What is tawḥīd? The core of Islamic belief, explained.

"Their monotheism is essentially an extreme denial of the monotheism that God sent His messengers with and revealed in His books. The قَدَرِيَّة, on the other hand, view monotheism as the denial of God's decree, His encompassing will over all things, and His power over them. The later generations among them have combined this with the monotheism of the جَهْمِيَّة, resulting in a concept of monotheism that denies divine decree and the realities of the Most Beautiful Names and the Highest Attributes."

""Al-Manazil" said: that this symbol in التَّوْحِيد is a flaw, and التَّوْحِيد is not valid except by discarding it. The essence of this is that monotheism is not valid except by discarding monotheism itself; because that symbol, indication, and report are about the monotheism itself. It is a verbal, informative monotheism that corresponds to the known monotheism being reported."

"It is a verbal, informative monotheism that corresponds to the known monotheism being reported. If monotheism is not valid except by discarding that, then the reality is that monotheism is not valid except by discarding monotheism. This is the core of what scholars of this path indicate, even if they embellish it with descriptions and detail it in sections."

"In fact, the meaning is more invalid than the expression, and the expression is uglier than the meaning! Then it is said: What you have mentioned—at this level—is it monotheism and a description of monotheism, or is it not monotheism? If it is not monotheism, then it is false. If it is monotheism, then you have affirmed the One."

"Yet there is the man whose Tawhid is so great and vast that many of those traces are swallowed up in it and transformed within it, as with abundant water into which the slightest impurity or filth is mixed. Then the man of lesser Tawhid is deceived by his example, and mixes his own feeble Tawhid with what the man of great and abundant Tawhid mixed with his; so its effect appears in him as it never appeared in that abundant Tawhid."

"And that is by performing what is commanded. Whoever abandons both the commands and the prohibitions is ruined, not saved; and none is saved except by performing what is commanded, which is Tawhid. If it be said: he was ruined only by committing the forbidden thing, namely associating partners with God — the answer is that for ruin it suffices merely to abandon the Tawhid he was commanded with, even if he does not commit any positive opposite of it in the form of associating partners. Indeed, whenever his heart is wholly empty of Tawhid, so that he does not declare God one, he is ruined even if he worships nothing alongside Him."

"this world repelled by anything like Tawhid. That is why the supplication for distress is a declaration of Tawhid, and why the prayer of the Man of the Whale — with which no distressed soul has ever prayed but that God relieved his distress — is Tawhid itself. Nothing casts a person into grave distress but idolatry, and nothing delivers from it but Tawhid. It is the refuge of creation, its sanctuary, its fortress, and its rescue. And success is from God. A benefit:"

"erase sins, and enduring expiatory calamities. This is unlike the record of associating partners with Allah, which can only be erased by affirming the oneness of God, and the record of injustices, which can only be erased by relinquishing them to their claimants and seeking their pardon. Since associating partners with Allah is the greatest of these three records, it is forbidden for those who commit it to enter Paradise. No soul that associates others with Allah will enter Paradise. Only those who affirm the oneness of God will. Monotheism is the key to the gates of Paradise. Whoever does not possess this key will find the gates closed to him,"

"In this case, one sees many things, but despite their multitude, views them as emanating from the One, the Conqueror. The fourth aspect is to see nothing in existence except the One, which is the witnessing of the truthful, and the Sufis call it annihilation in monotheism. For as one sees only the One, one does not see oneself either. When one does not see oneself due to being absorbed in monotheism, one has indeed become annihilated from oneself in monotheism, meaning that one is annihilated from seeing oneself and creation."

"This annihilation and subsistence, allegiance and disavowal, erasure and affirmation, union and isolation, and singularity related to the oneness of divinity is beneficial, fruitful, and salvific, through which happiness and success are attained. As for its relation to the oneness of lordship—which the idol-worshiping polytheists acknowledged—its ultimate goal is annihilation in realizing a shared oneness between believers and disbelievers, friends of اللّٰه and His enemies."