THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

THE INTELLECTUAL GENEALOGY OF IBN TAYMĪYA

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO

THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

DEPARTMENT OF NEAR EASTERN LANGUAGES AND CIVILIZATIONS

BY

RODRIGO ADEM

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

JUNE 2015
 UMI Number: 3712006

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Contents
List of Figures............................................................................................................................................... vi
Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................... vii
Abstract........................................................................................................................................................ ix
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................. 1
Literature Review ..................................................................................................................................... 2
Assessment ............................................................................................................................................... 8
Framework of the Dissertation............................................................................................................... 13
Chapter One – Damascus’ Scholarly and Historiographical Significance .................................................. 19
1.1 The Rebirth of Damascus .................................................................................................................. 21
1.1.1 Religious Life in Damascus from the Seljuks to the Mamluks ................................................... 23
1.2 Al-Ghazālī and the Shāfiʿī School of Damascus ................................................................................. 25

1.3 Madhhabs and Madrasas ................................................................................................................... 29

1.4 Ḥadīth, Tradition, and History........................................................................................................... 33
1.5 The Ḥanbalī School of Damascus ...................................................................................................... 37
1.5.1 Abū’l-Faraj al-Shīrāzī and the Banū’l-Ḥanbalī .......................................................................... 38
1.5.2 The Banū’l-Munajjā .................................................................................................................... 41
1.5.3 The Venerable Banū Qudāma of al-Ṣāliḥīya .............................................................................. 43
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 56
PART I. THE EMERGENCE OF THE SHĀFIʿĪ AND ḤANBALĪ SCHOOLS AS DEFENDERS OF SUNNĪ
THEOLOGICAL NORMATIVITY .................................................................................................................... 59
Chapter Two. Revelation vs. Kalām: The Roots of Contention and the Rise of al-Shāfiʿī: .......................... 60

2.1 “Dare to Know:” The Bold Premise of Kalām..................................................................................... 63

2.1.1 The Muʿtazilites and the Genesis of Kalām ................................................................................ 64

2.1.2 Method and Tradition ................................................................................................................ 69

2.2 Revelatonal Prioritism and Continuity with Prophethood: The Ahl al-Sunna .................................. 78
2.2.1. Ahl al-Sunna Identity .................................................................................................................. 79
2.2.2 Early Sunnī Madhhabs vs. the Muʿtazilites in the Normative Role of Sunna ............................. 85

2.3 Al-Shāfiʿī, Uṣūl al-Fiqh as Science of Scriptural Reasoning, and Defense of the Transmitted Sunna 91

Chapter Three. Orthodoxy, Scripture, and the Public Order: The Miḥna and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal............ 105
ii
 3.1. The Muʿtazilī Anthropological Critique of the Ḥashwīya/Mushabbiha ........................................... 105

3.2. The Sunnī Genealogical Critique of the Jahmīya/Muʿaṭṭila ............................................................. 109

3.3. The Pivot of Interpretive Authority, Q 3:7 ..................................................................................... 114

3.3.1 Traditional Interpretations ...................................................................................................... 115
3.3.2 Muʿtazilite interpretations: ...................................................................................................... 128

3.4 A Collision of Worlds: The Miḥna and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal................................................................ 138

3.4.1. New Insights into the Topical Nature of the Miḥna .............................................................. 150
3.4.2 The Outcomes of the Miḥna and the Emergence of Ḥanbalism ............................................. 155
PART II. PARADIGMATIC FACTORS FOR THE HISTORICAL TRAJECTORY OF THE SHĀFIʿĪ AND ḤANBALĪ
SCHOOLS ................................................................................................................................................... 160
Chapter Four. The Rise of Al-Ashʿarī and the Sunnī Epistemic Shift ....................................................... 161

4.1. Ashʿarī and the Defense of Naẓar: ................................................................................................... 165

4.1.1 The Scriptural Incumbency of Naẓar........................................................................................ 170

4.1.2 Sunnism without Taqlīd: The Nativization of Kalām ................................................................ 180
4.2 Al-Ashʿarī’s Non-Emulationist Sunnī Theology .............................................................................. 186

4.2.1 Analysis..................................................................................................................................... 198

4.3. No Way Back: Ashʿarī Contestation of Traditionalist Authority .................................................... 202

4.4 The “Rule of Interpretation” (qānūn al-taʾwīl): Where Language and Intellect Meet in God’s Speech
.............................................................................................................................................................. 210
4.5 An Important Ashʿarī Contention: God’s Attribute of Speech ........................................................ 229

Chapter Five: Methodology in Contention: The Ḥanbalī School ............................................................. 233

5.1 Dominant Forms of Ḥanbalī Traditionalism ................................................................................... 235
5.2. Al-Barbahārī and the Defense of Tradition .................................................................................... 237
5.3 The Logic of Ḥanbalī Kalām Rejectionism ....................................................................................... 241
5.4 The Rise of Ḥanbalī Kalām ............................................................................................................... 244
5.4.1 The Baghdad Ḥanbalī Kalām Movement .................................................................................. 252
5.4.2 A Point of Conflict: God’s Speech ............................................................................................ 256
5.4.3 Explaining a Lacuna in Islamic History .................................................................................... 259
Chapter Six: The Qādirī Creed and the Public and Private Negotiation of Islamic Tradition ................. 267

iii
 6.1 The Qādirī Creed ............................................................................................................................. 268
6.2 The Persecution of Ashʿarism and the Chief Figureheads of the Nishapur Synthesis ................... 273

6.3 Baghdad Public Life and the Social Construction of Orthodoxy .................................................... 289
6.4 Late Abbasid Ḥanbalism in Baghdad: Public and Private ............................................................... 299
6.4.1 Ḥanbalī Efflorescence: Public and Private ............................................................................... 305
6.4.2 Silent Ruptures ......................................................................................................................... 313
6.5 Conclusion: Inner and Outer Dimensions of Orthodoxy ................................................................ 317
PART III. CONSTITUTIVE DISCURSIVE PRACTICES AND FORMATIONS FOR IBN TAYMĪYA’S TIME ....... 331
Chapter Seven. Scholarly Contentions in Damascus Before the Mongol Invasion ................................. 332
7.1 The Foundations of Anti-Ashʿarī Polemic in Damascus .................................................................. 333

7.2 Damascene Ḥanbalism and Anti-Ashʿarī Polemic ........................................................................... 337

7.2.1 The Banū’l-Ḥanbalī and Kalām Rejectionism: 1) Abū’l-Faraj al-Shīrāzī .................................. 338
7.2.2 The Banū’l-Ḥanbalī and Kalām Rejectionism: 2) Sharaf al-Islām ............................................ 343
7.3 Ibn ʿAsākir and Damascene Ashʿarī “Traditionalism” ..................................................................... 349

7.4 The Confrontation: the Banū ʿAsākir and the Maqādisa .................................................................. 362

7.4.1 The Great Divide: Damascene Ḥanbalism on the Defensive .................................................... 364
7.4.2 The Expulsion of ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī .............................................................................. 365

7.4.3 Ibn Qudāma: Master of Anti-Kalām Apologetics ...................................................................... 372

7.4.4 The End of Ḥanbalī Kalām ......................................................................................................... 379
7.5 The Significance of Damascus in the Wake of the Mongol Invasion: ............................................. 390
Chapter Eight: The Ḥanbalīs of Ḥarrān up to the Mongol Invasion ........................................................ 395
8.1 The Origins of Islamic Ḥarrān ......................................................................................................... 396
8.2 The Ḥanbalīs of Ḥarrān ................................................................................................................... 407
8.2.1 New Beginnings ........................................................................................................................ 407
8.2.2 A Transition into Prosperity .................................................................................................... 412
8.3 The Illustrious Banū Taymīya ......................................................................................................... 422
8.3.1 Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya ......................................................................................................... 422
8.3.2 Majd al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya .......................................................................................................... 436
8.4 Ḥarrān’s Twilight ............................................................................................................................ 441

iv
 8.4.1 Shihāb al-Dīn in the Shadow of the Mongol Conquest ............................................................ 441
8.4.2 The Destruction of Ḥarrān ....................................................................................................... 446
8.5 Conclusion and Analysis ................................................................................................................. 449
Chapter Nine: A Prolegomena to the Study of Ibn Taymīya .................................................................... 453
9.1 Ibn Taymīya’s Scholarly Genealogy: .............................................................................................. 454
9.1.1 Scholarly Influence .................................................................................................................. 458
9.1.2 Non-Ḥanbalī Teachers .............................................................................................................. 464
9.2 The Intellectual Anatomy of Ibn Taymīya ...................................................................................... 467
9.2.1 The Influence of al-Ṣāliḥīya ..................................................................................................... 470
9.2.2 The Shāfiʿī-Ashʿarī Side of Things ............................................................................................. 474

9.2.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 480

9.3 Ibn Taymīya’s Emergence into the Spotlight: al-Fatwā al-Ḥamawīya .............................................. 483
9.3.1 Al-Fatwā al-Ḥamawīya: Introduction: ...................................................................................... 485
9.3.2 The Recasting of the Genealogical Critique: ............................................................................ 496
9.3.3 Statement of Principles for the Madhhab of the Salaf .............................................................. 505
9.3.4 No Simple Return: Way of Salaf as Harmony of Scripture and Reason.................................... 507
9.3.5 Prophetic Guidance in Historical Memory and the Pivot of Interpretation: .......................... 509
9.3.6 An Abbreviated Methodological Intervention: ........................................................................ 521
9.3.7 Deconstructing Anti-Scripturalist Typologies ......................................................................... 526
9.3.8 Outcome of the Fatwa and Conclusion:.................................................................................... 530
Conclusion: ............................................................................................................................................... 534
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................. 546

v
List of Figures

Figure 1. Relationship of al-Ṣāliḥīya to Walled City of Damascus .................................................... 49

Figure 2. Political Divisions of the Muslim World at the Outset of the 5th/11th Century ......... 269
Figure 3. Arab Tribal Distribution in the Jazīra ................................................................................. 404
Figure 4. The Ruins of Ḥarrān’s Congregational Mosque ................................................................ 449

vi
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my parents, for their love, the values they raised me with, and for

providing me with the best opportunities for education available to them. Next, I would like to

thank my wife Manal, for her love, unflagging support, and selfless patience through the

hardships of a graduate student’s spouse which I will never forget.

I would like to thank my dissertation committee: Paul Walker, for honoring me with his

scholarly mentorship when I was trying to find my way in academia, for constantly

encouraging me and never doubting me; Fred Donner, for his inimitable kindness and his

generously placing his confidence in me to achieve this project despite the odds; Frank Lewis,

for being a consistently receptive, judicious, and compassionate interlocutor and counselor for

the duration of my graduate studies. And finally, Ahmed El Shamsy, whom I cannot thank

enough for believing in me, for embodying true karam (both nobility and generosity) whether

as academic advisor or as friend, whether in good times or periods of immense personal

hardship; this, in addition to his tenacity in discussing the minutia of classical texts, both legal

and theological, and sharing his invaluable insights on the greater historiographical

developments of the field.

I would like to give a special thanks to Wadad al-Kadi for her critical role in my early

graduate studies and instilling in me an understanding of the depths to which one must strive

to excel. I would also like to thank Jonathan Brown, Sidney Griffith, Issam Eido, Valerie

Hoffmann, Adam Gaiser, Bilal Orfali, Kevin van Bladel, Hadi Jorati, Hayrettin Yucesoy, Joe

Bradford, Ahmed Hashim, Volkan Stodolsky, Garrett Davidson, Rana Mikati, Sean Anthony, Ed

Hayes, Sabahat Adil, Chris Markiewicz, Austin O’Malley, and Cameron Cross for their support.

vii
My friends in Syria: Rasheed al-Hamawi, Abdullah Asfour, and Fayyad Jeroudia. My friends in

Egypt: Muhammad Bahi Nabil, Muhammad Shams Uqab, Ramy al-Banna, al-faqīh ʿAbd al-

Raḥmān, and of course, Muhammad Yousri Salama (R.I.P.), whose encouragement, particularly

during the composition of the first (eighth numerical) chapter of this dissertation I will always

cherish, in addition to his inspiring dedication to Islamic philosophy and manuscript culture.

viii
Abstract

This dissertation seeks to further advancements in the study of controversial Muslim

theologian Ibn Taymīya, who died in 1328 in Damascus, Syria. Providing a framework for

understanding his thought within the prevailing scholarly lineages and intellectual paradigms

of his time, we are able to understand how seemingly contradictory elements of his profile, as

unearthed by previous contributions in the research, are unified in his personage. These

elements, causing some to characterize him as alternatively literalist, rationalist,

fundamentalist, and philosophical, are in need of recontextualization, which can be achieved

by means of the proper philological tools.

Ibn Taymīya can be placed at the intersection of multiple scholarly “discursive

traditions” with different visions of normativity for Islam, particularly on the nature of

“reason,” “scripture,” and the early forebears of Islam, or salaf. The historical particulars of

these traditions themselves being subjected to historical analysis, a great deal of complexity

emerges within which unqualified terms such as “rationalism” and “traditionalism” are

insufficient on their own to explain the scholarly or social profile of their respective historical

advocates. As their respective methodologies, interpretive frameworks, and even

historiographical visions crystallized in 13th century Damascus, however, they have become

paradigmatic for much of how these terms are definied for subsequent Islamic history.

This will be demonstrated by an analysis of the paradoxical growth of anti-

traditionalist rationalist theology called kalām in the Sunnī scholarly sphere over the 10th-11th

centuries juxtaposed with a study of the social mediation of orthodoxy in key centers of

Muslim scholarship characterized by a general orientation towards the emulation of the past,

ix
as safeguard of doctrine in time of political crisis. As debates both intellectual and sectarian

ensued, surrounding the necessity of particular hermeneutic practices as guarantor of reason-

based orthodoxy, the normative role of the salaf or forebears of Islam was negotiated through

the same intellectual lens, and consequently the contours of history.

Ibn Taymīya ultimately combined various methodological and historiographical

considerations together in a way intimately linked to his temporal and geographical

specificities, in a conscious effort to resolve many of the theological controversies which left

their imprint on the scholarly discourse of his times. His advocacy of the forebears of Islam,

was not a fideist naïve return to text or the past, but an attempt to redeem older scriptural

interpretations in the realm of theology as being in accordance with rationality, though not

the particular rationality formulated by dominant traditions of its practice. The perceived

rejection of reason, spirituality, or hermeneutic assumptions of a greater Muslim tradition

often attributable to Ibn Taymīya can be explained as the result of tensions, real or implied,

with the prevalent actors of religious authority in which those paradigms were socially

embodied, which have obscured the discursive underpinnings of the questions at stake in Ibn

Taymīya’s scholarly production.

x
Introduction

Ibn Taymīya was born in 661 AH1 /1263 CE in the ancient city of Ḥarrān (now known as

Urfa in modern Turkey), to a family of distinguished Muslim scholars from the Ḥanbalī legal

school or madhhab. In 667/1269, his family was compelled to flee the Mongol onslaught to

Mamluk-governed Damascus and resettle there permanently. Known for his prodigious

learning abilities, Ibn Taymīya excelled at the family trade of religious scholarship, giving

fatwas by age seventeen and occupying a prestigious madrasa professorship within the

Damascus city walls by the time he was twenty-two years old. As his public profile grew –

most notably after he took an active role in the Syrian resistance against the Mongol invasions

from 699-702/1299-1303 – his scholarly positions became a source of controversy that would

plague him till the end of his life: This began with his trial in Damascus in 705 /1306 on

charges of anthropomorphism, and was followed by his imprisonment in Cairo that same year

on similar charges (for approximately 17 months), followed by his 709/1309 imprisonment in

Alexandria (for approximately 7 months) precipitated by public confrontations between him

and Egyptian followers of the Sufi master Ibn ʿArabī. Although he resumed his official posts

upon his return to Damascus in 712/1313, controversy pursued him even then, coming under

attack for legal positions considered heretical, most prominently his allowance for the

revocation of a triple-divorce, but coming to a head when he was imprisoned in 726/1326 for

1
The abbreviation AH stands for “after the hijra (emigration),” and represents the traditional Islamic dating
system based on a lunar calendar that starts with the Prophet Muḥammad’s emigration from Mecca to Medina.
Henceforth, dates will be given according to the Islamic dating system accompanied by dates of the common era
without recourse to these abbreviations.
1
his position on ritual pilgrimage to graves. He stayed in the prison of the Damascus citadel

until his death in 728/1328.2

Literature Review

Despite Ibn Taymīya’s fascinating historical profile, there is a clear lack of consensus

about the actual nature of his contribution to Islamic thought. Most readily available

information on Ibn Taymīya to the reading public will be found in studies on Islamic

extremism, since his vitriol against the Mongols has appeared to some as a source book for

contemporary terrorist movements.3 Only few have cared in recent years to give this popular

notion the critical scrutiny it deserves, by situating the historical circumstances of Ibn

Taymīya’s attack on the Mongols within its particular historical context.4 Nevertheless, the

general impression afforded by the invocation of Ibn Taymīya’s name in the field of Islamic

Studies remains that of an epigone of Islamic “fundamentalism.”

Leaving aside scrutiny of the term fundamentalism’s indeterminate connotations, we

can readily acknowledge that in Ibn Taymīya’s case, it seeks to depict a negation of the

2
This is based on the informative timeline by Yahya Michot included in his Yahya Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Les
intermédiaires entre Dieu et l'Homme (Risâlat al-wāsiṭa bayna l-khalq wa'l-ḥaqq) (Paris: A. E. I. F. Editions, 1996), 21–7.
3
The pioneering study which proposed this thesis following the assassination of Sadat was Emmanuel Sivan, “Ibn
Taymiyya: Father of the Islamic Revolution: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics,” Encounter, May, 1983, 41–9.
This theory was resurrected after 9-11, though with less nuance: see John L. Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the
Name of Islam (Oxford University Press, USA, 2002), 46; Natana J. DeLong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform
to Global Jihad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 249. This is the sort of thinking that graced him with a
reference by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States; see National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. (Philip Zelikow, Executive Director, Bonnie D. Jenkins, Counsel and
Ernest R. May, Senior Advisor), The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), 362.
4
See in particular Yahya Michot, Muslims under non-Muslim Rule: Ibn Taymiyya on Fleeing from Sin (Oxford: Interface
Publications, 2006). See also Denise Aigle, “The Mongol Invasions of Bilād al-Shām by Ghāzān Khān and Ibn
Taymīyah's Three "Anti-Mongol" Fatwas,” Mamlūk Studies Review 11, no. 2 (2007), 89–120. Another critique is
found in Mona Hassan, “Modern Interpretations and Misinterpretations of a Medieval Scholar: Apprehending the
Political Thought of Ibn Taymiyya,” in Ibn Taymiyya and his Times, ed. Yossef Rapoport and Shahab Ahmed
(Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010), 338–66.
2
dominant strands of Islamic scholasticism as they came to be embodied over the first several

centuries of Islam. Ibn Taymīya is thus an anti-figure; a foil juxtaposed with seemingly more

normative representatives of Islamic thought in their inevitable civilizational development.

Ibn Taymīya having been characterized as antithetical force in the development of

Islamic thought, this consequently lends itself to assumptions about the nature of his actual

scholarly activity: Experts on Islamic philosophy dismiss his intellectual contributions from

the outset;5 students of Sufism label him a nemesis of Islamic spirituality;6 others even

speculate loosely about his mental wherewithal.7 Another approach is to restrict our readings

of his work solely as inspiration for the rejectionist movement of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-

Wahhāb and his followers,8 despite the fact that a rigorous academic assessment of this

movement’s relation to his teachings remains an important desideratum.9 An iconoclastic

5
Majid Fakhry talks about his “”slavish traditionalism,” see his A History of Islamic Philosophy, 2nd ed. (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1983), 312 ff. A History of Islamic Philosophy. 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1983.), 312 ff. According to Oliver Leaman, “Ibn Taymiyya argued that the goal of human life is neither to
know God, nor to speculate about God, nor to love God;” see Oliver Leaman, ed., The Qurʼan: An encyclopedia (New
York: Routledge, 2006), 281.
6
“Representing an extreme version of fundamentalist exoterism … this stern and hidebound exponent of
Hanbalism;” in the introduction to Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ibn ʻAṭāʼ Allāh et al., The Book of Wisdom (New York:
Paulist Press, 1978), 26. See a similar sentiment in Samer Akkach, Letters of a Sufi Scholar: the correspondence of ʻAbd
al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (1641-1731) (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 32.
7
See, for example, Donald P. Little, “Did Ibn Taymiyya Have a Screw Loose?,” Studia Islamica 41 (1975), 93–111.
This article has been cited in more articles and books than can be mentioned here. This idea has even lead others
less academically minded to make up new neuroses: “Ibn Taymiyyah … abstained from even enjoying the beauty of
nature [emphasis added],” Asʻad AbuKhalil, The battle for Saudia Arabia: Royalty, fundamentalism, and global power
(New York: Seven Stories, 2004), 56.
8
See Michot, Muslims under non-Muslim Rule, 130. Yet even here the hot-potato game continues: Natana Long-Bas
would have us believe that Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb was actually a far more moderate thinker than Ibn
Taymīya, and that the latter is in fact to blame for the poor reputation of the former as a religious extremist;
DeLong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam, 249 ff.
9
As of yet there are no comparative studies of Wahhabism and Ibn Taymīya’s thought. Interestingly enough,
Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (the brother of the famous eponym) was known to have critiqued his sibling for the
misapplication of Ibn Taymīya’s theological teachings; see David Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia
(New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 23. Later commentators have pontificated more deeply on a similar sentiment:
Fazlur Rahman for example believed that “Ibn Taymiyya’s message lay dormant through the centuries … and even
when it was ‘discovered’ by Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and his followers in the eighteenth-century Arabian
3
image of Ibn Taymīya thus informs the scope of interest for many academics and non-

academics alike, read solely as an initiator of anti-scholasticism in Islam.

Nevertheless we are to be thankful in that the more specialized research on Ibn

Taymīya has been much more fruitful than what might be suspected, allowing us to move

beyond the simple categorizations mentioned so far. It is hoped that by surveying the

available literature on Ibn Taymīya here, we can assess the strengths and weaknesses of what

has been achieved, and how a new contribution should be made in order to advance the field

forward.

One of the most influential approaches to studying Ibn Taymīya has been the study of

his thought as the wellspring of Islamic political revivalism. The first wave of modern research

on him was carried out in this light, characterizing him chiefly as an ethical theorist and social

reformer with a clear socio-political ideal for Islamic society, a vanguard thinker for the

Wahhabi state and the caliphal theories of Rashīd Riḍā. This wave was inaugurated by Henri

Laoust in the earliest and single major monograph on his legacy in a Western language, Essai

sur les Doctrines Sociales et Politiques de Taḳī-d-Dīn Aḥmad b. Taimīya.10 As early as this work was, it

was greatly synthetic in its presentation and humanistic in its approach, and is still viewed as

an authoritative resource to which all researchers must refer. All subsequent monographs

peninsula, it was miserably truncated;” Fazlur Rahman and Ebrahim Moosa, Revival and reform in Islam: A study of
Islamic fundamentalism, ed. Ebrahim Moosa (Oxford: Oneworld, 2000), 132.
10
Henri Laoust, Essai sur les Doctrines Sociales et Politiques de Taḳī-d-Dīn Aḥmad b. Taimīya (Cairo: L'Institute Français
d'Archéologie Orientale, 1939). Later, Laoust was to write yet another political study; Henri Laoust and Ibn
Taymīya, Le Traité de Droit Public d'Ibn Taimīya: Traduction annotée de la Siyāsa ŝar'īya (Beirut: Institut Français de
Damas, 1948).
4
followed in its footsteps; namely those by Serajul Haque,11 Victor Makari,12 and Muhammad

Umar Memon,13 all of them focused on Ibn Taymīya in a similar vein. In more recent years,

additional studies have also revisited the topic of Ibn Taymīya’s politics, though more clearly

aiming for a treatment within the subject’s original historical context: e.g. in an insightful

article by Christina Bori on assessing Ibn Taymīya’s thought in the context of Mamluk politics,
14
as well as in an important dissertation by Ovamir Anjum who explores the “Taymiyyan”

synthesis of political ethics in close conversation with both the classical Islamic tradition and

Orientalist studies.15

As useful as these contributions might be for understanding Ibn Taymīya as an

inspiration for modern political thought in Islam, or even a particularly noteworthy political

theorist of the medieval period, one crucial fact remains: Ibn Taymīya did not take on any

prominence or notoriety in his own age for his political writings (which in fact are rather

scanty), nor even for his fatwas on the Mongols. Nor, most significantly, were these

responsible for the iconoclastic image which he garnered among his contemporaries. That is

not to justify a complete extrication of his thought from the politics of his time, but it argues

that the unique legacy of the man in his own time and place are clearly not to be summed up in

11
Serajul Haque, Imām Ibn Taimīya and His Projects of Reform (Dhaka: Islamic Foundation, 1982). It was originally a
PhD dissertation written in 1937 at the University of London under H.A.R Gibb.
12
Victor E. Makari, Ibn Taymiyyah's Ethics: The Social Factor (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983). It was originally a PhD
dissertation in 1975 at Temple University.
13
Muhammad Umar Memon, Ibn Taimiya's Struggle Against Popular Religion (The Hague: Mouton, 1976).
14
Caterina Bori, “Théologie politique et Islam à propos d’Ibn Taymiyya (m. 728/1328) et du sultanat mamelouk,”
Revue de l’histoire des religions 224, no. 1 (2007), 5–46.
15
Ovamir Anjum, “Reason and politics in medieval Islamic thought: The Taymiyyan moment” (PhD diss., The
University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2008). Now published as Ovamir Anjum, Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic
Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
5
his profile as a political thinker, despite the persistence of this idea. His intellectual profile,

then, must be fleshed out and more fully contextualized.

This much could have been surmised from the accomplishments of the second wave of

research, which broke the predominant mold of previous studies by turning away from the

topic of social reform to focus on the many other aspects of Ibn Taymīya’s personage. It was

perhaps precipitated by George Makdisi’s article which sought to assert that, contrary to

popular conception, Ibn Taymīya was in fact a cloak-wearing member of the Qādirīya Sufi

order.16 Joseph Bell followed shortly thereafter with his impressive study on Hanbalite

theories of love, shedding insight on Ibn Taymīya’s contribution to that topic within Islamic

spirituality.17 This was followed shortly thereafter by Thomas Michel who actually studied Ibn

Taymīya’s reception of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī’s Sufi thought from his own writings,18 before

turning to his scholarly refutations of the peripatetic philosophers19 and the doctrines of

Christianity.20 T. E. Homerin was then able to write, with more subtlety and nuance, his article

which explained Ibn Taymīya’s opposition to only particular aspects of Sufism in his time.21

This moved the characterization of Ibn Taymīya’s personage from the anachronistic

notion of a political activist into a distinguished member among the ranks of the Islamic

intellectual elite of the Mamluk era. Oleson for example, in his important yet

underappreciated study, tried to point out (in conversation with Memon no doubt) that Ibn

16
George Makdisi, “Ibn Taymiya: A Sufi of the Qadiriyya Order,” American Journal of Arabic Studies, no. 5 (1973), 118–
29.
17
Joseph Norment Bell, Love Theory in Later Ḥanbalite Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1979).
18
Thomas Michel, “Ibn Taymiyya's Sharḥ on the Futūḥ al-ghayb of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī,” Hamdard Islamicus 4, ii
(1981), 3–12.
19
Thomas Michel, “Ibn Taymiyya's critique of falsafa,” Hamdard Islamicus 6, i (1983), 3–14.
20
Thomas Michel, A Muslim theologian's response to Christianity: Ibn Taymiyya's al-Jawab al-sahih (Delmar, N.Y: Caravan
Books, 1984).
21
See T. E. Homerin, “Ibn Taimīya's al-Ṣūfīyah wa'l-fuqarāʾ,” Arabica 32, no. 2 (July, 1985), 219–44.
6
Taymīya’s fervent disapproval of cultic pilgrimage to graves was not an activist’s call against

“popular religion” in society per se as much as it was a rigorous legal discussion addressed to

the scholarly class of his time.22 Research having matured to this extent, Hallaq also

investigated Ibn Taymīya’s constructive critique of kalām’s proof’s for God’s existence,23 as well

as his sophisticated critiques of Aristotelian logic.24 Abrahamov, on his part gave the research

a first glimpse into Ibn Taymīya’s little-known thesis that scriptural tradition and the intellect

philosophically speaking cannot be at odds with one another.25

Coming at the end of this second wave of the scholarship to inaugurate the third stage

of studies on Ibn Taymīya is Yahya Michot, whose extensive contributions have raised the bar

for the standards of research considerably. It is Michot who has firmly established a place for

Ibn Taymīya in Western academia, explaining the medieval scholar’s complex profile in the

history of Islamic philosophy and spirituality, as always with painstaking attention to

philological detail.26 Michot presents to the reading public an account of a sober Sufi, a

22
Niels Henrik Olesen, Culte des saints et pélerinages chez Ibn Taymiyya: 661/1263-728/1328 (Paris: Libraire Orientaliste
P. Geuthner, 1991), 10, 191-192.
23
Wael B. Hallaq, “Ibn Taymiyya on the Existence of God,” Acta Orientalia (Copenhagen) 52 (1991), 49–69.
24
Wael B. Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya against the Greek Logicians (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). Hallaq’s
underappreciated work came to the conclusion that there was much to compare between Ibn Taymīya’s critique
of Aristotelian logic and that of the later British Empiricists, and he gives some contemplation as to why Ibn
Taymīya’s methodology was not allowed to develop in later Muslim thought; see ibid., xlviii–l.
25
Binyamin Abrahamov, “Ibn Taymiyya on the Agreement of Reason with Tradition,” Muslim World 82, 3-4 (July-
Oct. 1992), 256–73. A PhD thesis is currently being prepared by Yale graduate student Yasir Qadhi on Ibn
Taymīya’s famous work on this topic, Dar al-taʿāruḍ bayna al-ʿaql wa’l-naql (“Staving off the Conflict Between the
Intellect and Scripture”).
26
An incomplete bibliography of Michot’s important works: Jean R. Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Lettre à Abû l-Fidâʼ
(Louvain-la-Neuve: Université catholique de Louvain, 1994); Jean R. Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Lettre à un Roi Croisé:
Al-Risâlat al-Qubrusiyya (Louvain-la-Neuve: Bruylant-Academia, 1995); Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Les intermédiaires
entre Dieu et l'Homme (Risâlat al-wāsiṭa bayna l-khalq wa'l-ḥaqq); Yahya Michot, “Vanités Intellectuales… L'impasse
des rationalismes selon le Rejet de la contradiction d'Ibn Taymiyya,” Oriente Moderno, XIX (LXXX) (2000), 597–617;
Yahya Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Le Haschich et l'Extase (Beirut: Al-Bouraq, 2001); Yahya Michot, “A Mamlūk
Theologian’s Commentary on Avicenna’s Risāla Aḍḥawiyya. Part I,” Journal of Islamic Studies 14, no. 2 (May 2003),
149–203; Yahya Michot, “A Mamlūk Theologian’s Commentary on Avicenna’s Risāla Aḍḥawiyya. Part II,” Journal of
Islamic Studies 14, no. 3 (Sep. 2003), 309–63; Yahya Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Ecrits spirituels d'Ibn Taymiyya (Beirut:
Al-Bouraq, 2004); Yahya Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Mécréance et pardon (Beyrouth: Al-Bouraq, 2005); Michot,
7
philosophical virtuoso, and religious historian. The fact that most of his works have been in

French however, has probably been a hindrance to their general appreciation.27

Following in the footsteps of Michot, other significant scholarship has also been carried

out by Jon Hoover, who is the most prominent new researcher in recent years to challenge the

notion of Ibn Taymīya as being anti-rationalist, even characterizing in him in one article as an

“Avicennan theologian.”28 His book Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism has done

much to elaborate on Ibn Taymīya as both a rigorous and creative theologian who creatively

engaged with a wide variety of theological and philosophical traditions of Islam.29

Assessment

It would naturally be assumed that the abovementioned research on Ibn Taymīya

should have brought the academic world closer to understanding his thought, despite its

negligible influence on his public image. Yet the topic continues to have its share of pitfalls in

academia. Nowhere does this come out more strongly than in the recent book Ibn Taymiyya

and his Times, edited by Yossef Rapoport and Shahab Ahmed. Too many contributions in the

Muslims under non-Muslim Rule (cited above); Yahya Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Les Saints du Mont Liban: Absence, jihād
et spiritualité entre la montagne et la cité (Beirut: Al-Bouraq, 2007); Yahya Michot and Ibn Taymīya, “Between
Entertainment and Religion: Ibn Taymiyya's Views on Superstition,” New Politics 12, no. 2 (2009), 1–20; see also
Yahya Michot, “Textes Spirituels d'Ibn Taymiyya,” accessed February 9, 2012,
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/it/index.html.
27
Only now has a translation come out of selections from the “Textes Spirituels;” see Yahya Michot, Bruce B.
Lawrence and Ibn Taymīya, Against Extremisms (Beirut: Al-Bouraq, 2012).
28
Jon Hoover, “Ibn Taymiyya as an Avicennian Theologian: A Muslim Approach to God's Self-Sufficiency,”
Theological Review 27, no. 1 (2006), 34–46. See also Jon Hoover, “Perpetual Creativity in the Perfection of God: Ibn
Taymiyya's Hadith Commentary on God's Creation of this World,” Journal of Islamic Studies 15, no. 3 (2004), 287–
329.
29
Jon Hoover, Ibn Taymiyya's Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism (Leiden: Brill, 2007). As one reviewer said “It is
tempting, after a close reading of this book, to call Ibn Taymiyya … the last of the great Sunnite theologians;” Tarif
Khalidi, “Review of Ibn Taymiyya's Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism by Jon Hoover,” Theological Review XXIX
(2008), 59–60: 59.
8
book are laden with the issues of current controversies to effectively communicate that which

the book’s title promises us; namely a balanced and holistic image of the man in his time and

place. This is even felt in the unfortunate phrasing in the editors’ introduction of the need to

admit the significance of Ibn Taymīya today in the field of Islamic studies, “whether we like

him or not,”30 – inadvertently revealing a certain reluctance among academics to give Ibn

Taymīya further thought.

At this juncture, it is helpful to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the two most

important names currently in the study of Ibn Taymīya’s theology; Yahya Michot and Jon

Hoover. As highly illuminating as Michot’s contributions have been, they suffer from the fact

that they lack an overarching synthesis, often being composed of critical editions of original

works in Arabic alongside French translations; this presents a challenge for readers since Ibn

Taymīya is known to repeat himself and leave ideas incompletely expressed, scattered

throughout his works for those who wished to pursue them. Hoover’s work suffers from the

opposite problem, extracting and precisely summarizing Ibn Taymīya’s theological views from

a variety of different works but in a matter far removed from the author’s personal voice.

Although Hoover takes on a variety of critical themes from Ibn Taymīya’s work, he

unfortunately frames his study of within the topic of “theodicy” – a Christian theological term

which as an organizational device is quite inadequate at communicating the specific concerns

that Ibn Taymīya has.

30
Yossef Rapoport and Shahab Ahmed, eds., Ibn Taymiyya and his Times (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010), 20.
It should go without saying that whether we like someone or not is irrelevant to whether they ought to be studied
or not.
9
 This deficiency in Hoover’s work highlights another shortcoming of likewise applicable

for much later scholarship in general: Khalidi’s main critique of Hoover’s monograph can be

summed up in that it does not adequately depict Ibn Taymīya’s “general intellectual context.”31

One unfortunate but perhaps expectable consequence of this lack of contextualization even led

one reviewer of Hoover’s book to characterize the resulting image of Ibn Taymīya’s rational

theology as a “rhetorical game.”32

This study therefore attempts to recontextualize Ibn Taymīya’s scholarly profile within

the scholarly traditions of his time, in the conviction that a lack of familiarity with the main

strands of thought that influenced him has done much to setback attempts to summarize his

thought and make it accessible. The main foundations of Ibn Taymīya’s thought will enable us

to situate him within the broader traditions of Islam with which he is posited to make a break

for better analysis. In the end, three main goals will be accomplished:

First, Ibn Taymīya will no longer be presentable as a sui generis anomaly in Islamic

history that represents a fundamental break with his predecessors. Historical analysis,

specifically prosopographical, intellectual, and philological, must necessarily reveal the

foundational constitutional elements for his personage in a framework with defineable

parameters.

Second, the scholarly genealogy of Ibn Taymīya being made clear, an improved ability

to discuss the dual image that exists of both fundamentalist and rationalist. As long as this

divided image in the research continues to exist unexplained, more fruitless work will be done

31
Khalidi, “Review of Ibn Taymiyya's Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism by Jon Hoover,” 60.
32
Tober Mayer, “Review of Ibn Taymiyya's Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism by Jon Hoover,” Journal of Qurʾānic
Studies 10, no. 2 (2008), 88–98: 88.
10
in pointing out the supposed “paradox” of a Ḥanbalī rationalist, or fideist philosopher –

persistent representations of his anomalous profile that stubbornly evade intellectual

genealogy.

Third, the framework necessary to achieve this goal will necessarily cover broad

expanses of time, and subject to scrutiny the various paradigms through which “reason,”

“traditionalism,” and “scripturalism” must be qualified before we can speak of Ibn Taymīya’s

relationship to them.

This brings up a theoretical point from contemporary anthropological studies on Islam,

which, despite much current speculation on its epistemological strenghts, can find an actual

example of effective implementation in this dissertation, and thus serve as a poof to

anthropologists of the merits of philology and historical-critical study of texts. The point at

hand is that articulated by Talal Asad in an influential 1986 essay entitled “The Idea of an

Anthropology of Islam,”33 wherein the problem of multiple forms of Islam, or “Islams,” is

mediated through the concept of “discursive tradition” inspired by Thomist philosopher

Alasdair MacIntyre.34 Muslim “tradition” in this framework applies to:

discourses that seek to instruct practitioners regarding the correct form and purpose of
a given practice that, precisely because it is established, has a history. These discourses
relate conceptually to a past (when the practice was instituted, and from which the
knowledge of its point and proper performance has been transmitted) and a future (how
the point of that pracrice can best be secured in the short of long term, or why it should
be modified or abandoned), through a present (how it is linked to other practices,
institutions, and social conditions).35

33
Delivered in Georgetown in that year, it was only formally reprinted later; see Talal Asad, “The Idea of an
Anthropology of Islam,” Qui Parle 17, no. 2 (2009), 1–30.
34
Ibid., 20, n. 27.
35
Ibid., 20.
11
From this perspective, the heterogeneity of Islam can be mitigated via discursive analysis of

multiple visions of “coherence” for Islamic normativity, entailing as Asad points out, “the

kinds of reasoning, and the reasons for arguing, that underlie Islamic traditional practices.”36

On the basis of this dissertation, it will be shown in fact, that nowhere is such reasoning

applied more consistently in Islam then in “traditions” (viz. discourses) related to

“rationalism” and “scripturalism,” both inherently bound up with Muslim belief in the

communicatible universality of Islam’s religious message. Furthermore, the student of these

discourses is not limited to mere symbolic “intuition” of the negotation of the temporal

relations entailed in them (their past, present, and future, according to Asad), but finds them

explicitly spelled out in seminal works of Muslim scholarship: Muslim scholastic methods came

to convey explicit parameters for theological visions which consciously negotiated the past

and present as a dialectic between the genesis point of a normative method and historical

experience. Such discursive developments, however, are only traceable to us via the paper

trail they leave behind – the analysis of which is greatly facilitated through a diachronic

philological approach.

Ibn Taymīya’s work, it will be asserted here, can only be understood via the contingent

genealogy of scholarly lineages and methodological discourses that informed discursive

normativity for Muslims across large swathes of society and over large stretches of time in the

time preceding him. The mere fact that these lineages and discourses happen to change over

time not only problematizes simplistic (unexaminedly universalistic) notions of a “tradition”

or “reason” which Ibn Taymīya is juxtaposed with, but a deeper analysis of them helps us to

36
Ibid., 23.
12
understand how these were formed, the scholarly terms used to that end, and evaluate Ibn

Taymīya’s relationship to them, both historically and methodologically.

Framework of the Dissertation

This dissertation is composed of seven chapters:

1. Damascus’ Scholarly and Historiographical Significance

Part I. The Emergence of the Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī Schools as Defenders of Sunnī Theological
Normativity
2. Revelational vs. Kalām: The Roots of Contention and the Rise of al-Shāfiʿī
3. Orthodoxy, Scripture, and the Public Order: the Miḥna and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal
Part II. Paradigmatic Factors for the Historical Trajectory of the Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī Schools
4. Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī and the Sunnī Epistemic Shift
5. Methodology in Contention: the Ḥanbalī School
6. The Qādirī Creed and the Public and Private Negotiation of Islamic Tradition
Part II. Constitutive Discursive Practices and Formations for Ibn Taymīya’s Time
7. Scholarly Contentions in Damascus Before the Mongol Invasion
8. The Ḥanbalīs of Ḥarrān up to the Mongol Invasion
9. A Prolegomena to the Study of Ibn Taymīya
10. Conclusion

The first chapter aims to provide a social setting for Ibn Taymīya’s scholarly actitivty,

focusing on the city of Damascus and its dominant scholarly lineages there as situated over the

5th-7th/11th-13th centuries. Experiencing a political renaissance during that period, Damascus

became home and institutional base for scholarly networks destined to be highly influential in

the aftermath of the Mongol invasion. The two most prominent of these, the Shāfiʿī and the

Ḥanbalī madhhabs, it will be argued, form distinct historiographical traditions with different

visions of authoritative scholarly genealogy and theological normativity. That of the Shāfiʿī

school was destined to be dominant for that city, and for Muslim historiography in general,

and thus influential for the foils of normativity with which Ibn Taymīya is contrasted. In

contrast, the Ḥanbalī school, though a minority, was destined to occupy an elevated position

13
after the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols, and represents the alternative scholarly genealogy

and historiographical vision from which Ibn Taymīya must be contextualized.

The second chapter aims to problematize the later split between these two schools as

not a historical inevitablity, but in need of further scrutiny due to their common contextual

origins and discursive frameworks. The eponyms of both the Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī schools

emerged in the 2nd/8th century as significant defenders and articulators of an orientation that I

have labeled “revelational-prioritism,” common to many schools of Islam, but of particular

significance in juxtaposition with the Muʿtazilite school known for its “reason” based claims to

universalist religious authority embodied in the practice of kalām.

The scholarly networks to which both al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204/820) and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d.

241/855) belonged were unified by a devotion to the Prophet’s practice or sunna, concerned

with a practice of religious transmission of revelational material back to the Prophet’s time.

Challenged by the Muʿtazilites standard of “reason,” posited as antithetical to “emulative

tradition” (taqlīd) and “scripture,” both figures defended their position in archetypal ways for

future generations. Al-Shāfiʿī, basing uṣūl al-fiqh as a scripturally-based form of reasoning, was

also able to articulate a scripturally-based defense for the epistemological worth of ḥadīth as

extra-Qurʾānic qualifier of scriptural statements articulated. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, confronted by

Muʿtazilite interpretive norms during the controversy of the created Qurʾān or Miḥna, upheld

the primacy of revelational language for establishing correct interpretation over a standard

alien to the Prophetic context. Yet even as these figures united their followers in scholarly

networks, the usage of ḥadīth, and revelational-prioritism, a break was implicit in the ethos of

the respective camps; al-Shāfiʿī’s uṣūl al-fiqh inspired followers upholding scriptural reasoning

14
without emulation (taqlīd), and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s upholding emulation as a sign of continuity

with the sunna, particular in matters of theology.

The third chapter seeks to explain the rise of Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/936), as

representing a shift in reconciliation between the rational prioritism of the Muʿtazilites and

revelational prioritism of early Sunnīs to create a Sunnī kalām. His argumentation was

paradigmatic for many thinkers to follow, and was destined to find a home among the

followers of al-Shāfiʿī in line with the anti-emulationist ethos of his school. A non-

emulationist methodology, founded on rationalist theological method and a more developed

natural language theory vindicated key Sunnī theological positions vis-à-vis the Muʿtazilites

and other schools, and represented a civilizational turning point for those inspired by previous

generations to verify their doctrines on the basis of reason. This new “Ashʿarite” ethos

inspired new generations of Sunnī kalām practitioners, particularly in the Shāfiʿī school, and

eventually led to tensions with their Ḥanbalī peers, which is duly documented on both sides of

the debate.

As will be shown, debates between Ashʿarī theologians and their Ḥanbalī counterparts

centered on the topic of the created Qurʾān as well as the proper basis of scriptural

interpretation in a way strikingly parallel to previous debates between early Sunnīs and

Muʿtazilites. That being said, this chapter will also shed light on the hitherto

underappreciated development of Ḥanbalī kalām, developed by leaders of that school, in

particular al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā (d. 458/1065) in its historical center of instruction, Baghdad. This

Baghdad Ḥanbalī kalām also articulated a reason-based anti-emulative vision of orthodoxy in

contention with their Ashʿarī counterparts which will be the subject of analysis as well.

15
 The fourth chapter explains how such theological debates between Ashʿarīs and

Ḥanbalīs actually played out in the public sphere, particularly after the issuing of the Qādirī

creed at the beginning of the 5th/11th century, in which the prohibition of “innovation” was a

watchword for orthodoxy. Ironically, this lead to the development of public representations of

the respective schools which belied the intellectual developments which had taken place

among their adherents for the sake of a more perfect representation of tradition, or continuity

with the earliest generations of Muslims or salaf. This took place both in Nishapur, an

increasingly important center of Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿīs, in which Ashʿarī kalām ironically was

incorporated into a new “tradition” which utilized emulative-traditionalist ideals to justify its

existence. The Ḥanbalīs of Baghdad, even in their public denouncements of Ashʿarism,

likewise show a concern with concealing or minimizing their engagement with “innovation”

despite the efflorescence of kalām and other rationalist practices in their midst, leading to

tricky negotiations of orthodoxy in public and private spheres of Islamic society – most of

which is unfamiliar to the research given the Mongol destruction of that social configuration.

The fifth chapter moves back to Damascus of the 5th-7th/11th-13th centuries to see how

these Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī theological divisions are mapped on to the scholarly lineages of that

society. It will be shown that the Ḥanbalīs there in fact retained a strict rejectionist attitude

towards kalām throughout that period, in what must have been conscious disagreement with

their Baghdad peers, despite their openness to uṣūl al-fiqh and other such disciplines.

Damascene Ashʿarism, on the other hand, was generally characterized by the emulative-

traditionalist narrative articulated by the Nishapur school in the preceding centuries. These

informed public contentions on theology similar to those in Baghdad, but in which the Shāfiʿī-

16
Ashʿarī paradigm gained the upperhand, before a temporary lull in such debates due to the

Mongol invasion, which was ultimately broken by Ibn Taymīya.

The sixth chapter turns focus to the city of Ḥarrān, Ibn Taymīya’s ancestral home.

Before its destruction by the Mongols it was predominantly Ḥanbalī, and it is in the Ḥanbalī

scholarly ranks patronized by the same elites who rebuilt Damascus in the 5th-6th/ 11th-12th

centuries that Ibn Taymīya’s own family rose to prominence there. Via Ibn Taymīya’s own

scholarly lineage through his family, we are able to place him within the Ḥanbalī kalām

tradition of Baghdad, which we must set in contradistinction to the orientation of the Ḥanbalī

school of Damascus which he would join after the Mongol destruction of Ḥarrān.

The seventh chapter attempts to summarize the previous chapters by explaining Ibn

Taymīya’s scholarly profile by analysis of the scholarly lineages, discursive paradigms, and

intellectual positions that defined his life and work. This will entail a discussion of his

relationship to the Damascene scholarly networks, both Ḥanbalī and Shāfiʿī of the 7th/13th

century, as well as the unique configurations of the same which undergirded his scholarly

formation and defined the frameworks of his participation in the scholarly discourse of the

time. As a paradigmatic document for historical-critical source analysis, his al-Fatwā al-

Ḥamawīya will be chosen, since it was a public text which not only provides a statement of

first principles emblematic for his later works, but also was a public document the

dissemination of which precipitated the controversy which was to engulf his name from that

period hence. On the basis of philological study of this document we will be able to more

precisely determine the nature of his relationship to the various Islamic “traditions” which

preceded him, and explain the various dimensions of his thought which have been isolated as

17
too rationalist for a scripturalist, too scripturalist for a rationalist. Such unqualified

categories, however, will necessarily become problematized by the time this study is finished,

because of the historical contingencies that have determined Muslims’ relationship to them

over history, of which Ibn Taymīya is but a part.

18
Chapter One – Damascus’ Scholarly and Historiographical Significance

Our study commences with a look at Ibn Taymīya’s social environment. From the

outset, the idea of a unified social environment may be broken down into primary

geographical units, each with a distinct history and cultural makeup. Assessing the facets of

the underlying human narrative behind each of these units allows us to perceive what the

Selbstbild of their respective inhabitants may be. This is true of any human settlement, but as

we shall see in the case of Ibn Taymīya, the particular constellation of relevant units unto itself

reveals a story about the Muslim world just as important for the history of Islam as for the

character of the man himself.

In terms of geography we are speaking of an individual born in Harran forced by

political circumstances to emigrate to Damascus. However, the cultural associations which the

sources reveal to us about these two cities allow us to explain more fully why a relocation of

this nature potentially held the means for a dynamic agency in the intellectual life of a Muslim

scholar: Harran was a declining frontier-city on the brink of demise at the hands of the Mongol

onslaught; meanwhile, Damascus was the newly resuscitated former-capital of the Islamic

world, beckoning with replenished means of material and scholarly advancement and an

openness to a diversity of immigrants from around the Muslim world. Harran was a bastion of

the Ḥanbalī school of jurisprudence and theology, and had been so for many generations.

Damascus, on the other hand, was, though generally diverse in makeup, dominated by the

Shāfiʿī school and its theologians of the Ashʿarī school, who had an uneasy relationship with

the Ḥanbalī school whether in Damascus or otherwise. It is the very makeup of these two

19
cities then, that predetermines from the outset that our story is one of a refugee Ḥanbalī

scholar navigating the delicate sectarian equilibrium established by his host city of Damascus.

The unspoken missing element in the juxtaposition of these two cities is undoubtedly

Baghdad; and with good reason. The Abbasid capital city had been pillaged at the hands of the

Mongols just three years before Ibn Taymīya’s birth. Although the city survived in a

diminished state, it lost wholesale the pivotal role it had played in past centuries for the

efflorescence of Muslim religious thought and culture. In days of yesteryear this cultural

center had been a natural dissemination point of culture to the geographical extremes of the

Muslim world; literary fashions and scholarly methods were invented here, names were made

and ruined, and points of controversy which originated here necessarily found themselves

reenacted with new advocates and antagonists far from their place of origin. The Muslim

world was also indebted to Baghdad as a pioneer in the establishment of some of the first

Muslim “colleges,” and in particular the Niẓāmīya whose star academic Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī

(d. 505 AH/1111 CE) had revolutionized the scholarly pursuit of Islam at the highest level. Lest

we forget, this too had been the historical birthplace and learning center of the Ḥanbalī school

to which any Ḥanbalī worth his salt had to travel in order to stay abreast of the latest positions

held by its scholarly authorities. Needless to say, the role of Baghdad will be constantly

revisited throughout our study.

As this chapter examines the rehabilitation of Damascus as cultural capital of Islam, it

will focus on certain pivotal themes. First, we are concerned with the city’s material

development, especially as pertains to the cultivation and development of a type of religious

scholarly class which was archetypal for late classical Islam. Second, we will focus on the

20
establishment of two scholarly communities in Damascus in particular, the Shāfiʿī madhhab

and the Ḥanbalī madhhab in their Damascene manifestations. Both of these communities

possessed their own scholarly genealogy, intellectual trajectory, and, most importantly,

articulation of historical memory of Islam. In Damascus’ rebirth as normative center for

Islamic scholarship, the respective worldview of these two groups would become the basis of

archetypal disputes among Sunnī scholars about the nature of Islamic normativity until the

present day, both as evocative and compelling then as now. Again, it is only in the context of

the historical contention of these two groups that Ibn Taymīya’s own intervention in Islamic

discourse can be fully appreciated in its origins and conclusions.

1.1 The Rebirth of Damascus

Once the capital of the Islamic world under the rule of the Umayyads (r. 40-132/ ),

Damascus had been relegated to provincial status with Abbasid political ascension and the rise

of Baghdad as the new seat of power. As the Fatimid counter-caliphate rose in the West during

the 4th/10th century, the city fell to their eastward expansion, and despite the occasional

rebellion, was retained merely as a tax farm in a regional buffer formed between Fatimid Egypt

and its Eastern rivals.1

The return of Damascus to Sunnī temporal dominion took place when Seljuks occupied

the city in 468/1075 and renewed its formal affiliation to the Abbasid caliphate.2 After

1
Thierry Bianquis, Damas et la Syrie Sous la Domination Fatimide (359-468/969-1076), 2 vols. (Damascus: Institut
Français de Damas, 1989), vol. 2, 652 ff.
2
Ibid., vol. 2, 649 f. The first Seljuk ruler of the city, Atzis b. Uvak, had initially been invited to the region by
Fatimid caliph al-Mustanṣir (r. 426-487/1036-1094) to control local Bedouin, but after a falling out, seized the
opportunity to assert Seljuk authority; see Darley-Doran, R.E., EI2, s.v. “Saldjūḳids. 4. The Saldjūḳs of Syria.” His
successor Tutush, however, ended up seeking support of Fatimids to make his own territorial expansions, he even
21
498/1104, a period of strategic weakness for the Seljuks opened the way for local governorship

of a former Seljuk atabeg and his descendants, the so-called Būrids.3 This period of Seljuk and

Būrid rule marks the beginning of the city’s renaissance, which would continue over the next

two centuries. By the time the famous Nūr al-Dīn Zangī (d. 569/1174) entered Damascus in

549/1154, the city was fit to be reestablished as a major Islamic capital for the first time after

approximately four hundred years.4

The Umayyad palace originally present to the south of the Umayyad Mosque was gone.

The Seljuks for their new residence commenced with the construction of the Damascus citadel,

which was completed by the Būrids, and stands to this day, Construction began with Seljuk

rule, and continued into Būrid period, especially under Shams al-Mulūk (d. 529/1135). it had

its own water supply (in part from nearby Barada), bath (ḥammām), and prayer areas.5 To the

north was the Dār al-Sumayṣatī which was a refuge for pilgrims on their journey. To the

southwest, the Seljuk prince Duqāq built the first bīmāristān.6 But beyond these public works,

the first among many to come, the city would also find the public face of religion altered by

the institutional ambitions of the elite.

offered to marry a daughter of al-Mustanṣir’s vizier Badr al-Jamālī (d. 487/101094) - this never worked out; see
Jean-Michel Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154) (Cairo: Institut
Français d'Archéologie Orientale, 1994), 96.
3
See R. Le Tourneau, EI2, s.v. “Būrids.” The founder of this “dynasty,” Tughtakīn, who had been confidant of
Tutush, also cultivated a political relationship with Ismāʿīlīs in the region – this time the Nizārī daʿwa – for
strategic reasons. Once his rule ended in 522/1128, his successor Būrī ordered a bloody purge of Ismāʿīlī
sympathizers in the city the following year; see ibid., 130–3. See also Farhad Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs, 2nd ed. (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 347 ff.
4
Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and social practice in medieval Damascus, 1190-1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994), 169: 37.
5
Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 173–5.
6
Ibid., 14.
22
1.1.1 Religious Life in Damascus from the Seljuks to the Mamluks

One of the most notable physical changes brought to the city by its new rulers was the

establishment of schools (madrasas). Although these places of learning flourished and became

the normative space for religious instruction in later times, they were unprecedented in the

city. Previous to this, shaykhs taught privately in their homes, or in communal places such as

mosques, and in the case of Damascus, it was the main congregational mosque (jāmiʿ), also

called the Umayyad Mosque, that traditionally was viewed as the principal intellectual foyer of

the city. Possessing what was believed to be an original ʿUthmānic codex, it was viewed as an

ancient and living link to the first generations of Islam, and after consolidating their power

over the city, Seljuks began its restoration after skirmishes with the Fatimids in 461/1069 had

subjected it to fire damage.7

Teaching took place there in learning circles (ḥalqah) or sessions (majlis), the master

sitting at the foot of a pillar, either on the floor or on a chair specially designated for him.8 The

majlis was used to describe the setting for sermons (waʿẓ) and spiritual exhortation, while the

ḥalqa generally described the lessons of fiqh or ḥadīth.9 Circles would emerge and then cease

when their founder died, left down, or was banned by a prince.10 Persistence continued on the

basis of authority from the students of a teacher, adherents of a legal school, or even

something like “gatherings for debate” (ḥalqat al-munāẓara).11

7
Ibid., 253.The fire broke out during skirmishes between partisans and adversaries of the Fatimids, see ibid., 17,
257.
8
Ibid., 259.
9
Ibid., 259–60.
10
Ibid., 260.
11
Ibid.
23
 During this period an institution called the zāwiya is also mentioned. Though

commonly used in later times exclusively for places of Sufi gathering, the zāwiya at this time

could be used to describe a part of the Umayyad mosque devoted to specific lessons in religious

instruction. This also had somewhat of an institutional character, and its chair being

transmitted over generations, we see them also mentioned as beneficiaries of waqfs.12 The first

of these mentioned in the sources was al-zāwiyah al-gharbīyah also called al-naṣrīyah in the NW

corner of the Mosque.13 It was named after city’s prominent Shāfiʿī scholar Naṣr al-Maqdisī

who presided over his ḥalqah there.14 He taught Shāfiʿī fiqh, as well as ḥadīth, giving public

readings of the Saḥīḥ of Bukhārī, a widely taught ḥadīth collection in this period.15

The Umayyad mosque also served as a refuge for men of religion who were lacking

material means, the Ḥanbalī scholar Wahb. b. Farrāj is one example.16 Ibn Jubayr (d. 614/1217)

saw that such men stayed in the eastern part of the building. Above them loomed the Eastern

Minaret where tradition prophecied of Jesus’ return; facing this was the Western Minaret,

frequently inhabited by ascetics, which had various rooms in it. Among its illustrious

inhabitants was al-Ghazālī, who made his famous spiritual retreat there.17

The Shāfiʿī madhhab, to which al-Ghazālī adhered, had well established roots in the city

and was the dominant legal school there. Al-Ghazālī’s own sojourn in Damascus, precipitated

by a spiritual crisis, did not keep him from contributing to scholarly life there; in fact, he

became part of the scholarly lineage of Damascus. His own intellectual heritage, characterized

12
Ibid., 261.
13
Ibid., 260.
14
Ibid., 260–1.
15
Ibid., 261–2.
16
Ibid., 258.
17
Ibid.
24
by trends in the Shāfiʿī school of the highest intellectual import for the history of Islam, as we

shall see, thus became infused with the local tradition in an unindelible manner.

1.2 Al-Ghazālī and the Shāfiʿī School of Damascus

Al-Ghazālī came to Damascus during a two-year spiritual quest embarked upon after his

sudden renouncement of the prestigious teaching chair of the Niẓāmīya madrasa in the Abbasid

capital city of Baghdad (he held the position from 484–488 AH/1091-2-1095 CE).18 The reason

for this unexpected course of action, according to al-Ghazālī’s own testimony, was a personal

epistemological crisis suffered in silence: During his tenure in Baghdad, he was entrusted with

the weighty task of appearing before thousands of pupils to teach them the absolute basis

upon which God’s existence, the nature of the created universe, and the principles of divine

law could be demonstrated.

He was eminently capable of performing this task to the extent that he was prepared to

do so in his youth by the pioneering mujtahid in methods of Ashʿarī kalām-based theology19 and

legal theory Abū’l-Maʿālī “Imām al-Ḥaramayn” al-Juwaynī (d. 478 AH/1085-6 CE). Al-Ghazālī’s

academic freedom also allowed him to examine more closely the claims to absolute truth held

by the sects of Islam, including his own. It was thus a natural choice to immerse himself in

peripatetic philosophy (falsafa) and its auxiliary sciences; these were undergoing a renaissance

at the hands of the disciples of the great Ibn Sina (d. 428/1037), as a discipline devoted to

18
George F. Hourani, “A Revised Chronology of Ghazālī's Writings,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 104, no. 2
(Apr. - Jun., 1984), 289–302: 290.
19
On the origins of kalām see chapter two. On the emergence of al-Juwaynī see chapter four.
25
“knowing existence as it is,” and to reevaluate the basis upon which truth could be necessarily

known.20

By the end of his stay in Baghdad he could write his eternally celebrated refutations

against Ibn Sīnā and the Ismāʿīlīs, undoubtedly the two greatest religious challenges for the

premiere Sunnī theologians of the time (the Tahāfut al-Falāsifa and Faḍāʾiḥ al-Bāṭinīya wa-faḍāʾil

al-Mustaẓhirīya respectively).21 Ibn Sīnā’s thought had been a formidable challenge for the

intellectual classes, and the Fatimid Ismāʿīlīs combined some of the same ideas with a palpable

political threat.

But despite the forceful argumentation these works by al-Ghazālī, his pronouncements

on the falsehood of these contenders also reiterated a personal dilemma which al-Ghazālī

could not see overcome; namely, the prevalence of human beings – even the so called

philosophers – to take recourse with rhetorical arguments (jadal) and unreflective imitation of

authority (taqlīd) even in the name of reason and knowledge free of error.22 In his attempt to

break free of this mold, al-Ghazālī had a nervous breakdown. If it were not for a “light thrown

in his heart” by God, he would have never recovered. The resolution as he saw it was to be

found in the experiential truth found by the Sufis, internal states which reflected (on a smaller

scale) the states of the prophets who were endowed with direct knowledge from God, the

20
On the context of this encounter, see chapter four.
21
For all the works written in this period, see ibid., 292–5.
22
See Frank Griffel, “Taqlīd of the Philosophers: Al-Ghazālī's Initial Accusation in his Tahāfut,” in Ideas, Images, and
Methods of Portrayal: Insights into Classical Arabic Literature and Islam, ed. Sebastian Günther (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 273–
96.
26
source of all being. Leaving Baghdad, he set out on the Sufi path to certainty, in which

Damascus was part of his itinerary.23

Al-Ghazālī first passed through Damascus as a pilgrim to the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem

in 488/1095, then returned in 489/1096, spending a year there before setting off once more

with the pilgrims to Mecca and Medina in 490/1097.24 Damascus as he saw it was still in the

early stages of renovation under the patronage of the Seljuk amirs, and there were no madrasas

of the kind he knew in Baghdad. He sought admission into the al-Sumaysāṭīya khānaqāh (Sufi

lodge), the oldest of its kind in the city, established a few decades earlier during the Fatimid

period.25 The resident Sufis denied him entry, as they did not know him, and so he took up

residence in the Umayyad Mosque,26 as described above. There, he not only found a haven for

worship and meditation, but also encountered the thriving scholarly activity of Damascus’

Shāfiʿī scholars who represented the dominant madhhab of the city, and became part of its

local lineage which was to later boast such famous names as Ibn ʿAsākir, Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, ʿIzz al-

Dīn b. ʿAbd al-Salām, and al-Nawawī.

As mentioned before, the city’s star scholar at the time was the Shāfiʿī jurisprudent

Naṣr al-Maqdisī, himself an immigrant to the city since 480 from his native Levantine city of

23
See the documentation of his experience in Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, Deliverance from Error: an annotated translation
of al-Ghazālī's al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl and other relevant works of al-Ghazālī, ed. Richard Joseph McCarthy (Louisville,
KY: Fons Vitae, 1999).
24
Tāj al-Dīn Abū Naṣr ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-Kāfī al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, 10 vols., ed.
Maḥmūd Muḥammad al-Ṭanāḥī and ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ al-Ḥilū (Cairo: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth, 1964), vol. 6, 197; Mouton,
Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 319.
25
This Khāneqāh was established in a house which had been inhabited by ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz; see Shams al-Dīn
Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿUthmān al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, 53 vols., ed. ʿUmar ʿAbd al-Salām Tadmurī (Beirut:
Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1410/1990), vol. 6, 134.
26
ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Muḥammad al-Nuʿaymī, Al-Dāris fī tārīkh al-madāris, 2 vols., ed. Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn (Beirut:
Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 1410/1990), vol. 1, 314.
27
Tyre (Ṣūr).27 Naṣr was a prolific author, writing al-Tahdhīb fī’l-madhhab in ten volumes and al-

Intikhāb al-Dimashqī in over ten, works wherein he evaluated the legal reasoning advanced by

his predecessors in the Shāfiʿī madhhab. He also wrote a legal primer called al-Kāfī in one

volume, as well as a theological work al-Ḥujja ʿalā tārik al-maḥajja.28 As indicated above, he was

also a representative of Damascus’s ḥadīth tradition, which as we shall see, blossomed in the

following generation under Nūr al-Dīn and the Ayyubids.29 Al-Ghazālī attended the lessons of

this senior scholar30 finding benefit in his knowledge, and it is said that al-Ghazālī used Naṣr’s

book collection to write the Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, his eternal classic wherein he synthesized the

ethical goals and spiritual horizons of fiqh and Sufism.31 When Naṣr died Tuesday 9 of

Muḥarram, 490 AH/, al-Ghazālī must have been present at his funeral, the turnout to which

was deemed unparalleled.32 Nevertheless, al-Ghazālī’s presence effaced Naṣr’s profile in later

generations, as the western zāwiya named after Naṣr initially came to be known subsequently

as al-zāwiya al-Ghazālīya.

Naṣr was succeeded by his devoted disciple Naṣr Allāh al-Maṣṣīṣī (d. 542/1147).33

Originally born in al-Lādhiqīya, he grew up in Tyre where he learned fiqh from Naṣr al-Maqdisī,

27
The city had just been reconquered by the Fatimids from the Seljuks; see M. Lavergne, EI2, s.v. “Ṣūr.”
28
See al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 33, 348. One contemporary who was in position to know even considered his
jurisprudential knowledge to exceed that of al-Juwaynī, see Abū'l-Qāsim ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib
al-muftarī, ed. Bashīr Muḥammad ʿUyūn (Damascus: Dār al-Bayān, 1431/2010); Retyping of edition by Ḥussām al-
Dīn al-Qudsī, 1347 AH, Damascus: Maktabat al-Tawfīq, 219.
29
He is found in many isnāds that went through the city, and as we saw promoted the reading of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī
in the Umayyad Mosque.
30
Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 319.
31
Ibn Kathīr, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīyīn, 3 vols., ed. Aḥmad ʿUmar Hāshim (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqāfa al-Dīnīya,
1993/1413), vol. 2, 534. Hourani convincingly argues that al-Ghazālī finished his Iḥyāʾ in Damascus, see Hourani,
“A Revised Chronology of Ghazālī's Writings,” 296–7.
32
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī, 219.
33
Ibid., 250–1.
28
and moved to Damascus in 480 (probably to stay in the company of the master).34 Unlike Naṣr,

he was a practitioner of Ashʿarī kalām which he had learned from his teachers in Tyre before

coming to Damascus.35

This affiliation to the Ashʿarī school of theology would become a mainstay for the

Shāfiʿī school of the city. Before the year was out after Naṣr’s death, and before heading out

for the Ḥajj, al-Ghazālī chose his own successor, also from Naṣr’s students: Abū’l-Ḥasan al-

Sulamī (d. 533/1139). Close in age to al-Ghazālī, he had been born in Damascus, learned Shāfiʿī

fiqh, became close disciple of Naṣr al-Maqdisī and was his teaching assistant (muʿīd). After al-

Ghazālī’s arrival to Damascus, he became a devotee of the former, and it was said that al-

Ghazālī “commanded him” to take over the lessons after the death of Naṣr.36 He taught in al-

Ghazālī’s ḥalqa in the Umayyad Mosque, and his fatwas were considered authoritative all over

Syria. Over thirty years later, in 514/1120 he became head of instruction in the first Shāfiʿī

madrasa of Damascus, al-Amīnīya.37

1.3 Madhhabs and Madrasas

Although the Umayyad Mosque was destined to retain its central role in Damascene

religious life even to the present day, the Seljuks left an important imprint on this aspect of

the city through the inauguration of madrasas, a new arrangement destined to solidify

34
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 37, 124-126.
35
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī, 250.
36
Ibid., 248.
37
Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 329. See biography in al-
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 36, 327-329. Cf. the short biography in al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, vol. 7,
236.
29
Damascus’ prominence for Islamic sciences in the city’s post-Fatimid renaissance. The madrasa

was based on the principle of the waqf, a charitable foundation the administration of which

was technically legislated and protected by God’s law outside of the private domain. Created

and funded by private interests, however, its founding charter could be specified to

institutionalize the societal role of a specific legal guild (madhhab), or indeed, of specific

individuals and their families. With the rise of the madrasa in Damascus, we can witness the

intersection of political and academic interests, as well as a significant component in the

formation of a new economy among urban elites dependent on officially designated positions

(manṣib/manāṣib) in teaching and administration.38

The Seljuks, and the Būrids after them, built madrasas, giving material support to Sunnī

Muslim scholars after a long period of Fatimid Shīʿite occupation.39 These efforts increased

especially after the Ismāʿīlī purge of 523/1129,40 the last mention of Ismāʿīlī activity in the city.

