Обсуждение:Антропоморфизм

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Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān

Антропоморфизм — Приписывание человеческих атрибутов Богу. Ташбих, термин, обычно используемый в английском языке как «антропоморфизм», не фигурирует в Коране с этим значением. Вторая форма корня sh-bh появляется только один раз, пассивным голосом, в связи со смертью Иисуса: «Они не убивали его и не распинали его, но это казалось [последователям Иисуса, что они]» (q 4: 157). Шестая форма происходит девять раз, преимущественно обозначая «подобие», как в q 2:70: «У нас все коровы похожи друг на друга». Форма ташабаха также означает приписывать окружающих Богу (п. 13:16). Он также появляется в п. 3: 7, в котором различаются двусмысленные стихи Корана (муташабихат) и четкие стихи (мукамат, см. Двусмысленный). Другое выражение антропоморфизма было найдено в онтологическом утверждении некоторых мусульман о том, что у Бога есть физическое тело (jism). Телореализм (тайджим) не был основан на каком-либо появлении этого термина в этом смысле в Коране, а скорее на буквальном понимании qur’annic описания Бога как физического тела, а также на том основании, что Бог существует, и только то, что имеет физическое расширение, может существовать. Тем не менее, ссылки в Коране породили образ Бога, имеющий человеческую форму. Часто упоминаются такие отрывки, как «Тронный стих» (q 2: 255, см. 20: 5, см. Престол бога), который предполагает, что Бог сидит на троне на небесах и в тех отрывках, которые говорят, что у Бога есть руки (например, q 3: 73, 5:64, 48:10) и глаза (например, q 20:39, 52:48, 54:14). Довольно рано, те, кто принимал буквальные значения отрывков в Коране, которые сравнивали Бога с людьми, были помечены их противниками как антропоморфисты (мушаббихун). Фон исламского антропоморфизма Тема уподобления Богу или богам людям уже была известна на Ближнем Востоке до начала ислама как в христианстве, так и в иудаизме. Это было обсуждено гораздо раньше греками. Поэт Xenophanes (например, 570—470 гг.), В своей критике антропоморфизма Гомера и Гесиода (около 700 б.с.), утверждал, что Бог никоим образом не может быть похож на людей. Это привело, как утверждал Х. Вольфсон (Philo, i, 125) к борьбе между популярной концепцией олимпийских божеств в человеческой форме, с одной стороны, и абстрактными философскими концепциями — с другой. Последнее проявилось в аллегорических интерпретациях человеческих представлений о богах, решение, не похожее на то, которое утверждали мутазилитовые богословы в исламских дискуссиях по этому вопросу. В некоторых отрывках еврейская Библия изображает Бога в человеческих терминах руками (например, Иса 41:13) и ногами (Зах 14: 4) и так далее; но ивритское писание в других местах рассеивает Бога от человеческого подобия (Исаия 40:25, 46: 5; Пс. 89: 7). Как и у греков, противостояние антропоморфному пониманию Бога в еврейской Библии было самым сильным среди таких философов, как Филон (примерно 50 лет) и позже талмудических ученых. Среди отцов Церкви менее образованные монахи утверждали антропоморфные представления о Боге. Климент Александрийский (д. Приблизительно 215) и Ориген (около 254 г.) под влиянием Филона и, возможно, греческих философов отклонил антропоморфизм на богословских основаниях. Формирование дискурса о антропоморфизме и телеполии в первые три столетия ислама во многом напоминает ранние дискуссии между христианами, евреями и языческими греками. Это был Плотин (д. Примерно 270), который сказал в Эннеадах: "Тот, по правде говоря, не соответствует утверждению; все, что вы говорите, ограничило бы его … "(5, iii, 1215). В начале второй / восьмой столетия отец церкви Иоанн Дамаскин (д. 749), под руководством канцелярии Омейядов, включил в свою де-православную ортодоксальную главу о человеческой потребности мыслить Бога метафорически с точки зрения человека (AJ Wensinck, мусульманское вероисповедание, 68). Аль-¶, хотя некоторые неоплатоническое и христианское влияние на мусульманское мышление в этом отношении возможны, самые ранние утверждения проблемы в исламе явно связаны с спорами о том, как интерпретировать отрывки в Коране, которые приписывают или, как представляется, приписывают человеческие атрибуты Бог. Более того, поскольку подавляющее большинство мусульманских спекулятивных богословов (мутакаллимун) отрицали антропоморфизм, текстовая запись этого спора, соответственно, предвзято относилась к тем, кто считал, что Бог может быть описан буквально в человеческих терминах. Критика антропоморфизма среди тех, кто отрицал антропоморфное учение о Боге, выражался термином ta'ṭīl (лишая Бога всех человеческих атрибутов). Фактически, большинство спекулятивных богословов и их противников, которые оспаривали эту доктрину, нашли способы хеджировать крайние позиции, полностью подтверждающие или полностью отрицающие человеческие атрибуты Бога. Ташби и та’иль стали терминами opprobrium, которые использовались аскетически, а не описательно, как обвинения против богословских противников. Антропоморфизм в раннем и средневековом исламе Контекст самых ранних выражений антропоморфных взглядов Бога трудно установить с точностью. Хотя в общих чертах можно говорить о том, как теологические движения, такие как Ашари или Му’тазили (qv), или исследователи лан-балати ḥadīth (muḥaddithūn), подошли к проблеме антропоморфизма, более точно проанализировать, как отдельные богословы заявили, что и часто это должно основываться на текстовых доказательствах, столь же скудных, как одна или несколько коротких цитат, сохранившихся в более поздних источниках. Мусульманские heresiographical источники найти первые аргументы в пользу позиции, что Бог лишен человеческих атрибутов, то есть отрицание антропоморфных взглядов на Бога, в бурное окончательное десятилетие гражданской войны в течение второй четверти ¶ второй / восьмой века, которые привели Омейядское арабское царство вниз и открыло эпоху Аббасидов. Было сказано, что две довольно теневые фигуры среди ранних богословов выдвинули аргументы против антропоморфизма: Ja’d b. Дирхам, который был казнен за свои неортодоксальные религиозные взгляды в течение года 126/744, и Джам б. Ṣafwān, который также был казнен в 128/745 для его религиозных учений. Богословские взгляды Джама лучше подтверждают более поздние ересиографы. Согласно свидетелю ересиографа аль-Шахрастани (д. 548/1153), Джам сказал, что невозможно описать Творца атрибутом, которым описываются его создания, потому что это повлечет за собой сравнение Бога с его созданиями (Милал, 86, , Абу-Ḥasan al-Ash’arī (д. 324/936) цитирует Джама и некоторых из Зайди шии, говоря, что Бога нельзя описать как вещь (shay'), потому что созданная вещь имеет сходство с другими созданными вещами (Maqālāt, 181). Аль-Ашар цитирует аргумент от Джама, который идентифицирует его также как антикорпоралите: Бог не может быть вещью, потому что вещь, согласно Джаму, есть существующее тело, и Бог не может быть так описан (Maqālāt, 494). Современные ученые подозревают, что Джам был под влиянием неоплатонической доктрины уникального Трансцендентного (R.M. Frank, Neoplatonism, 399—402; B. Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism, 12). Из поздней ассоциации атаки против антропоморфизма можно заключить такие неортодоксальные фигуры, как Я’д и Джахм, что в появляющейся ортодоксии позднего периода Омейядов антропоморфные представления о Боге должны быть хорошо установлены. Отрицание того, что у Бога были человеческие качества, влечет за собой не просто теологический конфликт. Р. Стротманн указал, что Мутазили третьего-девятого века в Багдаде обвинили про-«Утманскую партию, известную как» подрастающее поколение "(набита) среди спекулятивных богословов, о про-антропоморфных взглядах Бога. Политический конфликт сыграл роль, которую можно идентифицировать в этих ранних теологических конфликтах, но не всегда описывать в значительной степени или подробно. Те, кто часто обвинялся в антропоморфизме, коллекционерах и учителях пророческого хадита, были известны как «сторонники Ладита» (ахаб аль-Шадит, ахль аль-ḥadīth). Экстремальные литералы часто упоминались презрительно Мутазили и ашарскими богословами как Шашвия (полученные из шашвы, фарша), потому что они приняли антропоморфные описания Бога в Коране «без [просьбы] как» (би-ла-кайф). Защита их взглядов на антропоморфизм часто прослеживается в Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), чьи утверждения об антропоморфизме были описаны в следующем поколении аль-Ашари (d. 324/935) в его Макалате (стр. 290-7). Там аль-Ашари сообщает, что «приверженцы ḥadīth и sunna (qv)», ссылаясь в этом контексте на последователей Ибн-Шанбала, признаются «не спрашивая», как Бог находится на его престоле, так же, как Он сказал [ в Коране] — «Благодетельный, сидящий на своем троне» [q 20: 5], и что у него есть две руки "(Maqālāt, 290). Хотя Ибн Шанбал и приверженцы Шадита вообще отвергли учение Мутазили о очищении Бога от всех человеческих атрибутов, он также считается среди тех, кто отверг учение об антропоморфизме. Действительно, метод Шанбали, касающийся проблемных богословских притязаний, не пытаясь объяснить их рационально, часто приводил к утверждению ни одного из двух противоречащих друг другу взглядов. Аль-Шахрастани говорит нам, что Ашмад б. Шанбал и другие приверженцы Ладита заняли более умеренную позицию, подтвердив свою веру во все, что было показано в Коране и подлинных Шади, и в то же время утверждая, что Бог не похож ни на одно из его созданий (Милал, I, 104). Некоторые из ранних Имами (Twelver) Shī'ss, упомянутые Мутазили, Аш’ари и другими как «перебежчики» (rāfiḍa), с другой стороны, утверждали и телепозм, то есть Бог имеет физическое тело и антропоморфизм, то есть тело Бога как человеческое тело. Более поздние имами-шииты, изучавшие теологию (калама) с учителями Мутазили, не утверждали антропоморфизм (аль-Ашари, Макалат, 34-5). Ещё одной ранней мусульманской сектой, обвиненной в антропоморфизме и телеполии, была Каррамамия, группа, начавшаяся в Хурасане в первой половине третьего-девятого века и продолжавшая привлекать последователей до монгольского разрушения седьмого-тринадцатого века. Помимо приписывания антропоморфизма этим сектам, некоторые люди из числа ранних богословов также были обвинены в том, что они удерживали и защищали такие взгляды. Против таких взглядов были большинство богословов школ Му’тазили, Ашари и Матуриди. Кроме того, во втором / восьмом веке Коран экзегети, Мукатиль б. Сулейман, был обвинен более поздними мусульманами в том, что они держали антропоморфные взгляды на Бога, но недавняя публикация его qur'ānic commentary (tafsīr) указывает на то, что он понимал некоторые из кажущихся антропоморфных отрывков в Коране фигурально (Б. Абрахамов, Антропоморфизм, 4-6) , Проблемы антропоморфизма и телесетизма лежат в основе споров о Боге в исламском богословии. Для некоторых, таких как более экстремальные имами-шии, антропоморфные и телесные представления о Боге были необходимы онтологически; поскольку они считали, что Бога нельзя сказать, что он существует, если у него нет физического расширения в пространстве и времени. Однако, как утверждали мутазилиты и другие богословы, Бог, ограниченный телом, не может быть вездесущим. Для экстремистов среди приверженцев суннитов Шадита утверждение антропоморфных взглядов Бога, по-видимому, было скорее вопросом фидеизма, основанного на библейском библействе (таммит). Такой грубый литерализм можно было атаковать со ссылкой на сам Коран. Например, 42:11, говорит о Боге: «ничто не похоже на него» (laysa ka-mithlihi shay’un). Для богословов, напавших на антропоморфизм, дискурс стал более абстрактным и специализированным по проблеме божественных атрибутов. Мутазили и ашари-теологи вообще не соглашались друг с другом относительно того, почему антропоморфизм был предметом богословской ошибки. Поскольку они отрицали, что Бог мог обладать человеческими или любыми атрибутами, большинство Мутазили приняли доктрину Бога через отрицательность. Аль-Ашари описал вид Мутазили в третьем / девятом веке, поскольку Бог «не сопоставим с людьми и не похож на существ в любом отношении» (Maqālāt, 155). Мутазили также выдвинули концепцию tanzīh, заявление о том, что Бог свободен от любых примесей, таких как приписывание ему человеческих атрибутов. Сам Аль-Ашхари, следуя ученым Гадита (мудаддитун), подобным Ашмаду б. Ḥanbal, утверждал, что то, что Коран говорит о Боге, — такие как отрывки, относящиеся к глазам Бога, ногам, рукам, лицу и сидящему телу, — должны приниматься как истинные «, не спрашивая, как», таким образом, не подтверждая антропоморфные или неантропоморфные интерпретации (Б. Абрахамов, Антропоморфизм, 6). Антропоморфные отрывки в Коране в основном представляли проблему герменевтики, поскольку вопрос, который остался для всех, кроме самых грубых литералистов (муматхилун), заключался в том, как эти куранические проходы можно интерпретировать без нарушения божественной природы. Мутазили считали, что слово Бога, то есть Коран, должно быть рациональным, и поэтому рациональное, то есть истинное, значение антропоморфных и двусмысленных (муташабихат) отрывков должно определяться аллегорически или образно. Это её-музыкальный принцип аллегорического толкования (ta’wīl). В конце концов Ашари и Ши-экзегеты стали предпочитать аллегорические литературные методы интерпретации Корана (С. Вассерстром, между мусульманами и евреями, 136-53). Как и Ибн Шанбал, аль-Ашари также утверждал, что антропоморфные отрывки в Коране должны приниматься «без вопросов». Однако в Книге искры (Китаб аль-Лума, 9) он предлагает обоснование для отказа в утверждении, что Бог подобен его созданиям: если бы он был подобен им в любом или во всех отношениях, он был бы, подобно существам, временно созданным в этих отношениях, и невозможно сказать это о вечном, несотворенном Боге (Лума, 9). В современном исламском богословии положение, которое обычно обнаруживается, — это ашарский компромисс между буквальными и рационалистическими трактовками антропоморфных отрывков в Коране. Среди многих мыслителей-модернистов более строгий отказ Мутазили от антропоморфизма даже утверждается, хотя он редко определяется как таковой. Смотрите также бог и его атрибуты; экзегеза qur'ān: классическая и средневековая.

