Who Owns Your Heart? | Allah's Names Ep. 2 | Dr. Omar Suleiman | Ramadan Series 2026

Do you even know how to solve this thing?

Looks like a piece of trash to me anyway.

ليش قلت للزلمة إنه إحنا من القدس؟ Someone

like him, he knows the difference between

غزة والقدس، يعني what's the point?

طب هيك صار يفكرنا إننا إحنا من إسرائيل، Really?

Doesn't matter يفكر اللي يفكروا.

Yes, sir. I'm- I'm fully aware of how important this deal

is to you and the board, and I will close.

But I expected you today in the briefing meeting!

Yes, um, I'm sorry. Um... something came up.

I don't care, Joe. Someone in your position

knows very well that excuses don't fly!

Got it, yeah. It won't happen again.

يا الله، يا الله، يا الله، لا حول ولا قوة إلا بالله.

You only need one God. You weren't made for many

masters, and your heart was not designed to bow in

a thousand directions. ما جعل الله لرجل من قلبين في

جوفه Allah has not placed two hearts in a single

man's chest. Notice how precise the wording is, by

the way. Allah didn't say إنسان، a human being, but

رجل، a man, because a woman physically carries two

hearts within her when she's pregnant, but the

spiritual meaning holds for both men and women. No

human being can carry two gods in one heart, and

whoever owns your heart owns you, and the one who

made your heart refuses that you share it with

anyone else. In a Hadith Qudsi, Allah subhanahu wa

ta'ala says, أَنَا أَغْنَى الشُّرَكَاءِ عَنِ الشِّرْكِ I am the

least in need of any partner. So whoever does a

deed seeking Me and someone else, I leave him to

that someone else. And what a punishment to be left

to creation after being offered the Creator, because

Allah is too great to be shared in your pursuits,

too perfect to be compared, and too necessary to be

replaced. Your soul was wired to seek Him, and in

your heart there's this void that can only be filled

by Him, and anything else that takes that place is

just a poster for Shaytan. As Imam Ibn Taymiyyah

rahimahullah said, if the soul doesn't worship

Ar-Rahman, it certainly worships the Shaytan. What

that means is it doesn't matter if the God that you

associate with Allah is a good man or represents

a noble concept, because to worship anything

alongside your Creator is to deviate from the

Divine. The Qur'an even says, قُلْ إِنْ كَانَ

لِلرَّحْمَٰنِ وَلَدٌ فَأَنَا أَوَّلُ الْعَابِدِينَ

Say, if the Most Merciful had a son, then you

would find Me to be the first worshipper. And as

As-Sa'di rahimahullah said, I would be the first to

worship, but لَا وَلَدَ لَهُ He has no son. So I

love Jesus, peace be upon Him, but I worship

the God of Jesus, not Jesus Himself. But beyond

worship, one of the root meanings of the word إله

is that which is sought. Al-Imam Ibn al-Qayyim

rahimahullah said the root of إله is

الَّذِي تَأَلَّهُ الْقُلُوبُ بِكَمَالِ الْمَحَبَّةِ

وَالتَّعْظِيمِ وَالْإِجْلَالِ وَالرَّجَاءِ

وَالْخَوْفِ The one whom hearts adore. That's the

meaning of إله, with complete love and reverence and

awe and hope and fear. And that's why when the

Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم met the father of Imran

ibn Husayn رضي الله عنهما he asked him, he said,

how many إلهs, how many gods do you worship today?

He said, I worship seven. Six of them are on

earth and one of them is in the heavens. The Prophet

صلى الله عليه وسلم said, okay, but which of them

do you really turn to in hope and fear?

When everything falls apart, like who are you really

looking to? He said, the one in the heaven. So

the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said, then leave the

other six and just worship Him. You'll notice that

the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم didn't get into a

theological debate with Him. He spoke directly to

the unsatisfied experience of shirk, which tries to

divide an undivided God, because shirk is never

rational. It's born out of some sort of insecurity

or desire or imitation, because if the soul doesn't

find its one God, it just keeps inventing new ones.

