Tauheed

There can be no doubt that the essence of Islamic civilization is Islam; or

that the essence of Islam is tawhid, the act of affirming Allah to be the One,
absolute, transcendent Creator, Lord and Master of all that is.
These two fundamental premises are self-evident. They have never been in
doubt by those belonging to this civilization or participating in it. Only in
recent times have missionaries, Orientalists, and other interpreters of Islam
subjected these premises to doubt. Whatever their level of education,
Muslims are apodictically certain that Islamic civilization does have an
essence, that this essence is knowable and capable of analysis or
description, that it is tawhid1. Analysis of tawhid as essence, as first
determining principle of Islamic civilization, is the object of this document.
Tawhid is that which gives Islamic civilization its identity, which binds all its
constituents together and thus makes of them an integral, organic body that
we call civilization. In binding disparate elements together, the essence of
civilization in this case, tawhid impresses them with its own mold. It recasts
them so as to harmonize with and mutually support other elements. Without
necessarily changing their natures, the essence transforms the elements
making up a civilization, giving them their new character as constitutive of
that civilization. The range of transformation may vary from slight to radical,
depending on how relevant the essence is to the different elements and their
functions. This relevance stood out prominently in the minds of Muslim
observers of the phenomena of civilization. That is why they took tawhid as
title to their most importantworks, and they pressed all subjects under its
aegis. They regarded tawhid as the most fundamental principle that includes
or determines all other principles; and they found in it the fountainhead, the
primeval source determining all phenomena of Islamic civilization.
Traditionally and simply expressed, tawhid is the conviction and witnessing
that, there is no God but God. This negative statement, brief to the utmost
limits of brevity, carries the greatest and richest meanings in the whole of
Islam. Sometimes, a whole culture, a whole civilization, or a whole history
lies compressed in one sentence. This certainly is the case of
the kalimah (pronouncement) or shahadah (witnessing) of Islam. All the

diversity, wealth and history, culture and learning, wisdom and civilization of
Islam is compressed in this shortest of sentences La ilaha illa Allah.
Tawhid as Worldview
Tawhid is a general view of reality, of truth, of the world, of space and time,
of human history. As such it comprehends the following principles:
Duality
Reality is of two generic kinds, God and non-God; Creator and creature. The
first order has but one member, Allah, the Absolute and Almighty. He alone
is God, eternal, Creator, transcendent. Nothing is like unto Him; He remains
forever absolutely unique and devoid of partners or associates. The second is
the order of space-time, of experience, of creation. It includes all creatures,
the world of things, plants and animals, humans, jinn and angels, heaven
and earth, paradise and hell, and all their becoming since they came into
being. The two orders of Creator and creation are utterly and absolutely
disparate as far as their being, or ontology, as well as their existence and
careers are concerned. It is forever impossible that the one be united with,
fused, con-fused or diffused into the other. Neither can the Creator be
ontologically transformed so as to become the creature, nor can the creature
transcend and transfigure itself so as to become in any way or sense the
Creator.2
Ideationality
The relation between the two orders of reality is ideational in nature. Its
point of reference in man is the faculty of understanding. As organ and
repository of knowledge, the understanding includes all the gnostic functions
of memory, imagination, reasoning, observation, intuition, apprehension,
and so on. All humans are endowed with understanding. Their endowment is
strong enough to understand the will of God in either or both of the following
ways: when that will is expressed in words, directly by God to man, and
when the divine will is deducible through observation of creation.3
Teleology
The nature of the cosmos is teleological; that is, purposive, serving a
purpose of its Creator, and doing so out of design. The world has not been

