by Dr. Zakir Naik
The Most Concise Definition
of God:
The most concise definition of
God in Islam is given in the four
verses of Surah Ikhlas which is
Chapter 112 of the Qur'an:
"Say: He is Allah,
The One and Only.
"Allah, the Eternal, Absolute.
"He begets not, nor is He
begotten.
And there is none like unto Him."
[Al-Qur'an 112:1-4]
The word 'Assamad' is difficult
to translate. It means 'absolute
existence', which can be
attributed only to Allah (swt), all
other existence being temporal
or conditional. It also means that
Allah (swt) is not dependant on
any person or thing, but all
persons and things are
dependant on Him.
Surah Ikhlas - the
touchstone of theology:
Surah Ikhlas (Chapter 112) of
the Glorious Qur'an, is the
touchstone of theology. 'Theo' in
Greek means God and 'logy'
means study. Thus Theology
means study of God and to
Muslims this four line definition of
Almighty God serves as the
touchstone of the study of God.
Any candidate to divinity must
be subjected to this 'acid test'.
Since the attributes of Allah
given in this chapter are unique,
false gods and pretenders to
divinity can be easily dismissed
using these verses.
What does Islam say about
'god-men'?
India is often called the land
of 'god-men'. This is due to
the abundance of so-called
spiritual masters in India.
Many of these 'babas' and
'saints' have a large
following in many countries.
Islam abhors deification of
any human being. To
understand the Islamic
stand towards such
pretenders to divinity, let us
analyze one such 'god-
man', Osho Rajneesh.
Let us put this candidate,
'Bhagwan' Rajneesh, to the test
