Is THEM Guilty of Shirk? - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

the case I presented in Philly. Everyone who has watched the lecture knows that I didn‘t simply ―pick any
definition you want to use for a word and say that is what it means, because you saw it in a dictionary.‖ I
supported my reading and why this is the preferred reading with important evidence from the Classical
Arabic/Islamic tradition. Nor did I cherry-pick definitions. To present the reading ―al-Samad=solid‖ as
an arbitrary choice on my part and juxtapose it to ―the definition used by the majority of the Muslim
world‖ is unfair to the case I made and, further, it betrays a total lack of familiarity with the philological
issues involved with this term or its exegetical history. Reading al-Samad in Surat al-Ikhlas as ―solid‖ is
not a ―Dr. Wesley claim‖; it is an early orthodox reading that no doubt goes back to the Prophet himself.
Bro Mubaashir seems to have relied upon Edward Lane‘s Arabic-English Lexicon for his discussion of al-
Samad in surat al-Ikhlas. This is a very appropriate place to start, but it would have benefitted him greatly
had he turned to the foundational Classical tafsir text for understanding this term, al-Tabari‘s (d. 923)
Jami‟ al-bayan „an ta‟wil ay al-Qur‟an. It is foundational because most of the later tafsir work done on this
term relies and in many cases simply repeats aspects of al-Tabari‘s discussion. Had Bro Mubaashir
checked this text, he would not (as least not in good faith) presented my reading (―solid‖) as a personal,
arbitrary choice of mine, nor would he have presented the reading ―Eternal‖ as that definition to which
―the majority of the Muslim world‖ subscribes, unless he qualified this with ―TODAY‘S‖ Muslim world.
Al-Tabari presents, in quasi-descending (in terms of likelihood) sequential order, 25 exegetical reports
about Al-Samad: the first 14 affirming that the term means ―solid‖ or ―not hollow,‖ (laysa bi-ajwaf/lā jawfa
lahu), and only the last two affirming that it means everlasting/eternal! The fact that the first 14 reports
listed affirm the meaning ―solid‖ and only the last two affirm ―eternal‖ indicates that al-Tabari saw the
former (―solid‖) as the orthodox reading and the latter (―eternal‖) as inconsequential. Most importantly,
al-Tabari cites two hadiths which trace this reading to the Prophet himself:
Al-Abbas b. Abi Talib < ‗Umar b. al-Rumi < ‗Ubayd Allah b. Sa‘id < Salih b. Hayyan < Abd
Allah b. Burayda < his father: he said: ―I do not know about (this word), except that I asked the
Prophet (s) who said: ‗Al-Samad is the one who has no hollowness.‖
Al-Hasan al-Basri and Ikrima, two very prominent Successors, reported the same. This is the only explicit
exegetical reading of this term cited by al-Tabari which is actually traced back to the Prophet himself.
This is no doubt why many famous Companions and Successors affirmed this reading: Abd Allah b.
Abbas, who is called the Tarjuman al-Qur‟an himself (―Interpreter of the Qur‘an‖); al-Hasan al-Basri, Sa‘id
b. Jubayr, Mujahid, al-Dahhak, Sa‘id b. al-Musayyib, Ikrima, etc.
The lexical support for this reading (―solid‖) is strong. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1210), in his Mafatih al-
Ghayb „aw al-tafsir al-kabir, adds to al-Tabari‘s list two philological traditions; one from Qatada b. Di‘amah
(d. 735) that equates the root s-m-d with s-m-t, ―of even composition and having no hollowness‖; the
second a lexicographical comment that samad is ―the smoothness of a stone that admits of no dust and is
impervious.‖ Ibn Manzur (d. 1312), in his indispensible Arabic lexicon, Lisan al-Arab, informs us that the
word samad denotes ―the head of a mountain raised up in the sky as if it were a column,‖ or ―the high
place of anything‖ or ―the top of a rock sticking up from the surface of level ground (4:246).‖ Other
formations of the root indicate the same: musammad = ―solid (rock)‖; samda/sumda = ―rock firmly
embedded in the earth‖; samud = ―solid (rock).‖
The reading ―Eternal‖, supported only by the last two traditions cited by al-Tabari, is a secondary reading
of al-Hasan and Qatada, both of whom give ―solid‖ as the primary meaning of the word. Al-Tabari‘s
discussion therefore indicates that ‗solid‘ was the orthodox reading of this term, and al-Ash‘ari informs us
that at the same time it was also the popular reading. In his Maqalat al-Islamiyin (p. 34) he affirms: ―Many
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