Description of Allah

[DavidM3849]

Assalaamu Alaikum

I was never interested in religion until I came across the Imam Ali's sermons on God which eloquently described something beyond time and space as the cause of all existence. I've never heard of such a description of God before as I was only use to the Christian doctrine of man as God and the Trinity. However, when I bought the Quran some things confused me such as Allah being above a throne and also being described as having body parts.

From my understanding if God is radically and absolutely different from creation (as we are told... nothing is like him) then there is nothing we can say about him either directly or indirectly through allegory or metaphor as all these linguistic devices depend upon some relational aspect to material things in this world (ie, hands, eyes, feet, etc...). Also, if he is beyond time and space he cannot be above, under, left, right or even in a 'place' as these relational aspects depend upon a dimensional world in time and space (if he is above a throne is he not also everywhere else? If he is everywhere else what is the point of saying he is in a particular place?).

Is there a theological school in Islam that deals with these questions?

Regards,

David

 

[Ümit]

Assalaamu Alaikum

I was never interested in religion until I came across the Imam Ali's sermons on God which eloquently described something beyond time and space as the cause of all existence. I've never heard of such a description of God before as I was only use to the Christian doctrine of man as God and the Trinity. However, when I bought the Quran some things confused me such as Allah being above a throne and also being described as having body parts.

From my understanding if God is radically and absolutely different from creation (as we are told... nothing is like him) then there is nothing we can say about him either directly or indirectly through allegory or metaphor as all these linguistic devices depend upon some relational aspect to material things in this world (ie, hands, eyes, feet, etc...). Also, if he is beyond time and space he cannot be above, under, left, right or even in a 'place' as these relational aspects depend upon a dimensional world in time and space (if he is above a throne is he not also everywhere else? If he is everywhere else what is the point of saying he is in a particular place?).

Is there a theological school in Islam that deals with these questions?

Regards,

David

You are absolutely right when you say

God is radically and absolutely different from creation (as we are told... nothing is like him)

Also, like you said, there is nothing we can say about him directly or indirectly.

However, we are not saying it. It is in the Quraan. Its His own words....we do not know what it exactly means though.
When we read verses like

38:75[ Allah ] said, "O Iblees, what prevented you from prostrating to that which I created with My hands? Were you arrogant [then], or were you [already] among the haughty?"

we understand that it like Allah created that Himself personally, but we do not imagine it like Allah molding clay with His hands etc. we do not think that He has hands like we humans do. He maybe does, we do not know.
Allah is beyond our understanding, we do not know how he looks like. He is beyond space and time. We cannot imagine what that looks like. we cannot know what that even means. which means we also cannot imagine whether "if something is beyond time and space, can it then be above, under, left or right of a place?" we do not know.

We simply do not know how His throne looks like, how He sits above his throne or why does He even need a throne to sit on. We cannot imagine anything of that.
And because we cannot imagine that, there is simply no way of saying whether it is possible for him to be above His throne or not.

(if he is above a throne is he not also everywhere else? If he is everywhere else what is the point of saying he is in a particular place?).

He is not everywhere. He is above His throne...He CAN be everywhere, but He isn't everywhere.

 

[Hamza Asadullah]

Assalaamu Alaikum

I was never interested in religion until I came across the Imam Ali's sermons on God which eloquently described something beyond time and space as the cause of all existence. I've never heard of such a description of God before as I was only use to the Christian doctrine of man as God and the Trinity. However, when I bought the Quran some things confused me such as Allah being above a throne and also being described as having body parts.

From my understanding if God is radically and absolutely different from creation (as we are told... nothing is like him) then there is nothing we can say about him either directly or indirectly through allegory or metaphor as all these linguistic devices depend upon some relational aspect to material things in this world (ie, hands, eyes, feet, etc...). Also, if he is beyond time and space he cannot be above, under, left, right or even in a 'place' as these relational aspects depend upon a dimensional world in time and space (if he is above a throne is he not also everywhere else? If he is everywhere else what is the point of saying he is in a particular place?).

Is there a theological school in Islam that deals with these questions?

Regards,

David

Greetings David,

You have certainly opened up a "can of worms" as this is a topic that has been a source of contention since the early generations of Scholars. I will give you a general overview of the two main opinions regarding the attributes of Allah. The first view is that of the Ashari/Maturidi Aqeedah. They say that whatever God says of his attributes then it is not meant in the literal sense but in a metaphorical sense as God says "there is nothing like unto him", so they say that we cannot take his physical attributes literally otherwise it is approaching anthropomorphosism. This view also does not place any restrictions on God in terms of placing him in a particular direction like saying he is only above the throne.

The second view is that of the Athari/Salafi Aqeedah. It explains that whatever God says of his attributes then it is meant in a literal sense, in that we accept what he says about himself but we do not explain how as there is nothing like unto him, so we do not compare his attributes to human body parts or anything else. This view places God in a particular direction like saying he is only above the throne.

You can view more on these differing views in the following videos:

Ashari/Maturidi view:

Athari/Salafi view: