The Historical Jesus addressing God as “Father”

Muslims and Christians have continuously debated the nature and status of Jesus Christ. Christians, following the early Church’s reading of the New Testament as expressed in the Conciliar Creeds, confess Jesus as the incarnate Son of God, consubstantial with God the Father. Muslims confess Jesus as a human Prophet and Messenger of God who called people to prophetic monotheism—the exclusive worship of the one true God—in the tradition of the Israelite Prophets.

The Qur’an portrays all the Israelite Prophets and Messengers as prophetic monotheists or muslims (those who surrender exclusively to the one true God). For the Qur’anic meaning of the term islam / muslim being prophetic monotheism (as opposed to later developments such as following Prophet Muhammad or observing specific “pillars”), see Juan Cole’s study: “Paradosis and monotheism: a late antique approach to the meaning of islām in the Quran.”

Many academic-critical historians of early Christianity observe that the historical Jesus functioned as an “eschatological prophet” in the Israelite prophetic tradition and was seen by his contemporaries as such (John Hick, E.P. Sanders, Paula Fredriksen, John P. Meier, Bart Ehrman, Thom Stark, Dale C. Allison, N. T. Wright, James D.G. Dunn, William R. Herzog). Most academic-critical historians of the historical Jesus also believe that Jesus made no claims to be the divine incarnate Son of God nor did he identify himself as God. The below quotations from three such scholars among many are instructive:

The answers to the question “Who do people say that I am?” make one thing clear: Jesus was perceived to be a prophet. Insofar as he was understood to be a prophet in the tradition of Israel this would mean that Jesus, like his great prophetic predecessor Moses, was called to interpret the Torah and mediate between Yahweh and the people (Exod. 20:18-21; Deut. 5:23-29; 18:15-19). A prophet in the Deuteronomic tradition was a prophet of the Sinai covenant who made its meaning clear for the people and disclosed the consequences of disobeying or abandoning the covenant (Deut. 18:9-22). . . Standing in this tradition, Jesus can be seen as a “prophet of the justice of the reign of God,” as I have argued elsewhere in more detail. (12-13)

It is quite likely that Jesus was called a prophet in his lifetime. Jesus is often called a prophet or assumed to be a prophet in materials seeking to make other, more Christological points. Members of Herod Antipa’s court think he is like “one of the prophets of old” (Mark 6:15; cf. Luke 9:8). . . When he enters Jerusalem, he is greeted as “the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee” (Matt. 21:11)…Therefore, even though the materials are later, they all take for granted that Jesus was popularly acclaimed as a prophet or called a prophet by his opponents. (99)

(William R. Herzog: Former Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Prophet and Teacher: An Introduction to the Historical Jesus, 2005, 12-13, 99)

“But if we are to submit our speculations to the text and build our theology only with the bricks provided by careful exegesis we cannot say with any confidence that Jesus knew himself to be divine, the pre-existent Son of God.”

(James D. G. Dunn: Emeritus Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology at University of Durham, Minister of the Church of Scotland and Methodist Preacher, Christology in the Making: An Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, 32)

“But there is no indication that Jesus was given the sorts or level of devotion that so quickly erupted among early circles of Jesus-believers soon after his crucifixion. Nor is there evidence that Jesus demanded recognition as “divine” or demanded that he be given worship. We should not expect this of a devout Jew of his time, and the evidence conforms to this expectation.”

(Larry Hurtado: Early High Christology scholar; Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology at the University of Edinburgh); Assemblies of God Pastor 1971-1975, “Did Jesus Demand to be Worshipped?” Larry Hurtado’s Blog, October 8, 2013)

Based on these findings, Muslims today point out that the Qur’anic teaching of Jesus as a monotheistic prophet as opposed to an incarnate Son of God actually matches the belief of Jesus and his early followers and early Jewish Christian communities. Academics who hold this view include Robert Eisenman, James D. Tabor, Jeffrey J. Bütz, Mustafa Akyol, and Patricia Crone.

A popular argument recently raised by Christian apologists today asserts that the historical Jesus cannot possibly be a muslim in the Qur’anic sense of prophetic monotheist and submitter to the one true God. Their reasoning seems straightforward at first glance: the historical Jesus recovered and reconstructed using the Gospels intimately referred to God as his “Father” and himself and his followers as “sons of God.”

James D. G. Dunn unpacks the precise meaning of Jesus addressing God as '“my Father” and his own ideas of sonship for himself and his followers in his Jesus Remembered:

“From all this it should be clear that Jesus was remembered as conceiving of God’s fatherhood not so much as a general corollary to his role as Creator — God as Father of inanimate creation and humankind generally. Nor was he simply taking over the established Jewish motif of God as Father of Israel (n. 30). He was remembered as inviting his disciples into a new relation, new in quality or degree, to convert and ‘become’ as children (Matt. 18.3). At the same time, the call can again be understood as a call to reclaim the relationship with God intended for Israel, or better, to return to or realise afresh the relationship which God intended for his people (rather like the righteous individuals in the Wisdom literature).”

“The significance of the imagery is clear. ‘To be a child is to be little, to need help, to be receptive to it’. To become a disciple, then, is to become like a child, that is, to revert to a position of dependence. The point is not that the would-be disciple should pretend to be a child or act in a childish manner. It is rather that disciples must recognize that before God they are in fact little children, not mature, not able to live a wholly independent life or to bear sole responsibility for themselves by themselves. The trust for which Jesus called (’Convert and trust’) is the constant dependence and reliance of little children on their parent for their very existence and the ongoing significance of their lives.” (p. 550-551)

“In short, the portrayal of discipleship in terms of childlike trust in and reliance on God as Father is consistent within the Jesus tradition. This emphasis should not be set in antithesis to the Jewish piety of the day, even if it can be regarded as an intensification of such piety. Nor should it be set in contrast to the understanding of God as king (§ 14.1) since the absolute authority of the father is always bound up in the term and in the relationship implied, even if Jesus’ teaching gave greatest emphasis to the aspect of fatherly care.” (p. 555)

“As for what Jesus’ sonship meant for his disciples, the tradition does not encourage us to infer that Jesus made his relationship with God, as son to father, a subject of explicit instruction, still less that he required his disciples to assent to such a belief regarding himself. Nor that this sense of relationship was a secret mystery which he taught only to an inner group, a higher stage of initiation, a goal to be achieved along the path of discipleship. What the Jesus tradition does indicate is that Jesus sought to induct his disciples into that same sense of son-ship, not least by teaching them to pray as he did, and that he encouraged them all to live out of their own relationship to God as Father, as he did. And what seems also to have been the case, he saw his disciples’ relationship to God as Father as in some sense a sharing in his own sonship to the Father.” (p. 724)

(James D. G. Dunn: Emeritus Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology at the University of Durham, Minister of the Church of Scotland and Methodist Preacher), Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, 550-551, 555, 724)

Since the Qur’an explicitly denies that God has begotten a son or sons, Christian apologists conclude that the Jesus of history and the Jesus of the Qur’an are fundamentally incompatible and that the theological status of the Qur’anic Jesus does not correspond to the historical Jesus in any respect.

However, this argument is built upon a categorical misunderstanding of the Qur’anic data, Arabic semantics, and Islamic theology. It assumes that the Qur’an’s rejection of divine sonship is a blanket, unnuanced rejection of the mere words “father” and “son” themselves in every conceivable context, rather than a highly targeted rejection of specific theological claims that had crystallized in Late Antiquity.

When we closely examine the precise scope of the Qur’anic data concerning claims about God’s fatherhood alongside the widespread reception history of the same idea in classical Islamic scholarship, a very different picture emerges. Far from being incompatible, the historical Jesus who utilized first-century Semitic idioms of “Father” and “Son” perfectly embodies the Qur’anic and Islamic paradigm of submission to the One True God who creates all beings and extends his loving compassion (rahma) upon His creatures.

To be clear, I am not arguing that “Father” is a Qur’anic name of Allah, nor that Muslims should adopt it as a devotional title. I am posing a narrower question: does the historical Jesus’ use of Semitic father/son language necessarily contradict Islamic monotheism? The answer, I argue, is no. When father/son language is understood as a metaphorical description of divine mercy, lordship, nearness, creaturely dependence, and human obedience—and not as biological procreation or Nicene Trinitarian consubstantiality —such language fits comfortably within categories recognized by major Muslim theologians, exegetes, philosophers, and mystics.

The Kinds of Divine Fatherhood Denied by the Qur’an

The Qur’an does not concern itself with policing metaphorical expressions of divine love, spiritual intimacy, or the nurturing provision of the Creator. It does not merely reject names or terminology; rather, it rejects specific, literalized doctrines that human beings ascribed to God—doctrines the Qur’an takes to be grievous errors.

When the Qur’an denies “fatherhood” and “sonship” with respect to God, it systematically targets at least three distinct theological deviations:

1. Biological Procreation: In the socio-religious environment of seventh-century Arabia, the Qur’an heavily critiqued pagan beliefs that assigned literal, physical offspring to the Creator. Sura 6, verse 100-101 addresses this head-on:

“Yet they make the jinn equals with Allah, though He created them; and they falsely attribute to Him sons and daughters without knowledge. Glory be to Him, and highly exalted is He above what they attribute to Him! He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth. How could He have a son when He has no consort? He created all things and He is, of all things, All-Knowing.” (Qur’an 6:100-101)

The Qur’an rejects the absurdity of God materially begetting children via reproduction with a mate, which reduces the transcendent God to a biological organism subject to the laws of sexual reproduction.

In this regard, Christians equally reject the physical and biological sense of Jesus being the Son of God. Christians do not believe that God biologically impregnated Mary with His seed or sperm. Therefore, Christians interpret the Fatherhood of God and Sonship of Jesus in a non-physical and analogical manner as denoting a metaphysical and ontological relationship.

2. Privileged Sonship for a Particular Community: The Qur’an also rejects the idea of “sonship” as a mechanism for ethnic or religious supremacy for Jews and Christians:

“The Jews and the Christians each say, “We are the children of Allah and His most beloved!” Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “Why then does He punish you for your sins? No! You are only humans like others of His Own making. He forgives whoever He wills and punishes whoever He wills. To Allah ˹alone˺ belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and everything in between. And to Him is the final return.” (Qur’an 5:18)

3. Ontological Consubstantiality of God and Jesus: In numerous places, the Qur’an definitively rejects the official Christian theological claim that Jesus is the divine Son of God who is “begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father” and “true God from true God” as declared in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381. The Qur’an articulates this denial of the ontological Sonship of Jesus in the Nicene sense in several places including the following:

“Say, ‘He is Allah, One. Allah is the Absolute. He neither begets nor is He begotten. And there is none like Him.” (Qur’an 112)

O People of the Divine Writing (ahl al-kitab), do not go beyond the bounds in your religion. Do not say anything but the truth about God. Christ, Jesus, the son of Mary, is truly God’s messenger, and His word, which He cast into Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in God and His messengers and do not say, ‘Three’. Desist. [That is] better for you. God is one god (innama llahu ilahun wahidun). Glory be to Him! He is above having a son (waladun). To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and on earth. God is sufficient trustee. (Qur’an 4:171)

Modern academic scholarship by Zishan Ghaffar shows that the above Qur’anic verses —Sura 112 and Sura 4 verse 171—are Qur’anic critiques and engagements with the Nicene Creed and its Late Antique articulations in the creeds of Jacob of Serugh and Narsai, among others.

