Anthropomorphism and corporealism in Islam

In Islamic theology, anthropomorphism (Arabic: تشبيه, romanized: tashbīh) and corporealism (تسجيم tajsīm) refer to beliefs in the human-like (anthropomorphic) and materially embedded (corporeal) form of God. This idea has been classically described assimilating or comparing God to the creatures created by God. An anthropomorphism is referred to as a mushabbih (pl. mushabbiha). A corporealist is referred to as a mujassim (pl. mujassima).

Questions of anthropomorphism and corporealism have historically been closely related to discussions of the attributes of God in Islam. By contrast, belief in the transcendence of God is called tanzih. Muslims widely accept tanzih today,

In the past, it stridently competed with alternative views, including anthropomorphic ones, especially until the year 950, when anthropomorphism briefly attained "orthodox" recognition around or after the Mihna. In premodern times, corporealist views were said to have been more socially prominent among the common people, with more abstract and transcendental views more common for the elite.

In a broader sense, tashbih refers not only to attributions of physical or behavioral human traits to God, but also to discussions about spatiality, directionality (including aboveness) and confinement with God. Typically, traditionalism has been associated with corporealist views. Rationalism has been associated with incorporealist views. Instead, Jon Hoover divides the range of views relating to God's body, location, and spatiality into a fourfold typology: the first stance which passes over, without comment, all traditions that use anthropomorphic or corporeal language ("Bila Kayf"); one which explicitly identifies God as having a body (جسم jism); one which spatially places God above the world but avoids saying God has a body (which Hoover calls "spatialism"); and finally explicit incorporealism. Groups which maintained anthropomorphic views, historically, have included traditionalist hadith transmitters and Karramism.

Polemically, Kalam theologians accused the Ahl al-Hadith (traditionalists) of having fallen prey to tashbih since at least the 9th century. Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) wrote a famous and extensive refutation of incorporealist views in his Bayān talbīs al-jahmiyya "Explication of the Deceit of Jahmism" as argued for by Abu Bakr al-Razi. Ibn Taymiyyah\ has been characterized as a spatialist. Explicit incorporealism has been maintained by groups like the Mu'tazilites, Ash'ari Sunnis, Maturidi Sunnis, Twelver Shi'ism, Ismailism, and Zaydism.

The extensive debates and discussions on anthropomorphism, active from the beginning of the second Islamic century and seemingly ignited by the Mu'tazilites in response to traditionalist hadith transmitters, have often surrounded Quran verses and other traditions (especially the aḥādīth al-ṣifāt) that depict God and the attributes of God using anthropomorphic language. The early view among the "People of the Hadith" (aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth) was that God was a truly anthropomorphic being. In response, Mu'tazilites and the Jahmiyya emphasized God's divine simplicity (lacking any attributes) and his transcendence. For them, anthropomorphic traditions should be approached with an attitude that "passed on as they are without inquiry (imrāruhākamā jā’at bilā kayfa)", meaning that the apparently anthropomorphic traditions are accepted, but that their meaning is asserted to be unknowable to anyone but God. This approach came to be represented by the Arabic phrase Bila Kayf. While the meaning of the aḥādīth al-ṣifāt were often debated among traditionalist scholars, the Mu'tazilites entirely rejected the authenticity of any traditions that use anthropomorphic language to describe God. The height of the power of Mu'tazilite and Jahmite scholars came during the reign of Abbasid caliph Al-Ma'mun. Traditionalist scholars were persecuted and sometimes killed if they refused to acknowledge the doctrine of the Createdness of the Quran and, in some instances, anti-anthropomorphic views, in an event that is known as the Mihna. This campaign ultimately failed, however, and soon, the traditionalist camp, especially as represented by Ahmad ibn Hanbal's Hanbali school, was accepted by political authorities (including it and Ibn Hanbal's anthropomorphism). The persecution during the Mihna bred the emergence of extremely anti-rationalist approaches, leading to anthropomorphism. In the tenth century, tensions grew with regards to the Hanbali interpretation of a ṣifāt concerning Quran 17:79: in the view of this tradition, the passage meant that Muhammad will be given a station, or a place to sit, alongside God on God's throne. Anyone who rejected this meaning, the Hanbalite's argued, was a heretic. The city of Baghdad remained a stronghold of traditionalist Hanbalite approaches to anthropomorphism up until the Fall of Baghdad in 1258.

Across his works, Al-Ash'ari adopts varying views relating to God's anthropomorphism and corporealism. In Kitāb al-Lumaʿ (Highlights), he criticizes the idea that God could be a three-dimensional object. In al-Ibāna ʿan uṣūl al-diyāna (Elucidation of the Foundations of the Religion), he affirms that God has hands, eyes, and a face, but does not inquire as to how it is so (Bila Kayf). At the same time, he criticizes Mu'tazilite approaches which directly remove any corporeal connotations from such statements. In the same text and without invoking Bila Kayf, al-Ash'ari affirms that God is located above his Throne. Despite Al-Ash'ari taking up these stances, later proponents of Ash'arism would concretely deny God's corporealism or spatial location. From the 13th century AD onwards, the Ash'arite's developed two approaches that were broadly accepted in Sunni Islam as a means to avoid the literal meaning of anthropomorphic traditions: to either relegate their ultimate meaning as something known only to God while holding firmly to the incorporeality of God (the tafwīḍ solution), or to offer a rationalistic interpretation of the passage (the ta’wīl solution). By contrast, the Salafist reaction has rejected this approach, claiming that the Salaf (the earliest Muslims and the Companions of Muhammad) unquestioningly affirmed God's anthropomorphism, and arguing sometimes that ta'wil is tantamount to the heresy of innovation (bid'ah). For Salafist writers, ta'wil, especially in the case of anthropormophism, is a product of the preference for reason over revelation, and the Ash'arites are historically responsible for the deviation of the views of the Salaf regarding anthropormophism.

Debates about God's spatiality in the Quran have typically revolved around a few passages/motifs which appear to describe God using corporeal or spatial language. Passages using directional language in relation to God include: