History of Anthropomorphism

[Assaalik]

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Khalf al-Barbahaari (233—329 h.) of Baghdad was the leader of the Hanbalis in his day and he was a contemporary of Abu al-Hasan al-Ash‘ari (d. 324 h.) who according to al-Kauthari wrote his al-Ibaanah to guide al-Barbahaari from the heresy of literalism and tashbeeh. Imam Ahmad died in 241 so you can see that when Ahmad died he was a boy of eight. Al-Barbahaari caused such a tumult of riots and fighting in the year 321 h. over the issue of the supposed sitting the Prophet r on the Throne beside Allah that the Caliph ordered him to be arrested but al-Barbahaari fled but was arrested and deported to Basrah but he returned in 323 h. and caused again such a fitnah that the Caliph al-Radi again ordered him to be arrested and ordered that if any two of his followers met together that they should be arrested. Again he fled and died in hiding in 329. Apparently the name al-barbahaar is the name of a medicine that comes from India and the one who imports it was called al-barbahaari.
Ibn al-Atheer (d. 630) wrote in his al-Kaamil fee al-Taareekh in commenting on the events that transpired in the year 323 h. in Baghdad:

Mention of the fitnah of the Hanbalis

In this year the Hanbalis became powerful and the problem they posed became serious. They started to raid and take by surprise the buildings of the guards and the general public and if they found any containers of fermenting juice [nabeedh, which need not have become intoxicating] they overturned them and if they found any singer they beat him and broke his instruments [which act was to be appreciated and is consonant with Hanafi fiqh as well as Hanbali fiqh] and they interfered with buying and selling and if they saw a man going about with women or children they asked him whom he was escorting and if he did not answer they would beat him and carry him away to the chief of police and testified that he had committed some indecency [that is adultery or sodomy] and in this way they created tumult/disorder in Baghdad.
Finally on the 10th of Jumaadaa al-Aakhirah Badr al-Kharshani, who was the Chief of Police, went out and promulgated on the two sides of Baghdad [the city is divided by the Tigris River] concerning the Hanbalis, the followers of Abu Muhammad al-Barbahaari, that no two of them should meet together, and that they should not attempt to spread their ideas and that none of them should lead the prayer unless he would recite the basmalah [that is, بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم] in the morning and two evening prayers. However, that did not stop them and their mischief and dissension increased. They would use the blind that used to go to the masjids [to harass the people], so that if a Shafi [that is, a follower of Imam Shafi‘i] passed by they would instigate the blind men to beat them with their sticks until they well-nigh expired.
[This being the case] al-Raadi [the Caliph] issued a proclamation to be read to the Hanbalis in their denunciation rebuking them for their profession of tashbeeh and other things. Among the things that the proclamation declared was this:

On the one hand you presume that your ugly revolting faces resemble that of the Lord of All Things and your awful appearance resembles His [this being an allusion to their doctrine that Allah created Adam according to His image (soorah)], and you mention the hand and fingers and feet and gilded shoes and curly hair and the ascension to heaven and the descent to the lowest heaven [an allusion to their doctrine that Allah comes literally and physically to the lowest of the heavens at the end of the night to ask who is praying to Him]; however, Allah far transcends what the wicked and those who deny [His transcendence and incomparability] ascribe to Him. Then on the other hand you censure the greatest imams and accuse the descendents of Muhammad of unbelief and misguidance and you induce the Muslims to accept manifest heresies and blasphemous ideas that have no support from the Qur’an. Furthermore, you denounce visiting the graves of the great imams and you reproach those who visit them as heretics although you gather at the grave of a person who was a commoner and not any soul of distinction and pedigree, one who has no relation to the Messenger of Allah r and you encourage the people to visit him and you claim that you works the miracles of the prophets and the saints. May Allah curse the devil that has made such enormities seem fair in your eyes! How he has deluded you!
The Ameer al-Mu’mineen swears the most solemn oath by Allah and binds himself to fulfill it that if you do not give up your blamable ideas and stop your crooked activities, he will have you beaten severely and exiled and put to death and eliminated. By Allah, he will strike your necks with the sword and burn your homes!