These initial rulers tried to promote the Ḥanafī madhhab which they preferred, and from 491 –

546 AH, five Ḥanafī madrasas were built in the city (one outside city walls), compared to three

Shāfiʿī madrasas (one outside the walls), and two Ḥanbalī madrasas.41 Despite the favor given

to the Ḥanafī school, the population largely adhered to the Shāfiʿī madhhab, and this is

reflected in later development trends, when the Shāfiʿī school clearly enjoyed the majority of

such patronage projects. This is also the reason why Shāfiʿī scholars largely held the post of

judge (qāḍī); and from the time of Nūr al-Dīn to the first Mamluke Sultan Baybars they did so

38
See Chamberlain, Knowledge and social practice in medieval Damascus, 1190-1350.
39
Thierry Bianquis and Sarab Atassi-Khattab, “Luttes d'Influence a l'Intérieur du Sunnisme Damascain Entre 400
et 550 de l'Hégire,” Bulletin d'Études Orientales, XXX (1978), 361–73: 365–6.
40
Mouton 344.
41
Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 267.
30
continuously.42 The Banū Zakī al-Qurashī, one prominent Shāfiʿī scholarly family, held it

almost as a hereditary post.43

Ḥanafī scholars were initially few, and so had to be brought in from abroad by

invitation of the Seljuk rulers.44 Conflict resulted when Muḥammad al-Balāsaghūnī, one of the

few Ḥanafite Qāḍīs, appointed a Ḥanafī to lead Friday prayer (the madhhabs prayed separately

except for this one prayer45); the Shāfiʿīs refused to pray behind him and congregated

elsewhere.46 It was even rumored that al-Balāsaghūnī hated the Shāfiʿīs and Mālikīs, and

privately wished he could exact the jizya on the former.47 The stay of another prominent

Ḥanafī scholar, Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Balkhī (d. 548/1143), was marred by conflicts with the Ḥanbalīs

whom he publicly declaimed.48 Never able to reach dominance, the Ḥanafī school nevertheless

thrived.

The Mālikīs had no madrasa until the rule of Nūr al-Dīn al-Zangī, but their numbers

increased given the increasing number of immigrants from the West, most of them from al-

Andalus. At the time there was no identifiable emigratory movement which explains this, and

so it must have come down to choice. Pilgrimage to Mecca or Jerusalem would have brought

them East, this is what brought scholars from N. Africa to the city. The establishment of a

learning corner (zāwiya) in the Umayyad mosque must have occurred soon, and teaching

42
Ibid., 354–5. There was no qāḍī appointed by the rulers during the Fatimid rule, and so this was resumed at the
time, and presented a coveted position.
43
Ibid., 355.
44
Ibid., 331–2.
45
Ibid., 362.
46
Ibid., 363.
47
See ibid., 334.
48
See al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 37, 317; Abū'l-Qāsim ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, 71 vols., ed.
al-ʿUmarī, ʿUmar b. Gharāma (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1417/1996), vol. 41, 339-340.
31
positions. The Mālikī scholar Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī of Seville thought it worth coming twice

to Damascus during his Eastern travels from 485-492/1092-1099, in between which he went to

Baghdad and met al-Ghazālī.49

Later migratory patterns differed: The population from al-Andalus was never large in

numbers, though it increased in the 13th century, especially as the “reconquista” affected

Muslims during the reign of Fernando III of Castilla (1217-1252), during which the cities of

Mallorca (627/1230), Cordoba (633/1236), Morcia (641/1243) and Sevilla (646/1248) were taken.

For this reason we hear of many refugees in Egypt, (Alexandria, Cairo, upper Egypt in that

order), but also Damascus.50 Among the most famous of this wave of emigrants from al-

Andalus was the great Sufi Muḥyī al-Dīn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240).51 When he came to Damascus,

he built strong ties with the Banū al-Zakī, even being buried in their family plot.52 No less

important, though for other reasons, was the renowned Andalusian grammarian Ibn Mālik (d.

672/1274), author of the immortal al-Alfīya text (studied to this day), who upon his arrival

seems to have joined the Shāfiʿī school.53

As for the Ḥanbalīs: Out of the ten madrasas built during Seljuk/Būrid rule, the two

Ḥanbalī madrasas were the only ones not built by the ruling class. When the first Ḥanbalī

mosque was built ca. 530 AH, by the scholar Abū’l-Faraj ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shīrāzī,54 the

Shāfiʿīs complained to the authorities that this was in contravention with what the majority of

49
For all this see Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 288 ff.
50
Louis Pouzet, Damas au VIIe-XIIIe Siècle: Vie et structures religieuses d'une métropole islamique, Recherches, Nouvelle
séries. A, Langue arabe et pensée islamique 15 (Beirut: Dar El-Mashreq, 1988), 97.
51
Also among this wave of Western Sufis was ʿAfīf al-Dīn al-Tilimsānī (d. 690/1290), his son al-Shābb al-Ẓarīf (d.
688/1289), and Ḥasan b. ʿAlī Ibn Hūd (d. 699/1300); ibid., 99.
52
Ibid., 44–5.
53
Ibid., 98.
54
See below
32
the populace practiced. Its founder was thus compelled to organize the construction of his

madrasah by night to evade the authorities. Once built, the structure was protected by the

sharīʿa and could not be violated.55

1.4 Ḥadīth, Tradition, and History

Nūr al-Dīn al-Zangī was a great patron of Damascus, and establishing the center as his

city of political command also concentrated wealth there in greater abundance for more public

works.56 The number of madrasas doubled in his twenty year reign from ten to twenty, 57 and

Ibn ʿAsākir in his time could record the names of almost 430 mosques in Damascus and nearby

areas.58 Nūr al-Dīn’s most unique contribution to the public works of Damascus, however, was

also unique in the Islamic world. He built the first madrasa-type institution solely for the

reading of the recorded sayings and actions of the Prophet Muḥammad, the ḥadīth, at the Dār

al-Ḥadīth al-Nūrīya. This he built to be administered by a major figure of the period, the

Shāfiʿī scholar and muḥaddith Ibn ʿAsākir (d. 571/1175) – a student of both Abū’l-Ḥasan al-

Sulamī and al-Maṣṣīṣī mentioned above – and the coveted position stayed under the

administration of the latter’s family for over a century.59

55
Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 137, 268. This will be revisited
below in our study of the Ḥanbalī school of Damascus.
56
Pouzet, Damas au VIIe-XIIIe Siècle, 151.
57
Ibid., 152.
58
Daniella Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids and
Ayyūbids (1146-1260) (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 31.
59
See Eerik Dickinson, “Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ al-Shahrazūrī and the Isnād,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 122, no. 3
(Jul. - Sep., 2002), 481–505: 483.
33
 Nūr al-Dīn, and after him, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (d. 589/1193) and his Ayyubid successors,

demonstrated a notable interest in supporting places of ḥadīth recitation and attending the

sessions of the muḥaddithūn. In understanding why they chose to do so, it is important to note

that the practice of ḥadīth narration was in their time, far removed from the historical

circumstances which originally led to the collection of ḥadīth in earlier times. The motivation

behind the earliest narration of ḥadīth was the preservation of the Prophet’s sunna, or

“practice” for his followers to faithfully emulate. Those engaged in this process of

preservation, the muḥaddithūn, often travelled extensively to gather what material had been

dispersed among the various Muslim settlements established in the early conquests. By the

3rd/9th century, a large network of muḥaddithūn from Central Asia to Spain existed, among

which were prominent names sought out for their reliability in ascertaining the authenticity

of the oral material they transmitted. At that time specific collections of ḥadīth were penned

which gained wide recognition, such as the Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, and others.60

Once such authoritative books existed, the function of oral transmission in the pursuit

of authentic documentation naturally declined. That orality and public performance

nevertheless widely persisted around the Muslim world, must be explained in the associated

devotional meanings of emulating the pious predecessors (al-salaf) who inaugurated such

practices, reciting the words of the Prophet as directly as possible, and preserving a

documented chain to him as well, the isnād. The ḥadīth sessions such as the ones presided over

by Ibn ʿAsākir were a part of public religious life, a type of religious devotional tradition

60
See Jonathan Brown, The Canonization of Al-Bukhārī and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunnī Ḥadīth Canon
(Leiden: Brill, 2007).
34
unique to Islam.61 Centers of ḥadīth transmissions functioned as living links to the Prophetic

past and revelational authenticity.

This does not mean that a muḥaddith in later times had nothing to contribute to Islamic

scholarship. Ḥadīth naturally had an important place in the derivation of fiqh. But one of the

most overlooked contributions of the muḥaddithūn to Islamic civilization, however, is

undoubtedly the writing of history. The desire to verify the authenticity of ḥadīth through

isnād had required considerable efforts in identifying the names of those who reported them,

by location and death-date, as well as pertinent biographical and genealogical information.

Documentation of the Prophet’s life for later generations necessarily dictated the

documentation of the generations which followed him. The inauguration of a genre limited

opened up the doors for a much larger one, and it should not be surprising that the majority of

Muslim historians in both early and later times were involved with ḥadīth as a rule rather than

an exception.

Tradition and history being inexorably linked together, Ibn ʿAsākir was one prominent

representative of this nexus of interests. His magnum opus, Tārīkh Dimashq (The History of

Damascus) recorded the history of Damascus from Biblical Times to the present, and more

(being in fact history of anyone who had anything to do with Damascus). The work reflects the

achievements of many past chroniclers, but also reveals the thriving nature of ḥadīth narration

in his own time, his isnāds presenting a snapshot of the narrators in the Ḥijāz, Levant, Iraq, and

Iran. It is in this sense a valuable artifact of his own time, as a celebration of ḥadīth, in a city

61
See Dickinson, “Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ al-Shahrazūrī and the Isnād,” in general, and now Garrett Davidson, “Carrying on
the Tradition: An Intellectual and Social History of Post-Canonical Hadith Transmission” (PhD Dissertation,
University of Chicago, 2014).
35
experiencing a renaissance after its decline under Fatimid rule, being restored to some

semblance of its former glory. Ibn ʿAsākir read his history in the Umayyad mosque, and his

son Bahāʾ al-Dīn (d. 600/1203) did so afterwards too. Abū Shāma (d. 665/1267), a prominent

muḥaddith and student of Ibn ʿAsākir’s nephew, later read an abridgement of it there as well, as

his own works of history.62

The Shāfiʿī school was dominant, linked with important scholastic genealogies, situated

in powerful scholarly families, and overseeing some of the most important public institutions,

ultimately contributed to a living worldview as well as historiographical tradition which would

be indispensable for Muslims in their time and subsequently thereafter, especially given the

cultural shift to Syria after the Mongol invasion.

However, the historical memory of this school ultimately enjoyed the rivalry of another

school, equally as old and part of Muslim lived experience. It had its own scholarly lineages, its

own religious authorities, and its own historians and constructors of historical memory

contemporaneous to those Shāfiʿī scholars whom we have read about: the Ḥanbalī school. The

Ḥanbalī school of Damascus, forming in a parallel trajectory to that of its Shāfiʿī counterpart,

was self-sufficient enough in its sense as a community and in its own historiographical

tradition. Even topographically it found its own geographic space by which it distinguished

itself as a living and separate practice. It is this school from which Ibn Taymīya emerged, and

whose worldview he was essentially indebted to.

62
Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria, 73.
36
1.5 The Ḥanbalī School of Damascus

It is precisely in the period which we have been studying, i.e., that of Damascus’ post-

Fatimid renaissance, that the Ḥanbalī school emerged there in significant numbers. In this

time, three prominent Ḥanbalī families came to be known who would subsequently take on

prominent roles in the public life of the city, the Banū’l-Ḥanbalī, the Banū’l-Munajjā, and –

most importantly – the Banū Qudāma.63 The city in fact would become one of the chief hubs of

the Ḥanbalī school, and after the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols, its unrivaled center of

instruction. It is no exaggeration to say that from the Mongol invasion to the present day,

Ḥanbalī law is essentially a product of the Damascene Ḥanbalī school.

It is imperative that we become acquainted with these scholarly families, because their

lives illustrate for us the nature of the Ḥanbalī school’s relationship to Damascene life, and the

way in which its own scholarly lineages formed a parallel tradition to that of the Shāfiʿī

majority we have just learned of. Their own charismatic personages, scholars, and historians

formed the basis of an alternative view of Islamic history, religious authority, and theology

itself.

63
Laoust describes three “dynasties:”descendants of Abū’l-Faraj al-Shirāzī, the Banū Munajjā, and the Banū
Qudāma Henri Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),” Revue des Études Islamiques
27 (1959), 67–128: 121.
37
1.5.1 Abū’l-Faraj al-Shīrāzī and the Banū’l-Ḥanbalī

The Ḥanbalī school was properly established in Damascus during the first years of

Seljuk rule, chiefly by the efforts of Abū’l-Faraj ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Shīrāzī (d. 486/1093). The son

of a Sufi shaykh from Shīrāz called Abū ʿAbd Allāh, his family had relocated to Palestine for

unknown reasons.64 After reaching maturity and likely completing his initial studies including

memorization of the Qurʾān, he went to Baghdad in 442/1050-1 to continue his studies. This

was a rite of passage which will becomes familiar to us, as any Ḥanbalī had to do the same. The

unrivaled center of the Ḥanbalī school had been, since the life of its eponym, the ʿAbbāsid

capital city of Baghdad. There Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal had lived and taught his sons and disciples,

and the authorities of the school never strayed too far.65 Abū’l-Faraj studied there under the

tutelage of the most prominent Ḥanbalī figure of the time, al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā (d, 458/1064),

learning fiqh and theology for several years, and copying out his master’s works.66

Once he came back from Baghdad he spread the teachings with considerable success,

with a spirit that has been described as “véritablement une ouvre missionaire.”67 He based

himself in Jerusalem and taught the Ḥanbalī madhhab there and in the surrounding environs

(nashara madhhab al-Imām Aḥmad fī mā ḥawlahu).68 He gained acclaim from the local populace as

a Sufi, and miracles at his hands were reported, and to have even met with the mysterious

64
He was born in Ḥarrān but does not seem to have lived there, see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 33, 179-180.
65
See Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),”
66
As recalled by Abū Yaʿlā’s son, see Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, 5 vols., ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b.
Sulaymān al-ʿUthaymīn (Riyadh: Maktabat al-ʿUbaykān, 1425/2005), vol. 1, 158; Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté
Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 335.
67
Ibid.
68
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 157.
38
figure mentioned in the Qurʾān called Khiḍr.69 The Banū Qudāma, even at the peak of their

later prominence even felt their scholarly careers indebted to his baraka, since when they

visited him during a sojourn of his in Jerusalem, his prayer had been a means for their

grandfather Qudāma to memorize the Qurʾān.70

Abū’l-Faraj was a prolific writer, writing on theology71 (particularly in refutation of

Muʿtazilites and Ashʿarīs) and fiqh,72 and authoring a tafsīr called al-Jawāhir in 30 volumes.73 His

sons followed in his footsteps, and for generations were known by him as “son of the Ḥanbalī”

(Ibn al-Ḥanbalī), such that Abū’l-Faraj can rightly be called “le fondateur d’une véritable

dynastie de savants.”74

When he moved to Damascus, probably at the end of Fatimid control, he gained the

admiration and esteem of the Seljuk amir Tutush, who hosted teaching sessions for him, and

sought his counsel.75 His son Sharaf al-Islām ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (d. 536/1141), also enjoyed good

relations with the rulers, and was sent in 523/1129 as an ambasador by the amir Būrī to the

69
Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿUthmān al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, 3rd ed., 25 vols., ed. Shuʿayb
al-Arnaʾūṭ et al. (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla), vol. 19, 52-53. Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 158
ff.
70
As related by Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma to Naṣiḥ al-Dīn during their study days in Baghdad, see ibid., vol. 1,
160. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Ibn al-Ḥanbalī, Ibn al-Hanbali wa-kitabuhu al-Risāla al-wāḍiḥa fī'l-radd ʿalā al-Ashāʿira: Dirāsa wa-
taḥqīq wa-taʿlīq, 2 vols., ed. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿAlī al-Shibl (Riyadh: Majmūʿat al-tuḥaf al-nafāʾis al-dawlīya li'l-
nashr wa'l-tawzīʿ, 1420/1999), vol. 1, 82.
71
Fought for his theological position, against “reinterpreting reports on [God’s attributes]” (taʾwīl akhbār al-ṣifāt);
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 159. He also wrote theological works entitled al-Īḍāḥ, al-Tabṣira fī
uṣūl al-dīn, and Masāʾil al-imtiḥān; ibid., vol. 1, 161. More on the latter two works in chapter five.
72
His legal works were entitled al-Mubhij, al-Īḍāḥ, al-Mukhtaṣar fī’l-ḥudūd, and he also wrote on Uṣūl al-fiqh, ibid.,
vol. 1, 160-161. His positions are quoted in al-Mughnī by Ibn Qudāma and the Sharḥ al-Hidāya of Majd al-Dīn Ibn
Taymīya; ibid., vol. 1, 162.
73
His daughter Umm Zayn al-Dīn is said to have memorized it; ibid., vol. 1, 161.
74
Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 336.
75
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 157; Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les
Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 336.
39
Caliph’s court in Baghdad.76 Sharaf al-Islām was known for teaching fiqh and tafsīr, and had a

majlis in the Umayyad Mosque.77 He went on to establish the first Ḥanbalī madrasa in

Damascus, called al-Madrasa al-Sharīfīya,78 despite protests of some Shāfiʿī scholars. His

opponents went to Zumurrud Khātūn Umm Shams al-Mulūk to request that she stop its

construction on the pretense that the area was Shāfiʿī, and the building of a Ḥanbalī madrasa

would be harfmul (mafsada/ ḍarar kabīr); the madrasa had to be built at night.79 Sharaf al-

Islām’s son Bahāʾ al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Malik (d. 545/1150) was a prominent scholar and a qāḍī,

studied in Khurasan, and was qualified for issuing fatwas in both Hanbali and Hanafi schools. 80

His other son Najm al-Dīn b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (d. 586), went to Baghdad to study under the

prominent Ḥanbalī scholar Abū’l-Ḥasan b. al-Zāghūnī (d. 527),81 and succeeded his brother

ʿAbd al-Malik as prominent Ḥanbalī in Damascus, the Banū Qudāma deferred to him for

difficult topics.82

Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn (d. 634/1235), son of Najm al-Dīn, was last famous member of the Ibn al-

Ḥanbalī family before the Mongol Invasion. After beginning his studies, he embarked on

travels to Baghdad, Isfahan, Hamadan, Mecca, and Mosul to hear ḥadīth. He carried out his

main fiqh studied in Baghdad with Ibn al-Mannī, an important scholar for the school at that

76
Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 336. Būrī sent him to the
caliph al-Mustarshid bi-llāh to ask for reinforcements against the Crusaders; al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, vol.
20, 103-104; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 447-448.
77
Ibid., vol. 1, 448-449.
78
The al-Sharīfīya Ḥanbalī madrasa was established by him; al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, vol. 19, 53.
79
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 450-451.
80
Ibn al-Ḥanbalī, Ibn al-Hanbali wa-kitabuhu al-Risāla al-wāḍiḥa fī'l-radd ʿalā al-Ashāʿira, vol. 1, 90. See Ibn al-
Qalānisī, Tārīkh Dimashq, ed. Suhayl Zakkār (Damascus: Dār Ḥassān, 1403/1983), 483. See also al-Dhahabī,
Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 37, 224-225.
81
On whom see chapter three.
82
Ibn al-Ḥanbalī, Ibn al-Hanbali wa-kitabuhu al-Risāla al-wāḍiḥa fī'l-radd ʿalā al-Ashāʿira, vol. 1, 90-91.
40
time, as we shall see.83 He gave sermons in Irbil, Aleppo, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Medina. This

may have been in official capacity, as he was a guest of honor of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn in liberated

Jerusalem, and honored officially by the caliph al-Nāṣir in Baghdad in 612.84 Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn

taught in his grandfather’s madrasa before going on to teach in the Mismārīya madrasa with

Abū’l-Maʿālī Ibn al-Munajjā (see below) but at some point took it over, until 625 when Banū’l-

Munajja recuperated their control over it.85 In 628, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s younger sister Rabīʿa Khātūn

(d. 643/1246) built him al-Madrasa al-Ṣāḥibīya on Mt. Qāsyūn, and attended its inaugural

teaching session.86 Rābiʿa was a Ḥanbalī; her spiritual advisor (murshida) Amat al-Laṭīf was

Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn’s daughter.87 This younger sister of Salāḥ al-Dīn was also married to his ally

Muẓaffar al-Dīn of Irbil (d. 630/1232), a sponsor of Ḥanbalī scholarship in Damascus and

abroad;88 otherwise most famous for his elaborate celebrations of the Prophet Muḥammad’s

birthday (mawlid).89

1.5.2 The Banū’l-Munajjā

The progenitor of the family, Wajīh al-Dīn Asʿad b. al-Munajjā b. Barakāt b. al-

Muʿammal (d. 606/1209) moved to Damascus from Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān to the north. He began

83
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 425-426.
84
Ibid., vol. 3, 427. Ibn Rajab narrates Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn’s testimony of meeting Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn in Jerusalem 2 years after
fatḥ and his good rapport with him, and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s fondness for his father Najm al-Dīn; ibid., vol. 3, 427-428.
85
See al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 45, 29.
86
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 428.
87
See Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),” 122–3. Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety
in Medieval Syria, 125.
88
See Claude Cahen, EI2, s.v. “Begteginids.” See his sponsorship of Banū Qudāma later in this chapter, and the
Ḥanbalīs of Ḥarrān in chapter eight.
89
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 45, 403-404.
41
his studies in fiqh in Damascus with Sharaf al-Islām Ibn al-Ḥanbalī and was the last of his

students, before going on to Baghdad to pursue his studies. In Baghdad he learned fiqh from

the famous Ḥanbalī Sufi ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī (d. 561/1161). Upon his return to Syria he enjoyed

political patronage of the elite: the Mismārīya madrasa was built for him by a wealthy

merchant from Ḥūrān (southwest Syria), called al-Ḥasan b. Mismār al-Hilālī (d. 546/1151) who

used to pray the tarāwīḥ prayers in the Ḥanbalī ḥalqa of the Umayyad Mosque.90 He also

enjoyed good relations with the rulers, and was made Qāḍī of Ḥarrān in 657 by Nūr al-Dīn al-

Zangī.91 He was also a dedicated scholar, writing prolifically in fiqh.92

His son ʿUmar (d. 641/1243) was born in Ḥarrān during his days as a qāḍī, grew up

there, learned from his father, came to Damascus heard ḥadīth, travelled to Iraq and

Khurasan.93 He also took over the judgeship (qaḍāʾ) in Ḥarrān for a time as well, but upon his

later settlement in Damascus he taught in al-Mismārīya, and had a position in the dīwān of the

Ayyubid prince al-Malik al-Muʿaẓẓam (r. 615-624/1218-1227).94

The scholarly tradition was kept on through two grandsons of Wajīh al-Dīn:95 Ṣadr al-

Dīn Asʿad b. ʿUthmān b. Asʿad b. al-Munajjā (d. 657/1259) who also established the al-Madrasa

al-Ṣadrīya,96 and Zayn al-Dīn (d. 695/1296), a teacher in the Ḥanbalīya and Sadrīya madrasas.97

90
Al-Nuʿaymī, Al-Dāris fī tārīkh al-madāris, vol. 2, 89.
91
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 43, 200-201; al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, vol. 21, 436-437; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl
ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 98-101, 491.
92
He wrote al-Khulāṣa fī’l-fiqh and al-ʿUmda, and a Sharḥ al-Hidāya in over ten volumes; ibid., vol. 3, 101.
93
Ibid., vol. 3, 491.
94
Ibid., vol. 3, 492. al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 47, 90-91.
95
ʿUmar does not seem to have left behind scholarly progeny. His brother, ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿUthmān b. Asʿad (d.
641/1244) had not been a scholar, but a merchant, but he also participated in the transmission of ḥadīth, and
apparently used to cover for his brother ʿUmar in the Mismārīya when he was not present; ibid., vol. 47, 84-85; Ibn
Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 492. His sons Ṣadr al-Dīn and Zayn al-Dīn kept on the tradition after
him.
96
Ibid., vol. 4, 59. al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 48, 316.
97
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 273.
42
1.5.3 The Venerable Banū Qudāma of al-Ṣāliḥīya

Last but not least are the distinguished Banū Qudāma, who established a legacy of

scholarship worthy enough to inherit the leadership of the Ḥanbalī school after the fall of

Baghdad. They too were immigrants, from the town of Jammāʿīl in the district of Nābulus in

Palestine. They settled on Mt. Qāsyūn, the mountain overlooking Damascus from the north

known as an abode of ascetics and Sufi contemplation. Mt. Qāsyūn was host to a myriad of

holy narratives, supposedly tread by the feet of Abraham, Jesus and Mary, and innumerable

saints.98 The settlement initiated by Banū Qudāma on the mountain was significant enough

that it took on a new name – al-Ṣāliḥīya. This location thus created not only a distinct

scholarly space, but an entiretly separate community.

From the Crusader occupation of Jerusalem in 492/1099 to the fall of Tyre in 518/1124,

refugees to Damascus increased from Palestine and Lebanon, and the arrival of Banū Qudāma

can be seen as part of the same phenomenon.99 As the family lore goes, the family patriarch al-

Shaykh Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Qudāma (d. 558/1162) was compelled to flee from the

persecution of Ibn Bārizān, an oppressive Frankish governor over the Nābulus district. He left

with three family members – his nephew Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr, his brother-in-law ʿAbd al-

Wāḥid b. ʿAlī b. Surūr, and his nephew ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Aḥmad – to Damascus in Rajab

98
Ibn Ṭulūn al-Ṣāliḥī, Muḥammad, al-Qalāʾid al-jawharīya fī tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya, 2nd ed., ed. Muḥammad Aḥmad
Dahmān (Damascus: Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabīya, 1401/1980), 87–95; Toru Miura, “The Ṣāliḥiyya Quarter in the
Suburbs of Damascus: Its Formation, Structure, and Transformation in the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk Periods,” Bulletin
d'Études Orientales XLVII (1995), 129–82: 134.
99
Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 302.
43
551/Aug-Sept. 1156, and the following month he urged his son Abū ʿUmar (d. 607/1210), still in

Jammāʿīl, to follow him with rest of family.

It was considered a hijra, embodying the Prophet Muḥammad’s departure from pagan-

dominated Mecca to the believing community of Medina. This even had Abrahamic precedent,

as al-Shaykh Aḥmad used the line from Abraham (fa-man tabiʿanī fa-innahu minnī wa-man ʿaṣānī

fa-innaka ghafūr raḥīm), to inspire his people to leave. They left in a group of 35 people, 22 of

which were from Qudāma family; over a hundred more joined them in the following period,

some being family from Jammāʿīl, some from nearby villages.100 Among the immigrants was a

new generation who would leave a huge imprint on the community: Al-Shaykh Aḥmad’s eldest

son 1) Abū ʿUmar (d. 607/1210), who was become chief and community leader after his father’s

death; his next eldest son 2) Muwaffaq al-Dīn (d. 620/1223), who was to become the undisputed

premiere scholar of the Ḥanbalī school in his time; and al-Shaykh Aḥmad’s nephew 3) ʿAbd al-

Ghanī al-Maqdisī (d. 600/1203), the son of his sister by ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. ʿAlī b. Surūr, who was

also considered an extraordinary figure in the realm of ḥadīth transmission.101 And later on, 4)

Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn, the son of al-Shaykh Aḥmad’s nephew ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Aḥmad, the muḥaddith

and historian to whom we owe all this information.

The trip to the mountain happened in stages: Twenty three year old Abū ʿUmar, moved

with his father and his ten year old brother al-Muwaffaq to Damascus in 551/1156, stayed in

Abū Ṣāliḥ mosque by Bāb Sharqī in Damascus for two years.102 However, the motivation to

100
Ibn Ṭulūn al-Ṣāliḥī, Muḥammad, al-Qalāʾid al-jawharīya fī tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya, 67–8; Miura, “The Ṣāliḥiyya Quarter in
the Suburbs of Damascus,” 132.
101
ʿAbd al-Ghanī was related to the Banū Qudāma through his mother, al-Shaykh Aḥmad’s daughter.
102
Ibn Ṭulūn al-Ṣāliḥī, Muḥammad, al-Qalāʾid al-jawharīya fī tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya, 65–6; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt
al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 281. The establisher of the mosque’s waqf, Abū Ṣāliḥ, was a Ḥanbalī Sufi; see al-Nuʿaymī, Al-
Dāris fī tārīkh al-madāris, 79–80.
44
leave the city of Damascus came with the onset of an unexplained illness, due to which 40 of

the community died. There were also social tensions: Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn Ibn al-Ḥanbalī says it was

his father Najm al-Dīn who put them in the Abū Ṣāliḥ mosque, and then suggested they move

to the mountain when they got sick, suggesting a completely harmonious picture,103 however,

Naṣiḥ al-Dīn hadn’t been born at the time, and the Banū Qudāma remembered things a bit

differently:

Muwaffaq al-Dīn recalled that when they stayed in Abū Ṣāliḥ mosque, it was run by the

Banū al-Ḥanbalī. Nevertheless their hosts showed apprehension at the acclaim al-Shaykh

Aḥmad was receiving in the city as imam of the mosque, and teacher of the seven recitations of

the Qurʾān, fearing the waqf would be given to him, and forced them to sign an agreement

stating that they were merely guests operating under their auspices.104

Such tension between the two Ḥanbalī families ultimately led to a split: Muwaffaq al-

Dīn tells us that when Ibn Abī ʿAṣrūn (d. 585/1189), the Shāfiʿī scholar and chief qāḍī under Nūr

al-Dīn and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, came to pay a visit, the Banū’l-Ḥanbalī potentially embroiled them in

religious controversy:

When Ibn Abī ʿAṣrūn came to us, my brother [Abū ʿUmar] and I, and al-Ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-
Ghanī went and learned from him a topic in comparative fiqh (masʾala min al-
khilāf)because [of the effort he took in] his walking over to us. At that the Banū’l-
Ḥanbalī started condemning us (yushanniʿūna ʿalaynā) and saying: “They [i.e. the Banū
Qudāma] have become Ashʿarīs and now learn from them!” Or something of that
meaning, so we stopped [seeing Ibn Abī ʿAṣrūn]. [Later, Ibn Abī ʿAṣrūn] met my
brother [Abū ʿUmar] and said, “Did you intentionally stop seeing me (inqaṭaʿtum)?” He
said to him, “They said you were an Ashʿarī!”105 He said, “I am not an Ashʿarī. If you

103
Ibn Ṭulūn al-Ṣāliḥī, Muḥammad, al-Qalāʾid al-jawharīya fī tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya, 66; Miura, “The Ṣāliḥiyya Quarter in
the Suburbs of Damascus,” 133.
104
Ibn Ṭulūn al-Ṣāliḥī, Muḥammad, al-Qalāʾid al-jawharīya fī tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya, 79.
105
This part is also narrated in al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, vol. 21, 129.
45
 studied with me for a year, you would become an imam, and something would become
of you...”106

Finally, Muwaffaq al-Dīn tells us, the Banū’l-Ḥanbalī inexplicably beat up a man who

frequented the mosque in order to bring the Banū Qudāma what they needed such as

children’s clothes for winter, and then prepared to complain to the Sulṭān Nūr al-Dīn al-Zangī

about them. In the end, however, Nūr al-Dīn ended up turning over the waqf of the mosque to

the Banū Qudāma.107 Despite this unexpected turn of events in their favor, they decided to

leave the mosque.108 Their ultimate relocation pushed them finally to Mt. Qāsyūn, to what

would be called “the monastary” (al-dayr).109

Fed up with the Abū Ṣāliḥ mosque, al-Shaykh Aḥmad chose the new site for the family

on Qāsyūn mountain, which he had in the meantime come to know well as he used to bury the

family deceased there.110 The place was sparsely inhabited, and had its share of dangers for the

new settlers, such as wolves and other animals of prey (sibāʿ) as well as bandits from nearby

wādī al-Taym known for kidnapping people and selling them to the Franks.111 But there were

people on the mountain before them: Abū’l-ʿAbbās al-Kahfī in Dayr al-Ḥawrānī, and to the

106
Ibn Ṭulūn al-Ṣāliḥī, Muḥammad, al-Qalāʾid al-jawharīya fī tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya, 80.
107
The Sulṭān Nūr al-Dīn was in the company of al-Aʿazz who was a family friend of the Banū Qudāma, as well as
the qāḍī Ibn Abī ʿAṣrūn who didn’t like the Banū’l-Ḥanbalī so they only told the Sultan good things about the Banū
Qudāma, and he in turn turned the waqf of the mosque over to them; ibid., 79; Miura, “The Ṣāliḥiyya Quarter in
the Suburbs of Damascus,” 133–4.
108
Two reasons are mentioned for leaving: First, they lost favor with the inhabitants of Bāb Sharqī because they
wanted to prevent them from drinking alcohol; second, many of their group got sick and died; see Ibn Ṭulūn al-
Ṣāliḥī, Muḥammad, al-Qalāʾid al-jawharīya fī tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya, 80; Miura, “The Ṣāliḥiyya Quarter in the Suburbs of
Damascus,” 134. Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn (on whom see below) latter narrated the anecdote that al-Shaykh Aḥmad was
displeased when he heard that the waqf had been given to him, and said, “I didn’t emigrate to compete with
people for their wordly goods (dunyā). I don’t want to live here anymore.” Ibn Ṭulūn al-Ṣāliḥī, Muḥammad, al-
Qalāʾid al-jawharīya fī tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya, 80.
109
Eventually they built “the monastery;” ibid.
110
Ibid., 81.
111
Ibid., 83.
46
East, Dayr al-Ḥanābila, a former monks’ dwelling inhabited by fellow Ḥanbalīs who were

followers of Abū’l-Faraj al-Ḥanbalī.112 The world dayr is Arabic for “monastery” and these

locations likely carried similar connotations of asceticism in the function for which both

Christians and Muslims used it. The establishment built over the next two years by al-Shaykh

Aḥmad, also to be commonly be referred to as “the Monastery” (al-dayr), was, from the initial

qibla stone of the community’s first mosque he set himself to the communal completion of ten

houses in total, destined to be a lively stage of communal life, for an entire Ḥanbalī community

of men, women, and children.113

When al-Shaykh Aḥmad passed away in 558, the responsibilities of the family fell to his

eldest son Abū ʿUmar, who was thirty years old. Al-Muwaffaq later said of the latter, “He was

our Shaykh, he raised us and was kind to us, taught us and protected us. He was like a father

for al-jamāʿa, looking after their interests.”114 Abū ʿUmar built a bread oven (furn) and a

workshop (maṣnaʿ), and established a madrasa with a waqf for teaching Qurʾān and fiqh, called

al-Madrasa al-ʿUmarīya, which came to be reknowned as a center for the memorization of the

Qurʾān. This was likely done with the assistance of Nūr al-Dīn al-Zangī, who was paid him

visits from time, and also built him a mosque and a siqāya.115 The reason for this generosity

was his reputation: Abū ʿUmar was a legendary figure of piety, called the “shaykh of the

mountain,” and believed by some Sufis to be the Quṭb.116 When in 598 Abū ʿUmar started to

112
Ibid., 84–5. Miura, “The Ṣāliḥiyya Quarter in the Suburbs of Damascus,” 134.
113
Ibn Ṭulūn al-Ṣāliḥī, Muḥammad, al-Qalāʾid al-jawharīya fī tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya, 81.
114
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 118.
115
Nūr al-Dīn also came to visit; see Ibn Ṭulūn al-Ṣāliḥī, Muḥammad, al-Qalāʾid al-jawharīya fī tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya, 82;
al-Nuʿaymī, Al-Dāris fī tārīkh al-madāris, 78, 80-81; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 118, 120.
116
Ibn Ṭulūn al-Ṣāliḥī, Muḥammad, al-Qalāʾid al-jawharīya fī tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya, 78; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-
Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 121.
47
build another congregational mosque (jāmiʿ) – an another indication of the growth of the

community – Muẓaffar al-Dīn of Irbil got word of it, and decided to sponsor the project, and it

came to be known as al-Jāmiʿ al-Muẓaffarī.117

When traveller Ibn Baṭṭūṭa visited Damascus, he described al-Ṣāliḥīya as a “city” (madīna), and

marveled at its marketplace, and showed esteem for madrasa of Abū ʿUmar; as Miura points

out, it was fit to be called such given its congregational mosque, market, baths, and madrasas.118

One could be called a Ṣāliḥī just as a resident of Damascus could be called Dimashqī or other

such patronyms.119

117
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 42, 47.
118
Miura, “The Ṣāliḥiyya Quarter in the Suburbs of Damascus,” 130.
119
Ibid., 131.
48
 Figure 1. Relationship of al-Ṣāliḥīya to Walled City of Damascus120

1.5.3.1 Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma and ʿAbd al-Ghanī

Abū ʿUmar also took the initiative to send Muwaffaq al-Dīn and ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-

Maqdisī to Baghdad to further their education.121 This was the beginning of illustrious careers,

as each would become legendary in their respective specializations of fiqh and ḥadīth. They

had already learned the basics of the Ḥanbalī madhhab,122 as al-Muwaffaq possibly started to

learn from Abū’l-Maʿālī Wajīh al-Dīn Ibn al-Munajjā before he left.123

120
This map is intended to represent the beginning of the 10th/16th Century, but serves the purposes of our study
adequately; from ibid., 181.
121
And when they came back he got them married and built them houses for their families; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā
Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 118.
122
Having memorized the Mukhtaṣar of al-Khiraqī and heard ḥadīth at a young age; ibid., vol. 3, 282.
123
Al-Muwaffaq learned from Abū’l-Maʿālī; ibid., vol. 3, 100.
49
 Muwaffaq and ʿAbd al-Ghanī felt fortunate when they set out to Baghdad as young men

in 561/1166 to meet Ibn al-Munajjā’s erstwhile teacher ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī. Completely

devoted to him, they stayed in his madrasa and learned fiqh from him – unfortunately,

however, the Shaykh died after a little over a month.124 Although they were devoted to the

memory of ʿAbd al-Qādir and perpetuated much of his legacy in Damascus upon their return,125

they were forced to find a new teacher.

With the death of ʿAbd al-Qādir, Muwaffaq al-Dīn and ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī were

compelled to find a new teacher. They found him in the person of Ibn al-Mannī (d.

583/1187),126 a Ḥanbalī legal scholar who found wide acclaim among Ḥanbalīs in the city and

abroad,127 and whose impact was significant enough for him to be seen later as a pivotal figure

for subsequent Ḥanbalism as a whole.128

124
See ibid., vol. 3, 3-4, 282-283.
125
See George Makdisi, “VI. L'isnād initiatique soufi de Muwaffaq ad-Dīn Ibn Qudāma,” in Religion, Law and Learning
in Classical Islam (Hampshire: Variorum, 1991); Originally in Louis Massignon. Paris: Editions de l'Herne, 1970, pp.
118-129.
126
Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿUthmān al-Dhahabī, “Dhayl Tārīkh al-Islām [Excerpt],” in al-Jāmiʻ li-sīrat
Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 661-728, ed. Muḥammad ʿ. Shams and Alī b. M. al-ʻImrān (Mecca: Dār ʻĀlam al-Fawāʼid,
1420/2000), 267–72, vol. 2, 358.
127
Named Abū’l-Fatḥ al-Ḥanbalī Abū’l-Fatḥ Naṣr b. Fityān b. Maṭar, Nāṣiḥ al-Islām. He Learned fiqh from Abū Bakr
al-Dīnawarī, one of the disciples of Abū’l-Khaṭṭāb al-Kalawādhī (on whom see chapter five); Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā
Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 357. He excelled, becoming a prominent teacher for 70 years; ibid., vol. 2, 355-356. For
this reason he was considered “Faqīh al-ʿIrāq ʿalā al-iṭlāq” according to Ibn Rajab. Naṣiḥ al-Dīn al-Ḥanbalī said of
him, “He would not use kalām when talking about theology (kāna lā yatakallamu fī’l-aṣl), he was sound of belief,
sound in his critical faculties when dealing with legal evidences (salīm al-iʿtiqād ṣaḥīḥ al-intiqād fī’l-adilla al-furūʿīya),
and we would in some years go visit the grave of al-Imām Aḥmad with him (wa-kunnā nazūru maʿahu fī baʿḍ al-sinīn
qabr al-Imām Aḥmad;” ibid., vol. 2, 357.
128
Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn Ibn al-Ḥanbalī is reported as having written, “the legal scholars of the Ḥanbalīs (fuqahāʾ al-
Ḥanābila) today in all regions (fī sāʾir al-bilād) go back to him and his students (yarjiʿūna ilayhi wa-ilā aṣḥābihi);” ibid.
Ibn Rajab, commenting in approval over a century later, would say, “this is true even today, because the people of
our times take recourse in their fiqh, whether in regard to teachers or books (min jihat al-shaykh wa’l-kutub) to two
Shaykhs: Muwaffaq al-Dīn [Ibn Qudāma] al-Maqdisī, and Majd al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya al-Ḥarrānī;” ibid., vol. 2, 357-
358. The latter of these two is Ibn Taymīya’s grandfather, on whom see chapter eight.
50
 The two moved to a ribāṭ directed by a student of Ibn al-Mannī’s who had also been a

student of the deceased ʿAbd al-Qādir; Nāṣir al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. ʿUthmān al-Azjī (d. 609/1212).

His ribāṭ was founded explicitly for the sake of sheltering the poor, ascetics, fuqahāʾ, and “the

Ḥanbalīs who travelled to see and learn fiqh from Ibn al-Mannī.”129

Muwaffaq and ʿAbd al-Ghanī also frequented ḥadīth sessions, including those of the

famous scholar Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597 AH/1201 CE). At this juncture ʿAbd al-Ghanī found his

calling in ḥadīth. Ibn al-Mannī, known for being particularly kind to his students, wondered if

he had perhaps offended him, as ʿAbd al-Ghanī had stopped attending his fiqh lessons – for the

sake of collecting ḥadīth.130 ʿAbd al-Ghanī would go on to specialize in ḥadīth whereas

Muwaffaq al-Dīn would focus on fiqh.

After four years in Baghdad, during which they also made the pilgrimage to Mecca, al-

Muwaffaq and ʿAbd al-Ghanī returned home to Syria. Al-Muwaffaq continued his studies in

fiqh, and even returned back to Baghdad in 567 for the same purpose; despite the insistence of

Ibn al-Mannī he could not be persuaded to stay long, returning instead to the responsibilities

of the community on Mt. Qāsyūn.131 ʿAbd al-Ghanī, however, continued in the tradition of the

muḥaddīthūn and set out in 566 travelling around the Muslim world for the sake of collecting

ḥadīth. They both left their mark on al-Ṣāliḥīya, the new bustling Ḥanbalī community of

Damascus.

129
Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn Ibn al-Ḥanbalī also stayed at the ribāṭ when he came to study with Ibn al-Mannī in 672, see ibid.,
vol. 3, 133-134; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 43, 349; Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 -
656/1258),” 118.
130
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 358-359.
131
Ibid., vol. 3, 283. Ibn al-Mannī wanted him to stay; ibid., vol. 3, 287.
51
 Muwaffaq al-Dīn was considered to be an extremely knowledgeable authority in the

Ḥanbalī school: an imam in fiqh, jurisprudential theory (uṣūl al-fiqh), comparative law (khilāf),

grammar, arithmetic, and astronomy.132 He was also a prolific writer who left an entire library

of works:133 He wrote primarily in fiqh, and probably started with an abridgement (mukhtaṣar)

of Abū’l-Khaṭṭāb’s Hidāya. Eventually he wrote his own material which would continue to have

enduring reputation in the school, even to this day: he wrote (among others) a primer called

al-ʿUmda, al-Muqniʿ in one volume, al-Kāfī in four volumes, and finally al-Mughnī in ten volumes.

Al-Mughnī was technically a commentary (sharḥ) of the first Ḥanbalī legal primer ever written –

the Mukhtaṣar by al-Khiraqī134 – but in scope it was a project substantially more ambitious,

being no less than a work in comparative law among the four different madhhabs in all details

of Islamic sharīʿa. It garnered the acclaim of his fellow scholars, even those from other law

schools, and solidified Ibn Qudāma’s place as a formidable force in the world of Islamic

scholarship.135 Ibn Taymīya would later say, “No one has entered Syria who was more

knowledgeable than al-Shaykh al-Muwaffaq.”136

After the death of his brother Abū ʿUmar in 607, Ibn Qudāma became sermonist at al-

Jāmiʿ al-Muẓaffarī, and if he was in the walled city of Damascus, he would lead the prayer in

the Ḥanbalī section of the Umayyad Mosque.137 He quickly became a legend; it being typical to

hear praise such as, “Whoever saw him thought he was looking at one of the Companions as if

132
Ibid., vol. 2, 286.
133
Ibid., vol. 3, 291.
134
See chapter five.
135
Ibid., vol. 3, 291-294. Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),” 124–5. Ibn
Qudāma’s works of theology and legal theory will be discussed in the chapter seven.
136
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 286.
137
Ibid., vol. 3, 285.
52
light was coming out of his face.”138 Biographies were written of him, miracles attributed to

him, including walking on water.139

As mentioned earlier, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī found his calling in ḥadīth. He excelled

in that discipline, and went on to become the most prominent muḥaddith of Damascus after Ibn

ʿAsākir. Like Ibn ʿAsākir he too went on the traditional voyage of ḥadīth collection on the

quest for the shorter isnād and the connection with the Prophet sunna: After returning to

Damascus from Baghdad with Muwaffaq al-Dīn in 565, he headed the following year to Egypt

and stayed there a while, returned to Damascus, then headed back to Alexandria in 570 where

the venerable centenarian and reknowned muḥaddith of Isfahan, Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī (d.

576/1181) had recently relocated. He learned as much as he could from al-Silafī before

relocating to Cairo, then returning to Damascus. Thereafter he headed to Isfahan, stayed there

for a while, hearing many hadith – then returned to Damascus.140 Then he went to Mosul,

hearing ḥadīth there, before returning to settle in Damascus, teaching and narrating ḥadīth on

his own.141

ʿAbd al-Ghanī was supposed to know every ḥadīth that existed, its meaning,

weakness/strength, and transmitters, and was widely praised among the muḥaddithūn.142 He

wrote the widely acclaimed and influential Kamāl fī asmāʾ al-rijāl which aimed at presenting

biographical information on all the narrators present in the six authoritative books of ḥadīth,

from the Companions of the Prophet Muḥammad to the teachers of the compilers of those

138
Ibid., vol. 3, 284.
139
Ibid., vol. 3, 286, 289-291.
140
Ibid., vol. 3, 4.
141
Ibid., vol. 3, 5.
142
Ibid., vol. 3, 5-10.
53
books. Publicly he also garnered much pious devotion: his ḥadīth auditions in the Umayyad

Mosque on Fridays after the congregational prayer on Thursday nights were well attended,

known for their powerful prayers and tear inducing effect on the speaker and his audience.143

He was later regarded as having been widely influential in promoting the public narration of

ḥadīth in the Levant.144

The Qudāma family and their relations established al-Ṣāliḥīya as a major center for

Ḥanbalī fiqh and narration of ḥadīth. Abū ʿUmar, had the reputation of a saint and helped

maintain a haven for recitation of Qurʾān and ascetic retreat. His younger brother Muwaffaq

al-Dīn became a highly respected authority in the Ḥanbalī madhhab whose works continue to

enjoy renown and influence; this being true to such an extent that the name Ibn Qudāma in

posterity would solely come to refer to him. Their cousin ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Madisī furthered

the tradition of the muḥaddithūn, and this was carried on by the latter’s children.

They were also joined in this by Abū ʿUmar’s nephew Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn (d. 643/1245). Born

in “the blessed monastary” (al-dayr al-mubārak), of the fledgling community in al-Ṣāliḥīya,145 he

went on to be considered “un des traditionnistes les plus estimés de l’époque ayyoubide,”146

and formed a critical part of the scholarly identity of al-Ṣāliḥīya. Although he began his

studies with ʿAbd al-Ghanī he was later considered to have surpassed his master. Like his first

mentor, he made the customary voyage to Baghdad, where he spent time hearing ḥadīth from

143
Ibid., vol. 3, 13.
144
Ibid., vol. 3, 12.
145
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 47, 209.
146
Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),” 125.
54
its experts including Ibn al-Jawzī, before going to travel extensively in Egypt, Isfahan, Nisabur,

Marw, Herāt, Aleppo, and Ḥarrān, learning and teaching.147

When he settled down in al-Ṣāliḥīya, he built a madrasa, later called al-Ḍiyāʾīya, at the

door of al-Jāmiʿ al-Muẓaffarī mosque, “for the sake of the muḥaddithūn, strangers and

newcomers in a state of poverty.” The madrasa also boasted a great library.148 Ḍiyāʾ himself

was a prolific writer, especially in different genres of ḥadīth collections,149 and even wrote his

own ṣaḥīḥ collection al-Aḥādīth al-mukhtāra,150 but also wrote history, most significantly for us

the history of his own community, “The Cause for the Emigration of the Maqādisa to Damascus

and the Miracles of their Religious Leaders” (sabab hijrat al-maqādisa ilā dimashq wa-karāmāt

mashāyikhim),151 to which we are indebted in our understanding of the founding of al-Ṣāliḥīya.

Thus in addition to the madrasa serving the function of a dār ḥadīth like that built by Nūr al-Dīn

al-Zangī for Ibn ʿAsākir, it also was used as a waqf by Ḍiyāʾ, Muwaffaq al-Dīn, ʿAbd al-Ghanī, and

others for their collections of books.152 In conjunction with the ʿUmarīya madrasa, the Ḍiyāʾīya

madrasa formed the archive and centerpoint for the scholarly interests, authoritative books,

and religious worldview of the Ḥanbalī community in Damascus. In the aftermath of the

Mongol invasion and the destruction of Baghdad, it would be unparalleled in its resources and

its normative influence for the Ḥanbalī school as a whole.

147
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 515-516; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 47, 209-210.
148
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 517-518.
149
He was quite prolific; see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 47, 212.
150
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 518.
151
Ibid., vol. 3, 520.
152
al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 47, 212; Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),”
125. Laoust also notes that books from al-Ḍiyāʾīya and al-ʿUmarīya are part of the Ẓāhirīya collection today.
55
Conclusion

Damascus in its post-Fatimid phase of political development underwent a cultural

renaissance. In addition to the increase in political prestige and the social works that the new

ruling elite brought with them, the religious scholarly community also found new institutional

support. The rise of the madrasa, known as part of Seljuk urban renewal projects, was also a

critical part in elevating the scholarly status of Damascus, a process which continued

uninterrupted through the change in political regime.

The Shāfiʿī school, the dominant school of Damascus, was part of a broader scholarly

heritage of luminaries such as al-Ghazālī and others, and was cognizant of itself as the public

face of religious normativity in the city. Receiving political patronage and resources, scholarly

families such as the ʿAsākir family played an important role in the Damascene milieu,

promulgating the teachings of the school and providing religious instruction.

The Ḥanbalī school, though initially marginal in Damascus, had its own genealogy of

prestigious scholars, and came to its fullest expression in numbers and scholarly development

in the al-Ṣāliḥīya community on Mt. Qāsyūn. Although Damascene Ḥanbalism was founded by

the Ibn al-Ḥanbalī family, tensions with rivaling scholarly groups such as the Shāfiʿīs perhaps

dictated that Ḥanbalism not come into its own except in a separate space. The Banū Qudāma, a

Ḥanbalī family who emigrated from Crusader occupied territory to Damascus, planted their

roots in al-Ṣāliḥīya and created their own separate living community from that of the walled

city of Damascus. Thus, although there were interactions between the two communities, the

former was self-sufficient enough, both as living and scholarly space to ensure its own

independence of tradition and sense of scholarly normativity.

56
 Both the Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī school in Damascus, as we have seen, were devoted to the

transmission of ḥadīth as devotional practice in a time when chains of transmission were

obsolete as epistemological measures of certainty. Instead, this devotional practice

symbolized a love for the Prophet Muḥammad and for a living link to the earliest days of Islam.

Likewise, it involved the auxiliary sciences traditionally associated with ḥadīth, namely, the

documentation of history, authoritative personages, and the historical narrative of the

community.

It can be argued that in terms of geographical space, scholarly genealogy, and

intellectual outlook, these two communities formed distinct pools of collective identity,

historical memory, and religious normativity. The former (the Shāfiʿī), went on to enjoy great

success in the historiography of Islam; its protagonists being generally well known, its

intellectual development being seen as archetypal for the history of the Muslim community.

The latter (the Ḥanbalī), on the other hand, is considerably less well known in its particulars,

its authorities, sources, and key scholarly devlopments being generally unfamiliar to the

casual (or even specialized) reader of Islamic history.

This thesis seeks to further argue that the particular intellectual genealogy of Ibn

Taymīya, the émigré to Damascus in the wake of the Mongol invasion, must be sought out

between the dialectic of these two schools of thought. The subsequent chapters are dedicated

to charting out the development of these two madhhabs from their origins until their

archetypal forms present during the time of Ibn Taymīya. What they reveal to us is that

underneath the social, communal, and even geographic divisions of early Mamluk Damascus,

lay also pivotal contentions about the mediation of tradition, the role of rationality, and the

57
basis of interpretive authority in Islam. These contentions, it will be demonstrated, formulate

the basis of Ibn Taymīya’s own “intervention” in the scholarly discourse of his times.

58
PART I. THE EMERGENCE OF THE SHĀFIʿĪ AND ḤANBALĪ SCHOOLS AS DEFENDERS OF
SUNNĪ THEOLOGICAL NORMATIVITY

59
Chapter Two. Revelation vs. Kalām: The Roots of Contention and the Rise of al-Shāfiʿī:

We have seen how the city of Damascus was revived in the 5th/11th century from

relative obscurity to an important administrative center, attracting settlers from far and wide

in the Muslim world, and giving rise to a formidable center of scholarship and religious

activity which would leave an indelible mark on the entirety of Islamic thought for posterity.

The newly found social stability which Damascus experienced did not mean that the

city was free of disturbances. The clashes we saw between Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanafīs during the

Seljuk/Buyid period shows how the co-existence of the madhhabs in Damascus did not escape

the tensions caused by sectarian “partisanship” (taʿaṣṣub). Such disagreements based on legal-

school affiliation, however, never approached the level of intensity famously reported of

Nīshapūr,1 for example, and subsided during the reign of Nūr al-Dīn al-Zangī. Of much greater

consequence, in contrast, are the examples of tension we have seen between Shāfiʿī and

Ḥanbalī scholars. The roots of these controversies were in fact not limited to madhhab

affiliation, but were primarily theological in nature, and as such transcended jurisprudential

matters into fundamentals of the Islamic faith. These were to be a perennial source of

controversy from the end of the Fatimid period until the Mongol invasion of Damascus in

658/1260,2 and explain much of Ibn Taymīya’s social context.

As is known, the essential disagreement between the Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalīs centered on

the legitimacy of the Ashʿarī kalām school which had been established several generations

earlier by its eponym Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/936), and had since then found great

currency among scholars of the Shāfiʿī school in particular. The Ḥanbalī school, however, took

1
On which see chapter six.
2
These will be covered in chapter seven.

60
a public stance against key Ashʿarī doctrines, and counted among its leading scholars some of

its most vocal opponents. Thus the Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī establishments of Damascus, as

embodied in the Banū ʿAsākir and Banū Qudāma respectively,3 embodied opposing camps in an

entrenched contention over religious orthodoxy.

Our general familiarity with this theme, however, should not cause us to ignore its

historical singularity and significance for Islamic history in general. As Makdisi correctly

recognized long ago,4 such a divide between the two schools was not a foregone conclusion: at

its origins, the Shāfiʿī madhhab, just like its Ḥanbalī counterpart, garnered its distinct identity

due to the primacy it gave to ḥadīth as a means of authenticating Muḥammad’s prophetic

teachings, or sunna. As such, both schools emerged in advocacy of Islamic traditionalist

thought, which classically emphasized the ideal of pristine scriptural transmission of religious

knowledge as a guarantor of religious orthodoxy. It is thus a paradox that some of the most

heated debates in Islam on the role of rationalism vs. traditionalism occured between the two

legal schools most scripturalist at their essence. How then did the madhhabs part ways?

The current chapter seeks to facilitate the answer to this question by providing a new

framework for the emergence of these two madhhabs more firmly situated in the specific

contributions of their respective eponyms to Islamic thought. The roles played by al-Shāfiʿī

and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal for the articulation of Sunnī scholarly discourse must be understood

both within their immediate context and as the medium for further developments by

posterity. Both scholars sought to defend traditional methods and doctrines from challenges

3
Introduced in chapter two
4
George Makdisi, “I. 'Ashʿarī and the Ashʿarites in Islamic religious history' Parts I & II,” in Religion, Law and
Learning in Classical Islam (Hampshire: Variorum, 1991); Originally in: Studia Islamica XVII & XVIII, 1962 & 1963, 37-
80, 19-39, 48, 55, 80. This article was an important contribution in that it recognized the rise of Ashʿarī theology
as being largely contingent upon internal developments within the Shāfiʿī school.

61
posed by kalām, but their methods and the reception of said methods by their followers posed

new questions in turn, the answers to which were of great consequence to subsequent

generations of followers. Only by adequately assessing these questions and answers will we be

able to understand how the traditionalist Shāfiʿī school came to be the primary medium of

Ashʿarī rationalist-theology, as well as how the Ḥanbalī school acquired the distinct “anti-

rationalist” theological profile the reputation of which precedes any other characteristic

commonly ascribed to it.

What this story necessarily entails is a discussion of the origins of kalām – certainly one

of the boldest religious trends in human history – and the articulation of its most central

thesis: that religion, and in particular belief in God and the prophets, must be established on

the basis of purely rational proofs in order to be valid. This key feature of kalām, undoubtedly

one of Islam’s most unique cultural artifacts, tore at the very fabric of traditional conceptions

of the Islamic religion. Kalām’s assertion of the primacy of reason over revelation was to test

the faith of the believers, the bonds of communal solidarity, the legacy of traditional authority,

and the very communicative power of language itself.

It is these most dynamic aspects of kalām which will be emphasized in this chapter.

These will be historically situated and analyzed within the context of their first emergence

among the Muʿtazilites of the 2nd/8th century AH/CE, and contrasted with prevailing

conceptions of religious authority at that time which emphasized scripture and traditional

communication of doctrine from the earliest community (al-salaf). This latter understanding,

as the essence of the ahl al-sunna or Sunnī worldview, was defended by both al-Shāfiʿī and

Aḥmad b. al-Ḥanbal in different capacities. The contributions of these two madhhab eponyms,

62
as we shall see, were to transcend their own legal schools into paradigms of thought influential

for Islam as a whole.

2.1 “Dare to Know:” The Bold Premise of Kalām

Islam is generally known as a religion that stresses historical authenticity and the

following of authoritative texts and personages. For that reason it is all the more remarkable

that a current of thought developed within Islamic civilization which demanded that the very

existence and nature of God, as well as the viability of revelation and prophethood, had to be

proven by reason (al-ʿaql) alone before consenting to religious doctrine. According to the

advocates of this idea, rational investigation (al-naẓar al-ʿaqlī) was a prerequisite for salvation,

as mere credence (iʿtiqād) was not equivalent to real knowledge (ʿilm) of things as they were;

only rational investigation could be the guarantor of religion’s truth. The technique was called

ʿilm al-kalām. As one of its advocates, the acclaimed Basran belles-letrist al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/869)

would say:

If it were not for kalām, devotion (dīn) to God couldn’t exist, nor could we be
differentiated from religious deviants (al-mulḥidīn), nor would there be a difference
between truth and falsehood, or a criterion between a prophet and an impostor,
between a proof and a trick, or between proper evidence and a fallacy (shubha).5

This triumphalist expression was a reflection of the coming-of-age Islam’s foremost

school of rationalist theology – the Muʿtazilite collective.6 They had emerged as self-

proclaimed “masters of rational inquiry” (arbāb al-naẓar)7 from the fray of sectarian debate that

5
Al-Jāḥiẓ, “Risāla fī nafī al-tashbīh,” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ, ed. Hārūn, ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad, 4 vols., 279–308
(Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānajī, 1384/1964), vol. 1, 285.
6
It was not a school in the strict sense of the word, but a general orientation which coalesced around certain key
themes and methodological procedures. This also means that they differed on many points, as will be seen below.
7
In the words of Abū’l-Ḥusayn al-Khayyāṭ (d. 300/913), see Abū'l-Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. Muḥammad al-
Khayyāṭ, Kitāb al-intiṣār wa'l-radd ʿalā Ibn al-Rāwandī al-Mulḥid, 2nd ed., ed. H. S. Nyberg (Beirut: Awrāq Sharqīya,

63
took place in the Iraqi metropoles of the late Umayyad and early Abbasid era with such

prominence that kalām was to be intrinsically linked to their name. At its origins, everyone

who engaged in such debate was practicing kalām, which means “speech;” or in the religious

context, to speak about things beyond their immediate scriptural context.8 But the

Muʿtazilites were the first to establish kalām on a schematic basis which would become

archetypal for Islamic civilization as a whole.

2.1.1 The Muʿtazilites and the Genesis of Kalām

While the actual inception of their collective is surrounded by contention, one detail

stands out; that the Muʿtazilites cultivated an iconoclastic profile as “separationists”

(Muʿtazila, from iʿtazala – “to stand aside”), a name which they embraced.9 This was embodied

perfectly in that doctrine on the basis of which they first gained notoriety in the early Muslim

community, when they refused to take sides with either 1) the Khārijites who taught that

major sins necessarily indicated disbelief (kufr), or 2) the circle of early Sunnī exemplars like

Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728) and Qatāda (d. 117/735) who taught that sins or moral hypocrisy

did not cause one to be a disbeliever or nullify one’s faith (īmān).10

Wāṣil b. ʿAṭā (d. 131/748) and ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (d. 144/ 761), the spiritual forefathers of

the Muʿtazilite collective, agreed with Ḥasan al-Baṣrī that the grave sinner (murtakib

kabīra/fāsiq) was not to be called a disbeliever (kāfir), but also agreed with the Khārijites that

1993 [Originally Cairo, 1925]), 71. Cf. Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine
Geschichte des religösen Denkens im frühen Islam, 6 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992), vol. 5, 417.
8
See ibid., vol. 1, 48-56.
9
For the Muʿtazilite view of their name see Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, 2 vols., ed. Ayman Fuʾād al-Sayyid
(London: Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2009), vol. 1, part 2, 555-557. Cf. the other Muʿtazilite and non-
Muʿtazilite sources compiled by the editor; ibid., p. 556, n. 1. Their opponents called them other names, such as
Qadarīya, Jahmīya, etc. (see chapter three).
10
See an overview in Toshihiko Izutsu, The Concept of Belief in Islamic Theology (Yokohama: Yurindo, 1965), 4–16.

64
such a person was no longer fit to be called a believer (muʾmin) and thus deserved Hell; this

thesis was articulated with his famous concept of the “intermediate status” (al-manzila bayna

al-manzilatayn).11 In the Muʿtazilite conception, although the grave sinner was not a

disbeliever, he surely deserved (istiḥqāq) Hell, because for God to break His scripturally explicit

promise and threat (waʿd/waʿīd) of Heaven and Hell for the righteous and immoral,

respectively, went counter to the principle of God’s justice (ʿadl).12 It should not be surprising

that this cornerstone doctrine of Muʿtazilism was also based on a scripturally maximalist

position similar to that of the Khārijites,13 given its early emergence in Islamic history. It is

telling of the dynamic nature of Islamic thought that such scripturalist foundations came to

undergird some of history’s most probing philosophical inquiries.

The genesis of Muʿtazilism displays its characteristic ease with defying convention and

not settling for prevailing notions of received truth, but also upholding an objectivist

moralism about how things ought to be. Similar attitudes can be seen on their convention-

defying views on legal theory, politics, history, and theology.14 Two characteristic theological

elements in particular, however, were given particular prominence in the classical Muʿtazilī

doctrine as it coalesced at the end of the 2nd/8th century AH/CE, namely their positions on 1)

human agency (afʿāl al-ʿibād), and 2) God’s oneness (al-tawḥīd).

11
Which Wāṣil used as the title of a book, see van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol.
5, 137.
12
See D. Gimaret, EI2, s.v., “Muʿtazila.”
13
The tendency of Muʿtazilite hermeneutics towards generalization of scriptural statements has been discussed
by David R. Vishanoff, The Formation of Islamic Hermeneutics: How Sunni Legal Theorists Imagined a Revealed Law (New
Haven: American Oriental Society, 2011), 23-25, 71, 109-110.
14
See W. Montgomery Watt, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973),
224 ff.

65
 The first position can be contextualized within a debate that arose in the 1st/7th century

AH/CE dealing with God’s predetermination of events, or qadar.15 In the context of temporal

injustice embodied, e.g., in the policies of the Umayyads, it was felt that political and moral

reform were too often impeded by determinist explanations of God’s will in worldly affairs,

whether by the rulers themselves or by certain religious scholars. This provoked theological

discourse that emphasized human agency and responsibility and denied predestination. The

Muʿtazila were among those who adhered to this religious movement, called (by its

opponents) al-Qadarīya.16 The Qadarite position came to form a quintessential component of

the Muʿtazilite doctrine of divine justice (ʿadl), and no doubt increased their preoccupations,

also inherent in their discussions on soteriology, on the nature of the divine will.

This led to a maturation of Muʿtazilite thought in exploration of the intersection

between God’s activity and the cosmic order. As they understood the concept of justice in

relation to God, the Muʿtazilites expanded the Qadarīya position to state that that not only was

God not responsible for decreeing human injustice in the world, but did not create human

actions or their repercussions whatsoever. It was injust, they argued, for God to punish or

reward mankind for actions He Himself created, and so the only legitimate creator of human

actions were humans themselves. Likewise, these freely generated actions of human beings

needed to freely generate their own effects (tawallud) in the objects of their agency, so as for

humans to be able to take responsibility for them.17

15
From Q Qamar 54:49 “Indeed, We have created all things with qadar.”
16
See Josef van Ess, EI2, s.v. “Ḳadariyya,” and van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol.
1, 72 ff. This term was always polemical and in fact used by different camps against each other: the
predestinarians against the advocates of free-will and vice versa.
17
Josef van Ess, Die Erkenntnislehre des ʿAḍuddaddīn al-Īcī (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1966), 291 ff. and van
Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 3, 116 ff.

66
 Furthermore, the concepts of blameworthiness (madḥ) and praise (dhamm) in

scripturally articulated “deserts” of moral actions was extrapolated into objective absolutes. If

an action was blameworthy or intellectually ugly (qabīḥ), then it had to be objectively so

according to the dictates of reason. This being the case, it could be extrapolated that God

would (or could) never will or command something objectively evil into existence, but only

will into existence or command that which was praiseworthy, or intellectually beautiful

(ḥasan). In accordance with the doctrine of ʿadl, God only did the best for human beings (al-

aṣlaḥ),18 and was no way involved in the existence of evil human actions and their

repercussions.19

This transformation of ethical ideals into complex theological first-principles is no less

present in the second foundational doctrine of the Muʿtazilites: tawḥīd. The term tawḥīd (from

the Arabic root w – ḥ – d for “one”), which essentially means “monotheism,” was a common

doctrinal point among Muslims, but carried special portent for the Muʿtazilites: While the

primary foundations of their doctrines centered on what was suitable for God to do, this

expansion of their doctrine focused on what it was suitable for God to be, i.e. proper theology

focusing on the nature of God’s existence. The two were intrinsically related.

According to the Muʿtazilites, the doctrine of tawḥīd could only be valid on the basis of

a methodologically rigorous distinction of God’s characteristics from that of His creation. This

was not a rejection of “anthropomorphism;” it invalidated not only the conception of God in a

way suggestive of specifically human corporeal features, but spatiality and its concommitant

18
See ibid., vol. 3, 277-278. Cf. Robert Brunschvig, “Mu'tazilisme et Optimum (al-aṣlaḥ),” Studia Islamica, no. 39
(1974), 5–23.
19
For some of the most stimulating studies on consequences of Muʿtazilite ethical-ontological discussions, see
Margaretha T. Heemskerk, Suffering in the Muʿtazilite Theology: ʿAbd al-Jabbār's Teaching on Pain and Divine Justice
(Boston: Brill, 2000), and Sophia Vasalou, Moral Agents and Their Deserts: The Character of Muʿtazilite Ethics (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2008).

67
features, or predication of any essential attributes (ṣifāt). The justification for this, the

Muʿtazilites reasoned, was that if God were to be conceived of as consisting of parts or existing

in conjunction with attributes, then this would necessitate a likeness to temporal beings

composed of many parts, or an affirmation of a plurality of eternal beings and thus be

equivocal to polytheism (shirk), the antithesis of Islamic monotheism.

To be sure, Muʿtazilites were willing to describe God – as Creator of the universe – as

powerful, knowing, willing, living (and for some, even seeing and hearing), but never on the

basis of descriptions predicated essentially of Him. This was sometimes articulated in a

manner akin to the via negativa (e.g., “God is not impotent, ignorant, blind, dead,” etc.),20 or by

the identification of God’s essence with said attributes (e.g., “God is knowing with a knowledge

which is equivalent to Himself”),21 or by mere affirmation of the essence (e.g., God’s being

omiscient is merely an affirmation of God’s essence [dhāt] – coupled with a negation of

“ignorance”),22 or by the affirmation of the active participle of the descriptive verb without a

gerund (e.g., God is knowing without knowledge).23 These were by no means intended as

mystical paradoxes, however, but rather as rigorous attempts to express in language what had

been established as the ontological difference between God and temporal being.24 It was only

by the articulation of this type of transcendence (tanzīh) which avoided likening God to

creation (tashbīh) that God’s very existence could be maintained as unique originator of the

world.

20
Reported of Wāṣil’s student Ḍirār b. ʿAmr (d. 200/815); see Abū'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyīn wa-ikhtilāf
al-muṣallīn, 3rd ed., ed. Hellmut Ritter (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980), 166.
21
Reported of Abū’l-Hudhayl al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyīn wa-ikhtilāf al-muṣallīn, 165; al-Khayyāṭ, Kitāb al-intiṣār
wa'l-radd ʿalā Ibn al-Rāwandī al-Mulḥid, 108. Cf. Abū’l-Hudhayl’s instructive teachings for attributes; van Ess,
Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 3, 272-276.
22
Reported of al-Naẓẓām; al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyīn wa-ikhtilāf al-muṣallīn, 166–7.
23
Reported of ʿAbbād b. Sulaymān; see ibid., 165–6. For a panorama of these positions, see ibid., 173.15 ff.
24
On the significance of this see the discussion of al-Ashʿarī in chapter four.

