I have studied theology before and was reading about Hinduism and their belief. I have a question. So they believe in a so called one god and all those idols that are in temple are apprently manifestations of their one god. Yes in islam that is all haram as we do not associate anything such as idols to god, but this one god that they believe in, is he the same as the one god who muslims believe in? The one who is powerful and created everything. The reason I ask this is, accordingly to some muslim philosophers, they also believe that us humans and creatures are also manifestations of god which in essence is wrong and hence some of our scholars have completely rejected philosophy due to beliefs like this. Can you please elaborate more in this so that I can understand the above statements about different religions.

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So the Hindu belief in Brahman is very similar to the God we believe in. Hence we do not consider Hindus to be atheists as they believe in God. The problem is that they are polytheists because they worship those idols or other gods. They believe they are divine and worthy of being worshipped. This is shirk. And God never authorized those idols to begin with—they don’t have evidence of that.

Sometimes I say: look at the powerful sun isn’t it a manifestation of God’s power? That’s perfectly fine to say and believe. But sometimes I say: the sun is literally a manifestation of God and so it is to be worshipped. That’s shirk.

As for those Muslim philosophers who say humans are a manifestation of God, there are are two types of them:

1- Those who say it symbolically—meaning we human are a manifestation of Allah’s power and wisdom. We reflect his amazing creation. That’s fine.

2- Those who say we are literally a manifestation of God, and technically we are part of God or God himself—this is shirk and most scholars have rejected that.