The
Difference Between Iman And Kufr: The Way of Life Of A
Muslim
18 February 2010
By Al-Ikhwah Al-Mujahidun
Author: Abdul-Aziz ibn Myatt
It is a fact, which we
Muslims know but which the kuffar, in their
ignorance, do not know, that Islam - our Dien,
the Way of Life of a Muslim - is superior to each and
every other way of living because it gives us not only
the highest, the best, standards of personal and
social behaviour, but also because it reveals to us
our true human nature and the true purpose of our
mortal lives.
Thus, in Islam, we have the best example of a human
being - the Prophet, Muhammad SAW - to strive to
emulate and follow, and which human example, when
followed, produces in us a most noble, a most
civilized, individual character. This best example,
this noble and human way, is evident to us in
Seerah, in Ahadith: in the Sunnah
of the Prophet, Muhammad SAW.
In addition, we have been given the perfect
guidelines, the perfect advice, the perfect guidance,
the rules, on how we can build and maintain
communities which enable us to live according to our
true, human nature, and which can lead us toward the
true purpose of our mortal lives. These guidelines,
this advice, these rules, this perfect guidance, and
our duties and obligations as human beings, are
contained in Al-Qur’an, illustrated in the
Sunnah, and manifest in the guidance of
Shari’ah.
The simple but profound truth about Al-Islam
is that this Way of Life, this Dien, works:
for Al-Qur’an and the Sunnah, when
followed, produce, and have produced, noble,
honourable, civilized human beings, and they, and the
guidance of Shari’ah, produce, and have
produced, the most noble, the most civilized,
communities in human history.
In essence, Al-Islam is the simple way of -
the discovery of, the return to - Tawheed,
which is to know, to feel, to remember, our correct
relationship with and to Allah, our Creator and thus
to know Allah as Allah SWT is. This knowing of The
Unity, The Oneness, of Allah SWT is expressed in
Kalimaah Tayyibah- La ilaaha illallaahu
Muhammadur rasoolullaah - which itself forms the
basis for Kalimaah Shahadah, the declaration
that makes one a Muslim, and which re-affirms one's
Islam: that simple submission to submit to and to only
obey Allah SWT and that knowing that Muhammad SAW is
the Prophet and Messenger of Allah, whose message,
whose Allah-given revelation (Al-Qur’an) and
whose life (Sunnah) are the guidelines, the
means, by which we can return to, and know,
Tawheed.
This knowing of, this remembrance of, this feeling of,
Tawheed is the basis for Iman, for
that simple and total reliance on, and belief in and
trust of, Allah SWT.
The difference between Muslims and the kuffar
is that the kuffar are Al-Jahiloon
(the ignorant ones) because they have covered-up or
forgotten or do not know Tawheed, and thus
have no Iman. This covering-up of Tawheed
is kufr, which is (1) a willful ignorance,
manifest in pride, in arrogance, in the profanity of
believing that human beings can - by some causal
means, or by something (some idea, or belief or
ideology or some ideal or abstraction) they have or
might manufacture or which others have manufactured -
find answers, and set the limits, the criteria, for
themselves, and (2) a trust in and a reliance on - and
often a worship of - those human-manufactured
"things".
Thus, kufr - in contrast to Tawheed
- is an individual relying on, and trusting and
pridefully believing in, themselves, and/or in some
human manufactured "thing". In contrast, Muslims
accept and affirm that only Allah is Al Furqan,
Al Hadi, Al-Bari - while the
kuffar ascribe this setting of limits, this
guidance, this settings of standards, to themselves,
or to what they have manufactured or believe they can
manufacture.
Allah SWT says:
"Those deceived by the dunya, those who for whom
their Dien is but a passing amusement, shall be, by
Us, forgotten on That Day just as they themselves
forget This Day and deny Our Ayat." [7: 51]
As Muslims, we know and accept - through Al-Qur’an,
the Sunnah, through Tawheed and
Iman - that our mortal lives here in the
dunya are but a means, a test, given to us by
Allah SWT. A means by which we might achieve our true
purpose, which is to be admitted into Jannah.
As Muslims, we know and accept that we will one day be
judged by Allah SWT Who will either reward us with
Jannah, or condemn us to The Fire. As Muslims, we
accept that our true human nature is to be Abd
of Allah SWT. But the kuffar, in their
ignorance, in their disobedience, in their pursuit of
the delights and pleasures of the dunya, in
their following of their Tawagheet, do not
know and do not accept such things, and if they do
know, or have been informed, then they laugh and are
scornful. As Allah SWT says:
"Leave them to their moment of laughter: for their
payment for such toil will be many many tears."
