Allah specifically condemns those who reject the message of Islam for this reason, by saying:. Mere political suppression would have but hardened their party spirit into sectarian obstinacy, so it was necessary to defeat them with rational argument. These three categories traditionally subsume some fifty tenets of faith.
We find however in the history of kalam that authors sometimes urged the distinctive doctrines of their school, particularly against opponents, as if they were basic principles of Islam.
The two are not necessarily the same. Something so devoid of practical consequences for Muslims could not have become prominent except through faction and debate. All falsehoods are rejected by Islam, and in matters of faith most are serious sins, but some are more crucial than others. In other words, in the spectrum from right to wrong beliefs, there are four main categories:.
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi d. One should know that theologians have had considerable difficulty defining kufr unbelief. Kufr consists in denying the truth of anything the Prophet Allah bless him and give him peace is necessarily known to have said.
Whoever does so is an unbeliever because he has disbelieved the Prophet Allah bless him and give him peace about something necessarily known to be of his religion.
For each, the truth of one and falsity of the other is known only through inference, so neither denial nor affirmation of it can enter into actual faith, and hence cannot entail unbelief. The proof of this is that if such points were part of faith, the Prophet Allah bless him and give him peace would not have judged anyone a believer until he was sure that the person knew the question.
Had he done such a thing, his position on the question would have been known to everyone in Islam and conveyed by many chains of transmission. Because it has not, it is clear that he did not make it a condition of faith, so knowing it is not a point of belief, nor denying it unbelief. In light of which, no one of this Umma is an unbeliever, and we do not consider anyone an unbeliever whose words are interpretable as meaning anything besides. As for beliefs not known except through hadiths related by a single narrator, it seems plain that they cannot be a decisive criterion for belief or unbelief.
That is our view about the reality of unbelief Mafatih al-ghayb c00 , 2. Dhahabi says:. There is benefit and harm in it. As to its benefit, it is lawful or recommended or obligatory whenever it is beneficial, according to the circumstances.
As to its harm, it is unlawful whenever and for whomever it is harmful. That is its harm to faith. This harm, however, comes about through bigotry born of argument, which is why you see the ordinary unlearned heretic fairly easy to dissuade from his mistakes through affability; though not if he has grown up in a locale where there is arguing and bigotry, in which case if all mankind from beginning to end were to join together, they would be unable to rid his heart of wrong ideas.
This is the incurable disease that plagues cities and people: the sort of vice produced by bigotry when there is argument. This also is of the harm of kalam.
As for its benefit, it might be supposed that it is to reveal truths and know them as they truly are. And how farfetched! Kalam theology is simply unable to fulfill this noble aim, and it probably founders and misguides more than it discovers or reveals. By my life, theology is not bereft of revealing and defining the truth and clarifying some issues, but it does so rarely, and about things that are already clear and almost plain before learning its details.
Ghazali believes this is valid and obligatory, but only to the extent needed. This Ghazali regards as impossible for kalam to do.
The scholars of kalam certainly did not agree with Ghazali on this latter point, and history attests to their continued confidence in it as a medium of discovery, producing what has subsequently been regarded by almost everyone as a period of excess in kalam literature. The Mu'tazilis regarded as Jabriyya those including Ash'aris who rejected their doctrine of qadar.
Ash'ari heresiographers accorded the term Jabriyya--perhaps somewhat hastily--to the disciples of Jahm. It was on the question of faith, sin and salvation that the Murdhi'a [q. A great sin kabira does not involve loss of faith. On the basis of qur'an, IX, , the sinner's future fate is left in suspense irdha' , awaiting God's decision.
It is Ghaylan and Ghassan who seem to have had Hanafi connexions who are usually e. Later heresiographers constricted these diverse tendencies into condensed formulas, which probably over-simplified and distorted them. But in these very first efforts to support politico-religious attitudes by means of rational argument the main lines of later discussions are already drawn. With greater or less success, the qadariyya anticipate some of the main theses of the Mu'tazila; the Ash'aris were to seek a 'happy mean' to reconcile the 'compulsion' of the Dhabriyya and human responsibility; the Murdhi'a prefigure, to some degree, in their treatment of the problem of retribution in the next world, the explanations of the Maturidi-Hanafis and many Ash'aris.
Full discussion of this question would require a detailed study which would however be risky for lack of documentation of ghaylan, who is sometimes classed with the qadariyya, as having asserted human liberty of choice, and sometimes with the Murdhi'a, thanks to his theory of the future lot of the sinful believer.
