God in Islam

In Islamic theology, God (Arabic: الله‎ Allāh) is the all-powerful and all-knowing creator, sustainer, ordainer and judge of the universe. Islam emphasizes that God is strictly singular (tawḥīd ) unique (wāḥid ) and inherently One (aḥad ), all-merciful and omnipotent. According to Islamic teachings, God exists without place and according to the Quran, "No vision can grasp Him, but His grasp is over all vision: He is above all comprehension, yet is acquainted with all things." God, as referenced in the Quran, is the only God.

In Islam, there are 99 known names of God (al-asmāʼ al-ḥusná lit. meaning: "The best names"), each of which evoke a distinct attribute of God. All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name. Among the 99 names of God, the most familiar and frequent of these names are "the Compassionate" (al-raḥmān) and "the Merciful" (al-raḥīm). Creation and ordering of the universe is seen as an act of prime mercy for which all creatures sing God's glories and bear witness to God's unity and lordship. God responds to those in need or distress whenever they call. Above all, God guides humanity to the right way, "the holy ways".

Islamic theology makes a distinction between the attributes of God and the divine essence. Islam also has a concept of negative theology, known as ta'tili "negation", stating that God exists without a place and has no resemblance to his creation.

Names

Allah

Allah is the Arabic term used by Muslims (as well as Arabic speaking Christians and Jews) for the one God, while ilāh (Arabic: إله‎) is the term used for a deity or a god in general. It is related to ʾÄ"lāhā in Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

Other names

God is described and referred in the Quran and hadith by certain names or attributes. The Quran refers to the attributes of God as God's "most beautiful names". According to Gerhard Böwering,

They are traditionally enumerated as 99 in number to which is added as the highest Name (al-ism al-ʾaÊ¿áº"am), the Supreme Name of God: Allāh. The locus classicus for listing the Divine Names in the literature of Qurʾānic commentary is 17:110 “Call upon God, or call upon The Merciful; whichsoever you call upon, to Him belong the most beautiful Names,” and also 59:22-24, which includes a cluster of more than a dozen Divine epithets."

The most commonly used names for god in Islam are:

• The Most High (al-Ala)
• The Most Glorious (al-Ê»Aziz)
• The Ever Forgiving (al-Ghaffār)
• The Ever Providing (ar-Razzāq)
• The Ever Living (al-Ḥayy)
• The Self-Subsisting by Whom all Subsist (al-QayyÅ«m)
• The Lord and Cherisher of the Worlds (Rabb al-ʻĀlamÄ«n)
• The Ultimate Truth (al-Ḥaqq)
• The Eternal Lord (al-BāqÄ«)
• The Sustainer (al-Muqsith)
• The Source of Peace (As-Salām)

Non-Arab Muslims may or may not use different names as much as Allah, for instance "Tanrı" in Turkish, Khodā in Persian, Yakush in Berber, and "Zot" in Albanian.

Phrases and expressions

There are numerous conventional phrases and expressions invoking God.

• Tasbīḥa: Subḥana ’llāh "Glorious is God"
• TakbÄ«ra: Allāhu akbar "God is greatest"
• TaḥmÄ«da: Al-ḥamdu lillāh "Thanks be to God"
• TahlÄ«la: Lā ilāha illā 'lla "There is no god other than God"
• Inna Lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji'un وَإِنَÙ'ـا إِلَيÙ'هِ رَاجِعونَ "Surely we belong to God and to Him shall we return" (Sura 2:156)
• Bismi-llāh بسم الله "in the name of God"
• In šāʾ Allāh إن شاء الله "God willing"
• Mā šāʾ Allāh ما شاء الله "God has willed it"
• Astaghfirullāh أستغفر الله " "I seek forgiveness from God"
• Jazakallāh جزاك الله "May God reward you"
• ’A‘ūdhu billāh A`Å«dhu billāhi min ash-shaitāni r-rajÄ«mi أَعُوÙ'ذُ بِاللهِ مِنَ الشَÙ'ـيÙ'طٰنِ الرَÙ'جِيÙ'مِ "I seek refuge in God from Shaitan, the accursed one."
• FÄ« sabÄ«l Allāh في سبيل الله "in the cause of God"
• Yarḥamuk-Allāh يرحمك الله "May God have mercy on you"

Honorifics often said or written alongside Allah:

• Subḥānahu wa ta'āla سبحانه Ùˆ تعالى "May he be glorified and exalted", often abbreviated "SWT" or "swt".
• Jalla Jalaluhu جل جلاله "May his glory be glorified", often seen in calligraphy alongside the name Allah. The phrase is encoded as a ligature at Unicode codepoint U+FDFB ï·».
• ‘Azza wajall عز Ùˆ جل "majesty and glory"

Attributes

Oneness

Islam's most fundamental concept is a strict monotheism called tawhid, affirming that God is one and incomparable (wāḥid). The basic creed of Islam, the Shahada (recited under oath to enter the religion), involves لا إله إلا الله (lā ʾilāha ʾillallāh), or, "I testify there are no deities other than God alone." The Quran asserts the existence of a single and absolute truth that transcends the world; a unique and indivisible being who is independent of the entire creation.