68
 On this basis of their understanding of divine ethics, action, and essence, the early

Muʿtazilites called themselves “The Association of Justice and Divine Unity” (ahl al-ʿadl wa’l-

tawḥīd),25 and considered their opponents on these points to be outside of the fold of Islam.26

This sectarian dimension of Muʿtazilism, however, did not have the effect of restricting its

greater influence in Islamic history as one might expect. To the contrary, the deciding factor

for the influence and endurance of Muʿtazilite thought was precisely its ability to challenge

doctrinal boundaries and provoke responses from its interlocutors. Such responses in turn

could only take place according to the rules the Muʿtazilites set, which disallowed the usage of

traditional forms of authority in favor of an increasingly complex rationalistic procedure –

classical kalām with all its branches. As the next section demonstrates, establishing the

imperative of reason became the guiding impetus of the Muʿtazilite mission, not just within

the sectarian milieu but for the very sake of Islam itself.

2.1.2 Method and Tradition

The Muʿtazilites were fully aware that their theological positions on the ontological

status of human actions and the proper understanding of monotheism were, like the

“intermediate-status,” convention-defying. This was in keeping, however, with their strident

rejection of traditional forms of religious authority. The historical record shows them to have

been the earliest and most adamant proponents of the thesis that taqlīd (i.e., adherence to

doctrine without proof) was completely unacceptable for the core tenets of religion such as

25
Wāṣil wrote a book called Kitāb al-Tawḥīd, see Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 561. He also had
sermons (khuṭab) on al-ʿadl wa’l-tawḥīd; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 5,
137. ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd wrote a book entitled K. al-ʿAdl wa’l-tawḥīd, see Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 563.
The genre of a K. al-Tawḥīd continued with Wāṣil’s student Ḍirār b. ʿAmr and the latter’s student Ḥafṣ al-Fard, see
ibid., vol. 5, 229, 252.
26
See Izutsu, The Concept of Belief in Islamic Theology, 18–21.

69
belief in God and the prophets. Instead, they claimed, the foundations of religion had to be

known by rational inquiry, called naẓar.

Serious attempts at standardizing this type of inquiry may have started with Wāṣil b.

ʿAṭāʾ (d. 131 AH/748 CE) himself, to whom is attributed a Kitāb al-sabīl ilā maʿrifat al-ḥaqq,27 the

first in a long series of books authored by the Muʿtazilites on the proper methodologies for

acquiring religious knowledge. It did not take long, however, for the nature of their discourse

to become much more sophisticated: Their inquiries in the topic of theology led them to write

copious amounts on “related metaphysical data” such as epistemology, ontology, and ethical

theory called maʿārif, which filled many books.28 The impressive list of works produced by the

early Muʿtazilites of the 2nd/8th century was genre-defining.29 This was kalām in the way future

generations were to understand it. Any real adherent of the Islamic faith – at least from the

perspective of Muʿtazilite kalām – now had to know, in a general sense, everything it was

possible to know.

Indeed, this was not a prerequisite for scholarly expertise, but a prerequisite of faith

itself: Alongside the development of the maʿārif literary genre emerged a paradigmatic

conceptual shift in Muʿtazilite doctrine, which was extremely significant and influential for

Islamic thought as a whole, yet fascinatingly paradoxical; namely, the view that performing

naẓar was “rationally incumbent” (wājib ʿaqlan), which meant that reason had dictated its

religious incumbency on human beings even without prior exposure to revelation.

27
van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 5, 137. It may not be written by him,
however; see Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 561.
28
Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 148–9.
29
See the books on epistemology in the work lists of Abū’l-Hudhayl (van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3.
Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 5, 367-369.), Bishr b. Muʿtamir (ibid., vol. 5, 283-285.), al-Naẓẓām (ibid., vol. 6, 1-3.), Ḍirār
b. ʿAmr (ibid., vol. 5, 229-231. and al-Aṣamm (ibid., vol. 5, 193.).

70
 Wāṣil probably had not been as bold as this, especially given how his religious

argumentation is described by his biographers.30 To be sure, others of his generation and

shortly thereafter likewise based the justification of naẓar on the Qurʾān: Wāṣil’s associate

ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd did not say that God commanded naẓar, but rather that God forbade one from

neglecting it.31 Wāṣil’s disciple Ḍirār b. ʿAmr and the latter’s student Bishr al-Marīsī said that it

was wājib once the intellect was mature, but again on the basis of revelation (al-sharʿ).32

Indeed, as everyone knew, the Qurʾān itself contained many instances of verses exhorting its

addressees to use their reasoning capacities:

Lo! In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the difference of night and day,
and the ships which run upon the sea with that which is of use to men, and the water
which God sends down from the sky, thereby reviving the earth after its death, and
dispersing all kinds of beasts therein, and (in) the ordinance of the winds, and the
clouds obedient between heaven and earth: are signs (of Allah's Sovereignty) for people
who reason (yaʿqilūn). (Q al-Baqara 2:164)

The Lord of the East and the West and all that is inbetween – if you truly reasoned
(taʿqilūn) (Q al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:28)

The worst creatures to God are the deaf and dumb who do not reason (lā yaʿqilūn) (Q al-
Anfāl 8:22)

When you call to prayer, they take it lightly and as a joke. This is because they are a
people who do not reason (lā yaʿqilūn) (Q al-Māʾida 5:58)

The life of this world is no other than games and diversion. But the final abode is better
for the righteous – don’t you reason (taʿqilūn)? (Q al-Anʿām 6:32)

It was, however, the efforts of the major systematizers of Muʿtazilite thought such as Abū’l-

Hudhayl (d. 227/841) and Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir (d. 226/841), which shifted the mandate for

30
See below.
31
Ibid., vol. 5, 171. See al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād
Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 250.
32
ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn, ed. n.a. (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿat al-Dawla, 1346/1928), 256.

71
naẓar to the principle of reason alone. They were both of the opinion that as soon as the

human intellect matured it was necessary to perform naẓar and prove tawḥīd and ʿadl to

oneself even without any previous notion (khāṭir) of God’s existence.33 Abū’l-Hudhayl had even

said that it was immediately mandatory (wājib) from the very moment one could perceive

(mushāhada) the (ontological) evidences for it.34 In contrast, Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir established

the “respite” or “grace period” (muhla) to get one’s bearings first; this was also the position of

al-Naẓẓām and Murdār, and thus was the dominant position in the “golden period” of

Muʿtazilism of the late 2nd/8th – early 3rd/9th centuries AH/CE.35 Grace period or none, it was

now an inherent rational obligation for all of mankind to negate traditionally received truth,

use their rational capacities, study the nature of the universe, and arrive at the truth about

God’s oneness and justice.

The emergence of this rather bold thesis cannot be explained without looking at the

context within which Mutʿazilite discourse was shaped. As mentioned earlier, Muʿtazilites

were very much concerned with refuting not only other Muslim sects, but adherents to other

religions and even other philosophical schools they encountered, debating with Jews,

Christians, Zoroastrians, Persian dualists, skeptics (mulḥidīn), and representatives of the newly

translated philosophy of late antiquity into Arabic.36 In such a context, where the belief

33
Ibid., 258. Shahrastānī says this as well in his al-Milal wa’l-niḥal; see van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3.
Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 5, 385. On the significance of the khāṭir, see the section on al-Ashʿarī in chapter four.
34
Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-al-ʻadl, 16 vols., ed. Amīn al-Khūlī and Ṭāhā Ḥusayn (Cairo:
al-Dār al-Miṣrīyah li'l-Taʾlīf wa'l-Nashr, 1965-74), vol. 12, 197. This quote strengthens Baghdādī’s and
Shahrastānī’s report on Abū’l-Hudhayl cited in the previous footnote.
35
van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 3, 251-252.
36
See praise for Wāṣil’s refutation of Shīʿites, Khārijites, Iranian Dualists (thanawīya) Zanādiqa and Dahrīya,
Murjiʾa in al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid
(Tūnis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 165, 234. Ḍirār b. ʿAmr against Christians, mulḥidīn, Aristotle, natural
philosophers (aṣḥāb al-ṭabāʾiʿ); Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 596-597. Abū’l-Hudhayl refuted Persian
dualists, Jews, Christians, atheists (mulḥidīn); ibid., vol. 1, part 2, 565-566. Cf. refutations against Zoroastrians,
Persian dualists, astrologers, aṣḥāb al-hāyūlā, and Jews; al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-
Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 254, 258-259, 263. Bishr b. al-

72
system of the interlocutor was different from one’s own, even a Qurʾānic mandate to use one’s

reason was not binding. Later Muʿtazilites related anecdotes about Hārūn al-Rashīd’s inability

to convey the message of Islam to foreign-kings because of his reliance on taqlīd and

traditional narrations of authority which non-Muslims did not hold deference to; the

Muʿtazilites viewed themselves as the answer to this problem.37 Kalām thus underwent a

transformation into a method for establishing the core truths of Islam on objective knowledge

accessible to everyone, and not a particular Islamic tradition. Not even revelation.

Indeed, the mandate of naẓar on the basis of the intellect alone necessitated that

revelation became superfluous for the establishment of God’s existence and the validity of the

Islamic message. Clearly, advancements made in naẓar were such that it was clearly felt that it

could suffice: The process began with 1) an inquiry on the nature of knowledge and its

acquisition (epistemology); and was followed by 2) an analysis of the basic makeup of the

temporal world (ontology).38 This took an atomistic approach (with some differences),39 the

precise origins of which have been disputed,40 but the evidence makes clear that early

Muʿtamir against Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians; Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 512-513. Al-Naẓẓām
refuted Aristotelians (hylomorphic philosophers), dualists, mulḥidīn; ibid., vol. 1, part 2, 571. Cf. al-Naẓẓām
against Jews, Christians, and Aristotle, al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-
Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 264. Murdār against Christians, Jews,
Zoroastrians; Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 574.
37
Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-
Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 266 f., 269. In light of such negative views of al-Rashīd, they sought the patronage of his
Barmakid viziers; see a depiction of Islamic intersectarian gatherings hosted by the Barkmakids in Abū'l-Ḥasan
ʿAlī al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-jawhar, 4 vols., ed. Kamāl Ḥasan Marʿī (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣrīya,
1425/2005), vol. 3, 306. For an anecdote about al-Naẓẓām refuting Aristotle’s views in private conversation with
Jaʿfar b. Yaḥyā al-Barmakī (defying the latter’s skepticism concerning the former’s ability to do so given his
ignorance of the Greek), see al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed.
Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 264.
38
Ḍirār b. ʿAmr wrote a book called K. al-Dalāla ʿalā ḥadath al-ashyāʾ; Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 598.
Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir had a book called Ḥudūth al-ashyāʾ; ibid., vol. 1, part 2, 512.
39
Ḍirār b. ʿAmr and his student Ḥafṣ al-Fard said the world only consisted of accidents; al-Aṣamm and al-Naẓẓām
said it was only bodies; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 1, 355-358; vol. 2, 398-
492; vol. 3, 331-355.
40
Epicureanism, ancient Iranian or Indian systems have been mentioned. For the most recent review of the
previous literature on the topic see Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Islamic Atomism and the Galenic Tradition,” History of

73
Muʿtazilites consciously took up a position they knew to be in contention with Aristotelian

physics, which was adamantly anti-atomist.41 Abūl-Hudhayl is usually credited with providing

the general ontological basis that was to dominate kalām – that corporeal entities (ajsām) are

composed of “minimal parts” (jawāhir) characterized by “accidental” features (aʿrāḍ) – such as

movement/stillness, union/separation – which, as markers of change, come forth in time

(ḥādith/muḥdath) and space, and thus indicate the temporality of corporeal being.42 3) This was

then supplemented by a reflection on the metaphysical premise that an “actualized infinitude”

of such temporal being, whether in physical multitude (and thus extension)43 or in successive

chain of occurrences, was impossible.44 This was concluded by 4) the affirmation of the

necessity of an Originator of temporal being (muḥdith), essentially different from said temporal

beings. This is the essence of what has been called the “Kalām Cosmological Argument;”45

Science 47, no. 3 (September 2009), 277–95. Langermann suggests the transmission of the idea through Galen,
though unconclusively. It must be remembered (as Langermann also points out) that even if the mutakallimūn
found inspiration for their atomism from the Alexandrian philosophical tradition of late antiquity, this would also
mean that they acquired an initial familiarity with atomism from distinctly anti-atomist sources.
41
Ḍirār b. ʿAmr wrote “a refutation of Aristotle concerning minimal parts and accidents;” Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-
fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 598. Abū’l-Hudhayl wrote a refutation against aṣḥāb al-hāyūlā – referring to Aristotle’s
hylomorphic system, as did al-Naẓẓām, see al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-
Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 259; Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part
2, 571.
42
For this credit to Abū’l-Hudhayl see the sources compiled by van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3.
Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 5, 383-384. He wrote at least three pertinent books, al-Ḥarakāt, al-Jawāhir wa’l-aʿrāḍ,
Tathbīt al-aʿrāḍ, Ṭūl al-insān wa-lawnuhu wa-taʾlīfuhu, Kitāb al-ṣawt mā huwa; Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part
2, 566-567. See Richard M. Frank, “I. The metaphysics of created being according to Abū l-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf: a
philosophical study of the earliest kalām,” in Texts and Studies on the Development and History of Kalām, ed. Dimitri
Gutas, 3 vols., Variorum Collected Studies Series (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005-2008); originally in Istanbul:
Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut, 1966. Cf. Herbert Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the
Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 134 ff.
43
Al-Khayyāṭ, Kitāb al-intiṣār wa'l-radd ʿalā Ibn al-Rāwandī al-Mulḥid, 9–10. On the significance of this doctrine in
historical context, see Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish
Philosophy, 106–16.
44
See al-Khayyāṭ, Kitāb al-intiṣār wa'l-radd ʿalā Ibn al-Rāwandī al-Mulḥid, 12–3. Explained by al-Iskāfī as well, see
ibid., 13–4. This was probably the subject of his book al-Ḥarakāt mentioned above. As is clear from the testimony
of al-Khayyāṭ, Abū’l-Hudhayl’s considerations include the impossibility of both temporal regress and spatial
extension (on which see Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish
Philosophy, 116-127, 355 ff. ibid., 106-127, 355 ff.).
45
William Lane Craig, The Kalām Cosmological Argument (New York: Macmillan Press, 1979).

74
moving from epistemology to ontology, from physics to metaphysics, from knowledge of

temporal being to knowledge of non-temporal being – the mutakallim was not in need of

revelation to know God.46

God’s existence being proven, and in a manner by which essential attributes or

dimensions characteristic of physical “accidents,” likening Him to creation were negated, it

was this ontologically based principle of divine transcendence which consolidated the

principle of ʿadl, God’s work in accordance with what was “intellectually fair-seeming.” Such

transcendence allows God to act perfectly, in contradistinction to temporally and physically

limited humanity, which due to its imperfection, often chooses evil. Nevertheless, since

human existence is not accidental, but the creation of a just God, human actions of ethical

import likewise necessitate the existence of deserved and just consequences for their actions –

the ontological basis of religious responsibility (taklīf), and the basis of punishment and

reward. Since ʿadl dictates that God do what is best (al-aṣlaḥ) for humans, however, it is thus

intellectually necessary (wājib) that He send prophets to guide them and provide them with a

sharīʿa to facilitate this religious responsibility. The existence of such prophets was confirmed

by the transmission of miracles that went against the natural order (again, ascertainable by

the intellect) which confirmed the truth of their message.47 That being said, neither

46
Kalām was now the technical foundation of belief in God. As Abū’l-Hudhayl said, if it were not possible to
“establish the temporal origin of corporeal entities [through the 3 rd premise of naẓar mentioned above], it would
be necessary to deny their originator (nafī muḥdithihi) due to our inability to establish their origination, since He
is not known by the senses but only by His actions;” al-Khayyāṭ, Kitāb al-intiṣār wa'l-radd ʿalā Ibn al-Rāwandī al-
Mulḥid, 13. On this basis, reliance on scripture had been “scientifically” disproven: Al-Naẓẓām, echoing his
teacher, said that “eternal being” (al-qadīm [i.e, God]), as a “non-sensible entity” (ghayr al-maḥsūs), cannot not be
known by reports (al-khabar) but only by analogy (al-qiyās) and reflection (al-naẓar); see ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī,
al-Farq bayna al-firaq, ed. Muḥammad ʿUthmān al-Khisht (Cairo: Maktabat Ibn Sīnā), 127.
47
This is an extrapolation of the polished argumentation found in the 15 th volume of al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s
Mughnī. However, elements of this theme worked on quite early on; see Ḍirār’s Ithbāt al-rusul and al-Asbāb wa’l-
ʿilm (Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 598.), Abū’l-Hudhayl’s ʿAlāmāt ṣidq al-rasūl (ibid., vol. 1, part 2,
567.), Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir’s al-Ḥujja fī ithbāt al-nabī (ibid., vol. 1, part 2, 512.), and al-Naẓẓām’s Ithbāt al-rusul (ibid.,

75
prophethood nor the truth of revelation could be proven except by scientific, ontological proof

of tawḥīd and ʿadl first.48

Naẓar as the methodology of kalām took on salvific overtones; true knowledge (ʿilm)

about God and His religion as acquired by the intellect was the ultimate foundation of faith.

The alternative, faith by taqlīd, was equated with disbelief (kufr), and as a type of ignorance

(jahl) was considered to be “intellectually ugly” (qabīḥ) and deserving of the divine punishment

of Hell.49 Not only could one be considered a disbeliever for not doing naẓar in due time (i.e.,

before the end of the “grace period”), but for proceeding about it in the wrong way. 50 Mistakes

in naẓar were not forgiven by God,51 as God’s forgiving of self-imposed ignorance (God was not

responsible for human ignorance) would be rationally ugly.

vol. 1, part 2, 571.). See the extent fragments of al-Jāḥiẓ, “Fī ḥujaj al-nubuwwa,” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ, ed. Hārūn, ʿAbd
al-Salām Muḥammad, 4 vols., vol. 3, 221–281 (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānajī, 1384/1964).
48
As al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār would sum up, “knowledge of God and His tawḥīd and ʿadl must come before
knowledge of the correctness of His book and truth of its statements; ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Aḥmad al-Hamadhānī, al-
Qāḍī, Nukat al-Kitāb al-mughnī, ed. Omar Hamdan and Sabine Schmidtke (Beirut: al-Maʿhad al-Almānī li'l-Abḥāth
al-Sharqīya, 2012), 302.
49
Disbelief (kufr) is mandated for ignorance regarding the nature of God’s existence, characteristics, and
deserving to be worshipped, see Omar Hamdan and Sabine Schmidtke, “Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī (d.
415/1025) On The Promise and Threat: An Edition of a Fragment of the Kitāb al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa'l-
ʿadl Preserved in the Firkovitch-Collection, St. Petersburg,” Mélanges de l'Institut Dominicain d'Études Orientales du
Caire, no. 27 (2008), 37–117: 91–2; ibid., 94 ff. One prominent Muʿtazilite Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī (d. 321/933) was
said to have even considered someone a disbeliever who believed in his doctrine but was ignorant of one if its
proofs; al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn, 255. Cf. Abū Hāshim’s requirements of fools (balīd) to practice naẓar, al-Qāḍī ʿAbd
al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-al-ʻadl, vol. 12, 150.
50
See ibid., vol. 12, 191 ff.
51
See ibid., vol. 12, 122.

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 No one was immune from such transgressions, not even the elite of the mutakallimūn:

Ḍirār b. ʿAmr,52 Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir,53 al-Jāḥiẓ,54 al-Naẓẓām,55 and even Abū’l-Hudhayl56 were

each subject to excommunication and rejection by their peers for an eclectic list of

methodologically-based “heresies.”57 For this reason later thinkers characterized Muʿtazilites

as having not fallen far from the tree of the pseudo-Khārijite position on salvation they were

earlier identified with. That famous man of letters, Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023), for

example, berated the Muʿtazilites for their enamourment with excommunication (takfīr) of

one another.58

Although such dogmatic tendencies in Muʿtazilism were discussed in a profound

manner by Ignaz Goldziher long ago,59 this view has generally been overshadowed by an even

older European tradition of interpreting the Muʿtazila as the “freethinkers” or “liberals” of

Islam. Such views persist despite the meager philological evidence for them, reflecting the

legacy of late-Enlightenment preoccupations about locating historical agents of “upheaval” in

a teleological outline of the march of progress.60 Such interpretations of Muʿtazilism, which

52
Ḍirār was almost completely excluded from the Muʿtazilite collective. Ibn al-Nadīm said he was from bidʿīyat al-
Muʿtazila; Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 596. Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār does not give him biographical
entry because of his “forsaking” of his teacher Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ; al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-
iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 163. On the reason why,
see the following discussion on the Jahmīya, in chapter three.
53
For the reason why see the section on al-Ashʿarī, in chapter four.
54
For the reason why see the section on al-Ashʿarī in chapter four.
55
For the reason why see the section on al-Ashʿarī in chapter four.
56
See Josef van Ess, EIr, s.v. “ABU’L-HOḎAYL AL-ʿALLĀF.”
57
Bishr wrote against Abū’l-Hudhayl, al-Naẓẓām, and Ḍirār as well as those whom the latter influenced such as
Ḥafṣ al-Fard and al-Aṣamm; Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 513, 569-570. Al-Murdār wrote against the
maʿrifa theories of Thumāma, al-Shaḥḥām, and al-Naẓẓām; ibid., vol. 1, part 2, 574.
58
Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī, al-Baṣāʾir wa'l-dhakhāʾir, 10 vols., ed. Wadād al-Qāḍī (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1408/1998), vol. 4,
216, vol. 7, 249.
59
Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, Translated by Andras and Ruth Hamori (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1981), 100 ff.
60
For an instructive overview of European research on Muʿtazilism which also addresses the historiographical
context of such interpretations, Thomas Hildebrandt, Neo-Muʿtazilismus? Intention und Kontext im modernen
arabischen Umgang mit dem rationalistischen Erbe des Islam (Boston: Brill, 2007), 151–60. The Muʿtazilites did not
ascribe to the relativistic and evolutionary view of reason delineated in Hegelian frameworks of progress. As with

77
are undoubtedly inspired by its prioritization of reason, diversity of thought, as well as the

cosmopolitan setting in which it often flourished, neglect such important details as Muʿtazilite

concepts of orthodoxy and salvation. Once these are incorporated into our analysis, it not only

becomes clear that the plurality of opinions in Muʿtazilite kalām not only found no

“theological” (viz. methodological) justification, but that such “diversity” could even be seen

as a setback to the ideal of epistemological certainty that the methods of reason were supposed

to provide. Although the mutakallimūn did enjoy a certain esprit de corps and tolerance for one

another, this was chiefly in the spirit of solidarity against the greater number of Muslims who

did not practice kalām; even their fellow mutakallimūn could be removed from the fold of Islam

if their rational inquiries did not lead them to the same conclusions.

Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the Muʿtazilites were successful in initiating a

discourse whose circle would grow ever wider, and would come to affect the sensibilities of

every sect of Islam, whether in agreement or in contention. In regards to Sunnīs, this is not

only applicable to Ashʿarism, the most famous Sunnī kalām school, but even to earlier

developments: In what follows it will be demonstrated that the legacy of the two latest Sunnī

madhhab eponyms, al-Shāfiʿī and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, far from being only representatives of

traditionalist authority, garner much greater portent for the history of Islamic thought when

understood in the light of their engagement with the challenges of Muʿtazilite thought.

2.2 Revelatonal Prioritism and Continuity with Prophethood: The Ahl al-Sunna

Having surveyed the foundations of classical Muʿtazilism, it is easy to see why kalām

was rejected by early Sunnī religious authorities. Its fundamentals effectively redefined the

all pre-Enlightenment systems of rational thought, the concept of reason was based on fixed parameters within a
definitive epistemological and ontological framework; i.e., it was not a “work in progress.”

78
nature of faith and religious identity and went against the ethos of general precepts passed on

by the normative traditions of the larger Islamic community. The earliest usages of the term

ahl al-sunna by early Muslims in fact denote three such norms inherently antithetical to the

Muʿtazilite collective. The first was the rejection of damnation of fellow Muslims on the basis

of sin; the second was the affirmation of the primacy of the Qurʾān and teachings of the

Prophet Muḥammad (the sunna) as source of religious doctrine; the third was the ideal of

historical continuity or authenticity in transmission of the same by following reliable sources

in an unbroken chain. From a Muʿtazilite perspective, the first of these principles went

against God’s justice (ʿadl), the second contravened the exclusive role of naẓar for establishing

belief in God, and the third advocated a traditionalistic notion of normativity which did not

accord with the Muʿtazilites rejection of taqlīd.

An important function was played in this context by the ḥadīth, or transmitted

statements of the Prophet, as well as its transmitters, the ahl al-ḥadīth (“people of ḥadīth”), who

contributed greatly to the articulation of Sunnī identity. In their time, they most vividly

embodied and advocated the ahl al-sunna ideal of upholding the primacy of transmitted

revelatory material. They would find their most influential defender in al-Shāfiʿī, who as

founder of Sunnī uṣūl al-fiqh came to defend the role of ḥadīth in a paradigmatic way for later

generations.

2.2.1. Ahl al-Sunna Identity

Two early usages of the term ahl al-sunna reflect a rejection of damnation or

excommunication on the basis of sin. Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767), in his famous letter to ʿUthmān

79
al-Battī (d. 143/760),61 identified himself with the ahl al-sunna, which he associated with the

term “people of moderation” (ahl al-ʿadl), by which he meant to contrast himself with

Khārijites,62 and alluded negatively to the Muʿtazilite intermediate position as an innovation

(bidʿa); both problematically removed Muslims from the fold of Islam for their sins.63 Ahl al-

sunna is also mentioned as an ethical ideal by al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204/820), likewise in a discussion

concerning Khārijism.64 This association of the sunna appellation with particular doctrines on

salvation is also reflected in a critique by Ḍirār b. ʿAmr: He uses the term ṣāḥib sunna wa-jamāʿa

to refer to those who believed in the ḥadīth relating the Prophet’s intercession (shafāʿa) for the

faithful,65 a well-known point of belief by which early Sunnīs identified and which was

rejected by early Khārijites and Muʿtazilites.66

The second application was decidedly less ecumenical, but no less important to Sunnī

identity. In this case, the term ṣāḥib sunna was used as a term to mark the embodiment of an

“ideal-type” in those figures whose beliefs were publicly known to be impermeable to

“innovated” beliefs (i.e. Qadarite, Muʿtazilite, Khārijite, and rejectionist Shīʿite doctrines),

upheld Islamic moral precepts, and were able to trace the pedigree of their religious teachings

through isnāds, or chains of transmission back to the Prophet Muḥammad and his Companions.

61
This letter was written to ʿUthmān al-Battī, another authority for whom usage of “ṣāḥib sunna” nomenclature is
recorded, see n. 67. On the background, authenticity, and analysis of this letter, see Ulrich Rudolph, Al-Māturīdī
und die sunnitische theologie in Samarkand (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 30–7.
62
Abū Ḥanīfa, “Risāla ilā ʿUthmān al-Battī,” in al-ʿĀlim wa'l-mutaʿallim, ed. Muḥammad Z. al-Kawtharī
(Cairo: Maktabat al-Anwār, 1368/1949), 34–8, 38. I believe this meaning of ahl al-ʿadl is made clear when compared
with the discussion of al-Shāfiʿī (see n. 64), cf. Rudolph, Al-Māturīdī und die sunnitische theologie in Samarkand, 37.
63
Abū Ḥanīfa, “Risāla ilā ʿUthmān al-Battī,” in al-ʿĀlim wa'l-mutaʿallim, ed. Muḥammad Z. al-Kawtharī
(Cairo: Maktabat al-Anwār, 1368/1949), 34–8, 36.
64
“The ahl al-sunna are the most patient in giving people their rights among the people of God’s religion (ahl dīn
Allāh);” al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, al-Umm, 11 vols., ed. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, Rifʿat Fawzī (Manṣūra: Dār al-Wafāʾ,
1426/2005), vol. 5, 530. Like Abū Ḥanīfa, al-Shāfiʿī also uses the word ahl al-ʿadl in contradistinction with baghy,
the legal ruling of the extremist Khārijite position.
65
He also associates it with people of jurisdiction (qaḍāʾ) and jurisprudence (aḥkām); Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, Kitāb al-taḥrīsh,
ed. Ḥusayn Khānṣū and Muḥammad Kaskīn (Istanbul: Dār al-Irshād, 1435/2014), 72.
66
See A.J. Wensinck, D. Gimaret, EI2, s.v. “Shafāʿa”

80
Unlike the mutakallim, the ṣāḥib sunna was supposed to reject speculation and religious

disputation and abide by the revelatory knowledge he transmitted; false religious beliefs were

meant to be avoided and condemned rather than engaged with. Even debating false opinions

was viewed as a compromise.67

Both components illustrate the fundamental difference between the religious world

views of early Sunnīs and the Muʿtazilites. If the foundations of one’s salvation and proper

religious faith in Muʿtazilite eyes were dependent on breaking with tradition and engaging in

disputation or speculative kalām, then for early Sunnīs, the absolute medium of knowledge was

God’s revelation and its transmission. In addition to this, they latter shared a common aim of

interpreting revelatory information in accordance with the example of the Prophet

Muḥammad – called the Sunna – as transmitted through his Companions and later scholarly

networks who inherited that from them. Anything fundamentally new introduced into Islam

was viewed as something foreign, tainting a pristine doctrine which the community was

entrusted with maintaining. This was a revelational mandate, from the Qurʾān itself:

And we have sent down to you the Book as a clarification (tibyānan) for all things and as
guidance and mercy and good tidings for the Muslims” (Q al-Naḥl 16:89)

67
See the observations of G.H.A. Juynboll, “An excursus on the ahl al-sunna in connection with Van Ess, Theologie
und Gesellschaft, vol. IV,” Der Islam 75 (1998), 318–30. Following the recommendations made by Juynboll (ibid.,
330), I have also documented the following early usages of the term by: Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī (d. 131/748), Basran
muḥaddith (see al-Lālakāʾī, Abū'l-Qāsim Hibat Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b. Manṣūr al-Ṭabarī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna
wa'l-jamāʿa, 2nd ed., 9 vols., ed. Ibn Ḥamdān, Aḥmad b. Masʿūd (Riyadh: Dār Ṭayyiba, 1411/1990), 60.), ʿAmr b. Qays
al-Mulāʾī (d. after 140/758), Kufan muḥaddith (Ibn Baṭṭa al-ʿUkbarī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad, al-
Ibāna ʿan sharīʿat al-firaq al-nājiya wa-mujānabat al-firaq al-madhmūma, 4 vols., ed. Muʿṭī, Riḍā b. Naʿsān et al.
(Riyadh: Dār al-Rāya, 1409/1988), vol. 1, 205. ʿUthmān al-Battī (d. 143/760), ibid., vol. 1, 470-471.), Sufyān al-
Thawrī (d. 161/778), Kufan muḥaddith and faqīh (al-Lālakāʾī, Abū'l-Qāsim Hibat Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b. Manṣūr al-
Ṭabarī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna wa'l-jamāʿa, 64.), Fuḍayl b. ʿIyāḍ (d. 187/803), Khurāsānī Sufi and muḥaddith
(see ibid., 138. and Ibn Baṭṭa al-ʿUkbarī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad, al-Ibāna ʿan sharīʿat al-firaq al-
nājiya wa-mujānabat al-firaq al-madhmūma, vol. 1, 456.), and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī (al-Lālakāʾī, Abū'l-Qāsim
Hibat Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b. Manṣūr al-Ṭabarī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna wa'l-jamāʿa, 62.) See discussion by Scott
Lucas of the term by Ibn Saʿd and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal; Scott Lucas, Constructive Critics, Ḥadīth Literature, and the
Articulation of Sunnī Islam (Boston: Brill, 2004), 323–4.

81
 [Sending] a messenger, reciting to you the verses of God which make things clear
(bayyināt), in order to bring those who believe and work righteous deeds from the
darknesses into the light.” (Q al-Ṭalāq 65:11)

God has conveyed His favor to the believers; sending them a Prophet from among
themselves, who recites His verses to them, purifies them, and teaches them the Book
and the wisdom (al-ḥikma), although they had been in clear error prior to that.” (Q Āl
ʿImrān 3:164)

We have revealed it as a source of discernment in Arabic. If you follow their desires

(ahwāʾahum) after the knowledge (al-ʿilm) that has come to you, then you will have no
ally or protector from God” (Q al-Raʿd 13:37)

Among the people are those who dispute about God without knowledge (ʿilm), or
guidance (hudā), or an illuminating book (Q al-Ḥajj 22:8)

Do you believe in part of the book and disbelieve in part of it? What can the
recompense of such people be other than lowliness in the life of this world, and a
punishment on the Day of Resurrection.” (Q al-Baqara 2:85)

Both the Qurʾān and the collections of the Prophet Muḥammad’s sayings make extensive

mention of knowledge and its sacred status in Islam – a reflection of the divine source from

whence it came.68 The general motif emerges in scripture of a dichotomy between revelatory

truth and conflicting non-revelatory opinion, which informs the juxtaposition of knowledge

(ʿilm)/guidance (hudā)/proofs (bayyināt) versus ignorance (jahl)/desires (ahwāʾ)/conjecture

(ẓann).69 Each negative element in this Qurʾānically defined dichotomy is also associated in

Muslim scripture with “dissension” (tafarruq/ikhtilāf),70 a term used to illustrate the

misguidance and dissolution of past religious communities – a foil to the ideal of a united

“congregation” (jamāʿa) for latter-day Muslims held by Sunnī scholars.71

68
This too is reflected in the frequent occurrence of chapters on knowledge (bāb al-ʿilm) in books of ḥadīth, see
Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant, 70–90.
69
For a classical panorama on the relevant verses, ḥadīth, and early exegetical interpretations, see the first three
volumes of al-Harawī, Abū Ismāʿīl ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī, Dhamm al-kalām wa-ahlihi, 5 vols., ed. al-Anṣārī, Abū Jābir
ʿAbd Allāh (Medina: Maktabat al-Ghurabāʾ al-Atharīya, 1998). This book will be discussed in more detail in the
following section.
70
See Yohanan Friedmann, Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān, s.v. “Dissension.”
71
See L. Gardet, EI2, s.v. “Djamāʿa.”

82
 This ideal could be effectively employed against practitioners of kalām, as is illustrated

in the following statement by Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870), muḥaddith whose

name has come to be synonymous with Sunnīsm:

A group of people have adopted this kalām religiously and split into types I can’t
enumerate, with no insight nor valid traditional authority (lā taqlīd yaṣiḥḥ), and have
lead each other astray out of ignorance with no proof (bi-lā ḥujja) or mention of
isnād. All of it comes from other than God, “except for the one whom God is merciful
to,”72 so they “found much contradiction in it,”73 and if God wishes to “confuse them
into sects (shiyaʿan), and let them taste affliction from another,” 74 then there is nothing
to stop that …75

As might be expected, however, the criterion of doctrinal purity created deep rifts

among those who aspired to embody the ahl al-sunna ideal. These are the most palpable in the

famous complaints made against Abū Ḥanīfa. His separation of faith and deeds, in a position

called irjāʾ by its opponents, was viewed by many ahl al-sunna figures as reprehensible due to

its contradiction of revelatory statements.76 His jurisprudential methods, which relied on

induction of the ratio legis over explicitly stated clauses in the scripture, caused him to demote

the authority of certain ḥadīth which his interlocutors viewed as authoritative. His legal

positions, the product of such speculation (raʾy),77 put a rift between him and other early

Sunnīs who felt it to challenge the spirit of Islamic traditionalism. This conflict was

heightened further when his students, pressed to accept ḥadīth narrations contrary to their

legal opinions, emphasized uncertainties in their transmission. Nevertheless, when accused by

72
Quote of Q al-Dukhān 44:42.
73
Reference to Q al-Nisāʾ 4:82: “…If it was from other than God, they would find much contradiction in it.”
74
Quote of Q al-Anʿām 6:65. See n. 70
75
al-Bukhārī, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, Khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād wa'l-radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya wa-aṣḥāb al-taʿṭīl, 3rd ed. (Beirut:
Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1411/1990), 59.
76
On this and the circumstances behind the Murjiʾite doctrines of Abū Ḥanīfa, see Rudolph, Al-Māturīdī und die
sunnitische theologie in Samarkand, 26–30.
77
See Ahmed El Shamsy, The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2013), 22-28, 48-55.

83
the ahl al-ḥadīth of innovation and irjāʾ, Abū Ḥanīfa presented himself in solidarity with the ahl

al-sunna ideal: “The [proper religion] is what the Qurʾān brought and what Muḥammad (ṣ)

called to, and what his Companions believed before the people divided (ḥattā tafarraqa al-nās) –

while everything else is innovation (mubtadaʿ wa-muḥdath).”78

For this reason we see a theological split in the Ḥanafī school on the fault lines of raʾy

and ḥadīth and their respective partisans. Baghdad Ḥanafism, taking raʾy as a stand against

traditionalist-scripturalist tendencies, inclined towards Muʿtazilism in theology at the end of

the 2nd/8th century,79 a trend which would last for at least four more centuries. The Ḥanafīs of

Khurāsān and Central Asia, however, while maintaining Abū Ḥanīfa’s raʾy methodology, upheld

a traditionalist ideal by transmitting their master’s transmitted theological statements as a

summary of authentic Sunnī creedal formulations.80

This tension with Ḥanafīsm concerning the role of ḥadīth highlights an important

problem underlying this important source of Islamic teachings; namely, the increasing

realization of the contingency of ḥadīth-based revelational material and the authority of those

who transmitted it. Arguments based on the uncertainty of ḥadīth transmission were used

strategically by Ḥanafites against their interlocutors, but it was the early Muʿtazilites who

leveled the strongest arguments for the categorical inadmissability of ḥadīth, whether for

78
Abū Ḥanīfa, “Risāla ilā ʿUthmān al-Battī,” in al-ʿĀlim wa'l-mutaʿallim, ed. Muḥammad Z. al-Kawtharī
(Cairo: Maktabat al-Anwār, 1368/1949), 34–8, 35.
79
Nurit Tsafrir, The History of an Islamic School of Law: The Early Spread of Hanafism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2004), 48 ff. Due to the real theological differences between them (the irjāʾ and traditionalism),
the hardcore of the Muʿtazilite collective was to disparage the legacy of Abū Ḥanīfa and his immediate students,
see al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār
al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 266.
80
This forms the subject of chapters 1.1-1.3 in Rudolph, Al-Māturīdī und die sunnitische theologie in Samarkand. In
this Eastern Ḥanafite tradition, Abū Ḥanīfa’s profile is analogous to that of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal as grand synthesizer
of authoritative creedal statements for later generations, a unique development among the eponyms of the Sunnī
madhhabs.

84
Islamic doctrine or law. It is al-Shāfiʿī’s engagement with these Muʿtazilite critiques in

particular which single him out historically as a paragon of Sunnī thought, commemorated by

later generations as a “renewer” (mujaddid) of Islamic orthodoxy.81 His elucidation of a

scripturally-nativist epistemological framework for negotiating competing interpretations of

Islam, in conversation with both early Sunnī traditionalist authorities and Muʿtazilite critics,

forced a rehabilitation of “traditional knowledge” in a way which inspired many generations

to come.

2.2.2 Early Sunnī Madhhabs vs. the Muʿtazilites in the Normative Role of Sunna

Although the ahl al-sunna collective included a large number of authoritative

personages spread out geographically,82 the prominence of the sharīʿa in Islamic teachings

dictated that general norms would coalesce around particular jurisprudential principles.

These eventually came to be embodied in the Sunnī legal madhabs, each of which reflected a

particular approach to the sunna ideal, or prophetic embodiment of Islamic practice. Although

the eponyms of the four canonical madhhabs employed different methods, they were

representative of various trends of jurisprudence prevalent in the 2nd/8th century

characterized to a great extent by dependence on transmission of interpretive statements

from past authorities, not least of which were the ḥadīth of the Prophet Muḥammad, as a

reliable embodiment of the sunna.

The Muʿtazilites on their part, and from very early on, leveled serious challenges

against the prevailing modus operandi of accessing Prophetic teachings. Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ had an

See E. Chaumont, EI2, s.v. “al-S̲h̲āfiʿī.”

81

82
For a list of names in their gegraphical distribution, see al-Lālakāʾī, Abū'l-Qāsim Hibat Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b.
Manṣūr al-Ṭabarī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna wa'l-jamāʿa, vol. 1, 31-54.

85
inherent distrust of transmitted reports about the sunna that reflected his concerns about their

susceptibility to personal agendas since the time of the fitna in the wake of the assassination of

the third caliph ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (d. 35/655).83 This incited him to devise new criteria for

establishing a binding proof in matters of religious dispute. He is usually quoted as having

listed the standards proof in the following order: “Qurʾānic statements, unanimously agreed

upon reports, intellectual proof, and consensus” (kitāb nāṭiq, khabar mujtamaʿ ʿalayhi, ḥujjat ʿaql,

wa-ijmāʿ).84

As can be seen, three of the four elements of this system were explicitly oriented

towards the ideal of consensus.85 This dependency on numbers aimed to sidestep

disagreement and perhaps also hoped to present a compelling discourse binding not just on

the community of believers, but even broader than that. The major problem according to the

Muʿtazilites was that everyone had a ḥadīth they could use for their opinion.86 This did not

inspire confidence, and thus skepticism towards transmitted information as a whole was their

working method in establishing their weight in religious discourse. As Wāṣil is supposed to

have said:

Every report which does not possibly [originate from] conspiracy and collaboration (al-
tawāṭuʾ wa’l-tarāsul), or even agreement [in doctrine] without conspiracy – is a binding

83
He was famous for saying that he would not accept testimony of ʿAlī, Ṭalḥa, and Zubayr individually but only in
corroboration with others; see Nawbakhtī, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Mūsā, Firaq al-shīʿa, ed. Hellmut Ritter
(Istanbul, 1931), 12.
84
Based on quotation of al-Jāḥiẓ from the K. al-Awāʾil by Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī (d. 395/1005), see al-ʿAwnī, al-Sharīf
Ḥātim b. ʿĀrif, al-Yaqīnī wa'l-ẓannī min al-akhbār: Sijāl bayna al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī wa'l-muḥaddithīn (2011: al-
Shabaka al-ʿArabīya li'l-Abḥāth wa'l-Nashr), 25–6. Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār reports it in a paraphrase in the al-Qāḍī
ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīya,
1974), 136–350, 234.
85
Along with consensus, the Qurʾān can be considered an agreed upon report,
86
This was the theme of Ḍirār b. ʿAmr’s K. al-Taḥrīsh. See Josef van Ess, “Ḍirār b. ʿAmr und die "Cahmīya:
Biographie einer vergessenen Schule. Part 2,” Der Islam 44 (1968), 1–70: 15.

86
 argument (ḥujja). But [those reports] of which this is the case are to be rejected
(muṭṭaraḥ)87

Wāṣil’s student Ḍirār b. ʿAmr also agreed that a “binding argument” (ḥujja) on the basis of the

Prophet’s words could only come from ijmāʿ.88 So too did Muʿtazilite-influenced theologian

jurisprudents such as al-Aṣamm (d. 200/816)89 and his student Ibn ʿUlayya (d. 193/809).90 Other

Muʿtazilites, clearly recognizing the principle of “truth in numbers” attempted to engage the

isnāds more directly, by setting a numerical minimum for considering distinct isnāds as

convincingly corroborative, at 2, 3, 4, 5, 12, 20, or even 70.91

Besides “the numerical criterion” the intellectual standard could be used to reject a

ḥadīth on the basis of its content.92 ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd gained notoriety for rejecting ḥadīth in

which predestinarian matters were mentioned, as well as ḥadīth on legal matters that he

disagreed with.93 Al-Naẓẓām wrote critiquing ḥadīth he felt did not accord with the intellect.94

On a whole, it was much harder to consistently apply this criterion in the minutia of Islamic

law, and this form of critique was more influential for matters of theology.

87
al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-
Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 234. This quotation by al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār of al-Jāḥiẓ, seems like an explicit quotation
of Wāṣil instead of a paraphrase.
88
al-Māwardī, Abū'l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad, Aʿlām al-nubuwwa, ed. al-Baghdādī, Muḥammad al-Muʿtaṣim Billāh
(Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1407/1987), 151–2. Cf. Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, Kitāb al-taḥrīsh, 144–5.
89
Ibn al-Nadīm tells us he was considered an esteemed member of the collective until he fell from grace for his
negative attitude towards ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib; Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 594. Van Ess has pointed out
other significant theological issues of difference; see Josef van Ess, EI2, s.v. “al-Aṣamm.”
90
They were not considered Muʿtazilites, but held similar kalām-based doctrines; Josef van Ess, “L'autorité de la
tradition prophétique dans la théologie muʿtazilite,” in La notion d'autorité au Moyen Age: Islam, Byzance, Occident, ed.
George Makdisi, Dominique Sourdel and Janine Sourdel-Thomine, 211–26 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1982), 216.
91
See Ibn Qutayba, Taʾwīl mukhtalif al-ḥadīth, ed. al-Aṣfar, Muḥammad Muḥyī al-Dīn (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī,
1419/1999), 117–8. Josef van Ess, “L'autorité de la tradition prophétique dans la théologie muʿtazilite,” in La
notion d'autorité au Moyen Age (see note 278), 217. These numbers were extracted from the Qurʾān, which shows
that there were attempts to establish even this method on the basis of an agreed-upon scriptural source.
92
“Le critère numérique qu’avait adopté Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ n’était pas le seul à être utilisé dans la querelle qui
s’alluma. Le muʿtazilisme avait appris à juger un ḥadīt par son contenu;” ibid., 215.
93
Ibid.
94
Ibid., 219. For a long list of such ḥadīth rejected by the mutakallimīn, as well as Ibn Qutayba’s defense of them, see
in general Ibn Qutayba, Taʾwīl mukhtalif al-ḥadīth.

87
 It was Wāṣil’s apriori objection to the category of falsifiable ḥadīth that presented a

more formidable challenge to Islamic scholarship.95 It was a radical contravention not only of

the general drive for historical continuity present in early Islam (indeed, in Wāṣil’s time there

were only two degrees of separation from the Prophet), but the increasingly important isnād

principle of the ahl al-sunna.96 His invalidation of all but fool-proof narrations completely

bypassed their approach to maintaining the reliability of transmitted knowledge through the

mutual re-enforcement of communal norms. The ahl al-sunna knew who their predecessors

were, and trusted them as reliable sources of information, embodying through their act of

transmission a living practice of the Prophet and his Companions:

Abū Ḥanīfa and his students, although operating in the Kufan milieu famous for its

speculative legal reasoning (raʾy), undoubtedly used ḥadīth of the Prophet and other sources of

transmitted material. This was due to the many circumstances in which sunna had to be used

in order to clarify “that which God had meant” in the Qurʾān.97 Positions of the Prophet’s

Companions ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and Ibn Masʿūd who settled in Kufa were also transmitted and

drawn on as a normative source of legal precedent.98

The Medinan community from which Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795) came, operated in

constant conversation with Prophetic ḥadīth, tradition from early authoritative Companions

for the interpretation of the law, and communal orthopraxy based on the living legacy of

95
Much more so than the intellectual critique; even Ḍirār b. ʿAmr criticized Muʿtazilites for using ḥadīth which
accorded with their theological opinions; see Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, Kitāb al-taḥrīsh, 81–2.
96
Van Ess says about Wāṣil’s attitude: “Mais il ignore l’isnād; ses critères n’englobent pas la dimension historique.
Dans la transmission d’un fait il voit le plan horizontal et non le plan vertical; les témoins dont il parle sont des
contemporains;” Josef van Ess, “L'autorité de la tradition prophétique dans la théologie muʿtazilite,” in La notion
d'autorité au Moyen Age (see note 278), 214.
97
El Shamsy, The Canonization of Islamic Law, 48 n. 2.
98
Ibid., 47-48, 51-53.

88
Medina, the adopted home of the Prophet Muḥammad, his family, and capital city of the first

three caliphs and early major legal authorities.99

These are the two oldest continuous Sunnī schools of jurisprudence, but there were

other interpretive communities in Mecca, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, and Basra, which though they

did not survive, had similar approaches, based on Companion’s statments, normative legal

precedents, raʾy, and of course, ḥadīth. The Muʿtazilite approach had the potential to

completely eliminate the traditional substrate of Islamic interpretation, with ḥadīth being the

most obvious sacrifice.

It was al-Shāfiʿī who was to defend the role of ḥadīth for the transmitted Sunna in Islam

against the Muʿtazilites in a way which was critical for the history of Islam as a whole.

Originally brought up among the ahl al-ḥadīth of Mecca,100 he came to be an outstanding

student of Mālik’s Medinan school, and went on to Iraq where he engaged in protracted

discussions and debates with Kufan legal minds. It is also in Iraq, and possibly Egypt, his final

residence, where al-Shāfiʿī also debated kalām-based argumentation against ḥadīth at the core

of Sunnī traditionalism. As El Shamsy has shown, it is undoubtedly his exposure to the various

trends of his time which explains his unique contribution in the course of these debates: As a

figure traversing divides in traditional modes of knowledge on one side and kalām

argumentation on the other, this has certainly made al-Shāfiʿī different things to different

people. An advocate of the ahl al-ḥadīth, according to devotees in successive generations,101 or

99
Ibid., 19-22, 38-43.
100
One of al-Shāfiʿī’s first teachers in Mecca, the major ḥadīth scholar Sufyān b. ʿUyayna (d. 198/813), was also a
teacher of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal. Al-Shāfiʿī was later asked to write his Risāla by the Baṣran ḥadīth scholar ʿAbd al-
Raḥmān b. Mahdī (d. 198/813); see E. Chaumont, EI2, s.v. “al-Shāfiʿī.”
101
This image presented by his immediate successors in Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān,
Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī wa-manāqibuhu, ed. Muḥammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī and ʿAbd al-Khāliq, ʿAbd al-Ghanī (Beirut: Dār al-
Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 1423/2003).

89
a paradigm-shifting “Aristotle of Islamic jurisprudence” for later theologians;102 these labels

are not necessarily self-exclusive, but lie primarily in the eye of the beholder.

This double-image of al-Shāfiʿī has good cause beyond the personal predilections of its

respective proponents, since his defense of ḥadīth was ensconced within a critique of both

Muʿtazilite kalām and the prevailing forms of Sunnī traditionalism in his time. It could not

have been any other way: Both Medinan and Kufan schools tended to rely on their own local

jurisprudential traditions for the relativization of ḥadīth’s legal weight; this being the case,

they could not put forward an independent methodological defense of ḥadīth’s normative

value other than local precedent. The relativization of ḥadīth between the local customs of

Kufan/Medinan tradition on one side and the Muʿtazilites’ universalist criterion of ijmāʿ on the

other, compelled al-Shāfiʿī to establish the validity of transmitted sunna on a new basis.103 In

his mind, both methods, if taken to their logical conclusions, threatened to eliminate the

unique interpretive knowledge of Islam (ʿilm al-khāṣṣa) had by the Prophet’s authentically

transmitted teachings; the Muʿtazilites by rejecting all non-consensus reports for the sake of

universalism,104 and the Kufans/Medinans by selectively affirming reports on the basis of local

jurisprudential norms, what El Shamsy has called a “black-box” of interpretive authority.105

In his contentions for the validity of ḥadīth, al-Shāfiʿī was thus compelled to dismantle

arguments of both Sunnī traditionalists and Muʿtazilite skeptics as emblematic of taqlīd,106 and

advocate a form of naẓar in the service of the transmitted sunna. Although he wrote a number

102
See Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Manāqib al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī, ed. Aḥmad Ḥijāzī al-Saqqā (Cairo: Maktabat al-Kullīyāt al-
Azharīya, 1406/1986), 156. See reflections on this notion in Ahmed El Shamsy and Aron Zysow, “Al-Buwayṭī's
Abridgement of al-Shāfiʿī's Risāla: Edition and Translation,” Islamic Law and Society 19 (2012), 327–55: 327–8.
103
See chapter 2 of El Shamsy, The Canonization of Islamic Law.
104
Ibid., 60–3.
105
On Kufa see ibid., 49–53. Medina see ibid., 63–8.
106
Ahmed El Shamsy, “Rethinking "Taqlīd" in the Early Shāfiʿī School,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 128,
no. 1 (2008), 1–23: 7.

90
of works which contributed to this project, such a methodological turn is most explicitly

illustrated in one of al-Shāfiʿī’s latest compositions, which also contains one of his most

elaborate defenses of ḥadīth, the Jimāʿ al-ʿilm.107

2.3 Al-Shāfiʿī, Uṣūl al-Fiqh as Science of Scriptural Reasoning, and Defense of the
Transmitted Sunna

In the Jimāʿ al-ʿilm he engaged with interlocutors he specifically refers to as ahl al-kalām,

whom he describes as either accepting only consensus-backed ḥadīth,108 or those who proposed

numerical criteria for ḥadīth acceptability.109 Far from a simple championing of tradition,

however, al-Shāfiʿī’s transformation of the debate’s parameters emerges from the outset when

he characterizes his opponents’ chief shortcoming on the matter as an aquiesence to taqlīd and

neglect of naẓar.110 This “appropriation” of kalām terminology by al-Shāfiʿī reflects a

reoccurring but underappreciated critique made by advocates for revelation’s priority that

“rationalist” premises often become uncritical “traditions” of their own (and hence taqlīd);111 it

also is characteristic of al-Shāfiʿī’s greater project of nativizing the concept of naẓar to

represent a methodological engagement with the implications of the Qurʾān’s revelational

contents. Al-Shāfiʿī casts the arguments of the mutakallimūn as contingent to their own

tradition (taqlīd) in order to highlight the advancement of a naẓar based on a more universal

standard; namely, a discourse based on the common standard of the Qurʾān (the first of Wāṣil

107
The editor of the text, Aḥmad Shākir, argues that al-Shāfiʿī wrote this after his more famous Risāla since he
refers to it there. This would make it one of his latest compositions.
108
al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, ed. Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir (Cairo: Dār al-Sunna al-
Muḥammadīya), 13 ff.
109
Ibid., 76 ff.
110
Ibid., 12.
111
Like al-Ashʿarī’s critique of the Muʿtazilites (see chapter four), and al-Ghazālī’s critique of the peripatetic
philosophers (see chapter one).

91
b. ʿAṭāʿ’s compelling proofs) in its living bond with the Muslim community. Arguing on the

basis of scripture is not considered to be taqlīd in the sense commonly critiqued by the

mutakallimūn – as a trope for unreflexive human habit – because it entails the ratiocination of

God’s divine communication (bayān).112 Such argumentation, called uṣūl al-fiqh, the “principles

of discernment,” the groundwork of which he had already explained in his famous Risāla at the

bequest of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī, embodied an anti-taqlīd spirit in the defense of the

primacy of revelation.

Al-Shāfiʿī’s new defense of ḥadīth could naturally only function on the basis of an

agreed-upon premise with his interlocutors: the authority of the Qurʾān. Al-Shāfiʿī himself

characterized the common quality of those who rejected ḥadīth as being a reluctance to accept

anything less epistemologically certain (al-iḥāṭa) in its transmission than the holy scripture of

Islam.113 For this reason, he gave considerable emphasis to establishing the Qurʾānically

defined nature of the sunna. As al-Shāfiʿī points out to his interlocutors, the indubitable

Qurʾān itself contains descriptions of the existence of Prophetic teachings, referred to as

“wisdom.”114 As the verse goes:

He is the one who sent among the unlettered people a prophet from among themselves,
reciting to them His verses, purifying them, and teaching them the Book and the
wisdom (al-ḥikma) (Q al-Jumuʿa 62:2)

This “wisdom” referred to in the verse, al-Shāfiʿī says, is the sunna.115 Even if this is not

granted immediately, his interlocutor agrees that the verse suggests a general (jumlatan)

112
El Shamsy, The Canonization of Islamic Law, 69 ff.
113
Al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, 15–6. As implied earlier, Wāṣil’s view of the Qurʾān nāṭiq as proof
was likely based on the principle of truth in numbers found in his principle of consensus and consensus-affirmed
reports, of which the Qurʾān was one form.
114
Ibid., 16 ff.
115
See Shākir’s reference to the ḥikma in al-Shāfiʿī’s Risāla, ibid., 17 n. 2.

92
teaching of God’s revelation, with ḥikma implying the particular (khāṣṣa) teaching of its rulings

(aḥkāmuhu).116 This is an important step in al-Shāfiʿī’s argumentation, because of the role that

the “wisdom” plays as a Qurʾānically established category of information which clarifies

Qurʾānic injunctions.

However, it still remains to be decided whether this Qurʾānically established ḥikma is

something separately conveyed by the prophet (khabar ʿan rasūl Allāh) as al-Shāfiʿī claims; his

interlocutor views it possible that this merely be a reiteration of God’s mention of His Book,

albeit referring to a secondary aspect of its communication.117 However, al-Shāfiʿī argues that

the Qurʾān itself would seem to argue for a distinctive form of the ḥikma’s transmission, since

it is described as “recitable” alongside verses of the Qurʾān in the following verse addressed to

the Prophet’s wives:

And remember that which is recited in your houses of God’s verses and the wisdom (al-
ḥikma). Indeed, God is all subtle and aware. (Q al-Aḥzāb 33:34)

Two distinct things are being recited here, al-Shāfiʿī says, 118 which means that the

ḥikma refers to a form of (Prophetic) communication distinct from that of the Qurʾān.

This is reinforced by another scriptural consideration, which also broaches the subject

of theology: It being well known that several verses in the Qurʾān command the believers to

obey God’s Prophet and his decisions, al-Shāfiʿī argues that this explicit command would be

superfluous if obeying the Prophet were tantamount to believing in the Qurʾān.119 Within al-

116
Ibid., 17.
117
This would mean that the Prophet teaching “the Book and the wisdom” refers to the same thing, i.e., the
teaching of the Qurʾān, but merely imparts two different qualities of the same action. This would be supported
according to madhhab takrīr al-kalām (ibid., 18.), related to the discussion of whether God uses synonyms in
scripture.
118
Ibid., 19.
119
Ibid., 19–20.

93
Shāfiʿī’s argumentation, however, this Qurʾānic injunction reveals itself to be of much greater

portent: If these verses are a divine injunction (farḍan) to follow (ittibāʿ) the Prophet of God, we

must perceive as comprehensively established (nuḥīṭu) that if God mandated (faraḍa) anything,

then he has also indicated to us (fa-qad dallanā) the thing by which His injunction be known (al-

amr alladhī yuʾkhadhu bi-farḍuhu).120

Although it is not explicitly mentioned, al-Shāfiʿī is addressing a theological concern

(particularly for the Muʿtazilites) summed up in the topic of “commanding that which cannot

be performed” (taklīf mā lā yuṭāq) which can be summed in the following question: Why would

God order humanity to follow the Prophet’s teachings if that were impossible to do? As al-

Shāfiʿī puts it, The Islamic scripture’s mandate to seek out the extra-Qurʾānic sunna to clarify

its details is an order which falls within human capacity. Since such information is only

attainable by reports (khabar),121 there must also be a proper means to go about collecting

them.

This prompts al-Shāfiʿī to assuage concerns about the actual real-world existence of

such a sunna. That it surely existed in reality was verified, he argued, by the latter-day general

acknowledgement of Islamic rulings across the Muslim world (in all places and by all

Muslims122) not explicitly mentioned in the Qurʾān (laysa fīhi naṣṣ al-Qurʾān); this was a vivid

proof of the role of the Prophetic sunna as an extra-Qurʾānic clarifier of how God’s revelation is

to be understood as a general clause (ʿāmm), particular clause (khāṣṣ), abrogating- (nāsikh) or

abrogated- (mansūkh) verse;123 the foundational hermeneutical categories of uṣūl al-fiqh.

120
Ibid., 21.
121
Ibid., 22.
122
An example given here is that the noon (ẓuhr) prayer consists of four prayer cycles (which is not mentioned in
the Qurʾān); ibid., 52.
123
Ibid., 24–7.

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 This generally-recognized sunna al-Shāfiʿī characterized as that of “mass-transmission”

(ʿāmma ʿan ʿāmma); this was the same type of mass transmission that guaranteed the Qurʾān,

and addressed Muʿtazilite concerns for consensus as a binding-source of knowledge for the

law. The proof of consensus was based on the Qurʾānic verse:

Whoever opposes the Prophet after guidance has become clear to him and follows
other than the way of the believers (yattabiʿ ghayr sabīl al-muʾminīn), We will turn him
over to what he has turned to and place Him in Hell, and what a terrible outcome that
is. (Q al-Nisāʾ 4:115)

Of greater importance for al-Shāfiʿī however, is that such mass-transmission reflected

the past-existence of a transmitted piece of information (khabar) about the Prophet. This is to

be distinguished from the Muʿtazilites’ proposal of the binding nature of a latter-day scholarly

class’ consensus (ijmāʿ) irrespective of the historical existence of a sunna to justify it.124 The

only type of ijmāʿ al-Shāfiʿī viewed as binding on the community was the collective-practice

which all-Muslims knew, which necessarily reflected the historical presence of transmittable

sunna; anything else was taqlīd of individuals; he had used the same arguments against the

orthopraxis consensus of the Medinans, who incidentally used the same Qurʾānic verse (Q

4:115) to justify their local traditionalism.125

The mere existence of sunna being established by the mass-transmission of the

community, however, it still remained to be shown how the “non-consensus” variety of

report-based sunna could be admitted as a basis of legal rulings. Al-Shāfiʿī thus argued that if

the existence of mass-transmitted rulings sufficed to demonstrate the sunna’s mere existence,

there must a fortiori also exist a category of sunna of specialized religious knowledge (ʿilm al-

124
See his interlocutor’s proposal of the binding nature (ḥujja) of such a scholarly ijmāʿ and al-Shāfiʿī’s rejection of
the same; ibid., 52–3.
125
Ibid., 67, 84-87. El Shamsy, “Rethinking "Taqlīd" in the Early Shāfiʿī School,” 2–3.

95
khāṣṣa) not known to all the masses (including childen, for example).126 This functioned as al-

Shāfiʿī’s conceptual introduction to a category of sunna whose real life existence and function

was affirmed by an epistemologically certain source (i.e, the consensus-affirmed Qurʾān as well

as an analogy from mass-transmitted sunna), but was not itself on the same level of

epistemological certainty because it was of an elite variety. That is to say, it is not something

which just anyone could know, as was affirmed by real life experience. In his Risāla, al-Shāfiʿī

also established this higher degree of specialized knowledge on the basis of Qurʾānic verses.127

Before discussing al-Shāfiʿī’s establishment of the ḥadīth as a vehicle for this specialized

type of knowledge, it is important to note his critiques of the alternatives. They can be

summarized by the argument that if Muʿtazilite legal theories were to be applied consistently,

they would eliminate any method of acquiring ʿilm al-khāṣṣa in a manner possessing certainty

(iḥāṭa) or free of taqlīd.

First, the proposal of any latter-day consensus (ijmāʿ) to ensure the infallibility of a

report of sunna would either be arbitrary in the number of its constituents, be impossible to

assess in its vastness, or could only be asserted through reports which were themselves not

established by consensus.128 Establishing consensus is either impossible (no iḥāṭa in its

establishment), or only maintainable by non-consensus based reports and thus beset by taqlīd.

The numerical-criterion (tawātur al-akhbār) as sole guarantor of reports129 is untenable

for similar reasons that the standard of consensus is: Any specified number for tawātur is

126
Al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, 48–52. Cf. ibid., 26–7.
127
For a more general discussion of general knowledge versus khassa knowledge, including Qurʾānic indications of
their existence, see al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, al-Risāla, ed. Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub
al-ʿIlmīya), 357–69.
128
Al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, 52-55, 58-59, cf. 85-87.
129
Al-Shāfiʿī’s interlocutor defines this as 4 people from different cities (e.g. Medina, Mecca, Basra, Kufa),
reporting from different informants, with each of these four reports being received individually through four
indidividuals who each transmit independently (not from one another) from the Prophet, such that error cannot

96
necessarily arbitrary,130 and demands the existence of a type of report which does not exist even

in attribution to latter-day authorities, let alone the Prophet.131 Again, the proposal of tawātur as sole

criterion for specialized sunna is beset by taqlīd (due to the arbitrary number standard) and the

impossiblity of realistically establishing its existence in the first place.

Al-Shāfiʿī’s traditionalist concerns also emerge here: Muslims, starting with the

Companions, differed among themselves, and there was no consensus from them on only

following them in that on which they had consensus.132 Likewise, there is no consensus on the

requirement of tawātur in transmitting ʿilm al-khaṣṣa, not least of all by the Prophet and his

Companions, but the opposite in fact.133 Paradoxically, al-Shāfiʿī argues, his interlocutors tend

to neglect the numerical criterion of epistemological certainty when following religious

opinions of other scholars, trusting falsifiable narrations attributed to them as an authoritative

reflection of specialized knowledge more than those who transmit ḥadīth of the Prophet and

his Companions.134 This would seem to imply that their standards of consensus in transmission

be relaxed for the authoritative scholarly opinions of latter-day authorities (a form of taqlīd)

even as it is used to effectively obliterate any trace of specialized Prophetic teachings.

occur in them (fa’l-ghalaṭ lā yumkin fīhā), otherwise conspiracy to [fabricate] the report would be possible for them
(amkana fīhim al-tawāṭūʾ ʿalā al-khabar); ibid., 75–7.
130
Al-Shāfiʿī points out that his interlocutor cannot argue for his standard of four over someone who says five or
seventy; ibid., 82.
131
The interlocutor asks: What if I demand four reports from every source, not just the prophet? They both know
that that doesn’t exist. Shāfiʿī likewise says that such reports don’t exist from Companions reporting from the
Prophet (his interlocutor doesn’t seem to care); ibid., 81.
132
Ibid., 70–3.
133
Cf. al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, al-Risāla, 401-420, 453 ff. “If it was valid for anyone to say about ʿilm al-khāṣṣa
that the Muslims had consensus (ajmaʿ) in previous and present times about accepting khabar al-wāḥid and
obeying it, such that there is no jurist (faqīh) among the Muslims who does not practice that – it would be possible
for me to do so. But instead I say, I do not transmit from the jurists (fuqahāʾ) of the Muslims that they differed
about accepting khabar al-wāḥid;” ibid., 358.
134
Al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, 78–80.

97
 Al-Shāfiʿī does not pass up the opportunity to take jab at his interlocutors’

inconsistency in these matters: he reminds them that the principle of consensus is

contradicted by the tendency of the “ahl al-kalām” to split up into various groups, which he

characterizes as “the path of sectarianism” (ṭarīq al-tafarruq) – adding in exasperation, “except

that you add to this your claim of consensus!” Chastising the mutakallimūn, al-Shāfiʿī, tells

them slyly, “Your claim to consensus is characterized by elements which, on the basis of your

doctrine, mandate that you abandon [proposing the binding nature of] consensus in regards to

scholarly knowledge (ʿilm al-khāṣṣa).”135

Which brings us back to al-Shāfiʿī’s defense of ḥadīth. Even if he had established that

sunna existed, was mandatory to follow, and was possible to follow, he still had to engage with

the qualms about epistemological certainty. To reiterate: his most skeptical interlocutors

claimed that the only legitimate basis of deriving rulings (yaḥkum) or issuing fatwas (yuftī) was

that which is definitively known (min jihat al-iḥāṭa), defined as “everything known as truth

outwardly and inwardly which can be testified to before God (as true), which is 1) the Qurʾān,

the 2) consensus-based sunna, and 3) everything else that the people are in consensus about

and have not differed in.”136 The question al-Shāfiʿī must answer when asking how a ḥadīth is

to be established as a normative basis of sunna is, how is a non-definitive piece of information

to take precedent against something which is definitively known (al-iḥāta)?137

Al-Shāfiʿī’s dismantling of the opponent’s position depends on the source which he

uses extensively as a binding argument for both sides of the debate – the Qurʾān. The Qurʾān

135
Ibid., 65.
136
“Kullu mā ʿulima annahu al-ḥaqq fī’l-ẓāhir wa’l-bāṭin yushhadu bihi ʿalā Allāh – wa dhālika al-kitāb wa’l-sunna al-
mujtamaʿ ʿalayhā wa-kull mā ijtamaʿ al-nās wa-lam yatafarraqū fīhi;” ibid., 47–8. Note the similarity to Wāṣil’s list of
compelling proofs.
137
Ibid., 29.

98
itself, he says, establishes that life is sacred – definitively (i.e., with iḥāṭa) – yet both

interlocutors accept that when enacting the ruling for capital punishment, one is obliged to

accept the testimony of witnesses the epistemological certainty of which is not definitive (i.e.,

has no iḥāṭa). In fact, the obligation for accepting their uncertain testimony comes from the

definitive source of the Qurʾān itself.138 This means that the Qurʾān itself has endorsed a

mechanism for the incorporation of non-definitive knowledge in implementing the religious

law.

Although his interlocutors want to admit only definitive knowledge, or that which is

“known as truth outwardly and inwardly,” al-Shāfiʿī argued that if one has been ordered to

accept testimony from witnesses on the basis of “apparent truth” (ʿalā al-ẓāhir) while only God

knows the “hidden reality” (al-ghayb) of its truthfulness, then the transmission of a muḥaddith

should potentially carry more weight, since conditions are more stringent than what is asked

of witnessses (testimony is accepted of people without accepting ḥadīth from them). This is

because the mechanism of ḥadīth acceptance is on a higher order than that of normal legal

proceedings where legal testimony is used, “We find the indication of the truth (ṣidq) or error

(ghalaṭ) of the muḥaddith from those who participate with him (man sharikahu) [in

transmission] from among al-ḥuffāẓ, as well as by the Qurʾān and sunna – and these are

indications (dalālāt) that are not possible in the case of [ordinary] legal testimony (al-

shahādāt).”139

Al-Shāfiʿī referred here to two unique aspects of ḥadīth transmission: an implicit

affirmation of the tawātur principle by acknowledging the importance of corroboration by the

138
Ibid., 29–30. To my knowledge no one has previously discussed this foundational epistemological discussion on
ḥadīth within the moral underpinnings of capital punishment.
139
Ibid., 31. See the set of requirements in al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, al-Risāla, 368-372, 461 ff.

