worship anyone but Allah, and that no one but He deserves to be worshipped. They never meant by that affirmation to deny His attributes.

Thus, when they used the words “al-Ahad” and “al-Wahid” – “the Unique, the One” – they did not intend to suggest that He possesses no knowledge, no power, or any other attribute whatsoever.

Later, a faction of innovators appeared and reinterpreted the names “al-Wahid” and “al-Ahad” according to a technical vocabulary of their own making. They said: “The One is that in which there is no composition and which cannot be divided; were He to have attributes, He would necessarily be composite, and were those attributes to subsist in Him He would be a body. A body, they claim, is compounded either of discrete atoms or of matter and form; therefore He can be neither Unique nor One.”

It may be said to them: Even if what you have asserted were, hypothetically, correct in logic and language, it is not the idiom employed by the prophets when they addressed humanity—so how much less acceptable is it when this concept of ‘one’ is found in the language of none of the nations at all? On the contrary, every nation calls that which possesses attributes “one”; indeed, they may even call it “solitary,” and, outside of affirmative contexts, they may also call it “single,” as in His words:

“If one of the polytheists seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the word of Allah” (Qur’an 9:6),

and in His words:

“Leave Me alone with the one I created solitary” (Qur’an 74:11),

and similar passages.