Introduction

The main focal point of the Quranic worldview, and the cornerstone upon which the whole edifice of Muslim religious thought has been founded, is the notion of tawḥd, or the declaration of ‘Divine unity’. There is, as many Western writers have pointed out, an uncompromising monotheism at the heart of the Islamic revelation which distinguishes Islam from other major religions. This is not to say that, in theory at least, the unity of God is any less a reality in, say, Christianity or Judaism, than it is in Islam. Traditionally, however, the emphasis on Divine unity in Muslim theology has far outweighed the attention paid to this concept by theologians in other faiths.

That there is one God, and that all created beings are created by and attributable to Him alone, is to express the concept of tawḥd at its simplest level, uncluttered by the jargon of the theologians, who argued and debated the nature of Divine unity for several centuries after the death of Muhammad. This simple expression of Divine unity is one which can be read in and between every line of the Quran, which is not surprising given that the word ‘God’ occurs therein more than 3000 times.

What may come as a surprise at first glance, however, is that despite the numerous mentions of the word ‘God’, the Quran does not employ any rigorous philosophical arguments to prove God’s existence. Indeed, it may be argued that the Quran does not attempt to prove the existence of God at all. Rather, in keeping with the mission of the prophets who preceded Muhammad, the Quran sets out to ‘prove’ not that there is a God, but that the God which exists – and to whose existence everyone ultimately attests, according to the Quran – is one. The Quran, it would appear, sees no need to prove the existence of God, not least because it presupposes that all humans are believers in an originator of being itself, regardless of how that originator is described. The central message of the Quran is thus not that God exists but that God is single and unique, and that everything that is ‘otherthan- God’ depends on Him for its being. It is for this reason that the first fundamental of the Muslim faith is ‘Divine unity’ and not ‘Divine existence’. However, in demonstrating Divine unity, the Quran also paints a vivid picture of the Creator so that man may augment his conceptual knowledge of God’s oneness with a more immediate awareness of God’s ‘character’, or the ‘names’ and ‘attributes’ by which He makes Himself known in the creation. For logic would seem to dictate that it is only through uncovering the truths and realities concerning God that man may come to know, worship and love Him, and in doing so fulfil the requirements of his role, ordained by the Quran, as Divine ‘vicegerent’ on earth.