In the spirit of honesty, I must start off by saying that I am not a scholar in either the traditional or secular academic sense. However, I have studied briefly under a well-known shaykh, and I did get a Master’s degree in Divinity focusing on Islamic studies, so I do have some experience in the field.

When you first begin studying Islam in depth, you are opening yourself to a vast ocean of knowledge. The amount of information out there related to Islam is absolutely massive, and it can be tempting to dive right in and soak up as much as possible.

On the other hand, this plethora of information may be too overwhelming, causing one to back away from learning entirely. To prevent information overload, one must make sure they have a solid foundation in the fundamentals of Islam.

This doesn’t just mean the key laws or practices. It is also essential to remember the basic tenets, what everything in Islam is based around.

There is no god but Allah; Allah is All-Merciful, All-Powerful, and All-Knowing; Allah wants us to believe and do good works so that we may earn eternal life in Paradise; Allah desires ease for us.

When these are kept in mind, it makes wading through and analyzing all the technical details much easier because there is a “bigger picture” in place.

The “rules” of Islam are undoubtedly an important part of the religion. However, they don’t exist for no reason, or just to make things difficult; rather, they are there as an elaboration of the basic tenets and “spirit” of Islam.

This is illustrated in the famous “Hadith of Jibril”, where the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) explains the difference between islam, iman, and ihsan.

“Islam” (with a lowercase-i), or “submission”, refers to the acceptance of and practice of the five pillars of our deen (shahadah, salat, sawm, zakat, and hajj).

“Iman”, or faith, refers to belief in the six articles of faith (belief in Allah, the prophets, the angels, the Day of Judgment, the revealed scriptures, and divine destiny).

“Ihsan” is the state of being where one can worship Allah “as if Allah was standing right in front of them”.

These three concepts are described in terms of levels, with islam being the lowest level and ihsan being the highest level.

Notice how the level involving rules and practices, islam, is considered lower than the level involving belief in these big, fairly abstract concepts, iman.

Ihsan goes even further, where one’s beliefs and practices are so ingrained in a person that they have devoted their whole selves, body and mind, to Allah.
It may seem a bit odd that iman is not the most basic level; after all, don’t you need to believe if you’re going to fulfill all the pillars of Islam and follow Islamic rules?

In reality, you don’t need to have faith/belief in anything to fulfill Islamic rules, because they are merely physical actions. Anyone can pray five times a day or fast during Ramadhan or refrain from eating pork or observe hijab or any other Islamic practice.

It is the faith in Allah and acceptance in Allah’s Guidance that makes these actions meaningful; it transforms the mundane into acts of worship. Rules, or the letter of the law, are meaningless without the spirit of the law to back it up.

Similarly, simply knowing lots of rulings as a scholar won’t do a person much good if they don’t remember why these rulings exist in the first place. Renewing one’s intentions for studying Islam and making a commitment to nurturing one’s spirit is essential when being a scholar.