Anthropomorphism — Ascribing human attributes to God. Tashbīh, the term most commonly rendered in ¶ English as "anthropomorphism, " does not appear in the Qurʾān with that meaning. The second form of the root sh-b-h appears only once, in the passive voice, in reference to Jesus' death: «They did not kill him nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to [Jesus' followers that they had]» (q 4:157). The sixth form occurs nine times, predominantly denoting "likeness, " as in q 2:70: «To us all cows look alike.» The form tashābaha also connotes ascribing associates to God (q 13:16). It also appears in q 3:7, which distinguishes between the ambiguous verses of the Qurʾān (mutashābihāt) and the clear verses (muḥkamāt, see ambiguous). Another expression of anthropomorphism was found in the ontological claim by some Muslims that God has a physical body (jism). Corporealism (tajsīm) was not based on any occurrence of the term with that sense in the Qurʾān but rather on literal understandings of qurʾānic descriptions of God as having a physical body and also on the ground that God exists and only that which has physical extension can exist. Nonetheless, references in the Qurʾān gave rise to the image of God having a human form. Often cited were such passages as the Throne Verse (q 2:255; cf. 20:5; see throne of god) which suggests that God is seated on a throne in heaven and the passages that suggest God has hands (e.g. q 3:73; 5:64; 48:10) and eyes (e.g. q 20:39; 52:48; 54:14). Quite early on, those who accepted literal meanings of passages in the Qurʾān that likened God to humans were labeled by their opponents as anthropomorphists (mushabbihūn). The background of Islamic anthropomorphism The topic of likening God or gods to humans was already well-known in the Middle East prior to the rise of Islam, both in Christianity and in Judaism. It had been discussed much earlier by the Greeks . The poet Xenophanes (fl. ca. 570—470 b.c.e.), in ¶ his criticism of the anthropomorphism of Homer and Hesiod (fl. ca. 700 b.c.e.), claimed that God could in no way be like human beings. This led, as H. Wolfson has argued (Philo, i, 125), to a struggle between the popular conception of Olympic deities in human form on the one side and the abstract philosophical conceptions on the other. The latter came to be expressed through allegorical interpretations of the human representations of the gods, a solution not unlike the one argued by Muʿtazilite theologians in Islamic discussions of the question. In certain passages the Hebrew Bible portrays God in human terms, with hands (e.g. Isa 41:13) and feet (Zech 14:4) and so on; but Hebrew scripture in other passages distances God from human likeness (Isa 40:25, 46:5; Ps 89:7). As with the Greeks, opposition to anthropomorphic understandings of God in the Hebrew Bible was strongest among philosophers like Philo (d. ca. 50) and later Talmudic scholars. Among the Church Fathers, it was the less educated monks who asserted the anthropomorphic conceptions of God. Clement of Alexandria (d. ca. 215) and Origen (d. ca. 254), under the influence of Philo and perhaps the Greek philosophers, rejected anthropomorphism on theological grounds. The formation of the discourse on anthropomorphism and corporealism in the first three centuries of Islam in many ways resembles the earlier discussions among the Christians, Jews and pagan Greeks. It was Plotinus (d. ca. 270) who said in the Enneads, «The One is, in truth, beyond all statement; whatever you say would limit it…» (5, iii, 1215). In the early second/eighth century, the church father John of Damascus (d. 749), under the employ of the Umayyad chancery, included in his De fide orthodoxa a chapter on the human need to conceive of God metaphorically in human terms (A.J. Wensinck, Muslim creed, 68). Al-¶ though some Neoplatonic and Christian influence on Muslim thinking in this regard is possible, the earliest statements of the problem in Islam are clearly linked to disputes about how to interpret passages in the Qurʾān that ascribe, or seem to ascribe, human attributes to God. Moreover, since the great majority of Muslim speculative theologians (mutakallimūn) denied anthropomorphism, the textual record of this dispute is accordingly biased against those who held that God may be described literally in human terms. The critique of anthropomorphism among those who denied the anthropomorphic doctrine of God was expressed by the term taʿṭīl (divesting God of all human attributes). In point of fact, most of the speculative theologians and their opponents who disputed this doctrine found ways to hedge extreme positions of totally affirming or totally denying the human attributes of God. Tashbīh and taʿṭīl became terms of opprobrium used ascriptively, rather than descriptively, as accusations against theological opponents. Anthropomorphism in early and medieval Islam The context of the earliest expressions of anthropomorphic views of God is difficult to establish with precision. Although it is possible to speak in general terms of the way theological movements, such as Ashʿarī or Muʿtazilīs (q.v.) or the Ḥanbalī scholars of ḥadīth (muḥaddithūn), approached the problem of anthropomorphism, it is more accurate to analyze how individual theologians stated the problem and often that must be based on textual evidence as scant as one or more brief quotations preserved in later sources. Muslim heresiographical sources locate the first arguments in favor of the position that God lacks human attributes, that is, denying anthropomorphic views of God, in the tumultuous final decade of the civil war during the second quarter of the ¶ second/eighth century that brought the Umayyad Arab kingdom down and ushered in the ʿAbbāsid age. Two rather shadowy figures among the earliest theologians were said to have advanced arguments against anthropomorphism: Jaʿd b. Dirham, who was put to death for his heterodox religious views around the year 126/744, and Jahm b. Ṣafwān, who also was executed in 128/745 for his religious teachings. The theological views of Jahm are better attested by later heresiographers. According to the heresiographer al-Shahrastānī (d. 548/1153), Jahm said it is not possible to describe the Creator by an attribute by which his creatures are described because this would entail likening God to his creatures (Milal, i, 86). Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/936) quotes Jahm and some of the Zaydī Shīʿīs as saying that God cannot be described as a thing (shayʾ) because a created thing has a likeness to other created things (Maqālāt, 181). Al-Ashʿarī quotes an argument from Jahm that identifies him also as an anti-corporealist: God cannot be a thing because a thing, according to Jahm, is an existent body and God cannot be so described (Maqālāt, 494). Modern scholars have suspected that Jahm was influenced by the Neoplatonic doctrine of the unique Transcendent One (R.M. Frank, Neoplatonism, 399—402; B. Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism, 12). One can infer from the later association of the attack against anthropomorphism with such heterodox figures as Jaʿd and Jahm that in the emerging orthodoxy of the late Umayyad period anthropomorphic conceptions of God must have been well established. Denying that God had human attributes entailed more than mere theological conflict. R. Strothmann has pointed out that third/ninth-century Muʿtazilīs in Baghdad accused the pro-ʿUthmān party, known as the «rising generation» (nābita) among the speculative theologians, of pro-¶ fessing anthropomorphic views of God. Political conflict played a role that one can identify in these early theological conflicts but not always describe in much depth or detail. Those often accused of anthropomorphism, the collectors and teachers of the prophetic ḥadīth, were known as the «adherents of ḥadīth» (aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth, ahl al-ḥadīth). The extreme literalists were often referred to contemptuously by Muʿtazilī and Ashʿarī theologians as ḥashwiyya (derived from ḥashwa, forcemeat) because they accepted anthropomorphic descriptions of God in the Qurʾān «without [asking] how» (bi-lā kayf). The defense of their views regarding anthropomorphism is often traced to Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855) whose statements on anthropomorphism were described in the next generation by al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935) in his Maqālāt (pp. 290-7). There al-Ashʿarī reports that the «adherents of the ḥadīth and sunna (q.v.)» — referring in this context to the followers of Ibn Ḥanbal — confess «without [asking] how, that God is on his throne, just as He said [in the Qurʾān] — ‘The Beneficent One, who is seated on his throne’ [ q 20:5] — and that he has two hands» (Maqālāt, 290). Although Ibn Ḥanbal and the adherents of ḥadīth generally rejected the Muʿtazilī doctrine of purifying God of all human attributes, he is also counted among those who rejected the doctrine of anthropomorphism. Indeed, the Ḥanbalī method of dealing with troublesome theological claims by not attempting to explain them rationally often led to the stance of affirming neither of two conflicting views. Al-Shahrastānī tells us that Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and other adherents of ḥadīth took a more moderate position, affirming their belief in everything revealed in the Qurʾān and authentic ḥadīth while at the same time asserting that God is not like any of his creatures (Milal, i, 104). Some of the ¶ early Imāmī (Twelver) Shīʿīs — referred to by Muʿtazilīs, Ashʿarīs and others as «turncoats» (rāfiḍa) — on the other side, asserted both corporealism, i.e. God has a physical body, and anthropomorphism, i.e. God’s body is like a human body. The later Imāmī Shīʿīs who studied theology (kalām) with Muʿtazilī teachers did not affirm anthropomorphism (al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 34-5). Another early Muslim sect accused of anthropomorphism and corporealism was the Karrāmiyya, a group that began in Khurāsān in the first half of the third/ninth century and continued to attract followers until the Mongol devastation of the seventh/thirteenth century. Beyond the ascription of anthropomorphism to these sects, certain individuals among the early theologians were also accused of holding and defending such views. Opposing such views were the majority of the theologians of the Muʿtazilī, Ashʿarī and Māturīdī schools. Also, the second/eighth-century Qurʾān exegete, Muqātil b. Sulaymān, was accused by later Muslims of holding anthropomorphic views of God, but the recent publication of his qurʾānic commentary (tafsīr) indicates that he understood some of the seemingly anthropomorphic passages in the Qurʾān figuratively (B. Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism, 4-6). The problems of anthropomorphism and corporealism lay at the heart of the disputes about God in Islamic theology. For some, such as the more extreme Imāmī Shīʿīs, anthropomorphic and corporealistic notions of God were necessary ontologically; for they believed that God could not be said to exist unless he had physical extension in space and time. Yet, as the Muʿtazilites and other theologians argued, a God limited by a body could not be omnipresent. For the extremists among the Sunnī adherents of ḥadīth, asserting anthropomorphic views of God seems to ¶ have been more a matter of fideism based on scriptural literalism (tamthīl). Such crude literalism could be attacked by reference to the Qurʾān itself. q 42:11, for example, says of God: «nothing is like him» (laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾun). For the theologians who attacked anthropomorphism, the discourse became more abstract and specialized over the problem of divine attributes. The Muʿtazilī and Ashʿarī theologians generally disagreed with each other as to why anthropomorphism was a matter of theological error. Inasmuch as they denied that it was possible for God to possess human or any attributes, the majority of the Muʿtazilīs adopted a doctrine of God via negativa. Al-Ashʿarī described the Muʿtazilī view in the third/ninth century as God «is not comparable with humans and does not resemble creatures in any respect» (Maqālāt, 155). The Muʿtazilīs also advanced the concept of tanzīh, the declaration that God is free of any impurities such as the ascription of human attributes to him. Al-Ashʿarī himself, following scholars of ḥadīth (muḥaddithūn) like Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, argued that what the Qurʾān states about God — such as passages referring to God’s eyes, feet, hands, face and seated body — should be accepted as true "without [asking] how, " thus neither affirming the anthropomorphic or non-anthropomorphic interpretations (B. Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism, 6). Anthropomorphic passages in the Qurʾān basically posed a problem in hermeneutics, for the question that remained for all but the most crude literalists (mumaththilūn) was how these qurʾānic passages could be interpreted without violating the divine nature. The Muʿtazilīs took the position that God’s word, i.e. the Qurʾān, must be rational and therefore the rational, i.e. true, meaning of the anthropomorphic and ambiguous(mutashābihāt) passages must be determined allegorically or figuratively. This is the her-¶ meneutical principle behind allegorical interpretation (taʾwīl). Eventually Ashʿarī and Shīʿī exegetes came to prefer allegorical over literal methods of interpreting the Qurʾān (S. Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew, 136-53). Like Ibn Ḥanbal, al-Ashʿarī also claimed that the anthropomorphic passages in the Qurʾān must be accepted «without asking how.» Yet, in the Book of the sparkle (Kitāb al-Lumaʿ, 9) he offers a rationale for rejecting the claim that God is like his creatures: If he were like them in any or all respects, he would be, like creatures, temporally produced in those respects and it is impossible to say this about the eternal, uncreated God (Lumaʿ, 9). In contemporary Islamic theology, the position usually found is the Ashʿarite melding of literalist and rationalist treatments of the anthropomorphic passages in the Qurʾān. Among many modernist thinkers, the more stringent Muʿtazilī denial of anthropomorphism is even argued, though it is seldom identified as such. See also god and his attributes; exegesis of the qurʾān: classical and medieval.

