God is Only One

Say, "O People of the Scripture, come to a word that is equitable between us and you - that we will not worship except Allah and not associate anything with Him and not take one another as lords instead of Allah." But if they turn away, then say, "Bear witness that we are Muslims [submitting to Him]."

[ALI IMRAN Ch.3:V.64]

          Alhamdulillah, praise to Allah as we still have chance to meet in this blog again. This entry is going to be my third entry in English and talking about God. Before this, I am not really touching many on the others’ religions. Just only on a few sentences or paragraph, and this time in going to be more than before. So I want to ask for apologies if you feel that I am insulting your religion. Because this is going to be sensitive issues and people also will get sensitive. But I already remind the other Muslims and me early in my entry before.

          I hope that we will learn new things here with no one getting hurt. I hope with this topic also can make the readers rethink on their religion’s practice and can find the truth through this blog, insyaAllah. As you can read the title of today’s topic is about only one God. Before giving evidence from my beliefs, I will try to bring evidence in the other scripture also. Our religion teaches us to find the similarities first and the difference let forget for a while, like I quoted above.

          Firstly, I will quote from Hindu’s scripture that giving the evidence that the God is only one.

He is One only without a second.

(Chandogya Upanishad 6:2:1)

His form is not to be seen.

(Svetasvatara Upanishad 4:20)

There is no likeness of Him.

(Svetasvatara Upanishad 4:19)

These three verses not only saying that God is only one, but also say that his form or his image cannot be imagined. This is also meant that cannot worship to the idols. Unfortunately, this is what happening in Hinduism. Maybe some of them know that their God is only one but only the image they made into many. When the time passes, people tend to forget. They will think that they have many Gods and the worship to the idol is allowed, whereas they only have one God and they are forbidden to worship the idols.

          Now, we are going to take a look on the Bible, the scripture that Christians believes to be a word from God.

 For the Father is greater than I.

(Gospel of John Ch.14:V.28)

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all.

(Gospel of John Ch.10:V.29)

"I can do nothing on my own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.

(Gospel of John Ch.5:V.30)

Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.

(Gospel of Mark Ch.12:V.29)

There are two things that we can conclude from the verses above. Firstly, the God is one. Secondly, Jesus Christ (pbuh) does not claim he is the God. Yet Christians believe that Jesus is God and believing in trinity. There is no verse in the Bible saying about trinity. Maybe there is one verse that closes to it, saying that the God, the Word and the Holy Spirit, all these are one. But the Christian scholars themselves say that this verse was add in, was created the people themselves and not originate from Jesus.

          There no verse talking about trinity in the Bible but there are two verses in Quran says about trinity.

O People of the Scripture, do not commit excess in your religion or say about Allah except the truth. The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah and His word which He directed to Mary and a soul [created at a command] from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers. And do not say, "Three"; desist - it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one God. Exalted is He above having a son. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. And sufficient is Allah as Disposer of affairs.

[AN-NISA’ Ch.4:V.171]

They have certainly disbelieved who say, "Allah is the third of three." And there is no god except one God. And if they do not desist from what they are saying, there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment.

[AL-MAIDAH Ch.5:V.73]

          For example, you have another two twin brothers or sisters. Three of you are so similar which no one can find the difference. One day, one of you committed murder. So the judge decided to hang all three of you, is that fair? You will say that no, we are not the same. We are different person with different personality. Maybe some of you going to say that it is not 1 + 1 + 1 = 1, but it are 1 x 1 x 1 = 1. I would not say anything; just leave it to you to choose by our own, to choose either summation or multiplication.

          Maybe there will be a question, how about Buddha? What they believe in? According to Dr. Zakir Naik, he said that Buddhism does not say that there is a God and also does not say that there is no God. They silence about it. Why I took the answer from Dr. Zakir Naik? Because I think that he is a great person and he did study on many other religions and making the comparisons. Therefore, he knows well about these things.

          How about Islam? I do not think I have to answer it as the answer already stated in the verse in the Quran that I quoted above. Clearly I can say that the other religion is deflected from their original teaching. Now they are following the teaching from the church and also the temple and not following their scripture. From my opinion, if we are claiming that the scripture is from the God, so we need to follow it. The only evidence and the witness that we have today, to prove for the past.

          I hope that Islam will not diverging from the original teaching. I hope that we as Muslims do not blindly follow the others. As we have Quran and the authentic hadis from Nabi Muhammad (pbuh), we should follow these two. For those who want to find more information about the difference in religion, I recommend to you to see videos from Allahyarham Syeikh Ahmad Deedat dan Dr. Zakir Naik. There a lot of debate they did with other religion.

          For the conclusion, it is not about whose religion is more superior. In religion it is the matter of the truth and the truth for religion is only one. We have the responsibility to find the truth through the authentic sources. If you seek for the truth, surely you will find the truth, insyaAllah.

Those who disbelieved among the People of the Scripture and the polytheists were not to be parted [from misbelief] until there came to them clear evidence.

[AL-BAYYINAH Ch.98:V.1]

~Wallahua’lam~