Islam certainly has an extensive taxonomy for characterizing those who stray from “true” Islam. The kafir, the zindiq (heresy) and the murtadd (apostate) are just a few of the words Muslims have used to identify the variety of Islam’s religious dissidents. Of course, what is heresy or kufr for one is true faith or imanfor another. From the perspective of any Sunni orthodoxy, however, the Shia represents serious deviations. As many scholars have noted, heresy and heterodoxy play an integral role in the formation of any religious orthodoxy by forcing religious authorities to define its doctrines and to anathematize deviant theological opinions. Islam has had its share of heresies historically and socially constituted as well.¹

By the time of the emergence of the Ottoman Empire in the fourteenth century, Islam was fully formed as a system of belief with its associated intellectual, legal, and cultural attributes. The central concept of the religion was “knowledge,” or ilm, meaning specifically the knowledge of God through revelation. God had revealed himself to mankind through the missions of the prophets, among whom Abraham (Ibrahim), the monotheistic founder of the Ka’ba at Mecca, Moses (Musa), and Jesus (Isa) held especially revered positions. The recognition of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus as prophets before the final revelation of Islam justified the tolerated but subordinate positions of Jews and Christians within the Ottoman Empire.

Muslims have generally appropriated the doctrines of Koran. People were free for their beliefs and thoughts in the history of Islam and specifically in the history of Ottomans. However some for their thought and behaviors had been punished, the reason for punishment was “heresy,” being zindiq. The increasing strength of orthodox Sunnism both as a system of belief and as a political structure rendered the form of folk legitimating redundant by the early sixteenth century. Before this implantation of “orthodoxy,” a strict notion of “heresy” was inconceivable given the fluidity of popular belief. For example, Mollah Haydar’s fatwa condemning Sheikh Bedreddin in 1416 shows that he was not considered in any sens a “heretic” but simply a “rebel” (baqhī). The Sheikh Bedreddin rebellion is the most interesting, and in terms of its ideational impact, the most important of the socio-economic and political crises that emerged in Anatolia and Rumelia following the Ottoman defeat in 1402 at Ankara.²

However during the course of the fifteenth century, the establishment of kadis, and the institution of the offices of Kadī asker (A high Official in the Ottoman Judiciary) and Sheikh ul-Islam (the Chief Religious Official in the Ottoman Empire), created an orthodox institutional framework. The emergence at the end of the century, of a madrasa educated elite ensured the intellectual dominance of sunnī orthodoxy.

In these circumstances, popular Islam could no longer, form the basic of Ottoman religious legitimacy, especially since the Safawids (1501-1722) had co-oted some forms of popular religion to their own cause. The Ottoman countered these claims by appearing as adherents of orthodoxy. The Safawids, too, bolstered their positions by claiming descent from the Prophet.

The definition of “orthodoxy” required a counter definition of “heresy”. This is the need that impelled Kamal Pashazada to compose his book risala on the term zindīq, and his other risalas discussed above.

Zindiq (heretic)

Zindīq (pl) Zanādiqa, abstract noun zandaqa is an Arabic word borrowed from Persian, and used in the narrow and precise meaning “Manichaen” (manawī), but also loosely for “heretic, renegade, unbeliever” in effect as a synonym for mulhid, murtadd or kāfir.

In Arabic, zindīq is quite commonly used for “Manichaean”, that is, as the name for the follower of a specific religion; the usage as a vague term for Muslim or non-Muslim “heretics” is clearly secondary, though widespread.³ According to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149-1209)that zindīqs are Manawiya who are the same as the Mazdakiyya. The people who followed the book of Zand by Mazdak, who preached common ownership, became identified with “Zand”, and this word was Arabised as zindīq. Kamal Pashazada refutes Fakhr al-din al-Razi’s claim that the Mazdakiyya and the Ma’nawiyya are the same, and that hte book “zand” is the book of the Zaroastrians (Majusi). According to Kamal Pashazada, Razi is wrong on the identification of the Mazdakiyya with Ma’nawiyya.⁴

