RKUD 3190

Al-TAWHID AS WORLDVIEW

Conviction and witnessing that there is no god but God

In fact, a general view of reality, of truth, of the world, of space and time, of human history, of destiny

Duality

Ideationality

Teleology

Capacity of man and malleability of nature

Responsibility and judgment

The reality

Description of reality; dual entities God-non god & Creator-creation/creature Creator – Transcendent, beyond time and

space, beyond human experience, absolute, devoid of partner and associates

Creation – the order of time-space, of experience of creation, includes living-non living things

Creator and creation are disparate as far as their being, ontology, experience, careers are concerned

No way that the creator transform into creation nor creation transfigure itself to be Creator

Explain the relationship between the Creator and the Creation

Its point of reference in man is the faculty of reasoning

The faculty is strong enough to understand the will of the Creator either directly from His words or from His laws of nature

Purposiveness; serving the purpose of its Creator

The creation is not created in vain,

The world is an orderly cosmos not chaos, the law of order is innate in them by God

Man however, is created with freedom of will and action to realize the purpose of his creation

The realization of his purpose is what gives values, makes his action the moral values

Man’s capacity for moral action -

Creations other than man to serve man; the fulfillment of their purpose by the virtue of innate law; fitrah, this is indeed the significance of their creation

No cynicism/pessimism in the creation of man and other creations. (original sin, creation by accident, predestined)

Human’s freedom makes him responsible

Moral obligation come with responsibility

Moral imperativeness/judgment is the necessary condition of the consummation of responsibility

Duality

Ideationality

Teleology

Capacity of man and malleability of nature

Responsibility and judgment

The reality

Gives Islamic culture and civilization its identity

Binding disparate elements together in harmony

Tawhid as highest commandment for Allah promise to forgive all sins but the violation of al-tawhid – al-shirk (associating other gods to Allah) when the Quran says; 21:22

had there been in heaven or on earth any deities other than God, both [those realms would surely have fallen into ruin! But limitless in His glory is God, enthroned in His awesome almightiness far] above anything that men may devise by way of definition!

Without tawhid there is no Islam, and certainly the institution of prophecy

Tawhid explicates and substantiates the transcendence of Allah, the ultimate principle of all creation, being life and all religion.

Islam relate itself to both religions

However in the case of Judaism, the divine transcendence has been violated by ascribing human behavior and character to God

Also, by ascribing themselves as special to God by the virtue of the covenant they made regardless of their immorality, hardship.

A bound god is not a transcendent God

In the case of Christianity; the idea of unity of substance between God and Jesus violates the very Transcendent of God

Let us create man according to our image – Genesis 1:28

Transcendence of God is everybody’s business

Human is capable of knowing Him in His transcendence

This is innate endowment, fitrah

Transcendence in art

The mosque; no sensory images of God

Only decorations of verses of the quran and abstract arabesques, geometrical figures

An aestaethic intuition of infinity

Transcendence in language

By means of arabic, the language in which the quran is revealed.

Quran expresses 99 names or more names of God

Anthropomorphic verses are understood through allegorical interpretation, not tashbih

The preservation of arabic language, used by muslims all over the world

The essence of Islam is tawhid

No being of whom godhead is predicated is God except God, thus rejecting the gods of Christianity and Judaism

Christian trinitarianism postulated three persons in the deity

Judaism addressed God in the numerical plural Elohim, calling Ezra the son of God

Pluralism is derived from the word plural, which basically means many. In this context, it refers to the state of more than one or more than two facts or entities, for example plural marriage or plural societies

the philosophical perspective on pluralism, it is found that the entry of pluralism in philosophical dictionaries usually recommends monism as the relevant antonym. It is discovered that the first idea of pluralism actually refers to the disputation of the One and the Many in Greek antiquity. Pluralism opposed monism (the idea of an unitary organic whole) in its view about the nature of ultimate reality. Pluralism is also against dualism in the latter argument that nature is composed of two substances, such as world and God, natural and supernatural, temporal and eternal, material and mental, particular and universal, or two principles of Manichaeism such as good and evil, darkness and light Thus, pluralism in this sense is claimed to be an old philosophical argument in Greek antiquity regarding the problem of the One and the Many. In brief, this problem refers to the disagreement between the Eleatic School (represented by Parmenides) who taught that reality was an impermeable unity, an unbroken solidarity. This is opposed to the pluralist Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Hereclitus and the Atomist school, of Leucippus and Democritus who claimed that reality was made up of a multiplicity of entities. For further reading refer to Colin E. Gunton, The One, The Three, and the Many, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, First edition, 1993.

Pluralism, in this sense, may be concluded as meaning the awareness of the legitimate co-existence of systems of thought, life, and action, which on the other hand, are judged incompatible among themselves. For this reason, pluralism is claimed as a response towards the diversity and multiplicity that challenge human life. To accept pluralism, is to acquiesce in diversity and to tolerate dissension. In view of this, pluralism could be perceived as the middle ground between absolutism that admits only one possible position, and skepticism that dissolves every sort of position into indifferentism Raimundo Panikkar, “Philosophical Pluralism and The Plurality of Religions”, Religious Pluralism and Truth, Thomas Dean (edit), New York: State University of New York Press, 1995, p. 34.

Religious pluralism in its simple meaning refers to the multiplicity of religions or diversity of religions

on the surface, religious pluralism may be perceived as a description of the worldwide phenomenon of diverse religious groups. However, in a narrow and technical sense, the philosophy of religious pluralism refers to an interpretive theory concerning how one should handle the many competing truth-claims made by various religions.

Another way of understanding religious pluralism is to compare it with exclusivism and inclusivism

Religious exclusivism celebrates the absolutist claim that only one religion is correct and all others are mistaken. Inclusivism opposes the former by holding that there is only one true religion, but other religions participate or partially reveal some of the truth of the one correct religion. As against both positions, religious pluralism suggests that all world religions are correct in the sense that each religion makes a common reference to a single sacred, transcendent or ultimate reality indifferent perspectives and thereupon every religion may be considered as offering a way of salvation or path to God.