They affirmed a bare Essence stripped of all attributes, and a sheer existence defined only by absolute abstraction.

Sound reason—fully corroborated by authentic revelation—makes it plain that such a thing can exist only in the mind, never in external reality. They alleged that affirming the attributes entails what they call “composition,” and imagined that the intellect rejects this. Elsewhere we have uncovered their secrets, exposed the depth of their ignorance, and shown how ambiguous, equivocal terms have led them astray.

Another faction imagined that Tawḥīd consists of nothing more than acknowledging the unity of Lordship: that Allah alone created everything; they call this the “Tawḥīd of actions.”

Among the scholastic theologians are those who exhaustively argued for this form of unity—whether by claiming that partnership would diminish power and compromise perfection, that the independent operation of several agents upon a single effect is impossible, or by other such proofs. They suppose that by this they have demonstrated oneness and established that “there is no deity but He,” defining divinity as nothing more than the power to originate creation. Hence, once they have shown that none can bring things into being except Allah, and that He has no partner in creation, they take that to be the meaning of our statement: “There is no god but Allah.”

They fail to realize, however, that the pagan Arabs already acknowledged this very type of Tawḥīd, as the Most High says: “If you were to ask them, ‘Who created the heavens and the earth?’ they would surely say, ‘Allah.’ Say, ‘All praise belongs to Allah.’” (Qur’an 31:25).