the acts of disobedience to which he calls you. He is to you an enemy whose enmity is plain, so beware of him.

Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar - Surat al-Baqarah 2:208 our rendering · Open the passage

7 So keep your duty to Allah as best ye can, and listen, and obey, and spend; that is better for your souls. And whoso is saved from his own greed, such are the successful.

Surat al-Taghabun 64:16 - Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

8 God's religion is ease; there is no hardship in it. God does not ask of His servants what they cannot bear. Whoever does good attains good, and whoever does evil attains evil.

Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar - Surat al-Baqarah 2:286 our rendering · Open the passage

Religion is ease, and no one makes this religion hard upon himself but it overcomes him. So aim straight, draw near, take glad tidings, and seek help by setting out in the early morning, in the late afternoon, and in a part of the night.

Abu Hurayrah - al-Bukhari - Sahih al-Bukhari 39 - authentic (sahih) our rendering

When the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, sent Mu'adh, may God be pleased with him, to Yemen, he said: You are coming to a people who are People of the Book, so let the first thing you call them to be the worship of God. Then, when they have come to know God, tell them that God has made obligatory upon them five prayers in their day and night. Then, when they have done that, tell them that God has made obligatory upon them a charity from their wealth, to be returned to their poor. Then, if they obey in that, take it from them, and avoid the choicest of people's property.

Abdullah ibn Abbas - al-Bukhari - Sahih al-Bukhari 1458 - authentic (sahih) our rendering

The strongest objection

All of this belongs to the age of revelation. The Qur'an came down in portions because it was still coming down. Today the law is complete, and whoever enters inherits it whole in a single moment; there is no gradualness after completion. And the hadith of Mu'adh is an order of teaching, not an order of obligation: zakah is due from a man once he becomes Muslim, even if no one has told him of it yet. Besides, your own commentary says of the verse: "enter into all the ordinances of Islam, acting upon all its rulings, and leave nothing of them" — so the demand is everything, in your own wording, while you offer a dispensation the text never gave.

True: the ruling does not wait, and the hadith itself calls them an obligation — "God has made obligatory upon them five prayers in their day and night" — so falling short is falling short, not a licence, and it is not being dressed up as anything else. But the verse you cite is addressed to those who already believe: "O ye who believe! Come, all of you, into submission (unto Him)" 5, and Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar opens it with "O you who have believed in God as Lord, in Muhammad as prophet and messenger, and in Islam as religion," then says "enter into all the ordinances of Islam" 6. So it is a command to the one who has entered, not a condition at the door; whoever makes it a condition of entry makes the believer commanded to believe. And the ceiling of obligation is itself stated in the text, not tied to one era: "So keep your duty to Allah as best ye can" 7, and "God does not ask of His servants what they cannot bear" 8. The difference between a man who falls short and a hypocrite is not a flawless first week; it is in "aim straight, draw near" 3.

What if I convert and then fail?

The condition is not that you hold firm, but that you intend to hold firm and come back every time you break off. The text limits what is required to your capacity, in plain words: "So keep your duty to Allah as best ye can" 1. The commentary on it reads: "So exert … your effort and your capacity in being mindful of Allah" — spending the capacity you have, not reaching perfection 2. The Prophet did not promise the one who enters a flawless uprightness; he forbade him to seek it: "The religion is ease, and no one ever strains against the religion but it overcomes him. So aim straight and draw near" 3. And the measure is the constancy of the little, not the size of what stops: "the deeds most beloved to Allah are the most constant, even if they are few" 4. "Drawing near," in Ibn Rajab's explanation, is your case exactly: "to hit what is close to the target when one does not hit the target itself," on condition that he keeps intending to hit it 5. He says more than that: falling short in uprightness is unavoidable, not an exception, and the place where it is mended is asking forgiveness and returning, not leaving 6. As for the idea that falling after you enter makes you worse off, the address is aimed at those who went to excess themselves: "Despair not of the mercy of Allah, Who forgiveth all sins" 7 — "whatever they may be," for whoever repents of them and turns back 8. The practical mistake in your question is that you measured the beginning by more than you can carry: choose the smallest thing you are able to do every day without heroics, because the large thing that stops teaches you something false about what you are able to do 9.

1 So keep your duty to Allah as best ye can, and listen, and obey, and spend; that is better for your souls. And whoso is saved from his own greed, such are the successful.

Surat al-Taghabun 64:16 · Open the passage

2 So exert, O believers, your effort and your capacity in being mindful of Allah; and listen to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, with a listening of reflection and thought; and obey his commands and keep away from what he has forbidden…

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Taghabun 64:16 our rendering · Open the passage

3 The religion is ease, and no one ever strains against the religion but it overcomes him. So aim straight, draw near, be of good cheer, and seek help in the morning ride, the evening ride, and something of the night.

Abu Hurayra · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 39 · sahih (sound) our rendering

4 Aim straight and draw near, and know that the deeds of none of you will admit him to the Garden, and that the deeds most beloved to Allah are the most constant, even if they are few.

Aisha, Mother of the Believers · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 6464 · sahih (sound) our rendering

5 Drawing near is to hit what is close to the target when one does not hit the target itself — but on condition that he is resolved on aiming true and on hitting the target, so that his falling short is not deliberate. This is indicated by the saying of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in the report of al-Hakam ibn Hazn al-Kulafi: 'O people, you will not be able to do — or will not have the strength for — all that I have commanded you; but aim straight and be of good cheer.'

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami' al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 510 our rendering · Open the passage

6 In the words of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, where He commands that they go straight to Him and seek His forgiveness [Fussilat 41:6], there is an indication that there must be some falling short in the uprightness that is commanded; so that is mended by seeking forgiveness, which entails repentance and a return to uprightness…

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami' al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 509 our rendering · Open the passage

7 Say: O My slaves who have been prodigal to their own hurt! Despair not of the mercy of Allah, Who forgiveth all sins. Lo! He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.

Surat al-Zumar 39:53 · Open the passage

8 Say, O Messenger, to My servants who have persisted in disobedience and have gone to excess against themselves by committing the sins their souls call them to: do not despair of the mercy of Allah because your sins are many. Allah forgives all sins, whatever they may be, for whoever repents of them and turns back from them. He is the Forgiving of the sins of those of His servants who repent, the Merciful toward them.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Zumar 39:53 our rendering · Open the passage

9 So choose the smallest thing you are able to do every day without heroics. The only condition is that it be repeated, not that it be large. And what we see in ourselves and in those around us is that a thing that stops after a week may leave a worse mark than never doing it at all, because it teaches you something false about yourself — about what you are able to do, not about what you hold. And that is observed and not measured.

23. What if you wanted to come back? — The smaller thing that lasts is better than the larger thing that stops · Open the passage

The religion is ease, and no one ever strains against the religion but it overcomes him. So aim straight, draw near, be of good cheer, and seek help in the morning ride, the evening ride, and something of the night.

Abu Hurayra · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 39 · sahih (sound) our rendering

Aim straight and draw near, and know that the deeds of none of you will admit him to the Garden, and that the deeds most beloved to Allah are the most constant, even if they are few.

Aisha, Mother of the Believers · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 6464 · sahih (sound) our rendering

The strongest objection

All of this is about a person who stays and falls short, and he is not the one I asked about. My fear is that I will leave, not that I will do less — and your own religion distinguishes between a person who never entered and a person who entered and then turned back, and it makes the second heavier. So you bring me texts about falling short and stay silent about leaving, which is exactly where my question is. And your own book concedes, in its own wording, that a thing that stops after a week "may leave a worse mark than never doing it at all" — so on what ground do you invite me to a beginning whose breaking off you admit is worse than never starting?

You have mixed two things: falling short, and leaving the religion. Your description of yourself — "I will pray for a month and then stop" — is the first, in its own words, not the second; someone who slackens in a practice has not declared that he is leaving. And for this case there is an explicit text: falling short is unavoidable in the uprightness that is commanded, and it is mended by asking forgiveness and returning 6. What is required is that you aim true, not that you never miss: "you will not be able to do … all that I have commanded you; but aim straight and be of good cheer" 5. As for "the worse mark," in the book it is said about the size of the beginning, not about entering, and its context is that the thing that stops teaches you something false about what you are able to do, "not about what you hold" 9 — so it is an argument for starting small, not for not starting at all. What stands for your own case is that no upper limit is placed on sin: forgiveness is tied to repentance and turning back, "whatever they may be" 8; and that the religion overcomes the one who strains against it, not the one who draws near 3. As for the case of a person who enters and then declares that he is leaving, that is a different question with rulings of its own, and no text has been brought for it here — the answer to another question will not be passed off as the answer to yours.

Will Muslims actually accept me, or will I always be 'the convert'?

The fear is well placed, and that is why the text met it with a prohibition rather than a sermon. The first people whose removal from the Prophet's assembly was demanded were the poor and the freedmen. Al-Wahidi transmits the account and traces it to Muslim: "This verse was revealed about six of us … Suhayb, 'Ammar, al-Miqdad and Bilal. Quraysh said to the Messenger of God … We are not content to be followers of these men, so drive them away from you" 3. What came down was: "that thou shouldst repel them and be of the wrong-doers" 1. Tafsir al-Muyassar reads it: "Do not drive away — O Prophet — from your company the weak among the Muslims … if you drive them away, you will be among those who overstep the limits set by God" 2. The one doing the excluding is the accused, not the one excluded. And the matter was not left to good intentions. Immediately after the mosque was built, "the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, joined the Emigrants and the Helpers in brotherhood … upon mutual support, so that they inherited from one another after death to the exclusion of blood relatives" — ninety men, half of them arrivals with no clan 4. The stranger was given a household and an inheritance, not a handshake and a photograph. The description with which the Qur'an praised the hosts is the opposite of what you describe: "love those who flee unto them for refuge … but prefer (the fugitives) above themselves though poverty become their lot" 5 — the Helpers, who "put the Emigrants and the needy before themselves" 6. The measure is stated openly: "the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct" 7 — "there is no superiority among you in lineage" 8. So whoever keeps you 'the convert' forever has rejected a verse he himself recites. And you are not required to leave your family. The verse that supposes two parents pressing their child toward idolatry is the same verse that commands "Consort with them in the world kindly" 9 — "in kindness, in whatever involves no sin" 10.

1 Repel not those who call upon their Lord at morn and evening, seeking His Countenance. Thou art not accountable for them in aught, nor are they accountable for thee in aught, that thou shouldst repel them and be of the wrong-doers.

Qur'an, Surat al-An'am (The Cattle) 6:52 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 Do not drive away — O Prophet — from your company the weak among the Muslims, who worship their Lord at the beginning of the day and at its end, seeking by their righteous deeds the face of God. You are not accountable for these poor men in anything; their account rests with God alone, and they are not accountable for you in anything. If you drive them away, you will be among those who overstep the limits set by God, those who put a thing where it does not belong.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-An'am 6:52 our rendering · Open the passage

3 Yahya ibn Hakim said: Abu Dawud related to us, saying: Qays ibn al-Rabi' related to us, from al-Miqdam ibn Shurayh, from his father, from Sa'd, who said: This verse was revealed about six of us — about me, and about Ibn Mas'ud, Suhayb, 'Ammar, al-Miqdad and Bilal. Quraysh said to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace: We are not content to be followers of these men, so drive them away from you. And there entered the heart of the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, of that what God willed to enter. So God Most High sent down to him: "Repel not those who call upon their Lord at morn and evening, seeking His Countenance" — the verse. Muslim related it, from Zuhayr ibn Harb, from 'Abd al-Rahman, from Sufyan, from al-Miqdam.

