2. THE CONCEPT OF MONOTHEISM

~ 27 ~ through human observation of a universe teeming with innumerable objects, from the human beings below to the stars above: where was the unity in this scattered and awesome diversity? It was concluded that a single, absolute God made Himself manifest in these proliferating forms, and this God consequently became an abstract idea, with no objective existence, from whom flowed all things and with whom they finally commingled. This view also gave birth to the concept of ‘human gods;’ it was presumed that certain individuals, through sustained meditation, could achieve negation of their worldly existence and become a living part of God in this life: a distinction others would achieve only after death! With the advent of Islam, all these unnatural growths, distortions of and additions to the concept of God were rooted out, and all ideas concerning God were rectified and placed in the correct perspective. It was made plain by Islam that previous human conjectures which had led to the invention of a whole panoply of state for God had been, in fact, a negation of