The shahada, the testimony of faith: meaning, conditions and significance

The shahada, or testimony of faith, is the first of the five pillars of Islam. It is through the shahada that one becomes a Muslim; believers repeat it every day in their prayers, and they hope it will be the last thing they say before leaving this world. In a single sentence it sums up the whole of faith: the oneness of God and the mission of His Messenger. Here is its text, the meaning of each of its two parts, the conditions scholars have identified for it to be sincere, and the place it holds in a Muslim’s life.

The text of the shahada

In Arabic, the shahada reads:

أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله، وأشهد أن محمدا رسول الله

Ash-hadu an la ilaha illa-llah, wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan rasulu-llah.

“I bear witness that there is no deity [worthy of worship] except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”

It is also found in a short form, without the verb “I bear witness”: La ilaha illa-llah, Muhammadun rasulu-llah (“There is no deity but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah”). In prayer, the tashahhud taught by the Prophet ﷺ uses the words wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan ’abduhu wa rasuluh, “and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger” (Sahih al-Bukhari 831).

The verb ash-hadu means “I testify, I bear witness”. A testimony is not a mere opinion: it presupposes knowing, and being convinced of, what one affirms. The Quran even relates that God Himself bears this witness: “Allah witnesses that there is no deity except Him, and [so do] the angels and those of knowledge — [that He is] maintaining [creation] in justice” (Quran 3:18).

The first pillar of Islam

The Prophet ﷺ placed the shahada at the head of the pillars: “Islam is built upon five: testifying that there is no deity but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establishing prayer, giving zakat, performing Hajj and fasting in Ramadan” (Sahih al-Bukhari 8; Sahih Muslim 16). When he sent Mu’adh ibn Jabal to Yemen, he told him to call people first to this testimony and then, if they accepted it, to teach them prayer, and then zakat (Sahih al-Bukhari 1395; Sahih Muslim 19). He also said: “Faith has over seventy branches: the highest is saying ‘There is no deity but Allah’, and the lowest is removing something harmful from the road” (Sahih Muslim 35).

“La ilaha illa-llah”: there is no deity but Allah

The first part of the shahada consists of a negation and an affirmation. “La ilaha” (“there is no deity”) rejects everything people worship besides God; “illa-llah” (“except Allah”) reserves worship for Him alone. The word ilah means that which is worshipped, that towards which one turns with love, fear and hope. The sentence therefore does not merely mean “God is the only Creator”: it means that nothing other than Him deserves to be worshipped. The Quran notes that the polytheists of Makkah already acknowledged God as Creator — “If you asked them, ‘Who created the heavens and earth?’ they would surely say, ‘Allah’” (Quran 31:25) — yet worshipped other deities, saying: “We only worship them that they may bring us nearer to Allah” (Quran 39:3).

The Quran describes this twofold step with an image: “Whoever disbelieves in taghut and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it” (Quran 2:256). Surah al-Ikhlas gives its purest summary: “Say, ‘He is Allah, [who is] One’” (Quran 112:1; see Surah al-Ikhlas). To know better the One to whom you bear witness, read our article on God (Allah) in Islam.

The levels of divine oneness

Scholars have described in several ways what the oneness of God (tawhid) entails. The Indian scholar Shah Wali Allah al-Dihlawi (1703–1762), in his work Hujjat Allah al-Baligha, distinguishes four levels:

1. acknowledging that God alone exists necessarily, by Himself, and that everything else depends on Him;
2. acknowledging that God alone created the Throne, the heavens, the earth and all things;
3. acknowledging that God alone governs the heavens, the earth and what is between them;
4. acknowledging that no one but Him deserves to be worshipped.

He observes that the first two levels were hardly disputed, whether by the Arab polytheists, the Jews or the Christians, and that the Quran presents them as accepted by those it addresses; the last two are closely linked, since whoever acknowledges that God alone governs all things is led to worship Him alone. Other scholars, notably in the tradition of Ibn Taymiyyah, group tawhid into three aspects: the oneness of lordship (God alone creates and governs), the oneness of worship (He alone is worshipped) and the oneness of the names and attributes, which one discovers through the 99 names of Allah. These presentations differ in method, but all of them place the exclusive worship of God at the heart of the shahada.

The foundation of all good

Divine oneness is the base on which the rest of the religion rests. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Whoever dies without associating anything with Allah will enter Paradise, and whoever dies associating anything with Him will enter the Fire” (Sahih Muslim 93). And he relates these words of God: “Whoever meets Me with sins that would fill the earth, without associating anything with Me, I will meet him with as much forgiveness” (Sahih Muslim 2687; see also Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 3540). These texts are not an invitation to take sins lightly: they show the immense value of pure faith, and the breadth of divine mercy for whoever has preserved it.

