Anthropomorphism
And Islam
By Mohd
Sageer
Religious
principles and tenets , as we understand today have
always been confined within the realm of
human knowledge and experience. Read the holy books, and you will
see nothing in there that is beyond our intellectual
comprehension . The common notion that God's words and actions
are transcendental to human knowledge does not hold
true as you go through these scriptures which do nothing
but command compliance of certain rules applicable to day to day
human life including meaningless rituals .
Accordingly,
the implication what the Holy Books give us is that
without the existence of human beings in this temporal
world , the entire concept of God , Good deeds , Sin,
Paradise
and Hell becomes meaningless. For some hither to unknown
reason , almighty God still needs the existence of
mortal human beings for His own meaningful existence since
venerating and worshipping Him as the supreme authority are of
utmost importance as prescribed by the Books that have been sent
down to us through various Sages and prophets. So that He
could reward good people with
Paradise
or cast the defaulters into Hell- fire as
punishment .
Except few
religious doctrines such as Buddhism which remains
agnostic , most of the Holy scriptures since ancient times contain certain
features that holds them in common bonds . It is their
graphic depiction of war, violence, punishment , bloodshed even sex
while communicating the message to people. Whether
it is a Hindu Mahabharata, or Ramayana, Old
testament , Bible or Quran , their narrative form one way or
the other have the same characteristics and ingredients of
what we could describe as something that can only be
originating from human intelligence . Apart from their
literary qualities and the moral - ethical
concerns aimed at human beings with suitable advises and
warnings , we still have to find in these Holy
scriptures what is attributed as miraculous or
transcendental.
Instead we
have scriptures depicting God as someone with supreme command
or God himself speaking to us as being the sole authority.
The
ability to experience emotions , feelings and senses by humans
, animals and plants is considered a unique characteristic
attached to living things. At the same time these sensations
are also the signs of our weaknesses for they are
being the sources of pervasive outbursts such as anger, vengeance,
lust, etc.
The
question is, does God too experience the destructive or
pervasive feelings such as vehemence or wrath, just the way
human beings and animals do?
Look at
these versus. ( My familiarity with Holy Quran made me to
chose these verses )
047.023
YUSUFALI: Such are the men whom Allah has cursed for He has made them deaf
and blinded their sight.
Humans as imperfect
beings may choose to curse someone as a
result of extreme anger. And that is thoroughly understandable
. A curse is an act of utter frustration stemmed from
extreme helplessness. To state that God is having to go
through such an unpleasant situation thus resorting
to cursing people is synonymous with equating God with
man. It is nothing but blasphemy.
058.021
YUSUFALI: Allah has decreed: "It is I and My messengers who must
prevail": For Allah is One full of strength, able to enforce His
Will.
Prevailing over whom ?
The mortal people ? " I and the messengers". Do you
honestly believe an omnipotent God needs to verbally air such a
statement. Does an almighty God needs the advocacy of
his messengers ?
[2.61]
And when you said: O Musa! we cannot bear with one food, therefore pray
Lord on our behalf to bring forth for us out of what the earth grows, of
its herbs and its cucumbers and its garlic and its lentils and its onions.
He said: Will you exchange that which is better for that which is worse?
Enter a city, so you will have what you ask for. And abasement and
humiliation were brought down upon them, and they became deserving
of Allah's wrath; this was so because
they disbelieved in the communications of Allah and killed the prophets
unjustly; this was so because they disobeyed and exceeded the limits.
[2.90] Evil is that
for which they have sold their souls-- that they should deny what Allah
has revealed, out of envy that Allah should send down of His grace on
whomsoever of His servants He pleases;
so they have made themselves deserving of wrath upon
wrath, and there is a disgraceful
punishment for the unbelievers.
The feeling of
wrath or vehemence is not a sublime emotion. But then whoever
feeling pleased or happy for certain people
are also liable to experience these negative emotions on
others whom they dislike . You, being a living creature
thus at times loosing your temper or being happy on other
occasions is perfectly normal. But the moment you start
thinking even the almighty God is not free from experiencing
these temporal bouts of emotional disturbances , then it
clearly is a case of confirming our limitations to
objectively perceiving an almighty God who should eternally
stand beyond all these emotional constraints such as anger and
happiness.
