Tawhid (the oneness of God)

Al-Tahawi opens his statement of the creed of the people of the Sunna and the Community by saying: "We say of God's oneness, believing by God's guidance", then enumerates the articles: "God is one without partner; nothing is like Him; nothing overcomes Him; there is no god but He" ¹.

• He is "eternal without beginning, perpetual without end; He does not perish nor cease" ¹.
• "Imaginations do not reach Him; intellects do not grasp Him; He does not resemble mortals" ^{1 2}.
• "Living, He does not die; subsisting, He does not sleep" ²; "creating without need, providing without cost, causing death without fear, resurrecting without toil" ².
• "He has ever been, with His attributes, eternal before His creation"; the existence of creatures added no attribute He did not have ²; His was the meaning of Lordship with none lorded over, and the meaning of Creator with none created ³.

Al-Tahawi says: "Whoever does not guard against negation and likening strays and does not attain transcendence"; he describes God with the attributes of oneness and the epithets of singleness — none of His creatures is in His meaning, and He is exalted above bounds, ends, pillars, limbs and instruments; "the six directions do not contain Him as they contain originated things" ⁴.

Al-Tahawi closes his creed with: God's religion on earth and in heaven is one — Islam — and it is "between excess and falling short, between likening and negation, between compulsion and free will, and between security and despair" ^{5 6}. For the general meaning see Islam and faith.

Ibn Qudama says God is "described by what He described Himself in His great Book and on the tongue of His noble prophet"; whatever of the attributes has come in the Qur'an or soundly from the Prophet ﷺ "must be believed, received with submission and acceptance, leaving off confronting it with rejection, interpretation, likening and comparison" ⁷. He does not describe God "by more than He described Himself — without bound and without end" ⁸. He cites the Prophet's question to the maid "Where is God?" and her answer "In heaven" ⁹; says God is above the Throne ¹⁰; and relates from Malik on the istiwa': "The istiwa' is not unknown, the how is not conceivable, belief in it is obligatory, and asking about it is an innovation" ¹¹.

In al-Tahawi's wording God is transcendent above the six directions; each saying is attributed to its book.

Ibn Taymiyya says: "Part of belief in God is believing what He described Himself by in His Book and what His messenger Muhammad described Him by — without distortion and without negation, without how and without comparison" ¹²; God "joined negation and affirmation in what He described and named Himself by" ¹³. He says: "All this speech God mentioned — that He is above the Throne and that He is with us — is true in its reality and needs no distortion", and "what the Book and Sunna mention of His nearness and withness does not conflict with what is mentioned of His height and aboveness" ¹⁴.

In "the account of the sum of the saying of the people of hadith and sunna" in Maqalat al-Islamiyyin, Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari presents what the people of hadith and sunna hold, ending: "And in all we have mentioned of their saying we speak, and to it we go" ¹⁵. He relates there that God is "one God, singular, self-sufficing"; that He is "upon His Throne"; that He has "two hands without how", "two eyes without how" and "a face" ¹⁶. He says God's names "are not said to be other than God", and that they affirm for God knowledge, hearing, sight and power and do not deny that of Him ¹⁶.

This entry presents the positions of the 'Aqida al-Tahawiyya, Ibn Qudama's Lum'at al-I'tiqad, Ibn Taymiyya's al-Wasitiyya, and what al-Ash'ari related in Maqalat al-Islamiyyin of the people of hadith and sunna and declared his own — each attributed to its book. The sayings of the Maturidis and the remaining Sunni and non-Sunni schools from their own books have not yet been added; the entry needs specialist review before promotion.

The Sheikh says that the whole creation bears witness to God's oneness and to His Messenger's messengerhood, and then bears witness for the believers that they are the ones who hold the oneness ¹⁷. He says that the testimony of oneness belongs specially to the believers, meaning everyone who says that there is no god but God, and not merely those who attend the mosque outwardly ¹⁷.

The Sheikh says that the angels thank the believers who brought the pure fruit of monotheism (tawhid) to this House and spread the sanctification and glorification of God ¹⁸. He holds, as his own opinion, that al-Aqsa will return only through pure monotheism in all its parts, lordship, divinity, names and attributes, free of shirk and innovation (needs_source) ¹⁹.

He relays Ibn 'Ata's saying that what veils the servant from God is his imagining that something shares in His power (needs_source) ²⁰.