Sharh al-Hamawiyya - Yusuf al-Ghufays
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- Sharh al-Hamawiyya - Yusuf al-Ghufays
Sharh al-Hamawiyya (Arabic: شرح الحموية) is an Islamic theological commentary by the Saudi scholar Yusuf al-Ghufays, expounding Ibn Taymiyya's creedal treatise al-Fatwa al-Hamawiyya al-Kubra on the divine names and attributes.
Scope and Background
The work originated as a series of explanatory lectures detailing Ibn Taymiyya's treatise, which had originally been composed in response to inquiries from the people of Hama regarding the verses and prophetic narrations concerning God's attributes. In his introductory remarks, al-Ghufays frames the study of the text within the broader tradition of early creedal works written through narration and chain of transmission (isnad), such as al-Sunna by Abdullah ibn Ahmad and Abu Bakr al-Khallal, Sharh Usul I'tiqad Ahl al-Sunna by al-Lalaka'i, al-Ajurri's al-Shari'a, and al-Bukhari's Khalq Af'al al-'Ibad.
Content and Themes
The commentary identifies and systematically analyzes several core objectives embedded in Ibn Taymiyya's text:
- Affirmation of the Creed of the Salaf: Demonstrating the theological position of the early generations (al-salaf al-salih), who affirmed the divine attributes as established in the Quran and Sunnah without distortion (tahrif), denial (ta'til), conceptualizing modality (takyif), or anthropomorphic comparison (tamthil).
- Genealogy of Theological Positions: Tracing the doctrinal lineages (isnad) of both the Salaf's affirmation and the opposing theological positions of negation (ta'til), highlighting how later speculative theologians (mutakallimun) drew upon early Jahmite and Mu'tazilite doctrines.
- Polemical Critique: Addressing the arguments of later Ash'arite theologians, particularly the formulations of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi regarding spatial direction (jiha) and the relationship between reason and revelation.
- Reconciliation of Attributes: Reconciling God's aboveness and transcendence (uluww) and His ascension over the Throne (istiwa') with His general and specific co-presence (ma'iyya).
- Classification of Factions: Classifying the various groups among the people of the Qibla regarding their interpretations of divine names and attributes, and assessing dissenting theological views from the dual standpoints of religious knowledge and divine decree (qadar).
Method and Sources
The commentary relies on textual analyses of cited classical statements from prominent scholars across early Sunni tradition to demonstrate that affirmative theology was not unique to the Hanbalis but held across legal and theological traditions. Among the authorities examined are early jurists and hadith scholars such as Malik ibn Anas, al-Shafi'i, Abu Yusuf, Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak, Hammad ibn Zayd, Ibn Khuzayma, al-Khattabi, and Abu Nu'aym al-Isbahani, as well as figures such as Muhammad ibn Khafif, al-Qadi Abu Ya'la, and Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari. Al-Ghufays elucidates maxims cited from the Salaf, such as "pass them on as they came without asking how" (amirruha kama ja'at bila kayf), explaining that these statements negate human comprehension of the modality of attributes rather than their lexical reality.
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