- Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo y Oriente Proximo (ILC)
Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CCHS-CSIC)
Madrid
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Kalam (Islamic Theology), Islamic Studies, Islamic Philosophy, Digital Edition, Zaydism, Mu'tazilites, and 41 moreArabic/Persian Manuscripts, codicology, Islamic philosophy, early Islamic history and thoughts, Islamic Manuscripts, Medieval Shi'ism, Textual Criticism, Arabic Manuscripts, Middle Eastern Studies, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Asharites, Al-Andalus, al-Juwayni, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Yemen, Zaydiyya, Muʿtazila, Ibn Sina, Avicenna, Mutazila, Ghazali, Juwayni, Islamic Theology, al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ, Middle East Studies, Medieval Islam, Firkovitch collection, Islamic Law, Ottoman History, Early Islamic History, Islamic History, Sufism, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 1111), Qur'anic Studies, Near and Middle East, Philosophy, Religion, Medieval History, 'Abd al-Jabbar and the Mu'tazila, Islamic Intellectual History, Baqillani, Arabic Manuscripts from Andalus, Ash'arites, and Islamic Thought & Philosophy edit
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Philosophical Theology in Islam studies the later history of the Ashʿarī school of theology through in-depth probings of its thought, sources, scholarly networks and contexts. Starting with a review of al-Ghazālī’s role in the emergence... more
Philosophical Theology in Islam studies the later history of the Ashʿarī school of theology through in-depth probings of its thought, sources, scholarly networks and contexts. Starting with a review of al-Ghazālī’s role in the emergence of post-Avicennan philosophical theology, the book offers a series of case studies on hitherto unstudied texts by the towering thinker Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī as well as specific philosophical and theological topics treated in his works. Studies furthermore shed light on the transmission and reception of later Ashʿarī doctrines in periods and regions that have so far received little scholarly attention. This book is the first exploration of the later Ashʿarī tradition across the medieval and early-modern period through a trans-regional perspective.
Cover calligraphy: To venture furthest in pursuing questions and responses, and to delve deep into the oceans of problems (Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī describing his method in the preface to Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl fī dirāyat al-uṣūl). By Nihad Nadam, 2019.
Cover calligraphy: To venture furthest in pursuing questions and responses, and to delve deep into the oceans of problems (Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī describing his method in the preface to Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl fī dirāyat al-uṣūl). By Nihad Nadam, 2019.
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"Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 1188 C.E.) was one of the most prominent representatives of the emerging reception of Basran Muʿtazilism in 12th century Yemen. He composed highly sophisticated works on ontology, causality and the specific theory... more
"Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 1188 C.E.) was one of the most prominent representatives of the emerging reception of Basran Muʿtazilism in 12th century Yemen. He composed highly sophisticated works on ontology, causality and the specific theory of attributes that has become known as the theory of “states” (aḥwāl). He is therefore a rare case of a Muʿtazilī thinker who left a comprehensive and systematised account of his natural philosophy.
Jan Thiele’s study makes extensive use of hitherto unexplored manuscripts, thereby providing new insight into a largely unknown chapter of Zaydī and Muslim doctrinal history. Focusing on the later Muʿtazila, this book conveys a nuanced understanding of diachronic developments in the school’s teachings in order to refine a rather static perception that prevails in modern scholarship."
Jan Thiele’s study makes extensive use of hitherto unexplored manuscripts, thereby providing new insight into a largely unknown chapter of Zaydī and Muslim doctrinal history. Focusing on the later Muʿtazila, this book conveys a nuanced understanding of diachronic developments in the school’s teachings in order to refine a rather static perception that prevails in modern scholarship."
