Teachings of Tawhid

Tawhid, the oneness of God, is the source, the pillar and the heart of our faith. The meaning of Islam itself is driven from this essential notion: our submission is due to Allah only and nothing else could be worshipped - from among the elements within the universe or mankind, be it a Prophet or a great 'alim -. This the meaning of ash-shahada. Allah is our Creator, our Sustainer, to Him we belong, to Him we return: in His bounty He has sent to us Messengers, to guide us, to show us the path... They are examples and models for us, but they remain human beings indicating to us the way toward the Truth and the Light, the way to go out from the deep darkness into the light so that we become able to see with a new sight and to understand completely the meaning of the commend made to Moussa:

"Verily, I -I alone- am God; there is no deity save Me. Hence worship Me alone, and perform the prayer, so as to remember Me" 20/14

The conscious remembrance of God and His oneness is presented in this verse as to be the innermost purpose of a true prayer. We are praying to remember this truth, we are gathering today to remember this truth, we even are living to remember this truth: There is one God and we must - by all means - response to His call, to be men and women of God , to be in harmony with the reason of our creation:

"I did not create the jinn and mankind except for My worship" 51/56

Our 'ulama have determined two - and sometimes three - different fields regarding 'ilm at-Tawhid. In fact these are two or three aspects or categories of at-Tawhid which permit us to have a clear idea of its meanings and implications:
1. Tawhid ar-rububiyya: maintaining the Unity of Lordship. This concerns Allah, His oneness in itself, as we can find it in surah al-Ikhlas. It is sometimes assimilated to Tawhid al-asma' was-sifat (maintaining the Unity of Allah's names and attributes).
2. Tawhid al-uluhiyya: maintaining the unity of Allah's worship.

It is not possible today to analyse these three aspects of tawhid. Let's say first that we have to remember that we must avoid reflecting on the nature and the essence of Allah Himself but rather think of his names and attributes without trying to interpret them. Allah is far beyond our understanding and we must remember the verse:

"There is nothing like Him and He is hearer and seer of all" 42/11
While we meditate on His names and attributes we must keep in mind that they are simply indications which direct our thoughts towards the greatness of God. He is far beyond what we are able to imagine, His supreme sovereignty is not the sovereignty we know, His holiness is not the holiness we know, His love is not the love we know:

"And He alone is truly-forgiving, all-embracing in His love, in sublime almightiness enthroned, a sovereign doer of whatever He wills" 85/14-15
We are asked to think of the creation and to avoid thinking of the very nature of God: this is also the way by which we become able to maintain the unity of Lordship and unity of Allah's names and attributes. This, nevertheless, is not sufficient. We are commended to fulfil our faith in maintaining the unity of worship, that is Tawhid al-uluhiyya, Tawhid al-'ibada. Let us today contemplate this essential Islamic teaching which, in fact, is the main feature of Islam. God consciousness must have an immediate impact in our worship and this is what differentiates us from ahl al-kufr, al-shirk and an-nifaq who sometimes admit that there is one God:

"If you asked them who created them, they would surely say, Allah" 43/87
They admit this fundamental truth, and they sometimes say without hesitating "We believe in God, in one God" but this statement has not effect on their life... they live forgetting God, forgetting the worship due to Him, forgetting everything and, eventually, become like animals, even worse as Allah says in the Qur'an:

"They are like cattle - nay, they are even less conscious of the right way: it is they, they who are the truly heedless" 7/179
Al-'ibada is, then, necessary and this is what we say when we recite surah al-Kafirun:
"Say: 'O you who deny the truth! 'I do not worship that which you worship and neither do you worship that which I worship. (...) Unto you, your moral law, and unto me, mine!" 109/1-4

What is then our 'din', our way of life? How must we worship Allah? What is Tawhid ar-uluhiyya, Tawhid al-'ibada and what are its requirements?

First: The remembrance of Allah has to be continuous and the desire to please Him permanent. His remembrance has to be at the centreof our life, at the bottom of our heart, of our emotion and activity. Seeking ihsan in everything and making everything sacred by this remembrance. In this jihad everyone of us is alone, completely alone, but we have to search for strength within our family (along with our parents, our wives, our husbands and our children) within our community (in the company of our brothers and sisters) we have to ask all the people we love to support us to face this test, with faith and sincerity. Our strength relies in this union:

"And hold fast, all together, unto the bond with God, and do not draw apart from one another" 3/103

We have to be unified, to be brothers and sisters in God, in faith and in love and, yet, we must keep in mind and face the reality of our personal fate, that is our loneliness before God: one day we shall be alone and God's questions will be personal:

"The Day on which neither wealth will be of any use, nor children, and when only he will be happy who comes before God with a heart free of evil" 26/89

"It will be a Day when no human being shall be of the least avail to another human being: for on that Day all sovereignty is Allah's alone" 82/19
Look at your wife, look at your husband, look at your children, look at your brothers and sisters...at everyone, carefully... and remember that they all will be absent this Day... and your money, and your possessions... Everything will have gone far away from you and your heart will be open before God:

"But does he not know that on the Last Day when all that is in the graves is raised and brought out, and all that is hidden in men's hearts is bared - that on that Day their Sustainer will show that He has always been fully aware of them?" 100/9-11
What have you done with La ilah IllAllah? What are you doing every day? Are trying truly, sincerely, permanently to purify your heart?

