To Deny Him Attributes III

when the question of Divine Unity is raised in religious discourse, it is taken to include many topics incluring the belief in the oneness of the essence, so, too, the compounding of the attributes and the distinction between essence and attributes is totally excluded with respect to unity of the attributes. Distinctness and differentiation derive from limitation. If in the world of nature we look at a body through different coloured pieces of glass, that body will appear to us in a succession of different colours. Similarly, when we contemplate the unique divine essence with our reason, we sometimes ascribe knowledge to that infinite being with regard to the fact that all creatures are at all times present before Him; we then say that He is all-knowing. At other times we are aware of His ability to create all things, and we hen speak of His being all-powerful.

So, when we percieve through these various apertres, the different attributes which appear to resemble the properties of our limited beings, we attempt to separate them from His infinite essence. Objectively, however, all the concepts conveyed by the different attributes have a single existence and convey a single reality, a reality that is free from all defect and deficiency, that posesses all perfections such as power, mercy, knowledge, blessedness, wisdom and splendor.

"God and His attributes" by Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari

You cannot think of Allah as a compound or collection of several separate attributes without denying Him unity. You can't imagine a part of Him labelled "Mercy" and another "Power" or another "Seeing" and consider those separately, any more than it makes sense to say that you can separate out the part called "green" from the body of a blade of grass, or the "negative" from an electron. It is an integral part of its entire nature, and inseperably combined in the whole, and by having abstract knowledge of that one part you can't get knowledge of the whole.

Due to our human limitations we think of different aspects of Him and get tempted to think that they are separate parts of His character. What we fail to realise is that each time we notice something different, we are looking towards the same, single, reality but through a different angle: using a different coloured piece of glass. If you look at a yellow flower through some red glass, it looks red, and its leaves look brown. If you use a green piece the leaves look green, but the flower looks like a lighter shade of green. Using blue glass the flower is a darker green, and the leaves are bluish. Would it make sense to say that there are three flowers, one red, and two different greens, which exist in the same body, and to manifest each one you have to look through a different piece of glass? can we separate the red flower out in our thinking from the green ones? Would we ever really understand what the truth about that flower was if we insisted on this thinking, separating out parts for it because of our patchy and limited knowledge of its real nature?

It is a partial image we are getting each time of the same one reality, and trying to build them up into a view of the whole by adding all these parts together isnt the answer. instead we need to realise that He is One, and that all of the partial bits of information we have about Him: such as Him being the Creator, the Most Powerful, the Just, the Compassionate... are all aspects of the same inseperable one reality. We need to deny the attributes as something "separate" within Him that manifest on certain occasions, or we will never be able to approach knowledge of Him.

... the renown scholar al-Kulaini al-Razi cites derivation of the word "Allah", the Imam said to him: "O Hisham" the proper noun "Allah" is derived from "ilah"; "the Creator" requires the existence of creation [to testify to His being its creator]. This is a noun, not an adjective. Anyone who worships a name without worshipping what the name stands for is actually committing kufr, apostacy; in reality he does not worship anything at all. One who worships the name and the meaning is also commiting kufr, for he will be worshipping two. Only one who worships the meaning without the name is in line with the concept of Tawhid (Unity of God). Have you understood all of this, O Hisham?" He answered him in the affirmative, requesting to provide more explanations, wherupon the Imam said, "There are ninety nine attributes of Allah. Had each attribute been the same as it describes, each one of them would have been a god by itself. But,"Allah" is the meaning one deducts once he becomes familliar with all of these attributes. They all, O Hisham, in their collective sense, are not the same as He himself. Bread is something you eat. Water is something you drink. A garment is something you put on. And fire is something that burns. Do you understand all of this, O Hisham, fully enough so that you would promote it and fight the enemies of Allah for its sake?!" Hisham answered him in the affirmative, whereupon the Imam added, "May Allah grant you thereby benefits, and may he keep your feet firm thereupon, O Hisham!"

"The Concept of God in Islam" by Yaseen T al-Jibouri

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11 June 2007 ~~ I'm back.