Why does the shahadah begin with a negation of belief in God? What is its significance?
Re: There is no god
it does not, u have to read it all....
if u read anything half its most likely to give u wrong meaning....
Re: There is no god
"There is no god but Allah"
Re: There is no god
i know precisely what the meaning is. However that doesn't answer my question.
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why is the statement not, as in quran simply He is Allah, the one and only God, instead of 'there is no God...but Allah' with the illah as a kind of, i dunno how should i put it... an afterthought?
The statement is very specific and has two parts; I don't believe followed by an exception. What is the significance of the 'unbelief'?
Re: There is no god
Quran puts it like this too....
surah taha says "la ilaha illa ana" (there is no god except Me)
surah hashr says "la ilaha illa hu" (there is no god but He)
as i said before, if u look at only half of a sentence, u r most likely to get a wrong meaning....
very typical example comes from Quran....
the verse says "la taqrabu al-salat wa antum sukaara"
(dont go near prayer if u r drunk)
now if u read half part and keep asking what is the significance of saying "dont go near prayer", then what answer do u expect????
Re: There is no god
It does not begin with a negation of belief in God, it begins with the negation of presence of any GOD, except ALMIGHTY ALLAH :swt:
Re: There is no god
armughal: I'm sure there is a difference between the two.
I'm no linguist but I'm sure from the point of grammar and syntax, there is some point to be made about the structure and change in the meaning conveyed.
However because the shahadah is an ideological statement of the most fundamental belief, I want to explore this idea of first and foremostly negating the presence of any God before illallah.
I mean, in the two part of this one statement you have (a) generalised kufr followed by a statement of (b) specific belief.
What is the significance of this?
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^ if u say that there is not god u r an aethist....
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Its all psychological. First you negate the beliefs of the idol worshippers, and then bring thier attention to the One and Only. That is the only significance. i.e. shock therapy.
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so why is it necessary for one to 'be' an athiest to then become a believer?
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^ As Mamoli said.. first the idea is to negate the belifs of the idol worshippers, thus cleaning oneself from impurities and then accepting the presence of the only Lord. Allah the Almighty.
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Its not. :-)
The athiest only have one step further in beliveing in the One God. People believing in multiple Gods have two steps to go.
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Deny the lies, before you accept the truth.
Deny the evil before you accept the good.
As accepting the good, wihtout denying the evil is hypocrisy, the two don't go together.
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its not just psychological, the paradigm shift associated with the two parts of the statement is absolutely huge. I don't think we can entirely understand how massive the change is.
If this was only shock therapy for pagans and idolators, would it be right to say that this doesn't entirely apply to other monothiests who accept islam? What you are saying is limiting this statement and making it exclusive to idolators, however it is an expression of faith of every muslim.
Re: There is no god
^what other monotheists by the way? i dont know of any existing religion that is entirely monotheistic. and if they are monotheistic then the deity they believe in is Allah by another name (possibly with incorrect attributes), so that part of the shahada is already covered.
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by monothiest i meant those in whatever form accepted the existence of one God instead of multiple gods. Therefore for those who believe the first part of shahadah only applies to idolators, I was querying whether its only natural to assume that the shahadah in its entirety doesn't apply to non-idolators?
Thats a digression however. My initial query was to know the significance of non-belief before assuming belief in the shahdah testimony.
Putting it another way, saying 'I believe Allah is One' is as good as saying and believing la ilaha illallah. Both are good as a binding contractual agreement to enter into a highly defined personal relationship for ever, life and beyond. But the two statements are clearly not the same. Whats the subtle but huge ideological difference between 'There is One God' and 'There is no god but God'?
Curious One, doesn't the simple act of accepting truth and good automatically by implication cancel evil and untruth?
Re: There is no god
[quote]
by monothiest i meant those in whatever form accepted the existence of one God instead of multiple gods. Therefore for those who believe the first part of shahadah only applies to idolators, I was querying whether its only natural to assume that the shahadah in its entirety doesn't apply to non-idolators?
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My question to you is who are those people who accept only one God instead of multiple ones? Existing Semetic religions dont, and Im not aware of any non-semetic on that does either. Thereby it wouldnt just apply to idolators, but to Christians and Jews and Hindus and Zoarastrians etc. My guess is that those who said idolators meant those who believe in polytheism.
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Whats the subtle but huge ideological difference between 'There is One God' and 'There is no god but God'?
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How do you know there is a subtle but "huge" ideological difference? I know that sentences along the lines of "There is One God" and "Allah is the only God" do occur in the Quran. It might have significance in terms of import and meaning, but not sure ideology.
As for cancelling evil by implication, perhaps the intent in the shahada is to be explicit about it, in case people wish to resist the implication. For instance taking your statement "There is One God" a Christian with his Triune belief might say that yes the trinity is One God in three, whereas saying that there is no God but Allah is important from the Islamic perspective.
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Putting it another way, saying 'I believe Allah is One' is as good as saying and believing la ilaha illallah. Both are good as a binding contractual agreement to enter into a highly defined personal relationship for ever, life and beyond. But the two statements are clearly not the same. Whats the subtle but huge ideological difference between 'There is One God' and 'There is no god but God'?
Curious One, doesn't the simple act of accepting truth and good automatically by implication cancel evil and untruth?
I believe in One Allah, can also mean that I believe in One Allah and One Ram, hence its not as good as believing in la ilaha illallah.
Accepting of truth and good is not automatically cancellation of evil and untruth. That is the concept of tabbara, that you have to distance yourself from all thats evil before you accept all that is good.
Re: There is no god
The Kalimah starts with negation for emphasis and impact.
So in simple words it means that there is no other god but Allah (swt).
Similarly we can say that: No one is worthy of worship but Allah (swt).
We also use negation first in our everyday language for emphasis and impact.
Like:
I like nothing better now than a nice cup of tea.
Or a person may say to his/her beloved.
I love nobody but you.