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CLASSICAL ISLAMIC THEOLOGY
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This series of critical reflections on the evolution and major themes of
pre-modern Muslim theology begins with the revelation of the Quran,
and extends to the beginnings of modernity in the eighteenth century.
The significance of Islamic theology reflects the immense importance of
Islam in the history of monotheism, to which it has brought a unique
approach and style, and a range of solutions which are of abiding interest.
Devoting especial attention to questions of rationality, scriptural fidelity
and the construction of orthodoxy, this volume introduces key
Muslim theories of revelation, creation, ethics, scriptural interpretation,
law, mysticism and eschatology. Throughout the treatment is firmly set
in the historical, social and political context in which Islams distinctive
understanding of God evolved.
Despite its importance, Islamic theology has been neglected in
recent scholarship, and this book provides a unique, scholarly but
accessible introduction.
Tim Winter is University Lecturer in Islamic Studies, Faculty of
Divinity, University of Cambridge.
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Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
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Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
the cambridge companion to
CLASSICAL ISLAMIC
THEOLOGY
Edited by Tim Winter
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, uk
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
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Cambridge University Press 2008
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2008
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The Cambridge companion to classical Islamic theology / edited by Tim Winter.
p. cm. (Cambridge companions to religion)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-521-78058-2 (hardback : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-521-78549-5
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. IslamTheologyHistory. 2. IslamDoctrinesHistory. I. Winter, T. J. II. Title:
Classical Islamic theology. III. Series.
bp166.1.c36 2008
297.209dc22
2008008970
isbn 978-0-521-78058-2 hardback
isbn 978-0-521-78549-5 paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to
in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Contents
Notes on contributors page ix
Introduction 1 tim winter
Part I Historical perspectives
1 Quran and hadith 19 m. a. s. abdel haleem
2 The early creed 33 khalid blankinship
3 Islamic philosophy (falsafa) 55 hossein ziai
4 The developed kalam tradition 77 oliver leaman (part i) and sajjad rizvi (part ii)
5 The social construction of orthodoxy 97 ahmed el shamsy
Part II Themes
6 God: essence and attributes 121 nader el-bizri
7 Creation 141 david b. burrell csc
8 Ethics 161 steffen a. j. stelzer
9 Revelation 180 yahya michot
10 The existence of God 197 ayman shihadeh
11 Worship 218 william c. chittick
vii
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12 Theological dimensions of Islamic law 237 umar f. abd-allah
13 Theology and Sufism 258 toby mayer
14 Epistemology and divine discourse 288 paul-a. hardy
15 Eschatology 308 marcia hermansen
Index 325
viii Contents
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Notes on contributors
Umar F. Abd-Allah received his PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the
University of Chicago in 1978 with a dissertation on the origins of Islamic
law. His principal interests are Islamic intellectual and spiritual history, the
history of Islam in the West, and comparative religion. He taught academically
in the United States, Canada and Saudi Arabia for more than twenty years
before taking up his present post as chairperson and scholar-in-residence of
the Nawawi Foundation (Chicago), an educational organisation devoted to
exploring Islamic intellectual, spiritual and cultural legacies and making them
relevant today. His most recent book, A Muslim in Victorian America: The
Life of Alexander Russell Webb, appeared in 2006.
M.A. S. Abdel Haleem was educated at al-Azhar, Cairo, and Cambridge
Universities, and has taught Arabic at the universities of Cambridge and London
since 1966. He is now Professor of Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London. Among his recent publications are
Understanding the Quran: Themes and Style (2001), English Translations of the
Quran: The Making of an Image (2004), and a new translation of The Quran
(2004).
Nader El-Bizri is a Research Associate in Philosophy at The Institute of Ismaili
Studies, London, and an Affiliated Lecturer at the Department of History and
Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. He is also a Visiting
Professor at Lincoln University, and acts as a Chercheur Associe at the Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, Paris). He previously taught at
the universities of Nottingham and Harvard and the American University of
Beirut. In addition, he is an elected member of the Steering Committee of the
Societe Internationale dHistoire des Sciences et des Philosophies Arabes et
Islamiques (CNRS, Paris). His areas of research are Arabic Sciences and
Philosophy, Phenomenology, and Architectural Humanities.
Khalid Blankinship obtained his PhD in history in 1988, with a specialisation
in Islam, from the University of Washington. Since 1990, he has worked as a
professor in the Department of Religion at Temple University in Philadelphia.
He has remained active in research and lecturing on religion in general and
Islam in particular. His book, The End of the Jihad State: The Reign of Hisham
ibn Abd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads was published in 1994;
ix
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he also translated two of the thirty-eight volumes of The History of al-T _ abar
for the T _ abar Translation Project.
David B. Burrell CSC is Theodore M. Hesburgh Professor in Philosophy and
Theology at the University of Notre Dame, USA. His publishing career began in
1973 with Analogy and Philosophical Language, and led to a series of studies of
St Thomas Aquinas. Since 1982 he has worked mainly in comparative issues in
philosophical theology in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.Hismore recentworks
include Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions (1993), and two translations
of theological texts by al-Ghazal.
William C. Chittick is Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of
Asian and Asian-American Studies, State University of New York, Stony
Brook. He has published twenty-five books and numerous articles on Islamic
intellectual history, including The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings
of Rumi (1983), The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-Arabs Metaphysics of
Imagination (1989), and The Heart of Islamic Philosophy (2001).
Ahmed El Shamsy is a doctoral candidate in History and Middle Eastern Studies
at Harvard University. He received his BA and MSc from the University of
London, and has also studied Islamic theology and law inGermany and Egypt. His
doctoral research investigates the early social and intellectual history of the
Shafi school of law; in conjunction with this project, he is preparing a critical
edition of a ninth-century work by al-Shafis successor al-Buwayt _ .
Paul-A. Hardy took his BA/MA from Oxford, and his PhD in Islamic Thought
from the University of Chicago. He has lectured at the School of Oriental and
African Studies in the University of London and at Hunter College, New York.
He is the author of the forthcoming Avicenna on Self-Knowing.
Marcia Hermansen is Professor of Islamic Studies and Director of the Islamic
World Studies Minor at Loyola University, Chicago. She published The
Conclusive Argument from God: Shah Wal Allah of Delhis H _ ujjat Allah
al-Baligha (1996), and is co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim
World (2003).
Oliver Leaman has been Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky,
USA, since 2000. Before that he taught in the United Kingdom and Africa. He has
written Islamic Aesthetics: An Introduction (2004). He edited The Quran: An
Encyclopedia, and the Biographical Dictionary of Islamic Philosophers, both
published in 2006. He has also written and edited several earlier publications on
Islamic philosophy and the philosophy of religion.
Yahya Michot was from 1981 until 1997 Director of the Centre for Arabic
Philosophy at the University of Louvain, before taking up his current post
as Islamic Centre Lecturer in the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford.
His research interests include the theology of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) and the
life and philosophy of Avicenna (d. 1037). Among his recent publications are
x Notes on contributors
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Ibn Taymiyya: Un Dieu hesitant? (2004) and Muslims under Non-Muslim
Rule (2006).
Toby Mayer is currently a Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili
Studies, London, where he works on the esoteric hermeneutics of the Quran
by figures like Shahrastan and Amul, as well as teaching courses on the
Quran and Sufism. Until 2003 he held a lectureship at the School of Oriental
and African Studies, London, where he taught Islamic philosophy and
mysticism. In addition to a number of articles on Islamic philosophy, he is
the co-author, with Wilferd Madelung, of Struggling with the Philosopher: A
New Arabic Edition and English Translation of Muh _ ammad b. Abd al-Karm
al-Shahrastans Kitab al-Mus _ araa.
Sajjad Rizvi is Senior Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter.
He specialises in Islamic intellectual history, in particular the thought of the
Safavid period, and is the author of Mulla S _ adra Shraz (2007) and with Feras
Hamza of Understanding the Word of God (2008). Current projects include a
study of time and creation in Islamic philosophy and Islamic intellectual
history in India.
Ayman Shihadeh is Lecturer in Islamic Studies and Arabic at the University
of Edinburgh. He specialises mainly in ethical theory in Islam and in the
Middle Period of Islamic philosophy and theology, especially twelfth-century
interaction between the kalam and philosophical traditions, criticism of
Avicenna, and the thought of Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz. He is the author of The
Teleological Ethics of Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz (2006).
Steffen A. J. Stelzer is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department
at the American University in Cairo. He obtained his PhD from the Freie
Universitat Berlin, engaged in research at the Ecole Normale Superieure in
Paris and at Harvard, and has taught at Johns Hopkins University. His areas of
specialisation include rationality and revelation, the conditions and constitu-
ents of philosophical discourse, concepts of the transmission of knowledge,
and comparative analyses of Western philosophical and Islamic models.
Hossein Ziai is Professor of Islamic and Iranian Studies at UCLA. He has
published many articles and several books on the Arabic and Persian Illumina-
tionist system of philosophy. He has published several text-editions and
translations of Arabic and Persian Illuminationist texts, including Suhrawards
Philosophy of Illumination, Shahrazurs Commentary on the Philosophy of
Illumination, and Ibn Kammunas Commentary on Suhrawards Intimations.
Notes on contributors xi
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Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Introduction
tim winter
This volume presents a series of critical scholarly reflections on the
evolution and major themes of pre-modern Muslim theology. Given
Islams salience in religious history and its role as final religious inheritor
of the legacies of monotheism and classical antiquity, such a collection
hardly needs justification. The significance of Islamic theology reflects
the significance of Islam as a central part of the monotheistic project as
a whole, to which it brings a distinctive approach and style, and a range
of solutions which are of abiding interest.
Despite this importance it is fair to say that until recently the study
of theology was something of a Cinderella subject within Islamic stud-
ies, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world. In part this flowed from the
persistence of nineteenth-century assumptions about the marginality of
abstract intellectual life in Islam, and about the greater intrinsic interest
and originality of Muslim law and mysticism. It was also commonly
thought that where formal metaphysics was cultivated in Islamic civili-
sation, this was done seriously only in the context of Arabic philosophy
(falsafa), where it was not obstructed by futile scriptural controls, and
where it could perform its most significant function, which was believed
to be the transmission of Greek thought to Europe.
However, a steady process of scholarly advance over the past two
decades, coupled with the publication of critical editions of important
early texts, has turned the study of Muslim theology into a dynamic and
evermore intriguing discipline. Old assumptions aboutMuslim theology
as either a narrow apologetic exercise or an essentially foreign import
into Islam have been successfully challenged. Scholars have moved on
from a somewhat mechanical focus on doxography and on tracking the
contributions of the Greek tradition, towards the recognition that
Islamic metaphysics contain much that is purely indigenous, that is to
say, rooted in the language and concerns of the quranic revelation.
In decline, likewise, has been the unspoken assumption that what
was of value in classical Muslim civilisation was what fed into the story
1
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
of the West. On that view, the Muslims acted as no more than
go-betweens, a devious Gulf-stream which brought back to Europe
its Greek and Alexandrine heritage.1 Arabic philosophy after Averroes,
and almost the entirety of the formal theology, were thus relegated to
the status of an intellectual byway. As we shall see, new research, and a
less Eurocentric vision of history and of the remit of scholarship, have
done much to challenge this outlook.
classical theology: a definition
A word about the title of our collection. The term classical is used
to cover the era which stretches between the quranic revelation and the
eighteenth century, with the accent falling on the period between the
tenth and thirteenth centuries. For most of this classical period
the kalam, literally discourse, that is to say, the formal academic
discipline which one scholar aptly calls Islamic doctrinal theology,2
stood at or very near the apex of the academic curriculum. However, this
book does not identify theology as coterminous with this kalam
tradition. Instead, it acknowledges that many issues which most readers
will recognise as theological were treated by Muslim civilisation in a
wide range of disciplines. As William Chittick defines it in his chapter,
theology is God-talk in all its forms.
The most obvious of these disciplines was Sufism, a category of
esoteric and ascetical traditions rather larger than mysticism as
commonly understood, which frequently addressed issues of creation,
ethics, pastoral care, providence, inspiration, miracle and other topics
which in medieval Latin cultures would more usually have been dealt
with under a theological rubric. Sufism quickly developed to provide a
mystical tradition more fully recognised by mainstream thought than
was the case with the other monotheisms. It is not entirely clear why
this should have been the case, but we may speculate that the process
was facilitated by the Qurans radical monotheism, which, by resisting
any hint of dualism, thoroughly sacralised the world as a matrix of
signs.3 When integrated into kalam through the evolution of doctrines
of occasionalism, this resistance in turn gave mainstream theology a
natural hospitality to often quite radical mystical concerns.4
In this way, and despite their programmatic rationalism, many
leading kalam thinkers tended to be explicit about their respect for
Sufism as a path to knowledge; as David Burrell shows in this volume,
Abu H _ amid al-Ghazal (d. 1111) was destined to be the iconic example of
this, but his great Asharite successor Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz (d. 1210),
2 Introduction
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
perhaps Islams greatest philosophical theologian, also showed increas-
ing respect for Sufi approaches to knowledge in his later works.5 Rec-
ognising that the field now acknowledges the validity and even the
centrality of Sufism in constructions of Muslim orthodoxy, regular
references will be made to Sufi discussions, particularly in the chapters
on worship and epistemology, and in the long chapter by Toby Mayer
which directly addresses kalams relationship with Sufism, focusing in a
particularly helpful way on the Avicennian component of later Sufi
thought. Ibn Arab (d. 1240), the Andalusian polymath and esoterist,
merits a number of titles, but he is certainly a theologian, despite
his regular habit of soaring well beyond the reach of reason. William
Chittick, in his chapter, suggests that Ibn Arab may even be viewed as
the final summation of Islamic intellectuality. Although Ghazal, in his
Revival of the Religious Sciences, had sought to integrate the various
exoteric and esoteric disciplines in a way which transcended the
boundaries between them, thus claiming a universal coherence for
Islamic intellectuality, it was Ibn Arab who brought this ambitious
reintegrative initiative to a peak of intricacy, by proposing a detailed
mystical theology that seemed to incorporate all the great topics of
kalam, philosophy, law and Sufism into a vast, brilliant (and hugely
controversial) synthesis. It has even been suggested, paraphrasing
Whiteheads remark about Plato, that the history of Islamic thought
subsequent to Ibn Arab (at least down to the 18th century and the
radically new encounter with the modern West) might largely be con-
strued as a series of endnotes to his works.6 This view, which is new in
the field, is still not universally accepted, and its neglect of later kalam
makes it an overstatement, but it is noticeably gaining ground.
Paralleling this shift in our understanding of the historical rela-
tionship of Sufism to kalam has been a maturing grasp of the revealed
law of Islam, the Shara. The great lawbooks typically included dis-
cussions of issues concerning language and human accountability which
were purely theological; indeed, the entire remit of Muslim law could be
said to be theological, since it takes the function of the law to be the
preparation of society and the individual to receive Gods grace. A sep-
arate chapter, by Umar F. Abd-Allah, engages with this important
dimension of Islams theological history.
There was still another discipline which incorporated theological
concerns. This was falsafa (Arabic philosophy, from Greek philosophia),
a tradition substantially borrowed and adapted from late antiquity.
Modern scholars take forensic pains to separate falsafa from kalam, and
medieval Muslims usually did the same; yet since its great exponents
Introduction 3
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
were Muslims who believed in the Quran and the Prophet, it can
defensibly be seen as a Muslim theology, as well as an intellectual
tradition that constantly informed the kalam and, as we are now
acknowledging, stood also in its debt.7
Altogether it is clear that by limiting themselves to the disciplinary
boundaries imposed by medieval Muslims themselves, Western treat-
ments of Islamic theology have often neglected the wealth of properly
theological discussions appearing outside the kalam in the civilisations
literature. As well as imposing on anglophone readers a division of the
sciences which may seem to make little sense in their context, the
result has often been a somewhat dry and partial treatment of the great
issues of Muslim monotheism, a shortcoming which this volume hopes,
in part, to remedy.
the state of the field
Drawing together the core topics of Muslim theology from these
historically distinct disciplines has brought into sharp relief the very
fragmented and sometimes idiosyncratic nature of Western scholarship
of Islam, the tradition sometimes known as Orientalism. Over-
whelmingly this discipline has been built up from contributionsmade by
individuals, not by schools. Thinkers and texts are brought to the fore
during a scholars lifetime, and may then quickly sink into undeserved
obscurity. Occasionally, cultural prejudices which designate Islam as a
religion of law with no natural metaphysical concerns have been
salient, and on occasion, such presumptions have uneasily recalled anti-
Semitic parallels.8Yet the huge contributionsmade by the small number
of persistent leaders in this discipline are impossible to ignore: texts have
been rescued from obscurity and expertly edited, and important studies
have been published on many leading thinkers, particularly al-Ashar,
al-Maturd, al-Ghazal and Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz, with the pace of pub-
lication quickening somewhat in recent years. As this volume demon-
strates, many of the younger scholars in the field are Muslims, and the
fact that, as in other Orientalist disciplines such as quranic studies,
they have adapted so well to the disciplines paradigms, suggests that
older ideas of Western Islamic studies as a monolithic and structurally
anti-Islamic project now need to be modified, if not discarded altogether.
Yet the field is visibly deficient. Resources and posts in Muslim
theology in Western universities remain woefully inadequate, even
when compared to the situation in Chinese and Indic studies, and
the appeal of the field to students whose initial interest in Islam, in
4 Introduction
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
the imperial and modern periods alike, may have been triggered by
contemporary political, social, or legal issues, has been limited. This
unfortunate situation has been further exacerbated by the sheer
immensity of the literature, most of which remains in manuscript.
Attention continues to be focused on the central Islamic lands, and
although most accept that the kalam curriculum was fairly consistent
throughout the high institutions of the pre-modern Islamic world,9
our detailed knowledge of traditional Muslim metaphysics in regions
such as South-East Asia must be described as embryonic. As a result,
current Western scholarship cannot, with perfect honesty, present any-
thing like a complete synthetic history of Muslim intellectuality, or
even a definitive list of the major thinkers. This is particularly true
for the later period. Although, thanks to the efforts of Henry Corbin,
Hossein Ziai and others, we are aware of the continuing vitality of
Islamic philosophy in the later centuries, and indeed, up to the present
day, the history of kalam after the thirteenth century largely remains
terra incognita.
characteristics
We need to ask: what is Islamic about Islamic theology? Most evi-
dently, it is Islamic to the extent that it may be traced back in some way
to the Prophet Muh _ ammad and his distinctive vision of the One God.
According to his scripture, he was sent as a mercy to the worlds
(Quran 21:107), and one aspect of that mercy, as Muhammad Abdel
Haleem suggests in chapter 1, was that he mapped out a religious path of
great simplicity. This was to be the simplicity of an Abrahamic and
primordial monotheism (milla ibrahmiyya h _ anfiyya), marked by an
iconoclastic rejection of idolatry, a call to repentance, and an unshake-
able trust in the justice and mercy of God. Emerging, as Muslims
believed, to restore unity and a holy simplicity to a confessional world
complicated by Christian disputes over the Trinity and the Incar-
nation,10 the quranic intervention seemed to its hearers to promise a
new age for the human relationship with God, one so straightforward
that in the eyes of a small but persistent margin, there would be no need
for a theology (kalam) at all. Voices are therefore raised against the
kalam enterprise through the Islamic centuries; the angry Censure of
Speculative Theology by Ibn Qudama (d. 1223) assumes that scripture
alone suffices; al-Haraw (d. 1089) agrees, suggesting that kalam is an
unreliable substitute for the true gift of mystical illumination. Both men
had their passionate supporters.11
Introduction 5
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Monotheism, however, is never as simple as most of its advocates
would wish. Its inbuilt paradoxes, which had already exercised and
divided Jews and Christians, ensured that most Muslim thinkers came
to recognise the need for a formal discipline of argument and proof
which could establish the proper sense of a scripture which turned out to
be open to many different interpretations. The trigger, in almost every
case, was the need to defeat the whims (ahwa) of heretics and innov-
ators. Khalid Blankinships chapter provides a survey and assessment of
the first such debates. God was indeed One, and Muh _ ammad was His
final Prophet: this much was never contested. But were Gods names, so
abundant in the Quran, in existence before the world? If so, was it right
to say that they were identical with His essence, or were they in some
way distinct? Did the Quran pre-date its bearer? Why did God insist on
human accountability, when He, as Omnipotent and All-Knowing
Creator, is surely not ignorant of what human beings will do? Are good
and evil intrinsic, or are they utterly subject to the divine volition? Is
faith enough for salvation? In what sense will the Prophet intercede for
sinners? What did he envision when he said that God would be seen by
the blessed in Paradise?
Many disturbing questions of this kind in turn seemed to be genera-
ted by a tension implicit in the Quran itself. Some verses spoke of a God
who seemed utterly transcendent, so that nothing is like him (Quran
42:11). Such a deity is not asked aboutwhat he does (21:23), and appears
to expect only the unquestioning submission (islam) which seemed
implicit in the very name of the new religion. But there were many other
passages which implied a Godwho is indeed, in some sense that urgently
needed definition, analogous to ourselves: a God who is ethically coher-
ent, and whose qualities are immanent in his creation, so that Where-
sover you turn, there is Gods face (2:115). This fundamental tension
between transcendence and immanence, or, as Muslims put it, between
affirming difference (tanzh) and affirming resemblance (tashbh),
became intrinsic to the structuring of knowledge in the new civilisation.
As one aspect of this it could be said, at the risk of very crude general-
isation, that the Qurans theology of transcendence was explored by the
kalam folk, and its theology of immanence by the Sufis, which is why,
perhaps,we should seek for Islams greatest theologians among thosewho
emphasised the symbiosis of the two disciplines. It may be thus, rather
than for any unique originality, that Ghazal came to be called the proof
of Islam, and Ibn Arab the greatest shaykh. Their apparent eclecti-
cism was in fact a programmatic attempt to retrieve an original unity,
which is why scripture is so central to their respective manifestos.
6 Introduction
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
the construction of orthodoxy
If such was the pre-modern culmination of Muslim theology, then
its large story, as this volume shows, was that of a white-hot moment of
pure revelatory renewal at the hands of a Prophet who, as Hans Kung
puts it, was discontinuity in person,12 which with remarkable speed
systematised itself as a set of contesting but seldom fatally divided
schools of law, metaphysics and mysticism, which were then woven
together again in the eclectic theologies of Ghazal and Ibn Arab. For
both thinkers, and for the many lesser minds which attempted the same
synthetic project, the proof of reintegration was a retrieval of a moral and
spiritual understanding of the Law (fiqh), and a reinvigoration of the art
of quranic citation. Ghazals Revival may, within limits, be read as a
quranic commentary, and in the case of Ibn Arab, as Mayer attests, his
intensely esoteric hermeneutic of the Quran is often strictly in line
with the literal sense of the text.13
The various schools contrived to coexist for centuries, building an
intellectual landscape of immense diversity. Ahmed El Shamsy, in his
chapter, explains how in the midst of this process of contestation and
institution-building an orthodoxy came to constitute itself. Lacking
sacraments and a true hierarchy, Islam possessed no mechanisms for
imposing dogmatic conformity on a society that certainly did not recog-
nise Enlightenment-style tolerance, but which nonetheless evolved
means of allowing and even legitimising profound differences in law,
mysticism and doctrine. Hence the four schools of Sunn jurisprudence
came to be seen as equivalently valid, while a less formal attitude pre-
sumed the concurrent viability of themajor Sufi orders (t _ uruq), and of the
three great Sunn theological schools of Asharism, Maturdism and
H _ anbalism. Despite the fury of so much interdenominational polemic,
classical Islam knew only two episodes of systematic state-backed
inquisition: the Mutazilite persecution of their rivals under the Abbasid
caliphs between the years 833 and 848, and, in the sixteenth century, the
brutal destruction of Iranian Sunnism under the Sh revolutionary
regime of the S _ afavids.14 Apart from these two experiences, which gen-
erated or intensified a bitterness against Mutazilism and Shism
which lingered for centuries, the central Islamic lands were as religiously
diverse as Latin Christendom was religiously homogeneous. Hard-line
Mutazilism and Shism, which readily invoked the principle of takfr
(the anathematisation of fellow Muslims), the move which had charac-
terised theKharijite revoltsof theUmayyadperiod,wereprecisely the type
of religious extremism (ghuluww) which Asharite theorists dreaded.15
Introduction 7
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In place of ecclesial authority, medieval Islam came to recognise the
infinitely more ponderous and difficult principle of ijma: the consensus
of believers. True belief, it was thought, would always be the belief of
the majority (jumhur); sects (firaq) were necessarily minorities. The large
and detailed heresiographical literature which supplies so much of our
information about this history everywhere assumes that God is with the
congregation. His mercy and love for the Muslim community ensure
that it will never agree on an error,16 and that the individual who
departs from the community departs to Hellfire.17 Although Sunn
Muslims never agreed on whether the community (jamaa) in question
denoted themass of believers, or only their scholarly representatives, this
attitude clearly calmed the psychological fear that heresy might one day
prevail. No doubt this supplies one reason why, as van Ess claims,
strictly speaking, Islam had no religious wars like those in Europe,18
and why Sunn states seldom ventured to impose doctrines and practices
upon the population (tadb al-amma).19 Given that the Islamic liturgy
does not include the recital of a detailed creed, Muslims of various per-
suasions could and did attend the same mosque services. Keeping ones
own counsel was relatively easy.
Given such opportunities, it is curious that Islamic sectarianism did
not develop more exuberantly than in fact it did. It is very difficult to
discern, from the pages of the Sunn heresiographers, the popularity of
the early sects. Yet it is clear that the majority of Muslims favoured a
simple median interpretation which appeared to be faithful to the plain
sense of scripture, but which allowed some room for the formalising of
creeds against which error could be defined. Elite Muslims who sought
to develop advanced theologies needed to be mindful of the preferences
of the believing masses. Perhaps this was seen as fidelity to the Prophet
and the original collective spirit of sancta simplicitas; perhaps, also, it
resulted from the fear that a theology which angered the multitudes
might lead to disturbances which could provoke the wrath of a sultan.
The Mutazilite scholars who successfully persuaded the Abbasid caliph
to adopt an elitist and abstract theology which seemed equally far from
the scriptures and the comprehension of the masses were obliged to use
force to compel conformity, and although most scholars complied,
popular incredulity ensured their ultimate downfall.
The power of the masses did much to ensure that mainstream
Sunnism developed as a set of median positions. Sayings of the Prophet
could be found to support the idea that Islam was a middle way
(wasat _ ).20 Perhaps even the straight path which Muslims daily prayed
to be shown was a middle path, specifically between what were claimed
8 Introduction
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to be the mirrored distortions of historical Judaism and Christianity.21
So as an awareness grew that there was a tension between the quranic
verses which saw God as transcendent or immanent, it was thought
necessary to chart what Ghazal called the just mean in belief
(al-iqtis _ ad fil-itiqad), which lay between two forms of ghuluww.
Theologians who, like the mysterious Jahm ibn S _ afwan, stripped God of
all attributes, transcendentalised Him beyond all possibility of know-
ledge, while extremist H _ anbalites who thought that God literally pos-
sessed dimensions, altitude, a hand and a face, seemed to
advocate a finite God, by developing a corporealism which looked like
the opposite extreme of the same spectrum.
This was not the only key controversy in which the Sunn main-
stream liked to define itself as amiddle position. Addressing the question
of the status of sinners, Blankinships chapter shows how the early
community attempted to negotiate amiddle path between the Kharijites,
who rejected sinners as apostates, and other groups, who held that sin has
no effect on an individuals status as a believing Muslim, or that one
should simply suspend judgement. Nader El-Bizri, in his chapter on the
debate over Gods attributes, shows how orthodoxy situated itself
between the extremes of either negating the attributes, or concretising
them in a way that might compromise the divine unity and transcend-
ence. Similarly, on the free will versus determinism debate, Steffen
Stelzer, David Burrell and others show that Muslims tended to favour a
median position in the form of the doctrine of Acquisition (kasb), and
the merits of the via media in this context were explicitly extolled
by Ghazal.22 Overall, it is fair to see the popularity of Asharism,
Maturdism and (on a far smaller scale) of moderate H _ anbalism as the
long-term consequence of the communitys instinctive dislike of doc-
trines that seemed to err on the side of excess. It was only in the context
of Shism, with its more hierarchical ordering of authority, that the
Mutazilite doctrines found a permanent place, and even here, as Sajjad
Rizvi shows, some of the more austere Mutazilite principles were not
maintained.
reason and revelation
Closely linked to this dialectic was the even more taxing balance
which high medieval Islam thought it had achieved between reason
(aql) and revelation (naql). Those who stressed the former tended to
assume that the Qurans arguments for itself proceed on the principle
that reason is prior to the authority of revelation; they therefore tended
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to support a strongly abstract model of God; strict scripturalists, by
contrast, often inclined to anthropomorphism. It was generally admitted
that metaphysics was primarily the domain of aql, while issues of
prophetic authority, and the features of the next world, could be known
only through revelation. Marcia Hermansens chapter on eschatology
brings home the strongly scripturalist nature of the arguments here.
Such matters were samiyyat, doctrines received ex auditu, and were
acknowledged to be unprovable by reason, although not unreasonable in
themselves.
But the aql/naql tension in Islam went far beyond this. To some
extent it defined the discipline of kalam against the disciplines of law and
Sufism, even though, as we have seen, these three were regularly
reintegrated and seldom became dangerously divorced. As Asharism and
Maturdism evolved, beyond the critical twelfth century they became
systematic theologies in the truest sense: in the works of Taftazan, Ij
and Jurjan, scriptural references are common, but the crucial opening
treatment of metaphysics (ilahiyyat) is clearly figured as a reason-based
vindication of doctrines which can also be known separately through
scripture. The initiative championed by Ghazal, which sought to show
the symbiosis of law, Sufism, scripture and kalam, was not incorporated
at all into kalam in its final stage of development, but flourished, as has
been seen, in the tradition of Ibn Arab. Kalam remained always a dis-
course of divine transcendence, of aporia and of logic, which vindicated
claims made through revelation and mystical insight, but never incorp-
orated them into its epistemology.
The triumph of transcendentalism and of an austere negative the-
ology in kalam is striking, and might seem to challenge the claim, made
earlier, that doctrines and disciplines tended to emerge as orthodox
through popular sanction. Certainly it is intriguing that the H _ anbal
alternative in most places represented no more than a small fringe, just
as the H _ anbal definition of Shara remained the smallest of the rites of
law. The iconic hard-line champion of this school, Ibn Taymiyya, whose
challenge to Ghazals approach is referred to in Paul Hardys contri-
bution to this volume, is not conspicuous in the catalogues of Islamic
manuscript libraries; his current renown is a recent phenomenon.23 Ibn
Taymiyya was, indeed, imprisoned for heresy, a relatively unusual
occurrence, and it would be hard to imagine Muslim society, or its rulers
or scholars, punishing more philosophical thinkers like Ghazal, or Raz,
or Taftazan, in the same way. Hard H _ anbalism offered a simple lit-
eralism to troubled urban masses, and occasionally won their violent,
riotous support, but the consensus of Muslims passed it by.
10 Introduction
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The communitys historic rejection of Mutazilism and H _ anbalism
had much to do with distaste at the violence with which those ten-
dencies sought to promote themselves. The demise of Kharijism can
probably be attributed to a comparable disenchantment. Very different
was the apparent decay of falsafa, the Arabic extension of Hellenistic
thought, which a much earlier generation of Western commentators,
harking back to Ernest Renan if not before, once thought might have
been the salvation of an otherwise unreasonable religion. The advocates
of falsafas refined and abstract view of Islam could never have enjoyed
much street credibility, and this always told against them. Yet in recent
research the important story of the later evolution of this paradigm has
emerged as a much more complex process than was once believed.
the fate of falsafa
As Hossein Ziai demonstrates in his chapter, Abbasid civilisation
showed itself willing and able to embark on one of the most ambitious
projects of deliberate cultural borrowing known to history. If the Quran
represents a first moment of Islamic xenophilia, rejecting the indigenous
beliefs of the Arabs in favour of the monotheistic worldview and
prophetic tales of their neighbours and rivals, then the process whereby
Greek texts were translated into Arabic is surely the second. (The third,
which is Islams engagement with modernity, lies outside the scope of
this volume.) Oliver Leaman demonstrates that what was at stake in the
contest between kalam, traditionalism and this imaginative synthesis of
Islamic, Neoplatonic and Aristotelian strands was not reason against
revelation, but rather the strategy by which these ought to be brought
into conversation and synthesis. Even the H _ anbalites, as he reminds us,
could not be said to be against reason.
Falsafa fascinated many, far beyond the small coteries in which it
was formally translated and debated. Yahya Michot has written else-
where of an Avicennian pandemic,24 a rapid spread of Avicennas
system which has no parallel in Islamic intellectual history, apart from
the even more sudden diffusion of Ibn Arabs thought which took
place in the middle and late thirteenth century. Once believed to have
been dealt a mortal blow by Ghazal, Avicennas system is now known
to have prospered mightily after him.25 That this should have succeeded
is no great surprise; after all, it has been argued that Avicenna had
already borrowed from the kalam thinkers, for instance in evolving his
key essence/existence distinction.26 If, as one modern historian presents
matters, the ancient effort to reconcile Aristotles various positions was
Introduction 11
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the creation of a Lesser Symphony, and late antiquitys attempt to
reconcile Aristotle with Plato was the Great Symphony,27 then it
might be said that later kalam functioned as a third symphony, whose
goal was the completion of the somewhat haphazard attempt by
Avicenna to integrate Semitic monotheism into his philosophy.
Even the most superficial perusal of a late kalam work will reveal
the immense influence which Avicenna exerted on the framing of
Muslim orthodoxy. Although the process is still imperfectly mapped,
many scholars are accepting a view which presents Avicenna, not
Ghazal, as the watershed between the ancient (mutaqaddimun) and
modern (mutaakhkhirun) theologians, so that the turn in Sunni
kalamwas therefore Avicennian, not Ghazalian.28 Falsafa as a separate
discipline did not die, and, as Ziai shows, it continued to flourish under
the name of h _ ikmat in Iran. Among Sunns, Avicenna continued to be
taught in tandem with the kalam texts which took him, as well as the
scriptures, as their point of departure for the study of God, who was now
explicitly defined in Avicennian terms as the Necessary Existent. The
Ottoman chief judge Molla Kestelli (d. 1495) was proud to have read
Avicennas Shifa seven times,29 and Avicenna continued to be referred
to extensively by some Sunns as well as many Shs up to and beyond
the dawn of modernity. The field has moved far from older Orientalist
images, purveyed notably by Leo Strauss, of a falsafa tradition that lived
in fear of an orthodox backlash.30 On the contrary, as we now
acknowledge, there was not a single such philosopher who was ever
persecuted, let alone executed, for his philosophical views.31
The puzzle of the decline of Hellenism in Islam has thus turned out
not to be a puzzle at all, for the simple reason that it did not happen. On
the contrary, we now know that Hellenism became so dominant in
kalam that Taftazan (d. 1389), author of perhaps the most widely used
text of later Muslim theology, wrote that the kalam folk had incorp-
orated most of the physics and metaphysics, and delved deeply into the
mathematics, so that but for the samiyyat, kalam was hardly distin-
guishable from falsafa.32 The historian Ibn Khaldun made a very
similar observation.33 In many forms of Sufism, too, we recognise a
strong falsafa component: there is an Avicennian strand in Ibn Arab,
for instance, and Suhrawards illuminationist philosophy flourished
in Anatolian Sufism, particularly among commentators on Rum.
Throughout Islamic civilisation the Avicennian insistance on theology
as the crown of metaphysics moved Muslim intellectuals towards
metaphysical arguments for the existence and nature of God; Ayman
Shihadeh, in his chapter, shows the extent to which Avicennism was a
12 Introduction
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major tributary of the later kalam, particularly in the key argument from
contingency.
Nonetheless, as several authors in this collection demonstrate,
falsafa as a discipline was progressively overtaken, or perhaps swallowed
up, by Sunn kalam at some point after the twelfth century. Perhaps the
reason for this was the same factor which had caused the translation
movement to wind down two centuries earlier: the ideas had been
successfully transmitted. Falsafa functioned as an intermediary school,
a module provisionally and imperfectly integrated into Muslim culture
which allowed Muslim thinkers to entertain Greek ideas and choose
those which seemed to them persuasive and true. As a system, however,
it did not possess the resources to survive indefinitely. Once Muslims
found that their need for a sophisticated philosophical theology was
satisfied by the kalam, falsafa as an independent discipline naturally
withered.
This process was no doubt accelerated by the congregational
principle alluded to above. Although Avicenna and Averroes had both
served as religious judges, their systems were hardly calculated to attract
the masses. Neither were the complexities of the kalam folk, but the
latter nonetheless possessed an advantage. Falsafa had inherited certain
concepts which, reproduced and elaborated by Arabic-speaking philoso-
phers, seemed unacceptable even to eirenically minded Semitic mono-
theists. TheGreek conception of a hierarchy of animate heavens provides
one example of an idea of ultimately pagan provenance that was destined
to fade away in Islam. Asharism andMaturdismwere likewise unhappy
with the stark determinism of the Neoplatonists, who had taught that
Gods actions were the ineluctable consequence of his essence, thus
negating both human and divine freedom. With reservations, Asharism,
and to a lesser degree Maturdism, accepted a predetermined universe,
but this was shaped by Gods attribute of power, which for them was
separate from his essence.34 Muslim thought wished to affirm a free and
reasonable deity, and this falsafa was unable to supply.35
A separate category of falsafa tenets not only was offensive to
Muslim assurances about a morally coherent and autonomous God, but
seemed to violate certain fundamental scriptural assurances. As David
Burrell notes in his chapter on Muslim doctrines of creation, the
quranic deity who creates ex nihilowas an impossibility for the Greeks,
who favoured a model of eternal emanation. Burrell shows how Ghazal,
in his The Incoherence of the Philosophers, refutes this belief, together
with two others which seemed both un-Quranic and metaphysically
absurd. Yet the Incoherence is not a thoroughgoing manifesto against
Introduction 13
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Avicennian metaphysics; instead it inveighs against certain ancient
Hellenistic principles that seemed to have acquired the status of school
doctrines.36 Ghazal in fact zealously integrated Greek techniques, the
modal logic most notably, into Islamic thought,37 thus opening the way
for the systematic theology of Raz, and the thirteenth-century golden
age of Arabic logic.38
The picture that emerges is becoming clearer, and is in fact not
terribly surprising. Medieval Muslims treated Greek philosophy rather
as modern theologians treat modern secular philosophy. They recoiled at
some of its conclusions, and enriched their thought-worlds by con-
structing imaginative refutations, but they displayed an abiding fascin-
ation with its mindset and its methods. While wemay, depending on our
philosophical preferences, speak of an age of decline, we cannot say that
the decline was one of sophistication or of a willingness to use reason
or foreign sciences. Muslim orthodoxy did not shed Hellenism, but
steadily accumulated it, and continued to extol the core Aristotelian
discipline of logic, not only in kalam, but in law.39 The kalam had come
into being as an apologetic exercise to defeat error, a therapeutic
pragmatism as Shihadeh puts it,40 and the absence of major new sect-
arian movements following its final establishment is presumably a sign
that, on its own terms, it did not substantially fall prey to decadence.
Notes
1. Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers: A History of Mans Changing Vision of the Universe (London, 1959), p.105. For the attitude see Dimitri Gutas, The study of Arabic philosophy in the twentieth century: an essay on the historiography of Arabic philosophy, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 29 (2002), pp.1012.
2. Robert Wisnovsky, Avicennas Metaphysics in Context (London, 2003), p.301.
3. Louis Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, tr. Benjamin Clark (Notre Dame, 1997), pp.346, 756, 948.
4. See Michael E. Marmura, Ghazal and Asharism revisited, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 12 (2002), pp.91110. Among other reasons for the acceptability of Sufism one might cite the precedent of the Prophets own mystical ascension to God (miraj).
5. Ayman Shihadeh, From al-Ghazal to al-Raz: 6th/12th century developments in Muslim philosophical theology, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 15 (2005), pp.176, 177.
6. James Morris, Ibn Arab and his interpreters, Journal of the American Oriental Society 106 (1986), p.733.
7. Wisnovsky, Avicennas Metaphysics, pp.22744.
14 Introduction
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8. For the relationship between Christian anti-Semitism and Islamophobia see Achim Rohde, Der Innere Orient: Orientalismus, Antisemitismus und Geschlecht im Deutschland dem 18. bis 20. Jahrhunderts,Welt des Islams 45 (2005), pp.34470. Ernest Renan, fountainhead of many Orientalist assumptions about Islamic irrationality, was also given to large theories about the Semitic mind; see Charles Chauvin, Renan (Paris, 2000), pp.945.
9. Francis Robinson, Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals: shared knowledge and connective systems, Journal of Islamic Studies 8 (1997), pp.15184.
10. Cf. Quran 19:37; 43:65. 11. Ibn Qudama al-Maqdis, Tah
_ rm al-naz
_ ar f kutub ahl al-kalam, tr.
George Makdisi as Censure of Speculative Theology (London, 1962); S. de Laugier de Beaurecueil, Khwadja Abdullah Ans
_ ar: mystique
H _ anbalite (Beirut, 1965), pp.20421.
12. Hans Kung, Christianity and the World Religions (London, 1984), p.25.
13. For the centrality of the Quran to Ibn Arab, consider C.-A. Gilis, Le Coran et la fonction dHermes (Paris, 1984). Cf. James Morris: Nor can one study any work of his for long without developing a transformed awareness of and sensitivity to the words and deeper dimensions of the Quran (Ibn Arab and his interpreters, p.551).
14. Jean Calmard, Les rituals shiites et le pouvoir: limposition du shiisme Safavide: eulogies et maledictions canoniques, in Jean Calmard (ed.), Etudes Safavides (Paris and Tehran, 1993), pp.10950.
15. For aspects of takfr see Frank Griffel, Apostasie und Toleranz im Islam: Die Entwicklung zu al-Gazals Urteil gegen die Philosophie und die Reaktionen der Philosophen (Leiden, 2000); for the Mutazilite enthusiasm for takfr see pp.15164.
16. For the use of this hadith, see the traditional treatment by Mohammed HashimKamali,Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence, 3rd edn (Cambridge, 2003), pp.22863.
17. Hadith in Tirmidh, Fitan, 7. 18. Josef van Ess, The Flowering of Muslim Theology (Cambridge, MA,
2006), p.43. 19. Van Ess (ibid., p.142) attributes the tadb al-amma principle to Iranian,
not indigenous, Islamic sources. 20. Muh
_ ammad al-Sakhaw, al-Maqas
_ id al-H
_ asana f bayan kathrin min
al-ah _ adth al-mushtahira alal-alsina, ed. M. al-Khusht (Beirut, 1405/
1985), p.332. 21. Abu Jafar Muh
_ ammad ibn Jarr al-T
_ abar, The Commentary on the
Quran, tr. J. Cooper (Oxford, 1987), pp.77, 78; and, Jami al-bayan an tawl ayi al-Quran, ed. M. and A. Shakir (Cairo, 1374 ah), iii, p.142 (to Quran 2:143).
22. Marmura, Ghazal and Asharism revisited, p.103. 23. Khaled El-Rouayheb, From Ibn H
_ ajar al-Haytam (d. 1566) to Khayr
al-Dn al-Alus (d. 1899): changing conceptions of Ibn Taymiyya amongst Sunn scholars, in Mohammed S. Ahmed and Yosef Rapoport (eds.), Ibn Taymiyya and His Times (Oxford, 2008).
Introduction 15
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
24. Yahya Michot, La pandemie avicennienne au VIe/XIIe siecle, Arabica 40 (1993), pp.288344.
25. Dimitri Gutas, The heritage of Avicenna: the golden age of Arabic philosophy, 1000c. 1350, in Jules Janssens and Daniel De Smet (eds.), Avicenna and His Heritage (Leuven, 2002), pp.8197.
26. Wisnovsky, Avicennas metaphysics, pp.16, 14580. For a challenge to this view see the review by Allan Back in Ars Disputandi,
27. Wisnovsky, Avicennas Metaphysics, p.15. 28. Robert Wisnovsky, One aspect of the Avicennian turn in Sunn
theology, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 14 (2004), p.65. 29. Mecd Meh
_ med Efendi, H
_ adaiq al-Saqaiq (Istanbul, 1269 ah), p.165.
However, after the fifteenth century, references to Ottoman ulema reading independent falsafa works are very unusual.
30. Daniel Tanguay, Leo Strauss: une biographie intellectuelle (Paris, 2003), pp.889.
31. Gutas, The heritage of Avicenna, p.20 (emphasis in original). 32. Sad al-Dn al-Taftazan, in Mus
_ lih
_ al-Dn Mus
_ t _ afa al-Qast
_ allan (Molla
Kestelli), H _ ashiyat al-Kestell ala Sharh
_ al-aqaid (Istanbul, 1326 ah),
p.17. 33. Shihadeh, From al-Ghazal to al-Raz, p.175: falsafa and kalam came
to be as if one and the same discipline. 34. Taneli Kukkonen, Possible worlds in the Tahafut al-Falasifa:
al-Ghazal on creation and contingency, Journal of the History of Philosophy 38 (2000), p.484.
35. The idea that kalam advocated an arbitrary God whose possible actions are not bound by logic, as in the Z
_ ahirite theology of Ibn H
_ azm, is
dismissed by Kukkonen, ibid., p.493, in connection with Ghazals thought.
36. Jules Janssens, Al-Ghazzals Tahafut: is it really a rejection of Avicennas philosophy?, Journal of Islamic Studies 12 (2001), pp.117.
37. Michael E. Marmura, Ghazal and Demonstrative Science, Journal of the History of Philosophy 3 (1965), pp.183204.
38. Tony Street, Arabic logic, in Dov M. Gabbay and John Woods (eds.), Handbook of the History of Logic, i (Amsterdam, etc., 2004), p.527.
39. Khaled El-Rouayheb, Sunni Muslim scholars on the status of logic, 15001800, in Islamic Law and Society 11 (2004), pp.21332.
40. Shihadeh, From al-Ghazal to al-Raz, p.147.
16 Introduction
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
1 Quran and hadith
m. a. s. abdel haleem
the quran
The Quran is the starting-point of Islamic theology, and indeed of
all things Islamic. As technically defined by Islamic theology and law, it
is the corpus of Arabic utterances sent down by God to Muh _ ammad,
conveyed in a way that categorically establishes its authenticity.1
For the tradition, this classical definition summarises the basic
characteristics of the Quran and distinguishes it from anything else the
Prophet said. The key phrase is sent down by God, for God speaks
directly in the Quran, and Muh _ ammad is seen as a passive recipient to
whom the Book was simply sent down; however, it is the last element
of the definition which is most significant in considering the historical
basis for Islamic beliefs.
According to the Muslim historians, the first revelation consisted of
two lines in Arabic: in the year 610, Muh _ ammad was engaged in a
spiritual retreat in a cave outside Mecca when he was approached by an
angel who said to him: Read! He replied that he could not read, but the
angel repeated the command, and received the same response; the third
time, the angel recited to him the words: Read, in the name of your
Lord, who created (96:16). This revelatory experience was soon fol-
lowed by another, when a second short passage was delivered; and
between that time and shortly before the Prophets death at the age of
sixty-three years, the entire text of the Muslim scripture gradually
appeared. New revelations appeared in order to supply new teaching,
commenting on events or answering questions according to circum-
stance.
That the Quran is the Word of God revealed to the Prophet
Muh _ ammad is seen by Muslims to be confirmed by the revelations
language. The first word revealed (Read!) is an imperative addressed to
the Prophet, linguistically excluding his authorship of the text. This
mode is maintained throughout the Quran. The Book speaks to the
19
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Prophet, or talks about him, and nowhere leaves him to speak for
himself. The Quran describes itself as a scripture which God sent
down to His prophet, and this expression, sent down, in its various
derivations, is used in the Quran well over 200 times. In Arabic this
locution conveys immediately, and, implicitly, the principle that the
origin of the Book is heavenly, and that Muh _ ammad is no more than its
receptacle. God is the one who speaks in this Book: Muh _ ammad
is addressed as O Prophet!, O Messenger!, Do, Do not do,
They ask you . . . , Say! (this last command appearing more than 300
times). Sometimes the Prophet is reproached (9:43; 80:111). His status
is unequivocally defined as messenger (rasul), and he is often
reminded that his duty is simply to communicate (balagh) the message
to his community.
A hadith reports that during his first experience of revelation the
Prophet was alone in the cave, but subsequent circumstances in which
the received episodes of revelation were witnessed by others and
recorded. Sometimes these witnesses would report visible, audible and
sensory reactions when the Prophet experienced the state of revela-
tion. His face would become bright, and he would fall silent and
seem to be contemplating distant things; his body would become heavy
as though in sleep, a humming sound would be heard around him, and
sweat might appear on his brow, even on winter days. This stage would
swiftly end, and as it did so he would immediately recite new verses of
the scripture. The sources report that this state was not the Prophets to
command: it might descend on him as he was walking, sitting, riding or
giving a sermon, and there were occasions when he waited for it anx-
iously for over a month when he needed an answer to a question he had
been asked, or sought an interpretation of some event. The Prophet and
his followers understood these signs as experiences accompanying the
communication of scriptural verses by Gabriel, the Angel of Revelation;
his adversaries explained them as proof that he was possessed, and in
this regard, the Quran itself records many claims and attacks made
upon it and upon the Prophet in his lifetime.2
The evidence suggests that for the Prophet himself, the Quran was
sent down and communicated to him by the faithful Spirit, Gabriel,
and was categorically not his own speech. Stylistically, quranic material
which the Prophet recited following the states of revelation described
above is so evidently different from the Prophets own sayings as
recorded in the hadith, whether uttered incidentally or after long
reflection, that the tradition has always ascribed them to two radically
different levels of discourse.
20 M.A. S. Abdel Haleem
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
For the Quran, the Prophet is the passive recipient of a revelation
over which he has no control, and which does not allow for dialogue,
even between him and the Angel of Revelation. By contrast, a general
feature of the hadith is a constant conversation addressed to and reported
by named individuals. In hadiths narrating the actions of the Prophet,
there is often a description of the setting and the occasion, where the
narrator speaks at length, while the Prophet, if he is involved, speaks
only a few words, and perhaps not at all.
The Muslim historians report that with each new accumulation in
the quranic corpus, the Prophet would recite it to those around him,
who would memorise it and in turn communicate it to others.
Throughout his mission the Prophet repeatedly read the Quran to his
followers in formal prayer and at other times. An inner circle of his
disciples wrote down the verses that he taught them. He himself was
assiduous in having the text recorded even in the days of persecution,
and he acquired scribes for this purpose (twenty-nine have been counted
in the Medina period).
The word Quran itself means reading, and came to refer to the
text which is read. The Muslim scripture often calls itself kitab,
writing, and this word came to denote the scripture, the written
book. Thus the significance of uttering and writing the revealed
scripture was emphasised from the beginning of the new religion, and is
locked into the very nouns that designate the quranic canon.
Quranic revelations are believed to have come to the Prophet
piecemeal over a period of twenty-three years. The disparate material is
invariably divided into 114 suras (sections, conventionally translated
in English as chapters). A sura may consist of no more than one line,
such as suras 108 and 112; while sura 2, the longest, stretches over
dozens of pages. Each sura consists of verses, each known in Arabic as
aya (a sign from God). Some suras contain Meccan and Medinan ayas:
the order of material in each sura, according to classical Muslim
teaching, having been determined by the Prophet at the command of the
Angel of Revelation, who delivered the quranic material to him. The
hadith record that when each new unit of text was received he would
request his disciples to place it in a given chapter, and the result was that
material was distributed over the suras not in chronological order of
appearance, but as they were to be read by the Prophet and the believers.3
Over the years, in formal liturgical practice and in counselling his
followers, the Prophet recited quranic material so frequently and at such
length that it is reasonable to regard the current sequence of suras today
as faithfully reflecting this original arrangement. By the time of the
Quran and hadith 21
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Prophets death in the year 632, the entire scripture had been written
down in the form of uncollated sections, but many of his followers,
having spent years in his company where the Quran was a constant
presence, had memorised much or all of the text, and the book was
principally experienced as an aural phenomenon.4 These men and
women were members of a cultural world that had a longstanding
tradition of committing literature, history and genealogy to memory.
Two years after the Prophets death, the battle of Yamama against the
people of Najd in Central Arabia took place, in which a number of those
who knew the text lost their lives, and the sources report that it was
feared that parts of the text might be lost. The first caliph, Abu Bakr
(6324), therefore ordered that the Quran should be collected in a single
written copy, which was then placed in the custody of Umar, and, after
his death, was left with the Prophets widow H _ afs
_ a. This copy was the
basis of the codex issued in several copies by the third caliph, Uthman
(64456), to be distributed to several parts of the Muslim world to ensure
that a universal standard text of the scripture would prevail. This has
remained the sole canonical text of the Quran, recognised by Sunn and
Sh theologians to the present time.5
the hadith
Although the Quran is the unrivalled supreme revelation of Islam,
the tradition also recognises a second form of revealed scripture: the
hadith (h _ adth). Technically, Muslims came to define the hadith as the
attested reports of the sayings, actions, and tacit approvals and accounts
of the Prophet Muh _ ammad.6 These present records of the Prophets
statements, as well as statements by his companions relating to him.
Collectively the hadith literature provides evidence for the Prophets way
of life (sunna), so that theword sunna is in the eyes of many synonymous
with the word h _ adth.7 The relationship between the Quran and hadith
iswell defined: the hadith either emphasiseswhat is in theQuran (sunna
muakkida), explains the manner in which something should be carried
out (sunna mubayyina) or introduces teaching based on certain quranic
verses or principles (sunna muthbita). The latter category in particular
was to become a prime source of material for the theologians.
The vast corpus of hadith includes reports of the Prophets childhood
and his experiences inMecca before his prophetic career began; but most
hadith refer to the Medina period, when the Prophet had thousands of
followers who asked him questions and received instruction from him in
all aspects of the new religion.8 The hadith show the Prophet as a skilled
22 M.A. S. Abdel Haleem
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communicator and teacher.9 In Medina he was with his Companions for
nearly all the daylight hours and for much of the evening; his house gave
on to the mosque, and some hadith show that even when at home he
would sometimes hear heated discussions taking place in the mosque
and would come out to resolve the dispute. This constant interaction led
to the creation of the immense body of hadith, which he is recorded as
urging his followers to pass on to others: God bless the one who has
heard me say something and preserved it [in his memory] so that he can
pass it on to others, for many a person carries knowledge to others more
knowledgeable than himself.10
However, whereas with quranic material the sources record that the
Prophet was careful to have it written down as well as learnt by heart,
this was not the case with the hadith. In fact, there is evidence to suggest
that only once the Quran was fully recorded did he begin to allow those
Companions who could write proficiently to record the hadith in writ-
ten form.11 After his death, the caliph Umar I (63444) is said to have
debated a scheme to have the hadith collected into a single text; he
decided against this, fearing that it might come to rival the Quran. The
collection of hadith appears not to have received official sanction until
the time of the Umayyad caliph Umar II (71719), who seems to have
initiated and partly carried out the task of collating the material. But by
the beginning of the second Muslim century the writing down of hadith
and of other forms of Muslim learning was spreading exponentially. The
community came to revere three successive generations who inaugur-
ated and shaped this process. These were the Companions (s _ ah
_ aba) of
the Prophet, a category made up of all who saw him or heard him speak
(the last is said to have died in the year 110 ah); the Successors (tabiun)
who received the hadith from the Companions (the last of these,
according to some claims, died in 180); and the Successors of the Suc-
cessors (atba al-tabin), some of whom allegedly lived until the first
quarter of the third century of Islam.
Because of the delay in commencing the authentication process, and
because of the sheer size of the hadith material (which was preserved in
the form of perhaps a million separate reports), the early Muslim
scholars admitted the existence of a large number of forgeries and dis-
tortions, many of which echoed early sectarian tensions. In reaction, the
growing class of scholars (ulama) slowly developed intricate methods
for assessing the reliability of individual hadith reports. A tradition of
travelling in search of relevant information began, retracing the foot-
steps of the Companions and others who had migrated to the far corners
of the new Islamic world. We are told, for instance, that it took the
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Central Asian al-Bukhar (d. 870) sixteen years of travel and study to
assemble his collection.12
Bukhars criteria for accepting a hadith as sound (s _ ah
_ h _ ) were that
it should have reached him from the Prophet on the authority of a
well-known Companion, by means of a continuous chain (isnad) of
narrators who, according to his records, had been accepted unanimously
by trustworthy scholars as men and women of integrity, retentive
memories and firm faith. If they did not explicitly state that they had
received the material from their own teachers, he took care to establish
that they had demonstrably met those whom they cited as teachers.
Given the overwhelmingly oral nature of the hadith in the early
period, it was only natural that hadith specialists should have begunwith
the chain of narrators; but their criticismwas not limited to this. General
principles for the criticism of the transmitted text (matn) of the hadiths
evolved during the second and third Islamic centuries, and foremost
among these principles was the understanding that a hadith should not
contradict the Quran, or other hadiths which were already and generally
accepted as authentic, and that it must not conflict with the absolute
consensus of the community (ijma qat _ ), or a list of accepted general
principles of the religion. For a hadith to be an acceptable source of
practice or of doctrine it was thought that it should not contradict the
established historical facts known about the time of the Prophet, or report
an event that should have been visible to a large number of people yet was
not reported by anyone else, or be the result of any demonstrably partisan
motivations. Traditional Muslim scholars continue to assert, with some
justification, that this insistence on authenticity and exactitude in
determining the scriptural canon is unparalleled in other pre-modern
cultures. In consequence, a body of accepted hadith was able to form a
highly reputable second source ofMuslim teachingwhich, itwas thought,
should complement and augment the doctrine of the Quran itself.
scriptural dogmas
The most elementary components of Islamic faith might be said to
appear in a single quranic verse:
The Messenger believes in what has been sent down to him from his
Lord, as do the faithful. They all believe in God, His angels, His
scriptures and His messengers: We make no distinction between
any of His messengers. They say: We hear and obey; grant us Your
forgiveness, our Lord. To You we all return. (2:285)
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On the basis of this and similar statements, Islamic theology was often
broken down into the following five basic components: belief in one
God, His messengers, His books, His angels, and the day of judgement.
In traditional Muslim theology, any credal article fundamental
enough to distinguish believer from non-believer has to be established by
categorical proof-texts which have been rigorously transmitted and
which indisputably mean what they are claimed to mean. Accordingly,
fundamental matters of creed (aqda) can only13 be based on the Quran,
since it is believed to be categorically authentic in the highest degree,
and only on such verses in the Quran that are indisputable in meaning
(qat _ al-dalala).14
A rather small number of axiomatic beliefs fall into this category.
They came to be distinguished from a range of other theological prob-
lems, such as whether God can be seen by the human eye, whether His
attributes are other than His essence, whether or not a person com-
mitting a major sin will be punished everlastingly, whether there will be
a mahd who will come at the end of time, whether or not Jesus will
return in person, whether or not it is obligatory for God to do what is
best for people, whether or not a person creates his own actions volun-
tarily, and whether or not the sins people commit are willed by God.
These issues, which have been disputed by the theologians, are not
taken by Asharism, the main school of Muslim orthodoxy, to be the
most fundamental axioms of the creed, and disbelief in any one of them
will not put anyone outside the fold of Islam, since they are not estab-
lished by absolutely categorical proof-texts in the scriptures.
A salient feature of the quranic presentations of doctrines is that
they are not treated together and exhaustively in a single sura. Instead,
as the medieval exegete al-Raz concludes in his account of the stylistic
habits of the Quran, they are the armature of other, practical teach-
ings.15 Thus even in discussions of legal matters, theological statements
often come before and afterwards, reminding the reader of Gods power
and glory, and also of the judgement, both of past nations and at the end
of time. It is these scattered declarations, together with the names which
God has given Himself in the Quran, which form the quranic quarry
from which Muslim theology is hewn.
The core of Islamic theology is limited to the explanation and
defence of the five fundamental beliefs listed above. In the s _ ah
_ h _ hadith
anthologies of Bukhar and Muslim we find these reiterated; to give but
one well-known example, in a hadith related by the second caliph
Umar, the beliefs given in Quran 2:285 are reported in the same order:
When the Prophet was asked: Tell me what is faith (man), he replied:
Quran and hadith 25
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Faith is to believe in God, His angels, His books, His messengers, and
the Last Day, and to believe in divine destiny, whether good or bad. 16
This hadith merely repeats the information supplied in Quran 2:285,
adding the belief in destiny established elsewhere in the scripture, as at
57:223 and 64:11.
The first belief: monotheism
The Quran emerged in contestation with a polytheistic culture, and
affirming Gods unity (tawh _ d) is its most fundamental tenet. A char-
acteristic feature of the Quran is that its urging of faith in God is
accompanied by an argument, which is a straightforward argument from
design.17 In numerous passages, the Quran argues for the existence,
unity and grace of God, for example in the many Signs verses:
Another of His signs is the way He created spouses of your own kind
for you to find repose with one another He ordained love and
kindness between you. There truly are signs in this for those who
reflect. Another of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the
earth, the diversity of your languages and colours. There truly are
signs in this for those who know. (30:212)
the Who verses:
Say [Prophet]: Who provides for you from the sky and the earth?
Who controls hearing and sight? Who brings forth the living from
the dead and the dead from the living, and who governs all things?
They are sure to say: God. Then say: So why do you not take
heed of Him? (10:31)
and the It is He verses:
It is He who sends down water from the sky. With it We produce
the shoots of each plant, then bring greenery from it, and from that
We bring out grains, one riding on the other in close-packed rows.
From the date-palm come clusters of low-hanging dates, and there
are gardens of vines, olives and pomegranates, alike yet different
watch their fruits as they grow and ripen! In all this there are signs
for those who would believe. (6:99)
Other inductive arguments:
If there had been in the heavens or earth any gods but Him, both
heavens and earth would be in ruins. (21:23)
26 M.A. S. Abdel Haleem
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Nor is there any god beside Him if there were, each god would have
taken his creation aside and tried to overcome the others. (23:91)
Say [Prophet]: Consider those you pray to other than God: showme
which bit of the earth they created or which share of the heavens
they own; bring me a previous scripture or some vestige of divine
knowledge, if what you say is true. (46:4)
Believing in or calling on any deity other than God is termed shirk
(partnership), which is the only unforgivable sin (4:116), unless one
repents (25:6870). It is God that should be worshipped: there is no god
but God (47:19). This mode of expression is the most categorical
possible in Arabic grammar. All gods are denied, with the exception of
God Himself.
The second belief: in angels
The pagan Arabs of Mecca believed that the angels were the
daughters of God; and this met with a quranic response.
One of their fabrications is that they say, God has begotten how
they lie! (37:1512)
The angels exist, and are creatures, not disobeying Gods commands
(66:6). Some of them convey Gods messages to the Prophets (32:51);
they encourage and pray for the believers (40:79); some record human
actions (50:1718), while others take human souls at death (32:11).
Angels praise God (2:30), and carry His throne:
Those [angels] who carry the Throne and those who surround it
celebrate the praise of their Lord and believe in Him. They beg
forgiveness for the believers: Our Lord, You embrace all things in
mercy and knowledge, so forgive those who turn to you and follow
Your path. Save them from the pains of Hell and admit them, Lord,
to the everlasting Garden You have promised to them, and to their
righteous forebears, spouses and offspring. You alone are the
Almighty, the All-Wise. Protect them from evil deeds: those You
protect from evil deeds on that Day will receive Your mercy that is
the supreme triumph. (40:79)
The third belief: in scriptures
The Quran exhorts its audience to believe in all the scriptures sent
down by God, and not only in the Quran, for the Muslim scripture
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Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
states that it confirms the scriptures already received by the People of
the Book (ahl al-kitab):
Step by step, He has sent the scripture down to you [Muh _ ammad]
with the truth, confirming what went before; He sent down the
Torah and the Gospel as a guide for people: He has sent down the
distinction [between right and wrong]. (3:34)
We revealed the Torah with guidance and light, and the prophets,
who had submitted to God, the rabbis and the scholars all gave
judgement by it for the Jews in accordance with that part of the Book
of God which they were entrusted to preserve, and to which they
were witnesses. (5:44)
We sent Jesus, son of Mary, in their footsteps, to confirm the Torah
that had been sent before him: We gave him the Gospel with
guidance, light and confirmation of the Torah already revealed a
guide and lesson for those who take heed of God. So let the followers
of the Gospel judge according to what God has sent down. Those
who do not judge according to what God has revealed are
lawbreakers. (5:46)
The fourth belief: in Gods messengers
The recipients of scripture are messengers (rusul), who are all
addressed by God with the words: This community of yours is one
and I am your Lord: be mindful of Me (23:52). Those who accept them
are asked to profess that they make no distinction between any of
them (2:284). Over twenty prophets are mentioned in the Quran,
including Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muh _ ammad, and over and over
again the text rehearses their stories to emphasise that they brought a
shared doctrine, which alone is to be followed.
We never sent any messenger before you [Muh _ ammad] without
revealing to him: There is no god but Me, so serve Me. (21:25)
These were the people God guided, so follow the guidance they
received. (6:83)
The quranic recitals of the lives of earlier prophets confirm to Muslims
that they are adhering to the unalterablemessageGod hasmade available
since the creation of Adam, summed up particularly in the monotheism
28 M.A. S. Abdel Haleem
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and self-surrender of Abraham. All the prophets are seen asmuslim, that
is, they are submitters to God, who devote themselves utterly to Him.
Religion in the sight of God is islam (3:19), that is to say, it is devoted
submission to Him alone.
The fifth belief: in the day of judgement
The Quran frequently evokes the beauty and diversity of the natural
world, and belief in a final end gives sense and purpose to the whole
creation. But for the judgement, the world would be in vain (23:11516;
95:78), which is why the next life is mentioned in the Quran exactly as
often as the life of this world. The semantic logic of the quranic text
makes the domain we presently occupy the first world (al-ula), which
exists only with reference to the other world which is to come (al-
akhira). Almost every page of the scripture presents a direct or implicit
reference to the afterlife and the judgement, often in connection with the
need to respect a commandment (2:232; 65:2). The Arabs who first heard
the revelation found this aspect of its teaching the hardest to accept:
What! When we are dead and turned into dust and bones, shall we be
resurrected again? And our fathers and our ancestors too? (56:478).
It is in connection with this Arab inability to imagine a transition
from one form of life to another after death that the Quran supplies
arguments for Gods ability to take life from one stage to another, fre-
quently referring to the physical world which the Arabs could not deny.
People, remember, if you doubt the Resurrection, that We created
you from dust, then a drop of fluid, then a clinging form, then a lump
of flesh, both shaped and unshaped We mean to make Our power
clear to you. Whatever We choose We cause to remain in the womb
for an appointed time, then We bring you forth as babies and then
you grow and reach maturity some die young and some are left to
live on to such an age that they forget all they once knew. You can
perceive the earth to be barren, yet whenWe send down water it stirs
and swells and yields every kind of joyous growth: this is because
God is the Truth; He brings the dead back to life; He has power over
everything. (22:56; see also 56:5774)
Insistent arguments for a resurrection are also set out in 36:7781:
Can man not see that We created him from a drop of fluid? Yet lo
and behold! he disputes openly, producing arguments against Us,
forgetting his own creation. He says: Who can give life back to
bones after they have decayed? Say, He who created them in the
Quran and hadith 29
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
first place will give them life again: He has full knowledge of every
act of creation. It is He who produces fire for you out of the green
tree: you kindle your fire from it lo and behold! Is He who created
the heavens and earth not able to create the likes of these people?
Indeed He is! He is the All-knowing Creator: when He wills
something to be, He only says to it, Be! and it is! So glory be to
Him whose hand holds control over all things. It is to Him that you
will all be brought back.
The hadith material, presumably because it addresses those who
already accept the Qurans doctrines, does not offer this kind of argu-
mentation, but simply builds on this belief to establish further teachings.
Whoever believes in God and the Last Day, let him speak in
goodness, or hold his peace.18
Everyone will be resurrected in the state of faith and conduct in
which he died.19
Finally, the Quran and hadith also provide lengthy descriptions of
heaven and hell.20
In supplying arguments for belief, the Quran appears to assume that
faith is to be accepted by free and conscientious human agents, since
there is no compulsion in religion (2:256). The Prophet is addressed as
follows:
Had your Lord willed, all the people on earth would have believed.
So can you compel people to believe? (10:99)
His task is clearly demarcated:
Say: Now the Truth has come to you from your Lord: let those who
wish to believe in it do so, and let those who wish to reject it do so.
(18:29)
summary
The beliefs commended by the Muslim scriptures appear to share
two basic features. They are to be based on revealed texts whose mode of
transmission cannot be contested, and they appeal to a thinking,
questing humanity. The Quran proclaims, but it also offers arguments.
It does not merely command faith, but commands the kind of thinking
that can lead to the discovery of ultimate truth.When asking its audience
30 M.A. S. Abdel Haleem
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
to believe, or to adopt a virtue, the Quran invariably presents arguments
based on premises that it takes to be universally accessible, since it
addresses unbelievers aswell as thosewho have accepted it as theword of
God. It thus provides an original model for dialectical theology. The
hadith, by contrast, are largely addressed to believers, and furnish later
generations of theologians with data on which to reflect.
Further reading
Abdel Haleem, M.A. S., The Quran: A New Translation (Oxford, 2004).
Understanding the Quran: Themes and Style (London, 2001).
Babu Sahib, Moulavi M.H., The Tenets of Islam: Being a Translation and
Extensive Commentary on Kitab Jawharatu t-Tawhid of Imam Burhanud-
din Ibn Harun al-Laqqani (Singapore, 2000).
Ibrahim, Ezzedien, and Johnson-Davies, Denys (trans.), An-Nawawis Forty
Hadith (Damascus, 1976).
Izutsu, Toshihiko, God and Man in the Quran: Semantics of the Quranic
Weltanschauung (Tokyo, 1964).
Mahmoud, Abdel-Haleem, The Creed of Islam (London, 1978).
Motzki, Harald (ed.), The Biography of Muh _ ammad: The Issue of the Sources
(Leiden, 2000).
Rippin, Andrew (ed.), Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the
Quran (Oxford, 1988).
Robinson, Neal, Discovering the Quran: A Contemporary Approach to a
Veiled Text (London, 1996).
Robson, James (tr.), Mishkat al-mas _ abh
_ (Lahore, 1965).
Siddiqi, A.H. (tr.), Sahih Muslim (Lahore, 1973).
Welch, A.T., K _ uran, Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn, vi, pp. 40029.
Notes
1. Mahmud Shaltut, al-Islam aqda wa-shara (Cairo, 1990), p.1471; M. S. Lashn, al-Laali al-H
_ isan f ulum al-Quran (Cairo, 1982), p.19.
To this definition should be added the property of ijaz, inimitability, which makes the text an evidentiary miracle (mujiza), greater than the Prophets other miracles of healing the sick, etc.; see Sophia Vasalou, The miraculous eloquence of the Quran: general trajectories and individual approaches, Journal of Quranic Studies 4 (2002), pp.2353.
2. See for instance 15:6; 21:34; 25:48. 3. Many have sought to identify a grand thematic or stylistic plan; cf. for
instance M.A. Draz, Introduction to the Quran (London: 2001); Neal Robinson, Discovering the Quran: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text (London, 1996), pp.27183; such attempts remain unproven.
4. S _ ubh
_ al-S
_ alih
_ , Mabah
_ ith f ulum al-Quran (Beirut, 1981), pp.657;
William A. Graham, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion (Cambridge, 1987), pp.96109.
Quran and hadith 31
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
5. Some Shite scholars disputed the canonical text; seeMeirM. Bar-Asher, Shism and the Quran, Encyclopedia of the Quran, iv, pp.593604. Over the last quarter-century there have been theories contesting the traditional history of theQuran, andmaintaining that itwas canonised at a later date. For a survey and discussion of these views see Angelika Neuwirth, The Quran and history a disputed relationship, Journal of Quranic Studies 5 (2003), pp.118; HaraldMotzki, The collection of the Quran: a reconsideration of Western views in light of recent methodo- logical developments, Der Islam (2001), pp.234.
6. Mus _ t _ afa al-Siba, al-Sunna wa-makanatuha fil-tashr (Beirut, 1978),
p.47. 7. Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi, H
_ adth Literature: Its Origin, Develop-
ment, and Special Features (Cambridge, 1993), p.2. 8. Traditional sources suggest that the number of those who saw or heard
him exceeded 100,000 by the end of his life; Siddiqi, H _ adth Literature,
p.15. 9. M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Prophet Muh
_ ammad as a teacher:
implications for Hadith literature, The Islamic Quarterly 46/2 (2002), pp.12137.
10. Tirmidh, Ilm, 7. 11. Siddiqi, H
_ adth Literature, pp.247.
12. Hadith anthologies came to be compiled in a variety of formats, of which the main three are: (1)Musnad, where the material is arranged under the names of the Companions who transmitted it. The most famous of these was theMusnad of Ah
_ mad ibn H
_ anbal (d. 855). (2) S
_ ah
_ h _ , where material
is arranged under subject headings. The most influential of these is the S _ ah
_ h _ of al-Bukhar (d. 870). (3) Sunan, where the material is arranged
under specific legal and doctrinal subject headings. The most reputed of these was the Sunan of al-Tirmidh (d. 892).
13. See the role of the hadith later in this chapter. 14. Shaltut, 5365; for the difficulty of declaring someone a non-Muslim see
Sherman Jackson,On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abu H
_ amid al-Ghazals Fays
_ al al-Tafriqa (Karachi, 2002).
15. See for instance the opening of his commentary to Quran 2:255. 16. Ezzeddin Ibrahim and Denys Johnson-Davies, An-Nawawis Forty
Hadiths (Beirut, 1976), p.30. 17. The scriptures hearers are urged to consider their surroundings and their
own selves (e.g. 10:101; 51:21). Scores of rhetorical questions are addressed to disbelievers, such as Do you not reflect? Do you not see? Do you not use your reason? Do their minds command them to do so? (52:32).
18. Bukhar, Riqaq, 23. 19. Bukhar, Iman, 70. 20. Soubhi el-Saleh, La vie future selon le Coran (Paris, 1971); see also
Marcia Hermansens chapter (15) in the present volume.
32 M.A. S. Abdel Haleem
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2 The early creed
khalid blankinship
background
The intellectual milieu of seventh-century Mecca and Medina into
which the Quran came was rustic, and bore no resemblance to the
environment of the urbanised, far more literate societies of the organised
empires of the Romans and Persians to the north. While literacy was
nowhere widespread in early medieval times, it seems to have been
especially lacking in the Arabian peninsula, where the prevalent Arabic
language appears not to have possessed a written literature before the
seventh century. On the other hand, the groundwork for Islam had
apparently been laid orally, for the Quran presupposes a society of a
certain sophistication of thought. Part of this sophistication was a
familiarity with monotheism (Quran 29:61, 63; 31:25; 39:38; 43:9, 87),
despite the well-entrenched and confident paganism native to the Arabs.
While Arab familiarity with the monotheistic idea is unmistakably the
fruit of centuries-old contact with Judaism, Christianity and Zoroas-
trianism, Arab isolation persisted, and knowledge of the abstract
thought of the neighbouring high cultures was limited.
Such a situation of illiteracy and isolation provided the opportunity
for the emergence of a new religious movement, precisely because the
Arabs were not already committed to one of the existing literate trad-
itions. This opportunity was realised when the Prophet Muh _ ammad
began to proclaim a newmessage from God, first privately at Mecca, and
then publicly in that city, and finally from 622 in Medina. Muh _ ammad
taught that the true religion was that of Abraham, who had been neither
Jew nor Christian (3:67), and he proclaimed that the revelation he now
bore represented the true, original and unchanging religion established
by God for humankind since the beginning of the human story. The
older religions of Judaism and Christianity, whose followers were to be
styled People of the Book (ahl al-kitab), were seen as equally divine in
their origin, but corrupted or misinterpreted by their latter-day followers
33
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(2:75, 79; 3:78; 4:46; 5:13, 41), who in any case were now failing
adequately to uphold their own teachings. By thus accounting for other
faiths, a space was made for an entirely new revelation that would need
no further reference to the authority claimed by those religions, their
founders and their doctrines, in order to proclaim its message.
As befits a new historical beginning, Muh _ ammad brought a message
of seeming simplicity. He warned the Arabs to renounce their ancestral
idolatry, and to turn instead to the worship of the One God. The new
revelation was filled with warnings about Gods coming judgement on
humanity. This would come in the form of a general resurrection of the
dead, to be followed immediately by a great day of judgement, at which
God would assign all rational beings to either everlasting bliss or tor-
ment, on the basis of their actions during their worldly lives. The Quran
further called on its hearers to repent or face chastisement even in this
world, recounting the ways in which God had destroyed several way-
ward nations of older times who had rejected the messages brought to
them by their prophets. Nothing, of course, was original in this overall
vision, since ideas of salvation and judgement had long flourished in the
Near East, and had been greatly elaborated there by the earlier mono-
theistic religions.
Although simple on the surface, this quranic system of salvation
based on divine judgement brought in its inexorable train many com-
plexities that prompted debate and elaboration among later Muslim
generations. This process began in the time of the revelation, insofar as
many of the divine exhortations it contains reveal a polemical situation
of considerable nuance, and periodically respond directly to questions or
criticisms. While it is true that the Quran, as a text in the genre of
Semitic prophecy, does not contain a single sustained argument of the
kind familiar in the elite literature of the Greco-Roman world, it
nevertheless develops its own themes argumentatively, sometimes at
considerable length, to explain its teachings, and to rebut the established
anti-monotheistic arguments of its initial target audience. Because the
elaborations of the quranic vision of salvation stressed different aspects
of the message, and reflected different patterns in the reception of the
quranic text by those who had heard its interpretation from the Prophet,
doctrinal stresses became, over time, the nuclei of diverging ideological
schools.
In addition to its coherent system of otherworldly salvation, the
Quran also laid great stress on certain practical prescriptions for life
in this world. Originally connected, for the most part, with the events
of the Prophets multidimensional career, the Qurans revelations are
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replete with exhortations to action as well as counsels on human rela-
tionships. Some of this advice is couched in the form of exhortations and
recommendations, coupled with a general insistence on justice (4:58;
5:8; 6:115, 152; 7:181; 16:76, 90; 42:15; 49:9), which urge the earliest
believers to concentrate their minds on the inherent rightness of their
actions, rather than on their utility to their tribes, and to insist on such
rightness in their rulers, and this is stressed far more than issues of
doctrine or ritual. Such a concern ensured that the earliest Muslim
schisms emerged over what were in the first instance political matters,
and this very early pattern continued profoundly to affect the course of
Muslim history and thought. Although the political ructions took on
ideological and religious overtones whose later fixity helped to define
religious boundaries, it is very doubtful whether such differences can be
considered essentially spiritual, especially in the earliest period,
however strongly they may have been felt, since their origins lay in
political contestations that had little to do with credal or legal matters.
the succession to muh _ ammad
In this way, there emerged two stresses which led to sectarian and
ideological differentiation. First, there were disputes over matters con-
cerning God and the afterlife, and secondly, disputes over the legitimate
administration and shaping of the earthly Muslim community (umma).
The latter preceded the former, but in time the two came to be symbi-
otically related. Thus the first major rending of the Muslim community
arose over the succession to the Prophet at his death in 632. Although
Abu Bakr (c. 571634), the father of the Prophets most influential wife,
Aisha (c. 61378), was able to establish himself as amr (or com-
mander) with the support or acquiescence of the majority of the com-
munity, and thus ensure the continuance of the Muslim polity, his
actions were opposed by a minority, including Al (599661), the hus-
band of Fat _ ima (c. 60432), the Prophets last surviving daughter.
While it appears that these tensions over the succession emerged
primarily between dissonant personalities, there were serious political
differences at stake as well. The supporters of Abu Bakr includedmost of
the Meccans, and favoured the continued importance of the citys
dominant tribe of Quraysh, since it had been the Prophets tribe, and
most of the earliest Muslims had been its members. The party of Al, by
contrast, enjoyed the loyalty of many Medinans, and claimed to favour
a more inclusive policy in line with the unambiguous universalism
of the Quran (9:33; 21:107; 34:28; 48:28; 61:9). Though the differences
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largely lay dormant during the highly successful caliphates of Abu
Bakr (r. 6324) and Umar I (r. 63444), the powers of the ruler, or
the Prophets successor/deputy (khalfa), as well as leader of
the believers, grew apace, adding to the tensions, especially as Arab
Muslims had no long experience with any central authority. These
tensions came to a head as the expansion slowed under the third caliph,
Uthman (r. 64456), leading to his assassination in a revolt which
brought Al (65661) to power.
In fact, the traumatic upheaval of 656 led to the complete break-
down of the system established twenty-four years earlier upon the death
of the Prophet, and resulted in a civil war (fitna) that lasted the length of
Als reign. The war brought into the open all of the competing group-
ings, and laid the foundation for many subsequent sectarian alignments.
During the war, Al successively confronted, first, Abu Bakrs daughter
Aisha with her relatives T alh
_ a and al-Zubayr, near Basra (656); second,
Muawiya, the governor of Syria, who championed the Umayyad clan
within Quraysh (battle of S _ iffn, 657); and third, the so-called Khawarij,
or rebels, at Nahrawan in Iraq (658). Those loyal to Aisha and
Muawiya, although representing different nuances of the Qurash
viewpoint, did not co-operate, and may have initially differed on the
question of whether Uthman had died as a perpetrator or as a victim of
wrongdoing. The parties of Al and the Khawarij both considered the
assassination of Uthman to have been just, but Als willingness to
negotiate with Muawiya led the Kharij purists to rebel against him, on
the grounds that there should be no negotiation over what is right.
Such fratricidal events were immensely traumatic for the young
community, and many refused to take sides. However, four parties had
emerged by the end of Als reign, driven more by a passionate concern
for the quranic insistence on justice than by substantial differences over
doctrine. Of these parties, it was Muawiya who succeeded in main-
taining political control, inaugurating the Umayyad dynasty which
endured from 661 until 750; but the other three groups maintained an
open or covert existence, and became crucibles within which distinctive
doctrinal alignments began to take shape. Thus the mainstream ten-
dency which was to become Sunnism emerged mainly from those loyal
to Aisha, and the Khawarij maintained a powerful presence for several
generations, while Als supporters became known as the Sha, the
Faction. Within each alignment there was no shortage of internal
complexity and shifting allegiances.
Umayyad vigour and acumen permitted the restoration of
Muslim political unity, and required control of many of the ideological
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manifestations associated with the other groups. Under the Umayyads,
the caliph acquired the title Gods deputy (khalfat Allah), a term
probably connected with the one favourable appearance of the term
khalfa in the Quran, in 38:26: O David, We have made you a deputy
on the earth; therefore judge among the people with truth. Through the
use of their claim to a divine stewardship over the earth, as well as
ongoing military campaigns to spread their rule, the Umayyads suc-
ceeded for a considerable time both in establishing one of the worlds
great empires, stretching from the Atlantic to the Indus and to the
borders of China, and in managing internal opposition to their dynasty.
Their political success powerfully strengthened the evident legitimacy
of their rule among many Muslims, especially among the Syrian troops
who were the mainstay of their dynasty and its chief beneficiaries.
the kharijites
Despite Umayyad success, opposition continued. All three of the
groups which had been eclipsed during the First Civil War (65661)
continued to exist and to promote their opposition. All three contended
again with the Umayyads during the Second Civil War (68092), which
proved longer and more disastrous than the first. In this period, each of
the three oppositions underwent further ideological development. The
most confrontational was the radical Khawarij, who initially rejected
any compromise with the caliphate, insisting that the sins of the caliphs
not only destroyed their legitimacy but imposed a duty of resistance to
them upon every individual Muslim. The revulsion felt by the Kharijites
against the caliphs was such that they held that the committing of major
sins negated faith, and thus placed the sinner outside Islam. Adopting
the slogan La h _ ukma illa liLlah (judgement is Gods alone; cf. Quran
6:57; 12:40, 67; 18:26), the Kharijites appeared to vest authority directly
in the text of the Quran as the primary manifestation of Gods will;
human political authority was de-emphasised and undermined in con-
sequence.
Nevertheless, any radical Kharijite faction which came out to
fight the Umayyads would typically elect one of its number as com-
mander, adopting a caliphal title. Those who refused to submit would be
considered sinners and apostates, and could legitimately be robbed and
killed. Unlike the Sha, who insisted that a leader must be a descendant
of the Prophet, and the proto-Sunns, who required that the caliphs be of
Quraysh, the Kharijites elected whomever seemed best for the office,
with the condition that his moral character be exemplary. Sometimes
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this is read as a democratic principle, despite the exercise by the com-
mander of absolute authority on condition that he eschewed major sins.
Such groups, however, proved unstable, because of the possibility of
undermining or disqualifying a leader by accusing him of sin; and in
consequence, the Kharijites were unable to effect any positive political
programme. Moreover, their incessant violence against fellow Muslims
made them unpopular among the general public, and the government
was generally able to marginalise and suppress them.
The Second Civil War also saw the emergence of a more moderate
trend among the Kharijites, including groups such as the S _ ufriyya and
the Ibad _ iyya, neither of whom required immediate revolution against
illicit rulers. The Ibad _ iyya not only preached a patient waiting for the
right circumstances, but also declined to regard sinners as apostates,
preferring to qualify them as ingrates towards Gods blessings (kuffar
bil-niam) rather than as polytheists (mushrikun). This offered some
scope for peaceful coexistence with other Muslims, and this in turn
helped the Ibad _ iyya to maintain an existence as a small but distinctive
Muslim sect, which survives to this day in communities in Oman, Libya
and Algeria. In time, the Ibad _ s participated in and influenced the evo-
lution of kalam theology, notably through their continuing severe
strictures against sin, which helped to maintain the focus of discussion
on that issue. The Kharijite focus on sin also implied that human beings
were responsible for it (Quran 4:79), and this led naturally to a doctrine
of free will, which clashed with the more deterministic belief that may
have been held by some pre-Islamic Arabs, and by the larger number of
early Muslims (4:78). On the issue of free will they thus appear to par-
allel or to anticipate the position of later alignments such as the Qadars
and the Mutazilites, whom they also resemble in asserting the belief in
the created status of the quranic text.
the qadars
It was the tension between free will and determinism that gave rise
to the first properly theological dispute in Islam. The pre-Islamic Arabs
had tended to believe in a predetermined fate (dahr), and hence received
the Quran in the same spirit. The early caliphs seem also to have upheld
this view, particularly Muawiya (66180), Abd al-Malik (685705), and
Umar II (71720), in connection with each of whom epistles or trad-
itions of a deterministic hue have been associated. Usually, modern
scholars have seen determinism as a position congenial to the rulers,
since it logically appears to diminish concern with the morality of their
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actions and of ones response to their rule. Determinism also naturally
brings to the foreground the principle of the absolute, exalted majesty
and power of God.
On the other hand, pietists tended to worry about whether their
actions were acceptable to God, and whether they could not do better by
increasing their efforts to live in a way pleasing to Him. The origins of
such pietism in early Islam are obscure; however, it is quite certain that
there were considerable numbers of individuals passionately concerned
about their own conduct, and determined to conform their lives to Gods
will. This tendency is first notably attested at Basra, a city with large
concentrations of Kharijites, and of Ibad _ s in particular. The foundation
of this pietistic school in Basra is associated with the name of al-H _ asan
al-Bas _ r (646728), a non-Arab Muslim (mawla), who was born in
Medina but moved to Basra after 663. Al-H _ asan criticised the Umayyad
governors of Iraq, and, despite his opposition to violent rebellion in the
Kharijite mode, was forced into hiding between the years 705 and 714.
Connected to his political dissent was his rigorist view of sin. With his
leading disciple Qatada ibn Diama (d. 735), he denied that a sinner could
exculpate himself by claiming that God was the source of all human
actions. In an epistle dated to the final years of the seventh century
addressed to the caliph Abd al-Malik, al-H _ asan cites numerous quranic
verses which indicate that humans are responsible for their actions. For
him, God creates only good, and evil comes either from humans or from
the devil. The human agent chooses freely whether or not to sin, and
although God has foreknowledge of that persons choice, it is not a
predetermining knowledge.
Shortly after al-H _ asans death, a group of Basran Kharijites led by
Shabb al-Najran proposed a more thoroughgoing doctrine of free will,
in which God neither knows in advance nor decrees human actions.
This idea, with its apparent diminution of divine authority over cre-
ation, was attacked in an epistle attributed to the caliph Umar II.
Himself strongly determinist in his convictions, the caliph nonetheless
regarded al-H _ asans type of moderate Qadarism as acceptable. Qadar
dissent became more active with Ghaylan al-Dimashq (d. between 731
and 735), a government secretary of Coptic origin, who launched a
revolutionary campaign against the Umayyad caliph Hisham (r. 72443).
The movement gained momentum only after Ghaylans death, and
culminated in the coup of Yazd III against al-Wald II in 744, which led
to a brief implementation of the Qadar political agenda, including a
limited caliphate in which Yazd agreed to step down if he failed to
uphold the programme. This sat well with Qadar ideas of free will; the
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caliph was fully responsible for his actions and thus had to remove
himself or be removed if he fell into grave sin. However, the political
failure of the movement sent Qadarism into a period of eclipse.
The Qadars subsequently continued in two forms: a pietistic trend
that was eventually re-absorbed by the proto-Sunn hadith scholars, and
a more doctrinally defined alignment that eventually joined Mutazi-
lism. The distinction made between the two was marked by the trad-
itionists subsequent appropriation of al-H _ asan al-Bas
_ r and Qatada as
exemplars of early Muslim piety, and by a condemnation of the hardline
Qadars who had attempted to revolt against the government: Mabad
al-Juhan (d. 699), and Ghaylan.
the sha
The stronghold of ongoing loyalty to the memory of Al was his
former capital, the Iraqi city of Kufa. The Sha were convinced that the
tragic dissensions among the Muslims following the Prophets death
were the result of a sinful abandonment of the Prophets own family. All
would be well if a divinely chosen, rightly guided imam from the
Prophets house took the reins of power in place of the corrupt and
worldly dynasts of the time. In time, this early philo-Alism developed
into messianic expectations and an adulation of those who, being des-
cendants of Al, were thought to be the designated leaders of the
righteous community.
The catalyst for this process was the traumatic massacre of Als
son al-H _ usayn (62680) with his family at Karbala in Iraq. Shortly
thereafter, a Shite revolt in Kufa (6857), led in the name of Als son
Muh _ ammad ibn al-H
_ anafiyya by al-Mukhtar al-Thaqaf, was already
replete with messianic expectations and overtones, which persisted even
after its failure. This Shite revolt also saw the emergence of extreme
doctrines in some circles, which condemned even the caliphates of Abu
Bakr and Umar I. Divisions within nascent Shism, and the failure of
Mukhtars revolt, ensured that there were no further Shite rebellions
until the Umayyad period had almost drawn to a close, when the revolt
of Zayd ibn Al in Kufa (740) failed as disastrously as had that of
al-H _ usayn sixty years before. Despite its limited geographical spread,
and its political failures, the early Shas simple political solution to the
problem of Umayyad autocracy gained considerable support, particularly
as conditions worsened towards the end of the Umayyad era.
The early Sha were heavily subdivided, each group defined by the
imam to whom it paid allegiance. These groups differed also in the
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energy with which they promoted their imams political leadership, and
quiescent groups tended to survive longer. From the point of view of
their Sunn opponents, the most moderate group was the Zayds, des-
cended from Zayd ibn Al, who held that an imam could be elected, and
that the imamate of an inferior candidate (mafd _ ul) could be accepted.
Such a doctrine readily validated the rule of Abu Bakr and Umar I, and
thus raised few problems for the rulers and the Sunn majority. They
were opposed by the emerging group of the Imams, also called the
Twelvers after the death of their eleventh imam, and the disappearance,
or occultation (ghayba), of their twelfth in 874. A major catalyst in the
emergence of Twelver Shite thought was the Kufan Hisham ibn
al-H _ akam (d. 795 or later). Hisham held that each imam had been des-
ignated by his predecessor by a specific appointment (nas _ s _ ). All the
imams were infallible, and the imamate was confined to the descend-
ants of Al and Fat _ ima. Thus, every elected imam was a usurper, even
when acclaimed by the troops. Such a hard-line stance necessarily
brought the Imams into conflict with the Abbasid state, which had
supplanted the Umayyads in the year 750.
Hisham is also thought to have entertained anthropomorphic ideas
that Twelvers later discarded, such as the belief that God is contained in
a physical body, since only bodies can have existence. He rejected,
however, the extreme anthropomorphism which taught that God had a
form like a man, which doubtless was too redolent of Christian belief
ever to be acceptable among Muslims. Hisham also seems to have been
the first to have described the divine attributes as substantives, a theme
later taken up in Sunn discourse. Like proto-Sunn traditionists,
Hisham also favoured predestination over free will, although he also
assigned to humans responsibility for their actions. Interestingly, most
of these early metaphysical views came to be reversed among the Sha,
whose continuity was assured more by their definitions of political
legitimacy than by an abstract theological programme.
A further important subdivision of Shism after 850 was the
Ismals, who recognised seven imams culminating in Ismal ibn Jafar
al-S _ adiq (d. by 765). Once politically inactive, and engaged in esoteric
speculations whose history is now obscure, they began an intense and
well-organised revolutionary activity around 878, and for much of
Islamic history the Ismals were the most significant of the many
Shite branches. In later times, Abul-H _ asan al-Nasaf and others
brought them the Neoplatonist doctrines which have distinguished
them since, but which had little or no influence on other Muslims in the
early period.
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zubayrids and proto-sunns
Just as Umayyad rule had provoked the emergence of Shite and
Kharijite movements during the Second Civil War, so it galvanised the
party of Qurashs descended from the followers of T alh
_ a, Zubayr, and
Aisha, now led by Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr (624692). Centred in
Mecca, the Zubayrid party failed to offer the ideological force that pro-
pelled the Kharijites and the Sha, and was readily dealt with by the
Umayyad caliphs. Its political significance collapsed, but its erstwhile
followers, descended from many of the Companions of the Prophet who
had remained in Arabia, and who constituted the largest reservoir of
substantial tradition about the earliest period of Islam, appear to have
been particularly active in preserving and transmitting information
about that period. They were encouraged in this by the growing thirst of
many Muslims from the great cities of the Fertile Crescent and beyond
for authentic information about earlier times. Muslims from outside
Arabia would frequently encounter these traditionists while fulfilling
their pilgrimage obligations. The people of Medina, in particular, began
to think of themselves as representing the epitome of Muslim authen-
ticity, an oasis of correct memory and practice in a confused and divided
world.
