This article is the continuation of a reflection I began in my previous text, El-Kitāb and al-Qur’ān: https://www.hamdibenaissa.fr/blog/al-kitab-and-al-qur-an-from-mission-to-transmission
﴿قَالَتِ الْأَعْرَابُ آمَنَّا ۖ قُل لَّمْ تُؤْمِنُوا وَلَٰكِن قُولُوا أَسْلَمْنَا وَلَمَّا يَدْخُلِ الْإِيمَانُ فِي قُلُوبِكُمْ﴾
(Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt, verse 14)
A Mirror of Consciousness
This verse is not speaking about the Bedouins. It is speaking about today’s Muslims.
For too long, this passage has been read as a historical photograph, when in truth it is a mirror. A mirror offered to every age. And today, this mirror reflects a deep crisis: not a crisis of faith, but a crisis of consciousness.
What I see are Arabs, arabists, and arabised minds who have found, in the Arabic language and in its mastery, a form of power. A symbolic, cultural, religious power. Language has become a closed circle, a form of capital, an instrument of distinction. Little by little, the prophetic mission was arabised — sometimes even sacralised in its arabisation — until it became almost inaccessible to those who do not possess its codes.
Thus a subculture was built: an Arab-centred Islam, where Islam must be ʿarab al-ʿarab.
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No longer universal in its breath, but particular in its forms.
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No longer open, but reserved.
Āmanna: Committed to What?
They said āmanna. They said: “We have committed ourselves with you, Muhammad.” But committed to what, exactly?
For the Muhammadan mission, in its depth, is not merely a project of social organisation or communal stabilisation. It is a mission of Imân: a mission of opening, of transmission, of setting human consciousness in motion toward a space of universal peace and global responsibility.
And the Qur’an answers clearly: no.
Tell them no. You have not reached this level of consciousness. You have remained at the level of Islam. You have not walked toward al-Imân.
The Levels of Islam
And even there, you have remained at the lowest level of Islam: to remain in peace.
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A minimal peace.
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A superficial integrity.
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A bodily and collective stability, but not an inner one.
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A peace that avoids conflict, but transforms nothing.
Not even Islam in its higher dimension — to be in peace and to be inwardly and outwardly whole — but an Islam reduced to preservation: preserving forms, preserving rules, preserving frameworks, preserving a familiar order.
The Shadow of al-Islām
Through the Muhammadan message, you have sought only one thing: your Islam. Your peace. Your integrity.
You have built a community whose primary vocation is preservation: to preserve dogma, to preserve law, to preserve interpretations, to preserve habits, to preserve structures. To guard the stability of the message, without carrying its impulse.
Thus you have become conservatives. Conservatives of forms, conservatives of frameworks, conservatives of comfort. Guardians of peace… as long as it does not disturb. As long as it does not question anything.
This, for me, is the shadow of al-Islām.
Crossing the Threshold
It is precisely to prevent this shadow that al-Imân emerged as a concept. For it is possible — and even tempting — to settle into a sufficient peace:
"We are well. We know what to do for Ramadan. We know what to do for the five prayers. Our days are structured, our year is structured. The lawful and the unlawful are clear. We are in order. We are well."
But without ever seeking to deepen this peace so that it becomes real. Without ever seeking to deepen this integrity so that it becomes living. Without ever seeking to cross the threshold of Imân.
Imân is not an extra layer of belief. It is a change of level of consciousness. It is the passage toward a Muhammadan responsibility: to open, to transmit, to share. To share the power of knowledge. To share openness. To share peace — not as a private possession, but as a universal dynamic.
Transmission vs. Formatting
The verse is unambiguous: Imân has not yet entered your hearts. In other words, you are not engaged on the path. You are settled in your Islam. And here lies the major crisis: they want only their own Islam.
We see it very concretely: as long as I can eat halal, as long as I can avoid pork, as long as I can find a mosque, as long as I can keep my practices unchanged... then everything is fine. I am at peace. I do not seek to evolve. I do not seek to transmit.
And let us be clear: to convert is not to transmit.
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Arabization is not transmission: It is formatting. A displacement of forms, not a sharing of essence. It reinforces a comfort zone and reproduces the same enclosures under other skies.
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Cloning is not awakening: One recognises the student by the same clothes, same language, and same gestures as his shaykh. He has not awakened, he has been moulded.
True transmission takes place in the essence, never in the form. Transmission is never cloning. Imân begins precisely where one ceases to protect one’s peace and begins to share it.
Conclusion
The passage from al-Islām to al-Imân is not a change of religious status, but a major inner displacement: to leave protected peace and enter shared peace.
It is no longer a matter of preserving forms, but of liberating consciousness. Where Islam can be satisfied with equilibrium, Imân engages a responsibility: to become, for the world, a living space of trust, openness, and reconciliation.
Author’s Note
This text is neither a condemnation nor a provocation. It is an invitation to reread the Muhammadan message at the level of consciousness, not at the level of identity. I do not question the sincerity of believers here, but the level of spiritual maturity at which we accept — or refuse — to commit ourselves.
Imân, as I understand it here, is not an additional belonging: it is a risk, a crossing, and a responsibility toward humanity as a whole.
