Dividing Tawheed Into Categories

7/29/2019 Dividing Tawheed Into Categories

1/6

Share

10262

- Bas ic Tenets of Faith Tawheed (Divine Unity) .

Dividing Tawheed into categoriesar ru tr ur z h

I hear from some knowledgable brothers concerning Tawheed and itscategories that Shaykh ul Islaam Taqi ud deen Ibn Taymiyyaah(Rahimahullaah) held 2 catergories of Tawheed (ie; Tawheed Ar-Ruboobiyyaah and Tawheed Al Asmaa Was Sifaat) How true are thesestatements? Did Shaykh Muhammad Ibn Ibraheem (rahimahullaah) hold 4catergories? and f inally does Shaykh Saleeh Al Fawzaan (may Allaahpreserve him) hold 4 catergories of Tawheed?.

Praise be t o Allaah.

Firstly:

We must understand the principle which says that there is not hing wrong

with using new terminology. This principle is well-known among the

Home

Categories

NewFatwas

About

Articles & Books

Send A Question

Introduction to Islam

He is as king aboutthe cost of the fidyahfor removin hair.

English Uygur Franais Espaol Indonesian new Turkish Hindi new

Search Key Word searchWed 12 DhQ 1434 - 18 Septembe r 2013

PDFmyURL.com
http://www.islam-qa.com/en/cat/218http://www.islam-qa.com/en/cat/230http://www.islam-qa.com/es/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/ja/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/ar/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/ur/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/en/cat/12http://www.islam-qa.com/en/send_qhttp://almunajjid.com/bookshttp://www.islam-qa.com/en/new_fatwashttp://www.islam-qa.com/en/treehttp://pdfmyurl.com/?otsrc=watermark&otclc=0.01http://pdfmyurl.com/?otsrc=watermark&otclc=0.01http://www.islam-qa.com/en/108340http://www.islam-qa.com/en/112877http://www.islam-qa.com/en/cat/12http://www.islam-qa.com/en/send_qhttp://almunajjid.com/bookshttp://www.islam-qa.com/en/ref/islamqapages/2http://www.islam-qa.com/en/new_fatwashttp://www.islam-qa.com/en/treehttp://www.islam-qa.com/enhttp://www.islam-qa.com/en/10262#http://www.islam-qa.com/en/10262#http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300&winname=addthis&pub=username&source=tbx-300&lng=en&s=myspace&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.islam-qa.com%2Fen%2F10262&title=Islam%20Question%20and%20Answer%20-%20Dividing%20Tawheed%20into%20categories&ate=AT-username/-/-/523913df7b9c62b6/2&frommenu=1&uid=523913df07474be1&ct=1&tt=0&captcha_provider=nucaptchahttp://www.islam-qa.com/en/10262#http://www.islam-qa.com/en/10262#http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250http://www.islam-qa.com/zh/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/ur/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/tr/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/ru/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/ar/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/en/cat/230http://www.islam-qa.com/en/cat/218http://www.islam-qa.com/en/searchhttps://twitter.com/islamqa_enhttps://www.facebook.com/IslamQA1arhttp://www.islam-qa.com/en/rss.xmlhttp://www.islam-qa.com/ar/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/ur/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/hi/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/tr/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/ru/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/id/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/ja/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/es/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/fr/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/ug/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/zh/10262http://www.islam-qa.com/en/10262


2/6

fuqaha and scholars of usool. Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on

him) said:

There is nothing wrong with new concepts and new words, unless there

is something bad about them.

Madaarij al-Saalikeen , 3/306

Secondly:

From early times the scholars have categorized the rulings of shareeah.

This has only been done to make it easier to understand the text s and

rulings of shareeah, especially as time goes by and knowledge of Arabic

language becomes weaker and the language gets mixed with foreign

languages.

The scholars thought it wise to set out principles, issues and categories

to make it easier to understand. There is nothing wrong with t his, in fact

it is a good thing because it makes knowledge more accessible to the

Muslims. Al-Shaafai set out the principles of f iqh and his categorization

was well-received and was followed by the scholars of usool who wrote

commentaries on what he said and added to it. This was done in all

branches of Islamic knowledge such as tajweed (recitation of Quraan),

Quraan and others, including Tawheed.

Thirdly:

With regard to what the questioner mentions, that Shaykh al-Islam [Ibn

Taymiyah] divided Tawheed into two categories and Shaykh Muhammad

ibn Ibraaheem divided it into four, as did Shaykh Saalih al-Fawzaan, t here

PDFmyURL.com
http://pdfmyurl.com/?otsrc=watermark&otclc=0.01http://pdfmyurl.com/?otsrc=watermark&otclc=0.01http://www.islam-qa.com/en/160820http://www.islam-qa.com/en/191327http://www.islam-qa.com/en/186989http://www.islam-qa.com/en/200628http://www.islam-qa.com/en/6830http://www.islam-qa.com/en/111794http://www.islam-qa.com/en/117168http://www.islam-qa.com/en/126637


3/6

is nothing wrong with that . We will explain this to you.

