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‘Irādah’ means the will of Allah SWT, while ‘amr’ is the command of Allah SWT who only commands good things and forbids bad things. Jalaluddin al-Rumi (1207-1273) used his own method in collecting debates on the commands and wills of Allah SWT in a layered way through the prose of verses in Mathnawi. The philosophy of occasionalism brings the understanding that everything is moved by God, to prove the existence of God through God’s intervention in every matter. Although the understanding of the concept of ‘irādah and amr’ of Allah SWT between the Sufi perspective of Jalaluddin al-Rumi and the philosophy of occasionalism has common points in acknowledging the existence and will of God, there are differences when involving God’s commands in the ‘moral’ debate, i.e. good and bad. The difference between the two perspectives should be clearly and carefully understood in order to avoid confusion that Western and Islamic occasionalism are the same. This article examines and focuses on the concept of will and command of Allah SWT according to Jalaluddin al-Rumi, as well as making a comparison with Western philosophy of occasionalism. This writing uses qualitative research methodology through content analysis and comparative methods. The implications of this article show the difference between the beliefs believed by Western thought and the beliefs Muslims should believe in as outlined in Islam itself. In fact, this article also explains the importance of obeying the ‘will and command’ of Allah SWT without exception of one of them. The results of the study show that the concept of the will of Allah SWT brought by Jalaluddin al-Rumi has a close resemblance to the Western philosophy of occasionalism. It appears as an idea that defends God’s intervention in human life while rejecting secularism. Meanwhile, the concept of the command of Allah SWT highlights its specialness compared to Western philosophy of occasionalism because the belief in Allah SWT displayed by Jalaluddin al-Rumi does not completely set aside His command which is always a life obligation for a Muslim believer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of contemporary Salafi school in the mainstream Muslims is intended to make the Ahl al-Salaf as the primary models of faith and to return the related problems of faith according to the path taken by the companions and tabi'in, which had been quoted only from the al-Quran and al-Sunnah. These stances left great influences on their method of interpretations upon the Quranic verses including the Ayat al-Sifat (verses on Divine Attributes) and condemning others out of the Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama'ah. Therefore this research is intended to identify responses of Muslim figures and scholars against the Contemporary Salafi School's stances and their method of interpretations on Ayat al-Sifat. In addition, this research is also intended to explain the views of the majority of scholars on the conceptual and methods of interpretation of Ayat al-Sifat adopted by the Ahl al- Sunnah wa al-Jama'ah. The paper is produced with the synthesization of content analysis that focuses on published works by selected Contemporary Salafi school figures and other muslim scholars and also relevant contemporary researchers in relation to these issues of Ayat al-Sifat and its methods of interpretations. The results of this research found that most scholars do not accept the method of literal interpretations on Ayat al-Sifat proclaimed by Contemporary Salafi School due to the existence of two catogeries of the Quranic verses, which are known as Wadih Jalli and Khafi Mutashabih or Mutashabih al-Sifat. In certain cases, the method of 'ta'wil' is highly needed to clarify the meaning of Ayat al-Sifat so easily understood by human intellect and at the same time to purify Allah the almighty from signs of weaknesses and resemblance. The extreme acts from Contemporary Salafi School in defending their methods of interpretations make them an 'exclusive' school which separated themselves from other muslims, and limit the diversity of the methods of interpretations enabled by the majority of mufassirin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]