UNDERSTANDING THE USUL OF TAWHID

What is Tawhid?

Ibn Taymiyyah ‫ رحمه هللا‬said:

‎ Monotheism [Tawhid] is the foundation of faith, it is the

“
speech that differentiates between the people of Paradise and
the people of Hell. It is the value of Paradise, and no one’s
Islam is valid except by it.”

‎[‫]مجموع الفتاوى‬

Tawhid means monotheism or the belief system of only one God, it

is the exclusion of worship, belief and obedience only unto Allah.
Its opposite is shirk (or Taghut). Allah defines Tawhid as:

● And our God and your God is one; and we are Muslims [in
submission] to Him. 29:46

● Say: Allah is the One [and Only] 112:1

● And your god is one God. There is no deity [worthy of

worship] except Him, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially
Merciful. 2:163

This gives us the best definition of what Tawhid is. This was the
main message Allah has been telling us since the time of Nuh, and
what he has told us now. The one who upholds Tawhid is called a
Muwahid. The opposite of Tawhid is Shirk [literally means to
associate with] which means Polytheism and this is what Allah has
been preaching against, it is to worship other than Allah and Allah
has given us evidence in Qur’an as:
 ● Indeed, We sent Noah to his people. He said, “O my
people! Worship Allah—you have no other god except
Him. I truly fear for you the torment of a tremendous
Day.” 7:59

● Indeed, you [disbelievers] and what you worship other

than Allah are the firewood of Hell. You will be coming to
[enter] it. 21:98

● And they have taken besides Allah [false] deities that

they would be for them [a source of] honour. 19:81

● And they worship other than Allah that which neither

harms them nor benefits them, and they say, "These are
our intercessors with Allah " Say, "Do you inform Allah of
something He does not know in the heavens or on the
earth?" Exalted is He and high above what they associate
with Him 10:18

This is evident that Allah has warned us against Shirk and taught
us Tawhid and to affirm it and never to let go as He said:

So whoever renounces false gods and believes in Allah has

certainly grasped the firmest, unfailing hand-hold. 2:256

To uphold Tawhid and stand against Shirk [or Taghut, thus will be
explained later] is the best aqidah [creed]

There are three Tawhid that one must learn, ignorance in thus
cannot be excused:
1. Tawhid ar-Rububiyyah (Lordship)
2. Tawhid al-Uluhiyyah (Divinity)
3. Tawhid al-'Asma was-Siffat
Tawhid ar-Rububiyyah

Rububiyyah comes from its root Rabb which means Lord, so this is
referring to singling out Allah in Lordship towards His creation we
can understand this as Allah has 100% Lordship in these few
following things with their evidences:

Creation: Unquestionably, His is the creation and the

command; blessed is Allāh, Lord of the worlds. 7:54
Legislation: Legislation is for Allah [alone]. He has commanded
that you worship none but Him. That is the upright faith, but
most people do not know. 12:40
Life giving and taking: And it is Allah who gives life and causes
death 3:156

There are many more as well, but these are a few, we single out
Allah in attributes that only He can do (or allows), we believe that
our seeing is not like His seeing, our living is not like His living, our
creation (better word making) is not like His, our ascending is not
like His so on and so forth. Ignorance in this is not and NEVER
accepted as this is the first basis of Tawhid to disassociate any
Taghut [false deity] from any of these actions as these actions are
only for Allah.

Tawhid al-Uluhiyyah
This comes from the root “Uluhw” which means the divine or
divinity. This is that all forms of worship [whether walking,
praying, supplicating, remembrance, sleeping, intending, feeding
etc] is only and ONLY for Allah, if any of this is for anyone else, it
is counted as Riyyah [showing off] without any excuse! This is
evident in the Qur’an in the following:
 ● And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but
Him 17:23
● remember Me; I will remember you. And thank Me, and
never be ungrateful. 2:152
● I have not created humans or jinn but to worship Me.
51:56
● We have certainly sent a Messenger of every nation,
saying: Worship Allah and avoid false gods. 16:36
● Whoever purifies himself for ablution in his house and he
walks to a house among the houses of Allah in order to
fulfil an obligation among the obligations of Allah, then
one step of his will expiate his sins and another step will
elevate his status. Sahih Muslim 666.

We must understand that doing anything for the sabil [sake] of

anything other than Allah is SHIRK and can cause one to go to
Jahannam [Hell]. This is a warning for those who fear Allah! We
only do this for the Pleasure and for the Ajar [reward] of Allah.

Tawhid al-'Asma was-Siffat

This part of Tawhid comes into two parts:

● Asma-ullahi al-husna
● As-sifatullah
We will go into detail of both parts In Sha Allah:

Asma-ullahi wal-Husna

This literally translates to The names of Allah and their beauty,

these are the names of Allah that we must affirm and believe in
without any questioning, ignorance in this or rejection leads to
Kufr Akbar and makes one leave the fold of Islam. There are 99
names of Allah that we all affirm them.
Rasulullah said:
Allah has ninety-nine Names, i.e., one hundred minus one, and
whoever believes in their meanings and acts accordingly, will
enter Paradise; and Allah is witr (one) and loves 'the witr' (i.e.,
odd numbers). Bukhari 6410

A few of His names are

● Ar-Rahman (The Most Merciful)
● Ar-Rahim (The Ever Merciful)
● Al-Malik (The Sovereign one)
● Al-Qudus (Free from Impurity/Holy one)
● As-Salam (The owner of Peace)
Etc.

As-Sifatullah

This refers to the general attributes of Allah, they aren't apart of

His names by they are His attributes and we affirm them how they
are without questioning example:
His Face, His Eyes, His Highness, His Help, His closeness, His love
etc.
Negation of Allah attributes leads to kufr and deviation.

La ilaha illa Allah

This is the statement of Tawhid, and it consists of two separate

parts:
● Affirmation (ithbat)
● Negation (nafi)

Negation
Before you can take you must give, in the heart Taghut and
Tawhid cannot live together, so to affirm Tawhid, one my leave
and reject Taghut but saying:
La ilaha
This statement, affirms there is No god worthy of worship and
completely rejects all forms of worshipping other beings through
three of the following ways:
● Obeying
● Following
● Worshipping
This will also be discussed in our next Topic, Taghut.

Affirmation
This is to believe in Allah as the only God, once someone has
rejected their false gods they can believe in Allah. See how the
word is phrased, There is no god but Allah. Allah ordered it to be
like this so we avoid Taghut first and then affirm Allah as our
Master, because there are people who believe Allah is their Lord
but take creation as their lords too e.g. the Christians, Shi'a etc. So
to complete your Islam and Tawhid one must say illa Allah to
accept Allah is worthy of worship and is worthy of His attributes.

Once someone has rejected false gods and accepted Allah as their
Lord, they have perfect Islam the tightest bond with Allah that
can never break and no shayatin can get in their way. Any
"muslim" who does not know this does not have complete Islam
and is Kafir (since Hujjah is established once you say La ilaha illa
Allah) and has a weak bond with Allah even if he prays all the
days of His life.

Conclusion

We should come to the conclusion that we cannot simply

understand Tawhid and call ourselves Muslimin, rather we need to
understand Shirk and Taghut and reject it and hate its people to
have correct Tawhid, those will be done in another PDF/video In
Sha Allah. The main focus of Tawhid is to believe Allah is one in his
Lordship, Attributes, Worship and Ruling and reject all other false
deities, whether Shayatin or Human or anything else.
May you understand this knowledge and affirm it and not be used
against you on the day of judgement.
Amin

-Sayfullah Al-Maliki