Is Islam A Monotheism ?

The fol­low­ing is a reply made by an Arab broth­er using the nick­name ​“sary” in response to Christoph Heger’s polemic about the uncre­at­ed­ness of the Qur’an, and is repro­duced here and trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish for the ben­e­fit of our readers.

Orig­i­nal Text :

Trans­la­tion :

As for the arti­cle of that Chris­t­ian, it is real­ly laugh­able and reflects com­pound igno­rance. Its aimed con­clu­sion lies in two allegations :

1. ​“The alle­ga­tion that the Mus­lims’ belief in uncre­at­ed­ness of the Qur’an makes it a god in asso­ci­a­tion with Allah Ta’ala”: We answer it with the fact that Mus­lims do not con­sid­er the Qur’an an inde­pen­dent iden­ti­ty that equals Allah (Glo­ry be to Him) for it is not self-emerg­ing speech ; it is His Speech whom He spoke and revealed on the heart of His Prophet. His Speech is an inte­gral Attribute of His. Adjec­tive is adher­ent to its object [or sub­ject], so God’s Attrib­ut­es stands by Him and are as eter­nal as He. How come they sep­a­rate the adjec­tive from its object (or subject)?

The con­se­quences of such rea­son­ing is that all Allah’s Attrib­ut­es are gods with Him, so Allah’s Hear­ing is a god, Allah’s Sight is a god, Allah’s Knowl­edge is a god and Allah’s Wrath is a god. More­over, the ​‘com­mu­ni­ty’ of gods will include the Torah, the Injeel, the Zaboor and the rest of what Allah has spo­kenWe do not believe that the Qur’an is eter­nal, but that it is the divine qual­i­ty of speech is the one which is eter­nal. To be more detailed ; it is well accept­ed that Attrib­ut­es and Qual­i­ties of Allah are eter­nal because He is Eter­nal and these are His Attrib­ut­es. These Attrib­ut­es are divid­ed into two cat­e­gories : (a) attrib­ut­es of Zat (i.e., Self or Essence) and they are adher­ent to Allah like Liv­ing, Knowl­edge, Abil­i­ty, Great­ness, etc., and (b) attrib­ut­es of Af’al (i.e., Acts) like Cre­ation, Giv­ing, Tak­ing, Speech, etc., these Attrib­ut­es are eter­nal in kind, but tem­po­rary in action, i.e. Allah is always the Cre­ator but He cre­ates when­ev­er He wills, He is always Speak­er but He speaks when­ev­er He wills.

So when we say that the divine qual­i­ty of speech is eter­nal, we nev­er mean to say that the Qur’an — which is the prod­uct of this qual­i­ty — is con­se­quent­ly eter­nal. Thus the oppo­site of Heger’s alle­ga­tion is true and we do not believe the Qur’an to be co-eter­nal with Allah. Allah eter­nal­ly has the qual­i­ty of Speech and He — at a cer­tain point of time — spoke (takalla­ma) with the Qur’an. and is speak­ing and that whom His Angels and Mes­sen­gers hear which is end­less and uncount­able ​“Say : if the ocean were ink (where­with to write out) the words of my Lord, soon­er would the ocean be exhaust­ed than would the words of my Lord, even if we added anoth­er ocean like it, for its aid.” (Holy Qur’an 18:109) No sane per­son would say this unless Mr. Heger believes that God’s Attrib­ut­es are cre­at­ed, then he will negate the eter­nal­i­ty of His Attrib­ut­es like Knowl­edge, Hear­ing, Sight, .. etc.. so God was igno­rant, blind and deaf till He cre­at­ed these attrib­ut­es ! Far Exalt­ed is He above this, for He is eter­nal­ly Omni­scient, All-Wise, All-Hear­ing and All-Seeing.

It is not said that we wor­ship the Holy Qur’an ; we mere­ly pray to Allah with it and wor­ship Him with recit­ing, believ­ing and fol­low­ing it the same way we ask Him with call­ing His Most Beau­ti­ful Attrib­ut­es ​“The Most Beau­ti­ful Names belong to Allah : so call on Him by them” (Holy Qur’an 7:180).

2. ​“The alle­ga­tion that the Mes­si­ah is a god with Allah for it is His Word and God’s Word is uncre­at­ed”: We answer that the Mes­si­ah (peace be upon him) is not the Word, but was cre­at­ed with the Word. This is what the Holy Qur’an states when He Ta’ala says, ​“The simil­i­tude of Jesus before Allah is as that of Adam ; He cre­at­ed him from dust, then said to him : Be : and he was.” (Holy Qur’an 3:59) His spe­cial­iza­tion with being described as Allah’s Word in con­trast to oth­er crea­tures is due to his cre­ation with it direct­lyEvery­thing has a direct cause and an indi­rect cause. We often attribute things to their direct caus­es ; when we see green fer­tile land, we com­ment, ​“Look at the effect of rain!” while God is the actu­al mak­er. But if a liv­ing plant were seen grow­ing on a hard stone, we would com­ment, ​“Look at the mak­ing of God!” so the actu­al cause is revealed due to lack of a direct one. Based upon this argu­ment, since the direct cause of Jesus’^(P) birth is absent, he is attrib­uted to an indi­rect cause which is the Word because every­one is cre­at­ed with God’s Word for He says to any crea­ture, ​“Be” and he is. This is the rea­son why he^(P) is described as a ​“Word of God”, in ref­er­ence to his mirac­u­lous birth and absence of the usu­al direct cause. in vio­la­tion of all caus­es and rules whom Allah Ta’ala estab­lished in His creation.

It is fur­ther note­wor­thy that the Ortho­dox Jew­ish con­cep­tion of Torah also views it as uncre­at­ed by a spe­cif­ic act of God’s will and pri­mor­dial. The Torah is report­ed (some­times as either 947 gen­er­a­tionsTal­mud trac­tate Zebahim 116a, etc. and some­times as 2,000 yearsGen­e­sis Rab­ba, ch. 8) to have exist­ed before the Cre­ation, and that God took coun­sel with it at the cre­ation of the world. Is Christoph Heger pre­pared to pass the same judg­ment on Judaism as well, name­ly that by virtue of the doc­trine of the uncre­at­ed­ness of the Torah, Judaism is not a monotheism ?