INTRODUCTION 

 

Bismillāhir Rahmānir Rahīm, As-salāmu ʿAlaykum wa rahmatullāhi wa barakātuh. Peace be upon you brothers and sisters. 

 

Welcome back to the Muslim Converts Channel! 

 

There is a current conflict that is going on between atheists and theists. One of the big claims that is being made against theism is the irrationality of faith.  

 

Most of these atheists are claiming that faith is to believe without evidence. On the other hand, science is to believe something with evidence. This means that religion asks us to accept things blindly, whereas science, which many atheists claim to have a monopoly on, asks us to accept something based on credible evidence and proofs.  

 

In this lesson, we will respond by saying this distinction and definition of faith is false - not only in the Islamic perspective - but also in the perspective of other religions like Christianity. 

 

BODY OF TEXT 

 

Imam Jaʿfar al-Sadiq (as) once said: Faith is what sits in the heart and Islam is that which legalizes marriages and inheritance and protects lives. Faith is inclusive of Islam but Islam is not inclusive of faith. 

 

The Arabic word for faith is īmān. It is rooted in a word that means to be tranquil, to be secure and to trust. This is why the word amāna in Arabic, which comes from the same root word, refers to a “trust” that you give someone. 

 

So how does this tie into the debate on faith as “belief without evidence” and science as “belief with evidence”?  

 

The mistake that atheists make here is thinking that faith, both in Islam and Christianity, is somehow an epistemological category. Epistemology has to do with how you know something and the nature and limitations of knowledge. So for example, a relevant epistemological question would be how you would know that God exists, or how do you come to know mathematical truths, how are they accessed, and how do you know they are truths in the first place? 

 

If we define faith or īmān as strictly a form of belief only, then faith would be an epistemological category. However, this isn’t how faith is defined in Islam and Christianity - this is a total misunderstanding by both atheists and uneducated laymen and laywomen.  

 

Faith or īmān in Islam is a deep relationship of trust that you have with God. It is to trust that everything He says is true, including Prophethood and the Day of Judgment among other things. It is also to trust that He is our ultimate nurturer, sustainer and caretaker. It is a relationship which at its core level brings about inner peace and tranquility. Al-Mu’min is one of Allah’s names which means the granter of inner peace and security.  

 

So faith or īmān in Islam is not an epistemological category, it is a moral category. As a moral category, it is the proper and right way that one should approach and interact with God. This is separate from the issue of proving God’s existence, which naturally requires evidence.  

 

Providing intellectual reasons and evidence for God’s existence has been quite the big topic in Islam. Scholars like Ibn Sina, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Allamah al-Hilli and many others have written works demonstrating God’s existence. Christian scholars like Thomas Aquinas have also done the same. But these have been topics for philosophy and theology to deal with. 

 

Faith as a relationship of trust with God is an issue of spirituality. It is a matter of the soul or metaphysical heart. For many Muslims, faith is what comes after one is convinced of God’s existence through evidence. 

 

We will leave you with the following hadith to think about.  

 

Imam al-Baqir (as) once said, “faith is what settles down in the heart and takes it to Allah, the Most Majestic, the Most Holy”  

 

Until Next Time, Thank you for watching. As-salāmu ʿAlaykum wa rahmatullāhi wa barakātuh