Fourth: The Foundations of Islam

Islam is fundamentally based on knowing Allah, which is attained through Allah, since there is nothing more known than Him that could serve as an intermediary for knowing Him; like light that is seen by its very essence and acts as an intermediary for seeing everything else; as Allah Almighty has said: ﴿اللَّهُ نُورُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ﴾[1]; “Allah is the light of the heavens and the Earth”—in view of the fact that everything that is seen is seen through light, and accordingly, seeing it is impossible before seeing light. Similarly, everything that exists comes into being through Allah, and accordingly, its existence is impossible before Allah’s existence. Therefore, knowing Allah acts as an intermediary for knowing everything and, in this sense, takes precedence over knowing it—even though, due to its extreme self-evidence, this goes unnoticed.

[The Oneness of Allah]

As for knowing Allah, it necessitates His oneness, meaning recognizing that He is One. This is because the existence of all beings in the world is one, although their essences—which are their measures of existence—are manifold; and the one inevitably originates from one origin, given that it cannot originate from multiple origins. The oneness of the Origin is established in three dimensions.

[The Oneness of Allah in Takwin]

The first dimension is takwin, in the sense of creation, sustenance, and management of beings; considering that creating them—meaning bringing them into existence and determining their measure—by two origins would necessarily lead to contradiction, yet there is no contradiction among them, but rather harmony is observed; as Allah Almighty has said: ﴿مَا تَرَى فِي خَلْقِ الرَّحْمَنِ مِنْ تَفَاوُتٍ﴾[2]; “You do not see any contradiction in the creation of Allah”—especially considering that contradiction entails corruption, meaning disorder in the order of the universe; as Allah Almighty has said: ﴿لَوْ كَانَ فِيهِمَا آلِهَةٌ إِلَّا اللَّهُ لَفَسَدَتَا﴾[3]; “If there were gods other than Allah in them, they would have become corrupted,” and: ﴿إِذًا لَذَهَبَ كُلُّ إِلَهٍ بِمَا خَلَقَ وَلَعَلَا بَعْضُهُمْ عَلَى بَعْضٍ﴾[4]; “In that case, surely each god would have taken away what he had created, and surely some of them would have sought superiority over some others.”