Encyclopedia of Islam

tariqa

  

663  J

---

but some scholars such as Carl Ernst cast doubt 

upon the veracity of tariqa missionary activities.

Although Sufism was originally an antinomi-

nal response to the power held by Islamic reli-

gious leaders who had systematized Islam in ways 

that Sufis considered to be dogmatic and devoid 

of spiritualism, the tariqa system ultimately cre-

ated and maintained an alternate religious vision 

and system of transmitting knowledge. This, in 

turn, maintained tradition and served in part as a 

conservative force.

See also 

baga

 

and

 

fana

; 

dhikr

; 

murid

; 

munshid

; 

reneWal

 

and

 

reForm

 

movements

; 

saint

; 

ziyara

.

Sophia Pandya

Further reading: Carl W. Ernst, Sufism (Boston: Shamb-

hala, 1997); Michael Gilsenan, Saint and Sufi in Modern 

Egypt (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973); Annemarie 

Schimmel,  Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina Press, 1975); J. Spencer 

Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Claren-

don Press, 1971).

tasawwuf

  See s

ufism

.

tashbih

  See 

anthropomorphism

.

tasliyya

  See 

pbuh

.

tawaf

  See 

hajj

; 

umra

.

tawil

  See 

tafsir

.

tawhid

 

(Arabic: to proclaim God as one; 

monotheism)

Monotheism is the belief in one god, or in a god’s 

essential oneness. It is an English term that was 

first coined in the 17th century to distinguish 

Christian, Jewish, and later Islamic beliefs about 

God from the beliefs of those belonging to other 

religions, especially those described as being poly-

theistic (believing in more than one god). Scholars 

of the comparative history of religions have recog-

nized that monotheistic belief has taken different 

forms in human history, and they have proposed 

a variety of technical terms to describe these dif-

ferent forms: monolatry (worshipping one god), 

monism (belief that a single being unites all beings 

in the universe), deism (belief in a single god who 

does not intervene in his creation), unitarianism 

(belief that god is absolutely one), trinitarianism 

(belief that god has three aspects or “persons,” 

as in Christianity), and pantheism (belief that 

god and the universe are identical). Tawhid is the 

Arabic word that Muslims today most commonly 

equate with the English term “monotheism,” but 

the historical range of connotations and meanings 

tawhid has taken in Islamic theological, philosoph-

ical, and mystical discourses is greater than this 

simple translation would otherwise suggest.

The idea of the oneness of God (a

llah

) is clearly 

expressed in the first part of the Islamic testimony 

of faith, the 

shahada

—“There is no god but God” 

which is repeated by Muslims throughout their lives 

and in the daily calls to prayer. It is also one of the 

Quran’s most fundamental messages. Q 112 states 

that he is one (ahad), he does not beget, and he has 

no equal. Other verses declare, “your God is one 

God” (Q 18:110; 21:108; 39:4), while others stress 

that he has no partner (sharik; Q 6:163; 17:111) 

and condemn polytheists (mushrikin)—those who 

claim that God does indeed have partners. Although 

the Quran attributes this message to all of God’s 

prophets, it is especially associated with a

braham

,

who is the figurehead of the hanif religion, a kind of 

primordial monotheism that preceded that of Jews 

and Christians. The importance of acknowledging 

belief in one God is reiterated in the hadith.

Tawhid served as a starting point for Muslim 

theology

 (known as kalam), which was con-

cerned with the issue of God’s oneness, espe-

cially as it pertained to his attributes. The most 

prominent theological school to articulate Islamic 

K  664  

tasawwuf

---

monotheistic theology was that of the Mutazila, 

who called themselves the People of Justice (adl) 

and Divine Unity (tawhid). They argued on behalf 

of God’s absolute unity and transcendence, and 

they denied the reality of any human attributes 

ascribed to him by the Quran (such as his hear-

ing, seeing, knowing, etc.). To recognize these 

attributes as anything other than metaphors, they 

thought, would compromise God’s essential unity. 