The episode of al-Barbahaari is but a page in the sorry and continuing saga of the trial of the Hashawiyyah. That day the flag of their fitnah was carried by al-Barbahaari while on another day by Muhammad ibn al-Karram and Ibn Taimiyyah and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhaab. Today it is carried by those who call themselves “Salafis” in Arabia and the Gulf and in the west and “Ahl al-Hadeeth” in Indo-Pak and “Ansaar al-Sunnah” in Egypt and Sudan and if the world endures tomorrow it will be carried by people who will have assumed yet another name. The same flag was carried by Paul of Tarsus in the era of Christianity and by the sectarian leaders in the early period of Christianity who held that Isa u was literally the son of God and that Allah literally had a spirit which they called the Holy Spirit and made it one of the persons of the Trinity coeternal and coequal with the Father. That is why Thomas Patrick Hughes declared in his A Dictionary of Islam (1885) in his article on the “Wahhabi”:

On this account [that is, because of their literalist inclination] the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Sonship of Christ do not present the same difficulities to the Wahhabi mind which they do to that of a Sunni [that is orthodox Asharite].

Previous to this statement Hughes had written under the tenth article that distinguishes the Wahhabis from mainstream and orthodox Muslims:

They understand the terms “sitting on the Throne” (Arabic Istiwā’) and “hand of God” (Yadu ‘llāh), which occur in the Qur’ān, in their literal (Haqīqī) sense, and not figuratively (Majāzī) ; but at the same time, they say it is not revealed how God sits, or in what sense he has a hand, &c., and in this account the Christian doctrines…”

Notice that Hughes points out that the Wahhabis affirm the literal meaning but consign the precise description of that to Allah. Take note here that orthodox Muslims on the other hand deny the literal meaning and when opting for the stance of tafweed they consign the determination of a non-literal meaning to Allah and when opting for ta’weel advance a suitable figurative meaning in a tentative manner. This is because they deny that Allah has any mode of existence (kaifiyyah) affirming that He, the necessary being, exists without any cause and without any need and without the imperfections and restrictions of origination and contingency.

(This is an article of my shaikh Mualvi Muhammad Yusaf, and I will be posting more of his articles on this topic)

[IbnShafiq]

As salamu Alakum Assaalik,

This is Ayman my name is no longer Slave.Of.Allah as you can see...
Anyways nice post keep it up.

Jazak Allahu khair

wa salam

[slaveof Allaah]

Ya AKHEE, if you want to keep the screen name then go ahead bro, no hard feelings.

Khair, the above was all well and good but in reality we as Muslims should not concern ourselves whith such information, because shaitaan will definatley try to use it against us, with his web of lies and deciet. The origin of man, is simple, Adam (AS) was the first Nabi, created by ALLAAH .

[Assaalik]

فتن المجسمة وصنوف مخازيهم

An article by Imam Muhammad Zahid al?Kauthari
رسالة للإمام محمد زاهد الكوثري
Translated with explanatory notes by Maulvi Muhammad Yusaf al-Kanadi

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
والحمد لله رب العالمين
والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله

While the ulama were neglecting [their duty] to stay awake at night to guard the entrances of religion from subversive intrusions, the Muslims of this age have been afflicted, among other things that have afflicted them, by those who seek a living at the hands of those who propagate that stupid sect : some hungry people came along and without any restraint they subverted the religion in order to eat launching a large-scale attack on those who defend the sanctum of Islam pretending to be denouncing heresies and calling to the sunnah according to the precedent established for them by their big one who taught them that magic. Until now we have not mentioned the names of those responsible for introducing their sectarian ideas in the region since for the sake of the feelings of ‘Ikrimah we do not mention Abu Jahl [the Father of Ignorance] ; however it was not long before the veil covering the true nature of their sectarianism was removed exposing their pandering of idolatry in the name of the sunnah so that they tore down their own homes with their own hands and they ruined themselves at their own hands. How truly did he speak who said: “The harm done by the ignorant to himself is greater than the harm done to him by his enemy.”
(to be continued)

[Assaalik]

