In
Islam,
God ( ar|ٱللَّٰه|
Allāh, contraction of ''al-ʾilāh'', lit. "the God")
is the
absolute one, the
all-powerful and
all-knowing ruler of the universe, and the creator of everything in existence.
Islam emphasizes that God is strictly singular (''
''); unique ('); inherently One (');
and also all-merciful and omnipotent.
["Allah." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica] No human eyes can see God till the Day of Judgement. God doesn't depend on anything. God has no parents and no children.According to Islam, God is neither a material nor a
spiritual being. According to Islamic teachings, beyond the
Throne (al-ʾArsh)
[Britannica Encyclopedia, ''Islam'', p. 3] and according to the
Quran, "No vision can grasp him, but His grasp is over all vision: He is above all comprehension, yet is acquainted with all things."
In Islam there is only one God and there are
99 names of that one God (' lit. meaning: "The best names"), each of which evokes a distinct
attribute of God.
[Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, ''Allah''] All these names refer to God, the supreme and all-comprehensive.
[Annemarie Schimmel,''The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic'', SUNY Press, p.206] Among the 99 names of God, the most familiar and frequent are "the Entirely Merciful" (') and "the Especially Merciful" (').
Creation and ordering of the universe is seen as an act of prime mercy for which all creatures praise God's attributes and bear witness to God's unity.
Etymology
''Allāh'' is the
Arabic word referring to
God in Abrahamic religions.
In the
English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The Arabic word ''Allāh'' is thought to be derived by
contraction from ''
al-
ʾilāh'', which means "the God",
and is related to ''
El'' and ''
Elah'', the
Hebrew and
Aramaic words for God. It is distinguished from ' ( ar|إِلَٰه), the Arabic word meaning ''
deity'', which could refer to any of the
gods worshipped in pre-Islamic Arabia or to any other deity.
Other names
God is described and referred to in the
Quran and ''
hadith'' by 99 names that reflect his attributes.
The Quran refers to the attributes of God as "most beautiful names". According to
Gerhard Böwering,
Some Muslims may use different names as much as Allah, for instance "God" in
English. Whether or not ''Allah'' can be considered as the personal name of God became disputed in contemporary scholarship.
Phrases and expressions
There are numerous conventional phrases and expressions
invoking God.
Attributes
Oneness
Islam's most fundamental concept is a strict monotheism called ''
tawhid'', affirming that God is one and
Tanzih (''wāḥid''). The basic creed of Islam, the
Shahada (recited under
oath to enter the religion), involves ''()'', or "I testify there is no deity other than God."
Muslims
reject the Christian doctrine of the
Trinity and divinity of
Jesus, comparing it to
polytheism.
Jesus is instead believed to be a prophet.
Tawhid constitutes the foremost article of the Muslim profession.
[D. Gimaret, ''Tawhid'', Encyclopaedia of Islam] The deification or worship of anyone or anything other than God (
shirk) is the greatest sin in Islam. The entirety of the Islamic teaching rests on the principle of Tawhid.
According to Vincent J. Cornell, the Quran also provides a
monist image of God by describing the reality as a unified whole, with God being a single concept that would describe or ascribe all existing things: "He is the First and the Last, the Evident and the Immanent: and He has full knowledge of all things."
Creator
God is the creator of the universe and all the creatures in it.
Mercy
The most commonly used names in the primary sources are ''
Al-Rahman'', meaning "Most Compassionate" and ''Al-Rahim'', meaning "Most Merciful".
The former compasses the whole creation, therefore applying to God's mercy in that it gives every necessary condition to make life possible. The latter applies to God's mercy in that it gives favor for good deeds. Thus ''Al-Rahman'' includes both the believers and the unbelievers, but ''Al-Rahim'' only the believers. God is said to love forgiving, with a hadith stating God would replace a sinless people with one who sinned but still asked repentance.
His mercy takes many forms as he says in the Quran "and My Mercy embraces all things."
:156This is shown in ''
Sahih Muslim'' narrated from
Abu Hurairah, who said the Prophet said:
God's mercy, according to Islamic theology, is what gets a person into paradise. According to a hadith in
Sahih Al Bukhari "No one’s deeds will ever admit him to Paradise." They said, "Not even you, O Messenger of Allah?" He said, "No, not even me unless Allah showers me with His Mercy. So try to be near to perfection. And no one should wish for death; he is either doing good so he will do more of that, or he is doing wrong so he may repent."
