In this series, I would like to explore a crucial topic in Islam: Tawhid, and its opposite, shirk. Today, there is a lot of talk about Tawhid, but many people don’t have a clear understanding of it. It is remarkable that those who are the furthest from Tawhid, the Wahhabi sect or, in other words, the pseudo-Salafis, are the ones who talk the most about it. With strong financial support, the Wahhabis have been able to spread their own version of religion among Muslims, which is not related to Islam and Tawhid at all. In fact, it is a completely different religion.
Tawhid is the essence and foundation of Islam. It is one, but for the sake of better understanding, we can divide it into several parts. The first part is tawhidu zat, “tawhid in essence.” This refers to the essence of Allah. Tawhidu zat means the belief that Allah is one, one, and no one is like Him. There is no second god or multiple gods. As the Qur’an says: “Don’t take two gods! Indeed, He is the Only God” (16: 51).
The second part is tawhidu sifat, “tawhid in sifats,” monotheism in the qualities of Allah.”Tawhid in sifats” means that no one and nothing is like Allah in His sifats, and all the sifats of His essence are nothing but His very essence. This is not like the Asharites believe, who add knowledge to the essence of Allah, life to the essence of Allah, and so on.
According to Ahl-ul-Bayt, the knowledge of Allah is its essence, it is Allah Himself. The life of Allah is His essence, and it is Allah Himself. The power of Allah is His essence, and it is Allah Himself. Therefore, there is no distinction between the sifates of His essence in themselves, so that His knowledge is one thing, His life another, His power a third etc. This would lead to the same idea that Christians have: that God is one in three persons (in this case, one in the multitude of sifats). However, the truth is that His knowledge is the same as His power, His power is the same as His life, and so on.
The third part is tawhidu l’a-Faal, “tawhid in action”. This means that Allah does not need anyone to perform His actions, and there is no one in existence who is independent in his actions, except Allah.
The fourth part is tawhid al-Aibada, “tawhid in ibadah”. This means that only Allah is worthy of worship, and all worship is dedicated to Him and no one else. As He said, “But whosoever hopes to meet his Lord, let him do good works, and let him not associate anyone with the worship of his Lord” (18: 110).
The fifth is tawhidu l-wilayah, also known as tawhid in the guidance. This means the belief that all guidance comes from Allah, through Allah, and at the direction of Allah, by those whom Allah has appointed.
All these parts of tawhid are connected to each other and can be seen as part of the same whole.
Now let’s explore the meaning of the word “tawhid” itself. It comes from the verb wahad, which means “to consider as one” or “to reduce to unity.” So, “tawhid” literally means a belief that brings everything together into one. It is the concentration of our thoughts, beliefs, and actions on one thing, as if at a single point, and that is the Most High Allah. This is the meaning of the word “tawhid” in Arabic, and this is how it is understood in belief.
A muwahid is someone who reduces everything to one, to the center, to unity. All their beliefs, thoughts, and actions are ultimately directed towards a single center, which is the Most High Allah. A muwahid believes that there is no god but Allah, is convinced that everything comes from Allah, worships only Allah, and does everything for the sake of Allah. This is what makes a muwahid – one who professes tawhid, the reduction of everything to One.
On the other hand, a mushrik is someone who, on the contrary, disperses their beliefs, thoughts, and actions to different centers. The word “shirk” in Arabic comes from shirk or musharakah, which means attributing one thing to two or more people. Shirk is giving partners to something or someone. We take one thing and assign several to it. This is the linguistic meaning of shirk in Arabic.
In the field of belief, shirk can take many forms. For example, it can be the belief that there are many gods. This is shirk in zat (shirk in the essence of Allah), the opposite of tawhid in zat (tawhid in the essence). Another type of shirk is the belief that there is only one God, but someone else is involved in His deeds. In other words, there is more than one independent actor (someone other than Allah who is independent in their actions, such as giving, forgiving, reviving, or causing death). This is shirk in ‘a-Faal, “shirk in the actions of Allah”, the opposite of tawhid in actions.
