The problem of the ascription of human emotions to Allah (Anthropopathism) in early Ash'arism

This thesis studies the problem of anthropopathism, that is, the ascription of human emotions, such as love, wrath, consent, anger, mercy, to Allah, with a special focus on the mutaqaddimūn period of Ash'arī kalām. Given that kalām, and its subfield of ilāhiyyāt in particular, takes on the task of providing reasonable explanations for the principles of Islamic belief, it has to deal with the question of whether Allah can be described by human-like emotions and affections, as part of the topoi of divine attributes and divine transcendence. Since there are expressions in Islamic religious texts, the Qur'ān and hadiths, that associate certain human feelings with the deity, this issue has both hermeneutical and theological dimensions for kalām. Therefore, this study tackles, on the one hand, with question of how these scriptural expressions were interpreted within major kalām approaches. On the other hand, it inquires into the grounds on which this issue may be tackled within the subject of divine attributes. For the former aim, the thesis discusses the approaches of tashbīh, ta'ṭīl, and tanzīh, coupled with the arguments they rely on, in regarding with the interpretation of human-like feelings ascribed to Allah in scriptural expressions as well as the understanding of the nature of divine attributes in general. As for the relation of human emotions with divine attributes, the emphasis was placed on the attribute of divine will and the occurrance of divine actions within the world. The main purpose of the thesis is to investigate the ideas about anthropopathism that were proposed by the representatives of the Ash'arī school of kalām, beginning from the period that predated the school's formation. Abū-l-Ḥasan al-Ash'arī, the founder of Ash'arism, developed his attitude in the light of the earlier debates on the subject and reduced the emotional states to divine will. Later mutakallimūn who adopted al-Ash'arī's theological doctrine followed essentially his lead in the issue, though, presenting certain variations in details and styles. While the dominant attitude among Ash'arīs was to reduce human emotional states, such as love, anger, mercy, wrath, to the eternal divine will, some of the Ash'arī mutakallimūn tended to interpret them in terms of divine actions. Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī, in an attempt to shield divine transcendence, argued that even the human love towards Allah cannot be viewed as real. However, al-Ghazzālī preferred to avoid this extremist position and believed, under the influence of his Ṣūfī tendency, that the human love towards Allah is, and must be, real rather than metaphorical. In this way, he was able to take into consideration the spiritual state of a sincere religious man loving his Lord, in addition to the interpretation of divine love in terms of divine will.