created in vain, or in sport.4 It is not the work of chance, a happenstance. It

was created in perfect condition. Everything that exists does so in a measure
proper to it and fulfills a certain universal purpose.5 The world is indeed a
cosmos, an orderly creation, not chaos. In it, the will of the Creator is
always realized. His patterns are fulfilled with the necessity of natural law.
For they are innate in the very nature of things. No creature other than man
acts or exists in a way other than what the Creator has ordained for it.6 Man
is the only creature in which the will of God is actualized not necessarily, but
with mans own personal consent. The physical and psychic functions of man
are integral to nature, and as such they obey the laws pertinent to them
with the same necessity as all other creatures. But the spiritual functions
namely, understanding and moral action fall outside the realm of
determined nature. They depend upon their subject and follow his
determination. Actualization of the divine will by them is of a qualitatively
different value than necessary actualization by other creatures. Necessary
fulfillment applies only to elemental or utilitarian values; free fulfillment
applies to the moral. However, the moral purposes of God, His
commandments to man, do have a base in the physical world, and hence
there is a utilitarian aspect to them. But this is not what gives them their
distinctive quality, that of being moral. It is precisely the commandments
aspect of being fulfillable in freedom - that is, with the possibility of being
violated that provides the special dignity we ascribe to things moral.7
Capacity of Man and Malleability of Nature
Since everything was created for a purpose, the realization of that purpose
must be possible in space and time.8 Otherwise, there is no escape from
cynicism. Creation itself and the processes of space and time would lose
their meaning and significance. Without this possibility, taklif, or moral
obligation, falls to the ground; and with its fall, either Gods purposiveness
or His might is destroyed. Realization of the absolute, namely, the
divine raison detre of creation must be possible in history; that is, within the
process of time between creation and the Day of Judgment. As the subject of
moral action, man must therefore be capable of changing himself, his fellows
or society, nature or his environment, so as to actualize the divine pattern,
or commandment, in him as well as in them.9 As the object of moral action,
man as well as his fellows and environment must all be capable of receiving
the efficacious action of man, the subject. This capacity is the converse of
mans moral capacity for action as subject. Without it, mans capacity for

moral action would be impossible and the purposive nature of the universe
would collapse. Again, there would be no recourse from cynicism. For
creation to have a purpose and this is a necessary assumption if God is
God and His work is not a meaningless travail de singe creation must be
malleable, transformable, capable of changing its substance, structure,
conditions, and relations so as to embody or concretize the
human pattern or purpose. This is true of all creation, including mans
physical, psychic, and spiritual nature. All creation is capable of realization of
the ought-to-be, the will or pattern of God, the absolute in this space and in
this time.10
Responsibility and Judgment
If man stands under the obligation to change himself, his society, and his
environment so as to conform to the divine pattern, and is capable of doing
so, and if all that is object of his action is malleable and capable of receiving
his action and embodying its purpose, then it follows with necessity that he
is responsible. Moral obligation is impossible without responsibility or
reckoning. Unless man is responsible, and unless he is accountable for his
deeds, cynicism becomes once more inevitable.
Judgment, or the consummation of responsibility, is the necessary condition
of moral obligation, of moral imperativeness. It flows from the very nature of
being normative.11 It is immaterial whether reckoning takes place in
space-time or at the end of it or both, but it must take place. To obey God,
that is, to realize His commandments and actualize His pattern, is to
achieve falah or success, happiness, and ease. Not to do so, to disobey Him,
is to incur punishment, suffering, unhappiness, and the agonies of failure.
Tawhid as an Essence of Civilization
As the essence of Islamic civilization, tawhid has two aspects or dimensions:
the methodology and the content. The former determines the forms of
application and implementation of the first principles of the civilization; the
latter determines the first principles themselves.
The Methodology Dimension

