The true meaning of the phrase: "There is no god but Allah."

The Shaykh : First of all, we must briefly understand what the meaning of "There is no god but Allah" is.
Many people, a great many, understand the meaning of "There is no god but Allah" to be: "There is no Lord but Allah." This is a mistake. The understanding of this beautiful phrase, which the Messenger was addressed with and commanded to teach, and which was said to him in the Qur'an: ; many people interpret it with this deficient interpretation: "There is no god but Allah" means: "There is no Lord, no Creator but Allah." "There is no Lord, no Creator but Allah" is a correct statement, but it is not correct to interpret this beautiful phrase with this interpretation. "There is no god but Allah" does not mean "There is no Lord but Allah" or "There is no Creator but Allah." So what is the correct meaning? The scholars of the Muslims have agreed that the correct meaning of this beautiful phrase is: "There is no deity worthy of worship in existence except Allah." This is the correct meaning: "There is no deity worthy of worship in existence except Allah," and the meaning is not "There is no Lord but Allah." And among the evidence for this is:

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : And among the evidence for this is that you know the following reality; which is also one of the matters unknown to many Muslims, I do not mean only the common people, but even the educated. The following reality is that the polytheists to whom the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was sent directly, and to whom he called them to worship Allah and to say with him: "There is no god but Allah," so they refused him, so he fought them and they fought him; why? Because they said: "There are lords besides Allah?" In other words: Why did the polytheists become disbelievers? Did they make other lords alongside Allah, believing that these other lords create, provide, give life, and cause death? Many people think so, and others think that the polytheists denied the existence of Allah; and therefore they were polytheists and disbelievers in Allah, so the Messenger of Allah fought them. All of this and that was not the case. The polytheists in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance were not materialist atheists who denied the existence of Allah, they were not like that. And they did not believe that there are many lords like the Zoroastrians who believe in two gods, a god of good and a god of evil; this is the belief of the Zoroastrians. The Arab polytheists in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance, despite their clear error, did not believe that there is another self alongside Allah, contrary to the Zoroastrians. So what was their disbelief? For what did the Messenger fight them and they fought him? We say in the Noble Qur'an, He (Mighty and Majestic) said: And in the other verse they said: .
-- And upon you be peace and the mercy of Allah --
So the polytheists in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance believed in the multiplicity of gods and did not believe in the multiplicity of lords. This difference must be understood by the Muslim if he wants to be a true monotheist and know the meaning of "There is no god but Allah." Listen; the polytheists did not believe in the multiplicity of lords, but they believed in the multiplicity of gods. And my belief, with great regret, is that most people do not distinguish between this and that. It does not appear to them what I intend by my saying: "The polytheists did not believe in the multiplicity of lords," and on the other hand: "The polytheists believed in the multiplicity of gods"; because they do not know the difference between the Lord (Rabb) and the god (Ilah). And here is the crux of this phrase. First, to prove that the Arabs in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance did not believe in the multiplicity of lords, and at the same time they believed in the multiplicity of gods, what is the evidence for that? We have nothing more authentic than the Qur'an absolutely. In the Noble Qur'an there are many verses, among them is His saying (Mighty and Majestic):

The questioner: Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : And upon you be peace, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.
= .

The questioner : .