We are dealing therefore with tendencies rather than with established 'schools of theology', and with overlapping views which later were to diverge. Thus it is with the adherents of the sect of the Jahmiyya [q. To summarize: on the problem of qadar they would ally themselves with the Jabriyya, and on that of faith with the Murdhi'a. Beyond this, however, they refused to recognize any distinct existence of the divine attributes, stripping them away ta'til from the divine essence in order the better to protect its perfect and absolute unity.
Finally, they supported the thesis of the created Qur'an, and gave an allegorical interpretation to the anthropomorphic features in its text. Thus there arose a certain confusion between them and the Mu'tazilis e.
The Mu'tazili schools for the origin of the name, details on the historical development of the school and its doctrines, see mu'tazila. The first Mu'tazilis were contemporaries of the various tendencies and groupings surveyed above. It is sometimes difficult and perhaps pointless to distinguish them from the qadariyya. Doctrinal positions became so defined and systematized that one may speak of a regular school or rather schools , whose vocabulary and methods of argument were to be influenced as a result of the activity of translation from works of Greek science and philosophy After the 'founders', Wasil b.
Each embraced varying tendencies, but can justly be called a 'school' madhhab see W. Montgomery Watt, Free will and predestination in early Islam, Edinburgh , 65, for a table of the chief representatives of these schools and the links of their affiliation; list in L. Gardet, Les grands problemes de la theologie musulmane: Dieu et la destinee de l'homme, Paris , t6.
The great names in this school are Mu'ammar, al-Nazzam both of whom did not refrain from criticizing al-'Allaf , the great writer al-Jahiz, al-Jubba'i and his son Abu Hashim d. The doctors of Basra, in grappling with the doctrinal problems that arose, advanced original solutions in the field of natural philosophy or in noetics: the theory of atoms dhuz' , of Abu 'l-Hudhayl, the semi-conceptualism of the 'modes' ahwal of Abu Hashim.
The school of Baghdad was perhaps less illustrious than that of Basra. It derived from Bishr b. As the oft-quoted remark of Ahmad Amin 4uha al-Islam, Cairo, iii, t04 puts it, the Mu'tazilis were 'firstly men of religion and secondarily philosophers'. It is not pace D. Macdonald in EI1, s. Kalam the atomic theory nor that of the 'modes' which characterizes the mutakallimun, but their primary concern to engage in disputation and argument to defend the faith against the zanadiqa of the period, the 'free-thinkers' inspired by Mazdeism or Manicheism, and later by pure Greek rationalism.
Although nuances of doctrine, sometimes important, divided them, they were inspired by one and the same spirit: respect for reason 'aql in the defence of religious tenets 'aql becoming even the criterion mizan of the Law , the concern to purge the notion of God of all 'multiplicity' and anthropomorphism, the desire to proclaim and justify the absolute divine perfection. The Mu'tazilis themselves defined themselves as 'the people of Justice and Unity'.
We may note the influence of Mu'tazilism on Jewish thought elaborated in the Arabic milieu; it too possessed a kalam, which opposed the Muslim doctors when necessary but which largely borrowed from them its problematics, its method and its systems of argument. Sa'adyah Gaon Sa'id al-Fayyumi was the most famous Jewish mutakallim. The five principal bases usul or theses upon which Mu'tazili problematic was elaborated are known: 1 the divine Unity al-tawhid : the divine attributes are meaningful only when taken in a strict via remotionis tanzih , which their opponents readily identified with the ta'til of the Jahmiyya.
God the Creator, an absolutely spiritual being, is inaccessible and can be seen neither in this world nor in the next. Things, by their nature, contain both good and evil. God can will only the good, and is obliged to accomplish that which is better al-aslah.
Thus He neither wills nor commands that which is evil. Man, 'creator of his own acts' by a contingent power qudra which God has created in him, is responsible for what he does, and God is obliged to reward or punish him accordingly.
Whoever commits a 'great sin' and does not repent is destined for hell. The thesis elaborates the 'decrees' for the believer and the unbeliever. It deals also with 'traditions' akhbar : contrary to the normal doctrine, it does not insist that all the 'transmitters' should be believers; and ijma' [q. The sinner is neither a true believer mu'min , nor a true infidel kafir. He has failed to perform the 'witness of the limbs', but his faith in God keeps him within the Community.