The methodological dimension includes three principles, namely, unity,

rationalism, and tolerance. These determine the form of Islamic civilization,
a form that pervades every one of its departments.
Unity. There is no civilization without unity. Unless the elements constituting
a civilization are united, woven, and harmonized with one another, they
constitute not a civilization but a hodgepodge conglomeration. A principle
unifying the various elements and comprehending them within its framework
is essential. Such a principle would transform the mixture of relations of the
elements with one another into an orderly structure in which levels of
priority or degrees of importance are perceivable. The civilization of Islam
places elements in an orderly structure and governs their existence and
relations according to a uniform pattern. In themselves, the elements can be
of either native or foreign provenance. Indeed, there is no civilization that
has not adopted some elements foreign to it. What is important is that the
civilization should digest those elements, that is, it should recast their forms
and relations and thus integrate them into its own system. To in form them
with its own form is in fact to transform them into a new reality where they
exist no more in themselves or in their former dependency, but as integral
components of the new civilization in which they have been integrated. It is
not an argument against any civilization that it contains such elements; but
it is a devastating argument against any civilization when it has merely
added foreign elements; when it has done so in disjointed manner, without
re formation, in formation, or integration. As such, these elements merely co
exist with civilization. They do not belong organically to it. But if the
civilization has succeeded in transforming them and integrating them into its
system, the integrating process becomes its index of vitality, of its
dynamism and creativity. In any integral civilization, and certainly in Islam,
the constitutive elements, whether material, structural, or relational, are all
bound by one supreme principle. In Islamic civilization, this supreme
principle is tawhid. It is the ultimate measuring rod of the Muslim, his guide
and criterion in his encounter with other religions and civilizations, with new
facts or situations. What accords with it is accepted and integrated. What
does not is rejected and condemned.
Tawhid, or the doctrine of absolute unity, transcendence, and ultimacy of
God, implies that only He is worthy of worship, of service. The obedient
person lives his life under this principle. He seeks to have all his acts to
conform to the pattern, to actualize the divine purpose. His life must

therefore show the unity of his mind and will, the unique object of his
service. His life will not be a series of events put together helter skelter, but
will be related to a single overarching principle, bound by a single frame that
integrates them together into a single unity. His life thus has a single style,
an integral form in short, Islam.
Rationalism. As methodological principle, rationalism is constitutive of the
essence of Islamic civilization. It consists of three rules or laws: first,
rejection of all that does not correspond with reality; second, denial of
ultimate contradictories; third, openness to new and/or contrary evidence.
The first rule protects the Muslim against opinion, that is, against making
any untested, unconfirmed claims to knowledge. The unconfirmed claim, the
Quran declares, is an instance of zann, or deceptive knowledge, and is
prohibited by God, however slight is its object.12 The Muslim is definable as
the person who claims nothing but the truth. The second rule protects him
against simple contradiction on one side, and paradox on the
other.13 Rationalism does not mean the priority of reason over revelation
but the rejection of any ultimate contradiction between them.14Rationalism
studies contradictory theses over and over again, assuming that there must
be an aspect that had escaped consideration and that, if taken into account,
would expose the contradictory relation. Equally, rationalism leads the
reader of revelation not revelation itself to another reading, lest an
unobvious or unclear meaning may have escaped him that, if reconsidered,
would remove the apparent contradiction. Such referral to reason or
understanding would have the effect of harmonizing not revelation per se
(revelation stands above any manipulation by man!) but the Muslims human
interpretation or understanding of it. It makes his understanding of
revelation agree with the cumulative evidence uncovered by reason.
Acceptance of the contradictory or paradoxical, as ultimately valid, appeals
only to the weak of mind. The intelligent Muslim is a rationalist as he insists
on the unity of the two sources of truth, namely, revelation and reason.
The third rule, openness to new or contrary evidence, protects the Muslim
against literalism, fanaticism, and stagnation causing conservatism. It
inclines him to intellectual humility. It forces him to append to his
affirmations and denials the phrase Allahu alam(Allah knows better!). For
he is convinced that the truth is bigger than can be totally mastered by him.

