On the Further Division of Tawhid into ar-Rububiyyah, al-Uluhiyyah, and al-Asma'u wa-s-Sifat
As has already become clear, the message of Islam is not primarily: “There is one Creator”, since this was taken for granted at that time. For this reason, historical peoples – and even contemporary indigenous peoples – almost always hold this fundamental assumption.
The Qur'an, therefore, primarily addresses people who, although they believe in a Creator, grant His right to worship and obedience to others. This is why the Qur'an repeatedly argues against the idolaters by pointing out that they already acknowledge the one Creator.
The question that is repeatedly posed in the Qur'an is essentially as follows: If the idolaters know that Allah is their only Creator and that nothing is equal to Him, why do they treat Him and some of His creations equally in terms of worship and obedience?
This is one of the central questions the Qur'an poses to the idolaters.
Nevertheless, the Islamic declaration of faith of course also implicitly requires the firm conviction of the oneness and uniqueness of the Creator and His absolute attributes.
From what has been said so far, we see that even in the verses of the Qur'an and in the statements of the earliest scholars – already during the time of the Companions of the Prophet – there is effectively a division of tawhid/monotheism, which can be described as follows:
- The oneness of Allah in His essence and His attribute as the Creator, Giver of life, and Sustainer (Arabic: ar-rububiyyah)
- The oneness of Allah in His names and attributes (Arabic: al-asma'u wa-s-sifat)
- The oneness of Allah in terms of the worship that His creation offers exclusively to Him (Arabic: al-uluhiyyah)
As we have already seen, many people in the Islamic world have, for centuries, held a misunderstanding regarding the actual meaning of the declaration of faith. They believed that it referred solely to the first part of tawhid described above. According to this view, anyone who fulfils this is considered a monotheist – something that does not align with the actual and authentic meaning of the declaration of faith.
Such people therefore vehemently reject the division of tawhid according to the pattern described above.
This rejection is based on the false assumption that one can prevent this division simply by questioning or rejecting the designation of its individual parts.
In this sense, one often hears the claim that the division of tawhid in this manner is not justified and constitutes an unlawful innovation, a so-called bid'ah, allegedly invented only after the eighth century of the Islamic calendar.
However, as has already been sufficiently demonstrated from the earliest sources of Islam, this is a naive misconception. The actual division of tawhid into these parts is inevitably found in the Qur'an and in the unanimous explanations of the earliest Muslim scholars. The idea that this division could be invalidated by questioning the naming of its individual parts is therefore absurd and stems from a clear ignorance of the Islamic source texts.
The naming of the three mentioned parts is thus not the core issue. It was introduced by later scholars merely to clarify the concept, not to invent new meanings.
Moreover, there is no single binding and exclusive designation for the individual forms of tawhid. The tawhid of worship is therefore referred to both as “tawhid of the uluhiyyah” and “tawhid of the 'ibadah”, as these terms are synonymous, as can be clearly understood, for example, from the explanation of the early exegete at-Tabari in his initial discussion of the verb 'abada at the beginning of his tafsir work.
Based on this explanation, the following summary can be formulated:
In the Qur'an, tawhid in the rububiyyah, which the idolaters fundamentally acknowledged, is used as an argument for tawhid in the uluhiyyah.
Regarding the second form of the tawhid division mentioned above (tawhidu l-asma'i wa-s-sifat), it should be noted that many early Islamic sects introduced novel concepts into Islam, particularly in the area of Allah's names and attributes. For this reason, the domain of names and attributes was treated as a separate category by the early scholars of Islam.
Thus, the division according to the pattern explained above is certainly not a bid'ah (an unlawful innovation in Islam) from this perspective as well, as this division was already made by the earliest scholars of Islam.
These designations merely served to provide better clarification and to address new erroneous beliefs separately. Therefore, as long as no false conclusions and principles are built upon such terms, there is essentially nothing objectionable about them.