Tawḥīd – Ustādh Rayaan Barker

Tawḥīd, taught by Ustādh Rayaan Barker (hafidhahullāh)

• The statement lā ilāha illā Allāh as the foundation of the religion and the key to happiness, with its titles: the good word, the firm word, the word of taqwā and the word of ikhlāṣ

• Its negation and affirmation: rejecting all false worship and affirming worship for Allāh alone

• Virtues of the statement, including that it is the best dhikr and the best of what the Prophets ﷺ said

• The meaning of shahādah (presence, knowledge and conveying by speech) and whether the word ashhadu must be said for a person to enter Islam

• The name Allāh, its special features and its place among the Names

• The false meaning "there is no creator but Allāh": why it affirms only Tawḥīd ar-Rubūbiyyah and falls short of Tawḥīd al-Ulūhiyyah

Tawḥīd, taught by Ustādh Rayaan Barker (hafidhahullāh)

• The statement lā ilāha illā Allāh is more than words on the tongue: it carries conditions, as al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī reminded a man who had said it for seventy years

• The seven conditions: knowledge, certainty, acceptance, submission, truthfulness, sincerity and love

• Knowledge of the meaning, that nothing besides Allāh is worthy of worship, with the ḥadīth that whoever dies knowing it enters Paradise

• Certainty without doubt, and the verse describing the believers as those who never doubt

• Sincerity, seeking only the pleasure of Allāh, and the ḥadīth on the one most deserving of the Prophet's ﷺ intercession

• Truthfulness against the hypocrisy of saying it with the tongue while the heart disagrees

• Love for the statement, for Allāh, His Messenger ﷺ and the believers, and submission through action, since abandoning all action means no benefit from the statement

Tawḥīd, taught by Ustādh Rayaan Barker (hafidhahullāh)

• Why knowing the true meaning of lā ilāha illā Allāh matters: it is the first pillar of Islam, the best part of īmān, and the last words to be said by the dying

• Seeking knowledge of Tawḥīd is an individual obligation on every Muslim

• The two kinds of testification, what is witnessed by the senses and what is believed in the heart, and what each requires

• Word by word: lā negating a whole class, then illā Allāh affirming worship for Allāh alone, and the meaning of the name Allāh

• How the idolaters of the Prophet's ﷺ time understood the statement better than those who reduce it to "no creator but Allāh", since they already affirmed that Allāh is Creator

• The answer of Ibn ʿUthaymīn (raḥimahullāh) that affirming Lordship alone does not make a person a Muslim, and that Lordship and worship are not complete without each other