Abu al-Hasan al-Wahidi · Asbab Nuzul al-Qur'an (The Occasions of Revelation), p. 216 our rendering · Open the passage

4 Then the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, joined the Emigrants and the Helpers in brotherhood in the house of Anas ibn Malik. They were ninety men, half of them from the Emigrants and half from the Helpers. He joined them in brotherhood upon mutual support, so that they inherited from one another after death to the exclusion of blood relatives, until the battle of Badr.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 55 our rendering · Open the passage

5 Those who entered the city and the faith before them love those who flee unto them for refuge, and find in their breasts no need for that which hath been given them, but prefer (the fugitives) above themselves though poverty become their lot. And whoso is saved from his own avarice - such are they who are successful.

Qur'an, Surat al-Hashr (The Exile) 59:9 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 And those who had settled in Medina and had believed before the Emigrants came — they are the Helpers — love the Emigrants and share their wealth with them. They find in themselves no envy of them for what they were given of the spoils and of anything else. They put the Emigrants and the needy before themselves, even when they are in need and poverty themselves. And whoever is kept safe from miserliness and from withholding surplus wealth — those are the ones who have won, who have gained what they sought.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Hashr 59:9 our rendering · Open the passage

7 O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct. Lo! Allah is Knower, Aware.

Qur'an, Surat al-Hujurat (The Private Apartments) 49:13 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

8 O mankind, We created you from one father, Adam, and one mother, Eve, so there is no superiority among you in lineage. And by descent We made you many peoples and tribes, so that you may know one another. The most honoured of you before God is the one most mindful of Him. God is Knowing of those mindful of Him, Aware of them.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Hujurat 49:13 our rendering · Open the passage

9 But if they strive with thee to make thee ascribe unto Me as partner that of which thou hast no knowledge, then obey them not. Consort with them in the world kindly, and follow the path of him who repenteth unto Me. Then unto Me will be your return, and I shall tell you what ye used to do -

Qur'an, Surat Luqman 31:15 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

10 And if your parents — O believing child — strive with you to associate another with Me in your worship of Me, of which you have no knowledge, or order you to some act of disobedience to God, then do not obey them; for no creature is to be obeyed in disobedience to the Creator. Keep company with them in this world in kindness, in whatever involves no sin. And follow — O believing son — the path of the one who has repented of his sin and returned to Me and believed in My Messenger Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace. Then to Me is your return, and I will tell you what you used to do in this world, and I will requite every doer for his deed.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Luqman 31:15 our rendering · Open the passage

11 We gave rulings for it, and defended it in gatherings, and made departure from it a departure from God. So whoever left it found himself outside everything, and that is a door we shut behind him. Then again, much of what drove you off is not from the religion in our own judgement. And we say this after the admission and not before it, and we do not ask that it be counted for us: whoever manufactured the confusion and then came to explain it deserves no wage for the explanation. …

An Apology Without a 'But' · Open the passage

The strongest objection

This is a selection from a book, not a report about people. And you produced my proof with your own hand: had expulsion not been demanded and actually pressed for, no verse would have come down forbidding it; and had the newcomer not been left with no one at all, no pact of brotherhood carrying inheritance would have been needed. So your own texts are testimony that tribal partisanship stood in the front row while the Prophet was present and revelation was coming down. On what, then, do you rest my confidence in a mosque that has neither of the two? My question is about what happens, not about what is forbidden.

The premise is correct, and it is granted: the verse came down because the demand was actually made 3, and the pact of brotherhood was contracted because the newcomer had no one 4. And you will not be offered a reassurance that is not there to give. There is a letter written by believers to those who have left the religion: "… So whoever left it found himself outside everything, and that is a door we shut behind him. Then again, much of what drove you off is not from the religion in our own judgement … whoever manufactured the confusion and then came to explain it deserves no wage for the explanation" 11. So what is put to you is not that mistreatment does not occur, but that when it occurs it counts against them and not against you: the text names the one who excludes a wrongdoer who has overstepped the limits set by God 1 2, and it makes the measure God-consciousness rather than lineage 7 8. Weigh the first mosque you walk into by that, and do not weigh it by your first day in it.

Do I have to learn Arabic?

No. The objection about language is itself raised in the Qur'an, and answered there: "And if We had appointed it a Lecture in a foreign tongue they would assuredly have said: If only its verses were expounded (so that we might understand)? What! A foreign tongue and an Arab?" and then: "Say unto them (O Muhammad): For those who believe it is a guidance and a healing" 1. The one shut out in the verse is the one who does not believe, not the one who does not speak Arabic 2. Every messenger before him was sent "with the language of his folk, that he might make (the message) clear for them" 3. Language is a vessel for making things clear, not a badge of rank; and rank is settled in plain words by something else entirely: "the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct" 4. As for how much is actually required of you, it is small and countable: al-Fatiha, the opening chapter, in the prayer 5. And "whoever is unable to recite al-Fatiha … performs its substitute: he recites as much as it from the rest of the Qur'an; and if he cannot do that, he says as much as it in words of remembrance, such as glorifying God and declaring His oneness … and if he can do none of that, he stands silent for the length of the recitation" 6 — a ladder set out in the texts whose last rung is a silent standing by which the prayer still counts, not a door closed in your face. And when people say a translation is not the Qur'an, that is a ruling about the limits of transmission, not about your standing: "the prohibition on translation is restricted to recitation; as for translating it in order to act by it, that is permitted out of necessity … and whoever wants more than that is told to learn the Arabic tongue" 7.

1 And if We had appointed it a Lecture in a foreign tongue they would assuredly have said: If only its verses were expounded (so that we might understand)? What! A foreign tongue and an Arab? - Say unto them (O Muhammad): For those who believe it is a guidance and a healing; and as for those who disbelieve, there is a deafness in their ears, and it is blindness for them. Such are called to from afar.

Surat Fussilat 41:44 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 Had We made this Qur'an, which We sent down upon you — O Messenger — in a foreign tongue, the idolaters would have said: Why were its verses not made plain, so that we might understand them and know them? Is this Qur'an foreign, while the tongue of the one it was sent down upon is Arabic? That cannot be. Say to them — O Messenger: This Qur'an, for those who believe in God and His Messenger, is guidance out of misguidance, and a healing for the doubts and diseases in their breasts. And those who do not believe in the Qur'an have deafness in their ears against hearing it and pondering it, and it is blindness upon their hearts, so they are not guided by it.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar, on Fussilat 41:44 our rendering · Open the passage

3 And We never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make (the message) clear for them. Then Allah sendeth whom He will astray, and guideth whom He will. He is the Mighty, the Wise.

Surat Ibrahim 14:4 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

4 O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct. Lo! Allah is Knower, Aware.

Surat al-Hujurat 49:13 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

5 There is no prayer for one who does not recite the Opening of the Book.

Ubada ibn al-Samit · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 756 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

6 Whoever is unable to recite al-Fatiha, in all of these cases, performs its substitute: he recites as much as it from the rest of the Qur'an. If he cannot manage that, he says as much as it in words of remembrance, such as glorifying God and declaring His oneness and the like. And if he can manage nothing at all, he stands silent for the length of the recitation. And God knows best.

al-Nawawi · al-Tibyan fi Adab Hamalat al-Qur'an, p. 128 our rendering · Open the passage

7 I have seen, in the words of some of the later imams, that the prohibition on translation is restricted to recitation. As for translating it in order to act by it, that is permitted out of necessity. It should be limited to explaining what is clear in it and what is obscure in meaning, to the measure of the necessity: the oneness of God and the pillars of worship, and nothing beyond that is to be taken up. And whoever wants more than that is told to learn the Arabic tongue. This is what the evidence requires.

al-Zarkashi · al-Burhan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 465 our rendering · Open the passage

8 Reciting it in a non-Arabic tongue … whether he knows Arabic well or not, and whether in the prayer or outside it. If he recites in it during the prayer, his prayer is not valid. This is our school's position, and the position of Malik, Ahmad, Dawud, and Abu Bakr ibn al-Mundhir. Abu Hanifa said that this is permitted and that the prayer is valid with it. Abu Yusuf and Muhammad said that it is permitted for whoever does not know Arabic well, and not permitted for whoever does know it.

al-Nawawi · al-Tibyan fi Adab Hamalat al-Qur'an, p. 95 our rendering · Open the passage

9 From the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, in the story of the man who prayed badly: "When you stand for the prayer, say the opening takbir, then recite what you can of the Qur'an." He then related the hadith, and at the end of it: "Then do that in all of your prayer."

Abu Hurayra · al-Bayhaqi · Ma'rifat al-Sunan wa-l-Athar 3211 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

There is no prayer for one who does not recite the Opening of the Book.

Ubada ibn al-Samit · al-Bukhari · Sahih al-Bukhari 756 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

From the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, in the story of the man who prayed badly: "When you stand for the prayer, say the opening takbir, then recite what you can of the Qur'an." He then related the hadith, and at the end of it: "Then do that in all of your prayer."

Abu Hurayra · al-Bayhaqi · Ma'rifat al-Sunan wa-l-Athar 3211 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

All of this is smooth connective tissue laid over a hard text. The jurists say it without softening: whoever recites in a language other than Arabic in the prayer has not prayed a valid prayer — "whether he knows Arabic well or not." So the excuse of language is lifted by the wording itself, not by interpretation. I am required to memorize a sound whose meaning I do not understand in order for my worship to be valid, while the man born into the language performs it in his mother tongue and understands every word of it at no cost. Call it what you like; it is an accident of birth turned into a privilege at the very heart of the rite. And patching it with a "ladder for the incapable" only makes it worse: it puts me on the lowest rung — standing there in silence — and puts him on the highest with no effort at all.

The text does say that, and it is not being hidden 8. Three things go with it, stated without evasion. First, it is not a consensus: on the same page, Abu Hanifa allowed reciting in another language and held the prayer valid with it, and Abu Yusuf and Muhammad allowed it for anyone who does not know Arabic well 8. Second, what you must memorize is fixed by a text and is not a whole language: "When you stand for the prayer, say the opening takbir, then recite what you can of the Qur'an" 9, and below that there is a substitute, and then a substitute for the substitute 6. Third, understanding is not withheld from you at all: translating it in order to act by it is permitted; what is forbidden is that the translation stand in place of the recited text 7 — the restriction is on the sound that is worshipped with in its own wording, not on the meaning. What remains is that the memorizing is a cost on you that is not on him, and that is real and not to be denied; but it is the cost of transmission, not a rank of membership, and rank is settled in another chapter altogether: "the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct" 4.

What actually convinced people who converted — not what you say should convince them?

Yes — and your hunch holds for most of what was written down. The sources say it before you do, and they do not apologise for it 1. Thumamah ibn Uthal was tied to a pillar of the mosque as a prisoner and then released; he accepted Islam and said: "By God, there was no face on the face of the earth more hateful to me than your face, and now your face has become the most beloved of faces to me" — treatment, not argument, and in the whole account there is not one sentence of argument put to him 1. Blunter still is the man who was given a flock of sheep between two mountains and went back to his people saying, "Muhammad gives like a man who has no fear of poverty"; Anas narrates it in Sahih Muslim and adds that such a man "would accept Islam wanting nothing but the world". And this is not an oddity kept for its curiosity value: the verse listing where alms are to be spent contains a fixed category named "those whose hearts are to be reconciled" 2, which al-Muyassar explains as "for those whose hearts you reconcile by it, from among those whose acceptance of Islam is hoped for" 3 — a standing budget for winning hearts with money, declared under its own name; and one of the men who took it said so in his own words: "The Messenger of God gave to me when he was the most hateful of creation to me, and he kept on giving to me until he became the most beloved of creation to me" 4. But your claim that this is all there was falls on a single case: al-Tufayl al-Dawsi stuffed cotton in his ears before entering the mosque so that not one sentence would reach him, a sentence reached him anyway, and he said, "I never heard speech finer than it, nor a matter more just than it" — a text heard, with no companionship and no gift 5. And in the same account his father and his wife accepted Islam with no argument at all, both with the sentence "then my religion is your religion" 6 — which is precisely the "he married a Muslim woman" case, written down in the source without embarrassment.

