The name Allah (God) in Islam is the personal
name of God. The most concise definition of God in
Islam is given in four verses of Surah Al-Ikhlaas in the
Holy Qur'an:
{{Say, "He is Allah, [Who is] One,
Allah, the Eternal Refuge,
He neither begets nor is born,
Nor is there to Him any equivalent."}}
(Holy Qur'an 112: 1-4)
To Muslims, this four-line definition of
Almighty God serves as the touchstone of the study of
God. Any candidate to divinity must be subjected to
this 'acid test' and since the attributes of The Creator
given in this chapter are unique, false gods and
pretenders to divinity can be easily dismissed using
these verses.
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i) The first criterion is "Say, He is Allah, one and
only".
Can there be more than one god? This verse tells us
that The Creator is the only one who has total and
absolute power, unique in His names and attributes.
ii) The second criterion is, 'Allah is absolute and
eternal'.
The word that is translated as "The Eternal, Absolute"
from Arabic is something that can be attributed only to
The Creator as all the other existent beings temporal or
conditional? It also means that Allah is not dependant
on any person or thing, but all persons and things are
dependant on Him.
iii) The third criterion is 'He begets not, nor is He
begotten'.
This means God was not born, nor does He give birth
and share his divinity with others. Nor does He have a
family or relationship with another being.
iv) The fourth test - which is the most stringent - is,
"There is none like unto Him".
The moment you can imagine or compare 'God' to
anything, then he (the candidate to divinity) is not
God. It is not possible to conjure up a mental
picture ofthe One True God because of the simple fact, as
creation, we only know creation
