religion, not in deen.
- Eiman to be convinced, to accept, to verify something,
to rely upon, or have confidence in. This is usually translated in
English as belief or faith; and faith in turn signifies acceptance
without proof or argument, or without reference to reason or
thought, knowledge or insight. Faith is generally regarded as the
negation of knowledge or reason; it is said about Kant, for instance,
that “he found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room
for faith.”
Indeed, Kant himself suggests a trichotomy of the modes of
cognition into knowledge, opinion and belief:
Opinion is such holding of a judgment as is consciously insufficient,
not only objectively but also subjectively. If our holding of a judgment
be only subjectively sufficient, and is at the same time taken as being
objectively insufficient, we have what is termed believing. Lastly, when
the holding of a thing to be true is sufficient both subjectively and
objectively, it is knowledge (The Critique of Pure Reason).
According to the Qur’an, however, eiman is not what has been
described above as believing; it is what Kant calls knowledge. In
fact, eiman is synonymous with conviction and is based upon reason
and knowledge. The Qur’an does not recognise as eiman any belief
that is divorced from reason and involves the blind acceptance of
any postulate. It is true that deen involves the acceptance of certain
things which cannot be known through sense perception; but there
is no reason to presume that things which cannot be thus perceived
do not exist. Indeed, our reason and thinking compel us to
recognise the existence of many such things. In any event, eiman,
according to the Qur’an, signifies the conviction that results from
full mental acceptance and intellectual satisfaction. This kind of
conviction gives one a feeling of amn – inner contentment and peace
(amn and eiman have a common root). And mu’min is one who
accepts the truth in such a way that it ensures his own peace and
helps him to safeguard the peace and security of the rest of
mankind. Indeed, Al-mu’min is one of the attributes of God
Himself. - Jahannam: usually translated as hell, which again does not
properly convey the Qur’anic sense of the term.
According to the Qur’an, life has manifested itself in the human
form after having gone through various stages of the process of
Islam: A Challenge to Religion 24