Abdal Hakim Murad - The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology

Worship 223
sell oneself, that is, to act for people’s sake rather than for God’s sake.
A second qur’anic expression that is commonly used in the same
meaning is riya’, ‘‘eye-service’’, acting with the intention of being
seen by others. In contrast, ‘‘sincerity’’ is to worship and serve God
alone. It is to negate from Him everything inappropriate and to affirm
for Him everything appropriate. The inappropriate – the not h _
aqq, the
bat _
il (false, vain, wrong) – is summed up in one word: sharık, partner
or associate. According to one early commentator, the command
‘‘O people, worship/serve your Lord’’ (2:21) means ‘‘Declare His
unity’’ (wah _
h _
iduhu, that is, acknowledge tawh _
ıd). Another says that
it means, ‘‘Purify/make sincere the worship of your Lord by not
taking any partner with Him.’’ 10
The word shirk, which designates the act of ascribing a partner to
God or associating something with him, is taken as the opposite of
tawh _
ıd. Just as ‘‘sincerity’’ is tawh _
ıd put into practice, so ‘‘hypocrisy’’ is
shirk put into practice. And just as tawh _
ıd is the salvific content of the
religious message, so shirk is a sure road to hell. According to Qur’an
4:48 and 4:116, shirk is the one sin that cannot be forgiven if taken into
the grave. Qur’an 4:145 tells us that the hypocrites will be placed in the
deepest pit of hell.
The texts are not much interested in ‘‘polytheism’’ in the literal
sense of the English word, that is, the worship of several gods at once,
because the unity of God was far too self-evident to need a great deal of
defence. Polytheistic beliefs were ascribed to other religious communities
and to unbelievers. Such beliefs were labelled shirk jalı, manifest
or obvious association. Much more insidious and dangerous for Muslims
was shirk khafı, ‘‘hidden association’’. When the Prophet heard some
Companions discussing the Antichrist, he told them that there was
something he feared much more than that: ‘‘Hidden shirk: in other
words, that a man should perform the s _
alat and do it beautifully for the
sake of someone who is watching’’. 11 This is precisely ‘‘hypocrisy’’ and
‘‘eye-service’’. Most of the literature focuses on this sort of shirk. Ibn
‘At _
a’s remark is typical: ‘‘Shirk is that you behold other than Him or
that you see loss or gain from other than Him.’’ 12
The question of shirk brings us back to the issue of the object of
worship. Whom in fact are we serving? The Qur’an stigmatises the false
gods that people worship, but it comes down especially hard on hawa,
caprice or whim. As Ghazalı puts it, ‘‘Whoever follows caprice is the
servant of caprice, not the servant of God.’’ 13 Junayd tells us that when
something unexpected happens, ‘‘the first thought from which you seek
help is your object of worship’’. 14 Abu‘Alıal-Daqqaq provides the key to
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