He replied:

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. The term “faith” is used both without qualification and with qualification. When used without qualification, it encompasses everything Allah and His Messenger love of a servant’s inward and outward words and deeds. This is the understanding generally held by the early generations and leading scholars among the Companions, the Followers, and their followers, who hold that faith consists of words and deeds, increases through obedience, and decreases through disobedience. They include within its meaning all acts of obedience, both obligatory and voluntary. This is the position of the vast majority of scholars of hadith, Sufism, speculative theology, and jurisprudence among the followers of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, and others.

This includes what may be called spiritual stations and states, such as patience, gratitude, fear, hope, reliance upon Allah, contentment, reverent fear, turning to Allah, sincerity, affirming Allah’s oneness, and other such qualities.

Among the evidence for this is the hadith recorded in the two Sahīh collections, in which the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said:

“Faith has sixty-odd—or seventy-odd—branches. The highest is the declaration that none is worthy of worship but Allah; the lowest is removing something harmful from the road; and modesty is a branch of faith.”

He thus mentioned the highest branch of faith: the declaration that none is worthy of worship but Allah. Nothing is better than this declaration, as reported in al-Muwattaʾ and elsewhere from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—who said:

“The best supplication is the supplication on the Day of