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Tawḥīd
This page gathers what Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī teaches about tawḥīd, the oneness of God, across al-Tasnim: what God’s unity means, the unity of His lordship and of worship, “You alone we worship” (1:5), Abraham’s pure monotheism and hidden polytheism, and the Qur’an’s answer to the divinity of the Messiah and the Trinity (4:171; 5:72–76). Each answer is a short summary of his words, with links that open the passage in al-Tasnim.
What divine unity means
In what sense is God “one”?
A Bedouin asked Imam ʿAlī on the Day of the Camel whether he said God is one. The Imam replied that saying “one” has four meanings. Two are not true of God: “one” as a number, since what has no second does not enter the category of numbers, and “one” as a single member of a species, which likens Him to creatures.
Two are true of Him: He is one in that nothing resembles Him, and He is one in that He is not divided in existence, in the mind or in imagination. So, Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī explains, God is both unique, having no partner, and simple, having no parts.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 5:73–74 · A Discussion of the Narrations
Why can God not be counted alongside other beings?
“The Qur’an does not count God among any beings, because He cannot be counted.” Nothing sits beside Him as a second, and He encompasses all things, including the one who counts. Two lights, such as the sun and the moon, can be counted; but an infinite light present in every light, without mixing with it, leaves no room to speak of a “second light.” As Imam ʿAlī said, God is “One without number.”
So for one who grasps that God is the One, the All-Subjugating (13:16), polytheism is not merely false but impossible in itself: two gods “do not merely create problems in the world, but are essentially impossible,” because unlimited existence leaves no place for another.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 5:73–74 · Subtleties and Allusions · Verse 5:73–74 · Subtleties and Allusions
What is the unity of God’s attributes?
God’s perfections, such as knowledge, power and life, are identical to His essence and differ from it only in concept. This is what Imam ʿAlī means when he says that “the perfection of sincerity” is to negate attributes from Him: the same sermon goes on to describe God’s perfections, so what is negated is attributes added to the essence.
Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī therefore criticises the Ashʿarite view that God has attributes such as knowledge, power, life, hearing and sight in addition to His essence. Its consequence is hidden polytheism: if His knowledge were originated, He would lack knowledge in eternity, and if it were eternal, there would be many eternal beings, “which is worse than Trinity.”
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:30 · Subtleties and Allusions · Verse 4:171 · Subtleties and Allusions
What is the unity of God’s acts?
Because God’s lordship over all the worlds is absolute, nothing other than God has a real share in any act: only His grace governs existence, and the acts attributed to others are manifestations of His act. So the Qur’an says to the fighters: You did not slay them, but God slew them (8:17), and after the defeat of the wrongdoers it praises God, not the fighters (6:45).
The same holds for praise itself. Whoever praises God “is considered a sign among His signs and a manifestation among His manifestations,” so God is the real Praiser and His creatures praise Him secondarily. Even the Qur’an’s talk of reward, purchase or a loan to God is encouragement, not a claim the servant has on Him.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd, Verse 2 · Subtleties and Allusions · Surah al-Hamd, Verse 2 · Subtleties and Allusions
Lordship and worship
Why does God’s lordship return to His creatorship?
“The axis of the prophets’ propagation and the focus of their struggle with the enemies was divine unity of lordship.” The polytheists of Ḥijāz readily accepted that God created the world; what they denied was that He is Lord of human beings, which would make them answerable to Him. That lordship they gave to idols, stars or saints.
The Qur’an answers by taking their own admission of God’s creatorship. First, lordship is itself a kind of creating: to nurture something is to give it its perfections. Second, only the Creator knows a thing’s structure and needs, and so only He can nurture it: Our Lord is He who gave to each thing its form and nature, then guided it (20:50). Narrations from Imam al-Riḍā and Imam al-Ṣādiq likewise explain Lord of the Worlds as Creator.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd, Verse 2 · Subtleties and Allusions · Surah al-Hamd, Verse 2 · Discussion of the Narrations
Why must worship belong to God alone?
Once the unity of lordship is proven, the unity of worship follows: “If there is no Lord for the world other than God, then there is no object of worship other than Him.” Whether one worships out of fear, out of hope for His gifts, or out of longing to meet Him, each of these fits only the One who nurtures, manages and bestows.
Each of the names in Sūrah al-Ḥamd can serve as the middle step of such a proof. God holds every perfection, so He is “the sole object of worship and the sole source of help.” He is also the Lord, the Merciful and the Master of the Day of Judgment, the origin of all things and the end to which they return. So the Qur’an says: There is no god but He, the Creator of all things, so worship Him (6:102).
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd, Verse 2 · Subtleties and Allusions · Surah al-Hamd, Verse 5 · Detailed Exegesis
Why is worship the purpose of creation?
I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me (51:56). Yet worship is an intermediate goal, like a seed becoming a tree; its fruit is certainty: Worship your Lord until certainty comes to you (15:99). “Until” here names the fruit of worship, not its end, and worship never stops being needed.
