and His Messenger have explained faith as belief in Allah, His angels, His scriptures, His messengers, and the Last Day, and have also made clear that carrying out what He has commanded is included in faith. Allah has not called belief in His angels, His scriptures, His messengers, and resurrection after death Islam. Rather, what He has called Islam is submitting to Him in one’s heart and intention, devoting one’s religion sincerely to Him, and carrying out His commands, such as prayer and zakah, seeking His Face alone. This is what Allah has called Islam and appointed as the religion. He says:

“Whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted from him.”

He did not include within it what He assigned specifically to faith: belief in Allah, His angels, His scriptures, and His messengers. Nor did He include such deeds of the heart as love for Allah and His Messenger and the like, for He made these part of faith. A Muslim who is a believer possesses these qualities, but his possessing them does not necessarily mean that they are part of Islam; rather, they are part of faith. Islam is obligatory, and faith is obligatory, and Islam is included within faith.

Whoever fulfils the faith he has been commanded to have must therefore have fulfilled Islam, which encompasses all obligatory deeds. But whoever fulfils what is called Islam has not necessarily fulfilled faith, unless separate evidence establishes this. Thus, we know that all those whom Allah praised for their Islam, from the prophets and their followers down to the disciples, were believers as well as Muslims. As the disciples said:

“We believe in Allah, and bear witness that we are Muslims.”

And He says:

“And when I inspired the disciples to believe in Me and My messenger, they said, ‘We believe, and bear witness that we are Muslims.’”

For this reason, Allah commanded us to embrace both in a single address, saying:

“Say, ‘We believe in Allah and in what has been sent down to us, and what was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and what Moses and Jesus were given, and what the prophets were given by their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and to Him we submit.’ So if they believe as you believe, they are rightly guided; but if they turn away, they are only in dissension