Response to Anthropomorphism: Wrong Thoughts

Salaam Dara

Re your post on Anthropomorphism

Excellent points, and perhaps there is an antithesis to anthropomorphising Allah in the hadith of the Hidden Treasure, which happens to be the favourite of this artefact/human self and its Nafs.

When we discussed Shabistari, we found his explanation of the Universal “I”, which is the intrusion of God into the Mulk/universe. All sense of selfhood is God’s limitation of His quantal/infinite-and-seamless Self in the particulate Mulk, and the human self is therefore only an aspect of that Universal Self which is God. Once we have that down, we don’t need to be judging and fighting or taking all for ourselves because we are not, after all, struggling to survive in a hostile universe but part of the total expression of God.

In that light, we can turn our attention instead to contemplating the universe in the conscious knowledge that in its entirety it (not we) is the transposed and metaphorical reflection of God. We can look at it so that, as Ibn Arabi says, He “sees” it as our knowing eyes and, by extension, we can interact with it so that He “experiences” it as a Self-limited, knowing artefact/human “I’. And we can do that at peace with our artefact selves and with each other. And it is a beautiful Mulk.

Barakah
gjpm

Anthropomorphism: Wrong Thoughts

I do not like that fellow over there, and therefore Allah does not like him either.

I am angry at that guy and therefore Allah is also angry at him.

Those people hurt me and Allah will punish them.

I am doing this and Allah is pleased.

I am doing that and Allah wants me to.

Calamity fell upon those people and thus Allah punished them.

That person did me wrong and Allah does not love him.

Those people over there, are cursed by Allah.

That guy is so bad, Allah will never forgive him.

 

anthropomorphic

 

Anthropomorphism

Take your human traits and emotions, volition and intentions towards others, and project them to Allah!

Utter falsehood  and Shirk (polytheism).

Allah does not  do a single thing you wish and intend. Allah does what Allah wishes.

If that was the case, and our wishes dictated anything in the universe, cosmos would have instantly ceased:

23:71 But if the truth (al-Haqq) were in accord with their own likes and dislikes, the heavens and the earth would surely have fallen into ruin, and all that lives in them [would long ago have perished]!

وَلَوِ اتَّبَعَ الْحَقُّ أَهْوَاءهُمْ لَفَسَدَتِ السَّمَاوَاتُ وَالْأَرْضُ وَمَن فِيهِنَّ

Children put human faces on all things, parents first, then their own, animals and plants and almost all else.

We keep some of that as adults, to model the behavior of others and things we find in nature. We put faces on things to make them familiar.

Naturally, automatically, we apply Anthropomorphism to Allah!

I do this all the times, and I therefore converse with my Nafs (Self):

Self! your whims and wishes are not Allah’s. Your pleasure and anguish are of no relations to Allah. Your likes and dislikes of others are not Allah’s likes and dislikes. Your worships and spiritual activities are not God’s work, they are just my doings and mine alone!

When you see something, can you discern if you are Anthropomorphise-ing by putting your face on it, or you actually see Allah processing that entity!?

Can you see a world without Anthropomorphise-ing? A world that is all about Allah, free of your Anthropomorphism of the Divine?