Atharī Creed and the Need for ‘Mystical’ Completion

Since I’ve returned to Pittsburgh, I’ve restarted my studies under Arkview — mostly for the Arabic, but also for aqidah and fiqh within a traditional Sunni understanding. While Arabic was my main goal, I was serendipitously surprised to discover Shaykh Yusuf bin Sadiq al-Hanbali, who teaches Hanbali fiqh and aqidah. His words and his reasoning struck me in a way that I did not expect, and I’ve since changed my madhab from Shafi (which is not deficient in any sense at all — a fine school of fiqh!) to the Hanbali school and to the Atharīs in aqidah. This caused some consternation in some people, and I understand why. For this reason, I will explain some of my decision below.

In Sunni Islam, the question of creed (ʿaqīdah) has long been divided into three broad families: the Atharīs (or Ahl al-Ḥadīth), the Ashʿarīs, and the Māturīdīs. Each represents a different way of safeguarding the central doctrine of tawḥīd — the oneness of God.

The Atharīs emphasize submission to the revealed text without speculative interpretation. Their slogan is bi-lā kayf — “without asking how.” When God says in the Qur’an that He has a Hand or that He descends, the Atharī affirms it exactly as it is, while refusing to ask about the how or the likeness. The idea is to protect transcendence by cutting off both anthropomorphism and excessive rationalization.

There is a certain beauty in this. Bi-lā kayf is not just a theological formula; it can be read as a gesture of mystical humility. It is the recognition that God exceeds the net of human reason, that He cannot be captured by our concepts. The words of revelation become keys to awe, not puzzles for philosophy. After all, some of the greatest early Sufis — including the great Abdul Qadir Gilani (the founder of my tariqa) — were Hanbali in fiqh and Athari in creed.

But when taken in isolation, Atharī creed easily hardens. It becomes a fence without a garden. It safeguards belief but does not ignite the heart. The risk is that a theology of restraint turns into a theology of dryness.

This is why so many Atharī scholars of the past also embraced taṣawwuf — Sufism. Figures like ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī al-Harawī, a great Hanbalī theologian, wrote some of the deepest Sufi manuals of the classical period. They did not see Atharī creed and Sufi practice as contradictory. Rather, they saw creed as the outer protection and mysticism as the inner ascent. The creed prevented excessive speculation; Sufism opened the heart to direct experience of the Divine.

Without this mystical side, Atharī creed is vulnerable to distortion. Modern rationalist Atharīs, particularly in certain Salafī currents, often slip into what they themselves deny: anthropomorphism. By over-literalizing Qur’anic descriptions, they end up saying things like “Allah literally has a hand — but not like our hands.” The paradox here is obvious: in trying to affirm transcendence, they subtly reintroduce form and imagery. Bi-lā kayf was meant to be a silence that dismantled the imagination, not a slogan that invites crude mental pictures.

The great Sufis would argue that creed is incomplete without the path of dhikr, love, and purification. The outer “do not ask how” must be completed by the inner “taste and see.” Atharī creed by itself can guard the mind from over speculation, but it cannot transform the soul into a vessel of divine intimacy. That transformation belongs to taṣawwuf.

In the end, each school guards against a particular danger. The Atharīs guard against over-rationalizing revelation. The Ashʿarīs and Māturīdīs guard against naive literalism. And the Sufis remind us that creed itself is not the goal: it is the beginning of a journey that culminates in direct encounter with Allah.

For the believer, this means that theology cannot remain a list of propositions. Faith must mature into lived remembrance, into a heart that bows before the Real in love. Bi-lā kayf finds its true completion not in polemics but in silence, awe, and the sweetness of God’s presence.

And so, Shaykh Yusuf bin Sadiq, in his gentle wisdom, explains that fiqh and aqidah are the lattice work upon which the vine of our devotion to Allah grows upward towards the Divine. They are the framework, yet tasawwuf and the encounter with Allah in the purification of our heart is the goal. One of the greatest Sufis who ever lived, al-Gilani, understood this.

One of my favorite analogies is that of the string of a lute. Pulled too tight, the string can break. If it is too loose — as in unstructured spiritualism — the string is useless. Yet with just the right tension, the string of the heart can produce beautiful music for Allah.

Our modern situation is much like this lute string. Too many people are unstructured in their spirituality, and even if they mean well, it produces nothing. Or, on the other hand, if we are too strict in our practice and literalism, the string will snap. OR, on the other hand, if we spend all of our time studying and talking about the precise tension of the string, how the string ought to be made, of what material, etc… and then we never actually pluck the string, then no music is ever made from our soul that is pleasing to Allah.

There is a type of apophaticism in the Hanbali and Athari creed. I have witnessed a sort of analogy, also, in Christianity. On one side, there is a feel to explain away everything within the Faith. Either from a scientific or rationalistic/philosophical lens. On the other hand, there is a sort of fundamentalism that takes everything to the most literal extreme. It is the other side of the coin of this ‘rationalism’ that anxiously clings to a literal meaning, but also in the same rational mindset in the face of ‘explaining away’. In my understanding (and I would say in the traditional understanding of the Hanbali/Athari school as explained by Sh. Yusuf), both of these are wrong. Rather, we preserve the mystery. And tasawwuf and ‘mysticism’ complete the law and the creed — and go beyond where words fail to grasp. It is the Mystery. The meeting of Allah. The ineffable beauty. The ‘dazzling darkness’ (Nur al-Aswad) in Sufism.

‘Allah has Seventy Thousand Veils of Light and Darkness; if He were to remove them, the radiant splendours of His Face would burn up whoever (or ‘whatever creature’) was reached by His Gaze.’- Holy Prophet Muhammad (sa)

This is my understanding. It is that just-right tension that produces something that words cannot utter.

But then again… I am still a student, and I am learning as if a beginner — since I am a beginner.

I just wanted to state something of my thoughts on this matter.

As I have said elsewhere, the Atharī insistence on bi-lā kayf reminds me of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s dictum in the Tractatus: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” The point is not to deny meaning, but to preserve mystery. Creed and law guard against distortion, but silence and remembrance open into the encounter itself.

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