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God and the divine attributes
29 segments in 17 recordings · 2018 to 2024 · 0 verified · 21 checked positions · belief/god-and-attributes · Feed
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Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 4 Mar 2024
4 Mar 2024Shorts
LatestHow much does Allah love me?
Mufti Abu Layth says Allah has an unimaginable love for every one of us, so we should take a chance on ourselves.
machine1 min0:02on YouTube
Earlier answers · 28 · newest first
2022 · 1
16 Dec 2022video
Is worship or how I treat people the real sign of faith?
Mufti Abu Layth says worship is a personal matter between you and God, while how you behave among people is the true measure of your iman.
machine2 min 34 s7:08on YouTube
2021 · 7
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is God someone I should mainly be afraid of?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says seeing God as an angry disciplinarian is a distortion, and that Allah is the Most Merciful who invites people to reflect.
machine2 min 38 s1:07:35on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does Allah love everybody?
Allah loves His creation and detests harmful actions, not creatures. Pork being forbidden, most likely for hygiene, does not mean God hates pigs.
machine2 min 40 s2:10:23on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Imam Ahmad really refuse to say the Quran is created?
Mufti Abu Layth says later Hanbalis made Imam Ahmad a hero of the Mihna, though he likely said the Quran was created to save himself; Ash'ari books also call the worded Quran created.
machine8 min 12 s1:02:31on YouTube
2 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How can God be timeless and still perceive time?
Linear time is our perspective, Mufti Abu Layth says, not necessarily how God sees events; he also says tattoos are not haram for men.
machine2 min2:48:56on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does Sahih al-Bukhari really say God dangled in front of the Prophet?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Bukhari report of God 'dangling' before the Prophet is unacceptable, and any hadith that clashes with reason or the Quran must be rejected.
machine12 min 35 s1:58:33on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is process theology compatible with the Quran?
No: he says its idea that God depends on creation as creation depends on God is not the Quranic worldview.
machine2 min 31 s2:49:23on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it unfair that some are born Muslim, and is God's throne literal?
Mufti Abu Layth says the throne is a literary expression meaning the kingdom is God's, and that salvation in the hereafter is not the exclusive property of Muslims.
machine1 min 58 s2:52:39on YouTube
2020 · 13
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the stories in the Quran meant to be literal history?
The guest argues, following Khalafallah and Ibn Rushd, that the Quran's stories are sacred literature and legend, using symbol and parable for theological ends rather than reporting literal history.
machine6 min 58 s1:02:23on YouTube
28 Oct 2020video
Is it wrong to believe that God asked Ibrahim to kill his son?
Mufti Abu Layth says the belief is absurd and, on inspection, blasphemous, because it has God asking a father to murder his child for his pleasure and then stopping him, like a mock execution. The Quran never says God told Ibrahim to sacrifice, though it could have.
machine2 min 38 s14:34on YouTube
28 Oct 2020video
Why does the biblical tradition say God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Israelites adopted the name Yahweh, a Near Eastern war god from the household of El, and that god's brutal character carried over into their picture of God, making such a command plausible to them. For Muslims, he says, that is not the true image of Allah.
machine3 min 57 s17:12on YouTube
28 Oct 2020video
If God never commanded the sacrifice, why do the early sources all say he did?
Mufti Abu Layth agrees that no primary sources support his reading and explains it by early Muslims absorbing Israelite material, by the brutal environment of the age being projected onto God, and by the absence of anything from the Prophet saying God commanded it. He repeats that a God who stages a mock execution of a child is unacceptable, and that Allah never says the command was his.
machine4 min 55 s26:22on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does God really care whether I have a beard?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Sharia exists to preserve life and order, and that picturing God as obsessed with beards shrinks God into a child throwing tantrums.
machine6 min 28 s1:12:12on YouTube
13 Oct 2020video
If God made the laws of nature, can He break them?
God is not stuck with the laws of nature; He created them by choice and keeps to them, just as He keeps His promises about salvation.
machine6 min 04 s31:16on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Do Ash'aris and Maturidis believe the Arabic Quran is God's eternal speech?