99
Qurʾān and (other) sunna reports, but more significantly, he emphasized the role of ḥuffāẓ, or

scholars specialized in ḥadīth transmission, ḥadīth-transmitter criticism, and isnād evaluation.

This scholarly discipline had come into its own in al-Shāfiʿī’s own lifetime, as represented by

the prominent examples of Shuʿba b. al-Ḥajjāj (d. 160/766), Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 161/778), al-

Layth b. Saʿd (d. 175/791), Sufyān b. ʿUyayna (d. 198/813), and Mālik b. Anas, the last two of

whom had been teachers of al-Shāfiʿī. These prominent ḥadīth critics’ prominent students

such as Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān (d. 198/813) and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Mahdī (d. 198/814) – the

latter of whom also reportedly asked al-Shāfiʿī to compose his famous Risāla140 – but also

trained such lastingly influential ḥadīth scholars contemporary to al-Shāfiʿī as Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn

(d. 233/848), ʿAlī b. al-Madīnī (d. 234/849), and last but not least, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d.

241/855).141

The authenticated sunna reports in the form of ḥadīth could be upheld as forms of

testimony the circumstances of which are examinable by ḥuffāẓ. By studying the ḥadīth in

conjunction with the “paper trail” of the personages recorded in the isnād they made sure to 1)

ascertain who the narrators were (the requisite biographical information), 2) determine

whether the narrators had in fact known one another (the dimension of historical continuity

in transmission), 3) compare ḥadīth narrated from the same sources (corroboration of content

as indicator of reliability), and 4) establish the narrator’s reliability in transmission (the degree

of accuracy in reproduction). In addition to these measures, operated 4) the concept of

140
See E. Chaumont, EI2, s.v. “al-Shāfiʿī.”
141
On the reasons for the development of this Islamic scholarly discipline see Jonathan Brown, Hadith:
Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (New York: Oneworld, 2009), 78 ff. For a detailed biographical
overview of the first generations of ḥadīth transmission experts, see chapter 4 of Lucas, Constructive Critics, Ḥadīth
Literature, and the Articulation of Sunnī Islam.

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religious probity (ʿadāla) of the ḥadīth transmitters – an assessment of their upright moral and

religious conduct.142

Al-Shāfiʿī knew that ḥadīth were not as certain as the Qurʾān in their transmission, but

he also argued that the same Qurʾān told one to seek them out and validated the

methodological evaluation of testimony for usage in the sharīʿa. El Shamsy has explained that

in al-Shāfiʿī’s reasoning, this avoided taqlīd because an expert in the “science of transmitters”

could “produce reliable and reproducible evidence for his judgment;” “the process of

authentication, in contrast to Medinan ʿamal, is therefore not a “black box,” but rather a

transparent “science.”143 He explained to his interlocutors that the process of critiquing

narrators in order to establishing the ʿadāla and reliability of a transmission was analogous to

ijtihād.144 Neither of them enjoyed ultimate certainty (iḥāṭa) but both were endorsed by the

Qurʾān. The principle of ijtihād, which for al-Shāfiʿī encompassed the role of analogy (qiyās)

used by the advocates of raʾy, was a Qurʾānic mandate reflected in the daily practices of every

devout Muslim:

So from wherever you go out turn your face towards the Sacred Mosque … (Q al-Baqara
2: 139)

The Qurʾānic command to determine the direction of prayer (qibla) mandated the process of

reasoning to the best of one’s ability to find the apparent truth (as ẓāhir) even if the reality

(bāṭin) conclusion were not known absolutely (no iḥāta).145

142
Brown, Hadith, 81 ff. For al-Shāfiʿī’s discussions on the conditions of ḥadīth transmission see al-Shāfiʿī,
Muḥammad b. Idrīs, al-Risāla, 369–400.
143
El Shamsy, “Rethinking "Taqlīd" in the Early Shāfiʿī School,” 8. Undoubtedly a similar appeal has been
perceived by a number of Western commentators who attempt to systematically exploit the isnād for historical
information, even if they come to a variety of different conclusions; see Brown, Hadith, 210-217, 220-232.
144
Al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, Jimāʿ al-ʿilm, 40–1.
145
Al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad b. Idrīs, al-Risāla, 487 ff. See El Shamsy, The Canonization of Islamic Law, 80 ff.

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 The attractiveness of ḥadīth was that it established a second-tier of scriptural

information by which the Qurʾān could be interpreted. Abrogation, particularization,

generalization, in a science of hermeneutic (bayān) situated through expert knowledge of the

life of the Prophet. It was also this contextualized reading of ḥadīth which Muʿtazilites tended

to reject for apparent contradictions in content; and to this effort al-Shāfiʿī contributed

methodological principles.146 The jurisprudential principles which he formulated were to

enshrine a scripturally based reasoning which fused God’s word, history, and language

together in a construct which argued for revelation’s self-sufficiency. If such reasoning took

on a new format or style of argumentation, it was only a discovery of what was implicit in the

language of revelation.147

Although the chief representatives of early Muʿtazilism were never persuaded by al-

Shāfiʿī’s argments about ḥadīth, a concession by later generations of Muʿtazilites to al-Shāfiʿī’s

arguments is detectable toward the end of the 3rd/9th century (whether they acknowledged it

or not).148 The normative force of jurisprudence for Islamic orthodoxy encapsulated in the

unanimously accepted Qurʾān gave strength to al-Shāfiʿī’s analogy of giving witness (shahāda);

single, double, or triple strands were accepted by later Muʿtazilīs on this basis for legal

matters.149 In fact, if any later legal theorist of any Islamic school of thought were to make a

146
See ibid., 176.
147
This is an important recognition for later scholars, as we shall see below.
148
The premiere Muʿtazilite theologians of the 2nd-3rd/8th-9th century did not feel compelled to accept ḥadīth based
on what we know of them; hence the significance of the debate by al-Khayyāṭ and al-Balkhī cited in the following
footnote.
149
The argument of shahāda was the method used by Abū’l-Qāsim al-Balkhi’s (d. 319/931) refutation of his teacher
al-Khayyāṭ (d. 300/913), the head of Baghdad Muʿtazilism in his time; see Abū'l-Qāsim al-Balkhī, Qabūl al-akhbār
wa-maʿrifat al-rijāl, 2 vols., ed. Ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, Abū ʿAmr al-Ḥusaynī b. ʿAmr (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya,
2000), vol. 1, 17-18. Nevertheless, al-Balkhī preferred to have at least two narrations. So did Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī;
yet later on, ʿAbd al-Jabbār would accept as low as one; Brown, The Canonization of Al-Bukhārī and Muslim, 179–80.
As van Ess has noted: “Ce qu’on aurait pu attendre, une confrontation nette et claire entre les critères objectifs de
la logique, d’une part (critères qui étaient le mieux adaptés à une théologie tournée vers les vérités éternelles) et
le principle du témoignage d’autre part (principe typique du hadith, mais évidemment lié à un esprit fortement

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systematic argument for the acceptance ḥadīth it would be done so on the basis of the

arguments put forward by al-Shāfiʿī.

Nevertheless, even if some battles had been won in fighting against what he

characterized as the taqlīd of the Muʿtazilites in their methodology of ḥadīth-rejectionism, al-

Shāfiʿī had simultaneously argued against a form of taqlīd which was present in early Islamic

jurisprudential methodologies of the ahl al-sunna.150 He had not just argued that the local

interpretive traditions of Kufa and Medina were non-binding, but he had also dismantled

traditionalistic notions of authority, ranging from latter-day authorities up to the opinions of

the Prophet Muḥammad’s Companions.151 No jurisprudent could follow the opinion of

another; but only agree with them on the basis of their own legal reasoning on the foundations

of bayān.

For this reason al-Shāfiʿī’s disciples came to be known by their contemporaries for their

paradoxical emulation of him in their rejection of emulationism, and their intentional

disregard for post-prophetic authorities for the sake of scriptural proof.152 To be sure, this

ideal of scholarly independence codified in the genre of uṣūl al-fiqh inaugurated by al-Shāfiʿī

can be argued to have rarely been practiced to the fullest of its potential. But this

“shortcoming” of the Islamic legal tradition, in and of itself, highlights the undoubtedly lofty

juridique), cette confrontation n’eut pas lieu. Les théologiens étaient eux-mêmes des juristes.” See Josef van Ess,
“L'autorité de la tradition prophétique dans la théologie muʿtazilite,” in La notion d'autorité au Moyen Age (see note
278), 222–3.
150
This is illustrated for example in his statement that a judge can never follow anyone of his age (wa-ghayr jāʾiz an
yuqallida ahl zamānihi), but if he needs help he may ask for evidence that he understands on his own first; al-Shāfiʿī,
Muḥammad b. Idrīs, al-Umm, vol. 7, 504-505.
151
See El Shamsy, The Canonization of Islamic Law, index, s.v. "Companions of the Prophet, legal authority of".
152
El Shamsy, “Rethinking "Taqlīd" in the Early Shāfiʿī School,” 7, 9 ff.; El Shamsy, The Canonization of Islamic Law,
185 ff.

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ambitions of uṣūl al-fiqh in letting revelation speak for itself and determine its own rules of

interpretation.

This introduction to the role of al-Shāfiʿī as canonizer of scriptural reasoning, with an

emphasis on his defense of ḥadīth shows how the madhhab which came to be named after him

shared a common spirit with Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal in its defense of the supremacy of Qurʾān and

sunna as the pillars of the Islamic message. But it also illustrates where a rift was eventually to

emerge, since the Shāfiʿite ethos of taqlīd rejectionism had the inherent potential to make that

madhhab an amenable substrate for the adoption of kalām; which historically was al-Ashʿarī’s

new Sunnī kalām synthesis.153

Such conditions were not to present themselves, however, until the tensions between

the early ahl al-sunna and the mutakallimūn publicly came to a head in a manner which laid out

nakedly what was at stake in their respective arguments. It is in the midst of this existential

crisis for Muslim theological discourse that Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal challenged the project of kalām

directly to emerge as a symbol of religious orthodoxy fit to be emulated for generations to

come, most notably in his own madhhab. Yet even the earliest circumstances of his emergence

and its consequences, however, are sufficiently illustrative of how the “emulation of Aḥmad b.

Ḥanbal” was to create a distinct profile for that madhhab which drove a wedge between it and

other Sunnī scholars. Nevertheless, the meaningfulness of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s contributions,

and the ensuing contentions of his significance as embodiment of traditional authority,

cemented his place as an indispensable symbol of a sacred community in historical

development.

153
This is demonstrated in the discussion on al-Ashʿarī in chapter four.

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Chapter Three. Orthodoxy, Scripture, and the Public Order: The Miḥna and Aḥmad b.
Ḥanbal

This chapter examines the historical significance Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal as elucidated via a

detailed survey of the religious contentions between the ahl al-sunna and mutakallimūn. These

played out in the realms of methodology, theology, and scriptural interpretation, with

contrasting visions of normativity for both. These contentions came to a head in the Miḥna, a

rare moment in which the mutakallimūn received political backing from Muslim temporal rule

in the person of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate, and in which Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal rose to prominence as

an ahl al-sunna scholarly dissenter. We thus see our first intersection of the conceptual

differences at hand with the public order, which will continue to be a theme of this

dissertation, particularly in chapters six and seven.

3.1. The Muʿtazilī Anthropological Critique of the Ḥashwīya/Mushabbiha

If al-Shāfiʿī’s arguments were to eventually have reverberations felt even by some of

the most dogmatic Muʿtazilites in matters of jurisprudence, his efforts were to have no effect

on the Muʿtazilites in regards to theological matters. The ahl al-sunna collective to which al-

Shāfiʿī belonged were still anathema to the Muʿtazilites due to the importance the former gave

to scripture and traditional teachings for that most specialized religious knowledge which the

Muʿazilite’s prided themselves on – the knowledge of God, or theology.1 The former group, as

self-styled preservationists of the Prophetic message, had insulated themselves from the

1
As we recall, the Muʿtazilites denied that theology could be practiced in reliance on the scripture. In making a
distinction between law, al-Balkhī confirms that the princples of “al-tawḥīd wa’l-ʿadl … cannot (lā yajūz) change in
any circumstance, not on the tongue of a prophet from the prophets, or a statement from any of the salaf, not in
any way nor for any reason. And if these two [principles] are such, then reports (al-akhbār) do not have any deeds
(ʿamal) attached to these two [principles] other than to reemphasize (taʾkīd) that which the intellect inspires (mā
yūḥīhi al-ʿaql)…;” al-Balkhī, Qabūl al-akhbār wa-maʿrifat al-rijāl, 17.

105
theology of kalām by sticking to traditionally held positions and scripturally inspired

formulations of faith. For this reason they could not be viewed by the Muʿtazilites as better

than commoners, unable or unwilling to perform naẓar. It was no doubt a truism among the

Muʿtazilites that: “the ḥadīth transmitters (aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth) and the masses (al-ʿawāmm) are the

ones who follow blindly (yaqallidūna; from taqlīd), don’t learn, and have no expertise.”2

Because of this equation of ḥadīth scholars with the unschooled Muslim masses, the

Muʿtazilites deprecated them with a particular term: the Ḥashwīya.

The word “ḥashwīya,” from the word “ḥashw,” which essentially means “rabble,” was

used to refer to Sunnī scholars as “vulgar” or “plebeian.” Ḍirār b. ʿAmr used it to describe

those who held early Sunnī doctrines3 and al-Jāḥiẓ disparaged the “Ḥashwīya” for their

unacceptable theological doctrines identifiable as those of early Sunnīs.4 Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb used

the words aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth and Ḥashwīya as synonyms, mentioning al-Shāfiʿī and Aḥmad b.

Ḥanbal among their ranks by name.5

Among the worst characteristic attitudes of the traditionalist Ḥashwīya in the

Muʿtazilite worldview was their contravention of the kalām-based conception of tawḥīd.6 The

unreflective way they spoke of God “likened” Him to the creation (tasbhīh), for which they

deserved the sobriquet “likeners” (mushabbiha). Many ḥadīth they narrated also described God

in more detail than the Muʿtazilites deemed appropriate: Abū’l-Hudhayl expressly wrote a

2
The words of al-Jāḥiz in, “Fī khalq al-Qurʾān (fragment),” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ, ed. Hārūn, ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad,
4 vols., 283–300 (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānajī, 1384/1964), 298.
3
Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, Kitāb al-taḥrīsh, 97. Elsewhere he just calls them ḥashw: ibid., 57, 59, 72, 114. The last of these
citations puts them in association with muqallidīn.
4
See al-Jāḥiẓ, “Fī khalq al-Qurʾān (fragment),” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ (see note 343), 288.
5
See Josef van Ess, Frühe Muʿtazilitische Häresiographie: Zwei Werke des Nāšiʾ al-Akbar (gest. 293 H.) Herausgegeben und
Eingeleitet (Beirut: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1971), 65 (Arabic). This is the K. al-Usūl of Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb (d. 236/850), as
argued by Madelung, and accepted by van Ess; see Josef van Ess, Der Eine und das Andere, 2 vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter,
2011), vol. 1, 140-142.
6
See its details in chapter two.

106
refutation of ahl al-ḥadīth on the topic of tashbīh,7 in what became a common literary topos for

kalām works.

The Ḥashwīya tendency to tashbīh represented to the Muʿtazilites the culmination of

those elements of “popular religion” most at odds with the scholastic ambitions of the

mutakallimūn. From this perspective, the sunna-inspired traditionalism of the Ḥashwīya

represented a serious threat to the Muʿtazilite religious mission, since it was considered a

dogmatic manifestation of the natural human tendency to taqlīd which typically prevented the

unlettered masses from knowing true tawḥīd on the basis of naẓar. As al-Jāḥiẓ would say in

commiseration with fellow Muʿtazilite Ibn Abī Duʾād (d. 240/854) during the height of the

Miḥna:

You are aware – God bless you – how the population is afflicted with the doctrine of
“likening God” (al-tashbīh), and how they assist each other in promoting it and
defending it … and how its advocates [viz. traditionalist scholars] have many numerous
groups on their side, as well as manifest power and lasting dominance on the basis of
the blind-following of the masses (taqlīd al-ʿawāmm) and inclinations of the commoners
and riff-raff (mayl al-safala wa’l-ṭaghām).8

Such sentiments were likely exchanged years earlier in such sessions as al-Jāḥiẓ recalls, when

he would sit with prominent mutakallimīn Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir9 and his student al-Murdār (d.

226/841),10 as well as Abū’l-Hudhayl and his student Thumāma (d. 213/828),11 “in a group of

7
Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 567.
8
See al-Jāḥiẓ, “Risāla fī nafī al-tashbīh,” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ (see note 193), 283.
9
Cf. Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir’s pessimistic poem about the masses recorded in al-Jahiz’s K. al-Ḥayawān, with
commentary by van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 5, 286 ff.
10
See Josef van Ess, EIr, s.v. “Abū Mūsā Mordār.” Said to have pronounced believers in the beatific vision of God a
disbeliever (kāfir), as well as those who doubted that that person was a disbeliever, and so on ad infinitum; see
(from the Intiṣār of al-Khayyāṭ, who defended him on this position) ibid., vol. 5, 332-333.
11
See al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-
Dār al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 275. He wrote a refutation of the mushabbiha; Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1,
part 2, 576. Ibn al-Rāwandī said that Thumāma considered the Islamic world to be dār kufr due to its deviation
from Muʿtazilite principles; see (from the Intiṣār of al-Khayyāṭ) van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3.
Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 5, 349.

107
Muʿtazila and practitioners of kalām,” sharing anecdotes on “the masses (al-ʿawāmm) and the

unsurmountable tribulation of their [dispensity] for taqlīd.”12

This stark sense of alienation on the part of the Muʿtazilites reflected the fundamental

tension between the strict methodological exigencies of kalām and the prevalent norms of

Islamic religious life. With this in mind Muʿtazilites developed a common theodicean vision of

how religious deviation became the societal norm. Tashbīh and its proponents were not a

normal product of revealed religion, but of a critical flaw in the human condition. As

Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī (d. 303/915-916)13 leader of Basran

Muʿtazilism in the late 3rd/9th century AH/CE said:

As for tashbīh, the reason it came about in this umma is that the minds of the masses
(qulūb al-ʿāmma) only go as far as that which they can imagine (mā tuṣawwiruhu). So
when they abandoned naẓar and followed the path of taqlīd, it led them to what we have
mentioned. But if they thought with their intellects (bi-ʿuqūlihim) they would know
that that which can be combined, separated, replaced, or changed can only be temporal
(muḥdath), and that the Originator (al-muḥdith), if He is to be the First, must be eternal
(qadīm) and contrary to bodies and accidents (mukhālif li’l-ajsām wa’l-aʿrāḍ).14

This forms the foundation of the Muʿtazilite anthropological critique of tashbīh and its

perpetuators as symptomatic of the unreflective life led by large swathes of humanity.15 Cut

off from naẓar, the latter could not move beyond the rudimentary conceptions of daily

12
Al-Jāḥiẓ, “Dhamm akhlāq al-kuttāb,” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ, ed. Hārūn, ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad, 4 vols., 183–209
(Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānajī, 1384/1964), 196.
13
He was a student of Abū’l-Hudhayl’s star pupil al-Shaḥḥām (d. 268/881); see Sabine Schmidtke, EIr, s.v. “Jobbāʾī.”
14
Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-
Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 149.
15
Al-Ashʿarī recalls that most Muʿtazilites believed the Islamic world to be dār al-Islām, but that Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī
(his teacher, see chapter four) believed anywhere the truth had to be hid was dār kufr; al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-
Islāmiyīn wa-ikhtilāf al-muṣallīn, 463–4. Abū ʿAlī’s student Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥmmad b. ʿUmar al-Ṣaymarī,
considered dār al-Islām to be dār al-kufr, because its dominant characteristic was “al-jabr wa’l-tashbīh;” al-Qāḍī ʿAbd
al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīya,
1974), 136–350, 309. Cf. anecdote about Abū ʿAlī’s’s student Abū ʿUmar Saʿīd b. Muḥammad al-Bāhilī, who when
sitting by a pool with the Caliph al-Muhtadī (r. 255-256) expressed his desire to see it filled with the blood of the
mushabbiha; ibid., 311.

108
experience in order to cognize the rational proofs for God’s existence, on the basis of the

ontological difference between temporal and eternal being.

3.2. The Sunnī Genealogical Critique of the Jahmīya/Muʿaṭṭila

If the Muʿtazila typologized their opponents psychologically, a parallel critique was

made of them from the other side of the debate. To the ahl al-sunna, the Muʿtazilites were just

one among many groups who prioritized their own personal opinions over the content of

God’s revelation. From this perspective, the subjective provenance of such deviant doctrines

allowed for another heresiographical method, not psychological but more in keeping with the

ideal of tradition and the isnād: the genealogical critique of heresy.

Religious innovations, if stemming from extra-revelationary sources by definition,

clearly had an alternative origin, alien to the sacred community of the Prophet and his

followers. This was sometimes viewed as an explicitly foreign source of inspiration, whether

Judaism and Christianity, or Persian-dualism such as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism,

Mazdakism.16 In some cases, this might have been the case, but in others it was a type of

comparative heresiology, as parallels between Zoroastrians and Qadarīya, or Jews and Shīʿites

could be made.

Some of the most persistent classifications, however, were based on the names of their

originators, and the naming of a sect on the basis of its eponym was often intended as a clear

marker of its heterodoxy. Although religious thinkers of every stripe kept abreast of such

sectarian developments, the ḥadīth transmitters of the ahl al-sunna had a particular interest in

documenting what they could about the originators and eponyms of doctrines they

16
Van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 1, 416-456; vol. 2, 20-41.

109
disapproved of. Behind Khārijites, Muʿtazilites, Shīʿites, Qadarites, lay a heresiarch

identifiable by name. Determining the original heresiarch was a starting point for charting out

a deviation from the proper teachings of Islam that could be tracked over time by those

associated with it, in a genealogy of heretical doctrine.

Of particular prominence in the ahl al-sunna genealogy of the Muʿtazilites was the

obscure figure of Jahm b. Ṣafwān (d. 128/746).17 Jahm, a theologian of Khurasan, was

considered to be a compelling example of kalām’s deleterious’ effects; he was remembered by

Sunnī authorities as a wayward kalām practitioner tainted by his failed attempts to convert

members of an eastern religion called the Sumanīya,18 possibly Buddhists.19 He held six

characteristic doctrines by which he earned universal revile by religious scholars of all camps

in later periods:20

1) A cosmological vision of God’s creative act which denied human beings any
participation in their own actions whatsoever; usually called jabr.
2) An exaggerated form of irjāʾ21 which completely divorced belief and salvation
from deeds, even the action of professing one’s faith.
3) The eventual termination of Heaven and Hell.
4) A vague sort of pantheism, describing God as “present in all places.”
5) A radical negative theology, in which God could not be essentially qualified
with any names or attributes.
6) The view that God’s speech was a created entity.

17
See van Ess, Josef, EIr, s.v. “Jahm b. Ṣafwān.”
18
Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal, al-Radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya wa'l-zanādiqa, ed. Shāhīn, Ṣabrī b. Salāma (Riyadh: Dār al-Thabāt,
1424/2003), 93 ff. Cf. al-Bukhārī, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, Khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād wa'l-radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya wa-aṣḥāb al-
taʿṭīl, 9.
19
See Patricia Crone, “Al-Jāḥiẓ on Aṣḥāb al-Jahālāt and the Jahmiyya,” in Medieval Arabic Thought: Essays in Honour
of Fritz Zimmermann, ed. Rotraud Hansberger, M. Afifi al-Akiti and Charles Burnett (London: The Warburg Institute,
2012), 27–40, 30.
20
For a discussion of the following doctrines see van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra,
vol. 2, 493-507. See also Khālid ʿAsalī, Jahm b. Ṣafwān wa-makānatuhu fī'l-fikr al-islāmī (Baghdad: al-Maktaba al-
Ahlīya, 1965).
21
On the topic of irjāʾ, its sociopolitical context of emergence (in which Jahm played a part), and debates on the
relationship between faith and actions, see W. Madelung, EI2, s.v. “Murdjiʾa.”

110
 The “Jahmī” doctrine as a whole scandalized Sunnī scholars as completely alien to the

spirit of revelation. This is embodied in the famous statement narrated of Ibn al-Mubārak that,

“We allow discussing the views of the Jews and Christians, but we don’t allow discussing the

views of the Jahmīya!”22

Of particular consternation to the early Sunnī scholars was Jahm’s tendency to negative

theology embodied in the last three doctrines mentioned here. Such negation of God’s

essential attributes was called “nullifying” (taʿṭīl), and its advocates “nullifiers” (muʿaṭṭila)23 – a

counterpart to tashbīh/mushabbih – terms implying the “voiding” of God’s true qualities, and

implicitly reflecting disbelief in God and His revelatory self-disclosure through the Qurʾān. By

this measure prominent Sunnīs such as ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak (d. 181/797), Sufyān b.

ʿUyayna (d. 198/313), Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ (d. 197/813), ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī (d. 198/814)

and many others viewed the Jahmīya as disbelievers (kuffār). It was a commonly held position

that the Jahmīya were to be avoided, were not to be married or prayed behind, and if caught

spreading their doctrines be forced to repent on penalty of death.24

Since taʿṭīl was viewed as being of Jahmī pedigree, early Sunnī authorities in fact

generally called Mutʿazilites by the term “Jahmīya;” only rarely does the term “Muʿtazilite”

appear in early Sunnī polemical works. This nomenclature is reflected in Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s

Radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya, the entries in his son ʿAbd Allāh’s K. al-Sunna25 and the famous ḥadīth

22
Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿAbd Allāḥ b. Aḥmad, Kitāb al-sunna, ed. al-Qaḥṭānī, Muḥammad b. Saʿīd b. Sālim (Dammām: Dār Ibn
al-Qayyim, 1406/1987), 111.
23
This term, besides being invoked in the complete title of Bukhārī’ Khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād, was used frequently to
describe the Jahmīya and those who followed them, see e.g. al-Bukhārī, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, Khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād
wa'l-radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya wa-aṣḥāb al-taʿṭīl., index, s.v. “muʿaṭṭila.”
24
This in fact was the purpose of the composition of the K. al-Sunna, see Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿAbd Allāḥ b. Aḥmad, Kitāb al-
sunna, 102 ff. passim.
25
See previous citation.

111
scholar al-Bukhārī’s K. Khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād.26 Muʿtazilites were considered mere latter-day

adherents to Jahm’s doctrine, and would be labelled as such for years to come.

The Muʿtazilites, though acknowledging that Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ himself had been in contact

with Jahm, did so with reserve. They related that in fact Jahm had been indebted to Wāṣil;

when the former failed to convert eastern religionists to Islam he had to ask Wāṣil for help.27

But that was the extent of any association between the two they were willing to concede;

Muʿtazilites expressly viewed Jahm and his followers as heretics (particularly for the first issue

listed here, i.e., the negation of human agency), and Abū’l-Hudhayl proudly told the story of

how Wāṣil sent one of his disciples to Tirmidh for the purpose of defeating Jahm in theological

disputation.28

Nevertheless, the Muʿtazilites also applied the genealogical critique of their own,

dealing with a form of “Jahmite” heresy from within: Certain members of the Muʿtazilite

collective also came to be viewed as tainted by Jahm’s teachings, especially as pertaining to the

latter’s denial of human agency (al-jabr). The accused, Ḍirār b. ʿAmr and his student Ḥafṣ al-

Fard, were quarantined off and rejected as never having been Muʿtazilites in the first place.29

This little-known historical development has led van Ess to emphasize the spread of Ḍirār’s

26
Al-Bukhārī, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, Khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād wa'l-radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya wa-aṣḥāb al-taʿṭīl. See index, s.v.
“Jahm b. Ṣafwān,” “Jahmīya.”
27
When Jahm failed at convincing some dualists (thanawīya) of some point, he wrote to Wāṣil to ask him for an
answer; al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-
Dār al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 165. Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Farzawayh (one of Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī’s students) reports how
Jahm could not convince the Sumanīya to move beyond the affirmation of five senses before Wāṣil corresponded
with him on how to argue for dalīl; subsequently he sent one of his students to debate him on al-irjāʾ (see
following footnote); ibid., 240.
28
For anecdote on Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ’s being concerned to refute Jahm b. Ṣafwān see ibid., 163. For Abū’l-Hudhayl’s
anecdote see ibid., 237. Cf. ibid., 67.
29
Ḍirār b. ʿAmr was accused of learning from Jahm and going astray by believing in al-jabr; ibid., 163. In a line of
poetry Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir disavowed himself from Ḍirār b. al-ʿAmr and Ḥafṣ al-Fard and said they had Jahm as
their “imam;” al-Khayyāṭ, Kitāb al-intiṣār wa'l-radd ʿalā Ibn al-Rāwandī al-Mulḥid, 134. Van Ess believes that Abū’l-
Hudhayl was probably influenced by Ḍirār but that later school biographers tried to avoid a connection between
the two; see Josef van Ess, EIr, s.v. “Abu’l-Hoḏayl al-ʿAllāf.”

112
“neo-Jahmite” heresy for the proper contextualization of certain early mutakallimūn whose

doctrines do not accord with “orthodox” Muʿtazilite principles on human agency,30 among

them a number of Ḥanafīs who also adhered to irjāʾ – such as the infamous Bishr al-Marīsī (d.

218/833) who became influential during the Miḥna of the caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 198-218/813-

833).

Tracing the genealogy of thought can lead to interesting results: Both van Ess and the

Sunnī traditionalists are in agreement about the “Jahmite” circumstances of the Miḥna, though

with a different meaning implied: To van Ess (following the Muʿtazilite philosophical critique

of Ḍirār on jabr), Bishr al-Marīsī “the Jahmite’s” doctrinal influence on al-Maʾmūn undermines

commonly-held notions of the Miḥna’s Muʿtazilite pedigree. To Sunnīs of the time period, the

doctrine of the created Qurʾān at the center of the Miḥna, common to both Bishr and

“orthodox” Muʿtazilites, was a bonafide “Jahmite” heresy, due to its origins in the thought of

Jahm b. Ṣafwān.31

The Miḥna, as will be shown, was a singular historical moment for the articulation of

the abovementioned anthropological and genealogical critiques in the Muslim public sphere.

For this reason, the conflict’s focus on the nature of the Qurʾān reflected not only distinct

theological visions on the ontological nature of divine speech, as is commonly understood, but

was evocative of a greater underlying struggle over the nature of religious authority in matters

of scriptural interpretation for Muslim society. As the following section will demonstrate, the

Qurʾān itself provided the terms of the debate.

30
Van Ess, “Ḍirār b. ʿAmr und die "Cahmīya,” 21 ff.
31
As documented in the works of ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and al-Bukhārī. For this reason Muʿtazilī
theologian al-Khayyāṭ observed that “the masses (al-ʿāmma) associate Jahm with the Muʿtazila because of his
belief in the creation of the Qurʾān;” al-Khayyāṭ, Kitāb al-intiṣār wa'l-radd ʿalā Ibn al-Rāwandī al-Mulḥid, 126.

113
3.3. The Pivot of Interpretive Authority, Q 3:7

It is not to be questioned that the Qurʾān was – even for the mutakallimūn – the divinely

revealed axis around which Muslim religious life revolved. By that measure, kalām

practitioners never presumed conflict with the content of the Qurʾān, but rather advocated a

perfect harmony of their teachings with the message of Islamic scripture. Naturally, this

necessitated that the debate between theological camps take on a third dimension in addition

to the foundational contentions between naẓar and waḥy: namely, the role of taʾwīl, or

interpretation.

From a historical perspective, it is to be expected that such fundamental differences

between rivaling institutions of religious authority would give way to controversy on the

nature of interpretive legitimacy. But from a philosophical viewpoint, it must also be

appreciated that such contentions surrounding the role of kalām in Islamic thought posed

probing questions about actual relationship between 1) the “rationality” of theological

doctrine and 2) the communicative power of language embodied in God’s revelation. In what

follows, we will see how both of these themes were to eventually find an exegetical nexus in

the Qurʾān itself, through the famous verse Q Āl-ʿImrān 3:7, which retained a pivotal role in

their negotiation:

1. He is the One who revealed to you the Book.

2. In it are verses which are muḥkamāt:

These are the Foundation of the Book.
And other [verses] which are mutashābihāt.

3. As for those who have deviation in their hearts:

They follow mā tashābaha (viz. the mutashābihāt) of it –
seeking strife (fitna), and seeking its taʾwīl (ibtighāʾa taʾwīlihi).
4a. But no one knows it’s taʾwīl except for God(.)*1
4b. And the Firmly Established in Knowledge (rāsikhūna fī’l-ʿilm)(.)*2

114
 4c. They say, We believe in it, it is all from our Lord.”
And no one takes heed except for the possessors of intellect (albāb).32

The verse has been divide into subsections to facilitate its analysis. The words

muḥkamāt, mutashābihāt, and taʾwīl have been left in the original Arabic, so as to reflect how

these terms themselves have been subject to various interpretations. The ends of sections 4a

and 4b mark full-stops with asterixes numbered 1 and 2 in order to illustrate the possibility of

stopping at the end of either of these sections, which is also of importance for the

interpretation of the verse.

In what follows, the main interpretations of this verse are presented, illustrating how it

came to take on greater significance in theological disputation. Traditional interpretations

will be dealt with first (i.e., those based on statements narrated on the authority of early

Islamic personages), followed by the interpretations of the mutakallimūn.

3.3.1 Traditional Interpretations

The first of these traditional interpretations is that the muḥkamāt refers to “abrogating

verses,” the mutashābihāt to “abrogated verses” and taʾwīl means “outcome.”33 In this case, §

3 contains an admonition to those who would follow abrogated prescriptions out of ulterior

motives, seeking a (likely immoral) outcome. But only God knows the outcome of their

actions (likely an unsavory one); the reader stops after §4a. Those admonished are contrasted

in § 4b with the firmly established in knowledge who believe in all verses, abrogated and

abrogating, and seek refuge from such deviation. This is narrated from Companions Ibn

32
َ ‫خيَل ۗ َو َما ي َ ْع َ ُْل تَأْو َ ُخيَل ا ََّّل اللَّـ ُه ۗ َو َّالر خاِس‬
َ ُ‫ُون خِف الْ خع ْ خْل ي َ ُقول‬
‫ون آ َمنَّا‬ ‫ون َما ت َشَ اب َ َه خمنْ ُه ابْتخغ ََاء الْ خف ْتنَ خة َوابْتخغ ََاء تَأْو خ خ‬ ٌ َ ‫ات ه َُّن ُآ ُّم الْ خكتَ خاب َو ُآخ َُر ُمت َشَ اِبخ‬
َ ‫ات ۗ فَأَ َّما َّ خاَّل َين خِف قُلُوِبخ خ ْم َزيْ ٌغ فَيَتَّ خب ُع‬ ٌ َ‫اب خمنْ ُه آ ََي ٌت ُّم ْح ََك‬ َ َ‫ه َُو َّ خاَّلي آ ََنز َل عَلَ ْي َك الْ خكت‬
ِ
.‫ُك خِّم ْن خعن خد َر خب ِّ َنا ۗ َو َما ي َ َّذكَّ ُر ا ََّّل ُآولُو ْ َاْللْ َب خاب‬
ٌّ ُ ‫خب خه‬
ِ
33
See a similar meaing of taʾwīl in Q al-Nisāʾ 4:59 and Q al-Isrāʾ 17:35. Cf. references in n. 46.

115
ʿAbbās and Ibn Masʿūd, Successors Qatāda and al-Ḍaḥḥāk,34 and later traditionalists al-Sudī (d.

127/744-5),35 Sufyān al-Thawrī,36 and al-Kalbī (d. 204/819).37

The second interpretation of the verse does not veer entirely from the first, but shows

even more preoccupation with jurisprudential matters. The distinction between muḥkamāt

and mutashābihāt is chalked up to the difference between 1) verses having to do with

prescribed deeds (ʿamal) and 2) those verses which one believes in but do not correspond

to prescribed deeds, respectively. As in the first interpretation, the latter category of

mutashābihāt entails abrogated verses on law, but also encompass parables, oaths, and letters

at beginning of Qurʾānic suras – anything believed in but separate from the prescription of

deeds. This was related of Companion Ibn ʿAbbās, successors Qatāda, Mujāhid,38 and later

exegetes Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767),39 and al-Kalbī, the grammarian al-Farrāʾ (d.

207/822),40 and Abū ʿUbayd b. Sallām (d. 224/838),41 Noticable, however, is that less weight is

given in this interpretation to explaining the meaning of taʾwīl, or the warning attached to it.

34
See al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī: Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān, 26 vols., ed.
ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī (Riyadh: Dār ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 1424/2003), vol. 5, 193-196, 215-216.
35
See ibid., vol. 5, 205.
36
See van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 1, 228.
37
See John Wansbrough, Quranic Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 149.
38
See al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī, vol. 5, 193, 194, 196.
39
For Muqātil the muḥkam were “those verses whose prescriptions were to be implemented;” see Wansbrough,
Quranic Studies, 149.
40
Ibid., 149–50.
41
Abu ʿUbayd al-Qāsim b. Sallām (d. 224/838), in the network of al-Shāfiʿī and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and other
prominent ḥadīth transmitters, as well as a student of the philologist and gramarrian al-Kisāʾī (eponym of one of
the canonical modes of recitation). Ibn Sallām said (basing himself on narration from Ibn ʿAbbās) that muḥkam
was abrogating as well as that which you believe in and do deeds by; mustashābih was abrogated and elements
which one believes in but does no deeds by, viz. parables, oaths and the like; John Wansbrough, Quranic Studies
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 150. Ibn Sallām, Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim, al-Nāsikh wa'l'-mansūkh fī'l-Qurʾān
al-ʿAzīz, 2nd ed., ed. al-Madīfar, Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 1418/1997), 6. He uses the word
muḥkam throughout the book to refer to abrogating verses.

116
Though possibly a warning against confusing legal precepts with those verses not intended for

that purpose,42 this is not explicitly stated.

The last two traditionalist interpretations of the verse, however, bring us closer to the

greater subject at hand, as they deal with problems arising from the nature of scriptural

communication:

The first of these is based on a story concerning the Prophet Muḥammad transmitted

by certain Companions via Ibn Isḥāq,43 and is the interpretation preferred by al-Ṭabarī. The

story explains that the blameworthy involvement with taʾwīl refers to attempts by the Jews of

Medina to manipulate “the disconnected letters” (al-ḥurūf al-muqaṭṭaʿa)44 – included in the

second of the traditionalist interpretations among the mutashābihāt – in order to predict the

eschatological end of Islam.45 Al-Ṭabarī derives from this story the notion that the muḥkamāt

are verses whose meanings (tafsīr/maʿnā) and realities (taʾwīl) are known, whereas the

mutashābihāt relate to verses the meanings (tafsīr/maʿnā) of which are known, but the

ultimate “outcome” or “reality” (taʾwīl) of which are not.46 Examples of these mutashābihāt are

verses about the Day of Judgement, the emergence of Jesus, or other signs of the end of the

world.47 Of significance, however, is that the essential dichotomy between these Qurʾānic

42
Cf. al-Sudī’s interpretation that seeking the taʾwīl of the mutashābih seeking to know when an abrogating verse
would come verse to make another one abrogated; al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī, vol. 5,
215-216.
43
Ibn ʿAbbās from Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh, narrated by Ibn Isḥāq from al-Kalbī; ibid., vol. 2, 220-222, vol. 5, 199.
44
“The recited graphemes appear at the beginning of 29 suras. Sometimes they appear as solitary letters, like ṣ
(ṣād, Q. 38:1), q (qāf, Q. 50:1) and n (nūn, Q. 68:1), but more often than not they appear in groups. These groupings
include pairs, ṭ-h (Q. 18:1), ṭ-s (Q. 27:1), y-s (Q. 36:1) and ḥ-m (Q. 40:1, Q. 41:1, Q. 43:1, Q. 44:1, Q. 45:1, Q. 46:1);
groups of three, a-l-m (Q. 2:1, Q. 3:1, Q. 29:1, Q. 30:1, Q. 31:1, Q. 32:1), a-l-r (Q. 10:1, Q. 11:1, Q. 12:1, Q. 14:1, Q. 15:1), ṭ-
s-m (Q. 26:1, Q. 28:1); groups of four, a-l-m-ṣ (Q. 7:1), a-l-m-r (Q. 13:1); and finally twice in groups of five, k-h-y-ʿ-ṣ
(Q. 19:1) and ḥ-m-ʿ-s-q (Q. 42:1);” Martin Nguyen, “Exegesis of the ḥurūf al-muqaṭṭaʿa: Polyvalency in Sunnī
Traditions of Qurʾānic Interpretation,” Journal of Qurʾānic Studies 14, no. 2 (2012), 1–28: 1.
45
Al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī, vol. 5, 199.
46
See verses where taʾwīl in used in the sense of “outcome” or “reality” in reference to eschatological matters; Q
al-Aʿrāf 7:53, Q Yūnus 10:39, Q al-Kahf 18:78, 82.
47
Ibid., vol. 5, 200-201, 206, 215-217.

117
verses hinges not so much on their content or context, but rather the limits of human

understanding in relationship to them. Like the previous interpretations presented here, the

stop after §4a is implied, such that no one knows the taʾwīl or “reality” except for God. The

verse is thus a warning (echoed elsewhere in the Qurʾān) against those “deviants” who

speculate too much about matters beyond their ken. The “firmly established in knowledge” of

§4b are those tho recognize this and know their limits.

This story about the Jews of Medina, however, reflected broader concerns among

Qurʾānic exegetes which opened up other vistas of meaning widely influential for later

approaches to the verse. These related more explicitly with the idea of religious controversy,

and hinged primarily on taʾwīl as mediating the binary of “interpretation” and

“misinterpretation.” As such it was a fruitful exegetical foundation for contextualizing

intersectarian disputes in the Islamic world. This brings us to the last of the four traditionalist

exegetical devices presented here, which will be referred to for convenience’s sake as the

“disputationist interpretation.”

Such interpretations often refer back to a ḥadīth narrated from the Prophet’s wife

ʿĀʾisha referring to verse Q 3:7 in order to condemn those who “dispute” (yujādilūna) about the

Qurʾān .48 Although the exact nature of the dispute is not made explicit, such vagueness

allowed the emphasis of “disputation” to be a fruitful subject of discussion for later exegetes.

Since the relevant Qurʾānic chapter (Āl ʿImrān) dealt substantively with Christianity,

Successor al-Rabīʿ (d. 136/759) suggested that it referred to Christians, who, in debate with

Muslims, emphasized the Qurʾānic description of Jesus as God’s kalima and rūḥ.49 A similar

48
Ibid., vol. 5, 208-211. This is also narrated in the ṣaḥīḥ collection of al-Bukhārī.
49
Ibid., vol. 5, 205-206. Al-Ṭabarī rejects this interpretation saying it is weaker than than the interpretation
concerning the Jews, because it fails to answer what the taʾwīl is that only God knows (based on the stop after §4a,

118
view is also reported of one of Ibn Isḥāq’s sources, a certain Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar b. al-Zubayr,50

who understood it to refute a Christian trinitarian interpretation of the Qurʾānic plural form

for God’s reference to Himself.51 Seeking the taʾwīl of the mutashābih (as per §3) in the case of

the Christians referred to their following “that which [they] distorted and manipulated

(taḥarrafa minhu wa-taṣarrafa)” from scripture “so as to affirm what they innovated (mā ibtadaʿū

wa-aḥdathū) so that it would be a proof of what they said, and a specious argument (shubha) [in

their favor].”52

This obscure descendent of al-Zubayr also identifies an important reason for this

occurrence, centered on the difference between muḥkam and mutashābih verses, and in a way

which was paradigmatic for later thought: The muḥkam verses were those Qurʾānic verses

where “the Lord’s argument (ḥujjat al-rabb), the refuge of [His] servants” (ʿiṣmat al-ʿibād) and a

deterrent of opponents and falsehood (dafʿ al-khuṣūm wa’l-bāṭil)”53 were to be found. In

contrast, the mutashābih verses, while also “true,” “possessed a (way of being) manipulated

and corrupted and interpreted (lahunna taṣrīf wa-taḥrīf wa-taʾwīl) by which God has tested His

servants (ibtalā Allāh fīhinn al-ʿibād).”54

which al-Ṭabarī prefers); of course the Prophet and his umma were told what such verses meant; ibid., vol. 211-
212.
50
He was a Zubayrid, a grandson of the famous Companion of the Prophet, Zubayr b. al-ʿAwwām (d. 36/656); see
al-Bukhārī, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, Kitāb al-Tārīkh al-kabīr, 9 vols., ed. Hāshim al-Nadwī (Hyderabad: Dāʾirat al-
Maʿārif al-ʿUthmānīya, 1941-1964), vol. 1, 54. No death date is available.
51
Al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī, vol. 5, 216. See Ibn Hishām, ʿAbd al-Malik, Sīrat Ibn
Hishām, 2nd ed., 2 vols., ed. Muṣṭafā al-Saqqā, Ibrāhīm al-Abyārī, and ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ al-Shalabī (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat
Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1375/1955), vol. 1, 575, 577. Al-Ṭabarī also rejects this interpretation as weaker than the
one on Jewish eschatological speculation since the proper interpretation of such mutashābihāt such as these is
readily attainable (cf. §4a-b) even by polytheists, unlike the knowledge of end times. Of course, this is based on
his preference for stopping after §4a; al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī, vol. 5, 217.
52
Ibid., vol. 5, 204.
53
In this context, it would refer to explicit verses denying the divinity of Jesus.
54
Ibid., vol. 5, 197.

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 This exegetical principle operates on two levels: first it 1) acknowledges that the first

category of verses possess a degree of primacy for the communication of orthodox doctrine

while the second category of verses are inherently “interpretable” in such a way that can

potentially can put them to use in contravention of the same doctrine. This, “manipulation,

corruption, and interpretation” equals “misinterpretation.” However, no less important, is

that 2) this misinterpretation does not occur accidentally but as a necessary product of the

divine economy of salvation in its bifurcation of the guided and misguided. This gives primacy

to the theological “deviation” of the misguided in the actualization of scripture’s potential to

be interpreted incorrectly.

The consequences of this misguided interaction with the Qurʾān could also be extended

to heterodox Muslim groups: Successor Qatāda (d. 117/735),55 reasoned that since the verse

applied to “those who have deviation in their hearts” as mentioned in §3, it was clearly

applicable to such extremist groups as the Khārijite Ḥarūrīya and Shīʿite Sabaʾīya.56 Al-

Ṭabarī’s isnād reveals to us that this opinion of his was narrated by influential muḥaddith ʿAbd

al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 211/827)57 via his teacher Maʿmar b. Rashīd (d. 153/770). Al-Ṭabarī

informs us that this interpretation of the verse, far beyond the Qurʾānic context of revelation,

came to be applied not only to Christians and Jews, but also disputative Zoroastrians, extremist

Shīʿites, Khārijites, Qadarites, and Jahmites.58

Not only could it be used to refer to those who justified heterodox doctrines on the

basis of the Qurʾān, but those who attacked the integrity of the Qurʾān itself: ʿAbd Allāh Ibn

55
See Charles Pellat, EI2, s.v. “Ḳatāda b. Diʿāma.”
56
Ibid., vol. 5, 207-208. These were extreme Khārijite and Shīʿite groups of the time.
57
See Harald Motzki, EI3, s.v. “ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī.”
58
Ibid., vol. 5, 214. He personally did not prefer this interpretation, because he prefers the stop after § 4a, see
ibid., vol. 5, 217, 221.

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Wahb (d. 197/813),59 a prominent student of Mālik b. Anas, reported from his fellow Medinan

teacher Usāma Ibn Zayd al-Laythī (d. 153/770) that the category of muḥkam referred to the

stories recounted in the Qurʾān,60 whereas the mutashābih were those verses which recounted

the same events but in different words. The heterodox, the skeptic, or rather, “the one for

whom God has willed tribulation and misguidance (man yurid Allāhu bihi al-balāʾ wa’l-ḍalāla)”

will wonder why this is so or problematize it.61

The famous Khurasani Qurʾānic exegete Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767) wrote an

entire work called Mutashābih al-Qurʾān in which he dealt with this topic.62 Though no longer

extant, van Ess has identified a section of it preserved in Ịbn al-Malaṭī’s (d. 377/987) K. al-

Tanbīh wa’l-radd.63 There we find extensive discussion of verses which can be read in apparent

contradiction to other verses by those whom Muqātil refers to as religious skeptics or

zanādiqa.64 This same theme is to be found in Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s Radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya wa’l-

zanādiqa. The first half of the book, like Muqātil’s, is dedicated to a refutation of those religious

skeptics (zanādiqa) who seek contradictions in the Qurʾān’s contents.65 This set the stage for

the second part of the book, which contains a refutation of Jahm b. Ṣafwān and the Jahmīya

(and by extension the Muʿtazila) who also used what Ibn Ḥanbal calls “the mutashābih of the

Qurʾān and ḥadīth” to argue their erroneous theological doctrines.66

59
See J. David-Weill, EI2, s.v. “Ibn Wahb.”
60
Note how this contradicts the first two traditionalist interpretations given here.
61
Ibid., vol. 5, 197-198.
62
Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 1, 94.
63
Van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 2, 527-528.
64
Al-Malaṭī, Ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, al-Tanbīh wa'l-radd ʿalā ahl al-ahwāʾ wa'l-bidaʿ, ed. ʿAzb, Muḥammad Zaynuhum
(?) Muḥammad (Cairo: Maktabat Madbūlī, 1413/1992), 43–61.
65
Ibn Ḥanbal, al-Radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya wa'l-zanādiqa, 58–92.
66
Ibid., 92. Cf. ibid., 95, 101, 121, 132.

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 A closer reading of this exegesis shows that the usage of taʾwīl takes on two intimately

related but oppositional meanings. As mentioned in §3 it is contextually understood to refer

to “an act of interpretation,”67 albeit a “deviant” one due to the nature of its interpreter.

“Seeking its taʾwīl” (ibtighāʾa taʾwīlihi) here means “seeking to misinterpret” the mutashābih in

contravention of its proper meaning.

If the mutashābih has a proper meaning, this would naturally imply that a legitimate

interpretation existed for it as well. For this reason such interpretations of Q 3:7 place the full

stop after §4b, which would assert a taʾwīl – here as “proper interpretation” of the mutashābih –

known by none except for God and the “firmly established in knowledge.” That knowledge

of these verses’ proper interpretation is shared between both God and the “firmly established

in knowledge” highlights the embodiment of orthodox religion by the latter, since they know,

in a sense, how God Himself would interpret the verses. This reading of the verse is in fact

preferred by Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar b. al-Zubayr, who also explains the second mention of taʾwīl

in §4a, which both God and the “firmly established in knowledge” know, as referring to “the

[interpretation] which intends what He intended.” In this light, the “firmly established in

knowledge,” who know and believe in all of God’s revelation play a pivotal role in that:

They then base (raddū) the interpretation (taʾwīl) of the mutashābih on what they know
of the interpretation (taʾwīl) of the muḥkama which no one is allowed to interpret
except with one interpretation (lā taʾwīl li-aḥadin fīhā illā taʾwīl wāḥid). In this way, the
Book is unified (ittasaqa) and its parts corroborate each other, [God’s] argument is
established … falsehood is eliminated, and disbelief vanquished.” 68

67
For such Qurʾānic usage of taʾwīl as “interpretation” see Q Yūsuf 12:6, 21, 36, 37, 44, 45, 100, 101.
68
Al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī, vol. 5, 220-221.

122
 As we can see, despite the documentable preference to stop recitation of the verse after

§4a;69 the practical appeal of the disputationist interpretation, in addition to various reports

attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās and al-Mujāhid affirming the existence of the “firmly established in

knowledge” who know the taʾwīl of the mutashābih verses and affirmed their belief in them,70

contributed to the appeal of the disputationist interpretation of the verse for Sunnī exegetes

as a Qurʾānically situated foundation for explaining the role of heresy and orthodoxy.

Nevertheless, there sometimes occurred a conflation of the traditional stop after §4b

with the disputationalist reading of taʾwīl as “interpretation” such that it was affirmed that

nobody knew the interpretation, or meanings, of the mutashābih verses except for God. The

implications of this position, however, were troubling for such Sunnī exegetes Ibn Qutayba and

al-Ṭabarī:

In his Mushkil al-Qurʾān Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/885) argued that if the mutashābih verses

were categorically unknown, there would be no benefit to their revelation nor believing in

them, when in fact:

God did not reveal any of the Qurʾān except to benefit His servants by it (li-yanfaʿa bihi
ʿibādahu), and to indicate to them a meaning that He intended (maʿnan arādahu).

Furthermore, Ibn Qutayba finds the corollary implication that the Prophet Muḥammad himself

did not know all the meanings of the Qurʾān to be disparaging. As religious teacher par

excellence, the Prophet must have known the meanings of what he brought, including the

mutashābih, just as such knowledge is attributed to authoritative Companion exegetes such as

69
See the reports attributed to ʿĀʾisha and Ibn ʿAbbās, as well as from caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and Mālik b.
Anas affirming this early stop ibid., vol. 5, 218-219. As mentioned before, this was al-Ṭabarī’s preference as well
(who did not prefer the disputationist interpretation), see ibid., vol. 5, 217, 221 ff.
70
Ibid., vol. 5, 220. The context for what muḥkam and mutashābih is not given in these narrations.

123
ʿAlī and Ibn ʿAbbās.71 Such narrations are confirmed to Ibn Qutayba by the fact that Qurʾānic

exegetes (mufassirūn) are not in the habit of skipping over verses and claiming not to know

their meaning because of their being mutashābih, not even the “disconnected-letters.”72

Al-Ṭabarī agrees with him, which is partially why he preferred the eschatological

interpretation over the “disputationist interpretation.73” His reasoning is similar:

Everything which God has revealed to the Prophet (ṣ) of the Qurʾānʾs verses He did as
an explanation (bayānan) to him and his umma, and as guidance to the worlds. It is not
permissable (ghayr jāʾiz) that there be something in it which they do not need (mā lā
ḥāja bihim ilayhi), or something which they need but there not be a path (sabīl) for them
to have knowledge of its interpretation (ʿilm taʾwīlihi); 74

Even eschatological descriptions must be explained (mufasssaran) by the Prophet, because of

the inherent homiletical benefit in that, even if the details of their actualization (viz. taʾwīl as

“reality” or “outcome”) are only known by God (stopping after §4a, viz. taʾwīl as “outcome”).75

If the unknown taʾwīl of the mutashābih only refers to eschatological realities, as al-Ṭabarī

asserts, then:

Everything [in the Qurʾān] is muḥkam, in that 1) it can only have one interpretation
(taʾwīl) so it needs no further explanation after hearing it (wa-qad ustughniya bi-samāʿihi
ʿan bayān yubayyinuhu), or is muḥkam, albeit with 2) different aspects, interpretations,
and connotations of meaning (wujūh wa-taʾwīlāt wa-taṣarruf fī maʿānin kathīra).

[In the latter case,] the indicators of the meaning intended by it (al-dalāla ʿalā al-maʿnā
al-murād minhu), will either be explained by God (min bayān Allāh), may His mention be
exalted, or explained by His Prophet (min bayān rasūlihi) to his umma, may God’s

71
Ibn Qutayba, Taʾwīl mushkil al-Qurʾān, 2nd ed., ed. Aḥmad Ṣaqar (Cairo: Maktabat Dār al-Turāth, 1393/1973), 98–
9. He mentions here the narrations affirm that the Companion exegetes are the rāsikhūna fī’l-ʿilm do know the
meaning and affirm their belief in it.
72
Ibid., 100.
73
He rejected the disputationist position because of his conviction that the stop after §4a was the stronger
position, which would lead to the opinion he refutes here.
74
Al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī, vol. 5, 199-200.
75
Ibid., vol. 5, 200.

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 blessings and peace be upon him, and the scholars of this umma will never be deprived
of this knowledge (wa-lan yadhhab ʿilm dhālik ʿan ʿulamāʾ al-umma)…76

Although the agnostic position towards the taʾwīl as “interpretation” of the mutashābih would

gain a certain appeal in later centuries,77 the reactions of Ibn Qutayba and al-Ṭabarī reflect

early ahl al-sunna optimism about the ability to preserve the revelatory message of Islam

intact. Despite the fact that the scripture was liable to be misinterpreted by heterodox voices,

the community would continue to transmit the normative readings as had been conveyed by

God and the Prophet to the Muslim community.

Such views informed disputes with mutakallimūn “Jahmīya” about how normative

readings of scripture were to be carried out. Early Sunnī exegesis was based on the doctrinal

primacy of the Qurʾān as a sacred communication from an exalted deity. Revelation imparted

information about a divine Creator who was far beyond the ken of human experience, and as

such more knowledgeable about Himself than mankind’s own conceptions – a worldview

challenged by the kalām belief in naẓar. A proper approach to the Qurʾān came from

submitting to its divine source and not exceeding the bounds of human propriety in

questioning its contents. This is reflected in an early epistle against “Jahmite” doctrines

penned by Ibn al-Mājishūn (d. 164/780-1),78 a prominent Medinan scholar and older

contemporary of Mālik b. Anas:

[True] refuge in religion (al-ʿiṣma fī’l-dīn) is to stop at the limits it sets for you and not
go beyond what has been limited off from you. The foundation of the religion is to
acknowledge the known (maʿrifat al-maʿrūf) and reject the unknown (inkār al-munkar),
so you should not be afraid of mentioning that which has been expanded to you in
knowledge (maʿrifa), that which the hearts find solace in, and the basis of which has

76
Ibid., vol. 5, 200-201.
77
See chapters four and five.
78
See Miklos Muranyi, EI3, s.v. “al-Mājishūn.”

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 been mentioned in the Book and the sunna, and that which the umma has inherited the
knowledge of (tawārathat ʿilmahu)…

The firmly established in knowledge (al-rāsikhūna fī’l-ʿilm), are those who stop at the
limits of their knowledge, who describe their lord as He has described Himself, who
turn away from what He has left the mention of, do not deny a description that He has
named (sammā) out of rejection (jaḥdan), and do not vainly attempt (yatakallafūna) to
describe Him which what He has not named in an attempt to pry more deeply
(taʿammuqan), because the truth (al-ḥaqq) is to leave what He has left, and to name
(tasmiya) what He named, and whoever “follows other than the way of the believers
(ghayr sabīl al-muʾminīn) We will turn him over to what he has turned to and place him
in Hell, and what a terrible outcome that is” (Q al-Nisāʾ 4:115)…79

Given this pivotal centrality of the Qurʾānic scripture for proper belief, another contention

made against the “Jahmīya” was that their interpretations of the Qurʾān went beyond the

capacity of the Arabic language in which the Islamic holy book had been revealed. Abū Saʿīd

al-Dārimī (d. 280/894), a student of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn, and al-Buwayṭī,80

critiqued the way Jahmite theologians advocated the use of figurative language to justify their

readings of the Qurʾān:

We know, praise be to God, the types of figurative speech (al-majāzāt) that they have
used from the lexical variants of the Arabs (lughāt al-ʿArab) to pull one over the
ignorant (dalsatan wa-ughlūṭatan ʿalā al-juhhāl) in order to negate the realities of
attributes (ḥaqāʾiq al-ṣifāt) on the pretext of metaphor (bi-ʿilal al-majāzāt), except that
we say:

The less-commonly used Arabic expressions (al-aghrab min kalām al-ʿArab) cannot be
used to judge the more-commonly used (al-aghlab), but rather we interpret their
meanings in accordance with the more-commonly used (naṣrif maʿānīhā ilā al-aghlab),
until you bring a proof (ḥattā taʾtū bi-burhān) that He meant by them (annahu ʿanā bihā)
the less-commonly used (al-aghrab); this is the position that is closer to justice and
impartiality (al-ʿadl wa’l-inṣāf) – Not to turn to God’s attributes which are both known
(al-maʿrūfa) and accepted by people of insight (al-maqbūla ʿinda ahl al-baṣar) and change
their meanings on the pretext of metaphor (wa-naṣrif maʿānīhā bi-ʿillat al-majāz) to that

79
Ibn Baṭṭa al-ʿUkbarī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad, al-Ibāna ʿan sharīʿat al-firaq al-nājiya wa-mujānabat
al-firaq al-madhmūma, 9 vols., ed. Muʿṭī, Riḍā b. Naʿsān et al. (Medina: Dār al-Rāya, 1415-1426/1994-2005), vol. 7, 68-
70. I thank Ahmed El Shamsy for this reference.
80
See Josef van Ess, EIr, s.v. “Dāremī, Abū Saʿīd ʿOtmān.”

126
 which is less known (mā huwa ankar), and refute God with faulty arguments (dāḥiḍ al-
ḥujjaj) …

Likewise the “apparent communication” (ẓāhir) of the Qurʾān, and all the expressions of
narrations (viz. the ḥadīth) are interpreted according to their general meanings (tuṣraf
maʿānīhā ilā al-ʿumūm) until an interpreter (al-mutaʾawwil) comes with a clear proof (bi-
burhān bayyin) that the particular meaning was meant (annahu urīda bihi al-khuṣūṣ),
because God the Exalted, has said: “In clear (mubīn) Arabic speech.” (Q al-Shuʿarāʾ
26:195)

The most established of it (athbatuhu) according to the scholars (al-ʿulamāʾ) is the most
general of it (aʿammuhu) and the most widespread (ashadduhu istifāḍa) among the Arabs.
So whoever makes the particular (al-khāṣṣ) of [these expressions] like the general (al-
ʿāmm) is like the ones who follow “the mutashābih seeking strife and seeking its
interpretation” (mā tashābaha minhu ibtighāʾ al-fitna wa-ibtighāʾa taʾwīlihi). He wants to
follow in regards to them “other than the path of the believers” (ghayr sabīl al-
muʾminīn) (Q al-Nisāʾ 4:115)81

Al-Dārimī’s critique of “Jahmīte” Qurʿān interpretation hinges on the primacy of the

pragmatics of Arabic language usage in a way inspired by al-Shāfiʿī’s primacy of bayān for the

communication of God’s message. Since God explicitly said that He revealed the scripture in

“clear Arabic speech,” readings which used words differently from their general usage could

only be admitted by “clear proof” (burhān bayyin). If the arguments of kalām are excluded as a

matter of course, however, we can recognize that such a proof could only be linguistic, or

inherent to the logic of scripture itself. Normative readings of the scripture were to be

determined by the semantic range of standard Arabic language usage and their scripturally

based contextual indications as qualifiers of divine intention behind revelation. The warning

not to depart from the “path of the believers,” evoked by Ibn al-Mājishūn and al-Dārimī was, as

we recall, the scriptural basis of consensus (ijmāʿ) as articulated by al-Shāfiʿī; in confrontation

81
Al-Dārimī, Abū Saʿīd ʿUthmān b. Saʿīd, Naqḍ al-Imām Abī Saʿīd ʿUthmān b. Saʿīd ʿalā al-Marīsī al-Jahmī al-ʿanīd fīmā
iftarā ʿalā Allāh ʿazza wa-jalla min al-tawḥīd, 2 vols., ed. al-Almaʿī, Rashīd b. Ḥasan (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd,
1418/1998), vol. 2, 855-856. Cf. ibid., vol. 2, 834 ff.

127
with “Jahmīte” exegesis, it reflected the inherent methodological difference between the

Sunnīs and the mutakallimūn.

3.3.2 Muʿtazilite interpretations:

Muʿtazilite interpretations of this verse, though not explicitly based on traditionalist

sources, tended to reflect elements of the “disputationist interpretation” from the outset,

colored as they were by the concerns of kalām argumentation. Although the very oldest

Muʿtazilite approaches share some parallels with the foundational layers of traditionalist

exegesis, in particular the jurisprudential dimension, they nevertheless reveal more of an

immediate emphasis on the linguistic difference presented in the bifurcation of the muḥkam

and mutashābih. That is to say, they emphasized the dimension also found in the Sunnī

disputationist-interpretation whereby the very communicative nature of the verses formed

the primary reason for the essential contradistinction of these two categories. As we shall see,

this would guide the Muʿtazilite interpretation of the verse into its classical kalām usage, which

in future generations would be adopted by mutakallimūn of various schools of thought.

The earliest interpretations we find attributed to Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ and ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, like

the earliest layer of traditional interpretation, also saw the verse primarily as dealing with the

revelation of commands and prohibitions. In addition to this, however, they displayed

characteristic Muʿtazilite concern for the relationship between sin and salvation: They said

that the muḥkam referred to those verses where God had made explicit (aʿlama/bayyana) that

He was to punish people on account of certain sins, where as the mutashābih were those

verses where sins were described that God did not make explicit (akhfā/lam yubayyin) that He

was going to punish humanity on account of them. This meant that nobody knew the

“outcome” (taʾwīl) – i.e., whether one will necessarily be punished – for committing the latter
128
category of sins (the mutashābihāt) except for God (stop after §4a).82 Why seeking to know this

outcome is problematic is not explained; perhaps it was a refutation of Khārijites for whom

lesser sins could mandate Hell.83

What is clear is that the dichotomy between muḥkam and mutashābih was being used to

make a statement about how different modes of scriptural communication worked. This is also

also reflected in the interpretation of al-Aṣamm (d. 200/816): He considered the muḥkamāt to

refer to “clear arguments” (ḥujaj wāḍiḥa) of the Qurʾān, referring to things already known by

the People of the Book (ahl al-kitāb), whereas the mutashābihāt referred to controversial

subject matters such as details of the resurrection of the dead, the day of judgement,

punishment of sinners, or abrogation (naskh) which needed reflection (naẓar).84 The latter

category was not clear to those who were addressed by it except by reflection on the first

category which they understood more clearly. Whether he had an explanation for the taʾwīl of

the mutashābih cannot be known based on the sources available to us, but the grammarian al-

Zajjāj (d. 311/923), who clearly adopted al-Aṣamm’s interpretation,85 tells us the familiar idea

82
Al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyīn wa-ikhtilāf al-muṣallīn, 222–3; al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn, 221–2. Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-
Jabbār records this position but does not attribute it to anyone specifically, possibly since it had gone out of
favour; see ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Aḥmad al-Hamadhānī, al-Qāḍī, Mutashābih al-Qurʾān, 2 vols., ed. ʿAdnān Muḥammad
Zarzūr (Cairo: Dār al-Turāth, 1969), vol. 1, 19. Cf. van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra,
vol. 2, 277.
83
It should be noted, however, that there may be a relationship to two pertinent interpretations narrated of al-
Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (Wāṣil and ʿAmr’s teacher) of Q Hūd 11:1 (“A Book whose verses have been established then
explained” (kitāb uḥkimat āyātuhu thumma fuṣsilat). He is either supposed to have said that God had established
“the command and prohibition” (al-amr wa’l-nahy) then explained “the reward and punishment” (al-thawāb wa’l-
ʿiqāb), or precisely the opposite (i.e. that the reward/punishment have been established and the
command/prohibition have been explained); al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī, vol. 12, 308
ff.
84
Al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyīn wa-ikhtilāf al-muṣallīn, 223. al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn, 222.
85
See Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, 150; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 2,
406-407.

129
that the taʾwīl is only known by God (stopping after § 4a), i.e., no one besides God knows the

“reality” of eschatological matters such as the last day or when it will happen.86

The appeal of al-Aṣamm’s interpretation to al-Zajjāj was due to the fact that the

emphasis on the communicative properties of the verse had a linguistic argument that

strengthened its appeal over traditional exegesis. Most traditional interpretations were

contextualist, haggadic, and did not focus on the terms alone. Setting aside traditionally

narrated explanations of the verse, and focusing solely on the word pairing of

muḥkam/mutashābih, a different set of connotations emerged: If mutashābih was interpreted to

mean “indistinguishable to them” (mutashābih ʿalayhim), based on another Qurʾānic usage,87

then the term muḥkam, as a term meaning “established” in contrast with its scriptural

counterpart, would suggest a reference to verses “established in their form of communication”

(muḥkam fī’l-ibāna), or “evident, self-explanatory” (ẓāhira, bayyina).88

Such considerations about the communicative properties of the scripture likely lay

behind the standard Muʿtazilite definition of the terms muḥkam and mutashābih which would

become widely influential for later generations. Its earliest currently identifiable attribution is

to al-Iskāfī (d. 240/854), a student of Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb, but likely precedes him in origin. Al-Iskāfī

defined the muḥkam as referring to verses that “have no interpretation (taʾwīl) other than

86
See al-Zajjāj, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. al-Sarī, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān wa-iʿrābuhu, 5 vols., ed. Shalabī, ʿAbd al-Jalīl ʿAbduh
(Beirut: ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 1408/1988), vol. 1, 376-378.
87
Based on Q al-Baqara 2:70, “inna al-baqara tashābaha ʿalaynā.” This would also be strengthened by the usage of
“ma tashābaha,” in verse Q 3:7. Since tashābaha means “to be similar to something else,” al-Ṭabarī interprets the
mutashābihāt in the case of all the other traditional interpretations as “similar.” He explains that they are similar
in their mode of recitation (tilāwa) to the muḥkamāt, but differ in their religious function; al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar
Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī, vol. 5, 192.
88
See last reference. The conceptual shift between traditionalistic and linguistic interpretation of Q 3:7 is
palpable in the position taken by Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī, see n. 101.

