.islam for beginners |part one|8- Types of God's polytheism

We have previously talked about the oneness of God Almighty, and we said that oneness means “denying the partner.” If we have mentioned “the partner,” then we must know polytheism and its types so that things become more clear.
 
      The origin of the word polytheism in the language indicates the plurality of shares, hence the word company or partnership, which means the presence of several people who have different shares.
 

      From here we understand the meaning of the word polytheism in religious terminology. It means that a person believes in divinity in something other than God.

This includes those who worship God, but he also offers something of worship to other than God, as it includes those who worship other than God and those who worship other than God and do not worship God at all.
 
     Whoever spends something of worship to other than God has fallen into polytheism. Likewise, whoever believes in the existence of gods - as we mentioned - he is a polytheist in his belief, even if he does not offer anything of worship to these gods, but here he is a polytheist just by this belief.
 

      God has warned against polytheism and made it clear to us that if a person dies of polytheism, he will not be forgiven and will not enter Paradise. God said: “God does not forgive polytheism with Him, and He forgives what is less than that for whomever He wills.”
 
      And the Messenger of God, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, said: “Whoever meets God without associating anything with Him will enter Paradise, and whoever meets Him associating something with Him will enter Hell.”
 

      Whoever turns to worship other than God, such as one who supplicates to other than God in a prayer of worship, or prostrates to something other than God in prostration of worship, or venerates something other than God in veneration of worship and dies on that, then he is a polytheist and an unbeliever who will not be affected by any work he did in this world. God said: “And He has revealed to you: And to those before you, if you associate, your work will be nullified.” It is not permissible to have mercy on him or seek forgiveness for him, because God said: “It is not for the Prophet and those who believe to ask forgiveness for the polytheists, even if they were relatives.”
 

      Here it is better to explain that both infidel and polytheism indicate that the human departs from faith and enters with the people of infidels. Imam al-Nawawi, may God have mercy on him, said: “polytheism and infidelity may be used in one sense, which is disbelief in God Almighty, and it may differentiate between them. Polytheism is singled out for those who worship idols and other creatures, with their recognition of God Almighty, as the infidels of Quraysh, so infidelity is more general than polytheism.

 
  As for the types of polytheism, they are six, which we explain in these words:
 

      The first type: the independence polytheism, which is that a person makes a number of gods independent of each other, so it is believed that there are several gods in the universe, each of them is independent of the other.
 
      The second type: partition polytheism, the partition  is separation, which is that a person believes that God has several persons or several gods from which he is composed. For example,there is the god X,the god Y, and the god E. Every one of them is an independent god, but the three are one God, and each of the three is different from the others!
 
      In this image, you will find in front of you a belief that shows that God is composed of a number of gods.
 

      The third type: closeness polytheism, which is when a person worships some things because he believes that these things bring him closer to God
 

      The fourth type: imitation polytheism, which is that a person worships certain things, which he believes bring him closer to God, but here he worships them because he grew up and found his fathers worshiping them, so he imitated his fathers in their doing this, here he puts ahead imitation to his fathers to worship God alone, so it was the real motive for him in polytheism is blind imitation.
 
      The fifth type: reasons polytheism, which is that a person believes that the things that are in the universe are the creators and the presenter, so he believes, for example, that it is fire that creates burning, and that food is what creates full.
 

      While Muslims believe otherwise, these reasons, to us, are connected to the causes in a normal way, meaning that the reasons do not actually do anything, but rather God is the one who created the reason, created the causative, created the action, and created that link in front of us between the cause and the causative.
 
      Then those who believe in the reasons that it is a creator.. Some of them believe that it is a creator in itself, independent of God, and this is infidelity that expels its owner from the fold of Islam.
 
     And some of them believe that these reasons are the creators of things themselves, not alone as mentioned in the previous type, but with a power that God has placed in them, and this belief is heresy, but it is not infidelity.
 

      The sixth type: purposes polytheism, which is that a person turns to worshiping God alone, but he did this worship in order to show people that he is a pious and righteous human being. This act is called hypocrisy, because the person here had a purpose in his heart that motivated him to worship, the motive for God was not purified from anything else, but there was a hidden purpose in the heart that motivated man to do this worship.

 
      Our master, the Messenger of God, warned us from it and said: “What I fear most for my nation is minor polytheism. He was asked about it and he said: Hypocrisy.”
 

      It is from this type that a person says to another: “God willing, you, and I rely on God and on you,” and that he swears by the Kaaba and the fathers, for example. Imam al-Nasa’i narrated this interesting story on the authority of the great Companion Qatilah bint Saffy: “A Jew came to the Prophet, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, and said: You denounce, and that you polytheists say: What God wills and you will, and you say: O the Kaaba, so the Prophet, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, commanded them, if they wanted to swear, to say: By the Lord of the Kaaba, and then say: What God wills then you.
 
      It remains for us to pay attention to the fact that this hypocrisy with this description that we mentioned is a kind of polytheism, but it does not cause its owner to leave the religion of Islam, just like the one who believes that in the causes there is a power deposited by God, this power creates things.. These two types do not take out of the religion. As for the rest of the types, they are infidelity or major polytheism that takes the one out of the religion.