Difference between contemporary Salafis and classical Atharis with regard to Aqeedah.

[NNoor]

And again, this is what At-Tabari said concerning Allahs hand (that Allahs sifah of hand is a hand unlike the extremities of the creation.)

But isn't this the equivalent of saying you don't really know what it means, since it's impossible to truly conceive of a "hand" which is totally unlike the appendage we commonly refer to as "hand"? Such a statement conveys no meaning.

[Abu Zakariya Yahya]

But isn't this the equivalent of saying you don't really know what it means, since it's impossible to truly conceive of a "hand" which is totally unlike the appendage we commonly refer to as "hand"? Such a statement conveys no meaning.

The simplist argument for this is At-Tabaris own words, which were "This Yad is an attribute from the attributes of Allah and it is a Yadd, not like the extremities of the children of Adam."

So What is the point of confirming it's an attribute and a Yadd after saying Yadd Already once, then negating tashbeeh, if it originally had no meaning known to him? Why not simply say, it's an attribute and we don't know the meaning....?

There is a fine line between complete Tafweedh and Tafweedh in modality, and that is why it's not correct to call Salafis Mujasim. Do I think that we know the definition of the Sifaat of Allah? No, do I think we have a general idea of the meaning without knowing how the sifaat of Allah are? Yes. So just like I believe Allah has a dhaat that exist, and is understood to be something, I believe Allah has Hands that are existing, real, and not metaphorical for something else.

The problem with complete Tafweedh is that it's basically saying that even the Prophet didn't understand even in a basic way the attributes of the lord he was calling to worship. I have a hard time believing that the Prophet was ignorant of believing in a Meaning of the Sifaat. Did he talk about the modality? No, however there are ahadith that confirm that these sifat have meaning. One such hadith I can think of is When the Prophet (peace be upon him) recited the Quranic verse: "Truly, Allah is Ever All-Hearer,All-Seer" he put his thumb on his ears and the fingers close to the thumb on his eyes."

If these sifaat had no meaning that was known by humans why the need to explain the meaning of Sam' wa Basr? Or why the need to even talk about the meaning, if it was a known rule that everyone should do tafweedh kaamil?

Or is it only that some of the Sifaat have no known meaning and some have a meaning, if so which ones and how do we know this?

Also why do some non Salafi scholars translate the verses of the Quran with the words "hands", wouldn't that lead the reader to believing Allah has something that he truly doesn't?

Mufti Taqi Usmani
67. They did not hold Allah in His true
esteem. The whole earth will be in a
single grip of His hand on the Day of
Doom, and the heavens (will be) rolled
up on his right hand. Pure is He, far
too higher than what they associate
with Him.

[NNoor]

The simplist argument for this is At-Tabaris own words, which were "This Yad is an attribute from the attributes of Allah and it is a Yadd, not like the extremities of the children of Adam."

So What is the point of confirming it's an attribute and a Yadd after saying Yadd Already once, then negating tashbeeh, if it originally had no meaning known to him? Why not simply say, it's an attribute and we don't know the meaning....?

There is a fine line between complete Tafweedh and Tafweedh in modality, and that is why it's not correct to call Salafis Mujasim. Do I think that we know the definition of the Sifaat of Allah? No, do I think we have a general idea of the meaning without knowing how the sifaat of Allah are? Yes. So just like I believe Allah has a dhaat that exist, and is understood to be something, I believe Allah has Hands that are existing, real, and not metaphorical for something else.

The problem with complete Tafweedh is that it's basically saying that even the Prophet didn't understand even in a basic way the attributes of the lord he was calling to worship. I have a hard time believing that the Prophet was ignorant of believing in a Meaning of the Sifaat. Did he talk about the modality? No, however there are ahadith that confirm that these sifat have meaning. One such hadith I can think of is When the Prophet (peace be upon him) recited the Quranic verse: "Truly, Allah is Ever All-Hearer,All-Seer" he put his thumb on his ears and the fingers close to the thumb on his eyes."

