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JimG
Guest
Does Islam believe that God is spirit?
Or does it believe that God is extended in space?
Or does it believe that God is extended in space?
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jcaz
Guest
Hey Jim,
Can you please elaborate on that question. I do not want to misunderstand and thus “mis-answer” your question.
Thanks.
Can you please elaborate on that question. I do not want to misunderstand and thus “mis-answer” your question.
Thanks.
J
JimG
Guest
I’m somewhat confused about Islamic belief about the nature of God. Is God (Allah) like a human being? That is–does he have a body? Or is He more like an angel that has no body, but is spirit only?
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Edris
Guest
“Allah is One, without any partners. He has no sharers in His essence, attributes, actions, or rulings. He is the sole Creator of all that exists, has existed, and will ever exist. Everything other than Him is His creation – that is, a contingent being that came into existence after it did not previously exist.
He alone controls all events, causes, and effects, and no power exists independently of His power. Nothing happens outside of His will, neither before He willed it, nor after He willed it, neither more than what He willed, nor less than what He willed.
There is nothing like Him, and it is impossible to imagine or conceive Him. He is not qualified by the laws of His creation. He is not encompassed by direction or distance. Allah existed as He has always been before the creation of time and space. He not only created time and space, but He is transcendentally beyond them, such that He cannot be “in” a place, He cannot be “everywhere,” and He cannot be “nowhere.”
Allah is the eternally-existing, necessary first cause. Unlike His creation, which is a possible existent subject to nonbeing, beginning, and ending, Allah has no beginning and He will never perish or come to an end. Scholars have also explained, “Bringing creation into existence did not add anything to His attributes that was not already there.”
He is the Sustainer of everything, directly sustaining every instant of the existence of all things. He alone gives life and He alone gives death, and He will re-create and resurrect living rational beings for judgment and retribution just as He created them the first time. Nothing is difficult for Him.
His omnipotence encompasses all things intrinsically possible. He cannot terminate His own existence, for “the divine nature necessarily entails the divine perfections, of which being is one. It is impossible that Allah could cease to have this perfection or any other, for otherwise He would not be God.” Similarly, it is impossible for created things to contravene the knowledge or speech of Allah, for by being connected with either of these two divine attributes, it has become contingently necessary for any created thing to conform and submit.
His knowledge encompasses all things. It is not subject to change or increase; it is not based on time or chronology. He knew the actions and eternal abodes of all of humanity before its creation, and its actual existence and conformity to Allah’s pre-temporal knowledge neither increased nor benefited Him.
He sees all events and things in a manner wholly unlike our means of seeing things. His sight does not depend on distance, light, and appendages. Likewise, He hears all events and things with a hearing that transcends sound waves, volume, tone, and pitch.
Allah is the source of all benefit and harm. If all of humanity gathered together with the sole intention of benefiting or harming a single person, it would be absolutely powerless to do so save by the will and permission of Allah.
In a similar vein, Allah alone guides to His single, eternal truth, and He likewise leads astray. All good works done by a person are not a consequence of his own knowledge, effort, or piety, but rather they issue from a divinely-bestowed ability that Allah grants to whom He wills.
It should be noted at this point that while the masculine pronoun “He” is used in both Arabic and English to denote Allah, He is nonetheless transcendentally beyond any gender. Elucidating this phenomenon, T.J. Winter, a British academic, writes the following:
God is simply Allah, the God; never Father. The divine is referred to by the masculine pronoun: Allah is He (huwa); but the grammarians and exegetes concur that this is not even allegoric: Arabic has no neuter, and the use of the masculine is normal in Arabic for genderless nouns. ”
By Noor al-Deen
“Allah! There is no god but He, the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede in His presence except as He permits? He knows what (appears to His creatures as) Before or After or Behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He wills. His Throne does extend over the heavens and the earth, and He feels no fatigue in guarding and preserving them, for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory).” (Qur’an 2:255)
He alone controls all events, causes, and effects, and no power exists independently of His power. Nothing happens outside of His will, neither before He willed it, nor after He willed it, neither more than what He willed, nor less than what He willed.