Led mostly by descendants of the Companions, some of whom were
descended from Abu Bakr and Umar I, the Medinans kept alive the
memory of those men as exemplary rulers, against the opinions of the
Sha and others. They also perpetuated a simple and literal-minded
understanding of the verses describing God in the Quran. Thus, in
interpreting Quran 20:5: The All-Compassionate is established
(istawa) on the throne, Malik ibn Anas (d. 795), the eventual system-
atiser of Medinan legal thought, is said to have commented: This
establishment is known; but its mode is unknown; belief in it is a duty;
but inquiring about it is a [reproved] innovation.1 Too much meta-
physics, for Malik, was clearly a bad thing. As is indicated by the many
deterministic traditions that came to be circulated, even in the earliest
major work of such traditions, the Muwat _ t _ a of Malik, the Medinans
also tended to uphold the predestinarian view that was being endorsed
by the Umayyad caliphs.
the murjiites
Despite its small size and the relative homogeneity of its practices,
Medina was host to certain divisive controversies. Again, politics lay at
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the source of these issues. Which of the protagonists of the First and
Second Civil Wars had been right? Had Uthman been a grave sinner, so
that he deserved to be overthrown, or even slain; or was he rather an
innocent victim, whose killers were the sinners? The Sha and the
Khawarij were already typically hostile to Uthman, and the Khawarij
extended the hostility to Al as well. On the other hand, the Umayyad
authorities ordered Al to be ritually cursed on the pulpits throughout
the caliphal realms, but justified Uthman.
Many Muslims, however, recoiled in distaste from such polemical
and partisan behaviour. Some had objected conscientiously to involving
themselves in the First Civil War. This group began to teach that it was
best to withhold judgement about the more controversial rulers, espe-
cially Uthman and Al. After the Second Civil War, the former
Zubayrids gave up their own political claims, and threw in their lot with
this anti-polemical movement. They were also joined by al-H _ asan ibn
Muh _ ammad ibn Al (d. c. 718), the son of the discomfited Shite can-
didate of the Second Civil War, Muh _ ammad ibn al-H
_ anafiyya, becoming
the first to issue a declaration proclaiming deferment of judgement
(irja) on Uthman and Al. Adherents of this pietistic solution became
known as Murjia, Deferrers, a term which is related to a word in
Quran 9:106. The idea of deferring judgement by leaving it to God
seemed particularly to support the defeated political activists in Medina.
TheMurjia sought to keep Islam united by avoiding the partisan attacks
and the cursing of opponents that had characterised the approach of
the Kharijites, the Sha, and the Umayyad government. Although,
like the Umayyads and the proto-Sunn traditionists, they remained
largely predestinarian, they upheld the principle that the current rulers
should recognise the principles of justice, holding only that those of past
times could not be judged in absentia, and in the absence of certain
evidence. Present-day wrongdoers, however, could be condemned, not as
unbelievers, but as misguided believers (muminun d _ ullal). This was
a less harsh judgement than that of the Kharijites, with their near-
universal anathemas. On the basis of their understanding that interior
faith rather than external actions was the hallmark of a believer, the
Murjiites developed a celebrated line of thinking in which faith and
actions were regarded as separate.
The conciliatory principle of Murjiism made it popular in cities
exhausted by sectarian argument. Even in the metropolis of Kufa, they
gained ground at the expense of the Kharijites and Sha. Increasing
popularity, coupled with their insistence on justice, induced them into
greater political activity in opposing the injustices of Umayyad rule,
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especially with regard to the rights of the non-Arab Muslims (mawal).
The Murjia, holding that the mere confession of belief sufficed for a new
Muslim to be acknowledged as a Muslim and indeed as a believer,
supported the mawal, even to the point of revolt in the period 72846,
despite the general Murjiite teaching that a Muslim should not fight
another Muslim except in self-defence.
The most radical revolutionary manifestation of the Murjia in this
period is associated with the shadowy figure of Jahm ibn S _ afwan (d. 746),
who was secretary to the rebel al-H _ arith ibn Surayj (d. 746). Their pro-
gramme called for a return to the Quran and the Sunna, which implied
opposition to the worldly Umayyad rulers. Jahm apparently taught
that faith is merely an internalised knowledge in the heart, without
any outward expression at all, thus reducing the Murjias minimal
requirements for the outward expression of belief still further. He also
affirmed an absolute predestination, together, possibly, with the view
that heaven and hell are not eternal, and is said to have held that the
Quran was created by God, although this seems to anticipate a question
that was not discussed until after 800. In fact, Jahms own teachings are
obscure, being mentioned only in much later, hostile sources, and no
alleged followers of him are heard of for seventy years after his death.
Later, the terms Jahm and Jahmiyya were used mainly by H _ anbalites to
denounce anyone they accused of Mutazilite tendencies; although it is
difficult to know if any of the Mutazilite positions allegedly anticipated
by Jahm, such as the createdness of the Quran, were actually held by
him; indeed, it is probable that they were not.
On the other hand, the most famous of all scholars associated
with the Murjia, Abu H _ anfa (c. 699767), the eponym of the H
_ anaf
school of jurisprudence and an important scholar of Kufa, upheld the
pacific doctrine of the mainline Murjia. Several more of Abu H _ anfas
doctrines are laid down very succinctly in an early creed called
al-Fiqh al-Akbar I, which contains ten points that represent perhaps
the earliest surviving elaboration of Muslim creed. In this statement,
Abu H _ anfa opposes the beliefs of the Kharijites, Qadars, Shites and
Jahms. The text also contains an assertion of deferral of judgement
with regard to Uthman and Al, an equal regard and respect for all
the Companions of the Prophet, a sentence indicating a form of pre-
destinarian belief, and an apparent reference to God being established
on His throne in heaven. The document thus shows how close the
Murjia were to later Sunnism. Only an extreme offshoot of the
Murjia, the Karramiyya, founded by the Iranian Muh _ ammad ibn
Karram (c. 80669), continued to hold that God was a body which
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touches the throne, although without specific limbs or organs, but
this belief was usually condemned by other Muslims.
Later Murjia went some way in elaborating the earlier doctrines in
their debates with the proto-Sunn traditionists. The original idea of
suspending judgement on Uthman and Al disappeared, as both became
no less formally justified in the Sunn community than Abu Bakr and
Umar I had been. Instead, there came to be a heavy emphasis on faith
being separate from works, and an insistence that faith, being an indi-
visible and uncountable whole, can neither increase nor decrease. Thus,
faith (man) was conceived as perfect, undoubting belief, as portrayed,
for example, in Quran 49:15. Later Murjiites somewhat modified this
conception in the light of Quran 3:173; 8:2; 9:124; 33:22; 48:4; and 74:31,
where it is asserted that faith can increase; but the mainstream Murjia
continued to deny that it could decrease.
Most Murjiite positions were later adopted as part of the main-
stream Sunn synthesis in some form, even though traditionists of the
H _ anbal type tried to exclude them as heretics, perhaps because of their
rationalism in contemplating and considering the problem of divine
justice. Although the name Murjia became a pejorative term that no-
one cared to apply to himself, later Sunns, with the exception of most
H _ anbalites, did not regard the Murjia as lying beyond the Sunn pale.
the later murjia
AsMuslim acquaintance grewwith the urban civilisation of theNear
East, with its Hellenistic legacy which had deeply shaped the earlier
monotheisms, some Muslims began to develop a high form of religious,
doctrinal or theological discourse known as kalam. Many of the earliest
of these thinkers are broadly characterised as Murjia, and they emerged
from the same general intellectual environment in southern Iraq which
had produced Abu H _ anfa. Like the H
_ anafs, they won favour with some
of the early Abbasid caliphs and their ministers. Among the earliest and
most important of these was D irar ibn Amr (c. 730c. 800), a Kufan who
migrated to Basra, where he made a considerable contribution to the
evolution of a dialectical kalam discourse. D irar opposed most of the
known trends of his day, and so is hard to classify. Although he was not
really a Murjiite, as he critiqued Murjiite positions, he was loyal to the
memory of both Uthman and Al. A predestinarian opponent of
Qadarism, he appears to be the first to have applied the doctrine of the
quranic verb kasaba (Quran 2:286), meaning to acquire, to human
actions, as a means of resolving the antinomy between determinism and
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free will. Thus, like his contemporary, the Sh Hisham ibn al-H _ akam,
he held that God creates all human actions, but human beings acquire
them, together with a sufficient degree of responsibility for them. A
humans ability to perform an action exists only because God wills it at
the moment the act is performed. Beyond this, D irar also held that
immaterial accidents (arad _ ) could not exist frommoment tomoment,
but rather had to be recreated by God in each moment, a decision which
He was free to revoke at any time. This was the origin of the famous
theory which came to qualify Sunn theology, that time consists of a
series of individual, indivisible points, and thus is not a continuum.
D irar also adopted the idea that between the two categories of
believer and unbeliever there is a third possibility, a state between the
two states (manzila bayn al-manzilatayn), which is the place of the
believer who is an unrepentant mortal sinner. In his view, such a person
is beneath believing status, because of his sins and failure to repent.
Partly paralleling Kharijite strictures against mortal sinners, D irar
taught that such would be eternally in hell, a view that Sunnism was to
reject. Furthermore, D irar rejected the belief in an intermediary pun-
ishment of sinners in the grave before resurrection, and did not accept
that the believers would apprehend or see God on the day of judge-
ment in a literal way, but only through a sixth sense. Regarding Gods
attributes, D irar taught that these were only to be understood nega-
tively, that is, as denying their opposites. This approach, taken in
opposition to a literalist understanding of the sacred texts, considerably
deflated the importance of the attributes.
Differing from D irar was Bishr al-Mars (c. 760833), a Murjiite and
hence a predestinarian in creed and of H _ anaf tendency in law. An
advisor to the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun (r. 81333), Bishr may have
played a major role in inducing that ruler to accept the doctrine that the
Quran had been created. Other teachings of Bishr resembled those of
D irar, such as his denial of the torment of the tomb, a pre-resurrection
punishment for sinners. However, he anticipated later Sunn system-
atisation by also denying, against D irar and the Kharijites, that major
sinners among the Muslims would be eternally in hell, basing his view
on Quran 99:7. He also held that faith consisted only of belief plus its
verbal expression, and not other works; thus, bowing to the sun or to an
idol could be only an indication of unbelief, and not unbelief itself, since
that had to be expressed verbally. He also recognised only four essential
attributes of God: will, knowledge, power, and creativity, and considered
all other attributes to be figurative. This contribution anticipated the
later discussion over the essential versus the active attributes of God.
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The most prominent student of Bishr was al-H _ usayn al-Najjar
(d. c. 8336), who was in most respects more influenced by D irar, par-
ticularly on the subject of determinism, which he elaborated more fully
than D irar had done. Al-Najjar tended to see Gods power as His over-
riding attribute, just as later Sunns would do. He specified that the
human beings power to act only arose simultaneously with the act itself
and did not endure but had to be granted again by God at the time of a
second action. This fitted with D irars atomistic view of time and also
anticipated later Sunn orthodoxy. Al-Najjars view of faith grew perhaps
out of the H _ anaf one, in that he taught that faith is only in belief and
profession, and thus cannot decrease except through a complete denial,
although it can increase. But he appended to his definition of it some
qualities which are also acts of obedience (t _ aat), which seems to
come closer to the later Sunn majority, which included acts in the
definition of faith. Al-Najjar also upheld D irars idea of a negative
understanding of the divine attributes, but stated that humans seeing
God on judgement day would be doing so with the eye which God would
imbuewith the power of knowing, which seems to be a concession to the
Sunn traditionists. Contrary to the Mutazila, al-Najjar maintained that
God could bestow on human beings unmerited blessing or grace (lut _ f). He
also denied the torment of the tomb, like his two predecessors, and
followed Bishr in stating that neither believers nor unbelievers would
suffer in hell forever. Thus in many but not all ways, he anticipated the
eventual SunnAshar discourse against the Mutazila.
mutazilism
Mutazilism, as already noted, was in significant ways a continu-
ation of Qadarism, the upholding of a doctrine of free will. But it went far
beyond the simple free-will ideas of the early Qadariyya, to become the
first fully elaborated, quasi-rationalistic defence of the faith.
The Basran Was _ il ibn At
_ a (d. 748), an associate of al-H
_ asan al-Bas
_ r,
is traditionally considered the originator of Mutazilism, along with
Amr ibn Ubayd (699761). Slightly later, another Basran, who moved to
Baghdad, Abul-Hudhayl al-Allaf (c. 753841), more thoroughly
developed the main early doctrines. Abul-Hudhayl was probably the
originator of the Five Principles (al-us _ ul al-khamsa) of Mutazilism:
(1) Gods unity and uniqueness (tawh _ d); (2) His justice (adl); (3) the
eternity of Paradise for the righteous and hell for sinners (al-wad wal-
wad, literally the promise and the threat), (4) the intermediate state
of the Muslim sinner, between belief and unbelief; and (5) the command
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to enjoin goodness and to forbid iniquity (al-amr bil-maruf wal-nahy
an al-munkar). In general, it is the first two of these principles which
define the Mutazilite position, which is why the Mutazilites called
themselves the People of [Gods] Unity and Justice (ahl al-tawh _ d
waladl).
For the Mutazila, God was unique (Quran 42:11), and nothing
should be permitted to compromise this uniqueness and unity. Thus
they disdained the grossly anthropomorphic explanations that were
favoured by some traditionists and early Sha, which they saw as insults
to Gods transcendence. They taught that God was indivisible into parts
(Quran 114:14), and that He could not even have an indivisible body,
because such corporeality would also compromise his transcendent
totality. Thus the Mutazila asserted that any anthropomorphic
descriptions of God in the Quran must be explained as purely meta-
phorical or allegorical. To support this concept, a theory of language was
elaborated, whereby utterances were divided into literal (h _ aqq) and
figurative (majaz), using Quran 3:7 for textual evidence.
Furthermore, the numerous adjectives and verbs by which God and
His actions are qualified in the Quran do not point to the separate
existence of the things described, any more than verses invoking Gods
hands (Quran 5:64, etc.) mean that God possesses actual hands. Such
descriptions can be no more than symbols of his action. This inter-
pretation was easy enough on those points where God was clearly acting
to produce something else, as in his roles as creator and provider. But it
was less obvious on the issue of those characteristics essential to his
own being that produced no necessary outside effects, such as knowing
and living. Abul-Hudhayl at first insisted that each of these internal
attributes (s _ ifat dhatiyya) acted through an entity that was identical
with God Himself. That is, God knows through a knowledge that is
identical with Him. Such a locution in effect disposed of these attri-
butes. Later Mutazilism dropped this claim, holding that God knows
through Himself. The Mutazilite view was denounced by the Sunn
traditionists as a denial (tat _ l) of Gods attributes, which many of
them thought placed the Mutazila beyond the pale of Islam. The Sunns
held rather that the internal attributes were coeternal with God. Perhaps
in concession to Sunn criticisms, the later Mutazilite, Abu Hashim
al-Jubba (d. 933) opined that the attributes represented states (ah _ wal)
that had a real existence and served as the basis for the adjectives
describing God. However, this concession did not win the assent even of
all the Mutazila, and was insufficient to encourage the Sunn trad-
itionists to end their anathematisation of the Mutazilite school.
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One of the internal attributes of God that theMutazila debated with
the Sunns was that of Gods speech, as evidenced by the existence of the
Quran. The Mutazila famously insisted that the Quran was created by
God, while the Sunns held it to be uncreated. The Mutazilites sup-
ported their claim with the rational supposition that Gods Book was
subordinate to God and not coeternal with Him, while their Sunn
adversaries adduced a range of hadith in response, to the effect that there
could never have been a time when God did not speak and know the
Quran, so that it had existence before creation. After the Abbasid caliph
al-Mamun adopted Mutazilism as state doctrine in 827, the religions
scholars were required to conform to it, particularly on this issue. An
inquisition (mih _ na) was instituted to enforce this in 833, the year of his
death, and Ah _ mad ibn H
_ anbal (780855), the leading Sunn traditionist,
was arrested. After al-Mamuns death, the new caliph, al-Mutas _ im,
attempted to force Ibn H _ anbal to acknowledge the createdness of the
Quran, and unsuccessfully resorted to torture in an attempt to make
him submit. Although Mutazilism remained the state doctrine until
851, the effort to impose it on the scholars proved counterproductive,
and led to a hardening of the emerging Sunn resistance to Mutazilism
as a principle. Whatever the original theological merits of either position
on the quranic text, they were soon submerged when each side became
embroiled in a partisan struggle with strongly political implications.
Although not so salient in the official ideological struggle, the
Mutazil doctrine of Gods justice was perhaps even more central to the
overall system, because of its practical implications. The Mutazila
stated that God, having declared Himself to be just (Quran 6:115; 16:90;
21:47; 57:25), was constrained to follow His own declaration. Therefore,
being good, He could will and do only that which is good, a view already
embraced by deterministic Murjia. As developed by Abul-Hudhayl, the
idea of Gods justice led, however, to a rather mechanistic view of how
that justice operated. That is, instead of God having the power to con-
sider each case and to be merciful to whomever He would, He was con-
strained always to judge exactly according to the just deserts of each soul
at the judgement, so that there would be no escape for the impenitent
sinner. Verses stating that God pardons whom He will and punishes
whom He will (2:284) mean only that He will pardon those deserving
pardon, in other words, the repentant, and will punish those who deserve
punishment. The doctrine of the Prophets intercession (shafaa) for
sinners, set forth in many hadith, could have no place in this system.
While such a vision could have terrifyingly serious implications in ones
daily life, as one would want always to avoid having sins unrepented and
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unatoned for, it also presented God as a kind of cosmic justice machine,
rather than a free and conscious being. In other words, Mutazilism
tended to lean towards portraying God as a dharmic force, rather than as
the personal deity most Muslims conceived Him to be.
However, in reducing God to a mechanistic justice device, the
Mutazila also resoundingly affirmed human free will. However human
beings might act, their fate in eternity lies entirely in their own hands,
and their acts are their own creations. God only creates in humans the
power or ability to act, not the acts themselves. The Mutazilites dem-
onstrated this theory by an atomic theory of time which may originate
ultimately in Greek philosophy. Thus, Gods empowerment precedes
the acts rather than operating concurrently with them. Being thus
empowered to act, humans do so at a later moment of their own vol-
ition. Furthermore, according to a doctrine first stated by Bishr ibn
al-Mutamir (d. between 825 and 840), secondary consequences arise
from ones own actions, and one is responsible for these consequences
too, as suggested by Quran 16:25. The Mutazila also held that poten-
tially deterministic verses suggesting that God guides whom He will to
the right or the wrong are to be explained as actions God takes after the
human concerned has already acted. Thus, they are more like rewards
and punishments. Gods grace, in this view, consists in His blessings,
including His revelations, which may help to guide people if they choose
to heed them. A related idea is that such guidance is available to all in
equal measure, so that each soul will have an equal chance to achieve
Paradise and will have only itself to blame for failing to heed the signs.
Also bound up with the idea of free will and human responsibility
was the Mutazilite adoption of the intermediate degree doctrine.
Was _ il ibn At
_ a and early proto-Sunns are said to have described this as
deviant (fasiq), but the later Mutazila followed D irar in calling it a
state between the two states. Sunn traditionist critics also contended
with the Mutazila over this issue, insisting that the unrepentant mortal
sinner was a believer, while the Kharijites considered such a person to be
an apostate. The Mutazilite polemic on this point eventually led some
Sunns to state that the mortal sinner is not a believer while he is
committing the act, but afterwards returns to believing status. Thus did
inter-group polemic trigger fine adjustments to the creeds of all the
contending parties.
Underlying many of their characteristic doctrines was the Mutazi-
lite introduction of a rational element into their religious discourse.
While the early Mutazils cannot be shown to have drawn substantially
on Greek learning, and may have taken their logic, terminology and
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style of argument from evolving Iraqi systematisations of Arabic gram-
mar and law, the mature Mutazilite school armed itself with the Hel-
lenisticmethodology which became increasingly popular as Abbasid rule
progressed. Thus, whilemost of themwere not themselves philosophers,
or interested in philosophy as such, the Mutazila benefited from the
study of logic and physics, and speculated about perception and language,
as well as philosophical problematics such as the composition of bodies
from atoms, substance versus accident, and the nature of the will.
However, those inclined to philosophy itself, such as the earliest major
Muslim philosopher, al-Kind (d. 866), and the philosophically inclined
theologian al-Naz _ z _ am, upheldmany of the key principles ofMutazilism.
The later Mutazila such as Abu Al al-Jubba (d. 915) tempered the
mechanistic understanding of Gods justice by adding that God could
grant unmerited grace (tafad _ d _ ul) to whomever He might. Other Sunn
concerns were also incorporated into some Mutazilite systems, making
their God more personal, and although the school declined after the
ending of the Abbasid inquisition, it eventually found new followers in
both Twelver and Zayd Shism, which frequently adopted it as their
doctrine in place of their own earlier theological views. The only major
Shite group which did not substantially engage with Mutazilism was
the Ismals, increasingly drawn to Neoplatonist formulations.
sunn traditionist triumph and asharite synthesis
While Abu H _ anfa, Malik, al-Shafi (767820) and others elaborated
schemes of legal thought that favoured the revealed sources of the
Quran and the Sunna but employed reason in varying degrees (the
school of Abu H _ anfa being at the forefront in this regard), Ah
_ mad ibn
H _ anbal was regarded as the champion of a traditionism that sought to
minimise the use of reason and to seek religious unity by applying lit-
eralist explanations. In his confrontation with Mutazilism, however,
Ibn H _ anbal had been obliged to take a clear stand on all the issues at
stake, and hence was publicly associated with a kind of Sunn trad-
itionist creed. In general, his teaching simply opposed Mutazilism on
most points. First came the issue of the Quran, for which Ibn H _ anbal
had been imprisoned. He insisted that not only was the Quran uncre-
ated and therefore coeternal with God, but that its oral recitation
was likewise uncreated. However, even some traditionists, such as
al-Bukhar (81070), who assembled the most authoritative of all hadith
collections, found this excessive.
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Generally the H _ anbalites promoted anthropomorphic ideas about
God. Their conflict with the Mutazila made them ever more insistent
on this stance, which was elaborated in large quantities of traditions
which they circulated. For example, the traditionist Abul-Shaykh al-
Is _ bahan (887979) compiled a large collection of anthropomorphic
hadith which he entitled The Book of Majesty (Kitab al-Az _ ama).
Against the Mutazila, such traditions had the advantage of fitting better
with the popular conception of deity held by the masses: that of an
immediately available personal God, enthroned above the heavens.
These anthropomorphisms also included graphic pictures of resurrec-
tion, judgement, heaven and hell which extend considerably beyond the
quranic picture. In fact, the Quran is notably lacking in anthro-
pomorphisms, despite the bare mention of a few suggestive themes,
such as Gods throne, or His hands, which are never graphically
pictured or described in the Quran in the way they appear in the Bible.2
Not even the H _ anbalites circulated hadiths as unambiguously anthro-
pomorphic and picturesque as can be found in certain Biblical passages.
The Sunn traditionists also objected to the Mutazilite concept of
human free will, which seemed to compromise Gods majesty, power
and sovereign freedom. The mechanistic image of a deity constrained by
His own laws and incapable of true mercy because of the demand for the
absolute mathematical requital of deeds appalled them likewise. For the
traditionists, God had ultimate power to will every event and act, in
effect overriding His other attributes, such as His justice, which the
Mutazila said must constrain the divine agency.
Ibn H _ anbal had himself condemned the use of kalam methods in
defence of the faith, but this prohibition proved impossible to uphold,
and later H _ anbals could be intensely concerned to define the details of
Muslim belief dialectically. Thus, while Ibn H _ anbal condemned the
pietistic ascetic and proto-Sufi, al-H _ arith al-Muh
_ asib (c. 781857), for
engaging in kalam discourses in defence of the faith, he was not able
to find other points of dispute to hold against al-Muh _ asib. While
Muh _ asibs contribution to kalam discourse may have been consider-
able, his contemporary Ibn Kullab (d. after 854) evidently formulated the
Sunn doctrine of the divine attributes, holding that, contrary to the
teaching of the Mutazila, they have real existence. He also distin-
guished the essential from the active attributes, the former being of
more importance as coeternal with God, and defined as neither God,
nor other than God.
The decisive kalam formulation of Sunn belief was made by
Abul-H _ asan al-Ashar (874936). Beginning his career as a moderate
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Mutazilite and a student of Abu Al al-Jubba, al-Ashar seems to
have undergone a spiritual transformation about 913, and outwardly
became a H _ anbalite, although he is also claimed by the Shafis. Al-
Jubba himself had already moved away from some Mutazilite pos-
itions, as in his doctrine of unmerited grace, and al-Ashars conversion
can be seen as a culmination of a longstanding trend. Al-Ashar now
propounded H _ anbal doctrines, but defended them with the highly
developed Mutazilite methods of argumentation. Thus he affirmed that
God was all-powerful, that His eternal, essential qualities were coeternal
with Him, and were neither God Himself nor other than Him, that all
descriptions of God in the Quran and hadith were actual but were to be
understood without specifying how (bi-la kayf), that is, amodally,
that the images of resurrection, heaven and hell are factual, that the
gravely sinning believer remains a believer but may be punished for a
limited period in hellfire, that the believers will gain actual sight of their
Lord in Paradise, albeit amodally, that the Quran is uncreated, that God
is the creator of all human acts, making them actual by creating in
humans the ability to perform each act at the time of the act, and that
faith consists of both belief and acts, increasing and decreasing
according to the righteousness of the latter. Ashars system became
the basis of belief among the Maliks and Shafis among the Sunns,
although the H _ anbals continued ostensibly to reject the methodology
of rational argument, even though they often indulged in it, rather
claiming to rely entirely on the plain sense of scripture as they
understood it.
Most H _ anafs, on the other hand, reached an accepted summation of
their beliefs in the doctrines of Abu Mans _ ur al-Maturd (d. 944), whose
teachings flourished especially in Turkestan and the Muslim East.
While close to Ashar on many points, Maturd continued to maintain
more rationalising views on many others. Thus in many cases he
allowed that anthropomorphic descriptions in the Quran had to be
taken literally but amodally, while elsewhere he admitted allegorising
strategies not countenanced by H _ anbalites or Asharites. He considered
both the essential and the active attributes of God to subsist with God
eternally, whereas the Ashars permitted only the former. He accepted
that the believers would see God, but not by eyesight. The Quran was
uncreated, but not the sound of its recitation. Thus the voice of God
heard by Moses in Quran 4:164 was created speech. Most importantly,
Maturd continued to affirm that human works, although decreed by
God, were ultimately attributable to their human authors. Human
ability to act both precedes the act and is simultaneous with it.
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Thus, by the mid-tenth century, the Muslim world had begun to
settle on several defining and immensely enduring doctrinal alignments
that have not been substantially altered since: the Ashar, Maturd and
H _ anbal Sunns, two varieties of Mutazilism among the Twelver and
the Zayd Sha, the Neoplatonism of many Ismal Sha, and the Ibad _
doctrines among the residual Kharijites. All other early formulations in
that period of intense competition and energy eventually passed into
extinction, although, as in the case of the Murjia, they made substantial
contributions to the schools that were able to survive.
Further reading
Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn, 12 vols. (Leiden, 19862004), articles Abul-
Hudhayl alAllaf; Ah _ mad b. H
_ anbal; al-Ashar, Abul-H
_ asan; Bishr
b. Ghiyath al-Mars; Bishr b. al-Mutamir; Djahm b. S _ afwan;
Djahmiyya; Ghaylan b. Muslim; al-H _ asan al-Bas
_ r; Hisham b.
al-H _ akam; Ikhtiyar; Istit
_ aa; K
_ adariyya; Karramiyya; Kasb;
al-Maturd ; Murdjia; Mutazila; al-Nadjdjar; Sha.
Cook, Michael, Early Muslim Dogma (Cambridge, 1981).
Ess, Josef van, Das Kitab al-irga des H _ asan b. Muh
_ ammad b. al-H
_ anafiyya,
Arabica 21 (1974), pp. 205.
Theologie undGesellschaft im 2. und 3. JahrhundertHidschra: eineGeschichte
des religiosen Denkens im fruhen Islam, 6 vols. (Berlin, 19915).
Frank, Richard M., Remarks on the early development of the kalam, Atti del
terzio congresso di studi arabi e islamici (Naples, 1967), pp. 31529.
The science of kalam, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 2 (1992), pp. 737.
Gimaret, Daniel, Dieu a limage de lhomme: les anthropomorphismes de la
sunna et leur interpretation par les theologiens (Paris, 1997).
La doctrine dal-Ashari (Paris, 1990).
Mourad, Suleiman Ali, Early Islam between Myth and History: al-H _ asan
al-Bas _ r (d. 110 h / 728 ce) and the Formation of His Legacy in Classical
Islamic Scholarship (Leiden and Boston, 2006).
Nagel, Tilman, The History of Islamic Theology: From Muh _ ammad to the
Present (Princeton, 2000).
Watt, W. Montgomery, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought (Edinburgh,
1973).
Notes
1. Uthman ibn Sad al-Darim, al-Radd alal-Jahmiyya, ed. Badr al-Badr (Kuwait, 1405/1985), p.56, para. 104 and fn. 58.
2. Ezek. 1:428; 8:14; 10:122; Dan. 7:914; Rev. 1:1216; 4:211; 19:18; 20:1115.
54 Khalid Blankinship
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3 Islamic philosophy (falsafa)
hossein ziai
generative influences: an overview
The initial conditions leading to the formation of the discipline and
study of philosophy in Islam were complex, but in general it can be said
that this philosophical tradition was almost entirely based on Arabic
translations of Greek texts. What is commonly designated as Islamic
philosophy is marked by wide-ranging textual traditions in the genesis
and development of a predominantly syncretic yet systematic philoso-
phy in Islamic civilisation from Andalusia to India from the ninth
century to the present. The majority of its texts are in Arabic, but a large
number came to be written in Persian, a process which accelerated after
the twelfth century.
Islamic philosophy grew out of the desire by learned members of the
community to uphold the authority of Islamic revelation against argu-
ments increasingly posed by members of the many divergent peoples
who were living in lands united by the conquests of the seventh and
eighth centuries. After the establishment of the Abbasid caliphate in
Baghdad (750), subjects of various faiths contributed to an atmosphere
of relatively free debate concerning the main constructs of religion,
such as God, creation, causality, free will and divine authority.
Increasingly, Muslims were forced to uphold the universalist ideology of
Islam from a rational perspective and within civil institutions. Thus,
although the majority of the practitioners of philosophy in the Islamic
world were Muslims of differing cultural, social and linguistic back-
grounds, their ranks also included many notable members of other
religions.
The formative period of philosophy in the Islamic world was shaped
by problems posed by the kalam scholars. Two groups of theologians
whose rationalist position was sometimes called the Primacy of Rea-
son (as _ alat al-aql), and who had the most lasting effect on the ori-
gination of philosophical trends, were first the Mutazila, and later the
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Ismals. However, Islamic philosophy taken as a whole cannot be
defined by Islam as a religion, nor did it ever become the handmaiden of
theology. Certain later trends did confine philosophical investigation
within structures guided by the theologians, but a genuinely philo-
sophical tradition distinct from theology continued, although in the
later centuries this was cultivated by fewer and fewer scholastic figures,
whose main investigations lay in the religious sphere and who were
known to the community as ulema.1
After the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries philosophy as a dis-
tinct discipline died out almost entirely in Sunn Islam outside Iranian
centres of learning, such as Shraz, Is _ fahan, Tabrz, Maragha, and
Zanjan, where it was kept alive in scholastic centres, despite being
marginal to mainstream scholastic activity. While Muslim thinkers
were very careful to distinguish theology from philosophy, and some
addressed this point in their writings,2 the most enduring sets of prob-
lems that formed the core of philosophical activity were all defined by
early theological debates. These were first posed by the Mutazila, then
studied and re-examined by perhaps the most philosophically inclined
religious thinkers in early Islam, the Ismals,3 and later emphatically
debated by the Asharite theologians, whose methods in the early period
to some extent restricted philosophy. These problems included (1) cre-
ation, (2) atomism and the nature of reality, (3) causality, (4) anthropo-
morphism, (5) Gods attributes, (6) Gods knowledge, (7) free will and
predestination, and (8) issues of immortality, resurrection, and reward
and punishment. Questions of methodology were also posed: for
example, the applicability of analogy to doctrine and the necessity of
defining a technical vocabulary capable of expressing abstract concepts
beyond the semantics of ordinary speech.
In addition to these fundamentally significant problems in the
determination of normative Muslim behaviour and the limits of
human thinking and action, the theological outlook as a whole
determined once and for all the two main types of authority in Islamic
intellectual history: the transmitted (naql), and the rational (aql).
The tension between these two types of authority has played a sig-
nificant role in the unfolding Muslim attitudes within political and
ethical as well as more abstract domains to the present. Later phil-
osophers addressed this issue, but adherents of the supremacy of
transmitted authority finally prevailed, albeit in the context of the
large-scale integration of falsafa issues within later kalam. This
framework, as broadly described here, forever marked philosophical
investigation in the religion.
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terminology
The term falsafa is an Arabised form of the Greek philosophia. The
Arabic h _ ikma may also be used more or less synonymously with the
same term, although more often the intended meaning is closer to
the word wisdom. Used in numerous Arabic and Persian texts, falsafa
indicates an inclusive rational process aimed at knowing the nature of
things and expressing the result in a systematic way. The term h _ ikma,
by contrast, is used in several ways, some of them not related to the
science, or the art, of systematic philosophy. Some historians have used
words such as theosophy to translate the term h _ ikma as a means of
explaining the presumed esoteric and mystical dimensions of Islamic
philosophy, but such usage is not justified in the actual Arabic and
Persian texts. Based on the Greek term, an agent noun faylasuf was
coined, which means philosopher. In relation to the Arabic term
h _ ikma, the adjectival form h
_ akm may be used in the same sense
as faylasuf, but it is mainly employed to denote a special, often reli-
gious quality associated with the practitioner/follower of falsafa or
h _ ikma.
Throughout history Islamic philosophers sought to construct
holistic philosophical systems, and some made special efforts to har-
monise philosophical principles with religion. Following Avicenna (Abu
Al ibn Sna, 9801037), the story of Islamic philosophy can best be
understood as the quest to refine and construct holistic philosophical
systems that have also served to uphold the deduced validity of revealed
truths.
early translations and state patronage
From as early as the late decades of the seventh and early decades of
the eighth century evidence exists that Arabic translations were being
made from the Syriac and perhaps also from the Greek. No sources are
known from earlier periods, however, and our knowledge of the earliest
translations is limited to later accounts. One superb source, cited in
every study of the intellectual history of Islam, is a work known as the
Fihrist, a Persian term meaning list or outline. This work was
compiled in the tenth century by the famous Baghdad book-dealer Ibn
al-Nadm (d. 995).4 It notes the first instance in which a member of
the Arab ruling elite, Khalid ibn Yazd (d. 704), commissioned the
translation of medical, astrological and alchemical treatises, allegedly
from the Greek.5 The text further reveals that under the patronage of
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the Umayyad caliph Marwan (68385) the earliest translations of
medical compendia from the Syriac were produced.6 The most sig-
nificant personality in this earliest period of translations into Arabic
was Abdullah ibn al-Muqaffa (d. 757). His translations from Sanskrit,
best exemplified by the Kalla wa Dimna of Bidpai, and from Pahlavi,
best exemplified by a version of Khuday Nameh, indicate an early
intellectual curiosity about the cultural heritage of non-Muslim
nations.
The caliphs became increasingly interested in commissioning
translations of works of all kinds from various disciplines into Arabic,
the newly declared language of state. This interest intensified during the
reign of al-Mans _ ur (75475), when the first Arabic translations of
philosophical texts appear. Ibn al-Muqaffa, or his son Muh _ ammad,
translated a good number of Aristotles texts, including the Categories
and the Posterior Analytics, as well as one of the philosophical trad-
itions most widely read works, the Isagoge of Porphyry. After the reign
of al-Mans _ ur, attention paid to the scientific and medical heritage of all
nations took on a new dimension.
Beginning with the reign of the caliph Harun al-Rashd and reaching
an apogee under his son, the caliph al-Mamun (r. 813833), translations
and the study of non-Muslim intellectuality became institutionalised.
Several factors contributed to this periods spirit of discovery and
genuine regard for scholarship beyond the limits imposed by most jur-
idical interpretations of Islam.
The triumph of the Abbasids over the Umayyads was in no small
measure due to the Persian armies led by Abu Muslim of Khurasan. The
Persians subsequently played a very significant role in early Abbasid
rule, and when the new capital of Baghdad was built, many learned
Persian families involved themselves in all types of state institutions. In
the domain of science, the famous Nawbakht family, many of whom
were physicians at the still functioning medical complex and university
of Jund Shapur, built by the Sasanian emperor Anushiravan, served the
periods medical needs. This scientific centre had furnished a refuge
for many Greek philosophers who had fled the theological tyranny of
Justinian, and when Baghdad was built, a degree of scholarship and the
study of the sciences and philosophy was still alive there. Learned
members of this centre joined the retinue of the Abbasid caliphs, and
some served important functions at court. One example was Fad _ l
al-Nawbakht, a celebrated Persian astronomer, who was assigned to the
court of al-Mans _ ur; others are supplied by the Bokhtishu family of
scholars and medical doctors, such as Georgius ibn Jibral, head of the
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medical school, and his pupil Isa ibn Shahlatha, who were among the
eminent physicians who found employment at the Abbasid court. In
addition, the Barmecide family of Persian Buddhists, who had converted
to Islam, assumed leadership roles in Baghdad.
The atmosphere at court, certainly during Mamuns period, was
that of an active interest in and overt support and patronage for the
scientific, medical and various other accomplishments of other nations
and cultures, as well as of individuals. The caliphate as a state did not
attempt to label as heretic those of its subjects who were active in
philosophical and scientific endeavours.
This early period represents the Islamic states height of self-
confidence, in which ideas and traditions of all kinds were permitted to
be debated in forums often presided over by the caliph himself. During
this time, religious and juridical scholarship was also gaining in defin-
ition, and gradually the four schools of Islamic law were developed. The
idea of a single, Islamic, all-inclusive legal system symbolised by these
schools had not yet taken hold, and every aspect of the principles and
practices of statecraft, including the foundations of belief itself, were
subject to debate and intensive examination.
The reasons for the birth of Islamic philosophy in such an envir-
onment are clear. By sanctioning and even promoting a culture of debate,
the state encouraged the expression of a wide range of beliefs, arguments
and doctrines originating in different religious and scientific views. To
maintain its authority, the Islamic state increasingly found it necessary
to defend its position against well-argued but diverse challenges on a
range of theological topics. Very soon, therefore, the need emerged for a
much more powerful tool than qiyas, or analogy, which the Muslim
scholars had employed successfully up to that time in the science of
hadith and in the codification of Islamic law.
the rise of the academy
Mamuns state-sponsored translation movement was centred in
a new Academy of Philosophy, the House of Wisdom, in Baghdad.
Mamun appointed the well-respected court physician of Harun
al-Rashd, Yuh _ anna ibnMasawayh, as the Academys first head.7 Skilled
translators under the direction of Yuh _ anna himself were actively
engaged in translating texts from the Syriac and subsequently from the
Greek in the identified philosophical tradition. The most important
translator of this period was H _ unayn ibn Ish
_ aq (80973). His Arabic
versions of the Greek philosophical tradition, executed in a highly
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refined, scholarly manner, contributed immensely to the rise of phil-
osophy in Islamic lands.8
In addition to Mamun, other members of the Arab tribal aristocracy,
such as the Banu Musa family, also patronised translators and scholars
from a range of ethnic and religious backgrounds. The participation of
learned scholars and members of religions other than Islam in the state-
endowed centres and in scholarly activity in general had a very positive
effect on the rise of falsafa, and prominent Jewish and Christian phil-
osophers are counted among those responsible for contributing to its
refinement in Islamic history.
Baghdad exercised power over vast regions from the Indus valley to
North Africa, and an Islamic universal worldview was sought to uphold
the legitimate authority of the caliphate as world power. Umayyad fac-
tions which had questioned the caliphates authority of universal rule
from different points of view, including the doctrinal, persisted, and in
some cases became more refined. This led to the definition of a set of
critical political issues, which were later addressed by theologians such
as al-Baqillan and Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdad. In addition to doctrinal
issues a set of political-philosophical questions concerning rule and
legitimacy, justice, knowledge, the role of leadership in the city, law and
the position of lawgiver was stated within an Islamic framework. These
questions were later examined systematically by Islams greatest polit-
ical philosopher, al-Farab, whose Platonist-inspired principles of polit-
ics became the standard for all later Islamic political theories.
This Greek heritage became the most sought-after tool in the con-
struction of a rational base for the revealed teachings of a defined Islamic
theology, thus serving to defend it.9 As an example, the religious doc-
trine of creation and the position of a willing and knowing creator
possessing choice came to be discussed in terms of Aristotelian notions
of causality and of the position of the cause of causes. The creators
attributes (s _ ifat), and one in particular, that of the quranic All-
Knowing (alm), were discussed in terms of Aristotelian principles of
intellectual knowledge as interpreted by the later Peripatetic commen-
tators of the school of Alexandria.
Dependence on Greek philosophy had a two-sided impact. The
Greek philosophical methods, principles and techniques were hailed for
their power, demonstrating solutions to problems of immense value to
the Muslim community. At the same time they caused a reaction from
the traditionalist segments of society along with literalist religious
scholars, particularly the H _ anbalites. This polarity has forever defined
the position of philosophy in Islam.
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the idea of validity
The formative period was distinguished by the role played by Abu
Yusuf ibn Ish _ aq al-Kind (d. c. 866), sometimes referred to as the phil-
osopher of the Arabs, whose works introduced the idea of the validity of
philosophical investigation per se, independently of formal kalam
affiliation. This notion of the validity of philosophy as an independent
discipline has been fundamental to its development in Islamic history.
Of lasting significance to the position of philosophy is Kinds
principal view, which upholds the validity of revealed truth and at the
same time holds that the demonstrative method, known by the term
burhan (Arabic for Posterior Analytics, the title of Aristotles most
important book on logical method), is equally capable of recovering the
highest form of knowledge. Kind did not, however, attempt a system-
atic harmonisation of revealed truth with philosophy (one of Islamic
philosophys primary goals, also known as the rational proof of
prophecy). His main contribution was to identify Greek texts and refine
their Arabic translations (some of which he had commissioned). These
texts include extensive paraphrases of pre-Socratic authors, Platos
Laws, Timus and Republic, plus paraphrases of the Phaedo and other
Platonic texts; almost the entire Aristotelian corpus minus the Politics;
and selected Neoplatonic texts, some incorrectly identified (e.g., parts of
Plotinus Enneads IVVI, thought to be Aristotles Theology); as well
as works by Porphyry, notably the Isagoge, and by Proclus, together with
many other texts and fragments of the Greek philosophical heritage,
including some elements of Stoic logic and physics associated with the
late antique schools of Alexandria and Athens. In addition, Aristotelian
commentaries, including those of Alexander of Aphrodisias along with
their Neoplatonist interpretations, were identified and translated.10
The basic character of this periods philosophical method is shown
in Kinds own syncretic approach to the presentation and discussion of
philosophical problems. The first attempt to construct a metaphysical
system is seen in Kinds best-known text, On First Philosophy, in
which he defines a framework based on Neoplatonist theories of
emanation and the concept of the One, plus the basic Aristotelian
principles of being and modality as well as the metaphysics of causality
and of intellectual knowledge. The latter are given an Arabic version
that partially incorporates the Aristotelian and Platonic theories of the
soul and the Platonic dialectical method. Kind argued for creation
ex nihilo, based on the Platonic emanation of intellect, soul and matter
from the One, but not as any natural causation in which the First Being
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is created simply by Gods eternal will.11 On one of Islamic philosophys
other lasting problems, namely the nature of resurrection, he affirmed
the immortality of the individual soul and claimed this to be the rational
explanation for resurrection.
Kinds work thus represents the first serious philosophical discus-
sion of a set of problems formulated by the earlier Mutazilite theolo-
gians and marks the true genesis of philosophy in the Islamic world. In
addition to his attention to cosmological problems surrounding creation
ex nihilo, Kind also addressed epistemological problems that relate to
revelation, prophecy and human knowledge.12 His philosophical analy-
sis and the construction of arguments in Arabic, in which he introduces
for the first time a well-defined technical language, set the scene and
contributed to the acceptance of falsafa as an independent, bona fide
science. His arguments plus their corollaries (such as the identification
of the God of revelation with the One of Greek cosmological systems on
the one hand and with the First Cause of Aristotelian metaphysics on
the other), the crucial distinction between divine knowledge and human
knowledge, and other analyses, were later rejected, redefined or refined,
but his writings, especially in the theoretical domain, describe the basic
frame of reference for Islamic philosophy.13
the creative period: late ninth to early twelfth century
The first theological movement in Islam, best exemplified by the
work of the Mutazila as noted earlier, ushered into the Islamic intel-
lectual domain a strong rationalist tendency. The dominant view of this
movement was heralded as the Primacy of Reason. The rationalist
direction was partially curtailed, however, by a second theological
principle, known as Primacy of Revelation (as _ alat al-wah
_ y). This
position was publicly proclaimed by Abul-H _ asan al-Ashar (912), the
movements exemplum figure. Political trends and populist movements,
directed by the increasingly influential Asharite theologians, reined in
what they saw as the excesses of rationalism, and H _ anbalite anti-
rationalist zeal as well as theological decrees aimed against the Greek
and pagan sciences presented a powerful challenge to the falsafa
movement.
The creative genius of the two exemplar philosophers of this period,
Farab and Avicenna, met this challenge by their holistic and systematic
philosophical constructions aimed, among other things, at harmonising
reason with revelation. Their work also manifested innovations and
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refinements in philosophical technique and analysis, and thus perman-
ently defined major trends in Islamic philosophy. Three general areas of
inquiry together indicate the apogee of Islamic philosophys creativity
during this period: (1) logic and philosophy of language; (2) political
philosophy, including questions of prophecy and conjunction with the
Active Intellect; and (3) holistic systems and the study of being.
a philosophy of language
Abu Nas _ r al-Farab (875950) (Abunaser, or Alfarabius in medieval
Latin texts), often esteemed as the Second Teacher, is one of the most
original thinkers in Islamic philosophy. His commentaries on the
Aristotelian logical texts of the Organon were pivotal in the process of
refining Arabic logical terminology and formal techniques.14 For
example, he elaborated and refined the rules of inference with clearer
identifications of valid moods. One of his major theoretical works, The
Book of Letters (Kitab al-H _ uruf), represents the first attempt to study
language in relation to logic in a clear and systematic way.15 Together
with his other independent technical work, Utterances Employed in
Logic, Farab defined a new style and structure for the study of logic in
which he introduced linguistic transformations in ascertaining the
meaning of philosophical terms. These texts represent perhaps the first
technical examination of how many ways a thing can be said. They
include a critique of predication, an examination of truth-value and
meaning, and an analysis and refinement of many other formal logical
arguments and problems.
political philosophy
Farab was the first thinker to define the classical political phil-
osophy of Platos Republic, harmonised with Aristotelian epistemo-
logical, ontological and cosmological principles within the broader
frame of Islamic religion. While political philosophy in the structure
presented in Farabs independent studies does not continue after him,
his study of the typology of political regimes, the concept of law and the
role of the lawmaker, and the identification of an ideal form of Islamic
government, called the Virtuous City, has indirectly but permanently
marked the fundamental ideas of political philosophy in Islam.
For example, Farabs entirely new types of works on political
philosophy, such as the Attainment of Happiness and the Political
Regime, include a novel approach to technical discussions of prophecy
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and creation, the role of the lawgiver and divine law in the city.16 For the
first time, political thought is presented in a framework defined by the
metaphysics of the one and the many, integrated with Aristotelian
theories of intellectual knowledge. Here the domains of practical phil-
osophy are redefined in a metaphysical system designated and named
the science of politics. These are put forth as a means for the attain-
ment of happiness and identify the institution of just rule. In fact the
entire range of political views concerning the role of the human being in
the city, of the enlightenment of the citizen through knowledge and
justice, and of human salvation in resurrection, is stipulated as the end
of the process and practice of philosophy.
Farabs most technical work in political philosophy explores the
foundations of the ideal city and relates the study of being and of cos-
mology to politics by constructing interconnected realms of the soul, the
city and the cosmos. These highly refined texts impacted a limited
audience, and influenced the Latin tradition more than they did the
Islamic. Islamic political philosophy was defined almost entirely by
Farabs most popular work, The Ideas of the Inhabitants of the Virtu-
ous City,17 a text that employs a less technical language and so was
more accessible to a wider intellectual audience. As an expression, the
Virtuous City is invoked continuously to indicate the ideal Islamic
state. This text had an essential impact in the spread of political doc-
trines of just rule by allowing philosophical discourse about the Islamic
revelation, prophecy and law, and of the beliefs and actions of the
Muslim community as a whole within a rational system.
In The Virtuous City Farab describes prophecy as a type of know-
ledge based on Aristotelian theories of intellectual knowledge and later
formulations by the Peripatetic commentators of the Active Intellect.
These theories make it possible for the human being, not restricted by
Gods will and the action of Gods choice, to obtain unrestricted,
prophetic knowledge. Here Farab, in a novel philosophical way that is
unique in the Islamic intellectual tradition, integrates Platos ideas of
the ideals of the Republic and the rank of the philosopher-king/phil-
osopher-ruler with Aristotelian metaphysics and epistemological the-
ories. Farab argues that anyone who is devoted to philosophical inquiry
and undergoes a rigorous intellectual training can experience conjunc-
tion with the Active Intellect. Anyone who achieves this which, as an
epistemological principle, acts as a giver of forms or giver of science
(the dator formarum and dator scientias of the Latin texts) will come
to know all the intelligibles and will gain perfect knowledge. This
bestows the authority to rule the ideal city.
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This epistemological theory forms the core of Farabs political
thought and is later taken up by Avicenna, who refines and reformulates
the structure of union with the Active Intellect into a unified theory of
prophecy. Avicennas work in this regard is incorporated in his discus-
sions of psychology and epistemology and is regarded as one of the most
significant components of Islamic philosophy as a whole. Avicennas
doctrine of prophecy serves the later definition of seventeenth-century
Shite political doctrine. In all subsequent refinements of intellectual
Shism, the Virtuous City concept describes legitimate, divinely
inspired, just rule by the philosopher-ruler, now called the jurist-
guardian.18
holistic systems
Islamic Peripatetic philosophy is defined by the highly creative work
of Avicenna. Avicennas corpus sets him apart from all his predecessors
because it represents the first complete system within which every
aspect of philosophical inquiry from logic tometaphysics is well defined,
systematically argued and properly situated within the structure of
existing philosophical systems.
The holistic system is best exemplified in his work known as
the Healing (al-Shifa), in which the entire range of philosophical
subjects is reconstructed in Avicennas own style, rather than as a non-
argumentative commentary on the texts of Greek masters. In this sys-
tem, political theory is incorporated within metaphysics, and prophecy
is described in terms of a generalised theory of intellectual knowledge.
This generalised theory is also capable of defining mystical knowledge.
The other most significant features of Avicennas system are a
number of innovative analyses of being, modality and the determinants
of being. These include the distinction between essence and existence
and the ontological distinction between contingent and necessary being,
which leads to the logical construction of the Necessary Being, all
described by Avicenna for the first time in history.19 This ontological
construct serves to harmonise philosophy with religious ideas, espe-
cially since the Islamic intellectual tradition accepts the identification
of the Necessary Being with God, who is responsible for a necessary and
eternal creation, beginning with the intellects, souls and the heavenly
spheres.
Avicennas novel and famous thought-experiment known as
the Flying Man Argument served to define the idea of primary self-
consciousness as an act of self-identification. Avicenna was the first
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thinker to state that an individual suspended with no spatial or temporal
referents will necessarily affirm his or her own being. This served as the
model for the later Illuminationist views of identity relations in being
and knowing as foundations of knowledge.20 Many problems related to
religious notions such as prophecy and immortality are also analysed in
Avicennas system and provided a basis for later thinkers to make
philosophymore easily integrated into religion. His theories of prophetic
knowledge, for example, are based on the notion of holy intellect, and
he is the first philosopher to express the idea that through exegesis of
quranic teachings, the validity of demonstrated, rational truth may be
further proved.21 Avicennas students, notably Bahmanyar, continued
his systematic philosophical work, which served to solidify the defin-
ition of Islamic Peripatetic philosophy and contributed to its acceptance
as the first clear school of falsafa in Islam.
reaction and reconstruction: twelfth to seventeenth centuries
The twelfth century was marked by a myriad political and intel-
lectual currents. The caliphate grew weaker, regional dynasties seized
the chance to assert their independence, and the caliphs increasingly
proclaimed kalam theological positions as the official doctrine of state.
Many jurists followed, and at times initiated, trends that considered the
Greek sciences and especially the Greek-inspired philosophical world-
view to be heretical. However, the pursuit of the sciences and of phil-
osophy, including medicine, that once thrived exclusively under the
patronage of the caliphs and other Arab overlords, continued to be sup-
ported by a range of princes, rulers and kings in centres in Iran, Central
Asia, Anatolia and elsewhere.
Three types of reaction to philosophy were initiated by three figures
whose work has forever defined normative Islam and emerged as pre-
dominant doctrinal processes that gained strength with every passing
century in the religious, juridical and legalist domains. These trends are
briefly indicated here in relation to the principal views of a proponent of
each one: (1) Abul-H _ asan al-Ashar, (2) Abu H
_ amid al-Ghazal and
(3) Ibn Taymiyya.
the reformist reaction
Abul-H _ asan al-Ashar represents a theological trend that sought to
reform the dominant rationalist Mutazilite thinking of the time and
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secure a more quranically faithful style of monotheism. Ashar, whose
work The Treatise (al-Risala) is still studied in Sunn institutions, was
sceptical about any systematic recourse to Greek thinking to explain
Islamic revelation and to prove the validity of its tenets. The Asharite
tradition succeeded in diminishing the study of philosophy as an inde-
pendent discipline, and to this day traditional theological learning in
Islam often rejects not only falsafa but also the thoroughgoing ration-
alist doctrine espoused by the Mutazila, even though Asharism did
come to incorporate major areas of Greek logic, and much of the
metaphysical terminology and categories.
the revivalist reaction
The second trend was initiated by the creative Abu H _ amid al-
Ghazal (d. 1111), an influential scholar who was born in T us in the
heart of the Iranian sphere of intellectual life. He was employed by
the state, and was encouraged to define a concordist Islamic theology
that would define a legitimate place for Sufism, tradition and
rationality, to provide a stable and inclusive official creed for the
Sunn rulers. His theological work, The Revival of Religious Sciences
(Ih _ ya Ul um al-Dn), achieved this; it is still actively studied and
serves as a lively source for interpretation and opinion in mainstream
Sunn Islam.
Ghazals philosophical work has had an impact in defining, one
way or another, the direction of all subsequent philosophical compos-
ition in Islam. This work may be divided into two main types, both of
them demonstrating an extremely sophisticated analysis of philosoph-
ical problems, whether aimed at the refutation of falsafa doctrine or at
teaching an accepted type of philosophy. The first type is his famous
anti-falsafa polemic, The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut
al-falasifa), in which Avicennan propositions and problems are identi-
fied and expressed in a refined philosophical language, and then shown
to be self-contradictory.22 Among these problems three stand out, which
have subsequently inspired philosophers to present analyses of them in
ways deemed harmonious with religion: creation and eternity, Gods
knowledge of particulars, and the immortality of the human soul and
resurrection. In each case Ghazal seeks to demonstrate that the phil-
osophers position of (1) eternity over creation, (2) Gods knowledge as
limited to universals and (3) the rejection of an individuated immortality
of the soul and bodily resurrection are both rationally untenable and
tantamount to infidelity (kufr).
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Ghazals second type of work consists of independent texts on
philosophy in which the approach is not polemical, but seeks to analyse
and explain philosophical arguments. These include his Aims of the
Philosophers (Maqas _ id al-falasifa) and The Straight Method (al-Qist
_ as
al-Mustaqm). Thus Ghazals work actually ensured in more ways than
one the continuity of philosophy in Islam, perhaps even providing it
with a new impetus and energy. In practice, this second aspect of
Ghazals work defined a textbook genre of falsafa, accepted and
studied in scholastic traditions, albeit not in all Islamic centres. The
usual Ottoman approach to falsafa, for instance, took Ghazals position
to be definitive. The best example is the textbook by Athr al-Dn
al-Abhar, called Guide to Philosophy (Hidayat al-h _ ikma), which has
been widely studied together with numerous commentaries, glosses and
superglosses. Many scholastic centres used these texts as part of an
accepted syllabus on philosophy.
Another outcome of Ghazals critical analysis was that many
thinkers responded by seeking to remove the inconsistencies in the
Peripatetic philosophical corpus that Ghazal had demonstrated, and in
so doing made significant contributions to the refinement of falsafa and
thus to its creative existence. For example, Shihab al-Dn Suhraward
(d. 1191), the innovative Persian founder of the new system called the
Philosophy of Illumination (H _ ikmat al-ishraq), was able to solve
many logical gaps and metaphysical and epistemological inconsistencies
and so help to remove doubts as to falsafas legitimacy.23
The great Andalusian philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (d. 1198)
wrote one of falsafas most creative works as a direct response to
Ghazals polemics, The Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tahafut
al-tahafut), a text that also wielded influence in Latin translation. This,
together with the Latin translations of his commentaries on many of
Aristotles texts, and on Platos Republic, contributed significantly to
the development of Latin philosophy.24 In his Aristotelian commen-
taries Averroes aimed to cleanse the Islamic philosophical corpus of
Neoplatonist, emanationist views, to separate pure philosophy from the
more explicitly theological arguments of Farab and Avicenna, and
hence to construct a pure Aristotelian philosophical system.
Later philosophers were also inspired to meet the challenges of
Ghazals texts and constructed elaborate arguments to prove the val-
idity of accepted philosophical positions. For example, in the seven-
teenth century, Mr Damads highly refined theory of Temporal
Generation (h _ uduth dahr) once and for all harmonised the idea of
creation with the philosophers views on eternity and becoming. And in
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the nineteenth century Had Sabzevars construct, called Formal
Body (badan mithl), helped to demonstrate that the philosophers do
believe in a kind of bodily resurrection, which caused an even greater
degree of acceptance of philosophy by the powerful Shite ulema. In
short, the continuation of the study of a religiously accepted Islamic
philosophy to this day, albeit in a limited way and confined mostly to
Shite scholastic centres, has been both directly and indirectly shaped
by Ghazals work.
the fundamentalist reaction
Although H _ anbalism faded before the appeal of Asharism, it
retained its appeal in certain Syrian circles. Its most distinguished
interpreter, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1326), was a staunchly anti-falsafa jurist
and ideologue of scriptural literalism. Ibn Taymiyya produced a harsh
attack on philosophy, entitled al-Radd ala al-mant _ iqiyyn (Refutation
of the Rational Philosophers), which exercised some influence in the
complex and divided world of H _ anbal literalism.25 From the eighteenth
century, such movements, including the Wahhab and the Salaf, have
shared this dogmatic ideology and actively preach on the need to rid
Islam of all forms of innovations deemed to be un-Islamic, including any
recourse to reason (aql). Naturally, such militantly fundamentalist
views, while generally opposed by mainstream ulema, have served to
curtail the study of philosophy in any of its forms.
reconstruction, continuity and illumination
Philosophy continued in Andalusia, where the texts of Averroes
were instrumental in its development. Other types of philosophical
writing emerged in Andalusian centres such as Cordoba and Seville in
the twelfth century. The dominance of legal strictures, among other
reasons, ensured that the production of philosophical writing by Ibn
Bajja (d. 1138) and Ibn T ufayl (d. 1185) took the form of individual works
rather than a trend or school.
Ibn Bajjas writings were an interpretation of Farabs political phil-
osophy. Ibn Bajja reaffirms the supreme virtues of the perfect, ideal city,
but does not think that it will ever be realised. He argues that darkness
prevails in all actual cities, whose inhabitants live in the cave (after
Plato), perceiving only the shadows and not the good. He does not
accept Farabs view of a leadership role for the philosopher in the city
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but argues instead that the philosophers activity is limited to the soli-
tary pursuit of theoretical knowledge. His teaching accepts Avicennas
notion of experiential knowledge, explained as enlightenment,
through conjunction with the Active Intellect (e.g. Avicennas Direct-
ives and Remarks, IX, X), but this prophetic knowledge serves only
the individual philosopher rather than a political system, or a state.
Ibn T ufayl continued Ibn Bajjas political interpretations. He was
more inclined towards Avicennas philosophical allegories and com-
posed a philosophical story of a solitary man who is suckled by a deer on
an isolated island, reared in the wild, and finally acquires complete
theoretical knowledge based on his own self-abilities in unaided reason.
This enlightenment, however, does not affect society; he fails on his
mission to bring wisdom to the inhabitants of an adjacent island, and is
forced to return to his solitary life.
In the East, philosophy mainly continued through Suhrawards
Illuminationist philosophical system. The Philosophy of Illumination is
a holistic, constructed system that aims to refine the periods Peripatetic
philosophy, which was known mainly through Avicenna. Illumina-
tionism is critical. Had it not been for Suhrawards definition and
construction of the Philosophy of Illumination, the creative endeavour
of philosophy as a distinctive branch of knowledge might have died out
altogether in Islam.
For the most part, Aristotles authority was unquestioned among
devotees of falsafa, and Avicennas work was considered the perfect and
consistent Arabic and Persian expression of his system. Suhraward was
among the very first philosophers, as opposed to theologians, to raise
well-reasoned objections to Aristotle. His aim to refine philosophical
arguments by rethinking the set of questions that constitute holistic
systems generated novel analyses covering the principles of know-
ledge, ways of examining being, and new cosmological constructs.
The most important and clearly stipulated aim of the philosophy of
Illumination is the construction of a holistic system to define a new
method of science, named the Science of Lights (ilm al-anwar), a
refinement of Aristotelian method that is capable of describing an
inclusive range of phenomena in which Peripatetic theory is thought to
have failed. Suhrawards novel ideas were expressed in four major texts
that together constituted the new system. The first of these texts was
The Intimations (al-Talwh _ at); the second, its addendum, was entitled
The Apposites (al-Muqawamat). The latter was composed with a
standard Peripatetic structure and language with the aim of presenting
a working synopsis of Avicennas philosophical system, to bring out
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the elements in which the Illuminationist position differs from that
of the Peripatetic, and also to introduce arguments to prove the former.
The third text, the Paths and Havens (al-Mashari wal-Mut _ arah
_ at),
is the longest of Suhrawards compositions. Here he presents detailed
arguments concerning Illuminationist principles in every domain of
philosophical inquiry set against those of the Peripatetics, mainly the
strictly Avicennan.
The fourth text of the corpus is the text eponymous with the system
itself, The Philosophy of Illumination (H _ ikmat al-ishraq); this is the
best known of all of Suhrawards works. The book is the final expres-
sion and systematic construction of the new analysis. Its structure
differs from the standard, three-part logic, physics and metaphysics
found in Peripatetic texts and employs a constructed, symbolic meta-
language, called the Language of Illumination (lisan al-ishraq). All
things pertaining to the domains of knowing, being and cosmology are
depicted as lights in which distinction is determined by equivocation;
that is, in terms of degrees of intensity of luminosity. The One origin of
the system is the most luminous, hence most self-conscious light,
named the Light of Lights, and all other entities are propagated from it in
accordance with the increasing sequence 2n, where n is the rank of the
propagated light starting with the First Light; and together they form the
continuum, the luminous whole of reality.
The Illuminationist ontological position, called primacy of quid-
dity, was a matter of considerable controversy. Those who believed in
the primacy of being, or existence (wujud), considered essence (mahiyya)
to be a derived, mental concept (amr itibar, a term of secondary
intention); while those who believed in the primacy of quiddity con-
sidered existence to be a derived, mental concept. The Illuminationist
position was this: should existence be real outside the mind
(mutah _ aqqaq f kharij al-dhihn), then the real must consist of two
things: the principle of the reality of existence, and the being of exist-
ence, which requires a referent outside the mind (mis _ daq f kharij al-
dhihn). Moreover, its referent outside the mind must also consist of two
things, which are subdivided, and so on, ad infinitum. This is clearly
absurd. Therefore existence must be considered an abstract, derived,
mental concept.
Mongol rule over eastern Islam witnessed the emergence of noted
thinkers who, starting in the thirteenth century, wrote commentaries on
Suhrawards texts and also composed independent works, some dis-
tinctly inspired by the Illuminationist system. Among the Ottomans,
too, Illuminationism continued to be cultivated, as exampled in the
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figure of Ismal Ankaraw (d. 1631), whose commentaries on Suhraward
perpetuated this important branch of the falsafa tradition in Ottoman
lands.26 In this respect an Illuminationist-inspired analytical trend can
be seen to have helped to rescue genuine philosophy from being
assimilated entirely into either dogmatic theology or mysticism. In part,
the origins of Illuminationist philosophy may be viewed as attempts to
respond to anti-falsafa polemics. The daring Illuminationist philosoph-
ical position, however, insisted that Peripatetic philosophy itself needed
to be reconstructed in order to remove a set of presumed logical gaps and
to provide epistemological and other theories better able to explain
being, knowing and cosmology.
the metaphysical school of is _ fahan
During the late sixteenth century in Is _ fahan, the beginnings of a
remarkable, widespread and prolific philosophical activity are in evi-
dence. Safavid rulers initiated a new era in Iranian intellectual life by
their lavish endowment of many new centres of scholarship, as in the
previous century when the mother of the ruling Timurid Shah,
Shahrokh, had been the prime mover in large endowments given to
scholarship and the founding of religious colleges (madrasas). One of the
major results of this enhanced level of intellectual life in Iran has been
described as a period of revival in the history of post-Avicennan
philosophy. Philosophy in this period took the form of the widespread
study and teaching of philosophical subjects, in a way quite distinct
from the earlier limited engagement of a few thinkers. Also, many of the
falsafa works produced in this period are superior to the scholastic
textbooks that were generated in Iran from the thirteenth to the late
sixteenth century. As intense as the period was, however, it did not last
long, and by the late seventeenth century the creative side of the activity
gave way to a scholastic trend that continued the philosophical
endeavour through the composition of commentaries, glosses and
superglosses.
The impact of the School of Is _ fahan is evident in many intellectual
domains in Iran up to the present, most of all in the acceptance and
incorporation of a reformulated Islamic philosophy into higher level
syllabuses of Shite madrasas (studied by a few pre-eminent religious
scholars after completing the study of formal theology and law). Twelver
Shism, as we know it today, is the result of work done by sixteenth-
and seventeenth-century scholars, most of whom were trained in the
intellectual sciences (al-ulum al-aqliyya) and in juridical domains
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called transmitted sciences (al-ulum al-naqliyya). Philosophy in this
period was believed to be a comprehensive and scientific (ilm, which
also means philosophical in the classical sense) system, and intel-
lectual Shism drew from it considerably in many ways that were not
confined to jurisprudence and theology, thus distinguishing it from
Sunn Islam.
The manifest results of the philosophical activity and creation of the
rationalist principles of Shite theology were based on multiple sources.
In the domain of political thought, Shite scholars equipped with the
method of demonstration defined a place for Farabs concept of learned
reformers of law and elaborated on it by formulating the role of a
supreme source of authority, whose authority was established by unified
epistemological theories. The view of knowledge employed here com-
bined the Peripatetic with the Illuminationist, and the legalist tradition
that drew on revealed authority was also incorporated into the system.
The widespread scholarly work of this period gave rise to the recovery
and study of the entire range of Islamic philosophys texts and also led to
the definition of the third synthesis and restructuring of a holistic sys-
tem. This was a major achievement in the development of philosophy in
Islam, as it was finally proven to be harmonious with revelation and
therefore accepted by more and more Shite clergy. The seventeenth-
century philosophical texts, mostly composed in the Safavid capital of
Is _ fahan, continued the examination of the earlier trends but also
included the elaboration and refinement of a number of added problems,
often in line with the periods characteristic preoccupation with uniform
theories and holistic systems.
Mr Damad (d. 1630) and his acclaimed pupil Mulla S _ adra (1571
1640) were the two most creative philosophers of this period and
together defined the School of Is _ fahans analytic summit. Other
members of this school included Mr Fenderesk (d. 1640) and Shaykh
Baha (d. 1621), who excelled in scientific and mathematical dis-
coveries. The main outcome of this period was the construction of a
system called Metaphysical Philosophy, which is also part of the
name given to Mulla S _ adras best-known text, The Four Journeys
(al-Asfar al-Arbaa).27 This system is structurally distinct from both
the Peripatetic and the Illuminationist systems. It commences with
the study of being and places a special emphasis on metaphysics. The
structure of Peripatetic texts, where the study of logic forms the first
of the three sciences is changed, and a considerably shortened logic is
studied as part of independent textbooks with an emphasis on formal
techniques.
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Further reading
Adamson, Peter, and Taylor, Richard C. (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to
Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge, 2005).
Daiber, Hans, Bibliography of Islamic Philosophy, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1999).
Fakhry, Majid, A History of Islamic Philosophy, 2nd edn (New York,
1983).
Gutas, Dimitri, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition (Leiden, 1988).
Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement
in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society (2nd4th/8th10th centuries)
(London, 1998).
The study of Arabic philosophy in the twentieth century: an essay on the
historiography of Arabic philosophy, British Journal of Middle Eastern
Studies 29 (2002), pp. 525.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, and Leaman, Oliver (eds.), History of Islamic
Philosophy, 2 vols. (London, 1996).
Sharif, M.M., A History of Muslim Philosophy, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden, 19636).
Wisnovsky, Robert, Avicennas Metaphysics in Context (London, 2003).
Notes
1. For a discussion of theology in relation to and its impact on philosophy see Majid Fakhry, Philosophy, Dogma, and the Impact of Greek Thought in Islam (Aldershot, 1994).
2. An important discussion of the relationship between falsafa and kalam was presented by Averroes (Ibn Rushd), who believed that philosophical investigation should be kept distinct from theological premises. See Averroes, Decisive Treatise and Epistle Dedicatory, tr. Charles E. Butterworth (Provo, UT, 2001).
3. For a comprehensive study of the Ismal doctrines including their philosophical and theological views see Farhad Daftary, The Ismals: Their History and Doctrines (London, 1990). See also S.M. Stern, Studies in Early Ismalism (Jerusalem, 1983).
4. Muh _ ammad ibn al Nadm, al-Fihrist (Cairo, n.d.).
5. Ibid., p.511; also Majid Fakhry,AHistory of Islamic Philosophy, 2nd edn (New York, 1983), p.5.
6. Fakhry, History, pp.512. 7. The official institution of Bayt al-H
_ ikma was directed by Masawiyah,
had a keeper named Yah _ ya ibn al-Bit
_ rq, and was protected and
supported by Mamun, whose love of ancient wisdom led him to send officials to Constantinople and other regions in Byzantium to seek out and purchase books of the ancient sages and scholars. These were then brought to the Academy and translated into Arabic. See Fakhry, History of Islamic Philosophy, pp.12ff.
8. For a comprehensive presentation of translations from Greek sources to Arabic see Franz Rosenthal, The Classical Heritage in Islam, tr. Emile Marmorstein and Jenny Marmorstein (London, 1975).
9. Fakhry, Philosophy, Dogma.
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10. The Aristotelian and other philosophical texts translated are discussed in F. E. Peters, Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian Tradition in Islam (New York, 1968).
11. See al-Kind, On First Philosophy, tr. Alfred L. Ivry (Albany, NY, 1974). An excellent account of the crucial set of philosophical questions concerning Kind and the Mutazila is given by P. Adamson, Al-Kind and the Mutazila: divine attributes, creation, and freedom, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 13 (2003), pp.4577.
12. For a discussion of creation and other problems significant in the development of early Islamic philosophy see Herbert Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation, and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (Oxford, 1987).
13. For a general discussion of Kinds works and philosophical method see George N. Atiyeh, Al-Kind: The Philosopher of the Arabs (Rawalpindi, 1966).
14. See Shukri Abed, Aristotelian Logic and the Arabic Language in Alfarabi (Albany, NY, 1991).
15. This is one of medieval philosophys most creative texts. It has not been translated, nor has it as yet been the subject of an analytical study in Western scholarship. The Arabic text represents the apogee of refined technical language; and Farabs penetrating analysis of being, and of the theoretical foundations of state and religion, set the standard for philosophical expression in Islam. See al-Farab, Kitab al-H
_ uruf, ed.
Muhsin Mahdi (Beirut, 1970). 16. Richard Walzer, Alfarabi on the Perfect State (Oxford, 1985), and
MuhsinMahdi,Alfarabis Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, revised edn (Ithaca, 2002).
17. Richard Walzer, On the Perfect State, revised edn (Chicago, 1998). 18. See Hossein Ziai, Knowledge and authority in Sh philosophy, in
Lynda Clarke (ed.), Shiite Heritage: Essays in Classical and Modern Traditions (Binghamton, NY, 2002), pp.35973.
19. See for example Fazlur Rahman, Essence and Existence in Avicenna, in Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies 4 (1958), pp.16, continued in Essence and Existence, I: Ibn Sna: the myth and the reality, in Hamdard Islamicus 4/1 (1981), pp.314. See also Michael E. Marmura, Avicennas proof from contingency for Gods existence in the Metaphysics of the Shifa, Medieval Studies 42 (1980), pp.33752.
20. Avicennas views of a primary and intuitive act of self-identification impact the Illuminationists famous unified theory of knowledge by presence, and anticipate the Cartesian cogito. See Therese-Anne Druart, The soul and the body problem: Avicenna and Descartes, in Therese- Anne Druart (ed.), Arabic Philosophy and the West: Continuity and Interaction (Washington, DC, 1988), pp.2749.
21. See Fazlur Rahman, Prophecy in Islam (London, 1958). 22. Ghazals text is available in a bilingual edition: The Incoherence of
the Philosophers, tr. Michael E. Marmura, 2nd edn (Provo, UT, 2000). His polemical theological views concerning how philosophy should be positioned and studied are discussed by Michael E. Marmura in
Islamic philosophy (falsafa) 75
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Ghazal and Asharism Revisited, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 12 (2002), pp.91110. Ghazals doctrinal positions on creation and related problems argued against Avicenna are discussed by Richard M. Frank, Creation and the Cosmic System: Al-Ghazal and Avicenna (Heidelberg, 1992).
23. For a general account of the new Illuminationist system see Hossein Ziai, Knowledge and Illumination: A Study of Suhrawards H
_ ikmat
al-Ishraq (Atlanta, 1990). 24. The Arabic text of Averroes Tahafut al-tahafut has been translated by
Simon Van Den Bergh, The Incoherence of the Incoherence (London, 1969).
25. Ibn Taymiyya attacks the philosophers by paraphrasing their arguments, taken from a host of sources, which he then presents as his own, claiming that they are indications of the heretical positions held by philosophers. His work is a prime example of sophistry, distorting the philosophers views to serve his own anti-rationalist ideology. See Wael B. Hallaq (tr.), Ibn Taymiyya against the Greek Logicians (Oxford, 1993).
26. Bilal Kuspinar, Ismail Ankaravi on the Illuminative Philosophy: His Izahul-Hikem: Edition and Analysis in Comparison with Dawwanis Shawakil al-Hur, together with the Translation of Suhrawardis Hayakil al-Nur (Kuala Lumpur, 1996).
27. There are no comprehensive, analytical studies of this work, and to date only the older philosophical study by Fazlur Rahman captures S
_ adras
stipulated and textually valid philosophical aim. See Fazlur Rahman, The Philosophy of Mulla S
_ adra (Albany, 1975).
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4 The developed kalam tradition
oliver leaman (part i) and sajjad rizvi (part ii)
PART I: SUNNISM
A few initial points need to be made about the nature of Islamic
theology in its later stages before a discussion of some of its main themes
and thinkers can be attempted. First, there often exists no clear distinction
between Islamic theology, in the sense of kalam, and the other Islamic
and not so Islamic sciences, such as grammar, jurisprudence (fiqh), phil-
osophy (falsafa/h _ ikma), Sufism, and the even more specific activities of
learning how to operate with the Traditions of the Prophet, and how to
assess and rank the chains of narrators which differentiate their levels of
reliability. Islamic theologians did not usually strictly separate what they
did from all these other activities, and so it is not easy to provide a neat
account of precisely what is theological and what is not.1
The first four centuries of Islamic theology had been a time of vibrant
creativity. The whole structure of the subject was being created, with its
novel vocabulary and its distinctive hermeneutic techniques, but by the
time of Ghazal the basic paradigms were already well established, and
kalamwas rivalling or outstripping falsafa in intellectual eminence. It is
often said that the assault ofGhazal on philosophy destroyed the latter in
the Islamic world until (and perhaps even in) modern times, and that he
replaced philosophy with theology and Sufism.2 This is not true; for one
thing falsafa as a discipline did not die; it continued to flourish in the
Persianworld and to some extent among theOttomans, and itwas only in
the Arabic-speaking regions of Islam that it sank into a marked decline,
until reviving in the nineteenth century as part of the Nahd _ a or Arabic-
Islamic renaissance.However falsafas key concerns andmethods lived
on, and flourished, within developed kalam.
the impact of al-ghazal
Ghazal (d. 1111) certainly did attack what he saw as the leading
theses of mashsha or Peripatetic philosophy, as represented by
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Avicenna, and in his attack he asserted what I shall argue is a defining
characteristic of kalam, namely, its reliance on rational argument of
what might be regarded as a dialectical type. According to Ghazal some
of the theses of falsafa are merely bida or heretical innovation, but
there are three graver positions which they uphold which actually
constitute kufr or unbelief. These are the denial of Gods knowledge of
particulars, the claim that the world is uncreated, and the insistence that
a physical afterlife is impossible. What is most interesting about
Ghazals approach is that he does not argue that because certain con-
clusions are beyond the pale from the point of view of Islam it follows
that they are not to be believed, drawing a line under the matter. He
argues, quite brilliantly, that on the criteria which the philosophers
themselves adduce, these conclusions do not follow from their premises
and so may safely be denied. In fact, so ready is Ghazal to put his toes in
the water of philosophy that some of the most distinguished scholars of
his thought have considered him to be a faylasuf, rather than the chief
nemesis of falsafa in the lands of Islam.3 (Interestingly, this was a view
shared by Christian Europe, so impressed was it by the fairness with
which he described the theses of Avicenna in his Maqas _ id al-falasifa,
later to be translated as the Intentiones Philosophorum.)
What was the impact of Ghazals critique of falsafa? His arguments
were subsequently attacked by Averroes,4 but Ghazals view largely
prevailed in the Islamic world, at least within its Arabic segment, in
suggesting that falsafa as a total system had really nothing to offer in the
understanding of religion or religious texts, and so was best abandoned.
These strictures do not apply at all tomuchof themetaphysics, or towhat
he did not see as an inseparable part of falsafa, namely logic (mant _ iq),
which he argued forms a vital part of theology and can even be derived
from Islamic texts itself. His arguments for the importance of logic,
derived in part from the methods of his teacher al-Juwayn (d. 1085),
known as the Imamof theTwo Sanctuaries (Imamal-H _ aramayn), proved
persuasive in an intellectual context that had already internalised logic in
the area of jurisprudence. This deep internalisation of logic, the core
rationalist technique, within the fundamental disciplines of the religion,
ensured that laterkalam texts werewell equipped to present a systematic
theology which progressed on strictly ratiocinative lines to prove the
truths of religion, as well as deploying reason to interpret the content of
revealed doctrine. It is true that some H _ anbalite thinkers came to attack
logic also, arguing that it was so infected by metaphysics that it cannot
furnish a neutral tool of analysis but instead serves to smuggle improper
ideas into the discussion of a religion which has been definitively
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expounded in scripture.5 For the great majority, however, logic continued
to enjoy a high level of respect among the exponents ofkalam, albeit often
under disparate labels. On balance, this outcome is hardly surprising,
since thewholemodus operandi of theologywas to establish conclusions
about Islam through some form of argument, and to defeat the advocates
of error using universally accessible techniques.
It is difficult to know precisely how to assess Ghazals arguments,
since he seems to be operating on two levels at once. In the first
instance, he needs to disprove the arguments of his opponents using
their own techniques, an ambitious strategy which denies the opponent
the refuge of disagreeing with the methodology employed. Yet he then
wants to argue that the conclusions of Avicennan falsafa are not only
improperly derived, but also constitute unbelief or at the very least
bida. So even if these conclusions followed logically from their prem-
ises, there must be something wrong, since it could hardly be the case
that one could validly derive propositions which contradict the clear
meaning of Gods speech. The philosophers, then, had not only to argue
that their conclusions were logically valid, but also that they did not
contradict Islam. They were also obliged to defend the view that rati-
ocination is a perfectly acceptable method for Muslims to use.
It has often been stated in the literature that those critical of reason
are anti-rationalist and traditionalist, but this is not necessarily the
case. If the results of deductive reason go against what we know through
some other method, then one might well wonder how far deductive
reason is useful. After all, we do not come to know most of the
important features of our lives through the use of reasoning at all; they
are more intimate and closer to us than that. It would, for example, be
difficult for someone to persuade me under normal circumstances that
my name was not Oliver Leaman, however good at reasoning she was,
nor that I was not working right now on a desk in Lexington, Kentucky.
Everything around me suggests that I am Oliver Leaman and that I am
typing this in Lexington, and I do not find this out through reasoning.
(Wittgensteins On Certainty is full of examples like this.6) So if rea-
soning suggested I was wrong I might well come to suspect reasoning as
a useful route to the truth in such cases, and this would not be anti-
rationalist or traditionalist in any meaningful sense.
the response of the philosophers
The philosophers tended to argue that where there was an apparent
conflict between Islam and falsafa this conflict was only apparent, and
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that a correct understanding of philosophy would resolve the tension. It
is the theologians, in particular those labelled by Averroes the people of
kalam (for him definitely a derogatory term), who unnecessarily com-
plicate the matter by their analyses of particular theological doctrines. It
is the philosophers who should be left to sort out these doctrines, since
only the philosophers have the ability and the training to resolve
them once and for all in a demonstrative fashion. The theologians
with their dialectical (jadal ) methodology are unable to resolve
issues comprehensively, and leave an abundance of loose ends. This
not only results in a lack of closure, but also threatens to provoke
doubts in the mind of the hearer about the truth of Islam itself, since
questions which cannot be settled appear to have been raised. One
might think Averroes was trying to evade the issue by making this
point, but he does point to a characteristic feature of kalam, the fact
that it tends to be directed against some other position, and so is
dialectical in form. The trouble with such arguments is that they are
only as strong as their premises, and since these may be vulnerable,
theological arguments are not always impressive in their analytical
depth.7
It is important to bear in mind that many of the arguments which
appear to be theological in Islamic culture operate at a number of levels
(no doubt this is true of theology in general). The debate between
Ghazal and Averroes on, say, the nature of prophecy (nubuwwa) is not
just philosophical and theological, but also legal and political. According
to Ghazal, God chooses who will prophesy, and He provides that person
with the information he requires in order to set out on his task.
According to Averroes and most of the falasifa, the prophet is the sort
of person who through self-perfection is fit to receive prophecy, and so
receives it automatically, in the same way that I will receive a cold if
I am in a fit state to catch one and the appropriate germs are in my
vicinity. Prophecy is always available to those who are capable of
reaching out to it intellectually. Ghazal insists that this is far from
the Islamic view, since it implies that God has no choice of prophetic
recipients, and this conflicts with the way in which the scriptural
texts describe the process. But then, as Averroes suggests, perhaps
these texts need to be interpreted in different ways for different
audiences. Those who are able to understand the real basis of
prophecy will not object if the community at large is given an account
of the process which it can understand and which has within it the
important features of what is true, but which otherwise they would
not comprehend.
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theology and rationality
What was the Arabic for theology? The obvious answer is kalam,
or speech, which represents well the scope of early theology, which was
to confront the arguments of non-Muslims in the vastly expanding
Islamic empire, and to deal with the early polemics between the
Asharites, the Mutazilites and the Qadarites over the nature of the
basic concepts of Islam itself. This was taken in two directions, the first
allowing the use of reason, as in the case of the followers of Shafi and
Abu H _ anfa, and the second based on a literal reading of hadith, as with
the supporters of Ibn H _ anbal. It is worth pointing out that both
approaches were rational, in that they both relied on the rational reso-
lution of theoretical issues, but they applied reason to different sets of
issues. For the H _ anbals it is primarily to be applied to the issue of
hadith verification and the precise relationship between the Traditions
as bequeathed by the Prophet, his Companions and their Successors.
In Western accounts these two groups of thinkers are sometimes
called Rationalists and Traditionalists (terms commended byAbrahamov
and Makdisi, among others), but these labels are not always helpful. It
is not that some scholars known as Traditionalists favoured irrationality,
or that Rationalists did not use the hadith; it was more a matter
of emphasis than a difference in kind. The way in which these two
approaches developed came to be subsumed under us _ ul al-dn, the roots
of religion, which until the eleventh century tended to be rather thin
philosophically but placed the emphasis on understanding the structure
of religion and how its different areas of discourse were related.
As theology evolved, the early years of kalam came to be seen as a
very free period of thought indeed, as evidenced by the popular slogan
man t _ alaba al-dn bil kalam tazandaqa (whoever seeks religion through
kalam becomes a heretic).What this referred towas not thewhole project
of theology itself as represented by us _ ul al-dn, but the investigation of
basic features of the nature of God which some early Muslim thinkers
engaged in, something which later generations often felt to be presuming
too much about the accessibility of the divine nature. Despite the
increasing incorporation of falsafa topics and methods into later kalam,
the institutionalisation of forms of Asharism and even more trad-
itionalist approaches such as that of Ibn H _ anbal has led some recent
commentators on Islamic theology likeMuhammad Iqbal to contrast the
relative freedom of discussion of the early years with a kalam equivalent
of the closure of the door of ijtihad, or interpretation, a move which
allegedly ended juridical innovation approximately a thousand years ago.8
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the role of ibn taymiyya
In particular, there emerged a few late medieval thinkers like the
Syrian H _ anbalite Taq al-Dn Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) whose campaign to
critique theology was more radical than that found in earlier gener-
ations.9 He criticised the very basis of kalam by attacking the notion of
definition, that is, specifying a clear and distinct meaning for abstract
concepts; and without the possibility of definition there is no possibility
of theological discussion, since one is then without the basic materials
for such an activity. Ibn Taymiyya directly attacked the Aristotelian
notion of definition (h _ add) for assuming that there is a basic distinction
between essential and accidental properties which a thing has. That is,
there are properties everything has which are incidental to its being the
sort of thing it is, to be contrasted with properties which are definitive of
its being that kind of thing. In order to understand what a thing is we
have to be able to distinguish between its essential and merely acci-
dental qualities. According to the philosophers and theologians who
used this notion of definition, what it does is to provide us with infor-
mation about the nature of concepts, not about whether those concepts
actually exist. For us to discover whether the latter is the case we need to
examine the world and see whether those concepts are actually instan-
tiated. These defining general ideas or universals are taken to have a type
of being which is entirely independent of their actual existence in the
world of generation and corruption. We can use concepts even if there
are no instances of them in our world, and even fictitious concepts have
essential and accidental features. In addition to this, Ibn Taymiyya also
criticised the notion of syllogism, the basis of reasoning in falsafa and
also in kalam, which, he thought, even were it to be combined with an
acceptable notion of definition, would not be capable of working its way
to irrefutable conclusions.
Perhaps, though, it would be better to concentrate not on the cri-
tique of definition, but rather on the theory of universals which Ibn
Taymiyya sees as part and parcel of that critique.10 He is a firm nom-
inalist, and argues that universals should be analysed entirely in terms of
the individuals which constitute them. We can construct universals, but
we should always be aware that they are merely a shorthand for grouping
together particulars, and possess no independent existence of their own.
The trouble with the kalam folk, Peripatetics, mystics and the ishraqs
is that they all use universal notions as though these represent some-
thing which really exists. We should be aware, he tells us, of the role
of God in creating the particulars out of which the universals are
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abstracted, and not go on to make the next mistake of assuming that the
universals have independent existence and in fact influence or restrict
the activity of God.
The notion of definition underpins what looks like the independent
existence of the essences; but it might be argued that there is no problem
in being a nominalist and combining this with the Aristotelian notion of
a universal. There is nothing wrong with generalising over individuals
and constructing as a result a universal concept, which then represents
the common features which all the particulars possess. Of course, for a
nominalist like Ibn Taymiyya the problem would ensue that one could
never be sure that one had really acquired an accurate view of what the
particulars had in common, so that any such construction of universals
would need to be provisional. This is the problem with the notion of the
definition, in that we would never know whether we were correct in
distinguishing between its essential and its accidental properties, since
our experience will hardly be a useful guide to this distinction. Experi-
ence would give us evidence of the existence of objects, but what fea-
tures they must possess and which they could do without, and still be
the same sort of object, is not information provided by experience.
Knowledge should be identified with our experience and its basis in
divine grace. Ibn Taymiyya uses this theory to develop an account of
how one must trust certain kinds of authority on the meaning of the
Quran by going straight to the interpretive tradition itself, as opposed to
reason (aql ). All that can be acquired through reason is confusion and
contradiction. It is revelation which provides a secure source of infor-
mation and instruction, and any attempt to replace or supplement
revelation by having recourse to logic is to be avoided. The idea that
revelation could be supplemented is unacceptable to him, and he was
just as hostile to the forms of Sufism which he saw as transgressing the
bounds of what can be said and known about the nature of reality, and
our place in it, as he was of logic, philosophy and theology of the more
ambitious variety.
islamic theology as a system
It is important to see how the ontology of those critical of much
Islamic philosophy, mysticism and even logic fits in with this critique.
Since the argument is that the world is at root atomistic, and so is kept
together in its present fairly stable form only by the constant interven-
tion of the Deity, the reification of concepts is even more inaccurate
than treating the material world as though it were independently
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subsistent and real. The developing line of broadly Asharite thinkers
defended this view of the world as constituted of atoms and accidents,
and so entirely dependent on Gods grace for its continuing existence.
Ghazal turned these various aspects of the defence of Asharism as
theology into something of a system, one which was to survive for a long
time in the various schools of theology in the Islamic world, and indeed
continues to have resonance today.
Most commentators on Islamic theology offer a fairly neat idea of
how it developed. First there existed a variety of views, withMutazilism
becoming politically dominant, emphasising the significance of reason
in discussing religious issues. Then Ashar (d. 936) established a critique
of Mutazilism, not just of its doctrines but also of the implications of
those doctrines for the relative significance of reason and tradition (aql
and naql, a familiar binary addressed in the theology texts and discus-
sions), and for a period Asharism predominated. This in turn was
criticised for being too liberal by a small revival of H _ anbal fortunes,
in particular through the work of the Z _ ahirite literalist Ibn H
_ azm of
Cordoba (d. 1064)11 and Ibn Taymiyya, both of whom criticised the
ability of intellectual argument to resolve deep-seated difficulties in
understanding the Quran. They rejected the methods of falsafa and
Asharite theology and advocated in their place a reliance on the
ancestors, the salaf, who understood the language of the Quran and the
practices of the Prophet in ways which we do well to emulate, and who
were not troubled by the sorts of issues raised by later sects.
Although in recent times this approach has become important pol-
itically due to its acceptance in simplified form by the Wahhabs, who in
1924 achieved control over the holy sites in Arabia (the present-day
Saudi Arabia), Ibn Taymiyya was always a marginal figure, and the
Asharite school proved far more acceptable to the ulema, quickly
developing into a complex system at the hands of thinkers such as Abu
Bakr al-Baqillan (d. 1013), whose Prolegomena (Kitab al-Tamhd) sys-
tematically laid out the basic principles of Asharism, a process further
refined by Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdad (d. 1037) and probably reaching
its completion as an original form of thought in the Guidance (Kitab
al-Irshad) of al-Juwayn, to be vigorously defended by al-Shahrastan
(d. 1153), Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz (d. 1209), Najm al-Dn al-Nasaf (d. 1142)
and Ad _ ud al-Dn al-Ij (d. 1355). Al-Ghazal is perhaps too original a
thinker to be subsumed completely beneath an Asharite or Maturdite
rubric, but he did a great deal to suggest that it might be possible to
integrate kalam with other approaches to the question of how to be a
Muslim, such as Sufism. This project for a spiritual reanimation of
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kalam had ramifications for later Sufi metaphysics, but was not much
taken up within the schoolbooks of Asharism itself.
the late period
Later Asharism was dominated by creeds and their commentaries.
The Ashar thinker al-Taftazan (d. 1389 or 1390) is particularly worth
mentioning for his commentary on Nasafs famous Aqda or creed, a
broadly Maturd work. Al-Ijs work The Stations (al-Mawaqif ) was the
subject of many commentaries, of which perhaps the most widely used
was the Asharite commentary by al-Sharf al-Jurjan (d. 1413), which
made extensive use of falsafa. Like many other works of the late period,
Jurjans text is marked by the systematic and detailed use of logic,
drawing in particular on a logic manual which was to become standard
in the madrasa curriculum, al-Risala al-Shamsiyya by Najm al-Dn
al-Katib (d. 1276).12 The late thirteenth-century Ashar theologian,
al-Ijs teacher Abdallah al-Bayd _ aw, wrote a handbook entitled Rising
Lights (T _ awali al-anwar), which again attracted several commentaries.
Abu Al al-Sanus (d. 1490) and Ibrahm al-Laqan (d. 1641) also
authored influential creeds. Such creeds and their commentaries, stud-
ied intensively in the madrasas until the present day and the subject of
innumerable supercommentaries, established a tradition of the produc-
tion of creeds which laid out the basic principles of Islam in a way which
reflects earlier polemics, particularly against Mutazilism, and which
provided the commentator and the teacher with the opportunity to
display Sunnism as the final resolution of the divisions which rent the
early community.
The development of broadly Asharite theories still continues today,
something which commentators sometimes see as a victory for an anti-
rationalism which has retarded Islams development. This, however, is
an entirely misleading view. For one thing, even the critics of kalam
defended their arguments rationally. Even today those who advocate a
return to the salaf, to the ancestors, argue for this. They argue against
alternative views, and defend their approach to the understanding of the
Quran, in such a way as to make it difficult straightforwardly to identify
one side of the debate as rationalist and the other as traditionalist or
fundamentalist. It might even be argued that it is those who are not
normally seen as rationalists who are in fact the most concerned with
reason, since they are prepared to be critical of reason and argue (but note
the term here, argue) that we should acknowledge its severe limitations.