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The importance of Zaydī sources for historical research on Muʿtazilī theology is generally acknowledged since the spectacular discoveries of unique manuscripts in Yemen in the 1950s. Yet the knowledge transfer and adoption of Muʿtazilī... more
The importance of Zaydī sources for historical research on Muʿtazilī theology is generally acknowledged since the spectacular discoveries of unique manuscripts in Yemen in the 1950s. Yet the knowledge transfer and adoption of Muʿtazilī thought by the Yemeni Zaydiyya still remain an understudied field. Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 1188) was one of the main promoters of Muʿtazilism in 6th/12th century Yemen. His works mainly focus on natural philosophy and include a systematic treatise on causality which is comprehensively examined and critically edited in this volume. The present study gives insight into a fascinating chapter of Islamic intellectual history and offers the first analysis of a Muʿtazilī theory of causality.
Die Bedeutung zayditischer Quellen für die Erforschung muʿtazilitischer Theologie ist spätestens seit der spektakulären Wiederentdeckung einzigartiger Handschriften im Jemen der 1950er Jahre allgemein anerkannt. Dennoch sind der Wissenstransfer und die Adaption muʿtazilitischen Denkens durch die jemenitische Zaydiyya bislang kaum erforscht. Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (st. 1188) war einer der wichtigsten Protagonisten dieses Prozesses im Jemen des 6./12. Jahrhunderts. Unter seinen zahlreichen Schriften zu naturphilosophischen Fragen findet sich auch ein systematisches Traktat zur Kausalität, welches im vorliegenden Buch umfassend untersucht und kritisch ediert wird. Die Studie gewährt Einblick in ein faszinierendes Kapitel islamischer Geistesgeschichte und analysiert erstmals eine muʿtazilitische Systematik zur Kausalität.
Die Bedeutung zayditischer Quellen für die Erforschung muʿtazilitischer Theologie ist spätestens seit der spektakulären Wiederentdeckung einzigartiger Handschriften im Jemen der 1950er Jahre allgemein anerkannt. Dennoch sind der Wissenstransfer und die Adaption muʿtazilitischen Denkens durch die jemenitische Zaydiyya bislang kaum erforscht. Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (st. 1188) war einer der wichtigsten Protagonisten dieses Prozesses im Jemen des 6./12. Jahrhunderts. Unter seinen zahlreichen Schriften zu naturphilosophischen Fragen findet sich auch ein systematisches Traktat zur Kausalität, welches im vorliegenden Buch umfassend untersucht und kritisch ediert wird. Die Studie gewährt Einblick in ein faszinierendes Kapitel islamischer Geistesgeschichte und analysiert erstmals eine muʿtazilitische Systematik zur Kausalität.
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This chapter studies Zaydite ḥadīth scholarship, including the collection, transmission and use of the specific Zaydite corpus of ḥadīth literature as well as Zaydite scholars' engagement with Sunni ḥadīth. It surveys the collection of... more
This chapter studies Zaydite ḥadīth scholarship, including the collection, transmission and use of the specific Zaydite corpus of ḥadīth literature as well as Zaydite scholars' engagement with Sunni ḥadīth. It surveys the collection of Zaydite ḥadīth by members of the 'school of Kūfa', who compiled a corpus of primarily legal Traditions that were transmitted by members of the ahl al-bayt, that is, descendants of the Prophet Muḥammad. It then analyses how scholars of the emerging scripturalist Nāṣiriyya school and the rationalist Qāsimī-Hādawī school relied on this material in their theological and legal thought. We argue that Zaydī scholars increasingly used Sunni ḥadīth as authoritative sources in their legal literature. During the fourth/tenth century, Zaydite scholars in the city of Rayy and northern Iran incorporated significant portions of Sunni material in their collections of ḥadīth (Amālī), with which they became acquainted in the framework of their formation in Ḥanafī law. Among their Yemeni co-religionists, Sunni ḥadīth remained widely unknown until the sixth/twelfth century. This changed, however, with the transmission of literature from northern Iran as well as increasing contacts with scholars patronised by the Sunni dynasties of Yemen. From the ninth/fifteenth century onwards, a new Zaydite trend rose in Yemen that has been labeled by Michael Cook and others as the 'Sunnisation' of Zaydism. The protagonists of this inner-Zaydite reform movement propagated a focused study of the primary sources, that is, apart from the Qurʾān, the corpus of Sunni ḥadīth.