The Shaykh, so in the Qur'an there are many verses in which the Lord of the Worlds explicitly addresses the Messenger (peace be upon him) with something like His saying (the Exalted): meaning: the polytheists, , . This is the answer of whom? The polytheists; so they believe that the Creator of the heavens and the earth is one Lord, one Creator with no partner. And they affirmed this in what remained with them of the rites of Hajj when they were circumambulating around the Ka'bah, they were chanting the talbiyah like the talbiyah of the monotheists today, but they added to it what corrupted their monotheism, such as their circumambulator saying: "Here I am, O Allah, here I am. Here I am, no partner have You, except a partner You own and what He owns." They excepted a partner for Him, but this partner himself is from what Allah (Mighty and Majestic) owns, and what He owns is also from what Allah (Mighty and Majestic) owns; so they were monotheists in one aspect, and polytheists in another. This precision must be understood so that we do not fall into what those polytheists fell into.
They were monotheists in one aspect as you heard , and in another aspect as we mentioned the previous verses: , they said: . The god (Ilah) - O our brothers - means in the Arabic language in which the Qur'an was revealed, the one who is worshipped. The god is the one who is worshipped; regardless of whether this worshipped one is worshipped rightly or worshipped wrongly. So whoever is worshipped and submitted to is a god for this worshipper. So if he worshipped Allah, he is a worshipper of Allah, and if he worshipped al-Lat and al-Uzza, he is a worshipper of them, and if he worshipped Isa, he is a worshipper of Isa. If he worshipped the lords other than Allah, the tyrants on earth, then these are slaves to them and not slaves to Allah (Mighty and Majestic); because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is not pleased that He be associated with; whether this shirk is in His self, or in His worship, or in His attributes. So the polytheists who believed that Allah is the one who created the heavens and the earth, they worshipped alongside Allah other persons and gods. So in terms of their worship of the other persons, they fell into shirk. And for that reason the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) fought them; so they were believers in one aspect that the Lord is one with no partner, and polytheists in another aspect because they worshipped alongside Him al-Lat, al-Uzza, and other persons whom they held in high esteem.
And to this contradictory reality, that they were monotheists in one aspect and polytheists in another, Allah (Mighty and Majestic) referred in His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He) in the Noble Qur'an: , . So look at how Allah (Mighty and Majestic) described many people with two contradictory descriptions; He described them in one aspect as believers, and in another aspect as polytheists. How is this? This is a reality, existing even today, even in many Muslims. And this is what drives us to speak in this short research. . The one who believes that the Creator of this universe is Allah, one with no partner, is a believer. But the one who worships other than Allah and submits to other than Allah is, from this aspect, a polytheist. Therefore He (the Exalted) said: . So the meaning of "There is no god but Allah" is thus: "There is no deity worthy of worship in existence except Allah." So whoever believed that Allah alone is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and added to that that he worshipped Him and submitted to Him alone and did not worship anyone else absolutely; then he has taken Him as a god besides none other.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh We said that one of the fruits of the previous discussion is that it helps us understand the Noble Qur'an; for many of the shaykhs, and others besides them, find it extremely difficult to understand the true meaning of this noble verse: ; because it combines two contradictory things: it combines faith in Allah on one hand, and associating partners with Allah on the other. How is that? If the oneness of lordship and the oneness of worship, or the oneness of worship, becomes clear to you, then understanding this verse becomes easy for you: ; meaning: Many people are like the polytheists of the pre-Islamic age of ignorance who were the fiercest enemies of the Messenger (peace be upon him), and the fiercest enemies of the call to the oneness of Allah. These polytheists combined faith with shirk (associating partners with Allah). They are the ones our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) first referred to in the previous verse: . So, on one hand, they believed, as you have learned, because the Creator of these heavens and the earth is One with no partner. This is the belief of the polytheists, which the Lord of the Worlds explicitly stated in the Noble Qur'an, as you have heard.
But on the other hand, they worshipped other than Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). They worshipped al-Lat and al-Uzza. And because they followed their fathers and grandfathers in doing so, when the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) came to them calling them to worship their Creator, whom they acknowledged as the One Creator and Provider, when the Messenger (peace be upon him) called them to worship Him alone, to be sincere to Him in worship, and not to worship any other deities with Him, they disbelieved and said, as in the Noble Qur'an: . They were astonished and strongly rejected the Messenger's (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) call to them to worship the One they believed was the sole Creator with no partner. They rejected it with the strongest rejection and fought the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). Not because he called them to believe that the Creator of the universe is One; for they believed in that before the Messenger's (peace be upon him) mission. But they fought him (peace and blessings be upon him) with the fiercest fighting because he told them: Do not worship al-Lat, do not worship al-Uzza, do not worship any other deities with Allah. They said: .
So the disbelief of the first polytheists, and the disbelief of many people afterwards, even some Muslims today—regrettably—does not come from their disbelief in the Lord of the Worlds as Creator. No, every person is created with the innate natural disposition to believe that the Creator is One. But despite that, they associate partners with Allah, worshipping others besides Him. To negate these worshipped objects, Allah (Mighty and Majestic) said to His Prophet, teaching His community through him: . We asked: What is the meaning of "La ilaha illa Allah"? Many people are heedless of this clear truth: "La ilaha illa Allah" means "There is no Lord but Allah." This is a mistake. Who among the disbelieving polytheists, Jews, Christians, and atheists said "La ilaha illa Allah" meaning "There is no Lord but Allah"? He has not... believed; because faith is not merely belief, as they say in Europe now, where they have a religion they call "natural religion." What is this natural religion?
It means the religion called for by the innate intellect: that this universe, with its system of planets, stars, and galaxies, must have a Creator. This is a natural instinct in man. So they believed that this universe has a Creator. Are they believers? No. This is faith in a part of the faith that Allah commanded, but it does not save its owner from eternal abode in the Fire on the Day of Resurrection. This is how the polytheists believed that this universe has a Creator, just like the natural religion today. But this faith must be accompanied by a second and third faith. The second faith is that no one deserves worship except this One Creator with no partner. So whoever worships others with Him has disbelieved in Him; because Allah, the Truth, is the One who is worshipped alone, with no partner in His essence or in His worship. When the polytheists understood the meaning of the word of tawhid (the oneness of Allah), they disbelieved in this word. They disbelieved in it in belief; so they said: . And they were too arrogant to acknowledge this reality, as He (the Exalted) said in the previous verse: ; because they knew that the tawhid to which the Messenger called in this beautiful word necessitates disbelief in all the worshipped objects and the tyrants who were worshipped besides Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He).
Here, a pause is necessary. What did the polytheists do when they worshipped other than Allah? Because one of the obscure matters today for many Muslims is that they do not know the meaning of worship. The proof is that millions of Muslims, who are righteous and perform the obligatory and mandatory acts, even the recommended ones, still go to the graves of the awliya (close friends of Allah) and the righteous, slaughter sacrifices for them, and make vows for them, while they say "La ilaha illa Allah." Does this agree with what they say? The answer is: No.