Displacing Allah in Adonis's poetry

Abstract

This study is concerned with some of Adonis's poetry on Allah from three significant aspects. In one aspect, Adonis raises doubt about the existence of the creator while in another he questions the need to worship ilah or Allah that is in Arabic of the same root word with the word ilah. Apart from that, Adonis questions the supremacy of ilah or Allah. These three aspects on Allah in Adonis's poetry are interesting to be examined in view of Islamic creed on Allah because the aspects questioned by Adonis are in parallel with the three tenets of the Islamic creed on Allah that are the affirmation of Allah as the only khaliq, creator that is in Islamic terminology tawhid rububiyyah, the affirmation of Allah as the only worshiped ilah that is tawhid uluhiyyah and finally the affirmation of Allah as the only ilah possessing supreme names and attributes that is tawhid asma' wa uifat. It is found that the questioning of Allah in Adonis's poetry to some extent represents the questioning of God common in western modernism. However, Adonis's questioning is more relevantly related to the conception of ilah or Allah in Islam in consideration of the proximity of the poetical hints in Adonis's poetry with the aforementioned Islamic tenets of belief in Allah one of which is directly referred to, i.e., rububiyyah, apart from Adonis's allusion to the historical background of the Muslim World and Adonis's assertions on ilah or Allah that contradict with some essential Qur'anic verses on Allah. Thus, it can be concluded that Adonis displaces Allah from the Islamic conception of God and that Adonis embraces atheism. © Medwell Journals, 2012.