Description
This course will cover translation of Imam al-Qazwini’s abridgement of Imam al-Bayhaqi’s Shu`ab al-Iman (The Branches of Faith). It is a popular manual of Islam, divided into seventy-seven chapters, each dealing with a major aspect of Islam, giving the relevant Qur’anic verses and authentic Hadiths for each. Several scholars compiled similar works, using the following Prophetic Hadith as their basis: “Faith is 70 odd branches…the highest of which is the statement ‘Lā ilāha illā Allāh,’ and the lowest of its branches is removing a harm from the path of the people, and modesty is a branch of īmān.”
This course will allow students to develop a foundational understanding of the fundamentals of belief along with relevant Quranic verses and prophetic sayings. Beyond matters of Aqeedah i.e. beliefs and doctrine, the text is also an expose on the Islamic way of life.