The Qur’anic phrase lam yalid wa-lam yūlad — “He neither begets nor is begotten” — is not merely a rejection of crude biological procreation. It also functions as an absolute and atemporal negation of divine begetting in the Christian creedal sense. In Syriac/Aramaic rendering of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, the cognate Semitic root y-l-d is used twice to describe the Son as “begotten” from the Father. The Creed in Syriac/Aramaic speaks of Christ as haw d-men Abo etheeled — “the one who was begotten from the Father” — and then confesses him as ileedo w-lo eʿbeedo — “begotten and not made.” Jacob of Serugh’s Christological credo (above) speaks of the Son as da-ylid men ʾabā, “begotten from the Father.” Narsai likewise speaks of God having an offspring who is da-ylid menneh, “begotten from Him” (Ghaffar, 2024, 17).

Arabic Christian renderings of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed express the same doctrine with the Arabic root w-l-d, calling Christ al-mawlūd min al-Āb qabl kull al-duhūr — “begotten from the Father before all ages” — and mawlūd ghayr makhlūq, “begotten, not made.”

The Qur’an’s denial, lam yalid wa-lam yūlad, specifically targets not only pagan biological notions of divine offspring, but also the precise Christian theological vocabulary describing the Son as eternally begotten from the Father.

The Qur’an here is engaged in high-level theological discourse that rejects any Christian claims of ontological consubstantiality of God’s nature with any putative “Son of God” as well as any internal differentiation within God. Holger Zellentin concludes: “To the Jewish, Christian, and gentile denizens of Arabia, the Medinan Qur’ān thus presents a rejuvenated form of monotheism that dismisses the Nicene Creed, or a creedal confession very close to it, in a reformulation of the biblical Shema” (“The Rise of Monotheism in Arabia,” in A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity, 157–180: 165).

God’s Loving Compassion: Qur’anic Rahma

Before delving into how classical Muslim scholars understood the Gospel’s terminology, it is vital to understand how the Qur’an itself frames God’s relationship with humanity. Every chapter of the Qur’an (save one) begins with the invocation of God’s two primary names of divine compassion: al-Rahman (The Lovingly Compassionate) and al-Rahim (The Especially Merciful).

Linguistically, both of these divine names are derived from the Arabic trilateral root r-h-m, from which we also get the Arabic word rahim, meaning “womb”. This etymological connection demonstrates that God’s rahma is nurturing, enveloping, and life-sustaining love—much like how the mother’s womb protects, nourishes, and encompasses the unborn child. Reza Shah-Kazemi, a scholar of the Qur’an and Islamic mysticism, explains as follows:

A compelling reason for translating Rahma as loving compassion and not just compassion—and certainly not just ‘mercy’—is provided by the Prophet’s use of this word in the following incident. At the conquest of Mecca, certain captives were brought to the Prophet. There was a woman among them, running frantically and calling for her baby; she found him, held him to her breast and fed him. The Prophet said to his companions: ‘Do you think this woman would cast her child into the fire?’ We said, ‘No, she could not do such a thing.’ He said, ‘God is more lovingly compassionate (arham) to His servants than is this woman to her child.’ The Rahma of God is here defined by reference to a quality which all can recognize as love: the mother’s acts of compassion and mercy stream forth from an overwhelming inner love for her child. One cannot love another without feeling compassionate to that person, while one can feel compassion for someone without necessarily loving that person. The Jewish scholar Ben-Shemesh goes so far as to translate the basmala as ‘In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Beloved’ to bring home this key aspect of love proper to the root of Rahma. He argues that in both Arabic and Hebrew the meaning of love is strongly present in the root r-h-m, and gives the following evidence: Psalm number 18 contains the phrase: Erhamha Adonay—‘I love thee my Lord’. In Aramaic/Syriac, the root r-h-m specifically denotes love, rather than ‘compassion’. One can thus feel the resonance of this Syriac connotation within the Arabic Rahma. Moreover, there is epigraphic evidence that early Christian sects in southern Arabic used the name Rahmānan as a name of God, and this would probably have been understood as ‘The Loving’.

(Reza Shah-Kazemi, Common Ground between Islam and Buddhism. Fons Vitae, 2010, 94)

Understanding this foundational Islamic concept—that God’s overarching rahma is an unconditional, nurturing, and parental love—provides the perfect key to unlocking the Gospel metaphors. Much of what Jesus’ “Father” language expresses in the Gospel tradition — divine care, mercy, nearness, authority, and nurturing lordship — overlaps functionally with what the Qur’an expresses through rahma, rububiyya, and the divine names al-Rahman and al-Rahim.

Reception History: Muslim Understandings of the “Father/Son” Language used by Jesus

What we have argued thus far is based on a critical historical reading of the Qur’an. Next, we can consider how post-Qur’anic Muslim scholars of various sectarian stripes understood the Qur’anic denial of God’s fatherhood. Did premodern Muslim scholars dismiss any and all senses of God’s fatherhood as idolatrous? Or were they also nuanced in their understandings of the fatherhood of God and the sonship of His creatures?

We find that across sectarian lines—spanning Sunni, Mu’tazili, Hanbali, Ismaili, and Sufi schools of thought—prominent Muslim thinkers concluded that the terms “Father” and “Son,” when stripped of later Trinitarian meanings and read in their original linguistic milieu, were entirely legitimate and profoundly expressive of the Islamic principles of God’s loving compassion (rahma), His nourishing lordship (rububiyya) and creaturely servitude (‘ubudiyya) before God. Some interpretations evoke the metaphysical notion of God as the Absolute Being who continuously existentiates all beings.

Below is a chronological sample of Muslim thinkers accepting various metaphorical senses of the “Fatherhood” of God and the “Sonship” of Jesus and humankind that do not conflict with the Qur’an or Islamic theologies.

Shi‘i Ismaili: Abu Hatim al-Razi (d. 934 CE)

The eminent Ismaili philosopher Abu Hatim al-Razi argued that the Christians had been led astray by faulty interpretation, taking a beautiful first-century simile and distorting it into literal procreation.

“In the Gospel, Christ said that he was the son of God, but he did not mean that he is His son through birth—far be it from God to take a wife and son—but, rather, he meant that Almighty God had elevated him, raised his status, and drawn him near and chose, selected, and loved him. In this he was coining a simile, as of a man who loves his son... Thus, Christ informed them that his nearness to God Almighty and his closeness to Him is similar to the closeness between father and son and that God loves him, is attached to him, and is merciful toward him, just like the love of a father for his son and his mercy and affection toward him. He informed them, too, in many places in the Gospel, that he is the special friend of God, which confirms what we have been arguing. He told his disciples, “You are the sons of God,” and meant the same thing-namely, that God had chosen them and selected them and was affectionate and merciful toward them.”

(Abu Hatim al-Razi, The Proofs of Prophecy. Translated by Tarif Khalidi. Brigham Young University Press, 2011, 118).

Mu‘tazilis: Ibrahim al-Nazzam (d. 840) and ‘Abd al-Jabbar (d. 1025 CE)

The Mu‘tazili theologian al-Nazzam interpreted the biblical “son of God” appellation as more or less equivalent to the Qur’anic designation of Abraham as the “friend of God” (khalil Allah):

“If God can take someone as a friend, then he can also take someone as a son. That is, if in this way he seeks to show how merciful and loving He is towards him.”

(Ibrahim al-Nazzam. In Gabriel Said Reynolds, A Muslim Theologian in a Sectarian Milieu. Brill, 2004, 33).

The Mu‘tazili Chief Judge and theologian ‘Abd al-Jabbar argued that the terms “father” and “son” as used by Jesus in the Gospels are acceptable and convey the meanings of “master, possessor, director” and “righteous servant, obedient, sincere friend” respectively.

“Some people have said that ‘son’ in the Hebrew language (which was the language of Christ) refers to a righteous servant, an obedient, sincere friend, while ‘father’ refers to a master, possessor and director… Therefore, according to the statement of the Christians, all of them should be gods and lords. Rather, know that the name “father” in that language refers to ‘master’ and ‘possessor’.”

(‘Abd al-Jabbar. In Gabriel Said Reynolds, A Muslim Theologian in a Sectarian Milieu. Brill, 2004, 99).

Sunni Ash‘ari: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111 CE)

In a major treatise refuting the ontological divinity of Jesus, the Sunni theologian al-Ghazali (or a prominent scholar from his immediate circle) explicated the father-son language of the Gospels as indicative of God’s relationship of kindness, compassion, and tenderness to His creatures and His prophets in particular. As he explained, the Prophets may be called “sons of God” in a metaphorical sense because they exemplify obedience to God’s commands akin to sons being faithful to their fathers.

“...a father is naturally disposed to being rich in compassion, kindness, mercy and tenderness to his son, eager to bring about in him all kinds of benefits, and to keep all kinds of evils from him... The role of son is to be respectful towards his father, to exalt him, to be very diffident before him, to obey his commands, to submit willingly to them with respect and honour; not contradicting them, but holding fast to what he commanded him to do and prohibited him from doing.

As for God, may he be exalted and glorified, if one were to measure his goodness to each prophet, his mercy to him... then what a father would do in relation to this would be trivial and insignificant. In addition, the respect of the prophets shown to God, their modesty before him, their obedience to his commands... are more profound than any good deed of sons towards their fathers. For he is to them a more merciful father and they are to him more devoted sons. This is the secret of the metaphor in such an application. When he (Jesus) employed a metaphor in applying ‘father’ to God, his meaning was that he is merciful and affectionate towards him, and when he employed a metaphor in applying ‘sonship’ to himself, his meaning was that he revered and glorified God.”

(Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid [Attributed]. Al-Radd al-Jamil: A Fitting Refutation of the Divinity of Jesus. Edited and translated by Mark Beaumont and Maha El Kaisy-Friemuth. Brill, 2016, 155-157).

