God in Islam

In Islam, God (Arabic: ٱللَّٰه, romanized: Allāh, contraction of ٱلْإِلَٰه al-’ilāh, lit. 'the god', or Arabic: رب, romanized: Rabb, lit. 'lord') is seen as the creator and sustainer of the universe, who lives eternally. God is conceived as a perfect, singular, immortal, omnipotent, and omniscient deity, completely infinite in all of his attributes. Islam further emphasizes that God is most merciful. The Islamic concept of God is variously described as monotheistic, panentheistic, and monistic.

In Islamic theology, anthropomorphism (tashbīh) and corporealism (tajsīm) refer to beliefs in the human-like (anthropomorphic) and materially embedded (corporeal) form of God, an idea that has been classically described assimilating or comparing God to the creatures created by God. By contrast, belief in the transcendence of God is called tanzih, which also rejects notions of incarnation and a personal god. Tanzih is widely accepted in Islam today, although it stridently competed for orthodox status until the tenth century, especially during the Mihna. In premodern times, corporealist views were said to have been more socially prominent among the common people, with more abstract and transcendental views more common for the elite.

The Islamic concept of tawhid (oneness) emphasises that God is absolutely pure and free from association with other beings, which means attributing the powers and qualities of God to his creation, and vice versa. In Islam, God is never portrayed in any image. The Quran specifically forbids ascribing partners to share his singular sovereignty, as he is considered to be the absolute one without a second, indivisible, and incomparable being, who is similar to nothing, and nothing is comparable to him. Thus, God is absolutely transcendent, unique and utterly other than anything in or of the world as to be beyond all forms of human thought and expression. The briefest and the most comprehensive description of God in the Quran is found in Surat al-Ikhlas.

According to mainstream Muslim theologians, God is described as Qadim [ar] ('ancient'), having no first, without beginning or end; absolute, not limited by time or place or circumstance, nor is subject to any decree so as to be determined by any precise limits or set times, but is the First and the Last. He is not a formed body, nor a substance circumscribed with limits or determined by measure; neither does he resemble bodies as they are capable of being measured or divided. Neither do substances exist in him; neither is he an accident, nor do accidents exist in him. Neither is he like to anything that exists, nor is anything like to him; nor is he determinate in quantity, nor comprehended by bounds, nor circumscribed by differences of situation, nor contained in the heavens, and transcends spatial and temporal bounds, and remains beyond the bounds of human comprehension and perceptions.

Allāh is the Arabic word referring to God in Abrahamic religions. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The Arabic word Allāh is thought to be derived by contraction from al-ʾilāh, which means "the god", (i.e., the only god) and is related to El and Elah, the Hebrew and Aramaic words for God. It is distinguished from ʾilāh (Arabic: إِلَٰه), the Arabic word meaning deity, which could refer to any of the gods worshipped in pre-Islamic Arabia or to any other deity. Allah is God's most unique Name, grandly referred to as Lafẓ al-Jalālah (The Word of Majesty). It occurs in the Qur’an 2,697 times in 85 of its 114 suras.

God is described and referred to in the Quran and hadith by 99 names that reflect his attributes. The Quran refers to the attributes of God as "most beautiful names". According to Gerhard Böwering,

They are traditionally enumerated as 99 in number to which is added as the highest Name (al-ism al-ʾaʿẓam), the Supreme Name of God. The locus classicus for listing the Divine Names in the literature of Qurʾānic commentary is 17:110 "Call upon Allah, or call upon The Merciful; whichsoever you call upon, to Allah belong the most beautiful Names," and also 59:22-24, which includes a cluster of more than a dozen Divine epithets."

— Gerhard Böwering, God and God's Attributes