The Quran’s Violation of Tauhid Pt. 2
Table of Contents
I continue from where I left off: The Quran’s Violation of Tauhid Pt. 1.
Allah shares his names with Muhammad
The Quran ascribes the very names and attributes of Allah to Muhammad himself. Case in point:
“Thus We have appointed you a middle nation, that ye may be witnesses against mankind, and that the messenger may be a witness against you. And We appointed the qiblah which ye formerly observed only that We might know him who followeth the messenger, from him who turneth on his heels. In truth it was a hard (test) save for those whom Allah guided. But it was not Allah's purpose that your faith should be in vain, for Allah is Full of Pity, Merciful (la’raoofun raheemun) toward mankind. S. 2:143 Pickthall
And they bear your loads for you unto a land ye could not reach save with great trouble to yourselves. Lo! your Lord is Full of Pity, Merciful (laraoofun raheemun). S. 16:7 Pickthall
Or that He will not seize them with a gradual wasting? Lo! thy Lord is indeed Full of Pity, Merciful (la’raoofun raheemun). S. 16:47 Pickthall
Hast thou not seen how Allah hath made all that is in the earth subservient unto you? And the ship runneth upon the sea by His command, and He holdeth back the heaven from falling on the earth unless by His leave. Lo! Allah is, for mankind, Full of Pity, Merciful (la’raoofun raheemun). S. 22:65 Pickthall
Were it not for the grace and mercy of God on you, and that God is full of kindness and mercy (raoofun raheemun), (ye would be ruined indeed). S. 24:20 A. Yusuf Ali
He it is Who sendeth down clear revelations unto His slave, that He may bring you forth from darkness unto light; and lo! for you, Allah is Full of Pity, Merciful (la’raoofun raheemun). S. 57:9 Pickthall
And those who came (into the faith) after them say: Our Lord! Forgive us and our brethren who were before us in the faith, and place not in our hearts any rancour toward those who believe. Our Lord! Thou art Full of Pity, Merciful (raoofun raheemun). S. 59:20 Pickthall
Allah hath turned in mercy to the Prophet, and to the Muhajirin and the Ansar who followed him in the hour of hardship. After the hearts of a party of them had almost swerved aside, then turned He unto them in mercy. Lo! He is Full of Pity, Merciful (raoofun raheemun) for them. S. 9:117 Pickthall
Shockingly, these two attributes of Allah are ascribed to Muhammad in the second to last verse of the 9th chapter:
There hath come unto you a messenger, (one) of yourselves, unto whom aught that ye are overburdened is grievous, full of concern for you, for the believers full of pity, merciful (raoofun raheemun). S. 9:128 Pickthall
The Islamic sources concur that Allah personally granted his own qualities to Muhammad:
Jubair b. Mut'im reported on the authority of his father that he heard Allah's Messenger as saying:
I have many names: I am Muhammad, I am Ahmad, I am al-Mahi through whom Allah obliterates unbelief, and I am Hashir (the gatherer) at whose feet people will be gathered, and I am 'Aqib (after whom there would be none), and Allah has named him as compassionate and merciful. (Sahih Muslim 2354b; emphasis mine)
And:
One of the men of knowledge, Al-Husayn ibn al-Fadl, said, “He honored him with two of His own names: the compassionate and the merciful (rauf, rahim).” The same point is made in another ayat: “Allah was kind to the believers when He sent among them a Messenger from among themselves.” (3:164) …
Jafar ibn Muhammad [as-Sadiq] said, “Allah knew that His creatures would not be capable of pure obedience to Him, so He told them this in order that they would realize that they would never be able to achieve absolute purity in serving Him. Between Himself and them He placed one of their own species, CLOTHING HIM IN HIS OWN ATTRIBUTES OF COMPASSION AND MERCY. He brought him out as a truthful ambassador to creation and made it such that when someone obeys him, they are obeying Allah, and when someone agrees with him, they are agreeing with Allah.” Allah says: “Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed Allah.” (4:80)
As-Samarqandi explains that the words a mercy to all the worlds mean for both the jinn and mankind. It is also said that it means for all creation. He is a mercy to the believers by guiding them, a mercy to the hypocrites by granting them security from being killed, and a mercy to the unbelievers by deferring their punishment. Ibn Abbas said, “He is a mercy to the believers and also to the unbelievers since they are safe from what befell the other communities who cried lies.” It is related that the Prophet said to Jibril, “Has any of this mercy touched you?” He replied, “Yes, I used to have fear about what would happen to me, but now I feel safe because of the way Allah praised me when He said, ‘Possessing power, secure with the Lord of the Throne, obeyed, then trusty.’” (81:21) (Qadi Iyad Kitab Ash-shifa, Part One. Allah’s great estimation of the worth of his Prophet expressed in both word and action, Chapter One. Allah’s praise of him and his great esteem for him, Section 1. Concerning praise of him and his numerous excellent qualities, pp. 4-6; capital, bold and underline emphasis mine)
And again:
Section 14. On Allah honouring the Prophet WITH SOME OF HIS OWN BEAUTIFUL NAMES and describing him with some of His own Sublime Qualities
… He has preferred our Prophet Muhammad [above other prophets - AR] since He has adorned him with a wealth of His names in His Mighty Book and on the tongues of His Prophets…
One of His names is the Praiseworthy (al-Hamid). This means the One who is praised because He praises Himself and His slaves praise him. It also means the One who praises Himself and praises acts of obedience. The Prophet is called Muhammad and Ahmad. Muhammad means praised, and that is how his name occurs in the Zabur of David. Ahmad means the greatest of those who give praise and the most sublime of those who are praised. Hassan ibn Thabit indicated this when he said:
It is taken for him from His own name in order to exalt him.
