Tawhid is that which gives Islamic civilization its identity, which binds all its constituents

together and thus makes of them an integral, organic body which we call civilization. In
binding disparate elements to-gether, the essence of civilization — in this case, tawhid—
impresses them with its own mold. It recasts them so as to harmonize with and mutually
support other elements. Without necessarily changing their natures, the essence transforms
the elements making up a civilization, giving them their new character as constitutive of that
civilization. The range of transformation may vary from slight to radical, depending on how
relevant the essence is to the different elements and their functions. This relevance stood
out prominently in the minds of Muslim observers of the phenomena of civilization. That is
why they took tawhid as title to their most important works, and they pressed all subjects
under its aegis. They regarded tawhid as the most fundamental principle which includes or
determines all other principles; and they found in it the fountainhead, the primeval source
determining all phenomena of Islamic civilization.
Traditionally and simply expressed, tawhid is the conviction and witnessing that “there is no
God but God.” This negative statement, brief to the utmost limits of brevity, carries the
greatest and richest meanings in the whole of Islam. Sometimes, a whole culture, a whole
civilization, or a whole history lies compressed in one sentence. This certainly is the case of
the kalimah (pronouncement) or shahadah (witnessing) of Islam. All the diversity, wealth
and history, culture and learning, wisdom and civilization of Islam is compressed in this
shortest of sentences "La ilaha ilia Allah.”

TAWHlD AS WORLDVIEW

Tawhld is a general view of reality, of truth, of the world, of space and time, of human
history. As such it comprehends the following principles:
Duality
Reality is of two generic kinds, God and non-God; Creator and creature. The first order has
but one member, Allah, the Absolute and Almighty. He alone is God, eternal, Creator,
transcendent. Nothing is like unto Him; He remains forever absolutely unique and devoid of
partners or associates. The second is the order of space-time, of experience, of creation. It
includes all creatures, the world of things, plants and animals, humans, jinn and angels,
heaven and earth, paradise and hell, and all their becoming since they came into being. The
two orders of Creator and creation are utterly and absolutely disparate as far as their being,
or ontology, as well as their existence and careers are concerned. It is forever impossible
that the one be united with, fused, con-fused or diffused into the other. Neither can the
Creator be ontologically transformed so as to become the creature, nor can the creature
transcend and transfigure itself so as to become in any way or sense the Creator. 2
Ideationality
The relation between the two orders of reality is ideational in nature. Its point of reference
in man is the faculty of understanding. As organ and repository of knowledge, the
understanding includes all the gno-seological functions of memory, imagination, reasoning,
observation, intuition, apprehension, and so on. All humans are endowed with
understanding. Their endowment is strong enough to understand the will of God in either or
both of the following ways: when that will is expressed in words, directly by God to man, and
when the divine will is deducible through observation of creation. 3
Teleology
The nature of the cosmos is teleological, that is, purposive, serving a purpose of its Creator,
and doing so out of design. The world has not been created in vain, or in sport. 4 It is not the
work of chance, a happenstance. It was created in perfect condition. Everything that exists
does so in a measure proper to it and fulfills a certain universal purpose. 5 The world is
indeed a “cosmos,” an orderly creation, not a “chaos.” In it, the will of the Creator is always
realized. His patterns are fulfilled with the necessity of natural law. For they are innate in the
very nature of things. No creature other than man, acts or exists in a way other than what
the Creator has ordained for it. 6 Man is the only creature in which the will of God is
actualized not necessarily, but with man’s own personal consent. The physical and psychic
functions of man are integral to nature, and as such they obey the laws pertinent to them
with the same necessity as all other creatures. But the spiritual functions, namely,
understanding and moral action, fall outside the realm of determined nature. They depend
upon their subject and follow his determination. Actualization of the divine will by them is of
a qualitatively different value than necessary actualization by other creatures. Necessary
fulfillment applies only to elemental or utilitarian values; free fulfillment applies to the
moral. However, the moral purposes of God, His commandments to man, do have a base in
the physical world, and hence there is a utilitarian aspect to them. But this is not what gives
them their distinctive quality, that of being moral. It is precisely the commandments' aspect
of being fulfillable in freedom, that is, with the possibility of being violated, that provides the
special dignity we ascribe to things “moral.” 7
Capacity of Man and Malleability of Nature
Since everything was created for a purpose — the totality of being no less so — the
realization of that purpose must be possible in space and time. 8 Otherwise, there is no
escape from cynicism. Creation itself and the processes of space and time would lose their
meaning and significance. Without this possibility, taklif, or moral obligation, falls to the
ground; and with its fall, either God’s purposiveness or His might is destroyed. Realization of
the absolute, namely, the divine raison d’etre of creation, must be possible in history, that is,
within the process of time between creation and the Day of Judgment. As subject of moral
action, man must therefore be capable of changing himself, his fellows or society, nature or
his environ-ment, so as to actualize the divine pattern, or commandment, in himself as well
as in them. 9 As object of moral action, man as well as his fellows and environment must all
be capable of receiving the efficacious action of man, the subject.

Map 14. Makkan and `Hebrew Origins (1800 B.C.E. – 622 C.E.)

This capacity is the converse of man’s moral capacity for action as subject. Without it, man’s
capacity for moral action would be impossible and the purposive nature of the universe
would collapse. Again, there would be no recourse from cynicism. For creation to have a
purpose — and this is a necessary assumption if God is God and His work is not a
meaningless travail de singe—creation must be malleable, transformable, capable of
changing its substance, structure, conditions, and relations so as to embody or concretize
the human pattern or purpose. This is true of all creation, including man’s physical, psychic,
and spiritual nature. All creation is capable of realization of the ought-to-be, the will or
pattern of God, the absolute in this space and in this time.10
The Makkans and the Hebrews are cousins. Both descend from one ancestor, Abraham or
Ibrahm, of Ur in Lower Mesopotamia. Rebelling against the idolatry of his people and
escaping miraculously from their judgment against him, Abraham joined the roaming
Amurru tribesmen and came to Canaan. He settled his eldest son, Ishmael or Isma'il, in
Makkah, where they built the Ka‘bah and Isma'il scioned the Makkan tribe of Quraysh.
Abraham’s other son, Isaac, and his progeny sought to settle in Canaan but could not do so
for almost a millennium, during which time they either roamed the area or went to Egypt.
They settled in Canaan in the following millennium, but they were torn between assimilation
with Canaan and separation from it. Their stay in Canaan ended with destruction, and the
survivors dispersed throughout the world during the next two millennia.

Responsibility and Judgment

If man stands under the obligation to change himself, his society, and his environment so as
to conform with the divine pattern, and is capable of doing so, and if all that is object of his
action is malleable and capable of receiving his action and embodying its purpose, then it
follows with necessity that he is responsible. Moral obligation is impossible without
responsibility or reckoning. Unless man is responsible, and unless he is accountable for his
deeds, cynicism becomes once more inevitable. Judgment, or the consummation of
responsibility, is the necessary condition of moral obligation, of moral imperativeness. It
flows from the very nature of “normativeness.” 11 It is immaterial whether reckoning takes
place in space-time or at the end of it or both, but it must take place. To obey God, that is, to
realize His commandments and actualize His pattern, is to achieve falah or success,
happiness, and ease. Not to do so, to disobey Him, is to incur punishment, suffering,
unhappiness, and the agonies of failure.

TAWHID AS ESSENCE OF CIVILIZATION

As the essence of Islamic civilization, tawhd has two aspects or dimensions: the
methodological and the contentual. The former determines the forms of application and
implementation of the first principles of the civilization: the latter determines the first
principles themselves.

The Methodological Dimension

The methodological dimension includes three principles, namely, unity, rationalism, and
tolerance. These determine the form of Islamic civilization, a form that pervades every one
of its departments.
Unity. There is no civilization without unity. Unless the elements constituting a civilization
are united, woven, and harmonized with one another, they constitute not a civilization but a
hodgepodge conglomer-ation. A principle unifying the various elements and comprehending
them within its framework is essential. Such a principle would transform the mixture of
relations of the elements with one another into an orderly structure in which levels of
priority or degrees of importance are perceivable. The civilization of Islam places elements in
an orderly structure and governs their existence and relations according to a uniform
pattern. In themselves, the elements can be of either native or foreign provenance. Indeed,
there is no civilization that has not adopted some elements foreign to it. What is important
is that the civilization digest those elements, that is, recast their forms and relations and
thus integrate them into its own system.
Illustration 4.1
An Afghan pilgrim in Makkah. [Courtesy Saudi Arabian Ministry of Information.]

To “in-form” them with its own form is in fact to transform them into a new reality where
they exist no more in themselves or in their former dependency, but as integral components
of the new civilization in which they have been integrated. It is not an argument against any
civilization that it contains such elements; but it is a devastating argument against any
civilization when it has merely added foreign ele-ments; when it has done so in disjointed
manner, without re-formation, in-formation, or integration. As such, the elements merely
co-exist with the civilization. They do not belong organically to it. But if the civilization has
succeeded in transforming them and integrating them into its system, the integrating
process becomes its index of vitality, of its dynamism and creativity. In any integral
civilization, and certainly in Islam, the constitutive elements, whether material, structural, or
relational, are all bound by one supreme principle. In Islamic civilization, this supreme
principle is tawhld. It is the ultimate measuring rod of the Muslim, his guide and criterion in
his encounter with other religions and civilizations, with new facts or situations. What
accords with it is accepted and integrated. What does not is rejected and condemned.
Tawhid, or the doctrine of absolute unity, transcendence, and ultimacy of God, implies that
only He is worthy of worship, of service. The obedient person lives his life under this
principle. He seeks to have all
Illustration 4.2
A pilgrim in Makkah studying the Qur’an. [Courtesy Saudi Arabian Ministry of Information.]

Illustration 4.3
Mosque of the Prophet in Madinah. [Photo by L. al Frq.]

He seeks to have all his acts to conform to the pattern, to actualize the divine purpose. His
life must therefore show the unity of his mind and will, the unique object of his service. His
life will not be a series of events put together helter-skelter, but will be related to a single
overarching principle, bound by a single frame which integrates them together into a single
unity. His life thus has a single style, an integral form—in short, Islam.
Rationalism. As methodological principle, rationalism is constitutive of the essence of Islamic
civiliza-tion. It consists of three rules or laws: first, rejection of all that does not correspond
with reality; second, denial of ultimate contradictories; third, openness to new and/or
contrary evidence. The first rule protects the Muslim against opinion, that is, against making
any untested, unconfirmed claims to knowledge. The unconfirmed claim, the Qur’an
declares, is an instance of zann, or deceptive knowledge, and is prohibited by God, however
slight is its object. 12 The Muslim is definable as the person who claims nothing but the truth.
The second rule protects him against simple contradiction on one side, and paradox on the
other. 13

Map 15. The First Millennium B.C.E.: Power and Turbulence without Idealism

In the first millennium B.C.E. the Arabian theater saw the rise and fall of five world empires:
the Assyrian, Second Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman. None of the twelve states
in the area had a sense of mission.

