Islam Means Ikhlas – No Polytheist Fulfils the Ikhlas

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Islam means, as has already been shown through several texts, the purification of deeds from polytheism, which is expressed in Arabic by the word ikhlas.

How central the meaning of ikhlas is in Islam is demonstrated by the statement of one of the earliest mufassirin/Qur'an exegetes. This is the following statement, which is narrated by Ibnu Abi Hatim ar-Razi in his tafsir:

... عَنِ الرَّبِيعِ، عَنْ أَبِي الْعَالِيَةَ، قَوْلُهُ: {إِنِ الْحُكَمُ إِلَّا لِلَّهِ أَمَرَ أَلَّا تَعْبُدُوا إِلَّا إِيَّاهُ} [يوسف: 40] قَالَ: «أُسِّسَ الدِّينُ عَلَى الْإِخْلَاصِ لِلَّهِ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ»

It is narrated from Abu l-'Aliyah, regarding the Qur'an verse: “Legislation is not but for Allah. He has commanded that you worship not except Him.” that he said: “The entire religion (din) was founded upon ikhlas towards Allah alone, without any partner.”

The exclusive worship of the Creator is therefore an essential condition for a person to be a Muslim. For this reason, a Muslim is always also a mukhlis⁹³. Whoever does not fulfil this ikhlas can in no way be considered a Muslim.

For this reason, Islamic scholarship has always understood ikhlas as a condition of the testimony of faith (shahadah). If this condition is not met, the shahadah cannot be valid.

A claim to the contrary would inevitably lead to the possibility of a “Muslim mushrik” or a “mukhlis mushrik”, meaning a “polytheistic monotheist” – an obviously absurd concept.

Many people today, whether consciously or unconsciously, adhere precisely to this contradictory false belief. This is obviously because they lack the awareness that Islam consists specifically in worshiping Allah سبحانه وتعالى alone and not merely in acknowledging the existence of a single Creator.

In fact, this led to the spread of the notion that true Islam consists merely in professing the religion. Whoever simply claims to be a Muslim is therefore truly a Muslim – something that strips Islam of its core meaning and reduces the declaration of faith to a mere verbal declaration.

An analogous example would be that of a blind person who claims to be able to see. Then, outsiders say: “We know that this person is blind, yet we still believe that he can simultaneously see.”

The conclusion from such a statement can only be that such a person either does not know the meaning of blindness or sight and therefore cannot distinguish between them – or that he deliberately insists on this contradiction.

As has become clear from what has been said so far, the word “Muslim” describes a specific meaning that includes actions and characteristics that a mushrik can never fulfil.

This is also entirely evident because shirk is the exact opposite of Islam, which is why these two things can never coexist within a single person.

“A person who worships only Allah” cannot at the same time be “a person who worships something else alongside Allah.”