ABSTRACT
What is iman or belief in Islam? All the different theological schools answered this question in a particular way. Some were very restrictive and some less so. It is an important question and not only legally since its consequences are paradise or hell. From a legal point of view there are implications also, on who can marry believers, on the preparation of halal food and basically on who can be taken to be members of the umma or community. In a country run on what are often called Islamic lines this has significant political implications, determining who can hold certain kinds of office and who can give evidence in court. In previous times unbelievers paid a special tax, the jizya, solely because they were unbelievers. This is often more positively represented as protection money, and was an acknowledgment of their lack of necessity to participate in the military functions of the state. However, the primary meaning of the question dealing with belief is eschatological and a matter of who can be saved:
The likeness of paradise, which the godfearing have been promised, rivers flow beneath it, and its fruits are eternal, and its shade: that is the requital of the godfearing, while the requital of unbelievers is hell.
(13.35)