As the affirmation of the absolute unity of God, tawhid is the affirmation of

the unity of truth. For God, in Islam, is the truth. His unity is the unity of the
sources of truth. God is the Creator of nature whence man derives his
knowledge. The objects of knowledge are the patterns of nature that are the
work of God. Certainly God knows them since He is their author; and equally
certainly, He is the source of revelation. He gives man of His knowledge; and
His knowledge is absolute and universal. God is no trickster, no malevolent
agent whose purpose is to misguide and mislead. Nor does He change His
judgment as men do when they correct their knowledge, their will, or their
decision. God is perfect and omniscient. He makes no mistakes. Otherwise,
He would not be the transcendent God of Islam.
Tolerance. As methodological principle, tolerance is the acceptance of the
present until its falsehood has been established. Thus, it is relevant to
epistemology. It is equally relevant to ethics as the principle of accepting the
desired until its undesirability has been established.15 The former is
called saah, the latter, yusr. Both protect the Muslim from self closure to the
world, from deadening conservatism. Both urge him to affirm and say yea to
life, to new experience. Both encourage him to address the new data with
his scrutinizing reason, his constructive endeavor, and thereby to enrich his
experience and life, to move his culture and civilization ever forward.
As methodological principle within the essence of Islamic civilization,
tolerance is the conviction that God did not leave people without sending
them a messenger from among themselves to teach them that there is no
God but God and that they owe Him worship and service,16 to warn them
against evil and its causes.17 In this regard, tolerance is the certainty that
all men are endowed with a sensus communis, which enables them to know
the true religion, to recognize Gods will and commandments. Tolerance is
the conviction that the diversity of religions is due to history with all its
affecting factors, its diverse conditions of space and time, its prejudices,
passions, and vested interests. Behind religious diversity stands al din al
hanif, the primordial religion of God with which all men are born before
acculturation makes them adherents of this or that religion. Tolerance
requires the Muslim to undertake a study of the history of religions with a
view to discover within each the primeval endowment of God, which He sent
all His apostles at all places and times to teach. 18

In religion and there can hardly be anything more important in human

relations tolerance transforms confrontation and reciprocal condemnations
between the religions into a cooperative scholarly investigation of the
genesis and development of the religions with a view to separating the
historical accretions from the original given of revelation. In ethics, the next
all-important field, yusr immunizes the Muslim against any life denying
tendencies and assures him the minimum measure of optimism required to
maintain health, balance, and a sense of proportion, despite all the tragedies
and afflictions that befall human life. God has assured His creatures that
with hardship, We have ordained ease [yusr]. 19 And as He commanded
them to examine every claim and make certain before
judging, 20 the usuliyyun (doctors of jurisprudence) resorted to
experimentation before judging as good and evil anything desired that is not
contrary to a clear divine injunction.
Both saah and yusr devolve directly from tawhid as a principle of the
metaphysic of ethics. God, who created man that he may prove himself
worthy in the deed, has made him free and capable of positive action and
affirmative movement in the world. To do so, Islam holds, is indeed
mans raison dtre.21
Tawhid as First Principle of Metaphysics
To witness that there is no God but God is to hold that He alone is the
Creator Who gave to everything its being, Who is the ultimate Cause of
every event, and the final End of all that is, that He is the First and the Last.
To enter into such witnessing in freedom and conviction, in conscious
understanding of its content, is to realize that all that surrounds us, whether
things or events, all that takes place in the natural, social, or psychic fields,
is the action of God, the fulfillment of one or another of His purposes. Once
made, such realization becomes second nature to man, inseparable from him
during all his waking hours. One then lives all the moments of ones life
under its shadow. And where man recognizes Gods commandment and
action in every object and event, he follows the divine initiative because it is
Gods. To observe it in nature is to do natural science.22 For the divine
initiative in nature is none other than the immutable laws with which God
had endowed nature.23 To observe the divine initiative in ones self or in
ones society is to pursue the humanities and the social sciences.24 And if
the whole universe itself is really the unfolding or fulfillment of these laws of

nature, which are the commandments of God and His will, then the universe
is, in the eye of the Muslim, a living theater set in motion by Gods command. The theater itself, as well as all that it includes, is explicable in these
terms. The unity of God means therefore that He is the Cause of everything,
and that none else is so.
Of necessity, then, tawhid means the elimination of any power operative in
nature beside God, whose eternal initiative are the immutable laws of
nature. But this is tantamount to denying any initiative in nature by any
power other than that which is innate in nature, such as magic, sorcery,
spirits, and any theurgical notion of arbitrary interference into the processes
of nature by any agency. Therefore, tawhid means the profaning of the
realms of nature, their secularization. And that is the absolutely first condition of a science of nature. Through tawhid, therefore, nature was separated
from the gods and spirits of primitive religion. Tawhid for the first time made
it possible for the religio-mythopoeic mind to outgrow itself, for the sciences
of nature and civilization to develop with the blessing of a religious
worldview that renounced once and for all any association of the sacred with
nature. Tawhid is the opposite of superstition or myth, the enemies of
natural science and civilization. Tawhidgathers all the threads of causality
and returns them to God rather than to occult forces. In so doing, the causal
force operative in any event or object is organized so as to make a continuous thread whose parts are causally and hence empirically related
to one another. That the thread ultimately refers to God demands that no
force outside of it interferes with the discharge of its causal power or
efficacy. This in turn presupposes the linkages between the parts to be
causal, and subjects them to empirical investigation and establishment. That
the laws of nature are the inimitable patterns of God means that God
operates the threads of nature through causes. Only causation by another
cause that is always the same constitutes a pattern. This constancy of
causation is precisely what makes its examination and discovery and
hence, science possible. Science is none other than the search for such
repeated causation in nature, for the causal linkages constitutive of the
causal thread are repeated in other threads. Their establishment is the
establishment of the laws of nature. It is the prerequisite for subjecting the
causal forces of nature to control and engineering, the necessary condition
for mans usufruct of nature.
Tawhid as First Principle of Ethics

