Islam is portrayed sometimes as if it were a monolithic or uni-dimensional entity. Islam is undoubtedly the faith of transcendental monotheism , the belief in Allah (the one and only God), who transcends both man and nature. But monotheism does not lead to monism (the metaphysical doctrine that existence is a whole and one); on the contrary, it leads to pluralism and diversity. For from a strictly Islamic point of view, except for God, everything else exists in variety. Therefore, there is not one single Islamic discourse, but rather a variety of discourses that manifest various endeavors , or ijtihad, (personal reasoning) of the Muslim mind, within the boundaries of time and place, to understand the world and to interpret the Qur'an.
