Allah – More Human Than Divine!

Sam Shamoun

Bassam Zawadi produced a “reply” to my article where I document that, according to the assertions of Muslim dawagandist Dr. Jamal Badawi, Allah is nothing more than a finite, physical being.

We encourage the readers to first read both of these articles since this will help them follow my rebuttal more closely.

In my article I quoted Zawadi to prove that he himself indirectly classified his own god as a limited, imperfect physical being since he cited a report where Allah is categorized as a shakhs. I quoted Badawi to prove that this word basically means that Allah must be “a human being, physical, limited being.”

However, Zawadi has done an about face and denies that the hadiths necessarily classify Allah as a shakhs. He even cites some sources and resorts to a couple of false analogies to back up his point.

Is this the same Zawadi who said the following in his debate with Thabiti Anyabwile?

Do the readers see how Zawadi employed these very same reports to establish the fact of Allah being a single person?

However, the only way Zawadi could even use these particular narrations to prove his case is if he were operating under the assumption that these ahadith do in fact classify Allah as a shakhs or person!

Notice the dilemma that Zawadi has created for himself. If these traditions do not necessarily refer to Allah as a shakhs, then neither do they establish Zawadi’s premise that Allah is a singular person. After all, Allah is supposedly of a different essence or genus, and is therefore not limited in his being as humans are.

This means that Zawadi was deliberately lying to his audience since he must have known of the debate which existed among his own scholars concerning whether the hadith includes Allah within the category of a shakhs. As such, Zawadi was well aware that these narrations do not support his contention that Allah is a singular person. I.e., just because human creatures are for the most part singular persons, this doesn’t necessarily extend to Allah who is supposedly not a shakhs, but greater than and unlike any other finite, physical being.

Or, Zawadi didn’t know about the difference of opinion among the ulema until recently. If this is indeed the case, then he has no business debating such issues when he is ignorant of his own religious traditions and therefore unqualified to represent Islam in such matters.

Or, even though Zawadi knew that there was some debate over this issue, he still sided with those scholars who agreed that these narratives do in fact classify Allah as a shakhs. If so, then this means that he is actually lying to his readers since he does believe Allah is a shakhs, even though in his "response" he attempts to give the misleading impression that such may not be the case at all.

To establish that there is a difference of opinion over whether shakhs refers to Allah Zawadi quotes Al-Qadi Abu Ya‘la, who said: “And as for the expression al shakhs I have seen some of the people of the hadeeth permitting its utterance.” But this appeal on Zawadi’s part ignores or betrays an ignorance of two things: 1) those who rejected its application to Allah were either Muta’zilites, who denied that Allah has attributes, particularly ones they classified as anthropomorphic such as a face, hands, and eyes, or those who were heavily influenced by Mutazilism, such as Ibn al-Jawzi; and 2) Abu Ya‘la himself did not agree with those who did not permit the application of this term to Allah, something Zawadi either knew but duplicitously chose to withhold or was inexcusably ignorant of since he pretends he is beyond being lectured about what Muslims have taught/teach:

This leads me to my next problem with Zawadi’s desperate attempt of distancing Allah from the word shakhs. Zawadi overlooked the fact, and didn’t even bother to comment on the various hadiths I cited where the words ahad and shay were used in place of shakhs. These reports were important since I used them to prove that Muhammad must have believed that Allah is a shakhs.

For instance, in the various versions of this particular hadith, Muhammad is reported to have said that there is no ahad or shay that is more jealous or likes to be praised more than Allah. The clear implication of these narratives is that Muhammad believed that Allah is both an ahad and a shay.

I even quoted specific Quranic verses and Islamic references that explicitly identify Allah as an ahad and a shay.

I used this to establish that Muhammad must have also believed that Allah is a shakhs. After all, we are speaking of the same exact hadith which has been narrated with slight variations in wording.

Thus, since the expressions “no ahad/shay” most definitely include Allah, then consistency demands that the phrase “no shakhs” also include him.

Since Zawadi seems to have a hard time comprehending these facts we are going to therefore break this down further, so that hopefully this time he doesn’t miss the point or try to avoid dealing with the problem.

When the hadiths say that there is no ahad or shay that loves to be praised as much or is more jealous than Allah, this naturally means that Allah is both an ahad and a shay.

By the same token, when the hadiths state that there is no shakhs which loves to be praised as much or is more jealous than Allah, this must be interpreted to mean that Allah himself is being classified as a shakhs as well.

