The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2446 page)

n not
d); but none seems convincing. By
abjad
(numerical values to letters), ta
awwuf equals the Arabic for ‘divine wisdom’, but this is fanciful. For the nature of Sufism, see
S
F
S
.

 
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see
SHAH
DA
;
AL
T
.

 
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(Arab.,
shabaha
, ‘liken, compare’). The issue raised in Islam by statements in the
Qur’
n
which attribute to God human likenesses—e.g. a face, hands, and eyes—and which describe him talking and sitting. A fierce battleground in early Islam (see
ALL
H
), it led to an avoidance of literal anthropomorphism by affirming
tanz
h
(keeping God free from such reductions to human size), along with an agnostic acceptance of the language
bil
kaif
(see
ALL
H
), without knowing how it is to be taken. The opposite view was to accept that nothing can be said of God beyond the extremely approximate and corrigible, and that God should be emptied of all attributes (
ta‘
l
): they cannot belong literally to his own nature or being, and simply reflect our perception of his dealings with us. An intermediate (but often suspect) position (
ta’w
l
) took the statements of the Qur’
n to be allegorical. The issue has remained central to the major and continuing divisions of Islam. See also
TANZ
H
.