They also argued that the Quran, as God’s speech, 

was created in time, which they thought would 

counter any tendency to believe that it possessed 

its own godliness, like Christ, who was called the 

Word of God in the Gospel of John. The doctrine 

that the Quran was created, however, was firmly 

refuted by scriptural literalists such as a

hmad

ibn

 h

anbal

 (d. 855) and by the a

shari

 s

chool

 of 

theology, which argued that (1) God’s attributes 

were real, even if we do not know how they are so; 

and (2) the Quran was God’s speech and therefore 

eternal and uncreated as he is. Asharis did not feel 

that they had compromised the idea of his unique-

ness in taking this position, which has been the 

dominant one in Sunni theology since the 12th 

century.  Tawhid is also the foremost of the theo-

logical doctrines espoused in t

Welve

-i

mam

 s

hiism

,

which adopted most of the Mutazili doctrines.

In s

UFism

, the mystical tradition of Islam, the 

fundamental doctrine of tawhid was recognized 

and given new meaning. For the mystics, who 

sometimes called themselves “the affirmers of 

God’s unity” (muwahhidun), confessing “there is 

no god but God” was an external aspect of faith 

that as Muslims they had to embrace, along with 

God’s law, the sharia. Their objective, however, 

was to proceed to a special sense or awareness that 

allowed them to discover that there was nothing 

real or true in the world but God in his oneness. 

a

bU

 

al

-q

asim

 

al

-J

Unayd

 (d. 910) spoke of how 

God’s assistance was needed to annihilate the 

self and abide in union with him. He also identi-

fied four aspects of tawhid: one for the common 

people in accordance with belief in one God, one 

for devout Muslims who are outwardly doing 

what God commanded and prohibited, and two 

for spiritual virtuosos who transcend the first 

two aspects and calmly bear witness to the divine 

reality, and then become immersed in God’s unity, 

as they were before they ever existed. Following 

previous Sufi teachers, the Persian writer Farid 

al-Din Attar (ca. 12th–13th century) identified 

tawhid in his allegorical poem, The Conference of 

the Birds, as a stage where the seeker sees God 

and the world as one on his journey to spiritual 

self-annihilation. Sufis also eroticized their idea of 

mystical oneness by identifying it with the union 

of the lover with the beloved after suffering pain-

ful separation.

Doctrines concerning God’s unity (and unity 

with him) were embedded not just in matters 

of worship, theology, and the spirit, but also in 

matters of the world. Muslims addressed issues 

connected with defining their identities in relation 

both to alternative understandings of Islam and to 

their relations with non-Muslims. Concern with 

tawhid helped Muslims set themselves apart as 

a single community (umma) from those who did 

not acknowledge God’s oneness, especially idola-

ters and disbelievers, and to connect themselves 

to those whom they considered to be p

eople

 

oF

the

  b

ook

  (Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and 

others). Tawhid gave birth to periodic 

reForm

 

and

reneWal

 

movements

, as exemplified in the “unitar-

ian” movement of i

bn

 t

Umart

 (d. 1130), who had 

studied theology and mysticism in Baghdad, and 

then established the a

lmohad

 

dynasty

 that ruled 

Spain and North Africa from 1123 to 1269. Much 

later, on the cusp of the modern era, the Ara-

bian preacher M

Uhammad

 

ibn

 a

bd

 

al

-W

ahhab

 (d. 

1792) made tawhid a cornerstone in his campaign 

to reform Islam in the Arabian Peninsula and to 

eradicate what he considered to be the idolatrous 

beliefs and practices of the people, especially 

Shiis and Sufis. His puritanical, literalist under-

standing of Islam became the official ideology of 

s

aUdi

 a

rabia

. In the early 20th century, the Egyp-

tian modernist theologian m

Uhammad

  a

bdUh

 (d. 

1905) revived Mutazili understandings of divine