Sunni Sufi: Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240 CE)

For the Sunni Andalusian mystic Ibn al-‘Arabi, God as the Absolute Being and source of all existence may be called the “First Father”. For Ibn ‘Arabi, the concept and name of “father” applies generally to anything that produces effects—including God and secondary causes such as the First Intellect and human spirits (arwah). Since God is the Absolute Being (wujud mutlaq) and the source of all things, God merits the name “First Father”. The first “mothers” refer to the eternal pre-creation state of contingent things within God’s Knowledge as immutable entities; each immutable entity is a “mother” that receives the existentiating command of God, the “father”, and this ontological “marriage” of God (“first father”) with each immutable entity (“first mother”) produces the “child”—the concrete creature. This ontological relationship is continuous and perpetual - meaning that God, as the source of being, is continuously engendering or “fathering” all existent things.

“Divine marriage takes place when God brings a thing into existence. He and the nonexistent thing are male and female, while the existent thing that results from the union is the child… God in Himself, nondelimited Being, is the father. Thus Ibn al-‘Arabi writes, “I have alluded to the all-pervading First Father: the all-comprehensive, greatest name that is followed by all the other names.” In other words, the First Father is Allah, which embraces all the other names and denotes the Real. The mother is the nonexistent things, while the creatures that enter into existence are the children. Fathers are “high” and mothers “low.” The “highness” of the father in this case is the fact that He is Being Itself, the source of all realities. The mother is “low” because she has no existence of her own. She is pure receptivity toward the perfections that the father sends down. Ibn al-’Arabi refers to the state of the things in God’s knowledge as their “thingness.” The term derives from various Koranic verses that refer to the “things” before God creates them, like the verse Ibn al-‘Arabi quotes in the following.

The first of the high fathers is manifestly clear. The first of the low mothers is the thingness of the nonexistent possible things. The first marriage is the intention of the command [given to the nonexistent thing, that is, “Be!”]. The first child is the existence of the entity of that thingness.

This father is all-pervasive in fatherness, this mother all-pervasive in motherness, and this marriage all-pervasive in all things. The result is continuous. It is never cut off for anything whose entity is manifest. This is what we call “The Marriage that Pervades all Atoms.” As evidence for what we said, God says, “Our only word to a thing, when We desire it, is to say to it ‘Be!’ and it is” [16:40].

(Sachiko Murata, The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought. State University of New York Press, 1992, 148).

Sunni Sufi: ‘Abd al-Razzaq Kashani (d. 1329 CE)

Building upon Ibn ‘Arabi, the Sufi commentator Kashani explained that human parents—the father and mother—serve as the earthly mirrors or locus of manifestation of God’s “Fatherly/Motherly” attributes of lordship and existentiation. This is why the Qur’an commands goodness to parents immediately following the command to worship God. The engendering and nourishing roles of parents reflect God’s divine act of creating and sustaining existents:

“God places being good to parents next to Tawhid and considering Him alone as worthy of worship because parents correspond to the Divine Presence in the fact that they are the cause of your existence. And they correspond to the Presence of Lordship in the fact that they nurtured you when you were a helpless and weak infant, without power and motion. They were the first locus of manifestation within which such attributes of God as bringing into existence, lordship, mercy, and kindliness became manifest in relation to you.”

(‘Abd al-Razzaq Kashani. In Sachiko Murata, The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought. State University of New York Press, 1992, 147).

Sunni Hanbali: Najm al-Din al-Tufi (d. 1316 CE)

Al-Tufi, a Hanbali jurist and student of Ibn Taymiyya, wrote a commentary on parts of the Bible including the four Gospels. Throughout this work (pp. 127-129; 151 165, 173 282, 197, 209, 377, 399-401), al-Tufi interprets the fatherhood of God and sonship of Jesus as a metaphor for God’s nurturing lordship and care over His servant, Jesus, and creation in general:

“The guiding principle when giving a metaphorical interpretation is the fact that a shared value exists between being a ‘lord’ and being a ‘father’; that is to say, the lord’s mercy for his servant and the father’s mercy for his child. Similarly, a shared value exists between being a son and being a servant, namely, the servant’s deep respect for his master and the son’s deep respect for his father.” (p. 127)

“We have already explained that the metaphorical usage here concerns the expression ‘the son’ and that it means ‘the servant’ or ‘the messenger’, because a son obeys his father with the same obedience with which a servant obeys his master, and a father, according to custom, sends his son for his needs just as a ruler and others would send their messenger.” (p. 173)

(Najm al-Din al-Tufi. In Demiri, Lejla, Muslim Exegesis of the Bible in Medieval Islam: Najm al-Din al-Tufi’s Commentary on the Christian Scriptures. Brill, 2013, 127, 173).

Sunni Hanbali: Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328 CE)

Even Ibn Taymiyya, famously stringent in his theological boundaries, recognized the theological validity of Jesus using father/son vocabulary to describe his relationship with God. He famously linked the biblical language of fatherhood to the Islamic belief that God’s nurturing care and loving compassion far exceeds even a mother’s love.

“If this phrase is authentically attributed to the infallible Christ, peace and blessings be upon him, then he intended by it that which aligns with the rest of his discourse. In what is found within their books, the Lord is referred to as a Father and His servants are referred to as sons. For instance, they mention that He said in the Torah to Jacob, ‘Israel, you are My firstborn son,’ and He said to David in the Psalms, ‘You are My son and My beloved.’ Furthermore, in multiple places in the Gospel, Christ says, ‘My Father and your Father,’ such as his saying: ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ Thus, he names Him as a Father to them just as he names them sons for Him. If this is true, then the intended meaning [of ‘Father’] is the Nurturing, Loving and Compassionate Lord (al-Rabb al-Murabbi al-Rahim), for God is more lovingly compassionate to His servants than a mother is to her child, and the ‘son’ is the nurtured one who is shown loving compassion (al-murabba al-marhum). Indeed, God’s nurturing of His servant is more complete and perfect than a mother’s nurturing of her child. Therefore, the intended meaning of the ‘Father’ is the Nurturing Lord (rabb), and the intended meaning of the ‘Son’ in this context is Christ, whom He nurtured.”

(Ibn Taymiyya, al-Jawab al-Sahih li-man baddala din al-Masih. Volume 3, 193-194, 2nd Ed., Dar al- ‘Asima, 1999)

Modern Ismaili Expressions of God’s Fatherhood: Aga Khan III and Aga Khan IV

The same metaphorical understanding of father/son language for God and humanity appears in modern Ismaili thought in the public discourses of the forty-eighth and forty-ninth hereditary Imams of the Ismaili Muslims - Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III (d. 1957) and Shah Karim al-Husayni Aga Khan IV (d. 2025).

Aga Khan III critiqued the Christian theology of divine sonship by saying: “We think that we are the true Christians, and that your Church distorted the message. We think that the Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of Man has no particular and special application to the One Son of Man” (“Is Religion Something Special?” The Daily Sketch Interview).

Aga Khan IV expressed the same universal idea in his public speeches. He cited the Qur’anic teaching (4:1) that God created all human beings from a single soul and remarked that: “These words reflect a deeply spiritual insight - A Divine imperative if you will - which, in my view, should undergird our educational commitments. It is because we see humankind, despite our differences, as children of God and born from one soul, that we insist on reaching beyond traditional boundaries as we deliberate, communicate, and educate internationally” (Speech by His Highness the Aga Khan at the annual meeting of the International Baccalaureate, 18 April 2008).

Conclusion

The claim that the historical Jesus’ use of “Father/Son” language makes the historical Jesus incompatible with Islamic belief does not hold up to scrutiny. The Qur’an rejects God being a “father” in the specific senses of a) God producing biological offspring; b) Jewish and Christian communal claims to being privileged children of God; c) the Christian Trinitarian theology of Jesus being the consubstantial son of God. However, it does not follow that all meanings of Father/Son language found in Abrahamic religious discourses are rejected by the Qur’an.

This interpretation of the Qur’an is confirmed by the reception history of the Qur’an among diverse Islamic communities of interpretation. Premodern Muslim scholars across a remarkable range of sectarian affiliations (Ismaili, Mu‘tazili, Ash‘ari, Sufi, Hanbali) recognized the nuances involved in different meanings of God being a father and Jesus being God’s son. They interpreted the Gospel’s father/son language as signifying God’s loving compassion, mercy, lordship, nurturing care, intimate nearness to His prophets, and the Prophets’ reverent obedience to God. On their reading, Jesus’ address to God as “Father” does not contradict his status in the Qur’an as one who surrenders to God. But rather, Jesus’ invocation of God as our Father reveals, in first-century Jewish idiom, what Qur’anic and Islamic theology describe as God’s rahma (loving compassion) and rububiyya (nurturing care); the all-loving and compassionate Creator who continuously sustains and nurtures His servants.

This week I had the honor of joining Professor John Vervaeke on his new series Silk Road Seminars to speak about Islamic Neoplatonism. For those who do not know, Professor Vervaeke is an Associate Professor of Cognitive Science in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto. Dr. Vervaeke has been very vocal about the “Meaning Crisis” and often speaks about reviving Neoplatonism as a serious worldview and thought paradigm for people today.

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Our lengthy discussion covered the following themes and topics in Islamic Neoplatonism:

1. Neoplatonism as a living tradition for Muslims

2. ⁠Neoplatonic interpretations of Islamic prayers (PDF of my article “Neoplatonic Prayer)

3. ⁠Muslim views of pre-Islamic religious traditions

4. ⁠Muslim Dhikr as Neoplatonic contemplation

5. ⁠Petitionary Prayer and Intercessory Prayer in Islamic Neoplatonism (PDF of my article “Neoplatonic Prayer)

6. ⁠Neoplatonism and objective reality

7. ⁠Cosmological Arguments for Neoplatonic Hypostases (my lecture arguing for Neoplatonic hypostases)

8. ⁠The One as the explanation for dependent existence

9. ⁠Intellect as the explanation for intelligibility and eternal necessary truth (Forms)

10. ⁠The Intellect (Nous) eternally proceeds from the One by necessity (PDF of my article on God’s creation being necessary)

11. ⁠The Command of God or Pure Existence as the direct emanation from the One that flows in all existents

12. ⁠How the “trace” or light” of the One is within all beings

13. ⁠The Soul as the source or arche of intelligible and teleological motion

14. ⁠How Neoplatonism is alive for Ismaili Muslims today

However, Salafis consider istighatha to be a form of shirk (joining partners with God). Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (1703–1792), the founder of the Wahhabi-Salafi movement and Ibn Bāz (1912–1999), the former Salafi Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia have written: “Calling upon the dead, asking for their help, or offering them gifts or sacrifices are all forms of shirk. Setting up intermediaries (wasāʾiṭ) between oneself and God, making supplication to them, or asking their intercession with God is unbelief (kufr) by the consensus of the community.”^[3] The consequence of this patently Wahhabi theological position and legal ruling is that any Muslim who calls upon a created being for help, aid, or blessing—such as saying Yā ʿAlī madad, Yā Rasūl Allāh adriknī, or Yā ʿAbd al-Qādir madad—is committing idolatry (shirk) and is outside the fold of Islam.^[4]

The Wahhabi-Salafi position has become popular today among lay Muslims who have often unknowingly imbibed Wahhabi theology in their religious education. The modern popularity of what used to be a strictly Wahhabi position is most ironic because the historical majority of Muslims, both Sunni and Shiʿi, permit or encourage the practice of seeking God’s blessings through the spiritual mediation of the Prophet Muhammad, the ahl al-bayt, and the Saints or Friends of God (awliyāʾ Allāh). This devotional Muslim practice, in the views of most Muslims across time and space, can never constitute shirk because the Prophets, Imams, and Saints are being invoked as dependent and created spiritual intermediaries who channel or distribute God’s blessings as opposed to being worshiped as independent necessary agents. If such a practice was tantamount to idolatry and unbelief, this would entail that the mass of Muslims across time and space have been committing major shirk.

