Is THEM Guilty of Shirk? - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

―When the Prophet tells his people that Allah will hold all of the heavens and the earth in
His right hand, do you really think he is talking about Allah's human right hand? Do you really
believe that Prophet Muhammad is suggesting that Allah's hand is a human hand like Master
Fard's or his own and that He will use it to hold the skies and the earth? Isn't it more reasonable
and intelligent to reason that he is making a parable to give the people an idea of the vastness and
greatness and bigness of Allah, whom they cannot grasp with their vision? We can't see the
bigness of Allah, so the prophet gives us a parable in terms the uneducated Arabs could
understand.
―Doesn't that explanation make more sense than trying to figure out how a human being
standing on a corner in Detroit or Chicago is going to grow his hand so that it can hold the sky
and earth while he is standing on the corner? Maybe he has to levitate into outer space and then
grow his hand to hold the earth and sky. Which understanding makes better sense?‖ [End quote]
In responding to this Response, I must first point out that this last statement is an example of the ‗strawman
argument‘ that I suggested Bro Mubaashir engaged in. Who in the NOI – certainly not me – would
suggest that the significance of these verses is a cosmically huge divine hand and, in order to relate these
verses to Master Fard Muhammad, assume that while he is standing on some urban corner or levitating in
outer-space his hand will enlarge? Come on, Beloved. The Science of the Truth of God (Tawhid) is much
more sophisticated and intellectually appealing than that.
But Bro Mubaashir‘s main point here is that such anthropomorphic references in the Qur‘an and Sunna
are purely parabolic, having no real existence themselves. He seeks to strengthen this proposition by
appealing to his ideas of what is reasonable. Besides the fact that in most cases the use of parabolic or even
metaphorical language in general does not seek to deny the real existence of the elements used in the
parable or metaphor (i.e. it is not the hand that is non-literal, it is the picture of the hand clutching the
heavens and earth that is non-literal or metaphoric), this proposition finds little support in the Qur‘an and
Sunna itself. This is a point well made by Imam al-Juwayni (d. 1047) (or someone in his name) in his
Risala fi ithbat al-istiwa' wa al-fawqiyya ("Epistle on the Afiirmation of (God‘s) Establishment (on) and
Aboveness (over the Throne)"):
―When I studied the Book of Allâh and the Sunnah of His Messenger sallallâhu ‘alayhi wa sallam,
I found in them texts pointing to the reality of these meanings (i.e. the Sifat). I found that the
Messenger sallallâhu ‘alayhi wa sallam clarified that which came from His Lord, as well as
describing Him with them. And know - without any doubt at all - that he sallallâhu ‘alayhi wa
sallam used to have present in his noble gatherings the Scholar and the ignorant person, the one
with sharp intelligence and the not so sharply-intelligent, the Arab and the non-Arab. However, I
did not find anything by which he followed-up such texts with which he used to describe his Lord
neither with another text, nor with anything that would cause the meanings to be removed from
their (real meaning), or cause ta‗wîl to be made of them… And I did not find that he sallallâhu
‘alayhi wa sallam used to warn the people from having îmân (faith) in what was apparent in his
speech describing his Lord, whether it was concerning al-Fawqiyyah (Allâh being above His
creation), or al-Yadayn (the Hands of Allâh), or other than them. And there is nothing recorded
from him which proves that these Attributes have another inner meaning, other than what is
apparent from their meaning ...‖
That nowhere in the Qur‘an or Sunna is there the slightest evidence that the Prophet intended
the Sifat mentioned in these verses and reports to have a significance other than their apparent one is a
point made as well by al-Ghazzali himself, in his Iljām al-Awām an Ilm il-Kalām (―Bridling the Common
Folk Away From the Science of Theological Speculation‖). But al-Juwayni (or Pseudo-Juwayni) makes
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