Free Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam by Amina Wadud

articulations point toward the same essence. Tawhid is the operating
    principle of equilibrium and cosmic harmony. It operates between the
    metaphysical and physical realities of
    the created
    universe, as well as
    within them both. On a theological level, tawhid relates to the transcendent and yet immanent divinity or ultimate reality, the “unicity” of Allah. Allah is not only one and unique, Allah is uniform, and unites existing multi- plicities or seeming dualities in both the corporeal and the metaphysical realm.
    As an ethical term, tawhid relates to relationships and developments within the social and political realm, emphasizing the unity of all human creatures beneath one Creator. If experienced as a reality in everyday Islamic terms, humanity would be a single global community without distinction for reasons of race, class, gender, religious tradition, national origin, sexual orientation or other arbitrary, voluntary, and involuntary
    aspects of
    human
    distinction. Their only distinction would be on the
    basis

    of taqwa (49:13). Taqwa is moral consciousness, not accessible to

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    external human judgment, although I will show that external results or consequences are palpable.
    Because of tawhid , Islam exists along the lines of the irrefutable and unconditional notion of Allah’s oneness. Indeed the Qur’an states unequiv- ocally that all sins can be forgiven, except shirk (the opposite of tawhid ) (4:116). God is not only one. God is indivisible. By means of indivisibility God acts upon all creation to bring peace, harmony, and unity. That which emanates from Allah participates in this unity. Ultimate separation between creature (self) and Creator (Allah) is an illusion. Separation between one person and another is literal, but metaphorically or internally an illusion, causing prejudice. Allah is one and in our true state of surrender we are all at one with Allah. Obviously, human preoccupation with their materiality keeps them from realizing, acting upon, and constructing systems to reflect their essential unity. In actuality, there is no basis for schism in the duality of “self” and “other,” since ontologically they are co-dependent according to the statement, “ min kulli shay’ khalaqnaa zawjayn ” (and from all things we have created the pair) (51:49). The one cannot exist without the other, since both were integral to this Qur’anic cosmology.
    Thus, the overarching concept tawhid , or the unicity of Allah, forms a trajectory organizing Islamic social, economic, moral, spiritual, and political systems. All are under a single divine reality. Indeed, all of nature is interconnected under the rubric of tawhid . At the transcendent level Allah is the tension that holds the opposites in juxtaposition. Opposites are the illusion of separation between self and other.
    Other ways of emphasizing this mutual existence include the golden rule of reciprocity, 21 which has been articulated in all religious and moral
    systems as the highest universal ideal of human relationality. There are many indicators in Islam 22 stressing this basic principle of reciprocity – for example, at a pragmatic level, the Prophetic hadith , “One of you does not believe until he/she loves for the other what is loved for self.” 23
    In looking at Islamic cosmology and eschatology according to the Qur’an, the notion of reciprocity and tawhid is obvious. Starting with the passage, “ Laysa ka mithlihi shay’un ” (there is nothing like It) (42:11), the Qur’an removes any similitude between the limited creation and the divine Ultimate. This statement stresses Allah’s incomparability or jalal attributes. Although the jalal attributes point to Allah as remote, distant, and incom- comprehensible, Allah also has Her domain of love, mercy, and concern
    for all creation, which is best described by the jamal (feminine) attributes. 24
    Ali, the fourth caliph, said, “God is outside of things, but