Appendix 1: The Qur’an as GOD’s Speech (9)

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What comes from God must be of God. It is said that the Qur’an is from Him, whereas this is not said of any created thing.

– See Q98:2, 7:104, and 2:101, mentioning a messenger from God and using the same preposition, min. In Q4:79, it says Whatever good befalls you is from GOD. Its being from God is no proof of its being of GOD in the sense of its being uncreated, as His Essence is.

6. In several reliable traditions, the Prophet (may God bless him and give him peace) tells his companions to seek refuge in the perfect words of God from danger. But no one is allowed to seek refuge in anything but God Himself. Therefore these perfect words of God must be His Names and Attributes, and so uncreated.

– Yes, these perfect words of GOD are His Names, which are metonyms that use their adjunctive status to represent their referent. (This is a literary device only, and does not prove that GOD is partible or associated with anything.) Note that they are always described in these traditions as perfect, explicitly affirming their special, and presumably co-eternal, status. As His Names, they are directly representative of GOD Himself, and thus not separate entities. They cannot mean the Qur’an, which is singular, nor can they mean all its contents, because among its contents are words that mean infidel, dog, pig, etcetera. Only its perfect words are meant, which are, again, GOD’s Names.

– We do not say that the Face of GOD is in the Qur’an; rather the word for “Face” is there. Nor do we say that the Hand of GOD is in the Qur’an; rather the word for “Hand” is there. Likewise, we find in the Qur’an the words for His Names, alongside other names and other words. His Names remain with Him, unaffected by how we misspell them or mispronounce them.

– The quoted tradition, however, does not mean that all GOD’s words are necessarily eternal. ‘Isa (peace be upon him), for example, is described as a Messenger of GOD and His Own Word (Q4:171). Yet in Q3:59 He says: Verily the likeness with AL-LAH of ‘Isa is like that of Adam; He created him from dust then told him “Be!” and so he came to be.

– By conflating Name as Divine Referent with name as physical word, we are encountering a dilemma that we avoid with Face and Hand, since these latter two are ‘understood’ to be somewhere else. I believe, on the contrary, that GOD’s Face and Hand are as present to us as His Names, but we have not yet rid ourselves of physicalist thinking, and so assume that we ‘have’ His Names under our thumb, as it were, while His Face and Hand are for later and far away. In truth, they are all Divine means for emphasizing His Imminent Presence – we ‘say’ His Names, ‘see’ His Face, and ‘feel’ His Hand – and are not to be identified with the countable, limited objects of our senses.

– Furthermore, all words are temporal things insofar as they are physically manifested in speech or writing. Distinctions are made primarily in terms of their referents. At the Treaty of Hudaybiyah, the Messenger of GOD (may AL-LAH bless him and grant him peace) crossed out his own title, containing the word “AL-LAH”. He was not cancelling GOD by crossing out a written word.

7. In one hasan (good) hadith – a grade lower than a sahih or ‘sound’ hadith – we read The superiority of the words of AL-LAH over all other words is like the superiority of AL-LAH over all of His creation. Therefore, the words of AL-LAH are uncreated, as He Himself is.

– This is not a direct statement of the eternity or uncreatedness of the Word of GOD, but as an analogy it does make its point – a rather weak point, however. The textual evidence from the Qur’an, the Word of GOD, which I have cited in items 1 – 5 and prior to them in this article, is superior to this hadith like the superiority of AL-LAH over all of His creation. By comparison to the Qur’an’s evidence, therefore, this hadith has next to no weight at all.

– GOD’s speech is indeed superior to human speech, but both are produced. One might say, in fact, that all speech is GOD’s speech, because He has caused everything to speak (Q41:21). So although He does not always speak directly, which is what we understand is the case with His occasional revelations in scripture, AL-LAH created you and what you do (Q37:96), and so can be understood as ‘speaking’ to us in all phenomena through His creative word “Be!”. One might say that GOD’s speech is the necessary condition for ours, giving it an ontological priority that is sufficient to explain its superiority over ours.

8. One could reason that the words of GOD are either created or uncreated. They represent His Speech, which is His attribute. His attributes cannot be created – as they are co-existent with Him – and so His words are uncreated.

– I dealt with this earlier, in distinguishing between His attribute of Speaking, or having the capacity to speak, and the products of that capacity, namely the words He has spoken from time to time, which are occasional, voluntary, and frequently referred to in the Qur’an in terms that denote plural objects of His action, such as He taught the Qur’an (after having taught other books).

– In Q22:70, a book is referred to that contains GOD’s knowledge of what is in the heavens and the earth. If GOD’s Speech is eternal, then all the more so must His Knowledge be. And if the Qur’an, which is but one example of GOD’s Speech, must be co-eternal, then likewise what is in the sky and on the earth must be co-eternal with GOD. And that is nonsense.

– If we equate His words with His capacity to speak, then logically we should equate His creatures with His capacity to create. He is the Speaker and the Creator, and these Names are directly representative of Him. For each such Name there is a corresponding effect – for the Speaker, His words, and for the Creator, His creatures or created beings. His Words are not the same as being the Speaker, just as His creatures are not the same as being the Creator.

– By postulating His attributes as entities, we distract our hearts from His Supreme Unicity and lead them into dangerous territory: Q21:19 – Woe to you for that which you ascribe [to Him]! That is why the Prophet (may GOD bless him and give him peace) said,

The best conception of GOD, then, is one that strives to avoid attributes and remain content with His Names.

One Final Note

There have been times in the history of Islamic theology when discussion has been high-spirited but polite and respectful – a tradition I would like to continue. But at other times, and particularly in matters such as this one that are close to the faith, rational discourse disappears and intemperate, hostile, and even dangerous language is used against opponents who happen to see things differently. Instead of carefully considering why someone who clearly shows that he believes in the same God and relies on the same sources could come to a well-argued but different conclusion as to what they mean, an opponent is branded with some ancient label such as Jahmi or Mu’tazili, as if that were enough to consign him to Hell, and subjected to a whirlwind of abuse. These ferocious tactics include:

– straw man arguments that misrepresent what an opponent has actually said;

– accusations of kufr (denial) and shirk (polytheism), or that so-and-so has left Islam;

– threats of violence, such as saying that so-and-so may be killed, his blood is halal, etcetera.

When the intellectual leaders of a community lead these attacks, the results are inevitable:

– a common and mistaken belief that faith and reason cannot coexist in religion;

– timid, unthinking followers who conclude that mental castration is the quickest route to safety, piety, and divine approval;

– a tendency to solve problems by anger, intimidation, force, and willful blindness;

– a degraded intellectual life among Muslims in general;

– lack of respect for Islamic theology and philosophy;

– a reputation for savage stupidity that only enhances the attractions of secularism and weakens the prospects of promoting faith in GOD.

Vicious diatribes offend against the teaching of the Qur’an itself, as in Q16:125: