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I pretty much keep it under wraps here, because most people are really on
the level of Shariat, which is just praying five times a day, believing that
there’s one God, not oneness in God. Even though in the surah, Ikhlas, it
says “Allah is one,” you know? We’re supposed to believe in his oneness,
not that he’s just one. But I don’t talk about it here. I don’t talk about it
here.

Her repetition of this last phrase drove home the point of her silence, a condition she con-

tinually made clear. The distinction she draws between Muslims at the Shariat level and

her own faith hinges here upon the believer’s interpretation of a single passage in one of

the final chapters in the Qur’ān. That chapter, which is typically called Surah al-Ikhlas, is

alternately known as Surah al-Tawhid, indicating the unity of monotheism. Its contents, a

mere four verses, describe that unity in one of the most concise and oft-repeated declara-

tions of Islamic faith:

Qul: hu Allahu Ahad

Allahu Samad
Lam yalid wa lam yulad
Wa lam ya kulahu kufuwan Ahad.
Say: He is Allah, the One and Only.
Allah, the Eternal, Absolute
He begetteth not, nor is He begotten
And there is none like unto him. (Yusuf Ali translation)

This passage could be interpreted as a refutation of polytheism, or perhaps as a rejection

of pagan reverence for the created (and ever-changing) world. In a Christian context, it

likely reads as a reassertion of the Judaic singularity of YHWH in the wake of trinity doc-

trines or assertions of Jesus’ unique status as “begotten son” of God (see John 3:16).

While Rabia would not likely disagree with any of these readings, she would find them

insufficient to convey the full power of the surah. She explained her own understanding

of the doctrine of tawhid:

When I hear “God is One,” I hear “There is nothing else but him,” you
know? He is the only one that exists. That’s what I hear. That’s what my