be carried into practice for the higher development of man.
The whole of the religion of Islām is briefly summed up in the two short sentences, Lā ilāha ill-Allāh, i.e., there is no god but Allāh, or, nothing deserves to be made an object of love and worship except Allāh, and Muḥammad-un-Rasūlullāh, Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allāh. It is simply by bearing witness to the truth of these two simple propositions that a man enters the fold of Islām. The first part of the creed is the constant theme of the Holy Qur’ān, and a faith in the Unity of God, in the fact that there is no god except Allāh, is repeatedly mentioned as the basic principle, not only of Islām but of every religion revealed by God. It takes several forms: “Have they a god with Allāh?” “Have they a god besides Allāh?” “There is no god except Allāh”; “There is no god but He”; “There is no god but Thou”; “There is no god but I.” The second part of the creed concerning the apostleship of the Holy Prophet Muḥammad is also a constant theme of the Holy Qur’ān, and the very words Muḥammad-un Rasūlullāh occur in 48:29. From Ḥadīth, too, it appears that the essential condition of the acceptance of Islām was the acceptance of these two component parts of the creed (Bu. 2:40).
The above, in the terminology of the later theologians, is called “a brief expression of faith” ( īmān mujmal ), while the detailed expression of faith, which the later theologians call mufaṣṣal , is set forth in the very beginning of the Holy Qur’ān as follows: a belief in the Unseen (i.e. God), a belief in that which was revealed to the Holy Prophet Muḥammad and in that which was revealed to the Prophets before him, and a belief in the Hereafter (2:2-4). Further on in the same chapter, five principles of faith are clearly mentioned: “That one should believe in Allāh and the Last Day and the Angels and the Book and Prophets” (2: 177). Again and again, the Holy Qur’ān makes it clear that it is only in relation to these five that belief is required. In the Ḥadīth there is a slight variation. Bukhāri has it as follows: “That thou believe in Allāh and his Angels and in the meeting with Him and His Messengers and that thou believe in the Life after death” (Bu. 2:37). It will be seen that a belief in the meeting with God is mentioned distinctly here, and while this is included in the belief in