Is THEM Guilty of Shirk? - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

al-Ashari (d. 935) himself, the one to whom, ironically, the latter Ashariyya and today‘s orthodox look. He
says in his, al-Ibāna „an usul al-diyāna, 89, 93-94, while articulating the position of the People of the Sunna
regarding the Sifat against the deniers of their reality:
―If it is asked, ‗Do you believe God has two hands?‘ the answer is: We (the People of the Sunna)
believe it, and His words ‗the hand of God was over their hands,‘ and His words ‗before him
whom I have created with My two hands,‘ are a proof of it; and also, it is related, on the
authority of the Prophet, that he said, ‗God rubbed Adam‘s back with His hand and produced
from it his offspring,‘ and therefore the existence of the hand is proved…Since God addresses
the Arabs only in their language and what He reveals is understood in their speech and
comprehended in their converse, and in the language of careful speakers one may not say, ‗I
have done something with my two hands‘ meaning ‗grace‘, it is untrue that the meaning of His
words ‗with My two hands,‘ means ‗grace‘…If anybody says, Why do you deny that His saying,
‗Do they not see that We have created for them what Our Own Hands have created (36:71)‘ and His saying
‗Whom I have created with my Own Hands (38:75)‘ are majāz (metaphorical), the answer is: The
ruling concerning the Word of God, the Mighty and Majestic, (regarding these verses) is that
they are to be taken in their apparent/literal (zāhir) and real (haqīqa) meaning. Nothing is to be
transferred from its literal meaning to a metaphorical one, except by proof…Likewise, Allah‘s
words ‗before him whom I have created with My two hands‘. Its literal/apparent (zāhir) and real
(haqīqa) meaning is affirming two hands. It is thus impermissible to alter (these words) from the
literal meaning of ‗two hands‘ to that which our opponents claim, without
proof…Consequently, His saying ‗Whom I have created with My Own Hands‘ must be proof of
God‘s possession of two hands in reality (haqīqa), and not ‗two graces‘.‖
The point of this particular discussion is therefore this: Bro Mubaashir‘s suggestion that the sifāt
khabariyyah are majāz and therefore have no literal reality in God is true to today‘s orthodox position on the
matter, but in the Classical Period it was the position of the speculative theologians, in particular the
Ashariyya, who were deemed unorthodox until late in the Medieval Period (ca. 13-14 century). What‘s
more, the available material for the Prophet himself gives no warrant for this position and in fact
contradicts it. If, while discussing the Ayat/hadiths mentioning Allah‘s hand, I moved my hand to
illustrate the point, or I pointed to my eye when discussing Allah‘s eyes, Bro Mubaashir would likely judge
me a gross anthropomorphist who is imposing a crude interpretation on the Ayat and ahadith. But what
do we do when it is the Prophet himself who offers such a ―crude interpretation‖? Do we explain away his
interpretation? It would be most inappropriate to do so.
This does not mean that these verses and reports don‘t use non-literal language to convey a bigger
point, as Bro Mubaashir correctly suggests. But as in most uses of metaphor, while the overall point is
non-literal (Allah won‘t actually hold the earth and the heavens literally in his hand) the elements deployed
in the metaphor do have actual existence: just as the earth and heavens are real, so too is Allah‘s hand.
In conclusion, I would like to quote the Persian Hujjat al-Islam himself, al-Ghazzali. While it is
largely his views of God and his rationalizations for this view of God that inform the orthodox view today,
he himself confessed that the Prophet nowhere spoke of this god. I discussed this quote in Philly, but it
does not appear that Bro Mubaashir was able to follow my argument (no doubt due to my own failure to
clearly articulate my point). In his important treatise, Iljām al-awām an ilm il-kalām (―Bridling the
Common Folk Away From the Science of Theological Speculation‖) the Persian Proof of Islam quotes the
arguments of those who believed in an anthropomorphic deity against the mutakallimun who, like al-
Ghazzali, affirmed an omni-located, bodiless god. He says:
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