Allah has a beautiful color
Sibgatallah:
“(We take our) color from Allah.”
(The Qur’an 2.138)
“Allah has a beautiful dark color,” Shree Chaitanya Mahaprabhu added.
(Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 18.190)
Here Mahaprabhu mentions another attribute of Allah, namely color. He describes Allah as possessing a beautiful dark color. Everything comes from and belongs to Allah. It is amazing how wonderfully Allah has colored our mortal world. It will be illogical and unjust on our part to think that Allah is colorless. If millions of insignificant creatures of this material world can be so wonderfully and beautifully colored, then what to speak of Allah, Who is the greatest. Definitely, the color of Allah is spiritual, transcendental and has little to do with temporary colors of this world. His color is eternal, ever-fresh and amaranthine. It is almost impossible for us to even imagine the beauty of Allah’s color.
In the sura “Al-Baqarah”, or “The Cow” of the Holy Qur’an there are specific verse which confirms this statement of Mahaprabhu’s:
Sibgatallah wa man ‘ah – sanu minallahi sibgah: “(We take our) color from Allah and who is better than Allah at coloring?” (2.138)
The word sibgat is very significant in this verse. The root meaning of this word is color. In this verse it is explained that none can surpass Allah in lending color to this universe. There is no color that Allah doesn’t have and none that He is not adorned by. Had He not been so adorned, then He will be less than His creation. The very thought of such offensive minimization of Allah is wholly unacceptable by anyone who professes to be a true Mussalman. This is because no Muslim will dare contradict the Qur’anic statement: ‘Allahu Akbar’(Allah is Great). Since Allah is the greatest, it is but natural for any sane person to put forward this question: How can the Great Allah be colorless, the epithet being an agent which reduces His unsurpassed Greatness to mere abstraction? The answer is that Allah is colorfully beautiful. Now, it is small wonder that some color of the material world should resemble His color, as Allah is the source of everything, including color. The Holy Prophet Muhammad (S. A. W.) said to his asabas [associates]: “We take our color from Allah.” This means that the color of the Arabs analogously resembled Allah’s color. From the representation of Allah’s complexion by the Arabs we can safely conclude that Allah is of a beautiful dark complexion.
According to the ancient scriptures the color of God resembles the color of the monsoon cloud. Of course, this color of God is not material but spiritual. In this way the ancient scriptures further explain that the color of God is like the lightning. This means that God is effulgent. When the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S. A. W.) met Allah he saw dazzling effulgence emanating from God. (131, p. 108) Therefore, Allah has a dazzling dark color. But we never see any dark color, which is dazzling. It seems contradictory. That is because the color of Allah is not material, but spiritual, transcendental beyond the scope of the mundane senses and mind. From this point of view, we can understand why some Muslim scholars claim that Allah has no color. This means He has no material color, but He has spiritual color. Allah is full in all opulences, everything comes from Him and belongs to Him. So how is it possible for Him not to have color? If He does not have color then it follows that He will be incomplete and imperfect because something will be missing in Him which is not possible. According to all recognized revealed scriptures, the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S. A. W.) and the Holy Qur’an, Allah has a spiritual, dazzling, dark color beyond the perception of the material senses and the imagination of the mundane mind.