So the traditionalists are able to view the use of reason critically,
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unlike their rationalist opponents, something which might be con-
sidered an even more rational strategy than that of their adversaries, who
evince an uncritical enthusiasm for rationality itself.
A good example of this ability to couple a scepticism about the range
of reason metaphysically with its acceptability in other areas of intel-
lectual inquiry can be found in the work of the Ashar thinker Ibn
Khaldun (d. 1406). Ibn Khaldun is best known as a highly innovative
social historian and philosopher of history, but he also served as a dis-
tinguished judge, and in that capacity wrote extensively on theology. He
was critical of the unbridled use of reason, and offered perfectly rational
arguments for his critique. Logical techniques, he tells us, are important
if we are to secure clarity on the nature of any subject of discussion, but
it does not follow that we must have confidence in the capacity of reason
to unveil to us the ultimate truths which are accessible to us only
through religion. Often called an anti-rationalist position, this view is in
fact something quite different. It is a rational position based on concerns
about the range of reason when this is used by itself to come to con-
clusions. To argue that there are limits to reason is not to attack reason
but is rather to suggest that it be employed in tandem with something
else, perhaps religious knowledge, and most importantly that it be
employed critically.
the murji controversy revisited: maturdism
To give another example of how misleading the nomenclature often
used in theology can be, let us examine briefly the controversy over irja
or postponement.13 As Khalid Blankinship has outlined in chapter 2 of
the present volume, a central controversy in early Islam had evolved
over the nature of belief (man): was it primarily a matter of belief and
acts, or of beliefs alone? Could one be a sinner and yet at the same time
remain a sincere Muslim? An important school which was initiated by
Abu H _ anfa (d. 767) and provided with a solid intellectual foundation by
Abu Mans _ ur al-Maturd (d. 944) argued that even the worst sinner
cannot be treated as an unbeliever, and that the decision as to whether
he is really a believer should be left to God (compare Quran 9:106).
H _ anaf jurists, basing themselves largely on Maturds work, argued
that man does not genuinely increase or decrease, unlike taqwa or
piety, which does fluctuate. The Asharites took the opposite view on
man, arguing also that we are strictly limited in what we can work out
by ourselves using reason alone. For the Maturds, by contrast, even
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without religious instruction or revelation we can know that some
things are just wrong. This has interesting implications for the fate of
those who do not receive the message of Islam and then die. The
Maturds argued that how one ought to live is broadly so obvious that
those who do not live appropriately will be sent to hell, despite their
lack of access to revelation. The Asharites would assign them else-
where, perhaps to a kind of limbo, since they cannot be blamed for
their actions.14 The Maturd strategy was strongly opposed by the
H _ anbalites, who cited hadith statements against the Murji hesitancy
to define belief. In particular, the Quranic idea that judgement is Gods
alone (6:57; 12:40, 67) does rather suggest that scripture monopolises
the answer to all such controversies. Whatever the purport of the
scriptures, however, it is worth pointing to a feature of the Murjia
which is interesting. At the end of most accounts of man which are
sympathetic to the Murji perspective comes a political chapter, and
this tends to argue for a quietist approach to an evil ruler. The H _ anbalite
position is more revolutionary, often arguing that the believer does not
owe allegiance to a sinful ruler if the latter can be classified as kafir
(unbeliever); on the contrary, the Muslim may well have a duty of dis-
obedience. It is perhaps not surprising that the H _ anaf, and so largely
Murji, climate of the Ottoman Empire was much better able to
incorporate diversity within its borders than other Muslim regimes
which emphasised the significance of the ruler being a particular kind of
believer. A regime is likely to tolerate more diversity if it leaves the
decision as to precisely who is a believer and who is not to the Almighty,
refusing to claim the ability to decide on such issues on the basis of the
actions of the agent himself. Only God can look into the heart of the
individual, and even the Almighty will wait until his death before
deciding the issue. Howmuchmore incumbent it is on us, theMurjiites
and their successors would say, to postpone the decision also. Yet many
H _ anbal rigorists, harking back to the Kharijites, had good arguments for
deducing character from actions; and we are helped by scripture in
making our judgement on that character rational and just. If the only
thing of importance is the intention of the agent, then it would not
matter, they argue, whether Muslims who pray are actually praying in
the right direction or whether they are praying behind a just imam. One
could abandon all ritual and good works if the only thing of significance
was intention (as some ridiculed the Maturd doctrine, it would not
matter if one bowed down in front of a shoe, provided that one had the
right intention!); and there are many sayings of the Prophet and his
Companions which emphasise the importance of correct action in any
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definition of being a Muslim. What needs to be noted about this fas-
cinating debate is that it is far from obvious which protagonist is the
more rational and which the more traditional. Both positions take
themselves to be both reasonable and grounded in revelation.
The man controversy shows how Maturdism may broadly be
considered a natural derivation from the Murji position. Maturd had
provided a secure intellectual basis for the H _ anaf school of jurispru-
dence, which made much space for reason and individual judgement.15
He played an active role in the theological controversies of his time, and
in particular argued with theMutazilites who were then well ensconced
in Basra. However, while he often agreed with Ashar, he was by no
means a slavish follower, and sought to establish something of a middle
ground between the Mutazila and the Asharites. This middle ground
turned out to be the source of fertile conceptual work for many of the
next centuries of Islamic theology, and it is worth looking at the
structure of Maturdism to understand how it was able to establish such
a presence in the intellectual world of the time, and indeed ever since.
The principles of evolved Maturdite theology are quite simple.
First, knowledge can be acquired by using our senses, accepting reports
and, most importantly, through the use of reason. This is why the
Quran itself places such reliance on reason, and constantly calls on its
hearers and readers to think rationally about what is set before them.
Reason alone is not enough, though, since it needs to be combined with
revelation, and this leads to a very productive form of tafsr or exegesis
(Maturd himself wrote a pioneering work of theological commentary
on the Quran). Where a passage in the Quran is clear, it must be
accepted as it stands. Where it seems to run foul of another clear verse,
something has to be done: at least one of the verses needs to be
reinterpreted. This may mean that we are constrained to admit that we
do not fully understand it, but it could also be that there exists an
interpretation that would reconcile the two verses, even if this is not the
most obvious one. As in the case of the Mutazilites, a good deal of
reliance is placed on reason, but unlike them this is not allowed com-
plete sway over the process of interpretation. Reason and revelation
working in tandem resolve theological difficulties, and it is important to
get the balance right between the two.
What is the problem with clinging only to literal and clear mean-
ings? This is very much the demand of those of Ibn Taymiyyas per-
suasion who see the Book as perfectly easy to understand and in no need
of the importation of any specific rational methods of interpretation. But
the Maturds point out that reason is something that God has given us,
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since it is conformable to his nature; and he expects us to use it. Some of
the anthropomorphic passages in the Book cannot be taken literally
unless we think that God has a body, and this cannot be what we are
supposed to believe. So exegesis has to be used to make sense of such
passages, unless we will merely say that they have to be taken bi-la
kayfa, without knowing how they are to be taken, which does not
advance us at all, although sometimes this is something that just has to be
accepted. This traditionalist response to difficult passages is, inMaturd
eyes, just as generally unsatisfactory as the Mutazilite principle that
ascribing names to God as though this were to describe Him is to damage
the idea of the unity of the divine. Where they both go wrong, the
Maturds argue, is in not providing an appropriate balance between
reason and revelation. Those theologians who want to emphasise the
significance of tradition tend to downgrade reason because they suggest
that only revelation can help us to know howwe should act and what we
can know. After all, if reasonwere sufficient to acquire such information,
we would hardly need revelation to guide us through life. However, the
idea that reason alone might provide the knowledge we require is vacu-
ous, since we live in a divinely created world and require information
about and from our creator in order to make sense of it. We can certainly
use reason in that enterprise God did after all create us with it for a
purpose yet by itself it is insufficient to provide a route through life. Like
theMurjis, theMaturds think thatman does not increase or decrease,
does not depend on action and can survive sin. It is worth pointing out
how this strategy, which suggests a clear division between faith and
works, provides an effective arena for further debate, since on this rather
relaxed criterion for membership of the religious community a good deal
of backsliding can be tolerated.
This is the Maturd strategy that helped the doctrine to become so
dominant in the Sunn world. It is a strategy of balance and practicality.
Although the Maturds are undoubtedly closer to the Asharites than to
the Mutazilites, they differentiate themselves from the extremes of
both sides, seeing in their doctrine a faithful but rational response to the
Qurans description of the desirability of being in the middle (2:143).
Maturdism came to dominate Turkey, and through the Ottoman
Empire much of the Islamic world.
strategies of revival
There is a well-known hadith in which the Prophet predicts that
during each century God will send someone to the community of Islam
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in order to revive its religion.16 Reviving religion involves, first,
showing its capacity to achieve something which alternative systems
cannot, namely, to provide spiritual guidance to the community. There
is also the need to demonstrate that the arguments of those hostile to
religion fail to persuade. Finally, it is important that the reviver can
express himself in a way which resonates with the umma (community)
as a whole, and not only with a part of it. It is a characteristic of many
such revivers that they take seriously a system of thought which is
apparently opposed to Islam, and do not dismiss it merely as unbelief or
blasphemy.
The epitome of this style is Ghazals Revival of the Sciences of
Religion (Ih _ ya ulum al-dn), an extraordinary work consisting of four
parts, each of which comprises ten books. In this encyclopaedic text he
deals with every conceivable aspect of Islamic belief and practice. This
has been the model for many other works with the same synthetic and
totalising purpose, none of which, however, is said to have surpassed it.
His work as a whole does not amount to a rejection of the modernity of
his day, since he showed how aspects of falsafa such as Aristotelian logic
and ethics might be profitably employed in theology, and argued that the
falasifa themselves err in their use of the philosophical principles to
which they are committed. As such, they could not help to revive a
moribund Muslim world. But neither could the ulama, many of whom
were trapped in formalistic, polemical exercises, both legal and theo-
logical. The solution was to be sought in a moral and spiritual rebirth.
There can be little doubt that the dominance of Asharism and
Maturdsm led to a certain amount of repetition in theology, and to a
formalism of the kind that Ghazal deplored. For one thing, the popular
form of literary expression was often the h _ ashiya, a kind of super-
commentary, which was often itself the subject of further glosses. Often
these hermeneutic accretions were lively and innovative; frequently,
however, they were not. This stylistic feature was also present in the
Shite theological world, where commentary and supercommentary
prevailed and defined the curriculum in those colleges and schools that
developed a form of theology that fitted in with the Shite view of God
and the world.
PART II: LATER SHII THEOLOGY
The development of theology among the Sha was a function of the
historical and intellectual encounter with Mutazilite rational (and
philosophical) theology, and later with the falsafa traditions. The key
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feature of early theology had been the defining feature of Shism itself:
the imamate, particularly discussions of its necessity and the identifi-
cation of the holders of legitimate divinely ordained authority (walaya).
Two (complementary and often mutually nourishing) strands of
theological reasoning were inherited from the formative period: the first
was a focus on narratives from the Shite Imams on the nature of the-
ology and in particular on the nature of the Imamate, covering issues
such as infallibility, the miraculous knowledge of the Imams, their
designation and succession both political and spiritual to the Prophet
and their relationship to the scripture; the second tendency was born out
of inter-sectarian disputations and revolved around rational defences of
the logical necessity of the imamate, the nature of human value, ability
(istit _ aa) and responsibility for actions and the afterlife, the nature of
God and the possibility of His changing His mind (al-bada). The earliest
theologians were companions of the Imams who engaged in debates
(mainly in the Islamic heartlands of Iraq) on these issues using a
variety of traditional and rational modes: Mumin al-Taq, Hisham ibn
al-H _ akam (d. 796), and Muh
_ ammad ibn Ab Umayr and Yunus ibn Abd
al-Rah _ man in the generation after.17 Their presence in polemics began to
shape not only Twelver theology but also the identity of the community
with respect to the majority and to rival Shite groups such as the
Zayds and the Ismals. The Zayds rejected the principle of the
infallibility of the Imam and argued that any descendant of the Prophet
with the requisite knowledge and piety could claim the imamate and
ought to establish it by force. (An imam who did not wield political
power was not an Imam.) The Zayds proceeded to establish states in
northern Iran and Yemen from the ninth century. The Ismals under-
stood the Imam to be primarily a spiritual leader and shared many of the
theological positions of the Twelvers. Although they did in fact establish
a Sh Fat _ imid state in North Africa from 909 and thus were not devoid
of political ambitions, the failure of that state in the twelfth century and
their internal divisions led to a fragmentation of the Ismal imamate.18
The key feature of Twelver doctrine in the intra-Sh polemic was the
belief in the occultation of the twelfth Imam after 874 and his messianic
function as a redeemer of the Last Days, expounded in traditionalist
fashion by al-Shaykh al-S _ aduq (d. 991) in his Completion of the Faith
(Kamal al-Dn) and revised in a more rational manner by al-Shaykh al-
T _ us (d. 1067) in his work on the Occultation (al-Ghayba).19
Traditionalism and rationalism were not absolute opposing values
that expressed, as some have argued, the difference between the paro-
chial tradition of Qum and the rational cosmopolitanism of Baghdad.20
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Both agreed on the twin exceptionalist pillars of Twelver doctrine: the
imamate and divine justice (adl). The codification of the Twelver
tradition of narrations within the Four Books was concurrent with the
development of theology; in fact, the latter two of these hadith com-
pilations were formed by a significant Twelver Mutazilite, al-Shaykh
al-T _ us (d. 1067). But it was the adoption of Mutazilism, the school par
excellence of divine justice, that signalled the true development of
Twelver theology. Although the Twelver encounter with the Mutazila
had begun with the courtly family of scholars, the Banu Nawbakht in
the tenth century and the theologian Ibn Qiba al-Raz, who had been
Mutazilite before he became Twelver, it was the pivotal role of
al-Shaykh al-Mufd (d. 1022) that reconciled Twelver theology with this
school.21 Al-Mufd had studied with Abul-Jaysh al-Muz _ affar al-Balkh
(d. 977), a student of Abu Sahl al-Nawbakht (d. 923) and of Abul-Qasim
al-Kab (d. 931), the leader of the Baghdad Mutazila. The teaching of
this school is evident in al-Mufds works such as First Discourses
(Awail al-maqalat). The traditionalists had acquired a reputation for
believing in determinism, literalism and anthropomorphism: al-Mufds
Correction of the Treatise on Beliefs (Tas _ h _ h _ al-itiqadat) of his teacher
al-S _ aduq is a significant attempt to distance Twelver theology from
such forms of irrationalism. Al-Mufd trained a number of students
who perpetuated the Mutazilite tendency, such as al-Sharf al-Murtad _ a
(d. 1044), al-Shaykh al-T _ us (d. 1067) and al-Karajak (d. 1057).
Al-Murtad _ as own taste was for the Bahshamiyya (Basran Mutazilite)
school of his other teacher, Abd al-Jabbar (d. 1025).
The adoption of Mutazilite ideas was never wholesale or uncritical.
Particular Shite doctrines such as the imamate remained distinctive;
different also were teachings relating to prophecy such as miracles and
intercession, and wider aspects of eschatology touching on the status of
sinners, intercession and the afterlife. Al-Mufd felt strongly about the
role of reason in theology but did not allow for the supremacy of unaided
reason as a source for discovering truth. He defended the role of the
intercession of the Prophet and the Imams as a means for sinners to
escape hellfire, in opposition to the Mutazilite teaching of the uncon-
ditional punishment of the unrepentant sinner. He promoted some
distinctively Twelver doctrines rejected by the Mutazila such as raja,
the return to life of the pious at the time of the messianic appearance of
the twelfth Imam, and bada, the possibility of God abrogating human
history in response to human free will, a doctrine that he explained as a
form of textual abrogation that was similar to the Mutazilite notion
that God changes human life-spans in accordance with their actions.
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Among the Zayds, the adoption of Mutazilite teachings seems to
have begun rather earlier. It is questionable whether the early Zayd
Imam al-Qasim ibn Ibrahm (d. 860) was a Mutazilite, but he was open
to rationalising theology.22 His successors aligned themselves closely to
the Mutazila: al-H _ asan ibn Zayd (d. 884), the founder of the Zayd state
in northern Iran was associated with the Basran Mutazila, and Yah _ ya
ibn al-H _ usayn (d. 911), the founder of the state in Yemen, was influenced
by the Mutazila of Baghdad. Later, the Zayd Mankdm Shishdev
(d. 1034) wrote a famous paraphrase of Abd al-Jabbars exposition of
the five central theological principles of the Mutazila. Ibn al-Murtad _ a
(d. 1437), a Zayd imam in the Yemen, wrote extensive Mutazilite
theological treatises.
Among the Ismals, theology took a Neoplatonic philosophical
turn from the tenth century onwards.23 God was placed outside the
cosmos as the One beyond being, and the Imam became the teacher and
god revealed to humanity. Ismal theology also proposed an esoteric
hermeneutics in which the spiritual significance of doctrine, ritual and
event as defined by the imam began to take precedence over the exoteric
meaning. This became more acute after the Ismals went into schism
in 1094 over the succession: the major group were the Nizars, located
mainly in Iran, who proclaimed the Resurrection in 1164, meaning that
ultimate truth had been revealed and the law was abrogated, as believers
now lived in a kingdom of heaven presided over by the Imam.24
Later on, from the twelfth century, the Mutazilite teachings of
Abul-H _ usayn al-Bas
_ r (d. 1044), himself a dissident student of Abd
al-Jabbar, became more significant among the Twelvers, partly because
of his openness to philosophy, and theologians such as Sadd al-Dn
al-H _ immas al-Raz (d. after 1204), Nas
_ r al-Dn al-T
_ us (d. 1274),
Maytham al-Bah _ ran (d. 1300), Ibn al-Mut
_ ahhar al-H
_ ill (d. 1325) and
later al-Miqdad al-Suyur (d. 1423) were at the forefront of his school.25
This trend ushered in a sophisticated philosophical theology in which
the metaphysics of God as a Necessary Existent who produces a con-
tingent world was incorporated into a theology of divine nature and
human agency. In particular, al-T _ uss short Epitome of Doctrine (Tajrd
al-itiqad) had an enormous impact, and Twelver and other scholars,
including Sunns, wrote commentaries upon it up to the modern period.
Al-H _ ills commentary on this text was influential, as was his short
creed, The Eleventh Chapter (al-Bab al-h _ ad ashar). This creed is
divided into the five standard divisions of Twelver theological texts:
divine unity and attributes, divine justice, prophecy, the imamate and
the afterlife. The central relationship between the concepts of the
The developed kalam tradition 93
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
imamate and divine justice is expressed in terms of the dynamic of
the Mutazilite concept of lut _ f or facilitating grace. Divine justice
demands that humans can be held responsible for, and requited for, only
actions that they could be expected to perform. This expectation results
from their ability to discern good from evil through their rational faculty
and through the guidance bestowed upon them by God through his
sending of prophets and imams. Reason and guidance are thus facili-
tating graces that determine the realisation of human doctrine and
agency and the afterlife.
Although T _ uss school was dominant, there were rivals. A group of
scholars in al-H _ illa associated with the al-Awd family were hostile to
philosophy, although they accepted the Basran turn in theology.26 Other
thinkers, such as Abd al-Razzaq Kashan (d. 1336) and Sayyid H _ aydar
Amul (d. after 1385), sought to reconcile Twelver theology with the Sufi
metaphysics of monorealism espoused by Ibn Arab.27 Later, a further
synthesis between Sufi metaphysics, theology and philosophy was ini-
tiated by Ibn Ab Jumhur al-Ah _ sa (d. 1501).28 Finally, traditionalism did
not die out but re-emerged with the Akhbariyya movement in the
seventeenth century and its rejection of rational theology and philoso-
phy and other alien forms of learning in favour of a pristine adherence
to the narrations of the imams.29
Further reading
Sunnism
Abrahamov, Binyamin Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationalism
(Edinburgh, 1998).
al-Bayd _ aw, Abd Allah, T
_ awali al-anwar min mat
_ ali al-anz
_ ar, tr. Edwin E.
Calverley and James W. Pollock, as Nature, Man and God in Medieval
Islam: Abd Allah Baydawis Text Tawali al-Anwar min Matali al-Anzar,
along with Mahmud Isfahanis commentary Matali al-Anzar Sharh
Tawali al-Anwar (Brill, 2002).
Ceric, Mustafa, Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam: A Study of the Theology
of Abu Mans _ ur al-Maturd (Kuala Lumpur, 1995).
Dabashi, Hamid, Authority in Islam (London, 1989).
Frank, Richard M., Creation and the Cosmic System: Ghazal and Avicenna
(Heidelberg, 1992).
al-Ghazal and the Asharite School (Durham, NC, 1994).
al-Ghazal, Muh _ ammad, Tahafut al-falasifa, ed. and tr. Michael E. Marmura
(Provo, UT, 1997).
Leaman, Oliver, Averroes and His Philosophy (London, 1997).
A Brief Introduction to Islamic Philosophy (Oxford, 1999).
Madelung, Wilferd, Religious Schools and Sects in Medieval Islam (London,
1985).
94 Sajjad Rizvi
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Makdisi, George, Ibn Aql: Religion and Culture in Classical Islam
(Edinburgh, 1997).
Nagel, Tilman, History of Islamic Theology from Muhammad to the Present
(Princeton, 2000).
Ormsby, Eric, Theodicy in Islamic Thought (Princeton, 1984).
al-Shahrastan, Muh _ ammad, The Summa Philosophiae of al-Shahrastan,
Kitab nihayat al-iqdam fi ilm al-kalam, tr. Alfred Guillaume (London,
19304).
Watt, W. Montgomery Islamic Creeds: A Selection (Edinburgh, 1994).
Wolfson, H., The Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge, MA, 1976).
Shism
Antes, Peter, Zur Theologie der Scha: eine Untersuchung des Gami al-asrar
wa-manba al-anwar von Sayyid H _ aidar Amul (Freiburg, 1971).
Daftary, Farhad, The Ismals (Cambridge, 1990).
Jafri, Husain M., The Origins and Early Development of Sha Islam (London,
1979).
McDermott, Martin, The Theology of al-Shaikh al-Mufid (Beirut, 1978).
Notes
1. See on this the various entries on theology in Oliver Leaman (ed.), The Quran: An Encyclopedia (London, 2006). For information about the major theologians Oliver Leaman (ed.), Bibliographical Dictionary of Islamic Philosophy (London, 2006) may be consulted.
2. Massimo Campanini, Al-Ghazzal, in Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman (eds.), History of Islamic Philosophy (London: 1996), pp.25874.
3. Richard M. Frank, Al-Ghazal and the Asharite School (Durham, NC, 1994).
4. Especially in hisTahafut al-tahafut, discussed in detail inOliver Leaman, Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge, 2002).
5. Oliver Leaman, Islamic philosophy and the attack on logic, Topoi 19 (2000), pp.1724.
6. Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, tr. G. Anscombe and G. Wright (New York, 1969).
7. A point made forcefully by Averroes in his short essay designed to put theology decisively in its place, the Fas
_ l al-maqal, in G. Hourani (tr.),
Averroes on the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy (London, 1976). 8. Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam
(Lahore, 1930). 9. James Pavlin, Sunn kalam and theological controversies, in Nasr and
Leaman, History, i, pp.10518. 10. On the significance of Islamic texts on definition see Kik: Kennedy-Day,
Books of Definition: The Limits of Words (London, 2003). 11. Roger Arnaldez, Grammaire et theologie chez Ibn Hazm de Cordoue:
essai sur la structure et les conditions de la pensee musulmane (Paris, 1956).
The developed kalam tradition 95
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
12. Tony Street, Logic, in Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge, 2005), pp.24765.
13. I owe much of my interest in the Murjia to conversations with Ibrahim Hakki Inal, to whom I am grateful.
14. Tim Winter, The Last Trump Card: Islam and the Supersession of Other Faiths, Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 9 (1999), pp.14750.
15. See in particular his Kitab al-Tawh _ d (Book of Unity), ed. Bekir
Topaloglu and Muhammad Aruci (Ankara, 2003). 16. Abu Daud, Malah
_ im, 1; al-H
_ akim, al-Mustadrak ala al-S
_ ah
_ h _ ayn
(Hyderabad, 133442 ah), iv, p.522. 17. Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert
Hidschra: eine Geschichte des religiosen Denkens im fruhen Islam (Berlin, 1991), i, pp.278316, 33692; Wilferd Madelung, Imamism and Mutazilite theology, in Le Shisme imamite, ed. T. Fahd (Paris, 1979), pp.1329.
18. Farhad Daftary, The Ismals (Cambridge, 1990). 19. See Abdulaziz Sachedina, Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi in
Twelver Shiism (Albany, 1981). 20. On Qum versus Baghdad, see Andrew J. Newman, The Formative Period
of Twelver Shism: H _ adth as Discourse between Qum and Baghdad
(London, 2000). 21. On al-Mufd, see Martin McDermott, The Theology of al-Shaikh
al-Mufid (Beirut, 1978); SayyidWaheed Akhtar, Early S _ hite Imamiyyah
Thinkers (New Delhi, 1988); Tamima Bayhom-Daon, Shaykh Mufd (Oxford, 2005).
22. The best introduction to him and to Zayd theology remains Wilferd Madelung, Der Imam al-Qasim ibn Ibrahm und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen (Berlin, 1965).
23. Paul Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism (Cambridge, 1994). 24. Christian Jambet, La grande resurrection dAlamut (Paris, 1990). 25. Sabine Schmidtke, The Theology of al-Allama al-H
_ ill (Berlin, 1991).
26. Sabine Schmidtke, Introduction to Khulas _ at al-naz
_ ar, eds. Sabine
Schmidtke and Hasan Ans _ ar (Tehran, 2006), pp. xiiixiv.
27. Peter Antes, Zur Theologie der Scha: eine Untersuchung des Gami al-asrar wa-manba al-anwar von Sayyid H
_ aidar Amul (Freiburg, 1971).
28. Sabine Schmidtke, Theologie, Philosophie und Mystik im zwolferschii- tischen Islam des 9./15. Jahrhunderts: Die Gedankenwelt des Ibn Ab Gumhur al-Ah
_ sa (Leiden, 2000).
29. Devin Stewart, The genesis of the Akhbar revival, in Michel Mazzaoui (ed.), Safavid Iran and Her Neighbors (Salt Lake City, 2003), pp.16994.
96 Sajjad Rizvi
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
5 The social construction of orthodoxy
ahmed el shamsy
Orthodoxy as a social phenomenon is not a thing but rather a process.
For theological doctrines to become established as orthodox, they must
find a place in the constantly changing net of social relations and
institutions that constitute society. This is a two-way process: ideas can
reconfigure these relations and institutions, but the social context also
actively receives ideas and promotes, channels and/or suppresses them.
Thus the history of orthodoxy cannot be simply a history of ideas, but a
history of how, in particular situations, claims to truth came to be
enshrined in social practices, such as rituals, and in institutions, such as
the community of scholars.
This chapter seeks to provide an overview of the social and
institutional environment in which discourses of orthodoxy in
Islamic theology were formed, propagated and resisted between the
ninth and nineteenth centuries ce. In each of the disciplines which
touched upon the realm of theology, scholars (ulama) were social-
ised into a specific culture of learning, with established modes of
inquiry and standards of authenticity. Within these parameters, they
developed and defended notions of orthodoxy and sought to mar-
ginalise those they defined as heretics, sometimes by drawing on
executive power or the muscle of the mob. The government, in turn,
employed its coercive potential to influence the definition of theo-
logical orthodoxy in order to defuse perceived threats to social order,
often by means of its executive prerogatives (especially the appoint-
ment of judges and other authorities), and occasionally through the
outright persecution of those whose unorthodoxy was deemed too
dangerous. Finally, ordinary believers were not passive recipients of
ideals of orthodoxy proffered by scholars and rulers: they were
actively engaged in evaluating, propagating and forging beliefs and
rituals that contributed substantially to the construction of orthodoxy
in any given time or place.
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Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
the transmission of knowledge
From the emergence in the eighth century of the traditional Islamic
sciences, which include grammar (nah _ w), exegesis (tafsr), dialectic
theology (kalam), study of hadith, and jurisprudence (fiqh), the estab-
lishment and maintenance of a connection to the event of revelation
became the central preoccupation of those who dedicated themselves to
learning. If revelation represented a special infusion of knowledge into
the world, this knowledge had to form the basis of human scholarly
endeavours, and therefore had to be transmitted accurately from gener-
ation to generation.
The fundamental method of transmission at the heart of the
emerging Islamic disciplines was the face-to-face encounter of teacher
and student. Students took private lessons with their teachers or
more frequently participated in their mentors teaching circles, in
which the master would deliver a lecture, seated, to a cluster of stu-
dents, the most advanced of whom sat closest to him. Lectures were
typically, though not always, based on a text or texts, which the teacher
read out in sections, explaining and commenting on each segment.
Students took notes, or had notes taken for them by professional
scribes. Depending on the nature of the subject and the disposition of
the teacher, students could participate by asking questions, voicing
their disagreements and engaging the teacher in debate. At the con-
clusion of each class, students would revisit their notes, ideally com-
mitting them to memory, and discuss their contents with fellow
students. Many of the classical works of Islamic scholarship that can
still be accessed today originate in such lecture notes.
The medieval Islamic world was a manuscript culture: the texts
studied had to be copied byhand, often by the students themselves.Given
the many pitfalls inherent in copying a handwritten text, a variety of
techniques aimed at minimising and detecting mistakes in manuscripts
was developed in order to safeguard the integrity of the transmitted text.
This was particularly important for the two sacred texts, the Quran and
the hadith. The content of the former was preserved both orally and in
written form in countless identical copies, and it was thus considered
secure. Individual prophetic traditions, on the other hand, numbered in
the hundreds of thousands, and were in most cases known by only a few
people. Their accurate transmission was thus a matter of paramount
importance. It was, accordingly, the traditionists (muh _ addithun) who
devised a protocol for the authoritative transmission of texts from teacher
to student that rested on the direct aural link between transmitters.
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There were two ways in which an individual could claim truly to
know a text. Either he had heard the text read aloud by its author or by
someone who had received it through authoritative transmission (a
process known as sama), or he had himself read the copied text aloud to
such a person, who could correct any mistakes (a method termed qiraa).
At the end of a manuscript produced by the student through one of these
forms of transmission, a certificate was added. This specified whether
the text was the product of sama or qiraa and gave the names of the
teacher and the student as well as the date of completion. Through such
a certificate, the student was incorporated into a chain of transmission
(isnad) that linked the student to the original author of the text, thus
preserving an authoritative connection to the past. This was a crucial
feature in the self-understanding of medieval Muslim scholars, who
proudly proclaimed that the maintenance of chains of transmission was
a unique characteristic of the Muslim community. At the same time,
these certificates functioned as important tokens of authority and per-
mission for the student to transmit the work further. When the newly
appointed chief judge of Egypt, Muh _ ammad al-Abadan, began to offer
lessons in hadith in 891, local experts noticed that he was teaching from
books that he had simply bought but never studied with a teacher who
was part of an isnad. As a result, the Egyptian scholarly community
branded al-Abadan an imposter and boycotted his lessons.
Transmission via sama and qiraa remained the primary mechan-
ism for ensuring the authenticity of seminal or sacred texts well into the
Mamluk period (12501517). However, for the bulk of scholarship these
methods soon gave way to a more thoroughly literate modus of textual
transmission. Already in the beginning of the ninth century, the famous
jurist al-Shafi granted an ijaza a general permission to teach one of
his books to a particularly gifted scholar even though the latter had
never studied the work in question with him. In subsequent centuries,
the practice of granting such permissions became widespread. A student
could receive an ijaza in a number of ways. Often, it was granted once a
teacher was familiar enough with a student to have sufficient confidence
in the latters general academic potential. However, it was also not
uncommon for teachers to award ijazas in response to well-phrased
letters of request, or to bestow ijazas on the children of friends, col-
leagues and notables, even if the student was still an infant or indeed
unborn.
Western scholarship has generally interpreted the spread and
seemingly unconstrained use of the ijaza as a sign of the degeneration
and growing decadence of Islamic scholarship from the tenth or eleventh
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century onwards.1 However, while there is no doubt that the signifi-
cance of the ijaza as a genuine indicator of competence declined, this
does not necessarily imply a corruption of the culture of scholarship
itself. First, with the explosive growth of the Islamic sciences, both the
number and the length of the available works increased to the point
where it was no longer possible for an individual scholar to study all the
works he desired to master by reading them aloud to a teacher or having
them read to him. Second, as the disciplines matured and grew more
sophisticated, they acquired common terminologies and accepted para-
digms. A student could familiarise himself with the technical vocabu-
lary particular to his subject by studying a short basic text (matn) with a
teacher, and then go on to read more extensive works on his own. The
decline of sama and qiraa in the Islamic sciences may thus be an
indication not of decadence but of the development of a more mature,
literate, scholarly culture.
A side-effect of the emergence of the ijaza system was the decline
though not disappearance of an important educational institution of
the first centuries of Islamic scholarship, the journey in search of
knowledge (al-rih _ la f t
_ alab al-ilm, or simply rih
_ la). This practice had
developed among traditionists who, having gathered the prophetic
traditions circulating in their own locales, set out to collect and bring
back the traditions of the other major centres of learning. The rih _ la was
more than a business trip; it often had a penitential aspect. Thus, Abu
H _ atim al-Raz, who lived in the ninth century, chose to undertake his
four rih _ las entirely on foot, travelling from his native Rayy near present-
day Tehran westwards as far as Egypt. With the growing acceptance of
the practice of granting by correspondence the licence to transmit works
(known as ijazat al-riwaya), the motivation for undertaking a rih _ la
diminished. In addition, by the end of the ninth century most of the
localised prophetic traditions had been collected, evaluated and dis-
seminated. In its heyday, however, the rih _ la played an important role in
the creation of a cosmopolitan class of traditionists who were united by
a common ethos that embodied shared notions of theology, law and
ethics.
Another institution that contributed to the training of young
scholars was the apprentice-like relation of s _ uh
_ ba (companionship)
into which a student who sought to learn a particular subject in depth
entered with a senior scholar. In such a relationship, the apprentice
(s _ ah
_ ib or ghulam) was socialised into the culture and proper etiquette of
the field by his mentor, whose role was not limited to the academic
guidance of his pupil. In the classical Islamic sciences, knowledge was
100 Ahmed El Shamsy
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not defined simply as the possession of an ability to process information,
but rather rested on a holistic model of personal transformation that was
to accompany and give meaning to the acquisition of information.
Medieval theoretical manuals of education thus stress that the teacher
needs to serve as a role model and a guide for the students personal
growth. On a more mundane level, scholars used their apprentices as
teaching assistants who handled the supervision of ordinary students,
explained to them the masters lectures, and were available to answer
questions. Apprentices also typically took on the role of personal ser-
vants to the master. Famous examples of this relationship in the ninth
century are the jurist al-Shafi and his close student al-Rab (who was
instrumental in spreading al-Shafis teachings after the latters death),
and the prominent Mutazilite theologian al-Naz _ z _ am and al-Jah
_ iz _ , the
apprentice who was to become one of the most influential figures of
classical Arabic belles-lettres.
places of learning
In the pre-Ottoman Islamic world, scholarship was not rooted in any
single specific venue. Nevertheless, the mosque has always been, and
remains to this day, an important place of teaching. In the first Islamic
cities, particularly the garrison towns built by the early Arab-Muslim
conquerors in the seventh century, the mosque represented the public
space par excellence. It was in the mosque that scholars sat between the
five daily prayers, lecturing to their students as well as to interested
passers-by. In the early centuries of Islam (and in some locations to the
present day) each city had a single central mosque where the communal
Friday prayer was held, which was at least in theory attended by every
free and healthy resident Muslim man. These central mosques were
places infused with the authority of the government. Only the repre-
sentative of the government, or someone appointed by it, could give the
Friday sermon, and the mentioning of the caliph or sultan in the sermon
was one of the most important insignia of government authority and
legitimacy. Such mosques were the preferred venues for teaching, as
they permitted teachers to attract the attention of ordinary worshippers.
There are countless anecdotes of distinguished scholars who had been
drawn into their fields by passing a mosque teaching-circle by chance
and pausing to listen in.
The importance of the congregational mosque as a teaching venue
declined in the following centuries. The growing population of Baghdad
and other urban centres simply could no longer fit into a single building,
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so the various urban quarters began to acquire their own Friday
mosques. As a result, the unified public space represented by the single
Friday mosque was fragmented. In eleventh-century Baghdad, the
mutually hostile Shite and H _ anbalite quarters each had their own
mosques, with their restricted public spaces that excluded the other.
Such particularist venues allowed minorities, including the various
Shite groups, to develop their own legal and theological doctrines.
The privacy of the home was no less important as an environment of
learning and scholarship. Intensive and advanced instruction was often
carried out in the homes of scholars or wealthy patrons, as were formal
scholarly debates. The seclusion of the home offered a sheltered space
for the airing of controversial arguments beyond the reach of govern-
mental interference: the state had limited ability and, in cases of non-
political heresy, little incentive to police and enforce orthodoxy in the
private realm. The home also typically represented the first or even the
only place of education for children, with family members serving as
the first teachers. The acquisition of certain basic facts was considered a
religious obligation for every Muslim, whether male or female. At the
minimum, children were taught the basic tenets of belief and the correct
performance of duties such as purification, prayer, almsgiving and fast-
ing, but beyond this the content of study was not determined.
For girls, the home was particularly important as a place of learning.
Given that the process of transmitting knowledge was based on an
intimate relationship between student and teacher, the socially pre-
scribed distance between the sexes severely curtailed womens oppor-
tunities to become apprentices to famous scholars. In effect, such
apprenticeships were possible only in the rare instances when the senior
scholar was female or the students close relative. This is not to deny
that women attended the public lectures of jurists, traditionists, theo-
logians, Sufis and other scholars. However, women were rarely among
the closest or most advanced students of the teacher. In general,
although there are countless examples of highly educated women in the
medieval Islamic world, they are conspicuously absent in the production
of scholarly literature and do not feature in the top echelons of any field
of study.
The only real exception to this trend is represented by the study of
prophetic traditions. Most notably in theMamluk period, women played
a significant role in this field and it is not uncommon to find in the
biographies of the top male scholars of the time that a quarter or even a
third of their teachers in hadith were women.2 A good example of a
female traditionist is Umm Hani Maryam al-Hurnya (13761454), an
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extraordinary woman whose education had been supported from child-
hood by her grandfather, an influential judge. She was well travelled (she
performed the pilgrimage to Mecca from Egypt thirteen times), wealthy,
and one of the most important transmitters of hadith of her time. Her
many students, both male and female, show deep reverence when
mentioning her name in their writings, praising her learning and piety.
Nevertheless, she seems never to have authored a book herself, and her
training in other fields appears to have been basic. The only formal
training beyond traditions that she is known to have received consisted
of the study of a short and basic text on Shafi jurisprudence. This
suggests that while she was a learned individual and a much-loved
teacher, as a woman she lacked proper socialisation and entrance into
the predominantly male scholarly discourse. This discourse was multi-
disciplinary and expressed itself most significantly in the publishing of
literary works that either advanced the field or served as textbooks that
synthesised earlier scholarship.
Between the public mosque and the private home, the tenth and
eleventh centuries saw the appearance of semi-public venues for schol-
arship. The economic basis of these institutions was formed by pious
foundations (awqaf, sing. waqf) established by private individuals who
set aside a source of revenue, such as a market, a mill or a parcel of
agricultural land, and dedicated the funds to the establishment and
upkeep of a recognised pious cause, such as the support of religious
learning.3 The founding deed drawn up by the benefactor specified the
nature of the activities that would be supported by the foundation. We
know that at least by the tenth century, awqaf provided wages for
teachers and financial aid for students, and from the eleventh century
onwards they enabled the emergence of specific institutions of learning,
most prominently the madrasa and the Sufi lodge (zawiya, tekke,
khanqah, ribat _ ).4
A typical madrasa came to consist of a common prayer area similar
to that of a mosque, with dedicated classrooms in which teaching took
place, and lodgings for teachers and students, all within a single building
or complex. Somemadrasas were built adjacent to the shrines of famous
scholars, such as those of the Shite imam al-Rid _ a in Mashhad and of
al-Shafi in Cairo. The richest madrasas, often founded by sultans and
other prominent figures, incorporated charitable institutions such as
hospitals and soup kitchens that catered for the general public. Sufi
lodges became especially widespread with the emergence of organised
Sufi orders in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They were usually
headed by a master who instructed a group of devoted students in the
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theory and practice of the path to God. There were also regular
occasions on which the public was able to participate in the ceremonies
by listening to spiritual poetry, celebrating the birthday of the Prophet or
a saintly individual, or simply by enjoying the blessed presence of the
master. Certain particularly influential orders even counted sultans
among their members. In addition, Sufi lodges functioned as places
where unmarried or widowed women found shelter, where the wealthy
distributed food in times of famine, and where people sought refuge from
the law or from persecution.
Even within these new institutions, however, education, learning
and research remained fundamentally informal in nature up to the
Ottoman period. Institutions of learning never developed a corporate
character: students did not graduate with degrees from particular
madrasas, but rather received a number of certificates and teaching
licences from individual, named teachers. Madrasas and Sufi lodges
functioned as meeting-points for scholars and students and were a
source of income for both, but they never monopolised higher education.
Their contingent nature is evident in the format of the pre-modern
version of the academic curriculum vitae, namely the relevant entry in a
biographical dictionary. In such entries, we learn the names of the
scholars teachers, and the titles of the books taught; but whether this
instruction took place in a mosque, a private home or a madrasa does
not seem to have been thought relevant and is rarely mentioned. While
institutions such as madrasas contributed to the professionalisation of
the scholarly community by providing funding that liberated scholars
from the need to practise other occupations, they did not initially change
the personal nature of Islamic education.
A significant shift in the nature of the madrasa took place with the
maturation of the imperial Ottoman educational system. Sultan
Meh _ med II (d. 1481) established a hierarchy of madrasas within the
empire and outlined a fixed career path that permitted students and
teachers to move gradually up the ladder according to merit and/or
personal connections: the higher the position of the madrasa in the
hierarchy, the higher the wages paid to its teaching staff. The madrasa
hierarchy corresponded to a hierarchy in the judicial system, deter-
mining the level of position within the judiciary to which a madrasa
teacher could transfer. The curriculum, hitherto determined by the
interests and expertise of individual students and teachers, was stand-
ardised, with digests written by fourteenth- and fifteenth-century
authors such as al-Ij, al-Taftazan, and al-Sharf al-Jurjan underpinning
the theological syllabus. The driver of this unprecedented formalisation
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was the Ottoman Empires continuous need for uniformly trained and
loyal administrators for its immensely complex and highly centralised
bureaucracy. However, although the formal training of the ulama was
oriented towards a likely career as civil servants, a minority of scholars
and students continued to follow the traditional paradigm based on the
personal teacherstudent bond.
the ulama and discourses of orthodoxy
Within the informal and decentralised institutional framework of
the pre-Ottoman period, several divergent discourses of theological
orthodoxy could emerge and flourish, both competing and overlapping
with one another. Two of these, the discourses of the traditionists
(muh _ addithun) and the dialectic theologians (mutakallimun), stood at
the heart of the debate that eventually yielded an extent of common
ground between Sunn theologians of all persuasions. This shared
understanding formed the theological core of what is commonly termed
the Sunn consensus.
The discipline of the traditionists rested on a shared methodology,
an accepted body of material, and a minimum set of doctrines that
together rendered the discourse remarkably stable and cohesive. Exten-
sively travelled and cosmopolitan, the traditionists formed a trans-
national network of like-minded scholars whose focus was on gathering
and then ascertaining the authenticity and accuracy of reported proph-
etic traditions. The emerging corpus of agreed-upon hadith and the
conclusions drawn from these regarding correct belief and action formed
the theological core of the traditionists discourse. This core was
articulated in the form of succinct credos (aqaid, sing. aqda), which
were designed for easy memorisation by students and served as
important pedagogical tools. The universally accepted methodology that
was developed for the evaluation of prophetic traditions and their
transmitters (ilm al-rijal, literally the science of men), and its appli-
cation to a finite body of material, provided a centripetal force that
ensured the cohesion and integrity of the discipline.
The discourse of the early dialectic theologians, and particularly
those who adhered to Mutazilism, was in many ways diametrically
opposed to that of the traditionists. The theologians focused not on a
substantive set of materials but rather on a formal methodology of rea-
soning and debate. As a consequence, a student of kalam who attached
himself to a teacher could not simply adopt and internalise authoritative
statements regarding belief from his teacher in the way that students of
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traditions, who would memorise their teachers credos, could. Instead,
the aspiring theologian would be introduced to and trained in the the-
oretical paradigm developed by his master and the rational arguments
that underpinned that paradigm. If he was intellectually capable, he
could disagree with his master and eventually develop his own theory.
This rationalist methodology was appealing to scholars in other
fields, such as grammar and law, who incorporated elements of the
approach and techniques of the mutakallimun into their works. How-
ever, within kalam it created a centrifugal effect, which led to the
emergence of countless schools and sub-groups of theologians. In con-
trast to the established schools of legal thought, the early theological
schools did not possess an ethos of mutual toleration comparable to the
jurists principle that the considered judgement of a competent scholar
was always valid,5 nor could they call upon a shared corpus of material
like the traditionists. The uncompromising rationalist stance of the
theologians further augmented the divisiveness of their approach. The
assumption that the acquisition of rational proof for the existence of God
and the truthfulness of the Prophet were prerequisites of genuine
adherence to the Quran led many early mutakallimun to dismiss any
faith not thus grounded as deficient, if not invalid. The resulting sect-
arianism and intellectual radicalism among dialectical theologians,
exemplified by the three members of the prominent Mutazilite family
of al-Jubba, who denounced one another as heretics, gradually alienated
them from scholars of other backgrounds. The legal scholar al-Shafi
advised his student al-Muzan to engage in jurisprudence and to avoid
theology on the grounds that if he, al-Shafi, were to give the wrong
answer to his students question, he would rather be told You are
wrong! than You have uttered disbelief!6
The stark distinction between the approaches of the traditionists
and the kalam folk disappeared with the emergence of the Ashar and
Maturd schools of theology in the tenth century and the acceptance of
these two schools into the mainstream scholarly community. An
important reason for the success of this integration was the deliberate
inclusiveness of Ashar and Maturd theologians, who explicitly dis-
avowed the denunciation of fellow Muslims. A particularly clear state-
ment of this policy can be seen in the book The Decisive Criterion for
Distinguishing Belief from Unbelief (Fays _ al al-tafriqa bayna al-islam
wal-zandaqa) of al-Ghazal: the author declares not only Muslims but
also most non-Muslims to be assured of eventual salvation.7 Although
the Ashars and Maturds continued to maintain that rational inves-
tigation was necessary for complete belief, they adopted the traditionist
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practice of authoring and teaching basic credos for memorisation. They
argued that such texts served to implant the correct tenets of belief in
the mind of the believer who would come to understand them more
fully through reason at later stages in his intellectual development.
By the end of the tenth century, the broad outlines of the developed
Sunn orthodoxy had taken shape. This orthodoxy was structured
around several established schools of law, which defined right action,
and the three main schools of theology (Ashars, Maturds and
traditionists) that defined right belief. Over the next few centuries, the
ulama worked out a system of mutual tolerance that was based on
universal agreement regarding the sacred sources, a pragmatic accept-
ance of and respect for differences of opinion, and an ideal of intellectual
humility that was expressed by al-Ghazal as follows:
I advise you, my brother, to have a good opinion of all people,
especially the scholars. And it is part of having a good opinion of
someone to look for the most positive possible interpretation of his
words, and if you cannot find [one], then blame your own inability to
find it [rather than him].8
The scholarly culture of Twelver Shites developed roughly a century
later. The primary reason for this lay in the role played by the infallible
Imams as supreme guides for the community until 940: in the presence
of a living, unerring religious authority, the cultivation of religious
scholarship was not perceived as a pressing need. Only after the with-
drawal into occultation of the twelfth and final Imam and the conse-
quent disappearance of the Sh communitys focal point did Twelver
scholars set out to formulate the basis and content of Sh orthodoxy.
The development of Twelver scholarship was facilitated by a unique
source of funding: the khums, a fifth of all profits from trade, agriculture
and crafts, which lay Twelvers had traditionally given to the Imam and
which in the Imams absence was argued to be due to his representa-
tives, the ulama. By deriving their primary means of support directly
from the population, Twelver scholars were able to retain a higher
degree of independence than their Sunn colleagues, who were often
dependent on waqf funding, direct patronage or appointments in the
state-controlled judicial system.
Like early Sunnism, which was characterised by a tension between
the discourses of the traditionists and the theologians, Shism was also
divided between two conflicting understandings of the nature of reli-
gious knowledge. The Akhbars held that the basis of religious life the
traditions of the Prophet and the twelve Imams could be accessed and
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grasped directly by ordinary believers, rendering the development of a
specialised and authoritative scholarly class obsolete. Us _ uls, on the
other hand, viewed theology and law as highly complicated disciplines
requiring the rational investigation and evaluation of sources. Such
erudition, they believed, could be reached only by aminority, leaving the
general populace with no option but to follow the lead of the scholars
who held a monopoly over religious authority in the absence of the
Imam. Although both streams of thought coexisted in Twelver Shism
from early on, the great Twelver scholars in Baghdad under the Buyids,
such as Abu Jafar al-T us, and later key scholars who originated from
the Jabal Amil area in Lebanon, were all Us _ uls. Although Akhbarism
experienced a renaissance in the Twelver heartlands of Iran and southern
Iraq in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, its brief dominance
ended with the reassertion and establishment of Us _ ul doctrine by a
number of prominent scholars in the late eighteenth century, leading
to the virtual extinction of Akhbarism. The Us _ ul model, based on a
rigidly hierarchical scholarly class headed by the Object of Emulation
(marji al-taqld), forms the core of Twelver religious orthodoxy to the
present day.9
The question that I will now turn to is how the orthodox positions
were enforced by the community of scholars, both Sunn and Sh. The
primary mechanism of enforcement available to scholars was exclusion.
On the simplest level, basic human courtesies were denied to those who
were deemed to have moved outside the boundaries of orthodoxy:
smiling at them, initiating the Islamic greeting and participating in their
funerary prayers. Going a step further, scholars sought to dissuade the
public from accepting certain heretics as qualified to lead communal
prayers (a qualification possessed in principle by every Muslim).
According to the twelfth-century Sunn scholar Ibn Qudama, this pro-
hibition applied to those heretics who practised and professed their
beliefs openly. The most severe measure of exclusion available to
scholars within the purely academic realm was exclusion from the
community of ulama itself. The traditionist method of categorising
hadith by assessing the reliability of the individual transmitters featured
in the chains of transmission provided a mechanism for this, as those
whose views were considered too unconventional were discredited as
transmitters. Similarly, given that the majority of Muslims considered
the consensus of the community to have binding force, the views of
heterodox individuals could be excluded from the consensus, meaning
that their objections to the prevailing position could be ignored and the
consensus declared valid. In addition, unorthodox scholars could be
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posthumously returned to the fold through the attribution of a deathbed
recantation. Thus, for example, the great eleventh- and twelfth-century
theologians al-Juwayn and Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz were alleged to have
repented of their engagement in dialectic theology and to have affirmed
the non-speculative approach of the traditionists. Conversely, later
Shafi scholars such as Ibn Asakir attempted to explain away the
critical stance taken by al-Shafi and many of his successors towards
kalam. These examples demonstrate that the struggle for the definition
of orthodoxy was not only a struggle that took place in each moment,
but also involved a re-evaluation and sometimes a rewriting of the past.
In order to carry out more drastic forms of exclusion, the ulama
required the support of the government. This was a delicate arena: early
on, Muslim scholars had already developed a disdain for the corrupting
effect of worldly power, and the emerging scholarly ethos prescribed the
maintenance of a circumspect distance from government, the source of
this corruption. The reluctance to accept prestigious state-appointed
judgeships became a frequent theme in the biographies of pious scholars,
and suspicion of the government and of its motives usually prevented
scholars from appealing to the authorities to punish or persecute heretics.
Nevertheless, scholars did occasionally join forces to demand that a par-
ticularly threatening figure be chastised; thiswas the case, for example, in
922, with the execution of the famous Sufi al-H _ allaj. Those scholars who
did serve as judges also held considerable power to enforce orthodoxy.
They had the authority to appoint court witnesses, a status that was
considered an emblem of moral and religious uprightness, and whose
denial consequently implied a loss of social standing. Most dramatically,
if the judge determined someone to have crossed the ultimate line from
heresy to all-out disbelief, he could demand a recantation or sentence the
offender to death.
In addition to judgeships, the informal role of advisor to powerful
government officials could provide individual scholars with significant
powers of enforcement. An extreme example of such a scholar is Ibn
al-Jawz, who lived in twelfth-century Baghdad and enjoyed the patron-
age of some of the most influential figures of his time, including the
caliph al-Mustad _ and two viziers. Ibn al-Jawz was a gifted speaker
whose core teachings consisted of a strict version of H _ anbalism, a trad-
itionist school that had not yet reached amodus vivendiwith Asharism
or Maturdism. He first laid out his ideas in talks that he gave at the
homes of his patrons, then he lectured in the caliphal palace mosque, in
madrasas, and finally in public places in the presence of the caliph.
Through this gradual movement from the private to the public sphere,
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Ibn al-Jawzs teachings reached an ever wider audience, and the
caliph eventually granted him legal powers to pursue heretics. Initially,
Ibn al-Jawzs campaign was directed against Shs, but soon also non-
H _ anbalite Sunn scholars began to feel marginalised. Eventually the
persecution touched also the H _ anbal community, when heretical
philosophical works were discovered in a madrasa led by a prominent
H _ anbal scholar: the latter was relieved of his directorship and the
madrasa was turned over to the direct control of Ibn al-Jawz. However,
while Ibn al-Jawzs career is not unique, his inquisitorial powers repre-
sent an exception that was enabled not by the strength and dominance
of the views he represented, but by the force of his personal charisma.
theology in society
There are few direct sources which shed light on the reception of
theology by ordinary believers in the pre-modern period. Most of what
can be discovered on this subject must be gleaned from the writings of
scholars; these, however, had little interest in popular religion and
generally mention the beliefs of the common people only in the context
of bemoaning ignorance and superstition among the masses. Conse-
quently, not much is known about how ordinary Muslims received,
understood and contributed to theological orthodoxy, and this section is
thus inevitably little more than a sketch.
What we do know is that the discourse of the hadith folk enjoyed
immense legitimacy and popularity among ordinary people from its very
beginning. The traditionists were perceived as safeguards of the infor-
mation through which the model embodied by the life of the Prophet
(sunna) could be accessed. Recitations of prophetic traditions, covering a
wide variety of subjects including theological issues, were often attended
by thousands if not tens of thousands of listeners. In contrast, the public
generally shunned the debates of the early mutakallimun. The latters
elitist discourse and their acerbic public exchanges which easily turned
to polemics and sophistry alienated ordinary believers, who, it seems,
often considered such bold speculation regarding the nature of God to
border on the impious and thus viewed the theories of the theologians
with suspicion.10
With the gradual development of the Sunn consensus, the public
confrontations of the kalam experts died down, and basic Ashar and
Maturd doctrines were eventually absorbed into the evolving Sunnism
of the ordinary Muslims. There was, however, a period of transition
as the scholars negotiated the contours of a common ground, and the
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differing doctrinal orientations of social groupings such as neighbour-
hoods could turn into civic conflict. In a number of instances, the power
of communal religious identity was harnessed by members of the
ulama to draw support from the masses for their campaigns against
perceived heresy or immorality in society. An illustration is provided by
the events following the arrival of Abu Nas _ r al-Qushayr, an avid
Asharite, in Baghdad in 1067. Qushayr used his public lectures to extol
Asharite teachings and to castigate the dominant H _ anbal theology,
which was highly critical of Asharism, as anthropomorphic. In
response, a large number of residents from the H _ anbalite quarters of
Baghdad a significant force in Baghdad politics took to the streets
under the leadership of the H _ anbal scholar al-Sharf Abu Jafar. They
were met by a mob of adherents of the Shafi school of law, who
had come to the defence of their fellow Shafi Qushayr. In the
ensuing street battle, several people were killed, and order was restored
only through the intervention of vizier Niz _ am al-Mulk, who briefly
imprisoned Abu Jafar and persuaded Qushayr to return to his native
Nshapur. Such clashes between rival schools were also not uncommon
in other urban centres. There is a heated but as yet inconclusive debate
among historians regarding whether these sprang primarily from the
publics will to defend its notion of orthodoxy, or whether religious
claims were in fact deployed to mask social and ethnic divisions that
were the true root causes of these conflicts.11
Outside the sphere of scholarly discourse, lay Muslims developed
their own religious practices and convictions, giving rise to localised
forms of popular religion that at times were at odds with the sober
orthodoxies of the ulama. A prominent example is the longstanding
Cairene tradition of visiting the graves of saintly individuals buried in
al-Qarafa, the City of the Dead, located next to the old city. Such
visits were fuelled by the belief that the baraka, special grace bestowed
by God on certain individuals during their lifetimes, lingered at the sites
of their interment. Prayers performed at these sites (for example for
recovery from an illness or for success in conceiving a child) were thus
believed to be particularly potent. Over time, grave visits developed
into an established form of pilgrimage, with prescribed rituals to be
performed at set days of the week.
The majority of the ulama reacted to the popularity of grave vis-
itation by seeking to impose orthodox limits on the rituals through
their sermons and through the composition of written manuals for grave
visits. A vocal minority of scholars insisted that the visitation of graves
was a reprehensible religious innovation and should be shunned
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altogether. However, the fact that grave visits had become such an
integral part of popular religion and were based on such entrenched
beliefs meant that the practice continues to the present day.12
Ordinary believers also played a role in the social definition of the
boundaries of orthodoxy through their perception and treatment of
marginal elements of society, such as certain controversial Sufi groups
who were frequently viewed with suspicion or even condemned by the
ulama and, in some cases, also by other Sufis. Being oriented towards
the goal of direct experience of the divine, Sufism could allow for a high
degree of subjectivity and idiosyncrasy in the definition of individual
orthodoxy. Overcome by his experience, the Sufi could even utter
apparent blasphemies in his inability to express his experience in
ordinary language. By and large, Islamic societies acknowledged the
validity of these experiences and expanded the realm of the socially
acceptable to accommodate such anomalies. This created an inclusive
social space in which even the marginalised and the antisocial were
tolerated in an act of suspended judgment. Even if the behaviour of people
such as the Qalandars, wandering dervishes with hedonistic tendencies,
appeared scandalous, they were usually given the benefit of the doubt.13
the government and orthodoxy
The scholarly discourses generated the content of theological ortho-
doxy: only the ulama were recognised as possessing the competence to
make authoritative statements about matters of religion. Attempts by
rulers to overrule the consensus of themajority of scholars and to impose
a minority theological position by force such as Mamuns infamous
Inquisition (mih _ na) were generally unsuccessful when confronted by
determined opposition from the scholarly establishment. However,
executive power played a crucial role in promoting and enforcing favoured
theological ideas, and in suppressing rival doctrines.
A crucial vehicle for this influence was the governments right to
appoint judges and other public officials who could wield considerable
power. Beyond the basic requirement that appointees be recognised
scholars and meet the minimum qualifications for office, rulers could
select officials based on their school and doctrinal affiliations, and per-
sonal beliefs and characteristics, as well as social connections. For
instance, the ninth-century governor of Egypt, Ah _ mad ibn T
ulun, chose
to appoint a Shafi scholar a representative of a minority school as
the first teacher in the central mosque of his newly built capital city,
even granting him the unprecedented support of an annual stipend.
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As the Shafis were linked neither with the central Abbasid government
nor with the indigenous Egyptian aristocracy, this appointment served
to bolster Ibn T uluns drive for greater independence from the Abbasid
empire.
Similar considerations applied in the appointment of teachers for
madrasas that were sponsored by state officials in a nominally private
capacity. The eleventh-century Abbasid vizier Niz _ am al-Mulk founded
the prestigious network of Niz _ amiyya madrasas at a time when
Asharite theology was struggling to establish itself. In a successful effort
to support the spread of Asharism, he staffed the new institutions only
with scholars who were favourably inclined towards its doctrines. In
general, any waqf benefactor was entitled to select the personnel for the
new institution. Thus, the setting up of awqaf for the purpose of
founding and financing madrasas and, to a lesser extent, Sufi lodges
permitted government officials to exercise significant but indirect
influence on the composition and fortunes of the scholarly class.
Going beyond the fulfilment of individual judiciary and teaching
appointments, the Ottoman government exerted an unprecedented
degree of control over the scholarly establishment via the creation of the
centralised madrasa network described earlier and via the position of
the seyhulislam (from the Arabic shaykh al-islam). The seyhulislam
was the highest religious authority in the empire; he was appointed by
the government and his edicts were backed up by state power. Like the
government-controlled madrasa system, this post was an Ottoman
invention. The seyhulislam was a muft, that is, he could respond
authoritatively to legal questions, whether asked by the ordinary man or
woman on the street or by the sultan, by issuing a fatwa, a legal opinion.
These questions were collected from around the empire, rephrased, and
brought to the seyhulislam by an army of assistants, who also collated
his replies for later reference. What in the early centuries of Islam had
been an informal phenomenon, consisting simply of a questioner sub-
mitting a legal dilemma to someone whom he considered knowledge-
able, had under the influence of the centralising Ottoman state become a
formal state institution.
On occasion, the state employed violence in the enforcement of
acceptable limits on heterodoxy. The state held the sole authority to
carry out executions of heretics, though the sentence itself had to be
handed down by a qualified judge. The ruler could ban the public airing
of certain ideas, and through the government-appointed judiciary
persecute those who violated the ban. A dramatic illustration of such
state action is the Abbasids ninth-century mih _ na, which sought to
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impose by force the minority theological doctrine of the createdness of
the Quran throughout the judicial system. In Egypt, for example, the
Abbasid-appointed chief judge of Egypt banned scholars of the Malik
and Shafi schools who refused to endorse the doctrine from teaching in
the central mosque. The judge had the text of the doctrine inscribed over
the entrance of the mosque and sentenced those who dared show their
disagreement to public whipping and humiliation.
The mih _ na eventually foundered due to sustained resistance by the
majority of the ulama. However, the much more radical project of the
sixteenth-century ruler of the Safavid empire, Shah Ismal, to force
the overwhelmingly Sunn population of Iran to embrace Shism was
successful. This was in part due to the determination and military
strength of Shah Ismal, who imported a contingent of prominent
Twelver scholars from Lebanon, equipped his army with firearms, and
declared adherence to Sunnism within his realm a capital offence. A
second crucial factor in this momentous development lay in the lack of
effective opposition from the Sunn ulama, whose numbers and vigour
had not recovered from the severe social dislocation and depopula-
tion that followed the Mongol invasion of the region in the thirteenth
century.
The motive for the states intervention in the arena of theological
scholarship was often the need to defuse perceived political threats. This
need was underpinned by the frequent intertwining of state legitimacy
with religious authority: the state bolstered its domestic sovereignty by
portraying itself as the guardian of orthodoxy. As a result, political
opposition to the ruling regime easily acquired an air of heresy. Unsur-
prisingly, therefore, political rebellions often appeared in alliance with
heterodox movements. An example is the revolt led by the tribal chief
Muh _ ammad ibn Saud and the religious scholar Muh
_ ammad ibn Abd
al-Wahhab against the Ottomans in the Arabian region of Najd in the
eighteenth century. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab contested the status of the
Ottomans as defenders of Sunn Islam, claiming that the Ottomans
principle of religious tolerance had allowed heresy to flourish in the
empire. This theological challenge was harnessed by Ibn Saud to legit-
imise his plans of territorial expansion, and it infused his fighters with
the iconoclastic zeal that led to the wholesale destruction of Sufi
shrines, the bloody sacking of the Shite town of Karbala in 1801, and
the occupation of Mecca from 1803 to 1812.14 The Ottomans succeeded
in countering the politico-religious threat posed by Ibn Saud and Ibn
Abd al-Wahhabs movement. Only after the demise of the Ottoman
Empire in the aftermath of the First World War could Ibn Sauds
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descendants, still armed with Wahhab ideology, make a successful bid
for power on the peninsula, leading to the eventual establishment of
modern Saudi Arabia.
overall trends
I have argued above that the social construction of theological
orthodoxy took place at the intersection of three primary societal arenas,
comprising the scholars, the ordinary believers and the government. To
conclude, I will briefly summarise some broad historical trends that can
be observed in these arenas during the millennium between the ninth
and the nineteenth centuries.
The history of the ulama is marked by the progressive profession-
alisation of scholarly activity: while early scholars enjoyed no formal
distinction and made their living through trade or industry, most later
scholars were career academics who dedicated their time to research,
teaching and writing and vied for lucrative positions at well-endowed
madrasas. This development permitted the increased sophistication and
explosive growth of the Islamic sciences and their literatures, but it also
left the scholarly class dependent on societys capacity to produce a
sufficient surplus to support its scholars. The consequent vulnerability of
scholarship was demonstrated by the decline in scholarly activity and
output that accompanied the economic crises experienced by Muslim
countries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The nature of the umma, the community of believers, underwent
constant change due to successive waves of conversion to Islam. In the
year 700, most ordinary Muslims were Arabs with strong tribal iden-
tities and a shared language and culture, living as tiny, close-knit
minorities among non-Muslims. Two centuries later, the majority of
Muslims were non-Arabs, representing a variety of cultural and religious
backgrounds and thus bringing to the community a range of different
preconceptions regarding God and the nature of religion. The geo-
graphical spread and cultural diversification of Islam supported the
proliferation of localised forms of popular religion, even as the unifica-
tion of the Islamic realm enabled the diffusion of official orthodoxy to all
corners of the Muslim world.
Finally, the role played by the state in the construction of orthodoxy
depended on the nature and strength of the government. From 750 until
roughly 950 the early Abbasids ruled over an empire that was in medi-
eval terms both powerful and highly centralised. The middle period
between 950 and 1450, on the other hand, was characterised by small,
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often ephemeral states or statelets, frequently ruled by foreigners with
slave backgrounds. Consequently, while an Abbasid caliph such as
Mamun could hope to refashion the definition of orthodoxy by fiat, the
later rulers could realistically cherish no such ambitions. The latter were
constrained by an acute need to gain and maintain legitimacy in the eyes
of the population and thus were compelled to present themselves as
guardians of the theological status quo, leaving the definition of ortho-
doxy in the hands of the ulama. Following the appearance in the fif-
teenth century of the mighty gunpowder empires ruled by firmly
established ruling dynasties, executive power began to gain the upper
hand in relation to the scholars. The dynasties claimed the role of
defenders of Islam and thus succeeded in intertwining religious ortho-
doxy with their own legitimacy. With the coming of the modern era and
the rise of nationalism as the primary legitimising discourse of the
nation-state, the question of religious orthodoxy was eventually pushed
out of the centre of the political arena.
Further reading
Berkey, Jonathan Porter, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A
Social History of Islamic Education (Princeton, 1992).
Chamberlain, Michael, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus,
11901350 (Cambridge and New York, 1994).
Ess, Josef van, The Flowering of Muslim Theology, tr. Jane Marie Todd
(Cambridge, MA, 2006).
Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: eine
Geschichte des religiosen Denkens im fruhen Islam, 6 vols. (Berlin and
New York, 19915).
Guzel, Hasan Celal, Cem, Oguz C., and Karatay, Osman, (eds), The Turks, 6
vols. (Ankara, 2002).
Lapidus, Ira M., Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge and
New York, 1984).
Makdisi, George, Ibn Aql et la resurgence de lIslam traditionaliste au xie
siecle (Damascus, 1963).
The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West
(Edinburgh, 1981).
Mottahedeh, Roy P., The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran
(New York, 1985).
Nagel, Tilman, Die Festung des Glaubens: Triumph und Scheitern des
islamischen Rationalismus im 11. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1988).
Repp, Richard C., The Mufti of Istanbul: A Study in the Development of the
Ottoman Learned Hierarchy (London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1986).
Shoshan, Boaz, Popular Culture in Medieval Cairo (New York, 1993).
Taylor, Christopher Schurman, In the Vicinity of the Righteous: Ziyara and the
Veneration of Muslim Saints in Late Medieval Egypt (Boston, 1999).
116 Ahmed El Shamsy
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
al-Zarnuj, Burhan al-Dn, Instruction of the Student: The Method of Learning,
tr. G. E. von Grunebaum and Theodora M. Abel, 2nd revised edn (Chicago,
2001).
Notes
I would like to thank Dr Aron Zysow for his helpful comments on a draft of this chapter.
1. See, for example, Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, ed. S.M. Stern, tr. C.R. Barber and S.M. Stern (London, 196771).
2. Omaima Abu Bakr, Teaching the Words of the Prophet: Women Instructors of the Hadith (Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries), Hawwa 1/3 (2003), pp.30628.
3. There were also state-funded institutions, such as the Ismal Dar al-H
_ ikma in eleventh-century Cairo.
4. For an explanation of the differences between these terms, see Leonor E. Fernandes, The Evolution of a Sufi Institution in Mamluk Egypt: The Khanqah (Berlin, 1988), ch. 3.
5. Kullu mujtahid mus _ b; see Josef van Ess, The Flowering of Muslim
Theology, tr. Jane Marie Todd (Cambridge, MA, 2006), p.20. 6. Shams al-Dn al-Dhahab, Siyar alam al-nubala, ed. Shuayb al-Arnaut
_ and Muh
_ ammad al-Arqasus (Beirut, 1413/1992), x, p. 28.
7. Sherman A. Jackson, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abu H
_ amid al-Ghazals Fays
_ al al-Tafriqa bayna al-Islam wal-
zandaqa (Karachi, 2002). 8. Abu H
_ amid al-Ghazal, H
_ aqqat al-qawlayn (MS, Princeton University,
Yahuda 4358, fols. 3b4a). 9. Roy P. Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in
Iran (New York, 1985). 10. Van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, iv. 11. See, for example, Richard W. Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur: A
Study in Medieval Islamic Social History (Cambridge, MA, 1972); and Ira M. Lapidus, Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge and New York, 1984).
12. Christopher Schurman Taylor, In the Vicinity of the Righteous: Ziyara and the Veneration of Muslim Saints in Late Medieval Egypt (Boston, 1999).
13. Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Gods Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period, 12001550 (Salt Lake City, 1994).
14. See, for example, Esther Peskes, Muh _ ammad b. Abdalwahhab
(170392) im Widerstreit: Untersuchungen zur Rekonstruktion der Fruhgeschichte der Wahhabya (Beirut, 1993).
The social construction of orthodoxy 117
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6 God: essence and attributes
nader el-bizri
general background
The question of Gods essence (dhat) and attributes (s _ ifat) con-
fronted Muslim scholars with perplexing paradoxes touching on the
divine unity (tawh _ d) and transcendence (tanzh).
Since the earliest decades of Islamic speculation, in the seventh and
eighth centuries, the question of Gods essence and attributes consti-
tuted one of the axial themes of the scriptural exegesis and hermeneutics
that influenced the unfolding of Islamic thought. This was most mani-
festly the case with the sharp disputes that arose between Mutazilism
and H _ anbalism, which later led to the emergence of Ashar kalam and
its subsequent debates with the Peripatetic philosophers, paradigmatic-
ally culminating in Ghazals critique of Avicenna.
The essenceattributes question reflected the variant dimensions of
scriptural interpretation and its grounding theories of meaning.
According to heresiographic accounts, it was the distinction claimed
between the exoteric, apparent (z _ ahir) meaning of scripture, and its
esoteric, hidden (bat _ in) sense which generated extremist doctrinal pos-
itions, most emblematically the anthropomorphists (mushabbiha) and
corporealists (mujassima) at one extreme, ranged against various eso-
tericists (bat _ iniyya) on the other.
From an abstractive philosophical standpoint, the question of Gods
essence and attributes points to the dialectical concepts of unity/multi-
plicity, identity/difference, or sameness/otherness that had constituted
universal categories of analysis in the intellectual history of a variety of
doctrines from the time of the ancient Greeks, and which continued in
the work of modern thinkers of the calibre of Hegel, Heidegger and
Levinas. An adaptive appropriation of these notions served the purposes
ofmonotheistic speculation aboutGods essence and attributes, a process
that most radically manifested itself in the intricate Muslim theological
disputes over the nature of revelation asmanifested by and in theQuran.
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the mutazilites and the disputes over the quran
In addressing the question of divine essence and attributes, the
Mutazilites typically stressed the equivalence between s _ ifa (attribute),
was _ f (description) and ism (name). Based on this principle of same-
ness, the Mutazilites held that if we converse about divine attributes
we ultimately describe divinity. The H _ anbalites, and most Asharites,
opposed this claim by drawing a thoughtful distinction between s _ ifa and
was _ f, positing the former as being what is intrinsically in something,
while taking the latter to denote what is given as a descriptive report
(khabar) about something.1 However, any account of the attributes
has to pass by a hermeneutic or exegetical position with regard to
scripture.
Given that the Quran (as Gods Word) mentions the divine attri-
butes in conjunction with His most beautiful names (asma Allah
al-h _ usna), one could easily assert that this entails an affirmation of the
ontological reality of these attributes. However, this will require a par-
ticular method of reading the Quran that affirms the attributes without
undermining transcendence and unity, or implying anthropomorphism.
Inevitably, one wonders how successfully anthropomorphism can be
avoided when accounting for verses like your Lords Face ever remains
(55:27), or I created with My own hands (38:75). In addition, it is
hardly evident how the multiplicity which is implied by any affirmation
of the attributes might be reconciled with the idea of Gods absolute
unity.
From a religious perspective, the Quran sets canonical measures for
the human condition, while being the locus of textual hermeneutics.
Hence, faith is grounded by textuality along with its determining
semantics and semiotics. Yet the Quran, as Gods Word, is manifested
in a language that is grasped religiously as being unlike any human
idiom. As a divine language, revelation is not part of the created world
of composite substances or contingent beings that are subject to gener-
ation and corruption. Any account of the question of Gods essence and
attributes thus requires some uneasy meditations on the reality of divine
speech (kalam). Centrally, the essenceattributes question calls for
thinking about the nature of the Quran as Gods Word. Historically, this
tension soon broke surface in the radical disputes that occurred between
the Mutazilites and the early Sunn theologians.
To defend the divine transcendence and unity against misreading
the divine attributes in anthropomorphic terms or unguardedly hinting
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at multiplicity, the Mutazilites concluded that the Quran had been
created (makhluq). The argumentmay be reconstructed as follows: if the
Quran is Gods speech, then it is either coeternal with God, and thus
uncreated, or it is not coeternal with God. To maintain pure monothe-
ism one must concede that it is created. On this inference, if the Quran
is coeternal with God, then in order to eschew plurality in the divine
oneness, one has to say that the scripture, as Gods speech, is one with
God. To avoid affirming contraries (unity and multiplicity), a Mutazilite
would assert that it is not coeternal with God and must therefore be
created. This argument is seconded by quranic proof-texts that point to
the descent of revelation in the Arabic tongue that is constrained by
place and time, as to its accessibility to finite human apprehension.
This reasoning, however, is problematic, since it begs a further
question: if the Quran is created, does this then entail that it is no
longer Gods Word? The Sunns radically opposed this controversial
thesis. Yet if they refuted it on the basis of arguing that the Quran was
not created, would this not entail that the Quran is coeternal with God?
And, hence, would it not compromise the all-important principles of
unity and transcendence?
The Mutazilite thesis regarding the creation of the Quran appears
as ill founded on the same grounds that it presupposes, namely, the
radical observance of Gods transcendence. By stressing transcendence,
the belief in the scriptures created status implies that the divine attri-
butes are not real, but are rather revealed in a worldly language for the
convenience of human comprehension. The reality of divinity seems to
be determinable by the judgements of human reason, which see fit to
reject multiplicity even to the point of refuting the attributes and
affirming that Gods Word was created. The Mutazilites censored,
through rational directives, the classes of meaningful propositions that
could be uttered about the divine. However, by believing that human
reason sufficiently measures what is applicable to God, transcendence
became paradoxically delimited by a negation of the attributes. Fur-
thermore, the unfolding of this rationalist impetus resulted in picturing
the Quran as a creature.
In an archetypalMutazilite move,Was _ il ibn At
_ a (d. 748) is believed
to have rejected the affirmation of the attributes of knowledge (ilm),
power (qudra), will (irada), and life (h _ ayat), in order to negate a plur-
ality of eternals. Some later Mutazilites restricted the totality of the
attributes to knowledge and power, while others reduced them to unity.
According to the sources, Abul-Hudhayl al-Allaf considered the attri-
butes and the essence to be identical, al-Naz _ z _ am denied that God has
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power over evil, Muammar refuted will and knowledge in order to free
Gods essence from multiplicity, while al-Jubba and Abu Hashim
asserted that God possesses a knowledge that is identical with His
essence and not subsisting beside it. In principle, the Mutazila believed
that Gods ilm (omniscience), h _ ayat (life), qudra (power), irada (will),
bas _ ar (sight), sam (hearing), and kalam (speech), are all reducible to the
dhat (essence). To account for these attributes they stated that God is
alim bi-ilm huwa huwa (knowing by a knowledge that is Him), qadir
bi-qudra hiya huwa (powerful by a power that is Him), h _ ayy bi-h
_ ayat
hiya huwa (living by a life that is Him) and so on.
One of the major difficulties that confronted Mutazilism was
manifested in the denial of the personal, intimate and uncanny rela-
tion of the worshipper with God, as what grounds the realities of
religious experience. By reducing the attributes to the essence, the
Mutazila seemed to deny worshippers the object of their praise, exalt-
ation and piety. On their view, God is no longer truly seen as the
Beneficent, Ever-Merciful Almighty, to whom believers turn in their
supplications and invocations in seeking mercy and salvation. Unlike
the traditionalists, the Mutazilites might even have subverted the
obligatory nature of prayer by indirectly emptying it of its content. By
replacing the personal character of the Exalted One with a neuter
qualification, their opinions became unintentionally closer to the out-
look of the pagan Greeks than to the fundamental perspective of
monotheism. One wonders how some quranic verses would be mean-
ingfully interpretable if Gods attributes and names were reducible to
His essence. How would a believer heed, with intimacy, fear and
hope, verses like: He is the Beneficent (al-barr), the Ever-Merciful
(al-rah _ man) (52:28), God warns you against His Chastisement (3:28),
All praise belongs to God (17:111), Ask forgiveness of God, surely
God is Most Forgiving (4:106)?
the h _ anbalite position
The H _ anbalites believed that Gods revelation is there to be recited,
and that no interpretations will exhaust its sense. The ontological status
of the attributes will remain concealed, and the most that one can affirm
about them is their existence, on the grounds that they are mentioned in
the Quran. Nonetheless, in the eyes of many this does not entail that
believers must not exercise a pious effort to comprehend their meaning.
It is in this sense that Asharites progressed further than H _ anbalites in
terms of establishing the affirmation of the attributes on theological
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grounds. Their typical line of interpretation avoided placing believers in
a constraining position which stripped them of any say regarding mat-
ters of their faith; particularly with respect to their religious experience
and its implicitly presupposed conceptions of divinity. The divine
attributes are thus not submissively affirmed on the basis of mere imi-
tation (taqld) or dogma. While conceding that human understanding is
restricted whenever it attempts to elucidate the essenceattributes
question, they held that this need not entirely disrupt rational inquiry.
Consequently, kalam speculative theology was positively endorsed by
Ashar on the basis that human reason exists to be celebrated despite its
limited nature.
Prior to the concretisation of the Asharite school the H _ anbalites
opposed speculation in religious matters. However, with Asharism,
theological inquiries were encouraged, although there was no presup-
position that they necessarily yielded definite clues about the nature of
the divine essence or readily facilitated the acquisition of real knowledge
about God. Yet the H _ anbalite line continued to maintain that any such
moves would be mere linguistic, grammatical or conceptual verbiage,
which might well lead to repugnant errors in matters of faith. The truth
of the divine essence is veiled, and the principle of transcendence is not
to be compromised by speculation. Even if attributes are disclosed in a
language accessible to humans, their meaning is not exhaustible by
reasoned explications. Given that the divine names and attributes are
revealed through Gods words in the Quran, it becomes religiously
obligatory to affirm their reality with conviction and sincerity in belief.
Returning to the polemics posited by the Mutazilite thesis con-
cerning the creation of the Quran, Gods words are pictured as being
expressions of a sensory language (We made it an Arabic Quran, 43:3),
which is heard, seen and recited, and, despite its superlative subtleties,
can be rationally assessed from the standpoint of human linguistics,
grammar and logic. In this sense, whatever is mentioned about the
divine attributes, or names, forms part of a spatial-temporal idiomatic
structure whose intricate significance may potentially be brought to
light by human understanding. According to this doctrine, the attributes
and names are reducible to the essence, which remains veiled in its
transcendence, even though what can be uttered about divinity is
ultimately apportioned by human reason.
By asserting that whatever is sensory is created, Asharism occu-
pied an approximately median theological ground between H _ anbalism
and Mutazilism. Consequently, what is recited, heard, read and copied
of Gods words is created without this entailing that the Quran is itself
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a creature. It may thus be said that the sensible pronunciation
(lafz _ iyya) in the recitation (qiraa) of the divine words is created, while
divine speech, as what is recited (maqru), is uncreated. Gods attributes
can thus be affirmed without being reducible to the essence or being
separate from it, and unity is not undermined by the semblance of
multiplicity. One notices here a clear departure from the Mutazilite
refutation of the reality of the attributes coupled with a simultaneous
avoidance of the pitfalls of anthropomorphism. It is nonetheless still the
case that in general the Asharites adhered in broad terms to the
H _ anbalite credo, while being moderately open to the use of reasoned
discussion in its defence. For the strict H _ anbalite fringe, however, Gods
words are brought forth by way of letting them be without how;
namely, without speculating about what they mean whenever confusion
or dissent might arise from speculation. One has to submit to the words
in faith even where no sufficient explanation is available. Hence, the
controversies of kalam may well run the risk of bordering on heretical
innovation (bida). H _ anbalites typically affirm that the Quran is not
created, and caution that anyone who holds that the scripture or its
utterance (lafz _ ) is created will be an infidel (kafir).2 For instance, Ibn
H _ anbal held that one could not think that there would be someone other
than God who would say to Moses, I am your Lord.3 This is the case
given that the H _ anbalites hold that God speaks with an uncreated voice
(s _ awt) or letter (h
_ arf).4 In this regard, they reject the Asharite claim that
the quranic lafz _ iyya (enunciation) is created. Although H
_ anbalites
emphasise the literal and apparent (z _ ahir) meanings of the Quran, they
also stress that one must ground them by exegesis (tafsr) based on the
canonical tradition of the Prophet and his Companions.5
According to the H _ anbalite scholar Ibn Badran, a modest form of
ratiocination in representation, called tamthl, may be used, under
restricted circumstances, in rejecting the arguments of the dialecticians
(ahl al-jadal). However, he adds that those curious about the nature of
the divine attributes should reverently recognise that such matters are
necessarily veiled from the workings of reason. In addition, no questions
like why? (lima?) or how? (kayf?) may apply in this context. When
asked about divine speech, one should reply that God spoke to Moses in
a way that befits His divine essence; hence, one must restrict ones
answer to this: And toMoses God spoke directly (4:164). Gods speech,
what He uttered, what is written in the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh _
al-mah _ fuz
_ ), what is manifest in the earthly codices of the Quran
(al-mas _ ah
_ if) and is recited by humans, all point to non-creation. Ibn
Badran adds that whosoever believes that any of these aforementioned
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matters are created, should be charged with infidelity, and whoever does
not declare that person infidel, shall himself or herself be an infidel.6 In
the same thrust of strictures, it is also mentioned that Ibn H _ anbal was
once asked: What ought we do with the one who [even] holds that the
enunciation (lafz _ iyya) of the Quran is created? He replied: You are not
to pray behind him, nor to sit next to him, nor talk to himor salute him.7
In another Sunn traditionalist context, the Maturd school asso-
ciated with the legacy of Abu H _ anfa permitted a greater use of specu-
lation; although the Maturds continued to uphold the belief that God
is known without qualification (bi-la kayf).8 Maturds also objected
to the Mutazilite claim that God is everywhere, by saying that this
formulation, which is not mentioned in the Quran, undermines the
divine exaltedness, given that God is on the Throne (al-arsh) and does
not commingle with worldly profanities.9 The remark is also seconded
by later more philosophically oriented Asharites of the calibre of
al-Amid, al-Ij and al-Sharf al-Jurjan, who argued that God does not
join worldly beings nor is He infused in the universe. Maturd also
asserts that the divine attributes are neither Him nor other than Him
(la huwa wa-la ghayruh), adding that God is pre-eternally qualified by
all His attributes (maws _ uf bi-jam s
_ ifatih fil-azal).10 It is impossible for
the attributes not to be coeternal with God, for that would entail defi-
ciency. However, the coeternal status of attributes does not imply that
they are the same as the essence. As Abu al-Muntaha al-Maghnisaw put
it, the attributes are not the same as the essence nor are they other than
it. He furthermore cautions that we should not inquire about such
matters.11 Moreover, when considering the attributes any talk about
howness is to be avoided, since speculations in this regard may result
in repugnant innovations. All the divine names are equal in greatness
without distinction in rank, since they are attributable to God in His
words, while being neither Him nor anything other than Him.12 This is
also confirmed in the H _ anbalite position, which according to Ibn Bat
_ t _ a
is best defined by attributing to God what He attributed to Himself in
the Quran, and following what the Prophet attributed to Him in the
hadith, without asking lima (why?) or kayf (how?). One thus ought to
submit to Gods qudra (power) by way of having simple faith in what is
absent and unseen (al-ghayb):13 sights cannot attain Him; He can attain
sights (Quran 6:103). The H _ anbalite tradition ultimately affirms a
belief in all that is mentioned in the Quran, be it in its definite
(muh _ kam) senses or its equivocal ambiguities (mutashabih),14 while
fundamentally consigning (tafwd _ ) the meaning and howness of the
attributes to God alone.
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the asharite position
Unlike the H _ anbalite view, the distinctive position of al-Ashar is
best expressed by way of his support of kalam methods in elucidating
the essenceattributes question. After all, he disapproved of unreflective
deference to doctrinal dogmas by way of mimetic assent (taqld), given
his firm belief that Muslims have the duty to reason about what it
means to know God, since knowing God amounts to knowing the truth
(al-h _ aqq).15
In response to the Mutazilite reductive overemphasis on tran-
scendence, Ashar argued that Gods words about God, as manifested in
the Quran, set up the directives by virtue of which reasoned judgements
about the essenceattributes question are to be measured. The affirm-
ation of Gods attributes should be coupled with the negation of implied
anthropomorphic determinations. Analogy is problematic when it hints
at any form of similitude between God and anything in His world of
creation. Authentically to believe that nothing is like Him (42:11)
obligates a refutation of tashbh and tamthl. If the attributes are
examined through a radically literal reading, heretical innovation may
ensue, as exemplified in the unsustainable doctrines of anthro-
pomorphists (mushabbiha) and corporealists (mujassima). Yet some
attributes retain the semblance of carrying anthropomorphic meanings
when judged from the standpoint of generic resemblances.
Asharism established a refined nuance between attributes of action
(s _ ifat al-fil), which come to be when God intends something and acts,
and those of essence (s _ ifat al-dhat or s
_ ifat al-nafs). The contraries of the
attributes of action are permissibly attributable to God. For instance, it
is admissible to state that God is forgiving of repentant believers (as a
reward; thawab), while also affirming that He may be unforgiving of
unrepentant transgressors who break the covenant of God after its
binding (as retribution; iqab). Forgiveness is thus an attribute of action
that admits negation without its resulting contrary being unattributable
to God. As for attributes of essence, their contraries are repugnant: the
negation of omniscience entails ignorance, while the denial of power
results in weakness. Hence the attributes of action are negational
(salbiyya), while the attributes of essence are classed as existential
(wujudiyya). In this regard, it was commonly held that the s _ ifat al-dhat
consisted of the following seven attributes: ilm (omniscience), h _ ayat
(life), qudra (power), irada (will), bas _ ar (sight), sam (hearing), and kalam
(speech). An internal controversy emerged over willing, some holding
that it is unlike the other essential attributes, given that it hints at
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action or intention rather than being everlasting and unchanging
(thabita).
Strict literal exegesis (tafsr), or excessive hermeneutics (tawl),
may result in groundless extremisms. In emphasising the literal exoteric
meaning (z _ ahir), the exegete might present anthropomorphist accounts
that compromise transcendence (tanzh), while the stress on the esoteric
hidden sense (bat _ in) might lead the hermeneutic interpreter to accord
with the outlooks of the various bat _ iniyya sects. Moderation in scrip-
tural readings is to be situated between two extremist poles in inter-
pretation that might lead to heresies, in the form either of a literal
anthropomorphism or of the overcoming of its entailments through an
excessive allegorical overemphasis on transcendence. This semantic
tension characterises the reception of revealed texts and their multi-
layered readings.
Faced with the difficulty of interpreting expressions like Gods
hand (I created with My own hands [38:75]) or Gods face (your
Lords Face ever remains [55:27]), Ashar does not question the realities
to which they point, since these are quranic statements. However, he
again seeks a middle path, refusing to affirm that the referents of Gods
hand or face are either corporeal members or mere metaphors.
Again he is guarding against excess in literal exegesis, while being sus-
picious of allegorical hermeneutics. Despite this desire for a median
position, however, he proclaims that any departure from literal readings
must be based on valid reasons. When any form of resemblance,
similitude or analogy between God and anything in the world of His
creation is refuted, this applies to linguistic, ontological and logical
reflections on the essenceattributes question. There is an unbridgeable
existential-essential gap between creator and created. To hint that God
resembles worldly beings is absurd. A semblance of linguistic affinity in
reference to attributes does not affirm a similitude in signification. As
Ashar holds, God is not in His creatures nor are His creatures in
Him. In his Letter to the Frontiersmen (Risala ila ahl al-thaghr), he
refutes any mode of equivalence between the divine essence and the
divine attributes.16 Yet while the attributes are not reducible to the
essence, they are not accidents that are other than it. This ontological
difference is not simply a mode of separation in being. In elaborating his
thesis, Ashar considered with care and thoughtfulness the conditions
by virtue of which inferences may be drawn with respect to what is
absent and transcendent, on the basis of what is phenomenally experi-
enced; following in this the classical method known as al-istidlal ala
al-ghaib bil-shahid.
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In his Exposition of the Fundamentals of Faith (al-Ibana an us _ ul
al-diyana), Ashars views seem to come nearer to the apologetics of the
H _ anbalites. Here he affirms that God does indeed possess a face, eyes
and hands. He adds that the divine words are not created and that God
will be seen in the afterlife. This latter proposition, derived from a
number of hadith, continued to exercise scholars perplexed by the
paradoxical nature of this visualising experience. After all, if physical
bodies are the only visible entities in the phenomenal universe, what
sort of vision (ruya) is implied in affirming that God will be seen in
the afterlife? And if this visual experience is not sensory, and hence
does not accord with the science of optics (ilm al-manaz _ ir), what might
its nature be? In response, Ashars affirmation of visibility in the
hereafter is coupled with the assertion that its nature remains inex-
plicable and beyond human grasp.
In contrast with the text-based position that Ashar advocates in his
Exposition, the arguments of his Concise Remarks (Kitab al-Luma)
proceed by way of rational evidences (adilla aqliyya) and systemic
kalam speculations. Moreover, in refuting tashbh (anthropomorphism)
and tajsm (corporealism) he offers statements such as The face is an
attribute that God ascribed to Himself and only God knows its signifi-
cance.17 The Arabic utterance wajh (face), may thus be posited as an
allegory that does not undermine tanzh. In this specific case, hermen-
eutics must be exercised to shield the principle of transcendence. In the
Remarks Ashar asserts that God is unlike anything else and that it is
irreverent to imply any analogy, resemblance or similitude in connec-
tion with His exaltedness.18 He also argues that corporeity (jismiyya)
entails composition (tarkb) and multiplicity (kathra), which contradict
the principles of simplicity and unity, and this rational argument is
strengthened by the traditionalist point that since God has not referred
to Himself as being a body (jism), we ought not to ascribe any name to
Him that He has not applied to Himself, nor should we utter propos-
itions in this regard that are not conformable to the Muslim consen-
sus.19 Ashar thus affirms Gods attributes, while rejecting the
attribution to Him of qualities associable with created beings.20 More-
over, all attributes are coeternal with the essence without being marked
by otherness (ghayriyya) or privation (adam).21
Furthermore, Ashar asserts in his Remarks that Gods speech is
uncreated and is coeternal with His essence. However, as noted earlier,
he posits a controversial problem regarding the actual enunciation
(lafz _ iyya) of the divine words. He consequently differentiates the cre-
atedness of utterances (h _ uduth al-alfaz
_ ) from the beginninglessness of
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their meanings (qidam al-maan). Gods speech is inherent in Him, and
in itself it is neither a sensory sound (s _ awt) nor a graphical trace that is
manifested in the form of a letter (h _ arf). Being of the order of human
doings, sounds and letters are created expressive traces of the uncreated
divine word.
Ashar proposes a further argument. Reflecting on the quranic
verse 16:40, For to anything which We have willed, We but say Be!,
and it is, it might be said, based on the generative command Be!
(kun!), that if the Quran were created, then it was commanded to come
into being by the saying Be! This would imply that Gods words are
themselves generated by His word Be! and that redundantly, the
command Be! itself is generated by another command Be!, ad infi-
nitum. Yet would this not imply that we are faced with a purposeless
infinite regress, which is inapplicable in reference to divinity? Therefore,
Gods words must be coeternal with Him, and He is the exalted eternal
speaker who possesses the creative command.
falsafa views on the essenceattribute problem
Reflections on the essenceattribute question were not restricted to
kalam deliberations but were also systemically debated by the expo-
nents of falsafa. For instance, Avicenna addressed this question in terms
of an ontological analysis of the modalities of being; namely impossi-
bility, contingency and necessity. Avicenna argues that the impossible
being is that which cannot exist, while the contingent in itself (mumkin
bi-dhatihi) has the potentiality to be or not to be without entailing a
contradiction. When actualised, the contingent becomes a necessary
existent due to what is other than itself (wajib al-wujud bi-ghayrihi).
Thus, contingency-in-itself is potential beingness that could eventually
be actualised by an external cause other than itself. The metaphysical
structures of necessity and contingency are different. Necessary being
due to itself (wajib al-wujud bi-dhatihi) is true in itself, while contin-
gent being is false in itself and true due to something other than
itself. The necessary is the source of its own being without borrowed
existence. It is what always exists.22 The Necessary exists due-to-Its-
Self, and has no quiddity/essence (mahiyya) other than existence
(wujud). Furthermore, It is One (wah _ id ah
_ ad),23 since there cannot be
more than one Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself without differentia
(sing. fas _ l) to distinguish them from one another. Yet to require differ-
entia entails that they exist due-to-themselves as well as due to what
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is other than themselves; and this is contradictory. However, if no
differentia distinguish them from each other, then there is no sense in
which these Existents are not one and the same. Avicenna adds that
the Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself has no genus (jins), or definition
(h _ add), or a counterpart (nidd), or an opposite (d
_ idd), and is detached
(bar) from matter (madda), quality (kayf), quantity (kam), place (ayn),
situation (wad _ ) and time (waqt).24
Avicennas Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself differs from the Ulti-
mate Being ofmonotheistic orthodoxy, in the sense that it is ontologically
derived from a naturalised knowledge of God. Accordingly, the concept
of the world is essentially contained in the Avicennan notion of divinity,
and it is not logically plausible that God exists and that the world does
not exist. The very being of the Necessary Existent implies by necessity
the existence of an emanatedworld.Moreover, salvation is not dependent
on grace but is rather dependent on the subject as agent, and any com-
munication with the ontological modality of Necessary Being repre-
sents a philosophical mistake of category. However, although Avicennas
metaphysics is not representative of a kalam ontotheology, his thought
is not isolated from the religious context in which it was historically
situated. An affirmation of the divine attributes preserves the personal
Exalted One of the monotheistic faith, as the Absolute, All-Mighty, All-
Wise, who creates by will, without how or why. Hence Avicennas
Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself may still be pointing to God, even
though this does not readily transform his metaphysics into a convincing
exegesis of Revelation. However, like that of the Mutazila before him,
Avicennas ontology undermines the personal character of God, as well
as compromising the positive determinations of fear, hope and expect-
ation which experientially characterise the manner by which the sense
of divinity announces itself within the lives of believers.
Countering this turn in philosophical thinking, one of the major
developments in the history of classical thought in Islam is exemplified
by Ghazals critique of the philosophers in general and Avicenna in
particular. In his The Incoherence of the PhilosophersGhazal holds that
the philosophers agree on the impossibility of affirming knowledge,
power, and will for the First Principle, though the divine names, which
are given in revelation, are to be used verbally while being reduced
referentially to one divine essence (dhat wah _ ida). He then adds that
the philosophers believe that a substantive affirmation of the attributes
leads to a multiplicity that undermines divine unity.25 Ghazal objects
by saying that they have opposed all the Muslims in this, with the
exception of the Mutazila.
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To show their incoherence, Ghazal summarises their arguments
as follows. If an attribute and that to which it is attributed are not the
same, then each one will dispense with the other, or each one will need
the other for it to be, or one will dispense with the other while the other
will be in need of the former. In the first of these cases, both will be
necessary existents due to themselves, and this is implausible. In the
case where each one of them needs the other, then neither is a
Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself, and this is impossible in the case of
the divine. However, if one has no need of the other, but is needed by it,
then one of them acts as the cause of the other. So in this case, if what is
ascribed with an attribute is in need of it, the one in need is characterised
by a lack, and this does not apply to the divine.26 Ghazals reply to these
speculations is that the essence of the Necessary Existent is eternal
without agents, and so are His attributes.27 He also objects to the
falasifas claim that the affirmation of the attributes entails that the
First Principle cannot be absolutely self-sufficient, given that since
the First does not need anything other than Himself, therefore He would
not need the attributes. Ghazal thinks that these philosophical
sophistications are part of a mere rhetorical preaching that is extremely
feeble. After all, he asserts that the attributes of perfection are not
separate from the essence of the Perfect, so as to say that He is in need of
another. Like Ashar, he holds that the attributes are not reduced to
the essence itself while being coeternal with it without cause. When the
philosophers affirm that God is a knower, they face the problem of
admitting that there is something superadded to the essence, namely
knowledge.
Most adherents of falsafa hold that God knows only Himself.
However, Avicenna argues that God knows Himself as well as knowing
everything else in a universal manner, given that the knowledge of
particulars implies change in the divine essence. In response, Ghazal
asks whether Gods knowledge of Himself is identical with His know-
ledge of all genera and species. If the philosophers reply that His
knowledge of Himself is indeed identical with His knowledge of
everything else, then their position is untenable. If they say that they are
not identical, then multiplicity is implied. Neither reply convinces.
Furthermore, it cannot be the case that God would know only Himself
given the scriptural affirmation that not even the weight of an atom in
the heavens or the earth escapes His knowledge (10:61). Unlike other
philosophers, Avicenna is ashamed of asserting that God knows only
Himself and does not know anything else, given that this implies defi-
ciency. Therefore, in avoiding assertions that might imply change or
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multiplicity in the essence, he reaches the conclusion that God knows
everything other than Himself in a universal way.28
Nevertheless, according to Ghazal, Avicennas views result in a
contradiction. This is the case given that, according to the philosophers
and the Mutazila, the affirmation that God possesses the attribute of
knowledge implies multiplicity. And, following in Mutazilite footsteps,
the philosophers exaggerated their strict avoidance of plurality to the
point of claiming that if the First were to have a quiddity characterized
by existence this would constitute multiplicity. This position is
based on the widespread Avicennan view that the Necessary Existent
is without quiddity (that its essence is none other than its existence).
Attributes need a subject to which they are attributed, which is
called al-maws _ uf. To say that the essence of the First Principle is His
intellect, knowledge, power or will is to say that these attributes are
self-subsisting. However, it is impossible that the attributes are self-
sustaining because they would then be multiple necessary existents,
and as Avicenna has shown, this is not possible. Consequently, attri-
butes subsist in the divine essence; and as Ghazal asserted, the First
Principle cannot be denied His attributes, quiddity or reality.29
Ghazals critique of Avicennas metaphysics resulted in a dialect-
ical integration of selected falsafa notions within the kalam tradition.
For instance, the celebrated author of the Book of Religions and Sects
(Kitab al-milal wal-nih _ al),30 Muh
_ ammad al-Shahrastan (d. 1153), was
one of the enigmatic theologians who incorporated elements of falsafa
in his deliberations in kalam. Some believe that he was an Asharite
theologian, given that he was an eminent scholar at the Niz _ amiyya
School in Baghdad, while others claim that he practised taqiyya (reli-
gious dissimulation), and that there are signs of Ismal influences in his
writings, particularly in his Struggling with the Philosopher (Kitab al-
mus _ araa).31 In this text of theosophy, Shahrastan critically interrogated
Avicennas metaphysical conception of wajib al-wujud (Necessary
Being), on the grounds that it entailed a compromising of the observance
of absolute divine transcendence (tanzh). Shahrastan affirmed the
reality of the divine attributes without directly applying them to the
divine essence, which he believed was absolutely unknowable and
indefinable. He also advocated a philosophical conception of a gradation
in creation (khalq), and argued that the divine Command (amr), Words
(kalimat) and Letters (h _ uruf) are eternal and pre-existent.32 He also held
that the divine Names bear manifestations (maz _ ahir) in terms of what
he referred to as al-kalimat al-qawliyya (verbal allocutions), corres-
ponding with revelation, and al-kalimat al-filiyya (active allocutions),
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which translate into corporeal individuals (ashkhas _ ) in the persons of
prophets, imams and spiritual guides. He moreover argued that the
enunciation of the divine word (lafz _ al-kalima) is created, while its
inherent meaning or intention (al-mana al-nafs) is eternal.33 In
delimiting the furthest possibilities of theology, and in pointing towards
the boundaries of philosophical deliberation, he attempted to effect an
equipoise between aql (intellect) and sam (audition of the recitation of
the revealed word), whereby, when rational explications reach an end, an
attentive listening to the recitation of revelation ought to be exercised.34
The historical integration of philosophy into theological reflections
on the essenceattribute problem found its most pronounced systemic
expressions in the legacy of Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz (d. 1209), who, like his
predecessor Ghazal, was an adherent of Shafi jurisprudence and an
exponent of Ashar theology. Unlike some early conventional expo-
nents of kalam, Raz did not reject Greek philosophy, and, as he indi-
cated in his Oriental Investigations (al-Mabah _ ith al-Mashriqiyya), he
delved deep into the writings of the ancient philosophers, affirming their
true propositions and rejecting the ones that were false.35 Following
Ghazals legitimisation of the use of logic, and the acceptance of most
of the premises of natural philosophy qua natural sciences (al-ulum
al-t _ abiyya), Raz was an outstanding dialectical mutakallim who
established his Sunn theological investigations on philosophical
foundations, combining rational proofs (sing. dall aql) with scriptural
evidences (sing. dall naql). He refuted the anthropomorphism of the
Karramiyya and the H _ anbals. He doubted the hermeneutic intricacies
of the Ismals. His engagement with metaphysics was primarily
articulated in his critical commentary (sharh _ ) on Avicennas Book of
Remarks and Admonitions (Kitab al-Isharat wal-tanbhat).36 He also
developed his own philosophical notions in his influential theological
text Harvest of the Thought of the Ancients and Moderns (Muh _ as _ s _ al
afkar al-mutaqaddimn wal-mutaakhkhirn).37 In addressing the
essenceattribute question, Raz criticises Avicennas claim that God
knows only universals and not particulars. He thus postulates that
knowledge involves a relation qua connection (taalluq rather than
id _ afa) between the knower and the known, and that this state of affairs
entails that a change in what is known would result in an alteration of
the relation qua connection that binds it with the knower, rather than
producing a transformation in the knower as such.
The examination of the essenceattribute question continued to pre-
occupy philosophically oriented theologians like the Asharite muta-
kallim Sayf al-Dn al-Amid (d. 1233), the author of Novel Thoughts on
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the Fundamentals of Religion (Abkar al-afkar f us _ ul al-dn),38 a text that
impacted upon the intellectual development of another Asharite thinker,
Abd al-Rah _ man al-Ij (d. 1355). For instance, Ijs Stations in the Science
of Theology (Kitab al-Mawaqif f ilm al-kalam), which constituted a
SummaTheologiae of its era, andwas principally based on RazsHarvest
and AmidsNovel Thoughts, continued to be used until modern times as
a textbook of theology at al-Azhar University in Cairo. Furthermore, al-
Sayyid al-Sharf Al ibn Muh _ ammad al-Jurjan (d. 1413) wrote an influ-
ential commentary (sharh _ ) on Ijs Stations, while reinforcing his own
theology with falsafa. Al-Jurjan was also a challenger of the theologi-
cal authority of al-Taftazan (d. 1390), a student of Ij who combined
Maturdism and Asharism in developing the anti-Mutazilite arguments
of the Sunn tradition in kalam, particularly in the course of his com-
mentaries on the legacy of Najm al-Din al-Nasaf (d. 1142).39 Taftazan
argued that the divine words were uncreated, and that they resided in the
divine essence, even though they are written in the volumes, preserved in
the hearts, heard by the ears and recited by the tongues. The Quran as
Gods speech is also uncreated (ghayr makhluq), while its enunciation
(lafz _ iyya) is not eternal. He moreover affirmed that divine speech is not
of the genus of letters and sounds, and is rather one of eight divine attri-
butes (s _ ifat) from all eternity besides omniscience (ilm), power (qudra),
life (h _ ayat), hearing (sam), sight (bas
_ ar), will (irada) and creation (khalq:
differing in this from the customary kalam theses by adding khalq to the
other seven attributes).40
hermeneutics and gods essence and attributes
Gods words find expression in language by virtue of which they are
communicatively preserved in the supplements of writing and recita-
tion: Read! In the Name of thy Lord (96:1). However, the divine words,
which are expressed phonetically and graphically, are not necessarily
appropriated by the anthropocentric nature of language, nor are they
readily measurable by its grammatical-logical criteria. Religiously, the
divine words are not semantically exhausted; their meaning remains
open to indeterminate interpretations, without being reduced to a uni-
vocal sense, either in literal readings, or in the esoteric folds of allegory
or metaphor. The revealed word finds its trace in a language that acts as
a supplemental image to what is eternal. By their concealed character,
and their withdrawal from anthropocentric appropriation, the divine
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words reveal language as being what is not at our disposal, or of our mere
authorship. The Prophet was called upon in revelation to read and to
deliver the message, to rise and warn: Nor does he speak of his own
desire (53:3). The divine Word exposes the insufficiency of anthropo-
centric measures, and this reveals the Book as being unlike any text. In
this sense, no principle of analogy between human language and divine
Language is readily conceivable. As with the attributes, no human
similitude is to be implied, given that analogy is stamped herein by
anthropocentricity. Based on this, the revealed scripture cannot be
coherently interpreted in the sheltering of its integral sacredness by
simply using the methods of human textuality. Gods words are reli-
giously approached by way of acceptance (qubul) without why or how,
while being recited and memorised. Nevertheless, any reading is already
interpretive, and is determined by projective conceptual foresights or
intellective prejudices, which frame doctrinal disputations. This calls for
the strictness and restraint that are manifested in the adherence to the
literal sense of scripture. This is especially the case when no reasons
arise to hold that this sense is not adequate; and yet these reasons are
often central. One salient instance where a literal sense may mislead is
where it implies that the divine qualities are anthropomorphic.
Accepting the literal meaning may express a declared conviction asso-
ciated with the testimonial attestation to the truth of revelation. Yet
such a religious mood and attitude need not force a disclosure of the
literal meaning in anthropocentric terms. Gods words, in their literal-
ity, are not simply posited as utterances of human idioms. Their literal
sense must be received with thoughtfulness, by recognising with
integrity the fragility of our readings, since none knows its interpret-
ation save God (3:7). Regarding allegorical interpretations, these have
generally proceeded from the hypothesis that literal meanings are mis-
leadingly anthropocentric. Yet from a philosophical standpoint, language
itself is mysteriously neither of our own mere human doing, nor simply
subordinate to our skill. Furthermore, caution and sound judgement
must be exercised in any attempt at resolving the ambiguous verses of
the Quran (al-mutashabihat) because of the need to avoid dissension
(fitna).
Although the question concerning Gods essence and attributes has
primarily remained a classicalmadrasa problem that has been peripheral
to modern reformist deliberations, it nevertheless confronts us with
exacting metaphysical riddles. Attempts to advance a definite thesis in
this regard are likely to be part of a call for a conversion to one doctrine
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or another. The atmosphere is one of ideological indoctrination pre-
occupied with historicity rather than a commitment to the uncanny
realities of this question. This should, as a minimum, be replaced with a
restraint in taking conclusive positions, and by resisting intellective
haste, given that the doctrinal unfolding of this question did not always
maintain, with purity, the indeterminacy, indecision, openness and
submission that befit a genuine experience of the holy.
Further reading
Allard, Michel, Le probleme des attributs divins dans la doctrine dal-Ashar
et de ses premiers grands disciples (Beirut, 1965).
Avicenna, Metaphysica of Avicenna, tr. Parviz Morewedge (New York, 1973).
al-Bukhar, Kitab al-jami al-s _ ah
_ h _ , partial tr. by Muhammad Asad as The Early
Years of Islam (Gibraltar, 1981).
Ess, Josef Van, Die Erkenntnislehre des Adudaddn al-Ic (Wiesbaden, 1966).
The Flowering of Muslim Theology (Cambridge MA: 2006).
al-Ghazal, Abu H _ amid, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, tr. Michael E.
Marmura (Provo, UT, 1997).
Gimaret, Daniel, La doctrine dal-Ashar (Paris, 1990).
Graham, William A., Quran as Spoken Word, in Richard C. Martin (ed.),
Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies (Tucson, 1985).
Laoust, Henri, Le precis de droit dIbn Qudama (Damascus, 1950).
La profession de foi dIbn Bat _ t _ a (Damascus, 1958).
Wisnovsky, Robert, One aspect of the Avicennian turn in Sunn theology,
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 14 (2004), pp. 65100.
Notes
1. Daniel Gimaret, La doctrine dal-Ashar (Paris: 1990), pp.2401. 2. Ibn Ab Yala ibn al-Farra, T
abaqat al-H
_ anabila (Damascus, 1350/1931),
pp.12, 24, 41, 623, 7882, 1012, 115, 125, 204, 217, 238, 240, 247, 276. 3. Ibid., p.311.
4. Ibid., pp.1345.
5. Ibid., p.325.
6. Ibn Badran al-Dimashq, al-Madkhal ila madhhab al-imam Ah _ mad Ibn
H _ anbal (Cairo, 1919), pp.710, 1214.
7. Ish _ aq ibn Ibrahm al-Nsabur, Masail al-imam Ah
_ mad ibn H
_ anbal, ed.
Zuhayr al-Shawsh (Beirut, 1979), p.60. The strictures of traditionalists with respect to the practice of ijtihad and tawl also found radical expressions in the legacy ofMuwaffaq al-Din Ibn Qudama (d. 1223) in his Tah
_ rm al-naz
_ ar f kutub ahl al-kalam (The Censure of Speculative
Theology), ed. and tr. George Makdisi (London, 1962). 8. Abu Mans
_ ur al-Maturd, Sharh
_ al-fiqh al-akbar (Hyderabad, 1948), p.6.
138 Nader El-Bizri
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
9. Maturd, Sharh _ , p.15; Abu al-H
_ asan al-Ashar, Kitab al-ibana an us
_ ul
al-diyana (Hyderabad, 1948), p.38. 10. Maturd, Sharh
_ , pp.1819.
11. Maghnisaw, as noted in ibid., p.36. 12. Ibid., pp.41, 57, 69.
13. Laoust, Henri, La profession de foi dIbn Bat _ t _ a (Damascus: 1958),
pp.578, 87. 14. We believe in it; all is from our Lord (3:7). 15. Gimaret, Doctrine dal-Ashar, pp.21112. 16. Michel Allard, Le probleme des attributs divins dans la doctrine
dal-Ashar (Beirut, 1965), p.199. 17. al-Ashar, Kitab al-luma, ed. H
_ ammuda Ghuraba (Cairo, 1955), p.9.
18. Ibid., p.20.
19. Ibid., p.24.
20. Ibid., pp.246.
21. Ibid., pp.2831.
22. Ibn Sna, Kitab al-shifa: Metaphysics, ii, ed. G. C. Anawati, Ibrahim Madkour and Said Zayed (Cairo, 1975), p.36.
23. Ibn Sna, Metaphysica of Avicenna, tr. Parviz Morewedge (New York, 1973), p.43.
24. Ibn Sna, Kitab al-Hidaya, ed. Muh _ ammad Abduh (Cairo, 1874),
pp.2623; Salim Mashran, al-Janib al-ilah inda Ibn Sna (Damascus, 1992), p.99; Ibn Sna, Shifa, p.354.
25. Abu H _ amid al-Ghazal, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, tr. Michael
E. Marmura (Provo, UT, 1997), p.97. 26. Ibid., pp.98, 109.
27. Ibid., pp.99100.
28. Ibid., pp.1014.
29. Ibid., pp.10510.
30. Muh _ ammad ibn Abd al-Karm al-Shahrastan, Kitab al-milal wal-nih
_ al
(Livre des religions et des sectes), tr. Daniel Gimaret and Guy Monnot, 2 vols. (Paris, 198693).
31. al-Shahrastan, Kitab al-mus _ araa (Struggling with the Philosopher: A
Refutation of Avicennas Metaphysics), ed. and tr. Wilferd Madelung and Toby Mayer (London, 2001).
32. al-Shahrastan, Nihayat al-iqdam f ilm al-kalam: The Summa Philosophiae of Shahrastani, ed. with partial tr. Alfred Guillaume (Oxford, 1934), p.316.
33. Ibid., p.320.
34. Guy Monnot, Shahrastan, Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn, 12 vols. (Leiden, 19862004), ix, pp.21416.
35. Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz, al-Mabah _ ith al-mashriqiyya (Hyderabad, 1924), i,
p.4. 36. For instance, Raz attempted to refute the philosophical Neoplatonist
emanation principle that from Unity only unity issues forth (ex uno non fit nisi unum).
God: essence and attributes 139
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
37. Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz, Muh _ as _ s _ al afkar al-mutaqaddimn wal-
mutaakhkhirn min al-ulama wal-h _ ukama wal-mutakallimn
(Cairo, 1323/1905). 38. Sayf al-Dn al-Amid, Abkar al-afkar f us
_ ul al-dn, ed. Ah
_ mad
Muh _ ammad al-Mahd (Cairo, 2004).
39. Sad al-Dn al-Taftazan, Sharh _ al-aqaid al-Nasafiyya (A Commentary
on the Creed of Islam), ed. and tr. Earl Edgar Elder (New York, 1950). 40. Taftazan, Sharh
_ , p.78ff.
140 Nader El-Bizri
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
7 Creation
david b. burrell csc
Originator (Bad) of the heavens and earth. When He decrees a thing,
He says only Be! And it is.
(Quran 2:117)1
There are eight names for God, among the canonical ninety-nine,
which direct our attention to Allah as the source of all that is: al-Bad
(Absolute Cause), al-Bari (Producer), al-Khaliq (Creator), al-Mubdi
(Beginner), al-Muqtadir (All-Determiner), al-Mus _ awwir (Fashioner),
al-Qadir (All-Powerful) and al-Qahhar (Dominator), each with various
connotations of creating.2 Nothing seems simpler than identifying the
one God as creator of all that is; indeed, that has ever been the preferred
route for calling attention to the fact of divinity, as in the so-called
proofs that there is a God. And understandably, since the standing link
between such a One and everything else is its origin in that One, so that
originary fact connects the revelations proper to each Abrahamic faith
tradition with everything we encounter: the heavens and the earth, as
well as the human speculation which attends everything that surrounds
us, and especially ourselves as the portion of creation impelled to that
speculation. Moreover, when one is urged by those revelations to make
the fantastic attestation of a single creator of all, what results is an
ontological divide between the one creator and everything else. For if the
God of Abraham can be defined, as Thomas Aquinas does at the outset of
his Summa Theologiae, as the beginning and end of all things, and
especially of rational creatures, that lapidary formula has but one clear
implication: God is not one of those things, and this affirmation sums up
Islamic tawh _ d.3 For confessing divine unity (tawh
_ d) entails removing
all so-called gods from the world; indeed, replacing them all with One
whose originating relation to the universe will never cease to occupy
thinkers in each of these traditions, as an enduring testimony to the utter
uniqueness of the attestation There is no God but God, its novelty and
its intractability in human discourse. Yet as congruent as this affirmation
141
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may be to human reason, by contrast to a mythological proliferation of
gods, it will also prove to be its stumbling-block, and so testify that its
corollary, creation, must properly be rooted in revelation.
This proposed account of variousMuslim understandings of creation
will corroborate that intractability, as diverse schools of thought stum-
ble in their attempts to articulate the unique relation introduced by the
simple assertion, God says Be! and it is. The conceptual conundra
follow from the ontological divide which the fact of creation intro-
duces: if God is not one of the things which God creates, what sort of a
thing is God? No sort of thing, of course, so the initial task will be
properly to distinguish this one God from all else. Yet doing that will
involve adapting categories from human speculation to this unpreced-
ented task, for the very drive to unity which human reason displays has
not proved able, of itself, to attain the celebrated distinction which
tawh _ d and its corollary, creation, demand.4 Yet unsurprisingly, that
same distinction will turn out to defy proper conceptualisation, as the
various attempts to adapt the categories of human speculation will
testify, so there will be no one Muslim account of creation. And the
burden of this chapter will be to show that there can be no fully adequate
account, so the plurality of accounts is less a sign of the inadequacy of
Muslim thinkers to their task than it is of their fidelity to the founding
revelation of their tradition: to tawh _ d and its corollary, creation. For
irony reigns here: any pretension to have articulated the founding rela-
tion adequately will have reduced that relation to one comprehensible to
us, and so undermine and nullify the distinction expressed by tawh _ d,
the heart of this tradition. The stumbling-block which tawh _ d becomes
as one tries to render it conceptually may be identified by its sharp edges:
everything which is not God comes forth from God yet cannot exist
without God, so how are they distinct when they cannot be separated? If
God is eternal and everything else temporal, how does the act of creating
bridge that chasm? If God alone properly exists, and everything else
exists by an existence derived from divine existence, how real are the
things we know? And the clincher: if God makes everything else to be,
including human actions, how can our actions be properly our own?
That is, how can we be responsible for what God makes to be? How can
Gods actions, in other words, be imputed to us? And if they cannot, to
what end is the Quran a warning and a guide? This last conundrum
proved to be the crux because it directly affects human lives, and also
seems to prove that any metaphysical account which tries to be faithful
to the original revelation will end up undermining the point of that very
revelation. So unless that sharp edge is negotiated, there could be no
142 David B. Burrell CSC
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room for Islamic theology, properly speaking, but only for the preachers
insistence on the bare assertions of revelation in the face of an uncom-
prehending philosophical ethos. That is the formula for what we have
come to call fundamentalism, of course; yet while one can identify the
tendency in Islam, we shall see that it represents a marginal cul-de-sac
in the rich territory of Muslim reflection on the intractable legacy of
tawh _ d and creation. What Islam has missed is a single towering figure
among the plurality of intellectual traditions (or schools), and that
may well be accounted for by the vast difference between ways of
organising and supporting scholarship in the Jewish, Christian and
Muslimworlds. Yet as we negotiate our way from one school to another,
the capacity given us to read between them may help us find a rich
fertility in that absence.
The question elicited by the straightforward insistence that God
says Be! and it is will require, of course, all the philosophical
sophistication one canmuster, yet Islamic thought can too readily divide
into kalam (theology) and falsafa (philosophy). Two notable
exceptions to this apparent polarisation in the Sunn world were Ghazal
and Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz, whose familiarity with the thought of Islamic
philosophers is evident. Yet the clear division between kalam and
falsafa may also be one of those illusions created by handy teaching
devices, as we look far back across cultural divides. Just as masters of the
arts faculties and of theological faculties in medieval Paris can be dis-
tinguished by their different preoccupations, so can these two groups of
Islamic thinkers (or for that matter those who self-identify as phil-
osophers or religious thinkers today), yet their intellectual cultures
were bound to intersect. This chapter, then, will proceed by identifying
those issues which tended to preoccupy a specific group, as those pre-
occupations came to direct their respective treatments of creation, and
so add yet another dimension to the intellectual tracery emanating from
that lapidary quranic pronouncement: God said Be! and it is. A
roughly chronological treatment is inevitable, given that earlier thinkers
often prepared the ground for later reflection, yet the shadow of Hegel
can all too easily obscure real differences in favour of an ineluctable
development. So our treatment will consciously proceed both dia-
chronically and synchronically, calling attention to the points where
concerns intersect, and where recognisable tendencies display comple-
mentary aspects of the relation between a creator God and creation
itself. Here Ian Nettons formulation of the Quranic Creator Para-
digm, as he puts it, can usefully guide our inquiry by forming the
undeniable setting for further conceptual quandaries. It embraces a God
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who (1) creates ex nihilo; (2) acts definitively in historical time;
(3) guides His people in such time; and (4) can in some way be known
indirectly by His creation.5 It should be clear how many philosophical
conundra lurk in each of these assertions. What is it to create? How does
an eternal God act in time? How can divine guidance be carried out and
received? What are the ways in which created things can entice a created
intellect to some knowledge of their divine source? As we canvas the
usual groupings of Islamic thinkers reflecting on such matters kalam,
falsafa and ishraq we shall not lose sight of the fact that those whom
history has put in one camp or another were all concerned to parse the
four compass points of the paradigm.
schools of kalam
Early Islamic reflection on these matters (broadly identified with the
Mutazilites) emanated from Basra. Mutazilism in this period was not
demonstrably the result of Hellenic influence, and was probably an
indigenous Islamic development connected with local grammatical and
linguistic speculation. These Mutazilites starkly contrasted the creator
God with everything else, including the Quran itself. Since the being of
the One has neither beginning nor end, existence belongs to God essen-
tially.6 But how is that existence bestowed on things which come into
existence and depart from it? Put evenmore finely: how can the existence
of things we encounter be traced to its source in the one creator?
These early thinkers were reluctant to adopt a view of substance which
would have been consonant with Aristotelian thought, whereby things
enjoy a consistency (by virtue of the formal cause inherent in them) and
an internal dynamic (by virtue of their inherent final cause), perhaps
fearing for the resultant consistency of a cosmos which failed to display
its provenance from a unitary source. So they identified substance
with primitive atoms, notwithstanding Aristotles trenchant critique of
indivisible physical particles as oxymoronic. Rather in the spirit of
Leucippus, they saw what Aristotle took to be paradigmatically sub-
stances, large-scale living things capable of generating their kind, to be
configurations of primitive substances, called atoms, to underscore
their primitive metaphysical status. What the creator created, then,
would be the atoms, while the configurations indicate the various ways
in which that creation is conserved in being. So the actual configuration
of the manifold possibilities of atomic arrangement best displays the
agency proper to the creator, which must be immediate and so cannot be
identified with the causal chains which operate in the created universe.
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For they understood cause in the Greek manner, as a virtual synonym
with reason and condition, thus implying a systemic treatment. But
the one creator cannot be part of the cosmic system, so (in Richard
Franks words) the programmed sequence of sufficient causes and ful-
filled conditions represented in the causation of the illa and asbab does
not offer an adequate model for an explanation of the grounding of the
possible that exists, i.e., does not give an adequate account of . . . its
original possibility and the ground of its actuality in being.7 Creation
must be sui generis since the creator is. They were to find an analogue of
Gods activity in creating, however, in the free actions of human beings,
whom the Quran demanded to be the true initiators of their actions, for
otherwise they could not rightly be held accountable for them. This
analogy quickly became an identification, equating authentic agency
with creating, an identificationwhichwas to help bring about the demise
of this school. The contrast of agency with causality would become even
more significant, however, in contrasting the later kalam thinkers
(Ghazal and Raz) with philosophical accounts of origination.
Identifying acting with creating gave the Mutazilites a way of
keeping the divine agent from being ensnared in evil, as well as of jus-
tifying the rewards and punishments promised in the Quran to crea-
tures who perpetrate good or evil acts. The key belief here is that God
must be able to be justified in whatever God does, and so can in no way
be associated with evil, nor can divine justice be arbitrary. It is the
presence of this conceptual framework bridging the divide between
Creator and creature which a trained Mutazilite, al-Ashar, will ques-
tion as he proceeds to found the successor school which bears his name.
Two signal implications of the school of his formation can be identified,
which also explain why Asharism quickly became identified with the
consensus position in Sunn Islam. The first was the stark insistence on
the fact that everything which is not God must be created, including the
Quran itself. Apparently a simple corollary to the shahadas witnessing
that there can be no God but God, this uncompromising teaching
unfortunately left Islam with a mute divinity, so it seemed far preferable
to grasp the nettle and affirm Gods Word to be coeternal with God. In
the political climate of Baghdad, blood was initially spilt over this view,
but it held firm. The identification of acting with creating, however,
instigated an unending debate, which has not yet been decisively settled.
For if any authentic action, be it of creator or of creature, must be tan-
tamount to an unconditioned origination, or creation, then the actions
of creatures must be attributed to them alone, unduly restricting the
sovereignty of the creator of all by removing all deliberate human
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actions from His purview. Such a restriction hardly befits the quranic
divinity and directly contradicts the quranic creator paradigm. Some
other way, therefore, must be found to conciliate divine sovereignty
with human responsibility, and much of the ingenuity of the Asharite
school will be absorbed in this endeavour. The more significant shift by
Ashar which became imbedded in Sunn orthodoxy, however, is that
which denies an overarching conceptual scheme for creator and creature.
As Daniel Gimaret puts it, nothing can be obligatory for God, for there is
no one above Him to whom He is accountable.8 So the recompense
accorded to the faithful is always pure favour, on Gods part; moreover,
should God be obliged to reward us in a patterned way, we would have
no obligation to be grateful to Him.9 One might ask, of course, whether
God does not owe whatever God does to Gods own self (cf. Quran 6:12),
but it seems that the Asharites were reluctant to pursue questions
which led into the very constitution of divinity. What resulted seemed
to be a creator for whom will predominated over wisdom, however;
something which later kalam theologians like Ghazal and Raz would
work to correct. The scheme which the Asharites proposed to conciliate
divine sovereignty over all things with human responsibility, so that
actions created by God could nonetheless be imputed to human agents,
turned on a novel adaptation of the quranic expression kasb, and its
cognate form iktisab. Its lexical meaning is acquisition, so that one
may say that human beings acquire the actions which God creates.
(Richard Frank, however, has proposed a more functional translation,
performance, according to which human beings perform the actions
which God creates.10)
One might regard this ploy as a way of properly parsing created
action, without questioning the Mutazilite identification of acting with
creating. Any created action takes place by a power created in the human
person who actually performs the act, since the causality of the created
agent is not sufficient to determine the entire reality of the act, notably,
its very existence. So given the identification of acting with creating, it
must be said that God alone is the agent (fail), determining through
a created power (qudra) the individual existence of each act in all its
particulars. Yet the act is created as belonging to another, not by God as
His own act, so one may also say that the act is the act of the . . .
subject in which it is realised as an act.11 There is, of course, an
unavoidable ambiguity in the use of act here, as this school struggles
to articulate a notion of created agency, which Frank suggests might
be disambiguated by rendering the human role as the performance
of an action created by God. As should be evident, this ploy is also
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designed to meet the Mutazilite concern to remove all trace of the
perpetration of evil from the creator of all: the action created by God
cannot, however, be predicated of God (by saying that God did it), but
must be imputed to the one performing it. What sounds like double-talk
can be explained as an attempt to formulate the relation between cre-
ating agent and created agent, using the crude instrument of a created
power to perform this act (qudra). A comprehensive study of the work of
the Egyptian reformer Muh _ ammad Abduh (18491905) and his disciple,
Rashd Rid _ a (18651935), in their modernist quranic commentary The
Beacon (al-Manar) (itself intended as a continuing elaboration of the
Sunn position on these matters), pinpoints the key issue as the relation
between created and uncreated agents: By their acquisition [kasb],
human beings are indeed autonomous agents, yet hardly independent;
they are only agents because God wills it and creates them as free
agents. Rid _ a underscores the non-concurrence of these two concepts:
creation and the created free act.12 So a coherent presentation of the
intent of the Asharite analysis will require a semantics able to account
for the inherently analogous sense of act, action, and acting. Yet
such a presentation might also applaud one implication of that analysis
for ethics: actions as properly described are what they are, and so retain
(as the actions they are) their orientation towards or away from the
properly human good. In this sense the actions we perform can indeed
be said to be created by God in the sense that we are unable to
change them into something else by evasive descriptions which seek to
accommodate our wishes at the moment of performing them. Indeed,
one might well discern these ethical echoes in the overtly theological
overtones of continuing Islamic discussions of human life and action.
Another strain of kalam reasoning can be identified as Maturdism,
being traceable to Abu Mans _ ur al-Maturds Book of Affirming Gods
Oneness (Kitab al-Tawh _ d).13 Originating in the region of Samarkand,
this school was continued by others, and offered itself as the doctrine of
Abu H _ anfa, thus imbibing the spirit of one of the four schools of
Muslim law. In essence, this school tended to reaffirm the twin asser-
tions that human beings are truly the agents of their actions, while
these actions are at the same time created by God.14 Their insistence
that the divine act of takwn, or bringing into existence, is eternal, and
so to be distinguished from existing things, became a point of contro-
versy with Asharism, as did their understandable avoidance of the
ambiguous language of kasb/iktisab to account for free created actions
of human beings. Yet for our purposes they cannot be said to have
contributed much further clarification regarding the analogous uses of
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act or action, which could have helped to articulate the relation of
creaturely free actions to that freedom proper to the creator. This mode
of approach to the question, however, may have paved the way for
Ghazals approach to these questions, and his cautious observations
regarding two senses of act and agent. Yet before considering
Ghazal and Raz, as later kalam figures, we should briefly review the
philosophers with whom they expressly interacted.
the fal asifa on origination
The clearest picture here is given by Farab, whose adaptation of
Plotinus Neoplatonic scheme whereby all things emanate from the One
offered an enticing model for articulating the quranic creator para-
digm.15 (It was also his commentary on Aristotles Metaphysics which
succeeded in unlocking its secrets for Avicenna.16) In the spirit of Platos
Republic, Farabs Virtuous City holds up the pattern of cosmic ori-
gination for the ideal leader of a human polity to emulate. The leader
whom he has in mind, of course, is the Prophet, and the cosmic scheme
displays the source of the Prophets authority: an intellectual emanation
from the unique source of being and of truth. Indeed, what distinguishes
the Messenger of God from Platos philosopher king, now overtly
recast in Neoplatonic terms, is that the divine emanation reaches well
beyond his intellect into his imagination, so that the idiom of the Quran
will not be limited to those who have undergone a rigorous intellectual
training, but is eminently comprehensible to all who hear it. Yet by
adopting the emanation scheme to model creation, these thinkers were
carried into a set of presuppositions which proved to be at variance with
the creator paradigm they sought to use the scheme to articulate. Indeed,
the very logical elegance which attracted philosophical spirits to the
emanation scheme would prove inimical to parsing the key phrase God
says Be! and it is. For the controlling dictum from one only one can
come clearly bespeaks the logical character of the model, so that the
One from whom all things come will be assimilated to the unitary and
immensely fruitful grounding axiom of a system from which the rest of
the premises ineluctably follow. For all this, however, it remains a
model, so we need not think of this One as an axiom, but could endow It
with the rich intentionality of the very One who bestowed the Quran
through Muh _ ammad. Yet models have an inner logic as well, so the
intentionality of the source could not extend to freedom of action
without contradicting the very logical elegance which had recom-
mended it in the first place.
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These tensions were soon to emerge with respect to specific ques-
tions, such as the relation of this timeless emanation to time: has the
universe always been or is there an initial moment of time which marks
its beginning? Must the dictum from one only one can come, which
determined a step-wise emanation following the actual cosmological
pattern of the nine planets, dictate a mediated origination of all things
from the One? Can such a One ever be without the universe emanating
from it? Merely posing questions like these allows any serious inquirer
to query the effort of these thinkers to assimilate the quranic creator to
this One. So it was only a matter of time before a Ghazal arose to
question the orthodoxy of the Avicenna who had elaborated Farabs
scheme into a full-blown system for explaining the cosmos. Yet the
infelicities of the scheme itself should not obscure its intent: to render
an account of the origin of the very being of things. If kalam thinkers
had been wary of presenting Gods activity in creating as causing the
universe to be, that was because they thought of causation as enmeshing
the creator in a system of necessities. That would also be the result of
the emanation scheme of the falasifa, of course, yet the philosophers
intent had been to move our minds beyond one who makes individual
things come to be, to the very cause of being, even while the multiple
names for a creator in the Quran include the Fashioner (al-Mus _ awwir),
which connotes Gods shaping each thing as it comes to be. Indeed, an
intentional creator who acts freely cannot but be pictured anthropo-
morphically, and so impedes the intellectual ascent to a cause of
being. So if the concerns surrounding Gods freedom to create (with its
corollary of utter transcendence), as well as the prophetic insistence on
an initial moment of time, were to sideline this mode of thought for
Islamic theology and return it to the kalam speculation we have seen,
something invaluable would have been lost. Yet that is the picture we
are often given: in the wake of Ghazals Incoherence, philosophical
inquiry was rendered terminally suspect in Islam.17 We shall see, how-
ever, that there are other Ghazals than the one intent on deconstructing
the falsafawhich he saw as threatening the quranic creator paradigm. In
fact, the constructive Ghazal felt free (or was intellectually constrained)
to incorporate a great deal of Avicenna in his own attempt to articulate
the relation of creator to creation, notably under the rubric of tawh _ d:
faith in the divine unity from which all that is comes to exist. Yet the
negative picture of falsafa which Ghazal was supposed to have pro-
mulgated in his work of deconstruction could well have been facilitated
by the fierce opposition of Averroes to that work, evidenced in his
ensuing The Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tahafut al-Tahafut),
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which contains the entire text of Ghazals original work in order to
excoriate what nefarious influence it might have. That Averroes reac-
tion may ironically have had the opposite effect of reinforcing Ghazals
work of deconstructing falsafa for religious purposes can be suggested
from the authors inattention to creation, in this or any other work. In
fact, it requires a good deal of intellectual probing to determine what
creation meant for Averroes, which is perhaps unsurprising given his
utter devotion to Aristotle.18 But how does Ghazal manage to incorp-
orate the very philosophy he criticised when he proceeds in a more
constructive fashion?
later kalam theologians: ghazal and raz
Ghazals intellectual and spiritual odyssey, The Deliverer from
Error (al-Munqidh min al-d _ alal), details his quest for an understanding
which will not turn out to have been in vain: either because one has
been deluded into believing what is not the case, or by reason of the
vanity inherent in learning itself.19 The first fear is cast in sceptical
terms, and permits us to draw parallels with Descartess Discourse on
Method; the second addresses a more spiritual issue: what is the point of
it all? Reflecting in the wake of his intellectual and professional crisis on
his early formation in kalam, he notes that those who have engaged in it
did indeed perform the task assigned them by God: they ably
protected orthodoxy and defended the creed which had been readily
accepted from the prophetic teaching and boldly counteracted
heretical innovation. But in doing so they relied on the premises
which they took over from their adversaries, being compelled to
admit them either by uncritical acceptance, or because of the
Communitys consensus, or by simple acceptance [taqld] deriving
from the Quran and the Traditions . . . This, however, is of little
use in the case of one who admits nothing at all except the primary
and self-evident truths. So kalam was not sufficient in my case, nor
was it a remedy for the malady of which I was complaining.20
Here the malady can be voiced in sceptical terms, though one who
admits nothing at all except the primary and self-evident truths could
hardly expect a cure in terms so stringent. In fact, as he relates it, even
accept[ing] the self-evident data of reason and rel[ying] on them with
safety and certainty . . . was not achieved by constructing a proof or
putting together an argument. On the contrary, it was the effect of a
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light which God Most High cast into my breast. And that light is the
key to most knowledge. Therefore, whoever thinks that the
unveiling of truth depends on precisely formulated proofs has indeed
straitened the broad mercy of God.21
So it was predictable that Ghazal would not find what he was looking
for in any of the six parts of philosophy either: mathematical, logical,
physical, metaphysical, political, and moral.22 Nor could he see in the
physical sciences the central point of the quranic creator paradigm:
that nature is totally subject to God Most High: it does not act of
itself but is used as an instrument by its Creator. The sun, moon,
stars, and the elements are subject to Gods command: none of them
effects any act by and of itself . . . [But] it is in the metaphysical
sciences that most of the philosophers errors are found. Owing to
the fact that they could not carry out apodeictic demonstrations
according to the conditions they had postulated in logic, they
differed a great deal about metaphysical questions. Aristotles
doctrine on these matters, as transmitted by Farab and Ibn Sna,
approximates the teachings of the Islamic philosophers. But the
sum of their errors comes down to twenty heads, in three of which
they must be taxed with unbelief, and in seventeen with
innovation.23
To accuse someone of unbelief (kufr) in an Islamic society was a stark
judgement, which could result in banishment or death for one found
guilty; innovation (bida) was far less stringent a charge. The positions
which Ghazal deemed tantamount to unbelief were [1] that mens
bodies will not be assembled on the Last Day . . . [2] their declaration:
God Most High knows universals, but not particulars . . . when there
does not escape from Him the weight of an atom in the heavens or in the
earth (Quran 34:3), [and 3] their maintaining the eternity of the world,
past and future.24
Yet it will not suffice to be disillusioned with philosophers who had
been brought to contradict divine revelation; one must go on to ascertain
the truth of that revelation in ways which the philosophers have been
unable to do. So the dimensions of his crisis moved well beyond that of
scepticism, and demanded of him a pilgrimage whose beginning . . .
was to sever my hearts attachments to the world by withdrawing from
this abode of delusion and turning to the mansion of immortality and
devoting myself with total ardour to God.25 Now he would address
the second and more telling fear: that life (and especially the life of
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inquiry) has no point at all. Realising that this would demand a total
disengagement from his work and status, he vacillated for six months
until the matter passed from choice to compulsion, so that the
renowned teacher found himself
completely unable to say anything. As a result that impediment of
speech caused a sadness in my heart accompanied by an inability to
digest; food and drink became unpalatable to me . . . Then, when I
perceived my powerlessness, and when my capacity to make a
choice had completely collapsed, I had recourse to God.26
Entering Damascus and residing there for nearly two years,
my only occupation was seclusion and solitude and spiritual
exercise . . . with a view to devoting myself to the purification of my
soul and the cultivation of virtues and cleansing my heart for the
remembrance of God Most High, in the way I had learned from the
writings of the Sufis.27
In consequence, what became clear to me of necessity from practicing
their Way was the true nature and special character of prophecy.28 That
is, faith in divine revelation is a form of knowing as well, though it is
hardly self-evident but requires sustained efforts at purification. After
engaging in these, he can insist: I believe with a faith as certain as
direct vision that there is no might for me and no power save in God, the
Sublime, the Mighty; and that it was not I who moved, but He moved
me; and that I did not act, but He acted through me.29 It is this con-
viction, founded in his own pilgrimage, which he will extend to the
cosmos as well: what faith in divine unity (tawh _ d) effectively means is
that there is no power or might but in God. Yet he did not turn to
kalam occasionalism to make this point philosophically; he rather had
recourse to a model close to that of Avicennas, though grounded in the
sunnat Allah, the order bestowed on the universe by its free creator.30
That ordering permits a fresh approach to causality, as evidenced in the
following portion from his section on Faith in Divine Unity and Trust
in Divine Providence in his Revival:31
Now you may object: how can there be any common ground
between faith in divine unity and the shara? For the meaning of
faith in divine unity is that there is no agent but GodMost High, and
the meaning of the law lies in establishing the actions proper to
human beings [as servants of God]. And if human beings are agents,
how is it that God Most High is an agent? Or if God Most High is an
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agent, how is a human being an agent? There is no way of
understanding acting as between these two agents. In response,
I would say: indeed, there can be no understanding when there is but
one meaning for agent. But if it had two meanings, then the term
comprehended could be attributed to each of them without
contradiction, as when it is said that the emir killed someone, and
also said that the executioner killed him; in one sense, the emir is
the killer and in another sense, the executioner. Similarly, a
human being is an agent in one sense, and God is an agent in
another. The sense in which God Most High is agent is that He is
the originator32 of existing things [mukhtari al-mawjud], while the
sense in which a human being is an agent is that he is the locus
[mah _ all] in which power is created after will has been created after
knowledge has been created, so that power depends on will, and
action is linked to power, as a conditioned to its condition. But
depending on the power of God is like the dependence of effect on
cause, and of the originated on the originator. So everything which
depends on a power in such a way as it is the locus of the power is
called agent in a manner which expresses that fact of its
dependence, much as the executioner and the emir can each be
called killer, since the killing depends on the power of both of
them, yet in different respects. In that way both of them are called
killer, and similarly, the things ordained [maqrurat] depend on
two powers . . . So the Most High clarifies it, saying: You [Muslims]
did not kill them, but God killed them, and further: You
[Muh _ ammad] did not throw when you threw, but God threw (8:17).
On the surface this amounts to a denial and an affirmation
together, but its meaning is: you did not throw in the sense in
which the Lord can be said to throw, since you threw in the sense in
which it belongs to a human to throw and the two senses are
different.
So it is that acting is fraught with different senses, and these
meanings are not contradictory once you understand [that fact] . . .
Anyone who relates all there is to God Most High is unquestionably
one who knows the truth and the true reality, while whoever relates
them to what is other than Him is one whose speech is laced
with figurative expressions and metaphors. Figurative expression is
on one side while true reality is on another, yet the author of
language determined the term agent to mean the one who
originates [mukhtari], so those supposing human beings to be
originators call them agents according to their power.33 For
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they suppose that human beings actualize [tah _ qq], so they
imagine [tawahhum] that agent is attributed to God Most High
metaphorically, as the killing was attributed [in the example] to the
emir, yet metaphorically so when contrasted with that attributed to
the executioner. Yet in the measure that the truth is revealed to
those inquiring, they will know that things are quite the opposite,
and they will say: O linguist, you have posited the term agent to
signify the one who originates, but [in that sense] there is no
agent but God, so the term belongs properly to Him and
metaphorically to whatever is other than Him. That is, you must
bear with the way in which linguists have determined it . . .
You may still object: it is now clear that all is coerced [jabr]. But
if so, what can these mean: reward or punishment, anger or
complete approval [rid _ a]?34 How can He be angry at His own deed?
You should know that we have already indicated the meaning of
that in the Book of Thanksgiving [Book 32 of the Revival], so we will
not proceed to a long repetition here. For this has to do with the
divine decree [qadar], intimations of which we saw with respect to
the faith in divine unity which brings about the state of trust in
divine providence, and is only perfected by faith in the benevolence
and wisdom [of God]. And if faith in divine unity brings about
insight into the effects of causes, abundant faith in benevolence is
what brings about confidence in the effects of the causes, and the
state of trust in divine providence will only be perfected, as I shall
relate, by confidence in the trustee [wakl] and tranquillity of heart
towards the benevolent oversight of the [divine] sponsor. For this
faith is indeed an exalted chapter in the chapters of faith, and the
stories about it from the path of those experiencing the unveiling go
on at length. So let us simply mention it briefly: to wit, the
conviction of the seeker in the station of faith in divine unity, a
conviction held firmly and without any doubt: [that] all this happens
according to a necessary and true order, according to what is
appropriate as it is appropriate and in the measure that is proper to it;
nor is anything more fitting, more perfect, and more attractive
within the realm of possibility35 . . . Now this is another sea
immensely deep, with vast extremities and chaotic swells, nearly as
extensive as the sea of faith in divine unity, and the boats of those
whose capacity is limited flounder in it, for they do not know that
this is something hidden, not to be grasped except by those who
know. The lore regarding this sea is the secret of the divine decree
which confuses the many, and those to whom it has been unveiled
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are forbidden to disclose its secret. The gist of it is that good and
evil are determined by it, and if they were not, then what comes
about would have to follow a prior volition in such a way as not to
contradict His wisdom and yet not to follow upon His judgment
and His command. But everything, small or large, is recorded and
carried out by Him according to the divine decree as an object
foreseen, and if you were not afflicted you would not make progress,
and were you not making progress you would not be afflicted. But
let us cut short these allusions to ways of knowing through
unveiling which are themselves the basis of the station of trust in
divine providence, and return to the knowledge of practices God
Most High willing and let us praise God.36
Ghazal holds on to what he deems to be the properly grammatical
sense of acting as originating or creating, yet once the term has
been acknowledged to be analogous, then it becomes a matter of which
analogate to privilege as primary. The burden of this treatment is to
attempt to articulate a created universe in relation to its creator, in the
clear recognition that one will be unable to do so properly. For what is
paramount is the transcendence of the creator, so that the manner of
determining by the divine decree (qadar) remains inexpressible, and
hence cannot be read as determining in our sense of the term. To be
consistent, he will not be able to espouse either the created determining
volition of Ashar or the necessitating scheme of Avicenna, much as
he may employ that scheme to illustrate his point of divine ordering. In
this case, however, he will be employing it as a metaphor, understanding
that divine ordering cannot be comprehended in any human scheme.37
In the context of the book in question, which responds to Ghazals own
development, what cannot be articulated conceptually can nonetheless
be worked out in the way one lives, so the faith in divine unity (tawh _ d)
which reminds us forcibly that the prime analogate for agent is the
creator, can be lived out in a life of trust in divine providence (tawakkul).
Raz, a century later than Ghazal, resisted even the use of the terms
kasb and iktisab to refer to the human contribution to human acts,
doubtless on account of their ambiguity, while he also acknowledged
that the Quran could be cited on all sides of the question, so that
rational discourse must prevail.38 In his case, that amounted to an
analysis of human actions in terms of their prevailing causes, sum-
marised in his commentary on Quran 6:102: Creator of all things:
In this way, conclusive rational proof supports the truth of the literal
sense of this verse because action depends on motivation which is
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created by God. And when power and motivation are joined, the
action necessarily occurs. Now this requires that God be the Creator
of the creatures acts. And if this conclusive rational proof supports
the literal sense, then all problems and ambiguities cease.39
Or as Gimaret puts it boldly: Raz does not hesitate to declare himself a
Jabrite, given his insistence that because these acts can be done only if
God creates the power and the motivation to do them, the combination
of the two necessarily brings about the emanation of the act from the
creature.40 As for the reward for good deeds, he is consistent in holding
that God is in no way bound to supply this, thereby returning us to
divine generosity and mercy. Evil actions, of course, make the question
yet more acute, leading Raz to qualify his Jabrite position severely:
It is as though this question is located in a field of contradiction,
founded on contrary evidence as well as reasoning regarding the
necessity of exalting God in His power as well as His wisdom,
affirming His oneness and his exemption from evil; or one simply
remains grounded on the proofs issuing from revelation. For these
reasons it is a difficult question, at once obscure and deep. Let us ask
God Most High to bring us to the truth of it.41
late mysticism: suhraward, ibn arab and mulla s
_ adra
If Islamic philosophers point us towards a cause of being, while
later kalam thinkers, notably Ghazal, try to rescue that source-of-all
from being enmeshed in causal necessities, what remains to be
expressed is the utter uniqueness of the creator/creature relation. The
Quran had insisted upon it; what idiom can help us to articulate its sui
generis character? That will be the task of the thinkers who emerged,
after the decisive accusations of Ghazal, to restore Islamic philosophy
in the original heartland, the East, hence its title, ishraq, picking up
the associations of sunrise with illumination. It fell to Shihab al-Dn
al-Suhraward (d. 1191) to introduce a new paradigm for the doing of
philosophy.42 While it is accurate to call that paradigm Platonist rather
than Aristotelian, one must also call attention to the way in which
spiritual exercises came to be seen as integral to the philosophical
inquiry, perhaps under the influence of Ghazals Deliverer yet also
consonant with that dimension of ancient philosophy underscored by
Pierre Hadot.43 The metaphor of light allowed Suhraward to account for
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the emanation of all things from the One in such a way as to finesse the
necessitarian implications of Avicennas scheme while retaining his
emphasis on essence. Mulla S _ adra reoriented Suhrawards legacy so as
to give primacy to existence, in the light of the reflections of Ibn Arab,
so that creation came to be recognised properly as the bestowal of
existing. He puts it succinctly:
Now contingent beings, [that is, those not necessary in themselves],
need something proper to them constituting what they are in
themselves [huwiyyat], for should one consider them apart from the
One who originates them by that very fact they must be
considered to be empty and impossible. [That factor proper to them,
then, must be] the act constituted by the One who originates them,
much as the quiddity of a composite species is constituted by its
difference. For the ratio [mana] of being an existence which is
necessary is that it belongs to it properly to exist, without needing to
be united with an originator nor have any receptacle to receive it;
while the ratio of being an existence which exists [that is,
contingent] is that it is something attained, either by itself or by an
originator.44
It would be fair to say that existence (wujud) plays the role which light
had played for Suhraward, yet by exploiting Avicennas celebrated dis-
tinction of essence from existence in this way, Mulla S _ adra moved the
issue beyond the metaphorical, opening a way of seeing the relation of
creator to creatures as the One who bestows existence to all-that-is, in
such a way that God alone exists in Himself, while everything else
which exists does so from God. That emanation need not be neces-
sary, however, as it had to be for Avicenna, but can be thoroughly
intentional; while the relation of everything-that-is to the originating
One must be inherent to each thing, and so will be different from any
relation within the created universe. The term of art, non-duality, seems
best suited to express this unique non-reciprocal relation of depend-
ence, signalling Mulla S _ adras debt to Ibn Arab as well as offering
some suggestive connections with Shankaras Hindu idiom as well as
that of Thomas Aquinas.45 Moreover, by moving us into the world of
Shite philosophical reflection, Mulla S _ adras suggestive focus on
existence helps to round out our survey of models for creation in Islamic
theology. If the relation of creator to creatures turns out in the end to
escape conceptual articulation, and to require a set of spiritual exercises
to move both mind and heart to further enlightenment, that would seem
to reflect the nature of this inquiry more accurately.
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Further reading
Arnaldez, Roger, Khalk , in Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn, 12 vols. (Leiden,
19862004), iv, pp. 9808.
al-Bayd _ aw, Abdallah, T
_ awali al-anwar min mat
_ ali al-anz
_ ar, tr. Edwin E.
Calverley and James W. Pollock, Nature, Man and God in Medieval Islam
(Leiden, 2002), pp. 60339.
Frank, Richard M., Creation and the Cosmic System: Al-Ghazal and
Avicenna (Heidelberg, 1992).
Two Islamic views of human agency, in George Makdisi et al. (eds.), La
notion de liberte au moyen age: Islam, Byzance, Occident (Paris, 1985),
pp. 3749.
Al-Ghazal: The Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, tr. David Burrell and
Nazih Daher (Cambridge, 1992).
Gimaret, Daniel, La doctrine dal-Ashar (Paris, 1990).
Theories de lacte humain en theologie musulmane (Paris, 1980).
Nispen tot Sevenaer, Christian van,Activite humaine et agir deDieu: le concept
de Sunan de Dieu dans le commentaire coranique du Manar (Beirut,
1996).
Notes
1. Parallel texts in the Quran: 3:47, 59; 6:73; 16:40; 36:82; 40:68. 2. Ghazal: The Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, tr. David B. Burrell
and Nazih Daher (Cambridge, 1992). 3. Summa Theologiae 1.1. Prol. 4. Robert Sokolowski, God of Faith and Reason (Notre Dame, IN, 1982;
Washington, DC, 1990); see David Burrell, The Christian distinction celebrated and expanded, in The Truthful and the Good: Essays in Honor of Robert Sokolowski, ed. John Drummond and James Hart (Dordrecht, 1996), pp.191206.
5. Ian Netton, Allah Transcendent: Studies in the Structure and Semiotics of Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Cosmology (London, 1989), p.22. For a critical appreciation of this massively erudite treatise which also calls attention to its pointedness, see Richard Taylors review in Middle East Journal 44 (1990), pp.5212.
6. My source here is Richard Franks detailed account, Kalam and philosophy: a perspective from one problem, in Parviz Morewedge (ed.), Islamic Philosophical Theology (Albany, 1979), pp.7195, with abundant references to primary sources.
7. Ibid., pp.789. 8. Daniel Gimaret, La doctrine dal-Ashar (Paris, 1990), p.443. On this
significant difference, see Richard M. Frank, Two Islamic views of human agency, in George Makdisi et al. (eds.), La notion de liberte au moyen age: Islam, Byzance, Occident (Paris, 1985), pp.3749.
9. Gimaret, La doctrine, pp.443, 416.
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10. Richard M. Frank, Moral obligation in classical Islamic theology, Journal of Religious Ethics 11 (1983), pp.20423, esp. p.218 n. 19, with Gimarets rejoinder in La doctrine, p.371, n. 1.
11. Richard M. Frank, The structure of created causality according to al-Ashar, Studia Islamica 25 (1966), pp.1376; citations at pp.44, 43.
12. Christian van Nispen tot Sevenaer, Activite humaine et agir de Dieu: le concept de Sunan de Dieu dans le commentaire coranique du Manar (Beirut, 1996), p.367. The author signals a key article by Michael Schwarz, Acquisition [kasb] in Early Kalam, in Islamic Philosophy and the Classical Tradition: Essays presented to Richard Walzer (Oxford, 1972), pp.35587; as well as RichardM. Franks review of Gimarets Theories (see next note) in Biblioteca Orientalis 39 (1982), cols. 70515.
13. For references to this and other sources, see Daniel Gimaret, Theories de lacte humain en theologie musulmane (Paris, 1980), pp.175231; as well as W. Madelung, al-Maturd, in Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn, vi, pp.8468.
14. Gimaret, Theories, p.179. 15. Farab on the Perfect State, ed. and tr. Richard Walzer (Oxford, 1985). 16. See the translation by Therese-Anne Druart, Le Traite de Farab sur les
buts de la Metaphysique dAristote, Bulletin de Philosophie Medievale 24 (1982), pp.3843.
17. al-Ghazal, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, ed. and tr. Michael E. Marmura (Provo, UT, 1997).
18. See Barry Kogan, Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation (Albany, 1985).
19. Richard McCarthys translation and notes have been reissued as Ghazals Path to Sufism (Louisville, KY, 2000).
20. Ghazal, Deliverer, in McCarthy, Ghazals Path, p.26. 21. Ibid., p.23. 22. Ibid., p.31. 23. Ibid., p.35. 24. Ibid., p.36. 25. Ibid., p.53. 26. Ibid., pp.545. 27. Ibid., pp.556. 28. Ibid., p.59. 29. Ibid., p.72. 30. For the model, see Richard M. Frank, Creation and the Cosmic System:
Al-Ghazal and Avicenna (Heidelberg, 1992); and for an elucidation of sunnat Allah, see Christian van Nispen, Activite humaine, part 1, pp.57251.
31. Ghazal on Faith in Divine Unity and Trust in Divine Providence, tr. David B. Burrell (Louisville, KY, 2001).
32. This term is not quranic, nor is it a name of God; cf. L.P. Fitzgerald, Creation in al-Tafsr al-Kabr of Fakhr ad-Dn al-Raz (PhD disserta- tion, Australian National University, 1992), p.34.
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33. This assertion regarding the primary meaning of the term agent reflects the presumption in Ghazals Asharite milieu that identified agency with the activity of creating.
34. For the sense of rid _ a, see Marie-Louise Siauves translation of the
Revivals Book of Love: Le Livre de lamour, du desir ardent, de lintimite et du parfait contentement (Paris, 1986), pp.24768.
35. This is Ghazals celebrated claim regarding the universe: that it is the best possible, a claim whose reception has been examined in detail by Eric Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought (Princeton, NJ, 1984), with a clarifying reprise in Creation in Time in Islamic Thought with Special Reference to Ghazal, in David B. Burrell and Bernard McGinn, God and Creation: An Ecumenical Symposium (Notre Dame, IN, 1990), pp.24664. See also Frank, Creation, pp.601.
36. Burrell (tr.), Ghazal on Faith in Divine Unity, p.276. 37. This is my way of acknowledging Richard Franks delineation of
Ghazals extensive use of Avicenna (in his Creation and the Cosmic System), while demurring from the necessitarian conclusions he draws in Currents and countercurrents, in Peter Riddell and Tony Street (eds.), Islam: Essays on Scripture, Thought and Society: A Festschrift in Honour of Anthony H. Johns (Leiden, 1997), pp.11334.
38. For a detailed treatment of Raz, complete with sources, see Gimaret, Theories, pp.13453.
39. al-Tafsr al-Kabr to 13:122, tr. in Fitzgerald, Creation in al-Tafsr al-Kabr, p.99.
40. al-Tafsr al-Kabr to 9:159, tr. in ibid., p.103; Gimaret, Theories, p.142. 41. al-Tafsr al-Kabr to 2:52, tr. in Gimaret, Theories, p.153. 42. For Suhraward, see John Walbridge and Hossein Ziais translation and
commentary, The Philosophy of Illumination (Provo, UT, 1999), as well as Ziais study of this book, Knowledge and Illumination (Atlanta, 1990), and John Walbridge, Leaven of the Ancients: Suhraward and the Heritage of the Greeks (Albany, 2000).
43. Arnold Davidson has translated key essays of Pierre Hadot in Philosophy as a Way of Life (Oxford, 1995). John Walbridge suggests why Sufi practices tended to eclipse natural philosophy as a path for understand- ing, in his Leaven of the Ancients, pp.21520.
44. Henry Corbin, Le livre des penetrations metaphysiques (Teheran, 1964), par. 42; see my comparative study, Thomas Aquinas (12251274) and Mulla S
_ adra Shraz (15721640) and the primacy of esse/wujud in
philosophical theology, Medieval Philosophy and Theology 8 (1999), pp.20719.
45. For Ibn Arab, see William C. Chittick, The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-Arabs Cosmology (Albany, 1998); for Shankara, see Sara Grant, Towards an Alternative Theology: Confessions of a Non- dualist Christian, ed. Bradley Malkovsky (Notre Dame, IN, 2001).
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8 Ethics
steffen a. j. stelzer
The end of action is to serve God.
(Ibn H _ anbal)
Following the Aristotelian example in the field of metaphysics, it is
often preferable not to accept received wisdom as to what a discipline is,
but, after inquiring into the possibility of its existence, to go instead in
search of it. This is certainly advisable in a field like Islamic ethics,
where the very concept of such a science has not originated in the place
in which one looks for its manifestation. In this case, instead of insisting
on an already established understanding of ethics gained from ancient
Greek philosophy and from its interpretations in the course of Western
philosophy and then transplanting these into Islamic theologies of
ethics, one should rather go so far as to risk their failure. Such failure
can, of course, attain the concept of the ethical itself. But the price paid
can be a gain when it opens the ear to an unheard-of version of ethics.
If one prefers, however, to begin from a common root, then there will
be two minimal assumptions to be made: that ethics is a science, a
knowledge, in the Greek sense of the word, and that the object of this
science is human action.
That much said, when one starts to inquire into Islamic ethics, one
will soon notice where ways begin to part. Any knowledge, any sci-
ence in Islam, as well as the initiative and the ways to practise it, must
be derived from the Holy Quran, the Word of God, and from hadith, the
reports of the sayings of the Prophet of Islam. The body of rules for-
mulated from both is called Shara, commonly translated as Islamic
law. Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and kalam (theology) are, thus, not so
much original sources of knowledge as ways (madhahib) of taking from
the original sources. Both are born of a precarious situation where
authority passes from someone whose actions and words are believed
to be unquestionably true because his knowledge is not derived from
himself, but from the source of all knowledge, from God, to one whose
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qualification consists in two things: his following of the former
authority to the highest degree of perfection possible for a human being
and his best use of the instrument that God gave him for the purpose of
measuring for Him, that is, reason (aql). But because there is always
the possibility that reason may lose sight of the limits imposed on her as
an instrument of knowledge and mistake herself for both the chief
subject and object, not only the sources of knowledge but also the pro-
cedures of knowing must be formulated on the grounds of divine and
prophetic authority. In other words, reason may not always be able to
determine by herself whether she follows reason.
The event that accounts for the necessity of fiqh and also, though to
a lesser extent, kalam, is the death of the Prophet. It should, however,
be immediately added that this expression is not unproblematic, because
death should be understood here from two angles: from the perspec-
tive of prophecy, and also from that of humanity, where each angle
effects a change in meaning.
Islam as (a) religion (dn) describes a situation where human
beings cannot know themselves through themselves; where, thereby,
the end of their actions is not in their reach; where, in addition, both the
command to know their end and the means for such knowledge are not
issuing from themselves; and where, lastly, they accept this situation as
true and binding. As such the death of the Prophet refers first of all to
the absence of a human being who, when alive, was accepted as abso-
lutely trustworthy (amn) in matters of knowledge about human exist-
ence in its relation to the divine. It means, in other words, the absence of
an advisor in divine matters whose closeness to the source of divine
knowledge was beyond compare.
To give advice (nas _ h _ a) is, according to a prophetic saying, religion
(al-dn nas _ h _ a).1 To be an advisor is, however, difficult, because it
requires a very high degree of sincerity (indicated in the use of nas _ ah
_ a in
Quran 9:91). The important characteristic of advice understood in
this way is that it makes interpretation superfluous. When an advisor
with such authority is thought no longer to be available, then not only
other advisors but also other modes of advice must be sought. What
offers itself readily as another mode is ones own reason. But there is
more that changes with this change than just a mode. Islamic legists and
theologians were quite aware of this.
The most striking differences between the various schools of juris-
prudence as well as between the main schools of theology lie in their
views about the sources of knowledge concerning human action. It has
often been stressed that both fiqh and kalam are responses to attempts
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at breaking up the unity of the community of believers, the umma,
which occurred quite early in the history of Islam. This is certainly
correct. But it should not be forgotten that the political events were born
of and took advantage of an element that lies dormant in the very for-
mulation of religion as we find it in Islam. This is indicated by many
prophetic sayings concerning authority, which warned of the events that
were coming to pass.
In this sense, fiqh and kalam can be understood as attempts to
answer two kinds of insecurities. In the case of fiqh, once the ground-
work for the assessment of human actions has been laid (through the
Shara derived from the Quran and the sunna), there remains the task
of applying these guidelines to particular actions and situations and,
thereby, establishing the means available and acceptable for formulating
particular rulings. Kalam, on the other hand, can be seen as an attempt
to answer a basic insecurity regarding knowledge of the nature of acts
themselves. This insecurity is born of a tension inherent in the ascrip-
tion of acts. The Quran names as agents of acts both God and man and,
furthermore, ascribes responsibility for acts to man. This situation of
tension is quite testing for any believer. As long as he understands
responsibility only in terms of ownership, that is, as long as he can
conceive of being responsible only for that which is his, in this case, his
own acts, he lives in this tension without being able to resolve it. Faith
will not contribute to its solution, but it allows him to carry the weight.
It becomes, then, important to join to the question which Aristotle
sees as central to ethics, that is, the question about the end of (human)
action, another one, namely: who acts? In view of ones usual awareness
of oneself, this question certainly sounds odd and, perhaps, it cannot
ultimately be answered by a human being. It is, then, all the more
puzzling that we are able to ask it.
According to the dominant view among Western specialists, Islamic
ethics, where it went beyond the mere listing of virtues and vices, was
first of all concerned with evaluation and assessment. The values for
such an evaluation were given in the authoritative texts, the Quran and
the collections of the prophetic sayings, and consequently, tools had to
be devised and applied to particular acts in order to determine the cat-
egory under which they should fall. Yet such a search could proceed only
within given parameters, that is, within h _ udud Allah, the limits set by
God. These can be in the most general way described as His commands.
The divine commands, very much like the two types of quranic verses,
namely, the clear ones (muh _ kamat) which should be taken as given,
and the ambiguous ones (mutashabihat) which invite interpretation,
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are of two kinds: those which, simply given, are to be followed as given
and for the mere fact that they are given, and those which invite the use
of reason and reflection (aql and fikr) in order to arrive at an under-
standing which leads to their acceptance. The first kind of command
refers, broadly speaking, to acts, which address that which is beyond
human perception and conception. Such are all recognisable acts of
worship. Prayer, pilgrimage and recitation of the Quran are examples.
The second kind of command refers, again broadly speaking, to acts that
address the apparent (z _ ahir). Here, man is invited to use his aql, that is,
the means he was given by God, and to do so for the purpose it was
given, namely, mindfully to direct his actions in such a way that
through them he realises or serves God.
Two things become clear. First, we are in the midst of a subtle play
of rotation between the apparent (z _ ahir) and the hidden (bat
_ in)
around the axis of the Unseen. It is essential that this configuration be
kept firmly in view in any serious reflection about religion, as it lies at
the heart of faith itself. If one can say that ethics in a religious context is
concerned with actions as acts of worship, then it must take account of
both apparent acts of worship and hidden ones. Secondly, the use of what
is often called independent reason is here not the result of a free
decision. It follows the divine permission to do so and it is to be exer-
cised to measure for God and not to measure Him (Ibn Arab). Per-
missions are, however, double-edged swords and sometimes more of a
trial than of a blessing. They let loose while holding back, a fact which
in the original enthusiasm about being able to run on ones own feet is
easily overlooked. Reason is no exception. Once it is allowed to indulge
in the exercise of its capabilities and grows strong through it, it easily
becomes its own object of enjoyment, its own pride and measure. In
other words, it forgets, and this forgetting expresses itself as conflict.
Accordingly, the main positions in both fiqh and kalam as they had
crystallised in the so-called classical period of Islamic civilisation are
seen by many scholars as revolving around the two poles of reason and
revelation, or reason and tradition. Although both formulations
situate the two poles in different ways and places, they share the terms
as marks around which the various theological and jurisprudential
schools are grouped.
The main schools of Islamic theology which are of relevance for the
discussion of classical Islamic ethics are theMutazila, the Ashars, and,
to a certain extent, the Maturds. However, these are not as clearly
distinguishable from one another as the names suggest. There are rep-
resentatives for each school who are known to have changed affiliations,
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and sometimes the outlines of a particular school have become apparent
only through its critical description by another. Perhaps this could serve
as an incentive to shift attention from the distinguishing of one group
from another and the weighing of one against the other to more relevant
considerations, such as: to what extent are all theological schools
deposits of one faith? And what significance is there in the fact that,
whatever the theological differences and alliances, each text on the
matter of ethics begins with the glorification of God and the Holy
Prophet?
The interpretations of Islamicmoral thought which to this date have
shaped the most prominent view of ethics in Islam begin from the
assumption that ethics occurs in Islamic theology first and foremost as a
matter of the assessment or the evaluation of acts; this differs from
Western philosophical thought where the ethical occurs first of all in
regard to the constitution of an act. Accordingly, in Islamic moral
thought ethical refers to a knowledge which allows us to locate a
particular act on a predefined scale of categories, while ethics denotes
the science which defines the means for such a localisation. The scale
is distilled from the Quran. Whatever the particular categories are, be
they h _ asan and qabh
_ (good, acceptable and detestable), or
obligatory (wajib), recommended (mandub, mustah _ abb), permis-
sible (mubah _ ), offensive (makruh), and unlawful (h
_ aram), they are
always acceptable or non-acceptable to someone, and that someone is
not myself, but God. The central question for this interpretation of
Islamic ethics is, therefore, not only What does God want me to do?,
but also, and perhaps more importantly, Which means do I have to find
this out?
Once the question about the means of evaluating action is asked in
this systematic way, another one follows inevitably for the rationalist
discourse: what mode of existence does the value of a particular action
have, or, more precisely, where does it reside? If the value resides in the
action itself, then reason is capable of knowing it. If it does not reside in
the action, no amount of reasoning will be able to detect it. It has to be
sought in its place of residence which, in the case of Islamic ethics, is the
divine will, and by means conducive to hearing this will. G. F. Hourani
calls the former position (where value resides in the action itself)
objectivism and the latter (where it does not) ethical voluntarism
or theistic subjectivism, and identifies the former with Mutazil
theology and the latter with Asharism.2
It should be noted that the aforementioned classification is based on
a certain concept of reason, one that sees reason as that which recognises
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what is present in its object and is, thus, capable of evaluation. The
name of this presentation, or rather, re-presentation, is rationalism,
and thus Mutazil theology is seen as rationalist. Secondly, the concept
of evaluation originates in nineteenth-century Western ontologies
which interpret being as value. This ontology implies an evaluator in
front of or over against the thing to be evaluated. To be truly evaluating,
or, precisely, to be objective, this evaluator must be in control, that
is, must speak in such a way that in its evaluation the object of its
evaluation speaks for itself. It is highly doubtful if such a situation can
be unproblematically assumed for Islam and for Islamic theology
because it implies a degree of sovereignty that is hardly possible for a
servant of God. It is thus only fair and necessary to ask which possi-
bilities a religion offers to evaluate, be it ones own acts, be it those of
others, or those of God. The question, if the predicament fromwhich the
theological debates between the two main theological schools of medi-
eval Islam (the Mutazilites and Asharites) resulted was a matter of
evaluation, is therefore not settled but open.
Asharite theology, on the other hand, while being recognised as the
most widely accepted school of Sunn theology, does not provide such a
clear-cut picture. The reason for this does not lie in any obscurity of its
theological tenets, but in the fact that it brings to the fore a concept
central to Islamic ethics which is difficult to understand in a purely
rationalistic way (the concept of obligation), which, furthermore, it
presents in quite an uncomfortable way. Within the scheme of this
classification, Asharite theology is registered under theistic subject-
ivism. It holds, in other words, that values are not just objectively
present in human actions and readily available to reason, but that they
are the result of the divine will. Such a will cannot be known by reason,
or not to an extent that would allow the formulation of judgements
based on such knowledge, but must be taken from the sources through
which this knowledge speaks: divine scripture, prophetic saying. The
function of reason, in the Asharite approach, is to see that in referring to
these sources their status is respected in the best way possible. The ideal
will always be to say what He says, to command what He com-
mands, because, in the end, the correct interpretation of a divine word
is known only by the divine speaker Himself.
For the rationalist discourse on Islam the significance of Asharite
theology can best be seen in the fact that, against Mutazilite ration-
alism, it pointed to the relevance of tradition or revelation. This
view helps to sustain a certain idea of Islam, or, for that matter, religion
in general, which allows the discrimination of forward-looking
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(rationalist) from backward-looking (traditionalist) theologies, the
assignment of a value to each, and then offering a choice between the
two. However, theology in general, and Asharite theology in particular,
is more interesting than that. It is, for instance, conceivable that the
Asharites stress tradition or revelation not only because they see
that these are per se to be preferred over reason, but because reference to
tradition and revelation is of theological relevance, that is, of relevance
for faith and its unity, for the unity of the fellowship of believers, the
umma. In this sense, Asharite theology has more to offer than just a
position, and the question of why this theology should have become
the main representative of Sunn Islam turns out to be less mystifying
than it appears to its rationalist interpreters.
Asharite theology is of particular relevance for the discussion of
Islamic ethics, not so much for its advocacy of tradition as because it
contributes to this discussion in two ways which point to the heart of
the matter: it directs attention to the nature of human action in a uni-
verse characterised by divinity, and it stresses obligation. These two
points are, of course, connected. If the value of human action for the
apparent agent (the human being) is decided by the evaluation of
another, if permissible action means as found permissible by
someone else, if disliked means disliked by someone else, and so
on, then anyone who considers himself as the owner and origin of his
action may wonder what exactly his role in this action might be. Who is
the agent of my action? In which sense can I take it to be my action?
In which sense can I think that I act at all? If, furthermore, one is
bound to such an action and held responsible for it, then what means
does one have to understand such an obligation?
Comparing Aristotelian philosophical ethics and Islamic theological
ethics, scholars of Islam have pointed out that the most noticeable dif-
ference between the two lies in the prominence that obligation as the
main criterion for ethical action gains in the latter over the end of man
in the former. This prominence is due to the fact that humans are seen
in Islamic ethics, or in Islam generally, as standing before the law.
Ancient Greek philosophy places humans before themselves and thus
makes them concerned with their own end rather than with their
obligation towards God.
This comparison implies that, for Islam, humans who want to know
the value or the quality of their actions are placed in front of the
divine law with two gifts, one in each hand. They may either use the
gift of reason to understand how the law defines their actions and, thus,
how it wants them to act, or they may refer themselves to the divine
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commands as documented in the Quran and hadith. The Mutazilite
position favours reliance on reason. It bases this on the view, justifiable
through certain verses of the Quran and through our common percep-
tion of ourselves, that we are the agents of our actions. The ontological
(though not theological) equivalent to this position assumes that the
value, that is to say, the being, of an action lies in the action itself.
The Asharite position, on the other hand, favours reliance on the
divine command, justifying its position through other verses of scrip-
ture and through a belief in a creator of whom onemay have an intuition
but no perception. To accommodate the perception of oneself as agent
of ones actions to the view of God as the creator of ones actions,
Asharite theology derives from quranic sources the concept of kasb, of
acquisition. In this view, humans act, though not as agents or
creators of their actions but as receivers. Again, the ontological
translation/interpretation of this theological position states that the
value of an act lies not in itself but in the decree of a divine will
(ethical voluntarism).
There are, of course, various intermediate positions; as many, in
fact, as the spectrum of reason allows. However, they all share a short-
coming inherent in their basic construction, namely, that attention is so
strongly focused on humans that the divine law occurs only secondarily,
only with respect to humans. The rationalist discourse on Islamic ethics
implies correctly that, according to Islam, humans are before the law
and, therefore, in relations of contract, punishment, reward and retri-
bution, and that they are thereby distinguished from the man of Greek
philosophy; but it does not really deal with the particularity of the
divine law. This has two consequences. First, such a view does not
reach into the heart of Islamic ethics. Secondly, it places Islamic moral
thought further away from Greek philosophical ethics than is needed or
may be fruitful.
To gain a perspective on the matter of the divine Law and to derive
from it a standpoint which may benefit an inquiry into Islamic ethics, it
is useful to refer to the mystic Ibn Arabs description of tanzl al-kitab,
the descent of the Book, or the descent of the divine Word. This
description is of particular relevance because it does not just repeat the
principle that the Quran is the inspiration of all learning in Islam and
that all Muslim sciences must take their knowledge from it and then
leave these sciences to themselves. On the contrary, Ibn Arabs
description of the descent of the Book sees them as particular mani-
festations of the divine Word; it keeps them in the company of that
Word. Furthermore, it stresses that the descent of the divine Word is not
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a historical process but an ever-recurrent epiphany. Finally, it roots the
law, and thus ethics, firmly in the Word.
According to Ibn Arab, the divine Word on its descent manifests
first as throne (arsh), then further on as footstool (kurs), and then
splits into ruling (h _ ukm) and report (khabar). Each foot of these
pairs splits again into two: the ruling into command (amr) and
prohibition (nahy). The various branches of the two categories of
ruling finally form all the categories of evaluation of the Shara.
What one should learn from this description is twofold. First, the
divine law is a manifestation of the divine Word. The implication of this
statement for ethics is that the human being as an ethical being is a
being of the word. Secondly, because ruling and report form in this
descent the first duality, the Law can be described as the (divine) Word
of, or in, the world of opposition. Its characteristics as well as the sci-
ences of the law themselves give ample proof of this. Humans can
therefore not be adequately understood in their ethical dimension as
already constituted beings before the Law who are then asked to find
out by which means they will reply. Or rather, they can be understood in
this way only because the law as a particular manifestation of the divine
Word constitutes them by way of word. This dimension is altogether
absent from the rationalist analyses of Islamic ethics, and it needs to be
detailed here further.
In order to understand how humans are constituted before the law,
onemust take into account that the law as a particular stage of descent of
the divine Word marks one of three levels of the manifestation of divine
unity (tawh _ d). In reverse order, the third level is the level of the unity
of acts (tawh _ d al-afal), the second the level of the unity of names
(tawh _ d al-asma), and the first the level of the unity of essence
(tawh _ d al-dhat). It appears from this description that ethics, insofar as
it is a science of action, has its object in the third level. But ethics
cannot be understood, if one remains on the level of actions. To become a
science, a knowledge, one must move it to the next, higher level, that is
to say, to the world of names. For the world of actions is, according to
Islamic cosmogony, only a crystallisation of the world of divine names or
attributes which, in the Qurans teaching, God taught humankind so
that they could call upon Him. Ibn Arabs description of the ethical
situation of humans is based on this step. He says: What in fact takes
place is that one divine name prescribes the Law for another divine name,
addressing it within the locus of an engendered servant. The servant is
then called the one for whom the law is prescribed (mukallaf) and the
address is called prescribing the law.3
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The prescription of the law is first of all a linguistic event. It
introduces address. Without address there would be no one who could
be held responsible for his actions or any possibility of knowledge
regarding such actions: that is, there would be no ethics. Secondly, the
addressee is not a particular human being or mankind in general, but a
divine name. The law does not address me. Or, to put it differently,
I am addressed by the Law only because I is the place for this address
from name to name. This is the meaning of taklf, of ethical responsi-
bility. Therefore, ones ethical responsibility does not lie in ones cap-
acity to answer (the rulings of) the law through ones actions or in
finding out which means are the most appropriate to that answer.
Rather, any action or any responsibility on ones part lies in shouldering
the address. It should be added that the role of reason is, thereby, not
diminished; on the contrary, it is made clearer.
Accordingly, the schools of kalam should be seen as manifest-
ations of concerns for the divine Word that appear once this Word
reaches on its descent the stage of multiplicity, duality, opposition
and thus what is called the world of human actions. Insofar as the
knowledge of these schools is situated on this stage, and to the extent
that they are fixed in it, they must bear its marks. That is, they must
be multiple and fixed in opposition to each other. When the Asharites
regard another group of Muslims as Mutazilites, meaning
seceders, when they argue back and forth against one another, each
one claiming to know better regarding the matter of actions, then this
is an expression of their station. As Ibn Arab has remarked, each
position on this level is both right and wrong (or blind). Fur-
thermore, each school bases its own position on certain verses of the
Quran which it accepts without interpretation and then proceeds to
interpret the verses on which the opponent bases himself. When the
Mutazilites say that man is the agent of his acts, this accords with ones
perception of oneself and is to this extent correct. This perception is,
however, blind, not because it sees something that is not true, but
because it does not see what it sees. It does not recognise that the reason
for perceiving oneself as the agent of ones acts lies in the fact that one is
created in His image (ala s _ uratih). In a similar way, the Asharite
theologians who hold that God is the creator of ones acts are also correct
because such a view can be substantiated both by scripture and by ones
thought. At the same time, the Asharites are blind because they do
not witness this. They say something that reason tells them, namely,
that there must be a creator, a maker, behind all that is made. Yet they
do not see this, because reason can show them only what is not the
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creator. In other words, both opponents are locked within their positions
and within the level of the divine Word they share. Ibn Arabs critique
of the term kasb can be understood from this angle. Once the Asharites
had stated their position, that ones acts are created by God, they still
had to accommodate the perception one has of oneself as agent of
ones actions. They did this by saying that humans acquire what God
creates. Such a formulation may indeed satisfy the rational mind, but
for Ibn Arab it contains a darkness towards knowledge which no one
sees but the insightful: well, there is no relationship between what
is built from that and what is realised of His essence Majestic, High
and Great!4
The darkness towards knowledge lies here in two things. First, the
concept of acquisition, while seeming to open to man in a world where
actions are basically Gods creation a way to contribute to these actions,
in fact fixates the human element on itself through giving in to the
human desire for priority, and thereby closes the possibility of humans
openness towards their creator. Secondly, the human being of kasb
cannot recognise his shortcomings by himself. This can be best illus-
trated by the particular vicissitudes the main protagonist, reason,
undergoes.
The human being who is accountable for his or her deeds is called in
Islamic law aqil (usually translated as reasonable or endowed with
reason). The Arabic root QL means to bind, to tie, to tether.
Reason is understood as that which allows a creature, here a human
being, to bind himself, to hobble emotions which otherwise might
sweep him away and thereby to become capable of sane, reasonable
judgement and action. This understanding is implied in the rationalist
interpretations of Islamic ethics which see the main argument of the
various theological schools as one of identifying the principle which
should take the leading role in determining the validity of ones actions:
reason or revelation, reason or scripture. But, as employed in rationalist
discourse, reason and revelation cannot really fulfil the function of
decisive players in this argument because they are both born of the same
concept of reason. Furthermore, as long as the assumption of reason as
tie does not lead to the next question, namely, What should this
reason (aql) which ties be tied to? or in other words, What is the reason
of reason?, it is quasi-suspended, left to itself. One ends then with a false
duality: one (1), as aqil, as a morally responsible person, ties (via reason)
(20) oneself to reason (200). It is obvious that this is not a true duality. It seems that the doubling of reason fulfils a requirement for triplicity
which can be seen as the basis of relation in general and of ethical
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relation in particular (one (1) binds oneself (2) to reason (3)), but it is
equally apparent that it allows it only falsely and as a false triplicity, that
is, that it rejects it in reality. This falseness becomes clear when Ibn
Arab states that the aqil is the one who binds himself to Allah,
thereby producing a true rational triplicity: one (1) binds oneself (through
reason: 2) to Allah (3).
The correction of this false duality (inherent in all thought based
on the classical subjectobject dichotomy) is ethically important
because, besides clarifying the ethical position of a human being
before God, it introduces a distinction between thoughts in view of
their sources. Ibn Arab says that the aqils, those who bind them-
selves to God, to His command and His prohibition, and [to] what
God has dictated in [their] innermost self . . . distinguish among the
incoming thoughts of their hearts, between the ones which are from
Allah and those which proceed from their own selves, or the sug-
gestions of angels, and the suggestions of Satan. And he adds that
those are the [real] human beings.5
Obviously, such a view does not criticise or minimise the validity of
rational deliberation in ethics. No theological school in Islam has done
this. It points, however, to the necessity of anchoring reason. For
without such an anchor, reason is easily bandied about by the very thing
from which she claims to be most distant, namely, emotion, while
remaining fully convinced of her reasonableness. And because this
reasonableness is won from a doubling, from an insistence on itself,
from a kind of stubbornness, the matter soon becomes insoluble. The
danger outlined here is present both in Islamic moral thought and in the
rationalist descriptions of this thought. In the former this is, however,
recognised and mitigated by the fact that the founders of kalam were
usually firmly rooted in one of the four traditional madhhabs (the four
main schools of Sunn jurisprudence); moreover, the founders of these
madhhabs in turn consulted spiritual advisors. In a word, the propon-
ents of the various schools of ethical thought in Islam knew very well
that their science marked only a particular stage in the descent of the
divine Word and that in order to be of any scientific relevance this
science could not disrupt its connection with previous links in the chain
of descent. Such disruption, or rather erosion of the previous stages, has
occurred only in modern Islamic theologies.
The rationalist interpretations of Islamic ethics, on the other hand,
are very ill prepared to counter this danger, and the more they find their
value in themselves or in their own rationality, or the less they are aware
of any other possible instance of knowledge, the more vulnerable to this
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danger they are. A good illustration for this is supplied by the term
which stands in the very centre of Islamic ethics, namely obligation.
Echoing from afar Kants discussion of duty as the principle of
ethics, obligation addresses the issue of binding. In other words, rec-
ognition of the value of ones action, be it through reasoning or through
revelation, is ethical only if it binds one to act in accordance with this
recognition. Hence the challenge becomes the quest for a principle of
self-binding. Kants asking whether there is a reasonable principle in
which and through which reason can oblige herself is echoed in the
question about whether one can ever have an obligation towards one-
self.6 It is significant that obligation towards others is perceived as
much less problematical. This perception can be explained by the fact
that reasons fascination is with herself, or put differently, by the fact
that she is ever in search of a concept that can found her. For Western
scholars, the benefit of positioning obligation in the centre of Islamic
ethics lies in its assumed capacity to supply a pre-Islamic, rational
basis for Islamic ethics in a historical perspective. Of course, if it founds
Islamic ethics, it must then, in a certain way, be before Islam. If this
can be shown, then the centre of gravity of Islamic ethics would lie both
inside and outside of it.
The rationalist thesis is this: most humans may not be able to
explain why, but they are very much aware that they feel obliged
without anyone telling them so. They do not need sacred scripture to
inform them about the existence of obligation. It is, therefore, remark-
able that religion repeats in her own terms (revelation, Word of God, etc.)
what one, as a human being, already knows. And it proves both religion,
through the fact that she accords with our thinking, and us, through the
fact that we always thought what she says. This gives the rationalist
interpretation of Islamic ethics a much-needed historical perspective,
because through it Islam can be believed to provide an illustration of the
anteriority of reason to herself, that is, of an arch-reason located before
its split into (religious) reason and revelation. There is one particular act
which thus becomes the act of all acts, or the ethical act, namely
thanking the Benefactor (shukr al-munim).7
Why, of all possible actions, this one? Why thanking the Benefac-
tor? The main reason seems to lie in its capacity to lend itself to
constructing a continuity between a pre-Islamic, pre-revelational
mindset and Islam (or revelation) itself. If the terms of this act (shukr
al-munim) could be found in pre-Islamic usage, then it would be suf-
ficient simply to follow the changes in meaning they received in the
various stages of Islam, and one would have thereby established a fair
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understanding of Islamic moral thought as a continuation of pre-Islamic
rationality. Or, if it turns out that the terms involved in the act are
terms central to Islam itself, one would have managed to place it, to
confirm it as a religion.
Central to the act of thanking the benefactor is that it involves
obligation. The pre-Islamic usage, or, as it is called, the usage of Arab
humanism, is reconstructed in terms of nima (benefaction, kindness;
al-munim, the benefactor, is an active participle), as meaning sparing a
persons life. Shukr, thanking, is taken to mean publicly to acknow-
ledge the benefaction. The stress lies here on the public aspect of this
acknowledgement. It implies that thanking is done not so much to the
particular individual who spared my life without having to do so, as to or
for the public. The other, quite important, aspect of this matter is that
the refusal to recognise that obligation was, in pre-Islamic times, called
kufr.8 Now, kufr is commonly translated as unbelief. The implica-
tions are not difficult to draw: man, faith itself, although not mentioned
in this context, must then be found in the neighbourhood of this public
acknowledgement of having been spared. In other words, religion, or
more precisely Islam, translates the meanings these terms have before
revelation into revelation: the Arab humanist, or human benefactor,
certainly the one who gives life but, as we may assume, more relevantly
the one who spares my life, is inflated until he becomes The Bene-
factor, God; and belief in God, or religion becomes the public
acknowledgement of having been spared on a larger scale, that is, with
God as the public.
The inerrant instinct with which rationalist-historicist discourse
about Islamic ethics targets Ghazals view of obligation and thank-
ing the benefactor permits us to recognise, however, that the historical
construction of rationality, that is, here, of a logic of continuity from pre-
Islamic rationality to Islamic rationality, is not unproblematic. The fol-
lowing quotation from Ghazal is interesting here:
Gratitude to a benefactor is not necessary by reason, contrary to the
Mutazilite. The proof of this is that necessary [wajib] has no
meaning but what God the Exalted has made necessary [awjabahu]
and commanded with threat of punishment for omission; so if
there is no revelation what is the meaning of necessity? This
argument is confirmed as follows: Reason should make gratitude
necessary either for some benefit or for none. It is impossible that
reason necessitates it for no benefit, for that would be useless and
foolish. If it is for a benefit, it must be either for the One served, but
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that is impossible, since He is too Exalted and Holy to have ends,
or for the servant. The servants benefit must either be in this world
or in the next. But there is no benefit to him in this world, rather
he is [only] wearied by study and thought, knowledge and gratitude,
and deprived by them of desires and pleasures. And there is no
benefit [known by reason] in the next world, for Reward is bestowed
as a favour from God, and is known by His promise and His
announcement; and if He did not announce it how would it be
known that there is to be Reward?9
Houranis reply to Ghazals critique of reason as a valid means for
recognising obligation, that is, as the source of ethics, is essentially
that Ghazal misses the point. Accordingly, the Mutazilite theologians
would not have to prove that reason can see the benefit of acts for agents,
but only their obligatoriness. There seems to be a divergence, then, as
to the function and status of reason. Whereas for Ghazal the function of
reason is precisely to measure benefits in this world (obligation lying
beyond reasons scope because it is not a matter of benefit or not a
matter of benefit as reason can conceive it), for Hourani reason is nobler
than that: it can conceive obligatoriness. What exactly is introduced
with this divergence?
Alternatively, what precisely is the status of thanking the Bene-
factor? Is it such a central, self-contained element that one could build
the whole edifice of Islamic moral thought upon it? The following lines
from the Sufi writer Jalal al-Dn Rum (12071273) give a more intricate
and exciting taste of Islamic ethics:
If outwardly I neglect to thank you or express my gratitude for the
kindnesses, favours, and support you give bothdirectly and indirectly,
it is not out of pride and arrogance, nor is it because I do not knowhow
one ought to repay a benefactor in word or deed, but because I realise
that you do these things out of pure belief, sincerely for Gods sake.
