Islam Rediscovered
9. The Islamic Way of Life
~ 119 ~
IMAN (FAITH)
By accepting
iman
one enters the fold of Islam. But
Iman is not simply a recitation of
kalima
(creed of
Islam). According to the Qur’an, it is
ma‘arifah
(5:83)
that is, realization. Thus realization of truth is the
door to Islam. When one discovers that Islam is
truly God’s religion and that it is the same truth one
has been seeking all along, one
undergoes a unique
experience of realization which is known in Islamic
terminology as
ma‘arifah.’
Making any kind of discovery revolutionizes a
person’s life but when this discovery is of the truth
with a capital T, this intellectual revolution becomes
synonymous with the emergence of a new life in the
individual.
This kind of intellectual revolution is no simple
event: it turns a man into a superman, and gives
him the greatest mission of his life. It regulates his
life in such a way that no part of it remains
unaffected. He begins to see all of humanity as his
family and the entire universe as his abode. Such a
discoverer becomes a maker of history rather than a
product of history.
