In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

Introduction
Islam is a unique and indivisible system that provides a complete and comprehensive set of teachings, addressing the issues of concern to both life of this world and that of the hereafter. In this section, we will be reviewing these issues in a form of condensed articles, hoping it will lead to a better understanding and a better application of these essential concepts in our day-to-day life.

The fundamental principles of Islam (Usool el Deen), which are the ‘pillars’ of Islam, are five. A Muslim must believe in all five principles; no more and no less.

The five fundamental principles are:
1. The Indivisible Oneness of the Supreme Being and Creator of All Things. (Tawheed)
2. Justice of the Supreme Being. ('Adl)
3. The Prophethood. (Nobuwwah)
4. The Leadership of Mankind. (Imamah)
5. The Resurrection. (Me'ad)

1. The Indivisible Oneness of God (al Tawheed)
Tawheed is the belief in the Indivisible Oneness of God – the Creator of the universe and all existence – who has no partners and/or associates; in Arabic this indivisible one God is called Allah. Allah has no contender, rival or challenger. Tawheed is the belief that Allah
does not have an equal, and there is no being who remotely comes close to Allah in attributes. Allah is the originator, maintainer and sustainer of everything that exists. Allah brought everything into existence from nihility and that he sustains and maintains everything.
Therefore creation, sustenance, bestowing, denying, death, life, sickness, health, etc. are all under His control and will…

{His command is indeed such that if He wills a thing, He says to it "Be", and it becomes to be}1
{Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
He begets not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him.}2


2. Divine Justice (al Adl)
Divine justice means that Allah does not do any injustice to anyone and does not do anything that would be against wisdom. Therefore, whatever He has created, or whatever amount of sustenance He has given to someone or whatever He has not given to someone all are on the basis of wisdom and on good grounds even though we do not know the reasons nor like it. It is simply like a physician prescribing a certain medicine for a patient that we consider is good and useful even though we may not know all the evidence for its usefulness.


3. Prophethood (al Nubuwwah)
A prophet is the person who receives divine revelations. The prophets are of two kinds of status:

(1) The Mursal Prophets (Messengers)
They were those prophets who were commissioned to guide people out of darkness to light, out of falsehood to the truth, from myths and superstition to reality and out of ignorance to knowledge.

(2) The non-Mursal Prophets.
They were those prophets who just received divine revelations for themselves only and they had not received orders to preach such revelations to people.

In total there were one hundred and twenty four thousand prophets but the Mursal prophets among them were just a few.

The first of the prophets was Prophet Adam (AS) and the last of them was Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The Mursal prophets are in two categories:
A. The Ulul-Azm prophets; who are universal prophets who had received divine orders to preach to and lead the whole of mankind. They were:
i. Abraham (Ibrahim),
ii. Noah, (Nuh)
iii. Moses, (Mussa)
iv. Jesus ('Essa)
v. Muhammad, peace be upon them all.

Jews follow Moses (AS), Christians follow Jesus, (AS) and Muslims follow Muhammad (PBUH) and his infallible family (AS).

B. The non-Ulul-Azm prophets are those who have been sent to preach to their nations only.
However, Islam abrogated and superseded all the previous religions, and therefore one may not persist on them but it is imperative upon all to follow the Teachings of Islam, as Allah Almighty says:


4. Leadership of Mankind (al Imamah)
(After Rasulollah, Prophet Muhammad, (PBUH))
Just as Allah, the Most High, appointed His messengers for the guidance of mankind, in the same way appointing deputies and successors for the prophets was a matter of necessity. Allah, the Most High, appointed twelve distinguished personalities, one after the other, as successors of the holy Prophet of Islam (PBUH).

Rasulollah (S) said:
‘I leave with you the two momentous things, as long as you adhere to them you will never go astray - the book of Allah, and my kin the people of my household. Indeed these two will never separate from one another until they arrive at the well (of Kawthar in Paradise).’6

Also Rasulollah (S) is quoted in Sahih Muslim as saying:
‘Islam is established until the day of resurrection, and throughout there will be upon the Muslims twelve caliphs all of whom are from Quraysh.’

