La-ilaha-Il-lal-laho. There is no God save God.
“Say, God is one God; the eternal God: He begetteth not, neither is begotten: There is not any one like unto Him.
“Dost thou not know that God is almighty? Dost thou not know that unto God belongeth the Kingdom of Heaven? neither have ye any protector or helper except God.
“To God belongeth the East and the West; therefore wheresoever ye turn yourselves to pray, there is the face of God; for God is omnipresent and omniscient.
“Your God is one God, there is no God but He, the most merciful.”
It was with a very simple message, apparently, that Muhammad came forth from his long meditation in his lonely cave. The message was not even original. Not only had Arab mystics already dreamt of the aloneness of God, but there were Jews and Christians, inheritors of the same supreme truth, settled here and there over the land; and Muhammad had come into contact with both during his early Syrian journeys. The Idea had become familiar to him long before.
The God of Muhammad But, the God of Muhammad’s contemplations was not the God of Judaism, nor the God of Christianity; he deliberately rejected both Faiths. True, God is Spirit, God is one, God is alone, God is Creator; He is the al-knowing, al-present, al-governing One. High attributes are ascribed to Him, as in the ninety-nine Names which the pious Mussulman reverently repeats with the aid of his string of beads; but neither these, nor the various attributes ascribed to Him in the Quran itself, largely affect the Muslim conception of God.
The God of Muhammad is a Being of two supreme characteristics. He is the supreme Will, and His Will is carried into effect by His supreme Power.
Will: absolute, eternal, unchanging; far above such human distinctions as right and wrong, justice and injustice. That which the Will of God ordains, that is right, just, and final.
Power: so unrestrained, so awful, carries that Will into effect, that there exists no will or power save God’s alone. That which is ordained, good or evil, righteous or unrighteous in man’s poor view, is of God. He is the only Doer. “In the creation of heaven and earth, and in the ship which sails on the sea ... All is God.” All creatures, even man, are in the awful grip of this great Spirit, helpless; they do that which He ordains, that and no other.