Just as each person has a name, so the Creator and the Lord of the
Universe is known by His personal name of “Allah”. It is a unique name
without gender, plural or derivatives. Allah is neither male nor female. He
is not derived from a father and/or a mother. He is without duplicate or
replica, without equal or parallel. His status is so pristine and unshared
that He is the Only One worthy of being called Al-Wahid, The One and
Only. Allah is Unique. Thus:

1. To Allah belong (a) unique attributes of Transcendence, such as His
Independent Existence, Self-Subsistence, He has No Beginning and
No End, and so on, (b) unique attributes of Incomparability which
encompass His Nature and Absolute Capabilities, e.g. He is Unlike
the Creation, He is the Ever-Living and the Giver of Life, He is All Hearing and All-Seeing and the Enabler of these faculties, He is All Powerful and able to impose His Will, and so on. All these attributes are unique and are not shared by any other being.

2. To Allah belong the many beautiful names which stem from His
Attributes. These names include The Most Merciful, The Forgiver,
The Ever Compassionate, The All Wise, and so on.
3. Allah’s Divinity, Lordship and the Right of Servitude, (Uluhiyyah,
Rububiyyah and Ubudiyyah in Arabic) cannot be shared with any
other being.

4. With this Divine Glory, the name Allah means the One to whom our
absolute obedience and love are due, and from whom our absolute
protection and refuge are derived.

Accordingly, the meaning of Allah’s name defines true monotheism.
Furthermore, this intense meaning of His name renders the word ‘God’
inadequate to describe Him, though in Islamic literature both words are
Allah being the Originator and Sustainer of the Universe and all the
creatures in it calls for our faith in Him and our obedience to Him as an
affirmation of our gratitude to Him. Denying the nature, the attributes
and the names of Allah or associating them to any other being (which is
called Shirk in Arabic) is a gross ingratitude to Him, and thus constitutes
the gravest sin which Allah will never forgive, unless one repents. Allah
says in the Qur’an (4:48);

Allah forgives not that partners should be set up with Him;
but He forgives anything else to whom He pleases; to set up
partners with Allah is to devise a sin most heinous indeed.