Sufi Ritual by Ian Richard Netton

Author:Ian Richard Netton [Netton, Ian Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780700712540
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2000-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

In later times the Shahāda was sometimes elaborated slightly but the few additions only served to emphasise the fundamental dogmas of tawīd and prophethood which we have surveyed. The following is an interesting example drawn from the Muwata of Mālik b. Anas (c. 716-795):

Greetings, good words, prayers, pure actions belong to Allāh. I testify that there is no god except Allāh, alone without partner [wadahu lā sharīka lahu], and I testify that Muḥammad is the slave of Allāh and His Messenger. Peace be upon you, Prophet, and the mercy of Allāh and His blessings. Peace be upon us and on the slaves of Allāh who are right-acting. Peace be upon you.26

Tawhīd is much more than the simple declaration of God’s oneness in the Shahāda.27 Its theological dimensions are vast.28 The same is true of Islam’s doctrine of prophets and messengers.29 Bound up with it all is Islam’s doctrine that man will ultimately return to God to be judged by Him. Murata and Chittick have stressed that this concept of ‘Return’ is at the heart of Islamic dogma and ritual: one cannot truly understand the whole reality of tawhīd and prophecy if one ignores the reality of the ‘Return to God’ and vice versa. As they succinctly state: ‘Tawīd, prophecy, and the Return are three faces of a single message. No matter which of the three is investigated, the other two have to be kept in view.’30

Consciously or unconsciously, every Muslim knows the theology of the Shahāda thus articulated. Consciously or unconsciously, each strives towards the final goal. Recitation of the Shahāda creates an obligation to undertake the four other arkān without which ‘one’s Islam is lacking, if not unacceptable.’31

To summarise, the Qurʾān presents a theological model of an eternal God who is both transcendent and immanent. The Shahāda appears at first sight to embrace only that first aspect in its apparently negative declaration that ‘there is no god but God.’ Further thought, however, shows that an aspect of immanence is present in the Shahāda too. For the nature of God in Islam is revealed more closely to His people via His holy text, the Qurʾān; and Muḥammad, ‘the Messenger of God’, is the vehicle and bearer of that text, from God through the Angel Gabriel, to humanity.

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