Original post by TawheedSalamunalaykum brother,
I have had extensive discussions on this issue with brothers from varying schools of thought on the issue within the ahlus-sunnah. From the salafi-types to the more hanafi-types. On youtube, in debates, in articles and books, you will find groups even within the ahlus-sunnah having very big disagreements on how to intepret the attributes of Allah swt.
I acknowledge that even people like Ibn Taymiyyah considered Allah swt to be transcendent , and not like his creation.
The issue is, on one hand, we all affirm Tawheed, the transcendence of Allah swt, but then, we run into some issues, due to hadiths as well as varying intepretation of them.
Here are a few of my points of contention:
You see, some people have intepreted the Quran mentioning the 'hands' of Allah to be literal attributes of his, whereas it is very common allegory to use 'right hand' , or to use 'with my own two hands' , or 'both his hands are outstretched', and you can tell from the verses these are metaphorical. Similarly, when Allah swt everything will perish save his face, it does not mean he has a literal face, but not like ours. Because if everything will perish , save his face, what of his hands, feet, shin and so on? I have seen brothers therefore state the verse is allegorical, Allah swt does not have a face, which brings into contention the inconsistency between saying one must take the verse at face value, and realizing it runs one into problems and intepreting them allegorically.
As you can see, many times in the Quran do we see allegory:
Quran: "The hand of Allah is over their hands."
Quran: "Indeed, Allah holds the heavens and the earth, lest they cease. And if they should cease, no one could hold them [in place] after Him. Indeed, He is Forbearing and Forgiving."
Furthermore, by virtue of the essence of Tawheed, Allah is absolute, he can not be divided, he is Allah, and is one of essence. Therefore one can not say, Allah is one, but he has hands, shin, feet, fingers (yes , this is also said ), his hands are different from his shins, his feet are different from his hands, because that would contradict his absolute oneness. The creation are divisible by essence. The angels have wings, and constituent subunits.
I must make this clear, even if one states, the hands, shin, fingers, feet of Allah swt are not like human hands, shins, feet, this is still dividing Allah swt into constituent sub-units, and therby detracting from his absolute oneness.
Furthermore, one can say, 'I worship the hands of Allah', because technically, that is still the 'essence' of Allah swt. Or i worship another divisible part of him, his shin.
I have many other points on this issue, but for sake of berevity and to let you answer , i've kept this very short.