Kamal Pashazada’s nine pages Risāla fī tashīh lafz al-zindīk wa-tawdīh ma’na al-dakīk, arose from the Mollah Qabiz case. In 1528 Mollah Qabiz, himself a learned man, proclaimed in public the superiority of Jesus over the Muhammad. He supported his claim by using the true sources of Islam –the āyāt and hadits. Such observations are recorded in the books they wrote. It is quite clear from such works that there were those who continued to be faithful to their older beliefs in a surreptitious manner. Some of these records, however, also describe such Christian influences even among the population born Muslim. One should not forget that most of the observers of that period did not know anything about Muslim views on Christianity and Judaism and sometimes incorrectly interpreted the respect felt by Muslim people toward those two religions and their prophets and their beliefs with regard to them as a convert from of Christianity or Judaism.⁵

In the Ottoman period ulama have very important places in the societies and government. A person who had studied ilm was an alim, one who knows God, and enjoyed great prestige. The plural of alim is ulama, and the ulama came to form a respected class within all Muslim societies, often, as in the Ottoman Empire, wielding political as well as legal and spiritual power.

Islamic legal authority charged with issuing an opinion (fatwa) in answer to an inquiry by a judge or a private individual. Such a judgment requires extensive knowledge of the Islamic traditions as well as of legal precedents. During the Ottoman Empire the mufti of Istanbul was Islam’s chief legal authority, presiding over the whole judicial and theological hierarchy. The development of modern legal codes in Islamic countries has significantly reduced the authority of mufti, and they now deal only with questions of personal status.

In the Ottoman Empire, however, the muftis were effectively part of the government. The chief mufti, or sheikh al-Islam as he came to be known by the seventeenth century, was the senior figure in the religious-legal establishment, and usually achieved the position by serving first as a senior judge and then as a military judge; like these offices, the chief muftiship after the mid-sixteenth century came to be the preserve of a very few ulama families. The chief mufti came to have an important, if informal, role in the Ottoman government. Outside the capital, muftis were sometimes official appointees, but did not enjoy high status of the chief mufti, and their function could often be fulfilled by the mudarris of a local college.

As Kamal Pashazada, who as Sheikh al-Islam gave the fatwa, authorising Qabiz’s execution, and he wrote his risala in the aftermath of this event. In it, he gives a definition of the term zindīq, which henceforth was frequently used for heretical enemies of the Ottoman dynasty. For example, Lutfi Pasha uses it in this sense in his treatise on the Ottoman Caliphate of 1554. This usage seems to be unique to the Ottoman in the 16th century.

The dictionary definition of zindīq is simply “someone denying the existence of God”⁶. Kamal Pashazada gave it the judicial definition of someone who “hides infidelity while claiming to be Muslim”. To Lutfi Pasha the term has come to mean, “Someone denies the Ottoman Caliphate and the legitimacy of the dynasty”.

Sheikh al-Islam Kamal Pashazada, a scholar of Ottoman who wrote a special booklet concerning with this topic, had defined the term “zindiq” as a person who conceals his/her unbelieving to God and a religion. Heresy had been said to deny the principles of belief such as believing in God and the hereafter in Islamic theology.⁷ For this reason the word zanadiqa was attributed to the followers of Mazdak, who chief of Mazdakiyye, who are a group from dualist (thanawiyya).

Generally, zindiq in Islamic theology had been used for people who have beliefs such as Manichaism and Zoroastrianism. For example the poet al-Ma’arī was accused of being a zindīk by his contemporaries mainly.⁸ The term “zindiq” firstly was used for Ca’d b. Dirhem (d. 125/742) executed in Iraq.⁹

Islamic scholars had different opinions regarding with reasons of accusing person as zindiq. For instance, according to al-Ghazali, (d. 505/1111) zindiq is a person who believes the universe as a past eternity (azali) existence and, non-existence of its creator. Also, a person who believes in a creator of the universe but denies the hereafter is zindiq. Taftazanī (792/1390) and Kamal Pashazada had added not accepting prophecy to these rules as a third rule for proclaiming as a zindiq (heretic).¹⁰

In this respect, Ahmad Ibn Hanbel (d. 241/855) describes both Cahmiyya and Mu’tazila as zindiq.¹¹ According to Maturidī, (d. 333/944) Zoroastrians, Sanaviyya and, Mannaniyye were heretic, at the same time, Maturidī considered Mu’tazilate’s some opinions as equivalence to Sanawiyya and put forward that both of them were same, but Sanawiyya was sometimes more consistent than Mu’tazilate according to Maturidī.¹² These are also similar with opinions, which Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149-1209)had.

