Various Wahhabi Contentions About Allah’s Wisdom

Wahhabi Contention: If Allah’s wisdom must have a different meaning than human wisdom, why do the Asharis not apply this principle with all of His Attributes?

Sunni Response: Actually, we do apply this principle with all His attributes. Allah’s wisdom does not have the meaning of need, or achieving benefit, or avoiding harm, because He has no needs and nothing can harm or benefit Him. This is firmly based on the scriptures.

Wahhabi Contention: What is the need for saying “Allah has perfect knowledge, and perfect action” and thus rejecting the attribute of wisdom?

Sunni Response: How does having perfect knowledge and perfect action reject wisdom? Moreover, can there be perfect wisdom without perfect knowledge? Beware that Ibn Faaris states in Al-Mujmal: “Al-hukm comes from the idea of prevention. Al-hikmah (wisdom) also comes from this, because it prevents ignorance.” So in Arabic hikmah is related to knowledge.

Wahhabi Contention: If you affirm that Allah has Wisdom (yet not like our wisdom), then why can you not then affirm that He has a hand (but not like our hand)?

Sunni Response: We affirm that Allah is attributed with “yad”, but we deny “limb,” or any other physical meaning. Note that Abu Hanifah prohibited translating “yad” (which you translated as “hand”) to Persian, even if one added “without a how.” This is mentioned in “Al-Fiqh Al-Akbar”. The difference between wisdom and “yad” is that the former has a known meaning, while the latter does not. Another difference is that “yad” in its literal translation means “hand” and a hand is literally a body, except in expressions like “Its not in my hands.” That is why you find the scholars saying “yad without a how” and they will not usually find it necessary to add “without a how” after “wisdom,” because when a person hears the word wisdom he does not usually think of something physical.

Author: Shaykh Abu Adam al Naruiji

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2 Responses to Various Wahhabi Contentions About Allah’s Wisdom

  1. Abu Abdillah says:

    Assalaamu ‘Alaikoem Shaykh,

    Dear Shaykh, can you please elaborate on the difference between something physical and attributes non-physical ?
    Like why physical things are likening to creation and non-physical aren’t ?

    JazakAllah khayr Sheikh for all help.
    Wassalaam

  2. Sure, physical means material, something with size, or mass. Aţ-Ţaĥaawiyy said [in brackets:] {Aļļaah is above} the status of {having limits, extremes, corners, limbs or instruments}.

    Attributes of the physical would be physical attributes, such as size, shape, volume, mass, weight, direction, place, location, etc. I realize there is some redundancy in these examples, it is just to be perfectly clear. What makes such attributes befit creation only, is that they need to be specified in quality or quantity. This means they need a creator to specify them. See also Bodies have limits but not Allaah.

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