Nevertheless, on social media there continues to be raging debate between various Muslim influencers from various shades of Salafism and Sunnism on the status of istighatha.

As part of an ongoing research project, I and my research assistant Abdullah Ansar of Carleton College are compiling a list of Sunni legal and theological opinions on the permissibility of istighatha from Sunni ‘ulama’. Many of the Sunni references cited below were first published on “Twitter/X” amidst an ongoing debate between modern-day Salafis and traditional Sunni Muslims. We wish to acknowledge two Sunni Twitter/X handles for first bringing our attention to some of these sources: “@d1mashqi” and “@ibnekhan01”. All translations are by us, unless specified. We welcome others to use the citations below as long as they acknowledge this list as their source, which we continue to update over time.

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Sunni Scholars Permitting Istighātha (Intercessory Prayer)

Prepared by Dr. Khalil Andani (Augustana College) and Abdullah Ansar (Carleton College)

Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal [164-241/780-885] is reported to have said: “O Slaves of Allah, guide me to the path!”

ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal, Masāʾil al-Imām Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal, ed. Zuhaīr Shāwīsh (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1981), 245.

Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Ḥusayn al-Bayhaqī [384-458/994-1066] reports a tradition about a man in Medina who used to say:

“O the grave of the Prophet and his two Companions!

O the one we ask for help, if you knew!”

Abū Bakr Aḥmad Ibn Ḥusayn al-Bayhaqī, al-Jāmiʿ li Shuʿab al-Īmān, ed. Mukhtār Aḥmad, 14 vols. (Riyāḍ: Maktabat al-Rushd, 2003), 6:60, no. 3879.

Abū al-Faraj ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn ʿAlī al-Jawzī [510-597/1116 -1201] narrates that Abū Bakr al-Muqrī said: “O Prophet! Hunger! Hunger!”

Abū al-Faraj ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jawzī. al-Wafā bi-Aḥwāl al-Muṣṭafā, ed. Muḥammad Zuhayrī, 2 vols. (Riyāḍ: al-Mu’asassa al-Saʿīdiyya bi l-Riyāḍ, n.d.), 2:559.

Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī [544–606/1149–1209] mentions that there are respects in which the dead are stronger than those who are alive and can benefit them:

“Indeed, those souls which have separated from their bodies are stronger than those souls still connected to their bodies in several respects… When a person goes to the grave of a human being who is strong in his soul and perfect in substance and strong in influence, and he/they remain there for a time, his soul is influenced from that earth and the soul of the visitors obtain a connection to that earth.”

Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Maṭālib al-ʿĀliya, ed. Aḥmad Ḥijāzī, 9 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1987). 7:276.

Ibn Qudāma al-Maqdisī [541-620/1147-1223] permits istighātha through the Prophet and the Friends of God.

“They [the Saints] are a sanctuary for the people when matters become difficult for them. Thus, the kings and those of lesser status seek to visit them and seek blessings through their prayers and seek their intercession with God.”

Abū Muḥammad ibn Qudāmah al-Maqdisī. Taḥrīm al-naẓar fī kutub al-kalām, edited by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad Saʿīd Dimashqiyya (Riyāḍ: Dār ʿAlām al-Kutub, 1990), 40.

He recommended that people address the Prophet at his grave as follows: “I have come to you [the Prophet] seeking forgiveness for my sins, and seeking your intercession near my Lord. So I ask you, O my Lord, that you deem my forgiveness necessary, as you did during his [the Prophet’s life].”

Abū Muḥammad Ibn Qudāmah, Al-Mughnī (Bayt al-Afkār al-Dawliyya, 2004), 795, tr. Cameron Zargar, in “Origins of Wahhabism from Hanbali fiqh,” in Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law 16.1 (2017), 81.

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Mūsa ibn al-Nuʿmān al-Muzālī [607–683/1210–1284] wrote a complete work on istighātha through the Prophet. In this work he mentions numerous Qur’ānic verses and prophetic reports to support istighātha.

al-Muzālī, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā ibn al-Nuʿmān. Miṣbāḥ al-Ẓalām, ed. Ḥusayn Muḥammad ʿAlī, (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyah, 2004.

Najm al-Dīn Abū Rabīʿ al-Ṭūfī [657–716/1259–1316] noted that al-Muzālī’s work was famous in Egypt and gained widespread scholarly agreement (al-ijmāʿ) and the permissibility of istighātha was also accepted through scholarly agreement.

Najm al-Dīn Abū Rabīʿ al-Ṭūfī, al-Ishārāt al-Ilāhiyya, ed. Abū ʿĀṣim Ḥasan, 3 vols. (Cairo: al-Fārūq al-Ḥadītha, 2002), 3:91.

Ibn al-Ḥajj al-ʿAbdarī [656–736/1258–1336] argues that istighātha is permissible and that there is no problem in asking the Prophet for help since the Prophet is the Pole of Perfection:

“Whoever seeks mediation (tawassala) through him, does istigātha through him or seeks his needs from him, he will not perish and he will not be disappointed.”

Ibn al-Ḥajj al-ʿAbdarī, al-Madkhal (Cairo: Maktab al-Dār al-Turāth, n.d.), 1:257.

Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī [673–748/1274–1348] reports the same anecdote about Abū Bakr al-Muqrī saying: “O Prophet! Hunger! Hunger!”

Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī, Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ. ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnaut, 30 vols. (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risāla, 2011), 16:401.

Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī [683–756/1284–1355] argued that no scholar before Ibn Taymiyya argued for the impermissibility of istighātha. He defended istigātha through the Prophet:

“Know that intermediation (tawassul), seeking assistance (istigātha), and intercession through the Prophet unto his Lord, may He be praised and exalted, is permitted and praiseworthy. Their being permitted and praiseworthy is a matter well-known to every religious person, reputed among the actions of the Prophets and Messengers and the lives of the righteous ancestors, as well as the scholars and laymen among the Muslims. Nobody among the people of religions denied it nor did they hear about it in any time period until Ibn Taymiyya came along and spoke about it by casting doubt upon the weak and he invocated something which has no precedent in history.”

“Thus, God is one whose help is sought (al-mustagāth) and help sought from Him is by way of creation and existentiation and the Prophet is one whose help is sought and help sought from him is by way of non-causal mediation (tasabbub) and acquisition (kasb).”

Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī, al-Shifā’ al-Saqām fī ziyāra khayr al-anam, ed. al-Sayyd Muḥammad Riḍā al-Ḥusaynī al-Jalālī, 4th ed. (1998), 293-315.

Shāh Bahāʾ al-Dīn Naqshband Bukhārī [d. 791/1389] recited the following poem:

“O Lion of Allāh, Amīr Ĥaydar, [grant me] triumph!

O Conqueror of the Fort at Khaybar, [grant me] triumph!”

The doors of hope have closed upon me,

O Master of Dhu al-Fiqar and Qanbar, [grant me] triumph!”

Muḥammad Ṣadiq Qasūrī, Ruʿbāyāt-i Naqshband, (Lahore: al-Madinah Publications, 1997), 29.

Saʿd al-Dīn Masʿūd Ibn ʿUmar al-Taftāzānī [722–792 /1322–1390] mentions that those who are dead have certain capacities that they did not possess when they were alive. Based on this, Istighātha from good departed souls is permissible.

“What is apparent from the principles of Islam (qawāʿid al-Islām) is that the renewed perception of particulars exists for the after separation (from the body) and the awareness of some of the particulars of the states of the living. This especially pertains to those between whom and the dead there was a familiarity in the world. For this reason, one benefits from visitation to the graves and seeking help of the virtuous souls among the deceased with respect to the passing of information and the warding off of adversities. There is a relationship between the departed soul and the body and the soil in which it is buried. When the living person visits that soil and directs his soul to meeting the soul of the deceased, there obtains a meeting and a relation between the two souls.”

Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftazānī, Sharḥ al-Maqāṣid, 5 vols. (Qum: al-Sharīf al-Raḍī, 1989), III, 338.

Abū Ḥafs Sirāj al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī [724–805/1324–1403] cites a tradition of the Prophet where a companion asks the Prophet for his neighborhood in paradise, and using this tradition, he defends a poem that includes similar istighātha.

Abū Ḥafs Sirāj al-Bulqīnī, al-Tajarrud wa al-Ihtimām bi-Jamʿ Fatāwa Shaykh al-Islām, ed. Ḥamza Muḥammad, (Arūqah, n.d.), 3:217.

Abū Bakr al-Marāghī [727-816 /1327-1413] permits both tawassul and istighātha through the Prophet in all states of his existence:

“Tawassul, istighātha, and intercession through the Prophet, God’s peace and blessings be upon him, occurs in every situation before his creation, during his life, after his death in the era of the barzakh, after the rising [from the graves], and the open space of Resurrection.”

Abū Bakr al-Marāghī, Taḥqīq al-Nuṣrah, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Jawwād (Cairo: Dār al-Maktab al-Miṣriyya, 1955), 113.

Taqī al-Dīn al-Ḥuṣnī [752–829/1351–1426] mentions that seeking help from the Prophet is permissible. He also cites multiple anecdotes where people sought help from the Prophet and the Prophet replied to their prayers.

Taqī al-Dīn al-Ḥuṣnī. Dafʿ Shubh Man Shubbaha wa Tamarrada (Cairo: al-Maktabat al-Azhariyyah li-Turāth, n.d.), 133.

Shihāb al-Dīn Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī [773–852/1372–1449], in his poetic compilation, asks the Prophet directly for help and the command to enter paradise.

Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Dīwān Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, ed. Firdaws ʿAlī Ḥusayn, Cairo: Dār al-Faḍīla, 2000), 124.

Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī [849– 911/1445–1505] reports that he asked the Prophet for help against a tyrannical ruler who seized the land of people. His prayer was answered and the ruler was ‘killed by God’. He also recommended saying “Yā ʿAbd al-Qādir ten times and then to seek your need.”

Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Kitāb Ḥusn al-Muḥāḍara, 2 vols. (Cairo: Dār Iḥyā’ l-Kutub al-ʿArabiyya, 1967-68), 2:15, 2:234.

Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qasṭallānī [851-923/1448-1517] deems asking the Prophet for help necessary when visiting the grave of the Prophet. He says:

“There is no difference between the expressions istighātha, tawassul, tashaffuʿ or tawajjuh because they are all aspects of the same thing.”

Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qasṭallānī, al-Muwāhib al-Ladunniyya, ed. Ṣāliḥ Aḥmad al-Shāmī, 4 vols. (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 2004), 4:593.

Shihāb al-Dīn al-Ramlī [d. 957/1550] gives a ruling that istigātha through the Prophets and Friends of God is permissible;

“Seeking help (al-istighātha) through the Prophets, Messengers, Saints, scholars, and the righteous is permissible because the Messengers, Saints, and the righteous grant help after their deaths because the miracles of the Prophets and the supernatural gifts of the Saints are not cut off with their death.”

Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Ramlī, Fatāwā al-Ramlī. 4 vols. (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-Islāmiyya, n.d.), Vol. 4, 362.

Shihāb al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ḥajar al-Haytamī [909-974/1503-1566] argues that there is no difference between tawassul and istighātha through the Prophet and that both are acceptable to the Muslims.

“There is no difference between the mention of intermediation (tawassul), seeking assistance (istighātha), intercession, and attention (tawajjuh) through him [the Prophet] and other Prophets and likewise for the Saints… Istigātha is to seek help and the seeker of help (al-mustagīth) seeks from one whose help is sought (al-mustagāth) to obtain for him from other than him, even if he is higher than him. Thus, attention and istigātha through him [the Prophet] and through others has no meaning other than this in acceptance of the Muslims.”

Ibn Hajar al-Makkī al-Haytamī, Kitāb al-Jawhar al-Munaẓẓam fī ziyārat al-qabr al-sharīf al-nabawī al-mukarram (Cairo: Makbata Madbūlī, 2000), 111.

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq Muḥaddith al-Dihlawī [958-1052/1551-1642] records in Akhbār al-Akhyār from Shaykh Bahāʾ Dīn Ibn Ibrāhīm ʿAṭāullāh al-Anṣārī al-Shaṭṭārī [d. 921/1516] that he writes in his work al-Risāla al-Shaṭṭāriyyah:

“The remembrance (dhikr) for the unveiling of the Spirit - O Muḥammad and O Aḥmad - have two ways. The first one is to recite O Aḥmad on the right side, O Muḥammad on the left side, and to imagine O Muṣṭafa in the heart. The second way is to recite O Aḥmad, O Muḥammad, O ʿAlī, O Ḥassan, O Ḥusayn, and O Fātima in six directions. After this, all spirits would be unveiled.”

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq Muḥaddith al-Dihlawī, Akhbār al-Akhyār (Lahore: Akbar Booksellers, 2004), 415.

Shāh Waliyullāh [1114-1176/1703-1762] mentions in Intibāh fī Salāsil Awliyā Allāh that the spiritual masters in his chain would recommend reading Jawāhir-i Khamsa, a Persian work on Sufi meditation practices. A part of Jawāhir includes Nādi ʿAlī which reads:

“Call ʿAlī, call ʿAlī who is the locus of manifestation of wonders. You will find him an effective supporter for you in all calamities. All worries and sorrows will soon disappear by your greatness O God, by your Prophethood O Muhammad, and by your walāya O ʿAlī! O ʿAlī! O ʿAlī!”

Shāh Waliyullāh, “Intibāh fī Salāsil Awliyā Allāh”, in Rasail-i Shāh Waliyullāh Dihlawī (Tasawwuf Foundation, 1999), 1:239.

Ibn ʿĀbidīn [1198-1252/1784-1836] recited a prayer asking for the Prophet’s help (“Help me O Messenger of God” (adriknī Yā Rasūl Allāh) and reported stories of Muslim scholars of seeking the Prophet’s help and blessing hundreds of times to obtain the resolution of their difficulties.

Muḥammad Amīn b. ʿUmar b. ʿĀbidīn (Ibn ʿĀbidīn), Thabat Ibn ʿĀbidīn al-musammá ʿUqūd al-la’ālī fī al-asānīd al-ʿawālī (Dār al-Bashā’ir al-Islāmiyyah lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2010), 484.

Aḥmad Riḍā Khān [1272-1340/1856-1921] writes in Umūr-i ʿIshrīn Dar ʿAqāid-i Sunniyīn:

“To seek help and aid from the Prophets and Friends (of God), to call upon them or make them a medium at the time of need saying: O Prophet, ‘O ʿAlī, O Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī and to believe them to be a means of attaining blessings from Allāh is definitely correct and permissible.”

Aḥmad Riḍā Khān, Parameter of Salvation: Umūr-i ʿIshrīn Dar Imtiyāz-i ʿAqāʾid-i Sunniyyīn, 3rd Edition (Ridawi Translations Project, 2017), 12.

Qāḍī Yūsuf al-Nabhānī [1265-1350/1849-1932] argues for the legitimacy and permissibility of istigātha throughout his Shawāhid al-Haqq. He himself recited the prayer “help me O Messenger of God (adriknī yā Rasūl Allāh)” over a thousand times to solve his difficulty:

“I sought assistance (istaghathtu) through the Prophet (bi l-nabī) from God to relieve me of that difficulty the occurrence of this affair is only through the blessing (baraka) of the Prophet, seeking assistance (istighātha) from God through him, and invoking blessings upon him.”

The sixth chapter of this work is titled “On the transmission of narrations and reports received from the scholars and the righteous about the benefits that obtain for them from seeking the help (al-istighātha) through the Master of the Messengers.”

Yūsuf al-Nabhānī, Shawāhid al-Haqq, ed. ʿAbd al-Wārith Muḥammad ʿAlī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 2007), 248.

[1] “God in Islam,” in Wikipedia.

[2] Asad, Muhammad, The road to Mecca, London: The Book Company, 2014, 239.

[3] Rippin, Andrew, “Islam and the politics of violence,” in David J. Hawkin (ed.), Twenty-first century confronts its Gods, Albany: SUNY Press, 2004, 134–135.

[4] Bunzel, Cole M., Wahhābism: The history of a militant Islamic movement, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023, 44–45, 120–122, 128–130.

The Islamic Dilemma is an internal critique presented by Christian missionaries to undermine the religion of Islam. A typical rendition of the Dilemma is as follows:

1. The Qur’an confirms the divine inspiration, authority, and preservation of the Old Testament and New Testament.

2. The Qur’an contradicts the teachings of the Old and New Testament with regard to the Triune God, the deity of Christ, the vicarious atonement, etc.

3. If the Qur’an is true, the Old and New Testament are true.

4. The Qur’an is false due to contradicting itself.

The video begins with my 20 minute opening statement, where I lay out the so-called Islamic Dilemma, outline 3 possible solutions, and expound my preferred solution. In particular, my strategy is to attack and disprove premise 1 by showing the Qur’an does not recognize the New Testament or the Four Gospel Canon of the Christians as authentic revelation; rather I maintain based on Qur’anic evidence that the Qur’an only recognizes the Gospel message that God revealed to Jesus, which Jesus preached historically, as authentic revelation while also accusing Jews and Christians of corrupting the revelation they received by mixing it with falsehood and misinterpretation.

1. What is God’s Speech per Ash‘aris

2. How God reveals His Speech per Ash‘aris

3. Problems with Ash‘ari Theology

4. God’s Voluntary Attributes (Actions) per Ibn Taymiyya

5. God’s Speech qua Qur’an as temporal per Ibn Taymiyya

6. God’s Uncreated Qur’an vs. Human Sounds per Ibn Taymiyya

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The most enigmatic element of Ismaili apophatic theology is the infamous claim that God is ‘beyond being’, that is God is not existent (ays, mawjūd, hast) and God is not non-existent (lays, maʿdūm, nīst). This distinctive Ismaili position appears to be the low-hanging fruit for Muslims of competing theological schools to attack and ridicule. Certain Muslim theologians (mutakallimūn) and traditionalists, both past and present, have accused this Ismaili teaching of violating the rules of logic or professing atheism.

For starters, in Aristotelian logic, it is perfectly sound to make statements in which two contrary opposites are negated from a subject; this does not result in logical contradiction. For example, the number 2 is neither heavy nor light; dogs are neither even nor odd; ideas are neither wet nor dry. Many such negations apply to God as understood by most theologians: God is neither dry nor wet; God is neither healthy nor sick; God is neither inside the Universe nor is He outside the Universe. The point of these “double negations” is to point out a category error: both of the negated attributes - such as healthy and sick - do not apply to God because they only apply to physical living things. There is no contradiction here because the two negated terms are contraries. In this very respect, the Ismaili semantic framework regards ‘existence’ (aysiyya, hastī, wujūd) and non-existence (laysiyya, nīstī, ʿadam) as contraries but not as contradictories.

A proper and good-faith assessment of the Ismaili claim that ‘God is beyond existence and non-existence’ must account for the semantics of the word ‘being/existence’ within Ismaili discourse, Neoplatonic thought, and Islamic thought more generally. In fact, the nature of ‘being’ and its relation to concrete ‘beings’ was a highly disputed and nuanced issue in Islamic intellectual history. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jāmī (d. 886/1492) in his Precious Pearl outlines several positions taken by Islamic theologians, philosophers, and mystics. One group, identified with some of the kalām theologians, said that every entity – including God and creatures – has its own specific existence unique unto itself and that the term ‘existence’ is only applied to various entities in name only (lafẓan). Another group of theologians, the majority, conceives existence as a single concept or idea (mafhūm wāḥid) in the mind, which is then mentally subdivided into similar concepts and attributed to various things. The view of the philosophers is that there is a single mental concept of existence but in external reality, each existing thing has its own specific existence (wujūd khāṣṣa) – entailing multiple existences of dissimilar realities (al-wujūdāt al-mukhtalifat al-ḥaqā’iq) in extra-mental reality – each of which is a ‘concomitant accident’ (ʿāriḍ lāzim lahā) attached to an essence/quiddity. The Sufis, however, affirm that there is One Absolutely Single Existent Reality (ḥaqīqa wāḥida muṭlaqa mawjūda), namely God Himself, who is without any multiplicity, division or entitative attributes; everything other than God, namely the creations, is the locus of a particularized manifestation (ẓuhūr) of God qua Absolute Existence.[1] What the Ismailis present concerning existence/being and its relationship to God should be situated within this broader intra-Muslim debate about ontology.