Rationalism does not mean the priority of reason over revelation but the rejection of any
ultimate contradic-tion between them. 14 Rationalism studies contradictory theses over and
over again, assuming that there must be an aspect that had escaped consideration and that,
if taken into account, would expose the contra-dictory relation. Equally, rationalism leads the
reader of revelation — not revelation itself—to another reading, lest an unobvious or
unclear meaning may have escaped him which, if reconsidered, would remove the apparent
contradiction. Such referral to reason or understanding would have the effect of
harmonizing not revelation per se — revelation stands above any manipulation by man! —
but the Muslim’s human interpretation or understanding of it. It makes his understanding of
revelation agree with the cumulative evidence uncovered by reason. Acceptance of the
contradictory or paradoxical as ultimately valid appeals only to the weak-of-mind. The
intelligent Muslim is a rationalist as he insists on the unity of the two sources of truth,
namely, revelation and reason.
The third rule, openness to new or contrary evidence, protects the Muslim against literalism,
fanaticism, and stagnation-causing conservatism. It inclines him to intellectual humility. It
forces him to append to his affirmations and denials the phrase “Allahu a ’lam "(Allah knows
better!). For he is convinced that the truth is bigger than can be totally mastered by him.
As the affirmation of the absolute unity of God, tawhid is the affirmation of the unity of
truth. For God, in Islam, is the truth. His unity is the unity of the sources of truth. God is the
Creator of nature whence man derives his knowledge. The object of knowledge are the
patterns of nature which are the work of God. Certainly God knows them since He is their
author; and equally certainly, He is the source of revelation. He gives man of His knowledge;
and His knowledge is absolute and universal. God is no trickster, no malevolent agent whose
purpose is to misguide and mislead. Nor does He change His judgment as men do when they
correct their knowledge, their will, or their decision. God is perfect and omniscient. He
makes no mistakes. Otherwise, He would not be the transcendent God of Islam.
Tolerance. As methodological principle, tolerance is the acceptance of the present until its
falsehood has been established. Thus, it is revelant to epistemology. It is equally relevant to
ethics as the principle of accepting the desired until its undesirableness has been
established. 15 The former is called salah; the latter, yusr. Both protect the Muslim from self-
closure to the world, from deadening conservatism. Both urge him to affirm and say yea to
life, to new experience. Both encourage him to address the new data with his scrutinizing
reason, his constructive endeavor, and thereby to enrich his experience and life, to move his
culture and civilization ever forward.
As methodological principle within the essence of Islamic civilization, tolerance is the
conviction that God did not leave people without sending them a messenger from among
themselves to teach them that there is no God but God and that they owe Him worship and
service, 16 to warn them against evil and its causes. 17 In this regard, tolerance is the certainty
that all men are endowed with a sensus communis, which enables them to know the true
religion, to recognize God's will and commandments. Tolerance is the con-viction that the
diversity of religions is due to history with all its affecting factors, its diverse conditions of
space and time, its prejudices, passions, and vested interests. Behind religious diversity
stands al din al hanif, the primordial religion of God with which all men are born before
acculturation makes them ad-herents of this or that religion. Tolerance requires the Muslim
to undertake a study of the history of religions with a view to discover within each the
primeval endowment of God, which He sent all His apostles at all places and times to teach.
18

In religion — and there can hardly be anything more important in human relations —
tolerance transforms confrontation and reciprocal condemnations between the religions into
a cooperative scholarly investigation of the genesis and development of the religions with a
view to separating the historical accretions from the original given of revelation. In ethics,
the next all important field, yusr immunizes the Muslim against any life-denying tendencies
and assures him the minimum measure of optimism required to maintain health, balance,
and a sense of proportion, despite all the tragedies and afflictions that befall human life.
God has assured His creatures that "with hardship, We have ordained ease [yusr].”^ And as
He commanded them to examine every claim and make certain before judging, 20 the
usuliyyun (doctors of jurisprudence) resorted to experimentation before judging as good and
evil anything desired that is not contrary to a clear divine injunction.
Both sa‘ah and yusrdevolve directly from tawhid as a principle of the metaphysic of ethics.
God, Who created man that he may prove himself worthy in the deed, has made him free
and capable of positive action and affirmative movement in the world. To do so, Islam holds,
is indeed man’s raison d’etre. 21

Illustration 4.4
Interior of the Haram in Makkah. [Courtesy Saudi Arabian Ministry of Information.]

