Who needs a face?

Hi ya’ll!

When reading the assigned pages for today’s class, there was a particular part that sparked my fascination.  And after our lecture this afternoon, it appears that this concept also evoked the same response with the other students.  I am speaking, of course, of the faceless, image-free, mysterious God named Allah.

On page 20 of “Approaching the Qur’an,” Michael Sells states, “In the Qur’an the divine voice is heard in a variety of manners through an extraordinary range of emotions and tones, but the form or image of the speaker is never defined – a literary feature that mirrors the Qur’anic affirmation that the one God is beyond being fixed in any delimited form or image.”

No picture, visual, or image can truly and accurately capture the compelling existence of Allah.  Why?  Because the one true God is more than just a portrait on the wall.  The Muslims strongly believe that Allah is an almighty figure that “[transcends] space, time, gender, and definite form.” (September 11 PowerPoint)

I know that coming from a Catholic background, I am accustomed to the rather pervasive depiction of Jesus Christ.  His fair skin, dark brown hair, and beard is seen almost everywhere.  So when the forbidden act of giving Allah a face came into my attention, I was a little perplexed.

However… my own miniature epiphany occurred.  Now that I think about it, God – the father of Jesus – has no definite form as well.  People of the Catholic people are well aware of Jesus’ image but not quite about God’s image.  Sure, he is sometimes revealed as an older man, a burning bush, the Sun, heck, Morgan Freeman even played a role as God.  But one unifying portrayal is nonexistent.  That is when I came to realize that the God that Catholics believe in and the Allah that Muslims believe in both do not have a form.

Which can lead to the importance of “keeping the faith” above all other concerns.  Followers do not need a Mona Lisa of their one deity in order to worship their religion.  They just have to “keep the faith” by not just believing but acting on it.

So who cares that people are unable to put a face to the name?  As long as followers, whatever religion they may be, continue their worship, I think that is all we realy need.

You stay classy Emory.