130
their original wording (tanzīluhā),89 and whose apparent communication (ẓāhiruhā) cannot be

interpreted in various ways (lā yaḥtamil … al-wujūh al-mukhtalifa).” As for the mutashābih, he

defined them as “those whose apparent communication in the scripture can take on different

meanings (allatī yaḥtamil ẓāhiruhā fī’l-samʿ al-maʿānī al-mukhtalifa).”90 This is the earliest extant

articulation of the now well-known interpretation of muḥkam as “unequivocal” or

“monosemous” and the mutashābih as “ambiguous” or “polysemous.” This Qurʾānically

situated dichotomy of unequivocal/ambiguous verses on the basis of Q 3:7 became so

commonly accepted among kalām theologians – as we shall see – that it has dominated most

post-formative understandings of the verse to this day.91

There are striking similarities between al-Iskāfī’s position and that of Ibn al-Zubayr

(mentioned above), though the differences should be highlighted. Both stipulate only one

interpretation for the muḥkam, whereas the mutashābih is viewed as the subject of multiple

interpretations. The limitations they claim to interpretive possibility, however, hinge on

different methodological approaches.

When Ibn al-Zubayr says that “no one is allowed to interpret” the muḥkam “except with

one interpretation,” pragmatically speaking, this is an argument for the role of said verse as

“argument of the Lord” (ḥujjat al-rabb) or scriptural marker of orthodoxy. The multiple

interpretations of the mutashābih, however, reflect the plurality of “deviant” readings which

89
This idea of muḥkam parallels the idea of naṣṣ used by jurisprudents; see El Shamsy and Zysow, “Al-Buwayṭī's
Abridgement of al-Shāfiʿī's Risāla,” 335.
90
Al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyīn wa-ikhtilāf al-muṣallīn, 224. Cf. the following version: “al-muḥkamāt kullu āyatin
lahā maʿnā lā yaḥtamil ghayrahu wa’l-mutashābih mā iḥtamala taʾwīlayn aw-akthar,” al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn, 222.
91
See Eric Chaumont, EI2, s.v. “Ambiguity;” cf. Leah Kinberg, Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān, s.v. “Ambiguous.”
Kinberg does address the other traditional interpretations, but the nature of the entry is such that the standard
kalām interpretation is put to the forefront.

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contradict the meaning affirmed in the muḥkam. Singularity or multiplicity in interpretation is

a reflection of a normative reading of the text.

The Muʿtazilī position, however, asserts essential linguistic properties as indicative of

which category a verse falls into. Focus is given to the verse in its “apparent form” (ẓāhir), or

as a sign, vis-à-vis its signification (maʿānī), which differs in its semantic capacity.

Formalistically, it is the characteristic of monosemy or polysemy alone which should

determine whether a term is muḥkam or mutashābih, respectively. For this reason, even in uṣūl

al-fiqh, dealing with matters far removed from the usual doctrinal concerns usually

surrounding Q 3:7, Muʿtazilīs came to use the term mutashābih as a term to describe any

polysemous term found in the scripture.92

As with their early Sunnī counterparts, it was naturally the mutashābihāt that

demanded the Muʿtazilites attention in matters of disputation. Disputes were carried out and

treatises written on Qurʾānic mutashābihāt in order to defend them from the

(mis)interpretations of skeptics who would challenge Islamic doctrine,93 one noteworthy

example being the al-Raddʿalā al-mulḥidīn fī mutashābih al-Qurʾān by the grammarian Quṭrub (d.

206/821), a student of both the famous linguist Sībawayh and Muʿtazilite theologian al-

Naẓẓām.94 In assessing what is known about this genre of Muʿtazilite compositions, it is clear

that it was not only skeptics that needed refuting, but opposing rival Muslim doctrines as well.

Abū’l-Hudhayl wrote a book on the mutashābih verses in which he defended Muʿtazilite

92
Muʿtazilite-Ḥanafite scholar such as Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Karkhī (d. 340/952), for example said that “al-muḥkam mā lā
yaḥtamil illā wajhan wāḥidan wa’l-mutashābih mā yaḥtamilu wajhayn aw-akthar minhumā;” see al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥmad b. ʿAlī
al-Rāzī, al-Fuṣūl fī'l-uṣūl, 2nd ed., 4 vols., ed. ʿAjīl Jāsim al-Nashamī (Kuwait: Wizārat al-Awqāf wa'l-Shuʾūn al-
Islāmīya, 1414/1994), vol. 1, 373. This was adopted by some Ashʿarite legal theorists as well, see below.
93
See van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 2, 41.
94
Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 1, 148-149. On elements of his Muʿtazilism see C.H.M Versteegh, “A
Dissenting Grammarian: Quṭrub on Declension,” Historiographia Linguistica 2, 2/3 (1981), 403–29: 418 ff.

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doctrines,95 as did Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir in his Taʾwīl mutashābih al-Qurʾān.96 As the latter book

title suggests, the taʾwīl (as “interpretation”) was not something to be shied away from; as is

typical of the disputationist-view, the rāsikhūna fī’l-ʿilm know the proper interpretation of the

mutashābih along with God (stop after §4b). We may presume this to be the understanding

behind Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb’s Mutashābih al-Qurʾān,97 where he refuted interpretations of

predestinarian verses in the Qurʾān on the basis that the verses in question were mutashābih,

and provided the proper (Muʿtazilite) interpretation.98 The entire set of Muʿtazilite doctrines

were defended in such works, and were continued in following generations, as with Abū ʿAlī

al-Jubbāʾī’s book on the mutashābih99 as well as al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Mutashābih al-Qurʾān.100

The need for taʾwīl as “interpretation,” in defense of religious orthodoxy was a shared

concern for advocates of Q 3:7’s disputationist interpretation, no matter their sectarian

affiliation. However, it is necessary to take into consideration how both the Muʿtazilite

definition of muḥkam/mutashābih as well as its unique methodological backdrop shaped its

particular understanding of Q 3:7 as pivot of interpretive orthodoxy.

This is illustrated by an analysis of Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī’s critique of Sunnī theological

views:

95
See Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 1, 94. Van Ess says this work is possibly quoted in al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-
Jabbār’s Mutashābih al-Qurʾān, see van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 5, 369 no.
55.
96
Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 580.
97
See ibid., vol. 1, part 2, 591. See van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 6, 288. He
may have refuted more than this, but we only have excerpts from the work of al-Khallāl to evaluate the content.
Note again that he was the teacher of al-Iskāfī, to whom we owe the standard Muʿtazilite definition of the
muḥkam/mutashābih.
98
This work was also used later by Muʿtazilite theologian Ibn al-Khallāl (d. after 377/988) in his book Radd ʿalā al-
Jabrīya al-Qadarīya fīmā taʿallaqū bihi min mutashābih āy al-Qurʾān al-karīm; ibid., vol. 6, 288 no. 3.
99
Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 1, 94.
100
Cited elsewhere, see below.

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 They held fast to the equivocal verses (taʿallaqū bi al-āyāt al-mutashābiha) and
neglected to interpret them (tarakū an yataʾawwalūhā) in accordance with (ʿalā mā
yuwāfiqu) the rational indications (al-dalīl al-ʿaqlī) and the unequivocal verses (wa’l-
āyāt al-muḥkama) in the Book of God the Exalted.101

As we have come to be familiar with, mutashābih verses are those used by the heterodox to

misinterpret the Qurʾān in contravention of orthodox doctrine explicitly stated in the muḥkam

verses. Since religious orthodoxy, and absolute theological truth can only be based on naẓar, it

is only by knowledge of the “rational indications” (al-dalīl al-ʿaqlī) that the limitation of

interpretation can be known. Unlike the Sunnī disputationist interpretation of Q 3:7, it is not

the normative reading of scripture, but rather the scriptural application of naẓar which informs

the taʾwīl known by “the firmly established in knowledge.”

It is the very same “indications of reason,” as standard of rationalist orthodoxy, which

are the prerequisite to distinguishing between the two categories of scripture, in order to

perform the act of taʾwīl which mediates between the muḥkam and mutashābih. Before the

application of reason, in fact, there could be no inherent distinction between the two. As al-

Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār explains:

If the muḥkam and mutashābih verses have to do with al-tawḥīd wa’l-ʿadl, then both must
be determined (lā budd min bināʾihā) according to the “indications of reason” (adillat al-
ʿuqūl) … from this perspective the muḥkam is like the mutashābih.102

101
Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār
al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 149. Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī was aware of the traditionalist interpretation about the taʾwīl
as “outcome” of eschatological signs and seems to have at one time to have preferred it (along with the stop after
§ 4a); see Daniel Gimaret, Une Lecture Muʿtazilite du Coran: Le Tafsīr d'Abū ʿAlī al-Djubbāʾī (m. 303/915) partiellement
reconstitué à partir de ses citateurs (Louvain: Peeters, 1994), 167–8. See also al-Jubbāʾī’s reference to the “difference
between minor and major sins” (ibid., 168 n. 7) evocative of the interpretation of Wāṣil b. ʿAṭā seen above.
However, al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār tells us that he came to prefer the clear/ambiguous interpretation for
muḥkam/mutashābih. This was (ironically?) because he was of the view that this was the more evident (ẓāhir)
interpretatation of the verse which had precedence over figurative interpretation (majāz), and because he
believed that the verse implied that the mutashābih ought to be interpreted by the muḥkam; al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār,
al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-al-ʻadl, vol. 12, 174-175. Cf. discussion by al-Bāqillānī and al-Juwaynī in following
chapter.
102
ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Aḥmad al-Hamadhānī, al-Qāḍī, Mutashābih al-Qurʾān, 7.

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The two categories are “alike” in that before the act of naẓar (i.e. the pre-scriptural knowledge

of theology), neither may be viewed as the ultimate source of doctrine, nor enjoy interpretive

priority over the other. The only pre-naẓar difference, ʿAbd al-Jabbār explains, is that the

mutakallim may use verses that he knows to be muḥkam in order to argue with the “opponents

of al-ʿadl wa’l-tawḥīd” in order to explain to them that their doctrine is founded on the basis of

scriptural authority. This, he explains, is the ethos of the Muʿtazilī taʾwīl genre.103 But it is

only after the “indications of reason” are known that the actual difference between the two

can be established, in the following manner:

… Both the muḥkam and mutashābih must be established according to the indications of
reason (adillat al-ʿuqūl), and it must be judged that that which cannot signify (mā lā
taḥtamil) other than what [the rational evidences] mandate (mā taqtaḍīhi) must (yajib)
be affirmed as muḥkam, and that which can signify (iḥtamala) that meaning as well as
other than it (hādhā al-wajh wa-khilāfahu) is mutashābih.

Given the Muʿtazilī definition of muḥkam and mutashābih as equivocal and ambiguous, it could

not be any other way, because the nature of language is such that words are always

reinterpretable. From this perspective, it is only the definitive intellectual findings of naẓar

which can restrict the bounds of interpretation to establish the monosemy of the muḥkam:

103
“They only differ in another manner; namely, that we can debate the opponents of al-ʿadl wa’l-tawḥīd by
mentioning the muḥkam and explaining how they have opposed that which they [claim to] generally believe in,
which is difficult to do with the mutashābih. For this reason we find the books of our scholars (kutub mashāykhinā),
God grant them mercy, filled (mashḥūna) with this, in the aims of explaining that just as the [opponents] have
neglected the path of intellect (ṭarīqat al-ʿuqūl), they have likewise [neglected] the Book.;” ibid. Although someone
ignorant of God (al-jāhil billāh, viz. the non-mutakallim opponent) cannot know why a given verse is muḥkam or
mutashābih without naẓar, nor learn al-tawḥīd wa’l-ʿadl from the scripture, once confronted with what the
mutakallim asserts as muḥkam, he will be exposed to those verses “the apparent communication of which indicates
what is intended” (ẓāhiruhu yadullu ʿalā al-murād; viz. is methodologically established as monosemous), be
convinced of the scriptural foundations of Muʿtazilite doctrine, and begin the process of naẓar for himself; ibid., 7,
9.

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 The strongest (way)104 to know the difference between the muḥkam and the mutashābih
is the rational evidences (adillat al-ʿuqūl) … and what clarifies this is that the coinage of
language (mawḍūʿ al-lugha) is necessarily such (yaqtaḍī) that there is no word in lexical
usage (lā kalima fī muwāḍaʿatihā) except that it can be interpreted to signify other than
what it was coined for (illa wa-hiya taḥtamil ghayr mā wuḍiʿat lahu) – so if there was no
recourse to something definitive (law lam yurjaʿ ilā amrin lā yaḥtamil), the distinction
between the muḥkam and the mutashābih would be invalid (lam taṣiḥḥ al-tafriqa).105

This “something definitive” was the apodictic authority of the “rational indications” attained

by the intellect. Were it not for reason, “the distinction between the unequivocal and

equivocal would be invalid” because everything would be equivocal – or open to

interpretation, so to speak. It is naẓar which establishes the permissible semantic range of

theologically pertinent verses in order that the muḥkam or mutashābih be identified in the first

place. Having used naẓar to distinguish between these two modes of scriptural

communication, the mutakallim can convey God’s truth as He intended, in the act of taʾwīl.

The idea of divine intentionality is key here, because it was inconceivable that a just

God would permit unresolved doctrinal ambiguity in His revelation to mankind. The

Muʿtazilite reader of the Qurʾān had no choice but to stop after §4b in order to affirm the

knowledge of the taʾwīl of Q 3:7 for the “firmly established in knowledge:”

We do not submit that He (may He be exalted), made the knowledge [of the
taʾwīl]) exclusive to Himself, because it is not permissable (lā yajūz) for Him to
reveal speech (kalām) and an address (khiṭāb) except if the addressee (mukhāṭab)

104
The strongest, and not the only way, because when it came to verses on the “promise and the threat” and
human agency, the Muʿtazilites had a large repertoire of verses at their disposal.
105
Ibid., 7–8. Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s fictional interlocutor says, “If people differ on what is muḥkam and
mutashābih, just as they differ in their religious school – because the “likener” (mushabbih) considers something to
be muḥkam which the monotheist (muwaḥḥid) considers to be mutashābih, and that which the monotheist
considers to be muḥkam is not considered the same by the “likener” and likewise with the one who believes in
compulsion of human action (al-jabr) and the one who believes in divine justice (al-ʿadl) … in that case neither
must be distinguishable from the other except by resorting to another muḥkam, and the matter in its regard will
be disputed as with what preceded, or else they will resort to the “rational evidences;” ibid., 8. The interlocutor
views this as proof that the primacy of rational evidences nullifies the difference between the two categories of
scripture, but al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār insists that the existence of the muḥkam is a rhetorical device to call towards
the proper doctrine, see previous page.

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 has a path to knowledge of it (ṭarīq ilā maʿrifatihi) in the way it was intended to
be understood (ʿalā al-wajh alladhī quṣida ilayhi). 106

And since [the Qurʾān’s] ‘apparent communication’ (ẓāhiruhu) would point to a

[theological] error (dalla ʿalā al-khaṭaʾ), He must (lā budd) make a path to know
the indication (al-qarīna) which points to what is intended (al-dālla ʿalā al-
murād)”107

But this illustrates an important paradox brought about by the explicit equation of mutashābih

in Q 3:7 with the “ambiguous.” Although the Muʿtazila could argue with confidence that their

methodology resolved the problem of scriptural ambiguity, to assert that God intentionally

revealed ambiguous verses could be considered problematic from the perspective of God’s

perfect wisdom and justice; such verses from God could not be a cause of humanity’s

misguidance, neither intentionally nor effectively.108 If God intentionally revealed ambiguous

verses, it was only so that humanity would work harder to discover their taʾwīl. If they failed

to do so, that was entirely their own fault. Thankfully, the mutakallimūn were there to help

them find the way.109

Orthodox Muʿtazilite readings of the Qurʾān were founded on the primacy of naẓar for

determining the limits of scriptural interpretation in the communication of theological

doctrine. The categories of muḥkam and mutashābih verses were in fact pivotal for doing so, as

they were able to highlight the differences of semantic capacity inherent to language. In this

context, the muḥkam represented the linguistic ideal of monosemy behind a prescriptive

reading of text – and found its methodological basis in the ideal of apodictic “rational

106
Compare to the Sunnī idea of the taʾwīl of the muḥkam “the one that intends what He intended,” mentioned
above.
107
Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-al-ʻadl, vol. 12, 174.
108
According to the teachings of al-tawḥīd wa’l-ʿadl, God cannot be an effective cause of human guidance or
misguidance, nor may He intend the latter.
109
ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Aḥmad al-Hamadhānī, al-Qāḍī, Mutashābih al-Qurʾān, 21–30.

137
indications” which only naẓar could provide. It is the “rational indications” which form the

qarīna or “indication” which “points to what is intended” by the text.

This explains the underlying difference with Sunnī exegesis, as the qarīna mentioned

here which clarifies “what is intended” by a text is a clear parallel to the “clear proof” evoked

by al-Dārimī as prerequisite for reinterpretation of a text’s “apparent communication” (ẓāhir).

In his case, however, the qarīna is linguistically or contextually determined from within

scripture, whereas the Muʿtazilite qarīna can only be based on the extrascriptural

considerations of naẓar which precede the interpretive process. Accordingly, Sunnī and

Mutʿazilī differences in interpretive orthodoxy fall along the fault lines of language and reason

as their respective media of revelatory semantic determinacy.

In this way, opposing concepts of tradition, revelation, language, and rationality met

and diverged between the two camps and came to be reified in their respective readings of Q

3:7. In what follows it will be argued that these contending worldviews are what was at stake

in the political events of the Miḥna of 218/833. It was not the first or last time that a political

intervention would tip the scales in favor of a particular vision of theological normativity, but

its legacy uniquely far-reaching.

3.4 A Collision of Worlds: The Miḥna and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal

A confrontation was inevitable, and it happened in a way perhaps no one expected,

when the caliph al-Maʾmūn (d. 218/833) proclaimed the orthodoxy of the doctrine of the

created Qurʾān and inaugurated the inquisition (miḥna) of prominent dissenting Sunnī

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religious scholars.110 He shared with the Muʿtazilites their belief that the Qurʾān was a

creation of God, and that the Sunnī affirmation that it was the uncreated word of God was

disbelief (kufr). He gave orders that tribunes be established to examine the beliefs of those

individuals prominently known to hold this opinion; those who upheld the position were

subject to imprisonment, physical abuse, or worse.

It is in this context that muḥaddith and jurisprudent Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 241/855)

emerged to lasting prominence for posterity in the Muslim world. Tried harshly by the

inquisition, he was lionized as a fearless defender of ahl al-sunna orthodoxy against the

machinations of the mutakallimūn. His Sunnī scholarly credentials, public profile in the miḥna,

and subsequent cult following all combined to form the Ḥanbalī madhhab, the last of the Sunnī

legal schools to emerge.111

The theological point around which the Miḥna centered seems relatively obscure to

contemporary researchers, and has given rise in the research to much speculation about the

caliph’s real intentions behind the process. These are usually characterized as being of a

political nature, aimed at the consolidation of power for the caliphal office.112 Such

explanations fail to explain the singular nature of the Miḥna itself. Although the broader

political implications are palpable, especially in the context of al-Maʾmūn’s wide-sweeping

religious proclamations, there is ample evidence to show that al-Maʾmūn was also inspired by

a real esprit de corps with the Muʿtazilite collective. His Miḥna policy was not only kalām-

110
He had in fact proclaimed the doctrine of the created Qurʾān in 212/827, the year after taking power, and this
decree was heard of as far away as Somalia; see van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra,
vol. 3, 446.
111
The latest attempt to synthesize this myriad of factors behind the formation of the Ḥanbalī method is Nimrod
Hurvitz, The Formation of Ḥanbalism (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002).
112
See survey of these views in van Ess vol. 3, 447-448; This is also the position of John A. Nawas, “A Reexamination
of Three Current Explanations for al-Mamun's Introduction of the Mihna,” International Journal of Middle East
Studies 26, no. 4 (Nov., 1994), 615–29: 619–24.

139
based in its doctrine, also in its rationalistic ideal of religious normativity. This was reflected

in the company he kept, made up of theologians, philosophers, grammarians, doctors in a

flowering court culture, 113 as well as his patronage of the growing translation movement of

Greek and Syriac texts.114 But he was also on especially intimate terms with important figures

of classical Muʿtazilism, being a student of Abū’l-Hudhayl himself,115 and associating likewise

with Thumāma b. al-Ashras,116 al-Naẓẓām,117 and al-Fuwaṭī.118

Although he ultimately adopted the position of irjāʾ in preference to the moral rigidity

of Muʿtazilite salvation theory and affirmed God’s pervasive creative influence (possibly under

the influence of Bishr al-Marīsī), such doctrinal breaks with Muʿtazilite orthodoxy highlighted

by van Ess have been unduly emphasized by later researchers to posit a substantial divide

between al-Maʾmūn and the Muʿtazilites.119 It should be noted, however, that this did not

undermine their shared affinity for one another, or rather, the hopes they placed in each other

for the advancement of a shared religious ideal. A mirror-image of his father Hārūn al-Rashīd,

whose religious traditionalism they mocked, al-Maʾmūn’s intellectual independence and

rejection of taqlīd was a source of admiration, exemplified in anecdotes of his writing lengthy

113
Van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 3, 200-208.
114
As Gutas long ao established, al-Maʾmūn did not start the translation movement that would later be equated
with his name, but
115
See Nawas, “A Reexamination of Three Current Explanations for al-Mamun's Introduction of the Mihna,” 616,
624, nos. 4-5; Nawas, “A Reexamination of Three Current Explanations for al-Mamun's Introduction of the
Mihna,” 616, 624 nn. 4-5.
116
See Nawas, “A Reexamination of Three Current Explanations for al-Mamun's Introduction of the Mihna,” 616,
625 n. 8. Al-Maʾmūn had wanted Thumāma as vizier, but he declined; Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2,
575-576. For interactions of al-Maʾmūn with Abū’l-Hudhayl and Thumāma see al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-
iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 256-257,
272-275.
117
Nawas, “A Reexamination of Three Current Explanations for al-Mamun's Introduction of the Mihna,” 616, 624
n. 6.
118
Ibid., 616, 625 n. 7. For an anecdote on al-Maʾmūn’s respect for him see al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,”
in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 271–2.
119
Nawas, “A Reexamination of Three Current Explanations for al-Mamun's Introduction of the Mihna,” 617.

140
treatises to a foreign king in which “he did not depend on anyone, nor cite a verse from the

Book of God … nor the words of any wise person before him.”120

Qasim Zaman has convincingly demonstrated that al-Maʾmūn’s policies cannot be

uniformly described as serving to deconstruct Muslim scholarly authority in favor of caliphal

absolutism. Rather, they indicate his sustained patronage of a particular kind of religious

scholarship more amenable to his religious views, contrary to that of the “proto-Sunnī

religious scholars,”121 a finding which has also been strengthened by the research of Hurvitz.122

In what follows, it will be suggested that the ideal type al-Maʾmūn sought for the religious

order he sought to inaugurate was embodied in the mutakallimūn.

It is the official proclamation of the Miḥna which most fully illustrates the spirit of

kalām in its motivations.123 In the following excerpts from that document preserved in the

history of al-Ṭabarī, three important leitmotifs can be observed which exemplify the core

features of the theological debates previously discussed: In 1) the necessity of presenting Islam

on the basis of naẓar and intellectual proofs, 2) the characterization of those who stand in the

way of that mission as plebeian rabble and anthropomorphists, deficient in their faith and

religious understanding, and 3) a critique of the ahl al-sunna’s tradition-based conception of

orthodoxy. The proclamation serves as a review of all the themes covered in this chapter.

In an edict sent out by al-Maʾmūn in the spring of 218/833 we read:

120
Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 580-581. The opposite of what had been ridiculed in Hārūn al-
Rashīd’s Sunnī envoy to eastern potentates, see above.
121
Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Religion and Politics Under the Early ʿAbbāsids (New York: Brill, 1997), 106–10. He was
also followed in this by Lucas, Constructive Critics, Ḥadīth Literature, and the Articulation of Sunnī Islam, 198.
122
See in particular Hurvitz, The Formation of Ḥanbalism, 117–23.
123
Nawas’ emphasis on Bishr al-Marīsī’s identification as a Jahmite to nullify his Muʿtazilite identity is rather
strained; See John A. Nawas, “The Miḥna of 218 A. H./833 A. D. Revisited: An Empirical Study,” Journal of the
American Oriental Society 116, no. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1996), 698–708: 699.

141
 1. It is God’s right over the imams and caliphs of the Muslims that they exert
themselves (al-ijtihād) in fortifying God’s religion which He has entrusted to them,
as well as the Prophetic inheritance (mawārīth al-nubuwwa) which He has
bequeathed to them, in addition to the religious traditions which He has preserved
in them. So too [is it God’s right] that they act righteously in regard to their
subjects and exert themselves fully to obey God in their comportment with them.
The Commander of the Faithful asks God to give him success to move forward with
conviction and determination in righteousness and justice in the position that God
has placed him in through His care, mercy, and beneficence.

2. The Commander of the Faithful is aware that – throughout the provinces and
horizons – the great masses (al-jumhūr al-aʿẓam wa’l-sawād al-aʿẓam) of his plebeian
subjects (ḥashw al-raʿīya) and lowly commoners (safalat al-ʿāmma) who do not think
rationally nor contemplate (mimman lā naẓara lahum wa-lā rawīya), nor seek
evidences (lā istidlāl) for God’s existence with the [proper] evidence of Him by His
guidance, nor seek illumination by the light of knowledge and its demonstrative
ability – are a people ignorant of God and blind to Him, led astray from the reality of
His religion, His oneness (tawḥīd) and belief (īmān) in Him.

3. They have fallen waywards from His clear signs, and the necessary path to Him;
they fall short of “recognizing God as He truly deserves to be” (yaqdirū Allāh haqqa
qadrihi)124, and do not differentiate between Him and His creation, due to the
weakness of their opinions and the deficiency of their intellects, and their uncouth
rejection of thinking (al-takaffur) and reflection (al-tadhakkur) – and so they have
made God the Exalted equal to that which He has revealed of the Qurʾān.125 They
then agreed in unison and reaffirmed one another on the position that it is eternal
and everlasting (qadīm, awwal) and God did not create it (lam yakhluqhu), temporally
originate it (yuḥdithhu), or bring it about from non-existence (yakhtariʿhu).

4. But God the Exalted has said in the “unambiguous verses” of His book (muḥkam
kitābihi) which He has made a cure for the breasts and a mercy and guidance for the
believers: (Q), “We have made it (jaʿalnāhu) an Arabic Qurʾān” – and everything
which God makes (jaʿalahu) He also creates (khalaqahu). As He has said, “Praise be to
God who has created (khalaqa) the heavens and earth and made (jaʿala) light and
darkness.” … [other Qur’anic verses]…

5. Nevertheless, they disputed with false arguments and called to their doctrine and
associated themselves with the Sunna [of the Prophet] (nasabū anfusahum ilā al-
sunna) – despite the fact that in every chapter of God’s book are stories whose mere
recital disproves their doctrine, and refutes their claims and sect (niḥlatahum).

124
Paraphrase of Q al-Anʿām 4:91.
125
This is an accusation of tashbīh. The implicit accusation is that to say God’s speech is uncreated is a confusion
between the temporal nature of sounds and letters and the eternality of God’s essence. According to another
decree from the caliph, those who denied the creation of the Qurʾān were guilty of making God’s Speech eternal
along with Him, which was polytheism (shirk) of the type espoused by the Christians who believed in Christ as the
eternal Logos.

142
 Nevertheless, they presented themselves as “the people of truth, religion, and the
congregation” (ahl al-ḥaqq wa’l-dīn wa’l-jamāʿa) and those unlike them as “people of
falsehood, disbelief, and sectarianism” (ahl al-bāṭil wa’l-kufr wa’l-furqa)126 elevating
themselves above the populace and misleading the ignorant until a people of false
piety, reverence (takhashshuʿ) for other than God, asceticism (al-taqashshuf) for
other than religion, inclined towards agreement with them and consensus on their
evil views – wishing to be fair seeming to them and acting hypocritically to seek out
leadership (al-riʾāsa) and probity (al-ʿadāla) with them. So they left truth for their
falsehood and have sought intimates other than God (Q 9:16), so that their tesimony
(shahāda) be accepted by their approval.

Such have the rulings of the Book been implemented (nafadhat aḥkām al-kitāb) by
them despite their counterfeit religion, their scruffy exteriors and rotten interiors,
their corrupted sense of certainty … This is their ultimate goal, to which they incite
others and which they persist in when lying about their Lord. But God has taken a
covenant of them that they do not say about God except that which is true and
study that which is in [His book]. These are the ones whom God has made deaf and
blind, “Do they not reflect on the Qurʾān or are their locks on their hearts?” (Q
Muḥammad 47:24)

6. The Commander of the Faithful believes them to be the worst of this umma and the
leaders of misguidance (ruʾūs al-ḍalāla), deprived of knowledge of God’s unity (al-
tawḥīd), deficient in faith (al-īmān), vessels of ignorance and banners of falsehood –
the tongue by which the Devil speaks to his followers and intimidates his enemies
who follow God’s religion. They are the most deserving to be suspected of lies and
have their testimony discarded, and not have their actions or deeds trusted – for
there can be no deeds except after certainty, and there can be no certainty except
by achieving the reality of Islam (istikmāl ḥaqīqat al-islām) and perfecting [one’s
understanding of] God’s unity (ikhlāṣ al-tawḥīd). Whosoever is blinded from
guidance and belief in God and His unity (al-īmān billāh wa-bi-tawḥīdihi) – must be
even more blind and misguided in rgards to his deeds and what he intends by his
testimony. By the life of the Commander of the Faithful, the most wily person in
deceptive words and perjury is the one who lies about God and His revelation and
does not know God truly (lam yaʿrif Allāh ḥaqīqata maʿrifatihi) – and the most
deserving of having his testimony rejected in regards to God’s religion and
commands is the one who rejects God’s testimony in His book and slanders God’s
truth with his falsehood.

7. So gather all those judges in your presence and read to them this letter which has
come to you from the Commander of the Faithful and start testing them
(imtiḥānihim) concerning what they say and investigate what they believe about
God’s creation of the Qurʾān and its origination (iḥdāthi) and let them know that
the Commander of the Faithful has no confidence – in regards to what God has

126
The dichotomy of orthodoxy/heterodoxy, unity/dissension here maps on to the ahl al-sunna critique layed-out
in chapter two.

143
 entrusted him and given him to preserve of the commoner’s affairs – in those
whose religion cannot be trusted nor the purity of their monotheism (khulūṣ
tawḥīdihi) or religious certitude (yaqīnihi). If they affirm it and agree with the
Commander of the Faithful on this manner and are on the path of guidance and
salvation (sabīl al-hudā wa’l-najāt), command them to inquire into those public
witnesses (al-shuhūd ʿalā al-nās) in their presence and ask them about what they
know concerning the Qurʾān, and to stop accepting the testimony (shahāda) of
those who do not affirm that it is created and temporally originated (makhlūq
muḥdath) nor believe that and to refrain from signing it (tawqīʿihā) Then write to
the Commander of the Faithful with what you know about the judges of your
province concerning the results of their inquisition and the command to do so, then
observe them and inspect their subsequent actions so that no rulings of God (aḥkām
Allāh) are implemented (lā tanfudh) except by the testimony of the people of insight
in religion (ahl al-baṣāʾir fī’l-dīn) and purity in monotheism (al-ikhlāṣ fī’l-dīn). Then
write to the Commander of the Faithful about what happens in that respect – in shā
Allāh.127

In §2, al-Maʾmūn berates the ignorant masses for not knowing God truly, i.e, through

rational demonstrations. In §3 he explains the kalām-based reasoning for their error; a lack of

understanding of primary ontological principles as taught in kalām. He says this is why they

“liken” the Qurʾān to God, and make it eternal. As this means that he equates the doctrine that

the Qurʾān is not created with a plebeian mindset. In §4 he explains that the error of their

ways manifests in their going against the “clear” (muḥkam) verses of the Qurʾān where God

talks about “making” the Qurʾān – this error in interpretation is proof of the error of their

ways. In §5 he singles out Sunnī scholars – those who “claim” to follow the sunna – as being

responsible for the strengthing of this false conviction. He criticizes their tendency towards

pietism and asceticism as merely seeking religious leadership (riyāsa). After impugning their

character, he goes on to critique their notion of “uprightness” (ʿadāla) – the hallmark of the

isnād in the transmission of ḥadīth which we have come to be familiarized with in our study of

127
Al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī: Tārīkh al-rusul wa'l-mulūk, 10 vols., ed. Muḥammad
Abū'l-Faḍl Ibrāhīm (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1960), vol. 8, 631-634.

144
al-Shāfiʿī.128 Having called their religious knowledge and upright characters into question he

then proceeds in §6 to turn the notion of ʿadāla against them: Not knowing the principles of

kalām, they do not know who God truly is; this having led to a flagrant misreading of God’s

“unambiguous” verses, it is clear that they are more deserving of having their religious

uprightness questioned. Al-Maʾmūn seeks to demolish their notion of orthodoxy, both

theologically and in the realm of interpretive and jurisprudential authority. If Sunnīs had used

the measure of scriptural theology to exclude the testimony and invalidate the religious

leadership of the mutakallimūn, al-Maʾmūn would do the same to them on the basis of kalām.

The role of inquisition or testing (imtiḥān) about the nature of the Qurʾān ordered in §7 is for

this express purpose, effectively inaugurating a new standard of ʿadāla based on affirmation of

kalām principles.

Replacing Sunnī standards of ʿadāla with ones more amenable to the ideals of the

Muʿtazilite collective was a common goal of Miḥna advocates. In this spirit al-Jāḥiẓ wrote

plaintively to the son of the chief Miḥna administrator: “You know what we’ve had to deal with

concerning the dismissal of the testimony of the [true] monotheists (al-muwaḥḥidīn), and the

intimidation of the scholars among the mutakallimīn.”129 The Miḥna was a way to turn the

scales in this respect. This is illustrated colorfully by poet Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-Yazīdī, al-

Maʾmūn’s nursing brother:

O monotheist (muwaḥḥid) king, your judge Bishr’s an enormity (ḥimār)

Shunning witnesses who speak with God’s scriptural authority
Would that he shun likenesses (tashbīh) from God in all His Glory!

128
See chapter two.
129
Al-Jāḥiẓ, “Risāla fī nafī al-tashbīh,” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ (see note 193), 285. This letter was written to Abū’l-Walīd,
son of Ibn Abī Duʾād, chief administrator of the Miḥna after the rule of al-Maʾmūn (see below).

145
 He considers upright (ʿadlan)130 men whose religion has no worth
Worshipping a spirit body that’s encompassing the earth
The anthropomorphist (al-mushabbih) is a kāfir, his coreligionists kuffār
So dismiss him; choose a new judge, someone much better by far
Al-Marīsī has conviction – shame his tawḥīd’s stained with ijbār
And religion based on irjāʾ won’t take you very far –131
But you’ll find all you could ask for in a student of al-Murdār!132

The accused here was Ḥanafī scholar Bishr b. al-Walīd (d. 238/853) who had been

appointed qādī of Baghdad ten years earlier in 208/823.133 The poem indicated Bishr’s Sunnī

rejection of Muʿtazilite influence in the Islamic legal system and called upon al-Maʾmūn to

replace him with a judge whose beliefs were in accordance with kalām-based monotheism.134

Dismantling Sunnī ʿadāla informed the Miḥna policies implemented in the main urban

areas of the Muslim world:135 In Egypt legal testimony was not accepted from those who

rejected the creation of the Qurʾān from 218 to 232 AH.136 The most prominent victim there,

al-Shāfiʿī s prominent student al-Buwayṭī, died in custody after being transported to Baghdad

for inquisition.137 In Qayrawān, renowned Mālikī scholar al-Saḥnūn (d. 240/855) was examined

130
The word ʿadl here means someone possessing ʿadāla and is a reference to Sunnī exclusion of Muʿtazilites in the
sharīʿa court system.
131
The mention of ijbār (determinism) and irjāʾ (separation of actions from faith) is a jab at Bishr al-Marīsī’s
“unorthodox” kalām doctrines from a Muʿtazilite perspective, as mentioned above, see 2.3.2. On Bishr’s irjāʾ see
van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 3, 183. However, van Ess’ statement that he
believed in the eventual salvation of “alle Muslime” should be qualified by the existence of Bishr’s book on Kufr al-
mushabbiha, ; ibid., vol. 3, 181. More concretely we can suppose he separated faith from actions, which the
Muʿtazilites did not accept.
132
Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, “Faḍl al-iʿtizāl,” in Faḍl al-iʻtizāl wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʻtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tūnis: Al-Dār
al-Tūnisīya, 1974), 136–350, 278–9. See Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 573. Murdār was a prominent
student of Abū’l-Hudhayl’s, see above, n. 10.
133
See al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī, vol. 8, 597. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s son ʿAbd Allāh
reports an anecdote from Bishr b. al-Walīd about his teacher Abū Yūsuf speaking ominously to Bishr al-Marīsī
because of his rejection of ḥadīth on the beatific vision of God; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿAbd Allāḥ b. Aḥmad, Kitāb al-sunna,
170.
134
Bishr b. al-Walīd was subsequently put to the test by order of al-Maʾmūn in the same cohort of detainees as
Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal. For details see al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī, vol. 8, 637-645.
135
Such policies were implemented in Baghdad, Kufa, Basra, Damascus, the holy cities of the Ḥijāz, Egypt, the
Maghrib and Khurasan, van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 3, 473-481.
136
See Martin Hinds, EI2, s.v. “Miḥna,” quoting Akhbār al-quḍāt by al-Kindī. The most detailed description of the
Miḥna in Egypt can be found in El Shamsy, The Canonization of Islamic Law, 126 ff.
137
ibid., 130–1.

146
and put under house arrest, prohibited from public teaching.138 Ḥanafīs were split along

theological party lines, but followers of all Sunnī madhhab eponyms were in fact affected by the

Miḥna’s demands, many capitulating to the symbolic profession of the new orthodoxy, whether

out of conviction or political expediency.139 The unprecedented political victory for the

mutakallimūn inspired anticipation of a sea change in religious authority. As al-Jāḥiẓ wrote to

the son of chief Miḥna administrator Ibn Abī Duʾād:

The masses are with them, the vulgar obey them, but now you have two things:
temporal power (al-sulṭān) and their inclination [to submit] to it and fear it. “So may
the best outcome be for the truly pious.” {Q al-Aʿrāf 7:128; Q al-Qaṣaṣ 23:83).140

By the time al-Jāḥiẓ wrote those words, the role of Ibn Abī Duʾād himself was

increasingly critical for the success of the Miḥna: Al-Maʾmūn, its original mastermind, only

oversaw four months of its implementation before falling ill and passing away. The Miḥna was

continued by his political successors, who though endowed with less intellectual conviction

then their predecessor, honored his last requests to give victory to the new orthodoxy: Al-

Maʾmūn’s left explicit instructions in his final will and testament to his brother and immediate

successor al-Muʿtaṣim (r. 218-27 AH/833-42 CE) to keep the council of Muʿtazilite theologian

Ibn Abī Duʾād; the latter subsequently oversaw the Miḥna in his new capacity as chief Qādī of

Baghdad.141 It was Ibn Abī Duʾād who took over Miḥna policy under al-Muʿtaṣim and his sons

138
See Martin Hinds, EI2, “Miḥna.” Al-Saḥnūn, is the author of al-Mudawwana, the second most revered book in the
Mālikī tradition. See M. Talbi, EI2, s.v. “Saḥnūn.”
139
See John A. Nawas, “The Miḥna of 218 A. H./833 A. D. Revisited” Journal of the American Oriental Society 116, no. 4
(Oct. - Dec., 1996), 704. Cf. Hinds, EI2, s.v. “Miḥna.”
140
Al-Jāḥiẓ, “Fī khalq al-Qurʾān (fragment),” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ (see note 343), 300.
141
The will, reproduced in al-Ṭabarī’s history, is also peppered with kalām-inspired testifications of faith, another
indication of the true convictions of the caliphs; al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī, vol. 8,
647-650.

147
al-Wāthiq (r. 227-32 AH/842-47 CE) and al-Mutawakkil (r. 232-247 AH/847-61 CE), establishing

what Hurvitz has called an “inquisitorial network.”142

In addition to the eventual flagging of ideologically committed political support,

advocates of the Miḥna faced another problem inherent to their particular project: its

unpopularity with the Muslim populace, who now found their traditional scholarly authorities

turned into martyrs. It is in this context that Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, eponym of the Ḥanbalī school,

emerged as one of the most prominent Sunnī dissenters against Miḥna policies. He had been

targeted explicitly by al-Maʾmūn’s first decrees, for reasons made clear by his biographical

profile.

A Baghdad native, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal began his fiqh instruction at the feet of chief Qādī

for Hārūn al-Rashīd, Abū Ḥanīfa’s student Abū Yūsuf, before going on to immerse himself in

the world of the muḥaddithūn spread throughout Iraq, the Ḥijāz, Yemen, and Syria. His teachers

were among some of the most important ḥadīth transmitters of the time, and he studied with

Sufyān b. ʿUyayna and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī, two ḥadīth experts also formative for the

thought of al-Shāfiʿī.143

His monumental efforts in ḥadīth are represented in the Musnad, a collection of

approximately 30,000 ḥadīth narrations. The divisions of the book are organized according to

their first narrators, the Companions of the Prophet: These start with Abū Bakr, ʿUmar,

ʿUthmān, ʿAlī, the rest of the “10 Companions promised paradise,” and the ahl al-bayt, and

continue with Companions known for prolific transmission such as Ibn Masʿūd, ʿAbd Allāh b.

142
Hurvitz, The Formation of Ḥanbalism, 123–7. For more information on Ibn Abī Duʾād cf. van Ess, Theologie und
Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 3, 481-500.
143
Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal, al-Musnad, 50 vols., ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1416-1421/1995-
2001), vol. 1, 38-42. Lucas, Constructive Critics, Ḥadīth Literature, and the Articulation of Sunnī Islam, 212–7. Hurvitz,
The Formation of Ḥanbalism, 43–51.

148
ʿUmar, ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ, al-ʿAbbās and his sons, Abū Hurayra, Anas b. Mālik, Abū

Saʿīd al-Khudrī, and Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh. Subsequent sections of the book depict a geographical

dimension to the transmission of the Prophet’s teachings, being ordered according to the

regions which the Companions took as their final place of residence: Meccans, Medinans,

Kufans, Basrans, and Syrians. Finally, the book concludes with narrations from the Medinan

Companions called the Anṣār, as well as by ʿĀʾisha, the Prophet’s wife. It is clear that the

divisions of the Musnad naturally demand repetition of narrators and their narrations, but this

too must have been deliberate for two reasons, one devotional and one dialectical. The book’s

chapters not only commemorated the early community which received the Prophet’s

teachings, but it also presented the next logical step in al-Shāfiʿī’s project for the transmitted

sunna, in that it acknowledged but ultimately aimed to transcend regional traditionist schools

by unifying and evaluating their geographically disparate collections of ḥadīth material.

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal was thus a particularly accomplished representative of those

associated with “sunna” and “jamāʿa” blamed by al-Maʾmūn in his initial decree of the Miḥna

(see §5). His K. al-Zuhd and K. al-Waraʿ144 were also emblematic of the ascetic traditionalist ideal

associated with early ahl al-sunna figures such as Fuḍayl b. ʿIyāḍ and Ibn al-Mubārak of the type

attacked there as well (see §2145). Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal was also indebted to these figures, as we

have come to know from his son’s K. al-Sunna, in their vigorous condemnation of the “Jahmīya”

144
See Michael Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophets in the Age of al-Maʾmūn (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 109, 112-115. Cf. the chapter “Zuhd – Social Critique and Group Identity,”
Hurvitz, The Formation of Ḥanbalism, 91–101.
145
This critique is also echoed in al-Jāḥiẓ’ Fī khalq al-Qurʾān, written during the Miḥna, “As for their claim that, ‘We
are the pietists and devotionalists’ – the devotionalists of the Khārijites alone are more in number than theirs,
even though their total numbers are less than them …” al-Jāḥiẓ, “Fī khalq al-Qurʾān (fragment),” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ
(see note 343), 298.

149
as originators of the doctrine of the “created Qurʾān,”146 which al-Maʾmūn promoted as

shibboleth of Islamic orthodoxy.

3.4.1. New Insights into the Topical Nature of the Miḥna

The motivations for the Miḥna have been discussed extensively.147 Although the

political subtext of al-Maʾmūn’s policies rightfully incited some researchers to focus on the

Miḥna as pretext for the broadening of caliphal authority at the expense of the ʿulamāʾ, ample

evidence has been presented here in agreement with the contentions of Zaman and Hurvitz

that al-Maʾmūn was only suppressing one scholarly establishment in support of another more

in accordance with his religious ideals. Yet the question remains as to why he chose the issue

of the creation of the Qurʾān.

Although it has been recognized that the specific theological topic was chosen to

oppose the ahl al-sunna and ḥadīth scholars,148 little attention has been given as to why this

topic in particular was chosen among other possibilities that could have served the same

purpose. An exception is Watt,149 who advanced the tantalizing thesis that al-Maʾmūn wished

to establish the Qurʾān as created object in order to diminish its power for the sake of his own

executive authority. Till now Watt’s thesis has gone without alternatives, 150 as it gained

146
See above.
147
See Hayrettin Yücesoy, “Between Nationalism and the Social Sciences: An Examination of Modern Scholarship
on the ʿAbbāsid Civil War and the Reign of al-Maʾmūn,” Medieval Encounters, no. 8.1 (2002), 56–78: 58–66. Cf.
Hayrettin Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics in Medieval Islam: the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate in the Early Ninth
Century (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2009), 130–3.
148
Vanessa de Gifis, Shaping a Qur'anic Worldview: Scriptural Hermeneutics and the Rhetoric of Moral Reform in the
Caliphate of al-Maʾmūn (New York: Routledge, 2014), 92–3. Cf. Martin Hinds, EI2, s.v. “Miḥna.” See also Richard C.
Martin, Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān, s.v. “Createdness of the Qurʾān. ”
149
Watt, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought, 179. Cf. Yücesoy, “Between Nationalism and the Social Sciences,”
65.
150
Although Hinds forcefully argued against it, saying, “But this misses the point: for one thing, the doctrine of
the created Qurʾān is a doctrine about God, and more specifically about God’s unity, rather than a doctrine about

150
currency due to its basis on the political interpretation of the Miḥna which enjoys popularity to

this day. Although its use as doctrinal basis of exclusionary politics is undoubtable, its

particular usage needs some explanation.

I will offer an explanation here which takes both theological and social dimensions into

account; namely, that it was the easiest kalām doctrine to publicly proclaim in Muslim society.

This was for three reasons: Unlike most teachings of kalām, the doctrine of the created Qurʾān

was 1) not dependent on complex preliminary ontological discussions, 2) able to capitalize on

the fact that the opposing doctrine of the “uncreated Qurʾān” was not scripturally explicit, but

in fact contingent on the traditional understanding of the opposing camp, and 3) itself could

be argued with explicit recourse to scripture – unlike any other kalām doctrine of negative

theology. Al-Maʾmūn did not desire to “overrule the Qurʾān,” but wished to make a

contention about how it was to be interpreted – everything about the Miḥna’s public

proclamation was designed as an affirmation of Islamic scripture’s true message. These were a

unique combination of elements which made it suitable for public discourse, as a means of

establishing the scriptural underpinnings of kalām-based orthodoxy and undermine the

religious legitimacy of Sunnī interpretive and theological authority.

Another strength of the created Qurʾān as basis of the Miḥna was that it was uniquely

poised to navigate both interreligious and intersectarian dogmatic faultlines to the rhetorical

advantage of the mutakallimūn. In subsequent proclamations, al-Maʾmūn was able to accuse

Sunnī belief in the Qurʾān’s uncreatedness as being like the Christian doctrine of the eternal

the Qurʾān, and there is in any case no evidence whatsoever to support the view that al-Maʾmūn wanted to
overrule the Qurʾān …” Martin Hinds, EI2, s.v. “Miḥna.”

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logos,151 which undermined the integrity of their Islamic faith. This mutakallim’s “genealogical

critique” of Sunnī doctrine on God’s speech was particularly fortuitous not only in that it

capitalized on Muslim apologetic agendas in the interreligious context, but that it was able to

use a pan-Islamic medium to successfully introduce elements of kalām-inspired attribute-

theory to the Muslim masses. This cannot be taken for granted; such kalām inspired negative

theology would have been otherwise impossible with other divine attributes.152

The unique viability of public debate on God’s speech among the divine attributes

mirrored its status as a unifying rallying point among for mutakallimūn of various stripes: The

caliph Maʾmūn’s gravitation to the doctrines of Bishr al-Marīsī, from among the heterodox

Murjiʿite “Ḍirārites,” ruled out the possibility of a Miḥna on qadarīte doctrines on human

agency, or the manzila bayna al-manzilatayn. All of these factors considered together show that

there was simply no other doctrine as viable based on the dictates of scripture, popular

perception, and extended network of Muʿtazilite mutakallimūn (“orthodox” and otherwise).

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s experience in the Miḥna has been covered in detail more than

once,153 but there are specific elements which must be highlighted here, so as to highlight his

significance as defender of Sunnī theological principles:

151
Al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī, vol. 8, 635. See response by Ibn Ḥanbal, al-Radd ʿalā
al-Jahmīya wa'l-zanādiqa, 125–7. And the response by al-Bukhārī, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, Khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād wa'l-radd
ʿalā al-Jahmīya wa-aṣḥāb al-taʿṭīl, 22.
152
E.g., public argumentation that the affirmation of essential attributes such as knowledge (ʿilm) constitute shirk
was ruled out. In Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s account of his inquisition he recalled: “ʿAbd al-Raḥman [b. Isḥāq, Miḥna
administrator (see Hurvitz, The Formation of Ḥanbalism, 127.)] asked me, ‘What do you say about the Qurʾān?’ I
responded, ‘What do you say about God’s knowledge (ʿilm Allāh)?’ He did not respond.” ; Ibn Ḥanbal, Ṣāliḥ b.
Aḥmad, Sīrat al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, 3rd ed., ed. Aḥmad, Fuʾād b. ʿAbd al-Munʿim (Riyadh: Dār al-Salaf,
1995/1415), 54. Even the reinterpretion of other, more illustrative attributes, would have suggested that the
agenda was to breach the integrity of the scriptural message, which is not what the Miḥna’s administrators
wanted.
153
See Walter M. Patton, Aḥmed b. Ḥanbal and the Miḥna: A Biography of the Imâm Including an Account of the
Moḥammedan Inquistion Called the Miḥna, 218-234 A.H. (Leiden: Brill, 1987). Van Ess, van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft
im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 3, 456-465. Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography, 117–38.

152
 As Hurvitz has properly noted, this began as soon as Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s initial

encounter with al-Muʿtaṣim. Ibn Ḥanbal, seeking to avoid participation in kalām debates,

immediately asked the caliph what the Prophet Muḥammad, referred to reverently as “the son

of his uncle,” “called the people to.” The answer, “The testimony that there is no deity but

God.” Thereupon Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal affirmed the shahāda,154 then spoke, asking:

So what am I being called to, if this is my shahāda and my sincerity in God’s

monotheism (ikhlāṣī lillāh bi’l-tawḥīd), O Commander of the Faithful? Is this another call
(daʿwa) after the call of Muḥammad (ṣ)?155

Ibn Ḥanbal had begun with a head-on confrontation with the religious ideals of the

mutakallimūn. If proper Islamic monotheism (tawḥīd) could only be based by the procedures of

kalām methodology, this would pose serious questions about the ultimate arbiter of religious

belief. Ibn Ḥanbal was implicitly arguing here that if kalām were established as actual

prerequisite for true faith, then, as salvific criterion not conveyed by the Islamic revelation or

its prophetic teacher, it would have to be described as the imposition of a different religion. 156

These concerns emerge in the writing of his student Abū Saʿīd al-Dārimī as well.157

As stated earlier, the public doctrine of the created Qurʾān did not require the

methodology of kalām, but could be made by scriptural arguments. This was reflected in al-

Maʾmūn’s assertion that the Qurʾānic description of God’s “making” the Qurʾān (jaʿala) – was

154
The testimony in the oneness of God evoked here.
155
Ibn Ḥanbal, Ḥanbal b. Isḥāq, Dhikr miḥnat al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, 2nd ed., ed. Muḥammad Naghash
(1403/1983), 144–5. Cf. Ibn Ḥanbal, Ṣāliḥ b. Aḥmad, Sīrat al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, 53.
156
Hurvitz’s analysis of this first exchange does not include Ibn Ḥanbal’s last sentence, and thus misses the
poignancy of the moment; see Hurvitz, The Formation of Ḥanbalism, 132–3.
157
“If no one is a monotheist (lam yuwaḥḥid Allāh) from the umma of Muḥammad except the one who carries out
these absurdities (khurāfāt) [referring to the methodological questions of kalām] and their answers – then … there
is no monotheist in the umma of Muḥammad;” al-Dārimī, Abū Saʿīd ʿUthmān b. Saʿīd, Naqḍ al-Imām Abī Saʿīd
ʿUthmān b. Saʿīd ʿalā al-Marīsī al-Jahmī al-ʿanīd fīmā iftarā ʿalā Allāh ʿazza wa-jalla min al-tawḥīd, vol. 2, 838-839. Like
Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, al-Dārimī explains that the sincere (mukhliṣan) affirmation of the shahāhada is “the reasonable
understanding” (maʿqūl) for an “interpretation of monotheism” (tafsīr al-tawḥīd), and “the indication of (al-dalīl
ʿalā) a man’s faith, Islam, and monotheism (tawḥīd).” ibid., vol. 2, 839-840.

153
an unequivocal muḥkam verse which established its creation (see §4). He forced the first batch

of interogees to respond to its interpretation;158 but the extant record does not show Ibn

Ḥanbal’s response. Aḥmad was eventually asked to engage with the verse during his second

inquisition in the reign of al-Muʿtaṣim. In response he explained that jaʿala could mean

different things in different contexts;159 in his Radd he explained that the Miḥna’s use of this

verse and others160 was a classic example of misinterpretation of the mutashābih.161

Such a difference in interpretation was to be expected. But it must also be emphasized

that, in the throes of the inquisition, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal consciously challenged what we have

come to recognize as the inherent limits of Muʿtazilite interpretitive authority. In the

exclusion of kalām arguments, no one could be religiously compelled to interpret the disputed

Qurʾānic verses as unequivocal (muḥkam) proof of the created Qurʾān on their linguistic merit

alone. To the consternation of Ibn Ḥanbal’s mutakallimūn inquisitors, there was thus no way to

attain his assent to their interpretation. In the end, they had resorted to physical compulsion,

a fact which he thrust in their faces, as when he said to them probingly, “You have made an

interpretation (taʾawwalta taʾwīlan), as you know best, but what you have interpreted does not

warrant imprisonment or being shackled.”162 In his refusal to capitulate to the Miḥna, Aḥmad

b. Ḥanbal had exposed the policy’s fundamental weakness in the eyes of its critics; namely,

that the heretical mutakallimūn had belied the truth of their claims to religious interpretive

158
Al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr, Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī, vol. 8, 639. Al-Maʾmūn’s second decree contained a
number of such verses as scriptural proofs, ibid., vol. 8, 635-636.
159
Ibn Ḥanbal, Ḥanbal b. Isḥāq, Dhikr miḥnat al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, 53–4. Ibn Ḥanbal, Ṣāliḥ b. Aḥmad, Sīrat al-
Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, 52.
160
These were used during his interrogation, (see ibid., 55–6.) and have been analyzed in Hurvitz, The Formation of
Ḥanbalism, 138 ff.
161
Ibn Ḥanbal, al-Radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya wa'l-zanādiqa, 100–2.
162
Ibn Ḥanbal, Ṣāliḥ b. Aḥmad, Sīrat al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, 54. Cf. the analysis of Hurvitz, who also mentions
other relevant material, Hurvitz, The Formation of Ḥanbalism, 34.

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authority through their ultimate resort to corporal punishment in order to enforce a

normative reading of scripture.

3.4.2 The Outcomes of the Miḥna and the Emergence of Ḥanbalism

This symbolic role in defense of Sunnī theological and exegetical principles lies behind

the larger-than-life image Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal came to enjoy for posterity as his example was

immortalized in the works of his devoted followers: In addition to the account of the Miḥna

written by his cousin Isḥāq,163 and the biography written by his son Ṣāliḥ,164 over twenty

subsequent hagiographical works were written about him over the course of the following

three centuries, a figure unparalleled for any other eponym of a Sunnī madhhab. The distinct

profile of the Ḥanbalī madhhab can only be properly understood in the immediate legacy of

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal as Sunnī martyr and legend in the context of the Miḥna.165

Beyond his scholarly profile as muḥaddith (luminaries al-Bukhārī, Muslim, and Abū

Dāwūd narrated from him166), and beyond his immediate circle of students in fiqh,167 Aḥmad b.

Ḥanbal, in the aftermath of the Miḥna, had become a rallying point for Islamic theological

orthodoxy: No less than six ʿaqīda creedal works are transmitted on his authority by scholars

of the following generation, either by direct instruction, correspondence, or as a distillation of

theological positions.168 His son ʿAbd Allāh wrote the K. al-Sunna, a valuable source for his

father’s theological positions, wherein his conformity with the positions of earlier ahl al-sunna

163
Ibn Ḥanbal, Ḥanbal b. Isḥāq, Dhikr miḥnat al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.
164
Ibn Ḥanbal, Ṣāliḥ b. Aḥmad, Sīrat al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.
165
For observations on this legacy see van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 3, 456.
Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography, 138–51.
166
Hurvitz, The Formation of Ḥanbalism, 83.
167
Ibid., 78–81. Yet more work is needed on this topic.
168
Henri Laoust, “Les Premières Professions de Foi Hanbalites,” Mélanges Louis Massignon, no. 3 (1957), 7–35: 12–4.

155
authorities was also documented.169 Any pretention of emulating Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal necessarily

included an explicit position on specific theological matters, which formed a distinct

characteristic of his madhhab in contrast to the other Sunnī madhhab eponyms.

The caliph al-Mutawakkil phased out the policies of the Miḥna and ought to actively

promote Sunnī scholarship, and suppressed Muʿtazilism and Shīʿism in the public sphere.170

He even sought the tacit approval of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal for his policies. But if the ahl al-sunna

had thereby survived the greatest assault on their authority by the strength of popular and

political support, the victory was not without its battle wounds. The Miḥna had been a test of

allegiances in the face of temporal power and a test of men’s religious convictions. Suspicions

ran high and tolerance for any position perceived as undermining the Sunnī position was

viewed as tantamount to heresy.

As man of the hour, the statements of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal were looked to in order to

separate the sheep from the goats. But this was a thornier issue that might be expected. In

addition to his anathemization of the affirmers of the created Qurʾān,

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal had criticized two other groups: The first were those who refused to take an

open position and say whether the Qurʾān was created or not created. These he called the

wāqifa, or “hesitators.”171 The second are those who said their pronunciation of the Qurʾān was

created. He said, “Whoever says my pronunciation (lafẓī) of the Qurʾān is created is a

Jahmite.”172

Bishr b. al-Walīd mentioned above may have survived the Miḥna, but thereafter he was

deserted as one of the wāqifa by many ḥadīth transmitters for not taking an explicit position on

169
This book has already been cited above.
170
See Martin Hinds, EI2, “Miḥna.”
171
Brown, The Canonization of Al-Bukhārī and Muslim, 77.
172
Hurvitz, The Formation of Ḥanbalism, 153–4.

156
the Qurʾān.173 Two students of al-Shāfiʿī, al-Muzanī and al-Karābīsī, were critiqued for their

discussion of the created lafẓ;174 the reason for this, as al-Dhahabī’s presentation of the relevant

sources makes clear, was no other than their contravention of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s

pronouncements.175 Nisapur’s most prominent ḥadīth scholar, Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī

(d. 258/873) took al-Bukhārī’s discussion of the lafẓ as a pretext for his expulsion from that

city.176 Al-Dhuhlī’s animosity to al-Bukhārī so repulsed his counterpart Muslim b. Ḥajjāj (d.

261/875), that he cut off his own studies with al-Dhuhlī and left the city (his hometown!) in

protest.177

For this reason we also find that al-Bukhārī’s Khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād, in addition to its useful

documentation of early Sunnī theology in refutation of Jahmites and Muʿtazilites, contains an

apologia directed at resolving the matter:

As for what the two camps have asserted as proof for the position of Aḥmad [b. Ḥanbal]
(madhhab Aḥmad)178 and claim for themselves, most of their narrations are not reliable
(thābit), and perhaps they have not understood the subtlety of his position (diqqat
madhhabihi).

What is known from Aḥmad and the people of knowledge (ahl al-ʿilm) is that the speech
of God is not created (ghayr makhlūq) and other than it is created (makhlūq), and that
they hated seeking and investigating obscure things (ashyāʾ ghāmiḍa), and that they
avoided the people of kalām and plunging into debates (al-khawḍ wa’l-tanāzuʿ), except
according to what [revelatory] knowledge (al-ʿilm) has come with and the Prophet (ṣ)
has explained.179

173
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 17, 111.
174
El Shamsy, The Canonization of Islamic Law, 135, 197.
175
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 18, 83-86. It was not the “ultra-conservativism” of “über-Sunnīs” (per Brown,
The Canonization of Al-Bukhārī and Muslim, 77.), but the rising normativity of Ạhmad b. Ḥanbal’s emulative
authority.
176
Ibid., 66–7.
177
Ibid., 85–6.
178
The usage of madhhab predates the notion of the four madhhabs, and means here “way” or “position” or
“belief.” It also illustrates how much the early notion of “Ḥanbalism” was bound up with the theological
authority Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal was viewed to have.
179
Al-Bukhārī, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, Khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād wa'l-radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya wa-aṣḥāb al-taʿṭīl, 43.

157
He also scripturally argued for human recitation of the Qurʾān human actions, categorically

created by God, an important distinction in contention with the qadarite/Muʿtazilite position

on human agency.180

Such conflicts also prompted Ibn Qutayba to intervene for the sake of making peace.

He argued that there were in fact conflicting reports (“ikhtalafat … al-riwāyāt”) from Aḥmad b.

Ḥanbal, and said it was inconceivable (“kayfa yutawahhamu?”) that Ibn Ḥanbal could have

categorically called the affirmer of created pronunciation (lafẓ) a Jahmite, and thus a

disbeliever (kāfir).181 In addition Ibn Qutayba called for compassion towards the wāqifa whose

reluctance to speak, he argued, was based on religious scrupulousness.182 Just as there could be

extremism (ghuluww) in denial of God’s attributes, there could be extremism in their

affirmation. Such extremism, he pointed out happened in the rejectionist Shīʿites cursing of

Companions, and the reaction of their opponents by depriving ʿAlī and his sons their true

worth, and exaggerating on merits of Muʿāwīya.183

This points to the ironic outcome of the Miḥna’s catapulting of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal to

widespread fame as icon of Sunnī orthodoxy. In the rush to emulate Ibn Ḥanbal, dissension

spread even among a previously united camp. Doubts were expressed on the proper

interpretation of his statements, leading to thornier issues than had even been encountered on

matters of scriptural interpretive difference. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal was a hero for Sunnīsm, but his

legacy was a mixed one from the outset.

As will be demonstrated in the following chapter, it is the limits of emulationism

embodied in the example of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal which provided the backdrop for the emergence

180
Ibid., 58.
181
Ibn Qutayba, al-Ikhtilāf fī'l-lafẓ (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 1405/1985), 43–7.
182
Ibid., 50–1.
183
Ibid., 40–3.

158
of al-Ashʿarī and Sunnī kalām. As we recall, traditionalist theological doctrine had been

exposed by the Miḥna as being contingent on the understanding of its advocates and not an

explicit scriptural tenet; the topic of the created Qurʾān had been successfully exploited to

demonstrate this. This being the case, if the doctrines of revelational-prioritists such as

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal were valid, this ought to be demonstrated rationally. Although such

inspirational figures had led the way, it was no longer possible to simply follow their lead – the

complications surrounding Ibn Ḥanbal illustrated this clearly. The time was right for a sea

change, and the ways in which al-Ashʿarī justified kalām, which aimed at resolving some of the

most contentious matters at stake in the debate on its religious validity, were paradigmatic for

many Sunnī scholars to follow.

159
PART II. PARADIGMATIC FACTORS FOR THE HISTORICAL TRAJECTORY OF THE SHĀFIʿĪ
AND ḤANBALĪ SCHOOLS

160
Chapter Four. The Rise of Al-Ashʿarī and the Sunnī Epistemic Shift

Given early Sunnīs’ tumultuous relationship with the mutakallimūn, especially in the

context of the Miḥna, it would seem quite improbable that Sunnī kalām ever found its

beginnings. Despite a paucity in its original source-texts, however, the earliest Sunnī kalām

can be traced back as early as the generation of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal himself: The Ashʿarī

theologian ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī, writing in the 5th/11th century AH/CE, called its pioneers

“the early mutakallimīn of ahl al-ḥadīth,”1 among whom he counted ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿīd Ibn

Kullāb (d. 241/855)2 as well as his students the Sufi theorist al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243)3 and

Qurʾānic exegete al-Ḥusayn b. al-Faḍl al-Bajalī (d. 282/895),4 in addition to Abū’l-ʿAbbās al-

Qalānisī (d. ),5 Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Karābīsī (d. 245/859 or 248/862)6, and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Makkī

al-Kinānī (d. 221/836).7 Although not all of these (in particular the last two) can be called

mutakallimīn in the technical sense of the word which the Muʿtazilites developed, their

willingness to either refute or engage with kalām attests to the growing sense of the need for a

defense of Sunnī theological doctrine on a more robust conceptual basis.

1
Al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn, 254. Al-Shahrastānī, somewhat later, wanted to call them the mutakallimūn min al-salaf;
see Josef van Ess, “Ibn Kullāb und die Miḥna,” Oriens 18-19 (1967), 92–142: 97. See the astute sub-classification by
early Māturīdite theologian Abū’l-Muʿīn al-Nasafī (d. 508/1115) in his Tabṣirat al-adilla; Daniel Gimaret, “Cet Autre
Théologien Sunnite: Abū l-ʿAbbās al-Qalānisī,” Journal Asiatique 277, 3-4 (1989), 227–62: 234.
2
The most intellectually accomplished among the early Sunnī mutakallimūn; Muʿtazilites were aware of his theses
and wrote refutations of them; for an overview see van Ess, “Ibn Kullāb und die Miḥna,” van Ess, Theologie und
Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 4, 180.
3
See Josef van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des Ḥāriṯ al-Muḥāsibī (Bonn: Selbstverlag des Orientalischen Seminars der
Universität Bonn, 1961). Gavin Picken, Spiritual Purification in Islam: The Life and Works of al-Muhasibi (New York:
Routledge, 2011).
4
See van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 2, 608.
5
For an overview, see Gimaret, “Cet Autre Théologien Sunnite,”
6
An Iraqi student of al-Shāfiʿī; see van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 4, 210.
7
Another student of al-Shāfiʿī; his book K. al-Ḥayda was written as a testimony of his engagement with Miḥna
inquisitors and does entail a detailed refutation of their doctrines, largely on the basis of scriptural reasoning
typical of the early ahl al-sunna; see El Shamsy, The Canonization of Islamic Law, 218–9.
161
 We also possess contemporary descriptions of early Sunnī kalām by their Muʿtazilite

rivals. Al-Jāḥiẓ himself viewed their emergence with incredulity, characterizing them as

trivial “upstarts” (nābita)8 who had no place in the domain carved out and monopolized by the

Muʿtazilites; their insincerity he wishes to highlight by their initial prohibition of kalām, but

then shifting from “dominance by numbers” to “tricks and arguments” (ḥīla/ḥujja).9 His fellow

Muʿtazilite Jaʿfar b. Mubashhir (d. 234/848), student of al-Murdār mentioned earlier, also

spoke derisively of “mutakallimī al-ḥashw,”10 among whom he counted al-Walīd al-Karābīsī (d.

214/829), teacher of the al-Karābīsī mentioned above, 11 as a conspicuous group among the

ḥashw al-Baghdādīyīn. Both al-Jāḥiẓ and Jaʿfar b. Mubashshir asserted that such theologians

were essentially indebted to the Muʿtazilites, al-Jāḥiẓ saying, “these mutakallimī al-ḥashwīya

wa’l-nābita only acquired a bit of intelligence (baʿḍ al-fiṭna) by debating our brethren and

reading our books!”12 Jaʿfar implied that some had in fact been former Muʿtazilites, noting,

“this al-Walīd character used to practice kalām and keep the company of the mutakallimīn!”13

The study of early Sunnī kalām in the late 2nd/8th – early 3rd/9th centuries AH/CE is

largely hindered by the paucity of available sources and the volatility of an age in which

reputations were made and lost with dramatic speed. One illustrative example is a mutakallim

8
For a philological overview and its social implications see Wadād al-Qāḍī, “The Earliest "Nābita" and the
Paradigmatic "Nawābit",” Studia Islamica, no. 78 (1993), 27–61.
9
Al-Jāḥiẓ, “Risāla fī nafī al-tashbīh,” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ (see note 193), 288.
10
Van Ess, Frühe Muʿtazilitische Häresiographie, 66 (Arabic).
11
Van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 2, 439. Van Ess’s conclusions on al-Walīd
a-Karābīsī here are more conclusive than in his 1973 study; see van Ess, Frühe Muʿtazilitische Häresiographie, 52
(German).
12
Al-Jāḥiẓ, “Fī khalq al-Qurʾān (fragment),” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ (see note 343), 288.
13
Van Ess, Frühe Muʿtazilitische Häresiographie, 67 (Arabic). Ibn al-Nadīm lists all those mutakallimūn who are not
Muʿtazilites or Shīʿites as mutakallimī al-mujbira (viz. influenced by the jabr of Ḍirār b. ʿAmr) or nābitat al-ḥashwīya;
Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 229.
162
called Ismāʿīl al-Jawzī whom Jaʿfar b. Mubashshir even considered “imam of the ḥashwīya;”14

yet this figure is essentially a non-entity in Sunnī historiography and cannot be identified with

confidence. Nevertheless, he seems to have been significant enough for the authorities to cart

off to al-Raqqa in 218/833 for inquisition by al-Maʾmūn on the nature of the Qurʾān.15

Although such circumstantial pieces of evidence argue for the early development of

Sunnī kalām, notwithstanding the many unanswered questions surrounding its particulars, we

must nevertheless acknowledge that the accomplishments of its earliest proponents were to

be eclipsed – if not effaced – by the legacy of one man: Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324 AH/935

CE). He had been, according to the admission of all, a Muʿtazilite for forty years, and a rising

star under the tutelage of the prominent Basran Muʿtazilite theologian Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī (d.