Shirk in sifat, which is the opposite of tawhid in sifat, involves attributing to Allah qualities that do not belong to Him, especially the qualities of His creations. The shirk in sifat suggests that there are already many centers “inside” God, because the creations are always multiple. This is exactly what Wahhabis do, attributing organs, body parts, position in space, weight, and so on to Allah. They say that yes, Allah has a hand, but it is a self-like hand, we don’t know what it is. Self-like hands, self-like feet, self-like fingers, and so on. To this, we reply that whatever the arm or leg is, the very definition of it is that it is a part of the body. Even if we don’t know which arm or leg it is, it still doesn’t change the fact that the arm or leg is part of the body. And no parts belong to Allah in the literal sense.
Allah is both “the One” and “the Only”. “The Only” means that there is no other god besides Him, while “the One” means that He is indivisible and has no parts like the organs of the body. As surah “Ikhlas” says, “Say: He is Allah, the One and Only” Therefore, attributing organs, body parts, or position in space to Him is shirk in His unity.
Shirk in ibadah, the opposite of tawhid in ibadah, means that one does not do one’s deeds for Allah or worships someone other than Allah as a deity. This should not be confused with worshipping Allah through someone else. All Muslims worship Allah through the Kaaba, the rites of Islam, or through tawassul to His chosen creations. There is no problem with this, but it is the essence of tawhid because ultimately the center of worship is Allah. When the angels worshiped Adam, they were actually worshipping Allah, but through Adam.
Here we can ask the question: is an atheist also a mushrikeen? After all, outwardly atheists do not attribute any other associates to God, they simply say that God does not exist. The answer is yes, an atheist is also a mushrikeen. Although he outwardly denies all gods, including the One God, in reality he puts nothing in the place of God. He believes in nothing instead of God, so he is also a mushrik.
Many atheists put nature in the place of God, that is, they believe that everything arose from “nature” through its laws. This is also shirk, that is, transferring the properties of God to something that does not possess these properties. Surely you have repeatedly heard atheists say: “This is how nature created us”, “the mind that wise nature gave us”. With these phrases, they clearly endow nature with the qualities of the Creator, that is, they attribute to it the properties of God. Which, of course, is stupid and absurd, because nature is not a certain being, but an abstract concept that exists only in our head. In reality, there is no “nature”. There are rocks, planets, stars, and atoms, but there is no such abstract single thing as “nature.” So, the belief of atheism is the most absurd of all, more stupid and absurd than even the belief of idolaters who still recognize some gods, although they are mistaken about their number and qualities. And we have in the hadiths that atheism is worse than idolatry.
And finally, another most important type of shirk is the shirk in the wilayah, the shirk in the leadership. Allaah said: “Your Wali (guide) is only Allaah, His Messenger and those who believe, and who perform salaat and zakaat while bowing down from the waist” (5: 55). This verse will be discussed in other parts of this cycle, but in the meantime, looking ahead, we will say that “those who believe and who perform salaat and give zakat while bowing from the waist” are Ali (A), as it comes in the authentic hadiths of both Shia and “ahlu-sunnah”. That is, Allah says here: “Your Wali (leader) is ONLY Allah, the Messenger and Ali”. It means that taking other Walis, other leaders besides them, is also a shirk. According to this great verse, the leadership of Allah (wilayah) is carried out THROUGH the Messenger (S) and Ali (A) – and then the Imams from the family of Ali (A). This means that those who attributed someone to the wilayah of Ali or took other leaders instead of Ali are also mushrikeen, because the leadership of Ali – this is the guidance of Allah.
