Acknowledging God’s Lordship

Acknowledging God’s absolute Lordship makes all the difference between clarity
and confusion with regard to God’s absolute oneness. People often combined their
acknowledgement of God as the sole creator with belief in multiple deities having
authority in their life. It may seem absurd that people should ever hold such a belief,
but this was true in the past and is still true today. The Qur’ān speaks of those who
claim that they “only worship them [minor gods] so that they may bring us nearer to God.“
(39: 3) It also mentions that some Jewish and Christian groups who “have taken their
rabbis and priests as gods alongside God.” (9: 31) Polytheism, or the worship of several
deities or demigods besides the perceived ‘Grand Deity’, was widespread when
Islam emerged in the 7th century in Arabia.