The primary doctrine of Islam, Tawhid -- Unity of God, humanity and the universe -- prescribes that a person must cultivate in the self the character traits of God (takhalluq biakhalaq Allah). In daily Islamic life, there is a practical demonstration of how to cherish social and ethical values leading men and women to the good life. Islam offers the stimulus and the strength for performing deeds which are distinctively human in the deepest sense, to bring the human being nearer to God and to respect the sanctity of human relationships, in which must be mirrored a glimmer of divine attributes.

Tawhid is a conception whose reality enters into human life at many levels. Beyond the doctrinal and ideological planes where the oneness of humanity is stressed, tawhid mediates the direct personal relation to the Absolute, and the maintenance of harmony with the universe. It may be approached as an ecology of the spirit that reconciles the apparent multiplicity of created things within the unity of existence. It is what the "Greatest Shaykh" (shaykh al-akbar, the equivalent of the Latin doctor maximus) Ibn 'Arabi referred to as "The Breadth of the Merciful"(nafas ar-Rahman), depicting the manifestation of created multiplicity and its re-absorption into primordial singularity to be the Divine Being's drawing a breath. More precisely, God comes to self-knowledge in us.

Tawhid expresses the Islamic ideal of the fundamental unity of all humankind and rejects a vision of humanity rooted in exclusiveness. In social terms, exclusiveness implies a distinction between those who are members of the group and those who are not. Such exclusiveness has no place in Islam. Islam calls for cultural pluralism that is inextricably linked to a recognition of the fundamental solidarity and connectedness of all human beings.