The Sunni Path

seventy-two groups denies any information that has been
declared clearly in the Qur’ân al-kerîm, in hadîth ash-sherîfs or
that has spread among Muslims, he becomes a disbeliever. There
are many people today who, while carrying Muslim names, have
already dissented from the Madhhab of the Ahl as-Sunna and
have become heretics or non-Muslims.” Quotations from hadrat
’Abdulhakîm Efendi end here.
Muslims have to keep on learning from the cradle to the grave.
The knowledge which Muslims have to learn is called al-’ulûm al-
Islâmiyya (Islamic sciences), which consist of two parts: I) al-
’ulûm an-naqliyya, II) al-’ulûm al-’aqliyya.
I) Al-’ulûm an-naqliyya (also called ‘religious sciences’):
These sciences are acquired by reading the books of the scholars
of Ahl as-Sunna. The scholars of Islam derived these sciences
from four main sources. These four sources are called al-adillat
ash-Shar’iyya. They are the al-Qur’ân al-kerîm, hadîth ashsherîfs,
ijmâ’ al-Umma and qiyâs al-fuqahâ’.
Religious sciences consist of eight main branches:
1) ’ilm at-tafsîr (the science of explanation of the Qur’ân alkerîm).
A specialist in this branch is called a Mufassir; he is a
profoundly learned scholar able to understand what Allâhu ta’âlâ
means in His Word.
2) ’ilm al-usûl al-hadîth. This branch deals with classification
of hadîths. Different kinds of hadîths are explained in Endless
Bliss, second fascicle, sixth chapter.
3) ’ilm al-hadîth. This branch studies minutely the utterances
(hadîth), behaviour (sunna), and manners (hâls) of our Prophet
‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’.
4) ’ilm al-usûl al-kalâm. This branch studies the methods by
which ’ilm al-kalâm is derived from the Qur’ân al-kerîm and
hadîth ash-sherîfs.
5) ’ilm al-kalâm. This branch covers the study of the Kalimat
at-tawhîd and the Kalimat ash-shahâda and the six fundamentals
of îmân, which depend on them. These are the teachings to be
believed by heart. Scholars of Kalâm usually wrote ’ilm al-usûl alkalâm
and ’ilm al-kalâm together. Therefore, the layman takes
these two branches of knowledge as one single branch.
6) ’ilm al-usûl al-fiqh. This branch studies the derivation of the
methods of Fiqh from the Qur’ân al-kerîm and hadîth ash-sherîfs.
7) ’ilm al-fiqh. This branch studies the af’âl al-mukallafîn; that
is, it tells how people who are discreet and pubescent should act
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