And so I leave it toGod to express gratitude forwhat youhave done for
His sake. If I say that I am grateful, and acknowledge my admiration
for you in praise, it would be as though you had already received some
of the recompense that God will give you. Humbling oneself,
expressing gratitude, and admiring another are worldly pleasures.
Since you have taken pains in this world to bear the burden of
monetary expense and social position, it would be better for the
recompense to be wholly from God. For this reason I do not express
my gratitude, as to do so would be this-worldly.10
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Several things appear from these lines. First, the matter of thanking the
Benefactor is certainly of relevance for Islamic akhlaq (manners) but it
is per se not constitutional. Secondly, gratitude can be expressed in
word or deed. To express it in one way or in the other is of itself not
decisive. More decisive than this word/deed distinction is the issue of
who expresses gratitude and to whom such gratitude is expressed. As it
is put here, actions done out of pure belief for the sake of God gratify
God. It is not only humans who are thanking, be it pre-Islamically as
an announcement to the public, or Islamically, as belief in God. God
Himself may express gratitude and does so, in fact, when the action is
truly ethical, truly done for His sake.
It follows from these observations that expressing gratitude by
itself does not constitute an action as ethical or moral. If it is
possible to express gratitude, be it to another human being or to God, as
a worldly pleasure, then the ethical dimension of this gesture is not
constituted by the act itself but by its address. The fact that reason may
itself have a concept of obligation, or obligatoriness, does not con-
stitute an ethical dimension for Islam, nor does it raise reason into the
touchstone for recognising the ethical validity of actions. Rum even
goes so far as to say that the best measure for assessing the ethical
validity of actions could very well be not to express my gratitude in
word or deed. If, however, one should express gratitude and should
thank the benefactor, or The Benefactor, in this world, then this is so
not because reason informs us of the obligation but because God com-
mands us to do so: and as for thy Lords blessing, declare it (Quran
93:11). Thanking, declaring your Lords blessings in this world, is
described in Islam as a matter of courtesy with God (adab maallah)
and it constitutes a major ingredient in the knowledge of God. Herein,
in adab, lies a truly significant and little-explained feature of Islamic
ethics. It appears, for instance, in the command, difficult to understand
on rational grounds, to ascribe bad (sharr) to oneself and good
(khayr) to Allah, although one is told that everything occurs by divine
leave.
Worth noting in terms of thanking the benefactor is that in Islamic
teaching the One who gives thanks and the Benefactor are divine
attributes. Accordingly, one would have in thanking the benefactor
as Ibn Arab noted the address of a name to another name in the locus
of the engendered servant. The engendered or created servant is the
place that allows the address of one name to another. The servant is
neither the addresser, the one who thanks (al-shakur), nor the one
thanked (al-mashkur). He/she serves the address, the names. And in
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order to do that, one must allow each name its full weight, which is to
say that one must abide by the Law.
It seems that the rationalist interpretation of Islamic ethics which
takes thanking the benefactor to be its central principle is more
interested in the one who thanks than in the benefactor. And the one
who thanks is, in this interpretation, most likely not God. God is tied by
this way of thinking, bound to the gratitude of the one who thanks. Or,
so it appears, because this is, of course, not possible. And, thus, the same
false duality seems to be at work again.
What if one were to ask: what is the character of the ground on
which it is established that the ethos of a religion (here Islam) is
rational? Is it itself rational? In other words, is what tells me that I am
obliged to the one who spares my life really so rational, or might it not
resound from different recesses? Further, is that which makes one rec-
ognise this voice as the voice of reason itself so rational? These are not
very sound grounds on which to base ethical thought. Rums descrip-
tion of not thanking the benefactor hints at this grey zone and displays
a deeper wisdom in dealing with it. It hints, thereby, at an Islamic ethics
that, discovering the treacherousness of the so-called rationalistic
foundations, proposes not to leave the circle of reason but, on the con-
trary, to deepen it.
Immediate effects of such a deepening include what one might call
the freeing of realms to themselves, or, in Islamic terms, the giving
everything that has a right what is its right (ta kulli dh h _ aqqin
h _ aqqah). Reason in this world is, thereby, freed from its admixture with
metaphysical elements and becomes clearer and more astute. Trad-
itional Islamic sciences like fiqh and kalam illustrate this. What belongs
to heaven, on the other hand, is returned to heaven, and both are allowed
to be good neighbours, as the Taoist phrase goes.
All ethics is, in the end, moved by the question formulated by Plato
and repeated by Aristotle: Can virtue be learnt? If the answer is that
unlike the technai, arete [virtue] is not teachable and that traditional
ethical and moral customs are based not so much on teaching and
learning as on taking someone as an example and emulating that
example,11 then one would like to knowwhat happens after Socrates.
How did Plato become virtuous? If being in the company of Socrates
made him good (and, maybe, the Platonic dialogues are more than any-
thing else a sign of this), then what happened after Plato? We might
remember that the same issue, the death of the Prophet, led to the
formulation of Islamic jurisprudence and, eventually, theology. Should
one not ask, then, what happened to the companionship of those who
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became virtuous through being in the company of the Prophet (s _ ah
_ aba)?
It is strange that such a patent fact, the necessity of companionship for
becoming an ethical, virtuous human being, escapes one although one
knows it so well. Indeed, the more deeply entrenched one is in ones
rationalities, the less one is aware of the role of company (s _ uh
_ ba) in
ethics. The more sensitive interpretations of Islamic ethics or of the
transmission of knowledge in a traditional Islamic context acknowledge
at least the significance of the divine Word and, therewith, of all words.
But although the Prophet of Islam is reported as saying that every prophet
had a miracle, and his miracle was the Quran, it seems that even these
interpreters cannot comprehend that words are not only something
transmitted from line to line, or mouth to mouth, but also, and most
importantly, from breast to breast.
Further reading
Abdullah, M. Amin, Kant and Ghazal: The Idea of the Universality of Ethical
Norms (Frankfurt, c. 2000).
Fakhry, Majid, Ethical Theories in Islam (Leiden, 1991).
Frank, Richard M., Moral obligation in classical Islamic theology, Journal of
Religious Ethics 11 (1983), pp. 20423.
Gardet, Louis, and Anawati, George C. Introduction a la theologie musulmane:
essai de theologie comparee (Paris, 1948).
Gimaret, Daniel, Theories de lacte humain en theologie musulmane (Paris,
1980).
Hourani, George F., Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics (Cambridge, 1985).
Jackson, S. The alchemy of domination? Some Asharite responses to
Mutazilite ethics, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 31
(1999), pp.185201.
Reinhart, A. Kevin, Before Revelation: The Boundaries of Muslim Moral
Thought (Albany, 1995).
Sajoo, Amyn B., Muslim Ethics: Emerging Vistas (London, 2004).
Winkel, Eric, Islam and the Living Law: The Ibn Arab Approach (Karachi,
1997).
Notes
1. Bukhar, Iman, 42; Muslim, Iman, 94. 2. George F. Hourani, Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics (Cambridge,
1985). 3. Muh
_ y al-Dn Ibn Arab, cited in William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of
Knowledge: Ibn alArabs Metaphysics of Imagination (Albany, 1989), p.208.
4. Eric Winkel (tr. and ed.), Mysteries of Purity: Ibn al-Arabs Asrar al-t
_ aharah, (Notre Dame, 1995), p.178.
178 Steffen A. J. Stelzer
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5. Winkel, Mysteries of Purity, p.511. 6. Hourani, Reason and Tradition, p.14. 7. A. Kevin Reinhart, Before Revelation: The Boundaries of Muslim Moral
Thought (Albany, 1995), p.109. 8. Ibid. 9. Ghazal, Mustas
_ fa, quoted in Hourani, Reason and Tradition, p.156.
10. Wheeler M. Thackston, Jr (introd. and transl.), Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi (Boston and London, 1999), p.114.
11. Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy (New Haven and London, 1986), p.46.
Ethics 179
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9 Revelation
yahya michot
The concept of revelation is usually considered to have for corres-
pondents, in the Arabic language, words formed on the basis of two
different roots: WH _ Y and NZL. In English translations of the Quran,
wah _ y is commonly understood as revelation and awh
_ a as to reveal
or, sometimes, as to inspire or to incite. In non-religious contexts,
however, a fundamental meaning expressed by the root seems to be that
of a sound or noise, rapid and blustering like thunder. Words derived
from the second root, like nazala, nuzul, nazzala and anzala, all relate
to the ideas of coming down, descending, or sending down, and
have a strong place-related physical connotation. In the Quran, they
are used much more often than the words derived from WH _ Y. Once
examined together, the various quranic occurrences of these two groups
of terms convey the clear image, not of the unveiling evoked by the
word revelation, but rather of a solemn or even awe-inspiring com-
munication, literally originating from on High: If We had sent down
this Quran upon a mountain, you would have seen it humble itself and
split apart by the fear of God (59:21).
The affirmation that such a transcendent communication takes
place in the history of mankind is most often conceived in Islam through
the dimensions of prophethood and messengership, from which it is
therefore sometimes difficult to distinguish the thematic of revelation.
The latter should, however, not be studied exclusively in relation to its
recipient but also from the viewpoint of its divine origin and of the
modalities of its transmission. This means, first and foremost, that a
proper understanding of God as revelator must be developed.
God is of course the unique creator of the universes. All His crea-
tures, good or bad, are submitted to His creative power and governed by
Him. He is their sole Lord, their sole Master and their sole King, from
whose decision and decree they cannot escape: what He wills is, even if
they do not want it; and what they want, if He does not will it, is not. He
makes humans live and die as He pleases, whereas they are essentially in
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need of Him, simply in order to be and to act. This ontological situation
of total dependence on Gods lordship is common to all believers and
unbelievers, libertines and good-doers. In the Quran, even the Devil
says O my Lord! to the creator.
To proclaim the unique and exclusive lordship of God and to
approach Him from the viewpoint of His rulership does not, however,
introduce the real essence of God qua God. In order to do so, one must
leave ontology in favour of ethics, and ascribe to Gods moral will, which
He expresses through revelation, at least as much importance as is to be
ascribed to His creative lordly will. Manifestly, the world was not cre-
ated in vain. Creation, as such, however, is not an end in itself, and there
is no self-justification for it. Rather, it is as if creation were nothing but
an occasion for revelation, which alone will lead to its completion. Just
as the power to create belongs to none but God, He alone is entitled to be
served, worshipped, adored, feared and trusted. In other words, it is
relative to religion, not metaphysics, and thus beyond His seignioriality,
that Gods godhead can properly be investigated. Godhead (ilahiyya), the
Damascene theologian Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) explains, is not the power
to create of a God (al-ilah), understood in the sense of the active parti-
ciple alih, creating. Al-ilah, the God, is to be understood in the
sense of the passive participle al-maluh, the divinised one, or the
divinisable one, which is to say, He who has the exclusive right to be
made divine (uliha) and is the only one entitled to be worshipped and
loved.1 It is revelation which, beyond creation, inaugurates such a
relation and, by doing so, gives the first all its sense. Beyond the realm of
what the Lord creates, the dimension of what God says should be given
even more importance, as it is exclusively according to this other
uncreated reality that the fullest kind of relation can be developed with
the divine. It is revelation that brings some moral distinctions into the
created reality, with its commands and its prohibitions, and thus initi-
ates, through religion, the differentiation between good and evil,
between virtue and sin, between Gods friends and His foes.
However great His creative power would be, a God who would not
do anything else and, specifically, would not communicate with
humans, would be a remote abstract principle closer to the prime mover
of Aristotles metaphysics than to the God of the Quran. The latter has
indeed frequently spoken and has been the source of innumerable
revelations in different ages. The first man was also the first prophet to
whom a revelation was given, as the creation of the world and, a fortiori,
of mankind, would not have been accomplished without a further
manifestation of Gods will, this time the ethical and religious one,
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beyond his ontological Fiat. Inspired mainly by Platos political phil-
osophy, Farab, Avicenna and other classical Muslim philosophers and
theologians considered prophethood necessary as a means to establish a
just society. In contradistinction to this, the necessity of revelation, and
of a divine accompaniment throughout the history of mankind bymeans
of revealed scriptures, prior to sealing prophethood with Muh _ ammad, is
in Islam a dogma directly related to a proper understanding of the nature
of God Himself.
The Quran refers to different types of revelation or divine speech,
not all of which can be linked to prophethood. And your Lord revealed
(awh _ a) to the bee: Build your homes in the mountains (16:68); And
We revealed (awh _ ayna) to the mother of Moses: Suckle him! (28:7);
And when I revealed (awh _ aytu) to the Apostles: Believe in Me and in
My messenger! (5:111); On that Day, the Earth will tell her news: for
that your Lord will give her a revelation (awh _ a) (99:5). Concerning such
processes in which God addresses the earth, animals or some humans
who are not prophets in order to give them instructions, Ibn Taymiyya
speaks of an equivocal (mushtarak) form of revelation which is its
lowest form.2 This nevertheless demonstrates that God continues to
intervene in the world after its creation not just ontologically but with
His words, which are evidently not exclusively reserved for prophets.
This being so, it would be a mistake to expect the divine revelation
typically to be communicated directly to every human being, through
his or her reason, for example. Such a possibility was envisaged by the
famous philosopher and physician Abu Bakr al-Raz (d. 925 or 935). As a
theist denouncing all historical prophets as impostors, he trusted human
reason to be the most appropriate vehicle for Gods ethical will. This
rationalisation and universal dilution of revelation was, however,
deemed as extreme as the simple negation of the phenomenon would
also have been, and Razs views were unanimously condemned. Pre-
ferring once again to follow a via media, the orthodox doctrine thus
remained one of a revelation essentially passing through a finite number
of prophets or lawgiving messengers, elected by God so as to act as
intermediaries between Him and His servants. The modalities of this
process of prophetic revelation are alluded to in Quran 42:51: It is not
granted to any human that God should speak to him except through
revelation or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger to reveal,
with His permission, whatever He wills.
According to Ibn Taymiyya, the three ways God speaks to a man can
be understood in the following manner. First, inspiration (ilham) in the
awakened state or during sleep: the true vision of a prophet is indeed a
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kind of revelation. Secondly, words addressed from behind a veil, as was
the case with Moses, when God called him at Sinai, made him draw near
to Him and spoke to him but did not let him see Him (Quran 19:52;
7:143). Finally, words that God communicates by sending an angelic
messenger who reveals, with His permission, whatever He wills. Con-
cerning this last mode of revelation, the Quran says: It rests upon Us to
assemble it and to produce it; and when We produce it, follow its pro-
duction (75:1718). Exegetes sometimes diverged in their interpretation
of the various elements of this verse. Nevertheless they all agreed on
Gods authorship of the message and on Gabriels involvement in its
communication. According to a famous Companion, Ibn Abbas, and
whenWe produce it referred to the archangels reading of the revelation
to the Prophet. As for follow its production, Ibn Taymiyya under-
stands it to mean, Listen to it until Gabriel finishes reading it!3
The revelation of the Quran itself spread over some twenty-three
years (60932 ce). It all started during a month of Ramad _ an, during a
spiritual retreat of Muh _ ammad on Mount H
_ ira, outside Mecca. Gabriel
appeared to Muh _ ammad and then taught him the first verses of sura 96.
According to Aisha, reporting directly from the Prophet whom she
would later marry, it happened in the following way:
The angel came to the Prophet and asked him to read. The Prophet
replied, I do not know how to read. The Prophet added, The
angel then caught me and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it
any more. He then released me and again asked me to read, and I
replied, I do not know how to read. Thereupon he caught me
again and pressed me a second time till I could not bear it any more.
He then released me and again asked me to read but again I replied,
I do not know how to read (or what shall I read?). Thereupon he
caught me for the third time and pressed me, and then released me
and said, Read in the name of your Lord, who has created [all
that exists], has created man from a clot. Read!, and your Lord is the
Most Generous.4
Following a pause, during which the Prophet became depressed to
the point of considering suicide, revelation resumed with the sending
down of sura 74, or 93. It then came upon the Prophet frequently and
regularly until the end of his life, and under the most diverse circum-
stances, sometimes when he was asked for an opinion or a decision, or
while he was riding, or was eating or preaching. According to his own
reports, revelation sometimes came to him as a sound, of metal being
beaten, of bees humming near his face, or the ringing of a bell. This
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kind is the most painful, he recalled. When it ceases, I retain what was
said.5 It could also be an angel speaking to him as a man whose words
he would retain. Or revelation would approach him in the form of a
young man handing it down to him. For people around the Prophet, it
was easy to become aware that something extraordinary was going on.
He could start shaking his head as if he tried to understand what was
said to him, or (until he was told not to do so by 75:16) he moved his lips
as soon as the revelation began. Even on very cold days, sweat dripped
from his forehead. Sometimes his colour grew livid or he fell into a
lethargy, swoon or trance. It was obvious that receiving revelation could
cause him great pain and suffering. When he received 4:97, his thigh
pressed so heavily upon that of the companion sitting next to him that
the latter feared it would break. On one occasion when the Quran came
down upon himwhile he was riding, the beast became unable to bear the
weight, so he had to descend from it.
The peculiarities of the quranic revelation process just depicted
triggered important theological and social developments.
A first question could have been phrased, Who is speaking? As
recorded by the Quran, the Prophets fellow Meccans accused him of
being majnun, a madman possessed by a jinn (15:6; 26:2; 37:36, etc.).
God Himself confirmed that this was not the case: So, remind [people]:
by the grace of your Lord, you are neither an oracle nor possessed by
a jinn! (52:29; also 68:2; 81:22). And for the few scholars accepting the
historicity of the incident of the satanic verses, as soon as the Devil
started interfering with the transmission of the revelation, the Prophet
was warned by God and thus protected (mas _ um) from persistence in
sinning.6 For some theologians, al-H _ allaj, the controversial mystic exe-
cuted in Baghdad in 922 for saying, I am God, had experienced satanic
states and was indeed possessed by a jinn. To claim as people
favourable to him do that it was God who was speaking for him when
he uttered his famous saying would be pure unbelief: God does not speak
for a man as jinns speak by possessing epileptics and using their tongues.
Similarly, when Pharaoh, as narrated in the Quran (79:24), said, I am
your highest lord!, God was not speaking through his mouth. This
being so, could it ever be said that God is speaking throughMuh _ ammad?
If what is meant thereby is that God inhabits His Prophet, absolutely
not! God does not dwell within humanity and does not speak for a man,
through his tongue. If, on the other hand, what is meant is that God
sends with His words messengers who say for Himwhat He orders them
to communicate, then this is the proper understanding of revelation
in Islam. God speaks through His messenger, through his mouth and
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tongue, in the specific sense that the prophet speaks on His behalf.
Between the extremes of possession and incarnation, there is room for a
truly prophetic understanding of revelation, without the person chosen
to receive and transmit the message losing any dimension of his
humanity or becoming any kind of supernatural being. Muh _ ammad is
the perfect man, but even in the highest spiritual station into which he
is introduced by his Lord in order to receive the revelation, he essentially
remains His servant. He revealed to His servant (abd) that which He
revealed (53:10). In no way would receiving revelation ever provide a
reason to be associated with God as a partner in His godhead.
The idea of the Prophet speaking in the name of God led early
Muslim theologians into a second debate, this time concerning the
human or divine nature of the revealed speech itself. What was the part
effectively played by the Prophet in the phrasing and wording of the
quranic revelation? For fifteen years (83348) the Abbasid caliph al-
Mamun and his successors imposed the dogma of a created and non-
eternal Quran promoted by Mutazilism. This mih _ na (ordeal) imposed
on the community failed and the vast majority of Muslims have since
proclaimed the uncreated and eternal nature of the Quran. As this
doctrine affirmed, the Messenger thus loses all authorship of the Quran.
In Islam, the Book is indeed never named after him as, for example, the
Gospels bear the names of the Evangelists. With time, the interpretation
of the qualificative umm given to the Prophet in the Quran (7:1578)
evolved from its probable original meaning of Gentile to unlettered,
as a further confirmation that he could not possibly have authored it.
Moreover, on the thin scriptural basis of a non-unanimously accepted
way of reading of the last syllable of sura 85, greater importance came to
be given to the idea of a Well-Guarded Tablet, in which the Quran
would have been eternally inscribed and preserved. Finally, from the
ninth century onwards, insistence was laid on the linguistic and stylistic
inimitability, or insuperability (ijaz), of the Quran already affirmed in
some of its verses (for example in 17:88) as a way to add strength to the
dogma of its exclusively divine nature. For Muslims, the revelation
received by the Prophet is really what it says it is and its written copies
have to be respected as such: This is indeed a noble Quran, in a book
safeguarded, which none shall touch except the purified, something sent
down from the Lord of the Worlds (56:7780).
If the Prophet is so important in the eyes of the Muslims, it is due
to his divine election, to his total humility as conveyer of Gods
speech, and to his perfect, paradigmatic implementation of this message,
not because he partakes in its production. In this respect, apart from
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some modernists, todays Sunns are still convinced that, in this extra-
ordinary intervention of the transcendent in human history signified by
sending down the Quran to Muh _ ammad, the part played by God is
worthy of infinitely greater consideration than that played by His
Prophet.
They notably have no difficulty with psychological analyses of the
mental process of reception of a revelation. Long ago, classical Muslim
thinkers like Farab and Avicenna or, in their wake, the theologians
Ghazal and Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz, did not hesitate to explore scientif-
ically the phenomenon of prophecy with the conceptual tools they had
developed in studying Greek philosophy, in particular Aristotelian
psychology. For Avicenna,7 after a purely immaterial contact between,
on the one hand, the soul of the Prophet and, on the other, the angelic
intelligence or the heavenly soul in charge of our sublunar world, the
mental faculties at work in shaping the revealed message into a human
discourse as imaged and evocative as the Quran are exactly the same as
those active in dreams and follow similar patterns. Only the nature of
the original data and, a fortiori, of their ultimate source, is essentially
different. Revelation proceeds from the transcendent God whereas,
usually, oneiric or psychological realities are to be traced back to par-
ticular physiological conditions. As the Prophet was chosen by God
Himself, these conditions are optimal in his case, and his psyche per-
fectly transposes the divine message into the speechmost appropriate for
his human audience, without any distortion resulting from his medi-
ation. The Prophets statements and the reports of people close to him
on the changes occurring in him and in his physical appearance while he
was receiving revelation confirm how his whole self was then mobilised
for the operation. It is no wonder that the crescent became the symbol of
Islam! Just as the moon illuminates the night by doing nothing but
reflecting the light that it receives from the sun, the Prophet draws
humans out of darkness by humbly conveying a revelation that, fun-
damentally, is not his.
Muslims are also not that interested, generally, in a historical
criticism of the Quran of the type to which the Bible was submitted
during recent centuries in the West. They do not ignore, however, the
importance of the various circumstances and events in the context of
which particular verses and suras were revealed to the Prophet for a
proper understanding of his message. During the first centuries of
Islam, a science devoted to the study of these occasions when the
Quran was sent down came into being under the name occasions of
revelation (asbab al-nuzul). Ultimately, in a prophetic religion, it is
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nevertheless Gods involvement in the originating of the revealed
Book that seems to deserve all the attention, rather than the
extremely modest role man had in the process. By contrast, in an
incarnationist religion based on the apotheosis of humans, it is quite
logical to expect the interest to shift from the transcendent to
humans. Seen from this theological viewpoint, historical criticism of
holy scriptures could well follow from a typically Christian concern
rather than be a demand for truth of universal value.
Someone believing in the power of ideas to mould the course of
history should not underestimate the consequences that the traditional
Sunn view of the Quran as divine speech, and of the role of the Prophet
in its conveying as that of a causa serva only, had on the shaping of
Muslim societies. In a religious environment encouraging an uncondi-
tional acknowledgement of the sole reality of God and of His exclusive
rights, this dispossession of the Messenger from his message, by divi-
nisation of the latter, surely contributed to the emergence of a human-
ism that could be called, in contradistinction to Nietzsches death of
God, a humanism of the extinction of man. In Islamic history, there
are indeed other central cases of such a paradoxical process of divinisa-
tion of a human achievement or reality to mans own detriment. One
thinks, for example, of the famous answer of the great Sufi master
al-Bast _ am (ninth century) to a person knocking on his door and asking,
Abu Yazd, are you there?: There is nobody here but God!
Al-Ashar, one of the most representative theologians of mainstream
Sunn orthodoxy, could also be referred to as he denies mans agency
and calls his actions creations of God. In both instances, humans in
some way acquire a divine status but themselves become extinct and
disappear.
A third important question resulting from the specificities of the
sending down of the Quran has to do with the fact that it was done in
Arabic. For the contemporary Arab poet Adonis,
the Quran, as of its oral state, had been perceived by the Arabs as a
linguistic shock. They were conquered by the beauty of its
language and the innovativeness of its aesthetics. This language was
the key opening the gates that were to bring adhesion to a new
religion: that of Islam. This is why it is impossible to trace a line of
demarcation between Islam and the Arabic language. One can say
that the first Muslims, those who constituted the hard core of the
new religion, adhered to the Quran not because they found in it the
explanation of the mysteries of the universe or of the human being,
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or a new system of life, but because they saw in it a model of
eloquence and a hitherto unknown and unanticipated form of
writing. It is the language which transformed their interior being,
and it is this which changed their lives.8
This judgement is of course excessive. The substantial, intrinsic
bond that it points to between the revelation sent down upon
Muh _ ammad and the Arabic language is nevertheless a fact underlined in
the Quran itself. We have sent it down as an Arabic Quran, in order
that you may think (12:2). With it came down the Truthful Spirit,
upon your heart, that you may be among the warners, in plain Arabic
language (26:1935). Thus We revealed to you an Arabic Quran
(42:7). For a theology dreading all anthropomorphist approaches to the
divine essence, a God who speaks is already something of a conundrum;
a fortioriwhen the divine speech is so indivisibly attached to a particular
language. Rather than a chosen people, would God have a chosen lan-
guage, in this case Arabic?
What is certain is that sciences of the Arabic language and its use in
the Quran grammar, lexicography, rhetoric, the science of the proper
enunciation of Arabic letters and of the various readings traditionally
accepted for some parts of the Book, the science of writing even all
became central sciences of the religion. As Ghazal writes, in them-
selves, linguistic science and syntax are not of the sacred sciences, but it
has become necessary to engage in their study because of the law since
this law has come in the language of the Arabs.9 Apologetic justifica-
tions for Gods choice of Arabic rather than any other idiom were also
discovered through a comparative study of the qualities and merits of
languages. For al-Shafi, of all tongues, that of the Arabs is the richest
and the most extensive in vocabulary. For Ibn Taymiyya, Arabic is far
superior to the Greek language so praised by the philosophers whom he
attacks, because of its [ability] to express detailed meanings and to
distinguish between the subtle ones and the main ones by special terms
that enunciate the truth. In perfection, it is followed by the Hebrew
language. So, where [can one find] this in the case of the language of your
barbaric companions, who carry on using long terms while what is
meant is light?10
That its signifier is such an important part of its signified contrib-
utes in making the Quran a much richer reality than a mere book to be
read and studied. Of course, even before being a scripture, the revelation
sent down to Muh _ ammad is a speech. And as God Himself explains, the
words of this speech operate in many ways. They are not supposed to
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affect minds only. They only are the believers whose hearts tremble
with fear when God is mentioned. When His verses are recited to them,
they make their faith increase and they put their trust in their Lord
(8:2). When the verses of the Compassionate are recited to them, they
fall down in prostrate adoration, weeping (19:58). God has sent down
the most beautiful speech as a Scripture . . . whereat the skins of those
in awe of their Lord shiver, and then their skins and their hearts soften
to Gods remembrance (39:23). We send down, as the Quran, some-
thing that is a healing and a mercy for the believers (17:82). This
healing power of the revelation is understood literally by many, not just
spiritually. The quran was thus sometimes also used physically for
curing ailments: a piece of paper with a quranic inscription was dipped
into water; once the ink was diluted, the quranically enriched water was
drunk. By means of amulets, talismanic shirts and other artefacts
covered with quranic inscriptions, often in conjunction with astro-
logical or magical devices or practices, the revelation came to be put to
all kinds of uses, not always strictly orthodox. By procedures reminis-
cent of the Cabbala, the letters of the Arabic alphabet and their
numerical values themselves played an important role in Muslim
mysticism, esotericism and the divinatory arts. This is particularly true
of the seventy-eight mysterious letters opening twenty-nine of the
quranic suras (23, 7, 1015, 1920, 2632, 36, 38, 406, 50, 68) and
which, once they are reduced to the fourteen of which they are com-
binations, represent the various basic consonantal forms of written
Arabic, hence of the whole Arabic alphabet.11
The fact that through quranic psalmody and calligraphy the most
manifest ways of celebrating Gods revelation have given rise to arts that
are among the most representative of Islam, if not the two major Islamic
arts, is also to be explained as an aspect of what the Algerian Malek
Bennabi rightly called the Quranic phenomenon. Be it through
architecture, decorative arts, the media or other aspects of everyday life,
the divine revelation conveyed in Arabic by the Prophet continues to be
as present in the public sphere as it is in the hearts of the millions of
those who, in their childhood, learn it by heart, often entirely. And just
as Arabic is per se part of the Quran, the latter impregnates it to the
point of making it impossible for non-Muslim Arabic-speakers not to be,
in some way, linguistically Islamised.
There are some differences of opinion between Muslim scholarship
and serious Orientalists on the way the revelations received by
Muh _ ammad over twenty-three years were collected during his lifetime
and soon afterwards recorded in a written form. All, however, agree in
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acknowledging two amazing facts: the rapidity of the process which led
to the production of the so-called vulgate of Uthman, the third caliph
(d. 656), and the total invariability of this vulgate over the centuries.
This second fact deserves more attention here, as it had directly theo-
logical connotations, with important societal implications.
The Arabic script, in manuscripts of the Quran, evolved greatly
towards a more precise and detailed notation of several consonants with
dots, vowels and peculiarities in the pronunciation of some letters. As a
uniform way of reciting various passages of the text never achieved
unanimity, a certain number of readings received a canonical status.
However, this evolution and this multiplicity never jeopardised the
permanence of the vulgates organisation and content as they had been
defined during the time of the Prophet and of his Companions, without a
single word of the Quran being deleted, added or changed in fourteen
centuries. As God had stated: It was We who sent down the Reminder,
and We will be preserving it (15:9). In fact, just as the creation and the
religion in general belong to God, so does His speech. And just as the
Prophet conveyed the message without interfering with it, no man after
him had any right to change it in any way. For some theologians, this
notably meant that, apart from what the Prophet himself said, there was
no better way of speaking about God and therefore no better theology
than quoting what God Himself says about Himself in the Quran. Even
for less exclusively scripturalist scholars, it also meant that nothing
valid could be said concerning the creed and practice of Islam in any
idiom other than Arabic, with the obvious consequence that a transla-
tion of the Quran is not the Quran. At best, a translation may be
considered an essay to render its meanings, with all the other essential
aspects of the quranic reality already alluded to being lost in the process.
Once more, the situation is reminiscent of the Jewish Bible rather than
of the Bible known to Christians.
The sacral nature and irreplaceability of the language of the revela-
tion in Islam undoubtedly helped in the shaping of Muslim societies,
especially Arabic-speaking ones. With the Quran, it was also, indeed, a
linguistic norm that Muslims started integrating into their lives and
communities. They of course disobeyed it often, and Arabic dialects
were and are still spoken here and there. As for replacing this norm
by another, nothing less than the revelation itself made it impossible.
Nowhere was any of these dialects ever accorded a status that would
have enabled it to replace quranic Arabic, with the revelation being
translated into it, thereby sacralising it, and thus paving the way for a
nationalistic division of the umma. One would search in vain for an
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Islamic equivalent either of Luthers German Bible or of King Jamess
Authorised Version.
The presence of rhyme, assonanced prose, regularly repeated for-
mulas, and even refrains characterises the style of the Quran. Some-
times the revelation takes the form of oaths, curses or threats, praise
formulas, prayers, declarations or articles of faith, rhetorical questions,
statements resolving disputed matters or interrogations, commands and
prohibitions, regulations and prescriptions, narratives and parables.
Among other things, various accounts are proposed of the history of past
prophets Biblical or not messengers, cities and peoples. Attention is
drawn towards the signs of God manifest in His creation man as well
as nature and the cosmos. Vivid or dramatic depictions are given of
human origins, of death and of eschatological realities. The way is paved
for the organisation of the individual and collective lives of the believers,
as well as of their relations with other religious communities, in par-
ticular Judaism and Christianity. Various passages relate exclusively to
Muh _ ammad or concern the revealed Book itself.
This multiplicity of styles, literary forms and content of the Quran
made it an urgent requirement, among theologians, Sufis and even
philosophers, to define a rule for its interpretation. How was it possible
to make sense of such a diversity? What in fact were Gods intentions
in sending down such a revelation? How were the reminding, the
warning, the invitation to think and reflect, the teaching and the
guidance leading out from darkness towards the light repeatedly
evoked in the new scripture to be effectively understood? Was the
revelation a call to some knowledge of an esoteric type, or mainly a
pragmatic message aimed at establishing an ethical order within human
societies? Could symbols opening to inner, esoteric truths be found in it?
Alternatively, was it an exhaustive exposition of the religion to be fol-
lowed literally, without going beyond its outer meaning? The way Islam
would develop as a comprehensive system of life depended on the kinds
of answer given to these hermeneutical questions.
One of the most interesting and radical positions was adopted by
Avicenna in a short but seminal work, the influence of which can be
felt in later debates on the subject. Concerning the law, the Iranian
philosopher wrote, one ought to know one single rule [qanun], that
is, that what is wanted by the law and religion that have come to us
through the tongue of any of the prophets is to address all the crowd.
It is to address the crowd about things that they understand, bringing
things that they do not understand closer to their imaginations by
striking likenesses and similitudes. If matters were otherwise, the
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laws would be of no use at all. Asking the vulgum pecus to believe in
truths that it would not be able to grasp would lead it into doctrinal
discussions dangerous to the public order and the stability of human
societies. With its apparent anthropomorphisms about God and its
physical descriptions of the hereafter, the Quran has fortunately
come up with the most eminent and the most perfect things that
laws could possibly come up with. It was therefore right for it to be
the Seal of the laws and the last of the religions. Given its primary
audience, somebody wanting to be a member of the elite of humans,
not of the commonalty, should realise that the outer meaning of
the laws cannot be used as an argument in matters like eschatology
and theology.12
In Avicennas opinion, Gods purpose in sending messengers is thus
mainly practical, having to do with collective action and justice rather
than with knowledge of the Truth in itself. All forms of scripturally
based theology or eschatology consequently become illegitimate and can
be dispensed with. Very useful for policymakers, the revelation is of no
immediate interest to philosophers able to discover the truth by their
own rational means. And it is the philosophers themselves who recog-
nise images of this truth in the letter of the revelation. To claim that the
purpose of the outer meaning of the Quran is to introduce the com-
monalty to some esoteric meaning is wrong. Likewise is the idea that it
would do so per se.
Esotericism in interpreting the Quran nevertheless appealed to
many, and still does today. For some, it is not only in doctrinal matters
but also in ritual and legal ones that Muslims should deactivate the
literality of the revelation in favour of their own interpretations of
its real intentions, either for elitist reasons reminiscent of those of
Avicenna or, more recently, as esotericism is now giving way to his-
torical relativism, under the influence of modern humanities and
ideologies. Yet, the great majority of traditional scholars and ordinary
believers reject all essentially utilitarian understandings of the revela-
tion as guidance conceived for mobilising imaginations and to be fol-
lowed by the populace in its literality but which would be unacceptable
as a source of knowledge for defining any kind of creed. First, without
denying the infinite semantic depth of the revealed message, they indeed
have no epistemological problem in reading it literally and founding
their beliefs and practices upon it. According to them, there is, for
example, room for a via media between the excesses of the apophatic,
negationist, theologies of Mutazilism or falsafa and, at the other end
of the doctrinal spectrum, the anthropomorphist assimilation of the
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creator to His creatures. This is the path of mainstream Sunnism which,
faithful to clear scriptural and prophetic statements, asserts the reality of
the divine names and attributes as well as Gods absolute transcendence,
acknowledges mans incapacity to grasp the modalities of these aspects
of the divine nature and sees no advantage in entering into excessive
scholastic discussions about them. Secondly, it is precisely because the
manifest meaning of the quranic revelation, in its outward appearance
accessible to anybody, corresponds so well to the truth knowable to
humans that Islam, as Avicenna rightly indicates, is such a successful
religion and contributes to the implementation of so much justice and
order in human societies. Truth and ethics are not incompatible. On
the contrary, they support each other, and the message sent down
upon the Prophet came with both in the most ideal and complete form,
reconciling the outer and inner dimensions of reality.
Muh _ ammad is not the father of any man among you, but the
Messenger of God and the Seal of the prophets (33:40). With the
Prophets death in 632, the sending down of the Quran was completed
and prophethood was sealed for ever. Is it nevertheless true that the
phenomenon of revelation per se has thereby also come to an end? In
fact, an extra-quranic form of divine speech can be found in the par-
ticular genre of the Prophets authentic sayings traditionally called holy
traditions (h _ adth quds). These are some ninety sayings, sometimes
transmitted in different versions, preserving first-person statements
attributed to God by the Prophet, yet not included in the Quran. The
beginning of a famous example runs: O My servants, I have forbidden
injustice to Myself and made it forbidden among you.13 Muh _ ammads
holy hadith confirm that Gods revelatory activity is, in his case, not
limited to the sending down of the Quran. Does, however, such a pro-
cess of non-scriptural revelation continue after 632?
In cases of indecision over difficult choices, Muslims were advised
by the Prophet to let God inspire them during their sleep after a prayer
called istikhara, search, or request, for what is better. The Quran
(2:186) states: When My servants question you about Me, I am surely
close. I answer the call of the caller when he calls Me. The Prophet also
affirmed: The veridical dream-vision of the believer is one forty-sixth
part of prophecy.14 The Companion Ubada ibn al-S _ amit is credited
with the words: The dream-vision of the believer is a speech by which
the Lord speaks to His servant in his sleep.15 Important forms of
communication in which God speaks to humans do thus still exist after
the sealing of prophethood. Although scholars prefer to analyse them
in terms of inspiration (ilham) rather than of revelation (wah _ y), they can
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sometimes even be of a relatively prophetic nature. Classical Muslim
thinkers developing a philosophical model for the reception of revelation
could be expected to show a great interest in such potentialities. They
saw in them a confirmation of their theory that the Prophet was in fact
extraordinary in that he alone actualised perfectly psychological powers
belonging per se to the essence of man, with the consequence that,
although Providence did not lead most human beings to live their
essence fully, prophethood was seen as consisting, in theory, of powers
accessible to everybody.
For people preoccupied by quranic hermeneutics, the idea that
God can in a way continue to speak to some beyond His last Mes-
senger provided the most welcome solution to their problem. It could
indeed mean that, after the historical completion of the sending-
down of the Quran, it was God Himself who, through individuals
whom He chose to inspire, was in charge of guaranteeing the adequate
interpretation of the Scripture, the permanence of its performance
among His servants, and the Muslim communitys final salvation.
For Shites, these divinely guided mediators had to belong to the
family of the Prophet. Muh _ ammad, Gods Messenger, was the city of
knowledge, but his cousin and son-in-law, Al, the Friend (wal), or
Saint, of God, was the gate to this city. He knew the true inner
meaning of the revelation and, after him, his charisma was trans-
mitted to eleven other Imams among his offspring (the Ismals
recognised only seven Imams). A somewhat similar approach to post-
Muh _ ammadan divine inspiration also appeared among some later
Sufis, with the consequence that they were sometimes accused of
promoting a Shism without Imams. Often influenced by Avicennan
prophetology, some spiritual masters indeed claimed to be divinely
spoken to during their ecstasies and given special sciences or prodi-
gious powers. Also considered Friends (wal) or Saints of God by their
followers, they became in their eyes the true heirs to Muh _ ammad, the
best interpreters of the quranic revelation and the most enlightening
guides to follow on the Prophets path.
Obviously, the further away the true meaning of the Scripture is said
to be from its literality, the more indispensable and useful post-
Muh _ ammadan mediators can claim to be. From this point of view, the
growth of gnosticism and esotericism, either in Shism or in some types
of Sufism, did not come as a surprise. However, in none of these par-
ticular Islamic ways of thought did the gulf between the Quran and its
supposedly true meaning inner or other widen to the point where the
revelation sent down to Muh _ ammad was effectively deposed and
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replaced by its so-called exegesis, whose author would then become a
new prophet or messenger. As soon as such a development took place, as
was effectively the case with Bahaism and Qadiyanism at the end of the
classical period, it would inevitably have already excluded itself from
Islam.
Mainstream Sunns have a special respect not only for the Com-
panions of the Prophet but also for his family and all the true Friends of
God, the righteous believers who fear Him. This being said, it is mainly
through the community itself that they believe that God acts since the
completion of the sending-down of the Quran and the sealing of
prophethood in 632. Dream-visions, divine inspirations, answers to
prayers, and, to say it simply, Gods being with (maiyya) each of
His servants are all true facts. Yet, a sound collective understanding of
the revelation, and its continuing implementation in the world on the
path traced by the Prophet, are not entrusted by God to any particular
group or class of people (charismatic, ecstatic or political), but are the
responsibility of the entire umma, animated and counselled by its
scholars so as to reach the widest possible forms of consensus (ijma).
The consensus of the community, Ibn Taymiyya writes, dispenses
with the necessity of the infallibility of imams. Or, what the Muslims
agree on is a truth brought by the Prophet16 that is to say, it has the
same value as his divine message. Such devolution of responsibility to
the believers themselves is all the more logical as Sunns generally
consider the religious message revealed in the Quran to be essentially
clear, self-explanatory and complete, in need of little elaboration beyond
its literality. In a prophetic, non-incarnationistic religion like Islam,
whose founder was told more than once by his Lord to say, I am but a
man like you, to whom it has been revealed that your God is only One
God (18:110; see also 21:108; 41:6), it would moreover have been rather
contradictory to have anybody in particular legitimately claiming to
have better knowledge and more authority. It is in fact revelation itself
that makes Islam a religion of liberation for mankind, freeing Gods
servants from all forms of sacerdotalism, ecclesialism, caesaro-papism,
Mamunism, esotericism or neo-Mutazilism.
Further reading
Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn, 12 vols. (Leiden, 19862004), articles idjaz,
al-K uran, lawh
_ mih
_ na, nubuwwa, umm , wah
_ y.
Caspar, Robert, A Historical Introduction to Islamic Theology: Muh _ ammad
and the Classical Period, tr. P. Johnstone (Rome, 1998).
Revelation 195
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Cragg, Kenneth, The Weight in the Word: Prophethood, Biblical and Quranic
(Brighton and Portland, 1999).
Nadwi, Abul Hasan Ali, Islamic Concept of Prophethood, tr. M. Ahmad
(Lucknow, 1979).
Notes
1. Yahya Michot, Textes spirituels dIbn Taymiyya, XVI: La realite de lamour (mah
_ abba) de Dieu et de lhomme (suite), Le Musulman 29
(1998), p.25. See also Fritz Meier, The cleanest about predestination: a bit of Ibn Taymiyya, Essays on Islamic Piety and Mysticism, tr. John OKane with the editorial assistance of Bernd Radtke (Leiden, 1999), pp.30934.
2. Yahya Michot (tr.), Ibn Taymiyya: Lettre a Abu l-Fida (Louvain- la-Neuve, 1994), p.48.
3. See ibid., pp.458. 4. Muhammad Muhsin Khan, The Translation of the Meanings of Sahih
Al-Bukhari, 9 vols. (Beirut, 1405/1985), i, p.3. 5. Ibid., i, p.2. 6. See Shahab Ahmed, Ibn Taymiyyah and the satanic verses, Studia
Islamica 87 (1998), pp.67124. 7. See Yahya Michot, La destinee de lhomme selon Avicenne: Le retour a
Dieu (maad) et limagination (Louvain, 1986), pp.13358. 8. Adonis, La priere et lepee: Essais sur la culture arabe (Paris, 1993),
p.111. 9. Al-Ghazal, The Book of Knowledge, tr. N. A. Faris (Lahore, 1961), p.39.
10. For both references, see Yahya Michot, A Mamluk theologians commentary on Avicennas Risala Ad
_ h _ awiyya: being a translation of a
part of the Daral-Taarud _
of Ibn Taymiyya, with introduction, annotation, and appendices, Part II, Journal of Islamic Studies 14/3 (2003), p.344.
11. See Pierre Lory, La science des lettres en Islam (Paris, 2004). 12. Michot, A Mamluk theologians commentary, pp.1737. 13. William A. Graham,Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam: A
Reconsideration of the Sources, with Special reference to the Divine Saying or H
_ adth Quds (The Hague and Paris, 1977), p.205.
14. Bukhar, Tabr, 2. 15. See Michot, Abu l-Fida, p.48. 16. See Yahya Michot, Textes spirituels dIbn Taymiyya, XII: Mongols et
Mamluks: letat du monde musulman vers 709/1310 (suite), Le Musulman 25 (1995), p.30.
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10 The existence of God
ayman shihadeh
whence the need for proof?
The problem of whether or not belief in God should be founded in
reason has a complex history in Islam. Both kalam exponents and
philosophers showed a keen interest in advancing arguments for the
existence of God, which was born of diverse motives, chiefly the need to
establish this most crucial doctrine within their broader metaphysical
systems, to respond to physicalist atheism, and to support and enrich the
belief and piety of believers. Yet the epistemological view that rational
proof is needed to recognise the existence of God was not held univer-
sally: while some propounded discursive reasoning, others advocated
fundamentally non-rational methods (sing. t _ arqa) to this end, such as
spiritual discipline, said to provide direct, experiential knowledge of
God. Some, moreover, maintained that only one correct method should
be followed exclusively, whereas others allowed for a hierarchy of dif-
ferent methods. Related to this was the question of whether lay people
must follow essentially the same route as theologians, or whether, if
they are incapable of doing so, they may adhere to simple, uncritical
belief instead. Let us first briefly consider some historical solutions to
this complex of questions.
Most earlymutakallimun typically maintain that rational reflection
(naz _ ar) is the only method that provides knowledge of God, to the
exclusion of all other, fideist or fallacious, methods and stances. It fol-
lows that everyone, theologians and lay believers alike, ought to learn,
not only the main creeds, but more primarily their key theological
proofs.1 Abu Hashim al-Jubba (d. 933), a prominent early Mutazilite,
went so far as to argue that the primary duty of each person is to rid
oneself of traditional, uncritical belief by doubting Gods existence,
before attempting to prove it.
Most traditionalist theologians took the contrary view, holding
that having a rationally unjustified belief in God, which accords with
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scriptural creeds, will suffice. For them, kalam proofs were at once
reprehensible innovations and too obscure and precarious to serve as
reliable bases for sound belief.
According to Ibn Taymiyya, man knows God immediately and
intuitively by virtue of his innate, primordial nature (fit _ ra), instilled in
him by God. Those with a sound fit _ ra are able to bear witness to Gods
existence without reflection. Yet he accepts that fit _ ra is easily corrup-
tible in unhealthy environments, especially when influenced by
misguided or heretical doctrines and methods, such as those found in
kalam and philosophy. For those with an unsound fit _ ra, Ibn Taymiyya
prescribes a different mode of theological knowledge, akin to an
argument from design, namely the contemplation of Gods signs in
nature, through which one will be able to recognise Gods existence
immediately.2
Ghazal, primarily a Sufi, secondarily a mutakallim, likewise
maintains that man knows God through fit _ ra, without discursive rea-
soning.3 Resorting to proofs may become compulsory upon some, espe-
cially those plagued by doubts. Yet, for him, the most superior method of
knowing God, which provides direct experience of witnessing Him
and renders all other methods superfluous, is that of Sufi spiritual dis-
cipline. Thus, much more mildly than Ibn Taymiyya, Ghazal too
expresses some aversion to purely rational proofs for the existence of
God, which he considers ultimately mediocre and primarily therapeutic.
Notwithstanding the great variety of stances, in the present chapter
we are concerned only with some of the rational proofs expounded in the
theological tradition, especially in kalam. Rather than attempting to
account comprehensively for all proofs and their historical development,
we shall consider some representative (but not always obvious)
examples of the main proofs. A convenient starting-point will be a cat-
egorisation of proofs provided by Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz (d. 1210), an
outstanding philosopher and mutakallim, who surveyed and assessed
the previous philosophical and theological dialectic more systematically
and insightfully than did his predecessors. He distinguishes between
four categories: (1) arguments from the creation of the attributes of
things (a subspecies of the argument from design); (2) arguments from
the creation of things; (3) arguments from the contingency of the attri-
butes of things (a subspecies of the argument from particularisation); and
(4) arguments from the contingency of things.4 The first type will be
discussed below under Common teleological arguments; the second
and third under Kalam cosmological arguments; and the fourth under
Avicennas argument from contingency.
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First, however, a preliminary problem, already hinted at, merits
consideration. How do the mutakallimun justify their contention that
theological reflection constitutes a duty (wajib)? The problem is fun-
damentally ethical, turning on the contentious question of the nature
and grounds of ethical obligation. In the remainder of this section, we
shall consider two contrasting solutions: one from Mutazilite ethical
realism, the other from Asharite divine command ethics.
The Mutazilite position
How do the Mutazila justify their contention that undertaking
reflection with a view to knowing God is obligatory? Al-Malah _ im
(d. 1141), a later Basran Mutazilite, puts forth two representative argu-
ments in this regard.5
First, he argues that reflection offers the agent who is devoid of the
foregoing knowledge the hope of allaying an inevitable fear resulting
from a certain motive (khat _ ir), which appears in his heart in one of
several ways. If the sensible person hears or reads theological discussions
and encounters warnings of afterlife punishment for unbelievers, he will
experience fear as he realises that the world indeed betrays evidence of
an intelligent Maker, confirming that His existence is a real possibility.
If no such external factors effect this motive, God will, by necessity,
produce it directly in the agents heart.6 Once the inevitability of this
eschatological fear is established, the duty to reflect is affirmed through
the Mutazilite ethical premise that it is obligatory on the agent to avoid
any unjustified harm that he expects to befall him. Mutazilites consider
this to be a duty in a realist sense: harming oneself is evil because it is a
form of wrongdoing, and wrongdoing is intrinsically evil.7
The second argument runs as follows. Possessing knowledge ofGods
existence itself constitutes a duty for the agent; reflection is necessary for
attaining this knowledge; an act that is necessary for fulfilling a duty
itself becomes a duty; therefore, reflection is a duty. Malah _ im justifies
the premise that the agent is obligated to possess this knowledge on the
ground that knowing that there exists a deity, who will punish evildoers
and reward the doers of good, willmotivate the agent to do good and avoid
evil; all that serves this end will consequently be a duty.
Reflection, for Mutazilites, is thus neither intrinsically obligatory,
nor an end in itself.8 Rather, it is a duty on account of the foregoing
ethical considerations, envisaged within the standard Mutazilite
framework of ethical realism. By this, they attempt to demonstrate that
theological reflection is a rational duty, without recourse to revelation,
the acceptance of which presupposes belief in God.
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Yet Mutazilites go on to maintain that reflection in order to know
God is the most primary (awwal) duty of all. This contention seems to
run into serious difficulties: evidently, the thrust of the above arguments
is that this duty is neither absolute nor known immediately, but is
conditional on the foregoing ethical duties, which indeed appear more
primary.9
The Asharite position
Early Asharites, too, contend that reflection constitutes a duty. Yet,
to them, it is a religious (shar) duty, since theymaintain that duties can
be engendered only by revealed religion to the exclusion of unaided reason
or any other sources.10 One who lives on a remote island and has never
heard of any revealed religions will not be under an absolute obligation to
reflect in order to know God, or to do good and omit evil. Only when a
religion is established through prophecy will knowing God and adhering
to various forms of conduct become obligatory on those who receive it.11
The Mutazila object that this would allow the non-believer to argue
that since he accepts neither Gods existence nor the instructions of His
purported prophet, he is in no way obligated to reflect in order to know
Him. For Asharites, however, one need not accept a prophets claims to
fall under this obligation. Juwayn (d. 1085) responds that a prophets
performance of miracles will habitually (fl-ada) provide sufficient
motivation for people to consider his claims seriously and to reflect
upon the theological matters he refers to.12 The truthfulness of
prophecy, therefore, does not depend on reflection, but on miracles.
The sensible person does not have to accept that God exists, that He
could send prophets with His word, and that this particular man is a
genuine prophet, to have sufficient reasons, and even to find it neces-
sary, to investigate these matters.
Asharites also provide an argument ad hominem in reply to the
foregoing Mutazilite objection, by highlighting a similar problem in
their opponents position. Since Mutazilites do not consider the duty to
reflect to be known immediately, they argue that reflection is a duty
because knowing God is a duty, and what is necessary for fulfilling a
duty itself becomes a duty (Malah _ ims second argument above). How-
ever, since this will be known through reflection, the non-believer will
know that reflection is a duty only once he reflects; so he can simply
refuse to reflect in the first place.13 The Mutazilite contention that if
external circumstances do not motivate one to reflect, God will neces-
sarily produce a motive in his heart is dismissed as an utterly unsub-
stantiated claim.14
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Although this Asharite argument ad hominem may seem merely
topical, it underscores a more profound point: that no cognition or action
possesses intrinsic qualities that make it obligatory on non-adherents.
Religion, according to Asharites, addresses both believers and non-
believers, obliging all to recognise the existence of God. Believers will
readily accept this. Non-believers will, if presented with adequate evi-
dence and inducements, perceive the gravity and persuasiveness of this
obligation. The fact that they do not readily recognise it as an obligation
makes it no less obligatory on them.
Later Asharism came hugely under the influence of Fakhr al-Dn
al-Raz, who departs from early Asharite divine command ethics in
favour of a subjectivist, consequentialist ethics, whereby value is defined
with reference to the consequences of acts for the agent. For Raz, a
rational person who hears the doctrines of a revealed religion, especially
the possibility of punishment in the afterlife, will find it prudentially
necessary to check their veracity.15 Reflection may thus be deemed
obligatory, not in any fundamentally religious sense, but in a sub-
jective, prudential sense the antithesis to the Mutazilite objectivist
position.
common teleological arguments
An argument from design, or a so-called teleological argument, is
one which argues from manifestations of order or providence in the
world to a God who produced them.16 The Quran constantly invites to
this type of reasoning; for instance 2:164:
In the creation of the heavens and earth; in the alternation of night
and day; in the ships that sail the seas with goods for people; in the
water which God sends down from the sky to give life to the earth
when it has been barren, scattering all kinds of creatures over it; in
the changing of the winds and clouds that run their appointed
courses between the sky and earth: there are signs in all these for
those who use their minds.17
With a primarily quranic inspiration and endorsement, arguments
from design have become extremely popular in general religious
literature and among lay believers. They serve, not only as proofs for
the existence of God as such, but often primarily as pointers to evi-
dence for various attributes of the creator, to be contemplated pietis-
tically by believers. The quran here merely provides the theologian
with guidance on what kind of evidence and arguments to employ;
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hence such quranically inspired arguments are not premised on
the revealed nature of the text, which otherwise would entail circu-
larity.18
Numerous works have been dedicated to the argument from design;
yet we still have a very sketchy understanding of its history in Islam.
One early book plausibly attributed to al-Jah _ iz _ (d. 869), the Mutazilite
theologian and litterateur, draws on pre-Islamic Greek sources,19
whereas another by his contemporary al-Qasim ibn Ibrahm (d. 860) has
a primarily quranic inspiration.20 The list of exponents of the argument
from design later comes to include some of the foremost philosophers
and theologians in medieval Islam, including Abu Bakr al-Raz (d. 925),
Ibn H _ azm (d. 1064), al-Ghazal, Averroes, and Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz.
In what follows, we will focus on discussions of this argument by
Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz. On this he writes:
Whoever contemplates the various parts of the higher and lower
worlds will find that this world is constructed in the most
advantageous and best manner, and the most superlative and perfect
order (tartb). The mind unambiguously testifies that this state of
affairs cannot be except by the governance (tadbr) of a wise and
knowledgeable [being].21
Here and in other places, Raz distinguishes between two types of
evidence of design. First, he refers to signs of providence, that is,
advantages (manafi) provided to conscious beings, which indicate the
existence of a God attributed with beneficence (ih _ san), who is respon-
sible for them. Second, he refers to signs of order, or masterly production
(ih _ kam, itqan), in the world, which point to a God possessed of wisdom
(h _ ikma) and power. When explicated in detail, the latter signs of order or
beauty observable to us in the created world are often referred to as
marvels (ajaib), or wonders (badai).22
These signs may be gleaned, according to Raz, by directing atten-
tion to different loci of discernment (sing. mah _ all al-itibar) in the
cosmos. In the lower world, these are: (a) the human body, (b) the human
psyche, (c) animals, (d) plants, (e) minerals, (f) meteorological phenom-
ena, (g) the elements, and (h) marvels that occur because of the dis-
cernable expediencies among these things, and the manner in which
each assists in preserving the species of the other.23 In the higher world,
they are: (i) the natures of the celestial spheres and the planets, (j) the
magnitudes of each, (k) their complex motions and the way in which
these motions influence the lower world in a manner advantageous to
creatures, (l) the way in which daily, monthly and annual cycles are
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dependent on the motions of celestial bodies, (m) the manner in which
things in this world depend on the suns motion, and (n) marvels that
can be observed in both fixed and moving stars.
The marvels in each of these fields are explicated in their respective
disciplines; for example, those of the human body in anatomy, and those
of plants in botany. Razs Great Commentary on the Quran also
abounds with such discussions. He furthermore dedicates his little-
known work Secrets of Revelation (Asrar al-tanzl) to proofs for the
existence of God from features in the observable world, including proofs
from design and proofs from particularisation. Being quranically
inspired, this book provides a different set of categories of loci for evi-
dence: (a) the heavens, (b) the sun and the moon, (c) the stars, (d) man,
(e) animals (the book is incomplete and ends here), (f) plants, (g) meteoro-
logical phenomena, (h) seas, and (i) mountains.24
Let us consider the following representative example.25Although the
human body is tremendously complex, Raz reasons, it is generated from
simple sperm. Let us first assume that the body emerges from sperm
purely by virtue of its natural properties, as naturalists (t _ abiyyun) claim.
Now either sperm is homogeneous (according to Aristotelian biology), or
it consists of components drawn from, and corresponding in their natures
to, the various different organs of the human body (the so-called panso-
matic view dominant among earlier physicians). However, if sperm is
homogeneous, it should produce an equally simple effect, namely a
homogenous spherical object. Naturalists, however, maintain that sperm
is inhomogeneous and that each of its components, purely by virtue of its
latent natural disposition, produces a specific organ in the human body.
Raz replies that, by the same foregoing analysis, each component would
produce a simple effect in which case a conglomerate of homogenous
spherical objects would result and that nothing among these compon-
ents would determine the correct relative position of each organ in the
body, guaranteeing, for instance, that the heart does not appear in the
brains position and vice versa. Therefore, sperm cannot develop into a
fully fledged human body simply by the impulse of its natural properties.
This developmentwill require the agency of awise (h _ akm) creatorwho is
able to produce objectswith such complex and perfect features. Asnature,
Raz contends, lacks the wisdom to produce such sophisticated effects,
the physicalist atheism of the naturalists will appear irrational.
He then quotes the philosopher-physician Abu Bakr al-Raz on the
reasoning that underlies arguments from design. If one considers the
design of a jug, he opines, which serves the function of containing water
and pouring it controllably, one will have certainty that it did not
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acquire its composition by virtue of a nature that lacks consciousness
and perception; rather, one will ascribe this jug to a knowledgeable and
powerful agent who knew that benefit is achievable only when the jug
has this particular composition. Abu Bakr al-Raz then explicates the
signs of divine power and wisdom discernible in the human body, before
concluding: These marvels and wonders in this bodys composition
cannot be produced except by a powerful and wise [God], who created
this composition with His power and fashioned it in a masterly manner
with His wisdom.26
In many arguments from design, it is difficult to separate evidence of
providence from evidence of order. Since some theologians conceived
man as the centre and telos of the universe, they tended to interpret the
cosmic order in terms of provisions to man. Yet Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz
provides a different rationale behind the combination of these two trends
in quranic arguments from design: he has the reader in mind. Most
evidences (dalail) provided in the Quran, he writes,
are in one respect evidences, and in another respect blessings [niam].
Such subtle evidences are more efficacious in the heart, and more
effective in the soul; for qua evidences they provide knowledge,
whereas qua blessings they lead to surrender to the Benefactor,
thankfulness to Him and submission to His majestys might.27
The combination of these two respects provides a cognitive recognition
of Gods existence and attributes, especially knowledge, power and
unity, as well as soteriological advantages to man an analysis that
accords perfectly with Razs notion that the method [t _ arqa] of the
Quran is to combine demonstrative and rhetorical modes of discourse
for maximal efficacy in humans.28 Arguments from design, moreover,
draw much strength from being cumulative (mutaad _ ida) and from
involving faculties of sense and imagination alongside reason.29 For
these reasons, Raz contends in his later works that arguments from
design are superior to all other arguments for the existence of God,
namely the classical arguments of kalam and philosophy (below), which
are subtle and address reason alone.30 By this, he explains the fact that
although arguments from design are easy to devise and often lack formal
rigour, they are normally the most powerful and widespread.
kalam cosmological arguments
The early mutakallimun developed characteristic doctrines and
methods of argument (some of which we will encounter below), which
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formed the speculative frameworks in which they expounded their
proofs for the existence of God. Generally, arguments from design were
either omitted or accorded secondary importance in kalam works, since
they proved only the existence of a designer, but not the generation of
matter and hence creation ex nihilo, and because they were often seen to
lack methodological rigour. Instead, the kalam argument par excellence
became the argument from creation ex nihilo, or temporal generation
(h _ uduth),31 and the closely related argument from particularisation
both cosmological arguments, since they prove the existence of God
starting from the existence of other beings.
Arguments from creation ex nihilo
The basic argument from creation goes as follows. The world is
temporally originated (h _ adith). All that is temporally originated requires
a separate originator. Therefore, the world requires a separate originator.
This originator must be pre-eternal. Otherwise, if it too is generated,
then, by the same reasoning, it will require another originator; and
ultimately the existence of a pre-eternal originator has to be admitted.
Both premises in the argument were surrounded by complex dis-
cussions, both among theologians, and between them and the philoso-
phers. In what follows, some of the discussions that appeared among the
mutakallimun surrounding the two premises in this proof are examined.
That the world is temporally originated
Several arguments were advanced in support of this doctrine (the
minor premise in the above proof) mostly on the basis of the early kalam
physical theory that, apart from God, all beings are bodies consisting of
both atoms and accidents present in them.32 The most commonly used
is the so-called argument from accidents (arad _ ), apparently developed by
the Mutazilite Abu Hashim al-Jubba, which establishes the generation
of atoms on the basis of four principles, as follows:
(a) Accidents exist in bodies.
(b) Accidents are generated.
(c) Bodies cannot be devoid of, or precede, accidents.
(d) What cannot be devoid of, or precede, what is generated is likewise
generated.33
Earlier mutakallimun seem to hold that the generation of the world
follows from these contentions directly. Yet, as Averroes points out, this
line of reasoning involves an equivocation: what is found to be generated
in the fourth principle is the single body that necessarily has a particular
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accident known to be generated, rather than bodies as such, and con-
sequently the world as a whole, as in the conclusion.34 Indeed, he points
out, it will still be conceivable for the world to be pre-eternal, involving
infinitely regressing series of temporally originated things (h _ awadith
la awwala laha).
Later mutakallimun, as Averroes notes, became more aware of this
gap in the proof, and attempted, apparently starting from Juwayn, to
address it by arguing that a pre-eternal series of accidents is inconceiv-
able.35 Several arguments are found in later works of kalam that support
this contention; the following two are recorded in a later Mutazilite
source.
For instance, it is argued, rather opaquely, that the whole must be
characterised by the same attributes that necessarily characterise each of
its individual parts; for instance, if something consists entirely of black
parts, it too must be black. Therefore, since each part of the world is
generated and has a beginning, the whole world too must be generated
and have a beginning.
The infinite regress of accidents is also refuted using proofs from the
impossibility of an infinite number, some of which were apparently
adopted from John Philoponus (d. c. 570).36 For instance, it is argued:
When todays events are combined with past events, these will
increase; without todays events, they will diminish. Increase and
diminution in what is infinite are inconceivable. This indicates that
[the series of past events] is finite with respect to its beginning. This
is the proof also for the finiteness of the magnitude of the earth and
other bodies; for it is possible to conceive of increase and diminution
in them.37
Many later Asharites adopted Juwayns modified version of the
argument for creation ex nihilo, which most theologians treated as an
article of faith. Yet this doctrine soon became the centre of conflict
between the theologians and most philosophers, who defended the
pre-eternity of the world, as the interaction between the two tradi-
tions increased. Doubts were raised around the arguments for
creation, to the extent that in one of his latest works Raz examines
all the relevant arguments and counterarguments and admits that
no rational or revealed evidence proves either the creation or pre-eternity
of the world.38 Under his influence, it seems, Ibn Taymiyya asserts
that no rational or revealed evidence proves the inconceivability of
the infinite regress of accidents, apparently suspending judgement on
the subject.
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That what is temporally originated requires an originator
Concerning the nature of the major, causal premise in the argument
from creation, Raz distinguishes between two contrasting views, both
made chiefly by Mutazilites. Some consider the premise self-evident,
others consider it discursive.
The former position, writes Raz, finds support among many
Muslims, and is defended notably by the early Baghdad Mutazilite
al-Kab (d. 931), who points out that when rational people sense the
occurrence of a thing, they will look for its cause without hesitation or
reflection.39 When we see a building, we will know immediately that it
had a builder. Raz, however, rejects establishing this premise on such
observable phenomena, which are too simplistic. He objects that if this
premise is known to us immediately in this manner, we will also have
immediate knowledge of two other concomitant facts that make it
inapplicable to proving the existence of God: (a) that every temporal event
has a temporal cause (whoever hears a sound will look for its temporal
cause, rather than assume that it was due to the sky being above us and
the earth beneath us!); and (b) that it is preceded by time and matter.
Therefore, the claim that this premise constitutes immediate knowledge
will only imply the infinite regress of temporal causes and the pre-
eternity of time and matter, and cannot be used in proving that the world
had a pre-eternal creator who is completely other than it.
By contrast, most Mutazilites, including Abd al-Jabbar (d. 1025),
consider this premise to be discursive, and argue for it by a complex
analogy (qiyas) with human action, as follows.40 Human action requires
an originator because it is temporally originated; the world too is tem-
porally originated; therefore, it requires an originator. In this archetyp-
ical kalam analogy (an instance of inferring the unobservable from the
observable, istidlal bil-shahid alal-ghaib), the original case (as _ l)
is human action; the secondary case (far) is the world; the
judgement (h _ ukm) is requiring an originator; and the ground
(illa) is being temporally originated. The analogy will be complete
once it has been shown, first, that the judgement applies to the original
case because of this ground, and second, that this same ground can be
found in the secondary case; consequently the same judgement will
equally apply to the latter case.41 But how can both judgement and
ground be affirmed in the original case here?
My act requires me (its originator), we are told, because it occurs
according to my motives; this connection affirms the judgement in the
original case. But in what respect exactly does my act depend on me?
Does it depend on me because it is temporally originated, or for some
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other ground? This question is answered in several ways, most notably
using two other standard kalam forms of argument.42 (a) Investigation
and disjunction (al-sabr wal-taqsm): we first list all conceivable
grounds for my acts dependence on me (the effects continual existence,
its ethical value, temporal origination, etc.), then disprove as many as we
can; if one remains (in this case, temporal origination), it will be the true
ground. (b) The coextensiveness and coexclusiveness (al-t _ ard wal-
aks) of the events dependence on me and its coming into being, which
implies that the latter is the ground for the former: for the event depends
on me only at the point of its coming into being, but ceases to depend on
me when it continues to exist and no longer comes into being.
Therefore, my act depends on me in this respect only, and the ground
will thus be affirmed in the original case.
It may seem strange to argue for the existence of God from human
acts, rather than from the need of natural events generally for causes. Yet
this oblique way is forced on those Mutazilites who employ this argu-
ment by their physics: many of them reject natural causality, and affirm
that God creates all generated things, except accidents produced by the
power of living creatures. Hence, when I move my pen, my power will
generate the accident of motion in it; however, when running water
moves a pebble, the accident of motion in the pebble will be generated
by Gods power, not by the water. Our acts, therefore, provide the only
case where we can observe both the originated thing and its originator
and conclude that the former is generated by the latter. The existence of
the creator will then be the only explanation for the generation of the
existence of other accidents and all atoms, as Abd al-Jabbar writes:
Everything that is [beyond the capacity of created beings] is evidence
for Him.43
Mutazilites criticised Asharites on account of their contention that
human acts are generated by divine, rather than human, power: since
they cannot affirm that power generates things in the observable
realm, they cannot affirm the same in the unobservable realm. They
will be unable to accept the causal premise in the argument, and will
thus fail both to explain the world as a divine act and to prove the
existence of God. Juwayn retorts that Asharites use the closely related
particularisation argument, which does not resort to the above ana-
logy.44 Asharites indeed rarely use this basic argument from creation,
involving the major premise, What is originated requires an originator,
except in an informal and non-technical manner. Raz attacks each step
in the above analogical argument, arguing at length that coming into
being cannot be the ground for a things requiring a cause.45
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Arguments from particularisation
This is the main form of argument used by early Asharites, and is
often used by Mutazilites and later Asharites. It turns on the notion of
particularisation (takhs _ s _ ), which has its background in a trend dis-
tinctly characteristic of classical kalam, stemming from the sense that
randomness of any kind, in either quantity or quality, is inconceivable.
Every seemingly random fact about the world or things therein thus calls
for explanation. Different instances of this type of proof cite different
facts. The earliest arguments were relatively simple and departed from
the atomist framework of classical kalam, as in the following two
arguments advanced by the Asharite theologian al-Baqillan (d. 1013).
He argues that we observe identical things coming into being at
different times. If the occurrence of one thing at a particular moment is
due to an intrinsic quality thereof, all similar things should occur at the
same time. It thus appears that nothing intrinsic to the thing itself could
make it more likely to occur at a particular moment rather than at
another moment, or more likely to occur at a given moment than
another, similar thing. Therefore, there must be an external voluntary
effecter, who causes particular things to occur at particular moments.
Baqillan further argues that objects in this world have different
shapes, since they consist of different arrangements of atoms. Yet it is
conceivable for each object to have an arrangement different from the
one it actually has:
What is square can be round, and what is round square. What has the
shape of one particular animal can have that of another. Each object
may lose its shape to take on a different shape. It is inconceivable
that what has a certain particular shape will have it by virtue of
itself, or because it is possible for it to have it. Otherwise, if [the
latter] were the case, [the object] would have to take on every shape
that it may possibly take, all at the same time, so that it would
acquire all dissimilar shapes simultaneously.46
The absurdity of this, Baqillan continues, proves that the shapes of
objects must have been determined by a shaper, possessed of will.
Both arguments are occasionalistic and presuppose classical
Asharite atomism and a rejection of natural causality. Things, we are
told, do not come into being at particular moments with particular
characteristics because of any natural factors, such as intrinsic proper-
ties therein or a causal nexus between one moment and another. There
is no natural necessity determining the way things actually are. All
things, rather, consist of identical atoms and of different accidents
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present in them, which come in and out of existence at every moment.
At each moment, therefore, every atom will have endless possibilities
and will hence require an external factor to determine its properties and
the accidents to be generated in it. This, it is argued, must be God.
As mentioned, the general particularisation argument can take dif-
ferent types of facts as its point of departure. The foregoing examples
focus on the when and how with respect to the generation of things. In
later, more sophisticated, arguments advanced by Juwayn, the same
lines of reasoning are applied to the world as a whole, which allows
him to transcend the occasionalistic bias of earlier particularisation
arguments.
He argues, first, that since the world is generated, it must have come
into being at a particular point in time. This implies that a separate
particularisation agent must exist to select this particular moment for
creating the world out of other possible moments. Such selection can
only be made by a voluntary agent. An unchanging, non-voluntary pre-
eternal cause will necessitate its effect and will thus produce a pre-
eternal world; yet the world, Juwayn argues, has been shown to be
temporally originated.47 This argument faces the problem that it implies
that time existed before creation, a doctrine that was subject to much
debate.48
Elsewhere, Juwayn also argues that if we observe the world, we find
that it consists of things that have great variety in their attributes,
composition and circumstances. None of these, however, is necessary,
as the mind can imagine all things being otherwise. It becomes evident,
he continues, that since the world is possible, it will require a deter-
minant [muqtad _ ], which determines it in the way it actually is. What
could exist in different possible ways cannot exist randomly (ittifaqan),
without a determinant, in one particular way.49 Again, the determinant
has to be a voluntary agent; for a non-voluntary factor will necessitate a
uniform, undifferentiated effect, whereas this world consists of highly
complex parts, which do not behave in simple, uniform ways.50 Ghazal
writes with reference to the notion of particularisation: The world
came into existence whence it did, having the description with which it
came to exist, and in the place in which it came to exist, through will,
will being an attribute whose function is to differentiate a thing from its
similar.51
Such particularisation arguments, which refer to characteristics of
the world or things therein differ crucially from arguments from design.
The latter focus on aspects of perfection, masterly production, or
providence in the world. Particularisation arguments, by contrast, depart
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from the mere fact that existents in this world, regardless of their
perfection, imperfection, goodness or badness, are possible, since they
exist in one particular way rather than another, and thus require an
external factor to select this possibility over all other possibilities. Such
arguments aim only at proving that the world has a voluntary producer,
whereas arguments from design seek to prove that the world must have
a wise, powerful and good producer.
Finally, Juwayn goes further to develop a third argument by
applying the particularisation principle to the fact that the world exists.
In this crucial modification to the particularisation argument, he frees it
completely from the constraints of atomist physics. He first demon-
strates that the world is temporally originated, then writes:
What is temporally originated is a possible existent (jaiz al-wujud);
for it is possible to conceive its existence rather than its non-
existence, and it is possible to conceive its non-existence rather than
its existence. Thus, since it is characterised by possible existence
rather than possible non-existence, it will require a particularising
factor (mukhas _ s _ is _ ), viz. the Creator, be He exalted.52
The argument departs from the fact that the world exists, regardless
of what it consists of and the way in which it exists. Since it is equally
possible that the world did not exist, the fact that it does exist points to
an external factor which effected one of the two possibilities.
In this argument, Juwayn marries the argument from creation
ex nihilo to the particularisation argument, which allows him, as an
Asharite, to argue that the world requires an originator because it is
temporally originated, without resorting to the Mutazilite analogy from
human action. More crucially, Juwayns modified argument brings the
particularisation argument close to Avicennas argument from contin-
gency, paving theway for a synthesis of the two arguments in laterkalam.
avicennas argument from contingency
The central proof for the existence of God that Avicenna puts forth is
the proof from contingency (imkan). In line with the Neoplatonic trad-
ition, he attempts to prove an ultimate efficient cause for bringing the
world into being, rather than a cause for motion in the world, as Aristotle
does. Unlikemost other proofs, this proof depicts God as a non-voluntary
First Cause, which produces the world from pre-eternity by Its essence.
Thus, despite its great influence on laterMuslim thought, the proof had to
be adjusted to conform to more orthodox conceptions of God.
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Avicenna claims to advance a purely metaphysical proof (as opposed
to a physical proof), one that rests purely on an analysis of the notion of
existence qua existence, without consideration of any attributes of the
physical world.53 He writes:
Reflect on how our proof for the existence and oneness of the First
and His being free from attributes did not require reflection on
anything except existence itself and how it did not require any
consideration of His creation and acting even though the latter
[provide] evidential proof for Him.
This mode, however, is more reliable and noble, that is, where
when we consider the state of existence, we find that existence
inasmuch as it is existence bears witness to Him, while He
thereafter bears witness to all that comes after Him in existence.54
If true, this characterisation would set the proof apart from all
contemporaneous, cosmological and teleological proofs. In contempor-
ary terminology, it would qualify it to be an ontological proof, that is to
say, a proof which argues for the existence of God entirely from a priori
premises and makes no use of any premises that derive from our
observation of the world. Recent studies of Avicennas proof, however,
differ on whether the argument is cosmological or indeed ontological.55
As we will see, doubt with regard to the purported fundamental novelty
of Avicennas proof was expressed centuries ago.
The proof rests on conceptions that, Avicenna contends, are primary
in the mind, intuited without need of sensory perception and mental
cogitation, namely the existent and the necessary. The conception
the possible, being what is neither necessary nor impossible, is either
equally primary, or derived directly from the conception the necessary.
An existent, by virtue of itself, is either possibly existent, or
necessarily existent. If we posit an existent that is necessary in itself,
then, Avicenna argues, it will have to be uncaused, absolutely simple,
one and unique. If we posit an existent that is possible in itself, it will
have to depend for its existence on another existent. The latter will be its
cause, not in the sense of being an antecedent accidental cause for its
temporal generation, but as a coexistent essential cause for its con-
tinuous existence. If this cause is itself a possible existent, it will have to
exist by virtue of another. The series of actual existents, Avicenna
argues, cannot continue ad infinitum, but must terminate in an
uncaused existent that is necessary in itself.
But why does a possible existent require a cause to exist? Avicenna
proves this using the argument from particularisation, apparently
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borrowed from kalam. A possible existent can exist or not exist. It will
exist only once the scale is tipped by an external cause such that its
existence becomes preponderant over its non-existence. When this
occurs, its existence will be necessitated by its cause.
Now, the proof for the existence of God runs as follows. There is no
doubt that there is existence. Every existent, by virtue of itself, is either
possible or necessary. If necessary, then this is the existent being sought,
namely God. If possible, then it will ultimately require the necessary
existent in order to exist. In either case, God must exist.56
Apparently based entirely on an analysis of a priori conceptions and
premises, the proof will appear ontological. However, other consider-
ations suggest that the proof is fundamentally cosmological. For
instance, the deliberately abstract and unexplained premise, There is
no doubt that there is existence, appears to derive from our knowledge
that there is no doubt that something exists, or it may even mean the
same as the latter statement.57 When the proof then goes on to appeal to
the dichotomy of possible existence and necessary existence, it branches
into two hypothetical directions: that this indubitable existence is either
possible or necessary. But this then begs the following question: if our
indubitable knowledge that there actually is existence is examined, will
this existence turn out to be possible or necessary? In other words, will
this knowledge derive from our awareness (no matter how primitive and
abstract) of possible existents or necessary ones? Of course, we cannot be
aware of necessary existents; therefore, our indubitable knowledge of
existence must relate to our awareness of possible existence. Inevitably,
it seems, the proof reasons on the basis of possible existence using the
causal premise, which explains the existence of possible existents by
reference to a necessary existent. It hence appears to hinge on the
existence of things other than God to prove His existence.
Indeed, eight centuries ago, Raz wrote that all proofs for the exist-
ence of God depart from facts about the world, except that Avicenna had
claimed to have advanced a fundamentally new proof purportedly based
on a consideration of existence qua existence, without consideration of
things other than God. He quotes Avicennas above statement to this
effect. This claim, however, invites two objections from Raz. First, this
proof depends on a causal premise: the proof in fact infers the existence
of the necessary [existent] from the [actual] existence of the contingent.
Second, even if it proves a necessary existent, one will still need to
demonstrate that it is other than the physical things perceptible in this
world (this recalls the series of proofs, already referred to, which Avi-
cenna advances for the simplicity, oneness and uniqueness of the
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necessary existent).58 In other words, the argument presupposes these
different considerations about the world: one should prove that the
world is not necessarily existent, but contingent, and that a contingent
requires a necessary existent to exist, before concluding that God,
therefore, exists. A good proof indeed, Raz would add, but not an
ontological one. Nevertheless, even if such criticisms are accepted,
Avicenna should nonetheless be credited with the first attempt ever to
advance such a proof.59
Further reading
Primary texts in translation
al-Bayd _ aw, Abdullah ibn Umar, T
_ awali al-Anwar, tr. Edwin E. Calverley and
James W. Pollock, in Nature, Man and God in Medieval Islam, 2 vols.
(Leiden, 2002), esp. vol. ii, pp. 72748.
al-Ghazal, Abu H _ amid, The Jerusalem Epistle [Al-Qudsiyya], tr. A. Tibawi, in
Islamic Quarterly 9 (1965), pp.62122, esp. pp. 969.
Ibn Rushd, Abu l-Wald, Faith and Reason: Averroes Exposition of Religious
Arguments [Al-Kashf an manahij al-adilla f aqaid al-milla], tr. I. Najjar
(Oxford, 2001), esp. pp.1638.
al-Jah _ iz _ , Amr ibn Bah
_ r, Chance or Creation [al-Dalail wa-l-itibar], tr. M. A. S.
Abdel Haleem (Reading, 1995).
al-Juwayn, Abd al-Malik, A Guide to Conclusive Proofs for the Principles of
Belief [Al-Irshad], tr. Paul E. Walker (Reading, 2000), esp. pp.1118.
al-Qasim ibn Ibrahm, Kitab al-dall al-kabr, tr. Binyamin Abrahamov, in
Al-K _ asim b. Ibrahm on the Proof of Gods Existence (Leiden, 1990).
Secondary texts
Craig, William, The Kalam Cosmological Argument (New York, 1979).
Davidson, Herbert, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in
Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York and Oxford, 1987).
Goodman, Lenn, Ghazals argument from creation, International Journal of
Middle East Studies 2 (1971), pp.6785, 16888.
Hallaq, Wael B., Ibn Taymiyya on the existence of God, Acta Orientalia 52
(1991), pp.4969.
Marmura, Michael E., Avicennas proof from contingency for Gods
existence in the Metaphysics of the Shifa , Mediaeval Studies 42
(1980), pp.33752.
Mayer, Toby, Ibn Snas Burhan al-S _ iddqn, Journal of Islamic Studies 12
(2001), pp.1839.
Morewedge, Parviz, A third version of the ontological argument in the Ibn
Snian metaphysics, in Parviz Morewedge (ed.), Islamic Philosophical
Theology (New York, 1979), pp. 188222.
Yaran, Cafer S., Islamic Thought on the Existence of God (Washington, 2003).
214 Ayman Shihadeh
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Notes
1. This view found expression in a dedicated genre on what every Muslim ought to believe in, represented by Muh
_ ammad ibn al-T
_ ayyib
al-Baqillan, al-Ins _ af f ma yajibu itiqaduhu wa-la yajuzu al-jahl bih,
ed. Muh _ ammad al-Kawthar (Cairo, 1963).
2. See Wael B. Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya on the existence of God, Acta Orientalia 52 (1991), pp.4969.
3. Al-Ghazal, The Jerusalem Epistle [Al-Qudsiyya], tr. A. L. Tibawi, in Islamic Quarterly 9 (1965), p.98.
4. Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz, al-Mat _ alib al-aliya minal-ilm al-ilah, ed.
Ah _ mad al-Saqqa, 8 vols. (Beirut, 1987), i, p.71. He gives two other
types, which he then includes under these four. For greater chronological accuracy, the arguments are presented here in reverse order.
5. Mah _ mud ibn Muh
_ ammad al-Malah
_ im, al-Mutamad f us
_ ul al-dn, ed.
Martin McDermott and Wilferd Madelung (London, 1991), pp.7981. 6. On the background to this Mutazilite view, see Harry Wolfson, The
Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge,MA, 1976), pp.624ff.; Josef van Ess, Early Islamic theologians on the existence of God, in Khalil I. Semaan (ed.), Islam and the Medieval West (Albany, 1980), pp.6481, at pp.757.
7. Cf. Mankdm Shashdw [Abd al-Jabbar], Sharh _ al-us
_ ul al-khamsa, ed.
Abd al-Karm Uthman (Cairo, 1965), p.67. 8. Cf. ibid. 9. Cf. Malah
_ im, Mutamad, pp.812; Mankdm, Sharh
_ , p.69.
10. See Ayman Shihadeh, The Teleological Ethics of Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz (Leiden, 2006), pp.49ff.
11. Abd al-Malik al-Juwayn, al-Shamil f us _ ul al-dn, ed. A. al-Nashshar et
al. (Alexandria, 1969), p.115. Cf. Juwayn, A Guide to Conclusive Proofs for the Principles of Belief [Al-Irshad], tr. Paul E. Walker (Reading, 2000), pp.57.
12. Al-Juwayn, Shamil, pp.11819, reading jarat for kharq, and h _ alih for
h _ ala.
13. Al-Raz, Muh _ as _ s _ al afkar al-mutaqaddimn wal-mutaakhkhirn min
al-ulama wa-l-h _ ukama wal-mutakallimn, ed. H. Atay (Cairo, 1991),
pp.1345. 14. Al-Juwayn, Shamil, p.117. 15. Raz, Muh
_ as _ s _ al, p.134; cf. Shihadeh, Teleological Ethics, pp.56ff.
16. I here apply the conventional Kantian classification of arguments for the existence of God into teleological arguments, cosmological arguments and ontological arguments (cf. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B 61819). The last two types are defined below.
17. The Quran, tr. Muhammad Abdel Haleem (Oxford, 2004). 18. Cf. Juwayn, Shamil, pp.277, 287. 19. Cf. Herbert Davidson, Proofs for Eternity: Creation and the Existence of
God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York and Oxford, 1987), pp.219ff.
20. English translations of both texts are available (see Further reading).
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21. Raz, Mat _ alib, i, p.233.
22. See also Averroes, Faith and Reason: Averroes Exposition of Religious Arguments [Al-Kashf an manahij al-adilla f aqaid al-milla], tr. I. Najjar (Oxford, 2001), p.33, who distinguishes between the argument from design (ikhtira) and the argument from providence (inaya).
23. Raz, Mat _ alib, i, p.234.
24. Raz, Asrar al-tanzl wa-anwar al-tawl, ed. M. Muh _ ammad et al.
(Baghdad, 1985), p.151. 25. Raz, Mat
_ alib, i, pp.21824.
26. Ibid., i, pp. 2245. On Abu Bakr al-Razs notion of God, see Michael E. Marmura, The Islamic philosophers conception of Islam, in R. Hovannisian (ed.), Islams Understanding of Itself (Malibu, 1981), pp. 87102.
27. Raz, Asrar, p.151; cf. Mat _ alib, i, p.216.
28. On this notion, see Shihadeh, Teleological Ethics, pp.142ff. 29. Raz (Mat
_ alib, i, p.239) also recognises the importance of cumulating
arguments more generally for the existence of God. Even if each separately does not provide certainty, their cumulative force may achieve this. For a recent defence of such a strategy, see Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford, 1991), pp.1315.
30. Raz, Mat _ alib, i, pp.216, 236.
31. H _ uduth is rendered as either generation or temporal origination,
depending on context. 32. On proofs for the existence of accidents, see Davidson, Proofs, pp.180ff. 33. Abd al-Jabbar, al-Majmu fil-muh
_ t _ bil-taklf, ed. J. Houben, 2 vols.
(Beirut, 1965), i, pp.2867; Malah _ im, Mutamad, pp.84154; Davidson,
Proofs, p.140. 34. Averroes, Faith and Reason, pp.256; cf. Davidson, Proofs, pp.1434. 35. Juwayn, Shamil, pp.215ff., and Guide, p.15; Davidson, Proofs,
pp.1436. 36. See Davidson, Proofs, pp.87ff., 117ff. 37. Malah
_ im, Mutamad, pp.1512.
38. Raz, Mat _ alib, Book 4; Muammer Iskenderoglu, Fakhr al-Dn al-Raz
and Thomas Aquinas on the Question of the Eternity of the World (Brill, 2002), pp.69ff. In his earlier works, Raz defends the doctrine of creation ex nihilo.
39. Raz, Mat _ alib, i, p.207. This view was also taken by Ghazal, al-Iqtis
_ ad
fil-itiqad, ed. Ibrahim Agah Cubukcu and Huseyin Atay (Ankara, 1962), pp.256.
40. Cf. Abd al-Jabbar, Majmu, i, pp.6893. The analogy is summarised by Malah
_ im (Mutamad, pp.1724) and Raz (Mat
_ alib, i, pp.21012), both
of whom reject it. 41. On analogy in kalam cf. Ayman Shihadeh, From al-Ghazal to
al-Raz: 6th/12th century developments in Muslim philosophical theology, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 15 (2005), pp.14179, pp.165ff.
42. On these forms of argument, see Shihadeh, From al-Ghazal to al-Raz, pp.1657; Josef van Ess, The logical structure of Islamic
216 Ayman Shihadeh
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
theology, in G. von Grunebaum (ed.), Logic in Classical Islamic Culture (Los Angeles, 1967), pp.2150, passim.
43. Abd al-Jabbar, Majmu, p.28. 44. Juwayn, Shamil, pp.2767, 2856. 45. Raz, Mat
_ alib, i, p.214; iv, pp.2319.
46. Muh _ ammad al-Baqillan, Tamhd al-awail wa-talkhs
_ al-dalail, ed.
I. H _ aydar (Beirut, 1987), pp.434.
47. Juwayn, Shamil, pp.263ff., and Guide, p.17; Juwayn al-Aqda al-Niz
_ amiyya, ed. M. al-Kawthar (Cairo, 1948), p.20.
48. Cf. al-Ghazal, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, tr. Michael E. Marmura (Provo, UT, 1997), p.31.
49. Juwayn, Niz _ amiyya, p.16.
50. Ibid., p.17. 51. Ghazal, Incoherence, p.22. 52. Juwayn, Luma al-adilla, ed. Fawqya H
_ usayn, Mah
_ mud (Cairo, 1965),
pp.801. 53. Abu Al ibn Sna, The Metaphysics of The Healing, tr. Michael
E. Marmura (Provo, UT, 2005), p.4; cf. Davidson, Proofs, pp.284ff. 54. Ibn Sna, al-Isharat wal-tanbhat, ed. Sulayman Dunya (Cairo, 1938),
p.482; tr. Michael E. Marmura, Avicennas proof from contingency for Gods existence in theMetaphysics of the Shifa ,Mediaeval Studies 42 (1980), pp.33752, at p.340.
55. Ontological, a priori proof: Marmura, Avicennas proof; Parviz Morewedge, A third version of the ontological argument in the Ibn Snian metaphysics, in Parviz Morewedge (ed.), Islamic Philosophical Theology (New York, 1979), pp.188222. Cosmological proof: Herbert Davidson, Avicennas proof of the existence of God as a necessarily existent being, in ibid., pp.16587. See also Toby Mayer, Ibn Snas Burhan al-s
_ iddqn , Journal of Islamic Studies 12 (2001), pp.1839,
which engages in this debate. 56. The above summary of Avicennas arguments is based on his Isharat,
Najat and Shifa; Marmura, Avicennas Proof; Davidson, Proofs, pp.281310.
57. The latter statement, for Avicenna, would still constitute a priori knowledge, since he maintains, first, that existence is a primary concept, and second, that one has a priori knowledge of the existence of ones own self, which is clearly less primitive than knowledge that something exists.
58. Raz, Mat _ alib, i, pp.534.
59. This debate continues after Raz. For instance, Jalal al-Dn al-Dawwan (d. 1502) advances a slightly modified version of Avicennas argument, and attempts to answer the objection that it indeed starts from the existence of possible existents: Risalat Ithbat al-wajib al-jadda, in Sab rasail, ed. Ah
_ mad Tuysirkan (Tehran, 2001), pp.11570, at
pp.11819.
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11 Worship
william c. chittick
Worship can be defined as the appropriate human response to the divine.
Having said this, we might jump to an analysis of the rites, rituals and
other activities classified as worship in the Islamic tradition. But that
approach would ignore the basic theological questions: what exactly is
God that he deserves to be worshipped? What exactly are human
beings that worship should be demanded of them? What exactly makes
the human response appropriate? It is to these questions that I turn
my attention here. To keep the discussion within bounds, however, I
limit myself to notions connected with the Arabic word ibada, which is
normally translated as worship or service.
Ibada is a gerund from the verb abada. In his ArabicEnglish
Lexicon, E.W. Lane offers a range of English equivalents for the religious
meaning of this verb, such as rendering God service, worship, or ador-
ation, and obeying God with humility or submissiveness. The verb also
means to be or become an abd: a slave, servant, or bondsman.1 This
word is familiar to those who do not know Arabic because of its com-
mon usage in the names of Muslim men (abddivine name; e.g. Abd Allah, the servant/slave of God). Generally, abd designates the proper
situation of a human being before God. It is often discussed as the
complement of the divine name Lord (rabb), though it is also paired with
Master (sayyid) and Patron (mawla). The word is a near synonym of
the active participle abid, but the latter can better be translated as
worshipper. The texts sometimes highlight the complementarity of
Lord and servant by using the past participles, mabud or object of
worship, as an equivalent for Lord andmarbub, vassal (literally, the
one who is lorded over) as an equivalent for servant.
Whether abd should be translated as slave or servant has
often been debated. The different meanings of the two English words
reflect a constant tension in Islamic theology between divine
omnipotence and human freedom. Those who would like to stress the
absolute power and authority of God seem to prefer slave. Those
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who would like to stress human responsibility opt for servant.
Others have used bondsman, perhaps attempting to suggest a
subtler relationship.
In discussing worship (ibada), the texts often use a second gerund
from the same verb, ubudiyya, which I translate here as servant-
hood.2 Both ibada and ubudiyya designate the activity denoted by the
verb abada, but ubudiyya is more associated with the activity of an
abd or servant, and ibada with the activity of an abid or worshipper.
When discussion focuses on ritual activities, ibada is typically used,
and then the plural, ibadat, designates acts of worship, such as prayer
and fasting. In jurisprudence, the plural is typically contrasted with
muamalat, transactions or interactions. Thus ibadat are required
or recommended acts done solely for God, and muamalat are inter-
personal and social acts done with Gods guidance.
Although ibada and ubudiyya (worship and servanthood) tend to
have different usages, the line between the two is not clearly drawn, so
any discussion of one demands a discussion of the other as well. Thus,
when the Quran commands ubudullah, this does not mean simply
Worship God, but also Serve God and Be Gods servants/slaves.
Generally speaking, worship and servanthood are discussed in two
branches of Islamic learning: jurisprudence and Sufism. As I use the
latter term, it can perhaps better be called Islamic spirituality, that is,
a concern with the inner life of the soul. As such, Sufism is likely to
be found in any Muslim, whether or not he or she has links with any
institutional form associated with the name. Generally, authors with a
Sufi orientation attempt to bring out the moral, ethical, psychological
and spiritual implications of worship. In contrast, jurists delineate,
describe and codify acts of worship and the prescribed duties or recom-
mended behaviour of the servants.