The Ottoman state had a religious government, according to researchers who studied of the ottomans. Thus religious authority took an important place in the working of the state. Sheikh al-Islam was a religious authority that controlled works of the state from the religious point of view, and the authority had an influence on the state and the people. For this reason, thoughts and believes which has drawbacks to religion, had been punished in the direction of judgments which Sheikh al-Islam gave. People, who are punished, were often described as mulhid and zindiq (heretic).

The works of Sheikh al-Islam Kemal Pashazada such as Risāla fî Efdaliyyati Muhammed Alayh al-salām alā sâir-al-anbiyā-i val l-Mürsalīn Aleyhim al-salām, al-Sayf al-Maslūl fī Sabb al-rasūl and Risāla fī mā yata’allaq bi-lafz al-zindīq regarding with this topic takes an important place.

Pashazada says that the religion of the zindīq is different from the divine religions. Therefore, the Arabs define zindīq as anyone who is not a follower of one of the divine religions. Besides, they also call anyone who denies the existence of God zindīq in the sense of dahrī (materialist).¹³

With reference to Taftazānī (1322-1381) and Sharīf Jurjānī, (d. 816/1413) Kamal Pashazada again criticizes both of them for their deployment at this stage of the description of the zindīqs as “hiding infidelity while claming Islam”. The description “hiding infidelity” is certainly essential.

Finally Pashazada summarizes the opinion of the “aimmah al-lugha” on the derivation of the term of zindīq. Generally the term zindīq is used in the Arabic language, for someone denying the existence of God, as well as for polytheists denying the divine reason (hikmatahu).¹⁴ According to Pashazada, Zindiq is a person who left from religion by denying one or all of major themes of religion which is common assent for Jews, Christians and, Muslims. The term zindīq is used to mean “atheist” in general in Islamic literature, and that its roots go back to pre-Islamic Iran. As to that, heresy is three kinds:

a-Those who are zindiq while Muslim.
b-Those who are zindiq while Jew or Chrisitan.
c-Those who are zindiq while the pagan.

So zindiq might have gone astray to believe which require infidelity after he/she appropriates inimically to Islam, or might have had two believes his/her side even though appropriating to Islam from beginning.¹⁵

According to Islamic theology, heretics were given to the justice of life, but deprived of some social rights. At the same time, Outstanding Islamic jurisprudence scholars, Al-Hanafī and Al-Shafi’ī had determined that repentances of these people will be accepted, so that heresy which is a religious/spiritual sickness, has to be cured when they accept treatment.

According to Kamal Pashazada, (940/1534) a zindīq should be killed only if he insists on his zandaqa, in the same manner as a lunatic can only be treated if he accepts the medical treatment.

Again Kamal Pashazada brings a further proof by relating from al-Ghazali to reinforce his explanation of how a zindīq can be inciting to error (dā’ī ilā al-dalal) and “well known as such” while, at the same time, “hiding infidelity”. In his risala Faysal al-Tafriqa bayn al-Islami wa al-Zandaqa, al-Ghazali gives a definition and description of a zindīk.

Pashazada had objected the definition zindiq of Ghazali. He evaluated them to the criteria of Taftazani while accusing some people as heretic in his own time. For instance, Mollah Qabiz was leading people astray. As a result, he was trying to corrupt Islamic society. This judgement of Pashazada was formed by al-Sharh al-Maqasid’ well-known work of Islamic theology scholar, Taftazani.

According to Taftazānī, non-islamic believers are:
a-“Infidel” (al-kafir) is used for someone who does not have belief (la imana lah).
b-“Hypocrite” (al-munafiq) is someone who declares his faith, although in reality he does not believe.
c-“Apostate” (al-murtadd) is someone converted from Islam.
d-“Polyteist” (al-mushriq) is the one believing in more than one God.
e-“The people of the book (al-kitabī) is used for those who are Christians and Jews.
f-“Materialist” (al-dahrī) is the term for someone who denies the existence of eternity, time without limit (bi-adam al-dahr), while attributing events to it (wa-isnad al-hawadith ilayh).
g-“al-muattila” is someone claiming that the existence of God cannot be ascertained.
h-“al-zindīq” is someone confirming the prophethood of the Prophet and claiming Islam, while hiding unbelief. This is unanimously held to be infidelity.¹⁶

Kamal Pashazada here also underlines the main features of a zindīq. He should be:
a-dā’ī (inciting to error).
b-sā’ī (working for this).
c-ma’rūf (well known by this).

