{"id":1287,"date":"2026-08-02T17:08:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T17:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/?p=1287"},"modified":"2026-08-02T06:05:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T06:05:40","slug":"book-review-celene-ibrahims-islam-and-monotheism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/02\/book-review-celene-ibrahims-islam-and-monotheism\/","title":{"rendered":"Book review: Celene Ibrahims, Islam and monotheism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today&#8217;s consideration is not exactly a book review but rather a synthesis of the ideas surrounding the Qur&#8217;an and Ibrahims&#8217; academic work on tawh\u012bd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Wahid<\/em> means &#8220;one&#8221; and the prefix ta- can make it a active form. See &#8220;ya rabb tabarakka muhammad, al\u012b, fatima, hassan, husayn, etc.&#8221; (may God sustain them.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thus there is an active component with regards to the idea of tawh\u012bd. Believers actively have to make their worship singular in direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now today&#8217;s contribution is a study of how in the <em>kalam allah<\/em> this doctrine resurfaces also in other signs. Consider surah al-ankabut aya 3:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;Wa laqad fatanaa allazeena min qablihim falayalmanaa allahu <em>allazeena sadaqoo<\/em> wa layalmanaa al kaadhibeen&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Notice on the one hand &#8220;allazeena sadaqoo&#8221; and on the other &#8220;al-kaadhibeen.&#8221; God distinguishes between &#8220;those who <em>do<\/em> good&#8221; and &#8220;the deniers.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">God could have distuingeshed between &#8220;al-sadiqeen&#8221; or rather &#8220;muta\u1e63addiq\u012bn&#8221;<sup data-fn=\"202b9f29-c9d2-4a12-b9be-75cd10dfe04b\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#202b9f29-c9d2-4a12-b9be-75cd10dfe04b\" id=\"202b9f29-c9d2-4a12-b9be-75cd10dfe04b-link\">1<\/a><\/sup> to be precise but no the example &#8220;<em>those who <\/em>&#8230; *verb*&#8221; is chosen. So this example shows how it is emphasized that the believers are actively in connection with their faith, as opposed to those who are merely referenced as a group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another thing to note is that in this aya God is literally close to the pious, notice \u201cfalayalmanaa allahu allazeena sadaqoo\u201d in contrast to \u201cwa layalmanaa al-kaadhibeen.\u201d It could have been \u201cwa allahu layalmanaa al kaadhibeen\u201d but instead the kunya of the Omniscient is only used in the context of the pious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To be fair this can be attributed to the language that is used throughout the Quran. The arabic quran is economical with its language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-footnotes\"><li id=\"202b9f29-c9d2-4a12-b9be-75cd10dfe04b\"><a href=\"https:\/\/corpus.quran.com\/qurandictionary.jsp?q=Sdq\">https:\/\/corpus.quran.com\/qurandictionary.jsp?q=Sdq<\/a>, accessed safar 18, 1448\/2026. <a href=\"#202b9f29-c9d2-4a12-b9be-75cd10dfe04b-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 1\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s consideration is not exactly a book review but rather a synthesis of the ideas surrounding the Qur&#8217;an and Ibrahims&#8217; academic work on tawh\u012bd. Wahid means &#8220;one&#8221; and the prefix ta- can make it a active form. See &#8220;ya rabb tabarakka muhammad, al\u012b, fatima, hassan, husayn, etc.&#8221; (may God sustain them.) Thus there is an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"<a href=\\\"https:\/\/corpus.quran.com\/qurandictionary.jsp?q=Sdq\\\">https:\/\/corpus.quran.com\/qurandictionary.jsp?q=Sdq<\/a>, accessed safar 18, 1448\/2026.\",\"id\":\"202b9f29-c9d2-4a12-b9be-75cd10dfe04b\"}]"},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1287"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1295,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions\/1295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harmenscholte.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}