And by the way, that's historically how God became

gods. When people lost their connection to

revelation, they replaced it with superstition. So

you had those that started to worship these amazing

natural wonders like the sun and the moon and the

stars, because they couldn't imagine one single

power sustaining it all, because how could a single

God sustain all this awesomeness alone when as human

beings we can barely multitask with the simplest of

things? Then there were those who worshiped good and

evil as two separate forces, because they couldn't

comprehend one God whose wisdom governs both. And

the Prophet ﷺ said that those who

deny qadar are like those people because they deny

Allah's divine decree due to their own inability to

understand the question of evil. And then you had

those who shaped God into their own image because

they couldn't relate to a God that they couldn't

see. So we need saints and statues in between that

we can touch and feel. And then, of course, you

had those that shaped God into their own image

conveniently to fit their empire so that they could

control others with a God fashioned in themselves.

So every false god is just human insecurity, desire,

or corruption dressed in divinity. And that's why

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, إِنْ هِيَ إِلَّا

أَسْمَاءٌ سَمَّيْتُمُوهَا أَنتُمْ وَآبَاؤُكُمْ that

these are but empty names that you and your

ancestors invented. Allah gave them no authority.

And what you're really following is doubt and what

the lower soul desires. Spiritual diseases get

sculpted into deities. And when Quraysh made gods

for power and profit, Allah shattered them all with

a single phrase, لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ

There is no god but God. The oneness of God

was never meant to just be a theological claim, but a

revolution. وَإِلَٰهُكُمْ إِلَٰهٌ وَاحِدٌ And your

Lord God is one, وَاحِدٌ. Quraysh objected and said,

أَجَعَلَ الْآلِهَةَ إِلَٰهًا وَاحِدًا Did He turn all

these gods into one God? See, Abu Lahab didn't

reject الْوَاحِد because it was illogical. He rejected

it because it was bad for business. More gods means

more money. Okay, but that's Abu Lahab and those are

the disbelievers. What does this matter to the

believer? Well, remember that the word إله means

that which is sought. And you have to ask yourself

if you're seeking Him, واحد, alone, above all else.

Now, that doesn't mean that you're a disbeliever or

you're committing actual shirk when you have a

spiritual imbalance or you're prioritizing others

over Allah, but it does resemble the slope that led

people to shirk, because before you taste the true

sweetness of one God, you have to negate all other

things that have God-like control over you. And

that's why the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said,

تَعِسَ عبدُ الدِّرْهَمِ تَعِسَ عبدُ الدِّينَارِ

Miserable is the slave of the dirham or the dinar

or the dollar or the pound. And think about the term

career worship. How many people have made their

career their God where they're willing to sacrifice

their prayer, their family, and yes, even their

principles for that career? He also صلى الله عليه

وسلم said that مُدْمِنُ الْخَمْرِ, the one who's

addicted to alcohol, is like the one who worships

idols. Now you replace wine with any other major sin

and ask yourself, are you a slave to your passion?

Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the

Qur'an, أَرَأَيْتَ مَنِ اتَّخَذَ إِلَهَهُ هَوَاهُ

Have you seen the one who takes his desire as

his God? Or think about where you derive your sense

of self-worth and validation from, because worship

doesn't end when physical idols are broken. It just

takes on new forms. Today, idols wear designer

brands and blue checkmarks, and they live on stages

and screens instead of shrines. But they all demand

the same thing: your undivided love and loyalty and

attention. And you have to unify your worship for

الواحد and your sense of purpose. As Ibn al-Qayyim

rahimahullah says, فَلِواحِدٍ كُنْ وَاحِدًا فِي

وَاحِدٍ For one, be one upon one, being

the single path of truth and faith. لَا إِلَهَ

إِلَّا اللَّهُ الواحد الأحد. What's the difference

between الواحد and الأحد? The scholars say that

الواحد منفرد بذاته والأحد منفرد بصفاته.

Al-Wahid is singular in his being. Al-Ahad is

singular in his attributes. Al-Wahid negates

numbers. Al-Ahad negates likeness. Al-Wahid means

there is no God but Him. Al-Ahad means there is

no God like Him. In Arabic, you can say رَجُلٌ

وَاحِدٌ, one man, or أَلْفُ وَاحِدٍ, a thousand men, but you

can't say رَجُلٌ أَحَدٌ because أَحَدٌ means no comparison.