Say: He is Allah, the One and Only;
Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
He begetteth not, nor is He begotten;
And there is none like unto Him.

Thy Lord is self-sufficient, full of Mercy: if it were His will, He could destroy you, and in your place appoint whom He will as your successors, even as He raised you up from the posterity of other people.

Muslims reject the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and divinity of Jesus (ʿĪsā), comparing it to polytheism. In Islam, God is beyond all comprehension or equal and does not resemble any of his creations in any way. Thus, Muslims are not iconodules and are not expected to visualize God.

According to Vincent J. Cornell, the Quran also provides a monist image of God by describing the reality as a unified whole, with God being a single concept that would describe or ascribe all existing things: "He is the First and the Last, the Evident and the Immanent: and He has full knowledge of all things." Some Muslims have however vigorously criticized interpretations that would lead to a monist view of God for what they see as blurring the distinction between the creator and the creature, and its incompatibility with the monotheism of Islam.

The indivisibility of God implies the indivisibility of God's sovereignty which in turn leads to the conception of a universe as a just and coherent moral universe rather than an existential and moral chaos. Similarly the Quran rejects the binary modes of thinking such as the idea of duality of God by arguing that both good and evil generate from God's creative act and that the evil forces have no power to create anything. God in Islam is a universal god rather than a local, tribal or parochial one; an absolute who integrates all affirmative values and brooks no evil.

Tawhid constitutes the foremost article of the Muslim profession. To attribute divinity to a created entity is the only unpardonable sin mentioned in the Quran. Muslims believe that the entirety of the Islamic teaching rests on the principle of Tawhid.

Mercy

The most commonly used names in the primary sources are Al-Rahman, meaning "Most Compassionate" and Al-Rahim, meaning "Most Merciful". God is said to love forgiving, with a hadith stating God would replace a sinless people with one who sinned but still asked repentance.

Omniscience

The Quran describes God as being fully aware of everything that happens in the universe, including private thoughts and feelings, and asserts that one can not hide anything from God:

In whatever business thou mayest be, and whatever portion thou mayest be reciting from the Qur'an,- and whatever deed ye (mankind) may be doing,- We are witnesses thereof when ye are deeply engrossed therein. Nor is hidden from thy Lord (so much as) the weight of an atom on the earth or in heaven. And not the least and not the greatest of these things but are recorded in a clear record.

Relationship with creation

As in the other Abrahamic religions, God is believed to communicate with his creation via revelations given to prophets. The Quran in particular is believed by Muslims to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to Muhammad. Hadith are the records of Muhammad's sayings and example, and Hadith Qudsi is a sub-category of hadith, which Muslims regard as the words of God repeated by Muhammad. According to Ali ibn Mohammed al-Jurjani, the Hadith Qudsi differ from the Quran in that the former are "expressed in Muhammad's words", whereas the latter are the "direct words of God".

Muslims believe that creation of everything in the universe is brought into being by God’s sheer command, "..."Be," and it is.", and that the purpose of existence is to worship God. He is viewed as a personal God who responds whenever a person in need or distress calls him. There are no intermediaries, such as clergy, to contact God who states in the Quran, "It was We Who created man, and We know what dark suggestions his soul makes to him: for We are nearer to him than (his) jugular vein." Muhammad al-Bukhari, in his Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī, narrates a ḥadīth qudsī' that God says, "I am as My servant thinks (expects) I am."

Comparative theology

Islamic theology identifies God as described in the Quran as the same god of Israel who covenanted with Abraham. Islam and Judaism alike reject the Trinity of Nicaean Christianity, which was a development peculiar to questions of Christology in Early Christianity. This has led to the medieval Christian view of early Islam as one of several non-Trinitarian Christian heresies.

The identification of God both in Islam and in Christianity with the God of Abraham been used to argue for a limited amount of mutual recognition among the Abrahamic religions on the part of Ludovico Marracci, the confessor of Pope Innocent XI, who wrote in 1734:

That both Mohammed and those among his followers who are reckoned orthodox, had and continue to have just and true notions of God and his attributes, appears so plain from the Koran itself and all the Muslim laws, that it would be loss of time to refute those who suppose the God of Mohammed to be different from the true God.