The Contentual Dimension

Tawhid as first principle of metaphysics. To witness that there is no God but God is to hold
that He alone is the Creator Who gave to everything its being, Who is the ultimate Cause of
every event, and the final End of all that is, that He is the First and the Last. To enter into
such witnessing in freedom and conviction, in conscious understanding of its content, is to
realize that all that surrounds us, whether things or events, all that takes place in the
natural, social, or psychic fields, is the action of God, the fulfillment of one or another of His
purposes. Once made, such realization becomes second nature to man, inseparable from
him during all his waking hours. One then lives all the moments of one’s life under its
shadow. And where man recognizes God’s commandment and action in every object and
event, he follows the divine initiative because it is God’s. To observe it in nature is to do
natural science. 22 For the divine initiative in nature is none other than the immutable laws
with which God had endowed nature. 23 To observe the divine initiative in one’s self or in
one’s society is to pursue the humanities and the social sciences. 24 And if the whole universe
itself is really the unfolding or fulfillment of these laws of nature, which are the
commandments of God and His will, then the universe is, in the eye of the Muslim, a living
theater set in motion by God’s command. The theater itself, as well as all it includes, is
explicable in these terms. The unization of God means therefore that He is the Cause of
everything, and that none else is so. Of necessity, then, tawhid means the elimination of any
power operative in nature beside God, whose eternal initiative are the immutable laws of
nature. But this is tantamount to denying any initiative in nature by any power other than
that which is innate in nature, such as magic, sorcery, spirits, and any theur- gical notion of
arbitrary interference into the processes of nature by any agency. Therefore, tawhid means
the profanization of the realms of nature, their secularization. And that is the absolutely first
condition of a science of nature. Through tawhid, therefore, nature was separated from the
gods and spirits of primitive religion. Tawhid for the first time made it possible for the
religio-mythopoeic mind to outgrow itself, for the sciences of nature and civilization to
develop with the blessing of a religious worldview that renounced once and for all any
association of the sacred with nature. Tawhid is the opposite of superstition or myth, the
enemies of natural science and civilization. For tawhid gathers all the threads of causality
and returns them to God rather than to occult forces. In so doing, the causal force operative
in any event or object is organized so as to make a continuous thread whose parts are
causally — and hence empirically — related to one another. That the thread ultimately refers
to God demands that no force outside of it interferes with the discharge of its causal power
or efficacy. This in turn presupposes the linkages between the parts to be causal, and
subjects them to empirical investigation and establishment. That the laws of nature are the
inimitable patterns of God means that God operates the threads of nature through causes.
Only causation by another cause that
is always the same constitutes a pattern.
Map 16A. The Campaigns of Alexander the Great

This constancy of causation is precisely what makes its examination and discovery — and
hence, science — possible. Science is none other than the search for such repeated
causation in nature, for the causal linkages constitutive of the causal thread are repeated in
other threads. Their establishment is the establishment of the laws of nature. It is the
prerequisite for subjecting the causal forces of nature to control and engineering, the
necessary condition for man’s usufruct of nature.
Tawhid as first principle of ethics. Tawhid affirms that the unique God created man in the
best of forms to the end of worshipping and serving Him. 25 This means that man’s whole
existence on earth has as its purpose the obedience of God, the fulfillment of His command.
Tawhid also affirms that this purpose consists in man’s vice-gerency for God on earth. 26 For,
according to the Qur’an, God has invested man with His trust, a trust which heaven and
earth were incapable of carrying and from which they shied away with terror. 27 The divine
trust is the fulfillment of the ethical part of the divine will, whose very nature requires that it
be realized in freedom, and man is the only creature capable of doing so. Wherever the
divine will is realized with the necessity of natural law, the realization is not moral, but
elemental or utilitarian. Only man is capable of realizing it under the possibility of doing or
not doing so at all, or doing the very opposite or anything in between. It is this exercise of
human freedom regarding obedience to God’s commandment that makes fulfillment of the
command moral.
Tawhid affirms that God, being beneficent and purposive, did not create man in sport, or in
vain. He endowed him with the senses, with reason and understanding, made him perfect -
indeed, breathed into him of His spirit 28 to prepare him to perform this great duty.
Such great duty is the cause for the creation of man. It is the final end of human existence,
man's definition, and the meaning of his life and existence on earth. By virtue of it, man
assumes a cosmic function of tremendous importance. The cosmos would not be itself
without that higher part of the divine will which is the object of human moral endeavor. And
no other creature in the cosmos can substitute for man in this function. Man is the only
cosmic bridge by which the moral-and hence higher-part of the divine will may enter the
realm of space-time and become history.
The responsibility or obligation (taklif) laid down upon man exclusively knows no
bounds. It comprehends the whole universe. Al mankind is object of man's moral action; all
earth and sky are his theater, his matériel. He is responsible for all that takes place in the
universe, in every one of its remotest corners. For man’s taklif^r obligation is universal,
cosmic. It comes to end only on the Day of Judgment.
Taklif, Islam affirms, is the basis of man’s humanity, its meaning, and its content. Man’s
acceptance of this burden puts him on a higher level than the rest of creation, indeed, than
the angels. For only he is capable of accepting responsibility. It constitutes his cosmic
significance. A world of difference separates this humanism of Islam from other humanisms.
Greek civilization, for instance, developed a strong humanism which the West has taken as a
model since the Renaissance. Founded upon an exaggerated naturalism, Greek humanism
deified man, as well as his vices. That is why the Greek was not offended by representing his
gods as cheating and plotting against one another, as committing adultery, theft, incest,
aggression, jealousy and revenge, and other acts of brutality.
Illustration 4.5
Basmalah in mirrored symmetrical design. [Photo by L. al Faruqi.]

