himself to Him, and to put his reliance on Him. 'Believers are they only whose hearts thrill with fear when God is named, and whose faith increaseth at each recital of His signs, and who put their trust in their Lord; who observe the prayer, and give alms out of that which we have supplied them. These are the believers.' ¹

Having this confidence in God, one must be willing to accept in all due submission, all that comes from His hand whether it be prosperity or adversity. 'There are some men who serve God in a single point. If good come upon one of them, he resteth in it; but if trial come upon him, he turneth him round, with the loss both of this world, and of the next. This same is the clear ruin.' ² There must be no lurking thought of the possibility of the falsehood of the religion, nor any readiness to fall back to heathen ways and customs.

The first step which man is to take in faith is the step of repentance. We have already said that we do not intend to insist that faith comes before repentance; indeed, many passages in the Qur'an speak as if the order were repentance, faith, good works. Thus we find the words, ' . . . and they shall meet with evil; save those who repent, and believe, and do that which is right; these shall enter the Garden. . . . ³ And elsewhere we see the same sequence of expression, as in the following. ' . . . I will forgive him who turneth to God and believeth, and worketh righteousness; and then yieldeth to guidances . . . ' ⁴

While the Qur'an thus teaches clearly the necessity for repentance, it nowhere makes very plain wherein this repentance consists. That, however, it is repentance for evil done, and a turning away from what is now seen to have been wrong action or sin, we see from such passage as the following. 'Verily repentance (will be accepted) with God, from those who do evil ignorantly, and then repent speedily, unto them will God be turned.' ¹ But, as we have seen in our study of the Qur'anic teaching on sin, that there is no clear idea of the heinousness of sin as injury or despite done to the love of God, so here we find no clear teaching that repentance involves contrition of heart before a loving Father, against whom man has sinned. Repentance is rather simply the recognition, accompanied by regret, that the course of action previously followed was not in accordance with God's commands, or was contrary to the best interests of the sinner himself.

We must, however, note that the Qur'an clearly distinguishes between asking for the pardon of sin and repentance. To seek forgiveness for a wrong done does not in itself involve repentance for the sin committed. And this distinction is a point which should be carefully noted. He who seeks salvation is not merely to ask for forgiveness, but is to repent. That is, he must resolve to quit the line of action which he has previously followed and make up his mind to enter upon a new line of action, one which is believed to be consonant with the will of God as revealed in the Qur'an. Thus we read, 'a book, whose verses are established in wisdom and then set forth with clearness (is a revelation) from