Islam for Beginners| Part One.| 6- The oneness of God (the characteristic of oneness between Islam and religions)

     In the past, we presented a brief explanation of the idea of ​​divine characteristics in Islam, and today we talk in detail about the characteristic of oneness, after we talked in the first episode about the characteristic of existence. 

     Scholars call the characteristics that negate God’s shortcomings and defects as “negative characteristics,” meaning the characteristics that negate their opposite. If we say God is described as oneness, then we are talking about one of the negative characteristics that negates polytheism in God Himself, His characteristics, or His actions. These negative characteristics are oldnessus, svival, contravention of imagination, oneness and self-esteem.

      If we talk about the characteristic that cannot be imagined without the existence, then we are talking about the “psychological characteristic” which is existence, so it is not imagined that God exists without being characterized by the characteristic of existence, and we have explained existence at the beginning of this blessed series, God willing.      If we talk about the characteristics that add to God a specific meaning, then we are talking about what is known as the “meaning characteristics” such as ability, will, knowledge, hearing, sight, speech and life.      And if we talk about some things that cannot be known except through revelation, then we call them “predicative characteristics,” and they are things that the mind cannot independently know. 

     The mind, for example, if it thinks, it will reach after the search to that the creator of the universe must be characterized by knowledge, but the mind itself, if it thinks, will not be able to reach to that the creator of the universe, for example, is described as establishing to the throne, as the Almighty said: “The ever-merciful, established on the throne.” And we must note that this descriptive adjectives such establishing’, for example..we must pay attention to God’s transcendence of human meanings in them. For us, establishing on a chair apparently denotes sitting on a chair or bed. But when we talk about establishing in relation to God, we exclude all of these meanings, which are of the kind of creatures, and we say: God told us that He was established over the throne, and he told us that there is nothing like Him. So we say that God has ascended over the Throne as he told us, but this ascension befits His sacred essence, so the meaning of ascending in His right is not similar to our human meanings, which are sitting, because God said there is nothing like Him, but it suits Himself, free from similarity with creatures, and this direction was chosen by the Imam of the Sunnis, Abu al-Hasan al-Ash’ari, and in this choice he is a follower of the Imam of Ahl al-Sunnah before him, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, may God have mercy on him.

     There is another tendency for scholars regarding these descriptive attributes, which is that we interpret them, and interpretation means that we search in the Arabic language for a meaning of these characteristics that can be properly attributed to God Almighty. Some scholars said that the establishing here means the perfection and completeness of the judgment to God Almighty alone, and this direction was chosen by a large group of scholars such as Imam Ibn al-Arabi, al-Amidi, al-Razi and others.

     But we choose the first direction that acknowledges these characteristics of God and does not deny them or interpret them, and does not resemble God with any of His creation. So we say that God has a face, a hand, and an eye as He told, not like our faces, nor like our eyes, nor like our hands, but all of that is on what befits Him, the Most High, nothing is like Him. And Ibn Asakir quoted in his book: “Declaring the Lie of the Fabricator” on the authority of Imam Al-Ash’ari, saying: “And that God established himself on His Throne as He said.. and that he has a face as he said.. and that he has a hand as he said.. and that he has an eye without how.”

     The first direction is called “the doctrine of the predecessors” and the second direction is called: “the doctrine of the successors.”

      As for the oneness of God, we mean by it that God has no partner.. Denying associating partners with God means that there is no other entity like God’s Essence, as we mean by it that God’s Essence is not composed of parts as humans are composed of parts, and it also means that there are no two characteristics of God Of the same kind, God does not have two powers or two wills, for example. It also means that no one is characterized by an ability like God’s power. It also means that all actions in the universe are created by God alone.

      And if we know that, the one who is deserving of worship is God alone, so it is not permissible to spend anything of worship to someone other than God, and whoever spends something of worship for someone other than God is a polytheist, an unbeliever, as God said: And God said: “And indeed it has been revealed to you and to those before you that if you commit idolatry, your work will be nullified.” And God said: “God does not forgive association with Him.” And the verses in this meaning are many, as well as the prophetic hadiths, so it is not permissible to present anything of worship to anyone other than God.. It is not permissible that we worship our master Muhammad, nor that we worship our master Jesus, nor that we offer worship to our lady Mary, nor that we worship our master Moses, or an angel of the angels, or any creature..we only worship God alone..and if we worship other than God, then we are polytheist and disbelieved in Him.      Evidences for the oneness of God - which means, as we said, the absence of a partner or equal to God in anything of his essence, attributes or actions - are many, including the Almighty’s saying: “Know that there is no god but God” and the Almighty’s saying: “And your God is one God. There is no god but He, the Most Gracious the Most Merciful.”      God is above from having a father or a son, God has no son and God has no father, as God said in the Qur’an: “Say: He is God the one the most unique, God the immanently indispensable, He has begotten no one and is begotten of none, there is no one comparable to Him."      The Christians claimed that God has a son and that this son is also God, but they say that God is the child other than God the Father other than God the Holy Spirit, so they claimed that God combines oneness and plurality, and the Qur’an rejected that belief, saying: God is one God, Glory be to Him, that He has no son.” Just as oneness and plurality do not go together, God cannot be one thing, and at the same time this one thing is multiple things. We cannot say that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. But the Father is not the Son, he is not the Holy Spirit, we cannot say that Muhammad is Ali and he is Zaid, but Muhammad is not Ali nor Zaid at the same time! It's not acceptable for the mind.      The Qur'an categorically rejected this belief, and responded to it in many places.      The Qur’an also rejected the belief of the pagans who worship stones, trees, humans and idols and believe that they are also gods that harm and benefit, but these gods may need another god greater than them! The Qur’an rejected this belief as well, and said to these polytheists: “ you and whatever you worship besides God is the gravel of Hell. You are bound to it.” 

     The scholars infer the oneness of God and say: The hypothesis of the existence of other gods with God leads to the idea of ​​“the possibility of a conflict between these gods,” and the idea of ​​a conflict between the gods entails that the desire of all the gods does not happen, so they are all powerless, or it leads to the occurrence of a purpose of all gods, so the opposites or contradictions come together, for example, this god wants this tree red and the other wants it white, so the tree becomes red and white at the same time and this is a contradiction, so the two opposites meet, and it is logically impossible, or it entails that the intention of one of the gods is carried out, and the rest are unable to implement their will, so the one who carried out his will becomes the god and the rest are not gods, because the helpless or the robbed of the will is not fit to be a god.

      The Qur’an expressed this and said: “If there were gods except God, they would have been corrupted.” That is, if there were gods other than God, the heavens and the earth would have been corrupted..It means, this wonderful cosmic system that is disciplined with fixed laws for everything would have been defect      This is a summary of our talk about oneness as portrayed by Islam and as embraced by Muslims