Anthropomorphism in Islam: The Challenge of Traditionalism (700-1350).

• Author: El Omari, Racha

Anthropomorphism in Islam: The Challenge of Traditionalism (700-1350). By LlVNAT HOLTZMAN. Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture. Edinburgh: EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2018. Pp. xi + 434. $130, [pounds sterling]85 (cloth); $44.95, [pounds sterling]29.99 (paper).

The pioneering works on Hanbali theology by Henri Laoust and George Makdisi largely focus on the study of the Hanbali creed. Surely, this focus remains crucial for mapping the trajectory of Hanbali theology--as attested in the back-and-forth of Saud al-Sarhan and Christopher Melchert (S. al-Sarhan, "The Creeds of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal," and Ch. Melchert's response, both in Books and Bibliophiles: Studies in Honour of Paul Auchterlonie on the Bio-Bibliography of the Muslim World, ed. R. Gleave [Cambridge: Gibb Memorial Trust, 2014], 29-44, 45-50). But the study of hadith (prophetic reports; used in this review with both a singular and plural meaning) as the starting point for investigating Hanbali theology, and for Sunni theology more broadly, remains for the most part neglected. This is remarkable given how central hadith are for Hanbali and Sunni self-understanding of religious epistemology. And, with the exception of Josef van Ess's Zwischen Hadil und Theologie: Studien zum Entstehen prddestinatianischer Uberlieferung (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1975), hadith have not taken center stage in scholarship on theology more broadly. (For a representative exception, see Ch. Melchert, "'God Created Adam in His Image'," Journal of Quranic Studies 13.1 [2011]: 113-24; also, Daniel Gimaret provides an annotated and translated corpus of specific attested anthropomorphic hadith in his Dieu a I 'image de I 'homme: Les anthropomorphismes de la sunna et leur interpretation par les theologiens [Paris: Editions du CERF, 1997].) Moreover, the broad field of hadith studies, aside from its main focus on the origin, chronology, and transmission of hadith, addresses issues of epistemology and the formation of early Islamic legal schools. Indeed, the corpus of legal hadith occupies the majority of the content of the six canonical works of hadith.

Livnat Holtzman's Anthropomorphism in Islam: The Challenge of Traditionalism (700-1350) makes the study of theological hadith, specifically the category of anthropomorphic hadith, a criterion for assessing the character of traditionalism. The term "traditionalism" used throughout this book must be understood as referencing a broad conception of Sunni theology, because of the Sunni identification with the "sunna" as defined by their specific understanding of prophetic reports. Holtzman analyzes the literary structure, circulation, and reception of a selection of anthropomorphic hadith about the Godhead, which she refers to throughout the work as ahadith al-sifat, in the context of, approximately, the first seven hundred years of the history of traditionalism. Anthropomorphism is addressed here as an intratraditionalist problem, as conceptualized by its traditionalist opponents rather than its kalam opponents such as the Mufazilis. In the course of analyzing the structure and circulation of these hadith, Holtzman also examines a number of nonanthropomorphic ahadith al-sifat, but only in relation to the anthropomorphic ones. A critical study of the corpus of traditionalist ahadith al-sifat is not the aim of this work--rather, the selection Holtzman examines is mainly dictated by the framework of narratology and semiotics theories. Indeed, most of the secondary literature directly and extensively addressed is from scholars of these theoretical fields. For example, in the field of narratology...