Belief is foundation of piety/Excerpt from Yusuf Kandhlawi (rah)’s speeches

“Piety is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west..” (2:177)

It is not that one has ‘piety’ simply because one turns here or there for prayer. To summarize, just praying is not piety. Then what is piety?

First one’s beliefs have to be correct. What is most important? That the belief be corrected.

“…but [true] piety is [in] one who believes in Allah,” (2:177)

What does this mean?

One turns away from wealth, possessions, lands, houses, properties, earth, sky, moon, sun, human beings, one’s own self.

One purges their conviction and reliance from everything.

And one places their conviction and reliance on only one Allah.

We say Allah does everything. But we are restricted to the means of this world.

This means we have not understood Allah’s transcendence.

Allah is independent of all means.

Everything other than Allah is powerless. The means are innately powerless. They are not what sustain us. They are not what will give us success. Calamities are not due to means. Allah can harm someone without the means and without any intermediary.

Allah is the ultimate doer.

This belief in the oneness of Allah is the foundation of piety (taqwa).