>"And do not invoke with Allah another deity. There is no deity except Him. EVERYTHING will be destroyed except His Face. His is the judgement, and to Him you will be returned." Qur'an 28:88

The propensity of Muslims to make theological cheap shots is all too often on display during interreligious debates. Rather than genuinely engage with the opposing position, Muslim interlocutors frequently resort to scripted taunts that require little theological understanding and merely expose their own shallowness. Their familiar refrain, "how many Gods died on the Cross?" is a textbook example, it ignores elementary Christian theology and those who deploy it seem unaware of how ignorant it makes them appear. Meanwhile, Muslims remain strangely unaware that their own texts do more; they pose genuinely awkward theological problems for Islam.

Qur'an 28:88 states that EVERYTHING will be destroyed except His Face. The verse does not say "everything created", or "everything other than Allah" in some abstract way. It simply says everything, with the sole exception of the Face. When taken in the literal sense, this implies change that extends to the very composition of Allah, something fatal to Islamic monotheism itself. Yet, even when parsed through the interpretive logic of the various Islamic theological schools, the problem caused by this verse does not disappear, but only becomes more glaring.

Through the logic of Athari aqeedah (the creed of textual literalism)

In Atharism, the Face is affirmed as an Attribute (sifah) of Allah. The Attributes are held to be NON-identical to His Essence (dhat), but instead constitute real distinctions in Allah (see example). According to the standard logic of Atharism, when the Islamic source texts refer to an Attribute, the reference is to the Attribute itself and NOT to undifferentiated Essence. ⤵️

>"...the doctrine of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah is to affirm the attributes of Allah..." (Ibn Taymiyyah, Kitāb Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā, 5/206)

>"whatever among the hadiths concerning the attributes is authentically reported from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, the imams have unanimously agreed that their interpretation is simply to recite them... And whatever Allah has mentioned in the Qur'an...All of this is without [asking] how and without interpretation." (Ismāʿīl al-Taymī al-Aṣbahānī, al-Ḥujjah fī Bayān al-Maḥajjah wa-Sharḥ 'Aqīdat Ahl al-Sunnah)

>"... [the Attributes] mean that which can be understood INDEPENDENTLY of the described [the Essence] in a general sense, even though it is not a separate entity" (Ibn Taymiyyah, Kitab Majmu' al-Fatawa, 3/337)

This is simply a more elaborate way of saying that the standard logic of Athari aqeedah collapses Islamic theology from within. Since the Qur'an says EVERYTHING will be destroyed except Allah's Attribute of Face, since the Face is distinguishable from Allah’s Essence, and since Atharism insists the Qur'anic wording is to be affirmed without reinterpretation, it follows that Allah must lose His other Attributes and thus undergo change. Conclusion: following the standard logic of Atharism renders Allah as a contingent being and implodes Islam. 💥

However, in practice, when it comes to this specific verse (Q28:88), Athari scholars perform a selective sleight of hand. To 'save' Islam, the standard logic of their own system is abandoned and Allah's Attribute of Face is arbitrarily reinterpreted in this verse as referring to Allah's Essence. 😂 A bait 'n switch has taken place.

>"In this case the Face has been used to express the Essence of One who possesses a Face." Ibn Uthaymeen, Sharh al-'Aqidah al-Wasitiyyah 1/288

In clear violation of their own interpretive rules, they have no explicit verse or hadith from which to derive this exception. To stop Islam from imploding, they were forced to resort to special pleading. 👀 Thus, in trying to save Islam, it is destroyed again - their attempt at a theological Band-Aid solution rests entirely upon a logical fallacy. The Islam-breaking problems of Q28:88 remain.

Through the logic of Ash'ari and Maturidi aqa'id (the creeds involving speculative theology)

The Ash'ari and Maturidi schools of aqeedah try a different route. Unlike the Atharis, their interpretive framework can accommodate metaphorical language. They also use philosophically-informed reasoning to conclude that Attributes, such as the Face, are neither identical with the Divine Essence nor other than it, which they present as a sophisticated middle path.

>(Everything will perish except His Face) – Mujahid said: its meaning is "except Him." (Tafsir al-Qurtubi)

>"The seven attributes, which we established are not the essence, they are additional to the essence..." Al-Ghazali, Al-Iqtisad fi al-I'tiqad, First Characteristic

>"We claim that all of these attributes subsist in God's essence..." Al-Ghazali, Al-Iqtisad fi al-I'tiqad, Second Characteristic

So, the Attributes are NOT the Essence, are ADDITIONAL to the Essence, but SUBSIST in the Essence... 🤔 However, logic does not allow a third option between identity and non-identity. Either the Attributes are the same as the Essence or they are not. By simultaneously asserting that they are not the same, yet they are not distinct, the Ashari/Maturidi kalam tradition violates the law of the excluded middle. Again, as we saw with Athari aqeedah, their solution rests entirely upon a logical fallacy. The doctrine is incoherent on its own terms and the Islam-breaking problems of Q28:88 remain.

Conclusion

Qur'an 28:88 exposes fatal flaws in Islamic theology that yet again undermine the internal coherence of the religion itself. Following the logic of the various interpretive frameworks of Islamic theology, there are ultimately two options. Either:

🔹 'Allah' loses multiple Attributes, meaning he's a composite being subject to change, is not the immutable God claimed by Islam, and so Islam is false.

🔹 Or various types of fallacious reasoning must be deployed to avoid that conclusion, meaning the coherence of Islam rests on logical fallacies, and so Islam is false.

Those are the options.