The six pillars of faith in Islam are the foundations of our belief system. They consist of six key elements that are known to our faith by necessity, and belief in them is obligatory. The following explanations are mostly excerpted near-verbatim or summarized from chapter eight of Sea Without Shore by Shaykh Nuh Keller, the chapter titled “Faith”, where the author goes over the six pillars of faith in Islam. My own extra commentary or supplementary excerpts will be in footnotes.

Belief in Allah entails knowing that Allah is one, without any co-sharer in His entity, attributes, actions, or rulings. One must also believe that “There is nothing whatsoever that is like unto Him.” (Quran 42:11).

Angels are beings with bodies of light, honored servants who faithfully carry out Allah’s commands and are capable of changing form to assume various noble appearances. The existence of angels is neither figurative, nor are they “natural forces, like magnetism,” but rather what the generality of Muslims have believed them to be from the outset of Islam.

His Books are those that He revealed to His messengers, including the Torah, Evangel (Injil), Psalms (Zabur), and Quran. “That He revealed to His messengers” means the original revelations, not the remnant scriptures in the hands of non-Muslims today, which Allah, the One who revealed the Books, informs us have been textually corrupted at the hands of men. So in their present form, they are truth mixed with untruth, which is why the Quran has been revealed “confirming that which came before it of the scripture, and the final authority over it” (Quran 5:48), though the original Books were Allah’s word, and everything they contained was the truth.

Allah sent mankind and jinn His prophetic messengers (upon whom be peace), who were trustworthy, intelligent, truthful, and fully conveyed their messages. He protected them from sin, and from every physical trait unbecoming to them, though as human beings, they ate, drank, slept, and wed. They were the best of all created beings; and the highest of them was him whom Allah chose to be the final seal of prophethood, our prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace).

The Sacred Law of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) supersedes and abrogates all previously valid religious laws. However, it is identical in terms of beliefs, such as the Oneness of God, and so on. The laws of previous prophets were valid in their own times, but have now been abrogated by the final religion of Islam.

Belief in the Last Day includes faith in the resurrection of the dead, their reckoning, the weighing of their good deeds against their bad ones, their passing over the high, narrow bridge (sirat) that spans the hellfire, and that some will be put in hell out of justice, and some in paradise out of Allah’s pure generosity. Disobedient believers (as opposed to unbelievers) will be taken out of the hellfire after being requited for their sins and entered into paradise. Both paradise and hellfire are eternal, something every Muslim must believe.

Belief in destiny consists in knowing that what hits one was not going to miss, and what misses one was not going to hit.