Pashazada regarded Mollah Qabiz as a typical example of a zindīq as described in works of fiqh. Qabiz was a zindīq according to the definition of fiqh as reported from Sharh al-Makasid, and was a “dā’ī” to error and well known as such, and a “sā’ī” for the corruption of the manifest religion. Thus it appears that an aspect of the case, which worried Pashazada was that, this could lead to the destruction of the balance of forces within the state.

In his risāla, Kamal Pashazada seems to be using the concept of sā’ī in the sense of “corrupting religion” (fi ifsād al-dīn), rather than corrupting temporal affairs. He reinforces the concept by also using the phrase inciting to error (dā’ī ilā al-dalāl). At a time when the Ottoman dynasty was beginning to see its rule as the upholder of religion and the sharī’a and protector of the ahl al-sunna, an attack on religion was tantamount to an attack on the dynasty. Hence the sultan insisted that Qabiz be executed islamically and not politically.

In the frame of the definitions and assents, which belonged to Sheikh ul-Islam, Mollah Lutfi (900/1494), Mollah Qabiz and Hakim Ishak were described as zindiq (heretic) and dead by executing.

Mollah Lutfi who was the head of Fatih Sultan Mehmed’s Library, was executed in the period of the second of Bayezid. He wrote books about philosophy and Islamic theology and followed philosophers such as Al-Farabī (879-950) and Avicenna in his philosophical opinions. In islamic theology, he folowed to the school of islamic theology which began along with al-Ghazali. His work named Hâshiya ala Sharh al-Mavâqif (Istanbul: Nur-u Osmaniyye, no. 4391) is a well-known one. Also in his work called Hârnâme (Risâla fî Usul al-Shuca), he criticized structure of administrative and education in his own time.¹⁷ According to researches regarding with the topic, the opinions of Molla Lutfi was not containing any heretic idea. As we understand from researches, his death reason is ratherly sourced from jealousy among scholars and his personal desire to be close to padishah (president of the state).¹⁸

Mollah Qabiz (d. 1507), a well-educated one, to D’Ohsson, was a master about the interpretation of the Koran and the New Testament. Even though he saved his Muslim identity, he regarded Jesus from Muhammad as superior. However, he put forward the Old and New testaments not to be distorted.¹⁹ So he was executed for this opinion. These opinions of Mollah Qabiz were not original such that many Islamic scholars before him had discussed these subjects. He was punished by reason of making people’s believes confused and of causing social disorder. But Mollah Qabiz from Ottoman scholars was leading people astray; as a result, he was attempting to corrupt Islamic society. His attitude, according to Taftazani’s well-known work, al-sharh al-Maqasid, was heresy.²⁰
This dominance can be seen in the Mollah Lutfi case. Mollah Lutfi was found guilty of zandaqa and sabb al-nabi by council of ulama, and executed in 1495. Here is the first recoreded case of an execution specifically for heresy. Furthermore, like the later Mollah Qabiz case, it gave a risala, in this case by Mollah Ahavayn (Mohyiddin Mehmed). Like Kamal Pashazada’s risala on Sabb. Mollah Lutfi’s execution seems to have followed an intellectual dispute among the ulama, who also disagreed on the legitimacy of the death penalty. Mollah Lutfi was not seen as a threat to the dynasty. Mollah Qabiz, however, was put on trial in the Divan by the Kadiaskers and, after the Sultan’s personal intervention, by the Sheikh al-Islam himself. Hence the trial of Mollah Qabiz has an “official” character and involves the question of dynastic legitimacy. The trial of Mollah Lutfi seems to have come about largely as a result of personal enmity.²¹

It is in the concluding section of the risala Kamal Pashazada refers to Mollah Qabiz as a zindīq.²²

Hakim Ishak was one of Ottoman scholars. Sheikh al-Islam Ebussuud Efendi gave a fatwa for his executing. We don’t sufficiently have information about his life. But according to the fatwa of Sheikh al-Islam, he had the idea such that the Old and the New Testament had not been distorted.²³ The idea of Hakim Ishak was parallel with that of Mollah Qabiz.²⁴