Some of the scholars said t hat Tawheed can be divided into two

categories:

Tawheed al-Marifah wal-Ithbaat (Oneness of knowledge and

affirmation): which includes believing in the existence of Allaah and in His

Lordship and His names and attributes.

Tawheed al-Qasd wal-Talab (Oneness of object and aim), which

includes believing in the divine nature o f Allaah.

With regard to t hose who divided Tawheed into t hree categories, they

explained the previous categorization in more detail and made it easier

to understand. So they said that Tawheed is divided into three

categories:

Tawheed al-Ruboobiyyah (Oneness of divine Lordship): which includes

belief in t he existence of Allaah.

Tawheed al-Uloohiyyah (Oneness of the Divine nature) orTawheed al-

Ibaadah (Oneness of worship) which mean the same thing.

Tawheed al-Asma wal-Sifaat (Oneness of the Divine names and

attributes)

Then some of the scholars added to t his categorizat ion and said that

Tawheed may be divided into four categories:

Belief in t he existence of Allaah.

PDFmyURL.com
http://pdfmyurl.com/?otsrc=watermark&otclc=0.01http://pdfmyurl.com/?otsrc=watermark&otclc=0.01


4/6

Belief in the Lordship of Allaah.

Belief in the Divinity of Allaah.

Belief in the names and at t ributes o f Allaah.

As we see, t here is not hing wrong with this categorizat ion as long as it

does not point to anything false, and there is nothing wrong with the

terminology. This categorization is only to make it easier to understand.

The more time passes, the less people understand, and the scholars

need to make things easier and simpler.

To sum up, there is nothing wrong with what the questioner mentioned,

because dividing Tawheed into two categories includes everything that is

explained in detail by the others. Those who divided it into three or four

categories explained in detail that which was mentioned in concisefashion by those who divided it into t wo.

But all are agreed that Tawheed includes all the things that they

mentioned.

There is nothing wrong with this categorizat ion and this use of

terminology, on condition that it does not lead to any problems, such as

leaving out some of the concepts that are part of Tawheed, or

introducing ideas that have nothing to do with it.

There may come a time when it needs to be explained further, so the

scholars will explain it with more categories in order to make it easier to

understand.

This is a brief explanation of what is meant by the three categories of

PDFmyURL.com


5/6

Tawheed:

Belief in Divine Lordship (ruboobiyyah): This means believing t hat Allaah is

the only One Who creates, gives life and death, etc.

Belief in the Divine nature (uloohiyyah): This means believing that Allaah

is the only One Who to whom the people should devote their words and

actions, bot h inward and outward. So none is to be worshipped but Him,

may He be glorif ied and exalted.

Belief in t he names and att ributes o f Allaah (al-asma wal-sifaat): which

means affirming what Allaah has affirmed for Himself of names and

attributes, and denying any attributes that Allaah has said are not His,

without denying any of His attributes or likening any of His attributes to

the attributes of any of His creation.

Fourthly:

The scholars dividing Tawheed into these categories is nothing new,

rather it was known in the third and fourth centuries AH, as was

mentioned by Shaykh Bakr Abu Zayd, a member of the Council of Senior

Scholars, in his book al-Radd ala al-Mukhaalif . This categorizat ion was

also narrated from Ibn Jareer al-Tabari and other scholars.

Note: what the questioner mentioned, that Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah

divided Tawheed into two categories Tawheed al-Ruboobiyyah

(Oneness of divine Lordship) and Tawhe ed al-Asmaa wal-Sifaat

(Oneness of the divine names and att ributes) is not correct. Rather he

divided it into two categories which were Tawheed al-Marifah wal-

Ithbaat (Oneness of knowledge and affirmation) and Tawheed al-Qasd

PDFmyURL.com


6/6

wal-Talab (Oneness o f object and aim), t he first of which includes

Tawheed al-Ruboobiyyah and Tawheed al-Asma wal-Sifaat .

See Majmoo al-Fataawa , 15/164; al-Fataawa al-Kubra, 5/250

And Allaah knows best.

Islam Q&A

All Rights Res erved for Is lam QA 1997-2013 16 .58

PDFmyURL.com

Dividing Tawheed Into Categories

Documents

Transcript of Dividing Tawheed Into Categories