1. History of Anthropomorphism
Source:http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?20372-History-of-
Anthropomorphism&p=177600&viewfull=1#post177600
Al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Khalf al-Barbahaari (233—329 h.) of Baghdad was the leader of the
Hanbalis in his day and he was a contemporary of Abu al-Hasan al-Ash‘ari (d. 324 h.) who
according to al-Kauthari wrote his al-Ibaanah to guide al-Barbahaari from the heresy of
literalism and tashbeeh. Imam Ahmad died in 241 so you can see that when Ahmad died
he was a boy of eight. Al-Barbahaari caused such a tumult of riots and fighting in the year
321 h. over the issue of the supposed sitting the Prophet r on the Throne beside Allah that
the Caliph ordered him to be arrested but al-Barbahaari fled but was arrested and deported
to Basrah but he returned in 323 h. and caused again such a fitnah that the Caliph al-Radi
again ordered him to be arrested and ordered that if any two of his followers met together
that they should be arrested. Again he fled and died in hiding in 329. Apparently the name
al-barbahaar is the name of a medicine that comes from India and the one who imports it
was called al-barbahaari.
Ibn al-Atheer (d. 630) wrote in his al-Kaamil fee al-Taareekh in commenting on the events
that transpired in the year 323 h. in Baghdad:
Mention of the fitnah of the Hanbalis
In this year the Hanbalis became powerful and the problem they posed became serious.
They started to raid and take by surprise the buildings of the guards and the general public
and if they found any containers of fermenting juice [nabeedh, which need not have become
intoxicating] they overturned them and if they found any singer they beat him and broke
his instruments [which act was to be appreciated and is consonant with Hanafi fiqh as well
as Hanbali fiqh] and they interfered with buying and selling and if they saw a man going
about with women or children they asked him whom he was escorting and if he did not
answer they would beat him and carry him away to the chief of police and testified that he
had committed some indecency [that is adultery or sodomy] and in this way they created
tumult/disorder in Baghdad.
[This being the case] al-Raadi [the Caliph] issued a proclamation to be read to the Hanbalis
in their denunciation rebuking them for their profession of tashbeeh and other things.
Among the things that the proclamation declared was this:
On the one hand you presume that your ugly revolting faces resemble that of the Lord
of All Things and your awful appearance resembles His [this being an allusion to their
doctrine that Allah created Adam according to His image (soorah)], and you mention the
hand and fingers and feet and gilded shoes and curly hair and the ascension to heaven
and the descent to the lowest heaven [an allusion to their doctrine that Allah comes

2. literally and physically to the lowest of the heavens at the end of the night to ask who is
praying to Him]; however, Allah far transcends what the wicked and those who deny [His
transcendence and incomparability] ascribe to Him. Then on the other hand you censure the
greatest imams and accuse the descendents of Muhammad of unbelief and misguidance and
you induce the Muslims to accept manifest heresies and blasphemous ideas that have no
support from the Qur’an. Furthermore, you denounce visiting the graves of the great imams
and you reproach those who visit them as heretics although you gather at the grave of a
person who was a commoner and not any soul of distinction and pedigree, one who has no
relation to the Messenger of Allah r and you encourage the people to visit him and you claim
that you works the miracles of the prophets and the saints. May Allah curse the devil that
has made such enormities seem fair in your eyes! How he has deluded you!
The Ameer al-Mu’mineen swears the most solemn oath by Allah and binds himself to fulfill it
that if you do not give up your blamable ideas and stop your crooked activities, he will have
you beaten severely and exiled and put to death and eliminated. By Allah, he will strike your
necks with the sword and burn your homes!
The episode of al-Barbahaari is but a page in the sorry and continuing saga of the trial of
the Hashawiyyah. That day the flag of their fitnah was carried by al-Barbahaari while on
another day by Muhammad ibn al-Karram and Ibn Taimiyyah and Muhammad ibn Abd al-
Wahhaab. Today it is carried by those who call themselves “Salafis” in Arabia and the Gulf
and in the west and “Ahl al-Hadeeth” in Indo-Pak and “Ansaar al-Sunnah” in Egypt and
Sudan and if the world endures tomorrow it will be carried by people who will have assumed
yet another name. The same flag was carried by Paul of Tarsus in the era of Christianity
and by the sectarian leaders in the early period of Christianity who held that Isa u was
literally the son of God and that Allah literally had a spirit which they called the Holy Spirit
and made it one of the persons of the Trinity coeternal and coequal with the Father. That
is why Thomas Patrick Hughes declared in his A Dictionary of Islam (1885) in his article on
the “Wahhabi”:
On this account [that is, because of their literalist inclination] the Christian doctrines of the
Trinity and the Sonship of Christ do not present the same difficulities to the Wahhabi mind
which they do to that of a Sunni [that is orthodox Asharite].
Previous to this statement Hughes had written under the tenth article that distinguishes the
Wahhabis from mainstream and orthodox Muslims:
They understand the terms “sitting on the Throne” (Arabic Istiwā’) and “hand of God”
(Yadu ‘llāh), which occur in the Qur’ān, in their literal (Haqīqī) sense, and not figuratively
(Majāzī) ; but at the same time, they say it is not revealed how God sits, or in what sense
he has a hand, &c., and in this account the Christian doctrines…”
Notice that Hughes points out that the Wahhabis affirm the literal meaning but consign
the precise description of that to Allah. Take note here that orthodox Muslims on the other
hand deny the literal meaning and when opting for the stance of tafweed they consign
the determination of a non-literal meaning to Allah and when opting for ta’weel advance a
suitable figurative meaning in a tentative manner. This is because they deny that Allah has
any mode of existence (kaifiyyah) affirming that He, the necessary being, exists without any
cause and without any need and without the imperfections and restrictions of origination
and contingency.
(This is an article of my shaikh Mualvi Muhammad Yusaf, and I will be posting more of his
articles on this topic)