Descriptions of the Divine Essence Between Absolute Permissibility and Prohibition: A Semantic Study

Abstract

Descriptions of the Divine Essence are among the subjects of Islamic creed, extensively discussed by scholars of theology, and various Muslim sects have differing views on the matter. This topic is also closely related to linguistic and semantic research. While reading Abu Hilal Al-Askari's book "Al-Farouq Al-Lughawiyya," I noticed the numerous terms he classified as (those that cannot describe God Almighty) due to their semantic content, which is incompatible with the Divine Essence. The attributes of perfection and majesty that God possesses must befit His sacredness, carrying semantic features that indicate perfection and avoid any sense of limitation or corporeality. Therefore, the acceptance or rejection of descriptions of the Divine Essence is based on their semantic origins. In this study, I present examples of these attributes, where acceptance or prohibition is based on their semantic content. I also explore the reasons and constraints that prevent certain descriptions from being accepted for God Almighty and the reasons for resorting to metaphor to validate the description.

The semantic content of the word is an important basis for accepting it as a description of God Almighty, rejecting it, or limiting its application to Him Almighty; because the basic rule for divine descriptions: Every description that indicates absolute perfection is used to describe God, and every word that smells of deficiency and limitation and whose content is mixed with what touches the sanctity of His holiness is not used to describe Him. As for the descriptions mentioned in the Holy Quran or from the Prophet - may God bless him and his family - and from which the smell of blame is smelled, then interpretation is the path that scholars have taken to accept them, even if Muslims differed. Some of them believed in the name without interpretation while denying that the description resembles the creatures, and some of them carried that on the metaphor so that the application of the word is correct, and this is a path that may be imposed even in the most famous names such as the All-Hearing and the All-Seeing.