303/915). Though such an aboutface certainly blackened his reputation among his former

compatriots, it was precisely this expertise in the subtleties and strategies of Muʿtazilite kalām

was viewed as the determining factor which qualified him to defeat his theological opponents.

The details of al-Ashʿarī’s conversion experience from Muʿtazilism are preserved for us

by Ibn ʿAsākir,16 who dates the event to 300 AH/913 CE.17 The actual moment of conversion,

which carries a notably mystical element to it, is narrated in neveral narrations from Ashʿarī’s

14
Van Ess, Frühe Muʿtazilitische Häresiographie, 66.
15
He is mentioned in the history of al-Ṭabarī and the Miḥnat Ibn Ḥanbal by Ḥanbal b. Isḥāq; see van Ess, Theologie
und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 3, 190. Van Ess has gone through pains to identify him as a
certain figure from Medina known as Ismāʿīl b. Dāwūd al-Jawzī known for narrating from Imām Malik (see van
Ess, Frühe Muʿtazilitische Häresiographie, 52 (German).who died no earlier than 220/835 AH/CE (see van Ess,
Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 3, 189.). This death date is a change from van Ess’
previous observations ((van Ess, Frühe Muʿtazilitische Häresiographie, 52 (German).) when he was not aware of al-
Jawzi’s involvement in the Miḥna
16
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 2nd ed., ed. Ḥusām al-Dīn al-
Qudsī (Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1399/1979), 38–43. Ibn ʿAsākir’s role as preserver and defender of Ashʿarī tradition
will be discussed below.
17
Ibid., 56.
163
own mouth, with generally consistent details, the upshot of the matter being that in Ramaḍān

of that year, the Prophet Muḥammad came to him in a dream telling him to use kalām to “give

assistance to those doctrines narrated from me, because they are true.”18

In one narration the Prophet specifically admonishes al-Ashʿarī (as a Muʿtazilite) for

denying the vision of God mentioned in the Qurʾān. After contemplating the issue once more,

al-Ashʿarī replies that “the indications of ‘affirmation’ (ithbāt) became stronger in my heart,

and the indications of ‘negation’ (nafī) became weaker” after which he says to the Prophet “O

Prophet it was as you said (God bless you) and ‘strength is on the side of affirmation’ (wa’l-

quwwa fī jānib al-ithbāt)!” The terms of ithbāt and nafī, meaning “affirmation” and negation”

respectively, encompassed two respective paths. The former, that of “affirmation,” affirms

that which scripture said about God in a real sense: God is truly describable with eternal

attributes, and truly Creator of all things with a predetermined decree. The second, the path

of “negation,” denies real eternal attributes for God, and denies that God creates the evil deeds

of human beings, or predetermines their creation.19 Al-Ashʿarī’s conversion experience is

meant to convey that reason can vindicate the path of affirmation, or that which seeks most to

follow the words of revelation most closely, in a manner corresponding to traditional Sunnī

scriptural prioritism.

Indeed, al-Ashʿarī’s prophetic (read: sunna inspired) stamp of approval was writ large:

After being told by the Prophet to contemplate every other disputed theological premise with

kalām, al-Ashʿarī is told by the Prophet, “Write in accordance with this path that I command

18
Ibid., 40–1.
19
These words were in usage in al-Ashʿarī’s time to describe two separate paths; though ithbāt did not always
entail affirmation of attributes, it was always on the side of affirmation of God’s pervasive creative will; van Ess,
“Ibn Kullāb und die Miḥna,” 126–31. Al-Ashʿarī clearly viewed these as inseparable doctrines.
164
you to (al-ṭarīqa allatī amartuka bihā), because it is my religion and the truth which I have come

with (innahā dīnī wa-huwa al-ḥaqq alladhī jiʾtu bihi.).” “And that,” al-Ashʿarī said, “was the

reason for my repentance from madhāhib al-Muʿtazila to madhāhib ahl al-sunna wa’l-jamāʿa.”20 He

publicly recanted from Muʿtazilism on the pulpit of the Basran congregational mosque,

according to his contemporary Ibn al-Nadīm21 and Ibn ʿAsākir’s sources.22

4.1. Ashʿarī and the Defense of Naẓar:

Beyond this mystical repentance narration, there is much more we can do to

contextualize the conversion story of Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, based on statements and works

attributed to him. It is unfortunate that we possess so few works from an author so prolific23

and influential, yet there is still enough to get an idea of how such a transition was possible,

and what his unique contributions were.

One text in particular has captured the fascination of contemporary researchers,

because of its apparently early date of composition, as well as its passionate defense of the role

of kalām against the Ḥanbalīs and those like them. Originally published in Hyderabad under

the title Risāla fī istiḥsān al-khawḍ fī ʿilm al-kalām in 1323/1905-6, it was taken as an authentic

text by Max Horten and Wensinck,24 as well as McCarthy who reprinted it in his The Theology of

20
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 42–3.
21
Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 648-649.
22
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 39–40.
23
See the extensive list of works, most of them no longer extant; ibid., 128–36.
24
According to George Makdisi, “I. 'Ashʿarī and the Ashʿarites in Islamic religious history' Parts I & II,” in Religion,
Law and Learning in Classical Islam (see note 192), part II, 21.
165
al-Ashʿarī.25 Michel Allard thought it was authentic despite the title not being present in the

known lists of al-Ashʿarī’s works.26

George Makdisi felt that the text’s otherwise unknown title was a significant

impediment to its authentification,27 and felt that the tone contradicted Ashʿarī’s

“traditionalist” credentials.28 He concluded by characterizing the work as a response to later

argumentations against kalām that postdated Ashʿarī’s lifetime by many generations.29

Likewise, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī thought McCarthy and Allard to be too willing to overlook

the absence of the title from the list of Ashʿarī’s books, and, similarly to Makdisi, felt the

authorial style to be sufficiently different from al-Ashʿarī’s other extant works to support the

conclusion that it was a false attribution penned by a later Ashʿarite theologian.30

As early as 1984, however, Richard Frank discovered that this same text was

reproduced by Ashʿarite theologian Abū’l-Qāsim al-Anṣārī (d. 512/1118) in his K. al-Ghunya fī

ʿilm al-kalām under the title of al-Ḥathth ʿalā al-baḥth; a title actually attested to in Ibn ʿAsākir’s

catalogue of al-Ashʿarī’s works.31 Due to publishing complications, however, Frank only

published a new critical edition of the text (on the basis of the Ghunya, and two additional

manuscripts) four years later in 1988, and his analysis of the work within the corpus of al-

Ashʿarī’s works only came out in 1991.32 In that study he emphasized the common points

25
See ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī, Madhāhib al-Islāmiyīn (Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm li'l-Malāyīn, 1996), 519.
26
Ibid.
27
George Makdisi, “I. 'Ashʿarī and the Ashʿarites in Islamic religious history' Parts I & II,” in Religion, Law and
Learning in Classical Islam (see note 192), part II, 23.
28
Ibid., part II, 22-23.
29
Ibid., part II, 23-25.
30
Badawī, Madhāhib al-Islāmiyīn, 519–20.
31
See Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 136.
32
Richard M. Frank, “VI. Elements in the development of the teaching of al-Ashʿarī,” in Texts and Studies on the
Development and History of Kalām, ed. Dimitri Gutas, 3 vols., Variorum Collected Studies Series (Burlington,
166
shared between the K. al-Ḥathth and the other known works by al-Ashʿarī. For Frank, this

textual corroboration made up for the anonymity of a certain “ʿAlī b. Rustam” in the chain of

transmission after al-Ashʿarī’s student Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ṭabarī (d. mid-4th/10th century).33 It was

now also possible to assume that al-Anṣārī possessed another chain of transmission for the

book, even if he did not reproduce it in his Ghunya.

Part of what convinced Frank of the authenticity and importance of the Ḥathth was the

famous report in the Ḥanbalī biographical-dictionary Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila which described al-

Ashʿarī trying to establish a rapport with the chief of the Ḥanbalīs in Baghdad at the time, Abū

Muḥammad al-Barbahārī.34 Frank argued that the Ḥathth ʿalā al-baḥth should be seen as a

rejoinder to Barbarhāri’s rejection of al-Ashʿarī’s new brand of Sunnī kalām.35

However, there are reasons to be skeptical about the report of al-Ashʿarī’s encounter

with al-Barbahārī: The Ḥanbalī book in which it is found relies on a single source: the

disgruntled Mālikī Qurʾān teacher Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī who expended considerable effort in

ruining al-Ashʿarī’s reputation (see below).36 The importance of this fact has not been

VT: Ashgate, 2005-2008); Originally in: Le Muséon 104, 1991; 141-190, 141, n. 1. Since then, a substantial section of
the Ghunya by al-Anṣārī has been published, including the text of the Ḥathth; see al-Anṣārī, Abū'l-Qāsim b. Nāṣir,
al-Ghunya fī'l-kalām, 2 vols., ed. ʿAbd al-Hādī, Muṣtafā Ḥusayn (Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 1431/2010), vol. 1, 260-268.
33
Richard M. Frank, “IX. al-Ashʿarī's Kitāb al-Ḥathth ʿalā l-Baḥth,” in Texts and Studies on the Development and
History of Kalām, ed. Dimitri Gutas, 3 vols., Variorum Collected Studies Series (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005-2008);
Originally in: MIDEO 18, 1988; 83-152, 85.
34
To be discussed below.
35
Richard M. Frank, “VI. Elements in the development of the teaching of al-Ashʿarī,” in Texts and Studies on the
Development and History of Kalām (see note 556), 171. This encounter with al-Barbahārī was previously discussed by
Michel Allard, “En quoi consiste l'opposition faite a al-Ashʿarī par ses contemporains hanbalites?,” Revue des
Études Islamiques 2 (1960), 93–105: 94. However, it seems that Van Ess preceded Frank in making the connection
between the encounter with al-Barbahārī and the composition of the Ḥathth; see van Ess, Die Erkenntnislehre des
ʿAḍuddaddīn al-Īcī, 319.
36
Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī was a sworn enemy of al-Ashʿarī who spread an anti-Ashʿarite pamphlet, on which see
chapter seven. Only ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī seems to have taken seriously Ibn ʿAsākir’s critique of Ahwāzī’s
report in the Tabyīn based on its inaccuracy regarding al-Ashʿarī’s whereabouts and relative fame by that time;
see Badawī, Madhāhib al-Islāmiyīn, 520.
167
emphasized properly in the research, because al-Ahwāzī’s story clearly was able to find

currency (in the past as it still does today) due to its convincing verisimilitude: A faceoff

between al-Ashʿarī and Barbahārī would be a palpable representation of an early clash

between Sunnī traditionalism and the nascent Sunnī kalām. The dialectic tension that results

from the juxtaposition of al-Barbahārī and al-Ashʿarī reveals a polarity in religious trends of

Sunnism for that period that would only increase over time (and which will be discussed

below). Ultimately, however, this has nothing to bear on the authenticity of the Ḥathth.

This does not make the Ḥathth a later Ashʿarite fabrication, nor diminish the

significance of its transmission among early Ashʿarī theologians. It contains no stylistic

embellishments nor partisan slogans typical of the later school. Its argumentation for the

validity of kalām, unflinching in its forcefulness, shows none of the complacency typical of an

adherent to an established school. As Frank aptly stated, “Rhetorically the work is a

masterpiece.”37 It is very forthrightness of the text, which, if scrutinized more closely, makes

the idea of a later Ashʿarite fabrication rather unlikely; in fact, the text seems positively

Muʿtazilite in provenance.

There are a few reasons why this hypothesis is plausible: First, in articulating the

scriptural justification for kalām, the author explicitly says that the Qurʾān contains the bases

for “the branches of al-tawḥīd wa’l-ʿadl” – an unmistakeably Muʿtazilite slogan no later Ashʿarī

theologian would think of using.38 Second, the author poses the defensive question as to why

37
Richard M. Frank, “IX. al-Ashʿarī's Kitāb al-Ḥathth ʿalā l-Baḥth,” in Texts and Studies on the Development and
History of Kalām, 122.
38
Ibid., 2:138.-9.
168
his interlocutor shuns discussion of al-ṭafra,39 a doctrine associated with the unpopular

Muʿtazilite al-Naẓẓām (and a point of ridicule for later Ashʿarites); later, the author even

claims that the Prophet knew (the correct position?) about al-ṭafra,40 which is bizarre. Third,

there are notable discrepancies between the two versions of the text in which wording

favorable to a Muʿtazilite position is glossed over: For example, in the section regarding God’s

act of creation, Abū’l-Qāsim al-Anṣārī’s version in the Ghunya (text T-1, the right side of Frank’s

edition) adds the affirmation that absolutely everything happens with God’s taqdīr and mashīʾa

including guidance and misguidance, whereas the other version (text-T-2, left side) only says

that God’s creation does not occur if there is karāhīya in that action – an ambiguous statement

which could be used to assert the Muʿtazilite doctrine of God’s non-participation in the

creation of sin.41 Finally, the author attacks his interlocutor for anathemizing those who

profess the created Qurʾān by following Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal without an explicit proof text from

the Qurʾān and sunna – and doesn’t attempt on his part to prove the uncreated Qurʾān with

kalām.42 This is hardly the text of a later Ashʿarite theologian trying to maintain the orthodoxy

of his master, nor an early convert to Sunnism trying to convince a Ḥanbalī interlocutor.

It seems more probable that the text of the Ḥathth was an apologetic text composed

during al-Ashʿarī’s period of Muʿtazilism,43 which later was found serviceable for the sake of

39
Ibid., 2:135.7.
40
Ibid., 2:137.1.
41
Ibid., 2:143.-4 - 144.-9. It seems to me that text T-2 is closer to the original document, whereas T-1 (from al-
Ghunya) is abbreviated and cleaned up where necessary from problematic statements. Frank believed T-1’s
shortness to be proof of its primacy and T-2’s being a product of extended redaction. But this is not the only
discrepancy between T-1 and T-2 where T-2’s expressions are more problematic and would not have been glossed
in such a manner by an Ashʿarite theologian. Compare the disparity in the texts in ibid., 2:150–1.
42
Ibid., 2:149–51.
43
This is also the thesis of the editor of the Risāla ilā ahl al-thagr, though he does not demonstrate it; see Abū'l-
Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, Risāla ilā Ahl al-thaghr, ed. al-Junaydī, ʿAbd Allāh Shākir Muḥammad (Medina: Maktabat al-ʿUlūm
wa'l-ḥikam, 1422/2002), 61.
169
defending al-Ashʿarī’s Sunnī kalām against Sunnī traditionalism. This text thus should not be

seen as a product of al-Ashʿarī’s encounter with al-Barbahārī (whatever the truth of that may

be), but rather as representative of themes common to Ashʿarī’s worldview both before and

after his personal transformation. It contains the logic by which a bridge from Muʿtazilism to

Sunnism was transversed, wherein the necessity, if not inescapability of kalām was first argued.

4.1.1 The Scriptural Incumbency of Naẓar

As might be surmised from the preceding analyses, the Ḥathth ʿalā al-baḥth is a diatribe

against taqlīd from beginning to finish. Al-Ashʿarī’s opponents, though unnamed, are clearly

Sunnī traditionalists who reject kalām. In line with what we have documented above about

early Sunnī theological views, the most emphatic argument of theirs with which he had to

contend was that if kalām were truly valid from an Islamic perspective, the Prophet would have

necessarily taught it to his community. That is to say if it were truly essential to the Islamic

faith, as the mutakallimūn claimed, it would be unthinkable to say that the Prophet concealed it

or failed to teach it.44 This argument, though quite old, was a perennial roadblock against

kalām and foreign sciences in Islam. The way in which al-Ashʿarī deconstructed this argument

was paradigmatic for the development of Sunnī theology for posterity.

The most significant aspect of al-Ashʿarī’s argument is that he grounds the basis of

kalām in revelation. True, the argument that the Qurʾān exhorted humans to use their reason

44
Richard M. Frank, “IX. al-Ashʿarī's Kitāb al-Ḥathth ʿalā l-Baḥth,” in Texts and Studies on the Development and
History of Kalām (see note 557), 136. This is also evocative of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and Dārimī’s view of kalām as
another religion separate from real Islam; see previous chapter.
170
was a disfavored argument used by earlier Muʿtazilites,45 but as far as the extant textual record

will verify, al-Ashʿarī did much more than the theologians that preceded him to situate the

imperative to do kalām back in the Prophetic age, and not merely as a product of latter-day

sectarian contention.

Al-Ashʿarī not only states that the Prophet Muḥammad did not explicitly forbid kalām,

but on the contrary knew kalām, and in the Qurʾān and sunna were multiple intellectual proofs

“present not in detailed exposition, but in general terms” (jumlatan ghayr mufaṣṣala).46 Among

the most important proofs he gives for this are the following:

1) That bodies must be composed of indivisible units on the basis of verses Q Yāsīn
36:12 and Q al-Jinn 72:28, which describe God’s assessment and recording of things;
“and it is impossible to account for that which does not end or is infinite.”47
2) That created things (i.e bodies) are described by accidents and God cannot be
described of them, based on the story of Abraham in Qurʾān debating the star
worshippers (see Q al-Anʿām 6:75-79).48
3) Infinite regress of temporal events is impossible based on a ḥadīth which appears to
deny contagion.49
4) That things which are similar in nature are similar in type; to be used in refutation
of those who believe that God is similar to created things and has a body – on the
basis of a ḥadīth about a man whose child was black – indicating his true paternity.50
5) There can only be one originator of created being (Q al-Anbiyāʾ 21:22; Q al-Raʿd
13:16)51
6) The bodily resurrection is possible via a fortiori reasoning about its first creation (Q
Yāsīn 36:79; Q al-Rūm 30:27)52

45
As we have seen in chapter two, ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd took the imperative to do naẓar from the scripture; so too did
Ḍirār b. ʿAmr and Bishr al-Marīsī.
46
Ibid., 2:136–7.
47
Ibid., 2:143.5.
48
Ibid., 2:137.7-18.
49
Ibid., 2:141.8-142.9.
50
Ibid., 2:142.-8 ff.
51
Ibid., 2:137–8.
52
Ibid., 2:138–40.
171
A prophetic example is also to be referenced, whether in the Qurʾān’s mention of Abraham’s

debates, or the sunna of Muḥammad debating Jews and Arab polytheists.53 Some of these

scriptural citations were paradigmatic for later theologians, while others were not. But the

significance of this text for al-Ashʿarī and subsequently the school of thought he established is

evident: It shows how a Muʿtazilite could, in apologetically articulating the validity of kalām

(cf. Abū’l-Hudhayl’s proofs in chapter two) on the basis of scriptural citations, rediscover the

mandate to perform naẓar as being founded on revelation, thus transversing the classic divide

between Muʿtazilite and Sunnī orthodoxies.

The significance of this breakthrough can only be properly appreciated in the context

of key developments within Muʿtazilism of that period which have not received sufficient

notice in the research: As we saw earlier, early Muʿtazilī luminaries such as Abū’l-Hudhayl and

Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir had articulated the dominant Muʿtazilite position that reason alone

mandated naẓar, even in the absence of revelation or in fact any inkling of God.54 Yet a catalyst

for change emerged when doubts were articulated, by al-Jāḥiẓ – of all people – who became

exceedingly skeptical about reason’s ability to prove God’s existence by itself. The theory he

proposed, and the reaction to it, caused a paradigmatic and permanent shift in Muʿtazilite

kalām.

Al-Jāḥiẓ did not think it was reasonable to assert that one could know God merely from

the existence of “accidents” present in physical bodies (min qibal al-ḥaraka wa’l-sukūn wa’l-

53
Ibid., 2:144.-8 - 146. Cf. al-Ashʿarī’s reference to Abraham’s debating as a proof of the validity of naẓar in his
Abū'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fī al-radd 'alā ahl al-zaygh wa'l-bidaʿ, ed. Ḥammūdah Ghurābah (Cairo:
Maṭbaʿat Miṣr, 1955), 22–3.
54
Defeating the positions of ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd, Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, and Bishr al-Marīsī. The latter two of course were
anathemized as Jahmīya.
172
ijtimāʿ wa’l-iftirāq wa’l-ziyāda wa’l-nuqṣān).55 Though these evidences for God’s existence were

present, until prophets told us about God’s existence they could not be conceived as evidences

for anything by themselves.56 In other words, though reason could formally demonstrate God’s

existence through the adducement of cosmological signs as premises in a logical argument, the

explicative conclusion which organized these very premises (i.e., God’s existence) could not be

known apriori. It was unreasonable to think otherwise, and thus impossible for God to

mandate.57

But al-Jāḥiẓ went even further: It was not an uninfluenced thought process, but rather a

lifetime of accumulated experiences that determined whether one was capable of believing in

God after hearing of Him.58 These experiences (tajriba) were out of one’s control (ḍarūrī),

shaping and forming one’s natural constitution (ṭibāʿ); thus in a sense, one either necessarily

had the constitution to believe in the Prophet’s information about God’s existence or not.59

This was also the result of skepticism to Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir’s theory of tawallud as

applied to epistemology; Bishr had said that the very human act of engaging sensibilia itself

produced the corresponding sense-data, and that naẓar created the knowledge of that which is

looked into.60 But this did not account for external factors of nature,61 nor did it account for

the distinctly non-rational, subconscious motives behind particular thoughts.62 The

55
Al-Jāḥiz, “al-Masāʾil wa'l-jawābāt fī'l-maʿrifa (fragment),” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ, ed. Hārūn, ʿAbd al-Salām
Muḥammad, 4 vols., 45–65 (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānajī, 1384/1964), 60.
56
Ibid. Cf. van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 4, 100-101.
57
See Josef van Ess, “Ǧāḥiẓ und die aṣḥāb al-maʿārif,” Der Islam, no. 42 (1966), 169–78: 177.
58
See al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-al-ʻadl, vol. 12, 230 ff. Cf. van Ess, Theologie und
Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 4, 101.
59
Ibid., vol. 4, 100 f. Although this seems contradictory to the spirit of kalām, it was a philosophical conclusion
about the nature of knowledge aquisition
60
See previous sources on tawallud in chapter two.
61
Al-Jāḥiz, “al-Masāʾil wa'l-jawābāt fī'l-maʿrifa (fragment),” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ (see note 579), 47–50.
62
Van Ess, “Ǧāḥiẓ und die aṣḥāb al-maʿārif,” 172–3.
173
Muʿtazilites, in order to keep humans free (and God just), had not only separated the human

mind from external sources of knowledge, but from human nature itself.

Al-Jāḥiẓ’s theory and its followers (significant enough in number to garner the name aṣḥāb al-

maʿārif) created much consternation among the Muʿtazilites. The principles of al-tawḥīd wa’l-

ʿadl: 1) could not allow nature to act independently (against God’s will) 2) nor could they allow

nature to determine a human’s actions as pertained to ethical responsibility – this was the

position of “the naturalists” (ahl al-tabāʾiʿ) - Greek philosophers, atheists, sundry heretics.63

Although al-Jāḥiẓ had been a star advocate of the Muʿtazilite cause, his doctrines were

debilitating to the school, and much effort was expended in refutation of his ideas.

In the end, al-Jāḥiẓ’s arguments left an indelible mark on Muʿtazilism, having dismantled

Abū’l-Hudhayl’s optimism about the purely intellectual underpinnings of naẓar’s mandate. The

Baghdad school represented by Abū’l-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī al-Balkhī made the turn to accept taqlīd in

matters of knowledge of God, and did not make naẓar wājib in every case.64 Al-Balkhī even

believed that naẓar could at times be considered unseeming (qabīḥ) and sinful (maʿṣiya) – a

response to the scenario proposed by Abū’l-Hudhayl which postulated that if the Prophet was

present it was preferable to do naẓar to ascertain the truth of his message than to follow him

(blindly) – this was too much for al-Balkhī, who perceived how naẓar could in this case be taken

as a blameworthy excuse not to believe in the Prophet.65

63
Van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 4, 107-110. It was analogous to how Ḍirār
had succumbed to the temptation of Jahm’s determinism.
64
Al-Nīsābūrī, Abū Rashīd Saʿīd b. Muḥammad b. Saʿīd, al-Masāʾil fī'l-khilāf bayna al-baṣrīyīn wa'l-baghdādīyīn, ed.
Maʿn Ziyāda and Riḍwān al-Sayyid (Tripoli: Maʿhad al-Inmāʾ al-ʿArabī, 1969), 302, 334.
65
Ibid., 315, cf. 345-346.
174
 On their part, the Basran Muʿtazilites insisted that proper naẓar was never qabīḥ in and

of itself,66 and upheld its mandatory nature without the necessity of scripture. Nevertheless al-

Jāḥiẓ’s critiques likely compelled them to change their epistemological prelegemona to this

thesis: and this is exemplified in theories of Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī,67 the teacher of Abū’l-Ḥasan al-

Ashʿarī: Abū ʿAlī submitted that the notion of God’s existence needed to have crossed the mind

of the human being in order for naẓar to be mandatory (wājib). This notion, which for al-

Jubbāʾī also comprised the idea of God’s punishment for those who disbelieved and disobeyed

Him, was called the khāṭir mukhawwif – “the fear inducing notion.” Because it was necessary

from a “rational perspective” (ʿaqlan) to protect one’s self from possible harm, “the fear

inducing notion” in the mind made it wājib to undertake the process of naẓar in order to

ascertain God’s possible existence, and protect one’s self from His possible punishment.68 At

first glance this might remind one of “Pascal’s wager,” but that would be an imprecise analogy,

since in this case it is not merely “reasonable” to believe in God due to the irreparable losses

incurred by possible eternal damnation, but rather to do naẓar and see whether God’s existence

could be ascertained with objective rational proofs – without taqlīd, needless to say.

This notion could come to exist in the mind by two paths: either 1) a prophet or

another upright individual – called a dāʿī (“caller),69 but 2) if this was not present, it was

66
See previous reference.
67
Van Ess also thinks that al-Jāḥiz was the catalyst for this, see van Ess, Die Erkenntnislehre des ʿAḍuddaddīn al-Īcī,
329–30. Cf. Daniel Gimaret, “Matériaux pour une bibliographie des Ǧubbāʾī,” Journal Asiatique, no. 274 (1976), 277–
332: 296–7.
68
See al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-al-ʻadl, vol. 12, 358 ff. Cf. the list of things feared on
the basis of the khāṭir; ibid., vol. 12, 396.
69
Ibid., vol. 12, 386 ff. Cf. vol. 15, 79. Note however, that if it was reported that a prophet called to God
somewhere, it would mandatory to perform naẓar to prove the existence of God and prophets and not head to that
prophet and follow him.
175
necessary that God create it in the mind of the individual.70 Abū ʿAlī’s son Abū Hāshim and his

followers, including al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār and the Basran school after him insisted that the

khāṭir had to be an actual audible voice.71

These developments help us to properly contextualize al-Ashʿarī’s operating

framework: The theses of Abū’l-Hudhayl and Bishr al-Muʿtamir on naẓar’s inherent religious

necessity (wujūb) having been undermined by al-Jāḥiẓ’s discussion of maʿārif, al-Ashʿarī could

either advocate taqlīd like the Baghdad Muʿtazilites or advocate the incumbency upon God to

create the Basran Muʿtazilites’ “fear inducing notion.” But the latter position had, in finding

no other basis of responsibility than God’s necessary self-disclosure, made the “heterodox”

view of mutakallimūn such as Ḍirār b. ʿAmr and Bishr al-Marīsī that much more attractive;

namely that the necessity of naẓar was based in God’s revelatory command itself. Therefore,

naẓar was, according to al-Ashʿarī, like every other religious duty in Islam, mandatory on the

basis of revelation (wājib sharʿan).72

This argument never convinced the Muʿtazilites, who realized that al-Ashʿarī had only

heightened one of the puzzling antinomies of their doctrine: How could the Qurʾān mandate

naẓar before its own divinely authoritative origins had been rationally established, let alone

70
Ibid., vol. 12, 414 ff. See summary by Ibn al-Malāḥimī; Malāḥimī, Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad, Kitāb al-muʿtamad fī
uṣūl al-dīn, ed. Wilferd Madelung (Tehran: Markaz-i Pizhūhishī-i Mīrās̲-i Maktūb, 2012), 76–7.
71
See al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-al-ʻadl, vol. 12, 401 ff. Later Ashʿarī theologians such
as al-Juwaynī ridiculed the idea of the khāṭir – not only were there many intelligent people who had never
thought of the one God, but if God were to make people think something that would go against the Muʿtazilite
position on the indeterminate nature of human actions. The fact that they thought the notion had to take the
form of a voice was even more preposterous – essentially making everyone into prophets receiving revelation;
and no one had ever heard such a voice. See al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, al-Shāmil fī uṣūl al-dīn, ed. ʿAlī
Sāmī al-Nashshār, Fayṣal Budayr ʿAwn, and Suhayr Muḥammad Mukhtār (Alexandria: Munshaʾat al-Maʿārif,
1969), 116–8.
72
Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, ed. Daniel Gimaret (Beirut: Dār
al-Mashriq, 1987), 285. Cf. ibid., 32.
176
mandate the intellectual proof of its own truth?73 The Ashʿarite explanation, namely, that the

religion (al-sharʿ) mandates it irrespective of our knowledge of the religion’s validity (al-ʿilm bi-thubūt

al-sharʿ),74 gives us insight into the nature of al-Ashʿarī’s reconciliatory stance towards the

prioritization of revelation in the spirit of early Sunnism.

However, the terms of the discussion had necessary implications for that other

important aspect of Muʿtazilite thought; namely, the topic of ethics. Reason being able to

establish revelation’s divine authority and inherent truth – a premise in which al-Ashʿarī was

in agreement with the mutakallimūn – revelation’s statements commanding naẓar were thus

self-sufficient, and did not depend on the moral objectivism at the heart of the “fear inducing

notion.” For religious duty to be predicated on such a wager, based on an objective standard of

qubḥ and ḥusn – the innate ugliness/beauty badness/goodness of acts perceivable by the

intellect – was rejected by al-Ashʿarī. In deconstructing this cornerstone of Muʿtazilite

theology, he advocated a divine-command ethics in its stead.

Al-Ashʿarī starting premise was that pure reason can know necessary (al-wājib)

ontological rulings for existing objects of perception (aḥkām al-mawjūdāt), but cannot know

with certainty what human actions (aḥkām al-afʿāl) are mandatory (wājib) to perform or refrain

from (fiʿl/tark) based on essential goodness or badness.75 Such absolutes as ḥasan and qabīḥ can

only refer to that which is commanded or prohibited by God, respectively.76 Since the intellect

cannot make things wājib, reward and punishment is “scripturally-based” (samʿī) and not

73
See al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, al-Shāmil fī uṣūl al-dīn, 116. Al-Āmidī also struggled with this: Cf.
Abkār al-Afkār
74
See ibid., 119. This seems authentic to al-Ashʿarī’s own views based on the report by Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-
Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 181.
75
Compare ibid., 32, 181.
76
Ibid., 94–7.
177
“intellect-based” (ʿaqlī): Arguing against the Muʿtazilite’s belief in the inherent soteriological

necessity of kalām, it is not possible to pass salvific judgement in regard to those who have no

contact with prophets and their revelatory message,77 as is confirmed by the following verse of

the Qurʾān:

And We do not punish until We send a messenger (Q al-Isrāʾ 17:15)78

Having argued against the Muʿtazilite view that human moral absolutes were perceivable by

finite beings in space and time, Ashʿarī was on even stronger footing in his argument against

the Muʿtaziliteʿtheory of the “optimum” (al-aṣlaḥ),79 the idea on the basis of which God was

compelled to send “notions of His existence” or even send prophets at all – both of which were

a necessary consequence of the Muʿtazilite concept of divine justice reified in the concept of

luṭf. This too was facilitated by internal dissent within Muʿtazilism, on the part of no less than

Bishr al-Muʿtamir, who as a result fell from grace among that collective. Al-Ashʿarī’s critique

of the Muʿtazilite aṣlaḥ theory is phrased in the same terms as Bishr’s; namely, that God’s

capacity (maqdūr) for benificence can have no postulated end (lā nihāya). In other words, that

the mind can always perceive something better than currently exists.80 More concretely: God

could have guided everyone to what was best for them but did not. To deny this is either to

deny God’s power, or argue that misguidance is the best thing for the misguided. The option of

limiting God’s power (as Bishr’s Muʿtazilī contemporaries effectively did) being ruled out,

77
Ibid., 145, 285-286.
78
Ibid., 181.
79
See chapter two.
80
Compare Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir’s views (al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyīn wa-ikhtilāf al-muṣallīn, 246, 574.) with that
of al-Ashʿarī; see Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 36. Compare
also to al-Ashʿarī’s formulation in the Ibāna (on which, see below); Abū'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, al-Ibāna ʿan uṣūl al-
diyāna, ed. Fawqīya Ḥusayn Maḥmūd (Cairo: Jāmiʿat ʿAyn Shams, 1397/1977), 24-25, 187.
178
God’s will could be viewed as working uncompelled by external criteria in its created

manifestations. By the time of al-Ashʿarī’s activity, the Baghdad Muʿtazilites, led by al-Balkhī,

insisted on the necessity for God to do the aṣlaḥ, whereas even Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī and his son

Abū Hāshim were induced to expend considerable effort in refuting their Baghdadi

counterparts led by al-Balkhī, in order to rule out any compulsion of God’s activity.81 The

Basran school’s tipping the scales on the side of divine autonomy (ikhtiyār) must have

strengthened al-Ashʿarī’s agreement with Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir. In conclusion, that there was

no objectively ascertainable and compelling reason for God to send a “fear inducing notion,” or

even prophets.82 It is by such contemplations on the divine will that even the theoretical

objective existence of ḥusn/qubḥ could not be translated into ontological necessity, at the heart

of God’s creative and retributive will.

Al-Ashʿarī maintained the anti-taqlīd ethos, in opposition to Baghdad Muʿtazilites, who

not only proscribed naẓar at times, but even maintained its inherent ugliness in certain

instances. Regardless of its inherent qualities according to the Basran Muʿtazilites, al-Jāḥiẓ’s

theory of maʿārif had induced them to recognize that naẓar could only be necessary if one were

aware of the conclusion of its premises, on the basis of the necessity of self-preservation from

possible divine punishment. Although this necessity was technically based on the inherent

goodness of self preservation, the Basran theory had in fact reestablished the ultimate source

of this prerogative back in the court of divine punishment – the waʿd/waʿīd. When al-Ashʿarī

81
Gimaret, “Matériaux pour une bibliographie des Ǧubbāʾī,” 281-282, 307.
82
See below. Note how al-Ashʿarī’s peer Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī also felt compelled to rearticulate the necessity of
luṭf as not incumbent (wājib) on God, but a free-acting (ikhtiyār) manifestation of His perfection. This came to be
the dominant Basran position for posterity; Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Conception of Justice (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1994), 52.
179
broke away from Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī, he only had to go as far as denying the inherent necessity

of God giving notions of his existence to all humanity. This having been called into question

through the rejection of the aṣlaḥ - in conversation with Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir – and solidified

by al-Ashʿarī’s skepticism towards ethical absolutes, if any religious mandate for naẓar existed

based on self-preservation, it would have to come from God’s revelatory command alone, as a

bonified communication of the divine punishment in store for those who disobeyed it.

Revelation having been established by kalām’s methods within the Muʿtazilite methods,

revelation was self-sufficient in this regard.

4.1.2 Sunnism without Taqlīd: The Nativization of Kalām

In what preceded we delved beyond al-Ashʿarī’s conversion narrative presented in the

biographical sources in order to determine the steps a Muʿtazilite would have to go through in

order to cross over to the principle of revelatory prioritization characteristic of early Sunnī

theology. Although the scriptural verses commanding rational reflection were present – and

used by mutakallimūn such as Ḍirār b. ʿAmr and Bishr al-Marīsī – they had been rendered

inoperative as a proof because of the Muʿtazilite prioritization of the intellect in establishing

tawḥīd and ʿadl. Al-Ashʿarī crowning accomplishment was in resituating the mandate to

perform kalām on the basis of revelation. The Muʿtazilite objections to this horse-before-the-

cart paradox were negotiated in a third space, between non-practitioners of kalām who

believed in the scripture, and the mutakallimūn who believed in God and revelation solely on

the basis of rational proofs. The latter, having proved the truth of religion to himself, was able

to impart to unreflecting adherents of the religion the scriptural mandate necessity of naẓar,

whether or not they know the rationally binding truth of scripture themselves. For this
180
reason, al-Ashʿarī, somewhat controversially (as we will see), believed that the individual who

believed in the truth, but had not looked into the proofs, while not being a disbeliever (kāfir) or

polytheist (mushrik), could not be called a believer in a strictly unqualified manner (ʿalā al-

iṭlāq); even later Ashʿarite theologians recognized the indebtedness to his Muʿtazilite

background on this point.83

Here the relationship of Ashʿarite theology to the theories of his teacher Abū ʿAlī is also

palpable. The latter had proposed that the dāʿī situated in the position to communicate the

“fear inducing notion” was also required to teach the proselyte “the method of naẓar one step

at a time” (ṭarīqat al-naẓar bāban bāban).84 However, the Prophet Muḥmmad must have been a

striking exception in Abū ʿAlī’s system; the Prophet could not have taught tawḥīd and ʿadl,

because this would have created a taqlīd relationship. It is likely for this reason that Abū ʿAlī’s

son Abū Hāshim decided to eliminate the pedagogical dependency of the proselyte on the dāʾī

altogether.85

In this light we can more fully appreciate how his peer al-Ashʿarī, in his Ḥathth,

preserved Abū ʿAlī’s ideal of the proselytor as initiator into the methodology of naẓar, via the

figure of the Prophet. Within this system, the Prophet is worked into a historical schema as

original promulgator of kalām methodology via the texts of the Qurʾān and sunna. To situate

the command in scripture was not enough, and for this reason al-Ashʿarī was concerned in

that text to demonstrate the methodology’s basis in prophetic practice, honoring the Islamic

ideal of continuity in following prophetic precedent.

83
Al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn, 255.
84
Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-al-ʻadl, vol. 12, 390.
85
Ibid.
181
 The significance of this is reflected in the serious contentions faced by al-Ashʿarī from

his traditionalist opponents: If scripture mandated naẓar, then why were the terms of kalām

not present in the traditional source material of religion, i.e. the Qurʾān and the sunna? The

concrete difference between the specialized terminology of kalām and the authoritative

language of scripture was insurmountable for many, and continued to be for quite some time.

Kalām was at the formal level of analysis, undeniably an “innovation” (bidʿa); something new.

Al-Ashʿarī’s response, instructive for future generations of theologians, was thus built on the

logic of Sunnī uṣūl al-fiqh: It is the idea of kalām as an accurate representation of revelation’s

original discourse, “unpacked” for later generations. The legal discourse’s recognition of the

necessity to create new language for older concepts was inescapable for anyone with

familiarity with the scholarly discourse of Islam.

This too is found in the Ḥathth, where al-Ashʿarī explains that the absence of kalām’s

terminology among the earliest generation of Muslims is only a formalistic issue. He says that

the above mentioned intellectual proofs, though indicated in the scripture, were not explained

in detail (mufaṣṣal) in the days of the Prophet and his Companions. The reason for this is that

such issues did not have to be debated in that detail in those days:86 an analogy is in the many

legal terms developed by later scholars that are not present explicitly in the scripture but the

uṣūl of which are in the sharīʿa.87 If there had been a need to talk about these things, the

Prophet would have.88 The analogy of the necessity of new terminology for legal concepts is

86
Richard M. Frank, “IX. al-Ashʿarī's Kitāb al-Ḥathth ʿalā l-Baḥth,” in Texts and Studies on the Development and
History of Kalām (see note 557), 147.1 - 147.-8.
87
Ibid., 2:147.-8 - 148.-7; cf. 152.8 ff.
88
Ibid., 2:149.1-5.
182
then applied to theology. Thus the division between latter-day kalām and the Prophet’s

generation of Islam had been overcome.

Al-Ashʿarī realized, however, that this argument was not sufficient in and of itself. He

therefore used an argument which we have come to realize was also implicitly at the core of

the Miḥna disputations; namely, the contention that even traditional Sunnī positions were not

explicitly scriptural, but in fact the product of interpretation. This even contained a clear

swipe at the followers of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and his camp: al-Ashʿarī adamantly emphasizes that

the position of the uncreated Qurʾān is not explicitly mentioned in the scripture.89 Neither is

the condemnation of the created Qurʾān mentioned or takfīr of those who profess it.90 The

Companions cannot be cited as the source if the Prophet didn’t say it,91 and so on ad fortiori

with later generations: Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (mentioned explicitly) cannot be cited without a

proof; nor can his proof in turn be ʿAbbās al-ʿAnbarī (d. 246/860-1),92 Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ (d.

197/812),93 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī (d. 198/814)94 and others. Likewise their proof cannot be

ʿAmr b. Dīnār (d. 126/743-744),95 Sufyān b. ʿUyayna (d. 198/814),96 Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765),97

89
Ibid., 2:149.6-9.
90
Ibid., 2:151.1-4.
91
Ibid., 2:149.10-14.
92
Respected muḥaddith (see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 18, 305-306.), narrated from in five of the six main
Sunnī ḥadīth books. Quoted extensively by Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s son ʿAbd Allāh in his K. al-sunna in refutaton of
Jahmīya.
93
Acclaimed Kufan muḥaddith, narrated from in the six main Sunnī ḥadīth books. Cited by Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and
son ʿAbd Allāh against Jahmīya and created Qurʾān; see Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿAbd Allāḥ b. Aḥmad, Kitāb al-sunna, 114–7.
94
Acclaimed Kufan muḥaddith, narrated from in the six main Sunnī ḥadīth books. Cited by Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and
son ʿAbd Allāh against Jahmīya and created Qurʾān; ibid., 119–21.
95
Acclaimed Meccan scholar, met Companions of Prophet, narrated from in the six main Sunnī ḥadīth books;
statement attributed to him against uncreated Qurʾān; see al-Lālakāʾī, Abū'l-Qāsim Hibat Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b.
Manṣūr al-Ṭabarī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna wa'l-jamāʿa, vol. 1, 302.
96
Acclaimed Ḥijāzī scholar of Kufan origin, narrated from in the six main Sunnī ḥadīth books. Cited by Aḥmad b.
Ḥanbal’s son ʿAbd Allāh as being against created Qurʾān; Ibn Ḥanbal, ʿAbd Allāḥ b. Aḥmad, Kitāb al-sunna, 112.
97
Great-grandson of al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and acclaimed scholar of Medina. Cited in five of the six main
Sunnī ḥadīth books. Cited by Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and his son ʿAbd Allāh against the created Qurʾān; see ibid., 151–2.
183
and others.98 Likewise any Companions cannot be their proof – if the Prophet himself did not

say it – but if they acknowledge that scholars have the right to talk (al-kalām) about new things

(al-ḥāditha) – then their categorical rejection of kalām as bidʿa is void.99 In his closing

arguments, al-Ashʿarī makes another argument which would be instructive for every defense

of kalām after him: any rejection of kalām can only defend itself on the basis of kalām; to reject

kalām on the basis of taqlīd of other individual’s statements is arbitrary and indefensible.100

This was a refutation of the traditionalists in the most unabashed form. However, in

the course of this dispute, al-Ashʿarī had also rearticulated the traditionalists’ salaf rolemodels

as performing a type of kalām, given that it articulated positions not explicitly said in texts.

The arguments he presented here, which would have been useful for a Muʿtazilite to show the

contradictions in the path of taqlīd, were intended to force the traditionalists to concede that

all camps in the discussion on the created Qurʾān had proposed formulations of faith not found

explicitly in the texts. In that sense, all parties were guilty of “innovation;” but one which the

times had proved necessary. There no longer was a reason to posit kalām (in the larger sense

of theoretical religious discussion) as being contraposed to the salaf, merely on account of its

being innovated. The latter-day community all participated in some form of kalām, whether

they knew it or not.

The upshot of this argument as a former Muʿtazilite turned Sunnī, was that it was no

longer sufficient to justify one’s theological beliefs on the basis of taqlīd of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal or

See Ibn Ḥanbal, Ṣāliḥ b. Aḥmad, Sīrat al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, 84. See al-Bukhārī, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, Khalq
afʿāl al-ʿibād wa'l-radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya wa-aṣḥāb al-taʿṭīl, 9.
98
Richard M. Frank, “IX. al-Ashʿarī's Kitāb al-Ḥathth ʿalā l-Baḥth,” in Texts and Studies on the Development and
History of Kalām (see note 557), 151.5 ff.
99
Ibid., 2:151.-7 - 152.6.
100
Ibid., 2:152.3-7.
184
other prominent figures – even if the Sunnī paradigm was correct, it still had to have valid

evidence for its positions, and not be mere “tradition.” The inadmissability of taqlīd is

transmitted by Ibn Fūrak in his Mujarrad maqālāt in a very eloquent passage of one of Abū’l-

Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī’s own works:

The rational investigation and inferential reasoning which lead to knowledge of God
the Exalted is a particular kind of rational investigation (naẓar makhṣūṣ) to be
undertaken in the following way by the mature, reasoning, individual: First he should
not prematurely adhere (iʿtiqād) to a particular path (madhhab) among the different
paths on the basis of taqlīd, and he should not incline to a doctrine over another
doctrine because of the ease of mind he finds in one and the difficulty he finds in the
other. Nor should he incline to one because of worldly leadership and power he will
attain, nor because it was the path (madhhab) of his fathers and the people of his
country which they grew up with or were accustomed to. On the contrary, he must
observe himself throughout in the manner of a seeker (al-mutabaḥḥith al-mustabṣir al-
mustarshid), and allow all the different motives and opposing doctrines to seem equal
(mutakāfiʾa, mutasāwiya) in their truth and falsehood so that he may truly begin to think
about and contemplate everything which is investigated.

In this manner he presents to himself the characteristics (aḥkām) of a given subject

which he knows without rational investigation, then he counters it with the
characteristics which he wishes to know about it which he does not know necessarily
(ḍarūratan). He then probes, examines, verifies, and makes that which is necessarily
known (al-maʿlūm bihi ḍarūratan) the criterion, foundation, and standard (miʿyāran101 wa-
aṣlān wa-qānūnan) which he can make recourse to, take account of, and on the basis of
which he [can acquire knowledge of true and false rulings] …

In this way, if his mental states and considerations are free of the aforementioned
restricting impediments that come between a subject (al-nāẓir) and knowledge of the
observed (al-ʿilm bi-mā yunẓaru fīhi), then knowledge of the observed will inevitably
come about for him in accordance with the perspective from which he seeks it.102

Indeed, this necessity to perform such rational investigations transcended matters of

sectarianism to address greater concerns about the underpinnings of religious universality.

This is illustrated in another passage of his, which Ibn Fūrak quotes as follows:

101
Instead of ʿiyāran as in text.
102
Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 250.
185
 Whoever claims among the ahl al-taqlīd that using [naẓar] is not mandatory, fearing the
onset of confusion upon himself out of using al-naẓar in theology [(al-uṣūl, lit. the root
knowledges), has made it permissable for the children of the Jews, Christians, and [the
rest of] the disbelievers to hold on to their religion and not contemplate or distinguish
[between truth and falsehood] – and that is making disbelief permissable (ibāḥatun li’l-
kufr).103
Such considerations are also present in the thoughts of al-Ashʿarī’s Ḥanafī counterpart al-

Māturīdī (d. 333/944), within the context of a traditionalist Ḥanafī school, who summed up the

impermissability of taqlīd in his K. al-Tawḥīd as being for the simple reason that both both

correct and false beliefs have a salaf that they follow, so it is not excusable in either case.104

Just as Abū ʿAlī and his son Abū Hāshim taught, al-Ashʿarī now emphasized within a Sunnī

context that methodological “doubt” (shakk) was now a prerequisite for rational investigation

in the establishment of religious principles.105

4.2 Al-Ashʿarī’s Non-Emulationist Sunnī Theology

If al-Ashʿarī – according to his stated principles – sought to eliminate tradition from

Sunnī theology, by what measure could the moniker ahl al-sunna wa’l-jamāʿa remain constant?

In other words, by what measure could he view himself as representing continuity with the

scholars before him? What was the role of scripture, both the Qurʾān and ḥadīth in particular?

These questions which, as we shall see, were a source of contention even among those Muslim

scholars who took al-Ashʿarī as their inspiration, are critical ones which must be addressed

here.

103
Ibid., 319.
104
Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī, Kitāb al-tawḥīd, ed. Bekir Topaloǧlu and Muhammed Aruçi (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 2003), 65–
6.
105
Al-Anṣārī, Abū'l-Qāsim b. Nāṣir, al-Ghunya fī'l-kalām, vol. 1, 238.Ghunya vol. 1, 238. Richard M. Frank,
“Knowledge and Taqlîd: The Foundations of Religious Belief in Classical Ashʿarism,” Journal of the American Oriental
Society 109, no. 1 (1989), 37–62: 45.
186
 Based on both his statements in the Ḥathth and the documented positions in the

Mujarrad maqālāt, we can affirm that his method entailed the priority of the intellect in

establishing the foundations of religious truth. This was based on a strict separation between

intellectual matters (al-ʿaqlīyāt) and scriptural matters (al-samʿīyāt). Naẓar must be carried out

first in intellectual matters (al-ʿaqlīyāt), comprising epistemology, ontology, and the proofs for

God’s existence. Scripture itself cannot be used for any of these, because naẓar precedes

knowledge of the Qurʾān, sunna and its validity.106 The rational establishment of scripture’s

truth value is separate from the revelation-based obligation to reason.

Al-Ashʿarī’s method of establishing God’s existence was dependent on the general

intellectual framework established by the Muʿtazilites,107 but differed in several aspects, most

notably in the occasionalism he introduced to the atomistic ontology – also not without

“heterodox” Muʿtazilite precedent.108

We have already seen how Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir’s “heterodox” critique of the aṣlaḥ

doctrine informed al-Ashʿarī’s argumentation against the Muʿtazilite concept of ʿadl. It was

this ethical concern which had been at the kalām basis of their doctrine of free human agency;

106
See Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 22. “Among the things
which are necessary in carrying out naẓar for the one who carried is out (nāẓir) is that he begin with naẓar in
rational matters (al-ʿaqlīyāt) because they are the foundation (al-aṣl) where as the scripture (al-samʿīyāt) is a
branch (farʿ), and the foundation precedes the branch, so it is mandator (wājib) to secure the first before the
second.” Cf. ibid., 319. Cf. Richard M. Frank, “IX. al-Ashʿarī's Kitāb al-Ḥathth ʿalā l-Baḥth,” in Texts and Studies on
the Development and History of Kalām (see note 557), 148.
107
See Richard M. Frank, “IX. The Ašʿarite Ontology: I Primary Entities,” in Texts and Studies on the Development and
History of Kalām, ed. Dimitri Gutas, 3 vols., Variorum Collected Studies Series (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005-2008);
Originally published in: Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 9. Cambridge, 1999, 163-231. See also Richard M. Frank,
“X. Bodies and Atoms: The Ashʿarite Analysis,” in Texts and Studies on the Development and History of Kalām, ed.
Dimitri Gutas, 3 vols., Variorum Collected Studies Series (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005-2008); Originally
published in: Islamic Theology and Philosophy, ed. M. Marmura. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press,
1984; 39-53 and 287-293.
108
Justin Stearns, Infectious Ideas: Contagion in Premodern Islamic and Christian Thought (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2011), 6–7.
187
it being objectively ugly for God to create human actions. With the refutation of the rational

necessity of God creating in accordance with moral absolutes, al-Ashʿarī was able to assert

God’s creation of all things without the contravention of a binding rational principle. As

regards the ontological grounding of divinely-created human action with their concomitant

attribution, or in this case “earning” (kasb), on the part of their mortal substrates – this had

already been explained by the “heterodox” teachings of Ḍirār b. ʿAmr.109 Al-Ashʿarī did not

create anything new in this regard; but used such ideas as a bridge to explain the Sunnī

position of God’s all-pervasive creative will in terms intelligible to the mutakallimūn.

His most important cross-over contribution, however, was the allowance for God to be

described with eternal (qadīm) attributes (ṣifāt) – a position viewed as heretical by all

Muʿtazilites. Al-Ashʿarī’s method in treating this most central topic not only illustrates how a

“traditional” position could be defended without relying on statements of previous religious

authorities; it also reveals something of al-Ashʿarī’s “natural language theory,” a topic

inadequately studied in the research, but which is a key component to his system of thought.

In such debates about attributes, in which early Sunnī mutakallimūn were called “attributists”

(ṣifātīya) and the Muʿtazilites “negationists” (nufāt) lay a fundamental disagreement about the

existence of linguistic constants to be maintained in predication of being, both temporal and

eternal, i.e., the world and God,110 and in which al-Ashʿarī played a pivotal role.

109
Josef van Ess, “Ḍirār b. ʿAmr und die "Cahmīya: Biographie einer vergessenen Schule. Part 1,” Der Islam, no. 43
(1967), 241–79: 270 ff.
110
To my knowledge, Richard Frank is the only person to have broached this pivotal topic with an eye to the role
of linguistic theory, see Richard M. Frank, Beings and Their Attributes: The Teaching of the Basrian School of the
Muʿtazila in the Classical Period (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1978), 10 ff.
188
 The crux of the matter can be illustrated in a key discussion of how inferences are to be

made, called, “seeking evidence of what is not observed from that which is observed” (istishād

bi’l-shāhid ʿalā al-ghāʾib): Al-Ashʿarī asserts that language, which is based on human perception

operating in the world we can observe (al-shāhid) must stay consistent, and cannot take on a

fundamentally different meaning in what is “not observed” (ghāʾib). When, for example,

talking about en entity that it is “a knowing being” (ʿālim), language refers solely to that which

is described with knowledge (ʿilm); knowledge essentially predicated of a being is the reason

why we truly call that being “knowing.” The Muʿtazilites, on the other hand, argued for the

tenability of a knower (ʿālim) without knowledge (ʿilm) in the case of God who is “not

observed” (ghāʾib), in contravention of that semantic relationship in the observable world

(shāhid). They argued that language did not have to stay constant in describing the two

categories, because of the difference between temporal and eternal being. Al-Ashʿarī argued

in response that if we were to deny the necessity of the semantic relationship between an

attribute and an essential description of the being to whom the attribute is predicated, it

would demolish our ability to construct a systematic ontology of things in this world: if we

could posit an observed “knowing” being that was not actually characterized by knowledge, or

vice versa; we could argue for a being characterized by knowledge, power, or will, but not truly

“knowing” “powerful” or “willing.” Language cannot allow for such exceptions, al-Ashʿarī

claims.111

111
Al-Ashʿarī, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fī al-radd 'alā ahl al-zaygh wa'l-bidaʿ, 26–7. Cf. al-Ashʿarī, al-Ibāna ʿan uṣūl al-diyāna, 151–
2.
189
 He also argued that the Muʿtazilite view that an entity being characterized by

“knowledge” (ʿilm) had necessary indications (dalāla) of temporality (ḥadath), whereas the

indications (dalāla) of “a knower” (al-ʿilm) did not, was arbitrary and not binding on an

interlocutor.112 Both could be viewed as markers of temporality. For al-Ashʿarī, what is pivotal

is that the meaning by which a knower is considered a knower not be restricted to the

temporal; in al-Ashʿarī’s understanding, to posit such a restriction undermines the existence of

a Creator in the first place.

Al-Ashʿarī furthermore argued that it was possible to define such attributes as both

“other” (ghayr) than God, meaning not equivocable with His essence (i.e. where “God” =

“knowledge” and “knowledge” = “God”), but “not other” in the sense that “the two are

disassociable from each other in any manner” (mufāraqat al-shayʾayn li’l-ākhar ʿalā wajh min al-

wujūh).113 This would assuage the real problem at hand in the idea of co-eternals; namely, that

combination of two distinct “others” could only occur in a temporal process in which one or

the other came together in union.

Having taken into consideration the Muʿtazilites’ ontological concerns about God’s

eternal being, al-Ashʿarī furthered the early Sunnī kalām thesis made by Ibn Kullāb and other

ṣifātīya before him114 that God can be and is characterized by eternal attributes unique to Him

and unlike the temporal accidents characteristic of created bodies. By defining God’s

attributes as substantiated in Him (qāʾim bihi) without the classical kalām hallmarks of

112
Al-Ashʿarī, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fī al-radd 'alā ahl al-zaygh wa'l-bidaʿ, 29.
113
The unfortunate phraseology of God’s attributes being “both other and not other” than God has
understandably created much confusion, past and present.
114
See Frank’s comparison between Ibn Kullāb and the Muʿtazilite doctrine; Frank, Beings and Their Attributes, 12.
190
corporeality (change and dimension), al-Ashʿarī preserved the rational component which the

Muʿtazilites denied was possible of the Sunnī attribute teaching: The phenomena of this world

indicate God’s creation of them by virtue of His eternal knowledge (ʿilm), will (irāda), power

(qudra). These eternal attributes of perfection indicate His description with eternal life (ḥayāt).

Unrestricted in perception (idrāk), God is described by eternal sight (baṣar), hearing (samʿ). Up

to this point, many Muʿtazilites would agree with the method of deriving God’s names (the

Knowing, Willing, Powerful, Living, Seeing, Hearing)115 but deny the predication of the

attributes just listed. Al-Ashʿarī thus undertook very similar procedures for explanation of

God’s existence and qualities, but aimed to traverse a major Muʿtazilite-Sunnī divide by

deproblematizing the defense of eternal meanings being predicated of God, on the basis of the

theoretical considerations just described.116

Most significant, however, is that the permissability of predication of eternal attributes

allowed al-Ashʿarī to affirm that eternal attribute which the Muʿtazilites could never accept,

but which which had become a hallmark of Sunnī orthodoxy: God’s mode of communication to

the world – His eternal speech (al-kalām). His rational defense of eternal attributes, helped to

bridge a divide which had long existed between the mutakallimūn and the ahl al-sunna; his

defense of eternal (qadīm) and thus uncreated (ghayr makhlūq) speech, cemented the

relationship. This doctrine, too, was based on al-Ashʿarī’s “natural language” theory:

Accordingly, speech is never originally predicated of any another entity than its speaker. In

115
Al-Ashʿarī’s discussion of these divine names is completely native to the Muʿtazilite kalām discourse from
which he arose; see al-Ashʿarī, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fī al-radd 'alā ahl al-zaygh wa'l-bidaʿ, 24–6.
116
As Frank points out, it is the complications that arose in the elaboration of negationist doctrine by Abū ʿAlī al-
Jubbāʾī that caused his other most famous disciple, his son Abū Hāshim, to (in a parallel but distinct manner from
al-Ashʿarī) adopt the complicated doctrine of “modal states” (aḥwāl), see Frank, Beings and Their Attributes, 19 ff.
and the following chapters
191
order for “a speaker” to be considered the speaker of speech, that speech must be predicated

of him. If the Muʿtazilites believed that God’s speech originated in the air, or in the burning

bush, those media would be considered the speaker of that speech. Therefore, if God truly had

speech and was described as a speaker, this speech had to be predicated of Him, and God being

eternal, this too could only be posited as a divine attribute, naturally eternal.117

Once God’s existence and attributes were established rationally, one may move to the

nubuwwāt. It is here that the gap between the ʿaqlīyāt and samʿīyāt is traversed, and the

method was also largely employed by the Muʿtazilites; the probative role of miracles.118 Unlike

the Muʿtazilites, however, al-Ashʿarī did not have the convenience of asserting that prophets

necessarily existed because of the necessity of God sending guides to humanity in accordance

with the principle of ʿadl. He merely ascertained that it was possible (jāʾiz), though not

necessary (ghayr wājib). If there are prophets, we can only know as much by the merit of the

actual existence of a human who claims to be one and who is aided in his claim by events that

break the natural course of events (kharq al-ʿāda), indicating that he is truthful in his claim to

be a messenger from God, and that what they say is true (ṣidq).119 Such an occurrence, not a

necessary act of Muʿtazilite justice, but an act of divine benificence (faḍl/karāma), can be said

117
Al-Ashʿarī, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fī al-radd 'alā ahl al-zaygh wa'l-bidaʿ, 43 ff. al-Ashʿarī, al-Ibāna ʿan uṣūl al-diyāna, 69. He
also was sympathetic to Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s prohibition of talking about the creation of the lafẓ, which he
explained in a compendium of questions (masāʾil) which he dictated (amlāhā) in to his students in Baghdad; Ibn
Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 60–1.
118
Because of the role of miracles in ascertaining the truth of prophets, al-Muʿtazilites were typically known for
rejecting the miracles (karāmāt) of holy men. Al-Ashʿarī refused to categorically reject them. Holy men’s miracles
are not accompanied by claims to prophethood, and thus are to be subsumed as miracles of the prophets which
they follow. The pietism of traditional Islam was thus also preserved with al-Ashʿarī’s framework.
119
For the presentation see ibid., 174 ff. He affirmed female prophets (nabī) but not messengers (rasūl).
192
in the case of Muḥammad and thus allow one to finally move from speculative (ʿaqlīyāt) to

scriptural theology (samʿīyāt), via the medium of the Qurʾān.

Here is where the “natural theology” of the ʿaqlīyāt and scriptural theology of the

samʿīyāt meet: Established scripture containing descriptions of God were allowed to be

“expressed” (tuṭlaqu alfāẓuhā samʿan) and believed in as a reliable report (tuʿtaqadu khabaran),

nevertheless the interpretation of that text’s meaning could only be known by intellect

(maʿānīhā lā tathbutu illā ʿaqlan).120 Ibn Fūrak summarizes al-Ashʿarī’s position that there are

some attributes (ṣifāt) which the intellect mandates (iqtaḍā al-ʿaql ithbātahā) and which

scripture (al-samʿ) confirms (muʾakkidan li-dhālik) and then there are attributes which are

known by scripture (ṭarīquhā al-samʿ) such as God’s Hand, which are the “ambiguous verses”

(al-āy al-mutashābiha) the meanings of which cannot be known by the book (lā yumkin maʿrifatu

maʿānīhā bi’l-kitāb), but only by al-naẓar wa’l-istidlāl.121 That is, only reason can dictate what

they mean; if the intellect determines that its apparent meaning can be affirmed in accordance

with the dictates of the ʿaqlīyāt, then it must be affirmed, otherwise it needs reinterpretation

(taʾwīl). This is consistent with the principle of establishing the samʿīyāt on the basis of the

ʿaqlīyāt which gives the latter priority, and as we shall see below, was the basis of what came to

be called “the rule of interpretation.”

Although God’s necessary existence and attributes are based on ʿaqlīyāt, necessary

religious obligation is defined by God’s communication, which grounds the primacy of the

language of revelation over subjective opinions. This is epitomized in al-Ashʿarī’s deliberation

120
Ibid., 41.
121
Ibid., 22.
193
on faith (īmān) itself, which, as religious term of importance in Islam, must only be defined by

the language of revelation. Since the Qurʾān itself says:

We do not send a messenger except in the language of his people (lisān qawmihi)… (Q
Ibrāhīm 14:4)

In … Arabic language (lisān ʿarabī) (Q al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:195)

We have revealed it as an Arabic recitation [Qurʾānan ʿarabīyan] so that you might

reason (laʿallakum taʿqilūn) (Q Yūsuf 12:2)

Al-Ashʿarī takes these verses to be an indication that words in the sharīʿa cannot take on

fundamentally different meanings from their original Arabic lexical meanings in the pre-

Islamic context of revelation.122 This is an additional layer to his natural language theory in

regards to epistemology;123 this time with emphasis that religious terminology in revelation

was not allowed to be radically altered from its native language.124 Based on what we saw in

the previous chapter regarding contentions on normative readings of the scripture, it would

seem that this was based on Sunnī concerns about the primacy of revelational language,

extrapolated into a greater philosophical ideal.

This linguistically objectivist ideal likewise enabled him to articulate a non-

traditionalist refutation of Khārijite and Muʿtazilite positions on faith: In the Arabic language,

īmān means “affirmation” (taṣdīq) and is not semantically connected with obedience or

122
Summarized in the phrase, “lam tughayyir al-sharīʿa al-lugha ʿammā kānat ʿalayhā [sic];” ibid., 149. Cf. al-Ashʿarī,
al-Ibāna ʿan uṣūl al-diyāna, 45.
123
Al-Ashʿarī himself makes this explicit comparison with the language theory of scripture and the semantic
theory behind discussion of attributes; Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-
Ashʿarī, 154.
124
Again cf. the juxtaposition of Muʿtazilī and Ashʿarī language theory by Frank, Beings and Their Attributes, 13–4.
However, Frank did not mention the consistent application of this theoretical difference throughout the entirety
of the sharīʿa.
194
disobedience (by which Khārijites and Muʿtazilites denied the faith of sinners) nor is there an

intermediate position between affirmation and denial of a proposition (referring to the

“intermediate position” of the Muʿtazilites).125 He thus linguistically uprooted the theological

contentions of non-Sunnī groups without recourse to traditionalist arguments. Another

consequence was that he articulated a scholarly ideal of objective linguistic knowledge about

the original Arabic terms of the Qurʾān before revelation (qabl wurūd al-sharʿ)126 taking

precedence over conceptualizations developed within the sectarian milieu.127

This naturally brings us to the sphere of uṣūl al-fiqh in the paradigm established by al-

Shāfiʿī, in which al-Ashʿarī can firmly be situated as a significant participant and contributor.

The factors conducive to this can be intuited at once in their mutual rejection of taqlīd, which

was a perfect match for the ideal of the mutakallim, but also in the overlap between al-Shāfiʿī’s

revelatory foundations of compelling proof in Islamic law and al-Ashʿarī’s contention against

the Muʿtazilites that wujūb proceeded from God’s revelation (al-sharʿ) over reified human

thought (al-ʿaql). The foundations of religious normativity were scripturally, which is to say,

revelationally, situated: Qurʾān, sunna, ijmāʿ, and qiyās, and thanks to the hermeneutical tools

developed by al-Shāfiʿī, could even derive their interpretive methods on the basis of

revelational principles.128 Ibn Fūrak himself explicitly tells us that al-Ashʿarī adopted the

interpretive procedures established by al-Shāfiʿī in the latter’s (now lost) Aḥkām al-Qurʾān.129

125
Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 149 ff.
126
Ibid., 150.
127
In contrast the explicitly stated Muʿtazilī view was that religious terminology did not have to have more than
incidental connections with the original linguistic usage.
128
See ibid., 23 ff. and 190 ff.
129
Ibid., 193.
195
The self-sufficiency of revelation in explaining religious obligation, with an emphasis given to

the principles of Arabic bayān, made for a felicitous union in the Ashʿarite synthesis.

Given the primacy of the samʿīyāt for ascertaining the foundations of religious practice,

however, the implications of the kalām-based epistemological shift naturally asserted

themselves in a revisitation of the contingency of transmitted scriptural material, a topic of

considerable importance in debates between Muʿtazilites and early Sunnīs. Al-Ashʿarī realized

the “objective” epistemological promise of tawātur, that epistemic tool of certainty proposed

by the Muʿtazilites. Most importantly, it provided a methodologically explanation of how the

text of the Qurʾān was established, based on its mass-transmission throughout the

community.130 In order to be consistent with this method, however, the sunna of the Prophet,

which was – in principle – another source of revelatory knowledge, had to be mediated

differently in accordance with its particular circumstances of its transmission, which were not

as certain.

Al-Ashʿarī’s arguments were not completely radical, but indebted to al-Shāfiʿī; like him,

al-Ashʿarī argued for the acceptance of ḥadīth on the basis of ʿadāla from the analogy of legal

testimony.131 He therefore preserved the modus operandi of the ahl al-sunna jurisprudents,

through this argument, which – lest we forget –had by this time won over increasing numbers

of Muʿtazilites.132

Nevertheless, although ḥadīth was acceptable for usage in the law to specify the

intention of the lawgiver in the general commandments of the Qurʾān, if it was not mutawātir

130
Ibid., 23. However, al-Ashʿarī intentionally refrained from defining a number of transmission paths for tawātur.
131
Ibid., 23, 193.
132
See chapter three.
196
then it could not provide certain knowledge (lā yuqṭaʿ ʿalā ghaybihi).133 It was something “upon

which deeds could be based, as an apparently true source of information, but not absolutely

conclusive in and of itself” (maʿmūlun bihi ḥujjatun fī al-ẓāhir ghayr maqṭūʿ bihi fī’l-bāṭin).”134

This means that there is a distinction between sources of religion and law in terms of

their epistemological grading. Non mutawātir ḥadīth, could be a probabilistic source of law

(yuʿmal ʿalā ẓāhir al-amr fīhi)135 and acts of worship, but not a binding source of certain

knowledge, which was now mandated for principles of theology. Such ḥadīth are allowed

(tajwīz) in accordance with the dictates of religion, but theology, based on certain (qaṭʿī)

intellectual principles, could not admit something less epistemologically certain. This took

some negotation: certain ḥadīth containing descriptions of God were allowed to be “expressed”

(tuṭlaqu alfāẓihā samʿan) and believed in as reports (tuʿtaqadu khabaran); that being said, their

contents did not give certainty (qaṭʿ/yaqīn) without further intellectual indications.136 This

view of the non-mutawātir ḥadīth, whereby their use in law was based on their validity as

acceptable testimony, and were thereby separated from definitive theological first principles,

implicit to the methodology of more rigorous ḥadīth transmitters but only formalized in this

manner by Ashʿarī, remains an underappreciated but significant thesis in the intellectual

history of Islam.137 Al-Ashʿarī thus did not disrupt the traditional mode of conveying ḥadīth, or

133
Ibid., 23. As contemporary scholars have pointed out, this idea was present even among traditionalist scholars
not part of the kalām movement. See al-ʿAwnī, al-Sharīf Ḥātim b. ʿĀrif, al-Yaqīnī wa'l-ẓannī min al-akhbār; Jonathan
Brown, “Did the Prophet Say It or Not? The Literal, Historical, and Effective Truth of Ḥadīths in Early Sunnism,”
Journal of the American Oriental Society 129.2 (2009), 259–85.
134
Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 193, cf. 201.
135
Ibid., 23.
136
Ibid., 41. This is similar to his prioritization of the intellect over the Qurʾānic scripture, but in the case of āḥād
ḥadīth these are not binding
137
The only study I am aware of that has grappled with this question from its roots is the article by Brown, “Did
the Prophet Say It or Not?”
197
using its terms within religious discourse. The tradition remained intact in its mode of

dissemination, and modus operandi in Islamic society, but it was kalām, and the mutakallimūn,

which held it all in place, and determined its relative normativity.