There is nothing like Him, and it is impossible to imagine or conceive Him. He is not qualified by the laws of His creation. He is not encompassed by direction or distance. Allah existed as He has always been before the creation of time and space. He not only created time and space, but He is transcendentally beyond them, such that He cannot be “in” a place, He cannot be “everywhere,” and He cannot be “nowhere.”
Allah is the eternally-existing, necessary first cause. Unlike His creation, which is a possible existent subject to nonbeing, beginning, and ending, Allah has no beginning and He will never perish or come to an end. Scholars have also explained, “Bringing creation into existence did not add anything to His attributes that was not already there.”
He is the Sustainer of everything, directly sustaining every instant of the existence of all things. He alone gives life and He alone gives death, and He will re-create and resurrect living rational beings for judgment and retribution just as He created them the first time. Nothing is difficult for Him.
His omnipotence encompasses all things intrinsically possible. He cannot terminate His own existence, for “the divine nature necessarily entails the divine perfections, of which being is one. It is impossible that Allah could cease to have this perfection or any other, for otherwise He would not be God.” Similarly, it is impossible for created things to contravene the knowledge or speech of Allah, for by being connected with either of these two divine attributes, it has become contingently necessary for any created thing to conform and submit.
His knowledge encompasses all things. It is not subject to change or increase; it is not based on time or chronology. He knew the actions and eternal abodes of all of humanity before its creation, and its actual existence and conformity to Allah’s pre-temporal knowledge neither increased nor benefited Him.
He sees all events and things in a manner wholly unlike our means of seeing things. His sight does not depend on distance, light, and appendages. Likewise, He hears all events and things with a hearing that transcends sound waves, volume, tone, and pitch.
Allah is the source of all benefit and harm. If all of humanity gathered together with the sole intention of benefiting or harming a single person, it would be absolutely powerless to do so save by the will and permission of Allah.
In a similar vein, Allah alone guides to His single, eternal truth, and He likewise leads astray. All good works done by a person are not a consequence of his own knowledge, effort, or piety, but rather they issue from a divinely-bestowed ability that Allah grants to whom He wills.
It should be noted at this point that while the masculine pronoun “He” is used in both Arabic and English to denote Allah, He is nonetheless transcendentally beyond any gender. Elucidating this phenomenon, T.J. Winter, a British academic, writes the following:
God is simply Allah, the God; never Father. The divine is referred to by the masculine pronoun: Allah is He (huwa); but the grammarians and exegetes concur that this is not even allegoric: Arabic has no neuter, and the use of the masculine is normal in Arabic for genderless nouns. ”
By Noor al-Deen
“Allah! There is no god but He, the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede in His presence except as He permits? He knows what (appears to His creatures as) Before or After or Behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He wills. His Throne does extend over the heavens and the earth, and He feels no fatigue in guarding and preserving them, for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory).” (Qur’an 2:255)
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JimG
Guest
Edris said:
Thanks for your response. Some of what you posted sounds somewhat like Thomas Aquinas, or even Aristotelian metaphysics. The reason I asked is that it often seems to me that Muslims and Catholics have no common theological language when discussing the supernatural. So when we use terms such as eternity, or spirit, or soul, I’m not quite sure if we have the same concept in mind.
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gurrato_alaien
Guest
Atheists said to Abu-haneefa (one of the greatest scholars and researcher of Muslims ): in which year your God has been found?
He said
God existing before history and times no earlier for his existence…He said to them : What is before The four?
They said(Atheists) : Three…
He said to them : what is before The three?
They said(Atheists) : Two …
He said to them : what is before The TWO?
They said(Atheists) : One …
He said to them : what is before The ONE?
They said(Atheists) : Nothing before the one …
He said to them : Since the arithmetic’s ones is nothing before it, so how the real one and he is Allah? ! No earlier for his existence…
They said(Atheists) : in which side your God be ?
He said : if you bring a lamp in a dark place, in which side the light will be ?