If these sifaat had no meaning that was known by humans why the need to explain the meaning of Sam' wa Basr? Or why the need to even talk about the meaning, if it was a known rule that everyone should do tafweedh kaamil?

Or is it only that some of the Sifaat have no known meaning and some have a meaning, if so which ones and how do we know this?

Also why do some non Salafi scholars translate the verses of the Quran with the words "hands", wouldn't that lead the reader to believing Allah has something that he truly doesn't?

Not necessarily. The saying of Tabari still conveys nothing to my mind. I'm not saying he's wrong, I'm just saying it doesn't tell me anything. Your answer seems to indicate that you yourself aren't sure of what is meant. Correct me if I'm wrong. What is the difference between a definition and a meaning?

Do you know if there is any hadith that categorically states, "Allah has hands"? I'm just saying when I read something like "bi yadihil mulk", I don't look at each word separately, but the whole meaning. In English, if someone says "It's in your hands, now", I take it to mean that the matter is up to the person, his decision, in his power...you get the picture. Not that there is a thing actually in my hands. Similarly, "allazhi nafsi bi yadihi"...the meaning which is conveyed to me is that my life is under the control of that person (who can decide if I live or die), not that my life is a thing which is actually in that person's hand. The hand as an actual thing never crosses my mind. That's how statements like that are interpreted in English, but I'm no master of Arabic so I don't know if the same is true.

[Abu Zakariya Yahya]

Not necessarily. The saying of Tabari still conveys nothing to my mind. I'm not saying he's wrong, I'm just saying it doesn't tell me anything. Your answer seems to indicate that you yourself aren't sure of what is meant. Correct me if I'm wrong. What is the difference between a definition and a meaning?

He meant hand, just like Dhaat, now if you ask me to describe it, I can't because the Salaf didn't describe it and by describing it I'm giving it a Modality the likes of which I don't know about it.

Do you know if there is any hadith that categorically states, "Allah has hands"? I'm just saying when I read something like "bi yadihil mulk", I don't look at each word separately, but the whole meaning. In English, if someone says "It's in your hands, now", I take it to mean that the matter is up to the person, his decision, in his power...you get the picture.

What you quoted categorically states Allah has hands, now whether or not the Prophet believed those hands to be metaphorical or true is the discussion. You are saying that the meaning of these verses doesn't mean hands in the real sense of the word but rather a secondary linguistic meaning. And that is why At-Tabari when doing the tafseer of this verse: "[ 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 ?38:75" said that it has to be hands that are non metaphorical because it's not possible that Allah has two powers, etc. Also, he states that the superiority of Allah creating Adam was because he created him specifically with his hands, however if it were that he created him with his power, etc, that wouldn't be specific to him alone.

In any regard, the point was that the Atharis don't do ta'weel of the verses of the Sifaat that are clearly verses of Sifaat, and they specifically said that they are real.

[Abu Zakariya Yahya]

In summary there are a few points being addressed, and usually people go back and forth on those points without any really conclusion, so for the sake of making things easy I'll list them.

1) The Athari scholars before Sheikh Al-Islam have confirmed that the Sifaat of Allah are Haqeeqi.

2)The opposite of Haqeeqi (real) is Majaazi (metaphorical).

3) The Salaf were either complete Mufawidh or not, if they were it means that they either did tafweedh for every sifaat or for some. If some which ones did they do tafweedh to?

4) If the Salaf were complete Mufawidh in everything they didn't do ta'weel. Because doing complete Tafweedh means they relinquished all and every meaning unto Allah, leaving the word that we know of absolutely void of any and all known meaning to mankind.

5) If they didn't do ta'weel and didn't outwardly claim their was no meaning to the words, then can it be understood that they understood the meaning at least partly?

6) Does them not doing ta'weel negate the possibility that the verses of Sifaat are Kinayah for another meaning, that may or may not be the apparent meaning?