QUR'ANIC ANTHROPOMORPHISMS J.M.S. Batjon

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One of the binding lines of conduct in the traditions of Islam discussing, inter alia, customs followed by Muliammad is the prohibition to strike a fellowman at the face, since the Prophet once declared:

"When anyone of you fights with his brother, he should avoid his face, for God created Adam in His own form" 1.

However, in the still more authoritative sacred text of the Muslims, the Qur'an, no express mention is made of man's being created in God's image. It merely states that God created him in the nicest build (Q. XCV:4). Yet, it does not hesitate to speak of God's face, hands and eyes. Also various human qualities are attributed to Him. But compared with the Bible, this Holy Book makes a clearly more sparing use of anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms.

Now, the striking thing is that notwithstanding this, in comparison with the Bible, fairly moderate application of anthropo morphisms by the Qur'an, the Muslims prove to be puzzled by those divine analogies of human nature found in the Qur'an to a far greater extent than the Christian exegetes of the Bible. What is actually the proper way of looking at them: Are they to be taken literally, or do they ask for a figurative interpretation, or is a mediatory position on this point conceivable? In the history of Islamic thought a good deal of controversy has taken place on this tricky question.

In general, three solutions offered can be discerned.

1. The Stance of the Advocates of tajsim (anthropo morphism). To their mind God is a body, flesh and blood in the form of e man, has three dimensions and colour, but not taste, smell and touch, is in a parti cular place and moves about after the creation. Accordingly, the Qur'anic anthropomorphisms had to be taken literally.

2. The View of the Mu'tazilites who strived to formulate Muslim faith in terms acceptable to the intellectuals. They were of the opinion that God cannot be des cribed, is not substance nor attribute, and is not subject to directions. He is in the world in the sense that He controls it, not as a spatial presence. So they gave a metaphorical interpretation to every anthropomorphic expression in the Qur'an. Thus, for instance, God's hand stands for His might or bounty.

3. Being in every community the belief of the majority, orthodoxy ordinarily adopts a mediatory position on points of doctrine. According to its teachings, God has face and hands because the Qur'an states the fact. Though the fact as such is known, the manner of it is unknown. All this is to be considered bi M kayi, without asking questions. Man ought not to concern himself with things that have not been rendered subject to his thought. The interpretation of these expressions should be left to the discretion of God. The only statement that can be pronounced is that God's hands, face and so on, are 'as a quality, just as hearing and sight' 2.

A Western student of the Qur'an is in favour of the principle that the Holy Book itself is its best, i.e. most impartial, interpre ter. For that reason we intend in this paper to work out possible clues the Qur'an affords for the way it itself takes the anthropo morphisms recorded. Who, after all, are put in the right by the Qur'an: the literalists, the allegorizers, or the people- who say 'God knows best'?

If we want to infer the main theme of the Qur'anic teaching about God, we certainly come out with the announcement that He is the merciful Benefactor. The names rahman (merciful), rahim (com passionate), ghafur (forgiving), ghaffar (ever-forgiving) most fre quently occur in this Holy Book. And the Dutch scholar Snouck Hurgronje acted completely in line with Muslim feelings and convictions when, in pursuit of what is called izhar al-islam, i.e. to become a Muslim unto the Muslims, -he introduced himself to the people of the Hijaz as 'Abd al-ghaffar, servant of the Ever forgiving. At the same time, it is not less true that the Allah of the Qur'an in His transcendent perfections and in His dealings with the world represents an inscrutable mystery. "The advantage", the famous Muslim mystic al-Ghazali argues, "that mystics and prophets have over others in knowing God is that they are more awake to and more certain of the fact of His unknowability"3.

