ʿAqīdah is the foundation the rest of the religion is built on. The word comes from the root ʿ-q-d, "to tie a knot, to bind fast", and technically it is al-īmān al-jāzim — firm belief held with certainty (al-yaqīn) and complete submission (at-taslīm), with no doubt in it. The subject covers what must be believed — tawḥīd, how Allah is worshipped, obedience to His commands, and the articles of faith (angels, Books, Messengers, the Last Day, the Decree) — as the uṣūl ad-dīn and the umūr al-ghayb. In the technical vocabulary this side of Islam is ʿilm al-kalām, as against the sharīʿah side, fiqh. Where fiqh admits legitimate difference of opinion, ʿaqīdah does not.
About this course
How the course runs. Aqeeda has no prior recordings in the programme — this subject opens with the Semester-2 introductory class given by Sheikh Akram at the residential programme. Lessons appear here class-by-class as the semester progresses, each built from the recorded lecture. No textbook, exam or assessment was named in the opening class, so none is listed here.
Topics the lecturer said he will come back to (his own commitments, not a published syllabus): the three divisions of tawḥīd — rubūbiyyah, ulūhiyyah, al-asmāʾ wa'ṣ-ṣifāt; a dedicated study of the kalimah and of the asmāʾ wa'ṣ-ṣifāt contained in the word ilāh; visiting graves (ziyārat al-qubūr), which he explicitly set aside for a later class; and madhhab adherence — going with or against a madhhab in ʿaqīdah as against in fiqh.
Lesson ↔ video map: L01 ← v01 (Sheikh Akram, residential programme); L02 ← aqeeda_v02 (online class; the recording does not name the lecturer).