[9: 82]
The current conflict between Muslims and the
kuffar of the West - evident, for example, in the
invasion and occupation, by the kuffar, of
our lands - is, at its foundation, a conflict between
Iman and Kufr; a conflict between
those who seek to rely on and to obey and submit to
only Allah SWT, and those who seek to, and who do,
rely on themselves, or what they have manufactured,
such as some belief or some "ideology" or some ideal,
or some abstraction, or something more material - such
as money, or some weapon - which they place their
trust in order to achieve some kind of power or
"superiority" over others.
The Ignorance and The Arrogance of The
Kuffar:
The distinction between Iman and kufr
is clear, and there is clear difference between the
Way, the Dien, of Al-Islam, and
between all of the philosophies and all of the ways
and ideas and religions of the West.
For the philosophies of the West, the individual is
either a potential god, or a free-thinking being with
the capacity and with the "freedom" to make and to
follow their own judgement, and who by following or by
pursuing some ideal or some abstraction can or might
achieve "happiness" and "security" now or in the
future. Examples of such human manufactured,
constructed, ideals and abstractions are democracy,
"freedom", "peace", and "justice", all of which ideals
and abstractions are defined by the kuffar
themselves, with these definitions subject to constant
change and revision.
But what is common to them all - whatever the current
revision of definition is - is that all such ideals
and abstractions are Tawagheet. That is, they
all remove us from Tawheed, and are all based
on the assumption that we, as human beings, can
through our own efforts find or manufacture for
ourselves what is considered to be the correct way,
the "right" way, the ideal, the "perfect" way, the
correct answers. In essence, all Tawagheet
take us beyond the due, the honourable, limits of
human behaviour, and they all negate or undermine the
obligations and the duties we have, as human beings,
to Allah SWT.
"You only do we obey and to You only do we turn
for help." [1:5]
Even the religions which the kuffar have
accepted - such as that which they incorrectly call
Christianity - are examples of Tawagheet, of
Shirk, for all these religions have obscured
Tawheed, and all have accepted reliance upon
something other than Allah SWT. Thus, and for example,
the Nazarene Church has deified people as "saints";
affirmed the divinity of 'Isa AS; allowed and
encouraged prayer to him and to saints; set up statues
as idols; established a trinity of "Father, Son and
Holy Spirit", and - in its Catholic form - interposed
Priests who can forgive sins and make absolution.
Muslims accept and affirm that only Allah is Al-Mu'izz,
As-Salaam - The Source, The Bestower, of
Honour, and The Source of True Peace - while the
kuffar, in their ignorance and arrogance,
allocate these things to themselves or believe their
Tawagheet can bestow them.
Allah SWT says:
"In truth We have sent Messengers to every people
with a warning for them to submit only to Allah and so
reject Tawagheet." [16:36]
Thus, all Tawagheet obscure Tawheed
and obscure our natural human nature, and thus divert
us from Islam, which Islam is fundamentally a knowing
and a willing acceptance of the truth, the reality, of
"who, why, and what" we are, and which is thus a
rejection of all the assumptions, a rejection of all
the errors, that humans have, in their ignorance and
pride, made over the centuries.
For the assumptions of the kuffar, of those
who have obscured Tawheed - and thus all
Tawagheet - are examples of human hubris: of that
arrogance and pride which was and which is manifest in
As-Shaitan. Thus do such assumptions of the
kuffar - and all Tawagheet - profane
what is sacred because in place of the knowing of the
numinous and the humility (Tawadhu') that
derives from submitting to Allah SWT, from relying
only on Allah SWT, from accepting that only Allah SWT
is the provider of ilm al-yaqin, there is
instead the belief that they, the kuffar, can
obtain knowledge and understanding through their
Tawagheet, and that their wealth, their
technology, their military weapons, or whatever, will
enable them to triumph. That is, they pridefully and
defiantly rely on themselves and their manufactured
assumptions, and upon what they construct or obtain or
appropriate. Thus, they deify themselves and their
assumptions, their Tawagheet.
Thus, in the modern West, people are sent to fight
for, and to kill for, to impose, democracy, "freedom",
"peace", and so on. In the past, people were sent to
fight for, to die for, their "nation", or their
sovereign, or their leader - in order to impose their
"authority" and their way of life upon others.
