What is atheism, and what are the types of atheists?

Semantically speaking, ilḥād (the Arabic word for atheism) means “to incline toward something” or “to have a tendency.”¹ Allāh says: {And We surely know that they say, “No one is teaching him except a human.” But the man they refer to speaks a foreign tongue, whereas this ˹Qurʾān˺ is ˹in˺ eloquent Arabic} (Qurʾān 16:103). The word yulḥidūna in the original Arabic Qurʾānic text means “to deviate” or “to incline.” Terminologically, however, atheism refers to the rejection of belief in the Creator, the Unseen (such as angels, the devil, Heaven and Hell, and future events), Prophethood, the Resurrection, and the Reckoning. Generally speaking, atheists are those who deny the existence of God, but there are different types of atheists. Deists are a subgroup who believe in the existence of a Creator but reject all revealed religions. Agnostics neither affirm nor deny the existence of God; they maintain that it is impossible for human beings to know how the universe was created or whether God exists. In other words, agnostic atheists occupy a position of uncertainty. Apatheists are those who exhibit apatheism—they consider the topic of God and religion to be irrelevant, meaningless, or unworthy of interest. Broadly speaking, the adherents of these various subgroups—deists, agnostics, and apatheists—can be referred to as non-religious individuals. Lastly, humanists are among the irreligious who are committed to a worldview centered on human beings, though they are not necessarily atheists. These, then, are the most well-known categories within modern atheism.

As explained earlier, there is a distinction between the semantic definition of the word atheism—which means “to be inclined” or “to have a tendency”—and its terminological definition. Hence, the straying Muslim sects, such as those who denied the names and attributes of Allāh, are considered mulḥidūn (atheists) in the semantic sense of the word. Therefore, the mention of ilḥād in the writings of early Muslim scholars is not synonymous with its contemporary, terminological meaning, which primarily refers to the rejection of belief in God and His Prophets. Rather, they used it to denote deviation in some aspect of ʿaqīdah (Islamic creed), particularly the negation of Allāh’s names and attributes. Thus, it is entirely incorrect to claim that ibn Sīnā or other early Muslim philosophers were atheists in the modern sense of the term, for their errors lay in certain defects in ʿaqīdah, not in a rejection of the Creator.