The Parents of the Prophet, and a Body

The Ashʿarīs say no, this verse is more absolute: We are not going to punish even for shirk, even for taking on others with Allah, because that is not their responsibility, if the message has not reached them. So it becomes very easy for them to deal with the issue of the parents of the Prophet (peace be upon him): what is going to happen to them? There is a bit of a difference of opinion there.

The Ashāʿirah very clearly say that Allah will deal with them; they will be saved, because they were not responsible. There was no prophet of the time, because ʿĪsā (peace be upon him) was before the Prophet (peace be upon him), and there were no prophets in between. There were some remnants of the Abrahamic faith in Arabia, but that was about it; it was very corrupted. The Māturīdīs have a harder time in dealing with that question. There is a whole discussion about it in al-Fiqh al-Akbar. The best thing is to leave it to Allah (swt), and incline to the best opinion.

What, specifically, is wrong with some groups who say that Allah has a body, but not in any way we can understand a body to be? Ibn Taymiyyah actually said this. The problem is that even Imam Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal has rejected that idea. Body is a jism. A jism is actually made up of substance, and it is divisible. Allah is beyond all of these things, and nowhere does it mention in the sacred sources that Allah has a jism; and that is why it is so problematic. That is a blasphemy; it is serious to say that Allah has a body. Because to say body is immediately to insinuate, or state, many things, because a body is a specific thing, which is divisible, which is compound; it is substance, it has accident; and Allah is beyond all of these things.