In contrast, we Muslims accept that the only perfect
way, the only perfect solution, is that given to us by
Allah SWT as revealed by His Messenger and Prophet,
Muhammad (SAW). That is, we accept as fundamental
principle that we are fallible, prone to error, prone
to being barbarians, and that we need guidance, and
thus that true peace, in this mortal life, is not some
ideal or some abstraction to be found sometime and
somewhere in the future, but that it arises from
submission to only Allah SWT, which such a humble
submission being the way to attain that eternal
blissful peace which is beyond this mortal life of
ours and which this mortal life is an opportunity to
attain.
In essence, the fundamental difference between our
real Truth, and the ignorance of the kuffar,
is that we know and accept that only Allah SWT is
Al-Jalil, Al-Qadir, Al-Muqtadir,
Al-Awwal, Al-Akhir, and that only
Allah SWT can provide us with the guidance, the gifts,
we need in order to know, understand, and to live our
lives as we should. Thus, we accept that the only true
justice is the justice of Allah SWT, and that the only
true manifestation of justice, in the dunya,
is that obtained by following the guidance of Allah,
Al-Hakam, As-Salaam, in the
Shari’ah. In complete contrast, the kuffar
accept and believe not only that they can, by their
own efforts and/or by their manufactured assumptions,
arrive at or attain knowledge and understanding, but
also that it is their own manufactured assumptions and
"ideals" which manifest or which can manifest
"perfection", "truth", and such things as "justice".
This difference is clearly evident, for example, in
the training and the attitude, of Western, kafir,
armies, and in the training, and the attitude, of the
MujahiDien.
In all Western armies - and those elsewhere who have
adopted Western military training and methods -
soldiers are initially brutalized through a strict
training regime. As individuals, they are conditioned
through bullying and intimation by NCO's, and they are
trained to be and are expected to be aggressive, as
well as obedient to a military "chain-of-command".
This conditioning and this training produces, as is
its aim, a certain type of individual. This individual
is a person who is rather arrogant - who has a high
opinion of themselves, and someone prepared and
trained to be brutal when commanded. Essentially, such
a person is a bully, or is prepared to be a bully when
commanded to act and behave in that way or when they
are told or they believe "the situation" demands it.
The respect which such a person has is for, or is
mostly derived from, "force" or from the threat of
force - by someone of superior military rank, or from
someone of superior physical strength, or from some
weapon or piece of military hardware. There is,
built-into all Western military armies and all their
military training, an intense spirit of competition:
of desiring to be "the best", and thus of feeling
superior "to others", and part of such military
training is to create a bond between the soldiers of a
troop or platoon by competition between different
troops, platoon and Regiments, and by having pride in,
one's own troop, platoon, company and Regiment.
In contrast, the MujahiDien feel and know
that they are only servants of Allah SWT and that they
will be judged by Allah SWT. Thus, they behave and act
accordingly - with tawadhu’ and with a
respect and genuine love for their fellow
MujahiDien. The MujahiDien are not
fighting to win some prideful fame or some worldly
glory - and neither are they fighting because they
have been commanded to do so or because they enjoy it
or because they are being paid to do it. Rather, they
fight to please Allah SWT and Allah SWT alone: to do
their duty, as honourable Muslims.
Unlike the MujahiDien, the kuffar of
Western armies are neither taught nor trained to be
aware of, nor for the most part believe in, a "higher
power" (far more powerful than their commanding
officer or even the latest bit of military hardware),
as the vast majority of them would laugh at the notion
of prostrating themselves in humility to that "higher
power". Neither do these kafir soldiers have
any genuine humility, for they rely on their training,
their weapons, their military hardware, their
comrades, and not upon God.
Thus, we have the contrast between the polite, often
reserved, always noble Mujahid - mindful of,
respectful of, and relying on Allah SWT - and between
the swaggering, often swearing, prideful, arrogant,
often alcohol-soaked and often drug-taking kafir
soldier, posing with and relying upon their weapons or
upon some military hardware.
As Allah SWT says:
"The 'Ibaad of Ar-Rahman are those who walk on
earth in humility." [25:63]
By manufacturing and following their Tawagheet,
the kuffar - and especially and in particular
the kuffar of the West - have plundered and
ravaged the world and killed millions upon millions
upon millions of people. In the last one hundred and
fifty years alone, the kuffar of the West
have killed at least a hundred million people as they
rampaged across the world in pursuit of their
Tawagheet of "Empire", in pursuit of material
wealth, glutted as they were by power and by the
pursuit and accumulation of wealth, and following as
they were their Tawagheet of nationalism and
"patriotism" and imbued as they were with an arrogant
racism and colonialism.
