The Mutazilah

Later on, the sciences and crafts increased.

People were eager to write systematic works and to do research in all fields. The speculative theologians wrote on God’s freedom (from human attributes).

At that juncture, the Mu’tazilah innovation came into being.

The Mu’tazilah extended the subject to the negative verses and decided to deny (God’s possession of) the ideal attributes of knowledge, power, volition, and life, in addition to (denying) their consequences.

Their use (in connection with God) would imply, in (Mu’tazilah) opinion, a manifoldness of things primeval. 346 This (assumption) is refuted by the (assumption) that the attributes are neither identical with the (divine) essence nor different from it.

The Mu’tazilah further decided to deny (God’s possession) of the attribute of volition. This forced them to deny predestination, because predestination requires the existence of volition prior to the created things.

They also decided to deny God hearing and vision, because both hearing and vision are corporeal accidents. This (assumption) is refuted by the (assumption) that the meaning of the words (hearing and vision) does not require (the existence of) corporeal shape, but merely the perception of audible or visible things. 348 They further decided to deny God speech for reasons similar to those (they used) in connection with hearing and vision. They did not understand the attribute of speech as an essential function.

Thus, the Mu’tazilah decided that the Qur’an was created. This was an innovation. The early Muslims had openly expressed the contrary view. The damage done by this innovation was great. Certain leading Mu’tazilah indoctrinated certain caliphs with it, and the people were forced to adopt it. The Muslim religious leaders opposed them. Because of their opposition, it was considered permissible to flog 349 and kill many of them.

This caused orthodox people to rise in defense of the articles of faith with logical evidence and to push back the innovations.The leader of the speculative theologians, Abul-Hasan al-Ash’ari,350 took care of that.

He mediated between the different approaches. He disavowed anthropomorphism and recognized the ideal attributes. He restricted God’s freedom (from human attributes) to the extent to which it had been restricted by the early Muslims, and which had been recognized by the proofs stating the general applicability (of the principle) to special cases. He recognized the four ideal attributes, as well as hearing, vision, and speech as an essential function, (and proved his position) with the help of logical and traditional methods. He refuted the innovators in all these respects. He discussed with them (their) stated opinions with regard to (God’s concern for human) welfare and with what is best (for man), and their definition of good and evil, which they had invented as the basis for their innovation. 351

He perfected the dogmas concerning the rising of the dead, the circumstances of the Resurrection, Paradise, and Hell, and reward and punishment. He added a discussion of the imamate, because the Imamiyah (Shi’ah) at that time suggested the novel idea that the imamate was one of the articles of faith and that it was the duty of the Prophet as well as the Muslim nation 352 to fix (the succession to) the (imamate) and free the person who would become the imam from any responsibility in this respect. (However, in fact,) the imamate is at best a matter of public interest and social organization. It is not an article of faith. (But, because of the Shi’ah attitude, the question of the imamate) was added to the problems of this discipline. The whole was called “the science of speculative theology.” The reason why this name (which, literally, means “science of speech,” or “talk”) was chosen, may have been that it included the disputation of innovations. That is merely talk and implies no action. Or, the reason may have been that the discipline was invented and cultivated as a consequence of dissension concerning the existence of essential speech.

The followers of Abul-Hasan al-Ash’ari became numerous. His approach was later on followed by his pupils, such as Ibn Mujahid 354 and others. Judge Abu Bakr alBaqillani 355 learned from them. He attacked the problem of the imamate in accordance with the way they had approached it, and improved on it. He laid down the logical premises on which arguments and speculation on the subject depend. He affirmed, for instance, the existence of the atom (al jawhar al fard) and of the vacuum.

He made statements such as:

“An accident cannot sustain another accident,”

“An accident does not persist two moments.”

There are similar (premises) on which the arguments of (the Ash’arites) depend. He considered the basic premises as secondary only to the articles of faith, as far as the necessity of believing in them was concerned.

The arguments depend on them, and if the arguments are wrong, it is possible to conclude that the thing proven (by them) is also wrong.357

Thus, (al-Ash’ari’s) approach was perfected and became one of the best speculative disciplines and religious sciences. However, the forms of its arguments are, at times, not technically perfect), because the scholars (of al-Ash’ari’s time) were simple and the science of logic which probes arguments and examines syllogisms had not yet made its appearance in Islam.

Even if some of it had existed, the theologians would not have used it, because it was so closely related to the philosophical sciences, which are altogether different from the beliefs of the religious law and were, therefore, avoided by them.

The Ash’arite leader, Judge Abu Bakr (al-Baqillani), was followed by the Imam al-Haramayn Abul-Ma’ali. 358 He dictated a comprehensive work on the Ash’arite approach. He was very explicit in it. He then abridged the work in theKitab al-Irshad. People use the (Irshad) as their guide in matters of (dogmatic) belief.