Aqidah al-Tahawiyya

Imam Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi al-Hanafi (239–321 AH)

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the Worlds.

The great scholar Hujjat al-Islam Abu Ja'far al-Warraq al-Tahawi al-Misri, may Allah have mercy on him, opened his celebrated treatise with these words: "This is a presentation of the beliefs of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama'ah, according to the school of the jurists of this religion — Abu Hanifa an-Nu'man ibn Thabit al-Kufi, Abu Yusuf Ya'qub ibn Ibrahim al-Ansari, and Abu 'Abdullah Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani, may Allah be pleased with them all — and what they believe regarding the fundamentals of the religion and their faith in the Lord of all the Worlds."

About this creed

Composed in roughly 105 concise articles, Aqidah al-Tahawiyya is one of the most widely accepted statements of Sunni belief. It distils the core tenets shared across the four madhabs of the Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama'ah — the oneness and attributes of Allah, the prophethood and finality of Muhammad ﷺ, the uncreated nature of the Qur'an, divine decree (qadar), the Last Day, the questioning in the grave, the Hawd, the Mizan, the Sirat, the eternity of Paradise and the Fire, the rightly-guided Caliphs, and the methodology of holding to the Sunnah and the Jama'ah.

Opening articles

1. We say about Allah's unity, believing by Allah's help, that Allah is One, without any partners.
2. There is nothing like Him.
3. There is nothing that can overwhelm Him.
4. There is no god other than Him.
5. He is the Eternal without a beginning and enduring without end.
6. He will never perish or come to an end.
7. Nothing happens except what He wills.
8. No imagination can conceive of Him and no understanding can comprehend Him.
9. He is different from any created being.
10. He is Living and never dies, and is eternally active and never sleeps.

The remaining articles continue in the same spirit — affirming the divine attributes as transmitted, without likening Allah to creation (tashbih) and without negating His attributes (ta'til) — and grounding belief in the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the early Muslim community.

Reading the full text

The complete Aqidah al-Tahawiyya is widely available in print and online in multiple English translations, including the well-known rendering by Iqbal Ahmad Azami. We encourage readers to study the full text alongside a qualified teacher.