We say, affirming the oneness of Allah and believing by His grace: Allah is One, without partner.
They may follow the legal schools of the four imams yet oppose them in creed—such as the Ashʿarīs, who affiliate themselves with Imām Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī in his earliest phase while abandoning the position upon which he ultimately settled, the creed of Ahl al-Sunnah wa’l-Jamāʿah. Such an attribution is invalid, for had they truly been upon the imams’ path they would have shared their creed.
We say—that is, we hold as a matter of belief—the oneness of Allah.
Linguistically, tawḥīd is the verbal noun of waḥḥada, meaning “to make something one.”
Legally, it is to single out Allah for worship and to abandon the worship of anything besides Him.
Its divisions, derived inductively from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger, ﷺ, are three; this is the position confirmed by Ahl al-Sunnah wa’l-Jamāʿah. Whoever adds a fourth or fifth division is introducing something of his own, for the imams defined tawḥīd in three categories on the basis of the Qur’an and Sunnah.
Thus every Qur’anic verse and every prophetic hadith dealing with creed falls under one of these three categories.
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Tawḥīd al-rubūbiyyah (the oneness of Lordship): affirming Allah’s uniqueness in His actions—such as creation, provision, giving life and death, and governing the universe. There is no Lord besides Him, the Lord of all worlds.
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Tawḥīd al-ulūhiyyah, also called tawḥīd al-ʿibādah (the oneness of worship), because al-ulūhiyyah