Being part of the very stuff of which human life is made, such acts and passions were
claimed to be as natural as the perfections and virtues. As nature, both were thought to be
equally divine, worthy of contemplation in their aesthetic form, of adoration — and of
emulation by man of whom the gods were the apotheosis. Christianity, on the other hand,
was in its formative years reacting to this very Greco-Roman humanism. It went to the
opposite extreme of debasing man through “original sin” and declaring him a “fallen
creature,” a “massa peccata.” 29
The degrading of man to the level of an absolute, universal, innate, and necessary state of
sin from which it is impossible for any human ever to pull himself up by his own effort was
the logical prerequisite if God on High was to incarnate Himself, to suffer, and die in
atonement for man’s sinfulness. In other words, if a redemption has to take place by God,
there must be a predicament so absolute that only God could pull man out of it. Thus human
sinfulness was absolutized in order to make it “worthy” of the Crucifixion of God. Hinduism
classified mankind into castes, and assigned the majority of mankind to the nethermost
classes — of “untouchables” if they are native to India, or ma- litcha, the religiously unclean
or contaminated of the rest of the world. For the lowest as well as for the others, there is no
rise to the superior, privileged caste of Brahmins in this life; such mobility is possible only
after death through the transmigration of souls. In this life, man necessarily belongs to the
caste in which he is born. Ethical striving is of no consequence whatever to its subject as
long as he is alive in this world. Finally, Buddhism judged all human and other life in creation
as endless suffering and misery. Existence itself, it held, is evil and man’s only meaningful
duty is to seek release from it through discipline and mental effort.
The humanism of tawhld alone is genuine. It alone respects man as man and creature,
without either deification or vilification. It alone defines the worth of man in terms of his
virtues, and begins its assessment of him with a positive mark for the innate endowment
God has given all men in preparation for their noble task. It alone defines the virtues and
ideals of human life in terms of the very contents of natural life, rather than denying them,
thus making its humanism life-affirmative as well as moral.
Tawhid as first principle of axiology. Tawhid affirms that God has created mankind that men
may prove themselves morally worthy by their deeds. 30 As supreme and ultimate Judge, He
warned that all men’s actions will be reckoned 31; that their authors will be rewarded for the
good deeds and punished for the evil. 32 Tawhid further affirms that God has placed man on
earth that he may colonize it, 33 that is, that he may strike out on its trails, eat of its fruits,
enjoy its goodness and beauty, and cause it and himself to pros-per. 34 This is world-
affirmation: to accept the world because it is innocent and good, created by God and
ordered by Him for human use. Indeed, everything in the world, including the sun and the
moon, is subservient to man. All creation is a theater in which man is to perform his ethical
action and thereby implement the higher part of the divine will. Man is responsible for
satisfying his instincts and needs, and every individual is responsible for the same
satisfaction for all men. Man is obliged to develop the human resources of all men to the
highest possible degree, that full use may be made of all their natural endowments. He is
obliged to transform the whole earth into productive orchards and beautiful gardens. He
may in the process explore the sun and the moon if necessary. 35 Certainly he must discover
and learn the patterns of nature, of the human psyche, of society. Certainly he ought to
industrialize and develop the world if it is eventually to become the garden where the word
of God is supreme.
Such world affirmation is truly creative of civilization. It generates the elements out of which
civilizations are made, as well as the social forces necessary for its growth and progress.
Tawhld is anti-monkery, anti-isolation, anti-world-denial, and anti-asceticism. 36 On the other
hand, world affirmation does not mean unconditional acceptance of the world and nature as
they are. Without a principle to check man’s implementation or realization, affirmation of
the world and nature may run counter to itself by the exaggerated pursuit of any one value,
element, or force, or group of them, to the exclusion of all others. Balancing and disciplining
man’s pursuit so that it results in harmonious realization of all values, under the priority
system properly belonging to them, rather than under any haste, passion, zeal, or blindness
of man, is a necessary prerequisite. Without it, the pursuit may wreck itself in either tragedy
or superficiality, or may unleash some truly demonic force. Greek civilization, for instance,
exaggerated its pursuit of the world. It asserted that all that is in nature is unconditionally
good and hence worthy of pursuit and realization. Hence, it declared all that is actually
desired, the object of a real interest, to be ipso facto good, on the grounds that desire itself,
being natural, is good. That nature often contradicts itself, that and the pursuits of such
desires or elements of nature may counter one another, did not have enough appeal to
warrant a revision of the first assumption. The need for a supernatural principle overarching
all the tendencies and desires of nature, and in terms of which their contradictions and
differences may be understood, must be recognized.

Map 16В The Empire of Alexander the Great

4.6-сурет
Calligraphy design (eight Allah repetitions). [Photo by L. Al Faruqi.]

