Some questions indeed baffle man. One of them is related to God: Who is the Supreme Being? Or, in other words, who is God? What are His attributes? How to identify Him? Or, who bears witness to God?
In our worldly life, we face many other questions. And, we crack them by brooding over them, by subjecting ourselves to deep study, or by putting those questions to some knowledgeable person. The questions related to God also may be solved in the same way. But, it is the munificence of God that He has not left man to wander. He guides those who care to find Him. For this purpose, He has sent His Messengers and Books to man from time to time. And, finalised His Message with His Last Book, the Qur’ān, revealed to His Last Messenger, Muhammad ﷺ.
The Qur’ān concentrates repeatedly on establishing the basic fact of the oneness of God, the Lord and Sustainer of the whole universe, Who controls all its affairs. It also tells us who bears witness to God as the only deity worth worshipping. The Qur’ān (3:18), for example, says in very clear words: “God Himself bears witness, and so do the angels and men of knowledge, that there is no deity save Him, the Executor of Justice. There is no deity save Him, the Almighty, the Wise.”
People of earlier times who had been blessed with Divine revelations believed in God, but at the same time they maintained that He has partners and sons as well. The idolaters themselves used to profess that they believed in God. But their deviation led them to ascribe partners and even children to God. They all are being told that God Himself bears witness to the fact that there is no deity save Him. Thus, this Divine assertion has a marked effect in correcting their beliefs.
Since God Himself asserts His oneness, He does not and cannot accept from His servants anything other than total submission to Him. Such submission is not confined to beliefs only; it must be translated into total obedience to God in every sphere of life and a conscious implementation of His law outlined in the Qur’ān and exemplified in the traditions of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.
God also presents the testimony of the angels and the people of knowledge that there is no God save Him. This shows their total obedience to God’s commandments and looking to Him alone for guidance, accepting everything which comes to them from Him without any doubt, once they are certain that it has come from Him.
This total, unadulterated submission to God and obedience to His commandments form a system which is called Islam. The Qur’ān – 3:19 makes it abundantly clear: “The only true faith acceptable to God is (man’s) self-surrender to Him….”