Tawhid affirms that the unique God created man in the best of forms to the
end of worshipping and serving Him.25 This means that mans whole
existence on earth has as its purpose the obedience of God, the fulfillment of
His command. Tawhid also affirms that this purpose consists in mans
vicegerency for God on earth.26 For, according to the Quran, God has
invested man with His trust, a trust which heaven and earth were incapable
of carrying and from which they shied away with fear.27 The divine trust is
the fulfillment of the ethical part of the divine will, whose very nature
requires that it be realized in freedom, and man is the only creature capable
of doing so. Wherever the divine will is realized with the necessity of natural
law, the realization is not moral, but elemental or utilitarian. Only man is
capable of realizing it under the possibility of doing or not doing so at all, or
doing the very opposite or anything in between. It is this exercise of human
freedom regarding obedience to Gods commandment that makes fulfillment
of the command moral.
Tawhid affirms that God, being beneficent and purposive, did not create man
in sport, or in vain. He endowed him with the senses, with reason and
understanding, made him perfect ? indeed, breathed into him of His
spirit28 to prepare him to perform this great duty.
Such great duty is the cause for the creation of man. It is the final end of
human existence, mans definition, and the meaning of his life and existence
on earth. By virtue of it, man assumes a cosmic function of tremendous
importance. The cosmos would not be itself without that higher part of the
divine will which is the object of human moral endeavor. And no other
creature in the cosmos can substitute for man in this function. Man is the
only cosmic bridge by which the moral ? and hence higher ? part of the
divine will may enter the realm of space?time and become history.
The responsibility or obligation (taklif) laid down upon man exclusively
knows no bounds. It comprehends the whole universe. All mankind is object
of mans moral action; all earth and sky are his theater, his material. He is
responsible for all that takes place in the universe, in every one of its
remotest corners. For mans taklif or obligation is universal, cosmic. It comes
to end only on the Day of Judgment.
Taklif, Islam affirms, is the basis of mans humanity, its meaning, and its
content. Mans acceptance of this burden puts him on a higher level than the

rest of creation, indeed, than the angels. For, only he is capable of accepting
responsibility. It constitutes his cosmic significance. A world of difference
separates this humanism of Islam from other humanisms. Greek civilization,
for instance, developed a strong humanism which the West has taken as a
model since the Renaissance. Founded upon an exaggerated naturalism,
Greek humanism deified man, as well as his vices. That is why the Greek
was not offended by representing his gods as cheating and plotting against
one another, as committing adultery, theft, incest, aggression, jealousy and
revenge, and other acts of brutality. Being part of the very stuff of which
human life is made, such acts and passions were claimed to be as natural as
the perfections and virtues. As nature, both were thought to be equally
divine, worthy of contemplation in their aesthetic form, of adoration and
of emulation by man of whom the gods were the apotheosis. Christianity, on
the other hand, was in its formative years reacting to this very Greco-Roman
humanism. It went to the opposite extreme of debasing man through
original sin and declaring him a fallen creature, a massa peccata.29
The degrading of man to the level of an absolute, universal, innate, and
necessary state of sin from which it is impossible for any human ever to pull
himself up by his own effort was the logical prerequisite if God on High was
to incarnate Himself, to suffer, and die in atonement for mans sinfulness. In
other words, if a redemption has to take place by God, there must be a
predicament so absolute that only God could pull man out of it. Thus human
sinfulness was absolutized in order to make it worthy of the Crucifixion of
God. Hinduism classified mankind into castes, and assigned the majority of
mankind to the nethermost classes of untouchables if they are native to
India, or malitcha, the religiously unclean or contaminated of the rest of the
world. For the lowest as well as for the others, there is no rise to the
superior, privileged caste of Brahmins in this life; such mobility is possible
only after death through the transmigration of souls. In this life, man
necessarily belongs to the caste in which he is born. Ethical striving is of no
consequence whatever to its subject as long as he is alive in this world.
Finally, Buddhism judged all human and other life in creation as endless
suffering and misery. Existence itself, it held, is evil and mans only
meaningful duty is to seek release from it through discipline and mental
effort.
The humanism of tawhid alone is genuine. It alone respects man as man and
creature, without either deification or vilification. It alone defines the worth

