No Deity Exists Save Him

Wa lā ilāha ghayruh. No deity exists save Him.

Wa lā ilāha ghayruh: no deity exists save Him. So there is nothing else that is worthy of worship, because He is the only one who has these unique features and these unique qualities that make Him worthy of worship. Every word here means something. This is not just a random set of statements. These are very carefully thought-out statements: they complement each other, and each one means something, and rejects a particular incorrect belief. So: no deity exists save Him. Once Allah has been recognised as this one true One, who cannot be enfeebled and debilitated, He is the only One worthy of worship.

It is just like al-ḥamdu li-llāhi Rabbi al-ʿālamīn: all praises to Allah, Lord of the worlds. Lord of the worlds: that proves in itself that He is the one who brought everything into existence. He is the Lord. Rabb means the one who does tarbiyah: the one who brings something up stage by stage, looking after it. That is why the lord of the house, the rabb al-bayt or the rabb al-dār, means the father, for example: because he is bringing everybody up. The word literally means to nurture someone, to bring somebody up.

Māliki yawm al-dīn. From the first part, the one reciting has already understood that Allah is the one who brought us into existence, and He is the one who is sustaining us. Māliki yawm al-dīn: He is also going to be the sovereign on the Day of Judgement. We have needed Him in the past, we need Him in the present, and we are also going to need Him in the future. And al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm: He is the one who is compassionate and most merciful. There is a lot of explanation to that, which is not gone into here. Iyyāka naʿbudu wa iyyāka nastaʿīn: now there is nothing left but to say, only You can we worship, and do we worship, and only You do we seek assistance from. It is very orderly, in the way these conclusions are reached.

So: no deity exists save Him. A deity, an ilāh, is someone whom everybody comes towards, and whom people resort to, to find comfort, and to find solace, and to find assistance. That is Allah (swt), and He is the only one like that in the true sense of it, who is always there and available. People may go to their mothers; people may go to the bank; people may go here and there, to lawyers, or whoever. But it is only Allah who is always available and has the power to help and assist, and He is the only one worthy of worship.