It is here that are discussed the conditions for imama and the respective merits of the first four Caliphs. As against the more prudent view prevailing later, the Mu'tazilis advocated direct intervention, if necessary with the sword. One may and should depose guilty leaders, one may and should compel opponents, on pain of death, to profess the true doctrine cf. Cairo, ii, This was the attitude of the Mu'tazilis, in their days of triumph under al-Ma'mun, when they denounced to the courts the supporters of the doctrine of the uncreated qur'an.
The fact remains that the writings of the great Mu'tazilis, apart from the polemical Intisar a defence of Mu'tazilism by al-khayyat, against Ibn al-Rawandi , are available to us only at second hand.
After being for a time the official doctrine, Mu'tazilism was in its turn condemned and most of its productions were destroyed. It is only recently in about , that there have come to light, in the Yemen, the writings of a Mu'tazili unfortunately, late , the qadi 'Abd al-Dhabbar d.
Houben, Beyrouth t. To these may be added the work of synthesis Sharh al-usul al-khamsa ed. We may mention also, in the line of 'Abd al-Jabbar's teaching, the Mu'tamad fi usul al-fiqh , by his disciple the jurist Abu 'l-Husayn Ibn al-tayyib al-Basri ed. Damascus by Hamidullah. Thus we now possess quotations from the early doctors and resumes of their thought presented from the Mu'tazili viewpoint: this reveals, incidentally, how objective are the Maqalat of al-Ash'ari and tends to prove that the first part at least of this work was composed during the years that the author adhered to Mu'tazilism.
Again, the late date when 'Abd al-Jabbar was teaching induced him to conduct polemic against the Ash'aris and set out the replies of the Mu'tazilis to the attacks mounted against them. Before passing on from the climate of thought of the first great schools of 'ilm al-kalam , we may mention the group whom al-Ash'ari calls Ahl al-ithbat or Muthbita cf. Montgomery Watt, op. It is by no means easy to define it precisely. It comprised a certain number of thinkers, 4irar, al-Nadhdhar, Muhammad Burghuth, whom later heresiographers readily classed as Mu'tazilis; but they were opposed by various supporters of the school of Basra thus al-Nadhdhar was opposed by Abu 'l-Hudhayl and al-Nazzam , and al-Ash'ari saw in them his forerunners.
They are said to have taught, inter alia, that God is the creator of human actions, and to have foreshadowed the theory of kasb or iktisab, which defined and limited man's possession of the acts thus created. Reference to the Ahl al-ithbat allowed al-Ash'ari to present himself as being in no sort an innovator in the field of 'ilm al-kalam.
The Ash'ari reaction. He is rightly regarded as the founder of the Ash'ariyya [q. A certain number of his works notably Luma', Ibana have survived, and his Maqalat al-Islamiyyin remain today an unrivalled source for our knowledge of the earlier tendencies and schools.
Throughout the centuries, several very famous names brought renown to Ash'ari kalam. It is certain that manifold tendencies appeared in this school, and that varying--even divergent--attitudes were adopted. Thus al-Baqillani summoned to the service of Ash'ari tenets the atomism first expounded by Abu 'l-Hudhayl; however, al-Juwayni did not follow him at all on this point, but took up again the theory of 'modes' of Abu Hashim and Baqillani , which was abandoned by al-Ghazali.
But the basic viewpoints from which the major tenets of the faith are thought out remain the same; in spite of doctrinal differences--due largely to historical accidents and the diversity of the opponents it was necessary to refute--it is legitimate to speak of an Ash'ari 'school' singular , perhaps more coherent than the Mu'tazili schools had been. Is it necessary, as has been suggested, to admit a radical distinction, even a split, between the thinking of the school's founder and that of the school named after him?
It is true that in the Ibana, al-Ash'ari precedes his 'credo' by a declaration of obedience to the teaching of Ibn Hanbal, and that although the declaration of faith which became traditional in the school could find justification in the Luma' yet it is notably different from those set out in the Ibana and the Maqalat. Nevertheless, the obedience to Ibn Hanbal declared by al-Ash'ari did not deceive the Hanbalis, who violently attacked the very principle of the defence of the faith by rational argument; and again, many propositions of the Luma' had to await elucidation by later disciples, who were influenced in their turn by new historical circumstances.
Thus there are not two "Ash'arisms", one of the founder and one of his followers, but, fundamentally, a single common attitude which was to be progressively developed and variously coloured by successive apologetic discussions. This common attitude is the unblurred affirmation of God as the inscrutable Almighty, Who does not act 'with a purpose in view' and Who 'is not to be questioned'.