The One with the Throne is praised (Mahmud) and he is Muhammad.
Two of Allah’s names are the Compassionate, the Merciful (ar-Ra’uf, ar-Rahim). They are similar in meaning. He calls him by them in His Book when He says, “Compassionate, merciful to the believers.” (9.128) (Qadi Iyad Ibn Musa al-Yahsubi, Kitab Ash-shifa bi ta'rif huquq al-Mustafa (Healing by the recognition of the Rights of the Chosen One), translated by Aisha Abdarrahman Bewley [Madinah Press, Inverness, Scotland, U.K., third reprint 1991, paperback], Chapter Three. On The Sound And Well-Known Traditions Related About The Immense Value Placed On Him By His Lord, His Exalted Position And His Nobility In This World And The Next, pp. 126-127; capital and bold emphasis mine)
The Muslim god has thus honored, clothed, and described Muhammad with his very unique “sublime” qualities/names!
What makes this so troubling is that the 9th chapter is believed to be one of the last, if not the last, surahs that Muhammad composed. This means that the Quran concludes with a praise and glorification of Muhammad, instead of his lord!
As the following Muslim scholar notes:
“… the objectification of Muhammad reaches its peak in Surah 9, which is indubitably one of the latest Madinan surahs. It repeatedly refers to ‘Allah and His Messenger’ (9.1, 3, 7, 16, 24, 29 etc.) and the penultimate ayah (9.128) describes the Messenger as ‘all-pitying all-merciful’, qualities which are elsewhere ascribed to Allah.” (Neal Robinson, Discovering the Qur’an: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text, 2nd edition, [Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. 2003], p. 244; bold emphasis mine)
Allah shares his name with a pagan
To top it off, Allah personally gave one of his names to Potiphar, the Egyptian pagan who bought Joseph!
And women in the city said: "The wife of Al-'Aziz (al-azeezi) is seeking to seduce her (slave) young man, indeed she loves him violently; verily we see her in plain error." S. 12:30 Hilali-Khan
(The King) said (to the women): "What was your affair when you did seek to seduce Yusuf (Joseph)?" The women said: "Allah forbid! No evil know we against him!" The wife of Al-'Aziz (al-azeezi) said: "Now the truth is manifest (to all), it was I who sought to seduce him, and he is surely of the truthful." S. 12:51 Hilali-Khan
Al-aziz happens to be another one of the unique qualities of Allah:
For those who believe not in the Hereafter is an evil description, and for Allah is the highest description. And He is the All-Mighty (al-azeezu), the All-Wise. S. 16:60
With the help of Allah, He helps whom He wills, and He is the All-Mighty (al-azeezu), the Most Merciful. S. 30:5 Hilali-Khan
Al-'Azîz: The Almighty
The All-Powerful, the Incomparable. No one can resist or oppose Allah. Often the all-Powerful applied to punishment; impossible, difficult, free of being menaced; unique and nothing is like Him. The One who overcomes everything, He who resists or withstands so that nothing overcomes Him; the Incomparable, the Unparalleled. Nothing is beyond His power.
Al-'Aziz is one of the Ninety-Nine Names. (Aisha Bewley, The Divine Names)
Clearly, the Muslim scripture does not teach tauhid al-asma wa’sifat.
