Recordings › The differences between the Ashari & Athari School | Mufti Abu Layth · 5 Nov 2019 › Segment 1 of 1

What is the difference between the Ash'ari and Athari (Hanbali) creeds?

aqidah aqeedah aqida aqeeda aqaid hambali hanbalite muftis kalam ilm al-kalam kalaam ashaira asha'irah ashariyyah ash'arite atharism athariyyah salafism wahhabi wahabi wahhabism sheikh shaikh sheik shuyukh shaykhs

The doctrinal difference between the Ash'ari and Athari schools: body parts or not

QuestionSource not recorded · questioner not identifiedAnswered 5 Nov 2019Hadith Studies Segment 1 of 1 in the recording2019-11-05-S01

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This segment0:00 to 6:33 · 6 min 33 sGeneral teaching

The answer in brief

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The core difference is that the Athari (Hanbali) creed attributes body parts to God and the Ash'ari creed does not. Mufti Abu Layth would broadly align himself with the Ash'aris, with reservations, and ranks the philosophers above all the theologians.

In more detail

Mufti Abu Layth takes a question from a questioner who, he jokes, is kept awake by the doctrinal differences between the two theological schools. He says the primary difference is that 'Athari' is today a euphemism for the Hanbali school of creed, which is anthropomorphic: in his dumbed-down summary, one school holds that God has body parts and the other that He does not. He characterises the Hanbali Athari position dismissively, comparing it to the bottom set in a school, and ranks the others: the Ash'aris are not, in his view, completely right but make ninety to ninety-five percent sense; a middle group whose name is garbled in the transcript (heard as 'the Saudis') [?] sits between; and the philosophers, who were not constrained by what he calls fake parameters, were in a class of their own above all the theologians. He says that if he had to join a group he would broadly align himself with the Ash'aris while disagreeing with them on certain things. He describes the Athari view as attributing deformed body parts to God, such as two right hands, two fingers and one leg, and says Ibn Taymiyya belonged to this school without inventing it, that the Saudi Salafis are all Atharis, and that their creed could not stand ridicule in the twenty-first century if taught openly, which he thinks is why they are shying away from it. He closes by saying a contemporary shaykh, whose name is garbled in the transcript (possibly Yasir Qadhi) [?], comes from this group of thinking, and that people who stem from it will always struggle with the intellectual.

Question as read aloud · questioner not identified
What are the doctrinal differences between the Ash'ari and Athari schools of theology?

The question was reconstructed from Mufti Abu Layth's restatement; the questioner's own words are not in the recording
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Position stated

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Mufti Abu Layth dismisses the Athari (Hanbali) creed, which he says attributes body parts to God, says he would broadly align himself with the Ash'ari school while disagreeing with it on certain points, and ranks the philosophers above all the theologians.

In his words

“broadly speaking I would align myself with a shoddy even though I would disagree on certain things that they say”

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Transcript

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