Yet, in spite of its forceful sense of God's otherness and transcendence, the Qur'an records that the Almighty has a face, eyes and hands, granted a covenant to the race of Adam in pre-eternity (Q. VII: 172), and dwells on His throne (Q. XX:5), etc. However, a Muslim will rightly point out that in this respect the Qur'an shows much more diffidence than the Old Testament, and avoids in its use of anthropomorphic terms the record of so-called weak human qualities. Thus, for instance, there is no mention of a God who is said to be repentant as in the case of Jahwfe: "it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth" (Genesis VI, verse 6). Instead, in the Qur'an Allah is named al-tawwab (Q. II: 37), i.e. the Revoker: He goes back on His condemnation of the sinner as He likes to do being the All-Compassionate Lord. Shah Wall Allah of Delhi (d. 1762) remarks that

the use of anthropomorphism is permissible on condition that these terms offer not the least occasion for the idea that animal slurs are cast on God's Essence... Hence, one can say of God that He sees and hears, but not that He tastes and touches'1.

In addition to this observation of the Delhi scholar, I would like to raise the question: Can one as ^ a Muslim, on the basis of the Qur'an, claim that Allah loves man, and that man is allowed to speak of his love of God? Here 1 submit, many Muslims may feel a bit uneasy, as this notion could imply a kind of equality on the assumption that only between equals love is supposable. In his well-known study God Justice Daud Rahbar declares that in connection with Allah he prefers to render ahabba by 'to like or to approve' (instead of its usual version 'to love'). And "if we adopt the translation 'loves' for yukibbu when it is used (in the Qur'an) with God as the subject, nowhere do we find the idea that God loves mankind. God's love is conditional. He loves those who do good, those who turn repentant to Him, and so on. Unqualified Divine love for mankind is an idea completely alien to the Qur'an"?

In particular, this last peremptory pronouncement "an idea completely alien to the Qur'an" provoked me to prepare a paper in Dutch, entitled "De Liefde Gods in de Koran"6. I offer some of my conclusions: First, the most fundamental driving motive evoking God's love of man is shown in the Qur'an:

"On those who believe and do deeds of righteousness the allmerciful shall assign love" (XIX: 96).

This agrees with Rahbar's claim that God's love, as described in the Qur'an, is conditional, is, what we might say 'provided with a rational motive'. The ascertainement that God's love of man is well grounded is reiterated in the majority of texts dealing with divine love. The 'majority', but not all of them! Some remarkable exceptions can be noticed: on occasion Allah might bestow the free and unlimited largesse of His condescending favour on men. In Q. XX:39 there is mention of an amoK Vei which takes preserving care of the child Moses, and God reminds Moses that at the time he was put into the papyrus craddle "1 loaded on thee love from Me"

Even more significant is a passage in the Qur'an (V:54) which testifies to a yearning love of God, It seems that He is constantly in need of men who might love Him:

"0 ye who believe, if any from among you turn back from his religion, God will assuredly produce a people He will love, and who will love Him".

A specific expression of unconditional and irrational love is Allah's election of Adam and Jonah notwithstanding their bad record. Thus we read in the Qur'an: "And Adam disobeyed his Lord, and so he erred. Thereafter his Lord chose him, and turned again to him" (Q. XX: 121 f.); and

"Had not grace from his Lord reached the Man of the Firh, he would hae been cast upon the wilderness, in disgrace. Thus did his hord choose him and place him among the righteous" (Q. LXVI11: 49).

Let us now return to our starting-point, that is the apparently awkward position we are put in by the Qur'an which on the one hand warns us that God is 'incomparable': "not any one is equal to Him" (Q. CXII:4); "Like Him there is none" (Q. LII:11), and on the other hand does not shrink from the use of plain anthropo morphisms:

• "God said: '0 Iblis, what prevented your bowing to one 1 created with My own two hands?'" (Q. XXXVI1I:75);
• "Then We said to Noah: 'Make the Ark under Our eyes'" (Q. XXIII:27);
• "We (the servants of God) feed you (the poor, orphan, captive) for the sake of God's face" (Q. LXXVI:9);
• "When (at the world's end) the earth shall become fine dust scattered, and thy Lord comes" (Q. LXXX1X:22).

"Comes", in other words, is a movement in place which contradicts the idea of a God who is omnipresent. The way out of this dilemma found by Muslim orthodoxy is, as mentioned above, the synthetic principle of the 'golden mean', a middle position between tashbih ('likening', the claim that God can be likened to things created) and ta'wil (denying God all attributes). The compromise itself is defined by the Hanbalites and Ash'arites 7 as bi-la kayf wa la tashbih, without how and without likening, i.e. we renounce the possibility of fathoming the meaning of anthropomorphisms because this is only known to God, and we acknowledge that there exists no analogy between them and human hands, eyes, face, and so on. Or to express the same idea in the words of Malik b. Anas (d. 795): "God's sitting on the throne is known, but how this is to be understood is unknown; believing this is a duty, questioning it a heresy". J.W. Sweetman concludes that such withdrawing of the human element from expressions and ideas regarding the godhead is equivalent to the ascription of qualities to God in sensu eminentiori 8. A.J. Arberry seems to support this elucidation of Sweetman when rendering anthropomorphisms like al-sami' al-basir as All hearing, and All-seeing 9, obviously in distinction to man, who is merely hearing and seeing. Even more ingenious is a similar solution of Ahmad al-Ghazali (d. 1126) who distinguishes in his Samnih between divine love which penetrates into the innermost heart, and human love which does not reach out farther than the shaghaf the membrane around the heart, as one may gather from (Q. X1I:29) where it is said about Joseph that his love hard only touched the membrane of Zulaykha's heart. 10

It is time now to tackle the central question: Does the Qur'an by itself provide any clue for the way anthropomorphisms might be approached; or to put it in a more concrete manner: does it somehow justify a metaphorical interpretation of them, or is it a condemnable method inevitably leading to a misrepresentation of the evident intent of the Holy Book and its message?

To begin with, efforts of attributing a symbolic meaning to anthropomorphisms will surely not derive any support from Muslim orthodoxy. In his commentary on the Hanafi-Maturidi 11 text Fiqh Akbar II 'Ali al-Qari al-Harawi (d. 1605) observes:

As a natter of fact, 1 have found that the theological fathers unanimously say that it is not allowed to interpret the hand of God metaphorically... On this point they make a distinction between ta'wil (metaphorical interpretation) and tafwid (leaving the interpretation of anthropomorphic expressions to Allah)12.

Ta'wil is a speciality of mystics and Shi'ites, as well as of Mu'tazilites. A famous representative of the latter, 'Abd al-Jabbar (d. 1025) remarks in the important handbook of his dogmatics al-Muhit bi'l-taklid

If there occur in the Qur'an verses that suppose by their outward meaning a similarity (between God and this world), they need ta'wil because such expressions can be interpreted in more ways.13

"In more ways": this refers to the view that anthropomor phisms belong to the category of the mutashabihat, Qur'anic passages which are ambiguous and not clearly intelligible. In trying to discover the true sense of Qur'anic anthropomorphisms, the Mu'tazilites (a) make use of linguistic arguments, and

(b) place these non-clearly-intelligible terms against the background of the the Islamic revelation.

Both of these are methods which will surely meet the approval of presentday scholars of Islam. Let us first examine what kind of means we have at our disposal in respect of linguistic arguments. To start with: how does this matter stand as regards the language we are speaking? The Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary shows that in English the hand can convey a symbolic sense in view of its grasping or gripping function; specifically, (a) possession; as, the papers are not in my hands; (b) control, power, authority; as, he rules with an iron hand; (c) care, charge, supervision; as, the child is in good hands; (d) agency, influence; as, one can see his hand in the affair; (e) an active part, share; as, take a hand in this work.

Four figurative senses can be attached to the concept 'eye'. As for a possible metaphorical interpretation of the word 'face', that is to say as indicative of favour, Webster quotes a Biblical passage. In Proverbs VII, verse 15, a woman who endeavours to persuade an unwary promenader to engage in unlawful sexual intercourse says: "therefore came I forth to meet thee, fervently to seek thy face, and I have found thee". "Fervently to seek thy face", i.e. thy favour.

Now let us consider a linguistic argument supplied by the Qur'an itself. An example of a colloquial phrase found in it that aptly explains an anthropomorphic phrase elsewhere in the Holy Book is in (Q. XVII, 29) the commandment directed to the believers: "And keep not thy hand fettered (like a niggard) to thy neck, nor stretch it out widespread altogether", that is to say: be neither niggardly nor profuse, but observe the mean between the two extremes, wherein consists true liberality. Exactly the same symbo lic language is used in (Q. V, 67) with regard to God's hands.

The Jews say: 'God's hand is fettered'. Fettered are their hands, and they are cursed for what they have said. Nay, but His hands are outstretched.

Al-Zamakhshari (d. 1144), the well-known Mu'tazilite Qur'an exegete, simply states that yadu 'llahi maghlulatun is an expression for niggardliness.lh Of more importance for the subject matter of our discussion, however, is the evidence that commentators whom the Muslims themselves hold to be orthodox also apparently do not feel any scruple in resorting to ta'wil when confronted with this Qur'anic verse. al-Baydawi (d. 1286) who, as a rule, is keen on amending Mu'tazilite views of al-Zamakhshari explains:

The fettering of a hand and its being outspread is a metaphor for niggardliness and liberality.15

al-Tabari (d. 923), whose commentary is virtually an encyclopedia of traditions handed down from first and second generation scholars of Islam concerning the interpretation of Qur'anic passages, reproduces in his comment of this verse a dispute in which some claim that the hand of God is an expression for His grace, some others say that His hand represents His power, and again another group regards it as a reference to His ownership.16 In the Egyptian al- Manar commentary, which is practically orthodox, Rashid Rida (d. 1935) refers to Ibn 'Abbas (d. 686), whom he calls the great authority of Qur'anic interpretation, for the ancestors as well as the later generations. According to the Egyptian exegete, the latter's statements warrant him to conclude that God's outspread, hands symbolize His great munificence.17

If, however, we appear to be enabled to adopt in our argumentation the maxim that the best elucidation of the Qur'an is to be expected from the Qur'an itself, we possess the strongest evidence for the justification of a metaphorical interpretation of the anthropomorphisms.

