Al-Wahid

The One, who has no partner in His essence, His attributes or His names. Allah Almighty says: "Say: 'He is Allah, [who is] One.'" (Al-Ikhlas, 1) "Indeed, your God is One." (As-Saffat, 4) "He is but one God." (Al-An'am, 19) "There is no deity except Allah, the One, the Prevailing." (Sad, 65) "And your god is one God. There is no deity except Him." (Al-Baqarah, 163) This is the name expressing that Allah is one and unique, admitting neither division nor multiplication in His essence, attributes or acts. In pre-eternity there was Allah alone; there was nothing else. The Prophet (peace be upon him) pointed to this meaning in a hadith: "There was only Allah, and nothing else was with Him." All the attributes of majesty and perfection are found in Allah alone. In this respect He is one and unique. He alone governs all beings and conducts their affairs. To create and make a thing He has no need of any matter, duration, instrument or preparation. Legislating the lawful and the unlawful, determining reward and sin, rewarding or punishing His servants — these belong to Him alone. To put others in the place of Allah in any of these matters, or to consider them authorised by likening them to Allah, is associating partners with Him: the gravest of crimes, for which there is no pardon. O mankind! Your true God, who is worthy of and has a right to the worship and servanthood of all of you, is one single God — a God characterised by the attribute "Wahid," unique in divinity. Do not imagine that others besides you have some other god. There is no true deity besides Him. None of those taken as gods besides Him is worthy of divinity; all are empty and false. Just as it is impossible to conceive of a god superior to Him or equal to Him, so too there are no objects of worship or gods that could share in His divinity even on condition of being at a lower level. Sharing in divinity is impossible. The true God is that One Allah alone. People who cannot grasp Allah's greatness have for centuries sought to find powers equal to Him, and because they could not see Him they worshipped things they exalted in their own eyes. Some held the sun superior because they saw it as bright and powerful and worshipped it; others bowed before the stars. Some even extended their folly so far that, despite all their weakness, they dared to claim that they themselves were mighty. Seeking to find gods equal to Allah is not a folly peculiar to people who lived in the past. Today too, many people associate partners with Allah and deny that He can have no peer or likeness. These deniers may not outwardly have taken idols such as the sun and the stars, but they worship other people as helpless as themselves, or the goods they value (wealth, beauty, power and so on). For example, they spend their whole lives pursuing wealth and property, and meanwhile never consider whether they are pleasing their Lord. They equate Allah with people, with other beings or with commodities — and this is manifest association of partners with Him. Allah is the Creator. No one can bring the sun from the west; no one can halt the universe expanding at incredible speed; no one can hold up the sky and the earth; and no one can create a human being from nothing. Only Allah, who is unique in the universe and has no peer, can do these things. And the Creator and the created are never equal. The servant's God is the One he needs in every state and at every time. He is real, and all gods besides Him are false. Wherever the servant may be, Allah is always with him in times of distress and need. Gods that pass away are never of any use.

The noble name Al-Wahid is recited 19 times as "Ya Wahid, jalla jalaluhu" for honour, gravity and dignity, and to be loved by people. Whoever makes much remembrance with the noble name Al-Wahid, saying "Ya Wahid, jalla jalaluhu", remains far from associating partners with Allah. From the heart of whoever recites it 1,000 times, everything other than Allah departs and the fear of people leaves him; wondrous spiritual states appear to him.