There is simply no way around this fact if one is going to be honest and consistent with what the ahadith teach as a whole concerning this particular issue.

Next, Zawadi gets rather desperate and chides me for not lecturing Arab Christians on why they shouldn’t be using shakhs for God!

There are a few problems with Zawadi’s ranting. In the first place, the technical, theological term in Arabic that denotes the specific Persons of the blessed and holy Trinity is not shakhs, but uqnum (pl. aqanim). Here is how the Hans-Wehr dictionary defines this specific word:

The late Christian scholar of Islam, Thomas P. Hughes, stated the following concerning this particular term:

And in his entry for Jesus, Hughes’ quoted Muslim scholar al-Baidawi's commentary on Q. 4:171 who wrote:

And here is Hughes’ entry for the Trinity:

It is interesting that the Arabic phrase used for the holy and blessed Trinity, as-Salusu (al-Thaluthu) 'l-Aqdas, never appears in the Quran.

Here is another Christian scholar who also confirms that the word used to denote the Divine Persons of the Godhead is uqnum, not shakhs:

Therefore, those Arab Christians who use the term shakhs do so mostly out of ignorance of their own rich theological and historical traditions.

However, had Zawadi spent some time reading our articles more thoroughly, he would have found the following Arabic Christian clearly stating that shakhs is a word that should not be used for God:

Thus, well informed Arabic Christians know better than to use shakhs to refer to the Triune God!

Second, Zawadi’s tirade here commits the tu quoque fallacy (*; *) as well the fallacy of argumentum ad populum (*; *). Just because some (many, most?) fallible, imperfect Arab Christians employ the word shakhs for God doesn’t justify or excuse Muhammad from also using it. The mistake of Arab Christians in applying an inappropriate term for the true God doesn’t give Muhammad the right to also employ it, especially when such a word implies that God is a limited, physical being.

Furthermore, I did not actually argue that shakhs means “corporeal being”. My whole article was written based on the definition of one of the leading Muslim taqiyyists and dawagandists, namely Dr. Jamal Badawi, and the implications that follow if one uses Badawi’s definition as a basic assumption. [And how this claim backfired on Badawi.] I then showed in an endnote how Zawadi put himself in opposition to Badawi. So there is no reason to chide Arab Christians for their using this term, when the problem lies squarely with Badawi.

This leads us to our final and most important point. Zawadi is supposed to believe that Muhammad was a true prophet who always spoke by inspiration and who was given the most eloquent words to speak:

Is Zawadi seriously comparing Muhammad with uninspired, fallible Arab Christians who are not prophets or messengers? Is Zawadi saying that Muhammad’s communication skills were no better than individuals whom the Quran classifies as idolaters and disbelievers for holding to the view that Jesus is fully Divine and the unique Son of God?

Even though Zawadi admits that shakhs does typically refer to someone who has a body, he claims that context determines everything and that there are exceptions to the general rule. He even says that I am well aware that Muslims explicitly deny that Allah has a body!

What I am aware of is the games that Wahhabi anthropomorphists such as Zawadi have to resort to in order to deny the fact that their god possesses an actual body of some kind. After all, according to the statements of Salafis themselves, who claim to be basing their beliefs on the testimony of the Quran and sunna, Allah literally possesses a face, eyes, hands, shins etc., and literally smiles and laughs, even though they qualify this by saying these traits are unlike anything in all of creation.

The hadiths go so far as to say that Allah and his throne are actually located within a house that Muhammad will enter on the Day of Judgment in order to ask Allah’s permission to intercede for Muslims:

If the preceding factors do not establish that Allah literally has a body composed of a specific size with a particular shape, thereby limiting him to the dimensions of time, space and place, then no amount of evidence would ever be able to prove this!

In fact, this type of denial basically results in agnosticism since this would imply that language has absolutely no clear meaning when it comes to the Islamic deity, and that nothing that the Quran or hadiths say about Allah actually make sense or correspond to the reality that the use of specific words are intended to point to.

Zawadi proceeds to commit another logical fallacy, namely that of a false analogy.

He brings up the issue of how Muslim scholars debated whether Allah gets literally angry or not, since anger is supposedly a human emotion, or a change which occurs “when the blood is excited in the heart due to the desire for revenge.” Some Muslims reasoned that Allah cannot get angry because he doesn’t have blood.

Zawadi wants us to believe that this is somehow relevant to the issue of Allah being described as a shakhs!

