Tawhid

Tawhid, literally "Oneness" or "to make one", refers to the principle of monotheism, which is Islam's single most important and central concept, upon which a Muslim's entire religious adherence rests. It unequivocally holds that God (Allāh) is indivisibly one (ahad) and single (wahid). Tawhid constitutes the foremost article of the Muslim profession of submission. The first part of the Islamic declaration of faith (shahada) is the declaration of belief in the oneness of God. To attribute divinity to anything or anyone else is considered shirk, which is an unpardonable sin unless repented afterwards, according to the Quran. Muslims believe that the entirety of the Islamic teaching rests on the principle of tawhid. From an Islamic standpoint, there is an uncompromising monotheism at the heart of the Islamic beliefs (aqida) that is seen as distinguishing Islam from other major religions. The Quran teaches the existence of a single and absolute truth that transcends the world, a unique, independent and indivisible being that is independent of all of creation. God, according to Islam, is a universal God, rather than a local, tribal or parochial one and is an absolute that integrates all. Islamic intellectual history can be understood as a gradual unfolding of the manner in which successive generations of believers have understood the meaning and implications of professing tawhid. Islamic scholars have different approaches toward understanding it. Islamic scholastic theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, Sufism, and even the Islamic understanding of natural sciences to some degree, all seek to explain at some level the principle of tawhid. Chapter 112 of the Quran, titled al-Ikhlas, reads: