A Closer Look at “lā ilāha illā Allāh”

lā ilāha illā Allāh
This statement of tawheed or “oneness” of Allah (monotheism) is the heart of Islam, a complete system of values, laws for their implementation, and worship/ devotion (faith) that does not claim to be a separate “religion” that came with the prophet Mohammad, but rather the very same such system (with some changes in the details but not the basic principles) sent to “al-aalameen,” “the worlds,” all people with minds, free will, and language since such people began to exist.

Jews and Christians can recognize in it the First Commandment, the basis for sacred law and faith. Other seemingly more divergent but major such systems, for example Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, also reveal common ground if viewed more closely and in greater depth.

The statement is simple:

لا أله إلا الله
lā ilāha illā allāh
“There is no god (one to be worshipped/ higher authority) but God.”

Simple, but profound. And in the original Arabic, full of signs and wonders for those who care to see…and hear.

Allah in the Quran and Abstract Thought

As mentioned frequently on this website, “thinking” is mentioned in the Quran itself so often that its significance as an imperative is indisputable. Thinking, in Arabic the verb form of ‘aql  which in modern Arabic means “mind” or intellect, is used in parallel with “faith” or “to have faith in/ believe”, implying that without thinking there can be no faith. This stands in direct opposition to the Christian concept of a “leap of faith” in which the believer accepts “absurdity” — precepts that contradict one’s own logic — and therefore “leaps” over or sidesteps the intellect in favor of a particular belief, such as the confounding of human with divine in the deification of Jesus. Some Islamic movements such as the salafi,  reject the use of the mind in favor of unquestioning adherence to a dogma based on certain hadeeths or sayings of Prophet Mohammad, and narrow interpretations of Quranic text, in effect creating an Islam much like “evangelical” Christianity: dogmatic, rigid, and hostile to logic or scientific or abstract thought, which are viewed as dangerous.

The Quran clearly admonishes the exact opposite: freedom of thought and faith arrived at by one’s own inquiry and inherent logic, based on a clearly elucidated tenet that faith in Allah is the logical conclusion of deep and unadulterated (by compulsion) meditation and intellect-based thinking which at its core is reverence for Allah. Thinking, in the Quran, takes place in the heart, where it sorts out intuition, experience, emotions, ideas, and uses logic.

Day 3: The Power of Praise

“Praise” is an easy word to be glib about, saying such platitudes as “we must be grateful for all we have,” but the Quran mentions al-hamd so frequently and with such significance that I was struck with a lesser-noticed attribute: sheer power. Past the invocation or Bismallah, the first word in the Quran is al-hamd, or “praise.” But in a sense it is also the last word, as this aya indicates…