Darʾ Taʿâroud al-ʿAql wa-n-Naql - Ibn Taimiya - (1/306)

Darʾ Taʿâroud al-ʿAql wa-n-NaqlIbn Taimiya

Then Ibn Kullāb and his followers agreed with them that acts do not subsist in Him, but disagreed concerning attributes, affirming that attributes subsist in Him. They said: “We do not call them accidents, because they endure, whereas accidents do not endure.”

As for Ibn Karrām and his followers, they did not refrain from calling Allah’s attributes accidents, just as they did not refrain from calling Him a body.

From this argument and others like it arose the doctrines that the Quran is created, that Allah, Most High, will not be seen in the Hereafter, that He is not above the Throne, and similar teachings of the Jahmiyya who deny His attributes. For the Quran is speech, and speech is an attribute, while, according to them, attributes do not subsist in Him.

Moreover, speech necessarily involves an act on the part of the speaker, whereas they hold that no act can subsist in Him. They also argue that seeing requires facing the object seen and viewing it directly, while being above entails spatial separation and alignment, and these are properties of bodies.

In short, they came to deny the attributes of Allah, Most High, that they deny because affirming them would entail that the one possessing them is a body. This, they maintain, is impossible, since their proof for the existence of the Maker rests solely on bodies being temporally originated. Were He a body, their proof for the existence of the Maker would be invalidated.

Hence these people said: “Affirming the attributes and acts indicated by revelation undermines the foundational proof through which we came to know that the Messenger is truthful.”

They said that it would be impossible to believe the Messenger if, hypothetically, he were to convey such teachings, because his truthfulness is not known after knowledge of the Maker has been established, and there is no way to establish knowledge of the Maker except by holding that bodies are temporally originated.

They said: “Affirming attributes for Him entails that He is a body without a beginning. Consequently, not every body would be temporally originated, and the proof by which knowledge of Him is established would be invalidated.”

فجاء ابن كلاب ومن اتبعه فوافقوهم على إنتفاء قيام الأفعال به، وخالفوهم في قيام الصفات، فأثبتوا قيام الصفات به، وقالوا: لا نسميها أعراضا لأنها باقية، والأعراض لا تبقى. وأما ابن كرام وأتباعه: فلم يمتنعوا من تسمية صفات الله أعراضا، كما لم يمتنعوا من تسميته جسما. وعن هذا الحجة ونحوها نشأ القول بأن القرآن مخلوق، وأن الله تعالى لا يرى في الآخرة، وأنه ليس فوق العرش، ونحو ذلك من مقالات الجهمية النفاة، لأن القرآن كلام، وهو صفة من الصفات، والصفات عندهم لا تقوم به. وأيضا فالكلام يستلزم فعل المتكلم، وعندهم لا يجوز قيام فعل به، ولأن الرؤية تقتضي مقابلة ومعاينة، والعلو يقتضي مباينة ومسامته، وذلك من صفات الأجسام. وبالجملة فقد صاروا ينفون ما ينفونه من صفات الله تعالى، لأن إثبات ذلك يقتضي أن يكون الموصوف جسما، وذلك ممتنع، لأن الدليل على إثبات الصانع إنما هو حدوث الأجسام، فلو كان جسما لبطل دليل إثبات الصانع. ومن هنا قال هؤلاء: إن القول بما دل عليه السمع من إثبات الصفات والأفعال يقدح في أصل الدليل الذي به علمنا صدق الرسول. وقالوا إنه لا يمكن تصديق الرسول لو قدر أنه يخبر بذلك، لأن صدقه لا يعلم بعد أن يثبت العلم بالصانع، ولا طريق إلى إثبات العلم بالصانع إلا القول بحودث الأجسام. قالوا: وإثبات الصفات له يقتضي أنه جسم قديم، فلا يكون كل جسم حادثا، فيبطل دليل إثبات العلم به.