All the kuffar of the West have now done is
exchanged old words for new ones and slightly varied
how they define their Tawagheet. Thus instead
of invading lands, and killing and imprisoning people,
in the name of Empire or nationalism, they now talk
and write and act about imposing "democracy" and
bringing "freedom" and "peace". This is typical of
their hypocrisy and their deceit - typical of what
allies of As-Shaitan do, for in essence,
their aims and their goals, and their basic character
and nature, have not changed at all. They are still
ignorant barbarians; they are still deceitful, lying,
hypocrites. They are still acting like the
dishonourable bullies they are, known to us from their
own history and ours, and they are still pursuing
their own desires, their own greed, their own power,
and still desiring to impose, by force and by coercion
and by blackmail, their ways upon others.
In addition, the kuffar demand that we
abandon Tawheed and Iman and instead
accept, believe in and follow, their Tawagheet.
Thus, they demand that we reject ruling only by
Shari’ah and instead must rule by Western,
kafir, laws. They demand that we reject our duty
to establish a Khilafah, our duty to live
under bayah to a Khalifah who himself seeks
guidance through Shura - and that, instead,
we accept their Taghoot of democracy. Thus,
the kuffar demand that we abandon our duty to
reclaim our lands from them by Jihad - and
instead that we accept their domination over us and
our lands and their right to impose upon us, and to
support, a puppet government of their own to govern
and rule over us. Thus, the kuffar demand
that we reject the borderless community of the
Ummah - and demand that, instead, we recognize
and live by their Taghoot of nationalism, and
by the laws of that Taghoot, the so-called
United Nations, whose interference in our affairs they
demand we accept, just as they demand that we accept
that they, the kuffar, have a right to
restrict our movements, and make laws which restrict
what we, as Muslims, can say or do, even in our own
lands.
The kuffar demand all these things - and many
more such things - at the point of a gun and with the
threat of imprisonment. In addition, in their
arrogance - which matches if not surpasses the
arrogance of Fir'aun - they have set
themselves the goal of not only dividing us among
ourselves so that their domination may continue, but
also of changing our Dien, of manufacturing
for us a new "modernized" so-called "Islam" - a new
"interpretation" of our Dien - which will be
just one more "religion" among many, and which states
that we should be "good law-abiding citizens" of the
New World Order which it is the aim of the current
Zionist-Crusader alliance to impose upon the world. In
pursuit of this goal of changing our Dien,
the kuffar are spending billions upon
billions of dollars on propaganda, on producing books,
on manufacturing and supporting thousands of
organizations, world-wide, which they staff with the
hypocrites, the traitors, the apostates, the
collaborators, among us, and which organizations the
kuffar make - or seek to make - the
"official" voice of, the "official" representatives
of, what they in their hubris have called "moderate
and mainstream Islam".
Thus, the kuffar demand that we exchange our
perfect noble Dien, for their Tawagheet;
that we rely on them, and their allies, rather than
upon Allah SWT.
Conclusion:
Are we going to accept the demands of the kuffar?
Or we going to exchange Iman for Kufr
- Jannah for the delights and rewards of the
dunya - by becoming the allies, the subjects
of the kuffar? Or, are we going to follow, to
join, to aid those - such as the MujahiDien -
who have rejected the arrogant demands of the
kuffar and who are determined, by relying on only
Allah SWT, to end their interference in our affairs,
remove them from our lands, and establish, in place of
their Tawagheet such as democracy and
kafir-law, the guidance of Shari’ah, the
wisdom of Shura and the Muslim leadership of
a noble Khalifah?
As Allah SWT says:
"They are those who deny the Ayat of their Rabb
and the meeting with Him (in the Hereafter). So all
their works are in vain, and on the Day of
Resurrection, We shall not give them any weight."
[18:105]
"You who believe! What is wrong with you that you
did not rush forth when called [to aid] the Way of
Allah? Or is it that you love this earth so much -
that you crave its comforts so much - that you forget
the next life where such earthly things are revealed
for the insignificant comforts they are?" [9: 38]
"Fight against those who do not believe in Allah,
or in The Last Day, and who do not forbid that which
has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, as well
as those among the people of the book who do not
acknowledge the Dien of Truth, and fight them until
they pay the Jizya with willing submission."
[9:29]
May Allah (SWT) protect us from all forms of Al-asabiyyah
Al-Jahiliyyah, forgive us for our mistakes, and
guide us to and keep us on the Right Path. Wa
Allahu Alam.