Allah, the One God of Islam: Who Is God in Islam?

At the heart of Islam lies a simple yet demanding conviction: there is only one God, the Creator of all things, with no partner and no equal. Muslims call Him Allah. Who is He, how can we know Him, what does the Quran say about His attributes, and why worship Him? Drawing on the Quran and authentic hadiths, this page sets out what the Muslim faith teaches about God.

The name “Allah”

“Allah” is the Arabic word for God. Most Arab philologists hold that it comes from a contraction of al-ilah, “the god”, meaning the one true God; others regard it as a proper name not derived from any root. The word belongs to a family shared by the Semitic languages: Aramaic Alaha, Hebrew Eloah and its plural of majesty Elohim, or the element El found in names such as Gabriel, Michael, Ishmael and Israel.

Allah is therefore not “the god of the Arabs”, as is sometimes said. Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews also say “Allah” when they speak of God, and from its very first surah the Quran presents Him as the “Lord of the worlds” (Quran 1:2). It even instructs Muslims to tell the People of the Scripture: “our God and your God is one; and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him” (Quran 29:46). Far from the image of a harsh deity that some ascribe to Him, one hundred and thirteen of the Quran’s one hundred and fourteen surahs open by invoking Him as “the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful”.

The oneness of God (tawhid)

Surah al-Ikhlas (“Sincerity” or “Pure Monotheism”) sums up the Muslim conception of God in four verses:

“Say, ‘He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, nor is there to Him any equivalent.’” (Quran 112:1-4)

Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said of this short surah that it “is equal to one third of the Quran” (Sahih al-Bukhari 5013), so fully does it condense the essentials. To explain it, many scholars distinguish three aspects of God’s oneness:

God is the only Lord: He creates, owns and governs the universe, and He alone gives life and death.
He alone deserves worship: prayer, supplication, trust, hope and reverent fear are directed to Him alone, with no intermediary.
His names and attributes are perfect: He is described as He described Himself in the Quran and as His Prophet ﷺ described Him, without likening Him to His creatures.

It is this oneness that is proclaimed in the declaration of faith (shahada), through which one enters Islam: “I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” Its opposite is association (shirk): giving to anything other than God what belongs to Him alone.

What the Quran teaches about God

The Verse of the Throne (Ayat al-Kursi), one of the most frequently recited verses of the Quran, offers a glimpse of His greatness:

“Allah – there is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Self-Sustaining. Neither drowsiness overtakes Him nor sleep. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. Who is it that can intercede with Him except by His permission? He knows what is [presently] before them and what will be after them, and they encompass not a thing of His knowledge except for what He wills. His Kursi extends over the heavens and the earth, and their preservation tires Him not. And He is the Most High, the Most Great.” (Quran 2:255)

Nothing resembles Him: “There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing” (Quran 42:11). He has none of the needs of His creatures: “it is He who feeds and is not fed” (Quran 6:14).
He is the Creator: He “created the heavens and earth in six days” (Quran 7:54), and “His command is only when He intends a thing that He says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is” (Quran 36:82).
He knows everything: “And with Him are the keys of the unseen; none knows them except Him. […] Not a leaf falls but that He knows it” (Quran 6:59). He knows our words, our deeds and even our most private thoughts: “We are closer to him than [his] jugular vein” (Quran 50:16).
He cannot be seen in this world: “Vision perceives Him not, but He perceives [all] vision” (Quran 6:103). Yet the believers will see Him in the Hereafter: “[Some] faces, that Day, will be radiant, looking at their Lord” (Quran 75:22-23). Looking at the full moon, the Prophet ﷺ said: “You will see your Lord as you see this moon, and you will have no trouble in seeing Him” (Sahih al-Bukhari 554).

A merciful God who is near

Mercy holds a central place in the Quran. God says: “My mercy encompasses all things” (Quran 7:156). The Prophet ﷺ taught that when God created the creation, He wrote in a Book kept with Him: “Verily, My mercy prevails over My anger” (Sahih al-Bukhari 7404). He also explained that God divided mercy into a hundred parts and sent down only one of them to earth: through it creatures show tenderness to one another, so that a mare lifts her hoof lest she hurt her foal (Sahih al-Bukhari 6000). Seeing a captive woman clutch a child she had found again, he said to his Companions: “Allah is more merciful to His servants than this woman is to her child” (Sahih al-Bukhari 5999).

