Ithbaat, Ta'weel & Tafweed

[Hani]

Salam,

In this topic I'll leave some room for discussion after I write down a short summary of Muslim schools, when it comes to verses or narrations describing God or attributing any action or state to Him, there were mainly three ways for Muslims to process these.

A- Ithbaat (affirming texts as they are), negatively referred to as Tajseem.

Their strength: Sticking to the clear divine Arabic text.

Their weakness: Appearing as though they Affirm what can give a negative image of the divine being or what could generate an impression of imperfection.

Their response: We do not say God is a body but we believe in what He described Himself as without likening Him to anything else. The Book does not say God is not a body either-way, rather it only says He is unlike anything else. If everything else is of a physical nature then even if one were to conclude that God is a body, he is a divine body not a physical one. Thus, physical rules of nature and the laws of time and space would not apply to this divine body.

B- Ta'weel (giving an adequate interpretation), negatively referred to as Ta`teel.

Their strength: Giving a linguistically valid and rationally suitable explanation to a text that may prove difficult to process by some people.

Their weakness: Appearing as though they deny clear texts or that a divine being truly exists by making statements that sound contradictory and opening the door of corruption by offering personal interpretations to any divine text while being influenced by Greeks.

Their response: The divine being does not require a body or a direction to exist, he is transcendent and so we do not need to attribute certain things to Him that He may exist. Furthermore, the religion is for every age and thus we can always find more suitable interpretations without restricting ourselves to the first generations or even to Muslims.

C- Tafweed (leaving true meaning up to God), negatively referred to as Tajheel.

Their strength: Avoiding controversy and taking a safe route so as to not fall into errors of interpretation or degrading the status of the divine.

Their weakness: Appearing as ignorant folks who do not understand intended textual meaning and accusing the divine of sending vague revelation.

Their response: We are not reluctant when we find a divine text explaining another divine text. However, we fear God too much to speak about Him out of ignorance nor will we affirm certain attributes to God since we cannot afford to make such an error so we believe in it and leave the truth up to Him.

Note: each of these three can quote early statements from the first three generations to boost their claim of authenticity.

[MuslimK]

Wsalam,
Interesting analysis

[MuslimAnswers]

^

Salam alaykum,

As an Ash'ari/Maturidi, we would say that with respect to Allah the Exalted, there are Muhkam verses and Mutashaabih Verses, the latter must be explained in terms of the former; that is, the Ta'weel is done keeping in mind what the Muhkam Verses say.

Our main objection to certain people is that they are not doing Ithbaat at all, rather they are doing another type of Ta'weel, and that to an invalid type that does not keep in mind the principles of reasoning nor the Muhkam Verses. (To those who denigrate reasoning, the response is that the Qur'an itself invites us to think, and besides without principles of reasoning we would not even know the Qur'an is miraculous to begin with and why miracles are important as proofs).

[Hani]

An interesting thing I heard, is that the belief that matters like a Hand being a Sifah is in itself Ta'weel since a hand in any other context wouldn't be considered a Sifah. I'd like to hear more on that.