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Allah the Most Exalted said:

"It is those who believe (in the Oneness of Allah and worship none
but Him Alone) and confuse not their belief with Zulm (wrong i.e. by
worshipping other besides Allah), for them (only) there is security and
they are guided ones."

(6:82)

Narrated Ubadah bin As-Samit (May Allah be pleased with him), that
Allah’s Messenger (May the peace and blessing of Allah be upon him)
said:

"Whoever testifies that there is nothing worthy of worship in
truth (no God) except Allah Alone, Who is without (peer or) partner,
and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger, and that ‘Iesa (Jesus) is
the slave of Allah, His Messenger, and His Word which He bestowed in
Maryam (Mary) and a spirit (created) from Him, and that Paradise &
Hell-fire are realities, Allah will admit him into Paradise, whatever
his deeds might be." (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Hadith No. 3252)

‘Itban (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that the Prophet (May the peace and blessing of Allah be upon him) said:

"Indeed Allah has forbidden for Hell the person who testifies:
‘There is nothing worthy of worship in truth (no true God) but Allah’,
seeking thereby nothing but Allah’s Face (pleasure)."

(Al-Bukhari, Muslim).

Abu Sa’id Al-Khudri (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that
Allah’s Messenger (May the peace and blessing of Allah be upon him)
said:

"Musa (Moses) (May the peace and blessing of Allah be upon him)
said: ‘O my Rabb, teach me something through which I can remember You
and supplicate to You.’

Allah answered:

‘Say, O Musa, La ilaha ilIa-Allah’. Musa said: ‘O my Rabb, all your
slaves say these words’. Allah said: ‘O Musa, if the seven heavens and
all they contain other than Me **(Ghairy) and the seven earthsas well,
were all put in one side of a scale and La ilaha ilIa-Allah put in the
other the latter would overweigh them.’" [This Hadith has been reported
by Ibn Hibban, and Al-Hakim declared it

Sahih].

**This phrase (Ghairy) is the exception from what is in the
heavens. It should not be misunderstood that Allah is contained within
the heavens or earth since He has described Himself in the Qur’an as
the Transcendent, Most High, Above All, i.e. in 2:255, 20:5, 25:59 and
many places elsewhere in His Book. Indeed the statement is another
proof that Allah cannot be considered within the creation. [Detailed
explanation can be seen in "Fath-ul-Majid Sharh Kitab-ut-Tauhid
-Translator].

At-Tirmidhi reports from Anas (May Allah be pleased with him): He
heard Allah’s Messenger (May the peace and blessing of Allah be upon
him) saying:

"Allah the Most Exalted said: ‘O son of Adam, were you to come to
Me with the world full of sins, and meet Me without making anything
partner to Me (Shirk), I would come to you with a similar amount of
forgiveness.’ "

(Extracts)Taken from the book……..Kiittab Att–Tauhiid by Muhammad bin Abdul-Wahhab

Leading Indian writer Amitav Ghosh’s critically acclaimed new novel Sea
of Poppies is set during a time when opium trade out of India was
flourishing during British rule.

The novel spans three continents and close to two centuries and is
the first in a planned historical trilogy set in the 19th century.

Ghosh, a trained anthropologist and historian with a doctorate from
Oxford University, spoke to the BBC’s Soutik Biswas on the colonial
opium trade.

Sea of Poppies is a historical novel. Is it the fact that the
British were the world’s biggest opium suppliers two centuries ago that
led you into this story?

I should correct you. It was not two centuries ago. Under the
British Raj, an enormous amount of opium was being exported out of
India until the 1920s.

And no, the opium story was not really the trigger for the novel.
What basically interested me when I started this book were the lives of
the Indian indentured workers, especially those who left India from the
Bihar region.

But once I started researching into it, it was kind of inescapable
- all the roads led back to opium. The indentured emigration [out of
India] really started in the 1830s and that was [around the time of]
the peak of the opium traffic. That decade culminated in the opium wars
against China.

Also all the indentured workers at that time came from all the
opium growing regions in the Benares and Ghazipur areas. So there was
such an overlap there was no escaping opium.

When and how did you end up researching and learning more about the British opium trade out of India?

I was looking into it as I began writing the book about five years ago. Like most Indians, I had very little idea about opium.

I had no idea that India was the largest opium exporter for
centuries. I had no idea that opium was essentially the commodity which
financed the British Raj in India.

Leading Indian writer Amitav Ghosh’s critically acclaimed new novel Sea
of Poppies is set during a time when opium trade out of India was
flourishing during British rule.

The novel spans three continents and close to two centuries and is
the first in a planned historical trilogy set in the 19th century.

Ghosh, a trained anthropologist and historian with a doctorate from
Oxford University, spoke to the BBC’s Soutik Biswas on the colonial
opium trade.

Sea of Poppies is a historical novel. Is it the fact that the
British were the world’s biggest opium suppliers two centuries ago that
led you into this story?

I should correct you. It was not two centuries ago. Under the
British Raj, an enormous amount of opium was being exported out of
India until the 1920s.

And no, the opium story was not really the trigger for the novel.
What basically interested me when I started this book were the lives of
the Indian indentured workers, especially those who left India from the
Bihar region.

But once I started researching into it, it was kind of inescapable
- all the roads led back to opium. The indentured emigration [out of
India] really started in the 1830s and that was [around the time of]
the peak of the opium traffic. That decade culminated in the opium wars
against China.

Also all the indentured workers at that time came from all the
opium growing regions in the Benares and Ghazipur areas. So there was
such an overlap there was no escaping opium.

When and how did you end up researching and learning more about the British opium trade out of India?

I was looking into it as I began writing the book about five years ago. Like most Indians, I had very little idea about opium.

I had no idea that India was the largest opium exporter for
centuries. I had no idea that opium was essentially the commodity which
financed the British Raj in India.