062.005
YUSUFALI: The similitude of those who were charged with the (obligations
of the) Mosaic Law, but who
subsequently failed in those (obligations), is that of a donkey which
carries huge tomes (but understands
them not). Evil is the similitude of
people who falsify the Signs of Allah: and Allah guides not people who do
wrong.
What is the criterion
that God applying to a harmless and silent
creature like donkey to be considered as worthless. ? After
all who created donkey ? What standard does God use to
measure the intellectual ability of an animal ? And even
if a donkey does not qualify to earn the respect of God , who is at
fault here ? The Creator or the creature ?
Do you honestly
believe this comparison made between Jews and donkey really
must have come from a universal God ? Is that why
God created donkey ? To make comparison with Jews. ? What was the sin
committed by donkeys to be insulted like this ? Can a
donkey get offended for being degraded like this by his Creator with
insinuations of his being inferior in terms of intelligence ?
In each verse of the Holy
Quran , there are myriads of ethical issues that casts
doubts on the source of its origin.
Strange are the ways of
God .. Every verse quoted in the Quran or for that matter in other
Holy book are indeed thought provoking.
For one
thing, these Holy Books were all written in a language
that were indigenous to the people for whom it was meant to be .
Thus we have Mahabharata and Ramayana in Sanskrit, an ancient language of
India. By the same token we have Old Testament in Hebrew with some
Aramaic influence of the Assyrian world. We have the New Testament
originally written in ancient Greek.
The Holy
Quran, originally written in Arabic thus were primarily addressed to
the Arabic speaking tribal groups who lived across the
present day Saudi Arabia.
Given
the points discussed so far , we should be able to draw two
things as conclusion. Firstly, the Holy books are
written in a manner and style treating God with human qualities.
They are addressing people belonging to a particular
sect or tribe of a particular time. Secondly they were
all written in the tongue of the people who had
spoken the same language .
God's
Act Of Rectification
In the
first instance God created man. At a later point He realized
there is something wrong with his subject. He then
decided to issue warnings to man persuading him to
move in the right path. First of all our common intelligence makes
us question the very purpose of this duplication. Objectively
speaking these are in utter contrast with the
notion of a universal God. And the question is very simple ;
why we were not programmed to behave in a way the God wanted us to behave
! And with thought err to human.
To this,
our religious leaders always had the clichéd answers. " Oh ! this is
a ploy of God. This is a game of God. We are being put
to test by God.
And still
we have to believe that our God is most merciful and most
compassionate.
Using
our contemporary parlance this whole situation can be drawn to
a single comparison. Since time immemorial inventions whether
Scientific, Medical or technological caused by men have always
been subject to inherent flaws that testify something
atypical of human nature Each time something is invented by
man had to be rectified for error or find ways to improve in order
to create a better one. Unfortunately, as
far as human beings are concerned this forms part of a
never- ending, continuous improvement process . And that
is where the irony lies . For us, finding ways to
continuously improve the features of our inventions cannot be
considered an attribute !! . Rather they
simply indicate our inability to reach perfection, because we
are bound by innumerable natural limitations as
being mere humans .
As mortal
creatures with inherent and innumerable physical , mental and
intellectual limitations we are unable to create or invent something
that is timelessly perfect. Hence sadly,
each time we end up creating new tools to modify
the shortcoming of a previous invention.
By
implicating the almighty God falling into a
similar trap of helplessness and limitations we throw insult to our
basic understanding of an omnipotent God !!
God had
created the first man. So far so good . But
it is blasphemously disrespectful to argue that it was only at
a later point that the omnipotent, omniscient almighty God realized
the flaw in His creation. The very concept of God being
omnipotent and Omniscient is questionable here.
Or was
it an ingredient that the God had omitted to insert in
the moral ethical settings of human beings that caused them to
behave immorally ?. Or was it a purposeful act of God, so that
when the man goes errand He can throw him into hell. ?
In either
cases, who is at fault here ? The God or man. ?
As for God
there was no going back. Apparently God could not recreate man as a
role model as He wished. Instead He had to write an anti
-virus ( to be more precisely revelations ) program to rectify the
moral -flaws in humans.
Attributing
the inherent limitations and qualities of human beings
to God is an issue that needs further discussion . A case of
anthropomorphism.
|