He avoids (dangerous thoughts and) actions of this kind. This is the iman (faith) that preserves the secret and maintains direct witnessing. (Bayān, 39)
Islam is a name that encompasses both the fundamentals and the branches (furūʿ, secondary aspects) of the religion. Surely, Allah completed this religion, together with its furūʿ and rulings, over the course of more than twenty years. However, some rulings were abrogated and replaced with new ones. But in matters of iman (faith), maʿrifa (gnosis, experiential knowledge of God), and tawhid (the oneness of God), abrogation is not permissible, nor can any of these be altered. (Bayān, 61)
Tawlīd is a quality not of the muwaḥḥid (the one who affirms tawhid), but of the muwaḥḥad (the one to whom tawhid is ascribed, the object of tawhid). When he says "I am," he says it only for your sake, not for His. If you say that the return of tawhid is to the muwaḥḥid (the one who affirms tawhid), you are asserting the tawhid of created beings. If you say that the return of tawlīd is to the muwaḥḥad (the one to whom tawhid is ascribed), then who is being unified, and how does tawhid return to tawhid? If you say that the return of tawhid is from the muwaḥḥad to the muwaḥḥid (from the one to whom tawhid is ascribed to the one who affirms tawhid), you have ascribed a limit (nisba) to Him. (Tawāsīn, 211)
The first circle is His mafʿūlāt (acts, what He does); the second circle is His mawsūmāt (traces, effects), and the circles of the two worlds. Even if the points are separate from the circle, they are not tawhid itself, but its meaning. This second circle concerns those who have been granted respite, those whose deeds are witnessed, and the reports of those who have perished. The first circle is the outward (ẓāhir), the second circle is the inward (bāṭin), and the third circle is ishāra (allusion, symbolic indication).
The soundness of the meaning of tawhid is tashbīh (comparison, likening). Yet tashbīh is not appropriate to the attributes of the Real (al-Ḥaqq). Tawhid is not ascribed to the Real nor to creation, for even to enumerate (in order to affirm oneness) is to delimit.
If you add to tawhid, that addition is contingent (ḥādith). But contingency is not an attribute of the Real. The Essence (dhāt) is a single Essence. Nothing emerges from Him. Nothing of the meanings of truth (ḥaqq) or falsehood (bāṭil) arises from Him.
If you say tawhid is kalām (speech), then speech is not the Essence, but an attribute of the Essence. If you say He willed to be One, will is an attribute of the Essence, and the willed things are created. If you say Allah, then tawhid is the Essence, and the Essence is the very tawhid itself. If you say Allah is not the Essence, you have named Him as a created being.
If you say the name and the named are one, then what is the meaning of tawhid? If you say Allah is Allah, yes, Allah is Allah, the same is the same, He is He; that is, tawhid is the very Essence itself. Take heed: the first is pre-eternity (azal), the second is eternity (abad), the third is direction, the fourth is knowledge and concepts. What remains is: not the attributes, but the Essence. (Tawāsīn, 214)
It was asked of Dhū’l-Nūn al-Miṣrī: What is tawhid? (Dhū’l-Nūn replied:) Tawhid is to know that Allah’s power does not intermingle with things, does not enter into things, does not mix with their nature; to know that His creative act does not merge with things; to know that the cause of everything is Allah’s creation, and that there is no flaw in His creation. In the highest heavens and the lowest earth, there is no disposer but Allah Most High. Whatever comes to your imagination and thought, Allah is other than that. Or he said something similar.
When Junayd was asked what tawhid is, he replied: Tawhid is to make the Muwaḥḥad (the One to whom tawhid is ascribed, the Unified) single through the perfection (kamāl) of Allah’s aḥadiyya (absolute oneness) and the realization of His waḥdāniyya (uniqueness). This is possible by affirming that He is the One who neither begets nor is begotten, that He has no opposite, partner, or equal, and by rejecting that worship can be directed to any other than Him, without falling into tashbīh (likening), taṣwīr (depiction), takyīf (specifying modality), or tamthīl (accepting anything as His equal); and by confessing that He is the One God and the Unique, the Self-Sufficient (al-Ṣamad), who needs nothing but is needed by all. (As the verse says:) "There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing." (al-Shūrā 42:11)
On another occasion, when Junayd was asked the same question, he replied: Tawhid is a meaning in which every form is annihilated and knowledge about it is divided into degrees. Allah is as He was in pre-eternity; there is no change in Him.
When Junayd was asked about the tawhid of the elite (khawāṣṣ), he replied: It is for the servant to be like a ḥayāl (phantom, image) in the presence of Allah Most High, under the flow of divine qudra (power), subject to Allah’s governance and disposal; in this state, to be drowned in the waves of the ocean of tawhid, so that, having lost all sensation and movement in the reality (ḥaqīqa) of Allah’s waḥdāniyya (uniqueness) and wujūd (existence), and having become annihilated (fanāʾ) from his own nafs (lower self), from the calls of creation (khalq) to him and from responding to them, he himself fulfills what Allah desires from the servant. That is, the servant’s final state returns to his initial state, as he was before coming into being (just as before existence he had no will, power, or movement, so now it is the same).
He also said: Tawhid is to emerge from the narrow confines of temporal forms to the boundless expanse of sempiternity and perpetuity. (Lumaʿ, 49)
Tawhid al-ʿāmma (tawhid of the common people) is, due to the absence of true affirmation, the tranquility that comes from the conflict between fear (rahba) and desire (raghba); it is to distance oneself from seeing all forms, similarities, equivalences, and opposites, and to affirm the oneness of the Real. For when true affirmation is present, one does not find tranquility in the conflict between fear and desire. (Lumaʿ, 50)
The final point of tawhid is to forget everything except tawhid itself through tawhid. This occurs where the ruling of reality (ḥaqīqa) requires it.
Ruwaim said: Waḥdāniyya (uniqueness) is that everything besides Him perishes, and the Real remains. That is, the annihilation (fanāʾ) that requires annihilation also necessitates the ruling of reality.
It is also said: Waḥdāniyya is that the Real remains and everything other than the Real perishes. This means that the servant, by constantly performing dhikr (remembrance of God) and showing reverence to Him, becomes annihilated from remembering his own nafs (lower self) and qalb (heart). (Lumaʿ, 52)
According to Abū Saʿīd Aḥmad Isā Ḥarrāz, whoever finds the knowledge of tawhid and realizes it...