There are 6 tenets according to Shafafi Islam.
- Belief.
- Purity.
- Prayer.
- Fasting.
- Charity.
- Hygiene.
Belief in God, the Message, and the Imam
The Islamic creed (also known as the Shahada) is: “There is no deity except God. The Quran is God’s message to the Imam, and the Imam is God’s effector.”
The term “God” is used here because the language we are using is English. In Arabic the word is “Allah”. There is no harm in using the appropriate word from any language. What matters is believing the creed. In Arabic:
.لا إله إلا الله. القرآن رسالة الله إلى الإمام والإمام هو فاعل الله.
Prophet Muhammad, the first Imam, was the messenger to whom God entrusted the Quran. It is the duty of every Imam to take inspiration from the Message and issue Rulings for the people of their own time.
The Imam is God’s hand on Earth. The Imam interprets the Message and issues Rulings — practical, current guidance for Muslims living now. The current Imam is Imam Shafafi.
Purity of Intentions
A person must hold good intentions at all times. This is achieved by being tolerant and kind toward other human beings. It is not achieved through ritual, recitation, or ceremony.
Prayer
Prayer is meant to be meaningful. It is direct communication with God, and it happens entirely in the heart.
Prayer does not require a direction. There is no need to face any city, building, or object. The Kaaba and Mecca are completely irrelevant to a Shafafi. A stone cube in Arabia has no bearing on your relationship with a cosmic force.
Prayer does not require Arabic, a mat, a schedule, a clean patch of floor, or another human being. Take moments through the day — on waking, before sleep, before a meal, before a journey, in turbulence — and speak to God in whatever language you think in.
The non-religious call this “hope” and “feeling lucky.” In Islam, it is prayer and gratitude.
God chose to leave the method of prayer out of the Quran. That omission was not an oversight. The mainstream Sunni and Shi’a method is most likely an evolution of the pagan worship practised by Arabs in Muhammad’s time. Today more than a billion people chant memorised Arabic phrases and perform synchronised calisthenics, in unison, as though casting a spell.
Shafafis do not build mosques and do not hold communal prayer services. Worship is not a group activity, and a building does not make a prayer louder.
Fasting
Ramadan is a personal Lent.
It is a dedicated period in which you drop bad habits and adopt good ones. What you give up is entirely your own choice, customised to what you actually want to improve in yourself: smoking, drinking, doomscrolling, overeating, snapping at your partner, sedentary evenings, whatever is genuinely holding you back. What you take on is equally your own: exercise, study, service to others, sleep.
Mainstream Muslims give up food and water from dawn to sunset. Near the poles a single stretch of dawn-to-sunset can last six months, which makes the rule fatal rather than pious. Those rules were invented by Arabs, for Arabs, in a period before electricity, night shifts, rapid travel across time zones, and human beings living in space. They take no account of the fact that people in different jobs and different latitudes burn calories and lose water at wildly different rates.
Shafafis do not give up water, which is a beneficial substance. We give up what harms us and take on what helps.
Charity — the Imamate Fund
Charity (also known as Zakat) is mandatory and fixed at 2.5% of savings — not of income.
It is paid into the Imamate Fund, which supports the administration of the religion.
It is explicitly not used to build useless mega-mosques, to enrich a clergy, or to fund political wars. This is the single most important difference between the Imamate Fund and every other religious collection plate on Earth.
Shafafis are also asked to devote some of their time to the service of others.
Health and Hygiene
The human body is a gift and must be cared for — spiritually, mentally, and physically.