سورة الإخلاص

Imam al-Jawad (peace be upon him): Abu Hashim al-Ja'fari said: I asked Imam al-Jawad (peace be upon him): "In the words of Allah the Exalted قُلْ هُوَ اللهُ أَحَدٌ [Say: He, Allah, is One], what is the meaning of al-Ahad (the One)?" He said: "The One upon whose oneness all are agreed. Have you not heard that Allah the Exalted said: 'And if you ask them: Who created the heavens and the earth, and subjected the sun and the moon? They will surely say: Allah! So how are they diverted [from the worship of Allah]?!' (al-Ankabut/61). But after that they say: He has a partner and a consort."

Imam al-Baqir (peace be upon him): It is narrated from Imam al-Baqir (peace be upon him) that regarding the words of Allah the Exalted قُلْ هُوَ اللهُ أَحَدٌ [Say: He, Allah, is One] he said: قُلْ (Say) means: make manifest what We have revealed to you and sent you with, in that same composition of letters which We recited to you: "or gives ear with a present heart" (Qaf/37), so that they may be guided by it. And هُوَ (He) is a name by way of allusion, indicating what is unseen. The ha' is a particle of alerting to a fixed meaning, and the waw is an indication of what is absent from the senses, just as your saying هَذَا (this) is an indication of what is present before the senses. That is because the disbelievers indicated their gods with the particle of pointing to a present, perceived thing, and said: "These are our tangible gods, perceived by sight — so you too, O Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family), point to your Allah to whom you call us, so that we may see Him and perceive Him and not remain perplexed regarding Him." At that Allah the Blessed and Exalted revealed قُلْ هُوَ اللهُ أَحَدٌ. So the ha' is the affirmation of the Fixed One, and the waw is an indication of the One absent from the perception of sight and the touch of the senses; and Allah is exalted above that — rather, He Himself perceives the sights and originates the senses.

Imam Ali (peace be upon him): Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him) narrated from his forefathers from the Commander of the Faithful, Ali (peace be upon him), who said: One night before the Battle of Badr, I saw Khidr (peace be upon him) in a dream. I said to him: "Teach me something by which I may be victorious over the enemies." He said: "Say: یَا هُوَ یَا مَنْ لَا هُوَ إِلَّا هُوَ [O He, O the One besides whom there is no He but He]." When morning came, I recounted this dream to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family). He said: "O Ali (peace be upon him)! You have been taught the Greatest Name (al-Ism al-A'zam). These words were on my tongue on the day of Badr." The Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon him) recited قُلْ هُوَ اللهُ أَحَدٌ [Say: He, Allah, is One], and when he finished it, he said: "O Allah, O the One besides whom there is no one! Forgive me and grant me victory over the disbelieving people." He would also say these words on the day of Siffin as he charged. At that moment Ammar ibn Yasir said: "O Commander of the Faithful! What are these allusions?" He said: "The Greatest Name of Allah and the pillar of tawhid (oneness) of Allah, besides whom there is no god." Then he [recited] شَهِدَ اللهُ أَنَّهُ لا إِلهَ إِلَّا هُوَ [Allah bears witness — by establishing the single order of the universe of existence — that there is no god but He] (Aal Imran/18) and recited the final verses of Surah al-Hashr, then dismounted from his steed and offered four rakats of prayer before sunset. And the Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon him) said: "Allah means the Worshipped One in whom the creatures are bewildered and to whom they seek uluhiyyah (a way and refuge), and Allah is hidden from the grasp of eyes and veiled from imaginations and thoughts."

Imam Baqir (peace be upon him): Allah means the Worshipped One in grasping whose essence and encompassing whose modality the creatures are bewildered. The Arabs say alaha al-rajul when a person is bewildered by something and his knowledge does not encompass it, and walaha when a person takes refuge in something out of fear of what he dreads. So the ilah (deity) is the one who is hidden from the senses of people.