But instead of realizing this truth, Greek civilization was too intoxicated with the beauty of
nature per se and regarded the tragic outcome of naturalism itself natural. Since the
Renaissance, modern Western civilization has paid the highest regard for tragedy. Its zeal for
naturalism took it to the extreme of accepting nature without morality as a supernatural
condition. Since the struggle of Western man has been against the Church and all that it
represents, the progress of man in science was conceived as a liberation from its clutches.
Hence, it was extremely hard even to conceive of world-affirmation or naturalism as
attached to normative threads stretching from an a priori, noumenal, absolute source.
Without such threads, naturalism is bound to end up in self-contradiction, in conflicts within
itself that are ex hypothesi insoluble. The Olympus community could not live with itself in
harmony and had to destroy itself. Its world-affirmation was in vain.
The guarantee of world-affirmation, which secures it to produce a balanced, permanent,
self-redressing civilization, is morality. Indeed, true civilization is nothing but world-
affirmation disciplined by an a priori, or supernatural, morality whose inner content or
values are not inimical to life and the world, to time and history, to reason. Such morality is
furnished by tawhid alone among the ideologies known to man.
Tawhid as first principle of societism. Tawhid asserts that "this ummah of yours is a single
ummah whose Lord is God. Therefore, worship and serve Him.” 37 Tawhid means that the
believers are indeed a single brotherhood, whose members mutually love one another in
God, who counsel one another to do justice and be patient 38; who cling together without
exception to the rope of God and do not separate from one another 39; who reckon with one
another, enjoining what is good and prohibiting what is evil40; who, finally, obey God and
His Prophet. 41
The vision of the ummah is one; so is the feeling or will, as well as the action. The ummah is
an order of humans consisting of a tripartite consensus of mind, heart, and arm. There is
consensus in their thought, in their decision, in their attitude and character, and in their
arms. It is a universal brotherhood which knows neither color nor ethnic identity. In its
purview, all men are one, measurable only in terms of piety. 42 If any one of its members
acquires a new knowledge, his duty is to teach it to the others. If any one acquires food or
comfort, his duty is to share them with the others. If any one achieves establishment,
success, and prosperity, his duty is to help the others do likewise. 43
There is hence no tawhid without the ummah. The ummahisthe medium of knowledge, of
ethics, of the caliphate (vice-gerency) of man, of world-affirmation. The ummah is a
universal order comprehending even those who are not believers. It is an order of peace, a
Pax Islamica, forever open to all those individuals and groups who accept the principle of the
freedom to convince and to be convinced of the truth, who seek a world order in which
ideas, goods, wealth, or human bodies are free to move. The Pax Islamica is an international
order far surpassing the United Nations, that child of yesteryear, aborted and warped by the
principles of the nation-state and the dominion of the "big powers,” both of which are
constitutive of it. These principles are, in turn, based upon "national sovereignty” as it has
evolved in the ideological history of Europe since the Reformation and the demise of the
ideal of the universal community the Church had so far half-heartedly carried. But national
sovereignty is ultimately based on axiological and ethical relativism.
The United Nations is successful if it fulfills the negative role of preventing or stopping war
between the members. Even then, it is an impotent order since it has no army except when
the Security Council’s "big power” members agree to provide it ad hoc. Per contra, the Pax
Islamica was laid down in a permanent constitution by the Prophet in Madnah in the first
days of the Hijrah. He made it inclusive of the Jews of Madinah and the Christians of Najran,
guaranteeing to them their identity and their religious, social, and cultural institutions.

Map 16С. The Seleuci Empire

History knows of no other written constitution that has honored the minorities as the
constitution of the Islamic state has done. The constitution of Madinah has been in force in
the various Islamic states for fourteen centuries and has resisted dictators and revolutions of
all kinds— including Genghis Khan and Hulagu!
The ummah then is a world order in addition to being a social order. It is the basis of Islamic
civilization, its sine qua non. In their representation of human reason in the person and
career of Hayy ibn Yaqzan, philosophers had discovered that Hayy had by his own effort
grown to the point of discovering the truth of Islam, and of tawhid, its essence. Having done
so, Hayy had to invent or discover the ummah. He therefore made for himself a canoe out of
a hollowed trunk and set forth on the unknown ocean, to discover the ummah without
which all of his knowledge would not cohere with the truth.
Tawhid is, in short, ummatism.
Tawhid as first principle of aesthetics. Tawhid means to exclude the Godhead from the whole
realm of nature. Everything that is in or of creation is a creature, nontranscendent, subject
to the laws of space and time. Nothing of it can be God or godly in any sense, especially the
ontological which tawhid, as the essence of monotheism, denies. God is the totally other
than creation, totally other than nature, and hence, transcendent. He is the only
transcendent being.

Illustration 4.7
Mosque of Zahir in Alor Star, Malaysia. [Photo by L. Al Faruqi.]