We will delve deeper into this topic in future parts of this cycle, but for now, let’s focus on the words of Allah Almighty, who forgives all sins except for shirk. This is evident in several verses of the Qur’an. Firstly, in the 48th verse of Surah “Women”: “Verily, Allah does not forgive those who commit shirk on Him, but He forgives that which is less than this to whomever He wills. And whoever commits shirk in the name of Allah has fallen to a great sin”.
Secondly, in the 116th verse of the same surah: “Indeed, Allah does not forgive those who commit shirk on It, but He forgives what is less than that to whomever He wills. whoever commits shirk in the name of Allah has gone astray in a far-off error.”
And, thirdly, in the 72nd verse of Surah “Al-Ma’idah”: “Surely whoever associates (other things) with Allah, then Allah has forbidden to him Heaven and his abode is the Fire. There are no helpers for the wrong-doers”.
What does it mean that Allah does not forgive shirk, but forgives what is less severe? As we have already discussed, shirk can take many forms and have different degrees, just like tawhid. Anyone who commits a sin has committed shirk because they followed their passions rather than Allah. As the Qur’an says in Surah Jasiyah, “have you then seen him who took his low desire for his god?” (45: 23). So, sin is a form of shirk. However, all people sin, except for those whom Allah has chosen to be blameless. If Allah never forgives all forms of shirk, it would mean that all people without exception will go to Hell. But this is not the case, as both the Qur’an and the Hadith clearly state that Allah forgives all sins. “Say: O, My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives sins completely” (39: 53).
What does Allah mean when He says that He will never forgive shirk? We know that the Wahhabis often refer to this verse and have narrowed down the concept of shirk to an appeal to someone other than Allah. They divided tawhid into two parts without any justification: tawhid in rububiyyah and tawhid in uluhiyyah. Then they said that tawhid in rububiyyah is common among all people, even the polytheists of Mecca, and shirk only occurs in uluhiyyah, that is, in worship. According to them, all people recognize tawhid in rububiyyah but perform shirk in uluhiyyah by calling out to someone other than Allah.
This concept has no basis in the Qur’an and is purely “philosophical,” meaning it is fictional. According to the Qur’an, shirk can be found in various forms, such as wearing a shirt with pictures of other gods or disobeying Allah. Anyone who does not obey Allah in even the slightest is already committing shirk because they choose the will of their own desires or шайтана instead of the will of Allah. The Wahhabis, on the other hand, chose only one type of shirk without any reason, reducing all other forms to it. But even this they misunderstood.
The meaning of the verses that Allah does not forgive shirk but forgives what is less severe is that Allah forgives various types of shirk, of which there are many, but does not forgive the very foundation of shirk. That is, if a person’s main attitude is shirk, then Allah will not forgive them.
In other words, true belief and aqidah is unity, the reduction of everything to One. This is what is called tawhid. If someone violates this attitude to such an extent that they oppose it, then they are committing shirk, which Allah will never forgive. A great shirk is a shirk in aqidah, a shirk in the belief of tawhid. Not shirk in deeds, but shirk in beliefs. This is the great shirk that Allah will never forgive.
Shirk, which Allah will not forgive, is the attribution of equals to Allah. Whether it is in its essence, when it is said that there are two gods or several gods, whether it is in worship, when one is sure that one should worship someone other than Allah, whether it is in guidance, when one believes that there are leaders along with or apart from those whom Allah has appointed, or whether it is in the sifat of Allah, when someone thinks that there is, for example, a creator besides Allah or a doer besides Allah.
It is important to note the word “besides”: if a person says that Allah creates THROUGH someone or causes death THROUGH someone, then this is not shirk but tawhid. As the Qur’an says, “The angel of death, to whom you are entrusted, will give you rest” (32: 11). That is, the angel of death is the one who causes death, but he does not cause death by himself, but in such a way that Allah causes death THROUGH him. The angel of death here acts as an act of Allah, being nothing more than the PLACE of His action. There is no shirk in this, but on the contrary, it is pure tawhid. Shirk would be here if someone said that the angel of death kills alongside Allah or instead of Allah (i.e. independently of Him), and also if someone said that Allah retired from business and entrusted the killing of creatures to the angel of death. Then it would be shirk. But to say that the angel of death is a mortifier because he acts by the action of Allah according to the will of Allah is not shirk, but pure tawhid.
