Step 2 of 6
The Shahadah
The shahadah is the testimony of faith: that there is no god worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad ﷺ is His Messenger. The first half denies every false object of worship and affirms Allah alone; the second accepts Muhammad ﷺ as the final Messenger, whose guidance shows how Allah is to be worshipped.
A person enters Islam by sincerely bearing this witness, believing it in the heart and saying it with the tongue. It is not a one-time formula: Muslims repeat it in every prayer, in the call to prayer, and hope to make it their last words.
Saying it with understanding and sincerity matters. The Prophet ﷺ told Mu'adh that anyone who testifies to it truthfully from the heart, Allah will keep him from the Fire, and he said that whoever dies knowing that there is no god but Allah will enter Paradise.
أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ
Ashhadu an la ilaha illa-llah, wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasulu-llah.
I bear witness that there is no god worthy of worship except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
All four schools agree on this step.
- Qur'an 47:19
- Qur'an 48:29
- Qur'an 3:18
- Sahih al-Bukhari 128 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Sahih Muslim 26Sahih · in the two Sahihs
What the hadith grades mean
- Sahih (authentic): an unbroken chain of trustworthy, precise narrators, free of hidden flaws or contradiction. It is acted upon.
- Hasan (good): like sahih, but a narrator's precision is slightly lighter. It is also accepted and acted upon. "Hasan sahih" means it reaches sahih by its routes.
- Da'if (weak): a break in the chain or a narrator who is not reliable enough. It is not used to establish beliefs or rulings.
- Very weak (munkar, matruk): a seriously flawed chain or a narrator accused of lying. It is not relied on at all.
- Mawdu' (fabricated): falsely attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. It may not be narrated as his words except to warn against it.
- The two Sahihs: every hadith with a full chain in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim is accepted as sahih by the scholars of hadith.
- Historical report: biographies and histories (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari) record events with chains that are often incomplete. They are used for the story, not for rulings.
- Hadith scholars grade a narration; the four madhhabs do not. Where a hadith carries a ruling, the page shows which schools act on it.
The positions of the four schools are summarised from their standard references and are pending review by a qualified scholar. Follow the school you were taught, and for your own situation, ask a scholar.
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