“Muhammadun rasulu-llah”: Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah

The second part of the shahada affirms that Muhammad ﷺ, son of Abdullah, is the servant of God and His Messenger, sent to all humanity — “O mankind, indeed I am the Messenger of Allah to you all” (Quran 7:158) — and the last of the prophets (Quran 33:40). In practice, scholars sum up what this testimony entails in four points:

• believing what he conveyed from God;
• following what he commanded, for “he who obeys the Messenger has obeyed Allah” (Quran 4:80);
• avoiding what he forbade;
• worshipping God in the way he taught, not according to one’s own inventions.

This testimony is also a matter of love: “If you should love Allah, then follow me, [so] Allah will love you and forgive you your sins” (Quran 3:31). Yet the Prophet ﷺ remains a human being, whom one loves and follows without worshipping him: “I am only a man like you, to whom has been revealed that your god is one God” (Quran 18:110). He himself said: “Do not exaggerate in praising me as the Christians praised the son of Mary, for I am only a servant; so say: the servant of Allah and His Messenger” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3445). That is the whole meaning of the words “His servant and His Messenger”. To know him better, discover the life of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

The conditions of the shahada

Pronouncing the shahada with the lips alone is not enough. The Quran relates that the hypocrites said to the Prophet ﷺ, “We testify that you are the Messenger of Allah”, and adds: “Allah testifies that the hypocrites are liars” (Quran 63:1). Al-Bukhari quotes, at the opening of the Book of Funerals in his collection, the answer of Wahb ibn Munabbih, a scholar of the generation after the Companions, when asked whether “La ilaha illa-llah” was not the key to Paradise: “Yes, but every key has teeth: if you come with a key that has teeth, the door will be opened for you; otherwise it will not.”

Drawing on the Quran and the Sunnah, scholars summed up these “teeth” as conditions. The most widespread list, found for example in the didactic poem Sullam al-Wusul by the Saudi scholar Hafiz al-Hakami (twentieth century), has seven:

Some scholars add an eighth condition: rejecting everything that is worshipped besides God (Quran 2:256). These conditions describe what sincere faith is; they are not an examination to pass before pronouncing the shahada. Whoever bears witness sincerely is a Muslim, and then deepens their understanding. Judging hearts belongs to God: when Usamah ibn Zayd killed in battle a man who had just said “La ilaha illa-llah”, thinking he had said it only out of fear, the Prophet ﷺ rebuked him severely: “Did you cut open his heart to find out whether it had said it or not?” (Sahih Muslim 96).

Good and evil in the light of the shahada

For Shah Wali Allah, quoted above, testifying to divine oneness is the first foundation of good: good is every act that springs from submission to God, brings benefit in this world or the next and strengthens what human society rests upon; evil is whatever distances one from God and corrupts human nature. The Quran likewise unites faith and action in its definition of righteousness: “[True] righteousness is [in] one who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy…” (Quran 2:177).

The Prophet ﷺ gave a definition within everyone’s reach: “Righteousness is good character, and sin is what troubles you inwardly and what you would dislike people to find out” (Sahih Muslim 2553). Shah Wali Allah remarked that followers of all religions, in every land, agree on the great principles of good, because these correspond to human nature. The Quran calls this original nature the fitrah: “[Adhere to] the fitrah of Allah upon which He has created [all] people” (Quran 30:30). The shahada thus confirms and illuminates what an upright conscience already senses.

The shahada in daily life

The shahada accompanies Muslims throughout their lives:

• in the call to prayer (adhan) and the iqamah, where it is proclaimed five times a day;
• in every prayer, during the tashahhud, in the sitting position (see our guide to prayer);
• after ablution: “Whoever among you performs ablution carefully and then says: ‘I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah and that Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger’, the eight gates of Paradise are opened for him and he may enter by whichever he wishes” (Sahih Muslim 234);
• in the remembrance of God (dhikr): “The best remembrance is ‘La ilaha illa-llah’” (Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 3383, graded hasan);
• at the time of death: “Prompt your dying to say ‘La ilaha illa-llah’” (Sahih Muslim 916), for “whoever’s last words are ‘La ilaha illa-llah’ will enter Paradise” (Sunan Abi Dawud 3116, graded authentic by several specialists).

Finally, the shahada is the gateway into Islam: pronouncing it with conviction is enough to become a Muslim. If you are considering this step, our guide How to convert to Islam explains how to go about it and what the first steps are, and our page All about Islam presents the foundations of the religion.