they turn around and make Him indwell created beings, or make Him a locus for them, or identify Him with them; or else they negate Him altogether.

In this they resemble the Peripatetic philosophers, who locate human perfection in knowledge. For them, the “highest science” and “first philosophy” consist in studying being and its concomitants. They make the Necessary Existent absolute existence, subject to the condition of absoluteness. The former, however, change the terminology, expressing philosophical and Greek heresies in Islamic, Quranic language. All this has been established and discussed at length elsewhere.

Section

The hadith begins with his question about “Islam.” He answered him:

“Islam is that you testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establish prayer, give zakat, fast Ramadan, and perform the pilgrimage to the House.”

These are the five mentioned in the hadith of Ibn ʿUmar reported by both al-Bukhārī and Muslim:

“Islam is built upon five: testifying that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establishing prayer, giving zakat, fasting Ramadan, and performing the pilgrimage to the House for whoever is able to make the journey.”

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said this after Allah had made the pilgrimage obligatory; hence he mentioned all five. Most hadiths do not mention the pilgrimage. In the hadith concerning the delegation of ʿAbd al-Qays, he said:

“I command you to believe in Allah alone. Do you know what believing in Allah alone means? Testifying that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establishing prayer, giving zakat, fasting Ramadan, and giving one-fifth of the spoils.”