Tawhid facts for kids

Sunni Muslims use the single raised index finger gesture (al-sabbāba or al-sabbāḥa) as a symbol of Tawhid.

Tawhid (Arabic: توحيد, tawḥīd, meaning "oneness of God in Islam (Allāh)"; also romanized as Tawheed, Tavhid, Tauheed or Tevhid) is the indivisible oneness concept of monotheism in Islam. Tawhid is the religion's central and single most important concept, upon which a Muslim's entire religious adherence rests. It unequivocally holds that God in Islam (Arabic: الله Allāh) is one (Al-ʾAḥad) and single (Al-Wāḥid).

Tawhid constitutes the foremost article of the Muslim profession of submission. The first part of the shahada (the Islamic declaration of faith) is the declaration of belief in the oneness of God. To attribute divinity to anything or anyone else, is shirk – an unpardonable sin according to the Qur'an, unless repented afterwards. Muslims believe that the entirety of the Islamic teaching rests on the principle of Tawhid.

From an Islamic standpoint, there is an uncompromising nondualism at the heart of the Islamic beliefs (aqidah) which is seen as distinguishing Islam from other major religions. Moreover, Tawhid requires Muslims not only to avoid worshiping multiple gods, but also to relinquish striving for money, social status or egoism.

The Qur'an asserts the existence of a single and absolute truth that transcends the world; a unique, independent and indivisible being, who is independent of the entire creation. God, according to Islam, is a universal God, rather than a local, tribal, or parochial one—God is an absolute, who integrates all affirmative values and brooks no evil.

Islamic intellectual history can be understood as a gradual unfolding of the manner in which successive generations of believers have understood the meaning and implications of professing God's Unity. Islamic scholars have different approaches toward understanding it. Islamic theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, Sufism, even to some degree the Islamic understanding of natural sciences, all seek to explain at some level the principle of tawhid.

The classical definition of tawhid was limited to declaring or preferring belief in one God and the unity of God. Although the monotheistic definition has persisted into modern Arabic, it is now more generally used to connote "unification, union, combination, fusion; standardization, regularization; consolidation, amalgamation, merger".

Chapter 112 of the Quran, titled Al-'Ikhlās (The Sincerity) reads:

Say: "He is Allah, [who is] One.
Allah, the Eternal Refuge.
He neither begets nor is born,
Nor is there to Him any equivalent."

Etymology

According to Edward Lane's Lexicon on classical Arabic, tawhid is an infinite noun that means "He asserted, or declared, God to be one; he asserted, declared, or preferred belief in the unity of God" and is derived from the Arabic verb wahhada, which means "He made it one; or called it one". In modern Arabic, the verbs wahhada or yuwahhidu mean "to unite" or "bring together" something which was not one before. This reflects the struggle of monotheism against polytheism.

Name of God in Islam

In order to explain the complexity of the unity of God and of the divine nature, the Qur'an uses 99 terms referred to as "Excellent Names of God" (Sura 7:180). The divine names project divine attributes, which, in turn, project all the levels of the creation down to the physical plane. Aside from the supreme name "Allah" and the neologism ar-Rahman (referring to the divine beneficence that creates and maintains the universe) and a few other specific names like al-Maalik al-Mulook ("King of Kings") in an authentic narration of Muhammad, other names may be shared by both God and human beings. According to the Islamic teachings, the latter is meant to serve as a reminder of God's immanence rather than being a sign of one's divinity or alternatively imposing a limitation on God's transcendent nature. Attribution of divinity to a created entity, shirk, is considered a denial of the truth of God and thus a major sin.

Shirk

Associating partners in divinity of God is known as shirk and is the antithesis of Tawhid. It is always in the form of belief in polytheism. The term shirk is used in two senses: to mean both polytheism and something that is not polytheism but a certain form of sin.

• Greater shirk (Shirk-al-Akbar): open and apparent;
• Lesser shirk (Shirk-al-Asghar): concealed or hidden.

Shirk. A person commits lesser shirk (Shirk-al-Asghar) when he claims to believe in God but his thoughts and actions do not reflect his belief. There are also minor forms of shirk, they must be avoided as well; these include committing a good deed to show off, making an oath in the name of anyone except God. Within Islam, shirk (polytheism) is an unforgivable crime; God may forgive any sin if one dies in that state except for committing shirk, repentance is required for its forgiveness.

Chapter 4, verse 48 of the Qur'an reads:

"God does not forgive the joining of partners with Him: anything less than that He forgives to whoever He will, but anyone who joins partners with God has concocted a tremendous sin."

Chapter 4, verse 116 of the Qur'an reads:

"Indeed, Allah does not forgive association with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills. And he who associates others with Allah has certainly gone far astray."

Discerning the unity of God

According to Hossein Nasr, Ali, the first imam (Shia view) and fourth Rashid Caliph (Sunni view), is credited with having established Islamic theology. His quotations contain the first rational proofs among Muslims of the Unity of God.

