GESTALT noun ge· stalt | \ g-stlt -stlt -stlt -stlt \ lal gestalts also gestalten:
soetg tat s ae o a ats a et s soeo oe ta o eet o
te oato o ts ats
by Abu Saalem
Iman is the intangible dimension, which transpires in the
universe of the soul. It is the connections we build with Allah
and the Prophet a through inner and outward works, which
fluctuate with the upturns and downturns of life.
Each of these two components contain many subcomponents
like the blessed Prophet a once said, “Iman is sixty
and some parts, and haya is one part of iman” (Bukhari;
Umur al-Iman).
What happens if both these two components are incorporated?
Applying the gestalt principle, we acquire something much
greater than the sum of Islam and iman. Imam Bukhari and
Imam Abu Hanifa incorporated both iman and Islam, and
because of the gestalt principle, they became more than the
sum of its two parts, though in different ways: one a great
muhaddith and the other a great faqih ( jurist). Their contri-
Photo by George Becker-Pexels
Every human being is made of a mother and father, and yet,
no child is an exact duplicate of the combined characteristics
and dispositions of his/her parents. This is due to the
concept of the gestalt that the whole of something is more
than the sum of its parts. The principle of the gestalt is another
way of saying that the world is unpredictable because
you cannot reduce things to numbers.
The formula of 1+1=2 works brilliantly in mathematics, but
life is not math. By looking at the many parts of something,
you cannot always predict the outcome of the whole. It is
this unpredictability of what may come of the sum of two or
more parts of something that makes life so challenging, and
sometimes exciting.
So now, let’s talk deen and this principle. Our faith is made
up of two components. Iman and Islam. Islam is the component
that relates to the five pillars of Islam. It is the tangible
dimension of Islam that we see and feel.
An equation according to
the principle of gestalt
6 January – February 2022 | AL-MADINAH