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This article offers an editio princeps of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ's Masʾala fī kayfiyyat wujūd al-aʿrāḍ. In this text, al-Raṣṣāṣ argues in accordance with the Bahshamī theory that not all accidents need a substrate (maḥall). Although most... more
This article offers an editio princeps of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ's Masʾala fī kayfiyyat wujūd al-aʿrāḍ. In this text, al-Raṣṣāṣ argues in accordance with the Bahshamī theory that not all accidents need a substrate (maḥall). Although most accidents depend on atoms as their locus of inherence, there are three exceptions: the accident of "annihilation" (fanāʾ), whose existence in a substrate is inconceivable, and "will" (irāda) and "aversion" (karāha), which either subsist in a human body or exist without a substrate in the case of God.
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This article offers a critical edition of the surviving parts of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ's al-Ṭarāʾiq al-mustaḥdaṯa, a work on miscellaneous theological topics. A unique fragment of this treatise is preserved in the manuscript collection of... more
This article offers a critical edition of the surviving parts of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ's al-Ṭarāʾiq al-mustaḥdaṯa, a work on miscellaneous theological topics. A unique fragment of this treatise is preserved in the manuscript collection of the Ambrosiana Library in Milan (ar. E 208, fols 151b-160b). Al-Raṣṣāṣ quotes al-Ṭarāʾiq al-mustaḥdaṯa in several of his works. We provide these crossreferences in this article in order to confirm our identification of ar. E 208, fols 151b-160b.
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This paper examines the state of Ashʿarī scholarship in Ifrīqiya between the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries. It studies intellectual influences in the works of several theologians from this era, including the... more
This paper examines the state of Ashʿarī scholarship in Ifrīqiya between the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries. It studies intellectual influences in the works of several theologians from this era, including the continuous Juwaynian impact, the rising engagement with Aristotelian logic, and the early reception of al-Rāzī’s works in the Maghrib.
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This article reviews recent scholarship on kalām-theology and attempts to briefly describe some tendencies that appear to be promising for opening new perspective for future work. Scholarship has made significant attempts to transcend... more
This article reviews recent scholarship on kalām-theology and attempts to briefly describe some tendencies that appear to be promising for opening new perspective for future work. Scholarship has made significant attempts to transcend previous limitations of the field along the confines of religious communities and scholarly disciplines (theology vs. philosophy) and has extended the geographical scope and timeframe of investigation.
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Al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ (d.584/1188), a prominent Zaydī scholar who lived in 6th/12th century Yemen, left a rather short theological compendium, entitled Kitāb al-Taḥṣīl fī l-tawḥīd wa-l-taʿdīl. This text was particularly popular among... more
Al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ (d.584/1188), a prominent Zaydī scholar who lived in 6th/12th century Yemen, left a rather short theological compendium, entitled Kitāb al-Taḥṣīl fī l-tawḥīd wa-l-taʿdīl. This text was particularly popular among scholars of the generations following al-Raṣṣāṣ's death. Three commentaries on the K. al-Taḥṣīl were composed between his death and the year 620/1223. This paper presents al-Raṣṣāṣ's text and its reception, and furthermore discusses the identity of an extensive, but only partially extant commentary on al-Taḥṣīl. In addition, I will address the question to what extent these texts reflect specific intellectual trends in Zaydī scholarship.
