THE Quran repeatedly says that on the right side of history are those who attain faith and do constructive deeds. Hence, one can see that there is an umbilical connection between faith and action as both are integral and indispensable to each other. Being symbiotically related and organically conjoined, both live and die together. So, faith divorced from action is not faith at all, as per the Quran (6:158).
Actions are transitory in nature yet their effects assume permanence as action, rather than inner states or dispositions, affects the human self, tenaciously clinging to the rational soul. Upon death, a person’s wealth and possessions go to his inheritors while his deeds are ‘inherited’ or passed on to God (19:80). So men are not what they think or know but what they do.
The early Islamic community was well aware of the inseparability of faith and action. They knew their duty lay in believing and in carrying out what they believed with sincerity of purpose. This sense of responsibility raised their behaviour from mechanical obedience to the law to a realm of moral activism, which turned their character into an epitome of transparency and excellence, where private and public life coalesced. The fusion of faith and action in their conduct and the resultant cumulative moral genius brought them to the fore of global affairs; shepherds and simple desert dwellers assumed the reins of history and reoriented the moral dimensions of the world.
However, later both internal and external challenges tore apart the union of faith and action. Kharjism’s overinflated idealism put the existence and integrity of the state and community at risk while Murjism’s overblown optimism paved the way for a laissez-faire morality and culminated in an Islamic replica of the Christian doctrine of justification by faith, ie, man is justified by faith apart from deeds.
Men are not what they think but what they do.
Externally, Hellenism, the Hellenised Judaic-Christian tradition and an influx of other alien ideas distorted the very essence of the message.
Muslim philosophers and Sufis saw the Quran through the lens of Greek thought. With minor adaptations and adjustments, they became prisoners of Greek logic. Both concurred that the goal of human life is knowledge.
Philosophers accepted the idea of the eternity of the universe and said that indestructibility — the eternity of the objects of knowledge — bestowed ‘immortality’ on the subject. Al-Ghazali in his esoteric works admitted philosophical doctrines which he rejected in his works meant for the public. Speculative thought, mystic deliriums and subjective poetry substituted the scientific statements of the Quran, and the fusion of faith and action vanished into thin air.
It was Ibn Taimiyya who, using Quranic principles, balanced the extremes of Kharjism and Murjism, Asharism and Mutazila. He undertook the systematic refutation of Greek logic to purge Islam of alien imprints and revived the basic principles — the Quran and Sunnah.
The severity of his language and volume of his intellectual roar were equated with the plight and decadence of his community. He said the goal of human life is neither the philosophical contemplation of God nor the mystic type of love for Him, as God is not something to be merely perceived, admired and cherished.
The purpose of life is the knowledge of God’s will and its implementation in life. Man is the bearer of moral responsibility, which the entire creation had refused. It requires an all-out human endeavour to establish a relentless egalitarian world order. Thus, organic fusion rather than the mechanical juxtaposition of faith and action come alive in his scheme of thought, but his words went unheeded for centuries.
He found full expression in Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi, who tested the verities of his statements through Sufi methods, in turn endorsing and enhancing the same. He is a lighthouse for the straying fleets of modern Islam.
As Dr Fazlur Rahman wrote, should any state or group in the Muslim world assume the project of reconstruction of Islamic thought, the thread would have to be resumed from where Ibn Taimiyya left off.
Pakistan is duty-bound to take on the enterprise of reconstruction of Islamic thought to distinguish normative Islam from historical faith, or else religious extremism, or secularism — the bane of modernity — will become the only choice.
The million-dollar question, however, is that when Kharjites and Mutazila have been an ‘extinct species’ for centuries, why do the ‘chickens’ of Murjism and Asharism still rule the roost?
The writer is an academic.
Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2026
