{"_id":"668d9fe60b76658b4c232889","title":"{\"ops\":[{\"insert\":\"Does Allah have feelings and emotions?\"}]}","question":"{\"ops\":[{\"insert\":\"I asked my Arabic teacher yesterday about the verses and hadiths relating to Allah’s love, anger, etc, specifically about a Hadith that says Allah (swt) deeply loves when His servants seek forgiveness. In Ahl-sunnah we know that Allah does not have human emotions as this would entail that He changes and that his feelings come and go which cannot be because He is beyond time and space. However, being a Bedouin in the Arab desert, I wondered if people read these things and felt that Allah (swt) did embody emotions. Long story short, my teacher told me that we don't always have to interpret these “feelings” to be metaphorical (such as anger being the punishment of Allah, or his Happiness being reward),but rather take the apparent meaning and not liken him to creation. To me, I find this approach to be a contradiction, because doesn't taking the apparent meaning liken Him to creation? I know wahhabis/salafis use this sort of interpretation, although I find it to be halfway to tajsim. If you could clarify on this point that would be helpful.\"}]}","answer":"{\"ops\":[{\"insert\":\"There are two methods employed by Sunni scholars with regards to words or verses whose meaning is ambiguous: tawil and tafwidh. However, both methods have the same starting point, which is tanzih. This means that both methods begin by applying the unambiguous verse,\"},{\"attributes\":{\"bold\":true},\"insert\":\" “There is nothing like Him.”\"},{\"insert\":\"\\n\\nSo, if the literal meaning contradicts this verse, then both methods agree that the literal meaning cannot be taken. Then after that, the tafwidh method stops and says that the intended meaning is not known, while the tawil method proceeds to interpret the meaning in a way that is consistent with the Arabic language and befitting to Allah ﷻ . The tawil method provides more clarity and refutes those who attacked Islam while the tafwidh method is safer because it refrains from ascribing an interpretation that might not have been intended. That said, coming back to your specific question regarding the how, the method of sunni scholars has always been that there is no how ‎(بلا كيف) when it comes to Allah ﷻ.\"}]}","tags":[{"_id":"668d9fe50b76658b4c232859","tag":"Aqeedah: Allah ﷻ‎","count":66},{"_id":"668d9fe60b76658b4c232887","tag":"Tafwidh","count":4}],"createdOn":"2024-07-09T20:39:02.870Z"}