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This dissertation examines the tradition of anthropomorphic depictions of God (Allah) in the Hebrew Bible, Quran, and early Sunni tradition. While modern Islam rejects any physical descriptions of God, the document argues that early Sunni Islam affirmed Muhammad's vision of God. It was widely debated among Muhammad's companions whether he saw God physically or in a dream. The document also argues that the Quran, when read in the context of pre-Islamic Semitic traditions rather than later Greek philosophy, supports the idea of God appearing anthropomorphically. This has implications for how scholars understand the development of Islamic theology and debates around divine attributes. It suggests early Sunni Islam aligned more with Semitic traditions of seeing
This dissertation examines the tradition of anthropomorphic depictions of God (Allah) in the Hebrew Bible, Quran, and early Sunni tradition. While modern Islam rejects any physical descriptions of God, the document argues that early Sunni Islam affirmed Muhammad's vision of God. It was widely debated among Muhammad's companions whether he saw God physically or in a dream. The document also argues that the Quran, when read in the context of pre-Islamic Semitic traditions rather than later Greek philosophy, supports the idea of God appearing anthropomorphically. This has implications for how scholars understand the development of Islamic theology and debates around divine attributes. It suggests early Sunni Islam aligned more with Semitic traditions of seeing
This dissertation examines the tradition of anthropomorphic depictions of God (Allah) in the Hebrew Bible, Quran, and early Sunni tradition. While modern Islam rejects any physical descriptions of God, the document argues that early Sunni Islam affirmed Muhammad's vision of God. It was widely debated among Muhammad's companions whether he saw God physically or in a dream. The document also argues that the Quran, when read in the context of pre-Islamic Semitic traditions rather than later Greek philosophy, supports the idea of God appearing anthropomorphically. This has implications for how scholars understand the development of Islamic theology and debates around divine attributes. It suggests early Sunni Islam aligned more with Semitic traditions of seeing
Quran, and Early Sunni Tradition Below is the summary presentation I gave to my committee and the public at my dissertation defense April 2, 2008. It is a synopsis of my dissertation. Islam is a Semitic religion. It is probably safe to say that this statement is a revelation to no scholar writing on Islam today, Muslim or non-Muslim. Yet rarely are the theological implications of this statement fully reflected upon. Such reflection, e.g., might highlight some pretty radical discontinuities between Islam, or at least the normative formulation and articulations of Islam, and the pre-Islamic Semitic tradition. Not that one can essentialize with such a diverse tradition that is the Semitic tradition; but there are some common characteristic features that seem to transcend the linguistic and ethnic groups designated Semitic. My dissertation discusses one such feature and its apparent absence in Islam. In a moment of self-reflection the Quran emphasizes that it is an Arabic Quran and it, the Quran or God in the Quran, places itself squarely within the distinct Semitic monotheistic tradition that began with Abraham or Ibrahim. The Prophet Muhammad, we are told, seals this tradition. Characteristic of this Semitic monotheism is a tradition of transcendent anthropomorphism, theophany and visio Dei. That is to say the deity of Semitic monotheism, not unlike the gods of Semitic polytheism, was believed by most of the monotheists to have been anthropomorphic, i.e. he possessed an anthropoid or human-like form. But this form was also in a fundamental way unlike that of humans in that it was transcendent, either in size, or maybe in the substance of which it was composed ruach (spirit), e.g. rather than basar, the fallible flesh that distinguishes mortal bodies. No doubt the signature feature of this transcendent anthropomorphism is a dazzling radiance, and brilliant luminosity that is the morphic manifestation of Gods signature holiness. It is for this reason, we are given to understand, that humans cant see God. Not because God in invisible, but because humans are unholy, and unholy beings are in great danger in the immediate presence of Gods consuming, morphic holiness. When God chooses to manifest his person to humans, e.g. for the purpose of imparting revelation, for the protection of these humans he must veil his destructive luminosity with a cloud, a veil, or even a non-luminous, mortal-like form. This tradition of transcendent anthropomorphism, theophany, and visio Dei is evident in the HB and is even presupposed in the NT, for example with Pauls inaugural Christophany experience and the Gospel narrative of the transfiguration of Christ. Does the Quran evince such a tradition? I argue in this dissertation that it does, even though I recognize that such a tradition may seem to do violence to normative Islamic constructions of divine transcendence, according to which God is completely incorporeal and, therefore, ontologically invisible. Humans dont see God because, in as much as the sinequa non of visibility is corporeality, God is simply incapable of being seen. I argue, however, that such a construction of divine transcendence is Hellenistic in origin and alien to ancient Semitism, and that it actually entered Islamic tradition during the post-quranic period. I argue that, when read against the backdrop of this pre-Islamic Semitic monotheism rather than from the view of the post-quranic Hellenizing theology, the quranic passages that are usually assumed to categorically deny the visibility of God, actually seem to affirm it, but with qualifications and restrictions. I argue in this dissertation that the quranic evidence suggests that the Prophet Muhammad himself claimed to have seen God, maybe even in his luminous, transcendently anthropomorphic form. The question of whether Muhammad saw God was intensely debated, though most textbooks on Islamic theology give little or no hint of this. I document this debate as it allegedly transpired among Companions of the Prophet, over 19 of which reportedly affirmed that he did see God, one definitely but maybe two- Aisha and AbdAllah b. Masud- denied that he had ever seen God. I cannot say for certain how much if any of this discussion reflected in the hadith literature is historical. What can be said, however, with some measure of confidence, is that Sunni Islam, particularly traditionalist Sunnism, for the first four hundred years or so (3 rd / 9 th -6 th / 12 th ), affirmed the Prophets vision of God; indeed, this affirmation seems to have been characteristic of Sunnism during this period. Not only did opposing theological schools such as the Mutazila and the Shia so characterize and caricaturize it on this basis, but frequently self-definitions offered by traditionalist Sunni scholars included the affirmation of Muhammads vision of God. Among those who affirmed such, there was discussion over its manner: did Muhammad see God with his eyes or in a dream-vision, or maybe both on different occasions? Whether it was a visiointerna or a visio corporalis, the general sentiment among those traditionalist Sunnis who affirmed it seems to have been that it was a real theophany either way. The main implications of this study are, I believe, two. First, this close and extended association between Classical Sunni Islam and traditions of transcendent anthropomorphism, theophany and visio Dei calls into question, I suggest, most descriptions of Islamic theological development. In particular, in the modern academic discussions of the medieval Muslim controversies over the divine attributes, for example, by failing to take due notice of this association, scholars also fail therefore to grasp the nuances involved in the discussion. The outcome is that in many cases the description offered reflects as much the presuppositions of the modern authors who, thus, less than accurately and/ or less than adequately present the medieval Muslim discussion as it seems to have actually occurred on the ground. Secondly, though modern, normative Islamic constructions of divine transcendence may be radically discontinuous with the Semitic tradition, this association situates Sunni Islam squarely within the latter. This is not surprising, as it was traditionalist Sunnism that, at least ostensibly, rejected the Hellenizing efforts of the Mutazila and other Greek-friendly schools. If my experiment, and such is all it was, at reading the quranic material in the light of pre-Islamic Semitic monotheism is found methodologically acceptable, I suggest that this Islamic tradition of transcendent anthropomorphism, theophany, and visio Dei secures Islams place within the Semitic religious tradition. From this perspective, one might take another look at a host of major themes of the Quran, if you will, from constructions of divine unity to the nature of the revelatory process, etc.