In this connection, we should focus our attention on the Qur'anic anthropomorphic locution: ibtigha' wajhi 'llahi desiring fervently the face of God. Verses in the Qur'an where the phrase is met are as follows: ...

And whatever good you give away benefits your own souls, for then you are giving away, desiring fervently the face of God (II: 272);

Do not drive away (said to Muhammad) those (i.e. the poor followers whose expulsion was made a condition by some leading Qurayshites, if they were to join Muhammad) who call upon their Lord in the morning and evening, desiring fervently His face (VI:52);

And they who persevere desiring fervently the face of their Lord... ? their shall be the Ultimate Abode (Paradise) (X1I1:22);

So give what is due to your fellow-creature, the needy and the traveller; that is the best for those who desire fervently God's face... : and what of alms you give away desiring fervently God's face, you will get back twice the amount (XXX:38 f.)

In all these texts the fervent desire to secure the face of God proves to render a powerful motivation for perseverence in the course of hardships and persecution, for giving alms and doing other good works. What could this mean and what does the face of God intimate in the context given? The answer is supplied by the Qur'an itself, for in parallel passages the expression ibtigha' wajhi 'llahi has been substituted by ibtigha' ridwani 'llahi (desiring fervently the favour of God, LV1I:27), by ibtigha' rahmatin min rabbika (seeking mercy from thy Lord, XV1I-.28), and by ibtigha' mardati 'llahi (desiring fervently the good pleasure of God, 11:207 and 265). Thus we read in the Qur'an (11:265): "And they who give away from their possessions out of a fervent desire to please God [ibtigha' mardati 'llahi). (Compare this with the above quoted 11:272).

For scholars of the Old Testament it is a well-known issue that the face of God often possesses the surplus value of the benevotzvit face of God. In a most imaginative way this is indicated in Genesis XXXIII, verse 10, where Jacob says to his brother Esau: "If now I have found grace in your sight, then receive the present from my hand; for 1 have discovered the same expression in your face as in the countenance of God, and you were pleased with me". In this Holy Book seven times is spoken of searching for (baras) the panee Jahwe, the face of Jahw^ which is favourably turned towards men. In 2 Chronicles VII, verse 14, the Lord says unto Solomon: "If my people... shall humble themselves, pray, seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin".

Now that we can establish that not only common parlance but also the Qur'an itself justifies the application of ta'ttil, we have to stipulate simultaneously that the metaphorical interpreta tion as such ought to be consistent with the context of the phrase that is given a figurative sense. No particular dogmatic preference of the interpreter should enter into it. The Imamite 19 Sharif al-Murtada al-Huda (d. 1044), who studied under several non Shi'ite scholars among whom the notorious Mu'tazilite 'Abd al-Jabbar, thinks it unworthy of God's honour that He chose Abraham as a friend. Khaflil in Q. IV: 125 has to be taken in a different sense. To this end al-Murtadi quotes a verse of the pre Islamic poet Zubayr in which khaM. conveys the meaning of 'a needy person'.19 Although this interpretation may be based on sound philological grounds, it is clearly a distortion of the sense khaSL has in view of the immediate context in which the religion (rruJ ah) of Abraham is set off as a pattern to be followed by Muslims. On the other hand, to my mind the interpretative method used by the Mu'tazilite al-Zamakhshari in this case is allowable. "Friend", so he argues, "is a trope indicative of Abraham's election and his being favoured with esteem."20

The permissibility of a metaphorical interpretation within proper limits has the additional advantage that in this way the Qur'anic anthropomorphisms impart a specific aesthetic delight to the reader. They need no longer be accepted as necessary concomitants to an insufficient capacity in man's faculty of abstracting so that he is compelled to form notions about divine attributes which are derived from his own imagination and deduced from the creation around him. On the contrary, anthropomorphisms might produce a poetical ring and may enhance the expressiveness and rhetorical power of (Qur'anic diction. The Qur'an (Vll:54) says about God: "His is the creation and the preservation of the universe (amr)"21. This is the definition of a principle, an abstract truth. Much more suggestive, however, is the poetical wording of the same idea in anthropomorphic terms, as is clone in Q. X:3 where it is described how God after the creation of the heavens and the earth in six days ascends His throne "to arrange the ami", i.e. to plan His government. The throne, al-Baydawi comments, is a tamthil, a typification of God's majesty.22 Rashid Rida endorses this state ment, declaring that the pictorial representation of the Lord's sitting Himself on the throne lends vigour and depth to the abstract truth that heavens and earth are under His authority.25 Indeed, the most essential function of the anthropomorphisms in the Qur'an is to lend vigour and depth to the various aspects of its message.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Muslim, al-Birr wa'l-Silah 115
2. A.J. Wensinck, The Muslim Cteed (London 1965), p. 92
3. Fadlou Shehadi, Ghazali's Unique and Unknouiabte God (Leiden 1964), p. LI
4. Shah Wall Allah, Hujjat Allah at-Balighah (Delhi 1954/5), vol. I, p. 63
5. Daud Rahbar, God of Justice (Leiden I960), p. 172
6. Nederlands Theoiogishh Tijdschift XVI (1962), pp. 337-343
7. The creed of the Ash'arites is almost identical with orthodoxy, while the Hanbalites, being declared anti-rationalists, represent the right wing of orthodox Muslims.
8. J.W. Sweetman, Islam and Chustian Theology (London 1947), vol. I, part 2, p. 34
9. A.J. Arberry, The Koian Jntzipietzd (London 1964), passim.
10. Ahmad al-Ghazali, Sawanih, ed. H. Ritter (Istanbul 1942), p. 53
11. Allowing more scope to the human will than the Ash'arites, the Hanafi- Maturidites may be classed with the left wing of orthodoxy.
12. Ali al-Qari al-Harawi, Shaih at-fiqh al-AkbaA (Cairo 1909), p. 93
13. 'Abd al-Jabbar, at-Muhtt bi'l-TakJUi (Cairo 1969), vol. 1, p. 199
14. Al-Zamakhshari, Mahmud b. 'Umar, al-Kaschshaf (Cairo 1889/90), vol. 1, p. 266
15. al-Baydawi, Awofa al-Tanz1l (Cairo 1902/03), vol. I, p. 200
16. al-Tabari, Muhammad b. Jarir, Jami al-Bayan (Cairo 1954), vol. VI, p. 301
17. at-Mandl (Cairo 1911/12), vol. VI, p. 454
18. Imamites, who recognize twelve imams, are moderate Shi'ites.
19. I. Goldziher, Via Richtungen der Islamamischen Koranauslegung (Leiden 1920), p. 166
20. al-Zamakhshari, ai- Kashshaf, vol. I, p. 230
21. For this interpretation of ami see J.M.S. Baljon, "The 'amr of God* in the Koran", Acta Olientatia, XXIII 1-2 (1955), p. 9
22. al-Baydawi, Anwar al-Tanzil, vol. I, p. 97
23. al-Manar (Cairo 1935), vol. XI, p. 295

Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE / Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism (Ar. tashbīh, lit., making similar; comparing, likening), the tendency to liken God to man or to endow God with human traits, although supported by anthropomorphic descriptions of God in the Qurʾān and ḥadīth, was denounced time and again by scholars of almost every current of Islamic thought. As a general rule, the Islamic faith adheres to the concept of a transcendent God, who is different from all existing things, as stated in Qurʾān 42:11 “Like Him there is naught.” This verse and its equivalent, Q 112:4 “and equal to Him is not any one,” gave rise to the concept that ascribing human attributes, human organs, and human feelings to God and comparing (Ar. tamthīl) God’s actions to human actions are heresies.

The overall denunciation of anthropomorphism in Sunnī Islam existed alongside an acceptance of the anthropomorphic descriptions of God in the Qurʾān and ḥadīth. Numerous anthropomorphic sayings inspired by Qurʾānic verses and anthropomorphic ḥadīth accounts formed the lion’s share of the teachings of the early traditionists (ahl al-ḥadīth, muḥaddithūn) and Qurʾān exegetes. The approach towards these teachings has set the basic boundaries of the theological controversy: while the rationalists (mainly the Muʾtazila) rejected these teachings, the traditionalists (mainly Hanbalīs and Ashʾarīs), unable to reject them, had to employ different solutions in order to reconcile, on the one hand, the prohibition on comparing God to His creation with, on the other, the anthropomorphic accounts contained in the Qurʾān and ḥadīth.

The illegitimacy of anthropomorphic views is well reflected in the relevant terminology and its usages. Tashbīh has the negative connotation of a heretical doctrine. Accordingly, the term mushabbih, (“anthropomorphist,” pl. mushabbiha or mushabbihūn) is always used as a term of opprobrium and never as a title one would willingly assume. Other contemptuous terms used to indicate anthropomorphists are ḥashwiyya, meaning “scholars of little worth,” and nābita, “a bad lot.” The different usages of the terms ḥashwiyya and mushabbiha demonstrate the complexity of the debate on anthropomorphism: on the one hand, these terms were used by Muʾtazilī rationalists to denote traditionalists in general, for their unquestioning acceptance of anthropomorphic accounts; on the other hand, they were used by Ashʾarī traditionalists to attack Hanbalī traditionalists, whom they perceived, in some cases wrongfully, as extreme literalists. The Ashʾarīs, however, came out with a line of reasoning that supports applying the name mushabbiha even to the Muʾtazilīs. According to ʾAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī (d. 429/1037), this name fits Muʾtazilīs of the Basran school because of their claim that God’s will is created like human will (ʾAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī, 200). In the heresiographical literature, the term mushabbiha is also used to denote individuals whose illegitimate and exceptional anthropomorphic views were based on undisclosed mythologies and philosophical arguments and not necessarily on textual evidence.

