What are the characteristics of the true religion?

If there is such a thing as a true religion, what does it look like?

Jeffrey Lang (from "Struggling to Surrender") offers his thoughts:
"True religion does not promote such a separation (spiritual from material, sacred from profane), but promotes a way of life, as directed by the Creator through information transmitted through Prophets and Messengers."

This, according to the teachings of Islam, is the reason God sends divine inspiration to prophets, to convey the true way of life to men.


Qur'an 49:13 ("The Dwellings")
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
"O Mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Verily, the most honorable of you in the sight of God is that (believer) who fears God much (abstains from all kinds of deeds which He has forbidden) and loves God much (performs all kinds of deeds which He has ordained). Verily, God is All-Knowing, All-Aware."


Muhammad Asad (from "Islam at the Crossroads"):
"What we call the 'religious attitude' is the natural outcome of man's intellectual and biological constitution. Man is unable to explain to himself the mystery of life, the mystery of birth and death, the mystery of infinity and eternity. His reasoning stops before impregnable walls. The human being with all the intricate mechanism of his soul, with all his desires and fears, his feelings and his speculative uncertainties, sees himself faced by a Nature in which bounty and cruelty, danger and security are mixed in a wondrous, inexplicable way…on lines entirely different from the methods and the structure of the human mind. Never has purely intellectual philosophy or experimental science been able to solve this conflict. This exactly is the point where religion steps in. The [truly] religious man knows that whatever happens to him and within him can never be the result of a blind play of forces without consciousness and purpose; he believes it to be the outcome of God's conscious Will alone, and therefore, organically integrated with a universal plan."

Mr. Asad continues, "Thus, the conception of "worship" in Islam is different from that in any other religion. Here it is not restricted to the purely devotional practices, for example prayers or fasting, but extends over the whole of man's practical life as well. If the object of our life as a whole is to be the worship of God, we necessarily must regard this life, in the totality of all its aspects, as one complex moral responsibility. Thus, all our actions, even the seemingly trivial ones, must be performed as acts of worship: that is, performed consciously as constituting a part of God's universal plan. Such a state of things is, for the man of average capability, a distant ideal; but is it not the purpose of religion to bring ideals into real existence?"


Qur'an 22:34,35,37 ("The Pilgrimage")
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

"And for every nation We have appointed religious ceremonies, that they may mention the Name of God over the beast of cattle that He has given them for food. And your God is One God, so you must submit to Him Alone. And give glad tidings to the obedient (who obey God with humility)."

"Whose hearts are filled with fear when God is mentioned; who patiently bear whatever may befall them; and who offer prayers perfectly, and who spend (in God's Cause) out of what We have provided them….It is neither their meat nor their blood that reaches God, but it is piety from you that reaches Him."

Qur'an 2:177 ("The Cow")
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
"It is not piety and righteousness that you turn your faces towards east and west, but piety is (the quality) of the one who believes in God, the Last Day, the Angels, the Book, the Prophets and gives his wealth, in spite of love for it, to the kinsfolk, to the orphans, and to the poor who beg, and to the wayfarer, and to those who ask, and to set slaves free, and offer prayers perfectly, and gives the Zakat (prescribed charity) and who fulfill their covenant when they make it, and who are patient in extreme poverty and ailment and at the time of fighting. Such are the people of the truth and they are the pious."

Qur'an 98:5 ("The Clear Evidence")
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
"And they were commanded not, but that they should worship God, and worship none but Him Alone (abstaining from ascribing partners to Him), and to offer prayers perfectly and give Zakat (prescribed charity) and that is the right religion."

Piety is in the heart [from An-Nawawi's "Forty Hadith," (hadith #35)]
On the authority of Abu Huraira (may God be pleased with him), who said: the Messenger of God (pbuh) said: "Do not envy one another; do not inflate prices one to another; do not hate one another; do not turn away from one another; and do not undercut one another, but be you, O servants of God, brothers. A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim; he neither oppresses him nor does he fail him, he neither lies to him nor does he hold him in contempt. Piety is right here – and he pointed to his breast three times. It is evil enough for a man to hold his brother Muslim contempt. The whole of a Muslim for another Muslim is inviolable: his blood, his property, and his honor."
It was related by Muslim.

Posted in: Islamic Lecture