The True Meaning of the Phrase "La ilaha illa Allah" and the Error of Those Who Interpret It as "There Is No Lord Except Allah"

The Shaykh : Before anything else, it is obligatory for us to understand briefly what the meaning of "La ilaha illa Allah" is. Many people, a great many, understand the meaning of "La ilaha illa Allah" to be "There is no Lord except Allah." This is an error in understanding this beautiful phrase, which the Messenger was addressed with and commanded to teach, and it was said to him in the Qur'an: Many people interpret it with this deficient interpretation: "La ilaha illa Allah" means "There is no Lord, no Creator except Allah." "There is no Lord, no Creator except Allah" is a correct statement, but it is not correct to interpret this beautiful phrase with this interpretation. "La ilaha illa Allah" does not mean "There is no Lord except Allah" or "There is no Creator except 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 worshipped entity by right in existence except Allah" This is the correct meaning: "There is no worshipped entity by right in existence except Allah" and not "There is no Lord except Allah." And among the evidence for this...

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : And among the evidence for this is that you should 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 "La ilaha illa Allah," refused him, so he fought them and they fought him. Why? Because they said there are other lords with Allah? In other words, why did the polytheists become disbelievers? Was it because they made other lords alongside Allah, believing that these other lords create, provide sustenance, give life, and cause death? Many people think so, and others think that the polytheists denied the existence of Allah, and that is why 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 materialists or atheists who denied the existence of Allah; they were not like that. Nor did they believe that there are many lords, like the Zoroastrians who believe in two gods: a god of good and a god of evil. That 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 entity with 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, the Exalted said: When the Messenger (peace be upon him) called them to say with him "La ilaha illa Allah," they were arrogant and refused him that. And in the other verse: ... And upon you be peace and the mercy of Allah.
The polytheists in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance believed in the multiplicity of gods (ilahs) but did not believe in the multiplicity of lords (rabb). This distinction must be understood by the Muslim if he wants to be truly monotheistic and know the meaning of "La ilaha illa Allah." Listen: the polytheists did not believe in the multiplicity of lords, but they did believe in the multiplicity of gods. And I believe, with great regret, that most people do not distinguish between this and that. It does not appear to them what I mean by my saying that the polytheists did not believe in the multiplicity of lords, and on the other hand, the polytheists believed in the multiplicity of gods. This is because they do not know the difference between "Rabb" (Lord) and "Ilah" (God), and here is the crux of this word. 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 the saying of the Exalted:

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 words like the saying of the Exalted: meaning the polytheists This is the answer of 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 of their Hajj rituals when they were circumambulating the Ka'bah. They were chanting the talbiyah like the monotheists today, but they added to it what corrupted their tawhid. Their circumambulator would say: "Here I am, O Allah, here I am. Here I am, You have no partner, here I am, except a partner that You own and what He owns" They were making an exception for a partner, but this partner himself is from the ownership of Allah the Exalted, and what he owns is also from the ownership of Allah the Exalted. 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: In another aspect, as mentioned in the previous verses: The "Ilah" (God), O our brothers, means in the Arabic language in which the Qur'an was revealed "the worshipped entity." The "Ilah" is the worshipped entity, regardless of whether this worshipped entity is worshipped by right or worshipped falsely. So everyone who is worshipped and submitted to is an "Ilah" for that worshipper. If he worships Allah, he is a worshipper of Allah. If he worships al-Lat and al-Uzza, he is a worshipper of them. If he worships Isa (Jesus), he is a worshipper of Isa. If he worships the arrogant lords on earth other than Allah, these are servants of those lords and not servants of Allah the Exalted. Because Allah the Exalted does not accept that shirk (associating partners with Allah) be done with Him, whether this shirk is in His essence, in His worship, or in His attributes. So the polytheists who believed that Allah is the one who created the heavens and the earth were worshipping 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 (may Allah's prayers and peace 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. To this contradictory reality—that they were monotheists in one aspect and polytheists in another—Allah the Exalted pointed by His saying, Blessed and Exalted is He, in the Noble Qur'an: So look how Allah the Exalted 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 that exists even today, this contradiction even in many Muslims. And this is what drives us to speak in this serious 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, the Exalted said: So the meaning of "La ilaha illa Allah" is then: "There is no worshipped entity by right in existence except Allah." So whoever believes that Allah alone is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and adds to that that he worships Him and submits to Him alone, and does not worship anyone else absolutely, then he has taken Him as his Ilah (God) to the exclusion of all others.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : One of the fruits of the previous discussion is that it helps us understand the Noble Qur'an, for it is very difficult for many sheikhs, let alone others, to truly understand the meaning of this Noble verse, because it combines two contradictory things: it combines belief 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 devotion, are clarified to you, then understanding this verse will be easy for you. That is, many people, 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 belief with shirk (associating partners with Allah). They are the first ones our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) addressed 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 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 this, 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 and blessings 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, that they were astonished and strongly rejected the call of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) to worship the One they believed was the sole Creator with no partner. They rejected this 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 since before the mission of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). 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, unfortunately, does not come from their disbelief in the Lord of the Worlds as the Creator. Not all people are created with the innate disposition to believe that the Creator is One. But despite that, they associate partners with Allah; they worship others besides Him. To negate these worshipped objects, Allah (Mighty and Majestic) said to His Prophet, teaching His Ummah through him, We said: what is the meaning of "La ilaha illa Allah"? Many people who are heedless of this clear truth think that "La ilaha illa Allah" means "There is no Lord but Allah." This is a mistake. Whoever among the polytheists, the disbelievers, the Jews, the Christians, or the atheists says "La ilaha illa Allah" meaning "There is no Lord but Allah," he has not... believed, because faith is not merely belief, as is the case 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 of this universe, with its system of planets, stars, and galaxies, which must have a Creator. It is a natural instinct in man, so they believe that this universe has a Creator. Are they believers? No. This is belief 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 as the natural religion does today. But this belief must be accompanied by a second and third belief. The second belief 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, neither in His essence nor 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 their belief and said, and they were too arrogant to acknowledge this truth, as Allah the Exalted said in a 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 that were worshipped besides Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He).
Here we must pause. 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 pious and perform the obligatory and recommended acts, 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 saying "La ilaha illa Allah." Does this agree with what they say? The answer is no.