Incarnation

Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It is the conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or an anthropomorphic form of a god. It is used to mean a god, deity, or Divine Being in human or animal form on Earth. The proper noun, Incarnation, refers to the union of divinity with humanity in Jesus Christ.

The incarnation of Christ (or Incarnation) is the central Christian doctrine that God became flesh, assumed of human nature, and became a man in the form of Jesus, the Son of God and the second person of the Trinity. This foundational Christian position holds that the divine nature of the Son of God was perfectly united with human nature in one divine Person, Jesus, making him both truly God and truly human. The theological term for this is hypostatic union: the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, became flesh when he was miraculously conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Biblical passages traditionally referenced in connection with the doctrine of the Incarnation include John 3:1–21, Colossians 2:9, and Philippians 2:7–8.

Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad is considered the founder of the Druze faith and the primary author of the Druze manuscripts, he proclaimed that God had become human and taken the form of man, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah is an important figure in the Druze faith whose eponymous founder ad-Darazi proclaimed him as the incarnation of God in 1018.

Historian David R. W. Bryer defines the Druzes as ghulat of Isma'ilism, since they exaggerated the cult of the caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah and considered him divine; he also defines the Druzes as a religion that deviated from Islam. He also added that as a result of this deviation, the Druze faith "seems as different from Islam as Islam is from Christianity or Christianity is from Judaism".

Some scholars believe Christian elements are deeply embedded in Druze beliefs, introduced through Isma’ili traditions. This is evident in the Druze creed, which deifies al-Hākim bi Amrillāh. The initiation text, "Mīthāq Walī al-Zamān" (Pact of Time Custodian), which begins with, “I rely on our Moula Al-Hakim the lonely God, the individual, the eternal,... Obedience of almighty Moulana Al-Hākim, exalted be him and that obedience is worship and that he does not have any partners ever, present or coming”, closely resembles Christian beliefs about Jesus' divinity. The Druze also view figures like Jesus, al-Hākim bi Amrillāh, and Hamza ibn Ali as the Messiah or Mahdi. They believe al-Hākim will return at the end of times to judge the world and establish his kingdom, while Hamza ibn Ali is considered a reincarnation of Jesus, the Universal Mind 'Aql, closely associated with al-Hākim.

Islam completely rejects the doctrine of the incarnation (Mu'jassimā / (Tajseem) Tajsīm) of God in any form, as the concept is defined as shirk. In Islam, God is one and "neither begets nor is begotten".

According to many modern scholars, the Biblical and Talmudic view of God was anthropomorphic. God could sometimes appear in bodily form. The Babylonian Talmud contains stories of earthly appearances of God, Elijah, Satan, and demons.

Since the time of Maimonides, mainstream Judaism has mostly rejected any possibility of an incarnation of God in any form.