Intermediate Islamic Belief: The Pearl of Divine Oneness (Jawhara Tawhid)

Ustadh Farid Dingle

أَنْ تُؤْمِنَ بِاللَّهِ وَمَلَائِكَتِهِ وَكُتُبِهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَتُؤْمِنَ بِالْقَدَرِ خَيْرِهِ وَشَرِّهِ

Faith is to believe in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Last Day, and to believe in providence, both its good and its evil.

The Prophet Muhammad {PBUH} – Muslim

Course Overview

This second-level course in Islamic theology will give you a complete and well-organised overview of the wide spectrum of topics of the formal science of Kalam — Islamic scholastic theology. The course will cover divinity, prophethood and the unseen, in further detail, and allow you to clearly identify where the beliefs of others differ from orthodox Islamic positions. Besides organising the beliefs in a more crystal form, some proofs will also be given.

Syllabus

• Week 1: Knowing Allah; Knowledge & Responsibility; Logical Possibility and Logical I
• Week 2: Belief, Reason and Spirituality; The Kalam cosmological argument; Increasing and decreasing of faith.
• Week 3: Allah’s Glorious Attributes: “Negative” attributes; Existent; Proofs from Scripture and Proofs from the mind; Distinction between will, command and pleasure
• Week 4: Divine Names and Attributes; Distinction between attributes of entity and attributes of actions
• Week 5: Divine Transcendence; Divine Omnipotence and Human Responsibility; Verses and hadith that seem to convey anthropomorphism; Principles of interpretation and rhetoric; The creation of the Quran discussion.
• Week 6: Divine Omnipotence and Human Responsibility; The Beatific Vision of Allah in the Afterlife; Morality and divine pre-determination; Physically seeing Allah in the Next Life
• Week 7: Necessary Attributes of Prophets; Imperfections that Prophets may not be Characterised By; Prophetic and Angelic Ranks; Prophets and sins; Some legal principles; Allah and morality.
• Week 8: Abrogation; The Finality of the Prophet Muhammad’s (Allah bless him and give him peace) Prophetic Miracles; The Companions, their exalted rank and inter-Sahabi politics; Early Muslims, and Saints; Supplication (dua) and predestination.
• Week 9: Life, Death, the Interworld, and the Afterlife; The grave and resurrection; Intercession of the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) and the righteous; Major and minor Sins; Martyrdom.
• Week 10: Miscellaneous topics; The mind and reality; The concepts of things, thinghood and existence; Repentance, its nature, how it is done and its acceptance; Islamic law, government and jihad; Excommunication; Sufism; Vices of the tongue and heart.