Allah commands the worship of creatures
To make matter worse for the Sunni Muslims, Allah commanded the entire angelic host to bow down in worship of Adam:
[Remember] when we said unto the angels, worship ye (osjudoo) Adam: And they [all] worshipped (sajadoo) [him], except Eblis, [who] was [one] of the genii, and departed from the command of his Lord. Will ye therefore take him and his offspring for [your] patrons besides me, notwithstanding they are your enemies? Miserable [shall such] a change [be] to the ungodly! S. 18:50 Sale
When thy Lord said unto the angels, verily I am about to create man of clay: When I shall have formed him, therefore, and shall have breathed my spirit into him, do ye fall down and worship him (sajideena). And all the angels worshipped (sajada) [him], in general; except Eblis, [who] was puffed up with pride, and became an unbeliever. [God] said [unto him], O Eblis, what hindreth thee from worshipping (tasjuda) that which I have created with my hands? Art thou elated with vain pride? Or art thou [really] one of exalted merit? He answered, I am more excellent than he: Thou hast created me of fire, and hast created him of clay. [God] said [unto him], get thee hence therefore, for thou shalt be driven away [from mercy]: And my curse [shall be] upon thee, until the day of judgement.
He replied, O Lord, respite me, therefore, until the day of resurrection [God] said, verily thou shalt be [one] of those who are respited until the day of the determined time. [Eblis] said, by thy might [do I swear], I will surely seduce them all, except thy servants [who shall be] peculiarly chosen from among them. [God] said, [it is] a just sentence; and I speak the truth: I will surely fill hell with thee, and with such of them as shall follow thee, altogether. S. 38:71-75 Sale
Allah also ordered Joseph’s parents and brothers to worship him:
When Joseph said unto his father: O my father! Lo! I saw in a dream eleven planets and the sun and the moon, I saw them prostrating themselves unto me. S. 12:4 Pickthall
And he placed his parents on the dais and they fell down before him prostrate, and he said: O my father! This is the interpretation of my dream of old. My Lord hath made it true, and He hath shown me kindness, since He took me out of the prison and hath brought you from the desert after Satan had made strife between me and my brethren. Lo! my Lord is tender unto whom He will. He is the Knower, the Wise. S. 12:100 Pickthall
The problem with these acts is that the Quran states that prostration is an act of worship that is to be given only to Allah. To, therefore, serve something other than the Islamic deity is condemned:
And he reviewed the birds; then he said, 'How is it with me, that I do not see the hoopoe? Or is he among the absent? Assuredly I will chastise him with a terrible chastisement, or I will slaughter him, or he bring me a clear authority.' But he tarried not long, and said, 'I have comprehended that which thou hast not comprehended, and I have come from Sheba to thee with a sure tiding. found a woman ruling over them, and she has been given of everything, and she possesses a mighty throne. I found her and her people prostrating (yasjudoona) to the sun, apart from God; Satan has decked out fair their deeds to them and he has barred them from the way, and therefore they are not guided, so that they prostrate (yasjudoo) not themselves to God, who brings forth what is hidden in the heavens and earth; and He knows what you conceal and what you publish. God: there is no god but He, the Lord of the Mighty Throne.' ...
So, when she came, it was said, 'Is thy throne like this?' She said, 'It seems the same.' 'And we were given the knowledge before her, and we were in surrender, but that she served (ta’budu), apart from God, barred her, for she was of a people of unbelievers.' S. 27:20-26, 42-43 Arberry
And from among His Signs are the night and the day, and the sun and the moon. Prostrate not to the sun nor to the moon, but prostrate (osjudoo) to Allah Who created them, if you (really) worship Him (ta’abudoona). S. 41:37 Hilali-Khan
Rather prostrate yourselves (osjudoo) before Allah and serve Him (abudoo). S. 53:62 Pickthall
These examples show that tauhid al-uluhiyyah/ibadah is nowhere taught within the Islamic scripture.
As such, the threefold categorization of tauhid developed by Salafi Muslims is nothing more than an innovation and concoction refuted by the Quran itself.
Further Reading
Grave Worship: More of Muhammad’s Duplicity Exposed
Unveiling Islam’s Real Savior and Middleman
Muhammad on Allah’s Throne Revisited
The Prostration to Adam — A Quranic Problem ([Part 1], [Part 2])
Revisiting the Issue of Allah Praying and Worshiping Like His Creation
Answering Islam – Sam Shamoun Theology Newsletter
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