Al-Ashʿarī’s negotiation of Sunnī-Shīʿī disputes can also be situated within discussions

on tawātur and the nature of ḥadīth interpretation. He rejected the position of Sunnīs who

attempted to establish Abū Bakr’s caliphate by interpreting the ḥadīth about him as an

appointment (naṣṣ), and pointed out that they were āḥād ḥadīth.138 As for the Imamite position

about the theological necessity of ʿAlī’s authority, it being based on the interpretation of

certain ḥadīth as unambiguous (naṣṣ), but it cannot be determined from them except by an

interpretation (taʾwīl) based on ijtihād; differing interpretations cannot be the basis of kufr or

fisq by a contended error in interpretation (khaṭaʾ);139 this position was the one taken by the

Zaydī imams, a fact which al-Ashʿarī was aware of. The Imamite claim that unambiguous proof

existed and was hidden (the bulwark of their thesis), cannot be distinguished from any other

absolutist position that claims to be hidden in the original sharīʿa.140 The Sunnī position

against Imamism was not in need of emulative tradition of predecessors, but a non-partisan

method of scriptural epistemological verification and interpretation.

4.2.1 Analysis

Although this is only a general presentation of al-Ashʿarī’s contributions, it suffices to

demonstrate how serious his endeavor to perform naẓar was, in that in the main outline of

138
Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 189.
139
Ibid., 188. This argument must have been made in conscious discussion with the position of the Zaydī imams,
who did not take the hardline Imamite position.
140
Ibid., 188–9.
198
what has preceded, nothing is dependent on explicit emulation of a traditional figure. The

foundation of normative religious doctrine is established on rational premises, and the core of

Sunnī theology is not dependent on codified teachings specific to a particular imam. Al-

Ashʿarī’s major contribution Maqālāt al-Islāmiyīn illustrates how much he was concerned to

survey the wide spectrum of beliefs present in the Islamic world, and show that the general

tenets of ahl al-sunna wa’l-jamāʿa reflected general principles.

The legacy of al-Ashʿarī is complicated, however, by the nature of his corpus and its

reception. He has been characterized as a traditionalist in a manner which does not

adequately appreciate the paradigmatic shift in his system of thought. That being said, among

his works extant today are traditional formulations of religious belief which do not emphasize

the theoretical dimension of naẓar sufficiently (al-Lumaʿ), or not at all (al-Ibāna), but in fact

make him seem a apologist for Sunnī emulationism. This conflicting image of al-Ashʿarī, is not

a new phenomenon, in fact, but can be placed as far back as the initial period when the

reception of his ideas took place.

This is illustrated for us quite vividly by the circumstances which led to the

composition of the Mujarrad maqālāt al-Ashʿarī. Ibn Fūrak himself tells us that he wrote the

work in response to a certain Muḥammad al-Ḍabbī, whose supposedly erroneous

interpretations of al-Ashʿarī’s thought had become “widespread.”141 A closer look at the

problem shows what Ibn Fūrak characterizes as al-Ḍabbī’s misrepresentation of al-Ashʿarī

centered precisely on the priority of scripture and reason in the latter’s kalām methodology.

141
Ibid., see index, s.v. “al-Ḍabbī al-Astarābādhī, Muḥammad b. Muṭarrif. See Daniel Gimaret, “Un document
majeur pour l'histoire du kalām: Le Muǧarrad Maqālāt al-Ašʿarī d'ibn Fūrak,” Arabica 32/2 (1985), 185–218: 14 ff.
199
 Al-Ḍabbī had been teaching that in al-Ashʿarī’s view “things are truly known (ḥaqīqat

maʿrifatihā) by the Qurʾān, the sunna, the ijmāʿ, and rational evidences (dalāʾil al-ʿuqūl).142 Ibn

Fūrak adamantly insists that al-Ḍabbī’s order of things is incorrect: nothing can be known by

the first three of those things until the validity of the first two (the Qurʾān and sunna) is

established by intellectual proofs first, and then the validity of consensus established by those

two scriptural sources.143 Even attempting to scripturally reject tashbīh by the Qurʾānic text

“laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ” is unacceptable to Ibn Fūrak because the ẓāhir of the verse might

suggest the negation of similarity between that which is similar (mithl) to God. Instead, “the

negation of tashbīh is not conceived of (lā yuʿqal) by scripture; to the contrary, the negation of

tashbīh and its impossibility must precede our knowledge of the Qurʾān and sunna.144 Al-

Ḍabbī’s interpretation of al-Ashʿarī would turn the epistemological framework on its head.

Al-Ḍabbī’s interpretations are not the only complication for our understanding of al-Ashʿarī’s

methodology. Such a view of al-Ashʿarī’s methods would seem to be strengthened by the

presence of al-Ashʿarī’s al-Ibāna. The book contains none of the kalām procedures at the root

of the ʿaqlīyāt and instead presents a creed in a similar manner to that of the traditionalists.

There are tell-tale signs of his personal touch, such as when he blames his theological

opponents for “having predecessors whom they imitate without proof in their religious

convictions” (aslāf lahum qalladūhum dīnahum).145 Such “deviants” (zāʾighīn), among whom are

142
Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 19.
143
Ibid., 22.
144
Ibid.
145
Al-Ashʿarī, al-Ibāna ʿan uṣūl al-diyāna, 12.
200
the Mu’tazilites, “have been pushed by their desires to taqlīd of their leaders and those that

preceded them of their predecessors (aslāfihim).”146

However, this is not counteracted with the naẓar of the type that we see in the Mujarrad,

but is juxtaposed with another concept of normativity which we are more familiar with from

early Sunnī authorities. The problem with the interpretations (taʾwīl) of the Muʿtazilites is

that they did it according to their opinion in a way which has no proof (burhaan) and was not

transmitted from the Prophet nor in accordance with the actions of the Companions.147 When

discussing Qurʾānic descriptions of God, Muʿtazilite reinterpretations are rejected as having no

proof – but his criterion for reinterpretation does not seem to extend beyond the linguistic,148

that is to say, it never appeals to a strictly kalām based argument.

When discussing the issue of the nature Qurʾān, precisely the same names evoked in

the Ḥathth as methodologically inadmissable authorities are cited as authoritative.149 The

entire book, in fact, is preceded by the following articulation of its first principles:

Our doctrine that we believe in, and our religion by which we show our devotion is –
the adherence to the Book of God our Lord the Mighty and Majestic, and by the sunna of
our Prophet Muhammad (s) and that which is narrated from the masters: the
Companions and Followers, and Imams of Hadith, and we seek refuge in this - as well as
that which the Abu ‘Abd Allah Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Hanbal taught - may God
brighten his face and elevate his rank ….150

The Ibāna, as we will see, received some of the highest praise possible and cemented al-

Ashʿarī’s fame in many circles. On the basis of the Ibāna alone, a number of contemporary

146
Ibid., 14.
147
Ibid.
148
The phrasing used here is highly evocative of the expressions of al-Dārimī, quoted above, “al-Qurʾān al-ʿazīz ʿalā
ẓāhirihi wa-laysa lanā an nuzīlahu ʿan ẓāhirihi illā bi-ḥujja wa-illā fa-huwa ʿalā ẓāhirihi;” ibid., 40.
149
Ibid., 87–96.
150
Ibid., 20.
201
researchers have emphasized al-Ashʿarī’s historical significance as a mere apologist for

tradition.151

From the preceding presentation, however, it is clear that regardless of the historical

import of this text for understanding al-Ashʿarī’s own convictions as well as those who

heralded it as an accurate representation of their own faith, the Ashʿarite theologians who

were aware of the greater implications of al-Ashʿarīs other theological works were not

compelled to submit to it: the bonds of taqlīd had been broken.

4.3. No Way Back: Ashʿarī Contestation of Traditionalist Authority

As will be shown in chapter five, prominent followers of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal remained

impervious to this new mandate to practice kalām. In emulating the example of Aḥmad b.

Ḥanbal, they continued to compose theological works based on Qurʾān, ḥadīth, and salaf

statements – replete with full isnāds – and perpetuate their critique against kalām largely on

the basis of the genealogical framework we have come to know. As might be expected, this

critique would eventually come to encompass the Ashʿarite mutakallimūn. On their part,

however, the Ashʿarīs developed their counter-argumentation for the establishing

methodological priority of the intellect in the domain of theology. Given the strength of al-

Ashʿarī’s arguments against taqlīd, it was impossible to resort back to the authorities of the

past.

151
See Gimaret’s observations on the confusion surrounding the Ibāna in Gimaret, “Un document majeur pour
l'histoire du kalām,” 217–8. Al-Gimaret had hoped this image would have been corrected by his publication of the
Mujarrad, but this has unfortunately not been the case.
202
 Such argumentation began diplomatically, but eventually took on more urgency as

time progressed. Naturally, this development had its implications for an intrinsically related

theme with which we are familiar; matter of scriptural interpreation. In the Ashʿarī context,

this led to the articulation of a principle that came to be called “The Rule of Interpretation”

(qānūn al-taʾwīl) wherein older disputes between Muʿtazilīs and Sunnīs on the hermeneutic

role of kalām were now revisited in an intra-Sunnī context, and kalām was now advocated by

the Ashʿarīs as an indispensible prerequisite for the proper interpretation of scripture. These

developments in Ashʿarism, which we will examine through the works of prominent members

of the Shāfiʿī school in Nishapur, even brought about a “changing of the guard” wherein the

interpretive authority of older representatives of that regional school was called into question.

Such internal developments in the Nishapur Shāfiʿī school are instructive for understanding

the details of how Ashʿarite theology came to nativize its scholarly ideals within Sunnism.

No single point of contention was to be more controversial, however, than that which

centered on what by now is a familiar topic: the nature of God’s speech. Stunningly, that same

marker of Sunnī theological orthodoxy was fated to once more become a divisive topic, but

this time, within an intra-Sunnī context. Once again, this doctrinal point will be useful for us

to approach contending notions of orthodoxy on respective sides, but now within the

framework of Sunnism, as the cause of serious contentions on the nature of methodology,

orthodoxy, and historical memory. It is here also that on the level of scholarly and social

discourse the rift between Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalīs became irreconcilable.

Having acknowledged that there was in fact a “mixed” reception of al-Ashʿarī’s

teachings, we will focus first on those scholars who most vocally perpetuated al-Ashʿarī’s

203
critique against tradition in favor of the primacy of naẓar. This critique characterizes the

teachings passed down through the lineage of al-Ashʿarī’s student Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Bāhilī, whose

study circle in Baghdad boasted such prominent scholars as the Mālikī scholar Abū Bakr al-

Bāqillānī (d. 403/1013), as well as the Shāfiʿī scholars Ibn Fūrak (d. 406/1015) and Abū Isḥāq al-

Isfarāʾīnī (d. 418/1027) who both established important followings in Nishapur, epitomized in

the emergence of Shāfiʿī luminaries such as al-Juwaynī, al-Ghazālī, al-Shahrastānī (d.

548/1153), and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209). Each of these was a foundational figure for

Ashʿarite theology, and for uṣūl al-fiqh in the neo-Shāfiʿī paradigm adopted by al-Ashʿarī.

In fact, it is in the uṣūl al-fiqh works of this prominent branch of Shāfiʿīsm that we at

times see our most potent defenses for kalām and rejection of taqlīd. The argument can even be

made that such works on jurisprudence were a significant medium for the transmission of

Ashʿarī theology. Such a thesis should not be surprising: The role of uṣūl al-fiqh in

disseminating the principles of kalām was a natural development of al-Ashʿarī’s nativization of

the mandate to perform naẓar on the basis of revelatory command. The religious incumbency

of naẓar was thus not alien to the subject matter of a book on jurisprudence, which is

concerned by definition with the prescriptive nature of certain human acts – which al-Ashʿarī

argued could only be based on the scripture. This fusion of Shāfiʿī uṣūl al-fiqh in conjunction

with Ashʿarī philosophical considerations is a new paradigm which can be called Ashʿarī uṣūl

al-fiqh, because it did not aim to be madhhab specific, even spanning Shāfiʿī, Mālikī, and

Ḥanbalī152 madhhab boundaries.

152
See, for example, the adoption of this kalām-inspired framework for the uṣūl al-fiqh of Abū Yaʿlā in chapter five,
and Ibn Qudāma’s adoption of al-Ghazālī’s al-Mustaṣfā in chapter seven.
204
 Our case in point is to be found in one of the earliest Ashʿarī uṣūl al-fiqh the uṣūl al-fiqh

work by the Mālikī scholar al-Bāqillānī entitled al-Taqrīb wa’l-irshād, which was also influential

for generations to come. There al-Bāqillānī argues that the necessity to use rational reflection

(wujūb al-naẓar) is that God has commanded us to know (maʿrifa) Him and believe the truth and

avoid falsehood, and this cannot be without naẓar, and whatever is a condition for a wājib is

wājib.153 Such argumentation was, naturally, based on al-Ashʿarī’s distinction between the

ʿaqlīyāt and samʿīyāt, as we have come to know, and required a formal priority of the former in

order to philosophically establish the truth value of the latter.

This finds expression in al-Bāqillānī’s classical tripartite division of “the rulings of

religion:” That which is known by intellect (ʿaql) alone, that which is known by the scripture

alone (al-samʿ), and that which is known by both.154 As for the category of things which can

only be known by the intellect, these are: 1) the temporal origination of the world, 2) the

existence of its Originator, 3) His oneness 4) His attributes 4) the prophethood of the prophets.

Al-Bāqillānī even comes up with a parable to illustrate his point. You cannot know God from

scripture, because you don’t know from the outset whether the scripture is from God (and thus

true), or if God even exists. In a like manner, if you receive a letter claiming to be from Zayd,

you cannot conclusively know this to be the case if you do not know that Zayd exists first. 155

It is here that al-Bāqillānī is compelled to defend this bold premise and argue against

the traditionalists who reject the imperative of naẓar. Conscious as ever of the divide between

latter-day Muslims and the source of revelation, he characterizes the traditionalists’ position

153
Al-Bāqillānī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-Ṭayyib, al-Taqrīb wa'l-irshād, 3 vols., ed. Abū Zayd, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. ʿAlī
(Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1413/1993), vol. 1, 215-216.
154
Ibid., vol. 1, 228.
155
Ibid.
205
as the belief that God and prophethood may be known by reports (samʿ) from people other

than God and the Prophet – a friendly way of saying contemporary scholars of Qurʾān and

ḥadīth. Al-Bāqillānī argues diplomatically that any report from other than God or a Prophet is

dependent on the “truth of its reporters” (ṣidq al-mukhbirīn). As long as the truth of their

statements is not known “necessarily” (ḍarūratan) that it cannot be a source for (theological)

knowledge.156 The intellect cannot devise a proof for establishing the veracity of the reporters

about the existence of God and the prophets, because whatever valid indication (dalīl) that can

be used for that end will be the actual proof for God and the prophets, not the veracity of that

reporter itself.157 In addition, the reporter’s knowledge of the veracity of what he reports is

also dependent on naẓar or a report (samʿ) - if it is naẓar, then this proves the point of the

necessity of naẓar; if he knows it by the report of another, then the same question must be

asked about that other person, and so on ad absurdum.158

Al-Bāqillānī carries out this conversation with an unnamed interlocutor, but we know

that it is the same audience to which al-Ashʿarī dedicated his Ḥathth, the traditionalist Sunnī

circles. He is relatively diplomatic in his argumentation, and does not use any insulting

epithets; the same is true of the works of his peer Ibn Fūrak.159 This generation took a

reconciliatory stance to articulate the necessity of establishing scriptural data within a viable

intellectual framework to their Sunnī peers, as we shall see in more detail.160 However, the

tone of this discourse eventually turned from that of apology to polemic.

156
Ibid., vol. 1, 229-230.
157
Ibid., vol. 1, 230.
158
Ibid., vol. 1, 230-231.
159
Based on a survey of his works currently available.
160
The role of Ibn Fūrak and al-Bāqillānī in explaining the Ashʿarite relationship to ḥadīth will be covered below.
206
 This is quite palpable in following generations, when we can find evidence of growing

disdain on the part of Ashʿarī scholars for traditionalist critics of kalām. Vivid examples in al-

Juwaynī, Nishapuri paragon of excellence in Ashʿarī theology and Shāfiʿī uṣūl al-fiqh, and the

master of the famed al-Ghazālī. In his critique of the anti-kalām position, also transmitted via

his writings in uṣūl al-fiqh, al-Juwaynī revived the word classically used by Muʿtazilites:

Ḥashwīya. The Ḥanbalīs were the paradigmatic example of this “anthropological” type, as

when he said:

We see the Ḥashwī from the Ḥanbalī’s insisting on [naïve] belief, holding on to the
doctrine that he follows while rejecting naẓar – Even if he was sawed in half with a saw
(wa-law nushira bi’l-minshār) he would not let up or change his mind!161

The hallmark position of the Ḥashwīya, according to al-Juwaynī is that “there is no way to

know anything except the Book, sunna, and consensus (lā madārik lil-ʿulūm illā al-kitāb wa’l-sunna

wa’l-ijmāʿ).162 As we can expect, al-Juwaynī critiques this because this would account to taqlīd –

and go against the religious mandate (wujūb) of naẓar into what is necessary, possible,

impossible in relationship to God, a mandate which proscribes taqlīd for everyone.163

Like al-Bāqillānī, in the paradigm established by al-Ashʿarī, al-Juwaynī establishes the

tri-partite division of knowledge:164 The intellect knows “the realities of things” (ḥaqāʾiq al-

ashyāʾ); i.e., the impossibility, possibility, and necessity of intellectual matters (al-umūr al-

ʿaqlīya), but not legal matters (lā al-taklīfīya).165 Scripture (samʿ) only informs of “the occurrence

161
Al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, al-Burhān fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 1st ed., ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Dīb (Qatar: Jāmiʿat
Qaṭar, 1400/1980), 118.
162
Ibid., 125.
163
Al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, Kitāb al-Talkhīṣ fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 3 vols., ed. al-Nībālī, ʿAbd Allāh Jawlam and
Shubbayr Aḥmad al-ʿAmrī (Beirut: Dār al-Bashāʾir al-Islāmīya, 1417/1996), vol. 3, 427-428.
164
Al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, al-Burhān fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 136.
165
Ibid. Cf. al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, Kitāb al-Talkhīṣ fī uṣūl al-fiqh, vol. 1, 132-134; al-Juwaynī, al-
ʿAqīda al-niẓāmīya, ed. Muḥammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Anwār, 1367/1948), 8–10.
207
or inoccurence of [rationally] possible things” (wuqūʿ al-jāʾizāt wa-intifāʾuhā).166 The third

category deals with things that are sensed (mudrak) which precede knowledge of true speech.

One cannot know truly that God exists, lives, and speaks by scripture. However, knowing that

God can be seen, that He creates actions, and the reality of human capacity are things known

by intellect; once the scripture (samʿīyāt) has been established, “it is not impossible for the

scripture and intellect to indicate the same thing” (lā yamtaniʿ ishtirāk al-samʿ wa’l-ʿaql fīhi).167

Since the Ḥashwīya oppose naẓar, they must be dealt with, and at first his argumentation is

quite similar to that of al-Bāqillānī.168 Extending the ad absurdum argument made by al-

Bāqillānī, al-Juwaynī goes it even further, because he realizes that the last line of defense for

taqlīd is the claim that the Qurʾān or sunna of the Prophet Muḥammad commands it – a key

part of the reasoning of Ḥanbalī kalām rejectionists such as al-Barbahārī. This he aims to

demolish:

If they insist that taqlīd will give them knowledge on the basis of the Qurʾān and the
sunna and the commands they contain to submit [to them] (al-ittibāʿ) they will be asked:
“How can you adhere to the Book of God if you can’t prove it is the book of God except
by proof (ḥujja)? How do you know that that in which you have sought refuge is the
Book of God Almighty?” – This is a pitfall (warṭa) they have no way out of.

Then we say to them: If you do taqlīd of someone in uṣūl al-dīn, I have no doubt that you
do not mandate infallibility (al-ʿiṣma) for the person you follow, but will grant that they
make mistakes. So why would you follow him when this is his state? If you abide by
your position, you have expanded what is religiously valid. The very least you must
accept is that you refrain from scolding adherents to innovation if they follow their
leaders169 …

166
Al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, al-Burhān fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 137.
167
Ibid.
168
The ḥashwīya – only know taqlīd is right by naẓar, or taqlīd of someone else to whom the same question is
directed; al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, Kitāb al-Talkhīṣ fī uṣūl al-fiqh, vol. 3, 427-430.
169
This is a reference to Imamite and Ismāʿīlī Shīʿism which believe in the necessity of following infallible imams
after the Prophet Muḥammad. Al-Juwaynī says that unquestioned belief in traditional figures necessitates the
belief in their infallibility just like Shīʿite doctrine about the imams.
208
 If they say: The majority (al-sawād al-aʿẓam) is on our side and the Prophet (ṣ) exhorted
us to follow the majority. We say: There is nothing more ignorant than the techniques
you display. You are being disputed as to the existence of the Lord of [the prophets],
and are being demanded [to prove] that which gives [the prophets] infallibility – but
then you seek evidence of that from the sayings of the Prophet (ṣ) himself?
What is more, you can’t rely on the majority in a foundation of religion (aṣl al-dīn),
because the majority of disbelievers (sawād al-kafara) are more than our majority (min
sawādinā), and the Prophet at the beginnings of Islam was in a triflingly small group…
Then we say to them: Tell us! Is there an argument (ḥujja) in the heavens and earth for
the existence of the Creator? If they reject that – then they have rejected the Qurʾān,
which was supposed to be their consolation (mafzaʿuhum), but if they affirm that there
is a proof, they will be asked how it is to be approached, thereby being compelled to
disputation (al-ḥijāj). Then at the very least, we will have a lot to say to them!
Our brethren [the Ashʿarī theologians], abide by every ẓāhir of the Qurʾān and the
sunna which entails the command to reflect (al-iʿtibār) and debate (al-ihṭijāj). All they
have is ẓawāhir – there is nothing more to say to them about them. Therefore we see it
fit that they desist from clinging to them.170

The same antagonism towards the traditionalist position was maintained by top

representatives of Ashʿarī kalām, who argued in similar ways for its untenability: Al-Juwaynī’s

student Abū’l-Qāsim al-Anṣārī argued against who he called the aṣḥāb al-ẓāhir – “exotericists,”

who say that “religion is only taken from the Book and al-sunna, and aqwāl aʾimmat al-salaf, and

there is no leeway for naẓar or al-qiyās al-ʿaqlī in it.”171 Some generations letter, the great

Ashʿarī theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī would define the Ḥashwīya as, “those who say that we

aquire knowledge of God and religion (maʿrifat Allāh wa’l-dīn) from the Qurʾān and the sunna.”172

Both al-Anṣārī and al-Rāzī refute them in the same way: that reports by individuals cannot be a

proof of God’s existence, and that the refutation of naẓar entails a form of naẓar – whether in its

170
Ibid., vol. 3, 430-433.
171
Al-Anṣārī, Abū'l-Qāsim b. Nāṣir, al-Ghunya fī'l-kalām, vol. 1, 230-231. Even more explicitly than al-Juwaynī, he
categorizes this traditionalist position alongside that of Imami and Ismāʿīlī Shīʿites (ibid., vol. 1, 230.), and says
that the same refutation applies to both of them: the revelation of a prophet or any imam who speaks in his name
only gets its authority from God, and God’s existence must be proven first; ibid., vol. 1, 236-237.
172
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr, 3rd ed., 32 vols. (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 1420 AH), vol. 22,
56.
209
formalistic procedures or even in establishing the authority of the texts one claims to adhere

to.

4.4 The “Rule of Interpretation” (qānūn al-taʾwīl): Where Language and Intellect Meet in
God’s Speech

As we recall, exegetical considerations on the meaning of the muḥkam/mutashābih in Q

3:7 by early generations of ahl al-sunna and Muʿtazila often came to reflect foundational

disparities in their hermeneutical principles, as well as their normative view of scholarly and

interpretive authority. Given al-Ashʿarī’s prioritization of the intellect over scripture for

fundamentals of religion (the priority of the ʿaqlīyāt over the samʿīyāt), it was only natural that

a similar juxaposition of values behind normative readings of scripture arise between Ashʿarite

mutakallimūn and other Sunnī scholars. As Ashʿarite theology developed over the 4th-5th/10th-

11th centuries, its adherents adopted an interpretation of Q 3:7 in a manner which we had

previously seen as exclusive to the Muʿtazilites, wherein the “firmly established in knowledge”

mentioned in that verse were associated with those who knew the taʾwīl of the “ambiguous

verses” (mutashābih) on the basis of naẓar; in this case, the Sunnī mutakallimūn.

Again, not only did this shift emphasize the dependency of orthodox scriptural

readings on kalām methodology, but also led to a reconfiguration of scholarly authority among

the ahl al-sunna. This view, as expressed in the works of al-Ashʿarī’s grand-students al-

Bāqillānī and Ibn Fūrak, came to influence the concerns of the increasingly Ashʿarizing Shāfiʿīs

of Nishapur. The writings of Ibn Fūrak, a pivotal figure for the intellectual trajectory of that

regional interpretive community, even convey to us the occurrence of an internal “changing

of the guard,” whereby local interpretive authorities of the Khurasani Shāfiʿī school in its pre-
210
Ashʿarī phases were demoted due to the incongruity of their position with that of the kalām-

based interpretive mandate. It is al-Juwaynī, however, who was to articulate the most

influential articulation of these principles, what was later called “the Rule of Interpretation.”

Earlier Sunnī mutakallimūn such as Ibn Kullāb, al-Muḥāsibī, and al-Qalānisī followed a

traditionally-inspired interpretation of Q 3:7’s mutashābih as referring to the “disconnected

letters” (ḥurūf al-hijāʾ) and stopped their recitation after the invocation of God (§4a) to show

that the “established in knowledge” believed in the mutashābih without knowing their ultimate

realities.173 Al-Ashʿarī, in contrast, adopted a definition of the muḥkam and mutashābih very

similar in formulation to the seminal Muʿtazilite position which we saw articulated earlier by

al-Iskāfī earlier; namely as a reflection of unambiguous/monosemous and

ambiguous/polysemous verses, respectively:174

The muḥkam is that [verse] the meaning of which has been made clear by its apparent
articulation (ubīna maʿnāhu bi-ẓāhir lafẓihi) such that its interpretation is [the same as]
its revelational form (ḥattā yakūn taʾwīlahu tanzīluhu), and the mutashābih is that [verse]
where the meaning and articulation can be confused [for one another] (mā ishtabaha
lafẓuhu wa-maʿnāhu) and can bear multiple interpretations (iḥtamala wujūhan
mukhtalifa), and differing meanings are shared in it (ishtarakat fīhā maʿānin mutabāyina)
which take preponderance over one another (yatarajjaḥu baʿḍuhā ʿalā baʿḍ) by means of
al-naẓar wa’l-istidlāl.175
Accordingly, we come to understand that the taʾwīl of the mutashābih, as “interpretation of the

ambiguous” was something which was knowable by means of kalām. Upholding both early

Sunnī and Muʿtazilite theological optimism about the possibility of this knowledge,176 al-

Ashʿarī is recorded as saying “There must exist in every age scholars who know the taʾwīl of

173
Al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn, 222.
174
See chapter three.
175
Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 190–1. Cf. ibid., 64.
176
Compare positions of al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Quṭayba and al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, above.
211
that which is mutashābih in the Qurʾān,”177 which means that he established the reading to stop

after al-rāsikhūna fī’l-ʿilm along with God (§4b). Since earlier Sunnī mutakallimūn associated the

mutashābih with the eschatological realities of the Qurʾānic description, Q 3:7 did not take on

“disputationist” implications. Al-Ashʿarī, on the other hand, upheld the Muʿtazilite

disputationist framework of the verse,178 which naturally dictated that the mutakallimūn were

able to determine these meanings, and perhaps claim the elusive title of al-rāsikhūna fī’l-ʿilm

because of that knowledge.

The reason for the preference of this interpretation also lies with a rather calculated

application of his natural language theory, at least if the articulation of this definition by al-

Bāqillānī and al-Juwaynī in their uṣūl al-fiqh works go back to the master himself. Since the

term mutashābih must have a clear meaning in the Arabic language of its revelatory context

which cannot be changed by scripture, al-Bāqillānī argued that that those interpretations of Q

3:7 which we have called the “traditional” understanding, and which al-Bāqillānī attributes to

“some exegetes and interpreters” (baʿḍ ahl al-tafsīr wa-aṣḥāb al-maʿānī) is discounted as

“inconclusive” (ghayr thābit).179 Their definitions of the terms muḥkam and mutashābih he

discounts as being unknown by experts on the Arabic language (ahl al-lugha/ahl al-ʿarabīya)180 –

a clear reflection of the priority of the original Arabic language for understanding revelational

terms in al-Ashʿarī’s methodology seen above.181

177
Al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-dīn, 223.
178
ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī himself noted the agreement between al-Ashʿarī and the Muʿtazilites; see ibid.
179
Al-Bāqillānī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-Ṭayyib, al-Taqrīb wa'l-irshād, vol. 1, 331.
180
Ibid., vol. 1, 331-332.
181
Note how Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī also came to prefer this interpretation on the premise that the “traditional”
interpretation was majāz, see chapter three.
212
 The precise linguistic meaning of mutashābih referred to in God’s speech (al-khiṭāb)

according to al-Bāqillānī is “that which can bear different meanings, being applied for all of

them, and referring to them literally (ʿalā wajh al-ḥaqīqa), or applying to some of them literally

and some of them figuratively,” however, “its apparent meaning (ẓāhiruhu) does not notify

what the intended meaning was” (lā yunbiʾu … ʿammā quṣida bihi).182 This category, “as regards

theological matters (uṣūl al-diyānāt),” he says, “is plentiful.”183 As for whether the rāsikhūn fī’l-

ʿilm know the meanings, the answer is in the affirmative: “It is not valid (lam yajuz) for God to

address the Arabs or other than them with that which there is no means for them to know.” 184

Al-Bāqillānī’s peer Ibn Fūrak took up the same position, and refuted those who said that

mutashābih reports should not be interpreted; one of the main topics of his seminal work,

Mushkil al-ḥadīth. Like al-Bāqillānī, he rejected the idea of revelation that had no properly

cognizable meanings. He argued that the Prophet spoke with these words “in order to benefit

us” (li-yufīdanā), “and “addressed us in the Arabic language in its reasonable expressions

according to that which was prevalent among them in their mode of addressal” (wa-khāṭabanā

ʿalā lughat al-ʿarab bi-alfāẓihā al-maʿqūla fīmā baynahā al-mutadāwala ʿindahum fī khiṭābihā). So

either the Prophet spoke with “correct intelligible meanings” (maʿānin ṣaḥīḥa mufīda) or not –

Ibn Fūrak claims that the second possibility is impossible to assert about the Prophet’s

speech.185

182
Ibid., vol. 1, 331. Examples are given on legal rulings concerning women.
183
Ibid.
184
Ibid., vol. 1, 332. This argumentation was also adopted by al-Juwaynī, see al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-
Malik, Kitāb al-Talkhīṣ fī uṣūl al-fiqh, vol. 1, 178-180. Again, compare this to the reasoning of al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Quṭayba,
and ʿAbd al-Jabbār above in chapter three.
185
Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Kitāb Mushkil al-ḥadīth aw Taʾwīl al-akhbār al-mutashābiha, ed. Daniel Gimaret
(Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 2003), 305.
213
 If, Ibn Fūrak goes on, revelation contains “correct meanings” (maʿānin ṣaḥīḥa) then

there is either a way to know them or not. If there is no way to know these meanings, it is

either because the language is “not understandable” (lā mafhūm al-maʿnā) or because it is

“unreasonable or unintended” by those words (wa-lā [al-]maʿqūl al-murād) – which, again, Ibn

Fūrak stresses, is not the case. Upholding al-Ashʿarī’s philosophy of language, Ibn Fūrak

emphasizes that revelation did not address its primary recipients in such a way that its

utterances (alfāẓ) were used in a way for other than what they were coined to express (ghayr

mā wuḍiʿat lahu). If this is the case, then it is possible to know their meanings and what was

intended. The statement that we cannot know the meanings is meaningless, because if that

were the case, then the Prophets addressal (khiṭāb) would have no purpose or not have a

correct meaning intended.186

Such discussions remind us of the statements by al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Quṭayba about the

theological impermissability of the Prophet Muḥammad delivering unintelligible messages.

Like them, we find Ibn Fūrak again disputing with unnamed interlocutors who deny the

knowledge of the mutashābih. Again, like them, he was able to buttress his position with

traditionally-based tafsīrs which state that the rāsikhūna fī’l-ʿilm know the taʾwīl as well.187 But

an extra dimension is now palpable in Ibn Fūrak’s argumentation. Interpretation of the

mutashābih is now a necessity in order to defend God’s revelation. To passively submit to texts

is no longer tenable:

186
Ibid., 305–7.
187
Ibid., 305–6.
214
 This is illustrated by his argumentation with unnamed interlocutors who reject taʾwīl,

whose description provided by Ibn Fūrak makes them hard to identify. They seem to be a

hypothetical group by which Ibn Fūrak seeks to highlight his methodological commitments. In

their rejection of interpretation, they present two challenges. They say that if one were to

affirm certain scriptural utterances (alfāẓ) in their “normal” conception (al-maʿqūl) then that

would be inappropriate for God – ostensibly because it would necessitate a likening of God to

the creation. This is something which Ibn Fūrak is naturally sensitive to. Conversely, they

argue, if one were to shift the interpretation of these revelational descriptions of God from the

“meanings as they are conceived in relationship to us” (maʿānīhā al-maʿqūla fīnā), then that

would not be in accordance with the Arabic language – which would go against the natural

language theory espoused by the Sunnī mutakallimūn. The former option – likeness to the

creation – being rejected, they prefer the latter alternative, explaining that this is merely an

affirmation that only God knows what is meant (stop after §4b). The taʾwīl must then be

beyond intelligible interpretation in human language, not even for the “firmly established in

knowledge.”188

In response, Ibn Fūrak reiterates that the Qurʾān’s meanings are conceivable (maʿqūla)

in accordance with what is appropriate for God to be described with, just as with all the rest of

the descriptions of God which are intellectually certain (by which he means those rationally

established). These rationally established attributes are affirmed on the basis of what the

intellect determines, keeping in mind the diference between the two described things (viz. God

and creation) without them being separated from their essential realities and definitions

188
This is the position of the Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn, as we will see below.
215
(ḥaqāʾiq/ḥudūd) and concomitant effects. He explains that if refraining from interpretation

(waqf) of scriptural attributes is necessary, then likewise with all the attributes that are even

more certain; i.e., rationally established ones. Since that is impossible, both attributes should

be dealt with in a like manner.189 In conclusion, scriptural descriptions of God should be dealt

with just like other attributes which are knowable by the intellect. While both can be

mistaken to liken God to his creation, the role of interpretation is constantly present such that

in their affirmation the proper intellectual precautions are taken.

For Ibn Fūrak this is a special role that the group he pertains to is able to fulfill. This is

clear in his depiction of the alternatives: Some, thinking that appropriate meanings for

scriptural expressions cannot be known, reject revelational reports; meanwhile, others do

tashbīh in affirmation of them; and yet others strip them of their meaning. Ibn Fūrak says, “We

claim that they can be interpreted on the basis we have laid out.”190 Which is to say, that all

scriptural descriptions of God can be interpreted both on the basis of natural language as well

as the intellectual (ontological) considerations of naẓar-based theology.

This was a simultaneous refutation against Muʿtazilites as well as anti-kalām Sunnīs –

those whom al-Juwaynī would later call Ḥashwīya. But such antagonism towards the latter

was not appropriate at this juncture, when kalām was still being nativized within the Sunnī

context, especially in the Shāfiʿī school which was so intimately wedded to the ḥadīth

collection and evaluation movement. Instead, Ibn Fūrak can be viewed as the articulator of a

“happy medium,” between the two sects, saying, “the truth is suspended between these two

189
Ibid., 306.
190
Ibid., 307–8.
216
schools; i.e., voiding God’s attributes and likening him” (al-ḥaqq wāqif bayna aḥad hādhayn al-

madhhabayn min al-taʿṭīl wa’l-tashbīh).191 The Ashʿarī methodology was used here to encompass

and neutralize the critiques traditionally leveled by Sunnīs and Muʿtazilites at one another.192

This religious imperative to do taʾwīl had to be squared up with traditionally-held

aversion to the interpretations of the mutakallimūn – not least of all on the part of those pre-

Ashʿarite Shāfiʿīs who formed the foundation of the Nishapur school to which Ibn Fūrak

belonged. This was in fact one of the main motivations for the authorship of this book. The

interpretive authority of two earlier giants of Nishapuri Shāfiʿism was being explicitly

challenged here; that of Ibn Khuzayma (d. 311/923)193 – a “grandstudent” of al-Shāfiʿī through

no less than al-Rabīʿ and al-Muzanī – and Abu Bakr al-Ṣibghī (d. 342/953).194 Ibn Fūrak took the

opportunity to review their books K. al-Tawḥīd195 and K. al-Asmāʾ wa’l-ṣifāt196 – theological works

based on Qurʾānic verses and ḥadīth with full isnāds – for the purpose of highlighting the

problems with their authors’ prohibition from reinterpreting the descriptions of God

contained therein.

Ibn Fūrak argues that statements of the salaf relied upon by Ibn Khuzayma to the effect

that such reports about God “should be passed on as they have come” without taʾwīl should

instead be understood as 1) a warning that no additional words be added to them, for

precision’s sake, as well as 2) a warning against people doing taʾwīl who do not have “training

191
Ibid., 208–9.
192
See previous chapter.
193
On his importance, see Brown, The Canonization of Al-Bukhārī and Muslim, 125–6.
194
Al-Ṣibghī (d. 342/953), major Nishapurī scholar. Student of Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, he taught al-Ḥākim al-
Naysabūrī, and gave fatwas for over ten years after Ibn Khuzayma in the jāmiʿ of that city.
195
Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Kitāb Mushkil al-ḥadīth aw Taʾwīl al-akhbār al-mutashābiha, 217–52.
196
Ibid., 253–304.
217
in the methods of monotheism and knowledge of the truth in respect to it” (durba bi-ṭarīq al-

tawḥīd wa-maʿrifat al-ḥaqq fīhā) – a reference to the methods of naẓar. He adds, “But if that is

not what he intended, then we have explained the matter to show that what he said is false,

and what we said is correct.”197 This was a direct retort to Ibn Khuzayma’s understanding of

tradition – but this was acceptable within the emerging Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī synthesis of Ibn Fūrak’s

scholarly circles, not finding itself methodologically bound to an emulative authority in

interpreting the reports traditionally passed on.

Despite the undermining of such previous authority figures, the utmost care was made

not to contravene sensibilities about revelational priority. This was done in a manner

intrinsically connected with the scriptural considerations at the heart of al-Shāfiʿī’s

contributions in Qurʾānic hermeneutics. Ibn Fūrak tellingly states that the names of God are

strictly to be taken from revelation (al-samʿ) and not the mere intellect, but goes on to explain

that one should not refrain from seeking out their meanings simply because they have been

narrated that way:

Such a prohibition only pertains to he who has not studied the methods of
interpretation nor is the procedure of taʾwīl clear to him, nor is he accomplished in
combining affirmation (ithbāt) of its meaning with negation of likeness (nafī al-tashbīh).
This is like the prohibition of the masses (al-ʿāmma) as well as those whose deficiency in
language (al-lugha) and rational inquiry (al-naẓar) keeps them from giving them their
due, from interpreting the ambiguous verses (taʾwīl al-mutashābih) of the Qurʾān, or
prohibiting the masses from issuing verdicts (al-futyā) in the “branches” (legal rulings)
because of their distance from knowledge of the “principles” (al-uṣūl, viz. of
jurisprudence) and how to elaborate the branches on their basis.198

197
Ibid., 308.
198
Ibid., 15.
218
Ibn Fūrak takes the analogy of uṣūl al-fiqh developed by al-Ashʿarī in his Ḥathth to explain the

necessity of developed modes of interpretation in the realm of theology. Just as uṣūl al-fiqh was

necessary for interpretation of legal verses, naẓar was necessary for the interpretation of

theological verses.

In Ibn Fūrak’s understanding, the impetus to interpretation is not meant to disparage

the salaf, or earlier generations of Islam. Although their statements can be interpreted as

affirming scriptural statements on God without interpreting them, these should not be seen as

condoning “submission to their utterances … and taqlīd without searching for their meanings”

but rather preventing from taʾwīl those who are not capable of it. These latter people who are

not qualified to interpret scripture will either 1) perform tashbīh or 2) invalidate (=disbelieve

in) the report when they can’t figure out its meaning. Therefore, such an undertaking, Ibn

Fūrak tells us, may only be performed by the “firmly established in knowledge.”199

Not performing the critical task of naẓar for the sake of naïve submission to reports

goes against the imperative to understand revelation and increases uncertainty. Furthermore,

forbidding naẓar is an insult to the Companions whom Ibn Fūrak argues must have sought out

knowledge of these matters.200 The second worse thing after doing tashbīh is to not seek out

the truth on such matters thinking it is too difficult to attain. Not seeking the truth on these

things will leave things unclear, doubtful, and open to the possibility of tashbīh.201

It should not go unnoticed that Ibn Fūrak’s interpretive mandate for the mutakallimūn

did not necessitate the marginalization of the muḥaddithūn in the manner that the Muʿtazilites

199
Ibid., 4–5.
200
Ibid., 6–7.
201
Ibid., 7.
219
did. Ibn Fūrak may have dismantled the authority of Ibn Khuzayma, but it was merely

interpretive authority. As Ibn Fūrak had put it, every sound (ṣaḥīḥ) report has a “correct

meaning and intelligible communication” (maʿnā ṣaḥīḥ/fāʾida maʿqūla).202 As we recall, al-

Ashʿarī had not interfered with the transmission of sound texts, but only subjected their

interpretation to the rational considerations of kalām. In this configuration, the muḥaddith

maintains the right to disseminate and evaluate the soundness of ḥadīth, but it is the

mutakallim who reserves the ultimate right to interpet it. These are not mutually exclusive

categories.

Ibn Fūrak’s prominent student al-Bayhaqī, widely influential for both Shāfiʿī law as well

as the defense of the Ashʿarite methodology (as we will see below) wrote his book al-Asmāʾ

wa’l-ṣifāt not as a prescriptive creedal compilation in the manner of Ibn Khuzayma’s K. al-

Tawḥīd, but for the explicit purpose of compiling “the names and attributes of God, as well as

that which needs reinterpretation (taʾwīl) along with its interpretation (taʾwīl).”203 This is an

affirmation that, contrary to the methods of earlier ḥadīth specialists, the corpus of Prophetic

narrations were not to be unmediated sources of doctrine except via the expertise of the

theologian.

Although al-Bayhaqī authorial style in this work is rather laconic, we can use some of

his transmitted material to understand his reasoning. He quotes earlier Ashʿarī theologian

Abū Sulaymān al-Khaṭṭābī (d. 388/998), who in his own time grappled with the statements of

202
Ibid., 6.
Al-Bayhaqī, Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn, Kitāb al-Asmāʾ wa'l-ṣifāt, 2 vols., ed. al-Ḥāshidī, ʿAbd Allāh b.
203

Muḥammad (Jadda: Maktabat al-Sawādī, 1413/1993), vol. 2, 495.

220
Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim b. Sallām204 that ḥadīth are to be narrated without taʾwīl. The problem

with such approaches, al-Khaṭṭābī explains, is that such scholars:

left these narrations as they were out of respect for them and seeking safety from
making a mistake in interpreting them (al-salām min khaṭaʾ al-taʾwīl fīhā) … and we are
even more obliged to not overstep those whom we came after who had more
knowledge and lived in older times and to longer ages (wa-naḥna aḥrā bi-an lā
nataqaddam fīmā taʾakhkhara ʿanhu man huwa aktharu ʿilman wa-aqdamu zamānan wa-
sinnan), but in the time that we are in, people have become two parties:

1) Those who reject what is narrated from these types of ḥadīth completely, denying
them wholly, and by doing this they discredit (takdhīb) the scholars who have
narrated these ḥadīth who are the imams of religion and transmitters of al-sunan (pl
of sunna), and the means between us and the Prophet of God (wa’l-wāsiṭa baynanā wa-
bayna rasūl Allāh) (ṣ) – whereas the other group:

2) submits to these narrations and wishes to affirm the apparent meanings (taḥqīq al-
ẓāhir minhā) in a way which almost (yakādu) ends up in them affirming likenesses
(al-tashbīh).

But we wish to avoid both of these matters and we are not satisfied with any one of
them as a path, therefore it is incumbent upon us, when these ḥadīth are transmitted if
they are sound in their transmission and al-sanad to seek an interpretation (taʾwīl) on
the basis of uṣūl al-dīn and the methods of the scholars, and not invalidate the narration
completely if its chains of transmission are acceptable and its narrators are upright
(ʿudūl)”205

This is precisely the principle articulated in Ibn Fūrak’s Mushkil al-ḥadīth. However

much al-Bayhaqī may have found a precedent in the writings of al-Khaṭṭābī, his historical

significance lies in that he was primed, as a student of Ibn Fūrak, one of the founding fathers of

Ashʿarism among the Shāfiʿī’s of Nishapur, to represent an important transition in the modum

operandi of that scholarly community. Ibn Fūrak had trained in the person of al-Bayhaqī a

first-rate muḥaddith who acknowledged the subordinance of that specialization to the

204
Whom we have seen in chapter three.
205
Ibid., vol. 2, 192-193.
221
interpretive role of the mutakallimūn. In turn, al-Bayhaqī’s premier student, al-Juwaynī, could

take such a delegation of roles as a given. This was an important success for Nishapur

Ashʿarism which helped to normalize the generational shift from the pre-Ashʿarite generation

of Abū Khuzayma into the classical Ashʿarite synthesis of Nishapur Shāfiʿism which went on to

have so much influence.

Not all were so diplomatic: Abū Isḥāq al-Isfarāʾīnī (d. 418/1027), Ibn Fūrak’s colleague in

the circle of al-Bāhilī, wrote a creed in which he implicitly compared non-Ashʿarīs, whom he

labelled “religious pretenders” (muddaʿī al-sharīʿa), to children (sibyān). In authoring this

creed he expressed his hope that such people would learn it in order to be qualified as proper

believers (yastaḥiqq ism al-muʾmin) and even be fit to give fatwās; saying:

If it hadn’t been mandatory (wujūb) on the basis of the sharīʿa I would not have
compiled this [creedal work] for this group, given the ignorance (al-jahāla) which is its
predominant characteristic, and the animosity (al-ʿadāwa) which they affect towards
the advocates of monotheism (ahl al-tawḥīd) because of their own inability to reach this
level (li-quṣūrihim ʿan hādhihi al-martaba).206

Such a critique by Abū Isḥāq was based on al-Ashʿarī’s view that those who had not performed

naẓar were not to be viewed as believers in an unrestricted sense.207 This had implications

which put the Ashʿarī paradigm startingly close to the Muʿtazilites’ in the potential for it to

lead to the anathemization of the masses; a point of controversy which had its reverberations

in the Muslim world at this time, as we shall see in chapter six.

206
Richard M. Frank, “XIV. Al-Ustādh Abū Isḥāḳ: An ʿAḳīda together with selected fragments,” in Texts and Studies
on the Development and History of Kalām, ed. Dimitri Gutas, 3 vols., 129–202, Variorum Collected Studies Series
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005-2008); Originally in: MIDEO 19. Louvain, 1989, 133; Richard M. Frank, “XIV. Al-
Ustādh Abū Isḥāḳ: An ʿAḳīda together with selected fragments,” in Texts and Studies on the Development and History
of Kalām (see note 731). 133
207
See above.
222
 Abū Isḥāq’s methodological critique of the non-mutakallimūn was preserved, at least as

pertains to the right to interpretation, by his “grand student” al-Juwaynī, whom we have also

identified earlier as the first of the Ashʿarī Shāfiʿites scholars to use the word Ḥashwīya in his

polemics against the Ḥanbalīs. As he wrote in his uṣūl al-fiqh work, the Talkhīṣ:

The meaning (dalāla) of the revelation (al-samʿ) cannot be ascertained (lā tathbut) by
someone who has not definitively known (lam yuḥiṭ ʿilman) the establishment of the
Sender (al-mursil, i.e. God) and the one that is Sent (al-mursal, i.e. the prophet). It is
impossible for these knowledges to be attained by a meaning (al-dalāla) which is only
established by prioritizing them (bi-taqdīmihā).”208
Without having to impugn the salvific status of his anti-kalām interlocutors, al-Juwaynī upheld

Abū Isḥāq’s critique of their pretense to scholarly interpretive authority. They may be

believers, but without their prioritizing the rational methods that establish scripture’s validity,

they have no right to interpret it – not even in legal matters. Al-Juwaynī’s double usage of the

word dalāla here is key, because it reflects the difference between naẓar-based and and taqlīd-

based readings of the Qurʾān, respectively: Normative meanings of the Qurʾān (the first usage

of dalāla), based on the proper epistemological procedures, are attainable solely by the one

who performs naẓar. The reason why such normative meanings cannot be acquired solely

from scriptural articulations (the second usage of dalāla); i.e. from merely reading scripture, is

because of the implicit failure to establish the epistemological basis for scripture’s validity and

intelligibility.

Such a sustained critique of the anti-kalām camp’s right to legal interpretation was

never seriously maintained; higher priority was given instead given to matters of theology.

Legal prescriptions may be scripturally determined, as al-Ashʿarī methodologically affirmed,

208
Al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, Kitāb al-Talkhīṣ fī uṣūl al-fiqh, vol. 1, 134.
223
but theology remained a purely rational consideration, and the imperative to interpret

theological matters invoked in the Qurʾān was solely the prerogative of those who performed

naẓar.

Al-Juwaynī articulated the classical formulation of this principle, adopted by luminaries

such as his student al-Ghazālī and later by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. This will be illustrated first by

a polemical example, followed by a methodological discussion.

First, the polemical usage: Much had changed since Ibn Fūrak’s skillful negotation of

Abū Khuzayma’s interpretive authority. Al-Juwaynī not only upholds the necessity of

interpreting verses of the Qurʾān in accordance with naẓar, but vehemently attacks those who

do not. One example illustrates the considerations he has in mind: In his Irshād, al-Juwaynī,

singles out two groups in particular, the Karrāmīya209 and Ḥashwīya, because they believe that

God “is in a space above” (mutaḥayyiz fī jihat fawq), which is problematic because this can only

apply to created being.210 These groups take as a proof the “apparent meaning” (ẓāhir) of the

verse (al-Raḥmān ʿalā al-ʿarsh istawāʾ) and say that it cannot take taʾwīl; however al-Juwaynī

states that there are linguistic indications that this is not the only meaning possible.211 The

reason why one must interpret the verse as opposed to leaving it alone as one of the

mustashābihāt whose meaning only God knows is that:

If the questioner intends to leave the istiwāʾ according to what is understood from
apparent linguistic utterance (ʿalā mā yunbaʾ ʿanhu fī ẓāhir al-lisān), which is

209
A school of Ḥanafism, mentioned in more detail in chapter six.
210
Al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, Kitāb al-Irshād, ed. Muḥammad Yūsuf Mūsā and ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, ʿAlī ʿAbd
al-Munʿim (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Khānajī, 1369/1950), 39–40. al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, “al-Lumaʿ fī
qawāʿid ahl al-sunna,” in Textes Apologétiques de Ğuwainī (Beirut: Dar El-Mashreq, 1968), 147–51.
211
Al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, Kitāb al-Irshād, 40–1.
224
 “settlement” (al-istiqrār), then this would necessitate corporeality (fa huwa iltizām li’l-
tajsīm).212
Denying this, al-Juwaynī says, indicates an eagerness to believe in corporeality (fī ḥukm al-

muṣammim ʿalā iʿtiqād al-tajsīm). If on the other hand, if one rejects “settlement” as impossible,

then one has likewise negated the ẓāhir of the scripture, and it is not possible for one to call

people towards affirming it.213 Once the ẓāhir is negated, “then the verse must be interpreted

in a suitable way which accords with the intellect (lā budd baʿdahu fī ḥaml al-āya ʿalā maḥmal

mustaqīm fī’l-ʿuqūl) on the firm basis of what the religion dictates (mustaqirr fī mūjib al-sharʿ).”214

This is clearly the prerogative of the mutakallim: Though al-Juwaynī acknowledges that

Ashʿarite theologians may differ on taʾwīl among themselves, they differentiate themselves in

regard to apparent readings of the text (ẓawāhir), from those “lowlife corporealizing Ḥashwīya

who are explicit about their reliance on them (qad ṣarraḥa bi’l-istirwāḥ ilayhā al-Ḥashwīya al-ruʿāʿ

al-mujassima).”215 The chief mistake of this latter group consists in their describing and

believing things about God which necessitate temporal/corporal attributes (dalālāt al-

ḥadath/ṣifāt al-ajsām). Were this to be the normative reading of the Qurʾān, it would lead to

one of two things: either 1) the conclusion that God is a temporal entity (al-ḥukm bi-ḥudūth al-

ilāh), or 2) a demolishment of the indications of bodies’ temporality (al-qadḥ fī al-dalīl ʿalā

ḥudūth al-ajsām),216 upon which the proof for God’s existence is built. The inability to rationally

distinguish between the singular nature of the eternal and the multiplicity of temporal being –

212
Ibid., 41. As he says in an earlier passage, al-istiwāʾ in the meaning of the “settlement” of God’s being (bi’l-dhāt)
necessitates qualities which are disbelief (kufr); ibid.
213
Ibid., 41–2.
214
Ibid., 42. Interestingly, al-Juwaynī interprets verse Q 3:7 here in the traditional manner, i.e., as a warning
against probing into the realities of eschatological matters. Eschewing the disputationist interpretation
altogether allows him to avoid the prickly nature of “deviation” attributed to those who perform interpretation.
215
Ibid., 157–8.
216
Ibid., 160-161, cf. 40.
225
as the primary meaning of God’s oneness (waḥdānīya)217 – would necessitate the nullification of

the Islamic faith.

Therefore the proper method of interpretation is as follows: The ʿaqlīyāt, al-Juwaynī

reminds us, are “every foundation of the religion which is known before knowledge of God’s

speech” whereas the samʿīyāt are based on God’s speech. This means, according to al-Juwaynī,

that there are four outcomes to the interpretive intersection between the two:

If the indications (adilla) of the samʿīyāt are 1) not (intellectually) impossible (ghayr
mustaḥīl) and are conclusive (qāṭiʿa) in their way of transmission (fī ṭuruqihā) with no other
possibility in regards to their transmission or interpretation – they must be adhered to (fa-
lā wajh illā al-qaṭʿu bihi).218

However, if the samʿīyāt are 2) not impossible intellectually but inconclusively

transmitted219 or 3) transmitted in a conclusive manner but may be interpreted in many
ways (ṭarīq al-taʾwīl yajūlu fīhā), then:

There is no way to conclusive meaning from it (lā sabīl ilā al-qaṭʿ), though a religious person
(al-mutadayyin) may have a preponderant notion (yaghlibu ʿalā ẓannihi) of the establishment
of what the scriptural evidence indicates is established (thubūt mā dalla al-dalīl al-samʿī ʿalā
thubūtihi) even if it is not conclusive (wa-in lam yakun qāṭiʿan).
[However,] if something in the religion reaches us which 4) opposes the intellect
(mukhālifan li-qaḍīyat al-ʿaql): it is definitively rejected because the religion (al-sharʿ) does
not oppose the intellect (al-ʿaql), so it is inconceivable that there be established a
conclusive scriptural indication (samʿ qāṭiʿ) of this type – this is obvious.220

Al-Juwaynī articulates here the principle which was adopted by his student al-Ghazālī and

later by al-Rāzī, and has been the recent subject of analysis by Anjum.221 However, we may

reflect that this was was only the logical conclusion of al-Ashʿarī’s prioritization of the ʿaqlīyāt

217
Ibid., 52-53, 59-60.
218
Ibid., 359.
219
In critique of the Ḥashwīya, al-Juwaynī says: “As for the ḥadīth they hold on to (yatamassakūna bihā), they are all
non-mutawātir (āḥād) and do not give knowledge; if we refrained from dealing with them at all that would be
permissable;” ibid., 161.
220
Ibid., 359–60.
221
Anjum, Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought, 147–9. See also index, s.v. “qānūn al-taʾwīl.”
226
over the samʿīyāt, mediated in the intervening generations by al-Bāqillānī and Ibn Fūrak, only

to be systematized by al-Juwaynī. It is also al-Juwaynī who changes the tone of the

conversation. It is not only about defending the revelation from those who impugn it, but

about the integrity of the Islamic religion as a whole. Those who do not practice naẓar not only

lack the rational grounding to interpret the scripture, but the logical conclusion of their

position leads to a nullification of the proofs of monotheism; hence the urgency with which

the polemic term Ḥashwīya was rehabilitated in the Ashʿarī Sunnī context.

Religion being established on definitive rational principles, the rule of interpretation

tests the limits of certainty between the dictates of rationality and the apparent reading (ẓāhir)

of the scripture. Irrational and therefore impossible meanings on the level of the apparent

reading are either inconclusively transmitted – as in non-mutawātir ḥadīth – and therefore

inadmissable in the realm of theology in the first place; alternately, if they occur in

conclusively transmitted material such as the Qurʾān, this never happens in a manner wherein

that impossible meaning is the conclusive interpretation. Irrational scriptural content has no

conclusive pathways into religion, whether in its transmission or its interpretive possibility.

Within al-Ashʿarī’s epistemological framework of certainty, al-Juwaynī’s intellectual

opponents are not just wrong in their interpretation, but they posit as definitive either

scriptural sources or interpretations which are not necessarily so.222 Within the paradigm we

have seen established by Ibn Fūrak, they show their deficiency in both their knowledge of

rational proofs as well as the linguistic range of the Arabic language.

222
Just as with the Muʿtazilite interpretation of Q 3:7, this entails a critique of those who confuse the ambiguous
for the unambiguous; which centers on the definitive nature of interpretation. Again, this can only be known by
the intellect.
227
 Although the apparent reading (ẓāhir) is not necessarily problematic, in certain cases it

contradicts the pre-revelatory ʿaqlīyāt which establish the existence of God and truth of

revelation. Naturally such a quandary is not viewed as intrinsic to the revelation which has

been established on rational grounds, but rather as a deficiency on the part of the interpreter

who does not take into account the ʿaqlīyāt which have made revelation accessible. Those who

both undermine the rational process of establishing scripture as well as insist on readings

which rule out its intellectual viability are religious enemies.

Sufficient material has been presented here to demonstrate how the tensions between

early Sunnīs and Muʿtazilites in the 2nd – 3rd/8th – 9th centuries which were the subject of study

in chapter three were now revisited between Ḥanbalīs and Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿīs of the 5th/11th

century. Although the general contours of these controversies are generally appreciated by

the wider academic literature as an inescapable topic in the pertinent historical sources for the

era, the main contribution of the preceding pages is that it does not assume its occurrence as a

given, but explains the necessary steps for this development in a Sunnī context. Such a

sensitivity to the constitutive details of this historical development allows us to better

appreciate its historical significance as a repetition of an earlier intersectarian theological

contention, this time in an intrasectarian context with different protagonists. The importance

of this is compounded when one considers that this is no less the case when dealing with

another (again underappreciated) aspect of the Ḥanbalī – Ashʿarī controversy, which not only

parallels its historical antecedents in its methodological and interpretive considerations, but in

fact takes us again back to the same pivotal question at the core of the Sunnī – Muʿṭazilī

showdown in the 3rd/9th century – the nature of the Qurʾān itself.

228
4.5 An Important Ashʿarī Contention: God’s Attribute of Speech

It was the articulation of the uncreated nature of the Qurʾān, which as we recall had

been elevated to a classical Sunnī shibboleth of orthodoxy, that was destined to become one of

the most important points of contention made by the Ashʿarite theologians against their

Ḥanbalī counterparts in confirmation of the integrity of their kalām-based method.

Fascinatingly, this point of controversy has gone generally unnoticed by the research, with the

notable exception of an article by Hans Daiber in 1994.223

The basis for this had been laid out in detail by al-Ashʿarī himself on the basis of his

rationalistic methods. As he explained it, the composition of speech through words composed

of letters and sounds is indicative of a succession of events which occur in temporal

succession. This cannot be said of God’s uncreated and eternal (qadīm) speech. The Qurʾān

then, was an expression (ʿibāra) of, but not absolutely identical to God’s eternal attribute of

divine speech. In fact, al-Ashʿarī advanced the thesis that the reality of speech, “in all

circumstances” (shāhidan aw-ghāʾiban), was a meaning (maʿnā) that preceded audible words, in

what his later students called al-kalām al-nafsī. Calling letters and sounds (ḥurūf wa-aṣwāt)

“speech” was a metaphorical extension of the concept, but not essential to it. This he found a

linguistic basis for in Qurʾānic verses where people spoke internally to themselves,224 as well as

a verse of classical Arabic poetry:

223
Hans Daiber, “The Quran as a "Shibboleth" of Varying Conceptions of the Godhead,” Israel Oriental Studies 14
(1994), 249–95.
224
Q al-Mujādila 58: 8, Q al-Muʾminūn 23:99.
229
 “Verily, speech (al-kalām) is from the heart (al-fuʾād), and the tongue has only been
made an indicator of [what is inside] it.”225
No explicit contentions against other Sunnī scholars on this topic are to be found in

what has reached us of al-Ashʿarī’s work. With the passage of time, however, the Ashʿarīs

came to see traditionalist minded Sunnīs as a major liability in regards to this topic. In

Nishapur, for example, Ibn Fūrak critiqued earlier Shāfiʿī forefather Ibn Khuzayma due to the

latter’s view that God’s speech was audible;226 this was viewed as a mistake, but a forgivable

one considering it was no longer binding to follow his interpretation. As time progressed, the

tenor on this disagreement between the Ashʿarī mutakallimūn and the traditionalist camp

increased, in particular as kalām was nativised within the Shāfiʿī ranks, and the Ḥanbalīs in

turn turned their polemical pens at them.

The Ḥanbalīs continued, as had earlier Shāfiʿīs such as Ibn Khuzayma, to teach that the

words recited in the Qurʾān, in their letters and sounds (ḥarf/ṣawt), were God’s uncreated

speech. This was completely untenable on the basis of Ashʿarī’s kalām principles, as it posited

the eternality of temporally originated objects. It was with much consternation that al-

Juwaynī critiqued the “al-Ḥashwīya, those associated with the apparent meanings” (al-

muntamūn ilā al-ẓāhir), for saying that God’s speech is both “eternal and pre-existent (qadīm

azalī) and letters and sounds (ḥurūf wa-aṣwāt).”227

But how had this happened? How did the Sunnī traditionalists come to misunderstand

the truth about God’s speech, even in their defense of it? The mere existence of this heretical

225
All the foundational premises of this doctrine are to be found in Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad
maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 59–69. The verse is attributed here to al-Ḥuṭayʾa, a poet who traversed
Jāhilīya into Islam.
226
Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Kitāb Mushkil al-ḥadīth aw Taʾwīl al-akhbār al-mutashābiha, 237–41.
227
Al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, Kitāb al-Irshād, 128.
230
doctrine of the Ḥashwīya, however, may have in fact been seen as the ultimate vindication of

the Ashʿarī methodology. In al-Juwaynī’s view, it was a telling, but detrimental side effect of

unreflective taqlīd which had created this terrible mix-up in the first place: As he explained in

his widely influential ʿAqīda Niẓāmīya, it was “in the time of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal” that it was

widely “disseminated” (ushīʿa) among “the ignorant masses” (jahalat al-ʿawāmm) who were

ignorant of kalām that the actual words of God were in the codexes (maṣāḥif) – and so they

thought that the existence of eternal speech (wujūd al-kalām al-azalī) was written therein, “and

with the passing of time, this notion fixed itself in the hearts of the Ḥashwīya – were it not for

this, it would have been obvious to anyone with the slightest inkling of an intellect [that this

was impossible].”228

According to al-Juwaynī, by asserting that the words of the Qurʾān were God’s actual

uncreated speech, the Ḥanbalīs had deviated from religious. The reason for this is that they

had uncritically followed the plebeian conceptions of the masses, the upshot of which led them

to assert the eternity of physically written or audible words – a direct contravention of the

proofs of rationally established monotheism. The rational impossibility of the Ḥanbalite

theology, which amounted to the disproving of God’s existence on one hand, and troubling

incarnationist tendencies on the other, cemented the Ashʿarite conviction that the group

categorized as Ḥashwīya represented a deviation from the message of Islam which threatened

it from within. Any pretentions of taqlīd based traditionalism had failed, as the contingencies

of that method had been painfully exposed, and a substantial wedge had been set between the

Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalīs, previously unified in their advocacy of the ahl al-ḥadīth.

228
Al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, al-ʿAqīda al-niẓāmīya, 21.
231
 This brings us to a general overview of the varieties of the Ḥanbalī reception of kalām,

beginning from the lifetime of al-Ashʿarī (the 4th/10th century) to the 6th/12th century. The

distinctive positions taken by the members of this school, viewed in comparison to their

increasingly Ashʿarizing Shāfiʿī counterparts, serve as an important example of an equally

significant trajectory for Sunnī scholarship in the classical period. Just as the theological

procedures established by al-Ashʿarī had their own universalist implications that transcended

the madhhab affiliations of its scholarly advocates – likewise the argumentation developed by

Ḥanbalī scholars had its own grounding in theological questions of greater import than its own

school. It is in the details of classical Ḥanbalī thought that the constitutive elements of Ibn

Taymīya’s own worldview were formed.

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Chapter Five: Methodology in Contention: The Ḥanbalī School

For reasons described earlier, the Ḥanbalī school necessarily remained antithetical to

kalām in its incipient stages of development. Unlike the students of al-Shāfiʿī who espoused an

anti-taqlīd ethos, the collective of individuals who formed the proto-Ḥanbalī madhhab took

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal as a figure to be emulated, not only in his interpretation of theological

matters, but also in his role as collector and promulgator of traditionally held theological

positions in polemic with the mutakallimūn. Ḥanbalī traditionalism in the 4th-5th/10th-11th

centuries thus perpetuated the classic “genealogical critique” of kalām, used by early Sunnī

scholars who formed the basis of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s deconstruction of Muʿtazilites as Jahmīya.

It is the development of such tensions which explain the reputation that Ḥanbalism has come

to have within Sunnism as the least receptive of the four madhhabs to rationalism in theology.

In what follows, representative examples of such resistance to kalām from within the

fold of Ḥanbalism will be documented. They not only continue to reassert the earlier Sunnī

concern about the extra-scriptural provenance of theological doctrine, but they explicitly

critiqued those methodological aspects of naẓar as defined by the mutakallimūn which

undermined the supremacy of revelation and its transmission. As is to be expected, this

eventually manifested in an application of the genealogical critique towards their Ashʿarite

counterparts. From this perspective, Ashʿarite doctrine was viewed as a type of Muʿtazilism;

nowhere was this more palpably felt than concerning the issue of God’s speech. On this issue

in particular, the Ḥanbalīs were able to level a critique against Ashʿarism which challenged

their Sunnī identity by questioning their upholding of the orthodox doctrine as espoused by

233
Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and others of that generation. Such critiques increasingly drove a wedge

between the increasingly “Ashʿarizing” members of the Shāfiʿī school, in which ways which

would even enter the realm of the political, as will be explained in the following chapter.

Yet another crucial development from within Ḥanbalism must also be explained, one

that until now has received relatively little attention. Namely, the emergence of a school of

kalām from within the Ḥanbali collective, not from an antithetical stance as has been

previously believed, but as a normative religious duty advocated by personages considered

quintessential for the formation of that legal school. As will be demonstrated, such

rationalistic forays reflect the consideration of a number of the same issues as those

contemplated by al-Ashʿarī for his own nativization of kalām.

The concerns of this Ḥanbalī kalām school also intersect with those matters concerning

the nature of scriptural interpretation which we have encountered earlier. In the Ḥanbalī

kalām school, contemplations on the intersection of language and reason as manifested in the

Qurʾān, caused its representatives to problematize the usage of taʾwīl as it was conceived of in

the other rationalist camps. Far from being optimistic about the usage of taʾwīl for the

“apparent meaning” (ẓāhir) of the text, there was a noted apprehension about the degree of

uncertainty involved in that process. Thus even in the upholding of the ẓāhir of a text, such

mutakallimūn advanced a methodological rebuttal of their own, which was to have its own

reverberations in Islamic thought.

As will be explained below, our relative ignorance of this Ḥanbalī kalām tradition is a

product of multiple factors involving not only the Ashʿarī polemic against the Ḥanbalī school,

but also the prevailing mode of self-representation by the latter. In the midst of the Ashʿarī-

234
Ḥanbalī debates of the 5th-7th/11th -13th centuries, much was at stake regarding the nature in

which tradition came to be defined, ultimately not only in that context, but for posterity as

well. Contention over doctrine and historical memory as well as the negotiation of

interpretation were to have their repercussions for the intersection of religion with the public

sphere in ways of profound importance for posterity in Islam.