In Ash'ari and Maturidi theology God's eternal speech is not Arabic sounds and letters; the Arabic Quran expresses it and is created.
machine5 min 51 s34:47on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How did Muslim theologians reconcile God being one with his many names and attributes?
The guest and host trace how the Mu'tazila, Hanbalis and Ash'aris reconciled God's oneness with his many names and attributes.
machine10 min 42 s1:10:57on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Do Salafis believe God has a body?
Mufti Abu Layth says Hanbalis and modern Salafis in effect believe God has body parts and so project a human image onto God; the guest notes philosophers and Isma'ilis objected that attributes give God parts.
machine3 min 20 s1:21:43on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Where do anthropomorphic ideas of God in Islam come from?
Mufti Abu Layth suggests anthropomorphic texts were partly inherited from the Judeo-Christian tradition; the guest describes the Sufi, philosophical and Isma'ili view that God's names describe relations, not his essence.
machine4 min 41 s1:24:04on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is love one of God's attributes in Islam?
The guest says Sufi traditions understand God's mercy as love even though Kalam rarely speaks of it, and rejects the polemic that the God of Islam is not loving.
machine1 min 52 s1:33:37on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the Quran eternal, or was it created?
The guest says the Arabic Quran in the tablet is, on most views, pre-existent but created; only God's languageless speech is eternal for Ash'aris and Maturidis.
machine1 min 47 s1:36:51on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does God not love non-believers?
The guest reads the verse as saying that certain deeds block God's love from reaching a person, not that God's love is selective.
machine1 min 30 s1:38:38on YouTube
2019 · 2
5 Nov 2019Hadith Studies
What is the difference between the Ash'ari and Athari (Hanbali) creeds?
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.
machine6 min 33 s0:00on YouTube
18 Sep 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Is it haram to write or sing lyrics about alcohol?
Lyrics about alcohol are not haram, since such poetry was recited in the Prophet's mosque, and declaring something haram because it might lead to bad behaviour is lying on God's behalf. Enjoining good is not policing, scholars need not be followed blindly, and God understands sarcasm as well as we do.
machine3 min 59 s26:09on YouTube
2018 · 5
24 Dec 2018From the Mind of a Mufti
If Muslims accept miracles that defy reason, can they still object that the Trinity is irrational?
Muslims must hold the Quran to be in line with reason, because accepting miracles that make no sense removes any ground for objecting that three cannot equal one; consistency is all or nothing. Hijab denied that Muslims ever held anthropomorphic beliefs, but some did, though Mufti Abu Layth does not share them.
machine2 min 24 s15:14on YouTube
24 Dec 2018From the Mind of a Mufti
Did the Prophet teach a creed about God's attributes, and when did the Muslim creed emerge?
The Prophet taught faith, not a formal creed; the Muslim creed emerged two to three hundred years later, and its doctrine of attributes 'neither God nor other than God' is, in Mufti Abu Layth's view, irrational and unfounded in the Quran and Sunnah. Ordinary Muslims do not know this material, which is why Wood's objections did not land.
machine3 min 44 s17:38on YouTube
20 Oct 2018Responding to Refutations
Is a new interpretation of the Quran the same as claiming to be a new prophet?
Equating a new interpretation with a claim to prophethood is out of order, since the Salafi movement itself is a radical reinterpretation that rejects the majority and holds that God has a leg and a foot. The majority of Muslims have always accepted metaphor in the Quran.
machine3 min 49 s1:19:53on YouTube
20 Oct 2018Responding to Refutations
When is a hadith set aside, and is rejecting hadith acceptable?
Mufti Abu Layth is not in favour of rejecting hadith in general, but follows Imam Malik in setting aside a report where it goes against the established tradition, reason, the principles of Islam or the Quran. He calls the khutbah dangerous and regrets what he sees as Qadhi's turn away from reason.
machine2 min 39 s1:23:42on YouTube
9 Apr 2018Islamic Eschatology
Does the Dajjal (Antichrist) exist in Islam?
No: the Dajjal as the Antichrist is a myth that does not exist in Islam, since a God who tested people with a miracle-working devil child would contradict al-Rahman and al-Rahim. The Dajjal hadith refer either to Shaytan or, tentatively, to an age where the virtual becomes indistinguishable from the real.
machine6 min 12 s0:00on YouTube