Академия Корана:Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān/Anthropomorphism

Richard C. Martin, "Anthropomorphism" in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: J. D. McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

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). Although 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 professing 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 hermeneutical 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.

Bibliography

Primary

• al-Ashʿarī, Abū l-Ḥasan, Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn, ed. H. Ritter, Wiesbaden 1963
• al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm, Kitāb al-Mustarshid, ed. and trans. B. Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism and the interpretation of the Qurʾān in the theology of al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, Leiden 1996
• al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal wa-l-niḥal, ed. M.S. Kīlānī, 2 vols., Beirut 1406/1986
• G. Turnbull (comp.), The essence of Plotinus, New York 1934

Secondary:

• van Ess, tg, ii, 206-15
• R. Frank, The Neoplatonism of Ǧahm ibn Ṣafwān, in Le muséon 78 (1965), 395—424
• W. Kadi, The earliest «Nābita» and the paradigmatic «Nawābit», in si 78 (1993), 27-61
• R. Strothmann, Tashbīh, in ei1, iv, 685-7
• S. Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew. The problem of symbiosis under early Islam, New York 1995
• A.J. Wensinck, The Muslim creed. Its genesis and historical development, London 1965
• H. Wolfson, Philo. Foundations of religion and philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, 2 vols., Cambridge, Mass. 1947