Worship is “the goal of the created, not the Creator.” God, being absolutely self-sufficient, does not create in order to gain anything: if all on earth disbelieved, He would lose nothing (14:8). And since His creating reaches us at every moment, worship has no boundary; one who abandons it is like a tree that has stopped growing.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd, Verse 5 · Subtleties and Allusions
“You alone we worship”
What does “You alone we worship” teach about tawḥīd?
The verse could have said “we worship none but You,” but it puts “You” first. The monotheist sees God before anything else and speaks of Him first: “a person who has torn the veil of heedlessness only sees Him.”
Even the grammar observes tawḥīd. We address God with the singular “You” (iyyāka), not a respectful plural, “so as not to imply polytheism,” since He has no partner. And You alone we ask for help follows You alone we worship because we are not independent even in our worship: “we worship only You, and in this worship too, we act with Your assistance.”
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd, Verse 5 · Subtleties and Allusions · Surah al-Hamd, Verse 5 · Detailed Exegesis
What is pure tawḥīd in worship?
Worship has three pillars: the One worshipped, the worshipper and the act of worship, the first being the most important. A worshipper who sees himself, his worship and the One he worships “falls into the trap of the Trinity.” One who sees his worship and God but not himself is still in duality. Only one who “loses sight of both himself and his worship, focusing solely on the object of worship,” reaches annihilation in God and pure tawḥīd.
So the monotheist sees nothing as his own. Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī cites his teacher ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī: “God, the Glorious, is a creditor whose right is never fulfilled.” Every reward is from God’s grace, and every good deed calls for fresh praise for the success to do it.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd, Verse 5 · Subtleties and Allusions · Surah al-Hamd, Verse 5 · Subtleties and Allusions
What threatens tawḥīd in worship?
“Monotheism in worship has an inner enemy and an outer enemy.” The inner enemy is the self’s desire; the outer is Satan, who works through that desire: I will surely mislead them and arouse desires in them (4:119). One who follows them and still says You alone we worship in prayer is not truthful: he “has built an idol temple within himself.” He is the one who takes his own desire as his god (45:23).
“Taking as a god” means submitting to something as if it had independent power. So “in every sin a human being makes the desire of their soul their god,” whether they confess it or not. Abraham’s words, Fie upon you and what you worship besides God (21:67), still apply to such worshippers of desire today.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd, Verse 5 · Subtleties and Allusions · Verse 5:116 · The Meaning of “Taking as God”
See also: Glimpse: Threats to Devotional Monotheism
Does obeying the Prophet, the Imams or parents compromise tawḥīd?
No. Tawḥīd in worship means that a person obeys no one but God in any matter. Yet the command to obey parents, or the Messenger and those vested with authority (4:59), “never contradicts” it, because obeying them is in reality obeying God and answering His own command. Obedience to God allows no partners: it is not that one obeys God in some matters and the law, those in authority or parents in others. Every other obedience rests on God’s command.
So obedience to people has a limit: “There is no obedience to the created in disobedience to the Creator.” All obedience comes back to obeying God, and You alone we worship (1:5), like the command belongs only to God (12:40), stays absolute.
Read in al-Tasnim: Surah al-Hamd, Verse 5 · Subtleties and Allusions
Abraham and hidden polytheism
Why does the Qur’an stress that Abraham “was not of the polytheists”?
No one suspected Abraham of polytheism, so the Qur’an’s insistence on it (2:135; 3:67) has a purpose: to show that Judaism and Christianity, as they came to be, do not follow his religion. By calling some humans sons of God (9:30) and believing in a Trinity (5:73), they fell into polytheism. Like those who split the Qur’an into parts, they divided Abraham’s single monotheistic religion and each kept a piece.
The argument runs: “Abraham was not a polytheist. You (Jews and Christians) are polytheists. Therefore, he was not of your religion.” Nor does this make him one of the idolaters, since ḥanīf, upright, is the opposite of polytheist. The Prophet was commanded to follow this same religion of Abraham (16:123).
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:135 · The Secret Behind Emphasizing Abraham’s Freedom from Polytheism · Verse 2:135 · Judaism and Christianity Corrupted the Monotheistic Religion of Abraham
See also: Key Debate: A Persuasive or a Demonstrative Answer?
How can a believer still be a polytheist?
Islam has many degrees, and “for every degree of Islam, there is a corresponding degree of disbelief, polytheism, and hypocrisy.” Whoever has not reached the higher degrees has some hidden polytheism of which they are unaware. This is why most of them do not believe in God except while associating others with Him (12:106): people give God a “second,” saying “First God, second such-and-such thing or person.”