The prominent Sunni scholar al-Hafiz al-Qanduzi al-Hanafi quotes Rasulollah (PBUH) in his book, Yanaabee‘ al-Mawaddah, as saying:
‘I am the master of the prophets and Ali is the master of the successors, and indeed my successors after me are twelve, the first of whom is Ali and the last is al-Qa’em al-Mahdi.’

These successors are the twelve Imams (A) who are well known to all Muslims:
1. Imam Amir-ul-Mu'mineen, Ali ibn Abi Talib, the holy Prophet's cousin and son in-law, (AS).
2. Imam Hassan, son of Imam Ali and Fatimah al-Zahra, daughter of the Prophet, (AS).
3. Imam Hussain, the younger son of Imam Ali and Fatimah al-Zahra, daughter of the Prophet, (AS).
4. Imam Zayn-ul-Abidin, Ali son of al-Hussain, (AS).
5. Imam al-Baaqir, Muhammad son of Ali, (AS).
6. Imam al-Saadiq, Ja'far son of Muhammad, (AS).
7. Imam al-Kaadhem, Mussa son of Ja'far, (AS).
8. Imam al-Redha, Ali son of Mussa, (AS).
9. Imam al-Jawaad, Muhammad son of Ali, (AS).
10. Imam al-Haadi, Ali son of Muhammad, (AS).
11. Imam al-Askari, Hassan son of Ali, (AS).
12. Imam al-Mahdi, Muhammad son of al-Hassan, The Guided one, The Awaited one, (AS).

[Note: All the Imams after Imam Hussain (AS) are his descendants. On various occasions Rasulollah (PBUH) defined himself, his daughter Fatimah al-Zahra (AS), and all these twelve Imams as the Ahl-ul-Bayt (AS). Thus every time Ahl-ul-Bayt is mentioned, only these fourteen infallible individuals are referred being to.]


5. Resurrection (al Me'ad)
Resurrection means that Allah, the Most High, will one day bring back to life all the dead people to let everyone find the results of their deeds whether good or bad. Those who were praying, fasting, speaking the truth, maintaining sincerity, giving shelters to the orphans and feeding the destitute etc., they will be admitted into Paradise wherein streams would flow and will enjoy the mercy of Allah and the pleasures of Paradise. But those who disbelieved, committed evil deeds, spoke lies, breached their trust, committed murders, stole others' properties, committed adultery or consumed intoxicant substances etc., will go to Hell to suffer all the miseries therein forever.

Before Paradise and Hell there are two other stations:
1. The Grave, wherein everyone will be questioned about his or her deeds and the person will be treated in accordance with the quality of his deeds. Because of this the holy Prophet said, "the grave will either be a pit of the pits of Hell or a garden of the gardens of Paradise." People's condition in the grave would be similar to one's condition when dreaming during one's sleep, in which one would either have pleasant dreams or bad and terrifying ones. Another person awake does not realize whether the sleeping person is having bad dreams or good ones, in the same way we do not realize whether a dead person is happy or not.

2. Resurrection will take place after these bodies are brought back to life from their graves. All people will be brought together at one place wherein the court of Justice and the Balance will be established. The Judges are the prophets and the good servants of Allah and everyone's records of deeds will be made public. The witnesses will be present, good people will be saved and people with evil deeds will face the consequences.

One, must, therefore take all the necessary steps to protect him/herself against bad consequences of evil deeds and the terrifying sufferings of the life to come, which will never end.




Contraction:
Chapter 1, “Islamic Worship Reference” series 1, Fundamentals of Islam,
Imam Muhammad Shirazi, 2001.
Fountain books, London, UK

1 The Holy Qur'an; YaSeen (36): 82.
2 The Holy Qur’an: Tawheed (113): 1-4.