1. Anthropomorphism in the Qurʾān and Hadith

The widely documented theological debates on anthropomorphism revolve around textual evidence. God’s mightiness, His other attributes (ṣifāt Allāh), and His actions are described in anthropomorphic language. Apart from God’s face (e.g., Q 55:27: “All that dwells upon the earth is perishing, yet still abides the Face of thy Lord”), eyes (e.g., Q 11:37: “Make thou the Ark under Our eyes”), hands (e.g., Q 48:10: “God’s hand is over their hands”), leg (Q 68:42: “Upon the day when the leg shall be bared”), and side (Q 39:56 in the idiomatic phrase fī janb Allāh, translated by Arberry as “my duty to God”), the Qurʾānic text ascribes two actions to God that seem to be confined to limitations of time and space: God sits on His throne (e.g., Q 20:5: “the All-compassionate sat Himself upon the Throne”), and God arrives (Q 89:22: “When the earth is ground to powder, and thy Lord comes”). The Qurʾān also ascribes to God what might be interpreted as human feelings, that is, anthropopathism, with emotions such as mercy, anger, and satisfaction.

Various ḥadīth accounts broaden the anthropomorphic description of God in the Qurʾān by ascribing more body parts to God, such as fingers, and more physically- defined actions, such as physical loftiness and descent. God has a form or image, according to the following oftencited tradition: “God created Adam in the form of the Merciful (ʾalā ṣūrat al-raḥmān). His height was sixty cubits” (al-Bukhārī, Sahih, K. al-Istiʾdhān, bāb 1). The anthropomorphic descriptions of God, scattered in various sections of ḥadīth compilations, including the canonical ones, are related to several theological topics, apart from the topic of God’s essence and attributes: predetermination, repentance and prayer, eschatology, and the actual seeing of God. Most of these accounts are on the authority of the Prophet. That God holds the hearts of all human beings between two of His fingers is a tradition usually connected to the discussions on predetermination (al-qaḍāʾ wa-l-qadar; Muslim, Sahih, K. al-Qadar, bāb 3). An argument between Moses and Adam, in which Adam claims that God wrote the Torah “with His own hand” for Moses, and Moses, in another version, claims that God created Adam “with His own hand,” is also connected to the discussions on predetermination (Muslim, Sahih, K. al-Qadar, bāb 2; al-Bukhārī, Sahih, K. al-Qadar, bāb 11). God’s laughter is mentioned in a description of two men arriving in heaven after one had murdered the other, repented, and died for the sake of God (fī sabīl Allāh). God laughs in the presence of both men (al-Bayhaqī, 467–8; Ibn Khuzayma, 569–70; al-Ājurrī, 292–3). God promises the Prophet that He will replace every Muslim sinner in Hell with a Jew or a Christian, and laughs (Aḥmad b. Hanbal, Musnad, 14:538–9; al-Ājurrī, 295). God’s exact location is described by the Prophet: “Above the seventh heaven there is a sea […], and above it are eight gigantic mountain goats. The distance between each goat’s hoofs and knees is like the distance between two heavens. And God is above all these” (al-Sijistānī, Sunan Abī Dāwūd, K. al-Sunna, bāb 19; al-Ājurrī, 305). God descends to the lower heaven every night to hear the Muslims’ prayers and to comply with their requests (al-Bukhārī, Sahih, K. al- Tahajjud, bāb 14; al-Ājurrī, 319–27). The notion of ruʾyat Allāh, that is, the actual seeing of God as a reward to believers on the day of resurrection (yawm al-qiyāma), which is based on Q 75:22–3 (“Upon that day faces shall be radiant; gazing upon their Lord”) and several ḥadīth reports by the Companions, can also be considered as anthropomorphic, although what the believers will see with their own eyes is not specified (al-Bukhārī, Sahih, K. al-Tawḥīd, bāb 24; al-Ājurrī, 272–85).

The recitation of these anthropomorphic texts was accompanied by hand gestures, meant to clarify and emphasise certain ideas. An integral part of the texts, these gestures (ishāra, pl. ishārāt), performed by the early traditionists, underscored both the message of a god confined to limitations of space and the anthropomorphic message. A report on the Prophet asking a slave girl, “Who is your Lord?” was most likely accompanied by pointing a finger to the sky as a demonstration of the slave girl’s answer (Ibn Khuzayma, 278–8). There are several reports that the Prophet himself used hand gestures in order to interpret or emphasise anthropomorphic language. After reciting Q 39:67 (“The earth altogether shall be His handful on the Day of Resurrection, and the heavens will be rolled up in His right hand”), the Prophet added: “He will move the earth with his fingers like so.” The hand gesture is not described, but apparently the pulpit, which the Prophet grabbed with his fists, started to shake. (Ahmad b. Hanbal, Musnad, 5:59–60,138; Ibn Khuzayma, 170–1; Ibn Taymiyya, al-Risāla al-ʾarshiyya, in Majmūʾat al-fatāwā, 6:335–6). While commenting that unlike the Dajjāl (the Antichrist), God is not one-eyed (aʾwar), the Prophet pointed his finger at his eye (al-Bukhārī, Sahih, K. al-Fitan, bāb 26; al-Bayhaqī, 312). While reciting the last part of Q 4:58 (“and God hears all and sees everything”), the Prophet put his thumb on his ear and his forefinger on his eye (Ibn Khuzayma, 97). This anecdote caused uneasiness among later traditionalists. Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), for instance, quotes this account while adding that the intention of the Prophet, by making this gesture, was surely to affirm the divine attributes of hearing and seeing, and not to compare the Creator with His creation (Ibn Taymiyya, Sharḥ al-ʾaqīda al-Isfahāniyya, 136).

2. Traditionalistic views and argumentations

Drawing authority solely from divine revelation, tradition (naql) , and the teachings of al-salaf, i.e., the traditionists of past generations, the basic traditionalist stance was to accept the anthropomorphic accounts literally. Traditionalistic creeds (ʾaqīda, pl. ʾaqāʾid) often open with the statement “We believe in what is written in the Qurʾān and Sunna. We do not interpret the text.” (al-Shahrastānī, Milal, 1:104. Sufyān b. ʾUyayna, d. 196/811, emphasises the prohibition on interpreting the anthropomorphic descriptions in the Qurʾān, whether in Arabic or Persian; al-Bayhaqī, 314). This approach is sometimes called “the safe path” (ṭarīq al-salāma). The traditionalists, who considered themselves followers of the early traditionists, based their teachings on a devout adherence to the texts. They called their conviction “affirmation” (ithbāt) and never “anthropomorphism” (tashbīh), hence the name they gave themselves, “the people who affirm [God’s attributes]” (ahl al-ithbāt). That they never saw themselves as mushabbiha is well illustrated by the following report on Aḥmad b. Hanbal (d. 241/855), the eponym of the Hanbalī school and a prominent representative of traditionalism: “Aḥmad disapproved of anthropomorphism. He said that the mushabbiha say: ‘[God’s] sight is like my sight. [God’s] hand is like my hand. [God’s] foot is like my foot.’ He declared that whoever says such things likens God to His creation.” (Abū Yaʾlā, Ibṭāl, 1:43). Aḥmad severely restricted the use of spontaneous gestures, which were not recorded in the texts, while reciting Qurʾānic verses and anthropomorphic ḥadīth accounts. His disciples reported that one day a man recited Q 39:67 (“The earth altogether shall be His handful …) and while reciting, pointed at his own fist. Aḥmad was angry with the man, and cursed him, saying that God would cut off his hand. (Aḥmad b. Hanbal, Masāʾil, 1:307–8). In another report, Ahmad b. Hanbal and Dāwūd b. ʾAlī al-Isfahānī (d. 270/884) said that whoever moved his hand while reciting Q 38:75 (“… that I created with My own hands?”), or made a gesture using his two fingers while transmitting “the heart of the believer is between two of the Merciful’s fingers,” must have his hand cut off [in the first case] and his finger detached [in the second] (al-Shahrastānī, Milal, 1:104).

Influenced by an atmosphere rife with theological debates, the traditionalists were not satisfied with repeating their declarations of adherence to the texts, and they adopted rationalised argumentation as well. The basic argument justifying the acceptance of anthropomorphic accounts is a total commitment to God’s own description of Himself. Hence, rejecting these accounts would equal a rejection of God’s own description of Himself in the Qurʾān and ḥadīth (Ibn Khuzayma, 26–7). Another argument for the acceptance of anthropomorphic accounts is the prestige and trustworthiness of the reliable ḥadīth transmitters. Just as the Islamic community accepts accounts on legal matters and religious practices on the authority of those traditionists, it must accept the so-called anthropomorphic accounts that they transmitted (al-Ājurrī, 319–20). In his defining Kitāb al-tawḥīd (lit. “The book of God’s unity”), Ibn Khuzayma (d. 311/924) presents the entire set of proanthropomorphic rationalised arguments. For example, how do we know that God has a face? Because there is a prayer in which the Prophet asks God to allow him to look on His face. Ibn Khuzayma hence argues: “Is it not but reasonable that the Prophet would not have asked his Lord the impossible? Concluding from the Prophet’s wish to experience the joy of seeing His face, it is perfectly clear that God has a face.” (Ibn Khuzayma, 30). Confessing that God has a face does not mean likening Him to human beings, because unlike the human face, God’s face is eternal and will never perish; His face has glory, light, and honour, while the human face cannot be described in comparable terms (Ibn Khuzayma, 53–4). In the same vein, God’s having two hands does not mean likening Him to His creation, because He has two right hands. He is far too exalted to have a left hand, as created beings do (Ibn Khuzayma, 197–8). Ibn Khuzayma also uses linguistic arguments: the word face (wajh) applies to all kinds of faces, which are very different from one another. The same word is used for the human face and the face of animals, such as dogs, lions, donkeys, and even scorpions. All these have faces, but no one thinks of comparing their faces with the human face, except in instances when defamation is intended (Ibn Khuzayma, 55).