of man in terms of his virtues, and begins its assessment of him with a
positive mark for the innate endowment God has given all men in
preparation for their noble task. It alone defines the virtues and ideals of
human life in terms of the very contents of natural life, rather than denying
them, thus making its humanism life-affirmative as well as moral.
Tawhid as First Principle of Axiology
Tawhid affirms that God has created mankind that men may prove
themselves morally worthy by their deeds.30 As supreme and ultimate
Judge, He warned that all mens actions will be reckoned31; that their
authors will rewarded for the good deeds and punished for the
evil.32 Tawhidfurther affirms that God has placed man on earth that he may
colonize it33, that is, that he may strike out on its trails, eat of its fruits,
enjoy its goodness and beauty, and cause it and himself to prosper.34 This is
world?affirmation: to accept the world because it is innocent and good,
created by God and ordered by Him for human use. Indeed, everything in
the world, including the sun and the moon, is subservient to man. All
creation is a theater in which man is to perform his ethical action and
thereby implement the higher part of the divine will. Man is responsible for
satisfying his instincts and needs, and every individual is responsible for the
same satisfaction for all men. Man is obliged to develop the human
resources of all men to the highest possible degree, that full use may be
made of all their natural endowments. He is obliged to transform the whole
earth into productive orchards and beautiful gardens. He may in the process
explore the sun and the moon if necessary.35 Certainly he must discover
and learn the patterns of nature, of the human psyche, of society. Certainly
he ought to industrialize and develop the world if it is eventually to become
the garden where the word of God is supreme.
Such world affirmation is truly creative of civilization. It generates the
elements out of which civilizations are made, as well as the social forces
necessary for its growth and progress. Tawhid is anti-monkery, antiisolation, anti-world-denial, and anti-asceticism.36 On the other hand, world
affirmation does not mean unconditional acceptance of the world and nature
as they are. Without a principle to check mans implementation or
realization, affirmation of the world and nature may run counter to itself by
the exaggerated pursuit of any one value, element, or force, or group of
them, to the exclusion of all others. Balancing and disciplining mans pursuit