Ali states that "God is One" means that God is away from likeness and numeration and he is not divisible even in imagination.

The first step of religion is to accept, understand and realize him as the Lord... The correct form of belief in his unity is to realize that he is so absolutely pure and above nature that nothing can be added to or subtracted from his being. That is, one should realize that there is no difference between his person and his attributes, and his attributes should not be differentiated or distinguished from his person.

Arguments for the oneness of God

Theological

Theologians usually use reason and deduction to prove the existence, unity and oneness of God. They use a teleological argument for the existence of God as a creator based on perceived evidence of order, purpose, design, or direction—or some combination of these—in nature. Teleology is the supposition that there is a purpose or directive principle in the works and processes of nature.

Another argument which is used frequently by theologians is Reductio ad absurdum. They use it instead of positive arguments as a more efficient way to reject the ideas of opponents.

God as the cause of causes

Against the polytheism of pre-Islamic Arabia, the Qur'an argues that the knowledge of God as the creator of everything rules out the possibility of lesser gods since these beings must be themselves created. For the Qur'an, God is an immanent and transcendent deity who actively creates, maintains and destroys the universe. The reality of God as the ultimate cause of things is the belief that God is veiled from human understanding because of the secondary causes and contingent realities of things in the world. Thus the belief in the oneness of God is equated in the Qur'an with the "belief in the unseen" (Sura ). The Qur'an summarizes its task in making this "unseen", to a greater or lesser degree "seen" so that belief in the existence of God becomes a Master-Truth rather than an unreasonable belief. The Qur'an states that God's signals are so near and yet so far, demanding that its students listen to what it has to say with humility (Sura , Sura ). The Qur'an draws attention to certain observable facts, to present them as "reminders" of God instead of providing lengthy "theological" proofs for the existence and unity of God.

Ash'ari theologians rejected cause and effect in essence, but accepted it as something that facilitates humankind's investigation and comprehension of natural processes. These medieval scholars argued that nature was composed of uniform atoms that were "re-created" at every instant by God. The laws of nature were only the customary sequence of apparent causes (customs of God), the ultimate cause of each accident being God himself. Other forms of the argument also appear in Avicenna's other works, and this argument became known as the Proof of the Truthful.

Avicenna initiated a full-fledged inquiry into the question of being, in which he distinguished between essence (Mahiat) and existence (Wujud). He argued that the fact of existence can not be inferred from or accounted for by the essence of existing things and that form and matter by themselves cannot interact and originate the movement of the universe or the progressive actualization of existing things. Existence must, therefore, be due to an agent-cause that necessitates, imparts, gives, or adds existence to an essence.

God as the necessary existent

An ontological argument for the existence of God was first proposed by Avicenna (965-1037) in the Metaphysics section of The Book of Healing Other forms of the argument also appear in Avicenna's other works, and this argument became known as the Proof of the Truthful. Avicenna initiated a full-fledged inquiry into the question of being, in which he distinguished between essence (Mahiat) and existence (Wujud). He argued that the fact of existence can not be inferred from or accounted for by the essence of existing things and that form and matter by themselves cannot interact and originate the movement of the universe or the progressive actualization of existing things. Existence must, therefore, be due to an agent-cause that necessitates, imparts, gives, or adds existence to an essence. To do so, the cause must be an existing thing and coexist with its effect.

This was the first attempt at using the method of a priori proof, which utilizes intuition and reason alone. Avicenna's proof of God's existence is unique in that it can be classified as both a cosmological argument and an ontological argument. "It is ontological insofar as 'necessary existence' in intellect is the first basis for arguing for a Necessary Existent". The proof is also "cosmological insofar as most of it is taken up with arguing that contingent existents cannot stand alone and must end up in a Necessary Existent". Another argument Avicenna presented for God's existence was the problem of the mind-body dichotomy.

According to Avicenna, the universe consists of a chain of actual beings, each giving existence to the one below it and responsible for the existence of the rest of the chain below. Because an actual infinite is deemed impossible by Avicenna, this chain as a whole must terminate in a being that is wholly simple and one, whose essence is its very existence, and therefore is self-sufficient and not in need of something else to give it existence. Because its existence is not contingent on or necessitated by something else but is necessary and eternal in itself, it satisfies the condition of being the necessitating cause of the entire chain that constitutes the eternal world of contingent existing things. Thus his ontological system rests on the conception of God as the Wajib al-Wujud (necessary existent). There is a gradual multiplication of beings through a timeless emanation from God as a result of his self-knowledge.

Indivisibility of God's sovereignty

The Qur'an argues that there can be no multiple sources of divine sovereignty since "behold, each god would have taken away what [each] had created, And some would have Lorded it over others!" The Qur'an argues that the stability and order prevailing throughout the universe shows that it was created and is being administered by only one God (Sura ).

