Salvation/Salus of God
Confusion exists with those who out of ignorance or ill intent to the true nature of God’s activity in the salus of humanity via muhammadi. Those who are in this confusion hold that those of faith in the descent of the Word of God and the prophetic office of Muhammad can have no certainty of the salvation extended by God, and that those of faith are securing their own salvation, that the gratia of God has no place in via muhammadi. The effort of this work is to show that it is only from God, by God and in God that the Muslim is in a station of amn , or security, that it is faithful fidelity and trust in God which is the foundation of all salvation, and that Muhammad is the means to this, that God has responded in kind to false doctrines projected upon Him, thus removing the falsity of idols, whether as objects of adoration or as false doctrine. The following need exposition:
I. Faith
II. Works
III. Muhammad
IV. Vessels of God
Faith
All salvation comes by faith alone. The Quranic pairing of imān and a´mal, faith and works must not be misunderstood. [As for the nature of works, this will be covered below.] The Messenger of God has made this explicitly clear. “’Not one of you will attain to salvation by his works’ Not even you O Messenger of God? “Not even I, except that God envelop me in His Mercy.’” The act of God in extending mercy is that which the guarantor of salvation is. It is faith/fidelity in God which places one in the surety of this mercy. Thus the Quran emphatically condemns obeisance and worship of that which is other than God, for then has one affectively separated oneself from that mercy. This faith has two aspects, that which is propositional and that which is an action of the heart. That which is propositional has been articulated as belief in God, angels, books, prophets and divine decree. As for that which is a state of the heart, this is that which distinguishes between the believer and the hypocrite.
Works
All good works are only those works which God has sanctioned. These works are mediated either being ‘in’ God or not by the intention one places upon them. This intention itself is an action of the heart, though it may be expressed on the tongue. The highest and most important work is the affirmation of God only. All true good works have their origin in God, via the way of Muhammad . Thus the first and foremost work is to bare witness to God’s Lordship and true existence and that Muhammad is the one who mediates God to humanity. The shahada is the verbal articulation of this truth, this the foundation upon which all else is built. The shahada first statement affirms the attachment of the heart to God while the second statement affirms that it is via muhammadi that is and declares the work as true. All good works have their relationship with true life, death is not a part of these works firstly because they are attached via the intention to the Living-One, and secondly, as a corollary to the first, in that their origin is from above, it is via the way of descent into the world that they are effectual. Just as they have their foundation from above, so too they ascend back to their origin. In this ascent they are means by which God extends everlasting and perpetual life to those who are attached to them. Thus God is the ‘author’ of this act, it originates with Him and returns back to Him. This is the crux of the efficacious nature the true good work.
Muhammad
Muhammad is the new Adam , he is the one who restores humanity back to their paradisial origin, initially in the world as a likeness, and there in its full nature. He is fully human, thus being germane to all humanity, and he is paradisial, in that he is able to ascend and be in the paradisial realm without having to have died and be clothed in a new physical paradisially accessible body. What appears as inconsistent with some who hold an assumed necessity of absolute perfection, which is only a divine prerogative, is merely appropriate in his function in facilitating every man, thus his acknowledgement of being bashr/human; as for that which is of his perfection/kamalat it is that he completely fulfills his role as restorer of humanity, it is through him that God completes His work, firstly in his person and subsequently to those who are affiliated by faith to him.
Vessels of God
The believer, the one who accepts and conforms accordingly to the above truths, becomes a new seat of mercy and covenantal promise. In the past the Ark of the Covenant was the ‘mercy seat’ now each true believer is this new seat, the new Ark. Muhammad is the ‘true’ new Ark, while those who emulate and follow him, by and in faith, each becomes like him, though to a lesser degree, but never the less as a co-sharer in being able to enter into the paradisial promise and realm. True believers as vessels are such that their deeds and works become acceptable to God, not because these works are of their own constitution and design, but because God Himself has deemed them acceptable to Him with the further truth that He has made them acceptable to Himself as receptacles for the Word.