1 Then he passed by a third time and said: Release Thumamah. So they released him, and he went to a grove of palms near the mosque and washed himself, then came to him and accepted Islam, and said: By God, there was no face on the face of the earth more hateful to me than your face, and now your face has become the most beloved of faces to me; and by God, there was no religion on the face of the earth more hateful to me than your religion, and now your religion has become the most beloved of religions to me.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 246 our rendering · Open the passage

2 The alms are only for the poor and the needy, and those who collect them, and those whose hearts are to be reconciled, and to free the captives and the debtors, and for the cause of Allah, and (for) the wayfarer; a duty imposed by Allah. Allah is Knower, Wise.

Surah al-Tawbah (Repentance) 9:60 · Open the passage

3 …and for those whose hearts you reconcile by it, from among those whose acceptance of Islam is hoped for, or the strengthening of whose faith, or whose benefit to the Muslims is hoped for, or by whom you ward off someone's harm from the Muslims…

Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Tawbah 9:60 our rendering · Open the passage

4 …the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, gave extra portions from it to the chiefs of the tribes and clans, to reconcile them and their people to Islam… as one of those he gave to said: The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, gave to me when he was the most hateful of creation to me, and he kept on giving to me until he became the most beloved of creation to me.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 423 our rendering · Open the passage

5 By God, they kept on at me until I resolved not to hear anything from him and not to speak to him, so that I stuffed cotton in my ears when I went out to the mosque, out of fear that something of his speech would reach me.… But God refused anything except that He make me hear some of his speech, and I heard beautiful words… Then the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, set Islam before me and recited the Qur'an to me, and by God, I never heard speech finer than it, nor a matter more just than it; so I accepted Islam and bore witness to the truth.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 545 our rendering · Open the passage

6 My father came to me, and he was a very old man, and I said: Away from me, father; I am not of you and you are not of me. He said: Why, my son? I said: I have accepted Islam and followed the religion of Muhammad. He said: My son, then my religion is your religion.… Then my wife came to me, and I said to her: Away from me; I am not of you and you are not of me. She said: Why, may my father and mother be your ransom? I said: Islam has parted me from you; I have accepted Islam and followed the religion of Muhammad. She said: Then my religion is your religion.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 546 our rendering · Open the passage

7 Most of the research on leaving religion has been carried out on Western samples, most of them American or German Protestant, and the majority of them self-selected… and the defect that bears the weight is not the number but that they are self-selected and not representative. So reasoning from them to the young Arab Muslim is an analogy and not a transfer, and you will not find a single percentage in this chapter, because I do not have one and neither does anyone who has claimed one.

2. Why do people actually leave their religion? · Open the passage

8 this is a letter assembled out of the testimonies of men who left and then returned, not the life of any one man.… So there is no name to be checked, and no life to be looked into, and nothing in it is to be believed because of who said it.

From a Former Atheist to an Atheist · Open the passage

9 And in it: that a sensible man should not follow people blindly in praise and blame, and least of all follow a man who praises out of whim and blames out of whim — how often has such following stood between hearts and guidance.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 547 our rendering · Open the passage

10 And if anyone of the idolaters seeketh thy protection (O Muhammad), then protect him so that he may hear the Word of Allah, and afterward convey him to his place of safety. That is because they are a folk who know not.

Surah al-Tawbah (Repentance) 9:6 · Open the passage

11 …so grant him what he asks until he hears the Noble Qur'an and comes to know its guidance, then return him safely to where he came from; and that is so the proof may be established against him. That is because the disbelievers are a people ignorant of the realities of Islam, and they may well choose it once that ignorance is gone from them.

Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · al-Tawbah 9:6 our rendering · Open the passage

A man asked the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, for a flock of sheep between two mountains, and he gave it to him. He came to his people and said: My people, accept Islam, for by God, Muhammad gives like a man who has no fear of poverty. Anas said: A man would accept Islam wanting nothing but the world, and it would not be long before Islam became dearer to him than the world and everything in it.

Anas ibn Malik · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 2312 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

Everything you brought is seventh-century Arabia: a prisoner released by his captor who then thanks him, a tribal chief bought with a hundred camels, a woman who follows her husband. You have not answered me; you have handed me the documents. And "those whose hearts are to be reconciled" is not fairness on your part — it is the charge itself, written into your own book; and anyone who produces a confession in order to buy my trust has turned the confession into a technique of persuasion. Besides, I asked about people who actually converted, and today, not fourteen centuries ago: you have given me no living name and not one measured study.

The last part is right, and it is granted without evasion: on people converting today there is no measured figure here and no verified name, and what has been given is what there is, not something to fill the gap. The book says the same thing in the opposite direction. Research on leaving religion is "self-selected and not representative", and so "you will not find a single percentage in this chapter, because I do not have one and neither does anyone who has claimed one" 7. Its letter to the atheist opens by declaring that it is "a letter assembled out of the testimonies of men who left and then returned, not the life of any one man… So there is no name to be checked" 8 — and a man out to sell you a testimony does not announce that in his second line. As for the claim that it was all power and money, al-Tufayl alone breaks it: the episode is in Mecca, the man calling was weak and harried, and it was Quraysh who went round to people warning them against him — no army that day and no money to hand out. Ibn al-Qayyim draws exactly this out of the story: "a sensible man should not follow people blindly in praise and blame… how often has such following stood between hearts and guidance" 9. And the category you counted as a charge — the Qur'an sets its opposite beside it in plain words: "then protect him so that he may hear the Word of Allah, and afterward convey him to his place of safety" 10, which al-Muyassar explains as "then return him safely to where he came from… and they may well choose it once that ignorance is gone from them" 11 — he hears the text and is then delivered back safe to his own people, an offer with no leverage in it and no price. Both provisions are in the book together, and whoever takes one and hides the other — on our side or yours — has not described what is in it.

I said the shahada and felt nothing — am I actually a believer?

No — you did not speak empty words, and feeling is not the door you enter by. The Qur'an itself speaks of people who entered with their tongues, "for the faith hath not yet entered into your hearts," and it did not then cancel their deeds; in the same verse it says, "if ye obey Allah and His messenger, He will not withhold from you aught of (the reward of) your deeds" 1. The rebuke in the verse falls on their claim to the higher rank, not on entry itself: "Do not claim complete faith for yourselves; rather say: We have submitted" 2 — and you claimed nothing. You were afraid. Ibn Rajab holds that these people "were not hypocrites entirely, according to the sounder of the two interpretations," and that rather "faith may be weak … so he is a Muslim, but not a believer with complete faith" 3, and that the close of the verse "shows that they had with them enough faith for their deeds to be accepted" 4. The order you are waiting for runs the other way in the text: Abraham asked, "My Lord! Show me how Thou givest life to the dead," and he was asked, "Dost thou not believe?" and he answered, "Yea, but (I ask) in order that my heart may be at ease" 5 — faith already settled, and reassurance still being asked for, "so that I may add certainty to my certainty" 6. And the same again: He "sent down peace of reassurance into the hearts of the believers that they might add faith unto their faith" 7. The calm came down on people who were believers before it came, "along with their affirming and following" 8 — an increase that is given, not an entry fee collected at the door. Whoever makes the felt effect a condition of the first step "has put the conclusion in the place of the premise, and then blamed himself for not having moved" 9.

1 The wandering Arabs say: We believe. Say (unto them, O Muhammad): Ye believe not, but rather say "We submit," for the faith hath not yet entered into your hearts. Yet, if ye obey Allah and His messenger, He will not withhold from you aught of (the reward of) your deeds. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Surah Al-Hujurat (The Private Apartments) 49:14 · trans. Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 The bedouin Arabs said: We have believed in Allah and His Messenger with complete faith. Say to them, O Prophet: Do not claim complete faith for yourselves; rather say: We have submitted. Faith has not yet entered your hearts. And if you obey Allah and His Messenger, He will not diminish for you anything of the reward of your deeds. Allah is Forgiving to whoever repents of his sins, Merciful to him.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah Al-Hujurat (The Private Apartments) 49:14 our rendering · Open the passage

3 The heart does not realize faith without the limbs being set in motion in the works of Islam. Not every Muslim is a believer, for faith may be weak, so that the heart does not realize it completely even while his limbs are performing the works of Islam; so he is a Muslim, but not a believer with complete faith. As Allah, exalted be He, said: {The wandering Arabs say: We believe. Say: Ye believe not, but rather say: We submit, for the faith hath not yet entered into your hearts} [Al-Hujurat: 14]. And they were not hypocrites entirely, according to the sounder of the two interpretations, which is the view of Ibn Abbas and others …

Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami' al-'Ulum wa'l-Hikam, p. 108 our rendering · Open the passage

4 Their faith was weak, as is shown by the words of Allah, exalted be He: {And if ye obey Allah and His messenger, He will not withhold from you aught of (the reward of) your deeds} [Al-Hujurat: 14] — that is, He will not diminish anything of their rewards. This shows that they had with them enough faith for their deeds to be accepted.

Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami' al-'Ulum wa'l-Hikam, p. 109 our rendering · Open the passage

5 And when Abraham said (unto his Lord): My Lord! Show me how Thou givest life to the dead, He said: Dost thou not believe? Abraham said: Yea, but (I ask) in order that my heart may be at ease. (His Lord) said: Take four of the birds and cause them to incline unto thee, then place a part of them on each hill, then call them, they will come to thee in haste, and know that Allah is Mighty, Wise.

Surah Al-Baqarah (The Cow) 2:260 · trans. Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 And remember, O Messenger, Abraham's request to his Lord that He show him how the dead are raised. Allah said to him: Do you not believe? He said: Yes, but I ask this so that I may add certainty to my certainty …

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah Al-Baqarah (The Cow) 2:260 our rendering · Open the passage

7 He it is Who sent down peace of reassurance into the hearts of the believers that they might add faith unto their faith. Allah's are the hosts of the heavens and the earth, and Allah is ever Knower, Wise -

Surah Al-Fath (Victory) 48:4 · trans. Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

8 He is Allah, who sent down calm into the hearts of those who believe in Allah and His Messenger on the day of al-Hudaybiyah, so that they were stilled and certainty took firm root in them, that they might increase in affirming Allah and in following His Messenger, along with their affirming and following. …

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah Al-Fath (Victory) 48:4 our rendering · Open the passage

9 And there is an order that many report in their own accounts: that the peace of mind came after the act and not before it — and that is a description that recurs in what has been passed on to us, not the result of a study we can refer you to. And whoever makes complete certainty a condition of the first step has put the conclusion in the place of the premise, and then blamed himself for not having moved.

23. What if you wanted to come back? · Open the passage

10 The true believers in Allah are only those whose hearts tremble when Allah is mentioned, and who, when the verses of the Qur'an are recited to them, are increased in faith upon their faith, because they ponder its meanings; and upon Allah, exalted be He, they rely, hoping for none but Him and fearing none besides Him.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surah Al-Anfal (Spoils of War) 8:2 our rendering · Open the passage

11 They only are the (true) believers whose hearts feel fear when Allah is mentioned, and when His revelations are recited unto them they increase their faith, and who trust in their Lord;

Surah Al-Anfal (Spoils of War) 8:2 · trans. Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

The strongest objection

This is selective, and it softens. The Qur'an confines faith to a felt state, and it uses the word of restriction to do it: "They only are the (true) believers whose hearts feel fear when Allah is mentioned" — that fear is a feeling, and I did not find it. Worse, the very verse you built your whole answer on says to the people it addresses, in plain words, "Ye believe not." So you have brought me a text that flatly denies faith to people in my condition, and then turned it into reassurance. The text confirms what I was afraid of, not what you say: a Muslim on paper, not a believer.