so that it results in harmonious realization of all values, under the priority

system properly belonging to them, rather than under any haste, passion,
zeal, or blindness of man, is a necessary prerequisite. Without it, the pursuit
may wreck itself in either tragedy or superficiality, or may unleash some
truly demonic force. Greek civilization, for instance, exaggerated its pursuit
of the world. It asserted that all that is in nature is unconditionally good and
hence worthy of pursuit and realization. Hence, it declared all that is actually
desired, the object of a real interest, to be ipso facto good, on the grounds
that desire itself, being natural, is good. That nature often contradicts itself,
that and the pursuits of such desires or elements of nature may counter one
another, did not have enough appeal to warrant a revision of the first
assumption. The need for a supernatural principle overarching all the tendencies and desires of nature, and in terms of their contradictions and
differences may be understood, must be recognized. But instead of realizing
this truth, Greek civilization was too intoxicated with the beauty of nature
per se and regarded the tragic outcome of naturalism itself natural. Since
the Renaissance, modern Western civilization has paid the highest regard for
tragedy. Its zeal for naturalism took it to the extreme of accepting nature
without morality as a supernatural condition. Since the struggle of Western
man has been against the Church and all that it represents, the progress of
man in science was conceived as liberation from its clutches. Hence, it was
extremely hard even to conceive of world-affirmation or naturalism as
attached to normative threads stretching from an a priori, noumenal, absolute source. Without such threads, naturalism is bound to end up in selfcontradiction, in conflicts within itself that are ex hypothesi insoluble. The
Olympus community could not live with itself in harmony and had to destroy
itself. Its world-affirmation was in vain.
The guarantee of world-affirmation, which secures it to produce a balanced,
permanent, self-redressing civilization, is morality. Indeed, true civilization is
nothing but world-affirmation disciplined by an a priori, or supernatural,
morality whose inner content or values are not inimical to life and the world,
to time and history, to reason. Such morality is furnished by tawhid alone
among the ideologies known to man.
Tawhid as First Principle of Societism
Tawhid asserts that this ummah of yours is a single ummah whose Lord is
God. Therefore, worship and serve Him.37 Tawhid means that the believers

are indeed a single brotherhood, whose members mutually love one another
in God, who counsel one another to do justice and be patient38; who cling
together without exception to the rope of God and do not separate from one
another39; who reckon with one another, enjoining what is good and
prohibiting what is evil40; who, finally, obey God and His Prophet.41
The vision of the ummah is one; so is the feeling or will, as well as the
action. The ummah is an order of humans consisting of a tripartite
consensus of mind, heart, and arm. There is consensus in their thought, in
their decision, in their attitude and character, and in their arms. It is a
universal brotherhood that knows neither color nor ethnic identity. In its
purview, all men are one, measurable only in terms of piety.42 If any one of
its members acquires a new knowledge, his duty is to teach it to the others.
If any one acquires food or comfort, his duty is to share them with the
others. If any one achieves establishment, success, and prosperity, his duty
is to help the others do likewise.43
There is hence no tawhid without the ummah. The ummah is the medium of
knowledge, of ethics, of the caliphate (vicegerency) of man, of worldaffirmation. The ummah is a universal order comprehending even those who
are not believers. It is an order of peace, a Pax Islamica, forever open to all
those individuals and groups who accept the principle of the freedom to
convince and to be convinced of the truth, who seek a world order in which
ideas, goods, wealth, or human bodies are free to move. The Pax Islamica is
an international order far surpassing the United Nations, that child of
yesteryear, aborted and warped by the principles of the nation?state and the
dominion of the big powers, both of which are constitutive of it. These
principles are, in turn, based upon national sovereignty as it has evolved in
the ideological history of Europe since the Reformation and the demise of the
ideal of the universal community the Church had so far half-heartedly
carried. But national sovereignty is ultimately based on axiological and
ethical relativism.
The United Nations is successful if it fulfills the negative role of preventing or
stopping war between the members. Even then, it is an impotent order since
it has no army except when the Security Councils big power members
agree to provide it ad hoc. Per contra, the Pax Islamica was laid down in a
permanent constitution by the Prophet in Madinah in the first days of
the Hijrah. He made it inclusive of Jews of Madinah and the Christians of

Najran, guaranteeing to them their identity and their religious, social, and
cultural institutions. History knows of no other written constitution that has
honored the minorities as the constitution of the Islamic state has done. The
constitution of Madinah has been in force in the various Islamic states for
fourteen centuries and has resisted dictators and revolutions of all kinds
including Genghis Khan and Hulagu!
The ummah then is a world order in addition to being a social order. It is the
basis of Islamic civilization, its sine qua non. In their representation of
human reason in the person and career of Hayy ibn Yaqzan, philosophers
had discovered that Hayy had by his own effort grown to the point of
discovering the truth of Islam, and of tawhid, its essence. But having done
so, Hayy had to invent or discover the ummah. He therefore made for
himself a canoe out of a hollowed trunk and set forth on the unknown ocean,
to discover the ummah without which all of his knowledge would not cohere
with the truth. Tawhid is, in short, ummatism.