In addition, there are some persons who accused in the “heretical” group, the Melamis. They are Oglan Sheik Ismail Masuki, (d. 945/1538-39) Sheik Hamza Bali (d. 969/1561-62), Sheik Muhyiddin Karamani, (d. 957/1550). They were accused, because in claiming the ceremonies to be “obligatory” he was claiming an authority in prescribing ritual that only the sharia possessed. It was this test that the sultan used to execute the Melami Oglan Sheikh and his followers in 945/1538-39.²⁵

In practice, therefore, the definition of heresy served to identify political opponents of the dynasty, and with changing political circumstances certain heretical beliefs became more acceptable.²⁶

There are some claims, which argue that, The Sheikh al-Islam after Suleiman opposed to religious freedom. But those do not have strong historical bases. Moreover, we believe that some individual and laypersons forced Sheikh al-Islam on the decisions. Because of there another Sheik al-Islam Efdalzade Hamiduddin Efendi (d. 908/1503). Being one of the judges during the trial of alleged “heretic” Mollah Lutfi, Efdalzade was opposed to Lutfi’s execution, and later wrote an treatise on heresy.²⁷

Conclusion

The Ottomans officially regarded themselves as defenders of orthodox, Sunnī Islam. The factors encouraging this development were, as stated above, the need to develop an ideological response to Safawid “heresy”, the growing power of the ulama within the Empire itself. Before the 16th century, orthodoxy had not played such a central role in defining Ottoman legitimacy. A result of this “sunnī-consciousness” was that enemies of the dynasty were regarded as enemies of Islam, and non-orthodox Muslims as enemies of the dynasty. The authorities, therefore, had to evolve arguments against heterodox Muslims whom they perceived, rightly or wrongly, as enemies within. These enemies claimed to be Muslims, as did the dynasty itself, and so could not be treated for apostasy. What was needed was a definition of “false Islam” and of heresy.²⁸

In defining the term zindīq, Kamal Pashazada gave a definition to heresy, based on the notion of “concealed infidelity” and of heretics, “destroying Islam by Islam”. He clearly adopted the concept from “fukaha” of the 11th-12th centuries who had used it against the Isma’ilites and Batinits of their own day. He also adopted an 11th century fatwa as the basis for the legal procedure against heresy.

Kamal pashazada’s risala also had a role in Ottoman claims to legitimacy a representatives and protectors of Sunnī Islam. It had always been possible for the Sultans to execute heretics by politics (siyasa). However, by defining the zindīq and the punishment due to a zindīq.²⁹

When we look at heresy (zindiqlik) actions and some to be announced as guilty of thought in the Ottoman period, it arises that these were related to Ottoman administrators and life conditions of common people. For instance, Ottoman was powerful in the period of Magnificent Suleyman, which a shift processed from the point of view of social and economic. In this process, morality of people began to corrupted and economic problems raised. So injustice, taking a bribe and, untalented bureaucrats increased and religious believes and carrying out moral principles was get weak.³⁰

It was fact that Ottoman statesmen were punishing some people in order to save the belief of common people from harmful currents. For this reason, they were struggling with mystical currents contrary to sunnī-Islam principles and with perverted believes. Mystical currents, in particular, mediated propaganda of Safevids begun in the sixteenth centuries to be spread out Anatolia. Someone who was described and punished as zindiq by the government was considered as a spy who acted for a different state.

The Ottomans officially regarded themselves as defenders of orthodox, sunnī Islam.
At the same time the imperial prerogative of siyaset was assigned to the sovereign for him to inflict severe corporal or capital punishment on “rebels, enemies, apostates and schismatics, and others who, though they might merit a lesser punishment under Sharia, were constructed as threatening the commonwealth”.³¹