Imam al-Ṣādiq said that whoever says “Had it not been for so-and-so, I would have perished” has given God a partner; but it is fine to say “Had God not favoured me through so-and-so.” The monotheist speaks like Abraham: It is He who feeds me and gives me drink, and when I am ill, it is He who cures me (26:79–80). Bread, water and the doctor are channels of His mercy.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:131 · Subtleties and Allusions · Verse 2:131 · Subtleties and Allusions
See also: Glimpse: Polytheistic Believers
Why is pure monotheism so difficult?
“Monotheism, contrary to the belief of most believers who consider it an easy matter,” is one of the loftiest and hardest qualities of belief. Ordinary people mostly rely on other than God; a narration even says that one who humbles himself before a rich man for his wealth loses two-thirds of his religion.
Sin is a road to polytheism: it “gradually leads a person to practical polytheism, then to moral polytheism, and finally to doctrinal polytheism.” That is why nothing outweighs There is no god but God: light on the tongue but heavy on the scale, so that the heavens and the earth could not balance it.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:135 · Subtleties and Allusions · Verse 2:135 · Subtleties and Allusions
The Messiah, the Trinity and false gods
How does the Qur’an answer those who say God is the Messiah?
With several simple proofs. It calls him the Messiah, son of Mary (5:72): everyone agrees he was born of Mary, and the child of a created being is created, while divinity requires lordship and lordship requires creatorship. Jesus himself said, Worship God, my Lord and your Lord, confessing his own servanthood, and he declared that whoever associates partners with God is barred from Paradise.
He was only a messenger, like the messengers before him (5:75). If birth without a father made him divine, Adam, with neither father nor mother, would have a better claim (3:59). And they both used to eat food: Jesus and his mother were in need, “while God has no need, so those two are not God.”
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 5:72 · The Belief in the Divinity of Jesus and Its Refutation · Verse 5:75 · Proving Unity and Refuting the Trinity with Simple Proofs
See also: Key Debate: “God Is the Messiah” or “the Third of Three”?
Why is “the third of three” disbelief, but “the fourth of three” pure monotheism?
To call God the third of three (5:73) puts Him on the same level as two others, one of three countable persons, which makes Him limited and created. The Trinity is also self-contradictory: how can God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit be three gods and yet one?
But the Qur’an also says that in every secret conversation of three, God is their fourth (58:7). He is with each of them and encompasses them all, yet they remain three, because God “does not have a specific and limited place to be beside others so as to be counted.” So He is “the fourth of three,” never “the fourth of four” or “the third of three.”
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 5:73–74 · Establishing Monotheism and Refuting Polytheism · Verse 5:73–74 · Establishing Monotheism and Refuting Polytheism
Why is every form of the Trinity false?
Do not say “Three.” Desist; it is better for you. God is but One God (4:171). The verse rules out every form a trinity could take: one divine nature with three instances, one God made of three parts, or three independent gods. Its reach goes beyond Christian doctrine to every kind of dualism or trinity, since once tawḥīd is established all else falls.
The error grew from neglect in knowing God and excess in raising the prophets above messengership. Faith in God and His messengers means declaring Him free of spouse and child. So the Qur’an follows at once with His ownership: to Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and on the earth. This, he says, is the Qur’an’s way of removing any notion that God has offspring.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 4:171 · The Incompatibility of Faith with Trinity Worship · Verse 4:171 · The Absolute Ownership of God
See also: Key Debate: Excess about the Messiah: “Son of God” and the Trinity
Why is worshipping anything other than God futile?
Worship is done because it brings benefit and its neglect brings harm. A being whose worship brings no benefit and whose neglect brings no harm cannot be truly worshipped; worshipping it is futile, whether it is a stone or a human. Do you worship besides God that which has no power to harm or benefit you? (5:76).
Even the greatest servants own nothing for themselves: the Prophet was told to say I do not possess for myself any harm or benefit (7:188), and Moses’ staff and Jesus’ bird of clay came alive only by God’s permission. So the pure monotheist loves God’s vicegerent as a manifestation of God; in this light both seeking his mediation (tawassul) and pure tawḥīd find their true meaning.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 5:76 · The Secret of the Futility of Worshipping Other Than God · Verse 5:76 · The Ineffectiveness of False Deities
Is the polytheist barred from Paradise?
Whoever associates partners with God, God has forbidden him Paradise (5:72). This “forbidding” is not a legal prohibition like that of usury; it is an existential deprivation. The polytheist is kept from Paradise and even from the Heights, and the Fire is his abode. This also answers the claim that Jesus was crucified to save polytheists. The verse does not speak about sinful monotheists, whose case needs other evidence.
Yet Jesus also says, If You forgive them, You are the All-mighty, the All-wise (5:118), about those who took him and his mother as gods. The threat against unrepentant polytheists is non-forgiveness (4:48), but, as Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī explains, “such a ruling never has dominance over God,” who can also forgive the polytheist. A report of what will happen must come true; a threat is a performative statement, and departing from it is no fault.
Read in al-Tasnim: Verse 5:72 · The Deprivation of the Polytheist from Paradise · Verse 5:118 · The Possibility of Forgiveness for Polytheists