Islam In Brief

The name Allah (God) in Islam is the personal

name of God. The most concise definition of God in

Islam is given in four verses of Surah Al-Ikhlaas in the

Holy Qur'an:

{{Say, "He is Allah, [Who is] One,

Allah, the Eternal Refuge,

He neither begets nor is born,

Nor is there to Him any equivalent."}}

(Holy Qur'an 112: 1-4)

To Muslims, this four-line definition of

Almighty God serves as the touchstone of the study of

God. Any candidate to divinity must be subjected to

this 'acid test' and since the attributes of The Creator

given in this chapter are unique, false gods and

pretenders to divinity can be easily dismissed using

these verses.

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i) The first criterion is "Say, He is Allah, one and

only".

Can there be more than one god? This verse tells us

that The Creator is the only one who has total and

absolute power, unique in His names and attributes.

ii) The second criterion is, 'Allah is absolute and

eternal'.

The word that is translated as "The Eternal, Absolute"

from Arabic is something that can be attributed only to

The Creator as all the other existent beings temporal or

conditional? It also means that Allah is not dependant

on any person or thing, but all persons and things are

dependant on Him.

iii) The third criterion is 'He begets not, nor is He

begotten'.

This means God was not born, nor does He give birth

and share his divinity with others. Nor does He have a

family or relationship with another being.

iv) The fourth test - which is the most stringent - is,

"There is none like unto Him".

The moment you can imagine or compare 'God' to

anything, then he (the candidate to divinity) is not

God. It is not possible to conjure up a mental

picture ofthe One True God because of the simple fact, as

creation, we only know creation