In Kitāb al-sharīʾa (lit. “The book of law”), the Hanbalī scholar Abū Bakr al-Ājurrī (d. 360/971) states that the acceptance of anthropomorphic accounts must be accompanied by the expression “without asking how” (bi-lā kayfa; some add bi-lā maʾnā, “without inquiring into the meaning [of these accounts]”; Abū Yaʾlā, Ibṭāl al-taʾwīlāt, 1:45). In the circles of the early traditionists like al-Awzāʾī (d. 157/774), Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 161/778), and al- Layth b. Saʾd (d. 175/791), bi-lā kayfa meant bi-lā tafsīr “without an attempt to explain or interpret these accounts” (al-Ājurrī, 327–32). This instruction is illustrated by the following saying by Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/796): “The sitting [on the Throne] is known (from the Qurʾānic verses), but the way it is actually done is unknown. Believing it is obligatory, and questioning it is an undesirable innovation” (al-Bayhaqī, 408–9; Ibn Taymiyya, Munā􀃘ara, in Majmūʾat al-fatāwā, 3:109; al-Shahrastānī, Milal, 1:93; Abrahamov, Bi-lā kayfa , 366).

3. The rationalistic stand and the Ashʿari solution

The rationalists, preferring human reason (ʾaql) to revelation and tradition in several theological issues, perceived the anthropomorphic verses in the Qurʾān as allegorical or figurative accounts meant to symbolise God’s attributes and actions. For example, God’s hand symbolises His power (Mānakdīm, 228. The figurative interpretation of the Qurʾān applied by Muʾtazilīs is not considered here. On it, see: Mānakdīm, 224–30; Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism, 6ff.; Lane, 107–13, 141–5). The rationale behind these interpretations arises from the rationalists’ anxious defence of God’s absolute otherness and transcendence, along with a negation of any similarity between the Creator and the creation. For the rationalists, God could not be a body (jism) or a form (ṣūra), and He certainly could not have body parts or any resemblance to a human being. (For rational argumentations against anthropomorphism and corporealism, see Schmidtke, 16–8; al-Malāḥimī, 297–328) This concept, also connected with the issue of God’s attributes (ṣifāt Allāh), is called tanzīh (transcendentalism) by those who hold to it, and taʾṭīl (divesting God of His attributes) by its opponents, the traditionalists.

The rationalistic stance towards the anthropomorphic ḥadīth accounts was a mixture of rejection and ridicule. These accounts were perceived by the rationalists as prolix, useless stories (aḥādīth maḥshuwwa) and fables (khurāfāt). The easiest targets were the most extreme anthropomorphic accounts, whose authenticity was disputed even by the traditionalists themselves. These accounts, in various versions, describe God laughing until His molars are revealed or as a young beardless man with curly hair, wearing a green garment, with golden sandals on His two feet, sitting on His Throne carried by the angels. (For the largest collection of versions, see Abū Yaʾlā, Ibṭāl, 133–49; for a discussion on this tradition see Ibn al-Murtaḍa, 123; Ibn al-Jawzī, 181; van Ess, TG, 4:380–1; Swartz, 180–4; according to al-Shahrastānī, these false accounts were borrowed from Jewish sources and fabricated as ḥadīth accounts, al-Milal, 1:106; see also references in van Ess, TG, 4:381). Still, the rationalists also attacked the authentic ḥadīth accounts whose message they perceived as tashbīh. According to Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889), who recorded the Muʾtazilī arguments against the authentic ḥadīth accounts, the Muʾtazilī stand was a rejection of these ḥadīth accounts altogether, except in the case when a figurative interpretation was given. For example, when debating the account that describes God’s two fingers holding the heart of the believer, the Muʾtazilī would be willing to accept its authenticity, but only provided that “God’s two fingers” was interpreted as God’s graces (niʾma, pl. niʾam). To that Ibn Qutayba responds that there are other ḥadīth accounts according to which God carries the earth on His finger. Hence, God’s finger cannot be God’s grace, but is simply God’s finger, however different from human fingers this finger may be (Ibn Qutayba, 263–4).

The anti-anthropomorphist stance of the Muʾtazilīs and their figurative interpretation of anthropomorphic verses in the Qurʾān influenced the traditionalistic stance. The traditionalists, who could not reject the anthropomorphic ḥadīth accounts, employed different solutions in order to divest the texts of their anthropomorphic meaning. Ibn Qutayba, for instance, takes the figurative approach when he interprets the account according to which God has two right hands as an expression of God’s perfection. God cannot have a left hand, associated with misfortune and imperfection (Ibn Qutayba, 264–5). In a systematic interpretation of anthropomorphic Qurʾānic verses and ḥadīth accounts, the Ashʾarī scholar Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī (d. 458/1066) describes the figurative approach taken by the Ashʾarīs: God’s two hands are two divine attributes and not a part of the body (jāriḥa); God’s two fingers are His power and rule; God’s face is His mercy (al-Bayhaqī, 301–14; the Ashʾarī theologian Imām al-Haramayn al-Juwaynī, d. 478/1085, interprets God’s face as His existence, al-Juwaynī, 155).

The Ashʾarī solution to the problem of the anthropomorphic accounts in the Qurʾān and ḥadīth was an acceptance of all anthropomorphic accounts, including those rejected by the rationalists, while employing the means of a figurative interpretation. Like earlier traditionalists, the Ashʾarīs added the formula bi-lā kayfa— not, however, in the straightforward traditionalistic sense of “without asking how” or “without a further comment,” but more in the sense of “without attributing physical characteristics” to God, thus applying transcendentalism (tanzīh) and avoiding tashbīh (Frank, 155–60; Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism, 6–7). Promoted mainly by Ashʾarī theologians, the bi-lā kayfa formula functioned as a unifying factor within the traditionalistic front. The use of this formula by both Hanbalī and Ashʾarī thinkers allowed for an acceptance of a literal understanding of the anthropomorphic texts with the use of a figurative interpretation, thus making the differences between thinkers and trends within Sunnī Islam in that regard rather indistinct (Frank, 161–4; Swartz, 56–64; Abrahamov, Ibn Taymiyya on the Agreement, 266, n. 67; al-Azmeh, 253–66, esp. 265).

4. The identification of the anthropomorphists

With the establishment of the concept of transcendentalism in the teachings and writings of Ashʾarī and even Hanbalī thinkers, anthropomorphism was rejected. Muʾtazilī, Ashʾarī, and even Hanbalī scholars were engaged in denouncing thinkers for their so-called anthropomorphic views. Within the ahl al-ithbāt, the Hanbalīs, perceived as the most prominent exponents of anthropomorphism in Sunnī Islam, had to deal with this accusation time and again. The most famous example is that of the Damascene Hanbalī scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), whose enemies within the highest ranks of the religious traditionalist establishment of Damascus and Cairo accused him of anthropomorphism. Nevertheless, in his al-ʾAqīda al-wāsiṭiyya, Ibn Taymiyya embraces the bi-lā kayfa formula. According to him, the true Sunnī faith accepts the descriptions of God in the Qurʾān and ḥadīth “without misinterpreting [the text], without divesting [God of His attributes], without asking how, and without comparing [God to His creation]” (min ghayr taḥrīf wa-lā taʾṭīl wamin ghayr takyīf wa-lā tamthīl; Ibn Taymiyya, al-ʾAqīda al-wāsiṭiyya, in Majmūʾat al-fatāwā, 3:87). Accusations of anthropomorphism were also exchanged between Hanbalīs. The Hanbalī theologian Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201) fiercely attacked the Hanbalī theologian Abū Yaʾlā (also known as Ibn al-Farrāʾ, d. 458/1066), who actually held rationalistic views (see Abū Yaʾlā, al-Muʾtamad, 19ff.), for promoting anthropomorphic views and literal readings in his teachings, in order to attract the masses (Swartz, 121–2; 135–6 n. 235). Nevertheless, Abū Yaʾlā was actually a proponent of the traditionalist-Ashʾarī approach of accepting the anthropomorphic descriptions “without attributing body members and parts” to God (Abū Yaʾlā, Ibṭāl, 146). Ibn al-Jawzī’s attack, then, can be explained by Abū Yaʾlā’s acceptance of traditions denounced by Ibn al-Jawzī and others as fabrications (for example, the tradition of God as a young man; Abū Yaʾlā, Ibṭāl, 146–9; Swartz, 180–4).

Besides the alleged anthropomorphists who based their arguments on textual proofs, there is also evidence of thinkers who based their views on speculation. Their teachings have not survived as such but can be reconstructed mostly from the heresiographical literature, whose biased nature poses difficulties for trying to assess the circulation of views or even to authenticate these views. For example, apart from the reports on extreme Shīʾī groups and extreme Sūnnī traditionists with anthropomorphic views (al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal, 1:92–109; Ibn al-Murtaḍa, 22–34), the sources also describe the mujassima, i.e., corporealists. The concept of corporealism (tajsīm), i.e., that God is a body (jism), is frequently mentioned in the sources, juxtaposed with the concept of anthropomorphism (see al-Shahrastānī’s discussion on the Karrāmiyya; al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal, 1:108–12). Nevertheless, there is not always a complete similarity between the views of the anthropomorphists and the corporealists. Some of these rationalist thinkers, like the Imāmī theologian Hishām b. al-Hakam (d. 180/796), claimed that God was a body (jism), while rejecting His resemblance to man (al-Ashʾarī, 34; Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism, 3–4; see also the numerous references in van Ess, TG, 2:528–32).

Another case that illustrates the difficulties posed by the sources is the case of the Qurʾān exegete Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767). The sources describe him as an extreme anthropomorphist, who believed that God is flesh and blood. His views, as reflected in his Tafsīr, show that the opposite was true, and that he struggled to find allegorical interpretations of anthropomorphic descriptions in the Qurʾān (al-Ashʾarī, 209; van Ess, TG, 4:1080; for further references, see van Ess, TG, 4:1059; Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism, 4–5; Goldfeld, 13).

