1. Forgetting. We have mentioned above the Qur’anic verse,
“Today We forget you as you have forgotten this day of yours” (Qur’an 45:34),
which the early Muslims used to interpret figuratively, as reported by a scholar who was himself an early Muslim (salafi) and indeed,the sheikh of the early Muslims in Qur’anic exegesis, the hadith master (hafiz) Ibn Jarir al-Tabari (d. 310/922); who explains the above verse as meaning: “‘This day, Resurrection Day, We shall forget them,’ so as to say, ‘We shall abandon them to their punishment’” [emphasis mine] (Tabari, Jami‘ al-bayan[Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1405/1984], 8.202). Now, this is precisely ta’wil, or interpretation in other than the verse’s ostensive sense. Al-Tabari ascribes this interpretation, through his chains of transmission, to the Companion (Sahabi) Ibn ‘Abbas (Allah be well pleased with him) (d. 68/687) as well as to Mujahid [ibn Jabr] (d. 104/722), Ibn ‘Abbas’s main student in Qur’anic exegesis.
2. Hands. In the verse,
“And the sky We built with hands; verily We outspread [it]” (Qur’an 51:47),
al-Tabari ascribes the figurative explanation (ta’wil) of with hands as meaning “with power (bi quwwa)” through five chains of transmission to Ibn ‘Abbas (d. 68/687), Mujahid (d. 104/722), Qatada [ibn Da‘ama] (d. 118/736), Mansur [ibn Zadhan al-Thaqafi] (d. 131/749), and Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 161/778) (Jami‘ al-bayan, 27.7–8).
3. Shin. Of the Qur’anic verse,
“On a day when shin shall be exposed, they shall be ordered to prostrate, but be unable” (Qur’an 68:32),
al-Tabari says, “A number of the exegetes of the Companions (Sahaba) and their students (tabi‘in) held that it [a day when shin shall be exposed] means a dire matter (amr shadid) shall be disclosed [emphasis mine] [n: the shin’s association with direness being that it was customary for Arab warriors fighting in the desert to ready themselves to move fast and hard through the sand in the thick of the fight by lifting the hems of their garments above the shin. This was apparently lost upon later anthropomorphists, who said the verse proved ‘Allah has a shin,’ or, according to others, ‘two shins, since one would be unbecoming’]” (Jami‘ al-bayan, 29.38). Al-Tabari also relates from Muhammad ibn ‘Ubayd al-Muharibi (d. 245/859), who relates from Ibn al-Mubarak (d. 181/797), from Usama ibn Zayd [al-Laythi] (d. 153/770), from ‘Ikrima [ibn ‘Abdullah al-Barbari] (d. 104/723), from Ibn ‘Abbas (d. 68/687) that shin in the above verse means “a day of war and direness (harb wa shidda)” [emphasis mine] (ibid., 29.38). All of these narrators are those of the rigorously authenticated (sahih) collections except Usama ibn Zayd, whose hadiths are well authenticated (hasan).
4. Laughter. Of the hadith related in Sahih al-Bukhari from Abu Hurayra that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said,
“Allah Most High laughs about two men, one of whom kills the other, but both of whom enter paradise: the one fights in the path of Allah and is killed, and afterwards Allah forgives the killer, and then he fights in the path of Allah and is martyred,”
the hadith master (hafiz) Imam al-Bayhaqi (d. 458/1066) records that [Muhammad ibn Yusuf] al-Farabri (d. 320/932) related from the hadith master Imam al-Bukhari (d. “The meaning of laughter in it is mercy” [emphasis mine] (Bayhaqi, Kitab al-asma’ wa al-sifat [1358/1939. Reprint. Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi, n.d.], 298).
5. Coming. The hadith master (hafiz) Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1373) reports that Imam al-Bayhaqi (d. 458/1066) related from al-Hakim (d. 405/1014), from Abu ‘Amr ibn al-Sammak (d. 344/955), from Hanbal [ibn Ishaq al-Shaybani] (d. 273/886), the son of the brother of Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s father, that “Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855) figuratively interpreted the word of Allah Most High,
“‘And your Lord shall come . . .’ (Qur’an 89:22),
“as meaning ‘His recompense (thawab) shall come’” [emphasis mine]. Al-Bayhaqi said, “This chain of narrators has absolutely nothing wrong in it” (Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa al-nihaya [Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1985/1405], 10.342). In other words, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, like the Companions (Sahaba) and other early Muslims mentioned above, also gave figurative interpretations (ta’wil) to scriptural expressions that might otherwise have been misinterpreted anthropomorphically, which is what neo-Salafis condemn the Ash‘ari school for doing.
In light of the above examples, it is plain that the Ash‘ari school did not originate figurative interpretation, but rather it had been with Muslims from the beginning. And if the above figures are not the salaf or ‘early Muslims,’ who are? Ibn Taymiya (d. 728/1328) and Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751/1350)?
The question of ta’wil or ‘figurative interpretation’ is the reason that our “reformers” refer to Ash‘aris (as did Ibn Taymiya and Ibn al-Qayyim did before them) as Jahmiyya, or ‘Jahmites,’ after Jahm ibn Safwan (d. 128/745), an extreme Mu‘tazilite who denied that Allah had any attributes. Or as Nafat, or ‘Negaters,’ meaning of the ‘attributes’ they would infer from verbs and ascriptive (idafa) constructions of the above type ofmutashabihat, or ‘unapparent in meaning’ verses and hadiths that we have discussed. Despite the inaccuracy of these labels, which beg the question that the mutashabihat signify attributes, one cannot doubt the sincerity with which these people advocate their “return to early Islam.” Yet, in view of the foregoing examples of figurative interpretation by early Muslims, one cannot help feeling entitled to ask, Whose early Islam would they have us return to?
It was Imam Abu Hanifa (d. 150/767) who first noted, “Two depraved opinions have reached us from East, those of Jahm [ibn Safwan] (d. 128/745), the nullifier of the divine attributes, and those of Muqatil [ibn Sulayman al-Balkhi (d. c.a. 150/767)], the likener of Allah to His creation” (Dhahabi, Siyar a‘lam al-nubala’ [Beirut: Mu’assasa al-Risala, 1401/1984], 7.202).
These do not have to be an either-or for Muslims. Jahm’s brand of Mu‘tazilism has been dead for over a thousand years, while anthropomorphic literalism is a heresy that in previous centuries was confined to a handful of sects like the Hanbalis addressed by ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Jawzi in hisDaf‘ shubah al-tashbih, or like the forgers of Kitab al-sunna who ascribed it to Imam Ahmad’s son ‘Abdullah, or like the Karramiyya [the followers of Muhammad al-Karram (d. 255/869)], who believed Allah to be a corporeal entity “sitting in person on His Throne.”
It is with all the greater concern that we see, in our times, pamphlets being circulated in an attempt to create acceptance for these ideas, such as The Muslim’s Belief, a English tract on Islamic faith (‘aqida) that tells Western Muslim readers:
His [Allah’s] ‘settling [istiwa’] on the Throne’ means that He is sitting in person on His Throne [emphasis mine] in a way that is becoming to His Majesty and Greatness. Nobody except He knows exactly how He is sitting (Sheikh Muhammad al-Salih al-‘Uthaymin, The Muslim’s Belief [tr. Dr. Maneh Hammad al-Juhani. Intr. Sheikh Ibn Baz. Riyad: World Assembly of Muslim Youth, 1407/1987], 11).
In previous Islamic centuries, someone who worshipped a god who ‘sits,’ moves about, and so forth, was considered to be in serious trouble in his faith (‘aqida). Listen to the words of the Imam of Ahl al-Sunna in tenets of faith and heresiology, ‘Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdadi (d. 429/1037):
Anyone who considers his Lord to resemble the form of a person—as do the Bayaniyya [the followers of Bayan ibn Sam‘an al-Tamimi (d. 119/737)], the Mughiriyya [followers of al-Mughira ibn Sa‘id al-‘Ajali (d. 119/737)], the Jawaribiyya [followers of Dawud al-Jawaribi, (d. 2nd Hijra century)], and the Hishamiyya [followers of Hisham ibn Salim al-Jawaliqi, the teacher of al-Jawaribi in anthropomorphism]—is only worshipping a person like himself. As for the permissibility of eating the meat he slaughters or of marriage with him, his ruling is that of an idol-worshipper. . . . Regarding the anthropomorphists of Khurasan, of the Karramiyya, it is obligatory to consider them unbelievers because they affirm that Allah has a physical limit and boundary from underneath, from whence He is contact with His Throne (Baghdadi, Usul al-din [Istanbul: Matba‘a al-Dawla, 1346/1929], 337).
If anthropomorphic literalism were an acceptable Islamic school of thought, why was it counted among heresies and rejected for the first seven centuries of Islam that preceded Ibn Taymiya and his student Ibn al-Qayyim?
To summarize: we have distinguished three ways of understanding the mutashabihat, or ‘unapparent in meaning’ verses and hadiths. The first is the way of tafwid, or ‘consigning the knowledge of what is meant to Allah,’ which was the way of Shafi‘i and many of the early Muslims; in accordance with the reading of the Qur’anic verse about the mutashabihat:
“though none knows its meaning except Allah [emphasis mine]. And those firm in knowledge say, ‘We believe in all of it. All is from our Lord’” (Qur’an 3:7);
though another possible reading of the same verse is closer to the way of ta’wil, or ‘figurative interpretation’ which, as reported above, was done by the Companion (Sahabi) Ibn ‘Abbas and many other early Muslims; namely,
“though none knows its meaning except Allah and those firm in knowledge [emphasis mine]; they say, ‘We believe in all of it. All is from our Lord’” (Qur’an 3:7);
In my view, both these are Islamic, and both seem needed, though tafwid is superior where it does not lead to confusion about Allah’s transcendence beyond the attributes of created things, in accordance with the Qur’anic verse,
“There is nothing whatsoever like unto Him” (Qur’an 42:11).
As for anthropomorphism, it is clear from this verse and from the entire previous history of this Umma, that it is not an Islamic school of thought, and never has been. And Allah knows best.
© Nuh Ha Mim Keller 1995
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