The Oneness of God

The foundation of the Islamic faith is belief in the Oneness of Almighty God - the God of Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus.  Islam teaches that a pure belief in One God is intuitive in human beings and thus fulfils the natural inclination of the soul.  As such, Islam’s concept of God is straightforward, unambiguous and easy to understand.  Islam teaches that the hearts, minds and souls of human beings are fitting receptacles for clear divine revelation, and that God’s revelations to man are not clouded by self-contradictory mysteries or irrational ideas.  As such, Islam teaches that even though God cannot be fully comprehended and grasped by our finite human minds, He also does not expect us to accept absurd or demonstrably false beliefs about Him.

In short, in the Islamic concept of God, which is completely based on Divine Revelation, there is no ambiguity in divinity - God is God and man is man.  Since God is the only Creator and continual Sustainer of the Universe, He is transcendent above His creation - the Creator and the creature never mix.  Islam teaches that God has a unique nature and that He is free from gender, human weaknesses and beyond anything which human beings can imagine.  The Quran teaches that the signs and proofs of God’s wisdom, power and existence are evident in the world around us.  As such, God calls on man to ponder over the creation in order to build a better understanding of his Creator.  

Muslims believe that God is Loving, Compassionate and Merciful, and that He is concerned with the daily affairs of human beings.  In this, Islam strikes a unique balance between false religious and philosophical extremes.  Some religions and philosophies portray God as just an impersonal “Higher Power” who is uninterested, or unaware, of the life of each individual human.  Other religions tend to give God human qualities and teach that He is present in His creation, by being incarnate in someone, something - or even everything.  In Islam, however, Almighty God has clarified the truth by letting mankind know that He is “Compassionate”, “Merciful”, “Loving” and the “Answerer of Prayers”.  But He has also emphasized strongly that “there is nothing like unto Him”, and that He is high above time, space and His creation.  Finally, it should be mentioned that the God that Muslims worship is the same God that Jews and Christians worship - because there is only one God.  It is unfortunate that some people mistakenly believe that Muslims worship a different God than Jews and Christians, and that “Allah” is just the “god of the Arabs”.  This myth, which has been propagated by the enemies of Islam, is completely false since the word “Allah” is simply the Arabic name for Almighty God.  It is the same word for God which is used by Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians.  However, it should be clarified that even though Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christian, their concept of Him differs somewhat from the beliefs of other religions - mainly because it is based completely on Divine Revelation from God.  For example, Muslims reject the Christian belief that God is a Trinity, not only because the Quran rejects it, but also because if this was God’s true nature, He would have clearly revealed it to Abraham, Noah, Jesus and all of the other prophets.