The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

God

The Arabic word Allāh, probably a contraction of al-ilāh (the god), is used in the Qur’an and Islamic tradition to refer to the biblical God, the same God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush and caused Mary to conceive and bear Jesus Christ without the intervention of a human father. The god Allah already existed as a high god in the pagan pantheon of the pre-Islamic period and was held to have daughter goddesses (al-Lat, al-‘Uzza, and Manat), but the Prophet Muhammad’s mission reinterpreted the deity Allah within the framework of biblical history and theology, decidedly rejecting the pagan view.

The Qur’an uses a number of metaphorical frames, all of which can be found in the Hebrew Bible, to describe God. In one set of descriptions, God is a master or lord (rabb). Every human is God’s servant or slave (‘abd) and owes God service or worship (‘ibāda) as well as gratitude for his favor (ni‘ma). Each is rewarded for obedience (ṭā‘a) and punished for disobedience (‘iṷyān, ma‘ṷiya). God is also portrayed as a king. God watches over the heavens and the Earth from His throne. He is attended by a council (mala’). He resides in a fortress equipped with magnificent ascending staircases and defended by ramparts and towers. Guards on the ramparts fire projectiles at invasive genies, who attempt to eavesdrop on the celestial court, the attack of which produces shooting stars. God will also judge all people on the Day of Judgment after they have been physically resurrected and gathered together. The accused will be confronted in His presence with the records of their deeds, which they will receive in their right hands if the record is good but in their left hands if it is not. On the basis of this trial, God will issue a verdict, sending the innocent to paradise and the guilty to hell.

Several categories of signs (āyāt) convey important messages about God to those who are observant of the world around them. Islam is thus the religion of innate human understanding (fiṭra), being inscribed in nature, and one understands from the Qur’an that someone who grows up in isolation should be able to derive the main precepts of the faith independently from careful observation. The wonders of the natural world, including the sky, mountains, seas, and those things that are evidently impossible for humans to produce point to the existence of a divine power. The regularities of the natural world, such as the rotations of the planets, the alternation of night and day, and the rotation of the seasons, indicate the unity of the divine power. One knows that there is one God and not multiple gods because the universe is regular and not chaotic. The sustenance provided in the world for humankind, including rain, vegetation, crops, livestock, shelter, and so on, form another category of signs, and these show humans that they owe gratitude to God, on whose providence they depend utterly. Yet another class of signs are the ruins and relics of earlier civilizations, including Noah’s ark; Iram, the great city or temple of the ‘Ad tribe; the deserted dwellings of Thamud, which are carved into the rock walls of their valley; the pyramids of the pharaohs; and the ruins of “the Overturned Cities” (al-Mu‘tafikāt) of Sodom and Gomorrah. Examination of such ruins conveys to the observer that God has destroyed earlier peoples and nations, despite their strength, prosperity, and accomplishments, presumably for disobedience and the rejection of earlier prophetic missions. The final category of signs—miracles that accompany prophetic missions, such as that of Moses’ staff, which turned into a snake before Pharaoh—attests to the validity of the messages of God’s prophets.

The Qur’an and Islam emphasize God’s transcendence. The Qur’an pointedly alters several biblical portrayals, such as the statement that God rested on the seventh day after creating the universe in six, instead reporting that God settled on the throne to direct the universe. The point is obviously to avoid the implication that God gets tired or needs to rest and is thus subject to an anthropomorphic imperfection. No equivalent of the biblical statement that God created man in His own image appears in the Qur’an. Other passages argue against the Holy Trinity on the grounds that God has no need of a son, since He can create whatever He wishes simply by uttering a command. Nevertheless, some passages in the Qur’an and the hadith describe God in anthropomorphic terms, referring, for example, to God’s hand or face, and these passages became the subject of much controversy. On the one hand, the Mu‘tazilis generally held that such anthropomorphic descriptions should be interpreted in a figurative sense, so that God’s hand should not be understood as a hand but as a reference to His power. On the other hand, Hanbalis and other traditionalist theologians argued for a literal interpretation. If the text of the Qur’an refers to God’s hand, then the divinity has an actual hand. The intermediate Ash‘ari position, which came to dominate Islamic discourse, states that one is supposed to accept these descriptive statements as fact but without probing into their particular implications—succinctly characterized as the bi-lā kayf (“without ‘how’”) position.

God has divine epithets, termed al-asmā’ al-ḥusnā (the very beautiful names) in the Qur’an and in later Islamic tradition. They are generally single adjectives, such as al-Karīm (the Generous), al-Mu‘īn (the Helping), al-Ghafūr (the Forgiving), and so on, and appear frequently in Islamic theophoric names with the masculine ‘abd and the feminine ama (both translate to “servant”), such as ‘Abd al-Karim (Servant of the Generous One) or Amat al-Rahman (Servant of the Beneficent). The divine epithets are used primarily in the context of prayer, and they stress particular aspects of his power. As a category of speech, these epithets probably predate the Qur’an, and they were presumably used for other pagan gods in the pre-Islamic period. Islamic tradition came to stress that there are 99 such names, and the tradition includes a number of lists that are based primarily on the Qur’an but do not entirely agree. God also has, it is said, the exceedingly powerful “Greatest Name” (al-ism al-a‘ẓam), which remains a secret.

Related to the divine epithets are God’s attributes, the seven essential qualities of action, volition, knowledge, life, speech, sight, and hearing. These attributes created a problem of interpretation for theologians because admitting a plurality of attributes risked describing God as composite or possessed of a plural nature. The Ash‘ari solution to this was to affirm that God knows through His knowledge, is able to act through His power, and sees through His sight, but they argue that explaining exactly how this is so is beyond human capacity.

God is the supreme ruler, legislator, and guarantor of social order. Sovereignty belongs, theoretically, to God, and both political and religious authorities are dependent on Him. According to the Qur’an, He appointed Adam, David, and other early nations’ khalīfas (successors or viceroys) on Earth, signifying that He has delegated dominion over the world, of sorts, to them. In Islamic history, this status was extended first to the caliphs or successors of the Prophet and then to other rulers, such as sultan and kings. Muslim rulers thus claimed to rule by divine right—otherwise, God, who is omnipotent, would not have allowed them to gain power—and were styled ẓill Allāh ‘alā al-arḍ (the shadow of God on Earth). God is also the ultimate source of law, and through prophecy He has imposed successive legal regimes on human communities, including those associated with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. God is also the architect of political and social order and the guarantor of public morality, for moral behavior is presumably promoted by the fear of God above all. The biblical prohibition of using God’s name in vain has not been stressed in Islamic cultures, where frequent invocation of God permeates all levels of discourse. God is understood to control all contingent matters, and one scarcely ever utters a statement in the future tense without the expression in shā’ allāh (“if God wills”). God is invoked in many formulas of politeness, suggesting that the regular exchanges of social life occur under divine sanction and control. The word “God” is also used in a metonymic sense for the community, so that an expression such as ‘aduww allāh (the enemy of God), used to refer to a dangerous heretic, has the sense of “public enemy number one.” Similarly, khayl allāh (the army of God) denotes the army of the Muslim state, and so on.