And that's why Surah al-Ikhlas does not

say Allahu وَاحِدٌ. It says Allahu أَحَدٌ. It's not just

God is one. It's God is uniquely one. And when

the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was told of a

man who recites قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ in every

raka'ah of prayer along with another surah, he asked

him why. And the man said, I love it because it

has the attributes of the Most Merciful. It's so

comprehensive. And when Bilal رضي الله تعالى عنه was

chained and dragged and tortured, he kept saying أحد

أحد, one, one. And when he was asked later why

he only said أحد, like why not الرَّحْمٰنُ العَزِيزُ

الجَّبَّارُ, he replied, if I knew another name that

would make them madder, I would have said it.

SubhanAllah, knowing الأحد alone for Him was enough

to find strength in Allah and be willing to die

for Him, and enough for them to want to kill Him.

Whereas we know all these names of Allah and we're

barely willing to live for Him. The question

is why? Bilal رضي الله تعالى عنه knew what fake

gods looked like, whether it was idols or men, and

he knew there is no one but Allah and no

one like Allah. And just like that, the slave in

chains became freer than the master with the whip.

See, with الواحد you negate all others. With الأحد

you affirm His transcendence. لَا إِلٰهَ There is no

إِلَّا اللّٰهُ but Allah, alone in number,

alone in likeness. And then finally you have this

name that seems odd, الوتر, which means alone

without pair. Al-Witr means the single, because

everything else in creation is made in pairs. You

have night and day, land and sea, male and female.

But Allah, He is الوتر, truly one of a kind.

Even if you're unique in some ways, you're still

going to be like other humans. And no human being

was more distinguished than the Prophet

صلى الله عليه وسلم. But at the end of the day, he

was human like all of us in his basic nature.

He experienced hunger, he ate food, and he used the

bathroom. So you can distinguish yourself as a human

with some elements of character, but you're still

composed of the same things as everyone else. Now

think of something when it's the only one of its

kind in this world. Billionaires will pursue that

one painting that exists nowhere else in the world

except here. And they want that one gem that can

never be replicated. Why? Because exclusivity

creates value. Allah is الوتر, the only one of His

kind, and He is available to the poorest person

in the world who seeks the richness of knowing Him.

You don't need wealth or status to access Him. You

just need a heart that turns to Him alone. And

notice His uniqueness doesn't make Him inaccessible

to His creation. It makes Him unlike His creation.

And that's actually a good thing. Allah doesn't

suffer the shortcomings of human beings. And

sometimes we assume that we need someone like us to

feel us and to comfort us. But similarity sometimes

only makes our problems worse. If you have a friend

who's going through the same crisis you're going

through, they can only help you so much because

they're drowning in their own problems. Allah is

unique, but His uniqueness isn't distance. It's

actually nearness, because only the one unlike

creation can be close to every creature at once.

That's Al-Witr, unlimited uniqueness with unlimited

accessibility. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said,

إِنَّ اللَّهَ وِتْرٌ يُحِبُّ الْوِتْرَ Allah is

Witr, and He loves the Witr. He loves that your

night prayer ends with this odd number, one raka'ah

of Witr, that you break your fast on an odd

number of dates, and that you sip water in three

sips, and that you do Tawaf with an odd number

of seven. Every act becomes a reminder that He alone

stands unmatched without pair. And this is how

Tawhid stops being theory, and it becomes

beautifully embedded in your everyday life and in

the deeper sense. Living with Al-Witr means

mirroring divine distinction. You can't be

outstanding if you don't stand out. You were not

made to blend into a world of imitation like

everybody else, because the world doesn't need more

empty bodies. It needs more uniquely devoted souls.

And when others scatter their devotion, you direct

yours only to Him. And when others chase wealth, you

say, "My sustenance is from One." And when others

chase approval, you say, "My worth is from One." And

when they scatter their hearts, you say, "My heart

belongs to One." And that is how you become one

for One, because to live for One is to finally

be free from

all. يَا إِلَٰهِي

The One my heart was created to seek, pull

me away from every false worship, from anything

that divides my devotion, until nothing fills my

longing but You.

يَا وَاحِدُ Unify my pursuits into a

single direction. And when the world

pulls me apart, center me in Your oneness.

يَا أَحَدُ Open my heart to see that nothing

compares, so that I'm never overly impressed

by anyone but You.

And I come to love Your names and attributes in

a way that frees me from all others but You.

يَا وِتْرُ When I stand alone at the close of

the night, let my solitude remind me

of Your singular majesty. Make my heart

distinct by its devotion, and make me

one of Your rarest

servants. وَلِلَّهِ الْأَسْمَاءُ

الْحُسْنَى فَادْعُوهُ بِهَا.