Portal: Islamic Doctrine

There is much in Islamic scripture that is not of direct legal relevance and which can be understood as constituting doctrine. The Arabic word aqeedah, or creed, has generally been understood to encompass a more limited range of ideas than what, to a modern person, would appear as Islamic doctrine. Whereas theologians writing in the 8th-11th centuries may not, for instance, have felt that The Islamic Whale (the cosmic whale below the universe), the literal creation of humans from clay, or even the reality of the Jinn constituted topics of special theological interest, as beliefs in these types of phenomena were commonplace in much (albeit not all) of the world (much as belief in gravity is commonplace today), today, these entities stand out as relatively unique or at least interesting objects of Islamic belief. Indeed, anything mentioned in the Quran and what are considered the authentic and widely narrated (tawaatur) hadiths can be said to be a part of Islamic doctrine, as rejecting any part of scripture is considered an act of kufr, or disbelief. In the view of mainstream Sunni orthodoxy, which until today reads scripture literally (including where physical or metaphysical phenomenon are described), any and every item mentioned in relied-upon scripture can be considered as essential an item of belief as the prophethood of Muhammad or the oneness of God, for to deny any part of what Muhammad or God said is, it is held, to deny them, and thus and act of disbelief. To quote the Quran, "So do you believe in part of the Scripture and disbelieve in part? Then what is the recompense for those who do that among you except disgrace in worldly life; and on the Day of Resurrection they will be sent back to the severest of punishment."^[1]