He Neither Perishes Nor Ceases to Exist

Lā yafnā wa lā yabīd. He neither perishes nor ceases to exist.

That is clarified further by the next statement: lā yafnā wa lā yabīd. He neither perishes nor ceases to exist. Of these two words, one means a kind of destruction: to disappear, to be destroyed. The other means to phase out, as a place of habitation sometimes does. History tells of the Persians, and of the great city they had called al-Madāʾin, Ctesiphon. Look for it on a map, and it will not be found today. Baghdad is a very recent city in the history of things. Yet this great city of al-Madāʾin, with its great pillars and the like, was one of the most magnificent cities of its time in the world. Hardly much is left of it today. It dwindled; it is gone; it phased out; people left.

So there is a difference between something suddenly disappearing by being destroyed, and something phasing out. None of this happens to Allah. He stays relevant; He stays all-powerful; and the same power He has, He has always had. He does not add to it; nothing is subtracted from Him. Nothing diminishes from Him; nothing is added to Him.

To go back to the previous statement, that no deity exists except Him: Allah (swt) says in the Qur'an, law kāna fīhimā ālihatun illā Allāhu la-fasadatā. Again, it speaks about the oneness of Allah (swt). Had there been gods other than Allah, had there been deities other than Allah, the heavens and the earth would be in turmoil; they would become corrupted. This is seen as a very, very common proof.

Companies, after all, have only one head. There may be a number of sub-heads below that, the various supervisors, or board members, or trustees, or whatever there may be; but there is supposed to be one amīr. It is just the nature of the world. There is one chief of a tribe, traditionally speaking.

Someone might object to this idea, that had there been gods besides Allah, the whole thing would have become corrupt and there would be chaos in the world. There could be two gods, the objection runs, who simply agree to do things together and not to disagree: they agree to not disagree. So this is not really a very strong proof. There has been a lot of debate about this.