[Sūrah x. 105]: “Make steadfast thy face to the religion as a Ḥanīf, and be not an idolater.”
[Sūrah xxii. 32]: “Avoid speaking falsely being Ḥanīfs to God, not associating aught with Him.”
[Sūrah xcviii. 4]: “Being sincere in religion unto Him, as Ḥanīfs, and to be steadfast in prayer.”
[Sūrah xxx. 29]: “Set thy face steadfast towards the religion as a Ḥanīf.”
III.—The term was also applied in the early stages of Islām, and before Muḥammad claimed the position of an inspired prophet, to those who had endeavoured to search for the truth among the mass of conflicting dogmas and superstitions of the religions that existed in Arabia. Amongst these Ḥanīfs were Waraqah, the Prophet’s cousin, and Zaid ibn ʿAmr, surnamed the Enquirer. They were known as Ḥanīfs, a word which originally meant “inclining one’s steps toward anything,” and therefore signified either a convert or a pervert. Muḥammad appears from the above verses (when chronologically arranged), to have first used it for the religion of Abraham, but afterwards for any sincere professor of Islām.
ḤAQĪQAH (حقيقة). “Truth; sincerity.”
(1) The essence of a thing as meaning that by being which a thing is what it is. As when we say that a rational animal is the ḥaqīqah of a human being. (See Kitābu ʾt-Taʿrifāt.)
(2) A word or phrase used in its proper or original sense, as opposed to that which is figurative. A speech without trope or figure.
(3) The sixth stage in the mystic journey of the Ṣūfī, when he is supposed to receive a revelation of the true nature of the Godhead, and to have arrived at “the Truth.”
AL-ḤAQĪQATU ʾL-MUḤAMMADĪYAH (الحقيقة المحمدية). The original essence of Muḥammad, the Nūr-i-Muḥammadīyah, or the Light of Muḥammad, which is believed to have been created before all things. (Kitābu ʾt-Taʿrifāt, in loco.)