Denominations did not fill their spiritual vacuum. But, our main concern as preachers is to assure that those who embrace Islam receive the correct fundamental beliefs. Disregarding this fact exposes new corners and converts to loss and deviation at the hands of non-Sunni sects and factions. Otherwise, we would be “like her who undid her weaving after having made it strong.”

Dear brothers and sisters the book which is in your hands, the Fundamentals of Islam. Was writ­ten originally by Shaikhul-Islam Muhammad bin Sulaiman at-Tamimi, but later was laid out in a question-answer form by as-shaikh Muhammad at­Tayyib al-Ansari al-madani. I have tried my best to be as faithful as possible to the Arabic text, since it is almost impossible to render a work from Arabic in­to another language without compromising style or beauty. However, I have concerned mayself with keeping the ideas and the messages the text meant to

convey as they are without deletion or abridgment.

Although footnotes are supplied in the Arabic text of the Four Rules, I have taken into con sidera­tion the fact that Enghlish speaking readers may not be familiar with many Arabic-Islamic terminology and definitions. Therefore, I have taken the liberty of supplying footnotes to the first chapter of the book, the Fundamentals of Islam, by elaborating or commenting on certain points in the subsequent chapters where I thought it was necessary for the full understanding of a statement or an idea, the mentioning of an incident which may have justified the revelation of a certain verse, or citation of an exegete’s comment on it, the definition of a term or explanation of an idea such as ‘at- Taghoot’, ‘hunafaa’ or ‘as-Samadh’.

As I have already mentioned, the Arabic text has footnotes of which some are supplied by a previous publisher, M. Melibari, and some by Shaikh Muhammad Munir ad-Dimashqi. By observing the intellectual trustworthiness, and distinguishing between one group of footnotes and another, I have marked the footnotes of the previous publisher by a bold asterisk (*) and the footnotes of ash-Shaikh