The restriction in that verse is to the "true" believers, as Tafsir al-Muyassar reads it: "The true believers in Allah are only those whose hearts tremble when Allah is mentioned" 10 — that is the description of a complete rank. The proof is in the same verse: the revelations recited to them "increase their faith" 11, an increase upon a faith already standing before them. So the trembling is measured on someone already inside; it is not a condition at the threshold. Ibn Rajab separates the two ranks in his own words: "so he is a Muslim, but not a believer with complete faith" 3 — denying the higher rank is not expulsion from the religion. As for "Ye believe not," the verse itself takes back what would follow from it, in its own closing words: "He will not withhold from you aught of (the reward of) your deeds" 1; and "a Muslim on paper" is not a true description of people who had "with them enough faith for their deeds to be accepted" 4. And the objection stays right on one point, which nothing above shifts: the text establishes that there is a rank above the one you are in. It did not say you had reached it.

And if I want to leave afterwards — what happens to me?

Both the verse and the penalty — neither of them is hidden from you here, and each is set out below in its own words. The verse: "There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error." 1 And the occasion of its revelation, as reported, is a case of leaving, not a case of entering: the two sons of a man of the Ansar in Medina became Christians and left for Syria; their father told the Prophet, and he said "Go after them," and then the verse came down — so they were not pursued and were not killed 2. The Qur'an also speaks of apostasy repeated — belief, then disbelief, then belief, then disbelief, then an increase in disbelief — and attaches no worldly consequence to it 3; Tafsir al-Muyassar stops at the point that Allah "would not forgive them," and refers the matter to the hereafter 4. The penalty does stand in the books of law, and it is not denied here: its wording in Ibn Rajab, from Sahih al-Bukhari, is "Whoever changes his religion, kill him," and its other wording joins two descriptions, not one — "the one who abandons his religion and separates from the community" 5. Ibn Rajab himself cites al-Nasa'i's narration and says of it that it "indicates that what is meant is one who combines apostasy with waging war" 6, and then rebuts that with another wording found in Abu Dawud, and does not endorse it. And there is a written text that made leaving a clause in a signed treaty: the truce of al-Hudaybiya stipulated that whoever came to the Prophet from Quraysh was to be returned to them, "and whoever goes to Quraysh from those who are with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), they shall not return him to him" 7. The book counts "the penalty for apostasy" as one of three charges standing against our own tradition, and says that the probe was pointed at its own people before anyone else 8 — so no one here is telling you that the question will not arise.

1 There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower.

Surah al-Baqarah 2:256 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 Al-Suddi said: It was revealed concerning a man of the Ansar known by the kunya Abu al-Husayn, who had two sons. Traders from Syria came to Medina carrying oil, and when they wanted to return from Medina the two sons of Abu al-Husayn came to them, and they called the two of them to Christianity, so they became Christians and left for Syria. Abu al-Husayn informed the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and he said: "Go after them." So Allah, Mighty and Majestic, sent down {There is no compulsion in religion}, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "May Allah put them far away; they are the first to disbelieve." He said: And this was before the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was commanded to fight the People of the Book; then His saying {There is no compulsion in religion} was abrogated, and he was commanded to fight the People of the Book in Surat Bara'a.

Al-Wahidi, Asbab Nuzul al-Qur'an (The Occasions of Revelation of the Qur'an), p. 83 our rendering · Open the passage

3 Lo! those who believe, then disbelieve and then (again) believe, then disbelieve, and then increase in disbelief, Allah will never pardon them, nor will He guide them unto a way.

Surah al-Nisa 4:137 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

4 Those who entered into faith, then turned back from it to disbelief, then returned to faith, then turned back to disbelief once more, then persisted in their disbelief and continued in it — Allah would not forgive them, nor would He guide them to any of the paths of guidance by which they might be saved from an evil end.

Tafsir al-Muyassar, al-Nisa 4:137 our rendering · Open the passage

5 As for "the one who abandons his religion and separates from the community," what is meant by it is one who abandons Islam, apostatizes from it, and separates from the community of the Muslims, as is stated explicitly in the hadith of Uthman … Also, a man may abandon his religion and separate from the community while still affirming the two testimonies and claiming Islam, as when he denies one of the pillars of Islam, or reviles Allah and His Messenger, or disbelieves in some of the angels or the prophets or the books mentioned in the Qur'an while knowing this. And in Sahih al-Bukhari, from Ibn Abbas, from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), he said: "Whoever changes his religion, kill him."

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali, Jami al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 317 our rendering · Open the passage

6 If it is said: al-Nasa'i related from the hadith of A'isha, from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), that he said: "The blood of a Muslim man is not lawful except for one of three things: a married adulterer, who is stoned; a man who kills deliberately, so he is killed; and a man who leaves Islam and wages war against Allah and His Messenger, so he is killed, or crucified, or banished from the land." And this indicates that what is meant is one who combines apostasy with waging war.

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali, Jami al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 318 our rendering · Open the passage

7 This is what Muhammad ibn Abdullah (peace and blessings be upon him) and Suhayl ibn Amr made peace upon: they agreed to lay down war between the people for ten years, during which the people would be safe and would restrain one another; and that whoever comes to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) from Quraysh without the permission of his guardian, he shall return him to them. … And whoever goes to Quraysh from those who are with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), they shall not return him to him; and that between us is a sealed pouch, and that there shall be no stealing and no treachery; and that whoever wishes to enter into the covenant of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and his pact may enter into it, and whoever wishes to enter into the covenant of Quraysh and their pact may enter into it.

Al-Baqillani, I'jaz al-Qur'an (The Inimitability of the Qur'an), p. 57 our rendering · Open the passage

8 And I will not leave you without a place to start from, so I begin with us. The charges standing against our own tradition are known and countable, and here are three of them by name: fighting, whom it is fought against and why · what the right hand possesses · the penalty for apostasy. Take one, then run the criterion in four steps: what wording does the wrongdoer rest on? And does he rest on it bare, or on conditions in its context which he has dropped? And did its own people themselves go against him in that, and when did the disagreement begin — after the tradition became an embarrassment, or centuries before? And is their disagreement printed among them or among their opponents? And I will not answer the three for you here — because their answer is longer than a letter, and because I do not want you to take a conclusion from me in a subject where your way is to read for yourself. I want you to know that I know where the probe is to be pointed, and that I pointed it at us before anyone else.

Criteria for testing the claim of revelation · Open the passage

9 The scholars differed as to whether this portion of the verse is in force or abrogated. … One of the two views: that it belongs to the general which has been specified, and that the People of the Book were specified out of it, for they are not compelled to Islam but are given the choice between it and paying the jizya. This meaning is related from Ibn Abbas, Mujahid, and Qatada.

Ibn al-Jawzi, Nawasikh al-Qur'an, p. 296 our rendering · Open the passage

10 Ali informed us, saying: Abu Ubayd related to us, saying: Abd al-Rahman related to us, from Sharik, from Abu Hilal al-Ta'i, from Wasiq al-Rumi, who said: I was a slave belonging to Umar ibn al-Khattab, and he said to me: "Wasiq, become a Muslim, for if you become a Muslim I will seek your help in the trust of the Muslims, since I do not seek help over them from one who is not of them." He said: I refused, so he said: "There is no compulsion in religion." He said: Then he freed me and said: "Go wherever you wish." Abu Ubayd said: And this, God willing, is the sense of this verse: that it concerns the people of dhimma, because they pay the jizya, or those who are slaves. As for the people of war, it does not apply to them.

Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam, al-Nasikh wa al-Mansukh, p. 281 our rendering · Open the passage

11 And the second: (that what is meant by it is) that religion is not what one professes outwardly by way of compulsion upon it, which the heart does not bear witness to and the inner self does not hold; rather, religion is what is believed in the heart. This is the statement of Abu Bakr ibn al-Anbari … And the second view: that it is abrogated, (because this verse) was revealed before the command to fight and was then abrogated by the verse of the sword. This is the statement of al-Dahhak, al-Suddi, and Ibn Zayd.

Ibn al-Jawzi, Nawasikh al-Qur'an, p. 298 our rendering · Open the passage

12 Because of the perfection of this religion and the clarity of its signs, there is no need to compel to it those from whom the jizya is accepted; the proofs are clear, by which truth is distinguished from falsehood and guidance from misguidance. So whoever disbelieves in everything worshipped besides Allah and believes in Allah has stood firm upon the best way, and has grasped of the religion the strongest handhold, which has no breaking. And Allah is Hearing of the words of His servants, Knowing of their deeds and their intentions, and He will requite them for that.

Tafsir al-Muyassar, al-Baqarah 2:256 our rendering · Open the passage

The strongest objection

This is selective. The occasion of revelation you cited says at its own end that the verse was abrogated and that fighting the People of the Book was commanded in Surat Bara'a — so you argued from a report that demolishes your argument in its last line. And you cited Ibn Rajab's objection, then admitted that he rebutted it; on what ground does anything remain for you? Tafsir al-Muyassar, on your own site, restricts "There is no compulsion" to "those from whom the jizya is accepted" — that is, to someone who has not entered, not to someone who entered and then left. And Abu Ubayd restricts it explicitly to the people of dhimma and to slaves. The hadith in al-Bukhari stands in its absolute wording, "Whoever changes his religion, kill him," and Ibn Rajab reports that it makes no distinction between a man and a woman "according to most of the scholars" — so where is this disagreement you claim? What you are really giving me is a verse said to be abrogated, an occasion of revelation that has nothing to do with the one who leaves, and a penalty that stands.

As for abrogation, it is one of two recorded views, not a consensus. Ibn al-Jawzi opens the chapter with "The scholars differed as to whether this portion of the verse is in force or abrogated," and attributes the view that it remains in force to Ibn Abbas, Mujahid, and Qatada 9, and attributes abrogation to al-Dahhak, al-Suddi, and Ibn Zayd 11 — and al-Suddi is the very narrator of that report, so its last line is his opinion, not a report of what happened. As for Ibn Rajab's rebuttal, it was not concealed here and nothing was built on it. What is built on is this: the reading that ties apostasy to waging war is written in our own books, transmitted from al-Nasa'i, and printed among us, not among our opponents 6 — and that is exactly the criterion the book lays down for testing such charges 8. As for restricting the verse to the people of dhimma and to slaves, that is granted here and not disputed 12 10; but note that it is a restriction on who is not compelled, not on the direction of compulsion — and on the same page Umar ibn al-Khattab, the caliph who held the power to coerce, offers Islam to his own slave, who refuses, and he says "There is no compulsion in religion," then frees him and says "Go wherever you wish" 10. And what your objection does not touch still stands: the statement of Abu Bakr ibn al-Anbari that what is professed outwardly under compulsion, which the heart does not bear witness to, is not religion — "religion is what is believed in the heart" 11 — so compulsion does not produce the very thing it demands. And the Hudaybiya clause stands: a written contract that was carried out, not the reading of a verse that can be disputed 7.

My parents died outside Islam — are they in hell? May I even pray for them?

