Iman, usually translated "faith," is the inward counterpart to the outward acts of Islam, and the question of what exactly it consists of produced the first great theological dispute in the religion. A widely cited prophetic report, the "hadith of Gabriel," distinguishes three levels: islam (submission, the outward practice), iman (faith, the inward assent), and ihsan (excellence, worshipping God "as though you see him"). Faith itself is commonly analysed into belief in God, his angels, his books, his messengers, the Last Day, and the divine decree.
The disputed part is the relationship of faith to works. If faith is purely inward assent, can a grave sinner still be a believer? If faith requires righteous action, does sin put a person outside the community of the faithful? Because the earliest Muslims had to decide how to regard fellow Muslims who had committed serious wrongs, above all in the civil wars of the first century, the abstract question of what faith is had immediate and violent stakes.