They said(Atheists) : Everywhere
He said : Since this is the artificial light, so how the earth’s and heavens’s light will be?
They said(Atheists) : Tell us about your God’s Reality? Is it hard like iron or liquid like water or gaseous as steam and vapor ?
He said : Have you set beside patient be moribund ?
They said(Atheists) : Yes we did.
He said : Did he talk to you after the death?
They said(Atheists): No
he said : Was he talking and moving before death?
They said(Atheists): Yes
He said : What was changed him?
They said(Atheists): His soul going out
he said : His soul has been gone out?
They said(Atheists): Yes
he said : Describe to me this soul, is it hard like iron or liquid like water or gaseous as steam and vapor ?
They said(Atheists): We don’t know anything about it!!
He said : Since the created soul you don’t know any thing about it, so how you want me to describe the God?!!!
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Edris
Guest
“Saint” Thomas Aquinas is an Aristotelian
.mmm……ya we agree on some statements (“Things are kept in existence by God, and without God they would instantly become nothing” Thomas Aquinas), if i think of God on my own, i might come to some common ground with Islam, But not all, or else there won’t be christians and muslims, we’d have the same religion.
I also agree that we don’t share the same concept in mind when discussing the supernatural. Let me give you an example from the Qur’an and from the Bible:
Qur’an 42:11 “…There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearer, the All-Seer.”
Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image…”
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r.gonzales
Guest
that supposed conversation that took place between al-imam aboo haneefah and some atheists sounds kind of sufi-ish - especially with respect to the part about Allah being everywhere, which is a belief contrary to the teachings of prophet muhammad and his companions. i’d like to know the source of that so that i can possibly try to verify its authenticity. with respect to this particular issue, correct islamic belief is that Allah is above His throne, which is above the rest of His creation just as He mentioned in the Quran numerous times, “the Merciful rose above the throne (ar. ar-rahmaan 'alal-'arsh istawaa).” there are also many authentic hadeeths that indicate this as well. there is a book by al-imam adh-dhahabee entitled al-'uloo lil-ghafoor al-'alee (trancendency for the Forgiving, the Exalted) that discusses Allah’s transcendence and His being above His creation - as far as i know though, it’s only available in arabic and hasn’t been translated into english.
as for the original question:
JimG:
as for the second part of your question, there is nothing explicitly stated in islamic scripture that mentions Allah’s state of being related to your question other than the fact that He is above His creation. so in all of existence, there is Allah and then there is His creation and He is separate and distinct from it.
islamic belief is that we only describe Allah with and attribute to Him the things that He has revealed about Himself - whether in His book, the Quran or upon the tongue of His prophet muhammad. this is due to the fact that Allah is the most knowledgeable of Himself and we have no right to say about Allah except that which He has given us knowledge of.
as for the original question:
as explained by ibn qayyim al-jawziyyah, one of islam’s great scholars, the soul and the spirit are the same entity according to correct islamic belief and it is a creation of Allah’s. Allah is not a spirit/soul as He is not a created being, He is the Creator of the spirit/soul and everything else that exists.
as for the second part of your question, there is nothing explicitly stated in islamic scripture that mentions Allah’s state of being related to your question other than the fact that He is above His creation. so in all of existence, there is Allah and then there is His creation and He is separate and distinct from it.
islamic belief is that we only describe Allah with and attribute to Him the things that He has revealed about Himself - whether in His book, the Quran or upon the tongue of His prophet muhammad. this is due to the fact that Allah is the most knowledgeable of Himself and we have no right to say about Allah except that which He has given us knowledge of.
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JimG
Guest
Thank you. I guess then that from an Islamic point of view it must come down to how one interprets the Quran. If the Quran speaks of Allah in bodily terms, does one interpret it metaphorically or literally? However, I am getting the impression that one is not allowed to have any sort of discussion at all about the nature of Allah, philosophically or theologically.
