Opens 15 minutes before the session begins.
Foundations, Part 4 Satan, this session points out, worshipped God flawlessly for six thousand years — and it still was not enough. Having covered what it means to trust God's law, the session turns to the belief that makes trusting it possible at all: tawhid, the uniqueness of God. It opens by setting aside a question it says does not need asking — whether God exists, which it treats as self-evident — in favour of the one that does: what kind of unique is God? The session leans on a story of Imam al-Sadiq, peace be upon him, who answers a man asking how to know God exists not with an argument but with two questions about a boat sinking at sea, and who it was the man cried out to when he thought he would drown. From there the session works through the Chapter of Sincerity to separate the Arabic word ahad, used only for God, from wahid, the ordinary word for the number one — and through three distinct senses in which God is described as one: in His essence, in His attributes, and in His acts. It closes with the Hadith of the Golden Chain, in which God calls the declaration "there is no god but God" a fortress against His own punishment, before Imam al-Rida adds a condition of his own as the caravan carrying the narration moves off. If flawless belief was not enough to save Satan, what is God actually asking for? What the evening covers The boat story. How Imam al-Sadiq answers "how do I know God exists?" with two questions about drowning at sea. Ahad, not wahid. Why the word for God's uniqueness in the Chapter of Sincerity refuses division, multiplication, or comparison. Three kinds of oneness. Unity in essence, unity in attributes, unity in acts — and why conflating them causes real theological error. The Hadith of the Golden Chain. God's fortress, and the condition Imam al-Rida attaches to it. Satan's six thousand years. Flawless worship, and the one thing it did not include.
In this session
قُلۡ هُوَ ٱللَّهُ أَحَدٌ
Say, "He is Allah, [who is] One
Quran, Surah Al-Ikhlas (The Sincerity), Chapter 112, Verse 1
