Original content

English translation

His saying, the Exalted: 'And your God is One God' (2:163/al-Baqarah). And His saying, the Exalted: 'Say, He is God, the One' (112:1/al-Ikhlas)... to the end. And His saying, the Exalted: 'Do not take two gods; He is only One God' (16:51/al-Nahl). And the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: 'There was a man among those before you who never did any good deed except Tawhid (professing God's unity). He said to his family: When I die, burn me, then grind me up, then scatter me — half over the land and half over the sea on a windy day. So they did. Then God, Mighty and Glorious, said to the wind: Gather what you have taken. And behold, he was before Him. He said to him: What led you to do what you did? He said: Shame before You. So He forgave him.' [In Persian:] 'There was a man before you who had no good deed except Tawhid, and his death drew near. He said to his family: When I die, burn me and gather my ashes, and on a windy day cast half into the sea and give half to the wind in the desert, so that no trace of me remains. They did so. God, Mighty and Glorious, commanded the wind and the water: Keep what you have taken — that is, the ashes. They keep it until the Resurrection. Then, when God brings him back to life, He says: What made you burn yourself? He says: O Lord, I was ashamed before You, for I had been very disobedient. Then God the Exalted says: I have forgiven you.'

The reality of Tawhid is to judge the oneness of a thing on the basis of sound knowledge of its oneness. Since the Truth, be He exalted, is one — without division in His Essence and Attributes, and without substitute or partner in His acts — and the professors of unity know Him by this attribute, their knowledge of His oneness is called Tawhid.

Tawhid is of three kinds: first, the Tawhid of the Truth for the Truth, which is His knowledge of His own oneness; second, the Tawhid of the Truth for creation, which is His decree of the servant's Tawhid and the creation of Tawhid in his heart; and third, the Tawhid of creation for the Truth, which is their knowledge of the oneness of God, Mighty and Glorious.

So when the servant is a knower (arif) of the Truth, he can decree His oneness. Know that He, the Exalted, is One who accepts neither joining nor separation, and duality is not permissible for Him. His oneness is not numerical, such that by affirming another number it would become two; nor is His oneness numerical and bounded, such that He would have the six directions, and each direction would require another six directions — and this affirmation of numbers would be endless. He has no place and is not in a place, such that by affirming place He would be located, and place too would require a place, and the rule of act and agent, eternal and originated, would collapse. He is not an accident, such that He would need a substance and not remain subsisting in its locus through two states; nor a substance, whose existence is not established except with something like itself; nor a nature, such that He would be the source of rest and motion; nor a spirit, such that He would need a bodily structure; nor a body, such that He would have composed parts; and in things there is no power or state, such that He would be of the genus of things; and He has no connection to anything, such that that thing other than Him would be permissible for Him. He is free of all deficiency and defects, pure of all afflictions, exalted above all faults. He has no likeness, such that He and His likeness would be two things. He has no child, such that His progeny would require the conjoining of one who joins with Him. Change is not permissible upon His Essence and Attributes, such that His existence would be altered by it — and in the ruling of the changing, how could there be change? He is described by the attributes of perfection, those attributes that the professors of unity affirm for Him by the rule of insight and guidance, that He has made Himself with that attribute; and He is free of those attributes that the heretics attribute to Him by their own whim, with which He has not made Himself. Exalted is God above what the wrongdoers say.

He is Living and Knowing. He is Kind and Merciful. He is Willing and Powerful. He is Hearing and Seeing. He is Speaking and Everlasting. His knowledge is not a state within Him. His power is not a hardness within Him. His hearing and sight are not renewed within Him. His speech has no partition or delimitation within Him. He is ever eternal with His attributes. All knowables are not outside His knowledge. Existents cannot escape His will. He does what He has willed. He wills what He has known. Creatures have no oversight of His secrets. His decree is all truth; for His friends there is nothing but submission. His command is all binding; for those who will Him there is no recourse but carrying out the command. He is the ordainer of good and evil; hope and fear are fitting to none but Him. He is the creator of benefit and harm; His decree is entirely wisdom, and there is no way but contentment. None has a scent of union with Him, and there is no way to reach Him. His vision is permitted for the people of Paradise; likening and directions are unfitting. There is no form of confrontation or facing to His being. In this world the contemplation (mushahada) of Him is permissible for the saints, and denial is not a condition. Whoever knows Him thus is not of the people of separation, and whoever knows contrary to this has no religion.

On this meaning much speech comes, principles and chapters, but for fear of prolixity I have confined myself to this.

In sum, I, who am Ali ibn Uthman al-Jullabi, say: At the beginning of this chapter I said that Tawhid is to decree the oneness of a thing, and a decree cannot be made except by knowledge. So the people of the Sunna decreed the oneness of God the Exalted by verification, because they saw a subtle craft and a marvelous act with many wonders and subtleties. They reflected, held it impossible for those crafts to exist of themselves, and found in everything the manifest signs of origination. Inevitably an agent was needed to bring it from nonexistence to existence — that is, the world with its earth and heaven, sun and moon, land and sea, mountain and desert, with so many forms, motions, and stillnesses, and their knowledge, speech, death, and life. So this whole could not do without a Maker, and was independent of two or three: one perfect Maker — Living, Knowing, Learned, Powerful, and Free-choosing — independent of any partner alongside other partners. Since an act cannot do without one agent, and the existence of two agents is not needed for one act, inevitably there must be one.

And they disputed this with us: the dualists (thanawiyya) by affirming light and darkness; the Gabrs (Zoroastrians) by affirming Yazdan and Ahriman; the naturalists by affirming nature and force; the astralists by affirming the seven planets; and the Mu'tazilites by affirming endless creators and makers. And I refuted the whole with a brief proof; this book is not the place for establishing the follies of those sects. The seeker of this knowledge should seek this question from a more extended book that I have made and named al-Ri'aya li-Huquq Allah, the Exalted, or from the books of the foremost masters of the principles, may God be pleased with them.

Now I return to the symbols that the masters have spoken concerning Tawhid, by the granting of success of God, the Exalted.