For Plotinus and his followers, the One transcends both being (enai) and substance (ousia); these notions do not apply to God. Does this mean that Plotinus denies the existence of the One? Recently scholars of Neoplatonic studies have attended to this issue and there is an emerging interpretation of Plotinus holding that he does not deny the ‘existence’ of the One according to our modern understandings of ‘exists’. Rather, in the Greek semantics assumed by Plotinus, the verb ‘to be’ has the primary function of predication, with the meaning of ‘to be something or another’; the same verb only takes on an existential value (with the meaning ‘to exist) in very specific secondary contexts.[2] Based on this finding of Khan, Wiitala and DiRado clarify that “in claiming the One is beyond being (to, enai), Plotinus does not mean that the One does not exist, since the existence of the One is the foundation for the existence of everything else. Instead, Kahn argues that Plotinus’ denial of being to the One only entails that the One cannot be a subject of true predication.’[3] Therefore, when Neoplatonists say that God is beyond existence, they only mean to say that God cannot be the subject of any real predications – since real predications denote some determinate finite feature and ontological plurality in the One. Wiitala and DiRadio further conclude that Plotinus does not subscribe to a univocal concept of existence/being – as modern analytics tend to; to speak of the One as ‘existing’ is to speak equivocally about ‘His existence’ which transcends the existences of everything else:

The One does not exist in the way a Form exists – as a subject of real predication – or that a sensible particular exists – as a subject of true but ambiguous predication. To infer from this that the existence of the One can be straightforwardly denied, however, is completely unwarranted, and would be the mistake engendered (sic) by the modern univocal understanding of existence. The One exists, has hypostasis, as the principle underlying the things that it causes (unity, goodness, being, etc.) while nevertheless remaining beyond all real predication.[4]

Given how closely the Ismailis follow Plotinus’ worldview, the above clarification suffices to rebut the charge that Ismaili philosophers, in exalting God beyond being and nonbeing, are agnostic or atheistic with respect to God. However, it is worth examining how the Ismailis understand the semantics of existence/being when they deny that God ‘exists’ or that He is ‘a being’.

The Ismaili thinkers al-Sijistānī and al-Kirmānī mostly use terms like ays (existent, being), aysiyya (existence), lays (non-existent, not-being), and laysiyya (non-existence), which come from the circle of al-Kindī. For al-Sijistānī, God is not an ays (existent, being), but rather, He is the mu’ayyis, meaning He is ‘the giver of existence’ (aysiyya) through His eternal creative act of command (amr) – which is the ‘existentiation (ta’yīs) of the existents (aysāt) from the non-existent (lays)’.[5] Al-Kirmānī writes that ‘the existent (al-ays) in its being an existent (fī kawnihi aysan) is in need of what it depends upon in existence.’[6] For Nāṣir-i Khuraw writing in Persian, the terms hast (existent) and hastī (existence) carry the meaning of contingent existent – that which considered in itself may exist or not exist: ‘Whatever has existence (harcha hastī dārad) may also be non-existent (nīst) as a contrary (ḍidd). That to which ‘existent’ (hast) does not apply, it is also not appropriate to call it non-existent. This is because both of them [existence and non-existence] are mutual contraries and whatever has a contrary cannot be God.’[7] For al-Sijistānī, al-Kirmānī, and Khusraw the term ‘existent’ (ays, hast) always has the meaning of contingent, dependent and originated beings. Thus, when they say that God is neither existent (ays, mawjūd, hast) nor non-existent (lays, maʿdūm, nīst), these Ismaili philosophers are only stating that God is not dependent on anything and not limited; whereas every ‘existent’ depends upon God.

Furthermore, many Ismailis conceive ‘existence’ (aysiyya, hastī) as a super-genus that subsumes the various types of things such as substances and accidents, bodies and spirits, form and matter, etc. Thus, whatever belongs to the category of existence must either be a substance or an accident. Since God transcends being a substance or an accident (both of which entail finitude), it is inappropriate to say God is an existent. Even if one wanted to say God is an existent in a unique manner other than substances and accidents, this would require that God is a species of existence comprised of the existence genus and a differentia; this entails ontological composition in God, violates divine simplicity, and renders God dependent upon the conjunction of the existence genus and a differentia.[8] On this reading of ‘existence’, the Ismailis are in complete agreement with Plotinus, for whom the term ‘exists’ entails the limits of form and substance: ‘Plotinus is denying that the One has the sort of metaphysical structure that all beings or substances (ousiai) have… This mutual entailment between being and being something is what leads Plotinus to say that the One is beyond being.’[9]

Al-Sijistānī and al-Kirmānī refuse to classify God as a mawjūd (a being) or what possesses wujūd (being) for similar reasons. Al-Sijistānī understands the terms wujūd / mawjūd in the literal sense of ‘finding’ / ‘what is found’. From this meaning, he argues that it is inappropriate for God to be a mawjūd (something found) because this requires that there be an eternal ‘finder’ (wājid) whose object of action is God; this is absurd because God cannot be the patient or direct objection of the act of any agent. If one maintains that the ‘finder’ is some temporal being who ‘finds’ God as its mawjūd, this entails that prior to this act of ‘finding’ (wujūd), God was a mawjūd and therefore, wujūd does not apply to God regardless.[10] For al-Kirmānī, wujūd is an attribute and the general argument for negating any entitative attribute from God applies to wujūd as well. It is either the case that the attribute of wujūd depends upon God, in which case God is self-subsistent and independent of the attribute of wujūd, which is a creation, has no need for it – which means God is not really a wujūd or mawjūd; or God Himself depends upon the attribute of wujūd for His subsistence, which makes God dependent like creatures and leads to an infinite regress of dependency which is impossible.

The Ismailis’ outright refusal to speak of God as an existent within the category of existence or a being among other beings is to drive home the ontological incommensurability between God and created beings: ‘He, the Exalted, is beyond being an existent (aysan) due to the need of the existent, in being existent, of that which precedes it who makes it exist; thus, it is absurd that He, the Exalted, should be an existent (aysan) when He has no need of another to be Himself and does not depend upon another.’[11] This surely cannot be interpreted as a profession of agnosticism or atheism, except by an intentional misreading of their words. In fact, given the difficulty of dispensing with ‘existence’ language to talk about God, Ismailis employed alternative terminologies to speak of God’s reality or actuality. Al-Sijistānī, Nāṣir-i Khusraw, and al-Shahrastānī, after denying the applicability of ‘existence’ (aysiyya, hastī, wujūd) and non-existence (laysiyya, nīstī, ʿadam) to God, refer to God as the ‘existentiator of existence’ (mu’ayyis, hast-kunanda, hast-karda, hast-āwaranda, mūjid al-wujūd) using active agentive participles.[12] As for ‘absolute existence/being’ (wujūd muṭlaq, hast-i muṭlaq), this is still inapplicable to God because every existent gradationally participates in ‘absolute existence’. Therefore, absolute existence is God’s eternal creative act, His Command or Word, which is both the source of all originated existents and reflected within them in various degrees: ‘Every particle of the Creation has a share of the Command of God because every creature shares a part of the Command of God through which it has come to be there and by virtue of which it remains in being (pāyanda buwad), and the light of the Command of God shines in it.’[13] Absolute existence, which is God’s creative act of Command, is not God Himself; rather, it is only the trace or effect (athar) of God and it is ontologically united with the Universal Intellect; nevertheless, God’s Command qua absolute existence subsumes and encompasses all existents in a state of oneness (waḥda).[14]

Al-Sijistānī and al-Kirmānī prefer to speak of God in terms of His ‘subsistence’ (thubūt, thabāt, thābit, ithbāt) instead of His ‘existence’. Al-Sijistānī argues that God is the ‘more subsistent’ (athbat) than everything that subsists. He speaks of God’s ‘subsistence’ (thubūt, ithbāt) as the ‘real-true subsistence’ (al-ithbāt al-ḥaqīqī) and created beings as having only ‘virtual subsistence’ (al-ithbāt al-majāzī). Likewise, al-Kirmānī speaks of God as ‘subsistent’ (thubūt) and a ‘self-subsistent ipseity’ (huwiyya thābita).[15] Thus, the Ismailis seem to use thubūt for God and creatures in an equivocal manner. It is worth noting that the Ismaili preference to speak of ‘subsistence’ (thubūt, thabāt, ithbāt; meaning ‘standing’, ‘stability’) for God’s reality and creaturely subsistence parallels Plotinus’ use of the word ‘hypostasis’ (meaning: ‘standing under’) in an equivocal manner to refer to the One, the Intellect, and other levels of being.[16] Medieval and modern scholarship on Ismaili theology has thus far failed to register the fact that Ismaili thinkers regularly affirm God’s subsistence (thubūt, thabāt, thābit, ithbāt)  – a finding that also rebuts the polemical charge that Ismailis professed agnostic or atheist views.

Al-Kirmānī and al-Shahrastānī do permit one to use terms like wujūd (existence) to speak of God out of verbal necessity to express oneself. But they warned that ‘existence’ may only be used equivocally such that one is not making a real predication concerning God – that He has existence, belongs to the genus of existence, or (as modern analytics love to say) He instantiates the divine nature.[17] Therefore, Ismailis can say ‘God exists’ or speak of God as the ‘Necessary Existence through Himself’ (wājib al-wujūd bi-dhātihi) in colloquial or even specialized contexts but this proposition is not a univocal predication about God; rather, it is the affirmation that God is the existentiator (mūjid) of existents as explained by al-Shahrastānī: ‘He is “existent” (mawjūd) in the sense that He existentialises every existence (mūjid kulli wujūd), is “Necessary of Existence” in the sense that He necessitates every existent (mūjib kulli mawjūd); ‘there is no existentialiser (mūjid) for beings other than God (Exalted is He!), the Necessary of Existence in Himself.’[18] Technically speaking, the Ismailis use ‘existence’ (wujūd) for God as an equivocal term (ism mushtarak). But ‘existence’ is not a ‘pure equivocal’ term – where one word has two wholly unrelated meanings (like ‘bark’ of a tree and ‘bark’ of a dog). Rather, ‘existence’ as used by Ismailis for God is a special kind of equivocal term known to others as an ‘impure equivocal’, ‘paradigmatic equivocal’ or ‘relative analogical term’.[19] Accordingly, the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘trees exist’ have different meanings but the meanings are related in some way. In this case, as used by Ismailis, ‘trees exist’ means ‘trees subsist dependently upon another’ while ‘God exists’ means ‘God subsists independently and in reality (ḥaqīqī) and He makes everything else subsist dependently and virtually (majāzī)’.