The earlier texts discuss worship and servanthood largely in terms of
a moral imperative. Many later texts, especially from Ibn Arab
onwards, ground the moral imperative in what can be called an onto-
logical imperative. This perspective includes discussion of the Divine
Being, the structure of the cosmos, and the reality of the human soul. In
modern times, most well-known Muslim authors have continued to
cling to the moral imperative, but they have lost touch with the onto-
logical imperative. Indignantly denying the death of God, they none-
theless go along with its implications by embracing the demise of
metaphysics. Instead of standing on the solid ground of Being, they
attempt to root the moral imperative in the shifting sands of empirical
science, political ideology and critical theory.
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the moral imperative
The centrality of worship in Islam is demonstrated already by the
very structure of sura 1, known as the Opener (al-Fatih _ a), which is
traditionally understood as the epitome of the Quran. After beginning in
Gods name, the Fatih _ a praises God in three verses. The final two verses
offer the request of the servant. Verse 5, which is structurally the mid-
dle, provides the best-known andmost often recited reference to worship
in Islam: Thee alone we worship/serve, and from Thee alone we seek
help. Many commentators refer to the manner in which this specific
verse situates human beings between God and the world. Worship, they
tell us, is the nexus, the point of contact, between God and man, and it is
the heart of the Quran.
Many explicit quranic commandments tell people to worship God.
Both the imperative and its rationale are summed up in the sound
hadith, Gods right (h _ aqq) over His servants is that they worship God
and associate nothing with Him. The servants right over God is that He
not chastise anyone who associates nothing with Him.3 This hadith
puts the prophetic message in a nutshell: the One God holds human
beings accountable. The criterion for judging whether or not the servants
have lived up to their accountability revolves around the word h _ aqq, one
of the most important terms in the Islamic sciences.
The Quran employs the word h _ aqq along with various derivatives
about 300 times. In half a dozen cases, the word explicitly designates
God, so it is included in the lists of divine names (in the Islamic lan-
guages, it is a virtual synonym for Allah). As a noun, the word means
truth, reality, rightness, appropriateness, worthiness, right, responsi-
bility; the choice of an equivalent has more to do with English usage
than the Arabic meaning. It is difficult to say in any given case that the
word does not have all of these senses, especially when the Quran
applies it to God, or to itself, or to the message of a prophet. The word
h _ aqqa, from the same root, is used in the Islamic sciences in a similar
range of meanings. The goal of a science is to find h _ aqqa truth, reality,
rightness, correctness within the limits imposed by its tools and
methodologies.
To talk of worship, then, is to talk about the central issue of
Islamic learning, which is h _ aqq in the absolute and relative senses of the
word. In the absolute sense, the word designates God as reality, right-
ness, truth, and appropriateness; in the relative sense, it designates
the created repercussions of the Divine H _ aqq. One can also say that the
central issue in Islamic learning is h _ uquq the plural of h
_ aqq. Thus we
220 William C. Chittick
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have h _ uquq Allah and h
_ uquq al-insan, often translated (especially in
modern political discourse) as divine rights and human rights.
God has many rights over human beings, not simply one; but
Gods unity compresses all these rights into one right, and that right
has no more appropriate name than worship or servanthood. Gods
h _ aqq, His rightness, reality, truth, and worthiness, demands human
worship. Gods right (h _ aqq) is mans responsibility (h
_ aqq). Ful-
filling that responsibility is to achieve the truth, reality and worthiness
of human nature. It is to reach completion and fulfilment, the posthu-
mous repercussion of which is called Paradise.
If Gods right over mankind is that they worship God and associate
nothing with Him, and if worship is to abase and humble oneself before
God and to submit oneself to Him, then the first issue that needs to be
clarified is the object of worship (mabud), and the second the proper
method of serving that object. Knowledge of the object of worship is
provided most succinctly by the first Testimony of Faith (Shahada), No
god but God, known as kalimat al-tawh _ d, the word that expresses
divine unity. The right manner of worshipping follows upon the second
Shahada, Muh _ ammad is Gods Messenger. The first Shahada states
the h _ aqq of God, the second reformulates this h
_ aqq as it impinges upon
human responsibility. In other words, the second Shahada announces
the correct and appropriate response, which is worship and servanthood.
The Quran universalises these two dimensions of religion (tawh _ d and
worship) by making them pertain to all the prophets: We never sent a
messenger before thee except that We revealed to him, There is no god
but I, so worship/serve Me (21:25).
Islamic theology God-talk in all its forms is concerned with
clarifying the reality of the Object of Worship, the Absolute H _ aqq, so
that people can relate to it in the right and appropriate manner. The
importance of knowledge cannot be overstressed. The Quran and the
tradition established on its basis represent, in Franz Rosenthals mem-
orable phrase, knowledge triumphant.4 A worshipper without know-
ledge of the object of his worship and the right and proper ways of acting
toward the object is, as the Prophet is reported to have said, like a
donkey in a mill.5 Al put it this way: There is no good in a worship in
which there is no knowledge, and there is no good in a knowledge in
which there is no understanding.6 Jafar al-S _ adiq, the sixth Imam of the
Shites and an authority for Sunn scholars as well, defines intellect
(aql) the faculty of knowing specific to human beings as that by
which the All-Merciful is worshipped and the Gardens attained.7
Ghazal represents mainstream thinking when he explains the meaning
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of the verse, I created jinn and mankind only to worship Me (51:56), as
follows: That is, to be My servants. No servant will be a servant until
he knows his Lord in His Lordship and himself in his servanthood. He
must come to know himself and his Lord, and this is the final goal of
Gods sending the prophets.8
More than a statement about God, the first Shahada is a method-
ology for coming to know God. The Quran, Gods Speech, is His self-
revelation. It is summed up in the epithets that God gives to Himself
(the ninety-nine most beautiful names). Explaining the meanings of
these names was one of the most important genres of theology from
early times. The point of the exercise was first to understand exactly
what the names designated and second to open up the way to an
appropriate human assimilation of the qualities and characteristics
designated by the names. Thus Ghazal, in his commentary on the
divine names, provides a long discussion of al-takhalluq bi-akhlaq
Allah, assuming the character traits of God as ones own character
traits,9 an expression that was already well known in the literature and
was sometimes attributed to the Prophet.
The formula of tawh _ d is divided into two parts: the negation (no
god) and the affirmation (but God). The general methodology was to
negate divine qualities from all that cannot rightly (bil-h _ aqq) lay claim
to them, and to affirm that these qualities belong rightly to God. God
calls Himself the Just, the Merciful, the Knowing. In what sense does
our understanding of justice, mercy and knowledge apply? What needs to
be negated from the imperfect applications of justice, mercy and
knowledge that we find in the world and in ourselves, and what needs to
be affirmed for God so that we can say, with correct and proper under-
standing, There is none just but God, there is none merciful but God,
there is none truly knowing but God?
The process of assimilating tawh _ d into the human soul is called
ikhlas _ , which means to make pure or to be sincere (notice that sura 112
is called both al-Tawh _ d and al-Ikhlas
_ ). The Quran repeatedly uses
derivatives of this word to describe true believers and worthy worship-
pers. We have sent down upon you the Book with al-h _ aqq, so worship
God, making the religion pure for Him [or being sincere to Him in the
religion]. Does not pure/sincere religion belong to God? (39:23). The
process of achieving purity of worship demands that servants rid
themselves of impure worship, which is wrongly directed worship;
hence the imperative of knowledge.
When impure worship is contrasted with sincerity, it is typically
called hypocrisy (nifaq). The basic sense of the Arabic word is to
222 William C. Chittick
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sell oneself, that is, to act for peoples sake rather than for Gods sake.
A second quranic expression that is commonly used in the same
meaning is riya, eye-service, acting with the intention of being
seen by others. In contrast, sincerity is to worship and serve God
alone. It is to negate from Him everything inappropriate and to affirm
for Him everything appropriate. The inappropriate the not h _ aqq, the
bat _ il (false, vain, wrong) is summed up in one word: shark, partner
or associate. According to one early commentator, the command
O people, worship/serve your Lord (2:21) means Declare His
unity (wah _ h _ iduhu, that is, acknowledge tawh
_ d). Another says that
it means, Purify/make sincere the worship of your Lord by not
taking any partner with Him.10
The word shirk, which designates the act of ascribing a partner to
God or associating something with him, is taken as the opposite of
tawh _ d. Just as sincerity is tawh
_ d put into practice, so hypocrisy is
shirk put into practice. And just as tawh _ d is the salvific content of the
religious message, so shirk is a sure road to hell. According to Quran
4:48 and 4:116, shirk is the one sin that cannot be forgiven if taken into
the grave. Quran 4:145 tells us that the hypocrites will be placed in the
deepest pit of hell.
The texts are not much interested in polytheism in the literal
sense of the English word, that is, the worship of several gods at once,
because the unity of God was far too self-evident to need a great deal of
defence. Polytheistic beliefs were ascribed to other religious commu-
nities and to unbelievers. Such beliefs were labelled shirk jal, manifest
or obvious association. Muchmore insidious and dangerous for Muslims
was shirk khaf, hidden association. When the Prophet heard some
Companions discussing the Antichrist, he told them that there was
something he feared much more than that: Hidden shirk: in other
words, that a man should perform the s _ alat and do it beautifully for the
sake of someone who is watching.11 This is precisely hypocrisy and
eye-service. Most of the literature focuses on this sort of shirk. Ibn
At _ as remark is typical: Shirk is that you behold other than Him or
that you see loss or gain from other than Him.12
The question of shirk brings us back to the issue of the object of
worship. Whom in fact are we serving? The Quran stigmatises the false
gods that people worship, but it comes down especially hard on hawa,
caprice or whim. As Ghazal puts it, Whoever follows caprice is the
servant of caprice, not the servant of God.13 Junayd tells us that when
something unexpected happens, the first thought from which you seek
help is your object of worship.14 Abu Al al-Daqqaq provides the key to
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discernment here: You are the servant of him in whose bondage and
prison you are. If you are in prison to yourself, then you are the servant of
yourself, and if you are in prison to this world of yours, then you are a
servant of this world of yours.15
In short, to worship none but God (Quran 3:64) is what Ibn At _ a
calls the realisation of tawh _ d.16 Realisation translates tah
_ qq, the
second form gerund from h _ aqq. It means to put h
_ aqq into practice, to
establish the truth, right, reality and appropriateness of something, to
actualise the h _ aqq of things in oneself. Its sense in the early texts can
perhaps best be understood in terms of the well-authenticated hadith,
Your soul has a h _ aqq against you, your Lord has a h
_ aqq against you,
your guest has a h _ aqq against you, and your spouse has a h
_ aqq against
you; so give to each that has a h _ aqq its h
_ aqq.17 Realisation is to give
oneself, ones Lord and all things their h _ aqq. So, if worship is the
realisation of tawh _ d, this means that it is to give God his due and to
give his creatures their due in accord with the divine H _ aqq. It is to be at
once a sincere worshipper and a perfect servant.
To realise tawh _ d is to practise ikhlas
_ : to purify the mind, heart and
intention from everything but the divine H _ aqq and, on that basis, to
attend to the rights of the creatures. The most important obstacle to
giving God and things their h _ aqq is a false sense of reality and self-
sufficiency. The general stand is that hypocrisy is caused by failing to
recognise the absolute reality of God and ignoring the evanescence,
instability and unreliability of the human situation. Creation is nothing
in face of God; God alone is truth, reality, rightness and appropriateness
in the real senses of these words. Seeing oneself as possessing reality and
rights is shirk, associating a h _ aqq with al-H
_ aqq. As Junayd would have
it, the t _ aghut (idol) mentioned frequently in the Quran is ones own self;
or, it is everything other than God.18 As long as one keeps both God and
self in view and worships God on that basis, one is associating ones own
supposed h _ aqq with the absolute H
_ aqq. As Nas
_ rabadh tells us, Ser-
vanthood is to overthrow the seeing of ones own worship by contem-
plating the Object of Worship.19
That human beings are called upon to worship God implies an
affirmation of human strength and a power to carry out the worship.
No one denies that individual choice and initiative play an important
role, but the texts are extremely concerned that the individual self be
given only its h _ aqq, nothing more. There is a constant tension between
Gods absolute reality and human insignificance. It often comes up in
commentaries on the fifth verse of the Fatih _ a: Thee alone we worship,
and from Thee alone we seek help. Jafar al-S _ adiq explains that the
224 William C. Chittick
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second half of the verse means that we ask help from Gods strength and
sufficiency to worship Him properly.20 It is impossible for us to fulfil
Gods h _ aqq without His guidance and grace.
In a similar way, Junayd says, Servanthood is to abandon two
things: leaning on other than God and reliance on [ones own power of]
movement. When you have thrown these two things from yourself, you
have fulfilled the h _ aqq of servanthood.21 Reliance on oneself and ones
own strength leads to the idea that one can earn ones way into Paradise.
But this cannot stand up to analysis. Tawh _ d tells us that guidance to
right activity, the power to act and the actual activity are all given by
God. In other words, no servant can fulfil Gods right except by relying
totally upon Him, by purifying his religion of everything but attention
to Him alone. As al-H _ asan al-Bas
_ r put it, No one worships Him with
the h _ aqq of servanthood at the beginning or the end such that one must
receive a reward.22 Why then worship? al-Sulam explains: By Your
command we worship You. Otherwise, what use would worship be to
realise Your h _ aqq?23 The true servant is he who sees his own situation
clearly: He owns nothing and claims nothing for himself (Abu
Uthman al-Maghrib).24
One of the constant themes running through discussion of worship
is that the goal is to transform the soul and bring oneself into harmony
with God. In other words, worship cannot be divorced from akhlaq, a
word that is often translated as ethics but which means more literally
character traits. Moral transformation demands ridding oneself of
vices and acquiring virtues. Thus al-Wasit _ tells us that worship is
rooted in six moral attitudes: reverence, which leads to sincerity; shame,
which helps servants guard over their thoughts; fear, which holds them
back from sin; hope, which encourages them in acts of worship; love,
which allows them to devote their acts fully to God; and awe, which
helps them put aside the sense of self-sufficiency.25
The virtues were often seen as part of the help that God gives to His
servants so that they can worship Him. We have already noted that
acquiring virtue was often called assuming as ones own character the
character traits of God. Sulam waxes especially eloquent in describing
the virtues assumed by the true servant in his commentary on Quran
25:64, The servants of the Merciful are those who walk in the earth
modestly.
In the relevant chapter of his famous Treatise (Risala), Qushayr
offers a succinct definition of the early notion of worship and servant-
hood: Servanthood is to undertake the h _ aqq of the acts of obedience, on
condition of full exertion; to gaze upon what comes from yourself with
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the eye that sees shortcomings; and to witness your good traits as
coming from the divine determination.26
One of the earliest books to offer a systematic analysis of the moral
imperative was Observing the Rights of God (al-Riaya li-h _ uquq Allah)
by al-H _ arith al-Muh
_ asib (d. 857). The basic question he addressed was
how people can live up to their human responsibility to worship God
and associate nothing with Him. Although the book says relatively
little about worship and servanthood per se, it provides a thorough
analysis of the worshipping soul.
Observing the Rights of God is divided into nine parts. The first
describes the key moral and spiritual dimensions of worship, and the
somewhat longer second part explains the nature of hypocrisy and the
ways to overcome it. The next two parts deal with the importance of
proper companions and knowing ones own defects. The next four
chapters provide long analyses of the major obstacles to proper worship:
self-satisfaction (ujb), pride (kibr), delusion (ghurur), and envy (h _ asad).
In a short final section, the author describes how the aspirant should
keep his mind vigilantly upon God.
Muh _ asibs text begins not with a discussion of worship itself,
but with an analysis of taqwa, a quranic term that translators
have rendered into English with words such as piety, dutifulness,
godfearing, and righteousness. Its fundamental importance is made
clear in verses like 49:13: Surely the noblest of you in Gods sight is
the one with the most taqwa. The word combines the senses of fear,
caution and self-protection, and it comes up constantly in discussions
of worship. In his commentary on 2:21, O people, worship your
Lord, Sulam can say, Make the worship of your Lord sincere by not
taking any partner with Him. Then unity and sincerity will take you
to taqwa.27
Muh _ asib defines taqwa as being wary of shirk, of every lesser sin
prohibited by God, and of neglecting anything necessary made incum-
bent by God.28 Having reminded his readers of the many quranic
verses that command believers to have taqwa, he tells them, Taqwa is
the first waystation of the worshippers, and through it they will reach
the highest waystation.29 He then turns to a question posed by the
person for whom he wrote the book: What is it that you command me
to begin with? He answers:
That you know that you are a servant and a vassal and that you have
no deliverance except through taqwa before your Master and Patron.
Only then will you not perish.
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So remember and reflect: For what were you created? Why were
you put into this fleeting abode? You will come to know that you
were not created uselessly, nor were you left aimless. You were
created and put within this abode for testing and trial, so that you
may obey God or disobey Him, and then you will move on from this
abode to endless chastisement or endless bliss . . . The first thing
necessary for the well-being [s _ alah
_ ] of your soul and without which
it has no well-being and this is the first observance [riaya] is that
you know that your soul is a vassal [marbub] and a worshipper
[mutaabbid]. When you know that, then you will know that a
vassal and worshipper has no salvation save in obeying his Lord and
Patron. He has no guide to obeying his Lord and Master other than
knowledge, and then putting His commands and prohibitions into
practice according to their situations, causes and occasions. The
worshipper will not find that save in the Book of his Lord and the
sunna of His Prophet, for obedience is the path of salvation, and
knowledge is the guide on the path.30
The great summa of the moral imperative is Ghazals Revival of the
Religious Sciences (Ih _ ya ulum al-dn). The first of its four parts is
dedicated to ibadat, acts of worship; but this should not lead us to
conclude that the rest does not concern our topic. In fact, all four parts
(a total of forty books) explain what it means to be a servant of God.
Ghazal is simply setting down explicitly the moral and spiritual
implications of the quranic command to worship. The book is nothing
if not a statement of Gods right over human beings. His explanations,
however, remain largely in the moral, ethical and psycho-spiritual
spheres. He avoids both juridical discussions, which were amply dealt
with by other authors (and by himself in some of his other works), and
the ontological issues that were soon to become commonplace (and to
which he paid some attention in other writings).
In explaining why he wrote the Revival, Ghazal first condemns the
scholars of his time for busying themselves with worldly affairs and
using religion for their own ends. In other words, he begins by criticising
hypocrisy. Then he explains that true and useful knowledge is know-
ledge that impinges on ultimate human destiny. It is afterworldly
knowledge, which is to say that it paves the way for people to fulfil the
rights of God and the rights of man and to achieve their goal in life,
which is for God to deliver them from hell.
The book is divided into four parts because afterworldly knowledge
has two basic sorts: that which concerns outward things, such as the
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body and the limbs, and that which concerns inner things, such as
character traits and the states of the heart. Acts pertaining to outward
things can then be divided into acts of worship (ibadat) and customary
practices (adat). Acts pertaining to inner things can be divided into
blameworthy and praiseworthy traits.
The headings of Ghazals chapters provide a rough survey of what is
entailed by any thorough discussion of worship. Notice that Part 1, on
acts of worship, begins with the book of knowledge, which analyses
the creed. In other words, the first chapter unpacks the implications of
the two halves of the Shahada, the recitation of which is the first of the
five pillars of Islamic practice. The remaining nine books deal with
ritual purity, s _ alat (second pillar), zakat (third pillar), fasting (fourth
pillar), H _ ajj (fifth pillar), recitation of the Quran, remembrance (dhikr)
and supplication (dua), and the recitation of litanies (awrad).
Part 2 of the Revival outlines the proper attitudes and comportment
of true servants in daily activities. If these are not labelled acts of
worship, it is because that word is reserved for rites and rituals. But the
broad path of guidance set down by the Quran and the sunna is by no
means limited to ritual and cultic activities, and everything that Ghazal
discusses in this section is rooted in the guidance of these two sources
and of the pious forebears. The topics of the books are eating, marriage,
earning a living, the forbidden and the permitted, companionship and
social relationships, seclusion (uzla), travel, listening to music, com-
manding the good and forbidding the evil, and right conduct of living
along with the character traits of prophecy.
Part 3 of the Revival is reminiscent of Muh _ asibs Observing the
Rights of God in that it focuses on blameworthy character traits. It
begins with an especially important chapter called Explaining the
wonders of the heart, which is an analysis of the human soul and an
explanation of the necessity of self-knowledge. In his Alchemy of Hap-
piness (Kmiya-yi saadat), which is a popularising Persian summary of
the Revival, Ghazal puts this section at the very beginning of the book.
In the next nine chapters of Part 3, Ghazal addresses the training of the
soul; the regulation of the two appetites (the stomach and the puden-
dum); the blights of the tongue; the dangers of anger, rancour and envy;
the attractions of this world; possessions and stinginess; social rank and
hypocrisy; pride and self-satisfaction; and delusion.
The last part of the Revival delineates the character traits that need
to be acquired to establish taqwa and sincerity. This part is reminiscent
of many books written by the Sufis on the stations (maqamat) of the
path to God. The ten chapters cover repentance; patience and gratitude;
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fear and hope; poverty and renunciation; tawh _ d and trust in God; love,
yearning, intimacy and contentment; intention, truthfulness and sin-
cerity; introspection and self-accounting; meditation; and the remem-
brance of death.
the ontological imperative
The Quran is by no means simply a set of moral injunctions and
practical guidelines. It goes to great lengths to encourage people to
meditate on the signs (ayat) of God in both the natural world and the
soul so as to gain insight into Gods reality and rights. The Quran pays
special attention to the divine names and attributes that become
manifest in creation life, power, consciousness, speech, wrath, justice
and the fact that these provide general categories of understanding and
the means to communicate with God.
For centuries the major schools of thought (kalam, falsafa, juris-
prudence and Sufism) had remained relatively distinct disciplines,
though any given scholar, like Ghazal, might be expert in two or more
fields. Gradually, cross-fertilisation among the disciplines increased, and
Ibn Arab (d. 1240) brought them all together in one grand synthesis. His
voluminous writings cannot be classified according to the old categories,
but his enormous Meccan Openings (al-Futuh _ at al-Makkiyya) can be
considered the great summa of the ontological imperative.
Near the centre of Ibn Arabs approach lies the discussion of
wujud: existence or being. Before him, the word had been employed
primarily in philosophy and kalam. Ibn Arab confirmed that wujud
was another name for al-H _ aqq in itself: God as Reality, Truth, Rightness
and Appropriateness. Investigation of the implications of al-wujud
al-h _ aqq the Real Being meant paying a great deal of attention to
ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, cosmology and spiritual psycho-
logy. To be sure, philosophers and kalam experts before him had
investigated these fields, but none of them had put anywhere near the
same amount of effort into integrating these topics into the moral and
spiritual imperatives of the Quran.
Nothing is closer to the heart of Ibn Arabs project than clarifying
the path of servanthood. His basic question is, What does it mean to be
human? And his basic answer is, To be Gods servant. The goal of
human existence is to achieve what is right, proper and true, and this
can be done only by fulfilling the rights of God. The person who achieves
such a state, such as Muh _ ammad specifically and the other prophets
generally, is called al-insan al-kamil, the perfect human being.
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But equally and more basically, such a person is called al-abd al-kamil,
the perfect servant, or al-abd al-mah _ d _ , the sheer servant, or al-abd
al-mut _ laq, the unqualified servant. It had never been lost on those
who explained the nature of servanthood, least of all Ibn Arab, that
Muh _ ammads chief epithets are abduhu wa-rasuluhu, His servant and
His Messenger, in that order. Only by achieving servanthood is it
possible for human beings to live in harmony with God and to act on his
behalf. This activity on his behalf is precisely the purpose of human
existence, announced already in Gods words concerning the creation of
Adam: I am setting in the earth a vicegerent (khalfa) (Quran 2:30).
Worship, it was said, is the appropriate human response to God. It is
for man to acquiesce, yield and humble himself before the Real, the
Right, the True and the Worthy. On one level, this is a moral injunction.
On a deeper level, it is a statement of fact: by nature human beings and
all creatures acquiesce in the Real and the Appropriate, and they can do
nothing else. Ibn Arab points out that if we look at all of reality, we see
that it can be divided into two basic categories: worshipper and Object of
worship.31 He bolsters this sort of statement with philological evidence,
philosophical and theological arguments, and reference to many quranic
verses and hadiths. Thus, for example, the Quran tells us repeatedly
that all things in heaven and earth glorify God, which is to say that they
announce his greatness and their own insignificance. All things are
Muslim: To Him is submitted (aslama) everything in the heavens
and the earth (3:83). All things are servants: None is there in the
heavens and the earth that does not comes to the All-Merciful as a
servant (19:93).
In other words, worship and servanthood designate the actual
situation of every created thing. Things serve and worship their Creator
simply by being what they are. All things are, quite literally, slaves of
God. God is the Real, and the Real is designated by all positive qualities
that become manifest in existence: life, power, knowledge, mercy, love.
These are precisely Gods names and attributes. They designate the
nature of reality itself, al-h _ aqq, which gives rise to the universe and all
existence. Everything is a sign of God, because all things announce, by
being what they are, qualities of al-h _ aqq. Thus, says Ibn Arab, all
things walk on a straight path (s _ irat
_ mustaqm), and that path leads
them back to God, their creator (though whether to the Merciful or
to the Wrathful remains to be seen). The straightness demanded by
Gods wisdom permeates every engendered thing. God said, in con-
firmation of Moses, He gave each thing its creation [20:50]. Hence each
thing has an actual straightness.32
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Does this mean that human beings are forced to worship God? Yes
and no. As creatures, they are slaves and can do nothing but live out
their created nature. They can only obey their Lords engendering
command (al-amr al-takwn), which is the divine imperative Be!
(kun). His only command, when He desires a thing, is to say to it Be!,
and it comes to be (36:82). This sort of worship Ibn Arab calls
essential or primary worship, because it pertains to the very essence
of what it means to be a creature. It is nonetheless true that human
beings were made in the image of God, taught all the names (2:31),
and given the power to choose between right and wrong. They freely
accepted responsibility to carry the Trust (33:72). The worship that
results from these considerations Ibn Arab calls accidental or sec-
ondary. It is addressed by the prescriptive command (al-amr
al-taklf), which imposes the burden of worship on Gods servants: He
has commanded that you worship none but Him (12:40). Such worship
is accidental because it does not pertain to the very definition of what
it means to be human; it becomes obligatory at a certain point in human
development (e.g. at puberty) under certain circumstances (e.g. ration-
ality, or knowledge of prophecy); it can be accepted or rejected; and it
comes to an end at death.
Those who discuss the ontological imperative begin by acknow-
ledging the way things are: human beings are always and forever ser-
vants of their Lord, creatures of their creator. In this respect they are
always and essentially servants. As an early Sufi put it, Just as lordship
is a description of the Real that never leaves Him, so servanthood is an
attribute of the servant that will not depart from him so long as he
remains.33
Death is waking up to the nature of things. It is to become aware
(if one was not already aware) that worship and servanthood of God
are woven into the stuff of reality. After death, people no longer have the
choice not to worship, whether they end up in Paradise or in hell. Like
the angels, they will not be able to disobey their Lord and they will
be fully aware that everything they do is done in His service, and His
service alone.
If, as Jafar al-S _ adiq said, intellect is that by which the All-Merciful
is worshipped, this is because true and right knowledge situates things
in their proper places. Through it man comes to know who is Lord and
who is servant, and what exactly lordship and servanthood entail. The
first truth of lordship is that it rules over all reality, all existence, and all
attributes and qualities that define the servant. And the first truth of
servanthood is that the creature has no right to its own created nature,
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no claim upon the Real. The servant is essentially nonexistent and
accidentally existent through the Real. In philosophical language, this
situation was often expressed by speaking of the Necessary Being (that
which is and cannot not be) and the possible thing (that which has no
inherent claim on existence). For Ibn Arab, to say that God is Neces-
sary and humans possible is to say, O people, you are the poor toward
God, and God He is the Rich, the Praiseworthy (Quran 35:15).
Knowledge lies at the root of human responsibility. Islam begins
with the two Shahadas, which give witness to the truth the believer
knows in his heart. But truly to know God is a never-ending task,
because his infinite reality cannot be exhausted. By knowing the signs
and marks, one can come to know Gods names and attributes. This
knowledge cannot be disengaged from practice. Knowing the Lord is not
separate from knowing and actualising servanthood. This is the weight
of h _ aqq: the word does not simply mean truth and reality, it also
means right, appropriate, worthy and due. Knowledge of Reality makes
practical demands on the knowing soul: when servants know their
actual, ontological status vis-a-vis their Lord, they find themselves
called upon to put themselves right, to worship God sincerely, to strip
themselves of any claim to the rights of lordship. The goal of worship
and servanthood is to give everything that has a h _ aqq its h
_ aqq; this is
precisely the realisation of tawh _ d.
In order to recognise the h _ aqqs of things, all of which are servants,
one must recognise the h _ aqq of the Lord of things. This divine name
designates God inasmuch as He has vassals (sing. marbub) or ser-
vants. As Ibn Arab points out, the Quran mentions the name rabb
about 900 times, but never without ascription to a servant or servants
(e.g. your Lord, Lord of Moses, Lord of the Worlds). If we pay
attention to the meaning of the word in Arabic, we see that to say that
God is Lord is to say that He brings about the well-being (mus _ lih
_ ) of His
servants; he is their nourisher (mughadhdh), nurturer (murabb),
master (sayyid) and owner (malik).34
God is in fact Lord in respect of each of His names, which is to say
that the divine names designate the various respects and modalities in
which the creator deals with creation, in which Real Being gives rise to
cosmic existence. Whatever name we have in view, Merciful, Pardoner,
or Severe in Punishment, God is Lord of His servants in respect of that
name and he exercises the various functions of lordship in its terms.
The question of human nature is central to the ontological
imperative. It is no accident that the purported hadith, He who knows
himself knows his Lord, is increasingly cited from Ibn Arab onward.
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In order to know ourselves, we must know how we differ from other
created things. This basic answer is that God created Adam in His
image. Ibn Arab points out that it is the name Allah that is employed
in this hadith, not any of the other divine names. This name designates
God inasmuch as He is named by all the names and synthesises their
diverse meanings in His One Reality. It designates God as Lord of the
lords, the lords being the divine names designating the qualities and
attributes of Real Being. All creatures other than human beings display
only some of Gods signs and manifest only a few of His names and
attributes. Man alone was taught all the names (2:31).
The knowledge that God imparted to Adam is not information.
Rather, it is the ability to recognise the h _ aqq of things, to see things
rightly (i.e., in terms of the Real) and to act appropriately. By their very
nature human beings have the capacity to recognise the designations of
all of reality and to acknowledge the h _ aqq of everything that exists.
They can actualise this, however, only by living up to their nature, and
to do so they need Gods help.
Human beings, then, are essentially servants of God. Accidentally,
however, they may be the servants of any of the individual divine
names, or of any cosmic or human reality that can be an object of
worship (mabud), including the ideas and notions that establish goals
and aspirations. This unlimited human capacity to serve anything at
all helps explain the tremendous emphasis that the texts place upon
sincerity: purifying ones worship of everything but God. The mag-
nitude of the task does not become obvious until one grasps the tran-
scendence of God, the omnipresence of His signs and marks, the
diversity and even contradictory nature of His names and attributes (the
Exalter and the Abaser, the Forgiver and the Avenger), and the ease of
falling into the worship and service of what is less than God.
From the Quran onwards, the exalted situation of those who
achieve proper servanthood is emphasised. Muh _ ammad, the supreme
human model, was not only His servant, but also His Messenger.
Human beings were created not only to worship God, but also to achieve
Gods vicegerency through worthy service. Here the texts remind us
that, although servanthood demands an utter and absolute differenti-
ation between servant and Lord, it also attracts Gods love. Say
[O Muh _ ammad!]: If you love God, follow me, and God will love you
(3:31). The goal of worship is not to remain distant from the Lord, but
to be brought into His proximity. It is characteristic of love to bridge
the gap between lover and beloved and to bring about nearness, espe-
cially when God is the lover. Those who fail the test of living up to
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servanthood remain distant (hell), but those who pass the test are given
nearness (Paradise).
If worship and servanthood represent sincere engagement with
observing the rights of God and the rights of man, then vicegerency
represents being brought into Gods proximity by living up to servant-
hood. No one represents God who has not completely submitted himself
to His authority. Gods authority is not merely moral and legal; it is
above all ontological and cosmic. It is the fact that He is the Real and the
Right, and the fact that servants are submitted to the Lord by virtue of
their essential lack of h _ aqq. It is the fact that God is the Necessary
Being, and they are merely possible things, with no claim on existence.
Worship, then, does not mean simply abasing oneself before the Lord
by observing His commands and prohibitions. It also means recognising
ones own non-lordship. It means knowing that one is not ones own
owner, sustainer, nourisher, nurturer and source of well-being. It means
following in the footsteps of those who know how to observe the rights
of the Lord. Only after having negated any claim to lordship and having
fully embraced servanthood can one be brought into Gods nearness.
This is not a movement from place to place, but from a weak mode of
being to a strong mode of being. It is the realisation of the divine form
upon which human beings were created. It is the gradual actualisation of
praiseworthy character traits, which are modalities of being and light
harmonious with the Real. It is these traits that denote the servant who
has been given well-being by his Lord.
Here some of the practical implications of knowing ones Lord
become more evident. The theological dedication to enumerating and
explaining the names of God was not simply theoretical. Conscious and
aware servants know that they were given intelligence and awareness to
worship the All-Merciful. Knowledge is the door to actualisation and
realisation. True vicegerents have eminent and exalted characters,
because they have assimilated the character traits of their Lord. When
the Quran says to the Prophet, Surely thou art upon a magnificent
character (khuluq az _ m) (68:4), no one needs to be told that this
character was a divine gift. The Quran itself is, according to Aisha, the
character of Muh _ ammad. If this is so, one sees a deeper meaning to
the verse, I am a mortal like you; to me it is revealed that your God is
one God (18:110). The telling difference between this mortal and that
mortal is the divine grace, the bestowal of the eternal Word, the gift of
knowledge and character that comes about when servants live up to
their part of the covenant to worship God alone, making their religion
sincerely His. Only Gods character is essentially and irrevocably
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magnificent. If Muh _ ammad has a magnificent character, if he is a
light-giving lamp (33:46), it is because he is a servant who asked help
from no one but God, and realised tawh _ d.
Further reading
Cragg, Kenneth, Worship and cultic life: Muslim worship, in The
Encyclopedia of Religion (New York, 1987), xv, pp. 45463.
al-Ghazal, Abu H _ amid, Worship in Islam: Being a Translation, with
Commentary and Introduction, of al-Ghazzals Book of the Ih _ ya on the
Worship tr. Edwin Elliott Calverley, (Hartford, CT, 1923).
Murata, Sachiko, and Chittick, William C., The Vision of Islam (St Paul, 1994).
Nakamura, Kojiro (tr.), Al-Ghazal on Invocations and Supplications: Book IX
of the Revival of the Religious Sciences (Cambridge, 1990).
Padwick, Constance E., Muslim Devotions: A Study of Prayer-Manuals in
Common Use (Oxford, 1996).
Renard, John, Seven Doors to Islam: Spirituality and the Religious Life of
Muslims (Berkeley, 1997).
Rosenthal, Franz, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in
Medieval Islam (Leiden, 1971).
Notes
1. The Quran employs four words from this root, in a total of 277 instances. It uses the verb abada 124 times and the gerund form ibada 9 times; the word abd in the singular and plural 130 times; and the active participle abid 12 times.
2. There is also the far less commonly used ubuda, servitude, which is discussed by Qushayr and Ibn Arab among others.
3. Bukhar, Tawh _ d, 1; Muslim, Iman, 49, etc.
4. Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam (Leiden, 1970).
5. Hujwr, Kashf al-mah _ jub, ed. V. Zhukovsky (Tehran, 1336/1957), p.11.
6. Darim, Ilm, 29. 7. Muh
_ ammad Baqir Majlis, Bih
_ ar al-anwar, 110 vols. (Beirut, 1983), i,
p.116. 8. Ghazal, Ih
_ ya ulum al-dn, 6 vols. (Cairo, 1992), iv, p.31.
9. Ghazal, al-Maqs _ ad al-asna f sharh
_ maan asma Allah al-h
_ usna,
ed. Fadlou A. Shehadi (Beirut, 1971), pp.42ff. See also Ghazal: The Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, tr. by David B. Burrell and Nazih Daher (Cambridge, 1992), pp.30ff. The translators render al-takhalluq bi-akhlaq Allah as conforming to the perfections of God. The word akhlaq means character traits, both virtues and vices. If one wants to translate it as perfections, one might better translate the whole expression as becoming perfect through Gods perfections.
10. Abu Abd al-Rah _ man al-Sulam, H
_ aqaiq al-tafsr, MS, commentary on
Quran 2:21.
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11. Ibn Maja, Zuhd, 21. 12. Sulam, on 4:36; also in Paul Nwyia, Trois oeuvres inedites de
mystiques musulmanes (Beirut, 1973), p.45. 13. Ghazal, Ih
_ ya, iii, p.45.
14. Sulam, H _ aqaiq al-tafsr, on 4:36.
15. al-Qushayr, al-Risala, ed. Abd al-H _ alm Mah
_ mud and Mah
_ mud ibn
al-Sharf (Cairo, 1972), p.430. 16. Sulam, H
_ aqaiq al-tafsr; Nwyia, Trois oeuvres, p.41.
17. Versions of this hadith are found in most collections; Arent Jan Wensinck et al., Concordance et indices de la tradition musulmane (Leiden, 193688), i, p.486.
18. Sulam, H _ aqaiq al-tafsr, on 2:256.
19. Ibid., on 17:23. 20. Gerhard Bowering (ed.), The Minor Quran Commentary of Abu Abd
ar-Rah _ man as-Sulam (Beirut: 1997), p.5.
21. Sulam, H _ aqaiq al-tafsr, on 17:3.
22. Ibid., on 15:99. 23. Ibid., on 15:99. 24. Ibid., on 18:1. 25. Ibid., on 4:36. 26. Qushayr, Risala, 429. 27. Sulam, H
_ aqaiq al-tafsr, on 2:21.
28. al-Muh _ asib, al-Riaya li h
_ uquq Allah, ed. A. Mah
_ mud and A. Ah
_ mad
At _ a (Cairo, 1970), p.40.
29. Ibid., p.49. 30. Ibid., p.52. 31. Ibn Arab, al-Futuh
_ at al-Makkiyya (Cairo, 1911, repr. Beirut, n.d.), iii,
p.78, tr. in William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge (Albany, 1989), p.311.
32. Futuh _ at, ii, p.217; Chittick, Sufi Path, p.301.
33. Abu Al al-Daqqaq, cited by Qushayr, Risala, p.432. 34. Ibn Arab often talks about these five meanings of the name rabb:
e.g. Futuh _ at, ii, p.251; iii, pp.383, 537; iv, p.198.
236 William C. Chittick
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12 Theological dimensions of Islamic law
umar f. abd-allah
introduction
Law represented one of the earliest models of intellectual activity
in Muslim culture, and traditionally lay at the core of Islamic learning.
To be a scholar (alim), whatever else it meant, was invariably to be
a scholar trained in Gods sacred law. Although the legal scholar did
not possess the gift of prophecy, he was deemed a successor of the
Prophet. By virtue of issuing independent legal opinions, the juriscon-
sult1 (muft ) in particular occupied a social position which in some ways
was reminiscent of that of the prophetic lawgiver himself.
Because of the centrality of law in the Islamic tradition, Muslim
society and culture are best accessed through it. For more than a mil-
lennium, the religious law constituted the Muslim worlds most con-
stant, characteristic and unifying feature. Mainstream Sufism was the
only other dimension of Islam that enjoyed a comparable influence, but
(contrary to the misperceptions of an older generation of historians) it,
too, was erected on the laws foundations. Today, when many aspects of
traditional Islamic society are disappearing, the religious law remains
central to the Islamic consciousness, even in Muslim nations that have
adopted secular legal systems.
theology and the religious content of islamic law
Islam is ruled by law. It is not theocratic but nomocratic in
nature, and the religious law which underpins this is all-embracing.
Kalam theology and law were independent disciplines, and many
questions today including issues such as abortion, environmental
protection and interfaith relations which Christians regard as theo-
logical, are, for Muslims, not matters of theology but fundamental
questions of religious law.
237
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The historical relationship between the sacred law and classical
theology (kalam) must be distinguished from the laws inherently reli-
gious nature, its immense body of positive law, and the various Sufi paths
of spiritual illumination. Islamic theological speculation exercised only a
limited impact on positive law, but its influence on Islamic legal theory
(us _ ul al-fiqh) was profound. The emergence of kalam and that of us
_ ul
al-fiqh were roughly coeval. Both disciplines matured centuries after the
schools of Islamic law had formulated their distinctive corpuses of
positive law. None of the schools of law systematically reformulated its
established body of substantive law on the basis of the dialectics of later
legal theorists, despite the centrality of legal theory in their legal cur-
ricula. Few failed to note the symbiosis which existed between kalam
and legal theory, but, from the beginning, many jurists questioned the
validity of linking the two disciplines. Most of them ultimately wel-
comed legal theory and revered it for the monumental scholastic
achievement that it was, but despite legal theorys indebtedness to
kalam, a significant number of other jurists regarded kalam as irrelevant
to the art of positive law. Still others regarded its influence as harmful.
the nature of islamic law
TheMuslim lives in a theocentric universe, in surrender (muslim)
to God, seeking through the prophetic Law to discover and implement
Gods will. The laws primary sources, the quranic revelation and the
prophetic model (sunna), are the material referents of Gods will. From a
modern perspective Islamic law is at once legal and meta-legal: a set of
legislative rules within a moral system of oughts and ought nots,
defining outward standards, while addressing the inward state of the
agents heart.
David Santillana observes that law and religion, law and morality
are the two aspects of this same [divine]will bywhich it is constituted and
by which theMuslim community governs itself; every question of law is
also a matter of conscience, and jurisprudence is based on theology in the
final analysis.2 Henri de Wael remarks that to be a good Muslim is, first
of all, to keep the rules of Islamic law faithfully. Consequently, the law
does not allow itself to be reduced to a simplemethodology for governing
social relations but regards itself as expressing morality at the highest
plane, for the laws fundamental purpose is to enjoin the right and forbid
the wrong.3 Many acts are not subject to secular sanctions but await
their rewards and punishments in the next world. This otherworldly
emphasis of the law imbues itwith a predominantly ethical tone. Lawand
238 Umar F. Abd-Allah
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morality merge into a general philosophy of life. Every social institution
and human activity is imbued with religious significance.4
religious and secular law in perspective
Throughout the course of pre-modern history, religion tended to
involve all aspects of life. The relegation of religion to the private sphere
is a decidedly modern phenomenon. In the West, secularism is often
taken for granted as if it were a distinctive legacy, but the division
between church and state is relatively recent. It did not emerge in an
unbroken continuum from ancient Greece and Rome but was the
product of revolutionary politics, beginning with the Glorious Revolu-
tion of the seventeenth century and reaching its apotheosis with the
Russian Revolution over 200 years later.5 Although Islamic law falls
within the traditional pattern of embracing the private and public
spheres, surprisingly, the separation between religious authority and
the state contrary both to common opinion and to contemporary
Islamist ideology was the norm in the Islamic world for more than a
millennium.6
In its comprehensiveness, Islamic law is akin to the legal outlook of
the Hebrew prophets, Rabbinic Jews and the Persian Mazdeans. In early
Indic religion, the governing concept of dharma stood for the totality of
religion, legality and morality. Dharma mirrored the natural order of the
universe and permeated all human relationships, so that the distinction
between religion and law can be justified only from the European point
of view; the two notions are one in the Indian dharma.7 The origins of
Greek and Roman law were religious; it was only later that they became
secular. The priest of ancient Rome has been compared to the Muslim
muft, and Roman law did not remove itself from the precincts of the
priestly collegiums until the latter part of the fourth century bce.8
Like Islam, Rabbinic Judaism is distinctly nomocratic. Rabbinic
Jews, like Muslims, govern their communities through a system of
revealed law, and not through theocratic priesthoods as in the Biblical
(pre-Rabbinic) or Mazdean traditions. Orthodox rabbis summon Jews to
take on the yoke of the Kingdom in faith and moral conduct, meaning
total submission to Gods law at the individual and social levels.9
Nevertheless, the legal implications of both the Islamic and Rabbinic
systems, apart from what is unequivocally understood from revelation,
are matters of extension by exegesis and cognate principles. Both reli-
gions combine revelation with reason as the path to legal knowledge,
while rejecting exclusively human legislation.
Theological dimensions of Islamic law 239
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The earliest Christian attitudes towards the law did not depart
radically from the Old Testament worldview. It has been argued that
nothing which Jesus said or did which bore on the law led his disciples
after his death to disregard it.10 Jewish Christianity in particular was
noted for its fidelity to Mosaic law: Till heaven and earth pass away,
not an iota will pass from the law until all is accomplished (Matt.
5:18).11 Pauline Christianity opposed this conviction. Yet Paul himself
understood Christ in terms of the law, ascribing to him qualities which
in Rabbinic Judaism were attributes of the law alone. Even for Paul,
there was a distinction between Gods law per se, which was good, and
Pharisaic legalism, which was not.12
In the mainstream Christian theology which developed after Paul,
adherence to the Mosaic law came to be seen as theologically pointless,
given Christs vicarious sacrifice: the law had been an inferior dispensa-
tion, which the grace and liberty of the Gospel transcended.13 Neverthe-
less, the churchesdeveloped vast bodies of canon law.The chief difference
between these systems and the laws ofMuslims and Jews was that canon
law was theocratic and not nomocratic. Its ultimate legislative authority
rested in priestly prerogative. During the Middle Ages, the canon lawyer
enjoyed a pre-eminence not unlike that of Muslim and Jewish jurists in
their own communities. Both Christianity and Judaism entered Europe
with organised legal structures of positive religious law, and the survival
of theWestern church in the midst of Europes barbaric kingdoms was in
large measure due to its independent system of canon law.14
Canon law was no less prominent in Eastern Christianity, especially
in lands where the church came under Muslim rule. Islamic law
required each denomination to administer its community autono-
mously as a protected religious community. The policy of dhimma
(state protection of religious minorities) required the Eastern churches to
provide comprehensive codes for their respective Christian judges, who
presided over all spiritual and worldly affairs that did not fall under the
jurisdiction of Muslim courts (such as legal disputes arising between
Muslims and Christians). Canonical writing became a preoccupation of
the Eastern churches; in the case of the Nestorians, it took precedence
over all other types of literature.15
the comprehensiveness of religious content in islamic law
Ritual and secular concerns coexist in Islamic law. De Wael illus-
trates this fact by noting that the lawmay deem a prayer invalid or a sale
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reprehensible.16 Coulson cites the laws prohibition of pork, intoxicants
and usury. He observes further that Islamic law invalidates sales con-
tracted at the time of Friday congregational prayers, threatens hellfire for
one who misappropriates an orphans wealth, and portrays a wifes
conjugal obedience as virtuous.17
The laws fundamental concern with ritual is evident from the five
pillars (declaration of faith, prayer, alms-tax, fasting, and pilgrimage).
It extends to the definition of the clean and unclean, the unlawfulness
of certain foods and drinks, and criteria for the slaughter of lawful
meats.
The religious content of the law bears on other matters of secular
consequence. Oaths and vows are technically matters of private con-
science but often create the legal obligation of full implementation. The
law sets guidelines for the dress of men and women. It declares the
institution of marriage to be half the religion and intervenes in
numerous issues of family law. The alms-tax requires set weights and
measures as well as definitions of monetary units; it also calls for
adequate accounting practices. The laws ethical concerns extend into
the marketplace and even the world of banking and commerce.
Despite Islamic laws comprehensiveness, it distinguishes carefully
between the ritual (non-secular) and the non-ritual (secular). Ritual acts
require a good intention, while non-ritual acts require no conscious
intention at all. Non-ritual acts need only conform to the formal pro-
visions of the law, although any valid non-ritual act can be transformed
into an act of worship in the sight of God if it is performed with a
religious intention. Thus, a commercial enterprise undertaken with the
aim of alleviating poverty for Gods sake would be elevated to an act of
immense religious merit.
As a rule, Muslim jurists considered strictly ritual matters to be
beyond the purview of reason. Non-ritualistic matters, on the other
hand, were accessible to reason, and such matters constitute the greater
part of the law. Thus, rationalism is in a sense one of the laws basic
characteristics. An important maxim states that the foundational
principle [of the law] is to have rationales (al-as _ l al-tall). Ritual mat-
ters are an exception to this rule because of their intrinsic connection to
the spiritual realm. They relate to the purification of the soul and
winning Gods pleasure. Fundamentals of ritual like the formalities of
prayer or the rites of pilgrimage stand as they are and are not open to
significant modification. Secular matters, on the other hand, fall clearly
within the domain of ijtihad (legal interpretation) and legal review
because they have rationales.
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Naturally, the distinction between the ritual and the non-ritual is
not always clear-cut. For example, the schools of law differ regarding
religious ablutions. Most jurists hold them to be strictly matters of rit-
ual, while others regard them as essentially a means to promote bodily
cleanliness. On the first view, the act of ablution requires a conscious
intention; on the second, it does not. The alms-tax displays the same
ambiguity, since it serves the very tangible purpose of assisting the poor,
debtors and the needy. Jurists who regard the alms-tax as strictly an act
of ritual hold that attainment of legal majority is a prerequisite, since
obligatory ritual acts generally require legal majority. For those who
regard the alms-tax as falling somewhere between the ritual and non-
ritual, it is defined as essentially a right of the poor binding upon the
wealth of the rich. For them, legal majority is not relevant.
Whether acts are ritual or non-ritual in nature, Islamic law assesses
all acts according to five classifications: obligatory, recommended,
neutral, disliked and forbidden. Western writers often cite this ethical
taxonomy as indicative of Islamic laws essentially religious nature.
Because the five categories embrace everything human, Gibb regards
them as moral rather than juridical categories.18 According to Schacht,
they transform law proper into a system of religious duties, although
he observes that they also guarantee unity in diversity.19
Islamic law designates certain rulings as divine limits (h _ udud),
which include rituals but extend beyond them to punishments and other
matters. The h _ udud denote all matters fixed by revelation. Generally
speaking, they are formally applied as they were revealed. Those h _ udud
that overlap with non-ritual categories may, however, be open to judicial
review and modification in some cases. Inheritance lots are among the
h _ udud, because they are specified in the Quran. The restriction of
polygamous unions to four women falls within the same category. All
punishments set by revelation (for adultery, slander, theft and brigandry)
are h _ udud. Most criminal law, however, lies outside the h
_ udud and
belongs to the category of disciplinary acts (tazr), which are deter-
mined in accordance with public interest, and are open to adjustment
and judicial review. The enforcement of all punishments, whether
h _ udud or tazr, is permissible only within an Islamic jurisdiction, and
there is consensus among jurists that it is impermissible for Muslims to
exact Islamic punishments in a non-Muslim state.
Islamic law divides legal obligations into two categories: the rights
of God (h _ uquq Allah) and the rights of humanity (h
_ uquq al-ibad).
Rights of God entail all non-negotiable obligations, whether of a ritual or
a non-ritual nature. The rights of humanity, on the other hand, allow
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for options and modifications at the behest of rightful parties. In Islamic
jurisprudence, the purpose of the rights of God is to uphold the ultimate
objectives of the law: the preservation of religion, life, intellect, children
and property.
All h _ udud are rights of God, as are most other obligations estab-
lished by revelation. It is a right of God that binding contracts be written
in unambiguous language. The claim of the poor to adequate sustenance
and the obligation to give homeless children adequate care are rights
of God. Forbidden acts may also fall under this rubric, including the
prohibition of bribes or of legacies that jeopardise the interests of lawful
heirs.
Debts and warranties, on the other hand, belong to the rights of
humanity, because they may be pardoned or written off. Punishments
for slander and murder fall into this grouping. The slandered party may
pardon the abuse and not seek legal action. Exacting punishment for
murder also falls into this category, since the right to execute the guilty
party rests not with the judge but with the victims next of kin or
guardians, who are given the option of granting full absolution or a
partial pardon with financial compensation. Imprisonment and other
forms of punishment short of execution, however, fall within the
jurisdiction of the court. In the case of murder, the rights of God and
humanity are said to overlap, since some degree of judiciary punishment
is regarded as Gods right.
Given the religious nature of Islamic law, the issue of innovation
(bida) is critical. Bida carries negative, neutral and positive meanings.
Its fundamental purpose is to serve as a regulatory mechanism to keep
legal developments in conformity with Islamic principles; but this is
counterbalanced by the creative imperative of ijtihad to enact new rul-
ings and review older ones. For the majority of classical jurists, any core
revision of credal axioms and ritual acts constituted bida in the nega-
tive sense. For many jurists, the domain of bida was restricted to
matters of belief and ritual and did not include worldly affairs. The
notion that bida stood for the categorical prohibition of change in ritual
and non-ritual matters alike was regarded as absurd in traditional
Islamic law. On the contrary, innovation in the practical disciplines of
the world, like crafts and urban development, was required, and here
bida took on a positive sense.20
Bida covered a range of different meanings in classical Islamic
jurisprudence, since the varieties of bida fell within the five ethical
categories of the law. Certain types of bida were prohibited or disliked,
but others were obligatory, recommended or simply considered to be
Theological dimensions of Islamic law 243
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neutral. When tobacco-smoking first appeared in the Muslim world,
some jurists classified it as a forbidden bida, while others held it to be
reprehensible, depending on their estimation of its effect on health and
other considerations. The establishment of educational institutions was
assessed as an obligatory innovation (there had been no such insti-
tutions during the prophetic period). Shading marketplaces from the heat
of the summer sun was a recommended bida, while novel refine-
ments in food and drink were neutral as long as they were not
excessive.
Ijtihad, on the other hand, was a dynamic, forward-looking com-
ponent of the law. As Weiss observes, it demonstrated that Gods law
was not meant to be passively received and applied.21 Santillana notes in
his analysis of the ancillary instruments of ijtihad that the point of
departure of the entire system was that God had instituted laws for the
well-being of society and the individual. Human beings were not made
for the law; the law was made for human beings.22
The domain of ijtihad encompassed non-ritual matters, since they
had legal rationales and were open to review and modification according
to circumstance. One maxim (qaida) of Islamic law stated: Modifica-
tions of legal judgements will not be denounced when they reflect
changing times, places, and circumstances.23 A famous statement of
the Prophet declared: If a judge performs ijtihad and gets the right
answer, he receives two rewards. If he is [honestly] mistaken, he
gets one. 24
Ijtihadwas seen as a standing obligation in Islamic law; to neglect it
was not merely a cause for censure but also an act of disobedience to
God.25 The widespread notion that the door of ijtihad was closed in
later centuries as a matter of theological principle has been shown in
recent scholarship to be without historical foundation.26
islamic law and classical theology
Opinions differ regarding the influence of theology on Islamic law.
Fazlur Rahman stresses that the origins of theology and of law were dis-
tinct, and that even in the case of the Mutazila there is no evidence that
their theology affected their positions in positive law.27 The profound
influence of kalam was in classical legal theory; by contrast, in all legal
schools, the content of positive law remained essentially untouched,
regardless of the influence kalam was wielding upon legal theory.
Schacht notes, however, that since the earliest times a close con-
junction existed between the pursuit of theology and the eponyms of
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major schools of law: Abu H _ anfa, Malik, Shafi and Ah
_ mad ibn H
_ anbal,
all of whom were attentive to the theological issues of their times.28 Of
these principal Imams, Abu H _ anfa and Ibn H
_ anbal were the most
conspicuously engaged in theology. Abu H _ anfas theological writings
exercised a lasting influence and culminated in the Maturdite school of
Samarkand. The H _ anaf scholars of Samarkand (Maturd himself being
only one of the most prominent among them) saw themselves as the
adepts of Abu H _ anfa, busy in the elucidation and elaboration of his
teachings. Maturds synthetic theology rightly assigned him a dis-
tinctive position in the history of Muslim theology, but the H _ anaf
theological legacy of Samarkand only came to be designated Maturdite
after a complex process that came to its conclusion centuries after
Maturds death.29 It is worthy of note that Maturd, like his mentor
Abu H _ anfa, was a master jurist, and wrote one of the earliest and most
influential works on H _ anaf legal theory, Indicants of the Revelatory
Laws (Maakhidh al-Sharai).
Kevin Reinhart argues that Islamic intellectual history must be seen
as a holistic development. Law did not develop in isolation but was
tightly integrated from the beginning with the emergence of kalam,
grammar, and quranic commentary, and he insists that it is impossible
to grasp the origins, significance, and implications of the act classifi-
cations of H _ anaf positive law outside the context of Islams earliest
theological debates.30 Similarly, Fazlur Rahman contends that Shafis
dialectic regarding hadith was oriented, not at legal scholars per se, but
at early Mutazilites.31
Discussions of the role of reason in Islamic law often confuse the
theological rationalism of kalam, especially in its Mutazilite form, with
ray (independent reasoning) in Islamic law. They mistakenly presume
that Islamic rationalism in law was eclipsed by the ascendence of the
grand synthesis of Shafis legal philosophy. However, as Binyamin
Abrahamov observes, all of the speculative theologians of classical
Islam, whether they were Mutazilites, Asharites or Maturdites, were
equally rationalist. Each group considered reason the principal device
or one of the principal devices to reach the truth in religion. The
differences between the three schools are not easy to discern, yet
the disparity between them and their traditionalist32 rivals is clear.33
The systematic theology of the Maturdites in particular excelled in its
rationalist methodology and richness of thought; their purpose was
non-apologetic and sought to demarcate Islamic theology as a distinct
form of rationalism predicated upon unassailable proofs in reason,
revelation and empirically verifiable truth.34
Theological dimensions of Islamic law 245
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During the formative period of Islamic law, ray was a broad,
speculative manner of reasoning associated with ijtihad. A number of
pragmatic instruments of jurisprudence developed from it, such as
analogy (qiyas), equitable discretion (istih _ san), preclusion (sadd
al-dharai), and general necessity (almas _ alih
_ al-mursala).35
Shafis well-known rejection of legal sources such as istih _ san,
sadd-al-dharai and al-mas _ alih
_ al-mursala, and his emphasis on
explicit texts, including the controversial solitary hadith (ah _ adth
al-ah _ ad), offer, indeed, an interesting parallel to the voluntarism
underlying the Asharite doctrines of free will and the nature of good and
evil.36 But none of his positions was taken up by the other Sunn
schools: even H _ anbalism, for all its emphasis on textual deduction,
continued to subscribe in limited fashion to Malik and H _ anaf instru-
ments of ray. Although arguably the most formalistic of the four Sunn
schools, the Shafis espoused a textually based doctrine of specific
public interest (istis _ lah
_ ) (as opposed to the non-textual mas
_ alih
_ mursala
of the Maliks).37 Like other Sunns, the Shafis elaborated much of
their positive law in a pragmatic spirit. In the course of Islamic intel-
lectual history, Shafi jurists proved themselves to be pioneers in the
genre of legal maxims, arguably the epitome of Islamic legal realism.38
The rationalism implicit in ray and its later derivatives must not be
confused with the metaphysical rationalism of classical Islamic the-
ology. As Abrahamov observes, rationality turns to rationalism when
reason is prior to revelation.39 This was not the case with the ration-
ality of early ray or its ancillaries in the Malik and H _ anaf schools.
Their adamant adherence to pragmatic realism was, to take an expres-
sion from Abrahamov, a type of informal dynamism.40 It derived its
strength from a non-formalistic legal induction and pragmatic intuition
based on a general understanding of the law and its well-established
precepts and legal rationales.41
The historical relationship between Islamic legal theory and positive
law has yet to be carefully studied. Sherman Jackson asserts that classical
legal theory had little to do with positive law: In the end, however, legal
theory remains standing as a monumental but fairly empty ruin whose
authority can only be sustained through a reliance upon a never-ending
series of ad-hoc adjustments and makeshift apologies.42 The theo-
logically informed speculations of Islamic legal theory had little effect on
the positive lawof the schools, even among juristswho readily subscribed
to rationalistic theology and its application to legal theory. Indeed, the
influence of legal theory on positive law was so limited that some insist
that it is irrelevant to the study of the laws substantive content.43
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The Mutazilites set the framework of Islams classical theological
debates. They seem also to have been the first to introduce speculative
theology into Islamic legal theory. It is noteworthy, however, that most
Mutazilites adhered to H _ anaf positive law, even after many of their
non-Mutazilite legal colleagues took theological positions antithetical
to their own.
In response to theMutazilite challenge, towards the beginning of the
eleventh century Baqillan introduced extensive material from Asharite
dialectical theology into legal theory. As a theologian, Baqillan was
central to the development of the Asharite tradition, but his insistence
upon the relevance of theology to law stood in sharp contrast to the
approach of Ashar himself.44 Instead of envisioning an organic rela-
tionship between the two disciplines, Ashar had conceived of them as
discrete fields of knowledge that should not trespass on each other.45
Not all legal theorists followed Baqillans lead. For H _ anaf legal
theorists, his theoretical positions often contrasted sharply with their
own, although, like Baqillan, they were not Mutazilites. Non-H _ anafs
also took issue with Baqillan. An Andalusian contemporary, Abul-
Wald al-Baj (d. 1081), preferred to exclude kalam from his writings on
legal theory as much as possible. Another contemporary, the Shafi
chief jurisconsult Abu Ish _ aq al-Shraz (d. 1083), scrupulously avoided
formal theological topics in his legal theory, making an exception only
of those ideas which he found it necessary to refute. Another Shafi
jurisprudent of the same period, Ibn al-Saman, composed a work on
legal theory with the explicit intention of avoiding the methods and
terminologies of kalam.46
Nonetheless, the approach of Baqillan ultimately won wide
acceptance, and most non-H _ anaf works on Sunn legal theory that have
come down to us are based on his work and refer to him as the
Shaykh. Ghazal accounted for the wide acceptance of Baqillans type
of theological speculation among later jurists and jurisprudents, via the
curricula and pedagogical techniques of classical Islamic education. By
Ghazals time, most jurists were receiving a rigorous training in kalam
during their formative period, and this inclined them to adopt the
methodology of kalam and acknowledge the importance of its principal
metaphysical concerns.47 Consequently, many later jurists and juri-
sprudents came to regard kalam as the principal underpinning of legal
speculation, even to the extent that they regarded jurisprudence as a
branch of theology.48
Ghazal argued that only a few theological doctrines were relevant
to positive law, and he held that these did not go beyond the most
Theological dimensions of Islamic law 247
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rudimentary postulates of theological speculation.49 Among those
questions that legal theory shared with kalam which were actually
relevant to the law were preliminaries such as the standards for
accepting or rejecting hadith, the utility of solitary hadith, the defin-
ition and implications of the abrogation of one scriptural text by another,
the semantics of commands and prohibitions, the question of whether or
not commands imply their opposites, and issues pertaining to consensus
(ijma), analogy (qiyas), and general assessments of legal reasoning.50
Accountability before God (taklf) was among the shared issues, but
its relevance to law was different from its implications in kalam. From
the standpoint of positive law, the definition of taklf had a bearing on
the question of when Muslims were required to follow Islamic injunc-
tions and when they were not. The juristic criteria for taklf were
straightforward: Islam, reason and legal majority, the latter being
determined by puberty or a minimum age. Thus, a non-Muslim, a person
lacking the power of reason, and a child, were not required to adhere to
the injunctions of the law.
The dispute over the relationship of taklf to revelation was one of
the classical debates of Islamic theology. Like theologians, jurists also
debated whether taklf was contingent upon the reception of revelation,
althoughmany legal textsmade nomention of the issue.51 For jurists, the
issue of taklf had a practical bearing upon the status of Muslims whose
ignorance of Islam resulted from the absence of means for adequate
instruction. For theologians, it raised other concerns, which, however
consequential they appeared to theologians, were largely irrelevant to the
practical concerns of the law. The theologians speculated on what exist-
ential questions (the existence ofGod, for example) a person just attaining
taklf was morally required to reflect upon. It brought up the question of
free will and the implications of the human capacity or incapacity to act
freely for taklf. The theologians wondered whether pure reason and the
natural human disposition (fit _ ra) were sufficient to make human beings
morally responsible before God in the absence of revelation. They ques-
tioned whether non-Muslims who had no access to revelation would be
punished in the next world and if God would hold them responsible for
disbelief or deviation from the dictates of monotheism.52
The question of good and evil was a central concern of kalam. Was
revelation required for their knowledge, or could they be apprehended in
the absence of revelation by unaided reason? This issue found its way
into legal theory. It was not, however, a significant problem for positive
law, which generally continued, as before, to take rational consider-
ations like general necessity as its basic premise.
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Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
One of the truisms of Islamic studies in the West until recently was
the notion that the voluntaristic ethics of Asharite theology ultimately
destroyed the rationalism of Islamic law as reflected in Mutazilite
theology and the ray of early jurists. This misconception was rooted
primarily in a confusion of legal rationality with the rationalism of
speculative theology. It fails to take account of the history of positive
law in Islam, and also neglects the ethical perspective of Maturdite
theology, the dominant theology of the H _ anaf school.
The theological problem of good and evil in Islam was hardly a new
dilemma. Plato had asked whether God commands because He knows a
thing to be good, or whether a thing is good because He commands it.
Mutazilite theology supported the first proposition; the Asharites held
to the second; the Maturdites took a nuanced position between the two.
Even the Asharite view, at least among significant representatives of the
school, was not categorical. Shihab al-Dn al-Qaraf (d. 1285) contended
that there were broad areas of agreement between all theological schools.
The actual point of disagreement, in his assessment, concerned the
merits and demerits of good and evil and the nature of reward and
punishment in the hereafter.53
Although an Asharite, Juwayn held that the good and evil of
human acts could be assessed on rational grounds, even though the acts
of God Himself lay beyond the purview of human reason. Ghazal pre-
ferred this position, and Raz is reported to have adopted it towards the
end of his life.54 The Maturdite position was similar to that of the
Mutazilites but did not accept the same primary corollaries which the
Asharites rejected. Maturdite theology held that all analogies between
God and the created world were false because of the utter discontinuity
between the physical and the metaphysical planes. Yet such analogies
were necessary for human thought; the Mutazilites, in their view, had
placed exaggerated confidence in speculative reason at the expense of
spiritual intuition (marifa) and had drawn analogies between God and
creation, especially regarding the issue of good and evil, where no such
analogical correspondence was possible.55
the need for revealed law
Muslim jurists were more concerned with practice than with
theory. The primary purpose of Islamic law in their view was the
well-being and salvation of the entire community, which required clear
tenets of faith and practice, not abstruse matters that only theologians
and the scholarly minded could understand. Sound adherence to the law
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was something that all Muslims could learn and potentially put into
practice. From a legal perspective, conformity to Gods commandments
did not require an abstract intelligence or an elaborate education. The
pathways of faith and practice lay within the grasp of the many and the
few, the untutored and the elite.
For Mutazilite and Asharite theologians, however, Gods purpose
in revealing the law revolved around the abstract questions, such as the
nature of taklf. For the former, human reason knew good and evil.
God could not create evil but was bound of necessity to do what was best
for human well-being. The chief purpose of the revelatory law was to
inform humanity of the compensation or retribution their acts would
meet with in the next world. Those who did good would of necessity be
rewarded; those who did evil would inescapably be punished; those who
fell between the two categories would occupy an intermediate state
(manzila bayn al-manzilatayn).
For the Asharites the laws purpose also rested on the issue of taklf
and the knowledge of good and evil. Humans know good and evil and
their otherworldly consequences only through revelation. Since the will
of God is utterly free, God will mete out judgement in the next world as
He sees fit. He is not bound by necessity to reward or punish anyone. By
virtue of His revealed promise, He will, in fact, reward good and punish
or forgive evil, but this is not a cosmic imperative; it is utterly the
workings of His will.56
For the Maturdites, revelation, reason and empirical knowledge
comprise complementary sources of truth regarding the Seen and the
Unseen. The revelatory law is humanitys aid in this life and the next, but
knowledge of good and evil is accessible to them through each of the three
sources. Unlike theMutazilites, however, theMaturdites argue that it is
fundamentally mistaken to make the principle of divine justice the cor-
nerstone of theology. Sound theological speculation must begin and end
with reflection on divine wisdom. Gods wisdom permeates creation,
explains the existence of good and evil and provides the prism through
which the intricacies ofGods justice become intelligible tohumanbeings.
The Muslim scriptures sometimes seem to exist in tension with the
grand speculations of medieval kalam. The Quran and hadith clearly
teach the innate goodness of human nature (fit _ ra), and its inherent
aptitude to know God. It was widely held that natural faith was suffi-
cient for the salvation of all children who died before majority, and for
adults who died before receiving the prophetic teaching, if they lived in a
way faithful to their natures. The Islamic declaration of faith (legal
faith) based on true knowledge of God and acceptance of his prophets
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complemented and perfected human nature. An account attributed to
Ibn Abbas, a Companion of the Prophet, held that Gods primordial
covenant with humanity (Quran 7:1723) accounts for the essentially
moral and spiritual proclivities of human nature:
God took from [human beings] as a covenant the pledge to worship
Him and to associate no partners with Him. The Hour [of the day of
judgement] will not come until all humans are born who were given
the covenant on that [first primal] day. Whoever encounters the
second covenant [i.e. the Prophetic message] and fulfils it will profit
from the first covenant. Whoever encounters the second covenant
but does not fulfil it will not be benefited by the first. Whoever dies
as a child before encountering the second covenant dies in the state
of the first covenant in accordance with the natural human
condition [fit ra].57
The soul knows God instinctively, is conscious of His perfection and
glory, and desires nearness to Him. It possesses basic knowledge of good
and evil, a love of truth and a hatred of falsehood, a consciousness of
justice and injustice, and even, according to some, an intuitive know-
ledge that good and evil will receive full recompense. Al al-Qar
(d. 1607) affirmed that human natures are intrinsically equipped for the
knowledge of God and the distinction between right and wrong. If left in
their original state without negative influences, they would continue for
ever to live according to their upright primordial natures.58
Some understood humanitys inborn knowledge of moral and spirit-
ual realities to be subconscious. Consequently, it could be confounded,
forgotten and lost. The selfs capricious nature and its inclination towards
passions and selfish interests are among the fit _ ras greatest adversaries.
Humans often turn away from their better natures, and require induce-
ments to turn back to their natures and stimulate the goodness intrinsic
to them. Ghazal exemplified the fit _ ras need of positive motivations by
using the metaphor of digging a well. The water lies hidden within the
earth, but only shovels (positive outside stimuli) make it accessible. He
also invoked the images of extracting oil from almonds and water from
roses; neither feat can be accomplished without an oil press.59
the law and suf ism
The law is essential to the perfection of divine servitude. As such, it
is also fundamental to Sufism and the spiritual disciplines of Islam.
Santillana notes the marked mystical tendency of Islamic law, which he
Theological dimensions of Islamic law 251
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attributes to its concern for the life of body and soul as two comple-
mentary aspects of a single phenomenon:
[Islamic] religion and law belong to two distinct orders, yet they
integrate themselves into each other in turn because they are
intimately united by the common goal they share, which is the
well-being of man. The principles of the faith regulate the internal
form and determine what man ought to believe in pursuing eternal
life. The positive law imposes discipline upon human activity and,
in this, directs it toward those precise mundane foundations and
becomes the necessary complement the body of that organism
which is made up of the faith and the soul.60
The masters of mainstream Islamic Sufism insisted upon the law.61
A Moroccan Sufi master, Muh _ ammad al-Arab al-Darqaw (d. 1845),
wrote:
Whoever desires that Freedom show him her face, let him show her
the face of servitude [to God]. This means having upright intentions,
truthful love, a good opinion of others, noble character, and careful
adherence to what the law commands and prohibits without any
alteration or change. [Freedom] will then show him her face, and veil
it from him no more.62
Traditional Western scholarship sometimes supposed that rigor-
ous adherence to Islams outward (legal) tenets was antithetical to the
spiritual pursuits of Muslim mystics. There were, without question,
strong antinomian Sufi strains on the periphery of Islamic spiritual
history, but the mainstream tradition associated with Junayd, one of
the earliest mentors of Sufism, insisted upon adherence to the law. In
the eyes of the Junayd Sufis, their spiritual discipline corresponded to
Islams third and highest dimension, that of ih _ san (human perfection),
and, therefore, was the life-blood of Islam. Junayd said: This
knowledge of ours [Sufism] is built upon the foundations of the
Quran and the Sunna.63
Historical evidence shows that early Sufi notables took both law and
spiritual teaching seriously, and the endorsement of the law remained
central to mainstream Sufi tradition. The characteristic genius of
Islamic mysticism was its ability to strike a balance between the law
and spirituality, and to insist upon the complementary nature of the
exoteric and esoteric dimensions of Islam.64 Shat _ ib, one of the
most illustrious of medieval Islamic jurisprudents, censured his juristic
252 Umar F. Abd-Allah
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
colleagues for their laxity in the law, while charging that the Sufis of his
day were excessively rigorous in its application.65
Sharan (d. 1565), a renowned jurist and prominent Sufi, held that it
was a matter of consensus among the mystics that none of them was
qualified to preside over their path who lacked profound mastery of the
religious law. Every mystic, he argued, must be a jurist, but not every
jurist can be a mystic. In his eyes, the Sufis were beyond reproach
regarding the religious law. It was, indeed, their adherence to the law
that, in each case of individual enlightenment, had brought them into
the presence of God.66
As a rule, the jurists of Islam were more comfortable with Sufism
than with rationalistic theology. Mainstream Sufis of the Junayd trad-
ition insisted upon the inseparable bond between the law and the spir-
itual path; many of them were prominent jurists. In proverbial Sufi
wisdom the world of spiritual enlightenment is compared to the oceanic
flood of Noah. The esoteric knowledge of God and the realm of ultimate
realities lies at the threshold of a boundless inward sea without a floor
and without shores. The believers spiritual quest may open upon that
sea but none can survive it without an ark like Noahs. For the Sufis,
that ark is the prophetic law.
Further reading
Abd-Allah,Umar F., Innovation and creativity in Islamic law,
Abrahamov, Binyamin, Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationalism
(Edinburgh, 1998).
Anawati, Georges C., Philosophy, theology and mysticism, in Joseph Schacht
and C.E. Bosworth (eds.), The Legacy of Islam (Oxford, 1974), pp. 35091.
al-Azmeh, Aziz, Islamic legal theory and the appropriation of reality, in Aziz
al-Azmeh (ed.), Islamic Law: Social and Historical Contexts (London and
New York, 1988), pp. 25065.
Black, Antony, The History of Islamic Political Thought: From the Prophet to
the Present (New York, 2001).
Ceric, Mustafa, Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam: A Study of the Theology
of Abu Mans _ ur al-Maturd (d. 333/944) (Kuala Lumpur, 1995).
Hallaq, Wael B., A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunn
Us _ ul al-Fiqh (Cambridge, 1999).
Heinrichs, Wolfhart P., Qawaid as a genre of legal literature, in Bernard
G. Weiss (ed.), Studies in Islamic Legal Theory (Leiden, 2002), pp. 36584.
Makdisi, George, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and
the West (Edinburgh, 1981).
Melchert, Christopher, The Formation of the Sunn Schools of Law, 9th10th
Centuries ce (Leiden, 1997).
Theological dimensions of Islamic law 253
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Rahman, Fazlur, Functional interdependence of law and theology, in
G. E. von Grunebaum (ed.), Theology and Law in Islam (Wiesbaden,
1971), pp.8997.
Islam (Chicago and London, 1979); 2nd edn, (Chicago, 2002).
Reinhart, Kevin A., Like the difference between heaven and earth: H _ anaf and
Shafi discussions of fard _ and wajib in theology and us
_ ul, in Bernard
G. Weiss (ed.), Studies in Islamic Legal Theory (Leiden, 2002), pp. 20534.
Rudolph, Ulrich, Al-Maturd und die Sunnitische Theologie in Samarkand
(Leiden, 1997).
Santillana, David, Istituzioni di diritto musulmano Malichita con riguardo
anche al sistema Sciafiita, 2 vols. (Rome, 1926).
Schacht, Joseph, Islamic religious law, in Joseph Schacht and C.E. Bosworth
(eds.), The Legacy of Islam (Oxford, 1974), pp. 392403.
The Origins of Muh _ ammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1953).
Theology and law in Islam, in G. E. von Grunebaum (ed.), Theology and
Law in Islam (Wiesbaden, 1971), pp. 323.
Stewart, Devin J., Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite Responses to the
Sunni Legal System (Salt Lake City, 1998).
Weiss, Bernard, The Search for Gods Law: Islamic Jurisprudence in the
Writings of Sayf al-Dn al-Amid (Salt Lake City, 1992).
Notes
1. In this chapter, jurist stands for a scholar of Islamic positive law (faqh); jurisconsult stands for a jurist trained to issue special legal opinions for individual cases (muft); and jurisprudent is used for a scholar of Islamic legal theory (us
_ ul).
2. David Santillana, Istituzioni di diritto musulmano Malichita con riguardo anche al sistema Sciafiita (Rome, 1926), i, p.5.
3. Henri de Wael, Le droit Musulman: nature et evolution (Paris, 1989), p.52.
4. Noel J. Coulson, Conflicts and Tensions in Islamic Jurisprudence (Chicago, 1969), pp.805.
5. John Henry Merryman, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Western Europe and Latin America (Stanford, 1969), pp.1517.
6. In the wake of the Mutazilite-inspired Inquisition under Mamun, and the subsequent institutional consolidation of the schools of law, Muslim jurists assumed authority over Islamic religious discourse and legal institutions. Through subsequent centuries, this disparate and non- centralised body of men continued to exercise virtually exclusive religious authority at the expense of the state (see Devin J. Stewart, Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite Responses to the Sunni Legal System (Salt Lake City, 1998), p.1). The rift between the political and religious establishments in Islam left a legacy of crisis over political legitimacy. There were notable exceptions, such as the Ottoman Empire, but most Muslim polities were plagued by their endemic need for
254 Umar F. Abd-Allah
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
political legitimacy in the absence of religious endorsement. See Antony Black, The History of Islamic Political Thought: From the Prophet to the Present (New York, 2001), pp.234, 30, 33, 38.
7. Austin B. Creel, Dharma in Hindu Ethics (Calcutta, 1977), pp.13; and Ariel Glucklich, The Sense of Adharma (New York and Oxford, 1994), pp.3, 79.
8. See Mario Bretone, Geschichte des romischen Rechts: Von den Anfangen bis zu Justinian (Munich, 1987), pp.814; Michael Gagarin, Early Greek Law (Berkeley, 1986), pp.1, 1516.
9. ZeevW.Falk, Jewish lawandmedieval canon law, inBernardS. Jackson (ed.), Jewish Law in Legal History and the Modern World (Leiden, 1980), p.78.
10. Philip S. Alexander, Jewish law in the time of Jesus: towards a clarification of the problem, in Barnabas Lindars (ed.), Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of the Law in Israel and Early Christianity by Members of the Ehrhardt Seminar of Manchester University (Cambridge, 1988), p.44.
11. Roger Tomes, A perpetual statute throughout your generations, in ibid., p.20.
12. F. F. Bruce, Paul and the law in recent research, in ibid., pp.11518. 13. Timo Veijola, Der Dekalog bei Luther und in der heutigen Wis-
senschaft, in ibid., pp.667. 14. Falk, Jewish law, pp.7880. 15. Hubert Kaufhold, Die Rechtssammlung des Gabriel von Bas
_ ra unter ihr
Verhaltnis zu den anderen juristischen Sammelwerken der Nestorianer (Berlin, 1976), pp.58, 134.
16. De Wael, Le droit musulman, p.52. 17. Coulson, Conflicts and Tensions, p.805. 18. H.A.R. Gibb and Harold Bowen, Islamic Society and the West (Toronto,
1957), pp.910. 19. Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford, 1964), p.200. 20. Umar F. Abd-Allah, Innovation and creativity in Islamic law,
21. Bernard Weiss, The Spirit of Islamic Law (Athens, GA, 1998), p.89. 22. Santillana, Istituzioni, i, p.55. 23. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Ilam al-muwaqqiin in (Beirut, 1998), iii, p.5.
In Arabic, the maxim reads: la yunkaru taghayyur al-ahkam maa taghayyur al-azman. Ibn Qayyim parses it by adding: in accordance with changing times, places, circumstances, intentions, and customary practices.
24. Al ibn al-Qas _ s _ ar, al-Muqaddima fil-Us
_ ul (Beirut, 1996), pp.11415;
Abul-Wald al-Baj, Ih _ kam al-Fus
_ ul (Beirut, 1995), ii, pp.71416.
25. Abd-Allah, Innovation and creativity in Islamic law, pp.89. 26. See George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in
Islam and the West (Edinburgh, 1981), pp.4, 290; Wael B. Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunn Us
_ ul
al-Fiqh (Cambridge, 1999), pp.2012 and n. 59; Christopher Melchert,
Theological dimensions of Islamic law 255
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
The Formation of the Sunn Schools of Law, 9th10th Centuries ce (Leiden, 1997), pp.1617.
27. Fazlur Rahman, Functional interdependence of law and theology, in G.E. von Grunebaum (ed.), Theology and Law in Islam (Wiesbaden, 1971), pp.8997, at pp.8990.
28. Joseph Schacht, Theology and law in Islam, in ibid., pp.324, at p.4. 29. Ulrich Rudolph, Al-Maturd und die Sunnitische Theologie in
Samarkand (Leiden, 1997), pp.256, 2930, 845, 354, 357; Mustafa Ceric, Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam: A Study of the Theology of Abu Mans
_ ur al-Maturd (d. 333/944) (Kuala Lumpur, 1995), p.11.
30. Kevin A. Reinhart, Like the difference between heaven and earth: H _ anaf and Shafi discussions of fard
_ and wajib in theology and us
_ ul,
in Bernard G. Weiss, ed., Studies in Islamic Legal Theory (Leiden, 2002), pp.20534, at pp.205, 225, 230.
31. Fazlur Rahman, Islam, 2nd edn (Chicago, 2002), p.51. 32. Abrahamov defines traditionist as a scholar of hadith, and a
traditionalist as one who regards religious and theological truth as strictly revelatory and directly derivative, often in a literalistic fashion, from the Quran, Sunna and Consensus: Binyamin Abrahamov, Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationalism (Edinburgh: 1998), p. ix.
33. Ibid., pp. viii, ix. 34. Rudolph, Al-Maturd, pp.2212. 35. For definitions and illustrations of these instruments of law and the
divergent attitudes of the principal Sunn schools toward them, see Umar F. Abd-Allah, Maliks concept of amal in the light of Malik legal theory, 2 vols. (PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 1978), i, pp.20985.
36. Muh _ ammad Maruf al-Dawalib, al-Madkhal ila ilm us
_ ul al-fiqh
(Beirut, 1965), p.174. 37. Santillana, Istituzioni, i, pp.557. 38. See Wolfhart P. Heinrichs, Qawaid as a genre of legal literature, in
Weiss, Studies, pp.36584, at pp.3678, 371. 39. Abrahamov, Islamic Theology, p. x. 40. Ibid., p.7. 41. See Abd-Allah, Maliks concept of amal, i, pp.20985. 42. Sherman A. Jackson, Fiction and formalism: towards a functional
analysis of us _ ul al-fiqh, in Weiss, Studies, p.184.
43. See Yvon Linant de Bellefonds, Traite de droit musulman compare (Paris, 1965), i, pp.79.
44. Muh _ ammad al-Arus Abd al-Qadir, al-Masail al-mushtaraka bayna
us _ ul al-fiqh wa-us
_ ul al-dn (Jeddah, 1410/1990), p.12.
45. Rahman, Functional interdependence, p.90. 46. Abd al-Qadir, Masail, pp.12, 15. 47. Ibid., pp.1516. 48. Hallaq, History, pp.378. 49. Rahman, Functional interdependence, p.91. 50. Abd al-Qadir, Masail, pp.1213.
256 Umar F. Abd-Allah
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
51. See Kevin Reinhart, Before Revelation: The Boundaries of MuslimMoral Thought (Albany, 1995).
52. Abd al-Qadir, Masail, pp.1213, 701, 945, 13248. 53. Ah
_ mad ibn Idrs al-Qaraf, Sharh
_ tanqh
_ al-fus
_ ul fil-us
_ ul (Cairo, 1306
ah), pp.412. 54. Abd al-Qadir, Masail, pp.789. 55. Rudolph, Al-Maturd, pp.296, 298; cf. Ceric, Roots, p.127. 56. Abd al-Qadir, Masail pp.747. 57. Muh
_ ammad ibn Jarr al-T
_ abar, Jami al-bayan an tawl a al-Quran
(Beirut, 1995), vi, pp.1501. 58. Al al-Qar, Mirqat al-mafath
_ (Mecca, n.d.), i, p.283.
59. Muh _ ammad al-Ghazal, Ih
_ ya ulum al-dn (Damascus, n.d.), i, p.77.
60. Santillana, Istituzioni, i, pp.67. 61. Melchert, Formation, p. xiii. 62. Muh
_ ammad al-Arab al-Darqaw, Majmuat rasail Ab Abd Allah
Muh _ ammad al-Arab al-Darqaw (Casablanca, n.d.), p.47.
63. In Abd al-Wahhab al-Sharan, al-T _ abaqat al-kubra al-musamma
bi-lawaqih _ al-anwar f t
_ abaqat al-akhyar (Beirut, 1408/1988), i, p.4.
64. William C. Chittick, Faith and Practice of Islam: Three Thirteenth- Century Sufi Texts (Albany, 1992), pp. xiixiii, 16870.
65. Hallaq, History, p.163. 66. Sharan, Abd al-Wahhab, al-T
_ abaqat al-kubra (Cairo, 1965), i, p.6.
Theological dimensions of Islamic law 257
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13 Theology and Sufism
toby mayer
introduction
Concepts of God are mere simulacra. Such, in brief, was the teaching
of the great Hispano-Arab mystical theologian Muh _ yil-Dn ibn Arab
(d. 1240). In his typically outspoken formulation, the conceptual God is
just a created God. He is, according to Ibn Arabs expression the
God created in dogmas (al-H _ aqq al-makhluq fil-itiqadat).1 In the
Islamic ethos, such a deity is ultimately a deception. All that you
worship instead of God is nothing but names which you have invented,
you and your forefathers, for which God has bestowed no warrant
from on high! (Quran 12:40). In a civilisational event charged
with numinosity, at the conquest of Mecca on Thursday 20 Ramadan
8 (11 January 630), the Prophet enters the Great Sanctuary on his camel
Qas _ wa, fully armed. He first touches his staff to the Black Stone in the
north-east corner of the Kaba, magnifying God. In a deafening cres-
cendo, the cry Allahu akbar (God is most great) is taken up by the
thousands of onlookers before the Prophet hushes them with a gesture.
After making his t _ awaf, the seven ritual circuits of the Kaba, the
Prophet next turns to face the surrounding idols of the pagan Arabs.
There are 360 in all, standing for each degree in a vast circle of universal
illusion. The Prophet rides slowly round, pointing his staff at each
totem, and intones the verse of the Quran: The Real has now come and
the false has vanished: for behold, the false is bound to vanish! (17:81).
As he points, one idol after another lurches forward on its face.
Sufism drew its own radical consequences from this archetypal act
of iconoclasm. It viewed not just stone but mental constructs with
suspicion. It set aside man-made gods in favour of the living God, the
palpable mystery encountered in the disciplines of the Sufi path through
contemplation (mushahadamystika theamata). To be sure, Sufism has a theology, but one unlike the science of the speculative theologians
(mutakallimun). It is a mystical theology which flows from the
258
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transcendent experience of God in the lives of the saints. While Sufism
strove, especially from the thirteenth century, to express its theology
positively and systematically, it had earlier favoured quite different
media: hagiography, spiritual ethics, the theopathic locution (shat _ h _ ),2
allusion (ishara), paradox and poetry. Moreover, in common with other
mystical theologies, it strongly inclined to an apophatic rather than a
kataphatic approach to the divine mystery, expressing God through
denial, not affirmation, through unsaying rather than saying. Thus
Niffar (d. after 977) reported that God said to him: Do not speak, for he
that reaches unto Me does not speak! and Name is a veil over
essence.3 For H _ allaj (d. 922), even the attribution of unity to God
(tawh _ d) by man in the end fell short of Gods absolutely transcendent
reality: Unity is an attribute of the created subject who bears witness to
it. It is not an attribute of the Object witnessed as one.4 Apophasis had
venerable roots in the Islamic tradition. The first caliph, Abu Bakr
(d. 634), reputedly said: The incapacity to attain comprehension [of God]
is comprehending [God] (al-ajz an dark al-idrak idrak).5
But Sufism did not isolate itself from wider Muslim society and
discourse. On the contrary, it underwent an extremely productive ten-
sion which was arguably the central dynamic of Islamic intellectual
history: though Sufism constituted an esoterism of the highest order,
with all the exclusiveness which that implies, it also had to reckon with
the Islamic genius. The salient quality of that genius is integrality. In
this there is a subtle but definite link between the unity of God and that
of man, theological tawh _ d (making one monotheism) implying
societal tawh _ d. If Sufis found striking proof-texts for a distinction of
esoterism from exoterism in the Quran and hadith,6 they also had to
contend with clear texts which muted the free social expression of such
a distinction.7 Moreover, Sufism claimed to lie at the core of Islam, and
to have the vivifying role in the civilisation of the heart within a body.
On these grounds, it could not divorce itself from Islamic society, des-
pite constituting at times a radically esoteric movement.
A treatment of the relationship between Islamic mysticism and
theology must note this tension. It is at work throughout the history of
Sufism, but is more apparent in certain phases, and in particular from
the ninth to the tenth century. This was the time in which the Islamic
tradition was emerging from a brilliant process of formalisation through
the development of a series of sciences (hadith, jurisprudence, theology,
exegesis), each with its principles (us _ ul), authorities and schools
(madhahib). But this fixation unavoidably threatened to restrict and
even alienate the role of spirituality, which had been central to the
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ferment of early Islamic religious culture. Parallel with this, certain
representatives of spirituality in this period tended for the first time to
suggest a radical incommensurability of the via mystica with exoteric
norms: key figures such as the already mentioned H _ allaj, and later
Niffar, Abu Yazd al-Bist _ am (d. c. 875), H
_ amdun al-Qas
_ s _ ar (d. 884) and
Abu H _ afs
_ Amr al-H
_ addad (d. c. 874).
mutazilite sufism
Let us explore the development of this situation. Mysticism, the-
ology, jurisprudence and exegesis clearly formed a seamless unity in the
apostolic period of Islam. Notwithstanding vexing questions of histor-
icity, all the disparate sciences and groups of the classical Islamic uni-
verse trace their origins back to the naked singularity of this time. In
the post-apostolic era, the era of the Successors (tabiun), there is still a
striking unity of impulse. A clear case in point is mysticism and the-
ology the subject of this chapter. It is well known that both trace their
origins as distinct fields to the figure of al-H _ asan al-Bas
_ r (d. 728).
A phalanx of proto-Sufis like Ibn Wasi, Farqad, Aban, Yazd
al-Raqqash, Ibn Dnar, Bunan and H _ abb al-Ajam emerged from
Bas _ rs circle.8 As central a Sufi concept as h
_ al (pl. ah
_ wal, a rapture or
transitional spiritual state, as opposed to maqam, a stable station), may
have started with Bas _ r. In addition, the key Sufi practice of systematic
self-examination (muh _ asaba) appears to have been recommended first
by him.9 On the other hand, the first stirrings of speculative theology in
its earliest Mutazilite form were also felt in his group. The two men
held up as the founder figures of Mutazilite theology, Was _ il ibn At
_ a
(d. 748) and Abu Uthman Amr ibn Ubayd ibn Bab (d. 769), were both
associated with his circle. It is noteworthy that both men were also well
known for askesis.10 True, Was _ il removed himself (or was banished by
Bas _ r) from the circle. But for Massignon it was Bas
_ rs own rationalist
exegesis of scripture in particular which marks him down as the
prototypical Mutazilite. For instance, he viewed the quranic figures of
Harut and Marut (2:102) as non-Arab princes (iljan), not as fallen angels;
and with his critical mind he held the salutations to right and left
ending the formal prayer to be an islamisation of an earlier custom.11
In due course, this early link between Mutazilism and Sufism was
so completely eclipsed as to seem improbable. For example (to jump
ahead in time), Ibn Munawwar, the hagiographer of the great Central
Asian Sufi saint Abu Sad ibn Abil-Khayr (d. 1049), typified his period
in implying that H _ anafite-Mutazilite rationalism was quite unsuited for
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Sufism.12 Nevertheless, in the meantime there had indeed been figures
categorised as Sufi Mutazilites (s _ ufiyyat al-mutazila). The founder of
the Baghdad school of Mutazilite theology, Abu Sahl Bishr ibn
al-Mutamir (d. 825), numbered Sufis among his followers, such as
Abul-Qasim al-Balkh; one of the most famous of all Mutazilite
thinkers, al-Naz _ z _ am (d. 845), had students who were Sufis, such as Fad
_ l
al-H _ adath and Ibn Khabit
_ ; and the already mentioned major figures
Bist _ am and H
_ addad were members of the Mutazila.13
The foreclosure of a Mutazilite Sufism was accelerated by the
famous caliphal Inquisition (mih _ na) between 833 and 851, in which the
confession of the created status of the Quran was enforced by the
Abbasid state in line with Mutazilite doctrine. Prominent contempor-
ary Sufis resisted the policy in varying degrees. A major Baghdad leader
of the Sufi movement, Bishr al-H _ af (d. 841 or 842) typically adopted a
stance of passive resistance, lauding Ibn H _ anbal for not yielding to the
pressure of the authorities, yet avoiding putting himself in direct
jeopardy. But despite his high standing, Bishr was strongly criticised for
his quietistic attitude, even by disciples.14 Other mystics, such as the
mysterious Dhul-Nun al-Mis _ r (d. 860), resisted as actively as Ibn
H _ anbal himself, and underwent imprisonment for their intransigence.15
At any rate, the period of the mih _ na appears to have confirmed Sufisms
already strong links with the orthodox Sunn party (ahl al-h _ adth).
The latter triumphed under al-Mutawakkils caliphate, and with the
discrediting of Mutazilism the Sufi Mutazilite became an anomalous
figure.
the bakriyya, salimiyya and karramiyya
Bas _ rs main legacy to Sufism must be sought in a different quarter
from the Sufi Mutazila. The important eighth-century proto-Sufi order
known as the Bakriyya derived directly from his influence. This group,
who were strongly aligned with the ahl al-h _ adth, had their origins in a
figure who was reputedly a student of Bas _ r, Abd al-Wah
_ id ibn Zayd (d.