Administrators in the period, instead of diagnosing problem and solving it radically, had followed a firmly policy of Sunnī-Islamisation. As a result of this understanding, statesmen described some as leaders of perversion and executed them because of crime of heresy by letting of Sheikh ul-Islam’s fatwa. According to Islamic theology, opinions, which belonged to persons to be punished, were not containing any idea, which requires “heresy”. Likewise in trial Mollah Lutfi said repeatedly that he had a strong Islamic belief. Also there were not any implications of heresy in his Works. At the same time, Mollah Qabiz that we have very little information about his life either did not leave from Islam or did not convert to another religion. Even his comments were different; in fact he had a Muslim. The understanding concerning with the New and the Old Testament not to be distorted that Hakim Ishak put forward, had been explained by Islamic scholars and specifically Islamic theologians anyway. These opinions can be seen contrary to traditional Sunnī-Islam comprehension. Probably, Sheikh ul-Islam also considered these opinions as inconsistent by contrasting to these of Sunnī-Islam. But the existence of different comments among Ottoman scholars was a historical reality. When we look at the opinions, which belonged to persons to be punished, we can easily see that they had much more opinions of rival state, the Safevids. In this case, Sheik al-Islam, as affected by policy of the state, had wanted to punish contrary opinions to Sunnī-Islam, which is the official sect of the state.³²

In the first instance, the religious history of Ottoman society cannot solely be confined to a series of events, which took place in the world of religion in isolation. Such events were closely connected in a major way to political, social, economic and in particular demographic development, expansion and change in the Ottoman Empire. As a result, such a history must be taken up within a framework of that kind.

As we indicated at the start of this essay, Ottoman religious history is in large part the history of sufī movements. This is to large extent because of the confrontation of a popular Islam with sufī roots with the politicized approach to Islam which characterized the Ottoman administration.³³ Contrary to what is commonly believed, it does not appear correct to evaluate such movements as a clash between Sunnī Islam as represented by the ideology of the state with the heterodox ideology of the periphery because such an evaluation rests on the mistaken notion that Sunnī belief was limited to the center and that heterodoxy had consumed all of the periphery. It is important to reiterate here that the reference to official Islam is not just limited to Sunnī,and to popular Islam to heterodox Islam. It is to politicized Islam and to “Islam as a way of life”. If this were not the case, it would be quite impossible to explain the opposition of the Bayramī Melāmis, the Halvetis indeed even the Sunnī supporters of Birgivī, to the Ottoman central authorities.³⁴

It is important to emphasize the following in conclusion: The most widespread religious movements (or more correctly social movements in a religious guise) did not take from during the founding period of the Ottoman Empire at a time when it was quite naturally more flexible and tolerant in structure, but rather were most heavily concentrated during the second half of the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries during a period of time when the state was completing its process of centralization. This indicates that there was a close relationship between the political and socia-economic factors. This clearly meant confrontation and conflict, and the socio-religious movements of concern here were none other than embodiments of such conflict.³⁵

The word “Islam” means peace and wealth. Muhammad had been sent to humankind as the compassion and also he is a Messenger who completed “the beauty moral”. Koran, the sacred book of Islam, has provided a wide space to people for their beliefs and thoughts if they don’t threaten to social life, some rules such as not compelling people in the religion, one can believe in whatever he/she prefers and, to guarantee members of different religions for a peacefully life in Islamic states, had been particularly based upon Koran. Muhammed also carried out rigorously these principles in his life.³⁶ So in a hadith, He said: ”if whoever disturbs a Christian or a Jew, I will be oppose to him”.

The faith must be become by will and choice of person in Islamic theology; even one has to use his/her “intellect” in order to believe in. Thus the imitative faith as a product of traditional comprehension has not been admitted in Islamic theology. Likewise it is criticized in the Koran: “When it is said to them: “Follow what God hath revealed:” They say: “Nay! We shall follow the ways of our fathers. ” What! Even though their fathers were void of wisdom and guidance?” (Q. 2:170). As we see these verses, there are more than 500 verses in Koran, which order to think and search by “the intellect”.

Not compelling people in the religion is an Islamic principle. Also Muhammad had not upset believers of other religions, furthermore guaranteed them to live peacefully in his own period. At the same time, he had never punished people, who were his side but who did not accept his prophecy (munafiqūn). In this respect, people who were punished because of their believes, were under surveillance with anxiety of social revolution to the state in the Ottoman period. Thus political anxieties of the government had a role in some people to be punished with death rather than the problem of theological belief, in the Ottomans period.³⁷

So, religious idioms in the discourses of Islamic groups arisen today essentially are not an achievement from the theological standpoint. These discourses are generally political (siyasī) ones. For this reason, these sorts of movements are not admitted by commonsensical Muslims so that the peace of communities is the most important norm in the religion of Islam.