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God's Hands, Face And Eyes Etc Were Taken Literally By Prophet?
According to Nicolai Sinai the use of god’s hands, face and eyes etc where taken literally at the time of Muhammad because semetic religions all believed in trancendant anthropomorphism these things only became metaphorical later on because of greek Hellenistic thinking. So God having a face as hanbal suggests is what they believed although not like our face. What is anyones thoughts on this?
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4 Replies
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God's Hands, Face And Eyes Etc Were Taken Literally By Prophet?
updated 1 year, 3 months ago
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Can you please share what evidences or basis has been presented to reach this conclusions?
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That basically these are the assumptions of the people at the time, trancendant anthropomorphism was the standard interpretation of semetic religions around the Mediterranean, that god being light upon light is also a Jewish understanding that god does have a form just one very different from ours, a God that is purely trancendant is platonic thinking not of semetic thinking only later will Islam like Christianity adopt a neo platonic understanding of God.
academia.edu
A Body Unlike Bodies: Transcendent Anthropomorphism in Ancient Semitic Tradition and Early Islam
Normative Islamic notions of God’s transcendence preclude divine corporeality and anthropomorphism. This tradition of incorporeal transcendence is in radical discontinuity with the Semitic/biblical and ancient Near Eastern tradition of transcendent
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I am not sure if this is true, because from Surah Al-Ikhlas and Ash-Shura (42:11), it is clear that the Quran teaches we cannot comprehend His physical being. Moreover, the wording used in those verses does not imply literal meanings. However, my study in this domain is quite limited. Perhaps @Irfan76 sb can give a better response.
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These assumptions are just speculations. God has already mentioned in the Quran that لیس کمثلہ شئی. Therefore the companions who knew the language and the eloquence, knew what was literal and what was mataphore. However, simple had always been there who take everything as literally. Their examples are found in the villagers, but the Bible and Quran both use metaphors and this was well known to them.
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