Commentary These verses are connected together in one context...

Commentary These verses are connected together in one context, with a single theme. They remind the audience about the belief of mono-theism offering proofs to support it, and describe polytheism and its ultimate result. Qur’an: And your God is one God: We have explained the mean­ing of al-ilah ( الاِلٰـهُ = god) in the Commentary of the first verse of the first chapter, the Opening. Oneness is a self-evident idea, which needs no explanation.

A thing is called one in view of one of its attributes, for example, one man, one scholar or one poet. These words show that the related attribute is indivisible, and not subject to plurality. For example, the manhood of one man, Zayd, is not shared between him and someone else. It is in con­trast with manhood of two men - Zayd and 'Amr, for exam-ple - which is shared by the two, and is therefore numerous.

Thus Zayd, in context of his attribute of manhood, is one and indivisible and not subject to plurality. But when he is looked at in this very context combined with his other attributes - like his knowledge, power, life, etc. - then he is not one; he is a multiple in reality. Allah is One, in view of His attribute, like His divinity, which is not shared by anyone else. He is one in His divinity as well as in His knowledge, power and life.

He has knowledge, unlike other knowledges, and power and life unlike others' powers and lives. Also, He is one because His attributes are not multiple, they are not separate from one another except in their verbal meanings; His knowledge, His power and His life, all is one thing, all is His very person; none of them is separate from the other. Allah knows by His power, and has power by His life, and is alive by His know-ledge.

He is not like other things where attributes are multiple and numerous not only in meanings but in reality also. Sometimes a thing possesses the characteristic of oneness in its personality, that is, by its very nature and essence, it cannot accept multiplication or division in its self; it cannot be divided into various parts or into its person and name etc.

This oneness is called oneness of person, and it is referred to with the word al-ahad اَلأحَدُ ) = one); this word is never used except as a first construct of a genitive construction or in a negative, prohibitive or similar sentences, in the meaning of no one, any one, etc. For example, we say: No one came to me.