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jcaz
Guest
I could not have put it better, so I simply quote my brother gonzales:
However, Allaah says in the Quraan: “There is nothing like unto Him.” You have a hand, and a many animals have hands. But are your hands the same. Allaah has the ability to see, and also humans have the ability to see. Does this mean that our seeing is the same? Of course not. Our sight is limited in place and in time. Allaah can see everything, everywhere for all times. So just because we have the attribute of sight and Allaah has the attribute of sight, this does not mean that they are the same attribute.
So the correct way of understanding these verses is literally, to believe about Allaah that which He tells us. So because He tells us that He has a hand, we believe that He has a hand. We do not, however, make comparisons between our hand and Allaah’s hand. We also do not try to understand what Allaah’s hand looks like or what it means that Allaah has hand, as this is beyond us. What we know is that Allaah has a hand and His hand is nothing like His creation.
Hope this answers your question.
Yes, it does come down to how one interprets the Quraan. However, the are correct interpretations and there are false interpretations. We are to believe about Allaah that which he tells us to believe.
If Allaah, says he has a hand, then as long as this does not go against any other belief, then we should interprest this literally. There are some deviant sects who interpret these verses metaphorically, because they feel saying Allaah has a hand means that His hand is like that of His creation.
However, Allaah says in the Quraan: “There is nothing like unto Him.” You have a hand, and a many animals have hands. But are your hands the same. Allaah has the ability to see, and also humans have the ability to see. Does this mean that our seeing is the same? Of course not. Our sight is limited in place and in time. Allaah can see everything, everywhere for all times. So just because we have the attribute of sight and Allaah has the attribute of sight, this does not mean that they are the same attribute.
So the correct way of understanding these verses is literally, to believe about Allaah that which He tells us. So because He tells us that He has a hand, we believe that He has a hand. We do not, however, make comparisons between our hand and Allaah’s hand. We also do not try to understand what Allaah’s hand looks like or what it means that Allaah has hand, as this is beyond us. What we know is that Allaah has a hand and His hand is nothing like His creation.
Hope this answers your question.
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JimG
Guest
Thank you jcaz, that does answer my question.
For me, literal interpretation of something would mean that which the words mean in ordinary human conversation.
In that sense, although you say that the Quran is always interpreted literally, your other comments seem to say that the words of the Quran can not really be taken in that human sense when applied to Allah.
And I certainly agree with that. But I would call it a metaphorical interpretation. But you are more qualified to interpret the Quran than me. In any case, I appreciate your clarification.
For me, literal interpretation of something would mean that which the words mean in ordinary human conversation.
In that sense, although you say that the Quran is always interpreted literally, your other comments seem to say that the words of the Quran can not really be taken in that human sense when applied to Allah.
And I certainly agree with that. But I would call it a metaphorical interpretation. But you are more qualified to interpret the Quran than me. In any case, I appreciate your clarification.
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jcaz
Guest
Hey Jim,
Actually, as mentioned, there are deviant sects who do interpret these verses metaphorically. And the metaphorical interpretation of Allaah’s Hand is to imply “His Power”, and things such as this. They apply various metaphorical meanings to the attributes that Allaah says He has. And again, their reason is that they are trying to go to the extreme end and make sure that they do not compare Allaah to His creation. However, by doing this, they strip the verses their apparent meanings and therefore of Allaah’s attributes. We are supposed to always accept the apparent meaning, and we only look for other meanings when the apparent meaning cannot be accepted based on other Islamic teachings.
So as mentioned, the reconciliation is that Allaah described Himself with a perfect description, and when He says He has a hand, we understand simply that…that He has a hand. However, because we know that He says, “There is nothing like unto Him”, we know that His hand, and His other attributes, are not to be compared to the attributes of His creation.
We believe in the names and attributes of Allaah without making resemblence to the creation, without making assimilation of them, without alteration of the meanings, and without suspension of the meanings altogether.
That last sentence may have been a mouthful. So if you desire, you can go read (or listen) to more on this. One of most well known books in Islaam, Kitaabuttawheed (the Book of Tawheed) goes into detail regarding how we believe in Allaah. And to my knowledge, there is only one person who has explained this book in English, and here’s a link to the website giving those explanations.
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