No text says that, and the rule that is stated runs the other way: "We never punish until we have sent a messenger" 1. The commentary on it reads: "God does not punish anyone until the proof has been established against him by the sending of messengers and the revealing of scriptures" 2. Ibn al-Qayyim states the rule without restriction and separates the rulings of this world from the punishment of the hereafter: "God — exalted be He — does not punish anyone until the proof has been established against him" 3; and those who die among the children of the idolaters "are put to the test on the Day of Resurrection; whoever obeys enters the Garden" 4. As for prayer, the prohibition falls on asking forgiveness alone — "It is not for the Prophet, and those who believe, to pray for the forgiveness of idolaters" 5 — and it came down about the Prophet himself, after he had said to his uncle: "I shall surely ask forgiveness for you so long as I am not forbidden to do so" 6. So it is not a rule laid on you alone; it fell on him first. And in Sahih Muslim he said: "I asked my Lord's permission to ask forgiveness for my mother, and He did not permit me; and I asked His permission to visit her grave, and He permitted me" 7 — one act was withheld from him and the grave was allowed him, so the tie was not cut and grief was not forbidden. And what I will not hide: the ban on asking forgiveness stands and is not to be worked around 5, and Muslim carries a wording that names one particular father in the Fire 8 — so whoever tells you the door is wide open has taken one half and left the other.

1 Whosoever goeth right, it is only for (the good of) his own soul that he goeth right, and whosoever erreth, erreth only to its hurt. No laden soul can bear another's load, We never punish until we have sent a messenger.

The Quran, Surah al-Isra 17:15 — trans. Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 … and no sinful soul bears the sin of another sinful soul. God does not punish anyone until the proof has been established against him by the sending of messengers and the revealing of scriptures.

Tafsir al-Muyassar — Surah al-Isra 17:15 our rendering · Open the passage

3 "He — peace be upon him — was asked about the people of a house of idolaters who are raided by night, so that some of their children and women are struck, and he said: They are of them." This is a sound hadith. What he — peace be upon him — meant by their being of them is that they follow them in the rulings of this world and in the absence of liability, not that they follow them in the punishment of the hereafter; for God — exalted be He — does not punish anyone until the proof has been established against him.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in 'an Rabb al-'Alamin, p. 206 our rendering · Open the passage

4 "He — peace be upon him — was asked about those who die among the children of the idolaters, and he said: God knows best what they would have done." … as the rest of the hadiths state plainly and as the scholars of hadith agree, they are put to the test on the Day of Resurrection; whoever obeys enters the Garden, and whoever disobeys enters the Fire.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya · I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in 'an Rabb al-'Alamin, p. 208 our rendering · Open the passage

5 It is not for the Prophet, and those who believe, to pray for the forgiveness of idolaters even though they may be near of kin (to them) after it hath become clear that they are people of hell-fire.

The Quran, Surah al-Tawba 9:113 — trans. Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 … He said: "Uncle, say with me: There is no god but God, and I will plead for you with it before God." Abu Jahl and Ibn Abi Umayya said: Abu Talib, do you turn away from the creed of Abd al-Muttalib? And they kept on speaking to him until the last thing he said to them was: on the creed of Abd al-Muttalib. So the Prophet — peace be upon him — said: "I shall surely ask forgiveness for you so long as I am not forbidden to do so." Then there was revealed: …

al-Wahidi · Asbab Nuzul al-Qur'an (The Occasions of Revelation of the Quran), p. 260 our rendering · Open the passage

7 I asked my Lord's permission to ask forgiveness for my mother, and He did not permit me; and I asked His permission to visit her grave, and He permitted me.

Abu Hurayra · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 976 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

8 A man said: Messenger of God, where is my father? He said: In the Fire. When the man turned away, he called him back and said: My father and your father are in the Fire.

Anas ibn Malik · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 203 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

I asked my Lord's permission to ask forgiveness for my mother, and He did not permit me; and I asked His permission to visit her grave, and He permitted me.

Abu Hurayra · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 976 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

A man said: Messenger of God, where is my father? He said: In the Fire. When the man turned away, he called him back and said: My father and your father are in the Fire.

Anas ibn Malik · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 203 · Sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

This is picking up a general rule from a jurist seven centuries later and setting aside the soundest material you have. In Muslim: "Where is my father? He said: In the Fire," and then he followed it with "My father and your father are in the Fire" — he was asked about one particular father and answered with the Fire, by name, not with "God knows best." And Muslim also has it that your own Prophet was forbidden to pray for his own mother. The texts run in one direction, and you argue from a rule formulated after them in order to soften them. And permission to visit a grave is no match for a mother said to be burning.

The hadith is established. I do not impugn it and I do not explain it away 8. But it is a report about one named person, given by someone who received revelation, and no such report exists about your mother — not with you and not with me. And the rule is not a late formulation: its wording is in the Quran centuries before Ibn al-Qayyim, "We never punish until we have sent a messenger" 1. He only stated it plainly in a passage where he separates the rulings of this world from the punishment of the hereafter 3, and the outcome for the one against whom the proof was never established is a test, not a verdict fixed in advance 4. As for the prohibition, it forbids an act; it does not report a final abode: the very text that withheld the asking of forgiveness allowed the grave, and said nothing about her 7. And it is not mine to tell you "your mother is in the Garden" — I have no text for that. What I have is that whoever told you "she is in the Fire" spoke about what is not his to speak about.

I am married to a non-Muslim — what happens to my marriage?

No — your declaration of faith does not dissolve your marriage contract the moment you say it. What the Prophet's ruling indicates, as Ibn al-Qayyim reads it, is that "the marriage is suspended": if your husband accepts Islam before your waiting period ends, you are his wife, and "if she prefers to wait for him, then if he accepts Islam she is his wife, with no need to renew the marriage contract" 1. The basis of the ruling is that the Prophet returned his daughter Zaynab to Abu al-As on the basis of the first marriage 2; and Ibn al-Qayyim settled it that "when one of the two spouses accepts Islam before the other, the marriage is not dissolved by his acceptance of Islam," and that "it is not known that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) ever renewed the marriage of a couple one of whom accepted Islam before the other" 3. The case closest to yours is Umm Hakim: she accepted Islam on the day of the conquest, her husband Ikrima fled to Yemen, and she travelled to him and called him, and he accepted Islam, "and the two remained upon that marriage of theirs" 4 — so she was the door he came in through, not what pulled her house down. The hard part will not be hidden from you: the text cuts off lawfulness between you for as long as he stays on his religion — "They are not lawful for them (the disbelievers), nor are they (the disbelievers) lawful for them" 5, and "believing women are not lawful in marriage to disbelievers" 6. But for Ibn al-Qayyim the waiting period's "effect is only to bar her from marrying another," not to dissolve your contract, and "if her waiting period ends, she may marry whom she wishes": a right she has, not a duty laid on her 1. Your question is one, but two cases sit under it. If the one entering Islam is the husband and his wife is Jewish or Christian, the text makes marriage to her lawful from the outset — "the virtuous women of those who received the Scripture before you (lawful for you)" 7, "and likewise marriage to free, chaste women of the Jews and the Christians" 8 — so none of this arises for him. Your three children are a separate question, the question of custody, and it was disputed, to the point that the people of ra'y, Ibn al-Qasim and Abu Thawr said "custody is established for her despite her disbelief and the child's being Muslim" 10; and the Prophet (peace be upon him) "gave a boy the choice between his father and his mother" 9.

1 The waiting period has no effect on whether the marriage remains; its effect is only to bar her from marrying another. Had acceptance of Islam already completed the separation between them, he would not have had the better claim to her during the waiting period. Rather, what his ruling (peace be upon him) indicates is that the marriage is suspended: if he accepts Islam before her waiting period ends, she is his wife; and if her waiting period ends, she may marry whom she wishes; and if she prefers to wait for him, then if he accepts Islam she is his wife, with no need to renew the marriage contract.

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 124 our rendering · Open the passage

2 The Prophet returned Zaynab to Abu al-As on the basis of the first marriage.

Abdullah ibn Abbas · al-Albani · Irwa' al-Ghalil 1921 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

3 It entails that when one of the two spouses accepts Islam before the other, the marriage is not dissolved by his acceptance of Islam, whether emigration separated them or not; for it is not known that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) ever renewed the marriage of a couple one of whom accepted Islam before the other. Among the Companions a man would keep accepting Islam before his wife, and a wife before her husband, and it is not known of a single one of them that he pronounced his acceptance of Islam together with his wife, the two keeping pace letter for letter.

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 123 our rendering · Open the passage

4 Malik said: Umm Hakim bint al-Harith ibn Hisham accepted Islam on the day of the conquest at Mecca, and her husband Ikrima ibn Abi Jahl fled from Islam until he reached Yemen. Umm Hakim travelled until she came to him in Yemen, and she called him to Islam and he accepted it. He then came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) in the year of the conquest … and the two remained upon that marriage of theirs.

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 122 our rendering · Open the passage

5 O ye who believe! When believing women come unto you as fugitives, examine them. Allah is Best Aware of their faith. Then, if ye know them for true believers, send them not back unto the disbelievers. They are not lawful for them (the disbelievers), nor are they (the disbelievers) lawful for them. And give them (the disbelievers) that which they have spent (upon them). And it is no sin for you to marry such women when ye have given them their dues. And hold not to the ties of disbelieving women; and ask for (the return of) that which ye have spent; and let them (the disbelievers) ask for that which they have spent. That is the judgment of Allah. He judgeth between you. Allah is Knower, Wise.

Quran, Surah al-Mumtahanah (She That Is to Be Examined) 60:10 · Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

6 If you know them to be believers, by the signs and evidence that appear to you, then do not send them back to their disbelieving husbands. Believing women are not lawful in marriage to disbelievers, nor is it lawful for disbelievers to marry believing women.

Tafsir al-Muyassar — Surah al-Mumtahanah 60:10 our rendering · Open the passage

7 This day are (all) good things made lawful for you. The food of those who have received the Scripture is lawful for you, and your food is lawful for them. And so are the virtuous women of the believers and the virtuous women of those who received the Scripture before you (lawful for you) when ye give them their marriage portions and live with them in honour, not in fornication, nor taking them as secret concubines. Whoso denieth the faith, his work is vain and he will be among the losers in the Hereafter.

Quran, Surah al-Ma'idah (The Table Spread) 5:5 · Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

8 He has made lawful to you — O believers — marriage to chaste women, meaning free believing women who keep themselves from fornication, and likewise marriage to free, chaste women of the Jews and the Christians, when you have given them their dowries.

Tafsir al-Muyassar — Surah al-Ma'idah 5:5 our rendering · Open the passage

9 The Prophet (peace be upon him) gave a boy the choice between his father and his mother.

Abu Hurayra · al-Tirmidhi · Sunan al-Tirmidhi 1357 · hasan (good) our rendering

10 Six conditions have been stipulated for the one who has custody: that the two agree in religion, so a disbeliever has no custody over a Muslim, for two reasons … The people of ra'y, Ibn al-Qasim and Abu Thawr said: custody is established for her despite her disbelief and the child's being Muslim.

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 409 our rendering · Open the passage

11 As for making the marriage turn on the span of the waiting period, there is no proof for it from a text or from consensus. Hammad ibn Salama related from Qatada, from Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, that Ali ibn Abi Talib (may Allah be pleased with him) said of two disbelieving spouses one of whom accepts Islam: he has the better claim to her so long as she remains in the land of her emigration. … Ibn Abi Shayba related from Mu'tamir ibn Sulayman, from Ma'mar, from al-Zuhri: if she accepts Islam and her husband does not, they remain upon their marriage unless a ruler separates them.

Ibn al-Qayyim, Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 124 our rendering · Open the passage

The Prophet returned Zaynab to Abu al-As on the basis of the first marriage.

Abdullah ibn Abbas · al-Albani · Irwa' al-Ghalil 1921 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

The Prophet (peace be upon him) gave a boy the choice between his father and his mother.

Abu Hurayra · al-Tirmidhi · Sunan al-Tirmidhi 1357 · hasan (good) our rendering

The strongest objection

"Suspended" is a gentler word than "dissolved," and it changes nothing. What you are telling my husband is: change your religion, or the lawfulness of your marriage falls away. So my home hangs on a condition he never accepted and was never consulted about, and the difference between a dissolution today and a dissolution after three menstrual cycles is a difference of date, not of act. And the story of Umm Hakim tells against you, not for you: her marriage survived because the man followed. What if he had not?