The Ismailis are not the only Muslim philosophical school to deny or at least heavily qualify the applicability of the concept of ‘existence’ to God.  Ibn Sīnā is famous for teaching that God is the Necessary Existence in Himself (wājib al-wujūd bi-dhātihi) whereas all created beings are contingent existence (mumkin al-wujūd bi-dhātihi) in itself or necessary existence due to another (wājib al-wujūd li-ghayrihi) because they depend upon God. For Ibn Sīnā, existence (wujūd) is not a univocal term, but rather, it is a modulated term (ism mushakkak). This means that existence refers to a single core concept/meaning but the extra-mental realities that the one concept refers to are differing in many ways such that the single concept does not apply to them equally. For Ibn Sīnā, the term existence applies both to God and created things, but the reality of existence differs among these referents according to ontological worthiness. God, who is existent by virtue of Himself is ‘more deserving’ of existence while created beings, who exist by virtue of another, are less worthy of existence. One interpretation of Ibn Sīnā’s view of ‘existence’ is that it is a ‘modulated’ or ‘analogical’ term, whose meaning is closer to the univocal predication.[20]  This reading of Ibn Sīnā’s ontology would put him at odds with the Ismaili tradition, which holds that existence is an equivocal term. However, upon close examination of his corpus, Ibn Sīnā is not always consistent about which terms in philosophy are equivocal (mushtarak) and which ones are modulated (mushakkak). Thus, Janos argues that Ibn Sīnā regards ‘existence’ (wujūd) as a type of ‘weak equivocal term’ based on a careful examination of his writings. Ibn Sīnā’s predecessors, al-Farābī and Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, also held that existent/existence is an equivocal term (ism mushtarak).[21] In a passage found in one manuscript of Ibn Sīnā’s work, one of Ibn Sīnā’s students who edited his Mubāḥathāt, says that the term wujūd – when used both for God (the First) and for contingent beings – is equivocal: ‘[When one refers to] the First Necessary Existent, one does not intend by this existence the [kind of contingent] existence [characteristic of other beings]. Rather, these usages [of the term existence] belong to equivocal terms (al-asmā’ al-mushtaraka).’[22]

One major feature of Ibn Sīnā’s ontology is that he considers existence to have a different ontological status with respect to God and with respect to contingent beings. God’s existence is identical to His essence since God is absolutely simple; God’s existence is Himself. But for contingent existents, which are created, their existences are each distinct from their essences; contingent existence is a non-constituent concomitant (lāzim ghayr muqawwam) of the essence or quiddity.[23] In other words, the word existence refers to two wholly different ontological states with respect to God and creatures. Thus, Janos concludes that Ibn Sīnā takes existence to be an equivocal term:

If we take seriously Avicenna’s claim that God has essential existence, or that God’s existence is identical with His essence, then it will become clear that wujūd cannot be univocal, for it will be treated sometimes as an external lāzim of the essence (in the case of contin­gent beings), other times as essential existence (in the case of God). At the very least, then, existence will have to be a mildly equivocal notion.[24]

The importance of this finding is that Ibn Sīnā’s view of God as the Necessary Existence in Himself and the Ismaili view that God is beyond existence/non-existence do not necessarily conflict substantially and may only differ due to employing different semantic frameworks. The following quote from al-Taʿlīqāt of Ibn Sīnā (which was later reproduced by Saḍr al-Dīn al-Qunawī in his corresponds with Nāṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī), where he admits that God in His reality (ḥaqīqa) is not the same as ‘existence’ (wujūd) in general and that the formal definition (ḥadd) of God as the Necessary Existence in Himself does not strictly correspond to God’s Reality (ḥaqīqa):

Likewise, we do not know the reality of the First (ḥaqīqat al-awwal). We know of Him that existence is necessary for Him or it is not. This, [however], is His concomitant not His reality.  We know by means of this concomitant the other concomitants like oneness and the rest of the attributes. It is [only] possible to grasp His reality [in that] He is existent by His Essence (al-mawjūd bi-dhātihi) meaning He has existence through His Essence. The meaning of our saying that ‘He has existence’ points to something whose reality we do not know. His reality is not the same as existence (laysa ḥaqīqatuhu nafs al-wujūd), nor is it a quiddity since the existence with the quiddities is external to their realities while He in His Essence is the cause of existence (ʿillat al-wujūd). It is therefore the case that existence enters into defining Him (taḥdīdihi) as the genus and differentia enter into the definition of simple substances because of what the intellect requires for them; [in this case], existence is a part of His definition (ḥadd) but not His reality, just as genus and differentia are parts of the definitions of simple substances but not their essences. Truly for Him, His reality (ḥaqīqa) is beyond existence (fawq al-wujūd) and existence is among its concomitants; [likewise], the parts of the definition (ḥadd) of the simple substance are parts of its definition, not its reality as it is something the intellect requires. As for Him in His Essence, He has no parts.[25]

In the above quotation, Ibn Sīnā offers several important concessions with respect to his use of the term wujūd for God – concessions that bring Ibn Sīnā’s views in closer alignment with the Ismaili position that God transcends existence. First, Ibn Sīnā admits that the characterization of God as wājib al-wujūd (Necessary Existence in Himself) does not truly describe God in Himself or God’s Reality (ḥaqīqa): ‘The meaning of our saying that that “He has existence” points to something whose reality we do not know.’ In other words, although Islamic philosophers may formally designate God using the word ‘existence’ – which is a part (juz’) of the formal definition (ḥadd) of God – in reality, God does not really possess existence in any way; rather, He is the cause of the existence of all contingent essences: ‘His reality is not the same as existence (laysa ḥaqīqatuhu nafs al-wujūd), nor is it a quiddity since the existence with the quiddities is external to their realities while He in His Essence is the cause of existence (ʿillat al-wujūd).’ This leads to the inescapable conclusion that God in His Reality is ‘beyond existence’: ‘Truly for Him, His reality (ḥaqīqa) is beyond existence (fawq al-wujūd).’ These remarks suggest that Ibn Sīnā only uses the term ‘existence’ for God as in ‘Necessary Existence’ in an equivocal manner: God in His ḥaqīqa is not an existent, does not possess existence, and actually transcends existence (fawq al-wujūd) since He is the source or cause of existence (ʿillat al-wujūd). This appears to vindicate al-Shahrastānī’s claims that existence can only be used equivocally for God and that God is truly the source of existence (mūjid) rather than its possessor.[26]

[1] ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jāmī, tr. Nicholas Heer, The Precious Pearl (New York: State University of New York Press, 1979), 34-35.

[2] This is argued at length in Charles H. Kahn, Essays on Being (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

[3] Michael Wiitala and Paul DiRado, “In What Sense Does the One Exist? Existence and Hypostasis in Plotinus,” in John F. Finamore and Danielle A. Layne (eds.), Platonic Pathways: Selected Papers from the Fourteenth Annual Conference of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies (Gloucester, UK: Prometheus Trust, 2018), 77-92: 81.

[4] Wiitala and  DiRado, “In What Sense Does the One Exist,” 90.

[5] Walker, “Early Philosophical Shiʿism,” 53, 82,

[6] al-Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql,131.

[7] Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Shish faṣl or Six Chapters, 34 (English), 6 (Persian), translated modified.

[8] al-Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql,131-133; al-Shahrastānī, Struggling, 36-42; Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Knowledge and Liberation, ed. and tr. Faquir Muhammad Hunzai (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998), 42, for existence being a kind of genus, which Khusraw interprets as a causal rank of the ontological hierarchy in accordance with Proclus’ understanding of genus-species relations.

[9] Caleb M. Cohoe, “Why the One Cannot Have Parts: Plotinus on Divine Simplicity, Ontological Independence and Perfect Being Theology,” The Philosophical Quarterly 67/269 (2017): 751-771.

[10] al-Sijistānī, al-Maqālīd, 154.

[11] al-Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql,131.

[12] Al-Sijistānī, Kashf, tr. Landolt, 88-8; Khusraw, Shish faṣl, 6-7 (Persian text); al-Shahrastānī, Struggling, 10, 48, 49, 51, 76, 86, 87, 89, 90.

[13] al-Sijistānī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, ed. Henry Corbin (Paris-Tehran: Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1949), 19, tr. Herman Landolt in Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazavi (eds.), Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Vol. 2 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008), 93.

[14] Khusraw, Knowledge and Liberation, 27, 84-85.

[15] al-Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql,152.

[16] Wiitala and  DiRado, “In What Sense Does the One Exist.”

[17] al-Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql,153; al-Shahrastānī, Struggling, 43. 48. 55.

[18] al-Shahrastānī, Struggling, 48, 51.

[19] Alexander Treiger, “Modulation of Existence (taškīk al-wuǧūd, analogia entis) and its Greek and Arabic Sources,” in Felicitas Opwis and David Reisman (eds.), Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture, and Religion (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 327-363: 332-333.

[20] Daniel D. De Haan, ‘The Doctrine of the Analogy of Being in Avicenna’s ‘Metaphysics of the Healing’,” Review of Metaphysics 69/2 (2015): 261-286, 276.

[21] Damien Janos, “Avicenna on Equivocity and Modulation: A Reconsideration of the asmā’ mushakkika (and tashkīk al-wujūd),” Oriens 50 (2022): 1-62,

[22] Janos, “Avicenna on Equivocity and Modulation,” 49.

[23] Treiger, “Modulation of Existence,” 363.

[24] Janos, “Avicenna on Equivocity and Modulation,” 51.

[25] Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿlīqāt, ed. Abdurrahman Badawī (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-miṣriyya al-ʿĀmma, 1973; reprinted by Dār al-Islāmiyya, Beirut, no date), 35.

[26] al-Shahrastānī, Struggling, 45, 48, 55, 57, 64.

It is worth mentioning that in the Christian tradition, there are many models of the God as the Trinity. These include the Monarchical Trinity, the Thomist Trinity based on “Relative Identity”, Constitutive models of the Trinity, and Social models of the Trinity. I once hosted three Christian scholars as shown in this video.

Likewise, in Islam, there are numerous models of Tawhid (God’s Unicity). These include the Mu‘tazili, Ash‘ari, Maturidi, Hanbali, Salafi, Taymi, Ismaili, Twelver, Avicennian, and Sufi Akbari models of Tawhid. I explain some of these in this video.

This was a debate over which theology is true: Dyer’s Orthodox model of the Christian Trinity known as the Monarchical Trinity vs. Jake’s Salafi model of Islamic Tawhid. Without doing a full-blown review of this, below are my immediate comments.