In the strictest sense, God is 'the sole Being and the sole Agent'. He does not command an act because that act is just and good; it is His command amr which makes it just and good. God is the creator of human acts, of which man is merely the receiving subject mahall. But God 'attributes' to a man his acts theory of kasb or iktisab , and hence are justified both human responsibility and the Judgement promised in the Qur'an.
Every statement of the Qur'an corresponds to reality; the 'ambiguous'q mutashabih verses are absolutely true as regards their affirmation of existence, but the anthropomorphisms which they present must be accepted bila kayf, 'without asking how'.
With a return to Hanbali attitudes and against the Mu'tazilis it is asserted that the Qur'an is uncreated ghayr makhluq and that the divine attributes are real. The attribute of the Word is not that it is 'contingent': it subsists in God. But the school later taught the existence of the interior dhati divine Word, which is uncreated, and tended to admit that the 'signs' which express it are created: such a distinction was to incur the vehement criticism of the Hanbali doctors.
A common attitude, we have said, but one which was continuously to seek to justify itself dialectically before its various opponents: first the Mu'tazilis, al-Ash'ari's own favourite targets for controversy, and then the 'literalists', such as the Karramiyya who were opposed by Ibn Furak; later still the falasifa, and many others. Maturidi-Hanafi tendencies.
These became, with Ash'arism, the second officially approved line of teaching. Al-Ash'ari himself treated the Hanafiyya as a branch of the Murdhi'a Maqalat, i, t0t However, we are here concerned with a line of thought sufficiently coherent to deserve study in its own right.
It appeals on the one hand to the ancient texts entitled al-Fiqh al-akbar and Wasiyyat Abi Hanifa, and on the other to al-Maturidi of Samarqand d. The Hanafi professions of faith see A. Wensinck, op. But al-Maturidi, in advance of his contemporary al-Ash'ari, seems to have combated various falasifa and also dualists, materialists, esoteric sects; secondarily, Mu'tazilis and anthropomorphists. Although he, like others, deals with the divine attributes and Names, the main question which concerns him is the creation of the world.
It is very possible that he did not literally 'found' a school, but all the same many mutakallimun looked to him as a point of reference. In later years it becomes difficult to distinguish clearly between followers of al-Ash'ari and of al-Maturidi: although Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, al-Dawani, al-Laqani are Ash'aris under the influence of al-Maturidi, Abu 'l-Barakat al-Nasafi and al-Taftazani may be regarded as belonging primarily to the Maturidi-Hanafi line and only secondarily to Ash'arism they accepted the theory of atoms.
Indeed as compared with Ash'arism, Maturidi-Hanafism, as presented by certain manuals e. As to the first: God creates in man the asl, the 'root' of his acts, whatever they may be, but it is human freewill which gives them a good or an evil specification.
As to the second seeAllah, p. Modern period. The revival nahda of Arabo-Muslim thought, which has taken place from the end of the 19th century, has concerned particularly culture in the general sense, predominantly in the field of literature and under the strong influence of modern Western thought, but it has had its repercussions upon the 'religious sciences'. We have in mind here the reformism of the Salafiyya, and thus in exegesis tafsir and in usul al-fiqh.
Is it legitimate to speak of a resurgence in 'ilm al-kalam? To answer this question we adduce the Radd 'ala 'l-Dahriyyin 'Refutation of the materialists' of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani Cairo 19t5 , and, still more, the Risalat al-tawhid of Muhammad 'Abduh, and some other writings of the latter. Al-Afghani's work, attacking contemporary 'doubters and deniers' is prompted by a concern for defensive apologia. We may note that it defines 'ilm al-kalam as being 'the establishment of religious beliefs and the explanation of prophecies', in order to 'seek to conserve and establish religion' Cairo , 5.
The interest of the Risalat al-tawhid arises from the fact that it claims to reject nothing inherited from the great periods of the past and to put to profit the positive achievements of every school. Muhammad 'Abduh adheres primarily, but without rigidity, to Ash'arism divine names and attributes; no 'end' to God's actions, etc.
But he does not hesitate to draw inspiration from attitudes customarily regarded as Maturidi, or even to adopt Mu'tazili positions. Atay Ankara: University of Ankara Press, , pp. Bonaventure and St.
Cambridge University Press, ISBN Seyyed Hossein, An introduction to Islamic cosmological doctrines. Jalaladdin Davani. Shah Waliullah. Universal Conquest Wiki. This article is part of a series on:. See also Other religions Glossary. Five Pillars.
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