Omniscience
God is fully aware of everything that can be known. This includes private thoughts and feelings. The
Quran asserts that one can not hide anything from God:
Relationship with creation
Muslims believe that God is the only true reality and sole source of all creation. Everything including its creatures are just a derivative reality created out of love and mercy by God's command, "
..."Be," and it is." and that the
purpose of existence is to
worship or to ''know'' God.
[David Leeming ''The Oxford Companion to World Mythology'' Oxford University Press 2005 page 209] It is believed that God created everything for a divine purpose; the universe governed by fixed laws that ensure the harmonious working of all things. Everything within the universe, including inanimated objects, praises God, and is in this sense understood as a ''muslim''.
[Roger S. Gottlieb''The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology'' Oxford University Press, 9 Nov 2006 p. 210] An exception are humans, who are endowed with free-will and must live voluntarily in accordance with these laws to live to find peace and reproduce God's benevolence in their own society to live in accordance with the nature of all things, known as ''surrender'' to God in the Islamic sense.
As in the other
Abrahamic religions, God is believed to communicate with his creation via
revelations given to
prophets to remind people of God. The
Quran in particular is believed by
Muslims to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to
Muhammad.
Hadith are the records of Muhammad's sayings and example, and
Hadith Qudsi is a sub-category of hadith, which Muslims regard as the words of God repeated by
Muhammad. According to
Ali ibn Mohammed al-Jurjani, the Hadith Qudsi differ from the
Quran in that the former are "expressed in Muhammad's words", whereas the latter are the "direct words of God". There are no intermediaries, such as
clergy, to contact God who states in the
Quran, "It was We Who created man, and We know what dark suggestions his soul makes to him: for We are nearer to him than (his)
jugular vein." People may enter a particular relationship with God any time and in different circumstances through the divine names or attributes. Thus God is also a personal God who responds whenever a person in need or distress calls Him.
, in his ''
'', narrates a ' that God says, "I am as My servant thinks (expects) I am." When
Sufis claim union with God, it is not that they become one in essence, rather the will of the Sufi is fully congruent to God.
The Quran rejects
dualism of
Persian
Zoroastrianism and
Manichaeism, which regarded good and evil, light and darkness as two distinct and independent powers. The Quran affirms both powers to be equally God's creation (Q:6:1; 113:1–3).
Satan is not an independent power, but subordinated to God (Q:7:11–18; 38:78–83).
Concepts in Islamic theology
Isma'ilism - Shia
According to
Isma'ilism, God is absolutely transcendent and unknowable; beyond matter, energy, space, time, change, imaginings, intellect, positive as well as negative qualities. All attributes of God named in rituals, scriptures or prayers refers not to qualities God possesses, but to qualities emanated from God, thus these are the attributes God gave as the source of all qualities, but God does not consist on one of these qualities. One philosophical definition of the world Allah is " The Being Who concentrates in Himself all the attributes of perfection "
or " the Person Who is the Essential Being, and Who encompasses all the attributes of perfection".
Since God is beyond all wordings, Isma'ilism also denies the concept of God as the
first cause.
In
Ismailism, assigning attributes to God as well as negating any attributes from God (''
via negativa'') both qualify as
anthropomorphism and are rejected, as God cannot be understood by either assigning attributes to Him or taking attributes away from Him. Therefore,
Abu Yaqub Al-Sijistani, a renowned Ismaili thinker, suggested the method of
double negation; for example: “God is not existent” followed by “God is not non-existent”. This glorifies God from any understanding or human comprehension.
Muʿtazila
The
Muʿtazilites reject the anthropomorphic attributes of God because an eternal being "must be unique" and attributes would make God comparable. The descriptions of God in the
Quran are considered to be
allegories. Nevertheless, the Muʿtazilites thought God contains oneness (tawhid) and justice. Other characteristics like knowledge are not attributed to God; rather they describe his essence. Otherwise eternal attributes of God would give rise to a multiplicity entities existing eternal besides God.
Maturidi and Ash'ari
Ash'ari and
Maturidi are in agreement that God's attributes are eternal and are to be held to be metaphorically ( References to anthropomorphic attributes can probably not be understood correctly by humans.
