Islam's belief of tawhid and its origin in the orientalist literature

In the orientalist literature, which reflects the intellectual accumulation of the West towards the East, the conceptions and approaches to the belief of tawhid (the oneness and unity of God) in Islam show both variable and fixed characteristics. From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment Period, when the teachings of Christianity were seen as the only and absolute truth in Europe, Islam was generally seen as a heretical sect of Christianity and and the belief of tawhid, its basic principle, was evaluated as idolatry, heresy or a superstitious belief and despised. In some works showing the characteristics of descriptive approach written in the Enlightenment period, the examples of a perspective which identifies the belief of tawhid in Islam with the notion of natural religion were exhibited. Since the 19th century, thoughts on the Islamic faith in orientalist literature have been put forward predominantly with the historical critical approach. In the modern period, various theories have been put forward that seek the source of belief in Allah in the pre-Islamic pagan Arab tradition, Judaism, Christianity or in the latter two together. It has been seen that the tradition of seeking the source of tawhid belief in Judaism and Christianity parallels the claims made by Christian clergy in the early period of Islam. In addition, while there have been just few examples of a perspective that sees tawheed as continuation of the monotheistic Abrahamic religions tradition together with Christianity and Judaism from the Middle Ages to the Modern period, it is seen that this approach has started to be used in more works since the 20th century. It has been found that the most accurate definitions regarding the belief of tawhid in Islam were made by orientalist writers who evaluated Islam from a Muslim perspective, taking a stand away from all religious, political or cultural bigotry and prejudices. As for the orientalist literature, consisting of works written about Islam with a Western identity created by marginalizing the East, it has been determined that the approaches to the belief of tawhid in Islam have a character that shows cyclical changes and that they still do not show a completely neutral character notwithstanding all the scholarly methods developed in the West. Keywords: Kalam, orientalism, orientalist literature, Islam, tawhid, Allah, belief.