If the book al-Naqd by al-Daarimi al-Sijzi [d. 280 / 894; Herat] and the book al-Sunnah by Abd Allah ibn Ahmad [d. 290 / 903; Baghdad] and the book al?Tauheed of Ibn Khuzaimah [d. 311 / 924; Nishapur] were not published the light would not have If it were not that they [the Salafis of the day] dawned [that is, we would not realize what they are really up to] and people would have continued to think that they were actually innocent of the [anthropomorphist] perspective they are accused of; however “The word of Jaheezah cut off the speech of every speaker” : their idolatrous beliefs are now exposed in plain view so that the hopes of the ones that were trying to fool and the ones they were trying to fool [by making them think that they were the true defenders of the sunnah] and the ones who were on the give and the ones who were on the take have been dashed [by the Salafis’ open support of these three highly objectionable works]. I don’t believe that any reasonable person can look at these three books and see the disgraceful things that are in them examples of which I cited in my previous article [that is, in the previous edition of al-Azhar’s magazine, Mujallah al-Islam] except that he will reject them [the Salafis and of course the books] once and for all. The strange thing is that those who push these heretical doctrines don’t believe in anything but getting material gain from its sources [here in insinuates that the originators of the Salafi movement in Egypt were on the payroll of wealthy persons] and from taking as fools those they think can be fooled. [That being the case] who is so simple as to expect from fans of actors and singers/musicians honest guidance in religion? And who is so stupid as to expect from one who has been arrested for the crime of stealing books that he should prove a righteous guide? The story of that wretch the one who fathered a son from a slave girl is known here and there.
And who is so ignorant as not to know that one who suffers from compound ignorance [that is, to be ignorant but not to know that one is ignorant] is not fit to guide those who are not ignorant? And who is so stupid as not to know that those who have no restraint are not fit for anything but abuse and scorn? And who is such a fool to think that one who starts off his vicious campaign with insult revilement and slander that shocks even the street people is going to win his case? And who is that that imagines that intelligent people take notice of anything other than pitting argument against argument? Ahead of these famished propagandists these street people and riffraff there is a period of grace a time for them to repent from eating of unlawful gain and serving Mammon lest they earn double misery: misery is this world and misery in the next. If only they did not go beyond mentioning the words that come in the Book and the sunnah that is famous authentic and expressly [anthropomorphic] without saying that He speaks with letters and sounds and He comes down by moving and He walks and is heavy or light and He stands up and sits down and stretches out his legs and that He is on high with a physical highness or above with a physical aboveness or separate from His creation by way of physical distance and that He has a direction and a limit and that He touches [or can be touched] and that He has dimensions and a mouth and a uvula and molar teeth and so on with similar enormities. If only they had said “Allah spoke to Musa u” and “He made istiwaa’ on the Throne in a way that befits His majesty not in the manner of His creatures which involves occupying a place and mounting on or being settled in a place and settling in something and sitting down and sitting on nobody would have declared them to have gone out of the community of Muslims; however the unfortunate fact is that they profess what I have mentioned above.
The followers of this stupid sect in all stages of its history, especially during times of Islam’s weakness, have fomented different forms of “trials and tribualtions like the pieces of a dark night” and it will not be wrong to intimate here some of what they have done in order to take a lesson from the past so as to be enlightened about the affairs in store for us in the future.
(to be continued)

[Assaalik]

History tells us that they [the anthropomorphists who as I have noted were called al-Hashawiyyah] that in Baghdad they asked Imam Ibn Jareer al-Tabari [(d. 310 / 923; Baghdad), the author of the most celebrated extant work of exegesis] what was the meaning of المقام المحمود / “the praiseworthy station” [that is mentioned in the Qur’an (17:79) ] expecting that he would agree with them in their heresy which prescribed that it means that the Messenger r would be seated beside Allah Y on the Throne; however he upbraided them reciting [in verse]: “He is far exalted beyond [what they ascribe to Him of imperfect attributes] who does not have any intimate and has no one to sit on His Throne.” Thereupon they became enraged with him and began to throw ink wells and stones at home until they had almost killed him and the soldiers were barely able to rescue that illustrious imam from their hands and they saw him to his home where he lived under the guard of soldiers [for his own good] until he died in 310 h. Nor was he able to propitiate them by inserting certain words in his commentary of the Qur’an and in some other books of his. . Those who are under coercion have special rules. The incident [I have referred to] is narrated in detail in the book Tajaarib al-Umam by Ibn Miskawaih and Mu‘jam al-Buldaan of al-Yaaqoot and al-Kaamil of Ibn Atheer.
Previously I indicated that their leader Abu Muhammad al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Khalf al-Barbahaari al-Hanbali [d. 329 / 941] had provoked great strife in Baghdad in the year that the Qaraamatah stole the Black Stone from the Holy Kaabah [317 h. / 930 C.E.] by using the sword [the Hanbalis that is] ] to force people to profess that the meaning of المقام المحمود / al-maqaam al-mahmood was the seating of the Messenger at the side of Allah on the Throne–Allah far transcends that. Later on in the year 323 h. the matter of the Barbahaariyyah [that is, the followers of al-Barbahaari considered as a sect] became so grave that the caliph al-Radi issued a proclamation concerning them as is mentioned in Ibn al-Atheer’s [al-Kaamil fee] al-Taareekh and in it he proclaimed:At times you presume that your ugly deformed faces resemble Lord of Creation and that your bad appearance is like His. You ascribe [to Allah] palms and fingers and two feet and two gilded sandals and curly hair and going up to the sky and coming down to the earth. Far exalted is Allah beyond what the wicked and the infidels ascribe to Him!…Allah curse the devil that such blasphemies seem fair to you! How badly he has tempted you! The Prince of the Believers takes a solemn oath…an oath that binds him to his word that if you do not give up your blameful point of view and your warped perspective he will give you a sound beating and have you exiled and dispersed and he will use the sword upon your necks and fire upon your homes and neighborhoods!
Then in the middle of the fifth century [hijri] the matter of the Hashawiyyah in Baghdad became very serious again to the extent that the likes of Abu Ishaaq al-Sheeraazi [d. 472 / 1079; Baghdad] and Abu Bakr [al-Qaffaal] al-Shaashi [507 / 1114; Baghdad] and other imams of the Shafi Madhhab were forced to write an official letter which they signed with their signatures to Nizaam al-Mulk [al-Toosi (d. 485 /1092) the prime minister] in which they declared among other things:
A number of the Hashawiyyah and riffraff who claim to be Hanbalis have publicized in Baghdad shocking beliefs and abominable things which not even an infidel would permit let alone a believer in the divine uniqueness and which not even one who disbelieves in the basis of shariah or one who disbelieves in God would permit and they have accused of unbelief and subversion all those who declare the Originatorتعالى وجلّ free of imperfections and defects and deny that He have any originated attributes or that He share any attributes with His creatures and who hold Him holier than that He be subject to disappearing/cessation and who hold Him greater than that He should undergo transformation from state to state and or be subject to being present in originated things [including space] or that events that are originated occur in Him.…and they insist that what they worship has feet and molar teeth and uvula and finger tips and that He descends in person and goes about on an ass and He has the appearance of a beardless youth with short curly hair wearing a sparkling crown and sandals of gold…and that He تعالى speaks with sounds like thunder and like the whinnying of horses….
(to be continued)

