A Muslim, Sayyid Nasr described the heart of Islam as:
At the heart of Islam stands the reality of God, the One, the Absolute and the Infinite, the Infinitely Good and All Merciful, the One Who is at once transcendent and immanent, greater than all we can conceive or imagine, yet, as the Quran, the sacred scripture of Islam, attests, closer to us than our jugular vein. The One God, known by His Arabic Name, Allah, is the central reality of Islam in all of its facets, and attestation to this oneness, which is called tawhid, is the axis around which all that is Islamic revolves.
If we want to reach out to Muslims, wouldn't it be good to know a bit more about what is in their 'heart'? You might respond by saying, 'But why all this doctrine stuff? Why can't we just be friends with Muslims and the rest will take care of itself?" To truly love someone, does require knowledge of their hopes, loves, desires and drives. The teaching on tawhid helps us to understand what makes Muslims tick.
Keith Small and Andy Bannister gave a series of lectures entitled, "Allah vs. Yahweh / Tawhid vs. Trinity" [https://www.bethinking.org/islam/allah-vs-yahweh-tawhid-vs-trinity]. It covers topics such as:
- Thinking about God's Nature
- Some Philosophical Problems with the Islamic Doctrine of Tawhid and a Contrast with the Doctrine of the Trinity
You can find a partial transcript of the talks here [www.geocities.ws/elf_sopron2005/keith/tawhid-trinity-ks.pdf]
Want to know the bottom line of these talks?
For all of the similarities of how Allah of Islam and YHWH of the Bible act, the reasons why they do things so differently can be traced to whether one is a monad (i.e. just one solitary being) described by Tawhid or a tri-personal being described by the Trinity. Every Muslim desperately needs the Trinity. Doesn't true friendship with, and true respect for Muslims demand that they are introduced to the One who is Father-Son-Spirit?