This is in fact the second requirement of Tawhid al'ibada: to purify our heart and prevent ourselves from shirk. This is the major sin which Allah does not forgive:

"Surely Allah will not forgive the association of partners with Him, but he forgives sins less than that of whomever He wishes" 4/48
Saying the shahada, we all know that we must not associate another divinity to God: This is the shirk al-akbar (the great shirk). But, as we know, there is another kind of shirk, al-shirk al-asghar, al shirk al-khafi, the hidden shirk, which is more pernicious and difficult to fight and repel. It takes possession of our heart: it happens then that we perform acts which are pleasing to Allah, with the tainted intention to please people. This is the meaning of ar-riya', to do something to be seen, and this could lead to hypocrisy: The Prophet said :
"The thing I fear the most for you is the minor Shirk. What is the minor shirk asked the companions. He said ar-riya'" (Muslim)
and
"Should I not inform you of that which I fear for you even more than the dangers of Dajjal? It is the hidden shirk : A person stands to pray and he beautifies his prayer because he sees the people looking at him" (Ibn Maja)

If this could happen with the prayers, then it could happen in every action. We know that... everyone of us... deep in our heart know very well that our intentions are not totally and continuously pure. Even 'Omar, al-faruq, our model by his determination, his uprightness, his rectitude and honesty, was afraid, till his last day of being a hypocrite. His is also a model for us in this intimate discussion with himself trying to master his failings and purifying his intentions. Remember, brothers and sisters, that our models, our examples are not only so because of their qualities but also, and maybe above all, through the way they daily, sincerely, patiently fought against their failings. For they were humans with their weaknesses, their fears and their sadness and they tried to do their best as we should try.

We have to try, as the Prophet's companions, to purify our hearts, to prayer for Allah only, to get married and educate our children for Allah, to act and to work for Allah, for Allah alone. This is not easy, it is a long, difficult, constant jihad, and individual struggle... far from people's eyes, in our heart, in order to be able to say - as it was commended to our Prophet:

"Say: "Behold, my prayer, and all my acts of worship, and my living and my dying are for God alone, the Sustainer of all worlds, in whose divinity none has a share: for thus have I been bidden - and I shall always be foremost among those who surrender themselves unto Him" 6/163

Who among us can say this, can repeat this verse and sincerely affirms: "Yes, my living and my dying are for God alone". This is yet the path of an authentic Tawhid al-'ibada. We must ask Allah to help us in our efforts, in our jihad. We have to increase our acts of worship and make sincere du'a. The Prophet taught his companions the way:

"Fear this hidden shirk, for it is even less conspicuous than the crawling of an ant. Someone asked O Messenger of Allah how can we avoid it when it is more hidden than the crawling of an ant? He answered: Say O Allah we seek refuge in you from committing shirk knowingly and ask your forgiveness for the shirk that we may commit unknowingly" (Ahmad)

The third requirement is to think of the Day of judgement. To live with God is to live with a deep and permanent awareness of the death and the final judgement. In our day to day life, in our activities, our work... the meditation on death should purify our intentions. It is quoted that 'Abdallah ibn 'Omar couldn't help crying when he heard these verses of surah al-mutaffifin:

"Woe unto those who give short measure: those who, when they are to receive their due from other people, demand that it be given in full - but when they have to measure or weight whatever they owe to others, give less than what is due!
Do they not know that they are bound to be raised from the dead and called to account on an awesome Day - The Day when all men shall stand before the Sustainer of all the worlds" 83/1-6

Hearing this verse he couldn't stop crying. According to the root, etymology of "mutafiffin" (tafif, which means light, insignificant) it is made reference here to "those who give short measure" even in what they consider as insignificant, without importance. But this is not so in the eyes of God and we will be called to account for everything:

"Verily, thy hearing, and sight and heart -all of them- will be called to account for it (on the Judgement Day)" 17/36

You know the story of this man who became Muslim. The Prophet asked a group of his companions to teach him his religion. After a few days, while learning the Qur'an, he heard surah al-zalzalah. When he heard the last two verses:

"And so, he who shall have done an atom's weight of good, shall behold it; and he who shall have done an atom's weight of evil, shall behold it"
He said: Did Allah truly reveal that? The companions answered: Yes. He said: "That's it. This is sufficient for me. I don't want to learn more than that. I will keep myself applying that". When informed the Prophet said: "This man said the truth" . That is to say that the fundamental teaching of our religion lies in these two verses: Once the Prophet said that surah al-zalazalah is similar to half the Qur'an. This is to say the importance of tawhid al-'ibada.

Nevertheless we don't have to cultivate in our heart and our mind a permanent guilty feeling since we think that we are not able to reach a level of total purity and sincerity. In Islam we have to avoid such a feeling, just as we have to avoid this feeling like victims of ourselves or victims of whatever enemies we face or government which oppresses us. We are neither guilty by nature nor victims by contingencies or circumstances. In Islam, before Allah, we are beings in charge of ourselves and our community and He has put us to a test. In Islam we are accountable before being guilty, we are in a test and we don't have to consider ourselves as victims of our passions and desires or victims of some dictator or oppressor. We can say, of course, that your brothers and sisters in Palestine, in Kashmir, in Kosovo, in Egypt or anywhere else are 'victims' but in fact their oppressors and dictators are nothing but instruments Allah uses to put us to a test. We will have to answer to the question: 'What have you done to bear witness of your shahada? What have you done with La illah illAllah?"

"Do men think that on their mere saying 'We have attain to faith' they will be left to themselves and will not be put to a test?" 29/1

Muslim and victim - in its specific meaning - are to contradictory terms. We are not victims of others and we are not victims of our own failings and unwilling desires. No one has to do more than he can, but what he is able to do, he must do. By asking Allah His help, His support, His forgiveness. Far from any kind of guilty feeling, our awareness to be responsible beings before Allah must go along with our faith and confidence in Him. We must remember that He knows, that He sees everything, our efforts, our tears, our sadness. We should not despair. We have to ask Allah and He will answer, In cha'.

" Say -thus speaks God:- O you servants of Mine who have transgressed against your own selves! Despair not of God's mercy: behold, God forgives all sins -for, verily, He alone is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace!" 39/53