10. The negation
is two kinds: general and specific. The general is to remove from Allah all that
negates His Perfectness from defects and bad qualities, as He said: "There
is nothing like Him." and "Do you know any similar to Him?"
"Praise Allah of what they describe Him." The specific is to glorify
Allah from having a father, or son, or wife, or partner, or equal, or ignorance,
or weakness, or confusion, or forgetfulness, or slumber, or sleep, or falsehood
and playfulness. All these negations are not required for their own, but at the
same time to confirm their contrast, so, the negation of the partner and the
equal is to confirm His absolute greatness, and so on.
Affirmation is
also of two kinds: general and specific. The general is to affirm His Absolute
Perfectness, and the Absolute Praiseworthiness, and Absolute Glory, and so
forth, as Allah said:
"Praise be
to Allah, Lord of the Worlds" (al-Fatihah 1/1) and "Allah's is the
Sublime Similitude." (an -Nahl 16/60).
The specific
affirmation includes each name or attribute which has been mentioned in the
Qur'an and the Sunnah, and they are very numerous, which makes it very difficult
to enumerate here, but one can find them all over the Qur'an and the
Sunnah.
11. This Surah
(chapter) is given special status because it contains what no other chapters of
the Qur'an contain, therefore, it has been called al- Ikhlas (the purity of
faith) because it purified the faith from the blemish of paganism. Al-Imam Ahmad
Ibn Hanbal reported in his Musnad from 'Ubayy Ibn Ka'b (may Allah be pleased
with him), the reason for its revelation was that the non-believers said:
"Muhammad tell us the genealogy of your God, so, Allah, The Blessed, The
Exalted revealed: 'Say: He is Allah The One, Allah The Eternal..." It has
been confirmed in the Sahih (the Sound Book of Hadith) that it is equal to a
third of the Qur'an, but the scholars disputed over the interpretation of this
saying, the most acceptable interpretation is what Sheikh al-Islam (i.e.,Ibn
Taimiyah) narrated from Abu al- 'Abbas which is summed up as follows: The Qur'an
contains three basic objectives:
A. The ordinance
which include the rules and the practical regulations which are the subject of
Fiqh and Morality.
B. The stories
and the accounts which contain the situation of the Messengers (peace be upon
them all) with their nations, and the kinds of punishments which are inflicted
on the non-believers; and the reward and the threat, and the details of the
reward and the punishment in the Hereafter.
C. The Tawhid
(the Oneness of God), and what people should know of Allah and His Names and
Attributes, and this is considered the noblest of the three kinds.
Since Surat
al-Ikhlas contained the essence of this kind of knowledge, generally speaking,
it is proper to say it is equal to a third of the Qur'an. The same could be said
about Ayat al-Kursi in which Allah informed us about Himself, that He is the One
in His Lordship, which means no other deity should be worshiped beside
Him.
12. These four
names deal with encompassment; His Name "The First" indicates His
infinitely pre-existence and eternity; and His Name "The Last"
indicates His immortality and everlastingness; and His Name "The
Outward" indicates His highness and greatness by the fact that He
encompasses everything; and His Name "The Inward" indicates His
closeness and being with and within everything.
13. Istawa 'ala
al-Arsh (He Established Himself on, or arose over The Throne). This issue must be
accepted as al-Imam Malik said:
"The
ascending is known, but "how" is unknown. "In other words, one
must accept the fact that Allah arose over the Throne without questioning how.
Because it is better for a Muslim to spend his or her time thinking about
improving the Muslims' and all humanity's situation than to waste the time in
debating issues without answers. There are certain issues of the faith only
Allah, The Exalted, knows their answers, so let us leave these issues to
Him".
14. These verses
indicate Allah's Highness over His creatures, therefore everything should be
raised up to Him.
15. From these
verses we learn that Allah is with us all the time, watching over our deeds and
hearing our thoughts. If we remember this fact all the time, we will be better
human beings, and we will be careful about our acts and behavior.
16. The Sunnah
is the second source which Muslims must turn to in all their daily affairs after
the Qur'an. Allah, The Exalted, confirmed that in the Qur'an as He
said: