The Pleasure and Anger of Allāh

The Pleasure and Anger of Allah - Abu Eesa Niamatullah

Introduction: The Connection Between Parents and Allah's Pleasure

In this narration, not only showing us how important the parents are, but how easy it is to understand how to please Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and likewise, how to anger him. And there's also a very important point of aqeedah in this hadith, because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has described himself. And you know, part of the aqeedah of Ahl as-Sunnah wal Jama'ah is that we do not attribute to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala anything from ourselves.

We only describe him, azzawajal, with what he himself describes himself. And the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) describes him. And this is the position of Ahl as-Sunnah.

And this is very important, because Abdullah ibn Umar, and as we know, the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam), has said that the pleasure of Allah is in the obeying and the pleasure of the parents. But the anger, the sakat, which is like ghadab, which is the anger of Allah, is likewise in angering the parents. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has been described with ghadab, anger, and pleasure, okay, his happiness almost, okay, his satisfaction, his pleasure with something.

Historical Development of Islamic Sects

Now these characteristics, in the early times of Islamic history, when the sects started to develop in Islam and Islam started to split up into groups and so on, many of these groups did so based upon the understanding of these attributes and the names and these aqeedah issues. And this is very important for those who try to safeguard the aqeedah of Ahl as-Sunnah today, because these sects have continued until today, understanding the attributes in a way that they understood it to be. And there's flaws, and we can see, for example, the Jahmiyyah, a movement that was started by Jahmi ibn Safwan.

The Jahmiyyah Movement

Now this is a movement that were concerned, and often these groups and these movements, they start off with people who are sincere in general about trying to preserve their aqeedah, okay, or trying to protect the Izzah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So this group, led by this person, Jahmi ibn Safwan, they almost tried to propagate the idea, and when I say tried to propagate the idea, I mean there was a time of stability in the Islamic thought, when the Salaf, and the Salaf refers to the Sahaba, and those who followed them, the Tabi'een, and then those who followed them, the Atba'at Tabi'een, the first two, three hundred years, in fact all this two hundred years, was pretty solid and safe and stable at the time of the Imams and the development of the key principles of Islamic fiqh and aqeedah. But then, when Islam started to spread out, and the borders started to increase, and different indigenous people started to be introduced and so on and come in, we find that in the introduction of such things as Greek philosophy

and ideas of rationale and logic, once that started to take place and take shape in the minds of the Muslims, we found that they, not only in their attempt to try and refute that and protect their aqeedah, but at the same time, they took on some of these ideas.

It obviously coloured their mind, just like today, just like our Islam today, it is very much coloured by our exposure to the society and the people and the academics and the scientific mind, and that's why sometimes when we look at the Qur'an and so on, if our iman is weak, then we start to have these doubts about when we look at something and it seems to be scientifically non-true, and that's because we've been brought up in that kind of environment.

The Deviant Understanding of Divine Attributes

And so it obviously affects, and so one of the effects that happened to the people like Jahmeh bin Safwan and the Jahmeh group is that they said that, hold on, if you are going to say that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has anger, then you are trying to say that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is like someone or something that has attributes, that he is muraqab, that he is composed of a self and a body, and therefore if you're going to say that, then you're going to attribute that to him, and you can't do that because that's making tashbeeh, you are being anthropomorphic, you are trying to give a body to Allah, you are trying to humanise him. This was their kind of rationale, and it was a very deviant way of thinking, a great intention maybe, but it was something which only the people of rationale and deviance actually started to propagate, because there was no need for that to happen.

"[There is] nothing like unto Him, there can be nothing that can be compared to Allah, but he is the all-hearing, he is the all-seeing."

And so people trying to protect this principle, trying to maintain Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in his purity, would be worried if someone is saying that Allah gets angry, hold on, are you trying to say that Allah is trying to get angry like we get angry? Are you trying to say that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gets happy like we get happy? You are humanising him, you are making the mistake that the Christians did, you are doing this, you see this kind of thought. And so with this, what did they do? They said you can't do that, and so they denied the attributes, they denied the attributes totally, and so they said Allah you cannot say that about anger, and you can't say that about happiness, and so therefore they would deny the narration.

