A Body Unlike Bodies - Dr. Wesley Muhammad
A Body Unlike Bodies - Dr. Wesley Muhammad
A Body Unlike Bodies - Dr. Wesley Muhammad
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A <strong>Body</strong> <strong>Unlike</strong> <strong>Bodies</strong>:<br />
Transcendent Anthropomorphism, Divine Embodiment and Early<br />
Sunnism<br />
By <strong>Wesley</strong> Williams, Ph.D.<br />
University of Michigan<br />
Presentation at 5th Annual Duke-UNC Graduate Islamic<br />
Studies Conference, April 5, 2008<br />
Gerald Hawting, in taking up and elaborating upon John Wansbrough’s insistence<br />
that emergent Islam be seen as a continuation of the Near Eastern Semitic monotheistic<br />
tradition, makes an important observation:<br />
That Islam is indeed related to Judaism and Christianity as part of the Middle<br />
Eastern, Abrahamic or Semitic tradition of monotheism seems so obvious and is<br />
so often said that it might be wondered why it was thought necessary to repeat it.<br />
The reason is that although it is often said, acceptance of Islam as a representative<br />
of the monotheist religious tradition is not always accompanied by willingness to think<br />
through the implications of the statement.”<br />
Indeed, rarely are the theological implications of this statement fully reflected upon.<br />
Such reflection, however, might highlight some pretty radical discontinuities between<br />
Islam, or at least the normative formulation and articulations of Islam, and the pre-<br />
Islamic Semitic tradition. Not that one can essentialize with such a diverse tradition that<br />
is the Semitic tradition; but there are some common characteristic features that transcend<br />
the linguistic and ethnic groups designated ‘Semitic.’ My paper discusses one such feature<br />
and its apparent absence in Islam.<br />
Islam is often viewed as the religion par excellence of divine transcendence. God is khilāf<br />
ul-#ālam, “the absolute divergence from the world” and this characteristically Islamic<br />
doctrine of mukhālafa “(divine) otherness” precludes divine corporeality and<br />
anthropomorphism. But such a model is Hellenistic, not Semitic; the very notion of<br />
‘immateriality,’ as well-argued by Robert Renehan, seems to have been the brain-child of<br />
Plato. The Semitic and the ancient Near Eastern (ANE) models in general embraced both<br />
divine ‘otherness’ and corporeality/anthropomorphism: the gods were ‘transcendently<br />
anthropomorphic,’ to use Ronald Hendel’s term. That is to say, while the gods possessed<br />
an anthropoid or human-like form, this form was also in a fundamental way unlike that of<br />
humans in that it was transcendent, either in size, beauty or maybe in the substance of<br />
which it was composed – ruach (spirit) e.g., or lapis lazuli, rather than basar, the fallible<br />
flesh that distinguishes mortal bodies.<br />
Ancient Israel stood in linguistic, cultural and religious continuity with her neighbors<br />
in the Levant. And as Morton Smith aptly put it in a classic article, Israel participated in
“the common theology of the ancient Near East.” However ill-defined this concept of an<br />
ANE ‘common theology’ is, it is clear that the god of Israel and the gods of the ANE<br />
actually differed less than has been supposed. Like the gods of the ANE, the god of Israel<br />
and biblical tradition was transcendently anthropomorphic. No doubt the signature<br />
feature of this Israelite transcendent anthropomorphism is a dazzling radiance, a brilliant<br />
luminosity that is the morphic manifestation of God’s signature holiness. It is for this<br />
reason, we are given to understand, that humans can’t see God. Not because God is<br />
invisible, but because humans are unholy, and unholy beings are in great danger in the<br />
immediate presence of God’s consuming, morphic holiness. This tradition of<br />
transcendent anthropomorphism is evident in the HB and is even presupposed in the NT,<br />
for example with Paul’s inaugural Christophany experience and the Gospel narrative of<br />
the transfiguration of Christ.<br />
This ancient Near Eastern/Semitic transcendent anthropomorphism stands in stark<br />
contrast to normative Islamic notions of divine transcendence. But the latter, as Fazlur<br />
Rahman pointed out, “does not emerge from the Qur’an, but from later theological<br />
development in Islam.” This ‘later theological development’ included the appropriation<br />
of Hellenistic concepts and terms in order to interpret the Qur"§n and the Sunna,<br />
particularly the statements about God. This disparity between Semitic and Islamic<br />
notions of divine transcendence becomes more acute when one considers the insistence,<br />
by Islamic tradition and Western scholarship, that the deity is the same in the three<br />
monotheistic traditions. As Francis Peters remarks: “The monotheists not only worship<br />
one God; he is the same god for all. Whether called Yahweh or Elohim, God the Father<br />
or Allah, it is the selfsame deity who created the world out of nothing.” This insistence is<br />
of course qur"§nic (29:46; 42:14, 2:130-136). What then is the relation between the<br />
transcendently anthropomorphic Yahweh-Elohim and the incorporeal All§h?<br />
I argue in this paper that at an earlier period Islam possessed a tradition of<br />
‘transcendent anthropomorphism’ similar in many ways to that articulated in ANE,<br />
Classical, and Biblical sources. Through the mediation of hellenistically influenced<br />
schools like the Mu#tazila Greek-inspired notions of divine transcendence would<br />
eventually characterize all of Islam, SunnÊ and Shi#Ê alike. But while this triumph in<br />
Shi#ism was achieved by the fourth Islamic century, Sunnism held out for considerably<br />
longer. Sherman Jackson has recently emphasized that in early Muslim debates over the<br />
divine attributes Rationalist groups like the Mu#tazila privileged Aristotelian-Neoplatonic<br />
logic and motifs while Traditionalists rejected their authority, at least ostensibly. It thus<br />
should come as no surprise that it was in traditionalist Sunnism that this ancient Semitic<br />
transcendent anthropomorphism survived well into the fifth Islamic century.<br />
Now ‘transcendent anthropomorphism’ presupposes, of course, anthropomorphism<br />
and we are assured by the overwhelming majority of Muslim scholars that there is no<br />
anthropomorphism is Islam. Western scholars, on the hand, cant seem to agree in their<br />
assessments of the place of anthropomorphism in the historical development of Islamic<br />
theology and views range, for example, from the extremes of Helmut Ritter who claimed<br />
that for Muslim Orthodoxy the idea of an anthropomorphic deity was an ‘abomination,’<br />
to the view of Ignaz Goldzeihr who claimed that this orthodoxy would accept nothing but<br />
a crude anthropomorphism. This scholarly ambivalence towards Islamic<br />
anthropomorphism is partly the problem of semantics, particularly a much too imprecise<br />
use of the term ‘anthropomorphism’ coupled with an uncritical conflation of this term
and the Arabic tashbīh. While the former term literally refers to man’s ‘form,’ it more<br />
often than not is made to bear the burden of signifying all ascriptions of human likeness to<br />
God. Thus, human emotions, thoughts, and actions, properly anthropopathisms and<br />
anthropopoiesis, are subsumed under the designation anthropomorphism. Because Homeric<br />
anthropomorphism with its repugnant acting deities is usually the standard and no<br />
consideration is given to the idea of an ‘ethical anthropomorphism,’ the net effect of this<br />
subsumption, if you will, is that discussion of the alleged “form” of God, the main point of<br />
the term ‘anthropomorphism,’ is often de-emphasized or assumed to be a non-issue. But at<br />
least the biblical tradition of transcendent anthropomorphism, articulated as it is in the<br />
context of an ethical monotheism, should caution us with regard to this line of reasoning.<br />
As Robert Dentan observed in his discussion of the Knowledge of God in Ancient Israel,<br />
this ‘paradox of an anthropomorphic deity who is nevertheless utterly different from<br />
man,’ is ‘a paradox of which Israel was fully aware.’ It is my view that awareness of the<br />
belief in such a paradox is critical to an adequate comprehension and appreciation of the<br />
medieval Muslim debates over the Divine Attributes and the dangers of tashbīh. This latter<br />
term connotes likening the Creator to his creatures, a theological indiscretion in the eyes<br />
of Muslims in all eras, from all areas, and of all schools of thought. But a close reading of<br />
the relevant Arabic materials, I think, makes it clear that for many Muslim scholars,<br />
particularly but not exclusively Traditionalists, affirming divine anthropomorphism was<br />
not the same as affirming tashbīh. Take for example MuÈammad b. Khuzayma (d.<br />
311/924), the most prominent Sh§fi#Ê in Nishapur at the time. In his Kit§b ut-tawÈÊd<br />
Ibn Khuzayma takes up the charge that the ahl al-ÈadÊth were “likeners (mushabbiha)”<br />
because they affirmed the literal meaning of the Divine Attributes. Discussing their<br />
affirmation that God truly has a face (wajh), against those who claimed that God’s face in<br />
the Qur"§n is really His essence (dh§t), Ibn Khuzayma writes:<br />
God has affirmed for Himself a Splendid and Venerable face, which He declares<br />
is eternal and non-perishable. We and all scholars of our madhhab from the Hijaz,<br />
the Tihama, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt affirm for God (the) face, which He<br />
has affirmed for Himself. We profess it with our tongues and believe it in our<br />
hearts, without likening (qhayr an nashabbiha) His face to one from His creatures.<br />
May our Lord be exalted above our likening Him to His creatures… We and all<br />
our scholars in all our lands say that the one we worship has a face…And we say<br />
that the face of our Lord (radiates) a brilliant, radiant light (al-når wa al-∙iy§" wabah§")<br />
which, if His veil is removed the glory of His face will scorch everything<br />
that sees it. His eyes are veiled from the people of this world who will never see<br />
Him during this life...The face of our Lord is eternal…<br />
Now God has decreed for human faces destruction and denied them splendor and<br />
venerability. They are not attributed the light, brilliance or splendor (al-når wa al-∙iy§"<br />
wa-bah§") that He described His face with. Eyes in this world may catch human faces<br />
without the latter scorching so much as a single hair...Human faces are rooted in time<br />
(muÈdatha) and created...Every human face perishes…Oh you possessors of reason<br />
(dhaw§ al-Èij an), could it ever really occur to any one with sense and who knows Arabic<br />
and knows what tashbÊh (means) that this (transient and dull human) face is like that<br />
(splendidly brilliant face of God)?