However, the problem with this false analogy is that anger is not an emotion that is limited only to humans, but a quality that is shared by many rational beings, including God. Nor is it necessarily a reaction of blood circulating in the body. Anger can be the by-product of the thoughts or disposition of the mind. As such, God could get angry without this making him a limited, physical being.

Such, however, is not the case with the term shakhs, which has only one meaning according to Muslim propagandists such as Dr. Jamal Badawi. As Badawi put it:

Hence, to say that Allah is a shakhs is to say that he is “a human being, physical, limited being,” according to one of Islam’s leading taqiyyists!

Zawadi thinks he has a way of softening the impact of Badawi’s rather damaging statements. He claims that since Muslim scholars differ with each other concerning this issue, he is therefore not bound to hold to anyone’s opinion, not even Badawi’s, unless “the evidence is as clear as daylight and irrefutable.”

The problem for Zawadi is that the evidence which we presented, both here and in our initial article, is in fact “clear as daylight and irrefutable.” We can’t help it if Zawadi refuses to accept the reality of the situation.

Furthermore, the difference of opinion simply shows how embarrassed some Muslims were over Muhammad classifying their god as a shakhs since, unlike their prophet, they realized the problems this created for their belief in a god whom they thought transcended the limitations of the creation, and who was supposed to be unlike human beings.

Moreover, such debates only further highlight the chaotic state of the Islamic faith. The Muslim scripture repeatedly claims to be a clear book which completely explains all of its verses:

And according to Wahhabis like Zawadi, the purpose of Muhammad’s sunna is to provide further clarification to a book which already claims to be perfectly clear and exhaustively detailed.

However, such is not the case as the mass confusion and contradictions which exist among the Muhammadan scholars conclusively testify. The differences among the ulema on basic issues such as whether Allah is a shakhs or not, is a clear indication that the Quran and the ahadith fail to clarify matters.

After all, if these sources were really that clear then we wouldn’t expect to find Muslim scholars offering various and often contradictory opinions and explanations concerning the meaning of not just the Quran, but also of the hadiths of Muhammad!

In fact, Zawadi’s website provides some of the strongest evidence against the Quran’s repeated assertion that it is a perspicuous and detailed revelation. Zawadi’s failure to quote exclusively from the Quran to explain or clarify matters in his articles, along with his constant appeal to the contradictory opinions of his scholars, amply testify that the Islamic sources are anything but clear. Instead of helping to alleviate the confusion, Zawadi’s articles and “rebuttals” actually end up proving that Islam is nothing more than a religion of misguidance.

With that said, Zawadi needs to face reality and accept the fact that according to the supposed “inspired” statements of his false prophet, his god is nothing more than an imperfect, finite, limited physical being.

So much for Muhammad’s supposed eloquence!

CHALLENGE TO BASSAM ZAWADI

In his “rebuttal” Zawadi tried to cast doubt on whether the ahadith classify Allah as a shakhs, even though he employed these very same narrations to prove that his god is a singular person in his debate with Thabiti Anyabwile. In light of such duplicity we feel that we must challenge Zawadi to come clean with his readers and to stop with all of his lies and deception, which he constantly employs in his writings, lectures and debates in order to achieve his aim of misleading people into following a false prophet and a wicked god.

We challenge Zawadi to explain to his readers why he used these same hadiths to prove that Allah is a singular person if he knew there was some debate on whether these narrations do in fact refer to Allah as a shakhs or person. If he claims that he was unaware of it then he needs to explain why is he engaging in debates on such issues when he isn’t qualified to do so, and speaks mostly out of ignorance.

And if he doesn’t believe that Allah is a shakhs according to these hadiths then he needs to explain to his fellow Muslims and readers why did he use them to prove his case that Allah is a singular person. After all, if these ahadith do not prove that Allah is a shakhs then neither do they prove that he is a single person.

However, if Zawadi says that he does believe that these reports identify Allah as a singular person, then this means that he must accept the fact that Allah is also a shakhs. If so then Zawadi needs to explain why he wrote a “rebuttal” where he tries to cast doubt on whether these reports actually identify Allah as a shakhs.

Zawadi must not only come clean by answering these challenges, he must also come to terms with reality and accept the fact that he isn’t qualified to represent Islam or to criticize Christianity. Zawadi needs to be honest with himself and be humble enough to realize that he needs to find something else to do, since his articles and debates are doing far more greater damage to Islam than good. Zawadi is actually helping us prove that Allah is a false god, that Muhammad is a false prophet, and that Islam is a religion of deception and misguidance. And for that, we thank him.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Anthony Rogers for providing some very helpful suggestions and comments.