The Relation between Faith and Behavior The doctrine of modern deferment as an example

Safa’uddin al-Khazraji

Summary
This study deals with the relation between faith and behavior, showing its kind, discussing the mutual effects, and defining the position of this relation in the cognitive system of Islam, and its influence in moral progression and spiritual perfection of man, which may take him to the position of full monotheism (essence, attributes, and actions). The study also discusses the negative side of the phenomenon of separation between faith and behavior.

Perhaps the most dangerous of these intellectual trends is that which the Murji’ah believe in, because it would politically justify the rulers’ injustice and oppression on the one hand, and socially will spread in the Muslim society moral degeneration and behavioral deviation on the other hand. The Murji’ah - whether we say it is a political creed assuming religious faith, or it is a doctrinal creed whose thought has been employed for politics - call for the separation of faith from behavior, and believe that faith and he belief in the two testimonies (shahadatayn) are sufficient, no matter how deviated man is in his behavior.

There is no doubt how dangerous this Umayyad thought is from two sides:
The first is that it justifies deviation and considers it legal in the name of religion, just as the Umayyads made injustice legal in the name of religion, when they fabricated the theory that said it was illegal to rise against unjust rulers. This theory had given oppressive rulers immunity in the face of any revolt against them that lasted for more than a thousand years. With this theory, they numbed the Umma and stopped its progress and development, until it has reached what it is in nowadays of backwardness and decline.
The Second is the danger of the method they follow in their reasoning. It is the method of selective ijtihad based on selecting certain evidences to produce such a dangerous theory. And all of that comes under the argument of ijtihad, which is also the most dangerous theory known to Islamic thought at all; because it is the only tool they have adopted to tear up religion and break up the Umma in the name of religion and the name of legality of ijtihad, where the Umma is still paying the price of this deadly theory with its animosity and disgusting sectarian wars.

In spite of the extinction of the Murji’ah as a theologian sect, and, in fact, the extinction of deferment thought in general, we see that there are ideas spreading from time to time in our nowadays societies, having the impressions of this thought and its extensions that separate faith from behavior, like the thoughts spread among the youth, especially in schools, universities, and open societies, that call for the unnecessity of committing to religious obligations, under the pretext that purity of heart makes man in no need of committing to those obligations, being unaware of the role of faith and behavior in spiritual perfection and moral progress for man. In fact, faith and behavior are two wings with which man does fly to the ranks of perfection. So, true faith can change the entire course of man’s life, and lift him from the bottom of material life to the top of moral height.

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