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The attribute of Eloquence and the Islamic TraditionsWhat do you mean by Word of God?

There are some meanings that are like explanations and I do not think that we need to discuss them.

God has the authority to create waves of sounds and reach them to the ears of the Prophets and Messengers.

And through them to the common people like the way Qura’n describes the dialogue Moses had with God. The sounds waves were created in the tree and Moses was addressed through it.

Talking through the tongue and by the help of sound waves is the requirement of a body and God is free from physical existence so these things have no meaning. All we can say that sound waves are created in certain bodies when the need arises as we have said earlier.

The Qura’n that reaches our hands comes sometimes in the form of sounds and sometimes in the form of writing and both these are finite. Then to say that the words are eternal and even to say that the cover of the Qura’n too is eternal is nothing but frivolity and it cannot be believed or relied upon.

People have believed the words of God to be eternal because they saw that eloquence is an attribute of God and Qura’n is the word of God but God is eternal so the attribute should be eternal too and so they concluded that the words of God are eternal.

Due their ignorance they were unable to differentiate between the attribute of existence and the attribute of deed. The eternal attribute are the attributes of his being like knowledge and authority but those attributes that our minds register due to actions are finite. They are not connected with the eternal attributes but are understood by the mind that have been derived from His deeds.

In another words there is no doubt that the deeds of God are finite like the creation of the heavens and the earth, the creation of Adam, the bestowing of sustenance, the forgiving of people’s sins and the installation of the ministries of the apostles and the Messengers. When the mind registers these deeds it creates attributes like Creator, sustainer, etc. It is certain that until God created something, gave sustenance and forgave someone’s sins these attributes were never spoken about ( Though He always had the right to them but the discussion here is not on his authority but on these deeds.)

The attributes of deeds therefore, are separate from the attributes of His existence and which are connected to His Being. This misinterpretation of truth brought those who believed in it being eternal to a stage which is a farce like believing the cover of Qura’n to be eternal. When a group from the Asharis gave attention to these meaning they had no recourse but to take the help of “Kalam Nafsi” words that are eternal and attached to God. They cited those verses that are about the hypocrites in the Qura’n to strengthen their arguments like verse 8 of Surah Mujadilah that says, “And they say to themselves, “Why doesn’t God punish us for our words”

Akhtal the famous poet in the era of Banu Omaiya said, “The real place of the words is the heart, the tongue is just the translator of the heart and the mind.

With these arguments they tried to over come the contradiction between the words being finite and the attributes being immortal. But their problem only increased in the sense that if imaging these words through the brain is the aim then it is not possible for God because God is far above top become the place for these needs.

If it means that God was fully aware of the words and the verses then there is no doubt that his knowledge encompasses everything. But Kalam Nafsi will revert to God and cannot become a separate attribute.

The result is that God knew all that the topics that were in the divine books, and this is just knowledge and nothing else but the words are finite. There is nothing like “Kalam Nafsi” present in them which is ancient and is separate from God’s knowledge. All these things are very evident but it sad that the Issue of Kalam Nafsi darkened the horizon of Islam and resulted in too much blood shed. It sometimes favored the Moatazalli (like some rulers of Bani Abbas) then it would be declared that all the people should declare the Qura’n to be created and finite or else the sword will be put to use.

Then some rulers of the Bani Abbas favored the Asharis and used to slay those who believed the words of God to be created and today we know that this was all just political maneuverings that was given a religious garb. These unchecked rulers were playing with the religious sentiments of the people for the furtherance of their evil desires and stability of their rulership

 

The attribute of Eloquence and the Islamic TraditionsWhat do you mean by Word of God?
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