7) As can be seen from the explanation of some Sifaat and things related to it from the Salaf and Sahaba, they didn't do complete tafweedh of some of the verses related to hearing, seeing, rising, withness (maaiyah), rather they explained them. So this to me shows that they in fact understood the Sifaat of Allah.

8) If the Sahaba did ta'weel of the verses, for example Ta'weel that relies on the secondary meaning, please bring forth the proof. The verse containing Saaq doesn't count because it's understood linquistically that the meaning was not related to Allahs Saaq that's why Ibn Abbas explained it as so, and that's why in other hadith that are related to the Saaq of Allah you don't find the Salaf making similar explanations, neither will be except the verse that says Aydi because in that verse the word used specifically means power, and is not related to the Attribute of Allah, yadd. Neither will be accept the verse that says Wajh but means Dhaat, because this is a possibly kinayah that we don't deny.

9) In short we don't deny possible other meanings of the Arabic language, however we don't apply the explanations of these verses to every sifaat, because they have a specific time and place and understanding according to the Arabic language used. Now if every single verse related to the specific Sifaat of Allah had a different explanation, then we can accept that the Salaf in totality did Ta'weel, however that is not true. You can't find a verse that says "Istawa" and then the Sahaba said conquering, you can find a verse that says Hands or Hand and they said power, for example.

[NNoor]

OK. I still think the conceptual difference between the "ashari" tafweedh and "athari" tafweedh is either nonexistent or extremely subtle. It just seems like semantics to me.

[Abu Zakariya Yahya]

OK. I still think the conceptual difference between the "ashari" tafweedh and "athari" tafweedh is either nonexistent or extremely subtle. It just seems like semantics to me.

I understand what you're saying, however how can one say something is real if they have no idea whether or not it's real?

Let's say we went to one of the companions of the Prophet and said the word "Google" since they never heard of this word and have no idea what it is so it's a good example, and we asked them to confirm whether this thing in relation to the word was real or metaphorical, and they said I don't know what that word means but it's real not metaphorical.... This is something impossible because in order to confirm whether or not something is real or metaphorical in meaning you have to have a meaning of the word to begin with, and this is why the Athari scholars say the word is taken upon it's apparent meaning, it's real, and nothing like the creation. That is also why you see people saying the Salaf didn't say Haqeeqi, because it mean they had a meaning for the words that they were confirming were real.

And again it goes back to Dhaat Allah.

Will you say you have absolutely no idea what the dhaat of Allah is? If so, please say so. That the word Dhaat to you has absolutely zero meaning, and is only letters put together resembling in spelling another word that does have a meaning.

Otherwise, one believes Allah has a dhaat and they have a LIMITED understanding of it, however the modality is unknown.

[warea]

OK. I still think the conceptual difference between the "ashari" tafweedh and "athari" tafweedh is either nonexistent or extremely subtle. It just seems like semantics to me.

That is because the salafis simply shift the whole goal post into some irrelevent superficial word games. While the essence of the criticism against Ibn Taymiyya's creed had nothing to do with such superficial semantic issues.

[Abu Zakariya Yahya]

That is because the salafis simply shift the whole goal post into some irrelevent superficial word games. While the essence of the criticism against Ibn Taymiyya's creed had nothing to do with such superficial semantic issues.

I didn't shift anything anywhere brother, I'm asking a rather simple question that has nothing to do with Ibn Taymiyyah.

How can someone confirm a real meaning to something if they don't know the meaning of the thing that they are intending to confirm?

They can't that's how, so either they had a meaning that they believed is real or metaphoric, in which case it's clear At-Tabari said it's real.

That was the entire point of the discussion since the brother said no Athari scholars confirmed Haqeeqi for the Sifaat, if the discussion changes to Ta'weel then we can go to Ta'weel, however we should deal with one point at a time.

[Yousef al-Khattab]

Asalam 3leikoum wr wb,

I would like to know where this term Athari came from please? I have never seen the uulemah of old (before 300 years) refer to themselves by this term. Can someone please help me with this?


Fiamanillah