[Assaalik]

The text of this petition with the names of those great imams who signed it are recorded in the book Tibyeen Kidhh al-Muftari ‘Alaa al-Imaam Abu al-Hasan al-Ash‘ari by Ibn ‘Asaakir [d. 571 / 1176; Damascus] which is in print and a photograph taken of the original ancient manuscript is preserved in Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyyah [the Egyptian National Library]. The exalted status of those who signed the petition is expounded there [in Ibn ‘Asaakir’s book]; indeed their exaltedness is known to any who is familiar with the status of the ulama and those whom they condemned were not little people in their madhhab [the Hanbali Madhhab]; indeed if you knew their rank in their sight [the sight of the Hanbali ulama] and knew what they said about them in their biographical dictionaries [that is how highly they were praised by their fellows] you would be thoroughly disgusted.
Egypt was not spared her share of the trials and tribulations seeing what took place during the time of [Abu ‘Amr Uthmaan] Ibn Marzooq [al-Qurashi (d. 564 / 1169; Cairo), a Hanbali faqeeh and a famous Sufi] and [Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ibraheem ibn Thaabit] Ibn al-Keezaani [al-Shafi‘ (d. 562 / 1166; Cairo), a famous Sufi] and the time of [Zain al-Din Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Ibraheem] Ibn Nujaih [al-Hanbali (d. 599 / 1202; Cairo)].
(to be continued)

[Assaalik]

You will find in the chronicles for the year 596 h. that they [the Hashawiyyah] burned down the Shafi’s grand masjid in Merv [presently the city of Mary in Turkmenistan] out of fanatical hatred for the people who maintained the divine transcendence [tanzeeh]. Also Abu al-Wafaa’ ibn ‘Aqeel al-Hanbali [d. 513 / 1119] and Ibn al-Jauzi al-Hanbali [d. 597 /1201; Baghdad] suffered much persecution at their hands. How many a time the first of them was accused of being a Mu‘tazilite and required to repent [or face death] only because he maintained the divine transcendence. The story of [al-Qaadi Majd al-Din Abd al-Majeed ibn Umar] Ibn al-Qudwah al-Karraami’s persecution of Imam al-Raazi is to be found in the chronicles for the year 595 h., while the tribulation fomented by [Haafiz Abu Muhammad] Abd al-Ghani [ibn Abd al-Wahhaab] al-Maqdasi [al-Jammaa‘eeli (d. 600 / 1203; Cairo)] can be found in the sequel [Dhail al-Raudatain] of Abu Shaamah’s book al-Raudatain and the tribulations provoked by Taqi al-Din Ibn Taimiyyah in Damascus which travelers [from Damascus] spread far and wide is detailed in the book Daf‘ Shubah Man Shabbaha wa Tamarrada written by [the Shafi imam Taqi al-Din] al-Hisni [d. 829 / 1426; Damascus]; this book has been published [and is also available online]. The story of Ibn Taimiyyah is also detailed in the book Najm al-Muhtadi [wa Rajm al?Mubtadi]‘ by [Fakhr al-Deen] Ibn al-Mu‘allim [d. 725 / 1325; Damascus] which is in manuscript. A great deal of historical documentation related to Ibn Taimiyyah and his disciple Ibn al-Qayyim is recorded in the book Saif al-Saqeel [by Taqi al-Din al-Subki (d. 756 / 1355; Cairo)] and its commentary [by al-Kauthari] and it has been published.
(to be continued)

[Assaalik]

Ibn Taimiyyah is the one who disseminated their heretical works [the works of the Hashawiyyah] in Egypt and Shaam [Greater Syria] when the books had become unavailable in the two lands. Simple-minded people were deceived by his works because they contain sweeping refutations of various forms of deviation [for example his refutation of the Rawaafid or Shi‘ah, the Druze, those Sufis who profess emanationism or the oneness of existence, that is wahdah al-wujood, and the Christians] without noticing the lethal poison that was woven into his speech for he says everything that is to be found in the book of al-Daarimi and the book of Abd Allah and the book of Ibn Khuzaimah in part and parcel so that the criticisms of them apply to him as well. It will be well to cite some of what he has said in his book to which he gave the title al-Tasees fee Radd Asaas al-Taqdees, which is to be found [in manuscript] in volumes 24, 25, and 26 of al-Kawaakib al-Daraaree in al-Zaahiryyah Library of Damascus [the books that were in al-Zaahiriyyah Library have all been transferred now to the Asadiyyah Library of Damascus; furthermore the book of Ibn Taimiyyah has been published in at least two editions since al-Kauthari wrote this ] and some of what he said in other books so that those who insist on loving him will love him for what he is.
We find in his al-Ta’sees his statement:
Al-‘arsh / “the throne” in Arabic is a seat with respect to what is above it and like a ceiling with respect to what is below it, so since the Qur’an has referred to Allah a throne and that [throne] is [presumably] not like a ceiling to Him it is known that it must be with respect to Him as a seat is to others and that means that He must be above the Throne.
So according to him the Throne is His seat–exalted is He above [the blasphemies the ignorant ascribe to Him]–and in the same book we find him saying:
It is well-known that neither the Book nor the sunnah has declared [expressly] that all bodies are originated and that Allah is not a body; furthermore, no imam of the Muslims has declared that; therefore, in my refusing this opinion [that is, that all bodies are originated and that Allah is not a body] I do not thereby depart from the fitrah [natural theology or religious opinion based on common sense and a natural or instinctive intuition] or from the shariah.
(to be continued)

[Assaalik]

This is brazen impudence! Where did all the verses declaring Allah’s transcendence go to? Does he expect a text to deny expressly ever stupid allegation any stupid fool might come up with? Do not the words [of the Qur’an] لَيْسَ كَمِثْلِهِ شَيْءٌ / “Nothing is like Him (42:11)” suffice [to repudiate all such stupid allegations]? Does he maintain that it is permissible to profess that He eats this and chews that and tastes this because there is no text to the contrary? Nay, [what he claims here] is out-and-out unbelief and clear-cut tajseem!
In another place in the book he says:
You [Here Ibn Taimiyyah is making a rhetorical address to Imam al-Razi] have said that He is not a body nor a jauhar [a point which has location but no extension] and is not located [in place (haiz)] and that He has no direction and that one may not physically point to Him and that one part of Him is not separate from another part and you declared that He, exalted is He, is not divisible and not compounded and that He has no limit and no end by which you mean that He it is impossible that he have a limit or size/measure or that He have an infinite size/measure. Now I ask you: By what rights have you denied these things without having any [text from the] Book or Sunnah?

The intelligence of the reader spares me having to make any comment on these words of unbelief! Can any who are numbered among the Muslim people conceive that any person who has left the religion could be more explicit [in tajseem] than this?
In another place of the book he says:
It is known of necessity that the name “the One” in the speech of Allah does not imply the negation of the attributes [Al-Kauthari interpolates here: he means by attributes what includes the likes of “coming” and so on] and the negation of perceiving [Him] with the senses and the negation of limit and extent/measure [with respect to Allah] and meanings likes of that which [properties] the Jahmiyyah [he means Asharites as I explained above] and their followers heretically denied [could be attributes of Allah], and the denial of them is not to be found in the Book and sunnah.
(to be continued)