And this is the sunnah of course, this is the sunnah of course, authenticated from the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam), and so they would say this hadith is unacceptable, it goes against the principles of aqidah. And then other groups did things similar, such as the mu'tazila, the rationalists, they would do something very similar, they would look and compare the ideas that were being propagated or even told to them in hadith and they would think about it. They would, the aql would come before the naql, they would use their intellect before the text.

Different Approaches to Divine Attributes

They look at the text and they say Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gets angry, how can that be? Anger is something which is so imperfect, so limited, and so therefore they would say that can't be the case, and so some of them would deny, and some of them would make ta'weel. Ta'weel means to reinterpret it and say actually his anger is not like this, actually it is his intention to become angry and not the actual real anger itself, and it starts to get really mixed up with playing around with the sifat, the attributes of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And this was also then propagated by the ashaira, who then also started to make ta'weel of certain attributes, and then some of them started to make tafweel.

The Tafweel Approach

Tafweel is to say that actually this has no meaning. Tafweel means to relegate something, so they would relegate the meaning to Allah. They say that the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) says that he has anger, he has sakat, then only God knows what that means, literally.

We have no idea what that means. We cannot understand what sakat means because how are you able to interpret anger? How do you understand anger in relation to God? Let's not deny it, okay. They were a lot closer to Ahlul Sunnah, they would say no we can't deny it because it's there in the hadith, we've authenticated the hadith, it's definitely a statement of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) but we don't understand that, and let's leave the meaning to Allah.

So therefore, what's the problem with that? They're making the anger like the same as mercy, like the same as love, like the same as his punishment. They're not giving it a meaning. They're just saying it has no meaning, we cannot possibly think of anything.

The Position of Ahl as-Sunnah

So then Ahlul Sunnah said, so what was the point of Allah then describing himself in this way? Why then did the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) then compare the anger and say that the anger of your Lord is in the anger of the parents? There has to be a meaning to it. And so now you can come closer to Ahlul Sunnah's position, and Ahlul Sunnah say to the rest of these sects, and they said from the beginning and they say it now. Let's stick to the way of the Sahaba, don't put your head between a rock and a hard place for nothing.

Why are you causing yourself such problems for? But look, the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said this, and let's just accept it. You know what ghadab means, I know what ghadab means. You know what sakhat means, I know what sakhat means.

Let's not go into it and try to understand the kayfiyah and the exact nature of that. We understand what anger is, but we are not able to appreciate the exact nature of Allah's anger. But we know that He has

anger, and we know that He is pleased, and we know, and this continues, this is just the two characteristics from this hadith.

We know that He is astonished as the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) explains in some hadith, and we know that sometimes He acts out of shyness. Now we can't understand this shyness compared to our understanding of shyness. There is nothing unto like Him, and He is al-samee' al-baseer.

The Balanced Approach

So we have to remember this principle, overriding the understanding of Ahl as-Sunnah. We don't want to apply our understanding, our imperfection of the ideas of anger and attributes upon Allah (جل جلاله - Jalla Jalaluhu). You can see the ashairah, they were saying for example, hold on, how can you attribute the principles of anger, and what is anger? Anger is rage, and your blood starts to boil and so on and so on. How can you say that Allah, his blood boils and so on and so on? Ahl as-Sunnah said, why are you attributing our understanding of the consequences of anger to Allah? This is illogical, and has no basis, and there is no need for you to do that.

Because we are, the ashairah were told, they are effectively putting their understanding of the consequences of human anger upon Allah (جل جلاله - Jalla Jalaluhu) So you can see, the area of aqeedah is very delicate, very sensitive, and that's why Ahl as-Sunnah followed a very very beautiful way, a very safe way. They said that the way of aqeedah should be the way of the salaf, i.e. the way of the sahaba and the tabi'een, atba'at tabi'een, who didn't delve into the kayfiyah, who didn't delve into the exact workings of these asma' wa sifat, these names of Allah and his attributes, but rather they affirmed them. We affirmed them.

If the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) says that Allah (جل جلاله - Jalla Jalaluhu) is like this, then we say alhamdulillah, we accept it like that. And Allah (جل جلاله - Jalla Jalaluhu) describes himself like so in the Qur'an, and that is the way of Ahl as-Sunnah wal jama'ah.