Tajall wa

Ru'ya - W.
Wesley
Williams
Islam is often viewed as the religion par excellence of divine
transcendence. God is khilf al-'lam, the absolute divergence
from the world and this characteristically Islamic doctrine of
mukhlafa (divine) otherness precludes divine corporeality. In
as much as this latter is conditio sine qua non of visibility, it is
axiomatic that the God of Islam in invisible and therefore non-
theophanous.

This tradition of divine invisibility and incorporeal
transcendence is in radical discontinuity with the
Biblical/Semitic and ancient Near Eastern tradition of
transcendent anthropomorphism and perilous visio Dei,
according to which God/the gods has/have bodies human of
shape but transcendent in substance, manner of being, and
effect. Seeing this transcendently anthropomorphic deity is
possible but dangerous for mortal onlookers.

The profound disparity between Islamic and Biblical/ancient
Near Eastern articulations of divine transcendence raises
questions regarding Islams place among the Semitic religions.

This dissertation argues that as a member of the Semitic
religions Islam too possessed a tradition of transcendent
anthropomorphism, theophany and visio Dei, which tradition
likely originated with the Prophet Muhammad. When read in the
context of possible Biblical and ancient Near Eastern
narrative/mythological subtexts, rather than affirming divine
invisibility the relevant Qur'nic passages seem to qualify divine
visibility and theophany.

It is argued here that despite the Aristotelian-Neoplatonic
critique of anthropomorphism by rationalist groups such as the
Mu'tazila a defining aspect of the traditionalist Sunn 'aqda or
creed for the first four centuries (9th-12th CE) was the
affirmation of Muhammads visual encounter with God.

As in post-Maimonidean Judaism, however, the Aristotelian-
Neoplatonic revision of the Sunn creed will eventually be so
successful that it has resulted in the near-total forgetting of this
earlier Islamic tradition of anthropomorphic theophany and
Visio Dei.

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/60748?mode=full

Dr. Wesley Williams

Ph.D., Near Eastern Studies (Islamic Studies), University of
Michigan, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Ann Arbor,
2002-2008.

Attained candidacy in 2003 with examinations in Hanbalism,
Islamic Theology, Islamic Law, Islamic Intellectual History, and
Classical Arabic Texts. Defended April 2, 2008, dissertation
entitled Tajalli wa Ruya: A Study of Anthropomorphic
Theophany and Visio Dei in the Hebrew Bible, the Qurn and
Early Sunn Islam.

M.A., Near Eastern Studies (Islamic Studies), University of
Michigan, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Ann Arbor,
1999-2002

B.A., cum laude, major in Religious Studies,Morehouse
College, Atlanta, GA, 1990-1994