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Hassan Ansari, and Jan Thiele. " Discussing al-Bāqillānī's Theology in the Maghrib: ʿAbd al-Jalīl b. Abī Bakr al-Dībājī al-Rabaʿī's al-Tasdīd fī sharḥ al-Tamhīd ". Al-Qantara 39/1 (2018): 127-168. Abstract: This paper presents a unique... more
Hassan Ansari, and Jan Thiele. " Discussing al-Bāqillānī's Theology in the Maghrib: ʿAbd al-Jalīl b. Abī Bakr al-Dībājī al-Rabaʿī's al-Tasdīd fī sharḥ al-Tamhīd ". Al-Qantara 39/1 (2018): 127-168. Abstract: This paper presents a unique manuscript copy of a fifth/eleventh-century Maghribī commentary on al-Bāqillānī's Kitāb al-Tamhīd. The work, entitled al-Tasdīd fī sharḥ al-Tamhīd, was written by ʿAbd al-Jalīl b. Abī Bakr al-Dībājī—also known as Ibn al-Ṣābūnī—who had studied the Kitāb al-Tamhīd with al-Bāqillānī's disciples in Qayrawān. The present study first reviews the transmission of al-Bāqillānī's work to the Islamic west. It then continues to present the author of the commentary, to reconstruct the work's genesis and to describe its content. The final section focuses on a sample chapter and argues that al-Dībājī follows al-Bāqillānī's later position on a specific theory —the so-called theory of aḥwāl—of which the Tamhīd strongly disapproved. The Tasdīd is one of the oldest texts of Maghribī Ashʿarism that has come down to us and provides valuable new insights into the school's early history in the Islamic west.
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This paper addresses the impact of the Almohad caliphs' claim to religious authority, their religious policy, and specifically their propagation of the creeds attributed to the movement's founder Ibn Tūmart. It offers a case study of an... more
This paper addresses the impact of the Almohad caliphs' claim to religious authority, their religious policy, and specifically their propagation of the creeds attributed to the movement's founder Ibn Tūmart. It offers a case study of an Ashʿarite creed, Abū ʿAmr al-Salālijī's al-ʿAqīda al-burhāniyya which was produced in the sixth/ twelfth-century Almohad period. The author argues that rather than echoing the teaching of the Almohads, al-Salālijī's creed closely draws on and often literally reproduces a comprehensive compendium of Ashʿarite theology, namely al-Juwaynī's Kitāb al-Irshād. A specifically noteworthy feature of al-Salālijī's creed is that it makes theological claims that should have been considered, from the perspective of Almohad doctrine, highly problematic. This in turn raises questions discussed in this paper about the extent to which theological scholars were impacted by the Almohad agenda.
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This article provides a description and critical edition of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ's Mukhtaṣar fī ithbāt al-aʿrād. The work appears to be extracted from a larger treatise. It is concerned with the proof of the reality of " accidents " , a... more
This article provides a description and critical edition of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ's Mukhtaṣar fī ithbāt al-aʿrād. The work appears to be extracted from a larger treatise. It is concerned with the proof of the reality of " accidents " , a central concept in the ontology of kalām.
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This article compares two extensive kalām works from the first half of the 6th/ 12th century: al-Ġunya fī al-kalām by the chief authority of Ašʿarism in Nīsābūr, Abū al-Qāsim al-Anṣārī, and Nihāyat al-marām by his student Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn... more
This article compares two extensive kalām works from the first half of the 6th/ 12th century: al-Ġunya fī al-kalām by the chief authority of Ašʿarism in Nīsābūr, Abū al-Qāsim al-Anṣārī, and Nihāyat al-marām by his student Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn al-Makkī. The two works were recently published almost simultaneously—the Ġunya in a critical edition and the Nihāya as facsimile of the autograph manuscript, a codex completed in Rayy in 550/1155. Ayman Shihadeh, the editor of the Nihāya, already pointed out that al-Makkī's work is based closely on his teacher's Ġunya. The aim of this article is to study the precise extent of this textual dependency. It shows that more than the half of the Nihāya consists of literal or almost literal quotations from the Ġunya. Over long passages, the Nihāya may therefore be considered as al-Makkī's recompilation of textual material from his teacher's theological summa rather than an independent work.