The difference between shirk and tawhid is very subtle, as described in the hadith: “Shirk in my Ummah is more hidden than a crawling ant.” Those who are not aware of these nuances may accuse those who profess tawhid (like the Wahhabis) of shirk or, conversely, consider those who profess shirk to be muwahid.
Shirk in beliefs is an unforgivable sin. If a person dies with shirk in their beliefs, meaning they attribute partners to Allah in His essence, His sifat, or His guidance, they will be in the Fire forever. This is what the verses say, and it is also what the hadith states: “Indeed, the greatest of the great sins is shirk.”
However, if a person has tawhid in their beliefs, everything else is considered a “small shirk” that Allah forgives. If a person is convinced of the unity of Allah, does not associate anyone with Him, and has the intention of doing all their deeds for the sake of Allah, it does not harm them if they suddenly do not do some of their deeds for Allah’s sake.
Suppose a person generally has a niyat (intention) to do things only for the sake of Allah because they are convinced of His unity. This person is a muwahid, a monotheist. Now, let’s imagine that Satan led him astray, and he followed his passion and did some of his deeds for the sake of showing off. Showing off (riya) is also shirk, one of the forms of shirk, as the hadith from the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) states.
But does this mean that he committed an unforgivable sin that led him out of Islam, that he became a mushrikeen, and that Allah will never forgive him now? Of course not. Why not? Because his general niyat, his general intention, is to serve Allah. He is a muwahid in his aqidah, just in this particular matter and at this moment in time, he went astray, made a mistake, following his passion. He must make tawbah, and Allah will forgive him.
Even if at this point in time he has committed an act that contradicts his general niyat, his general niyat continues to operate. But if this person refused this niyat as a whole and decided that it is no longer necessary to perform deeds for the sake of Allah alone – then he would become a mushrikeen. And if he had continued this new verse and died on it, then he would have been one of those about whom the verse says that Allah will never forgive them.
Because the calculation of the slave will be according to his niyat, as the verses of the Qur’an and hadith clearly say. “Allah does not punish you for your idle talk in your oaths, but He does punish you for what your hearts have earned” (2: 225) – that is, for the faith and niyat in our hearts. “Whether you manifest what is in your souls or conceal it, Allah will pay you for it” (2: 284) – that is, He will pay you for the niyat that is in your souls, whether you conceal it or manifest it.
And in the hadith narrated in Saduq’s Tawhid, it says:
A Jew approached the Prophet (S) and asked: “If your Lord does not commit injustice, then how can He put (some people) in Hell forever, when their (earthly) sins were only temporary?”
The Prophet (S) replied: “He will put them in Hell according to their intention (niyat). Whoever Allah knows that if he were to remain in this world until the end of it, he would be disobedient to Allah, then He will put him in the Fire forever, according to His intention. And his intention here is worse than his deeds. And in the same way, He will place whoever He places in Paradise forever, because his intention was that if he had stayed in the Hereafter from beginning to end – he would not have disobeyed Allah, and his intention is better than his deeds.”
So, niyat is the intention that determines whether a slave will go to Hell or Heaven. Allah forgives grant for all good deeds, and Allah forgives all sins, but on one condition: if the slave is sent to obey Him and continues to act on tawhid. And the continuation of this niyat implies a sincere tawbah, the main condition of which is that the slave promises to Allah never to return to the sin that he committed.
The connection between niyat and acts is a separate topic… Can say for sure, Allah forgives all sins, but this does not mean that a person is free to do whatever he pleases. For if he continues to commit sins, it also affects his niyat. In other words, sins can lead to the fact that a person’s niyat itself will change, and he will go from Tawhid to shirk. Under the influence of sins, the very belief of a person will change, and then Allah will not forgive him these sins, and he will become an eternal inhabitant of Hell.