793), although the name Bakriyya derives from the latters nephew and
disciple Bakr ibn Ukht Abd al-Wah _ id ibn Zayd. The sect was strongly
focused on the inner life of its adherents. An ascetic community of Ibn
Zayds followers established themselves at Abbadan, at that time an
island between the estuaries of the Qarun and Tigris rivers, where they
used distinctive conical cells16 for contemplative exercises. One of Ibn
Zayds main disciples was Abu Sulayman al-Daran (d. 830), who is a
significant link in the development of Islamic mystical thought insofar
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as he first tried to systematise the key Sufi concept of the state (h _ al) and
station (maqam) on the path to God.17 Some of the great early Sufis were
to be found at the Abbadan complex, such as the aforementioned Bishr
al-H _ af, Sar al-Saqat
_ (d. 865) and Sahl al-Tustar (d. 896).
Tustar, a thinker of great importance in the history of Sufi thought,
had been attracted to the community by its then head, a little-known
figure by the name of Abu H _ abb H
_ amza ibn Abd Allah al-Abbadan.
He alone, Tustar found, could answer the spiritual problem which had
convulsed his life from his early teens. This, if Ibn Arab is to be
believed,18 was the problem of the prostration of the heart. Tustar
had become aware that his heart, his inner consciousness, was also in
prostration to God, like his physical body in the formal prayer (s _ alat).
Unlike his body in the s _ alat, however, Tustars heart refused to return
to the stipulated standing position (qiyam). Only Abbadan could con-
firm for him that it was perfectly correct for the heart of the mystic to be
rendered prostrate, and never to recover. It was also in seclusion at
Abbadan that Tustar had the mysterious formative experience of his
spiritual novitiate his visions of Gods Supreme Name (ism Allah
al-az _ am) filling the nocturnal sky.19
The noteworthy point about the Bakriyya is that it was as much a
theological school as a spiritual movement. Moreover, the groups the-
ology was moulded in opposition to the rationalist Mutazila and their
influence in Basra. In other words, it was a self-consciously Sunn the-
ology which in certain respects foreshadowed Asharism.20 The move-
ment called the Salimiyya, presently engendered by Tustar through his
disciple Muh _ ammad ibn Salim and the latters son Abul-H
_ asan Ah
_ mad
ibn Salim, was very similar. The Salimiyya was one of the major Sufi
movements of the late ninth century, but it is sometimes referred to in
Muslim doxographical works as a theological (kalam) school. For
instance, Baghdads Distinction between the Sects (al-Farq bayn
al-firaq) refers to the Salimiyya as a band of kalam scholars in Basra.21
Theologically, the Salimiyyas doctrines, like those of the Bakriyya, were
opposed to Mutazilism. The movement was indeed broadly linked with
the radical anti-Mutazilite perspective known to its enemies as the
h _ ashwiyya (approximately: the stuffing-ists, i.e. the outspoken liter-
alists). The h _ ashw perspective was formalised, above all, within
H _ anbalism and it is significant that the Salimiyya sought refuge in the
metropolis of Baghdad inside the H _ anbalite quarter. The major con-
temporary H _ anbalite scholar Abu Muh
_ ammad al-Barbahar (d. 941) had
in fact been a disciple of Tustar.22 An important proposition of the
Salimiyya suggestive of an ethos analogous to that of H _ anbalism is that
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when one recites the Quran, God Himself recites it by ones tongue, and
when one listens to another reciting the Quran, one actually hears it
from God.23 Again, Tustar vehemently upholds the reality of the
attributes of God, or rather, in his curiously nuanced way of putting it,
he upholds the reality of the attributes of the attributes. These attri-
butes of the attributes are strongly affirmed by Tustar and yet are
declared by him to transcend human comprehension: behind the
names and attributes [are] attributes which the minds [afham] do not
pierce because God is a fire ablaze. There is no way to Him and no
escape from plunging into Him.24 The amodal affirmation of the divine
names/attributes is a basic H _ anbal and Ashar response toMutazilism.
The latter sought to preserve divine transcendence by the negation (and
metaphorical interpretation) of the attributes of God cited in the Quran.
On the other hand, the orthodox correctives to Mutazilism (be they
H _ anbal or Asharite) attempted to preserve both divine transcendence
and the letter of scripture, by affirming the panoply of scriptural attri-
butes in all their richness while simultaneously approaching them
strictly amodally, or apophatically, thus raising them far beyond the
reach of human understanding. The difference, such as it is, between the
response to the issue of Gods attributes in these orthodox Sunn theo-
logies and in Tustars mystical theology, is the palpably experiential
element in the latter: God is a fire ablaze and there is no escape from
plunging into Him. This movement from the two-dimensionality of
conception to the three-dimensionality of empirical experience marks a
typical difference of emphasis between kalam and Sufism.
The orthodox party in theology did not refrain from criticism of
the Salimiyya for the schools less conformable teachings. This is evi-
dent in the (unextant) work condemning Ah _ mad ibn Salim by Ibn Khaff
al-Shraz (d. 981). Ibn Khaff was the direct disciple of the founder and
eponym of the school of Sunn orthodox theology par excellence,
Abul-H _ asan al-Ashar. Nevertheless, his attack on the Salimiyya can-
not be used as evidence of a general hostility of Asharism towards
Sufism. For Ibn Khaff was in fact one of the best-known Sufis of his
generation in Baghdad. He thus shows, at the very historical inception of
Asharism, just how closely this major kalam school and Sufism could
be intertwined.
What general conclusions, then, might be drawn from the cases of
the Bakriyya and Salimiyya? First, these are glaringly the ancestors of
the post-thirteenth-century Sufi orders. Moreover, they bear out that,
true to the precedent of the Prophet and primitive Islam, spirituality and
theology coalesce in the mystical movements of this formative period,
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since in the Bakriyya and Salimiyya theological dogmata and spiritual
agenda wholly combine. Louis Massignon long ago vouched for the idea
that the theologies of these groups were actually explored and vindicated
through their spiritual experimentation.25 Lastly, the theologies in
question, while sui generis and sometimes subject to criticism by par-
tisans of the ahl al-h _ adth, are more in keeping with the latters point of
view and stand against the Mutazilite tendency to rationalise and
figurate.
There is one other major school which, from the later ninth century,
like the earlier Bakriyya and contemporary Salimiyya, in Massignons
words made a defense of orthodoxy based upon the experimental
method of the mystics and even revised contemporary scholastic
vocabulary in the light of the constants observed through mystical
introspection.26 This school was the Karramiyya. Again, counter-
Mutazilite doctrine combined in the Karramiyya with a semi-cenobitic
lifestyle and spiritual programme. The sects eponym, Muh _ ammad ibn
Karram (d. 870), spent time studying at Balkh and other places at the
then eastern extremity of the Muslim world where the remnants of
Manichean or Buddhist religious institutions may have contributed to
his idea of the khanqah or convent. While the term became the normal
word in the Persianate world for a Sufi convent, in the ninth century the
institution was still so closely identified with Ibn Karrams followers
that they were sometimes called Khanqahs.27 Within his movement,
the khanqah was a place for spiritual retreat (itikaf) and ascetic exer-
cises but also a centre from which Ibn Karrams distinctive theological
teachings could be propagated. The theology in question was presently
anathematised, largely because Ibn Karram veered towards gross cor-
porealism (tajsm), in reaction to the rationalistic abstraction of God
(tat _ l) by the Mutazilites. Nevertheless, the Karramite movement was
in its time widely influential in eastern Islam, and many contemporary
authorities within the H _ anafite rite who rejected Mutazilism in kalam
had defined themselves in terms of membership of Ibn Karrams
school.28
the challenge of esoterism
Aside from bequeathing to Sufism the distinctive institution of the
khanqah, the influence of Karramism on Islamic mysticism is indirect.
It should be remembered that Ibn Karrams movement was not mystical
sensu stricto. However, the violent asceticism of its exponents, which
cast such a spell over the working classes of Khurasanian towns such as
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Nshapur, provoked an epochal reaction amongst mystics in the ninth
century. With H _ amdun al-Qas
_ s _ ar and Abu H
_ afs
_ Amr al-H
_ addad at their
head, their distinctive teaching emphasised the rejection of all spiritual
ostentation (riya), against the histrionic otherworldliness of the
Karramite ascetics. Spiritual striving was for God alone, or it was
worthless. In the case of H _ amdun, this radical introversion might
even involve actively seeking social blame, in line with the verse in the
Quran which praises those who struggle in the path of God and do not
fear the blame of a blamer (5:54). The new tendency emanating in
particular from the mystics of Nshapur was thus known as the Mal-
amatiyya, the People of Blame.29 The Malamat ethic was fraught with
danger. It predictably led some would-be mystics to legitimise outright
antinomianism, and so threatened to discredit Sufism within Islam.
Interpreted sincerely and conscientiously, however, the Malamat
ethic remains a constant and moving undercurrent of Sufi spirituality
and hagiography. Abd al-Rah _ man al-Sulam (d. 1021), author of one of
the earliest esoteric commentaries on the Quran, formalised and
structured Malamat spirituality in his Malamat Treatise (Risalat
al-Malamatiyya), and in the school of Ibn Arab, the highest of all saints
are in the Malamat ranks.30
Exponents of the Malamatiyya were thus urged, through the nega-
tive example of the Karramiyya, to objectify what marked out a truly
esoteric askesis from its exoteric analogue. Their askesis was wholly
introverted and had no one but God for witness. The Malamat mystics
are part of a larger convulsion which characterises Sufism in that period.
Sufism (as the mystical movement was presently generalised) could not
disguise a certain asymmetry between its teachings and wider religious
norms. This asymmetry was visible in many areas, from Sufisms
involved paraliturgical practices and the audacity of its goals, to its
characteristic media. The pursuit of the Prophets good example (uswa
h _ asana) by Sufis unsatisfied with simple conformity to his precedent
(sunna) in the routines of daily life, seemed to trespass on the very
uniqueness of the Last Prophet. From the ninth century, for example,
there were Sufis who spoke frankly of emulating the Prophets ascen-
sion.31 Saintly thaumaturgy denied by Mutazilites but accepted
unhesitatingly by the masses32 seemed to rival prophetic thaumaturgy.
Neither was the supreme goal of the Sufi gnostic simply the fulfilment
of the religions legal obligations with a view to posthumous salvation,
but was additionally God-realisation (ittis _ af), no less, while alive. And
the gnostics encounter with God was expressed in Sufism in a unique
medium, the theopathic locution. In such utterances, it was claimed
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that God Himself spoke through the mystic in enigmas akin to the
ambiguities (mutashabihat) found in the Quran. Like the quranic
ambiguities, these locutions were to be accepted by the mass of believers
in good faith, leaving their interpretation to an elite. Thus, in Carl
Ernsts words, they shockingly amounted to a virtual supplementary
canon, formed by the uninterrupted contact which God maintains
with the elect.33 The most famous ecstatic who brought such readings
of Sufism into the open, forcing the issue of their asymmetry with
exoterism, was undoubtedly Mans _ ur al-H
_ allaj.
There had already been trials of Sufis under the Abbasids, notably
that of Abul-H _ usayn al-Nur and his companions c. 878. The mystical
lover Sumnun (d. 910) had fallen foul of certain authorities for his
amorous way of talking about God. Ah _ mad al-Kharraz (d. 899) was exiled
from Baghdad at this time on account of his work The Secret (Kitab al-
Sirr), and later, after an eleven-year residence inMecca, he found himself
expelled again. But it is clearly the furore centring on H _ allaj and his two
trials (913 and 922) under the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir, which marks
the moment when the tension most momentously broke surface.
What doctrines were specifically at stake in these persecutions? It
appears that the Nur trial was founded on a vague allegation of zandaqa
(crypto-Manichean heresy). This was enough provocation for the
H _ anbalite jurist Ghulam al-Khall to persuade the authorities to have
him arrested and tried. For a figure like Khall, Nurs doctrine of divine
love suggested an outrageous intimacy between creature and God, and
implied an intolerable anthropomorphism. It is important, however, that
when questioned by the chief judge of Baghdad, Nur spoke in particular
about the saints who see by God and hear by God (the idea of ittis _ af),
causing the judge to weep with emotion. The same principle was the
recurrent issue in the H _ allaj trials. In the first of these, the main charge
was that H _ allaj had claimed divine lordship for himself and taught
incarnationism (h _ ulul), by which the authorities concluded that the
wandering thaumaturge was posturing as a messianic figure (mahd).34
This was deeply threatening to the state at a time when the extremist
Shite movement known as Carmathianism was in the air. In the sec-
ond trial, although H _ allajs alleged replacement of the H
_ ajj was decisive
in his condemnation from the point of view of orthopraxy, nevertheless
the vital issue from the viewpoint of orthodoxy was probably again
ittis _ af. It was the seizure of a text on this subject among H
_ allajs
effects which initially provoked the caliph to hand him over for cross-
examination, and H _ allajs thesis of [Gods] witness (qawl bil-shahid)
was the subject of a special session during the proceedings. In this last
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doctrine, it was claimed that witnessings (shawahid) of God are
obtainable in the person of the saints (ahl al-ikhlas _ ), who thereby
become persuasive evidence of God in the midst of creation, drawing
mankind to Him.35 H _ allaj evidently claimed as much for himself: If
you do not know Him, then at least know His signs! I am that sign and
I am the Truth [anal-H _ aqq]!36
It must be noted that H _ allaj himself rejected the concept of h
_ ulul.
But a unio mystica, in some sense, clearly lies at the heart of his
teachings. H _ allaj thus describes the realised saint as a manifestation
(z _ uhur) of God, but not an infusion [h
_ ulul] in a material receptacle
[haykal juthman].37 The distinction is important and clearly eluded
H _ allajs persecutors. The point is surely that through the saints self-
annihilation there is a thinning of the existential veils which hide God
from the world, so that God in His infinity and transcendence may be
contemplated through the saint, as the sky may be glimpsed through a
window. There is no suggestion here of God incarnating, through a
kenotic descent into an earthbound individual. Indeed, a recurring
note of H _ allajs T
_ awasn is that God and the creature never combine. Be
that as it may, the very notion of God-realisation, whatever its inter-
pretation, appalled the H _ anbalites, and obliged Sufis who used such
language to qualify and carefully explain what they meant. A more
circumspect view was that the saint was invested with one or another
divine name or attribute (s _ ifa). This was the so-called s
_ ifat mysticism,
initially developed by H _ allajs disciple Abu Bakr al-Wasit
_ (d. c. 932) and
popular in later Sufism. Another way in which the unitive experience of
the mystic was explained was through the Sufi concept of baqa
(enduring), whereby the earthly adjunct of the mystic was readmitted
subsequent to his annihilation (fana) in God readmitted, however, in
the light of that experience. The great contemporary mystic Junayd
(d. 910), whose epistles are marked by a preoccupation with this whole
problem, explains baqa as follows: [The mystic] is present in himself
and in God after having been present in God and absent in himself. This
is because he has left intoxication with Gods omnipotence [ghalaba]
and comes to the clarity of sobriety.38 Junayd goes so far as to
emphasise that the famous ecstatics like Bist _ am had all passed away
only in their imagination (ala al-tawahhum).39 His insistence on the
subjectivity of the experience of annihilation and the imperative of
passing beyond it to a reinstatement of the creaturecreator distinction
became a feature of so-called sober (sah _ w) Sufism, and was later
enshrined in the doctrine of wah _ dat al-shuhud (the unity of witness-
ing, subjective theomonism).
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the rescue of integrality
Junayd thus heralds a reaction. His earlier observation of the Nur
affair probably made him wary of H _ allajs strident form of esoterism, and
many accounts point to his censure of H _ allajs outspokenness. It is not a
matter of Junayd being more scrupulous in upholding the Shara, for
H _ allaj himself was allegedly extremely meticulous in his religious
observance and renounced all legal mitigations and concessions
(rukhas _ ). Nonetheless, Junayd makes a reassertion of what has been
referred to earlier as the Islamic genius for integrality, and he marks the
beginning of a concerted effort to express Muslim esoterism in a way
which contributed to, rather than undermined, the wider religion.
Junayds mysticism of sobriety perhaps received its strongest expres-
sion in a tradition of Sufism affiliated to the H _ anbalite legal rite, though
he himself had in fact adhered to the (presently defunct) rite of Abu
Thawr al-Kalb. H _ anbalisms strict rejection of any superimposition on
the Quran and hadith yields a form of Sufism in impeccable conformity
with the consensual foundations of the tradition. This kind of Sufism
might explore the traditions agreed norms with eminently abnormal
intensity, but it may never violate them in the name of esoterism. In
keeping with Junayds emphasis, Sufism has always had a significant
H _ anbalite and Z
_ ahirite manifestation in figures like Junayds contem-
poraries Ruwaym and Amr al-Makk, and later figures like Khwaja
Abdallah Ans _ ar and the great Abd al-Qadir al-Jlan. Ibn Qayyim
al-Jawziyya, disciple of Ibn Taymiyya, would in due course be respon-
sible for documenting this H _ anbalite tradition of Sufism.40
The period from the later tenth to the eleventh century saw the
production of a series of compilatory works and manuals, ever since
viewed as classics, aimed at organising and defending the mystical
movement. Unity was imposed on the different regional traditions,
technical terms were defined, standard hagiographies were put together,
and above all Sufism was shown to conform to orthodox Sunn creeds
and to be rooted in the Quran and the precedent of the Prophet and the
first Muslims. The five key works in question were the Arabic Food of
Hearts (Qut al-qulub) by Abu T _ alib al-Makk (d. 966), the Book of
Gleams (Kitab al-Luma) by Abu Nas _ r al-Sarraj (d. 988), the Disclosure
of the Way of the People of Sufism (al-Taarruf li-madhhab ahl
al-tas _ awwuf) by Abu Bakr al-Kalabadh (d. c. 990), the Generations of
Sufis (T _ abaqat al-S
_ ufiyya) by Abu Abd al-Rah
_ man al-Sulam (d. 1021),
and the Persian work Unveiling the Veiled (Kashf al-mah _ jub) by Al al-
Hujwr (d. 1071 or 1072).
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These texts represent a watershed, and a distinction should be drawn
between the pre- and post-compilatory periods. An important result of
such texts was the imposition of homogeneity. The term Sufi appears
to have applied originally only to the Baghdad school, while the eastern
tradition used the term Malamat, or h _ akm (sage), for its representa-
tives.41 Especially noteworthy is the inclusion in these texts of formal
Sunn creeds. For example, Kalabadhs Disclosure contains a lengthy
preliminary section (chapters 530) which amounts to a detailed state-
ment of Sufisms orthodoxy and conforms to the conventional order of
Islamic catechisms (aqaid): first, correct teaching on the divine attri-
butes; secondly, correct teaching on the Beatific Vision; and thirdly,
correct teaching on theodicy.
Arberry claimed that Kalabadhs creed was modelled on al-Fiqh
al-Akbar II,42 so named by Wensinck and identified by him as a
H _ anbalite creed of the ninth or tenth century.43 But Watt has dismissed
Wensincks thesis, identifying this creed as basically H _ anafite in char-
acter.44 The facts that Kalabadh was later listed as a famous H _ anafite
jurist,45 and that H _ anafism was the prevalent rite in the Samanid realm
where he lived, confirm that the real dogmatic background of the Dis-
closures creed is H _ anafism. Whatever the case, it propounds many of
the core teachings of Sunn kalam as formalised in Asharism and to a
lesser extent in Maturdism. It affirms that God has eternal attributes
which are neither He nor other than He (a typically Asharite for-
mula), and that these attributes are akin to Gods essence in their
unknowability: As His essence is not caused, so His attributes are not
caused: to attempt to display the eternal is to despair of understanding
anything of the realities of the attributes or the subtleties of the essence
[of God]. This is the same apophatic assertion (al-ithbat bi-ghayril-
tashbh) of the divine attributes (versus the apophatic denial of them
typical of Mutazilism) that was seen earlier in Tustars formulation. It
is typical of Asharism. Kalabadh adopts the same attitude in regard to
the critically important attribute of Speech. Sufis, he claims, hold that
Gods Speech is an eternal attribute of God contained in His essence, in
no way resembling the speech of created beings. The author discusses
the status of the Quran at some length, and concludes that since God
affirms for Himself the attribute of Speech (e.g. Quran 4:162) and Gods
attributes must be eternal because He is eternal, therefore, the divine
Speech cannot consist of letters and sounds since this would make it
contingent and temporal. Nevertheless, by a kind of epoche, the Quran
is affirmed to be truly Gods Word and uncreated. What is interesting
about such passages46 is that they read like pure kalam, and are not
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mystical theology in any obvious sense, though Kalabadh may quote
Sufis in support of his position.
In his discussion of the visio beata, Kalabadh again uses a typical
kalam combination of scriptural texts and rational arguments to make
another, essentially Asharite, affirmation: believers will have a true
vision of God in the hereafter, but without any modality (kayfiyya) or
circumscription.47 Finally, the treatment of theodicy is typically
Asharite. Jabrism (the theory of absolute compulsion) is formally denied
but there is an affirmation of Gods creation of every act of the creature
as well as of its capacity (istit _ aa) in acting. Kalabadh, moreover, dis-
approves of the typically Mutazilite doctrine that God is determined by
questions of welfare (mas _ lah
_ a).48
Credal statements like Kalabadhs became a stock feature of a
certain kind of Sufi literature, from Makks Food of Hearts to Ghazals
Revival (which contains the Jerusalem Epistle, an Asharite catechism).
It is simplistic to maintain that such creeds are artifices to win
acceptance from the Shara-minded, planted within works aimed at
smuggling Sufism into mainstream Islam. Rather, such creeds are in
the end symptomatic of the Sufis own conviction that Sufism lies at the
very heart of the religion, and is sine qua non for its spiritual vitality. It
is the figure of Abu H _ amid al-Ghazal who had the decisive historical
role in bearing out this claim. He stands, above all, for the full con-
firmation of mysticisms centrality to Islam as a living theocratic
civilisation.
ghazal and the seljuk synthesis
This is not the place to rehearse the details of Ghazals life. Else-
where in this volume, David Burrell has described how he came to
confirm the centrality of Sufism through terrible inner traumata.49 The
result was that Ghazal made his famous flight from Baghdad, dedicating
himself to the contemplative disciplines of Sufism.
Ghazal hyperbolises when he expresses himself in terms of an
actual disavowal of the exoteric sciences. For the fruit of his conversion
was of course a bold attempt to revive these very sciences through
Sufism, as expressed in the title of his major work, The Revival of the
Religious Sciences. Ghazal thus aimed to generalise Sufism, in keeping
with the spirit of integrality. He wanted Sufism to pervade society,
guaranteeing its spiritual vitality. He wished, in other words, for a
restoration of the primitive theocratic ideal of Islam: a society grounded
in the living presence of God, in place of the (at best) nomocratic
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aspirations of the society he saw around him. It is noteworthy that in
one of his last works, the famous O Youth, Ghazal proposed that
Sufism, euphemised as the science of the states of the heart, was an
individual duty (fard _ ayn) on Muslims and not merely a duty of
sufficiency (fard _ kifaya).50 Muslim society should not, in other words,
be content to leave the internalising of religion to select individuals.
This is breathtakingly radical. Yet it is closely mirrored in the de facto
pervasion of Muslim society by organised Sufism in the period from the
twelfth century onwards. With the propagation of the great Sufi orders
(t _ uruq), a huge proportion of Muslims were involved in the mystical
movement, albeit many as affiliates (mutashabbihun) or partakers in
the blessing (mutabarrikun) of one or another order.
Ghazals is of course the consummation of a much older relation-
ship between Asharism and Sufism. It is a story whose origins even
pre-date Ashar himself, and go back to the prefigurations of Asharism
in earlier counter-Mutazilite theology. In the century before Ashar,
al-H _ arith al-Muh
_ asib (d. 857) had been a figure of central importance in
the formation of the Baghdad school of Sufism, but was also a self-
consciously orthodox exponent of kalam. Like Ashar later, Muh _ asib
proposed combating Mutazilism on behalf of the ahl al-h _ adth by using
the dialectical tools of kalam in works like his (lost) Reflection and
Induction (Kitab al-Tafakkur wal-itibar). He was severely criticised for
his approach by his contemporary, Ibn H _ anbal, for whom all kalam was
innovatory and suspect. Later, when Ashars school emerged as a major
force, a central figure like the aforementioned Ibn Khaff could be both a
well-known Sufi and a committed Asharite. This combination of Suf-
ism and Asharism triumphed ultimately under Ghazals patrons, the
Seljuks, the major Sunn Turkish power operating in Iran, Iraq and
Anatolia from the mid-eleventh century to the end of the twelfth (and to
the beginning of the fourteenth century in Anatolia). Within the Seljuk
context, Ghazal is generally seen as completing the project already
under way in the previous generation with al-Qushayr (d. 1072), whose
widely influential Treatise (Risala) and esoteric commentary on the
Quran assume an Asharite dogmatic framework. Even under the Sel-
juks, however, Sufism and Asharism did not prevail without tribula-
tion. Despite Seljuk patronage of Sufism through the construction and
endowment of khanqahs, the trial and execution of Sufis were still not
unknown, as in the case of Ayn al-Qud _ at al-Hamadhan (d. 1131).
Again, while Asharism became the official theology of the Seljuk
domains, promoted in the newly founded Niz _ amiyya colleges all over
the eastern lands of Islam in centres like Baghdad, Nshapur and Merv,
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the theological school had earlier been persecuted and banned by T _ ughril-
Begs Mutazilite vizier, Kundur, up until the latters death in 1063.
But Asharite Sufism was undoubtedly the main intellectual bequest
of the Seljuks to Islam. Its influence was primarily felt through the
spread of Ghazals own works. Ghazal became a normative voice in
large areas of the Sunn Muslim world, and the Revival, his magnum
opus, became a text on which many Sufis founded their entire spiritual
programme. There are many examples of this. It is known, for instance,
that the Revival was the basic textbook of Ibn H _ irzihim (d. 1165),
teacher of the great North African saint Abu Madyan. A major figure in
Persianate Sufism like Hamadhan was thoroughly devoted to the
Revival (at least, earlier in his career, before he took up more Avicennan
ideas). But Asharite Sufism also continued to have major representa-
tives without any obvious dependence on Ghazal. The great visionary
and mystical exegete, Ruzbehan Baql (d. 1209), was strongly Asharite
in his theology, as is clear from his credal work Road of Monotheism
(Maslak al-tawh _ d). In other texts, it is fascinating to see Asharite terms
and ideas transposed by Baql into a purely mystical context. For
instance, the difficult kalam issue of the visio beata is explored anew,
no longer as an episode of the eschaton, or of the Prophets ascension,
but insofar as Baql himself claims to have encountered God in the
most beautiful of forms in the privacy of his own home. He explains:
In my ecstasy and spiritual state my heart did not remember the story
of anthropomorphism and abstraction, for in seeing Him, the traces of
intellects and sciences are raised.51 Baql typically uses the H _ anbalite
and Asharite formula without how (bi-la kayf) in such visionary
contexts: He transcends change in His singleness and cannot be
encompassed by His creation. I was watching God, awaiting the
unveiling of attributes and the lights of the Essence, and God manifested
His eternal face without how to my heart; it was as though I was
looking at Him with the external eye, and the hidden world shone from
the appearance of His glory.52 Yet another representative of the syn-
thesis under discussion is Abu H _ afs
_ al-Suhraward (d. 1234), whose work
became the basic textbook of institutional Sufism in the Persianate
world, but who also systematically defended Asharism against
H _ anbalism. Finally, in the Arab world, there is an example in the third
master of the influential Shadhil order, Ibn At _ a Allah al-Iskandar
(d. 1309), whose Asharism was largely drawn from the Book of Guid-
ance (Kitab al-Irshad) of Ghazals teacher al-Juwayn. Iskandars
manual on invocation (dhikr), and his mystical aphorisms bear the
unmistakable imprint of Asharite doctrine and terminology.
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Clearly the term Asharism needs to be modulated when used in
regard to Sufi thinkers like these. Ghazal, for instance, has standard
Asharite works which fall outside of Sufism altogether, like his Just
Mean in Belief (al-Iqtis _ ad fil-itiqad). He presents an analogous level of
Asharism even in certain Sufi contexts, notably in the creed contained
in the Jerusalem Epistle. This level of Asharism is purely catechistic,
and is not Sufi sensu stricto, though it may pave the way for Ghazals
mystical discourse. It should by no means be confused with the tran-
scendentalised Asharism proper to that discourse.53 It is Asharism in
the latter sense which is of real interest to us in the study of thinkers
like Ghazal.
This transcendentalised Asharism must be exemplified. It is well
known that a cornerstone of Asharism is atomism, according to which
the world is made up of indivisible substances (jawahir), which have no
innate power of duration (thubut/baqa), and instead must receive it as
an external accident directly from God at each moment of their exist-
ence. The structure of time itself, according to Asharism, is atomistic
(compare the chronons postulated by certain modern physicists).
Time too consists in nothing but discrete unextended moments (awqat,
or anat nows). This Asharite doctrine is clearly meant to articulate Gods omnipotence. For it denies, at each point in the duration of any-
thing non-divine, that it has any intrinsic power of existence. God alone
has such a power. Put differently, Asharism protests that we are quite
right to ask at each point in the endurance of something, why it is there
at all. Since it was not there in the past, it is never itself sufficient
grounds to explain its presence. It must in fact bemade present, ab extra,
at every point of its duration. This leads to a radical occasionalism: the
denial of secondary causes. The predictability, through time, of the
causeeffect chains from which the world appears to be woven, in fact
depends on Gods custom (adat Allah / sunnat Allah potentia ordinata versus potentia absoluta) and is not part of the intrinsic nature
of the so-called cause and effect. Indeed, the Greek concept of nature
(physis t _ aba) is condemned outright by Asharism. God thus
becomes the sole and absolute cause (mukhtari) of the universe in its
totality throughout its history. Creation is not restricted to a first
moment of time, but the universe is perpetually created for as long as it
is present in existence.
This occasionalist doctrine was developed by Asharism to confirm
Gods absolute power, against Mutazilism, which insisted that God,
through surrender or delegation (tafwd _ ), might invest created beings
with a capacity of their own. Created beings in Mutazilism have a
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certain independence. If this dialectical context partly explains the
emergence of the Asharite teaching in question, it took on a life of its
own in Sufism. For instance, a figure like Ghazal harnesses it to Sufi
ethics, when he recommends in O Youth that the best cure for osten-
tation is to keep in mind that people are really just inanimate objects
(jamadat).54 But this is as yet a relatively modest application of the
Asharite teaching. Ghazal has much bolder uses for it, completely
shifting the emphasis from causality to ontology, from denying power to
creatures to denying existence itself to them, from occasionalism to
theomonism. Thus, in Ghazals exegesis of the verse of the Quran
Everything is perishing except His Face (28:88), he explains that it is
not a matter of things perishing at some particular moment or other, but
that they are perishing unceasingly and at every moment. This is a
mysterious way of saying that created data have no ontological status of
their own at any time, and therefore, that insofar as we speak of exist-
ence at all, it is a theophany. Ghazal is quite frank about his drift, for he
now says, the only existent is the Face of God (fa-yakunul-mawjudu
wajhallahi taala faqat _ ).55 While the original Asharite context is per-
haps implied by Ghazals reference to moments, there has been a
bewildering transition. The discontinuous, cipher-like atomic substance
(jawhar), which Asharism stripped of all influence but still formally
maintained as the ground of the cosmos, has wholly dissolved. Ibn
Arab makes the same transition in the chapter on the prophet Shuayb
in his Bezels of Wisdom (Fus _ us _ al-h
_ ikam). The Asharites, he says, are
on the right lines in their doctrine. But they fall short in maintaining the
theoretical distinction between accidents and substances within the
cosmos. In fact, the whole cosmos is a sum of accidents (majmu
al-arad _ ), involving nothing substantial. Insofar as we can speak of
substance, it is not part of the cosmos, but is God Himself. God, not
atoms, is then the real ground of the cosmos. In this way, as Ibn Arab
puts it, from the sum of what is not self-subsistent has come about
what is self-subsistent . . . and what does not endure for two moments
has come to endure for two moments.56
speculative sufism
In speaking of a synthesis of Asharism and Sufism, it is not implied
that Asharism was uniform. The terminology and basic intuitions of
Asharism are stable, to be sure. But Asharism was undergoing a deep
change during the Seljuk period. Ever since the magisterial corpus of
Avicenna had been disseminated among the learned class, Islamic
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thought had been registering its impact. The Seljuk period has even been
called a period of Avicennan pandemic.57 The first symptoms of
change in kalam were to be seen in Mutazilism. The founder of the last
great school of Mutazilism, Abul-H _ usayn al-Bas
_ r (d. 1044), already
showed Avicennas influence. The same trend entered Asharism
through Juwayn, Ghazals teacher. Ghazal himself stood at the head
of a wave of refuters of Avicenna in his Incoherence. But in weeding out
key aspects of Avicennism which Ghazal held to be incompatible with
revelatory authority, he ironically assured its domestication within
dogmatic theology. The whole style of the later Asharism of the
moderns (mutaakhkhirun) who came in Ghazals wake is strongly
Avicennan in comparison with that of the ancients (mutaqaddimun).
The same markedly Avicennan influence is clear in Islamic mysticism,
as will emerge. The result is generally called speculative Sufism, and
is above all bound up with the dramatic success of Ibn Arabs teachings.
Clear evidence of the great scope of Ibn Arabs success is to be
found, paradoxically, among his opponents. His doctrine of the unity of
existence (wah _ dat al-wujud, i.e. objective theomonism) was not
without vehement opposition within Sufism. In particular, major figures
like the great theoretician of the Kubraw order, Ala al-Dawla Simnan
(d. 1336) and the eminent Indian Naqshband thinker Ah _ mad al-Sirhind
(d. 1624), believed that the theory of wah _ dat al-wujud bore responsi-
bility for the undermining of the religious law. They claimed that the
theory promoted antinomian forms of spirituality by demolishing the
creatorcreature distinction on which worship and moral accountability
were predicated. Their response, after Sirhind, was to become famous as
the theory of wah _ dat al-shuhud, subjective theomonism, which
retrieved the crucial distinguo by relativising the unitive experiences of
the ecstatics. But this actually underlines the triumph of Ibn Arabs
speculative Sufism. For reformers like these combated Ibn Arab by
developing intricate speculative responses of their own, not by reverting
to the pre-speculative Sufism of the classical period, as represented, say,
by Ghazals Revival.
Despite the distinctively philosophical flavour of Ibn Arabs Sufism,
its precise relation with formal philosophy is awkward. The Greatest
Shaykh had no truck with systematically syllogistic approaches, and
tended to elevate the revealed canon and immediate mystical perception
over reason. He never quotes philosophers, and sometimes displays a
contemptuous ignorance of them, as in the account he gives of his
reaction to Farabs Virtuous City, which he angrily flung in the face of
the volumes owner.58 Be that as it may, many features in Ibn Arabs
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thought demonstrably borrow, albeit perhaps unconsciously, from
philosophical sources, expecially fromAvicenna. On themost superficial
level, he clearly makes full use of philosophical termini technici. It is
significant that Ibn Arab is sometimes nicknamed Ibn Aflat _ un the
Platonist. His Platonism appears to boil down to his concept of the
fixed archetypes (ayan thabita) which are central to his thought. On
scrutiny, these are not really Platos universal eide at all. They are rather
Avicennas quiddities (mahiyyat), that aspect of individuals which
receives existence, and which in itself is isolable from external existence.
Again, Ibn Arabs cosmogony is related to Avicennas in its basically
emanationist thrust, though there are important differences. Ibn Arabs
broad focus on existence and its emanation can be argued to mirror the
focus of Avicennas metaphysics.
Ibn Arabs speculative approach is of course prefigured in some
earlier Sufis. Ayn al-Qud _ at al-Hamadhan has already been mentioned.
There is a clear difference between Hamadhans Ghazalian work, the
Essence of Realities (Zubdat al-h _ aqaiq), and his later Prolegomena
(Tamhdat). The Avicennism of the latter work is pronounced. It has
been pointed out that it even embraces ideas from Avicennas thought
which Ghazal (Hamadhans earlier authority) rejected as strictly
incompatible with religious orthodoxy. These are specifically those
ideas presented in Avicennas Risala Ad _ h _ awiyya which stress the pure
spirituality of the afterlife, and interpret the corporeal imagery of
revelation metaphorically.59 An older speculative tendency, obviously
owing nothing to the influence of Avicenna, can be seen long before this
in the history of Sufism, for instance in a figure like Muh _ ammad ibn Al
al-H _ akm ( the philosopher) al-Tirmidh (d. c. 910), who was the
representative of a pre-Avicennan, pre-Hellenistic Islamic theosophy,
as well as bearing responsibility for laying the foundations for the Sufi
theory of the hierarchy of saints.
There had been an earlier tradition of speculative Sufism in Ibn
Arabs Spain, going back to Ibn Masarra (d. 931). In the absence of Ibn
Masarras works such as the Book of Letters (Kitab al-H _ uruf) and the
Book of Apperception (Kitab al-Tabs _ ira), his thought was reconstructed
by Asn y Palacios from the references of later writers.60 On this
reconstruction, Ibn Masarras philosophy was primarily characterised by
Asn as pseudo-Empedoclean. But the rediscovery of IbnMasarras works
by Kamal Ibrahm Jafar has allowed this thesis to be discredited.61
Nevertheless, it is clear that a strong Neoplatonic thread runs through
this mystics thought, and via the so-called School of Ibn Masarra he
gave an essentially speculative stamp to the Sufism of the Iberian
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peninsula. The atmosphere of Ibn Masarras school is directly felt in the
followers of Shuz of Seville, who were to be found up to Ibn Arabs
own day. Another major speculative Sufi thinker, Ibn Sabn (d. 1270),
emerged from Shuzs order during Ibn Arabs lifetime. Ibn Sabns
school was still operating in Egypt in the fourteenth century. The actual
term unity of existence in fact appears to originate with Ibn Sabn,
not with Ibn Arab.62
In this we have clear elements in speculative Sufism which fall
beyond Avicennas influence. Moreover, as has been said, Avicennas
impact on Ibn Arab himself is elusive. Nevertheless, the broadly
Avicennan character of speculative Sufism was to be strongly confirmed
after Ibn Arabs death, due to the special strengths of his foremost
disciple S _ adr al-Dn al-Qunaw (d. 1274). In an important correspond-
ence63 with one of Avicennas greatest spokesmen, Nas _ ir al-Dn al-T
_ us,
Qunaw reveals a detailed grasp of Avicennas work the Allusions and
Remarks (al-Isharat wal-tanbhat), as well as of T _ uss commentary on
it. In the light of his knowledge of these texts, Qunaw puts a series of
difficult questions to T _ us, and argues for the weakness of the rational
faculty. When T _ us sends his replies, Qunaw writes a new treatise in
response. But it is a typical feature of dialogical engagement that the
tools and theses of the opposite party are partly accepted, and this is the
case with Qunaw too. Indeed, synthesis is to an extent Qunaws
explict aim, for in detailing his objective in the correspondence, he
explains that he wants to unite the knowledge yielded by philosophical
demonstration (burhan) with the fruit of mystical perception.
What begins with Qunaw, then, is the systematic formulation of
wah _ dat al-wujud as a virtually philosophical perspective. Qunaws
approach is transmitted through a series of direct masterdisciple rela-
tions, becoming the prevalent reading of Ibn Arab. Thus Muayyad
al-Dn al-Jand and Sad al-Din al-Farghan were Qunaws direct
disciples; Abd al-Razzaq al-Kashan was Jands disciple, and finally
Daud al-Qays _ ar was in turn Kashans disciple. This list contains the
names of some of Ibn Arabs greatest commentators. The ultimate
results of Qunaws philosophical transformation of the Unity of
Existence are clear in the important fifteenth-century Sufi thinker and
poet, Abd al-Rah _ man Jam (d. 1492). Jams work The Precious Pearl
(al-Durra al-Fakhira) is an attempt to present Sufism (for which read Ibn
Arab) as a superior perspective to kalam and Avicennism, and presents
Sufisms distinctive answers to a whole series of difficult issues in the
philosophy of religion: the proof of God, Gods unity, Gods knowledge
(or ignorance) of particulars, the nature of Gods will, power and speech,
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the capacity of contingent beings, and the relation of multiplicity to
unity. Jams work, which was commissioned by the Ottoman sultan
Meh _ med II, is meticulously built up by its author from syllogisms, with
separate arguments detailed for each premise. It is more obviously a
work of h _ ikma philosophy than a Sufi work, and virtually presents the
Unity of Existence as a school of philosophy. The pedigree from Qunaw
is clear. Extensive passages from Qunaws works, including his cor-
respondence with T _ us, are quoted.
The deep impact of Avicenna on the speculative Sufism of Jams
day emerges from an early passage of the Pearl in which the author
rehearses an argument for Gods existence. It begins thus:
Know that there is in existence a necessary existent, for otherwise
that which exists would be restricted to contingent being, and
consequently nothing would exist at all. This is because contingent
being, even though multiple, is not self-sufficient with respect to its
existence.64
This argument is clearly rooted in Avicennas type of proof for God,
generally called the Burhan al-S _ iddiqn (the proof of the strictly
truthful). Avicennas argument contains both ontological and cosmo-
logical aspects, and Jams argument here is traceable to its cosmological
aspect. Avicennas argument may be briefly summarised as follows.65
Existence can be hypothesised in the mind in two ways. The mind can
entertain either the idea of necessary existence or the idea of contingent
existence. Contingent existence, for its part, is incapable of explaining
itself. By their very definition, contingents always somehow depend on
something outside of themselves in existing. An individual contingent
might have other contingents preceding it, and the chain of them might
conceivably regress without beginning. But as a set (jumla) they will
retain the same dependence on something external which characterises
an individual contingent. Moreover, to say external, when we have
mentally gathered any contingent whatsoever into a set, is to say
non-contingent or necessary. Thus, even though the world may be
temporally infinite, it cannot be without dependence on something
which transcends it and stands apart from the contingency which
characterises it. Thus far, we have the cosmological aspect of Avicennas
argument, which is fairly obviously the ancestor of Jams proof.
Especially noteworthy is the audacious Avicennan claim that the world
might be beginningless. This is hinted at by Jams statement that the
contingent might be multiple (mutaaddid), from which understand
indefinitely multiple. Later in the Pearl, Jam surprisingly confirms
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that in his view the Sufis uphold the worlds beginninglessness in
time.66
Avicennas argument, however, also has an ontological aspect. This
follows from the first modality in which existence may be entertained in
the mind, as necessary rather than contingent. Avicennas claim about
this is that it is contradictory to set up necessary existence in the
mind, but then to deny it outside the mind. For then it would not be
necessary existence. To paraphrase Psalm 14, only a fool would say
God in his heart, and go on to deny such a being in the real world. For
Gods existence in re follows from Gods nature in intellectu. Avicenna
was especially proud of this aspect of his reasoning, insofar as it avoided
basing the conclusion (Gods existence) on any lesser being. He cites the
Quran in evidence of the superiority of this ontological method in
proving God: We shall show them Our signs on the horizons and in
themselves until it becomes clear to them that He is the Truth.67 This
verse is taken to refer to the inferior cosmological method in which
Gods existence is brought out via Gods traces in the cosmos. But
Avicenna sees the words immediately after these in the Quran as
referring to the ontological aspect of his reasoning: Does it not suffice
that your Lord bears witness to everything? That is, for an elite, God
Himself is in principle a sufficient basis to reach any conclusion
including that of Gods own existence. This elite consists of the strictly
truthful ones referred to in the title of Avicennas proof.
While Jams Sufi proof has an Avicennan pedigree, it is in turn quite
demonstrable that Avicennas earlier proof was partly inspired by con-
temporary Sufism. The distinction of a superior ontological approach
to God from an inferior cosmological one is firmly rooted in Sufi
theory pre-dating Avicenna. The distinguo is indeed implicit in the very
title of Kalabadhs aforementioned Sufi compendium, the Disclosure
(Taarruf). In Kalabadh, the term tarf (making known) refers to what
the world does to God pointing to His existence from the outside.
Contrariwise, the reflexive form taarruf is what God does to Himself,
making Himself known through self-disclosure. Clearly this is precisely
the distinction at work in Avicennas classification of proofs of God.
It is noteworthy that Kalabadhs and Avicennas lives overlapped
and that Avicenna was raised in Bukhara, a city in which Kalabadh
must have been one of the major living representatives of Sufism. It has
been suggested that Avicenna may even have heard the distinction in
question from the great Sufi theorist, in person.68 The provenance of
Avicennas distinguo from Kalabadh is probably confirmed by the fact
that the latter refers to the very same verse from the Quran as used by
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Avicenna in explanation: The meaning of tarf is that [God] shows
them the effects of His power in the heavens and in the souls.69
Moreover, in the Sufism of Kalabadhs day, the distinguo already had
the authority of tradition behind it. For Kalabadh himself attributes the
tarf/taarruf dichotomy further back to Junayd. Even Junayd may have
been passing on an idea which was already abroad in Sufi circles. This is
clear in a story detailed by Hujwr in the course of his Sufi lexicon in
theUnveiling. In explaining the antonymous technical termsmuh _ ad _ ara
and mukashafa (presenting and unveiling), roughly corresponding
with tarf and taarruf respectively, he quotes a story from Junayds
friend and contemporary, Kharraz. Kharraz and his companion Ibrahm
ibn Sad al-Alaw are wandering, it is said, by the seashore, when they
stumble on one of Gods friends. They pose for him a question: What is
the way to God?, and he replies that there are in fact two ways to reach
Him, one being for the vulgar and the other for the elite. When they
press him to explain himself he reproves them as follows: The way of
the vulgar is that on which you are going: you accept for some cause and
you decline for some cause; but the way of the elect is to see only the
Causer [God, who makes all causes what they are], and not to see the
cause [outside of God].70
conclusion
Philosophy and Sufism thus influenced each other theologically.
Sufisms impact on philosophy is yet more obvious later in its history, in
the S _ afavid period. Its influence pervades the thought of the most emi-
nent S _ afavid Shite philosopher, Mulla S
_ adra (d. 1640), who arguably
represents the final importation of Ibn Arabs ideas into philosophy.
Mulla S _ adras thinking as a whole is framed within the idea of four
philosophical journeys, as in the title of his magnum opus, The Four
Journeys (al-Asfar al-Arbaa), namely: from creatures to the Truth, from
the Truth to the Truth by the Truth, from the Truth to creatures by the
Truth, and from creatures to creatures by the Truth. In this we see the
direct appropriation of a topos of speculative Sufism into a philosophical
context. Abd al-Razzaq al-Kashan, for instance, presents four similar
journeys, with definitions overlapping with Mulla S _ adras, in his
Technical Terms of the Sufis (Kitab Is _ t _ ilah
_ at al-S
_ ufiyya).71
To summarise. Throughout its history, Islamic mystical theology
undergoes a powerful creative tension between esoterism and the civi-
lisational genius of Islam for integrality. Emerging from the period of the
Prophet and Companions, mysticism and theology coalesce in early
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spiritual movements like the Bakriyya, reflecting the unity of impulse
found in al-H _ asan al-Bas
_ rs circle. Later, this integrality begins to break
down. This is partly through the hardening of the religious sciences into
formal disciplines and schools of thought, excluding the vital spiritual
element enshrined in Sufism. It is also owed to developments within
Sufism itself. For example, a radically esoteric ethic appears in the
Malamatiyya and doctrines not obviously symmetrical with exoterism
make themselves felt, notably, ittis _ af. A confrontation gathers force
through a line of ecstatics: figures like Bist _ am, Nur and H
_ allaj. There
result the major Sufi trials of the ninth to the tenth century.
Integrality, for which Junayd is the original figurehead in this period
of crisis, reasserts itself in the course of the following century. This is
the period of the Sufi compilations. Notwithstanding the mystical
teachings recorded in the works in question, they establish the orthodox
credentials of Sufism, inter alia through the inclusion of credal state-
ments conforming to the theological teachings of Sunn traditionalism,
notably as fixed by Asharism. Decisive confirmation of Sufisms cen-
trality comes in Ghazal, and the triumph of the Sufi-Asharite synthesis
for which he stands is ensured through the support of the Seljuks. It is
important, however, when approaching Asharism in Ghazals mystical
writings or in those of any other Sufi, to separate the catechistic from the
transcendentalised mode of doctrine. Asharism in the transcendental-
ised register found in Sufi discourse may be dramatically distinct from
its analogue in kalam discourse.
Finally, partly through the unofficial spread of Avicennas teachings
in the Seljuk period, the expression of Sufism is transformed by falsafa,
resulting in what is generally known as speculative Sufism. Its triumph
is closely linked to the success of Ibn Arabs teachings. The essentially
philosophical tenor of speculative Sufism is underlined by Qunaw. In
fact, there had always been a definite relationship between Islamic
philosophy and Sufism, as is clear even in the case of one of the high
points of Avicennas metaphysics, the Proof of the Strictly Truthful.
What about the fate of integrality in the victory of speculative Suf-
ism? Clearly, the shuhud mysticism of the Naqshband order is part of
a seventeenth-century attempt to re-establish integrality against Ibn
Arab. Yet wah _ dat al-shuhud itself remains part of speculative Sufism.
So speculative Sufism per se is by no means opposed to integrality; in
fact it is strictly false that Ibn Arabs own esoterism violates integral-
ity. Sirhind and his reformist predecessors fought a degeneration of Ibn
Arabs teachings: a crude pantheism conducing to the relativisation of
the Shara. But Ibn Arabs mystical theology, for all its radicalism, had
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been self-consciously in keeping with the law. It is crucial that Ibn
Arab was traditionally held to have adhered to the most fiercely liter-
alistic and anti-rational of all the legal rites, Z _ ahirism,72 which had been
promoted in Spain by Ibn H _ azm of Cordoba (d. 1064).
Ibn Arab had engaged in depth with Ibn H _ azms works, and a full
list of the jurists writings he studied is contained in his ijaza (scholastic
licence).73 That he undertook the project of abridging the Z _ ahirite
thinkers vast, thirty-volume The Adorned (al-Muh _ alla) is surely suffi-
cient evidence of dedication. In transmitting Ibn H _ azms Refutation of
Analogy (Ibt _ al al-Qiyas), Ibn Arab provided it with an introduction in
which he even recounts a visionary dream of the author and the Prophet
embracing in a village near Seville. Ibn Arab says that the dream helped
him understand the enormous value of hadith.74 Elsewhere, he explicitly
mentions that people in his day identified him as a partisan of Ibn H _ azm,
and although it has recently been pointed out by more than one author
that he is categorical that he did not conform to Ibn H _ azms positions,75
on scrutiny this seems only to have been a protest that he follows
nothing but the Quran, Hadith and consensus. It can be argued that this
is, paradoxically, impeccably Z _ ahirite, since Z
_ ahirism expressly con-
demns the superimposition of a legal theory on the God-given sources of
religious law. It is a fact that Ibn Arab privately adopted one of the
cornerstones of Z _ ahirite law, the rejection of analogical reasoning, and
held that the Mahd would presently do likewise. Doubtless the Shaykh
exercised authoritative independence in jurisprudence, and trying to
prove that he upheld Z _ ahirism in detail is probably futile. But it is easy
to miss the wood for the trees. That he was close enough to Z _ ahirism to
have been identified as its exponent in his lifetime is sensational. The
links of the pre-eminent Muslim esoterist with Ibn H _ azms literalist
lawschool are impressive, and offer cause for reflection. In reality, his
mystical thought itself can be shown to contain Z _ ahirite elements. The
conventional word for esoteric interpretation, tawl, is not a positive
term in Ibn Arabs lexicon, for it suggested to him a hermeneutic
dictated by mere reason.76 For the Shaykh, the revealed scripture (to
repeat Chodkiewicz) must be respected as a text, not used as a pretext.
Correspondingly, Ibn Arabs intensely esoteric hermeneutic of the
Quran is often strictly in line with the literal sense of the text. His
interpretation of the words There is nothing like unto Him (42:11)
offers a good example. Although the verse is routinely taken to under-
score Gods transcendence of all comparison, Ibn Arab points out that
not one but two likening words occur in this Arabic sentence. It
literally says: There is nothing like (ka) His likeness (mithlihi). The
282 Toby Mayer
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expression thus actually affirms Gods likeness, but denies that that
likeness is in any way commensurable with anything else.77 Gods
likeness, according to Ibn Arab, is the Perfect Man, that linchpin of
late Sufi cosmology.78
In this it can be argued that Ibn Arabs teachings amount to a
superlative manifestation of esoterism as specifically expressed within
the Islamic ethos. For his teachings stress, with unique intensity, that
the heights of mysticism are inseparable from the text of the revealed
tradition. In Ibn Arab, esoterism and the civilisational genius for
integrality are wholly married. Chodkiewicz has put his finger on this
central characteristic of the Shaykhs hermeneutic, its esoteric literal-
ism. In a striking analogy, he suggests that the Quran, in Ibn Arabs
understanding, is akin to a Mobius strip. This is a geometric figure
which seems to have two sides, an outer and an inner. In reality, how-
ever, the two sides are one and the same.79 The analogy equally holds of
the Shaykhs theology. For at its heart, too, is a God who is simultan-
eously, as the Quran puts it, the Outward and the Inward (57:3). His
thought thus contains an implicit critique of forms of mysticism
divorced from the revelatory tradition, a critique which is all the more
potent for not being based on the ethos of that tradition per se, but on the
deepest insights of mysticism itself.
Further reading
Chittick, William C., The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-Arabs Metaphysics
of Imagination (Albany, 1989).
Corbin, Henry, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arab (Princeton,
1969).
Cordt, Hartwig, Die sitzungen des Alaad-dawla as-Simnan (Zurich, 1977).
Elias, Jamal, The Throne-Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of Ala
ad-Dawla as-Simnan (Albany, 1995).
al-Iskandar, Ibn At _ a Allah, The Key to Salvation: A Sufi Manual of
Invocation, tr. M.A.K. Danner (Cambridge, 1996).
Izutsu, Toshihiko, Sufism and Taoism (Berkeley, 1983).
Knysh, Alexander, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History (Leiden, 2000).
Lewisohn, Leonard (ed.), The Heritage of Sufism, i: Classical Persian Sufism
from Its Origins to Rumi (7001300); ii: The Legacy of Persian Sufism
(11501500) (Oxford, 1999).
Lewisohn, Leonard, and Morgan, David (eds.), The Heritage of Sufism, iii: Late
Classical Persianate Sufism (15011750) (Oxford, 1999).
Lings, Martin, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century: Shaikh Ahmad al-
Alaw: His Spiritual Heritage and Legacy (London, 1971).
Radtke, Bernd, Al-H _ akm at-Tirmid: ein islamischer Theosoph des 3./9.
Jahrhunderts (Freiburg, 1980).
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Ritter, Helmut, The Ocean of the Soul, tr. J. OKane (London and Boston, 2003).
Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, NC, 1975).
The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works of Jalaloddin Rumi (London and
The Hague, 1980).
Sells, Michael A., Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran, Miraj, Poetic and
Theological Writings (Mahwah and New York, 1996).
The infinity of desire: mystical union and ethics in Sufism, in Barnard and
Kripal (eds.), Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of
Mysticism (New York, 2000), pp. 184229.
Trimingham, J. Spencer, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford, 1971).
Notes
1. E.g. Ibn Arab, Fus _ us _ al-h
_ ikam, ed. Abul-Ala Aff (Beirut, 1365/1946),
pp.122, 178. Ibn Arab also on occasion speaks of the deity conditioned by dogma (al-ilah al-mutaqad); M. Chodkiewicz, An Ocean Without Shore: Ibn Arab, the Book and the Law (Albany, 1993), p. 128.
2. Locution theopathique is the term of the French scholar Louis Massignon, though interestingly theopathy/theopathetic is attested in English as early as the eighteenth century. Louis Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, tr. Benjamin Clark (Notre Dame, 1997), pp. xxiiixxiv. For an introduc- tion to the idea of shat
_ h _ , see Carl Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism
(Albany, 1985), pp.9ff. 3. Muh
_ ammad al-Niffar, The Mawaqif and Mukhat
_ abat, ed. and
tr. Arthur J. Arberry (Cambridge, 1978), pp.158, 183; 154, 176. 4. Louis Massignon, The Passion of al-H
_ allaj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam,
tr. H. Mason (Princeton, 1982), p.316. Apophasis is a major concern in the thought of H
_ allaj.
5. The saying is often quoted by Sufis; e.g. Abu Nas _ r al-Sarraj, Kitab
al-Luma, tr. Reynold Alleyne Nicholson (London, 1914), p.36; Ibn Arab, Fus
_ us _ , p.62. The idea is also found in a whispered prayer
(munaja) attributed to Al Zayn al-Abidn (d. 713/4): Thou hast assigned to Thy creatures no way to know Thee save incapacity to know Thee! Zayn al-Abidn Al ibn al-H
_ usayn, tr. William C. Chittick, The
Psalms of Islam: al-S _ ah
_ fa al-Kamila al-Sajjadiyya (London, 1988),
p.253. 6. A favourite basis for the division in the Quran was the story of Moses
encounter with the servant of God whomWe had given knowledge from Ourselves, identified on Ubayy ibn Kabs authority with the immortal figure al-Khid
_ r (theGreenOne).Moses understanding is confounded by
the strange actions of this wisdom figure, until he finally rejects Moses: This is the parting of the ways between me and you (18: 6482). An example of the division in hadith is the saying of the Companion Abu Hurayra: I guard two receptacles fromGodsMessenger; as for the first of them, I have distributed it. As for the other, were I to distribute it this throat of mine would be slit (Bukhar, Ilm, 61).
284 Toby Mayer
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7. Verily, as for those who have broken the unity of their religion . . . (6:159); and in the hadith: No monasticism in Islam! Muh
_ ammad ibn
Ah _ mad al-Qurt
_ ub, al-Jami li-ah
_ kam al-Quran (Cairo, 1387/1967),
xviii, p.87 (to Quran 61:10). 8. Massignon, Essay, p.137. 9. Massignon, p.132, citing a quotation from Bas
_ r in al-Ghazal, Abu
H _ amid, Ih
_ ya ulum al-dn (Cairo: 1312/1894), ii, p.21.
10. Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, tr. A. and R. Hamori (Princeton, 1981), p.87.
11. Massignon, Essay, p.127. 12. Wilferd Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran (Albany,
1988), p.46. 13. Massignon, Essay, p.185; Ali Hasan Abdel-Kader, The Life, Personality
and Writings of al-Junayd (London, 1976), pp.289. 14. Florian Sobieroj, The Mutazila and Sufism, in Frederick de Jong and
Bernd Radtke (eds.), Islamic Mysticism Contested (Leiden, 1999), p. 72. 15. Ibid., pp.756. 16. Ar. s
_ awmaa, pl. s
_ awami. The term is quranic. Quran 22:40 refers to
monasteries (s _ awami), churches, synagogues and mosques in which
Gods Name is abundantly extolled. 17. Massignon, Essay, pp. 1523. 18. As reported by Abd al-Rauf al-Munaw, al-Kawakib al-Durriyya
f tarajim al-Sada al-S _ ufiyya (Cairo: 1357/1938), i, p. 238.
19. Gerhard Bowering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The Quranic Hermeneutics of the Sufi Sahl al-Tustar (d. 283/896) (Berlin, 1980), p.49.
20. Massignon, Essay, p.151. 21. Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdad,al-Farqbaynal-firaq (Beirut,1393/1973), p.247. 22. Note, however, that many of the followers of the Salimiyya wereMalik. 23. Bowering, Mystical Vision, p.95. This seems to evoke the famous
H _ anbalite doctrine that the pronunciation of the Quran is uncreated.
24. Tustar, in Bowering, Mystical Vision, p.167. 25. In Massignons usage, the term means something like active experi-
ence. See Benjamin Clarks introduction to Massignon, Essay, p. xxv. 26. Massignon, Essay, pp.151, 177. 27. So described, for instance, by Saman in his Kitab al-Ansab. 28. A list of pro-Karram scholars from the third Islamic century to the sixth
is given by Massignon, Essay, pp.1789. 29. See Sara Sviri, H
_ akm Tirmidh and the Malamat movement in early
Sufism, in Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), Classical Persian Sufism: From Its Origins to Rum (London, 1993), pp.583613.
30. Michel Chodkiewicz, Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and Sainthood in the Sufism of Ibn Arab (Cambridge, 1993), p.172.
31. E.g. Bist _ am, cited in Sarraj, Kitab al-Luma pp.382, 384, 387.
32. Eminent representatives of Mutazilism like Jubba, Zamakhshar and the Qad
_ Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ah
_ mad (al-Mughn f abwab al-tawh
_ d
wal-adl, xv, ed. M. al-Khud _ ayr and M.M. Qasim (Cairo, 1965),
pp.270ff.) attacked al-H _ allajs miracles as charlatanry.
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33. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy, p.20. 34. The normal Muslim term for the Christian doctrine of incarnation is
h _ ulul, in line with the fact that in Christian Arabic the verb h
_ all (to be
infused) is sometimes used for the descent of the Word into human form. However, the technical term Incarnation in Christian Arabic is taannus or tajassud.
35. Massignon, Essay, pp.521ff. 36. Mans
_ ur al-H
_ allaj, The Tawasin, tr. Aisha al-Tarjumana (Berkeley and
London, 1974), p.46. 37. Massignon, Passion, iii, p.45. From a quotation in Baqls Sharh
_ al-shat
_ h _ iyyat.
38. Abdel Kader, p.90. Amended translation. 39. Massignon, Essay, p.189. 40. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Madarij al-salikn, ed. Muh
_ ammad Kamal
Jafar (Beirut, 19802002). 41. Sviri, H
_ akm Timidh, pp. 5926 . A legacy of the pre-compilatory
distinction is that some later authorities still differentiate, within Sufism, the S
_ ufiyya and the Malamatiyya, and tend to assert the
superiority of the latter; e.g. Abu H _ afs
_ al-Suhraward, Awarif al-maarif.
42. Arthur J. Arberry (tr.), The Doctrine of the Sufis (Cambridge, 1977), p. xiv. 43. Arent Jan Wensinck, The Muslim Creed: Its Genesis and Historical
Development (Cambridge: 1932), p.246. 44. W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Creeds: A Selection (Edinburgh, 1994),
p.62. 45. Arberry, Doctrine, p. xi. 46. Ibid., pp.212. 47. Ibid., pp.247. 48. Ibid., pp.28ff. 49. See above, chapter 7. 50. Abu H
_ amid al-Ghazal, Lettre au disciple (Ayyuha al-Walad), ed. and tr.
into French by Toufic Sabbagh (Beirut, 1969), p. 55. 51. Cited in C. Ernst, Ruzbihan Baqli (Richmond, 1996), pp.401. 52. Ernst, Kuzbihan Baqli, p.39. 53. Sufi texts are explicit on the difference between catechismic and
transcendentalised doctrine. E.g. You must rectify your religious creed (aqda) to bring it into line with the doctrine of the initiates (Ibn At
_ a
Allah al-Iskandar, The Key to Salvation: A Sufi Manual of Invocation, tr. Mary Ann Koury-Danner (Cambridge, 1996), p. 104).
54. Ghazal, Lettre au disciple, p.37. 55. Abu H
_ amid al-Ghazal, The Niche of Lights, tr. David Buchman (Provo,
UT, 1998), p.16. 56. Ibn Arab, Fus
_ us _ , p.126.
57. Michot, J. La pandemie avicennienne au VIe/XIIe siecle, Arabica 40 (1993), pp.287344.
58. Claude Addas, Quest for the Red Sulphur: The Life of Ibn Arab, tr. Peter Kingsley (Cambridge, 1993), pp.1078.
59. Aff Usayran, introduction to Ayn al-Qud _ at Hamadhan, Tamhdat,
ed. A. Usayran (Tehran, 1962), pp.6677.
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60. Miguel Asn y Palacios, The Mystical Philosophy of Ibn Masarra and His Followers, tr. Elmer Douglas and Howard Yoder (Leiden, 1978).
61. Kamal Ibrahm Jafar, Min muallafat Ibn Masarra al-mafquda, Majallat Kulliyyat al-Tarbiyya, iii (1972), pp.2763.
62. William C. Chittick, Rum and wah _ dat al-wujud, in Amin Banani,
Richard Hovanissian and Georges Sabagh (eds.), Poetry andMysticism in Islam: the Heritage of Rum (Cambridge, 1994), p.82.
63. S _ adr al-Dn Qunaw, al-Murasalat bayna S
_ adr al-Dn al-Qunaw
wa-Nas _ r al-Dn al-T
_ us, ed. G. Schubert (Beirut, 1995).
64. Nicholas Heer (tr.), The Precious Pearl: al-Jams al-Durrah al-Fakhirah with the Commentary of Abd al-Ghafur al-Lar (Albany, 1979), p. 57.
65. See Abu Al Ibn Sna, al-Isharat wal-tanbhat (Cairo, 195760), iii, pp.447ff.
66. Heer, Precious Pearl, p.57. 67. Quran 41:53, quoted in Ibn Sna, iii, pp.4823. 68. Hermann Landolt, Ghazal and Religionswissenschaft: some notes on
the Mishkat al-Anwar for Professor Charles J. Adams, Asiatische Studien / Etudes Asiatiques 45 (1991), p.51, n. 125.
69. Arberry, Doctrine, p.47. 70. Al al-Hujwr, tr. Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, Kashf al-mahjub: The
Oldest Persian Treatise on Sufiism (Leiden and London, 1911), p.374. 71. Abd al-Razzaq Qashan, tr. N. Safwat, rev. D. Pendlebury, A Glossary of
Sufi Technical Terms (London, 1991), pp. 801 (Arabic); pp.578 (English).
72. Ah _ mad ibn Al al-Maqqar, ed. Reinhart Dozy et al., Analectes sur
lhistoire et la literature des arabes dEspagne (Leiden, 185561), i, p.567. 73. Ibid. 74. Ignaz Goldziher, The Z
_ ahirs: Their Doctrine and Their History, tr.
W. Behn (Leiden, 1971), p.170. 75. Mahmoud al-Ghorab, Muhyiddin Ibn al-Arabi amidst religions (adyan)
and schools of thought (madhahib), in Stephen Hirtenstein and Michael Tiernan (eds.), Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi: A Commemorative Volume (Shaftesbury, 1993), p.200; Michel Chodkiewicz, An Ocean Without Shore: Ibn Arab, the Book and the Law (Albany, 1993), pp.55ff.
76. Chittick, Rum, p.199. 77. Ibn Arab, Fus
_ us _ , p.111.
78. Chodkiewicz, Ocean, p.37. 79. Ibid., p.25.
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14 Epistemology and divine discourse
paul-a. hardy
introduction
From the time of Aristotle to the present, philosophers have assumed
that there is an intimate connection between literal meaning and
truth. Recent discussions in theWest, however, have challenged this link
and its corollary that non-literal meaning is a departure from truth. A
similar challenge was offered in classical Islam. Its origin is traceable to
the consensus of Muslims that the Creator of the world is a speaker
(mutakallim)1 whose discourse consists of statement (khabar), com-
mand (amr), prohibition (nahy), question (istikhbar) and other such
elements. Divine utterances, in other words, come in a number of var-
ieties, distinguishable by what contemporary linguists call their illo-
cutionary force.2 But if divine discourse consists of specific speech-acts,
one would expect it to portray the same features as spoken human lan-
guage. Such force after all is a property all spoken utterances bear and a
condition for understanding any one of them.3 If this is true, how can one
maintain the traditional link between literal meaning and truth? Cer-
tainly, it is difficult to imaginewell-established conditions for the truth of
a command (amr), for example. Indeed, there is an entire range of divine
utterances that do not describe anything towhich truth-conditions can be
applied. Rather, they constitute actions in themselves or speech-acts.
This includes utterances that fall under the rubric of figure (majaz), such
as metaphor and metonymy.
In the face of such considerations is the distinction between h _ aqqa
(literal meaning) and majaz or figural meaning tenable? Classical Mus-
lim theology evolved a spectrum of positions here. On one side of the
question we find Ghazal the Asharite, and on another, the late H _ anbal
theologian Ibn Taymiyya. For Ghazal languages role in thinking was
fundamental. Like Aristotle, he held a generic concept of thinking that
included knowledge as one of its species. But to know the meaning of
our thoughts insofar as they relate to reality is to know what the world
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would have to be like for the sentences expressing them to be literally
true. On this view, it follows that cognition of meaning in the Quran is
first and foremost a matter of understanding the truth and the literal
character of divine utterance. If meaning and thought are modelled in
this fashion, epistemic access to figurative meaning is asymmetrically
dependent on the cognition of literal meaning.
Ibn Taymiyya put Ghazals theory under critical stress by arguing
that all that hearers of divine discourse need know is how the divine
discourser intended His speech to be taken. That is, one only has to
grasp its illocutionary force arising from contexts (qarain) of use
(istimal), plus the intention revealed in Gods habit of address (adat
al-mutakallim). Hence, the apprehension of figure in the Quran resides
in the apprehension of force. But if this is the case, Ghazals view that
epistemic access to figurative meaning is asymmetrically dependent on
cognition of literal meaning is seriously undermined and the distinction
between h _ aqqa andmajaz is utterly erased. Thus, for Ibn Taymiyya the
question of epistemic access to figural speech does not really arise.
Hermeneutics is the only matter of concern, that is to say, the inter-
pretation of the pragmatic force of the divine utterance.
This chapter will sketch some of the main features of this debate.
The issues it raises lie at the heart of modern discussions between
Muslim traditionalists, who often side with Ghazal, and fundamen-
talists whose champion is Ibn Taymiyya. But the question of
how Muslims are to understand verses in the Quran that refer to God
sitting or descending or having a particular spatial locus are at base
matters of linguistic epistemology. Or rather, they concern the relation
of epistemology to divine discourse.
al-ghazals verbal epistemology
In a work written towards the end of his life, The Essential in
Legal Theory (al-Mustas _ fa min ilm al-us
_ ul), Ghazal defines divine
discourse (kalam) as either something a prophet hears from an angel
or an angel from God or a prophet from God or a saint [wal] from an
angel or the Muslim community from the Prophet.4 That is, only to
an appropriately qualified audience does divine speech bear signifi-
cance. Hence, knowing what God means and how He means it when
He speaks depends on who hears His voice. There is a difference, in
other words, between the way prophets and saints hear the divine
voice and the way the Muslim community (umma) including its
scholars (ulama) hears it.
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The umma hears letters and sounds reported by the Prophet that
signify the meaning of Gods eternal speech (dall ala mana kalam
Allah) insofar as it has entered time. That is, what they hear is the
expression of Gods thoughts, since for Ghazal God is called a speaker
from two aspects, from the aspect of sounds and letters and from the
aspect of inner speech [h _ adth al-nafs] devoid of sound and letters.5 The
latter corresponds to what Ashar called interior discourse (kalam
nafs). It is regarded as eternal, but what it expresses (ibara) is not.
Moreover, they grasp it by prior cognition of its assigned or agreed-
upon meaning or wad _ al-lugha (prior imposition of language).6 For
Ghazal believed that in the final analysis itmakes no differencewhether
language originates from divine inspiration (tawqf) or from a convention
(is _ t _ ilah
_ ) agreed upon by a community of primordial Arabic speakers.7 He
nevertheless saw language as essentially transcending the fate of the
mortals who speak it. Deviations in particular contexts therefore repre-
sent a departure from a common standard. That is, they are deviations
from a language envisioned as an established social institution or set of
conventions.
By contrast, when prophets and saints hear the divine voice, God
makes what He intends (al-murad) known by creating in the hearer a
necessary knowledge (ilm d _ arur),8 that is, a knowledge which the
hearer has no choice but to accept when it is presented to his or her
mind.9 When the prophet Moses heard God speak, his hearing had no
letter nor sound nor language established in such a way that one knows
its sense (manahu) through prior cognition of its assigned or agreed-
upon (mud _ aa) meaning. Instead, God creates the object of cognition or
what is spoken, the act of hearing His speech as well as the meaning
intended by His speech. For every speaker needs to posit a sign to
inform [others] of the content of his mind except God [who] is able to
create a necessary knowledge without positing a sign; for His speech is
not of the same genus as human speech. So the act of hearing [His
speech] that He creates for His servant is not of the genus of hearing
sounds.10
But for Ghazal, prior cognition of what expressions signify according
to the conventions laid down in wad _ al-lugha was not enough. The
original speakers of Arabic did not establish conventions without having
some reason for doing so. The motivation behind linguistic conventions
is the communication of truth. Language, in other words, is founded in
order to convey truth, not falsity. Now, the aim of logic is to fix the use of
expressions by analysis of their contribution to determining the truth-
value of judgements in which those expressions figure. So, it became
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Ghazals view that logical norms ought to govern the way quranic
expressions are used.11
But adherence to a logical analysis of quranic signification brought
with it certain presuppositions, epistemological as well as metaphysical.
In the latter case, it presupposed adopting an Aristotelian framework
where all objects are seen as possessing universal essences allowing
them to be defined in terms of genera and species. Epistemologically,
this meant that the first moment in cognition, forming concepts or
tas _ awwur, is based upon knowledge of definition. Still, concepts by
themselves have no truth-value until combined as subjects and predi-
cates of judgements expressed by propositions (qad _ aya) and sentences.
Knowledge manifests its second element as tas _ dq or takdhb (the
cognition of truth or falsehood).
But if essences stand behind the concepts expressed by words in the
Quran there is no real need to appeal either tomeaning bywad _ al-lugha
or to interpretation (h _ aml) arising from actual contexts of use (istimal).
Logical definition outstrips both. Consider the sentence A lion is in the
house, for example. Its figural interpretation, A brave man is in the
house, or its literal one, There is a carnivorous feline in the house, is
determined to apply when its context or its speakers intention is
known. But in logic neither context of use nor intention needs to be
known. When you apply the concept of lion to Leo, you by definition
signify that Leo is also an animal. At the same time, you include
thereby the act of signifying that Leo is also a mammal.
Ghazal, following the philosophers, called these modes of
signification respectively signification by correspondence (dalalat
al-mut _ abaqa) and signification by inclusion (dalalat al-tad
_ amun). For
logical purposes, he deemed them preferable to signification by impli-
cation (dalalat al-iltizam). They operate simply on what it means to be a
lion, the essence expressed by lion. Implications [lawazim], by
contrast, are indefinite and unrestricted so that it leads to an expression
being a sign (dall) for an infinite [number of] meanings.12 Such implicit
meanings, Ghazal observes, are known from either linguistic,13 rational
or situational contexts such as allusions (isharat), or symbols (rumuz)
which are unlimited and unpredictable.14
The ideas sketched so far, however, form only part of Ghazals
programme to link literal meaning to truth. After all, to him religious
faith (man) is tas _ dq or assent to truth.15 Accordingly, he theorises
that in whatever way the predicates of quranic sentences signify, that is,
whether they signify in an essential (al-wujud al-dhat), sensible
(al-wujud al-h _ iss), intelligible (al-wujud al-aql) or analogical (al-wujud
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al-shibh) fashion, they still preserve a meaning focused on tas _ dq or
assent to truth. Or rather they preserve an existential sense; for the
essential nature (h _ aqqa) [of tas
_ dq] is recognition (al-itiraf) of the
existence of what the Messenger has reported (akhbara an) about its
existence.16
However, since this variation of predicates reflects only mental
operations that supervene upon what amounts to a literal content, the
same structure can illustrate the comprehension of figurative expres-
sion. For every majaz [figural sense] has a h _ aqqa [i.e. a literal sense]
but it is not necessary that every h _ aqqa have a majaz.17 That is, a
literal, factual or existential sense can be grasped behind any figure such
that the figure is a departure from a literal meaning, but not vice versa.
Figure is always asymmetrically dependent on a literal sense where the
latter is conceived in terms of the conditions under which certain sen-
tences are true. Literalness is thus linked to truth.
The theological consequences of Ghazals views proved in time to
be controversial. For there comes with his commitment to logic a God
whose mind could seem dissimilar to that of the author of the Quran.
No longer is God pictured as communicating with the ordinary words of
a human language like Arabic, words backed by human-like intentions.
Rather, His words have to be backed up by essences. The language He
speaks is a mental language of logical genera and species or universal
natures, so His utterances reach out and decide every case of their
application well in advance. For divine mental content embraces the
details of every possible world.
If God prohibits the drinking of wine (khamr), for example, there
must be written into the prohibition a selecting out of substances that
share the essence of khamr in every possible context. The predicate
. . . is khamr then governs its pattern of use in inferences connecting
it with judgements employing other predicates such as . . . is pro-
hibited. In this way, cases not covered in the Quran are ruled out not as
a matter of linguistic convention or textual probability but as a matter of
logical necessity.
The motivating idea, however, is that one can give an account of
what it is to have a thought without appealing to a speakers ability to
use expressions in ways appropriate to conventional use. Thoughts do
not need linguistic representation. The idea echoes Avicenna, for whom
thought had only an accidental connection to language. And while rec-
ognising that it is impossible for internal reflection to put meanings
into any order without imagining expressions for them, those imagined
expressions accompany thoughts they do not embody. Was the God of
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Avicennas Neoplatonised Aristotelianism surreptitiously replacing the
God of the Quran in Ghazals analysis?
But he did not need philosophy to tell him that God has an inner
speech [h _ adth al-nafs] devoid of sound and letters. He knew, for
example, that every speaker except God needs to posit a sign to inform
[others] of the content of his mind and that His speech is not of the
same genus as human speech. So much he had from Asharism. The
difficulty was this. If Gods intentions were linguistically formulated,
the extensions of the quranic words expressing them would have to be
indeterminate as well. As the historian of religious and philosophical
doctrines al-Shahrastan (d. 1153) observed, We know for certain that
no text mentioned ever touches on every event nor is it ever conceivable
that this should be so. For texts are limited [but] facts [of life] are
infinite, so the finite cannot embrace what is infinite. For Shahrastan
the Quran was clearly a text with gaps that needed to be filled by ijtihad
(legally warranted personal interpretation). To that extent, the mean-
ing of its words did not embrace every conceivable occasion of their
application.
So a dilemma arises: either the thoughts of Ghazals God are totally
devoid of linguistic representation and stand complete in every detail, or
they are linguistically formulated and incomplete. Instead of speculating
over Ghazals options for escaping this dilemma, however, we should
note that he had another story to tell in his esoteric workNiche of Lights
(Mishkat al-anwar), written after the Revival. We will come to the
picture painted there in due course.
ibn taymiyyas critique
Meanwhile, we turn to Ibn Taymiyyas critique of the theory so far
presented.18 In his view, it can only be a fiction that the signs expressing
divine speech occur without norm or context. Meaningful discourse
(al-kalam al-mufd) he declares, is only conveyed by a complete
sentence (jumla), that is, in the context of a sentence.19 So the funda-
mental unit of semantic analysis can never be the bare conceptual sign.
To have a specific force, words must already stand in a fundamental
grammatical relation to each other. For faith (man) at the outset
assumes that sentences of the Quran are true, and sentences, not indi-
vidual words, can be either true or false.20 Thus, whoever hears or reads
divine discourse must perceive it as al-kalam al-mustamal or dis-
course in use, that is, as sets of sentences uttered with an intended
meaning, an intended force.
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For Ibn Taymiyya, Ghazals vision of a language of thought internal
to the divine mind replaces al-kalam al-mustamal with an artificial
al-kalam al-muqaddar or hypothetical discourse.21 The attempt to
account for meaning in terms of the latter is a dead end. Since al-kalam
al-muqaddar was never spoken by anyone, its existence is a matter of
pure metaphysical speculation. Ibn Taymiyya thus makes an appeal to
language as performance and to what people do with words in specific
contexts of communication.
Discourse in use bases itself on the divine speakers habit of dis-
course (adat al-mutakallim). No hidden essences lurk behind it to serve
as the meaning of words. The meanings of words are immanent to the
structure of their use (istimal). We know in a certain and decisive (qat _ )
fashion what a speaker wills and intends to say simply by virtue of his
habit of address. The mere hearing of the expression without know-
ledge of the speaker and his habit, he writes, signifies nothing, unless
one knows what is necessary for the speaker to signify by them. This
is because the signification of expressions is an intentional, volitional
act signalling what the speaker means (arada al-mutakallim an yadulla
biha) by them, [given that] expressions by themselves fail to signify.22
To his student Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1350), the signification of the
expression is constructed upon the habit of the speaker which he intends
by his verbal expressions. If this were not true, no child would ever be
able to learn language.
Ibn al-Qayyim argues that there is simply no scope for interpretive
norms agreed upon (muwad _ aa) prior to the actual contexts in which
children learn to speak.
After the child begins to distinguish [among sounds], he hears his
parents or whoever raises him articulate a language and point to its
meaning. In this way he understands that when a certain expression
is used a certain meaning is intended . . . [All that happens]
without reaching an agreement with the child on a prior assignment
(wad _ mutaqaddim) in order to inform him of names meanings.23
Ibn al-Qayyim concludes, We know that this expression is prim-
ordially imposed only by virtue of using it . . . in the sense [already
imposed].24
Both Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim then totally reject the idea
that a group of scholars met together and imposed all the words to be
found in their language and from that point proceeded to use the words
assigned, that is, the theory that language originates from convention.25
On the contrary, Ibn al-Qayyim asserts, inspiration suffices for the
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articulation of language without a prior assignment of names to things,
and he adds, If one calls this divine inspiration (tawqf), then let it be
called divine inspiration.26
At the same time, on Ibn Taymiyyas theory, there are no essences
hidden behind Gods words to determine their use in any particular
context. When I hear the sentence I saw her duck, for example, there
is no universal duckness in my mind that constrains me to think of
the bird duck rather than the verb duck. In other words, meaning
does not come in the form of a universal that fixes the extension of a
term in every future case of its expressions future application. Meaning
is nothing deeper than the use of ordinary words in particular contexts.
This does not mean that the future use of words revealed in the
Quran is wholly unshaped. It indicates only that God provides nothing
better than the Quran itself and the hadith of the Prophet to explain it.
The soundest method of commentary on the Quran, Ibn Taymiyya
writes, is to comment on it with the [words of the] Quran [itself]; for
what is unclear in one place is explained in another and what is abridged
in one place is set forth plainly in another.27 All items of divine dis-
course, in fact, can be understood by an appeal to divine words as these
have been given. There is no essence behind the use of khamr (wine)
in the Quran that underwrites the right way of applying it in any given
context.
erasing the line between literal and f igural meaning
But if a word (lafz _ ) is never used alone (mut
_ laqan), that is, without
a context, one must reject a symmetric priority of literal over figural
meaning. When, for example, we hear the metonymic statement The
fish and chips wants his bill it is literal when used by waiters in the
context of a restaurant. If this is so, why is the metonymic phrase Ask
the village where we were . . . (12:82) any less literal when encountered
in the Quran? Readers and hearers of divine discourse determine the
meaning of its expressions from information arising from its context of
use (istimal).
Ibn Taymiyya claims to trace his stance back to Abu Ubayda
Mamar ibn Muthanna (d. c. 824), who observed in his Metaphor in the
Quran (Majaz al-Quran) that since
the Quran has been revealed in clear Arabic speech the
forefathers and those to whom [Gods] revelations from the Prophet
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were revealed did not need to inquire about its shades of meaning;
for they were speakers of Arabic, and so could dispense with
inquiring about its shades of meaning and about whatever it
contains due to their immediate understanding of it.28
For Ibn Taymiyya, this argues that Muslims originally had no recourse
to anything other than the very words God Himself uses in interpreting
the Quran. For with the utterance of words, in his view, goes also how
they are to be taken. No quranic utterance occurs without a specific
force. There is no part of the Quran or the hadith, he says, that God
and His Messenger have not made clear to their hearers and readers in
such a way that they would require some other source of information to
clarify their meanings.29
Finally, how can one know for certain that the words that the Arabs
were using to communicate with each other before and at the time of
the Qurans revelation had not been used previously to convey different
meanings? We cannot. Furthermore, if we are not certain that such
words were not used differently at a previous time, then neither is it
possible to know whether they bear a literal meaning in conflict with
that upon which [people] have agreed.30 The literal then may be a
metaphor whose original figural sense has simply been forgotten.
Certainly, many lexical items prove to be dead metaphors that were
alive and kicking at some time in the past. For an example, he observes
that the word z _ ana was originally used to refer to a . . . camel for
riding, after which people came to apply the same word to the woman
who rides on the camels back in a litter.31 Someone could use z _ ana
in a true sentence while his contemporaries continued to speak false-
hoods with the same words.32 If this is so, then what we call figural
speech merely reflects a usage that is so far unfamiliar. We call literal
those words we are able to handle based on our present and past
knowledge. What we call figural then simply reflects our perception of
what is unsuitable for use in any context we have known so far.33 Once
this is granted, it seems difficult to maintain that there exists a specif-
ically figural as opposed to a literal meaning in divine discourse. But for
Ibn Taymiyya literal meaning is all the meaning there is.
the end of epistemology
Still, Ibn Taymiyya is himself not the most helpful guide for
unpacking how much can be fitted into his concept of al-kalam
al-mustamal, or discourse in use, or for that matter into the notion of
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intention insofar as the latter applies to divine speech. In his view,
linguistic use is a thoroughly empirical notion. For divine discourse is
linked with human language by a world of shared human experience
which underlies both. As he says, the expression experience (tajriba)
is used for what a person surveys with thought as well as with sense,34
inasmuch as in human action every sensation is tied to intellectual
thought (kull al-h _ iss al-maqrun bil-aql min fil al-insan).35
From the standpoint of Ghazals thinking in the Niche of Lights
this means that Ibn Taymiyyas discourse in use restricts itself to only
one level of meaning, the meaning revealed in the material world. But
the same is true for Ghazals inner speech. Its domain of reference is
the same world. But the possible range of meaning (maan) nevertheless
extends beyond that domain. For this world (al-mulk wal-shahada)
parallel[s] the world of malakut [the immaterial world of divine
royalty]36 and there is nothing in the former that is not a repre-
sentation [mithal] for something in the latter.37 But he adds that one
thing perhaps is a mithal for several things in the world of malakut;
perhaps a single thing in malakut has many representations in the
visible world.38 Hence, to enumerate all these representations would
call for an exhaustive account of all the entities in both worlds in their
entirety.39 And for this task human capacity is inadequate; it does not
extend to its comprehension.40
There are then other possibilities of meaning beyond empirical and
rational meaning, since words and sentences can signify realities in the
world of power (jabarut) contiguous tomulk and situated between the
latter and malakut. Hence, linguistic signs used in the Quran signify
not simply because they share with the signs of ordinary language the
ability to reflect a common world of experience. They point beyond that
world to the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh _ al-mah
_ fuz
_ ) situated in the
realm of malakut. In the final analysis, this suggests that the order of
intentions that inform divine discourse cannot be assimilated to ones
only expressible in terms of human experience.
In consequence, an epistemology of divine discourse worked out
only in terms of logic or even in terms of Ibn Taymiyyas analysis
ultimately fails. The picture of divine discourse presented in the Niche
does not portray the Quran as a static container of meaning. Rather, it is
an arena where hearers and readers encounter the divine discourser, a
point of ascent (mat _ la) from which fresh meanings can arise. The
Quran is not an inert and self-contained artefact from the past. Recall
that in al-Mustas _ fa Ghazal says divine discourse (kalam) is something
a prophet hears from an angel or an angel from God, or a prophet from
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God, or a saint (wal) from an angel or the Muslim community from
the Prophet. That is, Gods speech has real significance only to an
appropriately qualified audience.
The rational thinker is restricted to knowledge (ilm); but ilm is
analogical (qiyas). That is, ilm emerges from the inferences made
between propositions that come in the form of declarative statements
or reports (akhbar, sing. khabar). Recall, tas _ dq only applies to the
khabar. Its essential nature (h _ aqqa) is recognition (itiraf) of the
existence of what the Messenger has reported (akhbara an) about its
existence. In contrast, the attitude of the Muslims at large not qualified
by ilm is taqld, or the imitation of established precedents.
However, for those who have reached a full perfection of knowledge
through divine bestowal, the knowers (arifun)41 or saints (awliya,
plural of wal), the epistemological situation shifts. Their mode of
hearing divine speech is like that of prophets. Recall that Ghazal in the
Mustas _ fa says that the divine speech heard by Moses had no letter
nor sound nor language established in such a way that one knows its
sense (manahu) through prior cognition of its assigned or agreed-upon
(mud _ a) meaning. In the Niche, he offers an interpretation of the
quranic verse where the prophet Moses exclaims Lo! I see in the dis-
tance a fire and says to those around him, Perchance I shall bring you a
report (khabar) from there or a brand from the fire that you may warm
yourselves (28:29). Ghazal says that those who may warm them-
selves are the knowers. Those who only hear a report or khabar are
those who merely follow what it says by rote (taqld). For only a person
who has a fire of the prophetic spirit can warm himself, not the one who
hears a report (khabar) about fire.42
For the arifun there is no mediation of linguistic sign or symbol. As
a result, as Ghazal explains again in the Niche,
The knowers (arifun) do not need the day of resurrection to hear the
Creators proclamation, Whose is the kingdom today? It belongs to
the One, the Overwhelming [40:16]. On the contrary, this
proclamation never leaves their hearing. They do not understand the
saying, God is greater to mean that He is greater than other
things . . . For there is nothing in existence along with Him than
which He could be greater. Or rather, nothing other than He
possesses the degree of withness (maya); everything possesses
following after. In contrast, everything other than God exists only
under the description of that which lies next. The only existent
thing is His face.43
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In support of this last claim Ghazal cites the quranic verse, Every-
thing is perishing save His face (28:88). To him this verse means that
there is none in existence save God . . . since the essence of anything
other than He is considered with respect to its essence; it is totally non-
existent. To those who see nothing in existence except the One,
knowledge (ilm) as tas _ dq comes to an end. Its essential nature
(h _ aqqa) is recognition (itiraf) of the existence of what the Messenger
has reported (akhbara an) about its existence. But if everything other
than God is non-existent, there is nothing about which one can make
such epistemic claims.
The knowers then see nothing in existence except the One, the
Real, that is, God.44 As Ghazal explains, Everything has two faces: a
face turned towards itself and a face towards God. Only from the
standpoint of its own face, it has no existence.45 But from the stand-
point of its face which is towards God, it exists (huwa . . . bi tibar wajh
Allah mawjud), or is found there. From the standpoint of its own
face includes also the self. For he [sc. the arif] is aware neither of
himself . . . nor of any absence of awareness of himself, inasmuch as
awareness of unawareness is yet an awareness of self. They have
arrived at the level of total self-extinction (fana). So at the level of
withness, spatiotemporal proximity and distance have no meaning.
Everything arising from Gods existence is perceived as equidistant from
its ontological source. That is why he says that Gods proclamation to
the arifun never leaves their hearing and their position thus differs
from the ulama or rational thinkers and the rest of the Muslim com-
munity. The latter hear divine discourse mediated by a report like a man
who says, I heard the poet Mutanabb, and means by his claim that he
heard Mutanabbs poetry being recited by someone.46
the subtleties of allusion
Yet, as the Niche continues, if nothing exists other than God, the
Light of the heavens and Earth (24:35), then the name light for
things other than the First Light [i.e. God] is sheer majaz.47 Thus, the
arifun ascend from . . . majaz to . . . h _ aqqa, from the figural to the
literal.48 For nothing possesses huwya (he-ness) other than He [huwa]
except in a figural sense (bil-majaz). Huwya, the abstract form of
the third-person pronoun huwa, is one of the terms used in falsafa to
render existence. In his work The Highest Aim (al-Maqs _ ad al-Asna),
Ghazal isolates huwa huwa and huwa ghayruhu as the basic
form when one wants to say of something It is . . . or It is not . . .
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(lit. other than . . . ).49 But for the arif the third-person pronoun huwa
no longer functions simply at the literal level. Huwa , he explains in
the Niche, is an expression (ibara] for an allusion (ishara) to whatever
[a thing] is, but there is no allusion to anything other than He [i.e. God],
so that whenever you refer (asharta) to a thing, you in reality allude to
Him, although . . . you are unaware of it because of your ignorance of
ultimate reality. So much follows from the earlier statement that
nothing possesses existence [he-ness, huwya] other than He (huwa)
except in a figural sense (bil-majaz).
One might paraphrase the latter statement to say that whenever one
says It is . . . , one indirectly speaks of God, although the sentence one
formulates speaks of something else. After all, speakers can mean what
they say, but can mean something more as well. In other words,
khabar, declarative or reported meaning, is what is meant when one
says huwa huwa to refer to a thing. Ishar or allusive meaning is what
signifies indirectly. For example, whenever the arif refers to a thing
using huwa he refers indirectly to God.
Earlier, we noted that Ghazal classified this type of indirect speech-
act as a form of signification by implication (dalalat al-iltizam). Impli-
cations (lawazim) are known from linguistic, rational or situational
contexts such as allusions (isharat) and symbols (rumuz). Significa-
tion by correspondence (dalalat al-mut _ abaqa) and inclusion (dalalat
al-tad _ amun) is best suited for signifying individuals and their properties
in the material world. But this latter world parallel[s] the world of
malakut. Furthermore, there is nothing in the former that is not a
representation (mithal) for something in the latter, and in fact one
thing in the former is a mithal for several things in the world of
malakut, so that a single thing inmalakut has many representations in
the material world. Yet the possible range of meaning (maan) revealed
to the saint extends beyond this world. This is why express meaning
(ibara) is also inadequate. Accordingly, Ghazal in the Niche tends to
broaden his analysis of verbal signification to include the phenomenon
of ishara. It forms in fact the basis of his theory of mystical meaning.
Ishara literally means pointing, since by pointing one can signify
all at once things it would need many words to express (abara) verbally
(bil-lafz _ ).50 In al-Mustas
_ fa Ghazal describes ishara as what one grasps
from an expression [that] comes not from the expression [itself], but the
meaning to which the expression extends without expressly intending
it, e.g., what one understands by the speakers allusion and by a gesture
he makes while he speaks to give some hint that the expression by itself
does not signify. However, something not intended and not built upon
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the expression from the standpoint of grammar may [nonetheless]
coincide with it.51 We see this when a person says, This hike is longer
than I remember, and means primarily but not exclusively, I need a
rest. He communicates something in addition to, although clearly
related to, the meaning the sentence conveys.
Hence, an ishara will maintain the ibara (express meaning) but
extend beyond it. For this reason, Ghazal can say, Huwa [He] is
an expression (ibara) for an allusion (ishara). And Abu H _ ayyan
al-Tawh _ d (d. 1023), in his Sufi work The Divine Allusions (al-Isharat
al-Ilahya), can exhort his readers to lay hold of the ishara buried
within the ibara. The ishara does not contradict the grammatical
function of ibara (express meaning) or differ from it morphologically or
syntactically. Rather, its grammatical, morphological and syntactic
function is used to perform the act of ishara. For, as Tawh _ d asserts,
ishar or allusive meaning is a concomitant feature of the composition
of letters making up the sentences of the quranic text, except that the
ishara is beyond the rules governing names, verbs and circumstances.52
summary and conclusion
In the Niche, Ghazal writes that nothing possesses existence
(huwya) other than He [i.e. God] except in a figural sense (bil-majaz)
and the knowers of God [who] ascend from . . . majaz to . . . h _ aqqa.