The Qur'an in verse 21:22 states: "If there were numerous gods instead of one, [the heavens and the earth] would be in a sorry state". Later Muslim theologians elaborated on this verse saying that the existence of at least two gods would inevitably arise between them, at one time or another, a conflict of wills. Since two contrary wills could not possibly be realized at the same time, one of them must admit himself powerless in that particular instance. On the other hand, a powerless being can not by definition be a god. Therefore, the possibility of having more than one god is ruled out. For if a God is powerful above another, then this asserts a difference in the particular attributes that are confined to the essence of Godhood, which implies the lesser God must lack in certain necessary attributes deeming this deity as anthropomorphic and snatching away the title of a god from such entity.

Other arguments

The Qur'an argues that human beings have an instinctive distaste for polytheism: At times of crisis, for example, even the idolaters forget the false deities and call upon the one true God for help. As soon as they are relieved from the danger, they however start associating other beings with God. "So when they ride in the ships they call upon Allah, being sincerely obedient to Him, but when He brings them safe to the land, lo! they associate others (with Him)" (Sura ).

Next, the Qur'an argues that polytheism takes away from human dignity: God has honored human beings and given them charge of the physical world, and yet they disgrace their position in the world by worshipping what they carve out with their own hands.

Lastly, the Qur'an argues that monotheism is not a later discovery made by the human race, but rather there is the combined evidence of the prophetic call for monotheism throughout human history starting from Adam. The Qur'an suggests several causes for deviation from monotheism to polytheism: Great temporal power, regarded by the holder and his subjects as 'absolute' — may lead the holder to think that he is God-like; such claims were commonly forced upon, and accepted by, those who were subject to the ruler. Also, certain natural phenomena (such as the sun, the moon and the stars) inspire feelings of awe, wonder or admiration that could lead some to regard these celestial bodies as deities. Another reason for deviation from monotheism is when one becomes a slave to his or her base desires and passions. In seeking to always satisfy the desires, he or she may commit a kind of polytheism.

Influences on the Muslim culture

The Islamic doctrine of Tawhid puts forth a God whose rule, will or law are comprehensive and extend to all creatures and to all aspects of the human life. Early Muslims understood religion to thus cover the domains of state, law and society. It is believed that the entirety of the Islamic teaching rests on the principle of Tawhid. In the following, we provide a few examples of the influences of Tawhid on the Muslim culture:

Interpersonal relationship

According to the Qur'an, one consequence of properly conceived relationship between God and man as the served and servant, is the proper relationship among humans. In order to achieve the former, the Qur'an consistently "reminds" men of two points: 1. That God is one; everything except God (including the entirety of nature) is contingent upon God. 2. With all His might and glory, God is essentially the all-merciful God.

Good and evil

According to the Qur'an, Allah is the progenitor of all things, both good and evil. As is written in the Qur'an, all of humanity is created at the will of Allah, both the good and the evil; and that their natures have been predisposed as such since the beginning of creation.

According to the Qur'an, Satan deviated from the oneness of Allah in the story of creation of man by permitting his own hierarchical value system to supersede Allah's will: Allah asked the angels to bow to Adam, who he had created from clay. Satan refused, saying that "I am better than him; you created me from fire and created him from clay". The Medieval Muslim scholar, Al-Ghazali pointing out that the only legitimate "preference principle" in the sight of Allah is piety, writes: "Every time a rich man believes that he is better than a poor one, or a white man believes that he is better than a black one, then he is being arrogant. He is adopting the same hierarchical principles adopted by Iblis [Satan] in his jahl [ignorance], and thus falling into shirk [opposite of Tawhid]."

Secularism

In many jurisdictions of the world, the laws and the general attitude of the population hold that the sphere of public life should be secular, and that belief in and practice of religion should remain in the sphere of private life. One motive for adopting this stance has been to reduce the effects of conflict between followers of different religions or between adherents of secularism and those of a religion. In public life, this view insists that the authority of the state prevails over any religious authorities.

For some Islamic thinkers, these propositions infringe the doctrine of Tawhid, and are therefore anathema. If the cosmos is a unified and harmonious whole, centered around the omnipotent and omnipresent God, they hold that recognising any other authority as superior is wrong. According to one writer: "Traditionally, a Muslim is not a nationalist, or citizen of a nation-state; he has no political identity, only a religious membership in the Umma. For a traditional Muslim, Islam is the sole and sufficient identification tag and nationalism and nation-states are obstacles". Hence the idea of creating a wholly Islamic state, or a revived caliphate.

In practice, nearly all Muslims live their daily lives under some national jurisdiction and accept at least part of the constraints this involves.

Islamic art

The desire to preserve the unity and transcendence of God led to the prohibition of Muslims from creating representation or visual depictions of God, or of any Prophet including Muhammad. Representations in art of the human form are a disputed matter in fiqh. The key concern is that the use of statues or images may lead to idolatry. The dominant forms of expression in the Islamic art, thus, became calligraphy and arabesque.

See also