Tawhid can't happen

In Islam, tawhîd is the doctrine / dogma of theological Unitarianism. This is how the Arab invaders separated themselves from the Christendom. At first, it was a propaganda term, even a battle-cry: Allâh ahad! This was to unite all the Believers who rejected the association (shirk), with God Alone, of any historical man but mainly of course the Greeks' "over-"elevation of Jesus the Christ. In short, tawhîd was defined against Christianity such that no Christian - excepting perhaps an Arian - could enter the Kingdom.

Later the Muslims tried to make a philosophy out of tawhîd, rather to put tawhîd into Greek philosophy. Here they had more trouble. Peter Adamson has come along to review the Muslim Kindi's argument against Yahya bin 'Adi's counter. Adamson thinks that Kindi blew it.

I admit, my head spins when I try to beat it against the abstract and abstruse definitions which, philosophers insist, I take in before I can understand their arguments. So I'll work around the problem, for now.

On comparison between Kindi's argument and his other works, this argument was a first draught at a full philosophical thesis, On First Philosophy. This latter one got copied, where his outline of tawhîd - which Yahya attacks - did not. It seems that Yahya succeeded in his quest to get Kindi's initial tract #canceled, as we'd put it. Later Muslims counter-countered Yahya by pointing to the larger "more updated" work and running out the door. Much like Newsom's government in California when people question the scope of the restaurant lockdowns... Luckily for us, the shorter argument isn't any different from the expansion. Kindi didn't know that he'd lost, yet!

Yahya wins by pointing out, to Kindi, that pure philosophical tawhîd is impossible wherever man must envision a sentient God. Man has to ascribe to Him, if not a specific man in time and place (as Yahya himself would), at least attributes. These attributes are by no means unitary, for instance the ascriptions of Justice (theodicy) and Mercy always in mutual tension. Kindi can hardly complain when Christians seem to build a molecule out of atoms where the Muslims do the same.

As for constructing that God most worthy of worship from Aristotelian Prime-Mover theory... well, Yahya does attempt something like that. This is where my head spins. For me it is enough that he explodes Kindi's tawhîd. Muslims shouldn't insist on that dogma.

In fact I think Muslims should leave the Christians alone and should argue against the Jews instead, first - ahad being a Hebrew word to begin with (actual Arabic is wahid). They should explain to Jews why their Qurân is preëxistent or at least superior to Torah, secondarily why Muhammad is the proper heir to Moses. Muslims are rather losing this side of their creed against their own women. Jews own several thinkers morally and intellectually superior to the Islamic prophet and the so-ascribed text, let alone to Kindi and his effort(s). Any of these, I suspect, would have fronted a more formidable challenge to Yahya.