IB World Religions 5.1.1. Tawhid, Iman and Islam: the Oneness of Allah Notes

5.1.1. Tawhid, Iman and Islam: The Oneness of Allah

Tawhid and the shahadah

1. Tawhid (the oneness of Allah) is the first and governing claim of Islam, and Muslims hold that everything else in the religion follows from it. The word is built on an Arabic root meaning to make one, so it names an act of affirming as much as a fact affirmed.
2. The claim is put into words by the shahadah (testimony of faith): la ilaha illa Allah, there is no god but Allah. Muslims treat the denial and the affirmation as a single move, clearing away every rival before naming the one.
3. Surah al-Ikhlas, the 112th surah of the Qur'an, is the compressed statement of the doctrine. It calls Allah ahad (one, unique), says that He does not beget and is not begotten, and denies that anything is comparable to Him.
4. Muslim theologians speak of Allah under two headings that pull in different directions. Tanzih insists that Allah is beyond all likeness to creation, while the asma' al-husna (the ninety-nine beautiful names) let believers address Him as merciful, just and near.
5. Sunni, Shi'ah and Sufi Muslims all hold tawhid, and differ in emphasis rather than in the claim itself. Many modern Sunni reformists set the doctrine out in three parts, lordship, worship, and names and attributes, while Twelver Shi'ah theology pairs tawhid with 'adl (divine justice) as the first two roots of religion.

Iman and its articles

1. Iman (faith in Allah) is trust and assent rather than guesswork, and Muslims describe it as something that can grow stronger or weaker over a life. A mu'min is a person of faith, and the Qur'an frequently addresses its audience by that title.
2. Classical Sunni teaching lists six articles of iman: belief in Allah, in His mala'ikah (angels), in His kutub (revealed books), in His rusul (messengers), in the akhirah (life after death) and in qadar (divine decree).
3. Twelver Shi'ah teaching arranges much of the same ground under five usul al-din (roots of religion): tawhid, 'adl (divine justice), nubuwwah (prophethood), imamah (the guidance of the imams) and ma'ad (the return for judgment).
4. The difference is instructive rather than merely technical. Sunni theology usually treats justice as one divine attribute among many, while Shi'ah theology makes it a root, holding that Allah never acts unjustly and that human beings are genuinely answerable for their choices.
5. A much cited hadith reports the angel Jibril questioning the Prophet Muhammad about three things, and the answers give the tradition its working map. Islam is named as the outward acts, iman as the inward beliefs, and ihsan as worshipping Allah as though you could see Him.

Islam as submission

1. Islam means submission to the will of Allah. The word shares a root with salam (peace), and Muslims often gloss it as the peace that follows from accepting Allah's guidance rather than fighting it.
2. A Muslim is one who submits. The word describes an activity rather than an inherited label, which is why the tradition speaks of earlier prophets and their followers as muslims in exactly that sense.
3. Muslims hold that Islam is practice and not only belief. Assent that never reaches the limbs is treated as unfinished, so the tradition looks for faith in prayer, charity, fasting and honest dealing.
4. Fitrah is the teaching that every person is born already inclined to recognise one Creator. Because of it Muslims speak of reversion rather than conversion, since someone entering Islam is held to be returning to an original state and not adopting a foreign one.
5. Iman and islam are distinguished without being separated. The Qur'an corrects some desert Arabs who claimed to have believed, telling them to say instead that they had submitted, since faith had not yet entered their hearts.

Shirk and its forms

1. Shirk means regarding anything as equal or partner to Allah, and Muslims treat it as the exact contradiction of tawhid. Its root means to share, so the offence lies in sharing out what belongs to Allah alone.
2. The Qur'an describes it as the one thing Allah does not forgive in a person who dies holding it, while adding that He forgives whatever is less than that for whomever He wills.
3. Scholars separate shirk jali (open shirk), such as worshipping an idol or a second god, from shirk khafi (hidden shirk), of which the standard case is riya', performing worship in order to be seen by other people.
4. Muslims disagree about where the line falls in practice. Many Sufi and Shi'ah Muslims visit shrines and seek shafa'ah (intercession) from the Prophet or the imams, holding that they are asking Allah through a servant He favours.
5. Salafi and other reformist Sunnis reject those practices as shirk in worship. The argument is live rather than academic, shaping real disputes over tombs, shrine festivals and pilgrimage sites across the Muslim world.

Kufr and unbelief

1. Kufr (unbelief) is built on a root meaning to cover or conceal, so the underlying image is of hiding something that has already been shown. Classical Arabic uses the same verb for a farmer covering seed with soil.
2. Because of that root Muslims hear ingratitude in the word as well as denial. The Qur'an repeatedly pairs thankfulness towards Allah with faith, and covering over His signs with rejection.
3. A kafir is one who does this. The Qur'an uses the term for those who knowingly reject the message, and scholars have long warned against throwing it at people loosely.
4. Kufr and shirk overlap without being identical. Shirk names one specific error about Allah's oneness, while kufr names the wider refusal of what Muslims hold Allah has revealed.
5. Takfir, declaring another Muslim an unbeliever, is tightly restricted in mainstream Sunni and Shi'ah scholarship. A well known hadith warns that the charge rebounds on whoever makes it wrongly, and most jurists hold that anyone who says the shahadah is to be treated as a Muslim.

Tawhid in daily practice

1. Tawhid shows first in what a mosque does not contain. There are no images of Allah and no statues, and the Prophet Muhammad is never depicted, so calligraphy and geometric pattern carry the decoration instead.
2. Speech is marked in the same way. Muslims open actions with the basmalah (in the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful) and attach insha'Allah (if Allah wills) to any statement about the future.
3. The doctrine frames a life from one end to the other. The shahadah is recited to a newborn and prompted to the dying, so the first and last words a Muslim hears state the oneness of Allah.
4. Sufi teaching drives tawhid inward. Practitioners repeat la ilaha illa Allah in dhikr (remembrance of Allah), and the school of Ibn 'Arabi developed wahdat al-wujud (the oneness of being), which other scholars have criticised for blurring the line between Creator and creation.
5. Across the branches the practical upshot is shared. Muslims hold that if Allah alone is worthy of worship, then no ruler, ancestor, possession or appetite may be obeyed as though it were.