[Andrew Rippin ''Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices'' Psychology Press 2005 page 86] Although God's existence is considered to be possibly known by reason, human mind can not fully understand God's attributes. For example, when humans in
paradise see God, they do not see God in the way humans are able to see on Earth.
asserts, since God is the creator of everything that exists and creation does not affect nor alter God, the Throne of God is not a dwelling place for God. Accordingly, expressions such as ''God is above his Throne'' means God exists unattached of any place.
Sufism
Since God in Islam is transcendental and sovereign but also immanent and omnipresent, the
Sufi view holds that in reality, only God exists. Thus everything in creation is reflecting an attribute of God's names. Yet these forms are not God themselves. The
Sufi Saint Ibn Arabi stated: ''There is nothing but God''. This statement was mistakenly equalized to
Pantheism by critics; however, Ibn Arabi always made a clear distinction between the creation and the creator. Since God is the ''
Absolute Reality'',
the created worlds and their inhabitants are merely illusions. They just exist because of God's command ''
Kun'', but everything that would be, was already known by God.
Salafism and Wahhabism
Salafism and
Wahhabism refuse interpretations on Quran to avoid altering of its message, thus taking the descriptions of God literally and oppose widespread theological concepts including the
Ash'ari view. Therefore, descriptions such as "God's hands" or "sitting on (above) a throne", should be taken at their linguistic meaning, without asking ''how'', as it is regarded as the only possibility to understand God's attributes.
Nation of Islam
The
Nation of Islam believes that its founder,
Wallace Fard Muhammad, was Allah in person; this is disputed by other sects due to the belief of god incarnated as a Human.
Wahdat al-wujud
The image of God during the time of
Seljuk Empire and
Ottoman Empire was mostly influenced by the concept later known as ''
Wahdat al-wujud''. The concept is usually traced back to the
Andalusian shaikh and
mystic ibn Arabi. But the idea probably originated 200 years earlier as a result of
Turkic cosmology in
Turkistan. In this place the first
taqira, the
Yesevi-tariqa derived from, which had great impact on
Haji Bektash Veli. He had significant influence on the understanding of Islam among Turks in
Anatolia. The expression itself was used only after the disciples of Ibn Arabi.
Central for the Muslim Turks was the search for God in the world, but could only be found with a "pure heart". Usually, this state could only be attained after death. This striving for God and finding God by a transformation through death is also found in Rumi's
Masnavi. Accordingly, dying would transform a lifeform into a higher being, until it returns into an eon. The prophets and angels have been integrated into the universalistic understanding of God. Ibn Arabi interpreted this from the metaphysics of the Quran. According to
Heydar Amuli, who was strongly influenced by Ibn Arabis metaphysics, angels (''malaika'') are representations of God's beautiful names, while the devils (''shayatin'') are representing the majestic names of God. Another important aspect of belief is the
ancestor cult, also in the form of
saint veneration. Equality of gender from the Pre-Islamic period of Turks usually remained accepted and women were allowed to participate on religious gatherings without
hijab.
The concept of Wahdat al-Wujud permeated the entire Ottoman culture, religion and politics. Both the advisors as well as principals of universities have usually been disciples of Ibn Arabi's philosophy.
Comparative theology
Islamic theology identifies God as described in the Quran as the same
God of Israel who covenanted with
Abraham. It rejects the
belief once held by pre-Islamic Arabians that God has daughters. Islam and
Judaism alike reject the
Trinity of
Christianity. But the Islamic concept of God is less personal than in the
Judeo-Christian tradition,
and is known only from natural signs and can only be spoken about in
parables. Muslim
Turks further assimilated
Tengri, the
personification of the eternal heaven, with the Islamic concept of God.
[Yves Bonnefoy ''Asian Mythologies'' University of Chicago Press 1993 p. 331]
See also
*
Conceptions of God
*
Existence of God
*
God in Abrahamic religions
References
Bibliography
* Al-Bayhaqi (1999), ''Allah's Names and Attributes'', ISCA,
* Hulusi, Ahmed (1999), ''"Allah" as introduced by Mohammed'', Kitsan, 10th ed.,
* Muhaiyaddeen, M. R. Bawa (1976), ''Asmāʼul-Husnā: the 99 beautiful names of Allah'', The
Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship,
* Netton, Ian Richard (1994), ''Allah Transcendent: Studies in the Structure and Semiotics of Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Cosmology'', Routledge,
External links
Allah article by ''
Encyclopædia Britannica''
{{DEFAULTSORT:God In Islam
Category:Islam
Category:Islamic theology