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God as Beloved: Sallie McFague, the Madhhab-i 'Ishq, and the Limits of the Kingly God

 

God as Beloved: Sallie McFague, the Madhhab-i 'Ishq, and the Limits of the Kingly God


Adis Duderija

Many years ago, the theologian Sallie McFague proposed three alternatives to patriarchal and monarchical images of God: God as Mother, God as Lover, and God as Friend. In her influential book Models of God (1987), she invited believers to reconsider the metaphors through which they imagine the divine. Rather than envisioning God primarily as King, Lord, or Sovereign, McFague suggested that divine power might be better understood through nurture, love, and companionship.

At first glance, this might seem merely an exercise in updating religious language. Yet McFague's proposal is more profound than that. It challenges one of the most enduring assumptions of classical theism: that divine perfection is best expressed through absolute sovereignty, unilateral power, and complete control.

What is particularly striking is that McFague's vision finds an unexpected analogue in the Islamic mystical tradition known as the madhhab-i 'ishq, the "school of love."

Long before modern theologians began questioning patriarchal and monarchic images of God, Muslim mystics had already cultivated a religious vision centred not on divine rulership but on divine love. The great poets of the madhhab-i 'ishq, including Farid al-Din ʿAttar, Hafiz of Shiraz, Jami, and many others, did not deny God's majesty or transcendence. Yet they placed at the centre of religious life not fear of the sovereign but longing for the Beloved.

This shift changes everything.

The dominant imagery of classical theology often revolves around hierarchy. God commands, human beings obey. God rules, creation submits. The relationship is often conceived in terms borrowed from political authority.

The madhhab-i 'ishq offers a different grammar altogether. Here the central question is not how subjects relate to a ruler but how lovers seek union with the Beloved.

The Persian mystic ʿAttar's Conference of the Birds presents the spiritual journey as an arduous quest driven by love. The birds are not commanded into transformation through coercion. Rather, they are drawn by desire toward a reality greater than themselves. Likewise, throughout the poetry of Hafiz, God appears less as an enthroned monarch than as the source of irresistible beauty and attraction. What transforms human beings is not the fear of punishment but the experience of being captivated by divine love.

The contrast with classical theism is significant. Classical theology frequently assumes that the highest form of power is coercive power. God is omnipotent because nothing can resist the divine will. Divine perfection is defined by independence, immutability, and complete self-sufficiency.

Yet the metaphors of both McFague and the madhhab-i 'ishq direct us toward another possibility. They suggest that the deepest form of power is relational.

Consider McFague's image of God as Mother. Maternal power is not expressed through domination but through nurture. A mother seeks the flourishing of the child. Her strength lies not in control but in care.

Likewise, God as Friend points toward companionship, trust, and mutual presence. Friendship does not function through command and obedience. It involves dialogue and shared participation.

Most strikingly, God as Lover resonates deeply with the spirituality of the madhhab-i 'ishq. Love does not compel. It attracts. It entices. It awakens desire. The beloved transforms the lover not by force but by beauty.

This insight carries profound theological implications. If divine power is understood primarily through the metaphor of kingship, then power becomes associated with domination. But if divine power is understood through the metaphors of motherhood, friendship, and love, then power becomes associated with relationship, persuasion, and participation.

Indeed, this perspective exposes one of the deepest weaknesses of classical theism. The model of God as an all-controlling monarch struggles to account for a world filled with suffering. If God possesses unlimited coercive power, then the persistence of evil becomes exceedingly difficult to explain. Why are atrocities not prevented? Why are innocents allowed to suffer?

The madhhab-i 'ishq implicitly challenges the very assumptions that generate this dilemma. Divine power is not imagined as the capacity to unilaterally determine every event. Rather, God draws creation toward greater beauty, compassion, and harmony through the power of love.

Here the parallels with process-relational theology are striking. Thinkers such as Charles Hartshorne and John Cobb have argued that the classical concept of omnipotence mistakes control for power. The most transformative forms of power are not coercive but persuasive. They work from within relationships rather than from above them.

In many respects, the madhhab-i 'ishq anticipated this insight centuries earlier. Love cannot be imposed. A beloved who compels affection ceases to be beloved. Genuine love requires freedom, responsiveness, and openness.

This is precisely why the imagery of the Beloved becomes so important. Unlike the king who commands obedience, the Beloved invites participation. Unlike the monarch who governs through decrees, the Beloved governs through attraction. Unlike the ruler who demands submission, the Beloved awakens desire.

For this reason, McFague's proposal is more than a feminist critique of patriarchal language. It is a challenge to an entire model of divine power. Her God as Mother, God as Friend, and God as Lover echoes themes that have long animated the madhhab-i 'ishq: intimacy over hierarchy, relationship over domination, attraction over coercion.

In an age increasingly sceptical of authoritarian conceptions of power, these insights deserve renewed attention. Perhaps the deepest mistake of classical theism was not that it described God as powerful, but that it imagined power primarily through the image of a throne.

The madhhab-i 'ishq offers another vision. God is not first encountered as sovereign but as Beloved. And the transformative force that sustains the cosmos is not domination but love.

The king may command obedience. The Beloved awakens the heart.

And, as both McFague and the mystics of the madhhab-i 'ishq remind us, it is often the awakened heart, not the bent knee, that brings humanity closest to God.

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