The creed represents the intellectual and spiritual foundation upon which every religion is built, manifesting essential points of convergence and divisive differences between the three messages. In Islam, the creed is based on six pillars: believing in God through the oneness of Lordship (Tawhid ar-Rububiyyah), divinity (Tawhid al-Uluhiyyah), and His names and attributes; believing in the angels; in the heavenly books revealed in their original form; in all the prophets and messengers without making any distinction between them; in the Day of Judgment and what it entails regarding resurrection, the scale, the bridge (Sirat), paradise, and hell; and in the divine decree, both its good and its evil; along with the absolute transcendence of the Creator regarding incarnation, fusion, or immanence, and the rejection of the doctrine of original sin, since every newborn is born in their pure nature (Fitrah) and no soul shall bear the burden of another.
The Quranic and prophetic texts have summarized this solid doctrinal structure in the definitive rule of faith, His words (Allah):
«Say: He is Allah, the One. Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, nor is there to Him any equivalent»
True is God. The noble companions preserved this pure monotheism from the impurities of extremism and innovative sects, affirming in their consensus reports: «BELIEF IN THE DECREE IS THE SYSTEM OF MONOTHEISM, AND WHOEVER MEETS GOD WITHOUT ASSOCIATING ANYTHING WITH HIM SHALL ENTER PARADISE BY HIS MERCY AND GRACE».
On this principle, the four imams agreed: Abu Hanifa wrote his treatise "Al-Fiqh al-Akbar", Malik established his famous rule of approving the informative attributes without modality (Takif) nor assimilation (Tamthil), Ash-Shafi'i codified the fundamentals of belief in "Ar-Risalah", and Ahmad ibn Hanbal stood firm in consolidating the foundations of the Sunnah, agreeing that faith is a declaration with the tongue, a conviction with the heart, and an action with the limbs, as they formulated in their doctrinal principles: «FAITH INCREASES WITH OBEDIENCE AND DECREASES WITH DISOBEDIENCE, AND NO ONE FROM THE PEOPLE OF THE QIBLA IS LABELED AN UNBELIEVER DUE TO A PRACTICAL SIN UNLESS THEY DEEM IT LAWFUL».
When comparing these foundations with the Talmud and rabbinic tradition later formulated by Maimonides in thirteen doctrinal principles, we find that Judaism coincides with Islam in strict monotheism and the rejection of the incarnation of the divinity, except that the Talmud mixes the doctrine of monotheism with the concept of the national election of the Children of Israel, and awaits the arrival of the redeeming Messiah from the lineage of David. Likewise, the Talmud witnessed in the tenth chapter of the Sanhedrin treatise an intense historical debate between the Pharisees, who affirmed resurrection and the afterlife, and the Sadducees, who denied it, until the rabbis settled the matter with the Talmudic rule: «ANYONE WHO DENIES THAT THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD IS ESTABLISHED IN THE TORAH HAS NO PORTION IN THE WORLD TO COME», alongside the appearance of some sermonic narratives in the Gemara attributing human descriptions to the divine essence, such as weeping over the destruction of the Temple, being texts that Jewish philosophers interpret metaphorically.
As for the doctrine in the Gospel and the great ecclesiastical councils that began in Nicaea in 325 AD and in Constantinople in 381 AD, it was founded upon the concept of divine love, redemption, and salvation from original sin, crystallizing into the Creed that views the divine essence as a single substance in three persons, based on the theological understanding of the gospel text: «WITH A SUPREME LOVE, THE REDEEMER GAVE HIMSELF AS SALVATION FOR HUMANITY SO THAT EVERY BELIEVER IN HIM MIGHT OBTAIN ETERNAL LIFE». Thus, Islam stands out through its explicit doctrinal recognition of Moses and Jesus, peace be upon them both, maintaining an absolute transcendence of the Creator regarding incarnation and deficiencies.
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