Tawhid further asserts that nothing is like unto Him, 44 and hence, that nothing in creation
can be a likeness or symbol for God, nothing can represent Him. Indeed, He is by definition
beyond representation. God is He Whom no aesthetic intuition whatever is possible.
By aesthetic experience is meant the experience through the senses, of an a priori,
metanatural essence that acts as the normative principle of the object beheld. It is what the
object ought to be. The nearer the visible object is to that essence, the more beautiful it is.
In the case of living nature, of plant, animal, and especially man, the beautiful is that which
comes as close to the a priori essence as possible, so that whoever is capable of judging
would be right in holding that in the aesthetic object nature has articulated itself eloquently,
clearly; that the beautiful object is what nature meant to say, as it does so rarely among its
thousand-and-one shortcomings. Art is the process of discovering within nature that
metanatural essence and representing it in visible form. Evidently, art is not the imitation of
created nature; nor is it the sensory representation of natura naturata, the objects whose
"naturing" or natural reality is complete. A photographic representation may be valuable for
illustration or documentation, for the establishment of identity. As a work of art, it is
worthless. Art is the reading in nature of an essence that is nonnature, and the giving to that
essence of the visible form that is proper to it.
As it has been defined and analyzed so far, art is necessarily the presumption to find in
nature that which is not of it. But that which is not of nature is transcendent; and only that
which is divine qualifies for this status. Moreover, since the a priori essence which is the
object of aesthetic appreciation is normative and beautiful, man’s emotions are especially
affected by it. That is why humans love the beautiful and are determined by it. Where they
see the beautiful in human nature, the a priori metanatural essence is humanness idealized
to a transcendent degree. This is exactly what the Greeks called apotheosis, or the
transfiguration of a human into divinity. Humans are particularly prone to adore such
transfigured humans and regard them as gods. Modern Western man has little tolerance for
any deity as far as metaphysics is concerned. But as far as ethics and conduct are concerned,
the “gods” that he creates out of his idealization of human passions and tendencies are the
real determinants of his action.
This explains why among the ancient Greeks the arts of representing the gods as apotheoses
of human elements, qualities, or passions, visually as in sculpture and imaginatively as in
poetry and drama, were the foremost aesthetic pursuits. The objects they represented —
the gods — were beautiful because they were idealizations of what human nature ought to
be. Their beauty did not hide the innate conflict of each with the other gods, precisely
because each was the real object of nature absolutized to its divine, supernatural level.
It was only in Rome, the theater of Greek decadence, that the supreme Greek art of
sculpture de-generated into realistic, empirical portraiture of the various emperors. Even
there, however, this would not have been possible without the deification of the emperor. In
Greece, where the theory remained pure for centuries, the art of drama developed
alongside that of sculpture precisely in order to represent the eternal conflicts of the gods
with one another by means of an unfolding of a series of events in which the characters
were involved. The overall purpose was the representation of their individual characters
which the spectators knew were human, all too human, but which were the source of
immense delight. If the dramatic events unfolding before their eyes led to a tragic end, this
was regarded as necessary and innate. Its necessity removed its sting and through catharsis
it helped remove from them the guilt they felt at their immoral affirmations and pursuits.

Illustration 4.8
Mosque of Sultan Ahmad, Istanbul. [Courtesy Embassy of Turkey, Washington, D.C.]

That is why the art of tragedy, born and perfected in Greece, was the apex of the literary arts
as well as of all the humanities. In a rare statement of truth, the Orientalist G. E. von
Grunebaum said that Islam had no figurative arts (sculpture, painting, and drama) because it
is free of any gods incarnated or immanent in nature, gods whose activities conflict with one
another or with evil. 45 Von Grunebaum meant it as a reproach to Islam, though it is in reality
Islam’s prime distinction. For it is the unique glory of Islam that it is absolutely free of
idolatry, of the mistaking of the creature for the Creator. However, the statement remains
true; for it shows the intimate relation between the figurative arts, the pagan religions of
antiquity, and the incarnational theology of the West.

Illustration 4.9
Nigerians standing for salat. [Courtesy A. R. Doi.]

The Jews had previously asserted that the transcendence of God precluded any making of
"graven images,” and committed themselves, in obedience to that divine commandment, to
a whole history of near total withdrawal from any visual art. 46 They produced some minor
works only under the influence of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and Christendom. In modern
times, especially since their emancipation under Napoleon and assimilation into Western
culture, they have abjured their original Semitic position for the naturalism of the West.
Tawhld is not against artistic creativity: nor is it against the enjoyment of beauty. On the
contrary, tawhid blesses beautiful and promotes it. It sees absolute beauty only in God and
in His revealed will or words. Accordingly, it was prone to create a new art befitting its view.
Starting from the premise that there is no God but God, the Muslim artist was convinced
that nothing in nature may represent or ex-press God. Through stylization, he removed every
object as far as possible from nature. Indeed, the object of nature was thereby so far
removed from nature that it became almost unrecognizable. In his hand, stylization was a
negational instrument by which he said No! to every natural thing, to creation itself. By
denying its naturalness altogether, the Muslim artist expressed in visible form the negative
judgment that there is no God but God. This shahadah (witness) of the Muslim artist is
indeed the equivalent of the denial of transcendence in nature.
The Muslim artist did not stop there. His creative breakthrough came when it dawned on
him that to express God in a figure of nature is one thing, and to express His inexpressibility
in such a figure is another. To realize that God — May He be glorified in His transcendence —
is visually inexpressible, is the highest aesthetic objective possible for man. God is the
absolute, the sublime. To judge Him unrepresentable by anything in creation is to hold His
absoluteness and sublimeness seriously. To behold Him in one’s imagination as unlike all that
is in creation is to behold Him as “beautiful — unlike any other object that is beautiful.”
Divine inexpressibility is a divine attribute, whose meaning is infinity, absoluteness, ulti-
macy or nonconditionedness, limitlessness. The infinite is in every sense the inexpressible.
In pursuit of this line of Islamic thought, the Muslim artist invented the art of decoration and
trans-formed it into the arabesque,” a nondevelopmental design that extends in all
directions ad infinitum. The arabesque transfigures the object of nature it decorates —
whether textile, metal, vase, wall, ceiling, pillar, window, or page of a book — into a
weightless, transparent, floating pattern extending infinitely in all directions. The object of
nature is not itself but is "trans-substantiated." It has become only a field of vision.
Aesthetically, the object of nature has become under the arabesque treatment a window
onto the infinite. To behold it as suggestive of infinity is to recognize one of the meanings of
transcendence, the only one given — though only negatively — to sensory representation
and intuition.
This explains why most of the works of art produced by Muslims were abstract. Even where
figures of plants, animals and humans were used, the artist stylized them in such a way as to
deny their creature- liness, to deny that any supernatural essence is resident within them. In
this endeavor, the Muslim artist was assisted by his linguistic and literary legacy. To the same
end, he developed the Arabic script so as to make of it an infinite arabesque, extending
nondevelopmentally in any direction the calligrapher chooses.