The difference is not in the word, and it is measured by what does not happen: no new contract, no witnesses, no dower. The Prophet returned Zaynab "on the basis of the first marriage" 2; "it is not known that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) ever renewed the marriage of a couple one of whom accepted Islam before the other" 3; and of Ikrima and Umm Hakim, "the two remained upon that marriage of theirs" — with no contract begun again 4. The date itself is disputed, not agreed upon. Ibn al-Qayyim said, "As for making the marriage turn on the span of the waiting period, there is no proof for it from a text or from consensus," and he reported from Ali, "he has the better claim to her so long as she remains in the land of her emigration," and from al-Zuhri, "if she accepts Islam and her husband does not, they remain upon their marriage unless a ruler separates them" 11. And if he does not follow, the door is not shut: "if she prefers to wait for him, then if he accepts Islam she is his wife, with no need to renew the marriage contract" 1. Something in your objection stands: yes, there is a condition that cuts off lawfulness for as long as he stays on his religion 5 6, and that is neither denied nor softened here. What is rejected is the naming — calling a suspension a dissolution, and calling a demolition what the one closely parallel case made into a door 4.

And the good I did before Islam — is all of it wasted?

No, it is not wasted — and this exact question was once asked. A man listed what he used to do before he became a Muslim, "ties of kinship, freeing slaves, and charity," and then asked, "Do I have any reward for them?" He was told: "You have entered Islam with the good you did before" 1 2. Ibn Rajab treats this as a ruling, not a consolation: a person is rewarded for the good he did while an unbeliever once he accepts Islam, and his bad deeds are erased — "but on the condition that he makes his Islam good." Imam Ahmad stated this explicitly 4. The hard part is not hidden here. On the same page of Ibn al-Qayyim, the Prophet is asked about Ibn Jud'an — "before Islam he used to keep ties of kinship and feed the poor" — and answers: "It does not benefit him; he never once said, 'My Lord, forgive me my sin on the Day of Judgement'" 3. And in the Qur'an: "And We shall turn unto the work they did and make it scattered motes" 5. Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar gives the reason: "a deed does not benefit in the hereafter unless the one who does it has faith in God, sincerity toward Him, and adherence to His Messenger" 6 — so the condition is placed on the doer, not on the deed. Twenty years, then, are neither cancelled nor already collected: they are held at a door you are standing at 2 3. And Hakim himself, once he had entered, said: "By God, I will not leave anything I did before Islam without doing its like in Islam." He was not started over from zero; the same work was resumed 7.

1 You have entered Islam with the good you did before.

Hakim ibn Hizam · al-Albani · Sahih al-Adab al-Mufrad 51 · authentic (sahih) our rendering

2 "Hakim ibn Hizam asked him — may God bless him and grant him peace — saying: Messenger of God, there are acts of devotion I used to perform before Islam — ties of kinship, freeing slaves, charity — do I have any reward for them? He said: You have entered Islam with the good that came before you." Agreed upon.

Ibn al-Qayyim · I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in 'an Rabb al-'Alamin, p. 223 our rendering · Open the passage

3 "And Aisha — may God be pleased with her — asked him — may God bless him and grant him peace — about Ibn Jud'an: before Islam he used to keep ties of kinship and feed the poor, so does that benefit him? He said: It does not benefit him; he never once said, 'My Lord, forgive me my sin on the Day of Judgement.'" Muslim reported it.

Ibn al-Qayyim · I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in 'an Rabb al-'Alamin, p. 223 our rendering · Open the passage

4 What is meant by the good deeds and the bad deeds he had sent ahead is what came from him before Islam. This shows that he is rewarded for his good deeds done in unbelief once he accepts Islam, and that his bad deeds are erased once he accepts Islam — but on the condition that he makes his Islam good and guards against those bad deeds while a Muslim. Imam Ahmad stated this explicitly.

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami' al-'Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 295 our rendering · Open the passage

5 And We shall turn unto the work they did and make it scattered motes.

Surat al-Furqan 25:23 · Pickthall (1930) · Open the passage

6 And We turned to the works of good and kindness they had done and made them void and dissolved, of no benefit to them, like scattered motes of dust, … and that is because a deed does not benefit in the hereafter unless the one who does it has faith in God, sincerity toward Him, and adherence to His Messenger Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace.

Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat al-Furqan 25:23 our rendering · Open the passage

7 He said: So I said, By God, I will not leave anything I did before Islam without doing its like in Islam. And this shows that the good deeds of an unbeliever are rewarded once he accepts Islam.

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami' al-'Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 296 our rendering · Open the passage

8 This is shown by what is in the two Sahih collections from Ibn Mas'ud, may God be pleased with him, who said: "We said: Messenger of God, are we called to account for what we did before Islam? He said: As for whoever among you does well in Islam, he is not called to account for them; and whoever does badly is called to account for his deeds both before Islam and in Islam."

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami' al-'Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 295 our rendering · Open the passage

[You have entered Islam with the good you sent ahead.]

Narrator not named · Siddiq Hasan Khan · Fath al-Bayan 5/19 · authentic (sahih) our rendering

You have entered Islam with the good you did before.

Hakim ibn Hizam · al-Albani · Sahih al-Adab al-Mufrad 51 · authentic (sahih) our rendering

The strongest objection

This is blackmail, not an answer. You did not say that kindness is weighed; you said it cannot be cashed without a signature. Ibn Jud'an fed the poor and kept ties of kinship, and you say "it does not benefit him" — so what you are measuring is allegiance, not the act. Then you answered a plain verse in your own book, "scattered motes," with a hadith from your own books, and called that an answer. A god who requires that his name be invoked before the food a man gave is counted is narrower than what you described, not wider.

As for "scattered motes," it was not answered with a hadith. The commentary quoted above is what places the condition on the doer of the deed rather than on the deed 6; the verse is about a man who never turned to God, and the hadith is about a man who did 1. That is why Ibn al-Qayyim set the two down on one page as two answers to two questioners, not as two conflicting texts to be weighed against each other 2 3. As for the claim that what is measured is allegiance and not the act: Ibn Rajab says the man "is rewarded for his good deeds done in unbelief" — for those deeds themselves, not for a substitute, and not for the signature alone 4. As for the signature closing the account, the texts run in the other direction too: "As for whoever among you does well in Islam, he is not called to account for them; and whoever does badly is called to account for his deeds both before Islam and in Islam" 8 — entering does not buy an acquittal. And in Ibn Jud'an's case something heavy remains, and it will not be softened: the claim here is that kindness on its own does not stand by itself in the hereafter 3 6 — and that is where we disagree, not a misunderstanding that one sentence removes.

Do I have to change my name?

No. There is no command anywhere in the Qur'an to change a name on entering Islam, and the one place that legislates how a person is to be ascribed commands the opposite of what you fear: "Proclaim their real parentage. That will be more equitable in the sight of Allah" 1. Its commentary: "Attribute your adopted sons to their own fathers; that is more just and more upright in the sight of Allah" 2. The most famous name change in the whole of the Prophet's life went in exactly the opposite direction: the man who was called Zayd ibn Muhammad — in the Prophet's own household — was returned to his father's name by this verse. "We used to call Zayd ibn Haritha nothing but Zayd ibn Muhammad, until this came down in the Qur'an: Proclaim their real parentage; that will be more equitable in the sight of Allah" 3. Being ascribed to a father who is not one's own is the thing sternly forbidden, not the thing required: "Whoever claims to belong to someone other than his father, Paradise is forbidden to him," and "Do not turn away from your fathers; whoever turns away from his father is an unbeliever" 4. As for the names the Prophet did change, they are countable, and what they turn on is the meaning of the word, not the origin of the one who bore it: Asiya ("disobedient") became Jamila; Barra ("pious") became Juwayriya, with the reason stated in the text — "Do not claim purity for yourselves"; and likewise Asram, Abu al-Hakam, al-As, Shaytan and Harb 5. The stated rationale is this: "Since names are moulds for meanings and point to them" 6. Not one of them was changed for being foreign, and one man among them refused, kept his name, and had the refusal recorded in the book: Hazn, the grandfather of Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib 5. As for Abdullah, the name you single out, it comes from a general preference in naming — "The names most beloved to Allah are Abdullah and Abd al-Rahman" 7 — not a condition of entry imposed on a newcomer. And the second half of your question is borne out by the text itself: "and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another" 8, with the commentary "so there is no superiority among you in lineage ... the noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the one most mindful of Him" 9. Peoples and tribes are kept in the verse, not erased; what is moved is the ranking — off lineage and onto God-consciousness.

1 Proclaim their real parentage. That will be more equitable in the sight of Allah. And if ye know not their fathers, then (they are) your brethren in the faith, and your clients. And there is no sin for you in the mistakes that ye make unintentionally, but what your hearts purpose (that will be a sin for you). Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.

Surah Al-Ahzab 33:5 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 Attribute your adopted sons to their own fathers; that is more just and more upright in the sight of Allah. If you do not know their true fathers, then call them by the brotherhood of religion that joins you to them, for they are your brothers in religion and your clients in it. There is no sin on you for a mistake you fell into without intending it; Allah holds you to account only when you do it deliberately. And Allah is Forgiving to whoever errs, Merciful to whoever repents of his sin.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Al-Ahzab 33:5 our rendering · Open the passage

3 ... from Salim, from Abdullah ibn Umar, who used to say: We used to call Zayd ibn Haritha nothing but Zayd ibn Muhammad, until this came down in the Qur'an: {Proclaim their real parentage. That will be more equitable in the sight of Allah.} Narrated by al-Bukhari, from Mu'alla ibn Asad, from Abd al-Aziz ibn al-Mukhtar, from Musa ibn Uqba.

al-Wahidi · Asbab Nuzul al-Qur'an (Occasions of Revelation), p. 351 our rendering · Open the passage

4 ... and he is not his son. In the two Sahihs: "Whoever claims to belong to someone other than his father, Paradise is forbidden to him." And in them also: "Do not turn away from your fathers; whoever turns away from his father is an unbeliever." ...

Ibn al-Qayyim · I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in an Rabb al-Alamin, p. 307 our rendering · Open the passage

5 It is established of him that he changed the name Asiya and said: "You are Jamila." Juwayriya's name had been Barra, and the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, changed it to Juwayriya. Zaynab bint Umm Salama said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, forbade that anyone be called by that name, and said: "Do not claim purity for yourselves; Allah knows best who among you is righteous." He changed the name Asram to Zur'a. He changed the name of Abu al-Hakam to Abu Shurayh. He changed the name of Hazn, the grandfather of Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, making it Sahl, but he refused and said: "Level ground is trodden on and put to menial use." Abu Dawud said: The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, changed the names al-As, Aziz, Atala, Shaytan, al-Hakam, Ghurab, Hubab and Shihab, naming him Hisham; he named Harb Salm; he named al-Mudtaji' al-Munba'ith; a stretch of land called Afira he named Khadira; the Valley of Error he named the Valley of Guidance; the Banu al-Zinya he named the Banu al-Rishda; and he named the Banu Mughwiya the Banu Rishda.

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-Ibad, p. 305 our rendering · Open the passage

6 Since names are moulds for meanings and point to them, wisdom requires that there be a link and a correspondence between the two, and that the meaning not stand to the name like a complete stranger with no connection to it; for the wisdom of the Wise One refuses that, and reality testifies otherwise. Rather, names have an effect on the things named, and the things named are affected by their names, in beauty and in ugliness ...

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-Ibad, p. 306 our rendering · Open the passage

7 It is established of him that he said: "The names most beloved to Allah are Abdullah and Abd al-Rahman; the truest of them are Harith and Hammam; and the ugliest of them are Harb and Murra."