And here is one of the main problems of the Wahhabis: they cannot distinguish between a person’s aqidah and his actions. Shirk is something that primarily refers to a person’s religion and beliefs, not to their actions. A person can ask anything, however, and from anyone, as long as his aqidah remains true, that is, as long as he does not consider the one from whom he asks to be God.
The Wahhabis have made the Shirk question a matter of action. If you ask Ali (A) or the Prophet (S), they will call it shirk, even if you say a thousand times that you do not consider Ali (A) or the Prophet (S) to be God. That is, they have turned this question inside out, because, in their opinion, the VERY FACT that you ask them, and makes them gods for you. If you ask, then you deify. According to these absurd views, you can’t ask anyone for anything: for example, asking a person to fix your car, or heal you, or help you lift furniture to the fifth floor – all this is shirk, because you can only ask from Allah. That is, you must stand somewhere below and call out: “O Allah, lift me the furniture to the fifth floor. Realizing the utter absurdity of such beliefs and the fact that if they exist, it will simply be impossible for a person to live, they added some additional distinctions, saying that it is possible to ask from the living and the present, but to ask from the dead and the absent is already shirk. This makes the issue even more confusing. It turns out that shirk becomes a question of whether the person being asked is dead or alive (whether he is present or absent). They are not confused by the fact that there is no such distinction in any hadith or verse of the Qur’an. There is no hadith or verse with such content that you can ask from the living and present, but to ask from the dead and absent is already shirk.
When you ask them why it is shirk to ask the dead, they say that “the dead do not hear.” Whereas whether they can hear or not has nothing to do with shirk. Suppose the dead really can’t hear. But then appealing to them or asking them will just be a meaningless activity, like asking at the wall, for example. But why is it shirk? Where did they get this from. Thus, the Wahhabis turned religion into a pathological set of superstitions, into paranoia, into the search for “shirk” where it really does not exist. And the reason for this is their false starting point – that they have made shirk a matter of beliefs a matter of actions. They began to look for “shirk” not in beliefs, but in people’s actions, which is a fundamental distortion of the logic of the Qur’an and Sunnah.
If I were to ask Ali (A), according to Wahhabism, this would be a form of polytheism. When I ask why this is so, they will say that it is only permissible to ask Allah, and Ali (A) cannot provide any assistance or benefit. They argue that the only source of help is Allah. If I then ask them not to ask anything from their friends, family, or doctors, to stay home and only pray to Allah, they will realize the absurdity of their position. They will quickly change the subject of the conversation and say that these individuals are alive, while Ali (A) is dead, and therefore they have no choice but to ask them for help. However, they argue that asking Ali (A) is polytheistic. But what if I believe that Allah has granted Ali (A) life in the world of the unseen and that He has made it possible for him to hear and respond to me? We can cite certain verses from the Qur’an and Sunnah to support this belief. Where is the polytheism here? Even if we assume that Ali (A) is actually dead and addressing him does not bring any harm or benefit, then my action would simply be meaningless, not polytheistic. And if Ali (A) is alive on another level and responds to me (Allah has given him this opportunity), then how is it different from contacting a doctor, which you practice? In both cases, only Allah really helps, but He does it through the doctor in the first case or through Ali (A) in the second. The mechanism through which He helps through Ali (A) is different from the mechanism through a doctor (since in the first case, causes from the hidden world are involved, and in the second, causes from the material world).