Map 16E. The Eastern Roman Empire

The same is true of the Muslim architect whose building is an arabesque in its facade,
elevations, skyline, as well as floor plan. Taiohid is the one denominator common to all
artists whose worldview is that of Islam, however geographically or ethnically separate they
may be. 47

NOTES

1. See my refutation of the Orientalists who raise doubt that Islam has an essence or
that it is known or knowable, in “The Essence of Religious Experience in Islam." Nunien,
20(1973), pp. 186-201.
2. In this regard, tawhld distinguishes itself from Sufism and some sects of Hinduism,
where the reality of the world is dissolved into God, and God becomes the only reality, the
only existent. In this view, nothing really exists except God. Everything is an illusion; and its
existence is unreal. Tawhid equally contradicts the ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Taoist views
that run in a direction diametrically opposed to that of India. In that view, the Creator's
existence is dissolved into that of creation or the world. Whereas Egypt maintained that God
is indeed Pharaoh, and the green grass blade rising from earth in the spring, and the Nile
River with its water and bed, and the disc of the sun with its warmth and light, Greco-Roman
antiquity maintained that God is any aspect of human nature or personality magnified to a
degree that places it above nature in one sense but keeps it immanent in nature in another.
In either case, the Creator is con-fused with His creation. Under the influence of its
priesthood, Christianity separated itself from tawhid when it claimed that God incarnated
Himself in the body of Jesus and asserted that Jesus is God. It is Islam’s unique distinction
that it emphasized the ultimate duality and absolute disparity of God and the world, of
Creator and creature. By its clear and uncompromising stand in this matter of divine
transcendence, Islam became the quintessence of the tradition of Semitic prophecy,
occupying the golden mean between Eastern (Indian) exaggerationism, which denies nature,
and Western (Greek and Egyptian) exaggerationism, which denies God as other.
3. This principle points to the absolute ontological separation of God and man, to the
impossibility of their union through incarnation, deification or fusion. The principle,
however, does not deny the possibility of communication between them. In fact, it is
inseparable from prophecy, or the communication by God to man of a commandment which
man is expected to obey. Nor does it rule out the possibility of communication through
intellect or intuition, as when man observes the creatures, ponders their whither and why,
and concludes that they must have a creator, designer, and sustainer Who deserves to be
heeded. This is the avenue of ideation or reasoning. In the final analysis, it is this principle of
ontic separation of God and the world that distinguishes tawhid from all theories that
apotheosize man or humanize God, whether Greek, Roman, Hindu, Buddhist, or Christian.
1. As the verses 3:191 and 23:116 indicate.
2. As contained in the verses 7:15; 10:5; 13:9; 15:29; 25:2; 32:9; 38:72; 41:10; 54:49;
65:3; 75:4, 38; 80:19; 82:7; 87:2-3.
3. Kuran 17:77; 33:62; 35:43; 48:23; 65:3.
4. Any deed that is done “by nature’’ is ipso facto amoral, deserving neither reward nor
punishment. Examples are breathing, digestion, or an act of charity or injustice entered into
under coercion. It is completely otherwise with the act entered into in freedom, with the
possibility of its author doing or not doing it, or doing some other act beside it.
5. This is attested by the verses that speak of the perfection of God’s creation (see notes
4,5 above), and those that stress man’s moral obligation and responsibility. The latter are too
numerous to count.
6. This is the meaning implied in the verses that speak of the subservience of creation
to man, namely, 13:2; 14:32- 33; 16:12, 14; 22:36-37, 65; 29:61; 31:20, 29; 35:13; 38:18:
39:5; 43:13; 45:11-12.
7. As the ubiquitous emphases of moral obligation in the Qur’an indicate.
8. The verses dealing with the Final Judgment are very numerous, and there is no need
to cite them all; some exam-ples: man will not be left alone without reckoning (75:36), but
will be brought to account by God (88:26, 4:85).
9. God prohibited man from doubting his fellows in 4:156; 6:116, 148; 10:26, 66; 49:12;
53:23, 28.
10. This Greek term has no equivalent in Arabic, which illustrates the difference between
the minds behind the two languages. The Greek term refers to an irrational dogma adhered
to by the Christian.
11. The philosophers have raised reason above revelation and have given it priority
status when judging religious claims. Certainly they are wrong in doing so. The Islamic
thinker is certainly capable of defining reason differently and to use his definition as premise
of all other claims. The question of validity of either definition may certainly be raised, and
we have no doubt regarding the philosophic viability, or reasonableness—nay, superiority!—
of the Islamic definition. The definition given here, that rationalism is the rejection of
ultimate self-contradiction, has, in addition, the value of continuing the tradition of the
righteous fathers.