you has no faith unless he loves for his brother what he loves for himself ” (Bu. 2:7). And a third says: “One of you has no faith unless he has greater love for me than he has for his father and his son and all the people” (Bu. 2:8). The word īmān is thus applied to all good deeds and the Bukhārī has as the heading of one of his chapters in the Kitāb al-Īmān (Book 2): “He who says, Īmān is nothing but the doing of good;” in support of which he quotes verses of the Holy Qur’ān. He argues from verses which speak of faith being increased,5 that good deeds are a part of faith, because otherwise faith could not be thus spoken of.
Just as faith ( īmān ) is the acceptance of the truth brought by the Holy Prophet, so unbelief (kufr) is its rejection, and as the practical acceptance of the truth or the doing of a good deed is called īmān or part of īmān so the practical rejection of the truth or the doing of an evil deed is called kufr or part of kufr. The heading of a chapter in the Bukhārī is as follows: “Acts of disobedience (ma‘āṣī) are of the affairs of jāhiliyyah” (Bu. 2: 22). Now jāhiliyyah (lit. ignorance), in the terminology of Islām, means the “time of ignorance” before the advent of the Holy Prophet, and is thus synonymous with kufr or unbelief. In support of this is quoted a report relating to Abū Dharr who said that he abused a man, addressing him as the son of a Negress, upon which the Holy Prophet remarked: “Abū Dharr! Thou findest fault with him on account of his mother; surely thou art a man in whom is jāhiliyyah” (Bu. 2: 22). Thus the mere act of finding fault with a man on account of his African origin is called jāhiliyyah or kufr. According to another ḥadīth, the Holy Prophet is reported to have warned his Companions in the following words: “Beware, do not become unbelievers (kuffār, pl. of kāfir) after me, so that some of you should strike off the necks of others” (Bu. 25: 132). Here the slaying of Muslims by Muslims is condemned as an act of unbelief. In another ḥadīth, it is said: “Abusing a Muslim is transgression and fighting with him is unbelief (kufr)” (Bu. 2:36). Yet in spite of the fact that the fighting of Muslims with one another is called kufr — and those who fight among themselves are even termed unbelievers (kāfirs) — in these ḥadīth, the Holy Qur’ān speaks of two parties of Muslims at war with one another