Ijaaz Jackaria

Levels of Interpretation of Sura Al-Ikhlās: From Outer to

Inner Meanings
Of the 114 suras that constitute the Qur’an, sura al-Ikhlās (Q 112) is one of the shortest but most

emblematic chapters in the Qur’an. Indeed, the Prophet mentions in a hadith1 that this sura alone

is equivalent to one-third of the Qur’an despite its brevity. The title of this sura – al-Ikhlās – can

be translated as Sincerity2 and all four of its verses, quoted below, revolve around the theme of

Tawhīd (God’s Unity):

In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy.

Say, ‘He is God the One.

God the Eternal.
He begot no one nor was He begotten.
No one is comparable to Him.’3

In this paper, I present the different layers of meanings of this short sura; in particular I start from

the outward exoteric interpretation (zāhir) by considering the historical and geographical context

of its revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl) and then move on to the linguistic construct of the verses. Next,

I explore the theological implications that this sura raises; more specifically, I point out the

differences between the Hanbalī, Ash’arī and Mu’tazilī theological schools concerning God’s

Essence and Attributes. Finally, I dive into the esoteric (bātin) interpretation of sura al-Ikhlās in

the Islamic mystical tradition, namely Sufism; I try to find the link between Ikhlās and Tawhīd,

i.e. between Sincerity and God’s Unity. Overall, this paper gives an insight into the in-depth core

Qur’anic message, which is the central Islamic dogma (tahlīl): There is no god but God.

1
Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 93, Hadith 471.
2
Other translations include ‘Purity of Faith’ as in Abdel Haleem’s translation.
3
The Qur’an, trans. M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 444.

Page 1 of 7
It is worth noting that Qur’anic interpretation or exegesis, tafsīr, has a long-standing history with

the earliest ones being from al-Tabarī (d. 923 CE). Tafsīr literature varied greatly both in terms of

genre and methodology among different schools of thought and over time as Saleh posits in

Quranic Commentaries.4 The traditional Sunnis, Shi’is, Mu’tazilis and early Sufis each produced

their own version of tafsīr in the early period of Islam. Roughly, the traditional Sunnis tended to

focus on the literal meanings of the Qur’an and believed that only the Prophet and early generations

could interpret the Qur’an, the Shi’is claimed that the Qur’an has both an outer and inner meaning

but only their Imams can have access to the latter, the Mu’tazilites approached the Qur’an through

rational means, in particular through philology and the Sufis contemplated the more mystical and

metaphysical dimensions of the Qur’an in their tafsīr. This paper will not go through all the

different tafsīr of sura al-Ikhlās; rather, I present a general exoteric interpretation, then explain the

relevance of the sura with respect to speculative theology (kalām) and finally offer a mystical

interpretation.

Exoteric tafsīr usually starts by considering the location, time and circumstance when a

verse or a sura was revealed to the Prophet. This science is called asbāb al-nuzūl meaning

‘occasions of the revelation’.5 Concerning location, suras are classified as either Meccan or

Medinan; we recall that the Prophet started preaching in Mecca in 610 CE and made the hijra

(emigrated) to Medina in 622 CE and that revelation spanned over 23 years over these two

locations. Suras are thus labelled as Meccan or Medinan. Coming to sura al-Ikhlās, there is no

clear proof whether it was Meccan or Medinan but the former is more probable based on its

content, structure, linguistic construct and circumstance of revelation.

4
Walid Saleh, “Quranic Commentaries,” in The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary, ed. Seyyed
Hossein Nasr (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2015), 2908.
5
Fred M. Donner, “The Historical Context,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’an, ed. Jane Dammen
McAuliffe (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 30.

Page 2 of 7
First – to show that sura al-Ikhlās is a Meccan sura – the themes that the early short Meccan suras

tackle are mostly about eschatological discourses and exhortations from the Prophet towards the

Meccan pagans to affirm God’s unity, the Qur’an as sacred text and the Prophet as messenger of

God. Conversely, the longer Medinan suras are focused primarily on legal injunctions and are

directed more towards the Muslim community.6 Secondly, building on the first point, the

formulation, ‘Say,…’ which sura al-Ikhlās begins with, is typical of Meccan suras where the

Prophet is responding to his detractors, namely the pagans7, whereas Medinan suras have other

characteristic formulations such as, ‘O you who believe…’ or ‘O People…’ where the Prophet is

addressing the Muslim community. Thirdly, to substantiate the previous two points that sura al-

