The Meaning of ‘Faith’ From The Point of Semantics. Traditionalist (Ashabu’l-Hadith)

Abstract

and theologians (Ahlu’l-Kalam) particularly the Maturidites and the Asharites defined faithaccording to their methods. Traditionalists used as a method rationalism as having a concretecharacter while theologians used rationalism as having an abstract character. This means that thetwo groups employed a biased approach in defining faith. If we desire to determine the meaningof faith without any bias, we must use semantics as a method. From the point of semantics theword faith (imân) has mainly four meanings. As a noun it means ‘trust’, and, as a verb it means totrust, to inspire confidence and to enter into trust. We must use the verb trust to determine themeaning of faith instead of believe. Because the verb believe is not sufficient for the meaning offaith