The ruling on the figurative interpretation (ta'wil) of the hadith: "Whoever is bashful of Allah, Allah is bashful of him"
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Question:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner says: I read in one of the books, regarding the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), "A man was bashful, so Allah was bashful of him," that the meaning of this is that Allah accepted him and had mercy on him. Is this a case of figurative interpretation (ta'wil)?
Answer:
Yes, this is a question. Allah is bashful, but it is not like the bashfulness of the created being.[Al-Baqarah 2:26] So Allah is bashful, but not like the bashfulness of the created beings. So we affirm bashfulness for Allah in a manner befitting His Majesty (Glorified and Exalted is He). Yes.
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner says: I read in one of the books, regarding the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), "A man was bashful, so Allah was bashful of him," that the meaning of this is that Allah accepted him and had mercy on him. Is this a case of figurative interpretation (ta'wil)?
Answer:
Yes, this is a question. Allah is bashful, but it is not like the bashfulness of the created being.
Indeed, Allah is not timid to present an example - that of a mosquito
إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَسْتَحْيِي أَن يَضْرِبَ مَثَلًا مَّا بَعُوضَةً
Source
نسبة الاستحياء لله والتأويل فيه — alfawzan.live
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.