The heresiographical sources also describe the Jews and the Christians as anthropomorphists. “The Jews liken the Creator to a creature, and the Christians liken a creature to the Creator,” says al-Shahrastānī (d. 548/1153), the leading Ashʾarī heresiographer (al-Shahrastānī adds his reservation that not all the Jews are anthropomorphists, just the Karaites; al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal, 1:93). These accusations impelled Jewish spokesmen to explain the anthropomorphisms in the Hebrew Bible (Wolfson, 41–6).

Bibliography

Translations of Qurʾānic verses in this entry are taken from A. J. Arberry, The Koran interpreted , London 1964. It should be noted that Ahmed Ali’s translation systematically avoids anthropomorphic language. See, for example, his translation of Q 38:75 (“… what I created by My own authority,” instead of “with My own hands,” as Arberry has it ;

• Ahmed Ali, al-Qurʾān, Princeton 1984). For further references to traditions in the canonical compilations, see A. J. Wensinck, Concordance et indices de la tradition musulmane (Leiden 1936) 2:40, 71, 201; 3:438, 485, 5:460; 6:414; 7:260.

Sources

• Abū Yaʾlā b. al-Farrāʾ, Ibṭāl al-taʾwīlāt li-akhbār al-ṣifāt, ed. Abū ʾAbdallāh b. Hamd al-Hamūd al-Najdī, Hawallī 1989 ;
• Abū Yaʾlā b. al-Farrāʾ, Kitāb al-muʾtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, ed. Wadīʾ Zaydān Haddād, Beirut 1974 ;
• al-Ājurrī, Kitāb al-sharīʾa, Beirut 2000 ;
• al-Ashʾarī, Kitāb maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn wa-khtilāf al-muṣallīn, ed. Hellmut Ritter, Wiesbaden 1963 ;
• ʾAbd al-Qāhir b. 􀂔āhir al-Baghdādī, al-Farq bayna l-firaq wa-bayān al-firqa al-nājiya minhum, ed. Muḥammad ʾUthmān al- Khisht, Cairo [1988] ; Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. al-Husayn al-Bayhaqī, Kitāb al-asmāʾ wa-l- ṣifāt, ed. Muḥammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī, Beirut n.d. ;
• al-Bukhārī, al-Jāmiʾ al-Saḥīḥ, ed. Muḥibb al-Dīn al-Khaṭīb, Muḥammad Fuʾād ʾAbd al-Bāqī, and Quṣayy Muḥibb al-Dīn al-Khaṭīb (Cairo [1980]), 1:356; 4:135, 212, 325, 390 ;
• Aḥmad b. Hanbal, al-Masāʾil wa-l-rasāʾil al-marwiyya ʾan al-imām Aḥmad b. Hanbal, ed. ʾAbdallāh b. Salmān b. Sālim al-Aḥmadī, 2 vols., Riyadh 1991 ;
• Aḥmad b. Hanbal, al-Musnad lil-imām Aḥmad b. Hanbal, ed. Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir, 20 vols., Cairo 1995 ;
• Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb al-mawḍūʾāt min al-aḥādīth al-marfūʾāt, ed. Nūr al-Dīn b. Shukrī b. ʾAlī Būyā Jīlār, 4 vols., Riyadh 1997 ;
• Ibn Khuzayma, Kitāb al-tawḥīd wa-ithbāt ṣifāt al-Rabb ʾazza wa-jalla, ed. ʾAbd al-ʾAzīz b. Ibrāhīm al-Shahwān, Riyadh 1997 3 ;
• Ibn al-Murtaḍā, al-Munya wa-l-amal fī sharḥ al-Milal wa-l-niḥal, ed. Muḥammad Jawād Mashkūr, Beirut 1990 2 ;
• Ibn Qutayba, Taʾwīl mukhtalif al-ḥadīth, Cairo 1925 ;
• Ibn Taymiyya, al-ʾAqīda al-wāsiṭiyya, in ʾĀmir al-Jazzār and Anwar al-Bāz (eds.), Majmūʾat al-fatāwā (al-Manṣūra and Riyadh 1998), 3:87–105 ;
• Ibn Taymiyya, Munā􀃘ara fī l-ʾaqīda al-wāsiṭiyya, in ʾĀmir al-Jazzār and Anwar al-Bāz (eds.), Majmūʾat al-fatāwā (al-Manṣūra and Riyadh 1998), 3:106–255 ;
• Ibn Taymiyya, al-Risāla al-ʾarshiyya, in ʾĀmir al-Jazzār and Anwar al-Bāz (eds.), Majmūʾat al-fatāwā (al-Manṣūra and Riyadh 1998), 6:326–60 ;
• Ibn Taymiyya, Sharḥ al-ʾaqīda al-Isfāhāniyya, ed. Saʾīd b. Naṣr b. Muḥammad, Riyadh 2001 ;
• al-Juwaynī, Kitāb al-irshād ilā qawāṭiʾ al-adilla fī uṣūl al-iʾtiqād, ed. Muḥammad Yūsuf Mūsā and ʾAlī ʾAbd al-Munʾim ʾAbd al-Hamīd, Cairo 1950 ;
• Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad al-Malāḥimī, al-Muʾtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, ed. Wilferd Madelung, London 1991 ;
• Mānakdīm Aḥmad b. Husayn, Sharḥ al-uṣūl al-khamsa, ed. ʾAbd al-Karīm ʾUthmān (wrongly attributed to ʾAbd al-Jabbār b. Aḥmad al-Hamadhānī), Cairo 1965 ;
• Muslim b. al-Hajjāj, Sahih Muslim bi-sharḥ al-Nawawī, ed. Muḥammad Fuʾād ʾAbd al-Bāqī (Beirut 2000), 16:163–7 ;
• al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal wa-l-niḥal, ed. Muḥammad Sayyid al-Kīlānī, Beirut 1400/1980 ;
• al-Shahrastānī, Nihāyat al-iqdām fī ʾilm al-kalām, ed. Alfred Guillaume, Oxford 1934, repr., n.p. n.d. ;
• Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, Sunan Abī Dāwūd, ed. Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (Riyadh [2003]), 853.

Studies

• Binyamin Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism and interpretation of the Qurʾān in the theology of al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, Leiden 1996 ;
• Binyamin Abrahamov, Ibn Taymiyya on the agreement of reason with tradition, MW 82/3–4 (1992), 256–73 ;
• Binyamin Abrahamov, The bi-lā kayfa doctrine and its foundations in Islamic theology, Arabica 42/1–3 (1995), 365–79 (elaborates the unique stance of al-Ghazālī, not discussed in this entry, alongside the views of several traditionalists, including Ibn Taymiyya) ;
• Aziz al- Azmeh, Orthodoxy and Hanbalite fideism, Arabica 35 (1988), 253–66 ;
• J. M. S. Baljon, Qurʾanic anthropomorphisms, Islamic Studies 27/2 (1988), 119–27 ;
• Joseph van Ess, Tashbīh wa-tanzīh, EI2 ;
• Joseph van Ess, TG , index ;
• Joseph van Ess, The youthful God, Tempe AZ 1989 ;
• Richard M. Frank, Elements in the development of the teaching of al-Ashʾari, Le Muséon 104 (1991), 141–90 ;
• Daniel Gimaret, Dieu à l’image de l’homme. Les anthropomorphisms de a Sunna et leur interpretation par les thélogiens , Paris 1997 (a full survey of anthropomorphic ḥadīth reports with their commentary) ;
• Isaiah Goldfeld, Muqātil ibn Sulaymān, in Jacob Mansour (ed.), Arabic and Islamic Studies, (Ramat Gan 1978), 2:5– 18 ;
• Ignaz Goldziher, Vorlesungen über den Islam (Heidelberg 1910), 107f. ;
• Livnat Holtzman, Does God really laugh?. Appropriate and inappropriate descriptions of God in Islamic traditionalist theology, in Albrecht Classen (ed.), Laughter in the Middle Ages and early modern times (Berlin 2010), 165–200 ;
• Andrew J. Lane, A traditional Muʾtazilite Qurʾān commentary. The Kashshāf of Jār Allāh al-Zamakhsharī, Leiden and Boston 2006 ;
• Richard C. Martin, Anthropomorphism, EQ ;
• Christopher Melchert, God created Adam in His image, Journal of Qur’anic Studies 13 (2011), 113–24 ;
• Sabine Schmidtke, A Muʾtazilite creed of Az-Zamaḫšarı (D. 538/1144). (Al-Minhâj fî uṣûl ad-dîn), Stuttgart 1997 ;
• R. Strothmann, Tashbīh, EI, 4:685–7 ;
• Merlin L. Swartz, A medieval critique of anthropomorphism. Ibn al-Jawzī’s Kitāb akhbār aṣ-ṣifāt. A critical edition of the Arabic text with translation, introduction, and notes, Leiden, Boston, and Cologne 2002 ;
• Kees Wagtendonk, Images in Islam. Discussion of a paradox, in Dirk van der Plas (ed.), Effigies dei. Essays on the history of religions (Leiden 1987), 112–29 ;
• Steven M. Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew. The problem of symbiosis under early Islam, Princeton 1995 ;
• W. Montgomery Watt, Created in His image. A study of Islamic theology, in Early Islam. Collected articles (Edinburgh 1990), 94–100 ;
• W. Montgomery Watt, The formative period of Islamic thought, Edinburgh 1973 ;
• W. Montgomery Watt, Some Muslim discussions of anthropomorphism, in Early Islam. Collected articles (Edinburgh 1990), 86–93 ;
• A. J. Wensinck, The Muslim creed. Its genesis and historical development, London 1965 ;
• R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, Anthropomorphism, in Mircea Eliade (ed.), The encyclopedia of religion (New York 1995), 1:316–20 ;
• Wesley Williams, Aspects of the creed of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal. A study of anthropomorphism in early Islamic discourse, IJMES 34 (2002), 441–63 ;
• Harry Austryn Wolfson, Repercussions of the Kalam in Jewish philosophy, Cambridge MA 1979.

Livnat Holtzman