Ikhlās is indeed a Meccan sura, Al-Wāhidī (d. 1075 CE) states in his Asbāb al-Nuzūl that the sura

was revealed to the Prophet as a response to a group of Jews or pagans (there are two versions)

who were asking him about the lineage of the Islamic God.8 Fourthly, the rhymed prose (saj’) in

which sura al-Ikhlās is composed is characteristic of Meccan suras unlike Medinan suras where

the verses are much longer and not composed in saj’.9 Therefore, it is fair to ascertain that sura al-

Ikhlās is indeed an early Meccan sura most probably addressed to the Meccan pagans.10

The next deeper level of interpretation of sura al-Ikhlās is to consider the content of the

sura independent of its context of revelation. In particular, it is about pondering on the implications

of God being One, Eternal, Unbegotten and Incomparable. This level of interpretation falls into

the domain of speculative theology, namely kalām. We recall that the two major competing schools

6
Angelika Neuwirth, “Structural, Linguistic and Literary Features,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’an, ed.
Jane Dammen McAuliffe (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 110-111.
7
Kenneth Cragg, “The Historical Geography of the Qur’an: A study in asbāb al-nuzūl,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies,
Vol. 1, No. 1 (1999): 81-92.
8
Ali ibn Ahmad al-Wahidi, Asbāb al-Nuzūl, trans. Mokrane Guezzou, ed. Yousef Meri (Amman, Jordan: Royal Aal
Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2008), 168.
9
Neuwirth, “Structural, Linguistic and Literary Features,” 98.
10
Wallahu A’lam (God knows best).

Page 3 of 7
of theology in the early Islamic period were the Mu’tazilī and Hanbalī. On the one extreme

Mu’tazilī adherents make use of rational argumentation in their theological discourses, reject any

anthropomorphic depictions of God and claim that any human-like descriptions of God in the

Qur’an, such as His Hands or Eyes, are purely metaphorical; on the other extreme, Hanbalīs adopt

a literalist approach toward the Qur’an and promote anthropomorphic ideas about God. 11 The

Ash’arīs for the most part adopt the Hanbalī’s objections towards the Mu’tazilīs and formalized

their ideas into a concrete 60-point creed. Some of their creedal dogmas relating to sura al-Ikhlās

are enumerated below:

2. God is one deity, Unique, Eternal; there is no deity except Him; He has not taken
to himself consort or child.
6. God is on His Throne.
7. God has two Hands, to be understood amodally.
8. God has two Eyes, to be understood amodally.
9. God has a Face.
10. The Names of God are not said to be other than God.
29. The Names of God are God.12

On first reading, the Ash’arī’s creedal beliefs seem to tally well with sura al-Ikhlās; point 2 above

is almost a copy of the first 3 verses of sura al-Ikhlās. However, the last verse of the sura, “No one

is comparable to Him” does not figure directly in any of the points above and there could actually

be a hair-splitting tension between this verse and points 6-10 and 29. One can understand the

Incomparability of God to mean that God transcends all human conceptions of Him including

ascribing to Him any anthropomorphic qualities. Therefore, the Throne, Hands, Eyes and Face of

God are merely allegories – this is the Mu’tazilī position. Proponents of Ash’arī theology may then

respond saying that these human-like ascriptions are actual but need to be understood amodally,

11
Khalid Blankinship, “The Early Creed” in The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology, ed. Tim Winter (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 48-53.
12
Montgomery Watt, “Al-Ash’ari,” Islamic Creeds: A Selection (1994) 42-47.

Page 4 of 7
i.e. ‘without specifying how’ (bi-lā kayf).13 This deflates the Mu’tazilī’s argument without actually

responding to it and somehow takes the Incomparability of God into account: God is inaccessible

to human understanding.

A subtle tension between the last verse of sura al-Ikhlās and the Mu’tazilī doctrine is about

the latter’s distinction between God’s Essence and His Attributes or Names. Traditionally, God

has 99 canonical Names and among them are: Ar-Rahmān (The Merciful), Al-‘Adl (The Just), Al-

‘Alim (The All-Knowing), As-Samad (The Eternal) and Al-Ahad (The One). To the Ash’arīs, they

make no distinction between God’s Essence and His Attributes; point 29 above clearly states that

‘the Names of God are God’. ‘Abd al-Jabbār (d. 1025 CE) – a Mu’tazilī theologian – makes the

distinction in the following terms:

The aim of Tawhīd is to identify God as uniquely possessed of attributes to which

no other being can lay claim. But this aim cannot be achieved without knowledge
of the origination of bodies and their dependence on an originator, together with
the establishment of God as their sole originator. Subsequent to this comes the
explanation of the attributes affirmed of His essence, and of that which is
impossible in reference to Him.14

In brief, what the above excerpt is trying to say is that the Essence of God is incomparable (that

which is impossible in reference to Him) and His Attributes are subordinate to His Essence.

