Islam is based upon one main fixed idea - the comprehension of one Creator, Allah (swt), and complete submission to Him. This submission means that all reference for lifes affairs must be directed to Allah (swt) for judgement, whether our prayers, fasting, relations with our families or non-Muslims, political and economic matters. The central pillars of faith (belief in Allah, His Angels, His Messengers, His books, the Day of Judgement and Divine fate and destiny) form the basis of all our actions. Therefore we refer only to the Book of Allah (swt) and the Sunnah of His Messenger (saw) as revelation (wahi) and the sources derived from these, Ijma‘ (consensus) of the Sahabah and Qiyas, for guidance. Whilst no Muslim enters the deen without full conviction in the articles of belief (‘aqeedah), the adoption of laws and the adherence to them are compulsory regardless of whether the believer fully understands them or not. Allah (swt) says,.

“And they say: We hear and we obey.” [TMQ 2:285].

Indeed the Shari‘ah is applied to all (Muslims and non-Muslims) regardless of belief.

Islam uniquely bridges the confusion between belief and action or doctrine and systems. The human must determine the correct basis (creed or doctrine) and then base the system or his actions upon that provided by the law. The law provided by wahi (revelation) is that which governs all actions whether personal or societal, whether ritual worships or international politics and of course the issue of revival.

The following of Islamic text is an intellectual process which leads to revival, provided the Islamic methodology is used. By Islamic methodology we mean the process of ijtihad where the scholar applies the Islamic text to the reality after a rigorous process of verification of the problem (tahkeek al-manat) and then applying the appropriate Shari‘ah evidence to the problem. This is completely different from the West where they derive the solution from the problem, so for example a law is brought to curb drink driving without examining the nature of the problem or whether drinking itself is not the real problem. .

In the Muslim world today we suffer from corrupt scholars that bring a solution to satisfy the West and then text is sought to justify the answer, as we saw when a so-called Shari‘ah opinion was sought to justify the invasion of the US forces into the Hijaz during the Gulf War, or potentially even worse where the correct process of ijtihad is not followed and so called scholars bring daleel (evidence) without following classical ijtihad. This is more damaging because the true revival based upon the clear cut evidences is inevitably delayed.