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Man's individual responsibility is a very central notion in Muslim theology. Rational foundations for moral responsibility presuppose, however, that man has in some way control over his actions. It was therefore of central concern to... more
Man's individual responsibility is a very central notion in Muslim theology. Rational foundations for moral responsibility presuppose, however, that man has in some way control over his actions. It was therefore of central concern to theologians to formulate theories of action that were coherent enough to account for human self-determination. This article examines al-Bāqillānī's reflections on human acts and attempts to contextualise his thought within the discussions of his time. I will briefly review the Muʿtazilites' theory of freedom of action, against which the Ašʿarite school developed its own position. I will then outline the fundamentals of the opposing standpoint adopted by Abū al-Ḥ asan al-Ašʿarī, who proposed to base human self-determination on voluntariness. Finally, I will discuss how al-Bāqillānī drew on and further developed al-Ašʿarī's ideas. Based on the extant volumes of al-Bāqillānī's Hidāyat al-mustaršidīn, I argue that he attempts to coherently organise the school's understanding of the famous theory of " acquisition " (kasb) by affirming two fundamental principles: a) that human acts are created by God and b) that there is nevertheless a real correlation between man and his " acquired " acts.
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This chapter reviews Zaydī theology in Yemen, from the period before and after the unification of the Yemeni and the Caspian imamates to theologians from the ninth/fifteenth century. It traces the foundation of the Zaydī imamate in the... more
This chapter reviews Zaydī theology in Yemen, from the period before and after the unification of the Yemeni and the Caspian imamates to theologians from the ninth/fifteenth century. It traces the foundation of the Zaydī imamate in the northern highlands of Yemen by Imam al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq, and how the Yemeni Zaydīs developed a canon of doctrinal writings of the Imams which remained authoritative over the coming centuries. It considers the role played by Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī in the intellectual development of Yemen’s theological landscape, as well as the legacy of al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ with respect to Bahshamite theology in the country. It also examines the continuity of Bahshamite theology from the seventh/thirteenth century and concludes with a discussion of the emergence of growing opposition among the Zaydīs of Yemen against Muʿtazilism in general and the theological views of the Bahshamiyya in particular.
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This chapter discusses the history of Ashʿarism in the fourth to fifth/tenth to eleventh centuries. Ashʿarism was, besides Māturīdism, the most important school of Sunni kalām. After the decline of Muʿtazilism, it became the predominant... more
This chapter discusses the history of Ashʿarism in the fourth to fifth/tenth to eleventh centuries. Ashʿarism was, besides Māturīdism, the most important school of Sunni kalām. After the decline of Muʿtazilism, it became the predominant theological school, primarily among the adherents of the Shāfiʿite and the Mālikite school of law. There is a wide scholarly consensus that Ashʿarism entered a new phase in the sixth/twelfth century, marked by an increasing influence of Avicennan philosophy, a transition generally associated with the prominent thinker Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī. This chapter focuses on theologians that preceded this methodological shift. It first charts the rise of Ashʿarism, highlighting the contributions of three key figures to the elaboration and broader dissemination of the school’s teachings: Abū Bakr Ibn Fūrak, Abū Isḥāq al-Isfarāʾīnī, and Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī. It concludes with an assessment of Ashʿarism under the patronage of Niẓām al-Mulk.
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The Muʿtazila was not an exclusively Muslim phenomenon, since their teachings were also adopted by medieval Jewish savants. In recent years, a number of Muʿtazilī works were rediscovered or substantially completed by adopting a... more
The Muʿtazila was not an exclusively Muslim phenomenon, since their teachings were also adopted by medieval Jewish savants. In recent years, a number of Muʿtazilī works were rediscovered or substantially completed by adopting a comparative methodology, which was based on both Muslim and Jewish sources. This article deals with a lost work composed by qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, entitled al-Jumal wa-l-ʿuqūd. I will give an overview of the sources in Zaydī and Karaite collections that provide us with a more detailed picture of the dissemination of the text. On the basis of quotations by later theologians, I will propose a hypothesis on the content of al-Jumal wa-l-ʿuqūd. I will then discuss a possible relationship between ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s text and a manuscript from the Firkovitch collection in the National Library of Russia, which has recently been identified as a work entitled Taʿlīq al-Jumal wa-l-ʿuqūd.
