The Science of Tawheed
The necessity of development of the science of tawheed came due to the entrance into Islam of people from a wide range of cultures and along with them ideas alien to the pure teachings of Islam about the Creator. They sometimes brought along with them misconceptions that were remnants of their former faiths. Islam spread into lands and territories far from the Arabian Peninsula that had long been under influence of ancient cultures and religious beliefs. Converts from these lands began to express themselves in writings and discussions wherein many philosophical concepts of God entered and consequently led to confusion. Indeed, others fell prey to such deviations due to spiritual corruption, lack of sincerity and general ignorance. There were others who intentionally sought to undermine Islamic teachings in order to destroy it internally when they had failed to do so externally. This group was especially dangerous because of their efforts to spread their deviations among the masses of Muslims.
In the initial stages of the spread of some of these ideas, the Islamic leadership was strong and the Muslim people were closer to Islamic principles. Indeed many of the Prophet’s companions (may Allah be pleased with them) and their students were present. The rulers dealt with the people who were openly heretical, very harshly, and thus their influence was limited and known as clear deviance. This situation however, deteriorated over time when the number of the Muslims greatly rose and the rulers became less concerned with the protection of religion. This led to a situation where heretical ideas began to spread and the punishment or even of apostates was no longer used to stem the tide of heresy. Muslim scholars rose to meet the challenge of these heretical ideas intellectually and devised methods to systematically oppose the incorrect and deviated philosophies and concepts. They used principles derived from the Qur’aan and authentic Sunnah in defense of the pure Islamic creed and arrived upon the basic categories of tawheed used to this day. It is not something that began in the last 200 or 300 years as some claim who oppose these divisions of tawheed. They do so because they fall into the same historical factions mentioned above. Each category is actually intertwined and at times they overlap, therefore each must be believed in or one cannot be said to have complete belief in tawheed.