Ibn al-Qayyim · Zad al-Ma'ad fi Hady Khayr al-Ibad, p. 304 our rendering · Open the passage

8 O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct. Lo! Allah is Knower, Aware.

Surah Al-Hujurat 49:13 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

9 O mankind, We created you from a single father, Adam, and a single mother, Eve, so there is no superiority among you in lineage. Through procreation We made you many peoples and tribes, so that you may come to know one another. The noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the one most mindful of Him. Allah is Knowing of those who are mindful of Him, Aware of them.

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Al-Hujurat 49:13 our rendering · Open the passage

10 Lo! those on whom ye call beside Allah are slaves like unto you. Call on them now, and let them answer you, if ye are truthful!

Surah Al-A'raf 7:194 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

11 O ye who believe! Let not a folk deride a folk who may be better than they (are), not let women (deride) women who may be better than they are; neither defame one another, nor insult one another by nicknames. Bad is the name of lewdness after faith. And whoso turneth not in repentance, such are evil-doers.

Surah Al-Hujurat 49:11 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

12 ... and let none of you find fault with another, and let none of you call another by a nickname he dislikes. An evil trait and name is wickedness — mockery, fault-finding and calling by nicknames — after you have entered Islam and understood it ...

Tafsir al-Muyassar · Al-Hujurat 49:11 our rendering · Open the passage

The strongest objection

Your verse is about lineage, not about names. "Proclaim their real parentage" came down about adopted sons — about a man ascribed to a father who was not his — and "Sukarno" is not a claim of parentage. You have carried a ruling from one chapter over to another and then called it a text. My question, "do I have to", is a question of law, and you have not produced a single fatwa. And what I will meet at the mosque is not your verses but custom — you are answering me about what is in the book, and I am asking about what is going to happen to me.

Your first half is right, and it strengthens the answer rather than undoing it. Yes, 33:5 is about lineage — and it has been counted: it is the only place in the Qur'an that gives a command about how a person is ascribed. The Arabic imperative used there, id'uhum ("call them"), occurs in two places and no third, and the other one is about idols: "Call on them now, and let them answer you, if ye are truthful!" 10. So the whole subject is legislated in a single word, and its direction is to keep the father 1. The proper name has its own place, and by the same count that place is also the only one: "nor insult one another by nicknames. Bad is the name of lewdness after faith" 11, with the commentary "and let none of you call another by a nickname he dislikes ... after you have entered Islam" 12. So the one restriction on naming a Muslim after his faith falls on the person doing the naming, not on the person being named. Your second half is granted exactly as you put it, and it is not contested: everything above is transmission, not a fatwa, and custom is one thing while the text is another — the gap between the two is your question itself. The most that can be shown is that the names changed in the Sunnah were changed for their meaning, not for the language of the one who bore them 5.

Should I announce my conversion or keep it hidden?

No. Keeping your Islam hidden does not cancel it, and the exemption is stated in the Quran itself, not inferred from it: "save him who is forced thereto and whose heart is still content with the Faith" 1. Its meaning is that whoever is compelled to utter the word of disbelief, and utters it out of fear of destruction while his heart stays firm on faith, bears no blame 2. It was revealed about Ammar ibn Yasir: the idolaters seized him, and he said to them, in dissimulation, a word that pleased them; the Prophet Muhammad then asked him, was your heart at ease with what you said? He said, no 3. If uttering disbelief under coercion is allowed, then staying silent about your faith falls far short of that — and the scholars agreed that whoever is coerced into a forbidden statement, by duress that the law recognises, may ransom himself with it and bears no sin 4; and this community has been relieved of what it is forced into 5. Nor is this hypocrisy in any sense. Major hypocrisy is the exact reverse: that a person displays faith and conceals what contradicts it 6 — and you are doing the opposite of that. It is what was done by the man the Quran calls "a believing man of Pharaoh's family, who hid his faith" 7, who kept his faith hidden while rebuking his people 8. And no, martyrdom is not being asked of you. When the persecution of the Muslims grew severe, the Prophet permitted them to emigrate to Abyssinia and said, "There is a king there under whom no one is wronged" 9 — so seeking a safe way out is an established practice that was acted upon, not a flight to be blamed. Obligation runs only as far as capacity: "when I command you to do something, do of it what you can" 10.

1 Whoso disbelieveth in Allah after his belief - save him who is forced thereto and whose heart is still content with the Faith - but whoso findeth ease in disbelief: On them is wrath from Allah. Theirs will be an awful doom.

Surah An-Nahl (The Bee) 16:106 · Open the passage

2 The one who invents falsehood is he who utters the word of disbelief and turns back after his faith; upon such is wrath from God. Except the one who is compelled to utter disbelief and utters it out of fear of destruction while his heart stays firm on faith: there is no blame upon him. But whoever utters disbelief and his heart is at ease with it, upon such is severe wrath from God, and for them is a great punishment...

Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar (The Simplified Exegesis) - An-Nahl 16:106 our rendering · Open the passage

3 On the words of God Most High, 'save him who is forced thereto': Ibn Abi Hatim narrated on this verse from Ibn Abbas, who said: When the Prophet wished to emigrate to Medina, the idolaters seized Bilal, Khabbab and Ammar ibn Yasir. As for Ammar, he said to them, in dissimulation, a word that pleased them. When he returned to the Messenger of God he told him of it, and he said: How was your heart when you said it? Was it at ease with what you said? He said: No. So God revealed, 'save him who is forced thereto and whose heart is still content with the Faith'.

al-Suyuti - Lubab al-Nuqul fi Asbab al-Nuzul, p. 133 our rendering · Open the passage

4 As for coercion in the matter of statements, the scholars agreed that it holds, and that whoever is coerced into a forbidden statement, by coercion that counts, may ransom himself with it, and there is no sin upon him. This is indicated by the words of God Most High: {save him who is forced thereto and whose heart is still content with the Faith} [An-Nahl: 106]

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali - Jami al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 371 our rendering · Open the passage

5 Lifted from my community are error, forgetfulness, and what they are forced into.

- - Ibn Hazm - al-Muhalla 5/193 - Sahih (authentic) our rendering

6 Hypocrisy, in the language, belongs to the genus of deception and cunning: displaying good and concealing its opposite. In the law it divides into two kinds. The first is major hypocrisy, which is that a person displays belief in God, His angels, His books, His messengers and the Last Day, while concealing what contradicts all of that or part of it.

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali - Jami al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 480 our rendering · Open the passage

7 And a believing man of Pharaoh's family, who hid his faith, said: Would ye kill a man because he saith: My Lord is Allah, and hath brought you clear proofs from your Lord? If he is lying, then his lie is upon him; and if he is truthful, then some of that wherewith he threateneth you will strike you. Lo! Allah guideth not one who is a prodigal, a liar.

Surah Ghafir (The Forgiver) 40:28 · Open the passage

8 And a man of Pharaoh's family who believed in God, keeping his faith hidden while rebuking his people, said: How do you hold it lawful to kill a man who has done you no wrong except that he says, My Lord is God, and who has brought you decisive proofs from your Lord that what he says is true?...

Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar - Ghafir 40:28 our rendering · Open the passage

9 When the Muslims grew many and the disbelievers came to fear them, their harm to him and their persecution of the Muslims grew severe, so the Messenger of God permitted them to emigrate to Abyssinia and said: 'There is a king there under whom no one is wronged.' So twelve men and four women of the Muslims emigrated, among them Uthman ibn Affan... and they stayed in Abyssinia under the best of protection.

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya - Zad al-Maad, p. 94 our rendering · Open the passage

10 And when I command you to do something, do of it what you can.

Abu Hurayra - al-Nawawi - al-Majmu 4/563 - Sahih (authentic) our rendering

11 Except the feeble among men, and the women, and the children, who are unable to devise a plan and are not shown a way.

Surah An-Nisa (The Women) 4:98 · Open the passage

12 Excused from that fate are the powerless among the men, the women and the young, who have no power to fend off coercion and injustice from themselves, and who know of no road that would deliver them from the suffering they are in.

Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar - An-Nisa 4:98 our rendering · Open the passage

Lifted from my community are error, forgetfulness, and what they are forced into.

- - Ibn Hazm - al-Muhalla 5/193 - Sahih (authentic) our rendering

And when I command you to do something, do of it what you can.

Abu Hurayra - al-Nawawi - al-Majmu 4/563 - Sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

This is a licence cut to the measure of the frightened, and your own book contradicts it: when they said they were oppressed and weak in the land, that plea was thrown back in their faces and their refuge was made Hell [[11]]. So you hand me a permit to conceal, while your text threatens anyone who pleads that very weakness. And a licence with no term means a man who dies after hiding his religion for fifty years — what then separates him from someone who never became a Muslim at all?

The verse does say that, and it is completed in the line right after it: "Except the feeble among men, and the women, and the children, who are unable to devise a plan and are not shown a way" 11 — that is, those who cannot fend off coercion and injustice from themselves, and who know of no road that would free them from what they are in, are excused 12. So the rebuke turns on whether a way out was within reach, not on concealment itself: whoever can reach a land where his religion is safe, the established practice is to seek it, as the emigrants to Abyssinia did 9; and whoever cannot is the very one the wording of the verse excepts 11. As for a term, it is in the report itself: Ammar said his word, then went back to the Messenger of God and told him of it 3 — a concession tied to a circumstance, ending when its cause ends, not a position to settle into. What is required of you, in every case, is what you are able to do 10, and you are not held to what you were forced into 5.

I still have an unresolved question — may I enter before it is settled?

Yes, come in — and you are not lying by doing so. The Qur'an records a people who said "We believe" and were sent back to a lesser word: "Ye believe not, but rather say 'We submit,' for the faith hath not yet entered into your hearts." They were not then put out, and their deeds were not wasted: "Yet, if ye obey Allah and His messenger, He will not withhold from you aught of (the reward of) your deeds" 1; and the commentary on it reads: "He will not diminish for you anything of the reward of your deeds" 2. Ibn Rajab says of them: "They were not hypocrites outright, on the sounder of the two interpretations" 3; rather, "their faith was weak … so this shows that they had of faith what makes their deeds acceptable" 4. For him the threshold is the two testimonies, not the exhausting of one's questions: "it ceases with the loss of the two testimonies, and what is meant by the two testimonies is faith in Allah and His Messenger" 5 — so a man who is truthful in those two has said what he holds, and he was never asked to testify that he has no question left. Abraham asked after he had believed: "He said: Dost thou not believe? Abraham said: Yea, but (I ask) in order that my heart may be at ease" 6 — "I ask this so that I may increase in certainty upon my certainty" 7. The authentic hadith treats the question that will not resolve as something to be expected, and gives its way out as a word to be said and passed over: "Whoever finds anything of that within himself, let him say: I believe in Allah" 8. And the book says plainly that "nobody makes it a condition on you that your questions be finished first"; whoever makes complete certainty a condition of the first step has put the conclusion in the place of the premise, and then blames himself for not moving; take a sheet of paper, write down the question that is still unsettled for you, put a date on it, and keep it 9.

1 The wandering Arabs say: We believe. Say (unto them, O Muhammad): Ye believe not, but rather say "We submit," for the faith hath not yet entered into your hearts. Yet, if ye obey Allah and His messenger, He will not withhold from you aught of (the reward of) your deeds. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Surat al-Hujurat 49:14 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 The wandering Arabs (the bedouin) said: We have believed in Allah and His Messenger with complete faith. Say to them — O Prophet: Do not claim complete faith for yourselves, but say: We have submitted; faith has not yet entered your hearts. And if you obey Allah and His Messenger, He will not diminish for you anything of the reward of your deeds. Allah is Forgiving to whoever repents of his sins, Merciful to him.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat al-Hujurat 49:14 our rendering · Open the passage

3 Not every Muslim is a believer, for faith may be weak, so that the heart does not fully realize it while the limbs perform the works of Islam; such a man is a Muslim, but not a believer in the complete sense. As Allah has said: {The wandering Arabs say: We believe. Say (unto them, O Muhammad): Ye believe not, but rather say 'We submit,' for the faith hath not yet entered into your hearts} [al-Hujurat: 14]. They were not hypocrites outright, on the sounder of the two interpretations, which is the view of Ibn Abbas and others.