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Kalam (Islamic Theology), Islamic Studies, Ilm al-Kalam, Islam, Muslim-Jewish Relations, and 13 moreMu'tazilites, Arabic Manuscripts, Jewish kalam, Cairo Genizah, Zaydism, Firkovitch collection, Islamic Manuscripts, Zaydiyya, 'Abd al-Jabbar and the Mu'tazila, al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ, Karaites, Ibn Mattawayh, and Yusuf al-Basir
This chapter discusses the notion of ‘states’ (aḥwāl) in Muʿtazilite and Ashʿarite theology. The concept was borrowed from linguistics by the Muʿtazilite theologian Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī (d. 321/933). It helped him to explain the nature... more
This chapter discusses the notion of ‘states’ (aḥwāl) in Muʿtazilite and Ashʿarite theology. The concept was borrowed from linguistics by the Muʿtazilite theologian Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī (d. 321/933). It helped him to explain the nature of God’s attributes without asserting the existence of co-eternal beings in God. The conception of attributes as ‘states’ became a central doctrine among Abū Hāshim’s followers, the so-called Bahshamiyya school. The theory of aḥwāl was first rejected by Ashʿarite theologians. With Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1013), however, an important representative of the school eventually came to use the term within the framework of his theory of attributes. Later, Abu l-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085–6) also followed al-Bāqillānī in adopting the notion of ḥāl.
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"Al-Ḥākim al-Ǧišumī, auteur bahšamite et zaydite, principalement connu pour son œuvre exégétique, a composé d’importants textes théologiques. Parmi ces textes se trouve une somme de théologie intitulée K. al- Taʾṯīr wa-l-muʾaṯṯir fī ʿilm... more
"Al-Ḥākim al-Ǧišumī, auteur bahšamite et zaydite, principalement connu pour son œuvre exégétique, a composé d’importants textes théologiques. Parmi ces textes se trouve une somme de théologie intitulée K. al- Taʾṯīr wa-l-muʾaṯṯir fī ʿilm al-kalām. Cette somme nous est parvenue grâce à un manuscrit unique conservé au Yémen. La première partie de ce livre aborde le sujet de la causalité d’après l’approche muʿtazilite, et examine les diverses notions et catégories des causes. Présenté par son auteur comme une synthèse des idées des grands maîtres Abū ʿAlī al-Ǧubbāʾī, Abū Hāšim al-Ǧubbāʾī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Baṣrī et ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār, ce texte semble être le plus ancien exposé systématique écrit par un muʿtazilite qui nous soit parvenu dans ce domaine.
Al-Ḥākim al-Ǧišumī, a Bahšamī and Zaydī author who is primarily known for his exegetical work, composed a number of important theological texts. Among these we find a theological summa entitled K. al-Taʾṯīr wa-l-muʾaṯṯir fī ʿilm al-kalām, which has been preserved in a unique manuscript in Yemen. The first part of the book deals with the issue of causality according to the Muʿtazilī approach and examines various notions and categories of causes. The author presents his work as a synthesis of ideas of the outstanding masters Abū ʿAlī al-Ǧubbāʾī, Abū Hāšim al-Ǧubbāʾī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Baṣrī and ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār. The text appears to be the oldest extant systematic treatise by a Muʿtazilī written on this subject."