So where is the polytheism? Polytheism would occur if I considered Ali (A) to be helping, hearing, or seeing INSTEAD OF Allah or INDEPENDENTLY of Allah. If I had addressed him with this conviction in my heart, then it would have been polytheistic. The question of Tawhid and Shirk is a matter of belief, not of actions. A slave’s actions are judged by his intention, his niyat. There are also hadiths about this in the Sunnah: “Verily, deeds are judged by intention (niyat), and verily, every person will receive what he intended.” This hadith is given in Bukhari and Muslim, and in Shia sources it is also present from the Messenger of Allah (S) and the Imams (A). The followers of Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Abdulwahhab do exactly the opposite — they judge a person by his actions. They attribute niyat shirk to a person based on his actions. In other words, they turn the logic of Islam inside out.
Here, a question may arise: what if a person turns to some non-existent saint, for example, St. Nicholas, will this be a form of polytheism? This question is not idle, as we know that Wahhabis compare Shia with Christians and claim that Shia also ask the saints as Christians do, and they are supposedly similar here. To this, we will reply that we Shias only address those whom Allah has appointed and whom He Himself has named as our leaders in this world and in the Hereafter, that is, Ahl ul-Bayt, the Fourteen Blameless Ones- the Messenger of Allah, Ali, Fatima, Hasan, Husayn, and the nine Imams out of the descendants of Husayn, the last of whom is the Mahdi (peace be upon them all!). But He did not make Nicholas the Saint as such and did not put it. If He had made him our Wali (leader) and said so in His Book, then we would have turned to him. But since He didn’t point it out or name it in any way, we don’t do it.
Yes, those who turn to St. Nicholas and similar saints, about whom Allah has not said anything or has not revealed anything, are doing shirk, but not in the way that Wahhabis think. They do not perform shirk in ibadah, because their appeal to such non-existent saints is, from the point of view of ibadah, just a meaningless thing, like asking at the wall. In fact, their shirk here is the same as that of the Wahhabis themselves. This is shirk in vilayat. Like the Wahhabis, they do not recognize those whom Allah has made Wali and guides for the creation (i.e. Ahl ul-Bayt), and they call out and appeal to those whom Allah has not made Wali and from whom there is no benefit. This is the shirk in the wilayah (guidance), and this is exactly what they do. The same shirk that is inherent in Wahhabis. Thus, if Wahhabis should be compared to Christians, it is themselves.
Another of their favorite themes is the comparison of Muslims and especially Shiites with the Meccan polytheists, who said about Al-Lat and Uzza: “We worship them only so that they may bring us closer to Allah” (39: 3). So they claim that the Shiites also worship Muhammad (S), Ali (A), or Husayn (A) to bring them closer to Allah, and therefore they are like the polytheists of Mecca.
The answer to this pathetic shubha (doubt and obscurity) is clear. As we have already discussed about Christian saints, Allah did not appoint Al-Lat and Uzza as our guides and protectors, nor did He define their role in His Book. Therefore, those who tried to approach Allah through them committed shirk. They replaced the true walis, which Allah had established to bring people closer to Him, with false walis that did not benefit anyone. This includes the Wahhabis who deny the Wilayah of the Prophet’s family (S). So it is not we Shiites who are like the polytheists of Mecca, but they are.
In addition to the fact that Allah did not appoint Al-Lat and Uzza, the polytheists also considered them independent of Allah as gods and worshipped them. The verse itself says: “We worship them only so that they may bring us closer to Allah.” But we consider Muhammad (S) and Ali (A) to be servants of Allah, not gods, and we do not worship them. So the difference is clear, and only a blind person can ignore it.
With all these accusations of shirk directed at Muslims, Wahhabis do not notice the real and unmistakable shirk they themselves are involved in. First of all, this is shirk in the sifats of Allah, which is tajsim, that is, attributing to Allah the attributes of creatures such as hands, feet, eyes, position in space, and weight. Their shirk went so far that they even attributed to
Him the smell and running! I’m not going to give and quote all this right now; it’s all on our website with screenshots, everyone can come in and see for themselves. Furthermore, it is shirk in the wilayah, that is, following the guidance of someone other than Allah. We have already mentioned this and will discuss it in more detail in future parts of this cycle.
