Is THEM Guilty of Shirk? - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

You presume Bro Muhammad to give us ―the meaning of Ayat [7]: 143.‖ How do you know this is the
meaning? Are you, like Bro Imam Salim, one whose mind was ―unlocked‖ by Allah and therefore have
knowledge of al-Ghayb or the Hidden Things? Or are you basing your tafsir on a critical philological
examination of the text? Or, dare I suggest it, neither of these? You explain to us:
―And when Moses came at Allah's appointed time, that is, the time at which Allah had promised to speak
to him, and his Lord spoke with him, without any intermediary, with speech which he heard from all
directions, Moses said, ‗My Lord! Show me, yourself, that I may behold you!‘Allah Said, "You shall not
see Me, but look upon the mount; if it abides in its place, then shalt thou see Me." The mount never did
abide in it's place, so therefore [he] knew at that moment that he was confronted by someone [more]
powerful than himself, and BIGGER than mankind, therefore Moses fell out! That is to say, you do not
have the power to see me. I don‘t know about you? but that is telling me and others that G-d cannot be
seen and He is beyond our comprehension.‖
Your claim that this Aya means Allah can‘t be seen is, as Bro Elijah Shabbazz well pointed out,
completely unjustified by the Arabic text. I was most surprised, however, to see Imam Salim, with all of
his knowledge of Arabic, co-sign this reading and thus lend the weight of his Arabic learning to a reading
that tortures the Arabic philology. But then, unfortunately, Bro Imam does the same thing when he
claims:
―If there was a possibility of seeing (God) then the particle laa would be used. The particle Lan is used to
deny from the time speaking into the future. Meaning you do not see me now and you will not see me in
the future. In other words you will never see me. If I say laa tarnee then you are saying that you do not see
me as we are speaking, but there is a possibility of you seeing me in the future. It makes it just as
impossible when spoken as it does now because we are in the future of the spoken word. It was not
possible then and it is not possible now. Then we must come to the conclusion that Allah can't be seen
physically, mentally, or spiritually.‖
With due respect to Imam Salim, this is another clear example of theology impinging upon philology.
First, I am at a lost to understand how one trained in Arabic could claim that the Lā of Absolute
Negation, which negates categorically and absolutely, is less emphatic than Lan, which is an emphatic
particle but of a different nature. Lan is a ta‘bīd, which is an emphatic particle that does not express the
sense of ‗timelessness‘ as does, for example, words derived from the root ‗zl (e.g. azal ―eternity‖). Thus,
Lan has temporal or temporary significance, not eternal. The categorical negation that Imam Salim wants
to read into ‗Lan tarānī‘ is actually said thusly: Lā arānī ―I am not to be seen,‖ thus with the Lā of
Absolute Negation. In order to make ―Lan tarānī‖ a timeless categorical denial of the possibility of God
being seen, it would have to be reworded as: lan tajūz an tarānī, ―You can never see Me.‖ Thus, Imam
Ahmad, who knew Arabic well (he was a pure Black Arab) perceived the matter more accurately than
does Imam Salim when he said to the Jahmiyyah:
―And Allah said to Moses: You shall not see Me (Q 7:139), but He did not say, ‗I shall not be seen‘. Who then
is more deservedly followed: the Prophet who said, ‗You shall surely see your Lord,‘ or Jahm (ibn Safwan)
who said, ‗You shall not see your Lord‘?‖ (Al-Radd „ala l-Zanadiqa wa l-Jahmiya, 112-113)
Philology MUST be freed from and privileged above theology!
In fact, Surat al-A‟rāf [7]:143 is an explicit account of a theophany (a visual appearance of God). The
Arabic is clear and unambiguous: fa-lammā tajallā rabbuhu lil-jabali, ―So the Lord appeared (tajallā) to the
mountain.‖ The verb tajalla is Form V of the root j-l-w, ―to appear, become manifest.‖ It also carries the
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