Al-Ḥākim al-Ǧišumī, a Bahšamī and Zaydī author who is primarily known for his exegetical work, composed a number of important theological texts. Among these we find a theological summa entitled K. al-Taʾṯīr wa-l-muʾaṯṯir fī ʿilm al-kalām, which has been preserved in a unique manuscript in Yemen. The first part of the book deals with the issue of causality according to the Muʿtazilī approach and examines various notions and categories of causes. The author presents his work as a synthesis of ideas of the outstanding masters Abū ʿAlī al-Ǧubbāʾī, Abū Hāšim al-Ǧubbāʾī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Baṣrī and ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār. The text appears to be the oldest extant systematic treatise by a Muʿtazilī written on this subject."
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While Mutazilism had become marginalized in Sunni Islam by the VIth/XIIth century, the reception of Basran Mutazilī thought experienced a sudden rise among the Zaydīs of Yemen. Their Imams began officially supporting the transfer of... more
While Mutazilism had become marginalized in Sunni Islam by the VIth/XIIth century, the reception of Basran Mutazilī thought experienced a sudden rise among the Zaydīs of Yemen. Their Imams began officially supporting the transfer of Basran Muʿtazilī texts and doctrines to Yemen. As a result, an indigenous Basran Mutazilī school emerged and preserved numerous Mutazilī theological sources, which would otherwise have been lost. One of the most important representatives of this school was al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 584/1188). This article provides an outline of al-Raṣṣāṣ' biography and of his extensive body of works in order to show his importance for the spread of Basran Muʿtazilī thought among the Zaydī community.
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Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī is considered to be an important Muslim theologian, who significantly contributed to the development of Ashʿarite teaching and its consolidation as one of the most influential schools of Sunni kalām. Kalām is a form... more
Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī is considered to be an important Muslim theologian, who significantly contributed to the development of Ashʿarite teaching and its consolidation as one of the most influential schools of Sunni kalām. Kalām is a form of theology which-as opposed to scripture-based approaches-attempts to demonstrate its doctrinal claims by rational arguments and proofs. Al-Bāqillānī belonged to the third generation of Ashʿarites, and he studied with several disciples of the school's founder. He broadened the conceptual framework of Ashʿarite theology, specifically under the impact of his debates with his intellectual rivals from the Muʿtazilite school of kalām.
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Abū l-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī is considered as the last important representative of so-called " early " (or " classical ") Ashʿarism, a school of Sunni " rational theology " (kalām). He was the teacher of the famous Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, with... more
Abū l-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī is considered as the last important representative of so-called " early " (or " classical ") Ashʿarism, a school of Sunni " rational theology " (kalām). He was the teacher of the famous Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, with whom Ashʿarism entered a new phase and increasingly came under the influence of Avicennian philosophy. Yet the introduction of " philosophical " ideas into the doctrinal system of Ashʿarism was to some extent anticipated by al-Juwaynī: not only did he engage with the ideas of his opponents in kalām theology, but also with those of the falāsifa.
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Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī (b. 861 or, more likely, 890; d. 933) was one of the most influential representatives of Muʿtazilism, a school of " rational theology " – or ʿilm al-kalām (literally " science of speech ") as the discipline is termed... more
Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī (b. 861 or, more likely, 890; d. 933) was one of the most influential representatives of Muʿtazilism, a school of " rational theology " – or ʿilm al-kalām (literally " science of speech ") as the discipline is termed in the Islamic intellectual tradition. He significantly developed the doctrinal system of the " School of Baṣra, " and his followers are sometimes called after him " Bahshamiyya " or " Bahāshima. " The most important element of Abū Hāshim's metaphysical thinking was his development of the so-called theory of " states " (pl. aḥwāl, sing. ḥāl). According to this doctrine, the qualifications of beings have an ontological reality that is neither described by existence nor nonexistence. The theory helped him to explain the nature of God's attributes without asserting the existence of co-eternal beings in God. Abū Hāshim also claimed that the very being of things does not collapse into their existence. It was therefore debated whether or not his teaching had an influence on Avicenna's essence-existence distinction.