But in theMustas _ fa he claims: Everymajaz [figural sense] has a h
_ aqqa
[i.e. a literal sense] but it is not necessary that every h _ aqqa has a
majaz. Should we conclude that Ghazal has simply reversed himself,
that non-literal and literal are symmetrically interdependent? And if for
Ibn Taymiyya literal meaning is all the meaning there is, then Ghazals
Niche seems to take the opposite position: there are simply no literal
truths to be told, at least not from the perspective of the saints.
How then does the Niche square with the idea that cognition of
meaning in divine discourse is first and foremost a matter of literally
understanding what the discourser said in the form of an assertion
(khabar), rather than how it is said or its force? For faith (man) is assent
to the truth (tas _ dq) of what the Prophet has reported to be the case.
Meaning thus comes down to what is said or rather what is said to exist.
This, at least, is the view put forth in Ghazals Decisive Criterion
(Fays _ al al-tafriqa), that the use of sentences expressing essential, sens-
ible, imaginal, intelligible or analogical senses presupposes an existen-
tial or factual meaning. Thus, quranic utterances always presuppose a
literal assertion of existence.53 And their variations of meaning result
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from mental operations performed upon this shared ontological content.
However, here is the key to our mystery.
The possibility of performing such mental operations is what allows
Ghazal to maintain the two apparently incompatible claims: that fig-
ural meaning is asymmetrically dependent on literal meaning and that
ultimately there are no literal truths to be told. The mental operations
are the contents of specific speech-acts. One may then sum up Ghazals
epistemology of divine discourse in two moments. In the first, he gives a
logical account of the possible meanings of the sentences of the Quran,
explained as a function of the meanings of their verbal components
conceived as essences behind its words and their mode of combination
in inferential structures. Divine discourse will in this way be seen as
possessing a literal content linked with truth.
In the second moment, that literal content is placed at the disposal
of various non-direct speech-acts (isharat) to effect utterances of a non-
literal significance and of a specific non-assertoric or rather illocutionary
force. Isharat are speech-acts performed with quranic sentences that
already have a literal meaning. Hence, the Sufi jihadist against French
colonialism, Abd al-Qadir al-Jazair (180883) confessed, Whenever
[God] wishes to communicate to me a command or give me good news,
warn me, communicate a piece of knowledge, or give me advice I have
sought touching on some matter, He informs me of what He wishes by
means of an ishara through a noble verse of the Quran.54
Using a quranic verse as an ishara therefore does not cancel out its
z _ ahir or surface meaning. From the perspective of the rational thinker,
for instance, a verse may have only legal import. At the same time, to
the saint, the significance of the same verse will be mystical and sym-
bolic.55 Here the figural meaning and indeed, scriptural meaning in
general become a matter of perspective. And if we have not in the
phenomenon of ishara an exhaustive account of the tropes found in the
Quran, Ghazal has at least outlined their structure from the standpoint
of theological understanding.
What was important for him to stress was that cancelling out the
z _ ahirmeaning was not something he advocated. That was the view of
the Bat _ inya [i.e. the Ismal Sha] who have, as he asserts, one blind
eye and look only at one of the two worlds and do not recognise the
parallel between the two nor understand its significance. But Ghazal
equally condemned a cancellation of the secrets (asrar) . . . which strips
the z _ ahir meaning of its content, this being the path of literalists.56
Only those who bring the two together achieve perfection. Therefore,
he can still maintain that cognition of meaning in divine discourse is
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first and foremost a matter of literally understanding what the dis-
courser says, rather than its specific force as manifested in acts of ishara.
For the literal significance is preserved in ishara, to be sure. Indeed, that
literal significance is what motivates illocutionary uptake.
With Ibn Taymiyya only the latter is important, insofar as it displays
the intention of the divine discourser revealed in His habit of address
(adat al-mutakallim). For the signification of expressions is an inten-
tional, volitional act signalling what the speaker means by them, [given
that] expressions by themselves fail to signify. In fact, the mere
hearing of the expression without knowledge of the speaker and his
habit signifies nothing unless one knows what is necessary for the
speaker to signify by them.57 In actuality, Ibn Taymiyyas focus is on
the imperatival force of divine speech over its truth-stating power. For
it may very easily turn out, he reasons, that someone may say,
I know very well that what you say is true; nevertheless, I will not
follow you but fight against you. 58 Tas _ dq is not tantamount to faith,
as Ghazal believed. God speaks to Muslims in order for them to obey
Him, not to know that what He said is true. Hermeneutics and not
epistemology is the foundation of his approach.
Despite their differences, the picture of divine discourse in both
Ghazal and Ibn Taymiyya portrays the Quran as a static container of
meaning. This is the case, at least, with respect to the first moment of
Ghazals verbal epistemology. And it is true because at that moment
both he and Ibn Taymiyya find in the Quran a repository of unam-
biguous knowledge in which each sentence has the possibility of clear
and literal meaning. To Ghazal this is possible because his logic leads
him to posit essences behind quranic words. They are the same essences
God presumably thought as He spoke, the content of interior dis-
course. They reach out and fix the meaning of words in the Quran
wherever they are enunciated in every possible world of Gods creation.
Ibn Taymiyya rejects this picture, as we have seen. Divine discourse
contains itself within a hermeneutic circle: the best way of interpreting
the Quran is by the Quran itself. There is no need to appeal to anything
more than the meaning of quranic sentences and they reflect nothing
deeper than the everyday use of the Arabic words that make them up.
But the meaning of a word is determined by what people say and in what
circumstances they say it. Therefore meaning cannot deviate from the
world. That claim is true both for Ghazal and for Ibn Taymiyya as long
as world means perceptible objects continuous in space and time.
But Ghazal holds that there are worlds of meaning beyond matter,
such that Ibn Taymiyyas world is like that of a ring cast into the Sahara.
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Hence, in the final analysis, the image of a static container of meaning
fails really to capture the reality of divine discourse. For our earthly
Qurans are mere reflections of the deeper reality of the Preserved Tablet
situated in a world beyond. So our earthly Quran represents at best an
arena where hearers and readers actually encounter the divine dis-
courser, a point of ascent from which fresh meanings can constantly
arise. In that arena, as described by the H _ anbalite Sufi commentator on
the Quran, Abul-Abbas ibn At _ a (d. 919 or 920), in reality [God]
makes an ishara from Himself to Himself since no one has the right to
make an ishara to Him except He Himself [ . . . Thus,] whoever makes
an ishara to Him, only makes an ishara to [Gods] ishara to Himself.
And whose ishara is genuine owes its genuineness to divine glorifica-
tion and protection, and that persons ishara is sound and coincides
with the limits of [his own] rectitude, but whose ishara is pure
pretence (dawa) is invalid and far removed from . . . reality.59
Further reading
Abu-Deeb, Kamal, Studies in the Majaz and metaphorical language of the
Quran: Abu Ubayda and al-Sharf al-Rad _ , in Literary Structures of
Religious Meaning in the Quran, ed. Issa J. Boullata (London, 2000),
pp. 31053.
al-Ghazal, Abu H _ amid, The Niche of Lights, tr. David Buchman (Provo, UT,
1998).
Griffel, Frank, Al-Ghazals concept of prophecy: the introduction of
Avicennan psychology into Asharite theology, Arabic Sciences and
Philosophy, 14 (2004), pp. 10144.
Hallaq, Wael B., A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunn
us _ ul al-fiqh (Cambridge, 1997).
Ibn Taymiyya Against the Logicians (Oxford, 1993).
Jackson, Sherman, al-Ghazals Fays _ al al-tafriqa bayna al-Islam wal-zandaqa:
On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam (Karachi, 2002).
Stetkevych, Jaroslav, Muh _ ammad and the Golden Bough: Reconstructing
Arabian Myth (Bloomington, 1996).
Notes
1. Abu H _ amid al-Ghazal, al-Mustas
_ fa min ilm al-us
_ ul, ed. Ibrahm
Muh _ ammad Ramad
_ an (Beirut, 1414/1994), i, p.737; cf. al-Ghazal,
al-Iqtis _ ad fil-itiqad, ed. Ibrahim Agah Cubukcu and Huseyin Atay
(Ankara, 1962), p.114. 2. Il is prefixed to negate locution to show that il-locutions are actions
that speakers perform with locutions. In the area of linguistics known as pragmatics a distinction is thus drawn between the locutionary act (what is said or asserted) and the illocutionary force (how the speaker intended
304 Paul-A. Hardy
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
what was said to be taken: as a statement, a command, a threat, a promise, etc.). Cf. J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, MA, 1962).
3. John Lyons, Semantics (Cambridge, 1977), ii, p.731. 4. Ghazal, Mustas
_ fa, i, p.674.
5. Ghazal, Iqtis _ ad, p.116.
6. Ibid. 7. Ghazal, Mustas
_ fa, i, pp.65962.
8. Ibid., i, p.674. 9. Cf. Abu Bakr al-Baqillan, Kitab al-Tamhd, ed. Richard J. McCarthy
(Beirut, 1957), pp.714. 10. Ghazal, Mustas
_ fa, i, p.674.
11. Cf. Wael B. Hallaq,AHistory of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunn us
_ ul al-fiqh (Cambridge, 1997), pp.39ff.
12. al-Ghazal, Miyar al-ilm f fann al-mant _ iq (Beirut, 1983), p.43.
13. E.g. the quranic verse 6:141: Pay the due thereof upon the harvest day, which is contextualised by specifying that what is due is a tenth thereof; Ghazal, Mustas
_ fa, i, pp.6756.
14. E.g. the verse The heavens are rolled up in His right hand, which is put in context by the hadith, The heart of the believer is between two fingers of the fingers of the All-Merciful God; ibid., i, p.676.
15. al-Ghazal, Ih _ ya ulum al-dn, ed. Abu H
_ afs
_ ibn Imran (Cairo, 1419/
1998), iv, p.351. 16. al-Ghazal, Fays
_ al al-tafriqa bayna al-Islamwal-zandaqa, ed. Sulayman
Dunya (Cairo, 1381/1961), p.77. Cf. Sherman Jackson, al-Ghazals Fays
_ al al-tafriqa bayna al-Islam wal-zandaqa: On the Boundaries of
Theological Tolerance in Islam (Karachi, 2002), Introduction; and Frank Griffel, Al-Ghazals concept of prophecy: the introduction of Avicennan psychology into Asharite theology, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 14 (2004), p.125.
17. Ghazal, Mustas _ fa, i, p.679.
18. See Wael B. Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya Against the Logicians (Oxford, 1993); and more recently Oliver Leaman, Islamic philosophy and the attack on logic, Topoi 19/1 (2000), pp.1724.
19. Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd ala al-mant _ iqiyyn, ed. Muh
_ ammad Abd
al-Sattar Nas _ s _ ar and Imad Khafaj (Cairo, 1976), i, p.114.
20. For Ibn Taymiyyas views on faith see Toshihiko Izutsu, The Concept of Belief in Islamic Theology (Tokyo, 1965), pp.16679 and passim.
21. Muh _ ammad al-Maws
_ il, Mukhtas
_ ar al-S
_ awaiq al-Mursala alal-
Jahmya wal-Muat _ t _ ila libnil-Qayyim al-Jawziyya (Beirut, 1405/
1985). 22. Taq al-Dn Ah
_ mad Ibn Taymiyya,Majmu Fatawa, ed. Abd al-Rah
_ man
ibn Qasim andMuh _ ammad Abd al-Rah
_ man ibn Qasim (Rabat, n.d.), xx,
p.496. 23. In Maws
_ il, Mukhtas
_ ar, p.272, lines 410. Cf. Ibn Taymiyya, Kitab
al-Iman, ed. Sayyid Jumayl (Cairo, 1412/1993), pp.834. 24. Maws
_ il, Mukhtas
_ ar, p.254.
25. Ibn Taymiyya, Kitab al-Iman, p.87.
Epistemology and divine discourse 305
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26. Ibid., pp.834. 27. Ibn Taymiyya, Muqaddima f us
_ ul al-tafsr, ed. Adnan Zarzur (Beirut,
1399/1979), p.93. 28. Quoted in Ella Almagor, The early meaning of Majaz and the nature
of Abu Ubaydas exegesis, in Andrew Rippin (ed.), The Quran and Its Interpretative Tradition (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2001), pp.30910. Also see Kamal Abu-Deeb, Studies in the Majaz and metaphorical language of the Quran: Abu Ubayda and al-Sharf al-Rad
_ , in Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Quran,
ed. Issa J. Boullata (London, 2000), pp.31053. 29. Ibn Taymiyya, Kitab al-Iman, p.94. 30. Ibid., p.88. 31. Ibid., p.87. 32. On the linguistic change from Jahiliyya to Islam see Jaroslav Stetkevych,
Muh _ ammad and the Golden Bough: Reconstructing Arabian Myth
(Bloomington, 1996), pp.47. 33. Ibn Taymiyya, Kitab al-Iman, pp.834. 34. Ibn Taymiyya, Radd, i, p.208, lines 67. 35. Ibid., i, p.204, lines 910. 36. Malakut is derived from malik, king, not malak, angel. 37. al-Ghazal, Mishkat al-anwar, ed. Abul-Ala Aff (Cairo, 1382/1964),
p.67; English tr. from the same edn by David Buchman, The Niche of Lights (Provo, UT, 1998), p.27.
38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. I avoid the frequent translation of arif as gnostic because such a
translation superficially implies an association with an ancient movement with which Ghazal had no known association.
42. Ghazal, Mishkat, pp.6970; tr. Buchman, p.28. 43. Ibid., p.56; tr. Buchman, p.16. 44. Ibid., p.57; tr. Buchman, p.17. 45. Ibid., p.56; tr. Buchman, p.17. 46. Ghazal, Mustas
_ fa, i, pp.6745.
47. Ghazal, Mishkat, p.54; tr. Buchman, p.15. 48. Ibid., p.55; tr. Buchman, p.17. 49. Abu Hamid al-Ghazal, al-Maqs
_ ad al-Asna f sharh
_ maan asma Allah
al-h _ usna, ed. Fadlou Shehadi (Beirut, 1971), pp.214.
50. Cf. Pierre Cachia, The Arch-Rhetorician or the Schemers Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic bad (Wiesbaden, 1998), p.89.
51. Ghazal, Mustas _ fa, ii, pp.21920.
52. Abu H _ ayyan al-Tawh
_ d, al-Isharat al-Ilahya, ed. Wadad al-Qad
_
(Beirut, 1402/1982), p.61. 53. Ibid. 54. Abd al-Qadir al-Jazair, Kitab al-Mawaqif (Beirut, 1966), i, p.26.
306 Paul-A. Hardy
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
55. This is not to say that no ishara ever has legal import. For examples see Ghazal, Mustas
_ fa, ii, pp.21921.
56. Ghazal, Mishkat, pp.73ff. 57. Ibn Taymiyya, Majmu Fatawa, xx, p.496. 58. Ibn Taymiyya, Kitab al-Iman, p.227; cf. also the argument on p.223. 59. Tafsr Abil-Abbas ibn At
_ a, in Majmu-e athar-e Abu Abd
al-Rah _ man al-Sulam, ed. Nas
_ r al-Dn Purjavad (Tehran, 1369/1990
or 1991), i, p.223.
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15 Eschatology
marcia hermansen
Given the great interpretive diversity within Islam and the absence of a
central institution that might limit and define authoritative doctrine,
throughout Islamic intellectual history the tension between literal
approaches to revelation and the interpretive limitations of human
reason as respective sources of truth has been a recognised constant.
Even today, disagreements on eschatological teachings often echo the
early debates of ninth-century Baghdad between the Mutazila and the
literalist H _ anbalites, or reflect other tensions that emerged at various
intermediate points of that spectrum. While the Quran and the proph-
etic legacy are the shared sources of all legitimate Islamic doctrine and
symbolism, they have throughout history been read in disparate ways,
reflecting sectarian and interpretive divergences. It would therefore be
futile to present Muslim theological positions on eschatology as if there
were a consensus regarding each detail of what is expected at the end of
time. By their very nature, eschatological doctrines test the limits of our
rational and customary experience, thereby reminding us of the fragility
of our attachment to conditions that strike us now as unquestion-
ably real.
Eschatology embraces not only teachings about death, resurrection,
immortality and judgement, but also the traditions understanding of
beginnings, the meaning of history and the direction and purpose
towards which everything in creation tends. Theologically it orients our
ultimate purpose, and this should be central in its interpretation.
The various symbols and elements found in revealed sources or woven
into the tradition throughout history invite exegesis. In terms of deter-
mining the authenticity of any given interpretation one may consult
the opinions of recognised classical scholars, not somuch in terms of the
specifics of their individual allegorical paradigms, but rather on
the epistemological foundations of their constructions of truth. For
example, the Sunn (and particularly the Asharite) position is to accept
revealed truth, especially in matters pertaining to the realm of the
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Unseen, without needing to take a specific position on precisely how
that truth will be actualised. This stands in contrast to alternative
interpretive positions which allow human reason greater scope, and may
therefore prefer allegorising interpretations when confronted with texts
that confound rationality. In the medieval period, a large majority of
Muslim theologians stood by the view that the core eschatological
doctrines and symbols must be held literally as tenets of faith. A smaller
number derived inspiration from an intellectual tradition that con-
structed a dual truth system whereby archetypal or symbolic truth and
material truth were asserted to be simultaneously distinct and
compatible.
eschatology in the revealed sources
Eschatology is a large subject. It possesses both an individual and a
cosmic element in which the fate of the individual is inextricably bound
up with the purpose and destiny of the entire creation within a religious
vision. Sacred time finds its culmination, fulfilment and, ironically, its
negation or deconstruction in the drama of the Last Things. Theologians
typically held that it is among the three most fundamental Islamic
doctrines the unity and uniqueness of God (tawh _ d), prophecy
(nubuwwa) and the ultimate return (maad). Typically in late kalam
manuals eschatological teachings are subsumed under the category of
samiyyat, matters heard, or received in faith, since unlike the other
two great categories of theological concern, metaphysics and prophecy,
they are considered to lie outside the reach of rational proof. The theo-
logians task here is simply to defend scriptural predictions from
denial or misinterpretation rooted either in false scriptural exegesis
or in an inappropriate extension of ratiocination into this uniquely
revelatory area.
Islam gives a particularly important place to eschatology, partly
because of its own self-understanding as the final revelation, but also
because of the quranic stress on the intelligibility of history as well as
on individual human accountability. Contemporary scholars of apoca-
lyptic note its connection to theodicy, the concept that the things of this
world will be brought to completion in a just way in which the good and
true will be vindicated. But in addition, the end of things may be con-
sidered the binary or corollary of the beginning of things. Our discussion
will begin with four important dimensions of the fact of creation which
set the context for the specifically eschatological motifs within Islamic
theology.
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The creation motif: the day of Am I not your Lord?
Quran 7:172 recounts the establishment of what is sometimes
known as the Primordial Covenant at a time before time when all
souls implicit in the loins of Adam were asked by God, Am I not your
Lord?, to which they replied, Yes, we testify! The quranic assump-
tion is clearly that humans in this life need to recognise and remember
the divine truth they have already acknowledged. In this there is a
resonance with other doctrinal topics such as the living out by humans
of a destiny measured out (qadar) by God, as well as, in some falsafa and
Sufi systems, the reawakening and development of qualities already
implicit in the soul, a process that can lead to a saintly life which,
although still lived in this world, is a sign of the life which the blessed
will enjoy in the world to come.
The Islamic concept of time is frequently less linear than that of the
Christian and Jewish traditions. However, it is marked by a similar
concept of an ex nihilo creation and the destruction of the present world,
with the intervening time being the unfolding of history. In addition,
Islamic concepts of temporality include the idea of a pre-time (azal) in
which the events of the future are determined and anticipated, a beyond-
time or timeless realm (la zaman), and a post-eternity (abad), which
entails the realm of the afterlife.
The concept of a return to God both personal and collective is
quranic (7:29). In this understanding, return (maad) is both the process
of return and the destination itself: the life to come. These ideas were
particularly elaborated within philosophical and mystical approaches to
Islamic theology which stressed personal transformation as the key
epistemological method. According to this spiritual model, all human
life in this lower world (dunya) is viewed as a path of return. One may
either consciously and spiritually participate in this process (voluntary
return), or face an unavoidable physical death and bodily resurrection at
its end (compulsory return).1 Such an approach to eschatological teach-
ings accepts their literal truth while positing further levels of Being
accessible to correspondingly profound verifications of ultimate reality.
Works by Muslim theologians who explicated the inner dimensions of
religious teachings envision life as a process through which a person
continually shapes his or her own soul, so that after death in the
intermediary state (barzakh) this soul continues to exist as an imaginal
form. At the archetypal level of the intermediate state this form of the
soul is existentially real, as are the represented forms of human actions
and all of the other eschatological symbols. This intermediary stage
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is comparable to a sleep from which one will be awakened at the
resurrection, just as the present life also resembles a dream in com-
parison to the subsequent stages.2
Eschatology, while specifically addressing the end of things, is
implicit during our passage as individuals through the life of this
world. In answering the why question of creation with varying
emphases, it structures a range of responses to the human condition. For
example, if asked about the purpose of life, a Muslim scholar might
reply with the quranic verse, Indeed I have only created jinn and
human beings in order to worship Me (51:56). This supplies a deonto-
logical ethic in which obedience to the revealed law results in reward
in the afterlife and fulfils the purpose of life. This, however, has not
been the only Muslim response to this question. In a well-known pas-
sage, Ibn Arab responded to the same issue by citing a tradition that
God had said, I was a hidden treasure and I wanted to be known, and
therefore I created the universes.3 In this case the ultimate human
purpose is gnosis (irfan) or realisation (tah _ qq) of the divine element
immanent in all creation. Both positions are rooted in alternate quranic
principles, one stressing the divine transcendence (tanzh), and the other
emphasising immanence (tashbh); both uphold the concept of a chosen
return to God, but one is implicitly dualistic while the other suggests a
more humanistic orientation and an active participation in the
eschatological project. These varying perspectives also displayed them-
selves in broader ethical perspectives on issues such as the ultimate
source of evil.
Cosmic creation and the end of convention
The Quran speaks of the creation of the universe as either a process
or an instantaneous response to the divine command Be! so that it
becomes (kun fa-yakun) (2:117; 3:47; 6:73 and elsewhere). Within the
quranic formulations there are various aspects of the creative process,
including the dimensions of creation ex nihilo (ibda), creation (khalq)
that occurs through combining and developing elements that already
exist, and Gods continuous divine management (tadbr) (32:45) of
creation.
The idea that the natural order and physical creation as we know it
will be transformed or overturned at the eschaton is found repeatedly in
the Quran. Despite the incredulity of his unbelieving audience, in the
epoch of the Prophet the concept of judgement and the Hour seems to
have had a radical urgency. How shall you know? Perhaps the Hour is
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near (42:17). The eighty-first sura forcefully describes how the natural
order as humans know it will be overturned:
the overthrowing
In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
When the sun is overthrown,
And when the stars fall,
And when the hills are moved,
And when the camels big with young are abandoned,
And when the wild beasts are herded together,
And when the seas shall rise,
And when souls are reunited,
And when the girl-child that was buried alive is asked
For what sin she was slain,
And when the pages are laid open,
And when the sky is torn away,
And when hell is lighted,
And when the garden is brought nigh,
Then every soul will know what it has made ready.
Here nature, a celebrated constant in the world of the pre-Islamic Arabs,
is completely subverted. Descriptions of the earths final cataclysm are
particularly salient in such Meccan chapters of the Quran. These take
the form of short dramatic outbursts of rhyming prose, and stress the
need to repent and recognise God before the final days. The general
picture of events leading up to the day of judgement is that great
earthquakes will rock the earth, setting the mountains in motion, the
sky will split open and the heavens will be rolled up like scrolls of
parchment. The sun will be darkened, and the oceans will boil.
The creation of Adam and the Garden
The eschatological counterpart to the creation of the human proto-
type, Adam,would be the idea of the new or second creation (khalq jadd)
(14:39) which takes place at the resurrection. As He originated you, so
youwill return (7:29), and AsWeoriginated thefirst creation soWewill
bring it back again a promise binding uponUs, soWe shall do (21:104).
The doctrine of the resurrection of the body seems to have been
difficult for the pre-Islamic Arabs to accept, as the Quran repeatedly
asserts its reality and presents belief in it as a test of faith. Such
incredulity did not vanish following the scriptures triumph: Avicenna
took a psychological view of the resurrection, explaining that the return
is to the same place whence one came, on the basis of the quranic verses
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89:278, O contented soul, return to your Lord, pleased and pleasing.4
The human soul (nafs) possesses many aspects. For some commentators
the level of the contented soul (89:27) represents a reunion with the
archetypal, pre-existing source of a persons essential reality. For other
thinkers, resurrection is the physical reconstitution of the human
body and identity. Many theologians understood human experience in
this life as a contest between the higher elements of human nature and
the lower desires, often figured as angelic and animalistic tendencies.
This is based on quranic anthropology, where humans are described on
the one hand as having been created from lowly mud or a clot of
coagulated blood, while at the same time they share in the divine spirit
that God breathed into Adam (15:29; 38:72). The story of the creation of
Adam implies this, since it incorporates his quick disobedience to God.
Yet according to 2:37 a repentant Adam turned toGod and receivedwords
of guidance. This not only initiates Adam as a prophet but is taken to
indicate that there is no Fall into original sinfulness within quranic
anthropology. There can be no original sin since every child is bornwith
the sound original disposition (fit _ ra).5 In fact God has created the human
composite according to an ideal stature (95:4), and the words of guidance
and modes of remembrance and God-consciousness (taqwa) received by
humanity in the form of revelations and their elaboration into codes for
life (shara) aremeans for restoring rather than inaugurating this felicity.
Every element of creation is measured out by God, and has a div-
inely determined term (ajal musamma, 6:2). Once death comes, the
human soul will exist, according to traditions of the Prophet, in the
barzakh until the time of collective resurrection (23:100). On the basis
of these traditions theologians developed doctrines of how an individual
in this intermediary state will initially be examined by the angels, who
will ask about his or her religious affiliation, the consequence being an
experience in the grave which anticipates ones eternal destiny. Medi-
eval debates occurred as to whether the punishments of the grave to
be experienced in this state were in fact, physical, or occurred in the
imaginative faculty, through psychological forms such as dreams and
images.6 Asharism and Maturdism insisted on belief in this inter-
mediary state as an article of faith; while most Mutazils, and perhaps
the Kharijites, rejected it, the dispute hinging on the interpretation of the
relevant scriptural passages.7
The creation motif: humans accepting the Trust (amana)
A verse of the Quran states: Indeed We offered the Trust (amana)
to the heavens, the earth, and the mountains, but they refused to bear it
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because they were afraid of it. Yet the human being took it up; indeed he
is oppressive and ignorant (33:72).
The eschatological principle to be paired with this aspect of cre-
ation is the concept of judgement, either of individuals or of nations in
history. Both individual humans and nations have their determined
terms (10:49; 15:45). At the end of time a trumpet will sound twice
(39:68), calling for the resurrection. The first blast will be like a wind
that ends all life as we know it. The second blast signals the resur-
rection of the dead (qiyama), also known as the rising up (bath).
Once resurrected, all men and women will be assembled (h _ ashr) on an
immense and featureless plain. Many elements of the H _ ajj pilgrimage
are held to be reminiscent of this final assembly, for example the huge
crowds and confusion, as well as the uniform white garments (ih _ ram)
worn by males that resemble burial shrouds.
Further prophetic traditions indicate that after judgement pun-
ishment may be embodied in forms commensurable with a persons
sins, so that avarice, for instance, will be embodied by a snake coiled
around the misers neck. At the same time all human actions are
said to have been recorded (36:12), so that the judgement day is also
known as the day of reckoning (yawm al-h _ isab). At this time actions
will testify for or against their agents, who will receive books in the
right or left hand, witness their scrolls being unrolled, or hear their
various limbs testify to the deeds they had committed (41:1924;
69:1926). The final judgement is depicted by a range of images.
Each persons deeds will be weighed in scales (mzan), the judged
must walk over a narrow bridge (s _ irat
_ ) stretched over hellfire, into
which the guilty will plunge, while a heavenly pool (h _ awd
_ ) of the
Prophet awaits the believers, who will be purified and have their
thirst quenched.8
After the judgement, souls will be divided and assigned either
to heaven, symbolised by a verdant garden (janna) or to hell (jahan-
nam), also known simply as the Fire (al-nar). Quranic symbolism
suggests further gradations of recompense such as that of the People
of the Heights who are in neither heaven nor hell (7:46), and other
specific terms for Paradise and hell that are in some cases interpreted
by commentators as indicating ranks and levels in the afterlife.9
A further aspect of judgement is that of nations. This occurs within
the course of history in terms of divine blessing or punishment being
meted out to human communities that either fulfil or reject the teach-
ings of Gods messengers.
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messianism
Belief in a figure who will come to the world in the end-time to
combat the forces of darkness or evil is a theme common to the Western
religious traditions. Meaning in history is brought to vindication
through this potent image of a cosmic conflagration, succeeded by a just
resolution and the ultimate victory of the good. The Muslim messianic
figure, known as the Mahd, or guided one, is generally presented in
hadith chapters called the books of crises, calamities or civil wars (fitan).
For most Sunns the Mahd concept has not been particularised around
strong millenarian expectations, although in times of crisis it may be
invoked, for example in various historical Mahdist movements, and in
some Sufi-influenced, or politically driven movements featuring
millenarian overtones. The last significant Mahdist movement was that
of the Sudanese, Muh _ ammad Ah
_ mad ibn Abd Allah (d. 1885). Among
earlier (and very diverse) examples of millenarianism were the Abbasid
revolution of the eighth century, Ibn Tumart (d. 1130) of the Berber
Almohads, and a South Asian movement, the Mahdawiyya, that revered
Syed Ah _ mad Jaunpur, a seventeenth century charismatic figure, as a
messianic leader.
In Twelver Shism the Mahd is experienced in a more concrete
way.10 Since the Sh Muslims existed as a minority and in an oppos-
itional role for much of their history, it is understandable that the idea of
vindication and deliverance from a marginal situation would evolve into
a resonant theological concept. Therefore the Messianic doctrine of the
Mahd receives greater elaboration and devotional longing in this branch
of Islam.
The Mahd is identified by Twelver Sha as the twelfth Imam or
spiritual and political successor to the Prophet Muh _ ammad. This Imam
disappeared as a child in the year 939 and went into occultation
(ghayba). Twelvers believe that as a guiding and inspiring spiritual
presence he remains accessible to scholars and to his loyal devotees. He
is known by additional apocalyptic titles such as al-Qaim (the one who
will rise up) and S _ ah _ ib al-Zaman (ruler of the times). Most Shite pol-
itical theory in the pre-modern period posited that no political order
could be legitimate in the absence of this returned Imam. In general,
therefore, one may say that the expectation of a specific deliverer has led
to political quietism for the bulk of Sh history.11
As a counterpoint to the negative or fearsome elements connected
with the eschaton, there exist in both Sunn and Sh understandings
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derived from the hadith corpus descriptions of a period in which the
world will return to an ideal state during the Mahds reign. According
to such hadith the Mahd will come to restore justice, harmony and
truth to all humanity by defeating the forces of evil, which will be led by
a figure known as the Dajjal.12 The implications of this word entail
falsehood and deception, as in the term the false Messiah (al-mash _ al-
dajjal). This figure is said to be a deceiver and one-eyed. Specific
speculations about this Antichrist figure feature in genres of Muslim
devotional texts and more recent apocalyptic allegory, reflecting par-
ticular historical anxieties rather than authoritative doctrine expounded
in texts of kalam. The Quran itself does not refer to such a person, or to
a millennium of any description.
Nonetheless, in Islamic history millenarian movements have at
times arisen that read into particular cruxes of history the culmination
or fulfilment of cycles, on the basis of symbolic divinations of an
astrological or numerological type. Contemporary sociologists of reli-
gion analyse such movements as instances of how religion can rapidly
transform into charismatic and affective rather than traditional forms.
There is a further concept of centennialism, based on a prophetic
tradition that a Renewer (mujaddid) would appear in the Muslim
community at the beginning of every century. Mujaddids have all been
scholarly figures recognised after the fact; the list is not firmly estab-
lished, and in contrast to Mahdism, this concept has not usually been
used as an element in political mobilisation.
apocalyptic
As the end of the world nears, various signs of the Hour are
anticipated. Specific sequences of these are elaborated in the hadith, for
example:
You will not see the Hour before you see ten preceding signs.
The first will be the sun rising from the West, then the Smoke, then
the Dajjal, then the Beast,13 three lunar eclipses,14 one in the East,
one in theWest, and one in the Arabian Peninsula, the appearance of
Jesus, upon whom be peace, then Yajuj and Majuj,15 and the last
will be a fire coming out of Yemen, from the lower part of Aden.16
In the context of the early political and social turbulence of Islamic
history, eschatological expectations combined with religious symbolism
in generating a range of apocalyptic narratives, some of which achieved
the status of admission to the hadith anthologies. Some of these reports
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suggest the Prophets prior knowledge of the fates of the Roman and
Persian Empires and predict the civil wars (fitan) that would disturb the
emerging Muslim polity. An entire genre of apocalyptic literature
developed, in many cases derived from a shared corpus of ancient Near
Eastern motifs. Some of the hadith compilations of the third Islamic
century include chapters devoted entirely to the topic of crises and civil
wars (fitan), grouping hadiths predicting political struggles in this world
(malah _ im) with other reports describing the trials and rewards of the
next life. Entire volumes of reports such as the Book of Seditions (Kitab
al-Fitan) of Nuaym ibn H _ ammad (d. 844) indicate the scale and popu-
larity of this literature.
A further apocalyptic element is the second coming of Jesus, who
will reappear before the day of judgement and, in a way that was never
precisely adumbrated, assist the Mahd in defeating the forces of evil.
This was inferred from a set of hadith, and also from Quran 43:61, And
he [Jesus] shall be a sign of the [last] Hour. The precise Islamic position
on this aspect of Jesus Messiahhood is open to argument. It is clearly
eschatological in its association with the closing episodes of sacred
history. Muslim rejections of the crucifixion arise both from the fact
that since there is no original sin, redemption is neither necessary nor
possible, and the fact that as the Messiah Jesus would not be killed by
his opponents (Quran 4:157). As a culmination, Jesuss return must
reflect the Islamic reading of history as a site of multiple, fully saving
divine interventions and ubiquitous and omnipresent signs; his second
coming has nothing to do with any vindication of superseded Jewish or
Christian claims. For this reason the hadith reports identify the returned
Jesus as a Muslim who follows the law of the Quran. Jesuss humanity
as one among Gods prophets is affirmed by reports that he will die of
natural causes before the judgement day, for every soul shall taste
death.17
theological issues
Theological issues arising from eschatological teachings include,
significantly, the doctrine of intercession (shafaa), which is treated in
detail in the kalam texts, partly in consequence of early challenges to its
validity. While the Quran states that no soul shall bear the burden of
another (6:164; 17:15, and elsewhere), and explicitly rejects a redemp-
tionist theology (2:48), it leaves the door open for some form of inter-
cession in verses such as no one shall intercede with Him except by His
permission (2:255). It seems that intercession by angels (53:26), true
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witnesses (43:86), or those who have made a covenant with God (19:87)
may avail. A set of hadith regarded as sound by the traditional canons
presented the Prophet as interceding for sinners of his community, both
at the judgement day, and following the condemnation of some sinners
to hell.18 As this tension was debated, one source of particular difficulty
was whether the Prophet will play an intercessory role for his commu-
nity and whether additional sources of mediating spiritual aid (wasla)
such as the friends of God (awliya), might be efficacious. Sunn Islam
gave an affirmative answer here, reacting against the Mutazilite
insistence that any form of intercession must compromise Gods unity
and justice. Sufi circles with a particular devotion to the Prophet as the
perfect human being (al-insan al-kamil) were particularly likely to
uphold the intercessory possibility. Certain more recent positions such
as those espoused byWahhabism that emerged in the eighteenth century
building on Ibn Taymiyyas hostility to intermediaries, or certain
strands in twentieth-century rationalising Islamic modernism, have
sought to reduce or eliminate any connection between this world and
that of the departed, leading to a denial of intercessory powers and an
aversion to practices and symbols of any sort of veneration.19
Controversies over intercession were inevitable in the context of a
religion which set such store by the sole omnipotence of God, and which
had emerged in prophetic tension with a polytheistic system. Yet it was
clear to almost every Muslim that unless prayer on behalf of others is to
be abandoned, some kind of intercessory devotional life must be part of
Islam; and the hadith which affirmed the Prophets intercession for his
community clearly confirmed this. The Mutazilite alternative here, as
on some other issues, seemed to reduce God to a calculating, merciless
automaton, unresponsive to human prayer.
promise and threat
Symptomatic of this Asharite-Mutazilite divide was the largely
Mutazilite topic known as the promise and threat (al-wad wal-wad),
which asserted that an individuals eternal fate may be at least to some
extent rationally ascertained on the basis of Gods promise to reward the
good person and punish the evildoer. Asharites and H _ anbalites con-
tested this, asserting that it privileged human judgement based on
reason over Gods sovereign will. Fearful of vainglorious overconfidence
in Gods favour, Islamic piety has in general eschewed any concept of
being saved or a sense of security about ones posthumous destiny.
Significant reports of the Prophet caution about the possibility that even
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the most pious person might commit a grave sin before the last moment
of life. At the same time, in the case of the sinner, Gods mercy is said to
outweigh His wrath,20 and a particular good deed may carry salvific
weight beyond any human expectation. A balance of hope and fear is
therefore the general Muslim attitude towards ones eternal state, serv-
ing as both a deterrent against wrongdoing and an assurance of divine
mercy. For some, the very notion of reward and punishment as a suffi-
cient motivation for human behaviour has been open to critique. For
example, al-Ghazal states, It is not proper that the bondmans quest for
Heaven should be for anything other than meeting with his Lord. As for
the rest of Heavens delights, mans participation in them is no more
than a beast let loose in a pasture.21
resurrection
On the question of the nature of resurrection, issues engaged are the
nature of the spirit or soul, and what exactly is to be resurrected. On this
Muslim opinions have varied, with the great majority stressing the
physicality of resurrection, given that nothing is impossible for God
(cf. Quran 36:81).
A complete denial of resurrection is heretical, since it runs counter
to the Qurans clear pronouncement in 75:16 and elsewhere. However,
a denial of physical resurrection was upheld by certain Mutazilites and
by falsafa practitioners such as Farab and Avicenna.22 One aspect of the
insistence on bodily resurrection arose from the fact that Islam rejected
the usual Western bodymind distinction.
paradise and the fire
More than any other key postulate, the nature of heaven and hell has
been subjected to a range of interpretations stretching from the purely
literal to the utterly allegorical. Hell is a place of just chastisement for
sin, which forms a temporary purgatory for sinning believers; whether
any punishment there would be truly eternal was a matter of consider-
able dispute.23 Paradise is presented as a garden (janna) arranged in levels,
a verdant placewhere all wishes are fulfilled, andwhere the believers will
enjoy celestial food and drink and be accompanied by beautiful clear-eyed
maidens (h _ ur) who remain perpetually virginal. Some have suggested
that the presence of earthly pleasures in heaven is to indicate the trans-
formation of human nature in the next life so that those things forbidden
in this world will no longer be sources of corruption and conflict. In fact,
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the state of satisfaction (rid _ wan) fromGod is greater than such delights of
the Garden (9:72). In recent times, the well-known poet-philosopher,
Muh _ ammad Iqbal (d. 1938), explained that heaven and hell were repre-
sentations of inner character and states of mind rather than localities.24
On the other hand, some Sufis claimed that one purpose of maintain-
ing eros in Paradise is to valorise it on earth, disclosing it as a sign
of something higher.25 This stands in stark contrast to the medieval
Christian view, which regarded virginity, not marital life, as an antici-
pation of the life to come in heaven.
At the summit of Paradise, for those men and women who lived the
religion to the full, there is the vision of God (ruya), which is unam-
biguously conceived as a spiritual reward higher than the material ful-
filment of personal desires andwishes. This beatific vision was the site of
a characteristic argument between Asharism and the Mutazilites. For
the former, the hadith literature had clearly stated that a veil shall be
lifted, and the believers shall gaze upon the face of God.26 God was
therefore to be seen, in an ocular way that was nonetheless amodal (bi-la
kayf). For theMutazilites, sight (bas _ ar) can only be a corporeal sense; and
since God is not an accident or a body, it is axiomatic that He cannot be
seen. God Himself had told Moses that he would not see his Lord (7:143);
moreover vision (abs _ ar) cannot attain Him (6:104). Ashars, H
_ anbals
and Maturds replied with the view that this latter verse applies only to
complete perception; and that Moses might see God in the next life, even
though God had chosen to veil Himself during that prophets lifetime.
They also denied that there was a logical reason why bas _ ar could not
apprehend an entity that was neither substance nor accident.27
the salvation of non-muslims
Islam emerged in the context of a prophetic dispute with pagan
unbelievers, who were warned that the consequence of their practices
and beliefs would be hellfire. Later in the Prophets ministry the quranic
challenge was extended to Jews and Christians also. Jews were told that
their past disobedience to their own prophets, and more recently their
rejection of Jesus and Muh _ ammad, would entail Gods wrath.28 Even
more seriously, Christians had developed concepts of divine sonship and
a three-fold understanding of the divine nature that impugned the core
principle of tawh _ d, the monotheism without which there could be
no salvation.29 While the quranic critique of the earlier traditions was
subject to varying interpretations, it was clear that God was now not
merely bringing a version of monotheism that would suit peoples
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previously impervious to it, but was correcting in a radical way errors
that had distorted the primordial monotheism received by the first dis-
ciples of Moses and Jesus. Throughout, the Muslim scriptures assume
the existence of an ur-monotheismus, an ancient shared tawh _ d, which
must have been delivered to earlier peoples as a reflection of Gods desire
to save his creatures, but which had been progressively lost or distorted
(tah _ rf), unwittingly or deliberately, as scriptures and primitive doctrines
were imperfectly transmitted.
Salvation has hence been available at many points in time and space;
and it is a necessary corollary of the givens of divine love and justice that
wherever God delivers it, it is full salvation. The emergence of Islam,
therefore, was not thought to signal the opening of a radically new
chapter in the history of salvation, but rather the reiteration of an
ancient truth. The practices of Islam were understood as reminiscences
of this cyclical process; in particular, the five daily prayers and the H _ ajj
pilgrimage contain strong references to Abraham, who is the example
par excellence of the prophet who invites his people back to the worship
of the monotheistic God.
This understanding of salvation history made Muslim discussions
with Jews relatively straightforward: the issue would revolve not around
tawh _ d, but around the possibility of a non-Jewish prophet, and the
arrival of a new lawwhich would ease the burden placed upon the people
of Moses. Islamic considerations of Christianity, by contrast, needed to
be more intricate. Both religions began with the understanding that the
Mosaic law need not be eternal, and with the assumption that Gods
purposes in history were merciful and just. Christianitys conclusion
that those purposes were most fully realised in a single atonement was
not, however, accepted by Muslims, who assumed that the divine love
and justice required not one but many equally saving divine acts in
history,30 and that no soul shall bear the burden of another (6:164).
This underlying gulf was seldom addressed directly on either side;
instead, the considerable polemical literature, generated most often by
kalam specialists, but sometimes also by Sufis and jurists, focused on
the stability of the Biblical text, and the coherence of the doctrines of
Trinity and the Incarnation.31 Given this reluctance to address the
underlying difference of emphasis, and the embryonic state of Biblical
scholarship, it was inevitable that the debate was generally sterile.
A troubling internal issue for Muslim thinkers, however, was the
possibility that the postulate of Gods mercy and justice might be
endangered by a view of history that regarded followers of abrogated
monotheisms as damned. This latter interpretation was derived from
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quranic verses such as Indeed the religion of God is Islam (3:19) and
Whosoever desires a religion other than Islam it will not be accepted of
him (3:35). Yet if Gods compassion ensured that sinning Muslims
could be saved at least on non-Mutazilite views through Gods for-
giveness and the intercession of the Prophet, then there seemed to be a
need to extend this compassion to non-Muslim monotheists, particu-
larly where these had never had the opportunity to accept Islam, but had
still led lives of virtue. The Quran itself can praise the virtues of
Christian clergy: You will find the nearest of them [Muslims] in
affection to be those who say: We are Christians. That is because there
are among them priests and monks, and because they are not proud
(5:82). As a result, Ghazal, the theologian who was perhaps most pre-
occupied with issues of divine providence, was able to allow salvation to
the non-Muslims of his day, provided always that Islam had not been
accurately presented to them, and that they had not wilfully refused it.32
In conclusion, the tenor of Islamic eschatology stresses the inexorable
triumph of good over evil. God has created the universe and human
nature as signs of His goodness; and the final Hour will reflect both His
wrath at their subversion, and His final vindication of beauty andmercy.
Needless to remark, in any religious tradition teachings and symbols
related to final things are particularly susceptible to the workings of the
human imagination. This imagination may be developed toward the
most sublime and positive spirituality or may be employed to project
more mundane and limited fantasies and anxieties. The Islamic spec-
trum has manifested all these possibilities abundantly. Yet the topic of
eschatology, lying within the field of samiyyat, illustrated how areas of
theology that were deemed inaccessible to reason were not readily pro-
ductive of unity based on acquiescence in scriptural reading alone; on
the contrary, these were among the most hotly contested doctrines of
all. Asharism here showed itself characteristically concerned with
maintaining the omnipotence of God, but also insisted on doctrines
which emphasised his sovereign mercy and forgiveness, notably the
doctrines of prophetic intercession, the vision of God, and the desire of
God to forgive sins outright, bi-ghayri h _ isab: without reckoning.
Further reading
Arjomand, Said, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political
Order and Societal Change in Shiite Iran from the Beginning to 1890
(Chicago, 1984).
322 Marcia Hermansen
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Avicenna, Epistola sulla vita futura (al-Ad _ h _ awiyya), ed. and tr. Francesca
Lucchetta (Padua, 1969).
Chittick, William C., Death and the world of imagination: Ibn Arabs
eschatology, Muslim World 78 (1988), pp.5182.
Cook, David, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic (Princeton, NJ, 2002).
Eklund, Ragnar, Life between Death and Resurrection according to Islam
(Uppsala, 1941).
al-Ghazal, Abu H _ amid, The Remembrance of God and the Afterlife: Book XL
of the Revival of the Religious Sciences, tr. T. J. Winter (Cambridge, 1989).
Haddad, Yvonne Y., and Jane I. Smith, The Islamic Understanding of Death
and Resurrection (Albany, 1981).
Rahman, Fazlur, Major Themes of the Quran (Minneapolis, 1980).
Sachedina, Abdulaziz, Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahd in Twelver
Shism (Albany, 1981).
Saritoprak, Zeki, The Mahd tradition in Islam: a social-cognitive approach,
Islamic Studies 41 (2002), pp. 65174.
Notes
1. William C. Chittick, Death and the world of imagination: Ibn Arabs eschatology, Muslim World 78 (1988), p.51.
2. Ibid., passim; cf. Abu H _ amid al-Ghazali, Deliverance from Error,
tr. W. Montgomery Watt as The Faith and Practice of al-Ghazzali (London, 1953), p.24.
3. Cf. Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, NC, 1975), p.189.
4. Ibn Sna, al-Risala al-Ad _ h _ awiyya, tr. Francesca Lucchetta as Epistola
sulla vita futura (Padua, 1969), p.19. 5. Bukhar, Janaiz, 80. 6. Abu H
_ amid al-Ghazal, The Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife:
Book XL of the Revival of the Religious Sciences, tr. T. J. Winter (Cambridge, 1989), pp.13547.
7. A. J. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed: Its Genesis and Historical Development (Cambridge, 1932), pp.11721; Ragnar Eklund, Life between Death and Resurrection according to Islam (Uppsala, 1941); Abd Allah al-Bayd
_ aw, T
_ awali al-anwar min mat
_ ali al-anz
_ ar, tr. by
Edwin E. Calverley and James W. Pollock, as Nature, Man and God in Medieval Islam (Leiden, 2002), ii, pp.107881.
8. Quran 36:66; 37:234; 101:611; cf. Ghazal, Remembrance, pp.21718.
9. Ibid., pp.222, 237; cf. T. OShaughnessy, The seven names for hell in the Quran, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 24 (1961), pp.44469.
10. Sevener Fat _ imid and Ismal theology upholds the need for a living
guide (imam) to be present in the community, although some indications of cyclic fulfilment or high points are present.
Eschatology 323
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
11. Said Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order and Societal Change in Shiite Iran from the Beginning to 1890 (Chicago, 1984).
12. Cf. Abdulaziz Sachedina, Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahd in Twelver Shism (Albany, 1981).
13. Possibly referred to in Quran 27:82. 14. Or earthquakes, in some interpretations. 15. Mentioned in Quran 18:94; 21:96; apparently a reference to Gog and
Magog. 16. Muslim, Fitan, 128. As recounted in Imam al-Haddad, The Lives of Man
(London, 1991), p.51. 17. Quran 3:185. For more on the second coming, see Yvonne Y. Haddad
and Jane I. Smith, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrec- tion (Albany, 1981), pp.6970.
18. Ghazal, Remembrance of Death, pp.21016. 19. Richard C. Martin, Mark R. Woodward and Dwi S. Atmaja, Defenders of
Reason in Islam: Mutazilism from Medieval School to Modern Symbol (Oxford, 1997), pp.1034, 1268.
20. Hadith in Bukhar, Tawh _ d, 15.
21. Al-Ghazal, Remembrance of Death, p.251. 22. Georges Anawati, Etudes de philosophie musulmane (Paris, 1974),
pp.26389. 23. Haddad and Smith, pp.1424. 24. Muh
_ ammad Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam,
(Lahore, 1960), p.123. 25. Sachiko Murata, The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender
Relationships in Islamic Thought (Albany, 1992), pp.1956. 26. Muslim, Iman, 297. 27. Ibrahim Lutpi, The problem of the vision of God in the theology of
az-Zamakhshari and al-Baidawi, Die Welt des Orients 13 (1982), pp.107113; A.K. Tuft, The ruya controversy and the interpretation of Quran vii:143, Hamdard Islamicus 6 (1983), pp.341.
28. For Muslim understandings of Judaism see Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn H _ azm (New York: 1996).
29. Quran 9:31; for many scholars Christians were therefore idol- worshippers (as
_ h _ ab al-awthan); see Ibn H
_ ajar al-Asqalan, Fath
_ al-Bar
Sharh _ S _ ah
_ h _ al-Bukhar (Cairo, 1959), xxiv, p.269.
30. Cf. Quran 13:7; 35:24. 31. Wadi Z. Haddad, A tenth-century speculative theologians refutation of
the basic doctrines of Christianity: al-Baqillani (d. ad 1013), in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Wadi Z. Haddad (eds.), ChristianMuslim Encoun- ters (Gainesville, 1995), pp.8294.
32. Cited in Tim Winter, The last trump card: Islam and the supersession of other faiths, Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 9 (1999), pp.14950.
324 Marcia Hermansen
Cambridge Collections Online Cambridge University Press, 2008
Index
abad 310 Abadan, Muh
_ ammad al- 99
Aban 260 Abbadan 261, 262 Abbadan, Abu H
_ abb al- 262
Abbasids 113, 115, 315 Abd al-Jabbar (d. 1025) 92, 93, 207,
208, 285 Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (d. 705) 38 Abd al-Qahir al-Baghdad (d. 1037)
60, 84, 262 Abduh, Muh
_ ammad (d. 1905) 147
Abhar, Athr al-Dn al- (d. 1264) 68 Abraham 5, 28, 33, 321 Abu Bakr (d. 634) 22, 35, 36, 259 Abu H
_ anfa (d. 767) 44, 51, 81, 86, 147,
245 Abul-Hudhayl al-Allaf (d. 841) 47,
48, 49, 123 Abu Hurayra (d. 678) 284 Abu Jafar al-Sharf 111 Abu Madyan (d. 1197) 272 Abu Muslim al-Khurasan (d. 754) 58 Abul-Shaykh al-Is
_ fahan (d. 979) 52
Abu Thawr (d. 854) 268 accidents 129, 205, 273, 274, 320 Acquisition (kasb) 9, 45, 146–7, 168,
171 Active Intellect 63, 64, 70 adab 176–7 Adam 181, 230, 233, 310, 312–13 adam 130 ada 228, 273, 289, 294 Aden 316 Adonis 187 afterlife 78, 87, 91, 130, 201, 227, 238,
249, 250, 276, 308–24 agriculture 107 Ah
_ sa, Ibn Ab Jumhur al- (d. 1501) 94
ahl al-kitab 28, 33 ah
_ wal 48
Aisha (d. 678) 35, 36, 183, 234 ajal 313, 314 Ajam, H
_ abb al- 260
Akhbariyya 94, 107 akhlaq 176, 225, 235 see also ethics Alexander of Aphrodisias 61 Alexandria school 60, 61 Algeria 38 Al ibn Ab T
_ alib (d. 661) 35, 36, 40,
194, 221 allegory 129, 136, 137, 276, 309, 319 Almohads 315 amana 313 Amid, Sayf al-Dn al- (d. 1233) 127,
135 amr 134, 169, 231, 288 amr itibar 71 al-amr bil-maruf wal-nahy an
al-munkar 48 Amr ibn Ubayd (d. 761) 47 Amul, Sayyid H
_ aydar (d. 1385) 94
analogy 56, 59, 128, 129, 130, 137, 155, 207, 246, 249, 282, 298
Anatolia 12, 271 anatomy 203 Andalusia 69 angels 19, 20, 21, 24, 27, 183, 231, 260,
289, 313, 317 animals 202, 203 Ankarav, Ismal (d. 1631) 72 Ans
_ ar, Khwaja Abd Allah (d. 1089) 5, 268
anthropomorphism 9, 10, 41, 44, 48, 52, 89, 111, 121, 122, 128, 135, 137, 149
Antichrist 223, 316 antinomianism 252, 265, 275
325
Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-78549-5 – The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology Edited by Tim Winter Index More information
anti-Semitism 4, 15 Anushirvan 58 apophatic theology 259, 269, 284;
see also bi-la kayf aqil 171 aql 9, 11, 56, 69, 72, 83, 84, 135, 162,
163–4, 171, 182, 221 Arabic language 33, 125, 187–8, 290 Arabs, Arabia 11, 22, 29, 33, 114, 115,
174, 187, 312 arad
_ 46, 51, 205
araf 314 al-ard
_ wal-aks 208
argument from design 26, 198, 201–4, 210–11
Aristotle 11, 58, 61, 68, 70, 144, 150, 151, 163, 167, 177–8, 181, 186, 288–307
as _ alat al-aql 55, 182
as _ alat al-wah
_ y 62
asbab al-nuzul 186 Ascension (miraj) 14, 265, 272 aseity 133 Ashar, Abul-H
_ asan al- (d. 935) 52, 62,
66–7, 125, 129–31, 133, 187, 247 Asharism 9, 25, 56, 84, 85, 86, 88,
110, 113, 122, 128, 145, 147, 155, 164, 165, 200–1, 206, 208, 246, 249, 313, 320
and Sufism 263, 272 atba al-tabin 23 atheism 197, 203 atomism 46, 47, 50, 83, 144–5, 205,
209, 211, 273, 274 atonement 321 attributes of God 46, 52, 53, 121, 123,
169, 204, 229, 263, 269 action 128 creation 136 essential 128 hearing 128, 136 knowledge 48, 60, 123, 128, 133–4,
136, 204, 230 life 48, 123, 128, 136, 229, 230 power 47, 123, 127, 128, 136, 146,
204, 229, 230 sight 128, 136 speech 49, 124, 128, 229, 269, 288 unity 204 will 123, 128, 136
Averroes (d. 1198) 68, 74, 78, 80, 149–50, 202, 205
Avicenna (d. 1037) 57, 65–6, 70, 131–2, 148, 149, 151, 157, 182, 185, 186, 191–3, 276, 292, 312, 319
and Sufism 12, 152, 160, 274, 279 The Healing 65 influence of 11, 152, 211–14, 274 relationship to kalam 11, 12, 79,
134, 135, 149, 160, 213, 275 Awd, al- 94 ayan thabita 276 azal 127, 134, 151, 205, 278, 310
bada 91, 92 badan mithal 69 Baghdad 60, 91, 102, 111, 134, 145,
261, 262, 269, 271 Baha, Shaykh (d. 1621) 73 Bahaism 194 Bah
_ ran, Maytham al- (d. 1300) 93
Bahshamiyya 92 Baj, Abul-Wald al- (d. 1081) 247 Bakriyya 261–2, 263 Balkh 264 Balkh, Abul-Jaysh al-Muz
_ affar al-
(d. 977) 92 Balkh, Abul-Qasim al- (d. 931) 261 banking 241 Banu Musa 60 baqa 267, 273 Baqillan, Abu Bakr al- (d. 1013) 60,
84, 209, 247 Baql, Ruzbehan (d. 1209) 272 baraka 111 Barbahar, Abu Muh
_ ammad al-
(d. 941) 262 Barmecide 59 barzakh 310, 313 bas
_ ar 320
Bas _ ra 39, 45, 88, 144, 262
Bas _ r, Abul-H
_ usayn al- (d. 1044) 93,
147 Bast
_ am, Abu Yazd al- (d. 874) 187, 260, 261, 267
bath 314 bat
_ in 121, 129, 164, 283
Bat _ iniyya 121, 129, 302
Bayd _ aw, Abd Allah al- (d. 1286) 85
Bayt al-H _ ikma 74
Beast of the Apocalypse 316 Bennabi, Malik (d. 1973) 189 Bible 52, 190, 239, 321
326 Index
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Bidpai 58 bi-la kayf 53, 89, 126, 127, 263, 270,
272, 309, 320 biology 203 Bishr al-Mars (d. 833) 46 Bishr ibn al-Mutamir (d. 825) 50, 261 Black Stone 258 body, human 202, 203–4, 312, 319 Bokhtishu 58 botany 203 Buddhism 264 Bukhara 279 Bukhar, Muh
_ ammad ibn Ismal al-
(d. 870) 24, 32, 51 Bunan, Thabit al- (d. 744/5) 260 burhan 61 Burhan al-S
_ iddqn 278
Byzantium 74
Cairo 103, 111, 112, 117 canon law 240 Carmathianism 266 cataphatic theology 259 causality 60, 61, 144, 152, 154, 209, 274 centennialism 316 Chodkiewicz, Michel 283 Christians, Christianity 8, 33, 60, 190,
191, 195, 237, 310, 317, 320, 321–2
chronons 273 churches 285 command ethics, see theistic
subjectivism commerce 241 Companions (s
_ ah
_ aba) 23, 178, 194
consequentialism 201 Constantinople 74 contingency, 65, 131, 157, 198, 211,
278 contracts 243 Corbin, Henry 5 Cordoba 69 cosmological arguments 204–11, 278,
279 creation 29, 60, 61, 75, 134, 136,
141–60, 148–50, 181, 231, 273, 276, 310, 311
versus emanation 78, 132, 139, 157, 276
creed, creeds 8, 25, 44, 85, 93, 105, 269
cumulating arguments 216
dahr 38 Dajjal 316 dalalat al-iltizam 291, 300 dalalat al-mut
_ abaqa 291, 300
dalalat al-tad _ amun 291, 300
Damascus 152 Daqqaq, Abu Al al- (d. 1015) 223 Dar al-H
_ ikma 117
Daran, Abu Sulayman al- (d. 830) 261 Darqaw, Muh
_ ammad al-Arab al-
(d. 1845) 252 dator formarum 64 dator scientias 64 Dawwan, Jalal al-Dn al- (d. 1502) 217 day of judgement, see Resurrection death 27, 29, 231, 308 debts 243 dervishes 112 Descartes 150 determinism 13, 26, 38–40, 41, 42, 44,
50, 141–60 devil 181, 184 dharma 239 dhimma 240 d _ idd 132
differentia 131 D _ irar ibn Amr (d. 815) 45–6, 47, 50
doubt 198 dreams 182, 186, 193, 195, 282, 311,
313 dualism 2 dunya 310
Eden 312 Egypt 103, 112, 114, 277 eide 276 emanation 13, 61, 68, 132, 139,
148–50, 157, 276 epistemology 62, 73, 83, 88, 288 equivocal revelation 182 eros 320 eschatology 191, 192, 308–24 essence/existence distinction 65, 82,
157 essence of God 121, 128, 133, 169 eternity 151 ethics 90, 147, 161, 181, 225, 234, 238,
242 Eurocentrism 2 Europe 78 evil 145, 147, 156, 160, 248, 249, 250,
251, 269, 315, 322
Index 327
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existence of God 26, 106, 141, 197–217, 248, 277, 278
face of God 6, 9, 122, 129, 130, 272, 274, 298–9
Fad _ l al-Nawbakht 58
faith (man) 25, 44, 45, 46, 47, 50, 53, 86–8, 89, 152, 174, 250, 291, 293, 301, 303, 309
Fall, the 313 falsafa 3–4, 55–76, 79–80, 81, 84,
90, 93, 94, 110, 131–6, 148–50, 275
decline of 11–14, 77, 81 origins 55–6
fana 267, 299 faqh 254 Farab, al- (d. 950) 60, 62, 63–5, 69, 73,
148, 151, 182, 185, 319 Book of Letters 63 Virtuous City 63, 148, 275
fard _ ayn 271
fard _ kifaya 271
Farghan, Sad al-Dn al- 277 Farqad 260 fas
_ l 131
Fat _ ima (d. 632) 35
Fat _ imids 91, 323
fatwa 113 fiqh 7, 162–3, 164 al-Fiqh al-Akbar I 44 al-Fiqh al-Akbar II 269 fitan 315, 317 fit
_ ra 198, 248, 250, 251, 313
Flying Man argument 65 forgiveness 24, 27, 49, 124, 128, 232,
233, 243, 322 fundamentalism 143, 289
Gabriel 20, 183 genus 132, 133, 292 Georgius ibn Jibral 58 ghayb 127, 164 ghayba 41, 91, 107, 315 Ghaylan 39 ghayriyya 130 Ghazal, Abu H
_ amid al- (d. 1111) 2, 6,
9, 10, 12, 84, 107, 145, 146, 148, 150–5, 156, 175, 186, 202, 222, 223, 247–8, 249, 270–4, 288, 319, 322
Alchemy of Happiness 228
and reason 11, 67–9, 77, 78, 143, 150–5, 198, 249
and Sufism 152, 160, 198, 270–4 Decisive Criterion 106, 301, 322 Deliverer from Error 150, 156 Highest Aim 299 Incoherence of the Philosophers 13,
67, 132–3, 149, 275 Just Mean in Belief 9, 273 Niche for Lights 297–303 Revival of the Religious Sciences 3,
7, 67, 90, 152–5, 227–9, 270, 272, 293
ghulam 100 ghuluww 7, 9 ghurur 226, 228 Gimaret, Daniel 146 Gog and Magog 316 Gospel 28, 240 grammar 98, 106, 136, 144, 188, 293 gratitude to God 146 grave, punishment of 46, 47, 313
visitation of graves 111–12 Greek 188
H _ adath, Fad
_ l al- 261
h _ add 82, 132
H _ addad, Abu H
_ afs
_ al- 260, 261, 265
Had Sabzavar (d. 1878) 69 h _ adith 205
hadith 21, 22–4, 59, 81, 98, 102, 105, 316, 318
h _ adth quds 193
solitary hadith 246, 248 h _ adth al-nafs 290, 293
Hadot, Pierre 156 H _ af, Bishr al- (d. 842) 261, 262
H _ afs
_ a (d. 665) 22
H _ ajj 103, 266, 314, 321
h _ akm 57, 269
h _ al 260, 262
H _ allaj, Mans
_ ur al- (d. 922) 109, 184,
259, 260, 266–7, 268, 284, 285 Hamadhan, Ayn al-Qud
_ at al- (d.
1131) 271, 272, 276 H _ anafs 53, 86, 88, 245, 246, 247, 260,
264, 269 H _ anbalism 9, 10, 11, 44, 45, 51–2, 62,
69, 78, 81, 82–3, 84, 87, 102, 109, 122, 124–7, 135, 246, 262, 268
hand of God 129, 130, 305 h _ aqqa 220, 288, 292, 299
328 Index
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h _ aram 165, 242
Haraw, Abd Allah al- (d. 1089) 5, 268 h _ arf 126, 131, 134, 293
al-H _ arith ibn Surayj (d. 746) 44
Harun al-Rashd (d. 809) 58 Harut and Marut 260 h _ asad 226, 228
h _ asan 165
al-H _ asan al-Bas
_ r (d. 728) 39, 225, 260,
261 al-H
_ asan ibn Muh
_ ammad ibn Al
(d. 705) 43 al-H
_ asan ibn Zayd (d. 884) 93
h _ ashiya 90
h _ ashr 314
h _ ashwiyya 262
h _ awd
_ 314
heaven 30, 44, 47, 231, 312, 319–20 Hebrew 188 Hegel 143 hell 30, 44, 87, 223, 231, 234, 312, 314,
318, 319–20 eternity of 46, 47, 319
heresiography 8 heresy 6, 8, 59, 78, 81, 97, 102, 106,
108, 113, 114, 128, 266 hermeneutics 93, 121, 122, 124, 129,
130, 136–7, 191–4, 282, 303 see also tafsr; tawl
h _ ikma, h
_ ikmat 12, 57, 278
al-H _ illa 94
H _ ill, Ibn al-Mut
_ ahhar al- (d. 1325) 93
Hindu 157 H _ ira 183
Hisham (d. 743) 39 Hisham ibn al-H
_ akam (d. 796) 41, 46,
91 hospitals 103 Hourani, George 165, 175 h _ udud Allah 163, 242
h _ uduth 205
h _ uduth al-alfaz
_ 130
h _ uduth dahr 68
Hujwr, Al al- (d. 1072) 268, 280 h _ ukm 169
H _ unayn ibn Ish
_ aq (d. 873) 59
h _ uquq Allah 242
h _ uquq al-ibad 242
h _ ur 319
H _ usayn ibn Al, al- (d. 680) 40
H _ usayn al-Najjar, al- 47
huwiyya 157, 299, 300
Ibad _ iyya 38, 39
ibda 311 Ibn Abbas, Abd Allah (d. 686) 183,
251 Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792) 114 Ibn Abil-Khayr, Abu Sad (d. 1049)
260 Ibn Arab, Muh
_ yil-Dn (d. 1240) 3, 6,
7, 10, 11, 12, 94, 157, 164, 168–70, 177, 219, 229–33, 235, 258–87, 311
Ibn Asakir 109 Ibn At
_ a, Abul-Abbas (d. 920) 223,
224, 304 Ibn Bab, Abu Uthman (d. 769) 260 Ibn Badran 126 Ibn Bajja (d. 1138) 69–70 Ibn Bat
_ t _ a (d. 997) 127
Ibn al-Bit _ rq, Yah
_ ya 74
Ibn Dnar (d. 748) 260 Ibn H
_ ammad, Nuaym (d. 844) 317
Ibn H _ anbal (d. 855) 32, 49, 51, 81, 126,
127, 161, 245, 261 Ibn H
_ azm (d. 1064) 16, 84, 202, 282
Ibn H _ irzihim (d. 1165) 272
Ibn al-Jawz (d. 1200) 109–10 Ibn Kab, Ubayy 284 Ibn Khabit
_ 261
Ibn Khaff (d. 981) 263, 271 Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) 12, 86 Ibn Kullab (d. 855) 52 Ibn Masarra (d. 931) 276–7 Ibn Munawwar 260 Ibn al-Muqaffa (d. 757) 58 Ibn al-Murtad
_ a (d. 1437) 93
Ibn al-Mutamir (d. 825) 50, 261 Ibn Muthanna, Abu Ubayda Mamar
295 Ibn al-Nadm (d. 995) 57 Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1350) 255, 268,
294–5 Ibn Qiba 92 Ibn Qudama (d. 1223) 5, 108, 138 Ibn Sabn (d. 1270) 277 Ibn Sad, Ibrahm 280 Ibn Salim, Ah
_ mad 262, 263
Ibn Salim, Muh _ ammad 262
Ibn al-Saman 247 Ibn Saud (d. 1953) 114 Ibn Sna, see Avicenna Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1326) 10, 69, 76,
82–3, 88, 181, 182–3, 195, 198, 206, 268, 289, 293–6, 303, 318
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Ibn T _ ufayl (d. 1185) 69, 70
Ibn T _ ulun (d. 884) 112
Ibn Tumart (d. 1130) 315 Ibn Wasi 260 Ibn Zayd, Abd al-Wah
_ id (d. 793) 261
Ibn al-Zubayr, Abd Allah (d. 692) 42 iconoclasm 258 id _ afa 135
idolatry 5, 258 ih _ ram 314
ih _ san 252
ijaz 31, 185 ijaza 99, 100 Ij, Ad
_ ud al-Dn al- (d. 1355) 10, 84,
85, 127, 136 ijma 8, 24, 108, 130, 150, 195 ijtihad 81, 138, 241, 244, 293 ikhlas
_ 222, 224, 228, 229
ilahiyya 181 ilahiyyat 10 al-ilah al-mutaqad 284 ilham 182, 193 illocutionary force 288, 302, 304 Illuminationism (ishraq) 66, 68, 70–2,
82, 156 ilm al-anwar 70 ilm d
_ arur 290
imagination 148, 267, 313, 322 imago dei 170, 231, 233 imamat al-mafd
_ ul 41
immanence (tashbh) 6, 128, 130, 311 impossibility 131 incarnation 5, 185, 187, 266, 267, 286,
321 India 239, 275, 315 infallibility 91 infinite regress 131, 206, 212 inheritance 242 innovation (bida) 6, 126, 150, 151,
243–4 al-insan al-kamil 229, 283, 318 inspiration (ilham) 182, 193 intention 87, 241 intercession (shafaa) 49, 92, 317–18,
322 Iqbal, Muhammad (d. 1938) 81, 320 Iran 15, 67, 72, 91, 93, 108, 114, 239,
271, 272 Iraq 36, 91, 108, 271 irfan 311 irja, see Murjiites Isa ibn Shahlatha 59
Is _ fahan 56
Is _ fahan school 72–3
ishara 259, 291, 300–1, 302, 304 Iskandar, Ibn At
_ aillah al- (d. 1309)
272 islam 6, 29 ism 122 Ismal ibn Jafar al-S
_ adiq 41
Ismalism 41, 51, 55, 56, 91, 93, 117, 134, 135, 194, 302, 323
isnad 24, 99, 108 istidlal alal-ghaib bil-shahid 129,
207 istih
_ san 246
istikhara 193 is _ t _ ilah
_ 290
istis _ lah
_ 246
istit _ aa 91, 270
itikaf 264 ittis
_ af 265, 266
Jabal Amil 108 jabarut 297 jabr (divine compulsion) 154, 156,
270 jadal, jadal 80, 126 Jafar, Kamal Ibrahm 276 Jafar al-S
_ adiq (d. 765) 221, 224, 231
jahannam 314; see also hell Jah
_ iz _ , al- (d. 869) 101, 202
Jahm ibn S _ afwan (d. 746) 9, 44
jamaa 8 Jam, Abd al-Rah
_ man (d. 1492) 277
Jand, Muayyad al-Dn (d. c. 1300) 277
Jaunpur, Syed Ah _ mad 315
jawahir 273, 274 Jazair, Abd al-Qadir al- (d. 1883) 302 Jesus 25, 28, 316, 317, 321 Jewish Christianity 240 Jews, 28, 60, 190, 239, 310, 317, 320,
321 Jlan, Abd al-Qadir al- (d. 1166) 268 jinn 184, 222 jins 132, 133 jismiyya 130 Jubba, Abu Al al- (d. 915) 51, 53,
106, 124 Jubba, Abu Hashim al- (d. 933) 48,
106, 124, 197, 205, 285 Judaism 9, 28, 33, 191; see also Jews judges 109, 112–13, 114, 243, 244
330 Index
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jumhur 8 Junayd, Abul-Qasim al- (d. 910) 223,
225, 252, 267, 268, 280, 281 Jund Shapur 58 Jurjan, al-Sharf al- (d. 1413) 10, 85,
127, 136 justice of God 47, 49, 92, 94, 229, 250,
251, 321 Juwayn, Abul-Maal al- (d. 1085) 78,
84, 109, 200, 206, 208, 210–11, 249, 272, 275
Kaba 258 Kab, Abul-Qasim al- (d. 931) 92, 207 Kalabadh, Abu Bakr al- (d. 990) 268,
269–70, 279–80 kalam defined 2, 12, 81, 161, 164, 170 late kalam 81, 85–6, 146, 150, 309 opponents of 5, 52, 79–80, 81, 82–3,
109, 110, 132–3 origins 45, 81, 84, 162
al-kalam al-muqaddar 294 al-kalam al-mustamal 293–4, 296,
297 kalam nafs 290 Kalla wa-Dimna 58 al-kalimat al-filiyya 134 al-kalimat al-qawliyya 134 Kant 173, 215 Karajak, al- (d. 1057) 92 Karbala 40, 114 Karramiyya 44, 135, 264, 265 Kashan, Abd al-Razzaq al- (d. 1336)
94, 277, 280 kathra 130, 132, 134, 170, 278 Katib, Najm al-Dn al- (d. 1276) 85 khabar 122, 169, 298, 301 Khalid ibn Yazd (d. 704) 57 khalfa 36, 37, 60, 109, 230, 234 khanqah 103, 113, 264, 271 Kharijites, Khawarij 7, 11, 36, 37–8,
39, 87, 313 Kharraz Amad al- (d. 899) 266, 280 khat
_ ir 199
Khid _ r, al- 284
Khuday Nameh 58 khums 107 kibr 226 Kind, Abu Yusuf al- (d. 866) 51,
61–2 Kubrawiyya 275
Kufa 40, 43, 44 kufr, kuffar 38, 67, 78, 87, 109, 126,
127, 151, 174 Kundur, al- (d. 1063) 272 Kung, Hans 7 kurs 169
la zaman 310 lafz
_ 126, 135, 285
lafz _ iyya 126, 127, 130, 136
language 48, 51, 63, 71, 122, 125, 129, 136, 153, 288
Laqan, Ibrahm al- (d. 1641) 85 law, see Shara al-lawh
_ al-mah
_ fuz
_ 126, 185, 297, 304
Lebanon 108, 114 legalism 240 Leucippus 144 lexicography 188 Libya 38 limbo 87 liturgy 8, 21, 265 logic 14, 50, 61, 63, 73, 78–9, 85, 90,
125, 135, 151, 292 love 229, 230, 233–4, 321 lut
_ f 47, 50, 94
maad 309, 310 Mabad al-Juhan (d. 699) 40 madhhab 7 madrasa, 72, 103–5, 113, 244
curriculum 5, 72, 85 Maghnisaw, Abul-Muntaha al-
(d. 1532) 127 Maghrib, Abu Uthman al- (d. 983/4)
225 mah
_ all 153
mah _ all al-itibar 202
Mahdawiyya 315 mahd 25, 266, 282, 315, 317 mahiyya 71, 131, 134, 276 maiyya 195, 298 majaz 288, 292, 299 Makk, Abu T
_ alib al- (d. 966) 268, 270
Makk, Amr al- (d. 903/4) 268 makruh 165, 242 malah
_ im 317
Malah _ im, al- (d. 1141) 199
malakut 297, 300 Malamatiyya 265–6, 269 Malik ibn Anas (d. 795) 42, 245 Maliks 53, 114, 246, 285
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Mamluk period 99, 102 Mamun, al- (d. 833) 46, 49, 58, 59,
112, 116 mandub 165, 242 Manichean 264 Mankdm (d. 1034) 93 Mans
_ ur, al- (d. 775) 58
manuscript 98 manzila bayn al-manzilatayn 46, 47,
50, 250 maqam, maqamat 228, 260, 262 Maragha 56 marji al-taqld 108 marriage 241, 320 Marwan (d. 685) 58 al-mas
_ alih
_ al-mursala 246
Masawayh 74 Mashhad 103 mas
_ lah
_ a 270
Massignon, Louis 264 mat
_ la 297
matn 24, 100 matter 132 Maturd, Abu Mans
_ ur al- (d. 944) 53,
86, 88, 147, 245 Maturdism 9, 53, 85, 86–9, 110, 127,
147, 164, 245, 249, 250, 313, 320 mawal 44 maz
_ ahir 134
Mazdeans 239 Mecca 19, 22, 27, 42, 103, 114, 183,
258 medicine 58 Medina 22, 35, 42, 43 Meh
_ med II (d. 1481) 104, 278
mercy 5, 124, 151, 230, 319, 322 Merv 271 messianism 40, 91, 92, 315–16 meteorology 202, 203 metonymy 288 mih
_ na 49, 112, 113–14, 254, 261
milla ibrahmiyya h _ anfiyya 5
millenarianism 315 Mr Damad (d. 1630) 68, 73 Mr Fenderesk (d. 1640) 73 miracle 31, 178, 200, 265 Mis
_ r, Dhul-Nun al- (d. 860) 261
mithal 297, 300 mzan 314 Mobius strip 283 Molla Kestelli (d. 1495) 12 Molla S
_ adra (d. 1640) 73, 157, 280
monasteries 285 Mongols 71, 114 Mosaic law 321 Moses 28, 53, 126, 182, 183, 230, 284,
290, 298, 320, 321 mosque 23, 101–2, 114, 285 muamalat 219 Muammar 124 Muawiya (d. 680) 36, 38 mubah
_ 165, 242
Mufd, al-Shaykh al- (d. 1022) 92 muft 113, 237, 239, 254 muh
_ ad _ ara 280
Muh _ ammad ibn Ab Umayr 91
Muh _ ammad ibn al-H
_ anafiyya (d. 703)
40 Muh
_ ammad ibn Karram (d. 869) 44, 264
Muh _ ammad the Prophet (d. 632) 7, 8, 20, 21, 22, 33–4, 148, 162, 229, 233, 234–5, 265, 282
eschatological role 49, 92, 315, 317–18, 321
succession to 35–7, 237 vocation 5, 19, 162, 183, 230
muh _ asaba 260
Muh _ asib, al-H
_ arith al- (d. 857) 52,
226–7, 228, 271 muh
_ kam, muh
_ kamat 127, 163
mujaddid 316 mukallaf 169 mukashafa 280 al-Mukhtar al-Thaqaf (d. 687) 40 mukhtari 153, 273 mulk 297 Mumin al-T
_ aq 91
mumkin bi-dhatihi 131 murder 243 Murjiites 42–5, 86, 88 Murtad
_ a, al-Sharf al- (d. 1044) 92
mushahada 258 music 228 muslim 230 Musnad 32 Mustad
_ , al- (d. 1180) 109
mustah _ abb 165
mutaakhkhirun 12, 275 Mutanabb, al- (d. 965) 299 mutaqaddimun 12, 275 mutashabih, mutashabihat 127, 137,
163 Mutas
_ im, al- (d. 842) 49
332 Index
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Mutawakkil, al- (d. 861) 261 Mutazilism 7, 8, 9, 55, 105, 127, 132,
134, 164, 165, 168, 175, 199–200, 208, 244, 247, 249, 262, 313, 318
and Shism 51, 89, 92 and Sufism 260–1 creation of Quran 49, 51, 53, 114,
122–3, 130–1, 135, 145, 261 doctrine of lut
_ f 47, 50
Five Principles 47 free will 50, 52, 156 on creation 144–7, 250, 273 origins 11, 15, 38, 40, 44, 47–51
Muzan, al- (d. 878) 106
Nahd _ a 77
Nahrawan 36 nahy 169 Najd 22, 114 names of God 122, 127, 132, 141, 169,
220, 222, 229, 231, 232, 233, 234, 262
naql 9, 56, 73, 84, 164 Naqshbandiyya 275, 281 Nasaf, Abul-H
_ asan al- (d. 943) 41
Nasaf, Najm al-Dn al- (d. 1142) 84, 85, 136
Nas _ rabadh, Ibrahm al- (d. 977) 224
nas _ s _ (designation of Imam) 41, 91
nature 151, 273, 311, 312 Nawbakht 58, 92 Nawbakht, Abu Sahl al- (d. 923)
92 Naz
_ z _ am, Abu Ish
_ aq al- (d. 835) 51,
101, 123, 261 Necessary Being/Existent 65, 93, 133,
134, 212, 232, 234, 278 necessity 131, 149, 155, 157, 174 negative theology 128 Neoplatonism 13, 41, 61, 93, 139, 148,
211, 276 Nestorians 240 Netton, Ian 143 nidd 132 nifaq 222, 227 Niffar, Muh
_ ammad al- (d. 976) 259,
260 Nshapur 111, 265, 271 Niz
_ am al-Mulk (d. 1092) 111, 113
Nizars 93 Noah 253 nominalism 82
non-Muslims, salvation of 106, 248, 320–2
North Africa 91 Nur, Abul-H
_ usayn al- (d. 907) 266
oaths 241 objective theomonism 275; see also
wah _ dat al-wujud
objectivism 165 obligation 173–4 occasionalism 2, 84, 152, 209, 273 Oman 38 omniscience 128 ontological argument 212, 278, 279 ontology 63, 65, 73, 83, 124, 274 optics 130 Orientalism 1–2, 163, 189, 249, 252 Orthodox Christianity 240 orthodoxy 3, 7–9, 10, 12, 14, 97–117,
150, 266, 268 Ottomans 16, 68, 71, 87, 89, 104–5,
113, 114, 278
paganism 27, 33 pansomatic 203 particularisation argument 198, 208,
209–11, 212 particulars, 82
Gods knowledge of 78, 133, 135, 151, 277
Paul, apostle 240 personhood of God 124, 132 Pharaoh 184 Philoponus, John 206 plants 202, 203 Plato 12, 61, 63, 68, 148, 177–9, 182,
249 Platonism 60 Plotinus 61, 148 plurality of eternals 123 poetry 259 political thought 60, 63, 73, 80, 87, 91,
109–10, 112–15, 148, 239, 254–5, 315
polytheism 26, 38, 142, 223 Porphyry, 58, 61 possibility 154, 211, 232; see also
contingency potentia absoluta 273 potentia ordinata 273 prayer 27, 108, 111–12, 124, 164, 193,
228, 240, 241, 262, 318, 321
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predication 63 primacy of quiddity 71 primordial covenant 251, 310 Proclus 61 prophecy 20, 62, 64, 65, 80, 106, 135,
152, 180, 181, 200, 221, 228, 309, 313
prophets 28, 229, 289, 290 providence 154, 202, 204 psyche 202; see also soul purgatory 319
qabh _ 165
Qadarites 38–40, 81 Qadiyanism 194 qaida 244 al-Qaim 315 Qalandar 112 Qarafa, al- 111 Qaraf, Shihab al-Dn al- (d. 1285) 249 qarain 289 Qar, Al al- (d. 1607) 251 Qarun 261 al-Qasim ibn Ibrahm (d. 860) 93, 202 Qas
_ s _ ar, H
_ amdun al- (d. 884) 260, 265
Qatada ibn Diama (d. 735) 39 qat
_ al-dalala 25
Qays _ ar, Daud al- (d. c. 1347) 277
qidam al-maan 131 qiraa 99, 100, 126 qiyama 314 quiddity, see mahiyya Qum 91 Qunaw, S
_ adr al-Dn (d. 1274) 277,
278, 281 Quran 11, 19–22, 33, 83, 129, 178,
180, 183–5, 234 arguments of 34, 148, 279 creation of 38, 44, 46, 49, 122–3,
136, 269 exegesis of 88, 98, 129, 170, 191–4;
see also tafsr inimitability of, see ijaz theology of 6, 9, 24–31, 156, 163,
279 Quraysh 35, 36, 37 Qushayr, Abu Nas
_ r al- (d. 1120) 111
Qushayr, Abul-Qasim al- (d. 1072) 225, 235, 271
rabbis 28 Rab, al- 101
raja 92 Ramad
_ an 183
rationality 81, 83, 85, 88, 106, 125, 150, 161, 197, 241, 245, 246, 299, 309
ray 245, 246 Rayy 100 Raz, Abu Bakr Muh
_ ammad al-
(d. 935) 182, 202, 203–4 Raz, Abu H
_ atim al- (d. 890) 100
Raz, Fakhr al-Dn al- (d. 1210) 2, 14, 25, 84, 109, 135, 143, 145, 146, 155–6, 186, 198, 201, 202–4, 213–14, 249
Raz, Ibn Qiba al- 92 Raz, Sadd al-Dn 93 reason, see aql; rationality redemption 317 Renan, Ernest 11, 15 repentance 151, 152, 228, 313 resurrection 26, 29–30, 34, 62, 64, 69,
93, 151, 308, 311–12, 314, 319 revelation 19–22, 137, 142, 152,
166–7, 168, 173, 248, 250 revivalism 90, 316 rhetoric 188 ribat
_ 103
Rid _ a, al- (d. 818) 103
Rid _ a, Rashd (d. 1935) 147
rid _ wan 320
rih _ la 100
ritual 241, 242 riya 223, 265 Roman law 239 Rome 239, 317 Rosenthal, Franz 221 rukhas
_ 268
Rum, Jalal al-Dn (d. 1273) 13, 175, 176
Ruwaym (d. 915) 268
al-sabr wal-taqsm 208 Sabzavar, Had (d. 1878) 69 sacraments 7 sadd al-dharai 246 S _ aduq, al-Shaykh al- (d. 991) 91, 92
S _ afavids 7, 72, 114, 280
S _ ah
_ aba 23
S _ ah _ ib 100
S _ ah _ ib al-Zaman 315
saints 194, 265, 267, 276, 280, 289, 290, 298, 301
salaf 84, 85
334 Index
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Salafism 69 Salimiyya 262–3 salvation history 321 sama 99, 100 Samanids 269 Samarkand 147, 245 samiyyat 10, 12, 309, 322 Sanus, Abu Al al- (d. 1490) 85 Saqat
_ , Sar al- (d. 865) 262
Sarraj, Abu Nas _ r al- (d. 988) 268
Satanic verses 184 Saudi Arabia 115 s _ awt 126, 131, 293 scriptures 24, 27–8 corruption of 33, 321
seal of prophecy 193 Second Coming 317 sectarianism 8, 35, 106, 308 secularism 239 Seljuks 270, 271, 272, 275, 281 sermon 101, 111 Seville 69, 277, 282 Seyhulislam 113 Shabb al-Najran (d. c. 718) 39 Shadhiliyya 272 Shafi, Muh
_ ammad ibn Idrs al-
(d. 820) 99, 101, 103, 106, 109, 245 Shafis 53, 81, 103, 109, 111, 112,
114, 245 Shah Ismal (d. 1524) 114 Shahada 221, 222, 228, 232 Shahrastan, Muh
_ ammad al- (d. 1153)
84, 134–5, 293 Shahrokh (d. 1447) 72 Shankara 157 Sharan, Abd al-Wahhab al- (d. 1565)
253 Shara 3, 7, 10, 14, 60, 106, 152, 163,
167, 168, 169–70, 191–2, 237–57, 313
shat _ h _ 259, 265–6, 284
Shat _ ib, Abu Ish
_ aq al- (d. 1388) 252–3
Shaykh al-Islam 113 Shism43,65,69,73,90,102,110,114,
157, 315; see also Ismalism; Twelvers; Zaydiyya
and the Quran 32 imams 40, 41, 91, 92, 93, 94, 107,
135, 194, 315 origins 9, 12, 36, 37, 40–1
Shraz 56 Shraz, Abu Ish
_ aq al- (d. 1083) 247
shirk 27, 224, 226 Shuayb 274 shukr al-Munim 173–7 Shuz 277 s _ ifa 122, 267; see also attributes S _ iffn 36
Simnan, Ala al-Dawla (d. 1336) 275 sin 313, 314, 317, 318, 319 s _ irat
_ 314
s _ irat
_ mustaqm 230
Sirhind, Ah _ mad (d. 1624) 275, 281
slander 243 Socrates 178 soul 62, 229, 313, 319 spheres 202 Stoic 61 Strauss, Leo 12 subjective theomonism 267, 275 Successors (tabiun) 23, 260 Sudan 315 Sufism 77, 83, 94, 103–4, 112, 113,
114, 152, 156–7, 194, 219, 228, 237, 318, 320
and law 251–3 relationship to theology 2–3, 6, 10,
12, 160, 198, 258–87 S _ ufriyya 38
s _ uh
_ ba 100, 178
Suhraward, Abu H _ afs
_ al- (d. 1234) 272
Suhraward, Shihab al-Dn al- (d. 1191) 12, 68, 70, 156–7
Sulam, Abd al-Rah _ man al- (d. 1021)
225, 226, 265, 268 Sumnun (d. 910) 266 Sunan 32 sunna 22, 163, 238, 265 sunnat Allah 152, 273 Suyur, al-Miqdad al- (d. 1423) 93 syllogism 82, 275, 278 symbols 291, 300, 308 synagogues 285 Syriac 58, 59
taalluq 135 taannus 286 taarruf 279 tabiun 23, 260 Tabrz 56 tadbr 311 tadb al-amma 8 tafad
_ d _ ul 51
tafsr 88, 98, 126, 129, 147, 194, 265
Index 335
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Taftazan, Sad al-Dn al- (d. 1389/90) 10, 12, 85, 136
tafwd _ 127, 273
t _ aghut 224 tah
_ qq 311
tah _ rf 33, 321
tajassud 286 tajsm 130, 264; see also
anthropomorphism takdhb 291 takfr 7, 15, 32, 106 takhs
_ s _ , see particularisation
argument taklf 170, 248, 250, 275 takwn 147 T _ alh
_ a ibn Ubayd Allah (d. 656) 36
tamthl 126, 128 tanzl al-kitab 168 taqiyya 134 taqld 125, 128, 150, 298 taqwa 86, 226, 228, 313 tarf 279, 280 tarkb 130 tas
_ awwur 291
tas _ dq 291, 292, 298, 303
tat _ l 48, 264
t _ awaf 258 tawh
_ d 26, 47, 121, 141–2, 149, 152, 169, 221, 222, 223, 232, 259, 309, 320
tawh _ d al-afal 169
tawh _ d al-asma 169
Tawh _ d, Abu H
_ ayyan al- (d. 1023) 301
tawl 129, 138, 192, 282 tawqf 290, 295 tazr 242 Tehran 100 tekke 103 teleological argument, see argument
from design theistic subjectivism 165, 166, 201 theodicy 145, 147, 156, 160, 248, 249,
250, 251, 269, 270, 309 theopathic locution 259, 265–6, 284 Thomas Aquinas 157 throne of God 27, 44, 127, 169 Tigris 261 time 46, 132, 160, 210, 273, 279, 310 Tirmidh, Abu Isa al- (d. 892) 32 Tirmidh, al-H
_ akm al- (d. 910) 276
tobacco smoking 244 Torah 28
traditionalism 79, 81, 85, 94, 167, 245, 256
transcendence (tanzh) 6, 9, 48, 121, 123, 129, 134, 263, 311
Translation movement, 1, 11, 13, 57–60, 61, 74
Trinity 5, 320, 321 Tughril-Beg (d. 1063) 272 Turkey 89–94 t _ uruq 7, 271 T _ us 67
T _ us, Nas
_ r al-Dn al- (d. 1274) 93, 277
T _ us, al-Shaykh al- (d. 1067) 91, 92, 108
Tustar, Sahl al- (d. 896) 262 Twelvers 41, 51, 72, 91, 107–8
Ubada ibn al-S _ amit (d. 654) 193
ubuda 235 ubudiyya 219, 252 ujb 226 ulama 23, 56, 69, 90, 97, 107, 108,
111, 112, 114, 115, 227, 237, 289, 299
al-ulum al-t _ abiyya 135
Umar II (d. 719) 23, 38, 39 Umar ibn al-Khat
_ t _ ab (d. 644) 23, 36
Umayyads 36, 40, 43 Umm Hani (d. 1454) 102 umma 35, 90, 115, 167, 190, 195, 289 umm 185 universals 82, 83, 135, 151 ur-monotheismus 321 us _ ul al-dn 81
us _ ul al-fiqh 238, 254
us _ ul 254
Us _ uliyya 108
usury 241 Uthman ibn Affan (d. 656) 22, 36, 189
virginity 320 vision of God 25, 46, 47, 53, 130, 269,
270, 272, 320 voluntarism 165, 168 vows 241
wad _ al-lugha 290, 291
al-wad wal-wad 47, 318–19 wah
_ dat al-shuhud 267, 275
wah _ dat al-wujud 275, 277, 278
Wahhabism 69, 84, 115, 318 wah
_ y 180; see also revelation
wajib 165, 174, 242
336 Index
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wajib al-wujud 134 wajib al-wujud bi-dhatihi 131, 133 wajib al-wujud bi-ghayrihi 131 walaya, wal 91, 194, 289, 298 Wald II, al- 39 waqf 103, 107, 113 waqt 132 wasat
_ 8
was _ f 122
Was _ il ibn At
_ a (d. 748) 47, 50, 123,
260 wasla 318 Wasit
_ , Abu Bakr al- (d. 932) 225,
267 Whitehead, Alfred North 3 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 79 women 24, 26, 102–3, 104, 241,
242 worship 164, 218–36, 275, 311 wujud 71, 157, 229 al-wujud al-aql 291 al-wujud al-dhat 291 al-wujud al-h
_ aqq 229
al-wujud al-h _ iss 291
al-wujud al-shibh 292
Yah _ ya ibn al-H
_ usayn (d. 911) 93
Yajuj and Majuj 316 Yamama 22 Yazd III 39 Yazd al-Raqqash (d. 733) 260 Yemen 91, 93, 316 Yuh
_ anna ibn Masawayh (d. 857/8) 59
Yunus ibn Abd al-Rah _ man 91
z _ ahir 121, 126, 129, 164, 268, 283,
302–3 Z _ ahirism 16, 84, 282–3
z _ ana 296 zakat 228, 241, 242 Zamakhshar, Abul-Qasim al-
(d. 1144) 285 Zanjan 56 zawiya 103–4, 113 Zayd ibn Al (d. 740) 40 Zaydiyya 41, 51, 91, 93 Ziai, Hossein 5 Zoroastrianism 33 Zubayr, al- (d. 655) 36 Zubayrids 42, 43 z _ uhur 267
Index 337
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