Imam Baqir (peace be upon him): Ahad means one and without peer. Ahad and Wahid both have the same meaning, and it is the peerless One who has no counterpart. Tawhid is the affirmation of oneness in the sense of being singular. Wahid means one who cannot be resembled, who is not derived from anything and is not identified with anything. It is for this reason that they have said the construction of numbers is from the wahid (one), and the wahid itself is not counted among numbers; because number does not apply to one, but rather applies to ithnayn (two). So the meaning of His statement اللهُ أَحَدٌ [Allah is One] is: the Worshipped One from grasping whom and encompassing whose modality the creatures are ma'luh (bewildered) and dazed, and He is singular in His divinity and lordship, and is loftier than the attributes of His creation.

Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him): They asked the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) about the description (nisbah) of Allah the Mighty and Majestic. Allah the Mighty and Majestic revealed: He is Allah, the One, the Single, the Eternal Refuge whom all the needy turn towards; the Allah who [never] begot, and was not begotten, and there has never been for Him any likeness or peer! The meaning of أَحَدٌ is that He does not have parts, differing members, or divisions, and there are no sides or extremities [or directions] in Him. And the meaning of "Wahid" is that He is one light without variation.

Ali ibn Ibrahim (may Allah have mercy on him): In the words of Allah the Exalted, aḥad means One in attribute, just as the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) said: "He is a light in which there is no darkness, and a knowledge in which there is no ignorance."

The Prophet (peace be upon him and his family): Ibn Abbas (may Allah have mercy on him) said: The Quraysh in Mecca said to the noble Prophet (peace be upon him and his family): "Describe your Lord for us so that we may know Him and thus worship Him." Then Allah the Blessed and Exalted revealed upon the noble Prophet (peace be upon him and his family): قُلْ هُوَ اللهُ أَحَدٌ [Say: He, Allah, is One], meaning He is indivisible, not composed of parts, without modality, and no name of number, nor increase, nor decrease applies to Him.

Imam Ali (peace be upon him): It is narrated from Amir al-Mu'minin (peace be upon him) regarding the interpretation of this surah that he said: اللهُ أَحَدٌ [Allah is One] without interpreting the number in His regard.

Imam Baqir (peace be upon him): Regarding the attribute of Allah the Eternal, he said: "Indeed, He is One and Solid; He is single in meaning, and does not have many and varied meanings."

Imam Rida (peace be upon him): He said that he heard these from Imam Rida (peace be upon him) on various occasions and compiled them. If someone were to say: "Why is it obligatory upon creation to acknowledge the oneness of Allah and to know His unity?" — it is said: "For various reasons, among them is that if this acknowledgement and knowledge were not made obligatory upon them, it would be possible for them to imagine two managers or more for the world. And if such a thing were permissible, there would be no way of knowing, and they would not be able to distinguish their true Creator from the other, because every human being would not know which of the two is his creator, and he would obey one who is not his creator, and it would not be clear to anyone which of them created him, and whose command he must accept and obey, and from the prohibitions of which prohibitor he must refrain, since he would not distinguish the real commander and prohibitor. And among the reasons is that if it were possible for there to be two gods, neither would be more deserving of worship and obedience than the other, and in the permissibility of obeying and following the commands of each of those two partners, permission for obedience to the other would exist, and in this the non-obedience of "Allah" would be certain, and that is disbelief in Allah and in all the prophets (peace be upon them) and their heavenly books, and the affirmation of every falsehood, and the abandonment of fulfilling all rights, and considering all prohibited things lawful, and prohibiting all permissible things, and committing all sins and transgressions, and departing from all acts of obedience, and making every corruption and mischief lawful, and invalidating every right would be an established matter. And further, if it were permissible not to consider Allah as One and to consider another besides Him as god, then it is permissible for Iblis to claim: 'I am that other god,' so as to oppose Allah the Exalted in all rulings and to call people towards himself, and in this the disbelief would be greater and the hypocrisy more severe."