Therefore, the Attributes of God are other than God Himself. Now, the question is whether God’s

Attributes exist coeternally with His Essence; if so then it violates the Unity of God and introduces

multiplicity in the divine being. It follows then that the Divine Names Al-Ahad and As-Samad are

actually God’s Essence since God is Eternally One based on Tawhīd and these Names are not

subordinate to His incomparable Essence. Then it appears that some of the Names are part of God’s

Essence whereas others are subordinate to it but ‘Abd al-Jabbār does not make this distinction

13
Blankinship, “The Early Creed,” 53.
14
‘Abd al-Jabbar, “On Knowledge,” in Classical Islam: A Sourcebook of Religious Literature, ed. and trans. Norman
Calder, Jawid Mojaddedi, Andrew Rippin (New York, NY: Routledge 2003), 153.

Page 5 of 7
clear, he simply says that the Attributes are subordinate to God’s Essence which is simply

incomparable and undefined. Nothing supports that God’s Speech should be subordinate to His

Incomparability and separate from it – a point that Mu’tazilīs believe – while His Oneness and

Eternality are actually His Essence.

This brief theological analysis of sura al-Ikhlās does not solve the millennium long conflict

between the traditional Sunni (Hanbalīs), Mu’tazilīs and Ash’arīs by no means. It merely gives a

deeper insight into the possible meanings of the sura over and above its exoteric geo-historical

context. What follows next is an even deeper meaning of sura al-Ikhlās, more specifically an

esoteric mystical interpretation of Ikhlās (Sincerity) and Tawhīd (Unity of God) given by the Sufi

Al-Junayd (d. 910 CE). Note that the title of the sura does not figure within the sura itself and that

the themes of Ikhlās and Tawhīd seem disconnected. In the ensuing paragraphs I try to link these

two themes based on the excerpts from Al-Junayd’s works.

Al-Junayd says concerning Ikhlās:

Sincerity is a secret between God and His servant. Even the recording angel knows
nothing of it so that he cannot write it down; nor does Satan know of it so that he
cannot corrupt it; nor is his passion aware of it, so that it will not influence him.15

Sincerity here alludes to unconditional devotion to God, where the servant of God acts in

a good way without expecting any rewards (the recording angel knows nothing of it),

neither is he tempted by the devil, nor is he even aware of himself performing good deeds.

Concerning Tawhīd (the affirmation of God’s unity) Al-Junayd classifies it into four levels:

1. The standard outward testimony of faith of the common people.

2. Affirmation of one deity by ritual actions in accordance with the shari’a.
3. Harmonization of one’s interior actions and life around the One God.
4. Being, ‘as he was when he was before he was’.16

15
Abu ‘l-Qasim al-Qushayri, Al-Risala al-qushayriyya fi ‘ilm al tasawwuf, trans. Alexander D. Knysh (Reading, UK:
Garnet Publishing, 2007), 221.
16
Michael Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran, Mi’raj, Poetic and Theological Writings (Mahwah, New
Jersey: Paulist Press, 1996), 251-256.

Page 6 of 7
From the above-quoted passages from Al-Junayd, we notice that Tawhīd is not only a religious

dogma and a theological concept, but also is a personal relationship or affirmation between the

servant of God and God Himself mediated by the sincere unconditional devotion of the servant

toward his Lord. The highest level of affirmation of Tawhīd corresponds to the deepest level of

understanding of sura al-Ikhlās, which is to be in a state of ‘as he was when he was before he was’.

This cryptic state of being actually relates to the pre-existence of each individual and refers to

Verse 172 of Chapter 7 in the Qur’an where the primordial covenant is made between God and

humankind (the Children of Adam) and the latter testifies that God is their Lord. Therefore, Tawhīd

and Ikhlās are intimately connected with each other on the metaphysical mystical level.

In conclusion, it becomes obvious now that the four short verses of sura al-Ikhlās have

much more meanings than what simply appears on the surface. Starting from the geographical and

historical context of its revelation and extending to its esoteric mystical analysis, while passing

through its linguistic construct and theological relevance, the interpretation of sura al-Ikhlās as

presented in this paper embraced the different semiotic perspectives, namely the poietic (the

process of production), esthesic (the process of reception) and noumenal (the ontological meaning

or the meaning in itself) perspectives. The poietic interpretation refers to the ‘production’ of the

sura in terms of its context of revelation and syntax, the esthesic interpretation alludes to the

subjective reception of the sura as with the personal relationship of the mystic with the divine and

the noumenal level of the sura represents the objective divine essence in itself about which the

theologians argue. All these layers of meanings of sura al-Ikhlās, from the outer to its inner

meanings coupled with its central theme of Tawhīd indeed make it weigh a third of the Qur’an.

Page 7 of 7