First, neither debater really offered positive arguments for their positions. Jake simply asserted his Salafi Athari model of Tawhid, which he bases on the views of Ibn Khuzayma, Muhammad b. Isma‘il al-Bukhari, and Ibn Taymiyya. Jake affirms that God has real-distinct attributes that are not identical to God’s Essence and not separable from God’s Essence. This is already a major problem because the Sunni doctrine of “entitative attributes” (sifat ma‘nawiyya) effectively means that Allah is a metaphysical composite. These divine attributes are uncreated and eternal but they are not identical to God Himself, which begs the question as to whether they are dependent upon God or whether God is dependent upon the attributes. Both options are fatal to Tawhid. Most recently, Dr. Hasan Spiker, a Sunni Akbari metaphysician (he is a real metaphysician unlike Jake), told Dr. Shadee Elmasry that the Ash’ari/Maturidi/Hanbali doctrine of God having real-distinct attributes is devoid of intellectual content (see video).

Overall, while both debaters launched assaults on the other’s worldview, I found Jake's theological positions to be weaker and less rigorously defended against Dyer's attacks. Like Ibn Taymiyya, Jake affirmed the plain meaning (zahir) of all the anthropomorphic descriptions of God found in the Qur’an/Sunni Hadith including Allah’s face, hands, eyes, feet, descent, sitting, etc. On the face of it, this type of theology is contradictory. One cannot claim that God has no likeness to His creation and affirm a real face, hand, eyes or descending for God (as Jake's friend Dr. Chowdhury argued in a journal article).

Jake pre-emptively tried to defend against the charge of anthropomorphism - of making God similar to human creatures - by claiming that the shared wording and shared meanings between God’s face/hands/feet and creaturely face/hands/feet does NOT entail any ontological similarity between them. I find this to be an odd argument for Jake to make. In a podcast with Dr. Rasmussen, Jake evoked the ‘correspondence theory of truth’ to argue that multiple linguistic descriptions of God in the Qur’an/Hadith entail the existence of real-distinct ontological attributes in God: “Shouldn’t it be that there is a real correspondence between those attributes and what we are actually saying such that it provides evidence against divine simplicity?” But here, Jake has committed to a nominalism, thinking that this would allow him to avoid the problem of anthropomorphism. After all, if there are no universals whatsoever, then words like face, hands, etc. no longer designate things that necessarily share any similarities. But this totally destroys Jake’s commitment to the ‘correspondence theory of truth’ as there is no more correlation between the signs (scriptural language) and the signifier (extra-mental reality).

Another problem with Jake’s “apparent meaning” position is that the Athari/Hanbali scholars say: “the apparent meaning’ (al-ẓāhir) is what first comes to the mind from that text, irrespective of whether it is literal or metaphorical” (Ibn Qudama 2002, 55). So when we hear or read the word “hand”, “foot”, or “fingers”, what is the meaning that first comes to the mind? Dyer pounced on this and argued that Jake must choose between two options:
1) either the plain meaning entails that God is similar to His creation in some respect - this being the basis of speaking of both God’s “Foot” and a creaturely “foot”;
2) alternatively, one can assert that there is no similarity at all between God’s Foot and a creaturely foot; but in this case, Jake’s entire discourse of affirming these attributes is uninformative and meaningless.

Jake also affirms that God performs temporal actions - like speaking, forgiving, commanding, etc. - which Taymiyyan Atharis regard as uncreated actions that subsist in God’s Essence. Hoover refers to these as God’s “voluntary attributes”. This leads to the paradoxical belief that God performs temporal yet uncreated divine actions - an idea that Jake ascribes to al-Bukhari himself.

Jake went on to attack Dyer’s Trinity model by arguing that the Monarchical Trinity amounts to tri-theism using 3 arguments from his older debates: first, he argued that the Orthodox Trinity is polytheistic because the doctrine admits of 3 "gods" (three beings that are predicatively divine); Jake may have a point here but it did not clearly come through in the slides or the cross-examination. Furthermore, Dyer would later parry to this by showing how Sunni scholars like al-Ghazali are not very clear when it comes to “counting” either and they switch between counting by division and counting by identity. In fact, I have read al-Ghazali, al-Bazdawi, and al-Nasafi (Abu Mu‘in) explain the concept of God and His Attributes being distinct yet inseparable using the analogy of numbers where each distinct attribute is like the number one in relation to the number ten. For example:

“For if we say ‘God, the Exalted,’ then we have referred to the Divine Essence together with the divine attributes, and not to the Essence alone… Thus Zayd’s hand is not Zayd and is not other than Zayd; rather both expressions are absurd. Similarly, every part is not other than the whole, nor is it the same as the whole… Thus it is possible that an attribute is other than the Essence in which the attribute subsists”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazālī, Moderation in Belief, 2013, 129

“God the Exalted is eternal and everlasting with all of His attributes and names. God’s names and attributes are not identical to Him and not other than Him – just as in the case of the number one with regard to the number ten.”

Abu Mu‘in al-Nasafi, Baḥr al-kalām fī ʿilm al-tawḥīd, 1997, 91

Therefore, when Jake uses the counting argument against Orthodoxy - “how many gods do you count?”, I do not see why the Orthodox cannot come back and say: “how many uncreated things (ghayr makhluqat) exist?”.

Second, Jake argued that the Father, Son, Spirit cannot one God because they do not have the same power or knowledge; I think this is a valid argument but I would have focused on the problem of the Son and Spirit lacking aseity in the Monarchical model (and to be fair, Jake has focused on that in past debates). I am not sure why he did not exploit the problem of aseity against Dyer.

Third, Jake charged Dyer's methodology for proving Orthodoxy using TAG with epistemic circularity. As far as I understand TAG and this critique, I would agree with Jake’s argument, which I acknowledge below.

Fourth, Jake argued that the Trinity was not affirmed by the earliest Christian Church fathers and is not really orthodox. I am not a specialist in Late Antique Jewish thought or early Christian thought, but generally speaking, most critical scholars (as far as I am aware) would agree that the first century Christians were NOT Trinitarians and that Jews like Philo and those writing the Targum literature are NOT Trinitarians. What is noteworthy is that some Jews certainly affirmed a subordinationist Logos theology. Later in the cross-examination, Jake mentioned Justin Martyr as an example of someone who is a Saint for the Orthodox but who did not believe in the Trinity. This was a good point.

Dyer devoted almost the entire opening statement to launching several fatal arguments against Jake's Salafi theology. First, he charged Jake with a gross double standard: Jake made his career attacking the Orthodox for affirming 3 "gods" and chiding them for not counting by identity; instead, the Orthodox count by division and thereby claim that there is but one God. However, Dyer notes, Jake himself asserts that there is only one God yet he affirms that this God has multiple uncreated and mutually distinct attributes. There is an analogy between what Trinitarians call Divine Persons and what Sunnis call the uncreated Divine Attributes. As I noted in my debate against Jake, some important Christian theologians writing in Arabic such as Abu Ra'ita, Ammar al-Basri, Bishop Elias, and Ibn al-Tayyib, argued that what Muslims call divine attributes (such as the divine life, knowledge, power), the Christians refer to as the divine hypostases (see Husseini 2014). Thus, Dyer makes a good point here that Jake never dealt with. I discuss this Person-Attribute connection based on scholarship in this video.

Dyer further pushed Jake on God's attributes like hands, eyes, feet, etc. He argued Ibn Taymiyya and Jake are not consistent on this: is the similarity between God’s hand and creaturely hands only in name? Or is it also in meaning? If it is only in name, then these predications are uninformative. If the similarity is in meaning, then God and creatures share a real similarity. In Dyer's words: "What is an uncreated foot that is nothing like a human foot? What is a more perfect foot?" For those who do not know, Dyer was picking up on Ibn Taymiyya's argument that God must have attributes like hands, eyes, etc. because He must possess all perfections. Hoover summarizes Ibn Taymiyya’s arguments on this issue as follows:

A living being who can see and hear is more perfect than one who cannot. Similarly, one who is living and knowing is more perfect than one who is not. Moreover, God must be qualified as hearing and seeing lest He be imperfect and dependent upon another... One who has power to act by his hands is more perfect than one who does not because the former can choose to act with his hands or through some other means whereas the latter does not have the option of using his hands. By implication, God’s hands are among His attributes of perfection.

Jon Hoover, Ibn Taymiyya's Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism, 64-65

Dyer went further and asked Jake: “Are the divine attributes a se or are they dependent on God? Or is God dependent on His mutually distinct attributes? These were questions I asked Jake in our 2022 Debate and he has yet to provide any answer.

Furthermore, Dyer caught on to the absurdity of believing that God has uncreated yet temporal attributes. Dyer rightly argued that temporal divine attributes or temporal divine actions issuing from God and subsisting in His Essence entail that God’s Essence itself must be temporal. This was the position of the Karramiyya, whom orthodox Sunnis like al-Juwayni condemned as heretics. Dyer went on to attack Jake's epistemology as problematic because it rejects universals and is wholly nominalist.

However, I thought that Dyer’s TAG (Transcendental Argument for God) did not fare too well under questioning from Jake. Basically, Dyer holds that only the Orthodox Christian worldview provides a metaphysical and epistemic foundation for various truths about human selfhood, knowledge, and the Cosmos including the laws of logic and the very possibility of knowledge. Jake pressed Dyer as to how he can avoid circularity in making this argument. Furthermore, why must the answer to the argument be an Orthodox Christian theology? Conceivably, Ismaili Neoplatonism would be an adequate solution to TAG. Perhaps even the Salafi creed…?

I also have problems with Monarchical Trinity models. While Jake accused the model of falling into tri-theism, I think a bigger problem is that the Son and Holy Spirit are not truly divine but eternal proximate creations of God. In my friendly debate with Dr. Joshua Sijuwade, I pressed my interlocuter on the issue of the Father alone being a se and the Son and Spirit lacking aseity or ontological independence. In my view, aseity is both intrinsic and essential to God. The Monarchical Trinity model collapses into the Father alone being God and the Son and Spirit as Neoplatonic-like emanations that eternally depend upon the Father. In Islamic philosophical language, the Son and Holy Spirit - as emanations from the Father - are dependent realities and contingent in themselves (mumkin al-wujud bi-dhatihi) while the Father alone is necessary in himself (wajib al-wujud bi-dhatihi).

Ultimately, while Salafi Da‘wabros debating Orthobros may be entertaining for YouTube, the strongest and most internally consistent philosophical critique of the Christian Trinity can only be deployed by Muslims who believe in divine simplicity - such as Mu‘tazilis, Ismailis, Avicennians, and Akbaris. Salafi, Hanbali, Ash‘ari, and Maturidi critiques of the Trinity are always handicapped by the metaphysical inconsistencies within their own systems, such as mutually distinct uncreated divine attributes, anthropomorphic attributes (for Salafis), temporal creation (for Ash‘aris, Maturidis, and Hanbalis), and arbitrary divine will (Ash‘aris and Hanbalis).

I encourage everyone to watch the entire debate and be prepared to laugh out loud at certain points

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