Imam Ali (peace be upon him)- Shurayh ibn Hani said: In the Battle of Jamal, a Bedouin stood up and said: "O Commander of the Faithful! Do you say that Allah is One?" The people rushed at him and said: "O Bedouin, do you not see the state of preoccupation the Commander of the Faithful is in?" The Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon him) said: "Leave him, for what this Bedouin seeks is the very thing we seek from this people." Then he said: "O Bedouin! Speaking of Allah being One is of four kinds: two of them are not permissible concerning Allah, but two of them can be affirmed of Allah. The two that are not permissible are: that a person says Allah is one, meaning it in the sense of counting and number — this is not permissible, because that which has no second does not enter into the category of numbers. Do you not see that those who said 'Allah is the third of three' indeed became disbelievers? (Ma'idah/73). Likewise, if he says Allah is one of the people, meaning a type of a genus, this too is not permissible, because it is likening [Him to creation], and our Lord is far above that. As for the two aspects that are permissible: it is the statement of one who says Allah is One and has no likeness among existents — such is our Lord; and also the statement of one who says Allah is One in meaning, intending by it that Allah is not divisible in existence, nor in intellect, nor in imagination — such is our Lord."

Imam Kazim (peace be upon him): Fath ibn Yazid Jurjani said: I heard Imam Kazim (peace be upon him) say concerning Allah: "He is the Subtle and the All-Aware, the All-Hearing and the All-Seeing, the One, the Unique, the Self-Sufficient. He did not beget, nor was He begotten, and there has never been anyone like or comparable to Him. He has brought things into existence, given bodies their corporeality, and given forms their shape and figure. If it were as they [the anthropomorphists] say, the Creator would not be distinguished from the created, and the Originator would not be distinguished from the originated and would not be known; but He is the Originator. There is a difference between Allah and that to which Allah has given form, corporeality, and existence, for nothing resembles Allah and Allah does not resemble anything." I said: "Yes, may I be made your ransom, but you said: al-Ahad al-Samad (the One, the Self-Sufficient), and you also said: 'Nothing resembles Him,' while Allah is one and man is also one — so are they not alike in oneness?" The Imam said: "O Fath! You have spoken of an impossibility — may Allah keep you firm. The [likeness that we negate] concerns meanings; but as for names, the name is one with regard to all, and it points to the one named. In this way, though man may be called 'one' (wahid), what is meant is that he is one thing and one body, not two. But man himself is not truly 'one,' for he has various limbs, his colors are many and different, and he is not one; man is a collection of parts that differ from one another: his blood is other than his flesh, his flesh is other than his blood, the fibers of his nerves are other than his veins, his hair is other than his skin, his blackness is other than his whiteness — and so it is with all other creatures. So man is 'one' in name but not 'one' in meaning. And Allah, Blessed and Exalted, is the One besides whom there is no other one; there is no difference or disparity in Him, no increase or decrease can enter Him. But man, the created and fashioned, who is composed of different parts and various substances, is varied and different, and has increase and decrease, even though as a whole he is one thing." I said: "May I be made your ransom, you have set me at ease — may Allah set you at ease. Now, just as you have explained 'the one' for me…"

Imam al-Rida (peace be upon him): [In [the book] 'Uyun al-Akhbar there is a hadith that we mentioned in the explanation of قُلْ هُوَ اللهُ أَحَدٌ [Say: He, Allah, is One], and in that hadith it is stated:] Fath ibn Yazid Jurjani said: I said to the Imam (peace be upon him): "You said: [Allah] is the Unique and the Self-Sufficient, and you said: He does not resemble anything, whereas Allah is one and man is also one. Is not the oneness [of man and of Allah] similar to each other?" The Imam (peace be upon him) said: "O Fath! You have spoken of an impossibility. May Allah keep you firm [on the path of truth]. Being alike is only in meanings [and this is impossible in the case of Allah], but as for names, they are [sometimes shared between Allah and other than Him and are] one, and they point to the bearer of the name [meaning that sometimes one name, such as being unique, is shared between Allah and other than Him, but the meaning of this same name is not alike between Allah and other than Him — the resemblance is only in the name, not in the meaning]."

Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him): Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him) was asked about the pleasure and anger of Allah. He said: "The pleasure and anger of Allah are not like what is found in created beings, and that is because pleasure [in servants] is an accidental state that comes upon him and transfers him from one state to another; because the creature is hollow, made and composite [of parts], and [external] things have influence in him, whereas things have no influence or effect in our Creator; because He is One, singular in Essence and singular in [attributes and] meaning."

Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him): Hisham ibn al-Hakam said: A zindiq (heretic) came to Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him) and asked several questions, among them: "Why is it not permissible for the world to have two gods?" Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him) answered him: "What you said, that there are two gods, is not outside two cases. Either both are eternal and pre-existent, or both are weak, or one is strong and the other weak. If both are strong, why does one not repel the other so as to alone manage the world? If one is strong and the other weak, it is established that Allah is One, on account of the incapacity and weakness assumed in the second. [In the other case,] if you say there are two gods, either these two gods agree with each other in every respect, or differ from each other in every respect [and if they agree in every respect, even in existence, it is not valid to speak of them as two]. But if they differ from each other — since we observe the order and harmony of the world, the rotation of the celestial spheres, the alternation of night and day, and of the sun and the moon, from this order and harmony that all beings have been created upon a specific purpose and design, and [in the whole world, from tiny particles and atoms to great planets and galaxies] there is a continuity and connection — we realize that the Orderer, Planner and Manager is One."

Imam Rida (peace be upon him): Fadl ibn Shadhan said: A man from the Thanawiyya (dualists) sect asked Abu'l-Hasan Ali ibn Musa al-Rida (peace be upon him), and I was present, and said: "I say that the Maker of the world is two, so what is the proof that the Maker is one?" The Imam (peace be upon him) said: "Your statement that the Maker is two is itself proof that the Maker is one, because you did not claim the second except after affirming the one. So the one is agreed upon — you and we both concur on it — and more than one is disputed, on which there is disagreement."

Imam Ali (peace be upon him): My son, if your Lord had a partner, His messengers would have come to you, and you would certainly have seen the signs of that partner's kingdom and dominion, and you would have known his description and his deeds. But your Lord is One Allah, as He has described Himself; no one opposes Him in that, and no one disputes with Him, and He is the Creator of everything.

Ibn Abbas (may Allah have mercy on him): هُوَ اللهُ أَحَدٌ [He, Allah, is One] — it is said that its meaning is that Allah is One and nothing is like Him. (Shura/11)

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family): Imam Kazim (peace be upon him) has narrated from his forefathers from Imam Husayn (peace be upon him): One day a Jewish man came before the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) and asked, "What is the benefit of using the letters of the alphabet?" At that time Amir al-Muminin (peace be upon him) was present in his noble company. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) said to Ali (peace be upon him), "Answer him!" So he raised his hands in supplication and said, "O Lord, help him and make him firm," then Ali (peace be upon him) said, "Each of the letters is a name from the names of Allah," then he continued as follows: "...and as for the 'kaf', it is the Self-Sufficient One who has no equal, وَ لَمْ یَلِدْ وَ لَمْ یُولَد [He begets not, nor is He begotten]; and as for the 'waw', it is the One, the Unique, the Majestic, who لَمْ یَلِدْ وَ لَمْ یُولَدْ [begets not, nor is He begotten]."

Imam Rida (peace be upon him): Muhammad ibn Sinan says: I asked Imam Rida (peace be upon him), "What does 'name' (ism) mean?" He said, "The name is an expression of the sign, state and quality of a person or a thing."