Eka Aneka Vis-A-Vis Ṭawḥīd Al-Asmā’ Al-Ḥusna: An Analysis Of Uthaya Sankar’s View In His Malaiur Manikam

In the religion studies, al-Asmā’ al-Ḥusnā refers to the beautiful names of God, which such phrase is never ascribed to His creations, but only unto Him alone, as prescribed in the notion of tawhīd. In Hinduism, the theological concept is addressed as eka aneka. Eka means one, while aneka means not one or many. Therefore, eka aneka means God in Hinduism is one but also aneka, which has many manifestations, incarnations, and different from the concept of tawḥīd in Islam. In 2015, Uthaya Sankar, a famous Hindu writer, claims that the Hindu concept of eka aneka is similar with the concept of al-Asmā’ al-Ḥusnā in Islam in his Malay language book titled Malaiur Manikam. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the intellectual background of Uthaya Sankar and his book Malaiur Manikam. Then this research intends to describe the concept of eka aneka as prescribed by Uthaya Sankar in his Malaiur Manikam and also to investigate Uthaya Sankar’s view of equalizing the concept of eka aneka with the concept of al-Asmā’ al-Husnā in Islam. This research applies the qualitative approach, namely content analysis method on the Malaiur Manikam text. This research found that the Hindu concept of eka aneka cannot be equalised with the concept of al-Asmā’ al-Ḥusnā in Islam. This is due to the fact that although Allah has 99 names, but Allah is one (tawḥīd) in His essence (dhāt), actions (afcāl) and names (asmā’), as well as does not incarnate into any forms or manifestations. On the contrary, even though the Hindu God is one, but it incarnates into various forms and manifestations. As a result, this finding can enlighten the Muslims and the non-Muslims on the concept of tawḥīd al-Asmā’ al-Husnā vis-a-vis eka aneka, and also evaluate Uthaya Sankar’s notion of equalising the Hindu concept of eka aneka with the concept al-Asmā’ al-Husnā in Islam.