Al-Ikhlāṣ
Makkan Period
In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate
[1] Say:1 “He is Allah,2 the One and Unique;3 [2] Allah, Who is in need of none and of Whom all are in need; [3] He neither begot any nor was He begotten, (4) and none is comparable to Him.”
1. The unbelievers often asked the Prophet (peace be on him) to describe the Lord in Whom he asked them to believe to the exclusion of all other deities. What kind of God is He? What is His pedigree? What is He made of? From whom did He inherit this Universe and who will later inherit it from Him? It is in response to such questions that this sūrah was revealed.
2. The Prophet (peace be on him) informed the unbelievers that his Lord was no other than He Whom the unbelievers themselves called Allah, and Whom they regarded as their own Creator as well as the Creator and Sustainer of the entire Universe. For the Arabian polytheists’ beliefs regarding Allah see Yūnus 10: 22, 23, 31; Banī Isrā’īl 17: 67; al-Mu’minūn 23: 84-89; al-ʿAnkabūt 29: 61-63; al-Zukhruf43: 87.
3. The word used here is aḥad rather than wāḥid. Though both the words mean “one,” the word wāḥid is used for things that have the potential of plurality; for example, one man, one nation, one country, one world. The implication in all these cases is that here there is one man out of a number of men; and so on and so forth. Contrary to this, aḥad is used for Him Who is One and Unique in every respect, Who has no connection whatsoever with plurality. That is why aḥad is used in Arabic exclusively for God.