Holy Trinity vs Wahdat ul Wajood: An Attempt to Understand

Jesus of Nazareth--the son of the Virgin Mary-- (Peace be upon him) is equally revered in two of three Abrahamic religions (Christianity and Islam) but the religions have different views on the deity of Jesus and the concept of God. Fundamentally both religions believe that there is only one God referred to as Allah in Quran and The Father in The New Testament.

Oneness of God

Isiah 44:6 says: Thus says the Lord, The King of Israel and his redeemer, the Lord of hosts: "I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no God".

Quran says: "He is the First and the Last, the Highest and the Most Near, and He has 'perfect' knowledge of all things" (57:3) and "Verily, I am Allah: There is no God but I" (20:14).

From the above examples, the oneness of God is depicted with the utmost certainty but their interpretation induces different beliefs in both religions. Islam derives the concept of Tawheed and Christianity proposes the concept of the Holy Trinity.

Holy Trinity: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit

Christian doctrine introduces that God is one but deities are three (The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit). According to Christian belief, these three deities comprise the oneness of God; 1+1+1 = 1. Therefore, it can be said that there is a transcendence among these deities, and in defiance of being three they are actually one entity.

Moreover, these three entities are identified as God as their distinct being too; The Father, Jesus Christ, and The Holy Spirit can be referred to as God without being altogether. In other words, these three entities are depictions of God through different beings and these beings themself are considered God too but God fundamentally is actually one.

Yet these entities show distinction in The New Testament as in John 17:1 Jesus prays to The Father making a distinction as "Father... glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify You.".  Also in 1 John 2:1 "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One" It is said that Jesus is an advocate of The Father so that Jesus can not be perceived as same to The Father.

Moreover, Jesus is not the same as The Holy Spirit in Bible in John 14:26  Jesus says "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things" and before this verse, Jesus used "Another Helper" Which suggests that the holy spirit is not the same as The Father or Jesus. Also, The Holy Spirit has attributes of a person as well and is described as "God's Holy Force" too.

Tawheed: Leading to Wahdat ul Wajood

Islam emphasizes the oneness of God; Allah is the one and only deity in Islam. He is everywhere and loves his creation more than seventy times a mother's love for her children. But besides, this concept of Tawheed (Oneness of God) we observe a narration of the first promise or the human pledge (7:72) in the Quran and multiple other hints which suggest that the human have an eternal love for this one and only deity and somehow it is related to the concept of extreme love. It further extends to the belief that before creation there was only oneness and then induced duality as Allah said "I was a hidden treasure and wanted to be known". However, taking these hints into account leads to the oneness of being from the oneness of God.

Wahdat ul Wajood: Oneness of Being

The idea of the oneness of being was firstly proposed by Ibn e Arabi and in simple words, it says that there is nothing except Allah. It can be explained as simple as "Allah is one" but have deeper meanings that can be experienced more than they can be explained. It suggests that there is no deity except Allah and there can't be anything except him; everything else isn't just real. Abū ’l-‘Abbās Qaṣṣāb says, "There is nothing in the two worlds except my Lord. The existent things (mawjūdāt)– all things except His wujūd– are nonexistent (ma‘dūm)"; Wujūd means being.

However, Rumi suggests this with an example of the reed in his poem "The Songs of The Reed" in his book Masnavi that the reed was part of the tree once and it weeps when one blows it because blowing it catalyzes the pain of separation from its source and memories of air begin to recall. Therefore, every soul has a pain of separation from where it came from. Humans are the same, they have the same pain of separation from their source (the divine entity). Before induction of duality in this Universe, they were in the oneness, and no matter how much they fill their life with luxury or try to achieve the peace they can not get it until they fulfill their instinct of love for their source. 

The Holy Quran suggests the source of the human soul as "Remember, O  Prophet˺ when your Lord said to the angels, “I am going to create a human being from sounding clay molded from black mud. When I form him perfect and blow in him of My spirit, then you must fall down before him in prostration (15:28-29)." 

Hence, Wahdat ul Wujud proposes that there is no being except the very being of God; Allah is one and there is nothing else.

The Holy Trinity vs Wahdat ul Wajood

As you may have observed from the above text that both of the beliefs --The Holy Trinity and Wahdat ul Wajood-- suggest the oneness of God. In The Holy Trinity, there are only three beings part of this oneness and they distinctively are deities too but in The Wahdat ul Wajood, everything is a depiction of God and none except him is diety, even, everything else just isn't absolute or real. Such kind of a hint can be found in Bible as well. For instance, in John 14:20 Jesus says, "On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you". From this, you may extract a hint of the oneness of being as if everyone is a depiction of God but nothing else and except The God there nothing exists really.

You may learn about Wahdat ul Wajood here or write in comments to discuss.