Īmān and ʿAqīdah

Three questions belong together here. What is the difference between īmān and ʿaqīdah? Is action part of īmān? Does īmān increase and decrease: arrow up, arrow down?

Put in that shorthand, the question is a good one, māshāʾAllāh, and it recalls the account of Abū Ḥanīfah (raḥimahullāh) and the apple. Some woman sent, in his presence, an apple. Somebody brought in an apple, mostly green but with some red: the two colours. So somebody brought it: silence, no question, no words. He cut it in half, gave them the half, and basically returned it.

The woman was asking whether her period had finished: it was mostly clear, but there was still some red. He cut it in half and showed the inside: it has to be perfectly white. This woman sent it in; obviously, she must have been very, very intellectual as well, to be able to send this and then expect that Abū Ḥanīfah would understand it. And he cut it in half and sent it back.

As for the difference between īmān and ʿaqīdah: īmān is belief; ʿaqīdah is the discipline of understanding what we need to believe. Īmān is our belief in itself. So our belief will come about after we understand our ʿaqīdah. Our belief will become more solidified the more ʿaqīdah we have. ʿAqīdah is the creed, or the belief system.

Is action part of īmān, or not part of the definition of īmān? That may be covered a bit later. It is a supplementary aspect; it is not core, fundamental to īmān, such that if somebody does not do actions, they are not Muslim. We do not believe that. That is a belief of the Khawārij.