As well as other types of shirk, which is filled with their aqidah. For example, they consider the Qur’an uncreated. What does it mean? There is nothing in Islam that goes beyond the two alternatives: either the creation or the Creator. There is no middle ground between them. And if you do not consider the Qur’an to be a creation, then it is the Creator. That is, the Qur’an that you are holding in your hands is Allah. What is the difference between your beliefs and Christian ones, where Jesus is considered a God-man? Christians believe in the God-man, you believe in the God-book. You think that the book that each of you is holding in your hands is essentially nothing but God! Of course, the Qur’an is from God, but it is not God. The Qur’an is the created word of Allah.
Or take the fourth type of their shirk. This is the belief in the many sifats of the essence of Allah. For example, the eternal knowledge of Allah is one thing, His power is another, and His hearing is the third. And all this seems to add to Its eternal essence. But this is shirk! This shirk is worse than that of Christians. Because Christians believe in the Trinity, that is, in three eternal entities – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. While the opponents of Shiism believe in more than three eternal entities – God-Knowledge, God-Power, God-Hearing, God-Life, and so on. In reality, the Sifat of Allah, as we have already mentioned, is nothing but His essence. They are not added or added to Its essence, they are the Essence itself.
Once again, we come back to the discussion of beliefs and actions. We reiterate that a person will be judged based on their beliefs, or niyat. This means that a person’s actions should reflect their beliefs. It would be wrong to say that actions are not taken into account in the evaluation process.
However, it is a serious error to draw conclusions about a person’s beliefs based solely on their actions. Ascribing shirk to someone based solely on their actions is contrary to the entire logic of Islam.
For example, if a person bows down to another person, some Wahhabis might see this as shirk because the waist bow can only be performed for Allah. But in reality, there is only shirk if the person believes that the one they are worshiping is a god or has divine qualities. If they see the person as an ordinary human being and bow to them, for example, as a thank you for what they did for them, then there is no shirk in this action.
Even in the Qur’an, we see that angels performed prostration (sajdah) before Adam or the brothers of Yusuf before Yusuf (A). If it was shirk, why didn’t Yusuf stop and condemn them? Wasn’t he a prophet?
The behavior of Wahhabis is similar to someone walking on their hands instead of their feet or eating with their hand raised to their mouth from the back of their neck. It is clear that by such a perverse logic, almost any action can be considered a shirk. Suppose I ask someone. This is shirk, you can only ask from Allah! If I love someone, then this is also shirk, you only need to love Allah. If I hope in someone, then this is shirk, you can only hope in Allah. Everything turns into a shirk! Religion becomes a constant search for shirk in any human action.
In Islam, all these actions can be considered shirk only if they are combined with the belief that the one I ask, love, or hope for is endowed with the qualities of divinity. Judging actions are based on beliefs, or niyat. But in Wahhabism, on the contrary, the judgment of niyat is derived from actions. If you perform certain actions, then you are a mushrik. That is exactly the opposite of how it should be in Islam!
In future parts of this cycle, we will discuss these topics in more detail. In conclusion, the Tawhid of Islam — if it is the true Tawhid, that is, the Tawhid of Muhammad and his most pure Family — fills the whole life of the believer with the light of the One. Tawhid is a belief about Allah that fills a person’s heart with unity in deeds and thoughts. Tawhid is a belief that becomes a person’s thought, then is reflected in his heart, and from the heart is manifested in deeds.
The Muslim’s life seems to revolve around a single point, which is the will of the One God; he sees the world from a high mountain, in broad daylight, illuminated by a single source of light. The polytheist wanders among the glimmering lights of the swamp, in a dark forest full of confusion and deceptive shadows. Shirk’s story is a history of pathologies, a history of wild uninhibited forces, chimeras and perversions. As the Qur’an says: “And whoever associates partners with Allah, it is as if he has fallen from the sky, and the birds will seize him, or the wind will carry him to a distant place” (22: 31).