degree of purity of godly devotion in both of their

hearts. Noah was, similarly, a great and most sincere
devotee of God. In light of this, God compares
Abraham to him in the Quran saying, And verily a
member of his (Noahs) faction is Abraham: when he came
to his lord with an unblemished heart (Q 37: 83-84).

By Abdullah bin Hamid Ali

In line with the spiritual tradition of this exemplary

iconoclast the Quran says of MuhammadGods
mercy and peace on him, Verily the most deserving of
people of Abraham are those who follow him, this Prophet
and those who believe (Q 3: 68). But also, Who is it that
inclines away from the spiritual tradition (milla) of
Abraham save one who debases himself? (Q 2: 130),
especially since Abraham was neither a Jew nor a
Christian. He was, rather, one who inclined innately
towards one God (hanif) submitting [his soul]. And he was
not among the idolaters (Q 3: 67)

The Hajj season is a time when we commemorate

the spiritual struggles of the patriarch, Abraham
(Arab. Ibrahim), his wife, Hagar, and his son,
IshmaelGods mercy and peace be on them all.
Their commitment to faith and trust in God under
the most extreme of circumstances as well as their
profound
grasp
of
Islams
revolutionary
monotheism (tawhid) are what make their sacrifices
memorable and worthy of celebration. The Quran
says, And [reflect upon] when Abraham said to his
father and his people: Indeed, I am guiltless of what you
worship except for the One who cleaved [my origins]. For a
surety, He will guide me. Then, We made it a declaration
perpetuating among his progeny in hope that that they
might return [to it] (Q 43: 26-28).

A deist, while acknowledging that God is the primal

cause of all that exists, denies that He plays an
important role or regularly interacts in the lives of
His creatures. The theist, though, believes both that
God is the origin of all that exists and that the
gods play a regular part in the lives of sentient
beings. The monotheist sees the power of the one
God in all things, and ultimately sees that nothing
can truly harm or benefit except for the Creator of
all. The polytheist, however, typically limits the
capacity for benefit and harm to the gods he has
fashioned with his knife or created in his mind. In
relation to the Creator, the polytheist is similar to
the deist in impersonalizing his experience with the
Primal Cause of existence.

During the Hajj, those making circuits between the

mountains of Safa and Marwa commemorate the
desperate attempts of our mother, Hagar, to locate
food and drink for her restless infant, Ishmael, as he
lay in the middle of the desolate plain of Mecca
under the scorching heat of the sun. In Mina, the
stoning of the Jamarat (concrete pillars) is done to
commemorate when Abraham was given power
over Satan and thereafter stoned him. The ritual
sacrifice of the ram (or camel) after the completion
of the rites of Hajj commemorates Abrahams
readiness to sacrifice Ishmael at Gods command:
the same God who later gave to Abraham in
Ishmaels stead a ram to sacrifice after seeing the

What was so special about Abraham (and those of

his ilk) was that he saw no way to separate the
witnessing of God from the experience of Him. The
Quran depicts a moment of Abrahams reflections
on the constellations. He first saw a star, and said,
This is my Lord. But once it disappeared, he said,
Verily I do not love those who disappear. Then he
saw the moon and said, This is my lord. But when
it set also, he said, If my lord does not guide me, I
will be forever lost. Then he saw the sun and said,
This is my Lord! This one is the greatest of all! But
once it set, he declared, Verily, I am guiltless of what
you assign association with God. Verily, I turn my face to
the One who cleaved the origins of the heavens and the

What does your God look like?

What Does Your God Look Like?

Abdullah bin Hamid Ali

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earth inclining innately towards the oneness [of Him]. And

I am not an idolater (Q 6: 76-79).

in the sphere of distributive justice and the moral

well-being of every society.

In a sense, we can say that such reflectionsduring

the moment of reflectionare a form of communing
with God. That is to say that God is not merely a
rational concept over which one ponders. God,
rather, is also an experience that one has. The more
times we encounter The Divine in our lives with an
awareness of the significance of that encounter, the
more we become acquainted with Its personality.
(I will explain this usage later). The more we
understand that personality, the more we know
what to expect from It. And the more we know
what to expect, the easier it becomes for us to trust
in Its wisdom.

The Quranic sage, Luqman, the Wise, while advising

his son said, O my son! Do not ascribe partners to God!
Verily idolatry is a grave injustice (Q 31: 13). Injustice
comes in many forms, but the chief of all forms of
injustice in Islam is the injustice that the human
being commits against God viz. ingratitude for His
countless favors (kufr). Gratitude (shukr), on the
other hand, is foundational for a proper
understanding and internalization of pure
monotheism (tawhid). After all, who likes to have
someone else get credit for the favors and benefits
that we have conferred upon specific persons?

Trust is the essence of faith, and Abraham had loads

of it. This is what made it so easy for him to leave his
family stranded in the middle of the desert and to
later be poised to slit the throat of his eldest son. It
was the same trust we witnessed from his wife,
Hagar, who was reassured that things would turn
out in the best way once Abraham told her that his
abandonment of them was by Gods command. That
trust is also what led Ishmael to readily place
himself on the altar of sacrifice once his father
informed him of his order from God to slaughter
him. But why should they not trust their God, when
it is He who determines life and death? If He gave
life to Ishmael once, he could surely bring him back
immediately. Or even if he doesnt bring him back
now, He is capable of reuniting us in a future time.
These experiences that lead us to have greater
insight into the personality and wisdom of our
Creator contribute to deep trust. And once one
realizes that the actions of our Creator are all in the
interest and benefit of the creation, it becomes easy
for one to love Him. This is precisely what leads
Abraham to say upon seeing the star disappear,
Verily, I do not love those that disappear.
Islamic monotheism is both radically revolutionary
and iconoclastic. Its power is not only contained in
the brilliance of its reasonableness. The greater
power of that doctrine is located in its capacity for
influencing the outcome of glaring disparities found

What Does Your God Look Like?

Abdullah bin Hamid Ali

The Prophet Muhammad, much like Noah and

Abraham, encountered his people worshipping and
paying homage to 360 idols stored in the Sacred
House. Additionally, much like Moses and Jesus, he
found himself in conflict with an order that unfairly
favored some people over others; privileging and
elevating them above moral critique as though they
were gods while condoning the unequal treatment
of others. As an iconoclast upon the same tradition
of his forefather, Abraham, Muhammad found
himself impelled to challenge both the outward
idolatry that was a clear injustice against God, the
Creator, and the subtle idolatry that infringed upon
the private esteem of the underprivileged which
systematized and reinforced disparate social
treatment in Meccan society. Mecca was a place,
after all, where little girls were buried alive for no
offense other than that they were born girls.
Women had neither right to inheritance nor other
property. Furthermore, their self-ownership was in
question, since a husbands unrelated son might
consider his fathers widow to be nothing more than
an inheritable portion of his fathers legacy,
postmortem, thereby assuming the nonconsensual
appropriation
of
his
mother-in-laws
intimate/reproductive space.
While the prominence of the idols and the false
imagination of the Meccans about the hidden
potential of their gods to cause benefit or harm
clearly occupied a major space in Muhammads
mindGods mercy and peace on him, of greater
concern for him was the doctrine that undergirded

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and perpetuated the troublesome mores that

emanated from the Meccan mythological vision.
This is largely due to the fact that there is an
inseparable relationship between philosophy and
ethics. That is to say that one needs to know where
one is supposed to be before he exerts efforts to
become that kind of person. In other words, every
form of cultural domination is buttressed by a
master-narrative that legitimates it through
rhetorical and pseudo-rational arguments for the
rightness of that particular social structure. Due
to this, the Prophet Muhammad said in a sound
tradition, Verily the most frightening of all things I
fear for you is subtle idolatry: ostentation/selfdisplay (riya).

comparable to Him. Of course, it is worth considering

that maybe they were seeking a more explicit and
familiar corporeal description, but this abstract
characterization is what God delivered to
Muhammadupon him mercy and peaceto offer
his interlocuters.

When God tells us in the Quran that He forgives

every sin except for idolatry, this is a clear reference
to the outward worship of idols or the simple belief
in multiple gods even if those gods do not find
expression in the material realm. If that is so, why
should a Muslim (or any other for that fact)
experience anxiety about subtle idolatry? And how
could it truly be the most threatening of all things
to a believer? Perhaps the answer to these questions
can be found in some reflections on the historical
tendency toward anthropomorphism.

The subtle idolatry of ostentation/self-display

comes in many forms: some more detectable than
others. Ostentation is the cult of the public spectacle
and includes showing off in what one says and does.
More subtle manifestations of ostentation are things
like vainglory and the magnification of ones
forefathers, tribesman, and racial grouping. It is
like when one boasts that, So and So was an Arab
or Black or White or Pakistani. The
suggestion, of course, is that: If So-and-So was a
great man, my affinity to him makes me equally
great. And if I am great, I deserve a type of
treatment that outwardly reveals my privileged
station above others who are not like me (or us).
Privileged treatment in this world is the closest way
that man places himself in contention with God in as
much that God is beyond the strictures and
valuations of human moral norms. The privileged
act above the law in a class by themselves
unparalleled in comparison presumptively better
and more superior to all others. This was the
disease of Satan, of the Children of Israel, and of
many Arabs coming after them. It is also
unfortunately the chief vice of most people on the
earth in the current age. Its no wonder that the
Sufi masters state that the last vice to leave the
heart of the seeker of spiritual enlightenment is the
love of status. It is an appetite found within each of
us that is equally (if not more) powerful as the
carnal appetites for food, drink, and sexual
gratification.

The reality is that people throughout history have

demonstrated an apparent innate human passion
to materialize God. No particular religious system is
void of this tendency amongst its adherents. During
the time of the Prophet, the three main rivals to
Muslim theology were the pagan beliefs of Mecca,
the ostensibly tri-theistic beliefs of Christians, and
the dualistic manifestations of God amongst
Zoroastrians. We must admit that many people find
it difficult to believe in what they cannot see.
Therefore, it is easier to create ones own God (or
gods) to whom one can direct ones worship and
devotion. What is most troubling about this, though,
is the question of what image or form ones God
take.
The pagans of Mecca once asked the Prophet
Muhammad, Describe your Lord to us, and he
responded by quoting Sura 112 of the Quran, Ikhlas,
Say: He, God is unique. God is the Ultimate. He neither
begets nor was He begotten. And there is nothing

What Does Your God Look Like?

Abdullah bin Hamid Ali

While Muslims have little reason to imagine that

they will one day revert to the outward worship of
idols, there remains enough reason for serious
examination and reexamination of our hearts to
ensure that nothing more than the one true God
finds a home therein. He is not content to share a
space therein with any other. This is the lesson we
learn from Abraham and those with him.

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As stated before, a significant number of people feel

a need to materialize God. This is a dangerous
impulse. But even more dangerous is choosing what
that God will look like. Is your God fashioned in your
own image? Does It have your color, phenotype, or
hair texture? Nay! Does your God even have the
same gender as yours? If so, and you claim to believe
in a transcendent God who is unparallel in
description, you need to reconsider, because there is
no greater indication of immanence than for God to
reflect the temporal corporeality with which we are
all familiar. The particular image chosen for God is
not only deleterious for the worshipper of that
image. It is equally (or even more) dangerous for the
one in whose image your God has been fashioned,
and who becomes drunk on the misgiving that some
degree of truth is communicated through that
depiction.
For men, salvation lies in imbibing humility by
divorcing from ones imagination the notion that we
are more like God than women or anything else in
the universe. For women, salvation is equally found
in discarding the notion that God is gendered in any
way, but especially if you imagine God to be a
reflection of the male gender. Be not deceived by
the fact that we refer to God as He. There are two
basic reasons for this. Firstly, God uses the
masculine pronoun (huwa) to characterize Itself
in the Quran but not the feminine pronoun (hiya).
Both the masculine and feminine pronouns can also
translate as It. If the thing being modified is
masculine, like the moon (qamar), it is described
with the masculine pronoun (huwa). But if the
object being described is feminine, like the sun
(shams), it is modified by the feminine pronoun
(hiya). Worthy of note to some readers, here, is that
it is considered an absurdity in Arabic to insist that
the moon or the sun possesses physical
reproductive characteristics that distinguish its
genderedness in the same way we distinguish the
genders of men and women. In other words, if
neither the son nor moon can be claimed to
resemble human categories of gender, God is more
deserving and more transcendent above being
characterized in such a manner. The second reason
we refer to God as He is that in the English the
language the impression is given that we are
describing something that is lifeless, unconscious

What Does Your God Look Like?

Abdullah bin Hamid Ali

and unaware. In reality, God is an It. But that is

only because of the fear of creating distance and
dissonance between Him and us that makes us feel
compelled to refer to It as He.
Once one vacates ones heart of any partners,
associates, or rivals to God he/she will then be able
to completely love God as He deserves to be.
Otherwise, the light of spiritual illumination will
remain dim inside us: being obstructed by
something deep within our own souls though we
have the capacity to remove it.
Indeed there is a beautiful
example in Abraham and those
with him when they said to their
people: Verily we are guiltless of
what you worship instead of God.
We reject faith in you, and
everlasting hatred has appeared
between us and you until you
worship God alone (Q 60: 4)

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