We have here the affirmation of anthropomorphism and the concomitant disavowal of<br />
tashbÊh. Ibn Khuzayma here adamantly argues for God’s possession of a true face, but<br />
one dangerously radiant and non-perishable, in contrast to man’s perishable and dull<br />
face: transcendent anthropomorphism. God’s is a face, unlike faces for he has a body,<br />
unlike bodies, as it was said in these circles.<br />
Let me cite another 10 th century example, and then I will go backwards in time.<br />
In at-Tabari’s famous commentary on the Qur’an, in discussing the creation of Adam as<br />
narrated in surat ul-Baqarah, at-Tabari narrated the following tradition: After God<br />
molded the human body of Adam from clay the body was left standing as a hollow,<br />
lifeless statue for forty years. During this time, the angels saw Adam and were terrified at<br />
the sight, none more than Iblīs, the devil. Iblīs would strike Adam’s body, making a<br />
hollow ring. He then went into Adam’s body through his mouth, exiting through his rear.<br />
Iblīs then said to the frightened angels: “Do not be afraid of this: your Lord is solid<br />
(ßamad), but this is hollow (ajwaf). Indeed, if I am given power over it, I shall utterly destroy<br />
it.” This last statement no doubt gives us the reason the angels were terrified: they<br />
thought the Adam statue was God. “God created Adam in His image,” we are told in a<br />
prophetic Èadīth found in the ßaÈīÈ collections. This idea has a Jewish precedent. In<br />
Genesis Rabbah, e.g. we read from one rabbi: “When the Holy One, blessed be He,<br />
came to create the first man, the ministering angels mistook him (viz. Adam) [for God,<br />
since man was in God’s image,] and wanted to say before him, ‘Holy, [holy, holy is the<br />
Lord of hosts].’” In the Islamic version, the angels are disabused of this belief once it was<br />
learned that Adam’s body was hollow; Allah, the angels well knew, has a compact and<br />
solid (samad) body. How did they know this? Well, they probably, and many Muslims<br />
certainly, would say that God himself says it in the Qur’an. That enigmatic divine<br />
predicate found in surat ul-Iklas, al-samad, is here equated with musmat, which word means<br />
“solid, of even composition, massive, compact, or not hollow (i.e. without a stomach<br />
cavity.” According to al-Ashari who died in 935 CE, in his Maqal§t ul-Isl§mÊyÊn, this<br />
was the interpretation of a good many Muslims in his day and we have reason to believed<br />
this was the common view in Umayyad Syria. So here we have a different articulation of<br />
transcendent anthropomorphism. The difference between God’s body and man’s is that<br />
the latter’s is hollow, whereas God’s is massive and compact.<br />
There were thus different articulations of transcendent anthropomorphism in<br />
early Islam, from the margins as well as from the center, for example Ahmad b. Hanbal<br />
was an enthusiastic advocate of transcendent anthropomorphism and it was among his<br />
followers, in Baghdad in particular, that this tradition continued for centuries to a have an<br />
important influence on the articulation of traditionalist Sunnism. Here, however, the<br />
characteristic feature of God’s morphic transcendence is his divine beauty. The God of<br />
MuÈammad is beautiful, we are told in ÈadÊth, and he loves beauty. In other reports<br />
that were quite important for the articulation of traditionalist Sunnism during the 3-6 th<br />
centuries we learn that this divine beauty includes morphic beauty as well. In fact, these<br />
reports tell us, the Prophet saw God in the most beautiful form, young, beardless, and<br />
wavy-haired. Yes, most of those adverse to anthropomorphism severely criticized these<br />
reports and judged them inauthentic. But this fact must be acknowledged along side<br />
another, well-documented fact: that is that the traditionalists generally accepted one or<br />
another version of these reports as authentic and the divine imagery found in these<br />
reports therefore had an impressive influence on the Sunni view of God.
In conclusion, the popular view that the premodern Muslim discussions of God’s<br />
attributes are to be understood only in the context of the opposition between divine<br />
transcendence on the one hand and anthropomorphism on the other must be amended.<br />
We have shown that these two are mutually exclusive neither in a history-of-religions<br />
context generally nor in the Islamic context specifically. Some important early Muslims<br />
found no problem affirming both anthropomorphism and divine transcendence. This<br />
characteristically ancient Near Eastern and Semitic tradition of transcendent<br />
anthropomorphism, while replaced by the Mu#tazila and the Shi#a with the incorporeal<br />
transcendence of Hellenism, survived in traditionalist Sunnism through traditions<br />
describing God’s paramount morphic beauty. This tradition was not marginal. Ahmad b.<br />
Hanbal centralized it within nascent Sunnism and it continued to characterize, and<br />
caricaturize, traditionalist Sunnism through the eleventh century common era. The god<br />
of this orthodoxy was clearly embodied, but his was a body unlike bodies.