This mercy remains open to all who turn back to Him: “O My servants who have transgressed against themselves [by sinning], do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins” (Quran 39:53). God is also the Affectionate (al-Wadud, Quran 85:14), and He is near to whoever calls on Him: “And when My servants ask you concerning Me – indeed I am near. I respond to the invocation of the supplicant when he calls upon Me” (Quran 2:186). In a hadith qudsi, He says: “I am as My servant thinks I am, and I am with him when he remembers Me. […] If he draws near to Me by a hand’s span, I draw near to him by a cubit; and if he comes to Me walking, I go to him running” (Sahih al-Bukhari 7405).

God’s blessings upon humankind

Everything human beings enjoy comes from God: life, water, food, the air they breathe, light, family, health. “And if you should count the favour of Allah, you could not enumerate them” (Quran 14:34). God has honoured humanity (“And We have certainly honoured the children of Adam”, Quran 17:70) and given it intelligence, the ability to learn and to pass on knowledge: the first word of the Quran to be revealed is “Recite!”, and God is described there as the One “who taught by the pen” (Quran 96:1-4). Seeking to understand the world, to invent and to make progress is therefore not foreign to faith: it is a way of making these gifts bear fruit.

The fitting response to such blessings is gratitude, expressed through faith, worship and the right use of what one has been given.

Why worship God?

The Quran states the purpose of human existence: “And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me” (Quran 51:56). God has no need of this worship; it is human beings who need it. According to Islam, every person is born with a natural disposition to recognise their Creator, the fitrah (Quran 30:30): “Every child is born upon the fitrah” (Sahih al-Bukhari 1385). Worship answers this deep need and brings inner peace: “Unquestionably, by the remembrance of Allah hearts are assured” (Quran 13:28).

Worship (‘ibadah) is not limited to rituals. It includes, of course, prayer, fasting, zakat and Hajj, but also every act done for God’s sake in keeping with His commands: telling the truth, honouring one’s parents, working honestly, helping others, learning and passing on knowledge. The Prophet ﷺ defined excellence in faith (ihsan) as “to worship Allah as if you see Him, and if you do not see Him, He sees you” (Sahih al-Bukhari 50). And love of God shows itself in following His Messenger: “Say, ‘If you should love Allah, then follow me, [so] Allah will love you and forgive you your sins’” (Quran 3:31).

Knowing God through revelation

Reason can recognise the existence of a Creator through the wonders of creation, but it is through revelation that God has made Himself known in detail. He sent prophets to every people: “And We certainly sent into every nation a messenger, [saying], ‘Worship Allah and avoid taghut’” (Quran 16:36). Among them were Noah (Nuh), Abraham (Ibrahim), Moses (Musa) and Jesus (‘Isa), and finally Muhammad ﷺ, “the Messenger of Allah and seal of the prophets” (Quran 33:40). Believing in God also means believing in His angels, His revealed Books, His messengers, the Last Day and divine decree, as taught in the famous hadith of Gabriel (Sahih Muslim 8).

In the Quran, God presents Himself through His names: “And to Allah belong the best names, so invoke Him by them” (Quran 7:180). The end of Surah al-Hashr lists several in a row: “He is Allah, other than whom there is no deity, Knower of the unseen and the witnessed. He is the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful” (Quran 59:22). Reflecting on these names – the Forgiving, the Just, the Wise, the Light, the Source of Peace… – is one of the best ways to know God: discover them on our page about the 99 names of Allah.

The return to God

Finally, faith in God is inseparable from faith in the life to come. The world will come to an end, then God will resurrect all human beings and judge them with perfect justice and immense mercy: “Indeed, Allah does not do injustice, [even] as much as an atom’s weight; while if there is a good deed, He multiplies it” (Quran 4:40). This is the subject of our article on the Day of Judgement.

For a Muslim, then, knowing God is no abstract question: it means discovering one Lord, all-powerful and yet ever near, whose mercy prevails over His anger, and to whom everyone will return. To go further, reading the Quran with reflection remains the most direct path.