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami' al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 108 our rendering · Open the passage

4 Their faith was weak. What indicates this is His saying: {Yet, if ye obey Allah and His messenger, He will not withhold from you aught of (the reward of) your deeds} [al-Hujurat: 14] — that is, He will not diminish for them anything of the wages for those deeds. So this shows that they had of faith what makes their deeds acceptable.

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami' al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 109 our rendering · Open the passage

5 The point is to liken Islam to a building, and the supports of the building are these five; the building does not stand without them. The remaining traits of Islam are like the completion of the building: if something of them is lost, the building is diminished yet still stands and is not demolished by that loss — unlike the demolition of these five supports, for Islam ceases with the loss of all of them, without any difficulty; and likewise it ceases with the loss of the two testimonies, and what is meant by the two testimonies is faith in Allah and His Messenger.

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali · Jami' al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 144 our rendering · Open the passage

6 And when Abraham said (unto his Lord): My Lord! Show me how Thou givest life to the dead, He said: Dost thou not believe? Abraham said: Yea, but (I ask) in order that my heart may be at ease. (His Lord) said: Take four of the birds and cause them to incline unto thee, then place a part of them on each hill, then call them, they will come to thee in haste, and know that Allah is Mighty, Wise.

Surat al-Baqara 2:260 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

7 And remember — O Messenger — Abraham's request of his Lord that He show him how the dead are raised. Allah said to him: Do you not believe? He said: Yes, but I ask this so that I may increase in certainty upon my certainty …

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat al-Baqara 2:260 our rendering · Open the passage

8 People will not cease asking one another until it is said: This is Allah, who created creation — then who created Allah? Whoever finds anything of that within himself, let him say: I believe in Allah. In another narration: The devil comes to one of you and says: Who created the sky? Who created the earth? And he says: Allah… then he mentioned the like of it and added: and in His messengers.

Abu Hurayra · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 134 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

9 And you may come back with an open question still in your hand — nobody makes it a condition on you that your questions be finished first.

23. What if you wanted to come back? · Open the passage

10 The believers are only those who believed in Allah and in His Messenger and acted by His law, then did not doubt in their faith, and who gave the most precious of their wealth and their souls in striving in the way of Allah, in obedience to Him and in seeking His pleasure. Those are the truthful in their faith.

al-Tafsir al-Muyassar · Surat al-Hujurat 49:15 our rendering · Open the passage

11 The answer in two lines: seven places, which we count out here plainly by name. And saying 'I do not know' establishes nothing and brings nobody nearer to the truth of what we say …

25. What we do not know · Open the passage

People will not cease asking one another until it is said: This is Allah, who created creation — then who created Allah? Whoever finds anything of that within himself, let him say: I believe in Allah. In another narration: The devil comes to one of you and says: Who created the sky? Who created the earth? And he says: Allah… then he mentioned the like of it and added: and in His messengers.

Abu Hurayra · Muslim · Sahih Muslim 134 · sahih (authentic) our rendering

The strongest objection

The verse right after the one you quote tells against you: "The (true) believers are those only who believe in Allah and His messenger and afterward doubt not … Such are the sincere" [[10]] — so truthfulness is confined to those who did not doubt, and I am a doubter. You do not accept me; you hand me a lower rank and call it acceptance. And heavier than that: the verse you argued from has a second reading whose wording you passed over in silence. In al-Shafi'i's view, "We submit" there is a word of the tongue said "for fear of being killed or taken captive" [[11]] — that is, it describes a man under coercion, or a hypocrite, not an honest inquirer. So you took the lighter of the two readings and built a welcome for me on it.

The verse does say that, and the commentary marks where it applies: "then they did not doubt in their faith … those are the truthful in their faith" 10 — what is denied is doubt about faith itself, not every question that stays with a man who has believed. The two verses stand in one passage: the very verse that withheld the higher name from those people is the one that kept their deeds whole 1, and it is on this that Ibn Rajab builds: "this shows that they had of faith what makes their deeds acceptable" 4. As for the other reading, it was cited here in its own wording and not passed over in silence, and Ibn Rajab's phrase "the sounder of the two interpretations" concedes that a second one exists rather than denying it 3; and it is in any case a judgement about one particular people, while the threshold does not move with them: the two testimonies 5. The rank is lower, and that is not denied: but the hadith makes the way out for whoever meets this matter the saying "I believe in Allah," not walking out of the door 8. And the book that invites you counts against itself what it has not settled: "seven places, which we count out here plainly by name" 11 — so the one who invites you is not a man whose own questions are finished.

And which Islam do I enter — Sunni or Shia? Which school?

You are not asked to pick a side, and that division does not stand at the door in the first place. In the Quran the condition for guidance is submission alone — "If they surrender, then truly they are rightly guided" 1 — and the Muyassar commentary on the verse reads: "If you submit, you are on the straight path, on guidance and truth" 2. No sect is named in it. A person enters by the two testimonies of faith: "Whoever affirms the two testimonies becomes a Muslim in law; and once he has entered Islam by that, he is bound to carry out the remaining traits of Islam" 4 — so the rest comes after the door, not as a condition for passing through it. Islam is built on five things, and belonging to a party is not among them 3. As for "which school," the answer is stated outright rather than inferred. Ibn al-Qayyim raises the question in so many words and settles it: "He is not obliged to, and this is the correct position, held with certainty… the layman has no school" 5 — and he calls the practice of binding people to one particular school "an ugly innovation that arose in the community; none of the imams of Islam ever said it" 6. The split you describe is real, and it is not denied. The text does not endorse it; it disowns it: "Lo! As for those who sunder their religion and become schismatics, no concern at all hast thou with them" 7. Nor is the verse aimed at one named group: the commentary reads it of people "who had been united upon the oneness of God and upon acting by His law, and then became sects and parties" 8. And your question — which side will call my choice invalid — is answered in that same place: "their judgment rests with God alone" 8. The verdict is turned away from the sects, not handed over to them.

1 And if they argue with thee, (O Muhammad), say: I have surrendered my purpose to Allah and (so have) those who follow me. And say unto those who have received the Scripture and those who read not: Have ye (too) surrendered? If they surrender, then truly they are rightly guided, and if they turn away, then it is thy duty only to convey the message (unto them). Allah is Seer of (His) bondmen.

Surah Al Imran (The Family of Imran) 3:20 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

2 And say to them, and to the idolaters of the Arabs and to others: If you submit, you are on the straight path, on guidance and truth; and if you turn away, your reckoning is with God, and nothing is upon me but to deliver the message.

Tafsir al-Muyassar - Al Imran 3:20 our rendering · Open the passage

3 Islam is built upon five: the testimony that there is no god but God, the establishing of prayer, the giving of zakat, the pilgrimage, and the fast of Ramadan.

Abd Allah ibn Umar - graded by al-Albani - Sahih al-Nasa'i 5016 - authentic (sahih) our rendering

4 As for Islam, the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, explained it by the outward deeds of the limbs, in word and in act, the first of these being the testimony that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God … Whoever affirms the two testimonies becomes a Muslim in law; and once he has entered Islam by that, he is bound to carry out the remaining traits of Islam.

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali - Jami al-Ulum wa al-Hikam, p. 97 our rendering · Open the passage

5 Is the layman obliged to adopt one of the known schools, or not? … The first position: he is not obliged to, and this is the correct position, held with certainty; for nothing is obligatory except what God and His Messenger made obligatory, and neither God nor His Messenger obliged any person to adopt the school of one man of the community and follow him in his religion to the exclusion of others … The layman has no school.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya - Ilam al-Muwaqqiin, p. 200 our rendering · Open the passage

6 This is an ugly innovation that arose in the community; none of the imams of Islam ever said it. They were of too high a rank, too great a standing, and too knowledgeable of God and His Messenger to bind people to such a thing … Further still from the truth is the position of one who says: he is obliged to adopt one of the four schools.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya - Ilam al-Muwaqqiin, p. 201 our rendering · Open the passage

7 Lo! As for those who sunder their religion and become schismatics, no concern at all hast thou with them. Their case will go to Allah, Who then will tell them what they used to do.

Surah al-Anam (The Cattle) 6:159 — Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930) · Open the passage

8 Those who divided their religion, after they had been united upon the oneness of God and upon acting by His law, and so became sects and parties — you, O Messenger, are free of them. Their judgment rests with God alone.

Tafsir al-Muyassar - al-Anam 6:159 our rendering · Open the passage

9 On this basis, he may seek a ruling from whomever he wishes among the followers of the four imams and others; and neither he nor the one who gives the ruling is obliged to be bound to any one of the four imams, by the consensus of the community.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya - Ilam al-Muwaqqiin, p. 201 our rendering · Open the passage

10 But he is not to chase the concessions of the schools, taking whatever suits his purpose from any school he finds it in; rather he must follow the truth as far as he is able.

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya - Ilam al-Muwaqqiin, p. 202 our rendering · Open the passage

Islam is built upon five: the testimony that there is no god but God, the establishing of prayer, the giving of zakat, the pilgrimage, and the fast of Ramadan.

Abd Allah ibn Umar - graded by al-Albani - Sahih al-Nasa'i 5016 - authentic (sahih) our rendering

The strongest objection

This is letting one party judge its own case. The witnesses you brought are all from a single side: Ibn al-Qayyim and Ibn Rajab are both Hanbalis — the second carries "the Hanbali" in his name on the cover of the very book you cite — and the commentary you lean on comes from the same quarter. So you tell me "do not pick a side" in the voice of a side, and then you want me to treat your answer as neutral. And "the layman has no school" does not free me; it leaves me exposed. I am asking about a prayer I have to pray tomorrow and a mosque I have to walk into, and you send me back to a rule in the abstract when I have no instrument for weighing the evidence at all — freedom without a tool is confusion under a better name. Heaviest of all, you did not answer the question of being declared an unbeliever. You said "their judgment rests with God." I am not asking about God's judgment. I am asking about the judgment of people, the one that will land on me in the first gathering I sit in.

That the witnesses come from one side is true, and it is not glossed over. That is exactly why their words were not brought as a verdict against anyone, but as testimony against their own side. Ibn al-Qayyim strips his own school, and the four schools with it, of any right to bind you to them, and he calls that binding "an ugly innovation that arose in the community; none of the imams of Islam ever said it" 6 — and a witness who testifies against the authority of his own camp rather than for it is not a witness for the prosecution. As for being left without a tool: you are not. The same text gives you the recourse a few lines later — "He may seek a ruling from whomever he wishes among the followers of the four imams and others; neither he nor the one who gives the ruling is obliged to be bound to any one of the four imams, by the consensus of the community" 9 — that is, ask whoever you can find; not, do whatever you please. And its limit is stated in the same place: "He is not to chase the concessions of the schools, taking whatever suits his purpose from any school he finds it in; rather he must follow the truth as far as he is able" 10. As for people's judgment on you in that first gathering, I cannot ward it off and I do not claim I can. What can be said is that the condition of your entry is not in their hands — "If they surrender, then truly they are rightly guided" 1, and whoever affirms the two testimonies "becomes a Muslim in law" 4 — and that anyone who declares you an unbeliever over a choice that neither God nor His Messenger made obligatory 5 has claimed an obligation that was never his to impose.