5.1 Dominant Forms of Ḥanbalī Traditionalism

Know that Islam is the sunna, and the sunna is Islam: and they cannot be separated from
each other. Following al-jamāʿa is part of the sunna is so whoever disregards the jamāʿa
and leaves it has absolved himself of the bonds of Islam and is astray and leads others
astray. – Al-Barbahārī1

As mentioned in the previous section, much has been made of al-Ashʿarī’s failed

attempt at establishing a rapport with the chief of the Ḥanbalīs in Baghdad at the time, Abū

Muḥammad al-Barbahārī (d. 329/941). Al-Barbahārī, though not so influential for the

development of the school as a whole (the idea of a madhhab being as of yet an inchoate

notion), was undoubtedly one of Baghdad’s most conspicuous representatives of traditionalist

scholarly circles. Al-Barbahārī is historically known as a zealous and dogmatic religious leader,

a hot-headed individual who incited both public admiration and fear for his outspoken

reprimands of those whom he believed to have contravened the sunna of the Prophet.2

This much is known by contemporary researchers, but somewhat less appreciated is

the fact that he was also a devoted disciple of the famous Sufi master Sahl al-Tustarī (d.

1
See al-Barbahārī, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Khalaf, Sharḥ al-Sunna, ed. al-Radādī, Abū Yāsir Khālid b.
Qāsim (Medina: Maktabat al-Ghurabāʾ al-Atharīya, 1414/1993), 67.
2
See Michael Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004), 166 ff. In presenting the sources depicting al-Barbahārī’s activism, Cook does not adequately address
the polemical authorial agendas underlying them.
235
283/896) 3 student of Dhū’l-Nūn al-Miṣrī and teacher of the famous al-Ḥallāj executed in

309/922 on charges of incarnationism.4 As we shall see more examples of later on, Sufism’s

relationship to kalām was anything but uniform, but rather contingent on various historical

factors.5 In this particular context it is significant to point out that Sahl al-Tustarī was also the

inspiration for a group known as the Sālimīya, infamous for rejecting kalām as well as its

adherence to beliefs viewed disfavorably by other Muslim theologians,6 and we will see al-

Tustarī’s name evoked by other Ḥanbalīs antagonistic to kalām in later periods.

We are not in need of speculating about al-Ashʿarī and al-Barbahārī’s supposed

encounter,7 since it is much more instructive to compare their points of view on the basis of

more solidly attributed material. We have in our possession al-Barbahārī’s Sharḥ al-sunna, a

creedal text with a strongly apologetic theme against kalām, which makes for a marked

contrast with what preceded from our survey of al-Ashʿarī’s thought.8 The creed is typical of

3
See Gerhard Böwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The Qurʾānic Hermeneutics of the Ṣūfī Sahl At-
Tustarī (d. 283/896) (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1980), index, s.v. "Barbahārī, Abū Muḥammad". A spiritual quote
by al-Barbahārī of his master is to be found in Abū'l-Ḥusayn Muḥammad Ibn Abī Yaʿlā, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, 2 vols.,
ed. Muḥammad Ḥāmid al-Faqī (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1398/1978), vol. 2, 18.
4
See Böwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam, 62.
5
It is significant to note that the Muʿtazilite framework for naẓar entailed rejection of both the piety of
individuals as a guarantor of religious knowledge as well as the phenomenon of “inspired knowledge” (ilhām). As
we may surmise, following pious inviduals was ruled out as a type of taqlīd. However, ilhām was rejected because
it went against the principle of ʿadl. It would be unfair for God to inspire people with religious knowledge; the
theory of tawallud dictated that human beings create their own knowledge and not have it given to them by God.
The rejection of pietism, inspiration, and miracles (as noted before), elements which are well attested to in
scripture and living traditions of Islamic spirituality was an important obstacle to that reconciliation. Al-
Muḥāsibī, mentioned earlier as one of the first Sunnī mutakallimūn, was a pioneer in traversing between the two
camps of Sufism and kalām, and clearly was an exception to the rule. On Ashʿarī theology and Sufism see chapter
six..
6
See ibid., 21-22, 66; index s.v. “Aḥmad b. Sālim” and “Sālimiyyah". Among the figures associated with the
Sālimīya are the famous Sufi Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386 AH/996 CE), author of the Qūt al-qulūb on Islamic
spirituality relied upon by al-Ghazālī for his Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn.
7
The report will be taken up in detail when discussing its sole reporter, the anti-Ashʿarī propagandist Abū ʿAlī al-
Ahwāzī, see chapter seven.
8
Contrast this with the approach of Allard, “En quoi consiste l'opposition faite a al-Ashʿarī par ses contemporains
hanbalites?,” who placed much weight in al-Ahwāzī’s report.
236
many traditional creeds for the period, but it is the vision of Islam presented therein coupled

with its singularly extensive detraction of kalām which merits our attention in particular.

5.2. Al-Barbahārī and the Defense of Tradition

The content of the Sharḥ al-sunna is diametrically opposed to the sorts of theses which

al-Ashʿarī proposed. The book is meant to record the received tradition, and al-Barbahārī

claims that “everything I have described to you in this book is from God and the Prophet (ṣ)

and his Companions and Successors, and the third and fourth generations (qarn).”9

Contradicting the norms of this tradition is understood as signifying the difference between

faith and disbelief:

“Look, God bless you, in regards to anyone whose speech you hear among your
contemporaries in particular, and do not rush to accept any of it until you ask and
inquire: did the Companions of the Prophet (ṣ) or one of the scholars say it? If you find
a report from them, hold on to it and do not go beyond that for anything else or prefer
anything over it – lest you fall into Hell”10

Islam, he argues, is understood as “following, believing, submitting” (muttabiʿan muṣaddiqan

musliman). To suppose that any part of Islam was left incomplete by the Companions of the

Prophet is to disbelieve in them, insult them, and innovate something new in the religion11 –

i.e., something contrary to the spirit of Islam. This is the exact opposite of al-Ashʿarī’s thesis

9
Al-Barbahārī, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Khalaf, Sharḥ al-Sunna, 108.
10
Ibid., 69.
11
Ibid., 70.
237
that the formalistic difference between the terms of the later and earlier generations can be

explained as a difference in detail.

The reason for this insurmountable difference, however, which gets to the core of the

matter, is that kalām presupposes access to the truth of revelation to be dependent on its

methodological processes: Whereas al-Barbahārī envisions the honoring of tradition as a

hallmark of sincere faith, playing an analogical role to that of direct revelation in the midst of

the earliest Muslims, in contrast he believes that “kalām, disputation, and argumentation are

innovations and create doubt in the heart – even if the one who practices it believes in the

truth and the sunna.”12 The imperative to speculate and doubt all the revealed premises of

religion is viewed as tantamount to rejection of the message of Islam, or the very existence of

God:

“Know that al-kalām concerning the Lord is innovated (muḥdath) and heresy and
misguidance (bidʿa wa-ḍalāla) – and that nothing should be said about the Lord except
that which He has used to describe Himself in the Qurʾān and that which the Prophet
(ṣ) has explained to his Companions: for He (may He be exalted) is One, and “There is
nothing like Him; but He is All-Seeing, All-Hearing” (Q al-Shūra: 11). No one asks How?
or Why? about the attributes of the Lord except someone who doubts (shākk) in God.”13

Indeed, al-Barbahārī makes clear that “no disbelief, either concealed or open (zandaqa/kufr),

nor any doubt (shakk), innovation (bidʿa), misguidance (ḍalāla) or confusion (ḥayra) in the

religion came about from anything other than kalām and its proponents as well as … [all other

types of] argumentation.”14

12
Ibid., 71.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid., 94.
238
 This fits within his vision of history which is highly cognizant of the sectarian split

among the Muslim community.15 The split of the umma into various sects can only be

explained as the product of harmful disputation and speculation which contradicted the tenets

of Islam. Al-Barbahārī views kalām as an essentially sectarian activity.

Al-Barbahārī recounts how the Muslim community divided after the death of the third

caliph ʿUthmān into various sects, and singles out those who held on to the truth as

impervious to this sectarian thrust. The development of kalām for al-Barbahārī is a

magnification of this primordial split of the Muslim population, after which:

People began to disbelieve (kafara) in many ways they were not even aware of: They
established analogical reasoning (al-qiyās)16 and interpreted the power (qudra),17
scriptural verses, rulings, commands, and prohibitions of God on the basis of their
intellects (ʿuqūlihim) and opinions. They accepted that which agreed with their
intellects and rejected that which did not agree with their intellects – and thus Islam
became strange (fa-ṣāra al-Islām gharīban) and the the sunna became strange, and the ahl
al-sunna became strangers in the midst of their own lands.18

The heuristic for this increasing phenomenon of sectarianism is interpreted by al-Barbahārī

according to the ḥadīth which states that the umma will split into 73 sects (firqa), each of them

in Hell except one – “They,” according to the transmitted words of the Prophet, “are the ones

upon that which my Companions and I are on.”19

This genealogical vision of religious sectarianism, presenting the dichotomy of

revelation vs. opinion and tradition vs. foreign influences, is familiar to us from the previous

15
This association of kalām with “dissension” was also covered in chapter two.
16
This was a gripe at the Ḥanafīs, but also at the methods of kalām in general, which relied on making analogies to
speculate on God’s attributes or actions.
17
Allusion to the Qadarī/Muʿtazilī belief that human actions occurred outside of the jurisdiction of God’s creative
power.
18
Ibid., 98.
19
Ibid., 97.
239
chapter where the views of earlier Sunnī scholars were discussed. Al-Barbahārī updates this

picture now to depict a retrospective view of the events of the 3rd/9th century AH/CE. Therein

he presents a vision where in the ahl al-sunna, as preservationists of revelational material par

excellence, are the true ahl al-ʿilm – scholars truly knowledgable about the original message of

Islam, as opposed to the main figures of speculation and disputation, whose claims to religious

knowledge have no pedigree. The villains in this story are the “Jahmīya” and those

responsible for the Miḥna.

The Miḥna, in al-Barbahārī’s telling, was an unprecedented escalation in the struggle

between the Islamic tradition of ahl al-ʿilm and the foreign influences of the Jahmīya wherein

the latter group achieved a dominance that allowed it to spread its doctrine to the masses (al-

ʿāmma), openly reject the reports of the Prophet, and anathemize (kaffarū) those who opposed

them – thereby spreading harmful influences throughout the population. As a result, al-

Barbahārī says that the umma was afflicted with disbelief both open and concealed

(kufr/zandaqa) except for those people who steadfastly adhered to the teachings of the Prophet

as taught by his Companions:

They knew that they [i.e. the Companions] adhered to the correct Islam (al-Islām al-
ṣaḥīḥ) and the correct faith (al-īmān al-ṣaḥīḥ), so they followed them in their religion (fa-
qalladahum dīnahum) and found consolation (istarāḥa) in that, and knew that religion is
only had by taqlīd, and the [true] taqlīd is of the Companions of Muḥammad (ṣ)20

It is a notable development that the logic of the polemic against the mutakallimūn

incites al-Barbahārī to adopt a positive outlook towards the concept of taqlīd; a rhetorically

uncomfortable position for most Islamic thinkers. But the necessities of the genealogical

20
Ibid., 99–100.
240
critique dictate that taqlīd, as depicted here, was used as a symbol of continuity, genealogical

pedigree, and doctrinal purity.

This suffices to illustrate the fundamental difference between the worldview of al-

Barbahārī and al-Ashʿarī. For the former, true faith was maintained by tradition, and not by

speculation; a true Muslim is a preservationist and as such does not doubt or speculate

philosophically to establish his religion. Al-Ashʿarī, on the other hand, felt the need to start

philosophically from the ground up.

This is also reflected in their attitudes towards the emulation of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal. For

al-Barbahārī, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal enjoyed a quintessential role as preservationist of the Prophet’s

way in the face of the Jahmīya’s challenge to the ahl al-sunna, refuting them and exposing their

disbelief to the masses in the midst of a miḥna which afflicted the scholars of ahl al-sunna.21

Were it not for such scholars, upholding the imperative to do taqlīd – of the rightful successors

of the Prophet – al-Barbahārī would seem to think the religion could not exist. For al-Ashʿarī,

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s beliefs can only be correct incidentally, as they are dependent on the

process of naẓar to verify them. The two starting points seem irreconcilable.

5.3 The Logic of Ḥanbalī Kalām Rejectionism

There is a contextual coherence underpinning al-Barbahārī’s views which must also be

identified here. The collection of ḥadīth was still ongoing – the ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī and Muslim

had only been collected in the previous generation,22 and the other four canonical ḥadīth

collections were put together by members of al-Barbahārī’s generation. Likewise, the process

21
The caliph al-Mutawakkil is also praised by al-Barbahārī for his ending of the miḥna, see ibid., 101–3.
22
See Brown, The Canonization of Al-Bukhārī and Muslim.
241
of collecting and sorting the many statements of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s pronouncments on creed,

law, and ḥadīth was still ongoing, being started by his direct students and relatives, and then in

massive compilations by Abū Bakr al-Khallāl (d. 311/923), who also wrote the first Ṭabaqāt al-

Ḥanābila23 - the first biographical dictionary for an eponymic school in Islam. In the same

generation the first primer (mukhtaṣar) of the Ḥanbalī school was written by al-Khiraqī (d.

334/945).24 The challenge of new Sunnī practitioners of kalām such as al-Ashʿarī necessarily

fell on deaf ears, for the simple fact that the methodological skepticism entailed by naẓar went

against the preservationist ethos of the greater ahl al-ḥadīth preservationist movement from

which the early Ḥanbalī school emerged, and of which al-Barbahārī was merely one prominent

representative.

Impervious to the new developments advanced by al-Ashʿarī, Ḥanbalīs continued in the

same theological tradition of the early Muslim forebearers (salaf), compiling Qurʾānic verses,

ḥadīth, and their interpretation by Companions, Successors, and subsequent generations –

these books being replete with isnāds, documentation of the continuity they strove for in

preserving the doctrines of Islam. As they knew very well, books of kalām never had isnāds, as

they represented a dependence on taqlīd which the mutakallimūn found inadmissable.

The most prominent of these creedal works written in the 4th/10th century was the

Ibāna, by the reknowned Ḥanbalī scholar and student of al-Barbahārī, Ibn Baṭṭa al-ʿUkbarī (d.

387 AH/997 CE).25 The Ibāna was a comprehensive attempt to document the positions of the

23
See Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),” 74–80. As Laoust points out, the
Ṭabaqāt is no longer extant, but quoted by Ibn Abī Yaʿlā in his own work by the same title.
24
Ibid., 84.
25
Ibn Baṭṭa al-ʿUkbarī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad, al-Ibāna ʿan sharīʿat al-firaq al-nājiya wa-mujānabat
al-firaq al-madhmūma.
242
salaf on all major topics of Islamic theology, and includes ḥadīth, historical narrations,

correspondence, creeds, and apologetic treatises – each with isnād. The book, prefaced with a

warning by the author on the basis of the ḥadīth of the 73 sects (which is also reflected in the

title of the composition), is only interrupted sporadically thereafter by the author to lament

the state of the Islamic community, and remind the reader to seek guidance from the deviation

of religious disputation and innovation, most ignominiously represented by the Jahmīya

threat.

The anti-kalām component of the Ḥanbalī creedal genre found its most emphatic and

self-standing literary representation in an unprecedently ambitious work penned by Abū

Ismāʿīl al-Harawī al-Anṣārī, the Ḥanbalī mystic of Herat (d. 481 AH/1088 CE), under the title

Dhamm al-kalām wa-ahlihi.26 There, al-Harawī took the genealogical diagnostic method of

heresy to its fullest conclusion, and outlined a history of the “generations” (ṭabaqāt) of

mutakallimūn, from the Qadarīya to the Jahmīya and Muʿtazilites, and made sure to add the

followers of Sunnī mutakallimūn as well: In addition to the quotes of the variety seen in ʿAbd

Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s K. al-Sunna and al-Bukhārī’s Khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād containing early salaf

reports against kalām, al-Harawī documents an additional two centuries of anti-kalām

narrations. These include an ominous narration from ʿUthmān b. Saʿīd al-Dārimī about al-

Karābīsī’s “decline” due to participation in kalām,27 as well as critical narrations against the

followers of Ibn Kullāb,28 and last but not least, harsh invectives against al-Ashʿarī as the last in

26
Al-Harawī, Abū Ismāʿīl ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī, Dhamm al-kalām wa-ahlihi.
27
Ibid., vol. 4, 344.
28
Ibid., vol. 4, 388-389. Cf. ibid., vol. 4, 409.
243
a line of religious deviants.29 By the time that al-Harawī composed this work (in the latter half

of the 5th/11th century) the influence of the Ashʿarī school was clearly on the rise. As will be

illustrated in the following sections, this brought about another series of complications which

manifested on both the scholarly and social level. However, there is another dimension to the

Ḥanbalī critique which must be addressed in order for our assessment of these developments

to be complete; namely, the actual emergence of Ḥanbalī kalām.

5.4 The Rise of Ḥanbalī Kalām

Ḥanbalī antagonism towards kalām is generally recognized in the study of Islam.

However, it has often gone overlooked that the blanket rejectionism of kalām among Ḥanbalīs

very quickly ceased to hold true, of all places in Baghdad, the traditional center of that

madhhab. Al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā (d. 458/1066), who we have come to know in the first chapter as

the dominant face of the Baghdad Ḥanbalī school in the 5th/11th century AH/CE, was in fact the

first prominent scholar of that madhhab who definitively adopted the principle of naẓar ʿaqlī as

the foremost religious obligation in Islam.30

In explaining why Abū Yaʿlā took on this role we can point to various factors, none of

them definitive by themselves, but together may shed some light on the matter. For starters,

he had been raised as a follower of the Ḥanafī madhhab,31 and as such may have been familiar

with principles of Muʿtazilite kalām. It is also relevant is that his first and most important

29
Ibid., vol. 4, 411-427.
30
To my knowledge this has only been fully appreciated by Gimaret, who wrote, “Des premiers ḥanbalites au Qâdî
Abû Yaʿlâ (m. 1066), le changement est complet. On pourrait presque parler d’une rupture. Car, avec l’auteur du
Muʿtamad, le kalâm, jusque là honni et condamné, fait, dans l’école ḥanbalite, une entrée massive et inattendue;”
Daniel Gimaret, “Théories de l'acte humaine dans l'école Ḥanbalite,” Bulletin d'Études Orientales 29 (1977), 156–78:
161.
31
See Ibn Abī Yaʿlā, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 194.
244
teacher after his transition to the Ḥanbalī madhhab, Ibn Ḥāmid (d. 403/1012), had believed it

permissable to move beyond taqlīd in certain cases of “necessity,”32 and statements are

transmitted from him which indicate a certain degree of kalām-type speculation.33 Ibn Ḥāmid’s

justification of independent thinking in cases of necessity is an argument which al-Ashʿarī

successful employed to characterize kalām as a useful apologetic tool,34 and likely resonated

with Abū Yaʿlā’s own concerns, as we shall see. Finally, as his works attest to, Abū Yaʿlā was

personally characterized by strong drive to read extensively and keep abreast of the latest

scholarly developments among the mutakallimūn, both Ashʿarī and Muʿtazilī; he exposed

himself to their arguments, considered them, and did not shy from accepting them if he found

them convincing, or upholding the ijtihād of other Ḥanbalī scholars.

This type of innovative thinking manifests clearly in his al-ʿUdda fī uṣūl al-fiqh, a

compendium of jurisprudential theory which shows a wide familiarity with the books of

Ashʿarī and Muʿtazilite theologians and a willingness to discuss their ideas in extensive depth.

In this work he revolutionized Ḥanbalī legal theory and brought it “up to date” with the latest

32
Gimaret speculates about the role of Abū Yaʿlā’s main teacher Ibn Ḥāmid in preparing the way for this change;
see ibid., 161-162. This is strengthened by the following statement of his: “I have seen a group of our companions
[i.e. the Ḥanbalīs] who prefer not to go beyond [what has been transmitted by Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal] in issues of law
and creed (lit. the roots al-uṣūl), and they will not give a fatwa except with a previously established position, and if
one is not available, they say silence is mandatory. A second group differentiates, saying all things related to
creed (al-uṣūl) may not be responded to except with the positions held on them previously by the religious
authorities (al-aʾimma) … but if it is related to law (al-furūʿ), than the answer to it is not restricted by that, even if
it ends up being a unique position (munfaridan). But the most likely position to me is that both fiqh and creed are
the same, and that he may answer when necessary (ʿinda al-iḍṭirār) and in the course of new events (nuzūl al-
ḥāditha) he may exert himself personally in accordance with the evidences mandate (an yajtahida fī mā yūjibuhu al-
dalīl) and give the fatwa with [what he finds] even if he is unique in that position (bi’l-qawl munfaridan) just as our
imam (Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal) resorted in the end to ẓāhir al-tanzīl in matters of creed even if everyone opposed him;”
Ibn Ḥāmid, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥasan, Tahdhīb al-Ajwiba, ed. al-Sayyid Ṣubḥī al-Sāmarrāʾī (Beirut: ʿĀlam al-Kutub,
1408/1988), 18. Cf. Ibn Abī Yaʿlā, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 176.
33
See, for example, Ibn Taymīya, Darʾ taʿārud al-ʿaql wa'l-naql, 11 vols., ed. Muḥammad Rashād Sālim (Riyadh:
Jāmiʿat al-Imām Muḥammad ibn Saʿūd al-Islāmīya, 1979-1981), vol. 2, 75-76.
34
See chapter four, where kalām was characterized by al-Ashʿarī as something even the salaf did.
245
views, adopting frameworks of the kalām-situated uṣūl al-fiqh common to these two other

schools, agreeing where he saw fit, and articulating his own distinctive positions as well. This

is significant for two reasons: Abū Yaʿlā’s inauguration of this new genre of Ḥanbalī uṣūl al-fiqh

parallels the efforts of the Ashʿarīs in their nativization of naẓar within the framework of

Islamic jurisprudence; it can even be read as an acquiesence to the Ashʿarīs’ arguments on that

front. Furthermore, it is in such uṣūl al-fiqh works that we again find illustrative clues about

the dissemination of kalām in the literature of the eponymously named Sunnī schools, this

time the madhhab of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.

The layout of the ʿUdda is instantly familiar to one acquainted with uṣūl al-fiqh written

by other mutakallimūn, whether Ashʿarī or Muʿtazilī. It cites al-Bāqillānī and Ibn Fūrak from

the former, as well as al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s star student Abū’l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī (d. 436/1044)35

from the latter. After defining what “principles” of jurisprudence are, as well as “definitions,”

it goes on to discuss the nature of “knowledge” and “intellect,” before preceding to discuss the

nature of “communication” (bayān) that al-Shāfiʿī had systematized in his Risāla (here

explicitly quoted), but now suplemented with the significant theoretical considerations added

by Shāfiʿī and Ashʿarī scholars in the interim. This is major departure from the Ajwiba of his

teacher Ibn Ḥāmid, which was essentially a primer (albeit a highly systematic one) for

emulation of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s legal reasoning. This is not to say that the role of the

madhhab’s eponym receded fully into the background; Ibn Ḥanbal’s positions, as well as those

of his interpreters, are woven into the fabric of the work, now alongside the theses of the

35
Abū’l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī’s work only recently begun to be reappraised due in no small part to the efforts of Sabine
Schmidtke and her research associates.
246
mutakallimūn. But now, nestled in the updated methods jurisprudential discourse, is a defense

of the necessity of kalām.

Abū Yaʿlā’s defense of kalām is articulated in that book’s section on the role of qiyās

(analogical reasoning); not where one would typically expect it. This too has its own

significance. Abū Yaʿlā clearly intended to stop the tradition of blaming qiyās which had been

retained (at least formally) among a number of Ḥanbalīs as a vestige of the earlier disputes

between the ahl al-raʾy and their opponents with ḥadīth scholars in the 2nd/8th century.36 But

Abū Yaʿlā’s intentions went even further, because he understood that the reluctance to formal

acknowledgement of qiyās in legal matters was also intrinsically linked with the rejection of

qiyās as the essential foundation of kalām-based theology.37

He therefore opens his chapter on the legitimacy of qiyās in legal matters by arguing

that Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal had used it effectively in his refutations of the Jahmīya.38 A better

pedigree one couldn’t ask for; Abū Yaʿlā seeks to make the case that if qiyās was used in

theological matters by Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, then the entire enterprise of kalām is subsequently

valid. The rest of his arguments, however, are all familiar to us from al-Ashʿarī and the Ashʿarī

theologians.

Taqlīd in theology is rejected emphatically, and naẓar is put center-stage. As Abū Yaʿlā

says emphatically:

There is no way for us to know the truth of a prophet or the lie of a pseudo-prophet
except by al-naẓar wa’l-istidlāl, because the form of a lie is the like the form of
truthfulness … so if it were not for al-naẓar wa’l-istidlāl there would be no way to know

36
Which we saw above in the writings of al-Barbahārī.
37
As we saw earlier, al-Barbahārī blamed qiyās for many of the innovations in the umma.
38
Al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā, al-ʿUdda fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 2nd ed., 5 vols., ed. al-Mubārakī, Aḥmad b. ʿAlī Sayyid (Riyadh,
1410/1990), 1273–5.
247
 any of … [the arguments of his truthfulness]. And that would lead to the dissolution of
religion (ibṭāl al-sharāʾiʿ) and nullification of prophethood (ifsād al-nubuwwāt) and the
inability to distinguish between a truthful person and a liar, a prophet and a
pseudoprophet.39

The alternative is untenable: Following other people’s convictions without proof is

inadmissable given their falliblility; if that person claims to follow someone else, then the

second person needs a proof, and so on ad infinitum.40 Neutralizing the possible

counterargument to be made that the final person in that chain of authority is the Prophet

Muḥammad (who is to be followed devotionally), Abū Yaʿlā asserts that following the Prophet

is not taqlīd because kalām can establish (after rationally establishing the existence of God) his

miracles as proofs of his truth and infallibility.41 This is familiar. Like other Ashʿarīs before

him, we also find Abū Yaʿlā asserting that the falsehood of naẓar can only be explained by

another process of naẓar.42 In other words, there is no way to articulate the falsehood of one

form of rationality except by having counterarguments based on another type of rational

argumentation, whether one realizes it or not.

As for concerns about the formal difference between engaging in kalām and a faithful

adherence to the tenets of scripture, this can be assuaged by recalling Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s

encouragement of speaking against innovation.43 Abū Yaʿlā’s evoking of the eponym of his

madhhab in this context is an admission of the very proposition made by al-Ashʿarī in his

Ḥathth; namely that the salaf too practiced a form of kalām. The logic of the argument goes that

39
Ibid., 1276. It is fascinating how similar this passage is to al-Jāḥiẓ’s defense of kalām in chapter two.
40
Ibid., 1277. This is just like al-Ashʿarī’s argumentation in the Ḥathth, which we also saw developed by al-
Bāqillānī and al-Juwaynī afterwards.
41
Ibid., 1278. This also reminds us of al-Juwaynī’s argumentation against the Ḥanbalīs – though in fact it was
likely written prior to it.
42
Ibid., 1277.
43
Ibid., 1279–80.
248
once any kind of argumentation beyond mere transmission of texts is established as valid, that

door cannot be shut categorically.

And finally, Abū Yaʿlā reminds those who persist in rejecting naẓar that disbelievers also

practice taqlīd.44 This argument is the final one in a series of statements that show the

earnestness with which he considered the serious contentions made by al-Ashʿarī in favor of

naẓar over taqlīd. In acknowledgement of the Ashʿarite challenge to tradition, he could not

conscionably adhere to or propagate the idea that the universal message of Islam was merely a

tradition similar to the traditions carried on by other religious and ethnic communities. Abū

Yaʿlā thus categorically asserts that “Those things in which taqlīd is not acceptable are:

knowledge of God and that He is One, and knowledge of the validity (ṣiḥḥa) of prophethood.”45

Having defended the basis of kalām in his compendium on uṣūl al-fiqh, Abū Yaʿlā did not

neglect to describe his methods in more detail elsewhere. Although we lack a complete picture

of his theological oeuvre, we possess an abbreviated manual of kalām from his composition,

entitled al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn.46

There he explicitly mentions the religious necessity (wujūb) of doing naẓar to establish

the basis of the religion. In agreement with the theses advanced by al-Ashʿarī, naẓar is the first

religious obligation, not by virtue of the intellect, but by virtue of religious injunction (sharʿ),47

44
Ibid., 1279.
45
Ibid., 1217.
46
Al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā, al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, ed. Wadīʿ Zaydān Ḥaddād (Beirut: Dar El-Mashreq, 1974).
47
He points out that the Qurʾān blames taqlīd, “Don’t they look at the camels and how they are created?” “Don’t
they look at the malakūt of the heavens and earth” “And if said to them follow that which God has sent down, they
say nay, rather we follow what we found our fathers upon.” He concludes that if such thinking was not
mandatory, we couldn’t understand the istidlāl mentioned in the Qurʾān nor would miracles have happened (for
us to interpret them as signs); ibid., 20.
249
in implicit solidarity with him against the Muʿtazilite thesis that the intellect has the

prerogative to mandate what it perceives to be right and wrong (ḥasan/qabīḥ).48 Unlike al-

Ashʿarī, but in accordance with other Ashʿarite theologians, he gives a respite (muhla) for

people to do naẓar within a reasonable amount of time. They will not be punished (ʿiqāb) as

long as they do not leave naẓar beyond this period.49

His procedure will be completely familiar to any student of kalām. He carries out

indepth discussions on epistemology,50 ontology of created being,51 and the intellectual proofs

of God’s existence and His attributes.52 The latter two are indebted to the atomist ontology

common to the Muʿtazilī and Ashʿarī kalām methods, and establish the simple and immutable

nature of God, but affirm His description with eternal attributes. In fact, there is evidence that

Abū Yaʿlā even preferred the teaching of divine “modal states” (aḥwāl) established by

Muʿtazilite theologian Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī;53 this theory had also been appealing to

Ashʿarite theologians like al-Bāqillānī and al-Juwaynī.54

In a very revealing statement, Abū Yaʿlā comes to acknowledge that seeking proofs of

God’s existence by accidents and attoms (aʿrāḍ/jawāhir) was not the way of the Prophet and his

Companions; rather it was the miracles they witnessed that displayed the truthfulness of his

48
Ibid., 21–2. In the ʿUdda he also connects the necessity of naẓar with the rational necessity of avoiding the harm
of leaving it communicated by the sharʿ; Abū Yaʿlā, al-ʿUdda fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 1277. This seems to highlight the inner
logic of Ashʿarī’s divine-command based naẓar that built off the Muʿtazilite doctrine of the “fear-inducing notion”
mentioned earlier
49
Abū Yaʿlā, al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, 23–4.
50
Ibid., 22–34.
51
Ibid., 34–43.
52
Ibid., 44 ff.
53
At least, this is one of his positions, according to Ibn Taymīya (see Ibn Taymīya, Darʾ taʿārud al-ʿaql wa'l-naql, vol.
5, 45.); the Muʿtamad rejects this position; see Abū Yaʿlā, al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, 44–5.
54
See index of Frank, Beings and Their Attributes.
250
words.55 Abū Yaʿlā shows a willingness to acknowledge the epistemological divide between the

original and latter-day community of Muslims in a manner undocumented for any Ḥanbalī

scholar before him. It seems he was truly convinced that what worked for the earliest Muslims

did not always work for their successors.

Which brings us back to his predecessors. Al-Barbahārī’s anti-kalām polemic was

neutralized by Abū Yaʿlā via contemplations universal to Islam present in the Ashʿarite school,

bolstered by a reconsideration of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s scholarly independence and reasoning as

a model for emulation. Though Abū Yaʿlā was undoubtedly painfully aware of the legacy of al-

Barbahārī’s Sharḥ al-sunna, he only allows it to resurface in the course of his deliberations for a

specific purpose: He quotes the work, bolstered by ḥadīth and other “common-sense”

arguments, for the purpose of refuting what he characterizes as the Muʿtazilites’ and

Ashʿarites’ contention that “it is not valid (lā yaṣiḥḥ) for an intellect to be more complete than

another.”56 It would seem that Abū Yaʿlā is using al-Barbahārī if only to say that human beings

are not all equally capable of doing naẓar,57 something categorically ruled out in Muʿtazilites

view of ʿadl, or neglected by the Ashʿarites in their defense of naẓar’s mandate. It cannot,

however, be interpreted to represent a complacency in regards to the role of the intellect for

the integrity of Islam’s religious foundations.

55
Abū Yaʿlā, al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, 20.
56
Abū Yaʿlā, al-ʿUdda fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 94–100. This is a reference to al-Barbahārī’s statement that “the intellect (al-
ʿaql) is “born” (mawlūd [?]), and every human being has been given of the intellect that which God wills. They
differ in their intellects (yatafāwatūna fī’l-ʿuqūl) like a speck of dust in the heavens and every human being seeks
knowledge in accordance with that which He has given him of the intellect. The intellect cannot be acquired, but
is a grace (faḍl) from God;” al-Barbahārī, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Khalaf, Sharḥ al-Sunna, 92–3.
57
Cf. his discussion, contrary to the Muʿtazilites, that faith cannot be based on the prerequisite of knowledge of
atomism. Earlier Muslims did not depend on that, nor have the ranks of the Muslims ever been free of those
incapable of performing such thought processes; Abū Yaʿlā, al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, 275.
251
5.4.1 The Baghdad Ḥanbalī Kalām Movement

Abū Yaʿlā’s contribution to the Ḥanbalī madhhab was no flash in the pan. The same

theological premises can be seen in the writings of all the major figures of Baghdad Ḥanbalism

from the 5th/11th to 6th/12th centuries AH/CE, i.e. the figures who established the foundational

normative works for that madhhab. Like Abū Yaʿlā, and the Ashʿarites before him, we again see

the defense of such positions situated within the uṣūl al-fiqh genre.

Abū Yaʿlā’s student Abū’l-Khaṭṭāb al-Kalawadhānī (d. 510 AH/1116 CE), for example, in

his al-Tamhīd fī uṣūl al-fiqh, replicates the argumentation of Abū Yaʿlā for the necessity of naẓar

that we have just seen.58 Like Abū Yaʿlā, he affirms that the type of knowledge where taqlīd is

impermissible encompasses knowledge of God and His oneness, and the validity of

prophethood (ṣiḥḥat al-risāla).59 The necessity of naẓar was even mentioned by him in a didactic

poem used for memorization.60

The same views can be seen in the work of Ibn ʿAqīl (d. 513 AH/1119 CE), another

influential Ḥanbalī jurisprudent and prominent student of Abū Yaʿlā.61 In his al-Wāḍiḥ fī uṣūl al-

fiqh he argued for the necessity of naẓar, and used the same analogy we have seen used by al-

58
Abū'l-Khaṭṭāb al-Kalwadhānī, al-Tamhīd fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 4 vols., ed. Abū ʿAmsha, Mufīd Muḥammad (Jadda: Dār al-
Madanī, 1406/1985). Abū’l-Khaṭṭāb says there is a naṣṣ from Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal on the validity of qiyās; ibid., vol. 3,
360. If there was no qiyās then “that would nullify our knowledge of the Creator and His oneness, because we take
His creation as evidence (nastadillu) of Him; ibid., vol. 3, 361. The same applies to knowledge of prophethood; ibid.,
vol. 3, 361-362. False doctrines are also only known by naẓar; ibid., vol. 3, 362. Following someone else is not an
infallible source of knowledge (unless there is proof of their infallibility like a Prophet), but the truth of it is only
known by naẓar. Following the Prophet is not taqlīd because the miracles are a sign of his truthfulness; ibid., vol. 3,
363.
59
Ibid., vol. 4, 396.
60
“Qālū bi-mā ʿarafa al-mukallafu rabbahu – fa-ajabtu bi’l-naẓar al-ṣaḥīḥ al-murshidī.” See Abū'l-Khaṭṭāb al-Kalwadhānī,
“al-Qaṣīda al-dālīya,” in Sharḥ al-Qaṣīda al-dālīya, ed. al-ʿAskar, Yāsir b. Saʿd b. Badr (Dammām: Dār Ibn al-Jawzī,
1420/2009), 29–32, 29, line 11. This work also shows other evidence of influence by kalām in its terminology.
61
See the illuminating monograph by George Makdisi, Ibn ʿAqil: Religion and Culture in Classical Islam (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1997). For contentions with aspects of his argumentation, see the following chapter.
252
Bāqillānī in the previous chapter to affirm that God cannot be known by scripture: How can

you know if a letter is from Zayd if you don’t know that Zayd exists?62

Ibn ʿAqīl even forbade taqlīd in theology for laypeople.63 This was not an idiosyncratic

view of his own. Such a view was also held by his peer, a student of Abū’l-Khaṭṭāb’s called Ibn

Abī Fatḥ al-Ḥulwānī (d. 546/1151),64 who likewise proscribed taqlīd in theological matters even

in the case of the layperson (al-ʿāmmī).65

The same attitude towards kalām was also adopted by important Baghdad Ḥanbalī

scholars spanning the 6th/12th century such as Ibn al-Zāghūnī (d. 527 AH/1132 CE)66 and Ibn al-

Jawzī. We learn this from Ibn Ḥamdān al-Ḥarrānī (d. 695 AH/1295 CE), a student of Ibn

Taymīya’s grandfather Majd al-Dīn (d. 652 AH/1254 CE),67 who reports:

The Qāḍī [Abū Yaʿlā], Ibn ʿAqīl, Ibn al-Zāghūnī, and Ibn al-Jawzī and others say: among
the rulings of religion is that which cannot be known except by the intellect (lā yuʿlam

62
See quote in previous chapter. “That which cannot be known except by the intellect and not by scripture: [this
includes] such things as the temporality of the world, proving (ithbāt) the existence of its Originator, proving His
oneness, proving His attributes which are mandatory (ṣifātuhu al-wājiba lahu), proving prophethood and the
possibility that God create it, and all related things on the sole merit of which God’s oneness (al-tawḥīd) and
prophethood (al-nubūwa) may be known. The evidence for this is that scripture (al-samʿ) can be defined as God’s
speech and that which is narrated from the person known to be His prophet conveying reports from Him (al-
mukhbir ʿanhu), as well as the consensus (ijmāʿ) of those whom the Prophet has informed us will not err in their
words – and it is not possible to know that a given utterance is the speech of God and His prophet, nor that his
sayings are transmitted by those do not err – except after knowing God, because all of this is derivative (farʿ) from
the proof of God’s existence. It is impossible to know God’s description or the description of God’s Prophet if you
don’t know God first, just as it is impossible to know Zayd’s speech or Zayd’s messenger if you don’t know Zayd.
Therefore the knowledge of God and His Prophet must be acquired by the intellect, and not scripture;” Ibn ʿAqīl,
al-Wāḍiḥ fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 4 vols., ed. George Makdisi (Beirut: Klaus Schwartz Verlag, 1417-1423/1996-2002), vol. 1, 32.
For more on naẓar in general, see ibid., vol. 1, 21 ff.
63
Majd al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya, Shihāb al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya, and Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya, al-Musawwada fī uṣūl al-fiqh,
ed. Muḥammad Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Madanī, 1384/1964), 458. // 2001 edition of
Musawwada, vol. 2, 845/
64
For biography see Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 39-40.
65
Ibn Taymīya, Ibn Taymīya and Ibn Taymīya, al-Musawwada fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 457. //// [Musawwwada 2001 vol. 2,
844.
66
“Al-naẓar wa’l-istidlāl leading to knowledge of God is mandatory (wājib) among the majority of scholars;” Ibn al-
Zāghūnī, al-Īdāḥ fī uṣūl al-dīn, ed. ʿIṣām al-Sayyid Maḥmūd (Riyadh: Markaz al-Malik Fayṣal li'l-Buḥūth wa'l-Dirāsāt
al-Islāmīya, 1424/2003), 179.
67
On whom see chapter eight.
253
 illā bi’l-ʿaql) such as knowledge of God and the prophethood of His prophet, and the like
without which knowledge of God’s oneness or [validity of] prophethood cannot be
attained. 68

We unfortunately do not possess many examples of Ḥanbalī kalām works, but we can refer to

one extant work of Ibn al-Zāghūnī as a useful example, entitled al-Īḍāḥ fī uṣūl al-dīn, which

along with Abū Yaʿlā’s Muʿtamad is one of the few sources which can provide us with a rare

glimpse into this development in the Ḥanbalī school. Startling in its sophistication for a

Ḥanbalī whose biography only labels him as a jurist, muḥaddith, and preacher,69 Ibn al-

Zāghūnī’s methodology exceeds Abū Yaʿlā’s in detail and nuance, displaying a high degree of

intellectual independence.

Ibn al-Zāghūnī also has definitive arguments to make about those Muslims (Ḥanbalī and

otherwise) who maintained the reservations held by previous generations about practicing

kalām:

One group has said that [naẓar] was not mandatory, then differed amongst themselves:
One group of them said that it was mandatory (al-farḍ) to do naẓar, but that finding
evidence (al-istidlāl) in order to know God is only defined as taqlīd [viz. following of
scholars’ opinions]. The other group said it is only necessary to follow the scriptural
sources (ittibāʿ al-khabar).70

Ibn al-Zāghūnī then proceeds to systematically refute both of these ideas, with

arguments similar to what we have read from the pens of scholars who preceded him. Naẓar

68
Ibn Ḥamdān, Aḥmad b. Ḥamdān b. Shabīb, Nihāyat al-mubtadiʾīn fī uṣūl al-dīn, ed. al-Salāma, Nāṣir b. Saʿūd b. ʿAbd
Allāh (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 1425/2004), 79.
69
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 404-406.
70
Ibn al-Zāghūnī, al-Īdāḥ fī uṣūl al-dīn, 79.
254
cannot mean following previous authorities nor scriptural evidence, since religion cannot be

based on blind authority, or a scripture from a God that hasn’t been proven to exist yet.71

The shift in worldview in these Ḥanbalī scholars is undeniable.72 These reknowned

scholars of the Ḥanbalī school felt that the push for taqlīd which their fellow Ḥanbalīs

advocated was not intellectually defensible. From the perspective of the history of ideas,

however, what cemented the acceptance of kalām among these Ḥanbalī scholars, was the

strength of al-Ashʿarī’s scripturally-nativized rationalism. As the Qurʾān indicated, reasoning

was what distinguished the believers from disbelievers – and the Qurʾān had many arguments

for the existence of the One God, describing the prophet Abraham himself as making

persuasive arguments for the truth of monotheism over idol worship – an argument made by

al-Ashʿarī and utilized by the Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn who followed in his footsteps. 73

It was scripture which mandated naẓar, and not the intellect alone. This was a point of

agreement between Ashʿarī and Ḥanbalī mutakallimīn in contradistinction with their

Muʿtazilite counterparts, since the latter said that mankind was – without first being told to do

71
Ibn al-Zāghūnī says: “The foundations of error is for the human being to be ignorant of what he bases himself
on (yusnid amrahu ilayhi) in regards to the beliefs of his way of life (min ʿaqīdati dīnihi) such that he follows with no
proof (muqallidan) in it, and causes confidence in what he is following to be diminished;” ibid., 170. The Qurʾān
rejects taqlīd, defined as “following someone else without a proof;” taqlīd only demonstrates that one is not
confident (laysa ʿalā thiqa min nafsihi) about that which he is following, because in one sense it could be true or
false (and he wouldn’t know); ibid., 170–2. Like al-Bāqillānī and al-Juwaynī he says that the person being followed
must be examined: if ignorant, he cannot be followed. If knowledgeable, it is on the basis of “being correct and
having investigated (al-iṣāba wa’l-taḥqīq) – not taqlīd; ibid., 172. As for the counterclaim that many people change
their positions during the reasoning process, he acknowledges that people have deficiency (taqṣīr), boredom
(malal), or inability, following a famous person (muʿaẓẓam) or ʿaṣabīya for a certain position – truly, he
acknowleges that being free from these things is a great accomplishment. Nevertheless, the “follower without
proof” (muqallid) is certainly someone in whom confidence cannot be placed; ibid., 172–3.
72
Compare these positions to the statement of Ibn Abī Mūsā (d. 428/1036-7), a prominent member of Ibn Ḥāmid’s
generation. who reports the explicit statement (naṣṣ) from Aḥmad that God and His attributes may only be known
by al-sharʿ; Ibn Ḥamdān, Aḥmad b. Ḥamdān b. Shabīb, Nihāyat al-mubtadiʾīn fī uṣūl al-dīn, 23.
73
Ibn al-Zāghūnī, al-Īdāḥ fī uṣūl al-dīn, 183.
255
so by scripture – responsible for looking into the nature of the universe and rationally

deducing God’s existence therefrom, on penalty of eternal damnation. This attitude was one of

the causes for accusations of Muʿtazilite impiety, or in other words: a piety foreign to

prophetic religion established by revelation and its transmission. Within the Sunnī kalām

synthesis common to the two groups, the imperative to use reason could never be perceived as

contrary to a command from the divine words of the Qurʾān, or the product of foreign

impulses.

5.4.2 A Point of Conflict: God’s Speech

These points of agreement being established, both Ashʿarīs and Ḥanbalī mutakallīmūn

were nevertheless divided on key points of theological interpretation. Both Abū Yaʿlā and Ibn

al-Zāghūnī’s texts give us clear examples of how the Ḥanbalīs critiqued the Ashʿarite position

on God’s speech, as well as their interpretation (taʾwīl) of God’s attributes as described in

scripture.

The two scholars in fact did their best to explain their position on God’s speech as

audible sounds within the ontological framework of kalām. As al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā explained it:

God’s speech is eternal (qadīm), and thus not a body (jism) or atom (jawhar) or accidental

feature (ʿaraḍ), being unlike human speech (kalām al-ādamīyīn), due to the rational

establishment of the impossibility of the eternality of created being.74 Nevertheless, God’s

speech is audible, intelligible letters and sounds (al-ḥurūf al-mafhūma wa’l-aṣwāt al-masmūʿa),

however, because that is the nature of speech, whether eternal (al-qadīm) or temporal (al-

74
Abū Yaʿlā, al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, 86–7.
256
muḥdath).75 That is to say, that this is the actual linguistic definition of speech (incidentally

affirmed by Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal as well, he adds).76

As Abū Yaʿlā explains, in contradistinction to the Muʿtazilī position, the sharīʿa might

use Arabic words in a way which they were not used specifically at the time of revelation, but

it does not fundamentally change the linguistic underpinnings of the word.77 Here he shows

his agreement with the language theory articulated by al-Ashʿarī, but differs critically on the

definition of speech which al-Ashʿarī has advanced.78 In order to keep in line with the dictates

of the Arabic language, Abū Yaʿlā asserts, “speech” must be affirmed as audible words.

Ibn al-Zāghūnī too, upheld that the letters (al-ḥurūf) of the Qurʾān are eternal, in

opposition to both Ashʿarites and Muʿtazilites.79 His articulation of this position, however,

delves even deeper into the principles of kalām:

If God’s eternal speech can be described as audible letters, this does not mean that

these letters necessarily exist in the customary temporal succession of a word’s constitutive

structure, thus violating the ontological nature of eternal being; rather, they only do so when

limited human faculties perceive or pronounce them.80 The temporal ordering (tartīb) between

constituent elements of speech by which speech is “understandable” (mufīd) and thus properly

called speech applies not to the essence (dhāt) but to the nature of speech’s actualized

existence (wujūd). God, not being corporeal, neither processes nor produces speech in that

75
Ibid., 92.
76
Abū Yaʿlā, al-ʿUdda fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 185–6.
77
Ibid., 189–90.
78
See Ashʿarī’s definition of speech in chapter four.
79
Ibn al-Zāghūnī, al-Īdāḥ fī uṣūl al-dīn, 433 ff.
80
Ibid., 360.
257
manner. His speech, being eternal, is not essentially characterized by this type of ordering

except in as much as it manifests (al-ẓuhūr), i.e. is “heard” and processed by human receptive

capacities (al-ālāt).81 The temporal ordering of speech strictly entails a consideration of

corporeal parts of phonetic production and reception, of which God is transcendent. A specific

phonetic-semantic ordering (tartīb maʿnawī) may be inherent to speech’s essence, but only

manifests temporally when God’s speech is heard by humans who are defined by such

categories. The Ashʿarite objection that eternal lettered speech is a violation of reason (maʿqūl)

and sense-data (maḥsūs) are considered by Ibn al-Zāghūnī to be more applicable to their theory

of divine speech.82

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s prohibition from calling the Qurʾān’s pronunciation (lafẓ) created83

was thus upheld: Abū Yaʿlā enshrined this within attempts to evade the related controversy by

prohibiting the statement that the lafẓ was created or uncreated or saying that the recitation

and writing were eternal (qadīmān) – these, as we know were stumbling blocks for the doctrine

which the Ashʿarite theologians used against them. The chief point Abū Yaʿlā makes, is that

the words recited and written in the Qurʾān were the same eternal ones God had spoken, and

not an expression (ʿibāra) of God’s wordless speech as the Ashʿarites said.84

Of note is that Ibn al-Zāghūnī makes a distinction between the Ḥanbalīs of Khurasan

and those of Iraq in the period following Abū Yaʿlā. Apparently, the former did not prevent

the statement that the Qurʾān was manifest (ḥāll) in the codex, whereas the Iraqi scholars did.

81
Ibid., 362–6.
82
Ibid., 366–8.
83
This point was the subject of considerable controversy, as we saw in chapter three.
84
Abū Yaʿlā, al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, 87–90.
258
The Iraqi position was more amenable to him, though he views the Khurāsānī position as

merely a matter of expression (al-tawwasuʿ fī’l-alfāẓ).85 In light of the tone of polemic that

developed between the Ashʿarite theologians and the Ḥanbalīs in Khurasan, this is an

important detail which explains how the specific articulation of the position very probably

confirmed the Khurasani Ashʿarites’ view of the Ḥanbalīs as believing in God’s eternal

attributes manifesting literally in the creation.

Upholding Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s legacy of is paramount for both Abū Yaʿlā and Ibn al-

Zāghūnī, who not only say unequivocally that the one who says the Qurʾān is created is a

disbeliever (kāfir), but likewise anathemize the one who says that the utterance of the Qurʾān

is created (al-lafẓ bi’l-Qurʾān makhlūq) and reject any attempt to find evidence to the contrary.86

Naturally, this would apply not only to the Muʿtazilites, but to the Ashʿarites as well.

5.4.3 Explaining a Lacuna in Islamic History

The emergence of Ḥanbalī kalām is not commonly known in the research. George

Makdisi, one of the more recent authorities on the Ḥanbalī school, though familiar with

aspects of it, neglected to definitively establish its existence and influence. Instead, he

emphasized the role of Abū Yaʿlā’s student Ibn ʿAqīl as an outlier, a Ḥanbalī rationalist who

was an exception to the rule in an era of traditionalist revivalism.87 This oversight, which

might seem surprising at first glance, must be contextualized by the Ḥanbalī school’s own self-

representation. The development of Ḥanbalī kalām is not depicted in the madhhab’s

85
Ibn al-Zāghūnī, al-Īdāḥ fī uṣūl al-dīn, 448–9.
86
Abū Yaʿlā, al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, 267. Ibn al-Zāghūnī, al-Īdāḥ fī uṣūl al-dīn, 634.
87
The reasons for this will be covered in the following section.
259
biographical literature and thus can be said to have been excluded from the legal school’s own

self representation upon which most researchers have relied. No less conspicuous a figure

than Abū Yaʿlā’s son wrote the first Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila; there he tells us nothing of Ḥanbalī

kalām, but only reports earlier traditionalist creeds,88 and is our only source of al-Barbahārī’s

rejection of al-Ashʿarī.

In this sense it is “Ḥanbalī history” which is partially to blame for the obscuring of

these developments. The Ḥanbalī school as a collective could not do so; it was not merely a

legal school, but a collective of individuals who inherited the legacy of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s

extensive corpus of pronouncements not only on law but on theology and comprising

numerous condemnatory statements on those who engaged in the practice of kalām. Such

statements were recorded of other major imams, to be sure, but not as abundantly. The nature

of Ḥanbalī self-representation was such that it precluded the possibility of revealing this most

significant intellectual development among its scholarly ranks, whether among its common

adherents, or those outside of the school, past and present.

The only other source where we would expect to have some attestation to Ḥanbalī

kalām would be in other kalām books. However, Ashʿarī mutakallimūn seem to have ignored the

Ḥanbalī kalām practitioners and did not take them into account. Positions held by Ḥanbalī

mutakallimūn are not discussed on the basis of their own works, but grouped together with

popular opinions and “plebeian pseudo-scholars” (Ḥashwīya) characterized as opposed to all

rational investigation. One searches in vain for any explicit acknowledgement of Ḥanbalī

88
These were referenced in chapter three.
260
kalām in Ashʿarī texts. This too has its explanations, of which we can present two here, one

methodological and the other sociological:

For one, Ḥanbalī kalām, just like “traditionalist” Ḥanbalism which Ashʿarī theologians

dismissed, by and large rejected taʾwīl of the Qurʾānic descriptions of God. From this

perspective, such interpretive conclusions had the result of precluding any consideration of

their theological methods, for the reasons we have laid out in the previous section; namely,

that a failure to reinterpret certain scriptural descriptions belied one’s ignorance of the

ontological underpinnings of God’s existence or of the communicative nature of language.

For this reason it is all the more important to scrutinize the Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn’s

position on these matters: Abū Yaʿlā clearly stated in his kalām writings that God was not

corporeal, nor in a place, nor were descriptions of Him to be seen as implying limbs (jawāriḥ).89

Whoever believed God to be corporeal, described by composition (taʾlīf) or movement (al-

intiqāl) was, the Qādī said unreservedly, unequivocally a disbeliever.90

Of course, the chief difference lay in the role of interpretation, or taʾwīl. The Ḥanbalī

school adhered to the general position layed out by the salaf that descriptions of God were

meant to be left untouched. Yet even this position was articulated in terms intelligible to the

greater kalām discourse – albeit at odds with the Ashʿarī formulation of the “rule of

interpretation” built on Q 3:7.

89
Abū Yaʿlā, al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, 51 ff.
90
Ibid., 271.
261
 Abū Yaʿlā in fact shows himself to be aware of the whole gamut of positions on the

meaning of the muḥkam/mutashābih.91 However, he inclines not to a dichotomy of monosemy

and polysemy, but rather “clear” and “unclear” verses. More significantly, he goes as far as to

say that this distinction is such that no one can know the taʾwīl of the mutashābih verses in the

Qurʾān. His interlocutors, as he acknowledges, argued that the Qurʾān could not contain

verses whose meanings are not known – an argument we have seen from certain early Sunnī

voices,92 Muʿtazilites,93 and Ashʿarites.94 In response, he argues that this indeterminateness to

certain Qurʾānic meanings is in fact well established. Examples he offers include descriptions

of angels and other otherworldly entities whose reality is not understood.95

In his Ibṭāl al-taʾwīlāt, where he argues definitively against taʾwīl, he reiterates his

methodological undestanding of the two categories as 1) “that which is clear and self-sufficent

in explaining itself by itself,” and 2) “that, the meaning of which cannot be arrived at via the

language of the Arabs” (lā yūqafu ʿalā maʿnāhu bi-lughat al-ʿarab). This necessitates a stop after

§4a, which means that only God knows its meaning.96 We may note that Abū Yaʿlā’s position is

the antithesis of Ibn Fūrak’s argumentation in the Mushkil al-ḥadīth, who argued that it was a

91
As we recall, so too was al-Juwaynī, who in his Irshād in fact preferred a non-disputationist “traditionalist”
interpretation of Q 3:7.
92
Like al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Qutayba; see chapter three.
93
Like al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār; see chapter three.
94
Like al-Ashʿarī and Ibn Fūrak; see chapter four.
95
Abū Yaʿlā, al-ʿUdda fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 684–96.
96
Al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā, Ibṭāl al-taʾwīlāt li-akhbār al-ṣifāt, ed. al-Najdī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Ḥamūd
(Kuwait: Dār al-Īlāf), 59. He goes even further, explicitly refuting Ibn Qutayba’s statement that the rāsikhūna fī’l-
ʿilm know its meaning; ibid. This he also does by quoting Abū Bakr b. al-Anbārī’s Kitāb al-radd ʿalā ahl al-ilḥād who
refutes Ibn Qutayba’s position on this by quoting traditional positions affirming a stop after §4a (see ibid., 60.) as
well as the Sunan of Ibn al-Muẓaffar al-Ḥāfiẓ; ibid., 62–3. He quotes Abū Sulaymān al-Khaṭṭābī to strengthen this
position who also says that faith in many things mentioned in the Qurʾān is required, angels, books, prophets,
afterlife, without comprehensive knowledge about their reality; ibid., 63–4.
262
necessity for God’s revelation to be intelligible to those whom it was revealed to, upon which

basis the stop after §4b only made rational sense. Abū Yaʿlā, however, believes that the

mutashābihāt are a sui generis category of verses that do not have to conform to this linguistic

standard – which as we have seen, he otherwise upheld in regards to other theological matters.

Ibn al-Zāghūnī, in turn, added to the argumentation: The classical justification for

taʾwīl is to resolve the implications of tashbīh. However, he argues, if one rejects (as all

mutakallimūn did) that the Qurʾān necessarily entails tashbīh, then taʾwīl can also be rejected

because there is no inherent need for it.

The reason for this, in fact, is confidence in the procedures of kalām: Essential attributes

for bodies being known and it having been established by the rational proofs for God’s

existence that God, though described as an entity characterized by attributes of life and power

is not equivalent to those beings currently witnessed (al-mushāhadah) – then if scripture (al-

naql) contains additional attributes (ṣifāt), they too must be affirmed with the knowledge that

they likewise do not necessitate equivalency to corporeal entities (=created being). 97 This too,

reminds one of Ibn Fūrak’s argumentation in his Mushkil al-ḥadīth,98 about how scriptural

descriptions are necessarily intelligible and in accordance with the intellect; but it differs in

that it does not rely on taʾwīl to make the rational meaning intelligible.

The problem with taʾwīl, Ibn al-Zāghūnī argued, in an influential position for the

Ḥanbalīs, as we shall see, is that it is based on “conjecture and that which is merely possible”

(al-ẓann wa’l-tajwīz), and not on the basis of “certainty and conclusiveness” (al-qaṭʿ wa’l-taḥqīq),

97
Ibn al-Zāghūnī, al-Īdāḥ fī uṣūl al-dīn, 292–3.
98
See chapter four.
263
while “it is is not permissable to base belief (al-iʿtiqād) on conjectural matters (umūr maẓnūna)

and to turn away from adhering to definitive statements (al-taʿalluq bi-qawl maqṭūʿ bihi).”99 In

other words, if the epistemic shift in Sunnī kalām had required a higher degree of certainty for

theological matters, most particularly in their ontological grounding, such certainty should

also apply for normative matters of interpretation. Although the taʾwīl of a scriptural

description of God was possible, it was conjectural and not absolutely definitive. If both

Muʿtazilites and Ashʿarites argued that those verses whose ẓāhir went against the rational

proofs of God were to be considered polysemous, as opposed to those which accorded with

them and were thus monosemous – the Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn, affirming the polysemy

attributed to these verses, argued against the certainty with which one of those possible

meanings was determined to be the “correct” one.

As we recall, Ibn Fūrak and al-Juwaynī specifically said that not doing taʾwīl led to an

assertion of the ẓāhir of the text which contradicted God’s rationally established

transcendence. In contrast, the Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn argued that the reinterpretation of the

text was not necessary. Both agreed on the primacy of naẓar for proper belief in God, but

whereas the Ashʿarīs found the ẓāhir impossible to affirm while still preserving the integrity of

their ontological division between created and uncreated being, the Ḥanbalī theologians who

upheld the same ontological considerations, denied that affirmation of the text necessarily

obviated them.

This was a particularly sensitive issue. To affirm the ẓāhir, according to the Ashʿarite

theologians, would be irrational, upholding meanings in contradiction of the rational proofs

99
Ibid., 296.
264
for God’s existence, and strengthening the claim of the atheists who deny revealed religion.

To the Ḥanbalī theologians, circumvention of the ẓāhir by a taʾwīl would be an implicit

accusation of revelation’s irrationality and a perceived acquiesence to those who problematize

the existence of transcendent being characterized by essential attributes.

This highlights an irony unknown to previous historians who have neglected to address

the emergence of Ḥanbalī kalām. By limiting their attention to the public religious discourse of

the late Abbasid era, wherein Ashʿarīs and Ḥanbalīs polemicized against each other in a fight

for domination and survival, they have obscured the curious fact that the Ashʿarīs and some of

the most prominent Ḥanbalī scholars of that time were actually in agreement on core

principles of the ʿaqlīyāt (epistemology, ontology, natural theology).100 The difference between

these two scholarly groups then, cannot be summed up as a simple struggle of reason vs.

traditionalism but as a mutual contention surrounding the perennial question of how the

rational premises of religion or ʿaqlīyāt functioned to reveal the underlying intentions behind

God’s communication; i.e., al-samʿīyāt, divine revelation as the nexus between reason and

human language.

This is not to say that the sectarianism which divided the two camps was a farce (far

from it); the insight we have just achieved into the nature of the debate is only an abstraction

based on propositions buried within text books which as the stuff of kalām did not grace the

ears of religious congregations. Beyond the idealized realm of the mind, in the real world,

larger concerns were at hand, and in a period of social crisis theoretical considerations took

100
This unity does not negate unique contributions from both sides, which unfortunately cannot be studied in
further depth here.
265
backseat to communal concerns about orthodoxy, tradition, and authenticity. It is to these

larger topics that we now turn our attention.

The reason for this, second, sociological dimension for the estrangement of the

Ashʿarite Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalīs, to the point where the real points of agreement were even

obscured, has to do with something much more immediate and palpable: by the time Abū Yaʿlā

had established Ḥanbalī kalām, a set of political events had been set in motion which pitted

Ashʿarīs and Ḥanbalīs against each other in sectarian conflict that was not to subside unti the

Mongol invasion. These were to have constitutive effects for the public negotiation of Muslim

theology to the present day.

266
Chapter Six: The Qādirī Creed and the Public and Private Negotiation of Islamic
Tradition

Although figureheads and public pronouncements of theological orthodoxy were many

in the early period, no formalized binding religious authority existed in the minds of Muslims

other than the perceived embodiment of revelation’s mandate. Even with the development of

sophisticated jurisprudential methods, when scholars agreed that the layperson had to submit

to the authority (taqlīd) of qualified scholars, submitting to any particular one scholar could

not be mandated; rather, the layperson himself was supposed to – analogously to the activity

of the religious scholarly elite – exercise his own approximation of independent reasoning

(ijtihād; the legal counterpart to naẓar) to determine who the more reliable and knowledgable

scholar was – in order that he follow him as the properly mandated religious authority.1

In contrast to religious authority, which we have divided into theology and law, the

caliphate had always been a concrete manifestation of temporal political authority which had

no inherent (viz. revelationally mandated) bearing on personal convictions of faith or even of

legal interpretation. As an ideal, this authority only operated in the temporal realm of politics,

and not the religious; however the office being legislated by religious authority, the potential

for caliphal temporal authority to cross over into religious affairs and influence the nature of

normative religious authority did exist. Within the scope of this thesis, we can point to two

1
Taqlīd in matters of law was proof-texted Qurʾānically (cf. Q al-Naḥl 16:43, Q al-Tawba 9:122, al-Nisāʾ 4:83) and
accompanied with acknowledgement of the untenability for the masses to figure everything out by themselves
and still sustain society. See, for example, Abū Yaʿlā, al-ʿUdda fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 1225 ff. Although said to have been
rejected by the earliest Muʿtazilites, the position of the Basran school of the Jubbāʾīs which shaped the late
Muʿtazilite school allowed taqlīd for law (sharʿīyāt) in regard to the masses. The one who does taqlīd in matters of
law does not have to think that it is al-dīn and al-ḥaqq; sharʿīyāt are not in the same category as ʿaqliyāt, but rather
a form of servitude (ʿibāda) and obedience (ṭāʿa); al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-al-ʻadl,
517-518, 531.
267
prominent examples, both of which were calculated interventions in the precarious system of

taqlīd which linked the masses (and many leaders) to the scholarly class, and thus interpreters

of religious authority in Islam.

The first was the miḥna, sponsored by the Abbasids in the 3rd/9th century, which as

mentioned earlier, has gained much attention as a conspicuous instance of caliphal

intervention in matters of faith.2 The second example, equally momentous, but the effects of

which have not quite been fully quantified till now, is the Abbasid policy of pro-traditionalist

religious policy in the 5th/11th century, in a phenomenon described by George Makdisi as “the

Sunnī revival.” Whereas the political policies initiated by al-Maʿmūn had supported the

doctrines of the mutakallimūn and a public rapprochement with Shīʿism, this time the Abbasid

caliph al-Qādir (r. 381 – 422/991 – 1031) pushed in the opposite direction, supporting the ahl al-

sunna and the ethos of traditionalism. The push made by al-Qādir to undermine “innovation”

(the watchword for heresy in Islam) was a political intervention which acted as a stimulus for a

public affirmation of “authenticity.” The sectarian religious-political intrigues of the 5th/11th

century can be read to a certain degree as the product of rivaling attempts to successful self-

representation in accordance with the Sunna to underline the viability of competing factions in

the scholarly class.

6.1 The Qādirī Creed

This was, for the Abbasid caliphate, a reaction to theological-political developments

that had drastically changed the landscape of the Muslim world. By the end of the 4th/10th

2
The proclamation of al-Maʾmūn reproduced in chapter three clearly set out to use the power of the caliphate to
subvert the notion of ʿadāla used by the ahl al-sunna to preserve their claims to authenticity by continuity and
replace it with the naẓar based system of the mutakallimūn, as the basis of a more authentic understanding of
revelation
268
century, Ismāʿīlī Fatimids ruled Egypt, Syria, and the Ḥijāz, and had significant proselytization

successes in the East. The Abbasid caliphate, which had been weakened financially and

militarily at the end of the 3rd/9th century, had also been reduced to the function of a symbolic

figurehead to the advantage of the religious predilections of warlords who wielded actual

temporal power and were friendly to Shīʿism and Muʿtazilism: The Ḥamdānid dynasty in

northern Syria (r. 293-394/905-1004) was Imāmī Shīʿite, and the Buyid amirate, a Daylamite

confederation stretched over Iran and Iraq and occupying the Abbasid capital of Baghdad for

over a century (r. 334-447/945-1055), was friendly to both Zaydī and Imamite forms of Shīʿism

and allowed Muʿtazilī activity to flourish.

Figure 2. Political Divisions of the Muslim World at the Outset of the 5th/11th Century3

3
From Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974), vol. 2, 24.
269
 From the capital of the ʿAbbāsid empire, the caliph al-Qādir worked to undermine

forces unamenable to Sunnī Islām. In 402 AH/1011 CE he gathered the signatures of the

scholars and notables of Baghdad, including nobility from the descendants of ʿAlī (including

Imamite scholars al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā and al-al-Sharīf al-Raḍī4) to sign a proclamation

affirming that the Fatimid caliphs were not true descendants of ʿAlī b. Ṭālib, and that the

antinomian events associated with their early movement proved that they were not Muslims.5

In 408/1017 he ordered the Muʿtazilites to publicly recant from their theological positions

under threat of corporal punishment.6 In coordination with various scholars, he issued a creed

called al-Iʿtiqād al-Qādirī intended to represent proper Islamic belief.7 Al-Qādir also tried his

hand at writing books on creed, devotion to the Companions, merits of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,

and one anathemizing those who believed in the createdness of the Qurʾān. These books were

read out publicly in Baghdad.8 This same policy was maintained under his successor the Caliph

al-Qāʾim (r. 422-467 AH/1031-1075 CE).

The reverberations of these policies were felt far beyond Baghdad’s confines.

Overthrowing the Samanids (r. 204-395/819-1005) in Khurasan, the first Ghaznavid ruler

Maḥmūd b. Subuktukin’s (r. 388-421/998-1030) show of allegiance to al-Qādir reflects an

4
There are indications that at least al-Raḍī only did so out of taqīya; some claimed that all the signees of the
proclamation did so for political expediency; see Ibn al-Athīr, ʿIzz al-Dīn, al-Kāmil fī'l-tārīkh, 10 vols., ed. ʿUmar
ʿAbd al-Salām Tadmurī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1417/1997), vol. 6, 577-580.
5
See Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-umam wa'l-mulūk, 19 vols., ed. ʿAṭā, Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir and ʿAṭā,
Muṣṭafā ʿAbd al-Qādir (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 1412/1992), vol. 15, 82-83. Cf. Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs, 101,
185.
6
Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-umam wa'l-mulūk, vol. 15, 125.
7
Joel L. Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam, 2nd revised edition (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 62–3.
8
See al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Tārīkh Baghdād wa-dhuyūluhu, 24 vols., ed. ʿAṭā, Muṣṭafā ʿAbd al-Qādir (Beirut: Dār al-
Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 1417 AH), vol. 4, 257.
270
adoption of similar policies.9 Rejecting the political overtures of the Fatimids, he affirmed

instead his allegiance to the Abbasid caliph and upon the publication of al-Iʿtiqād al-qādirī in

408/1017, “killed, publicly displayed the corpses of, and imprisoned the Muʿtazila, Rāfiḍa,

Ismāʿīlīs, Qarāmiṭa, Jahmīya and Mushabbiha, expelled them and ordered them to be cursed

from the pulpits.”10 In Rayy and its surroundig areas were taken in the year 420 and purged of

Batiniyya, and books belonging to Muʿtazilites, philosophers, and Imamī Shīʿites were publicly

burned.11 Perhaps in fear for his life, Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037), Islam’s most famous peripatetic

philosopher, fled Ghaznavid overtures to join their court; he differed in this from the polymath

al-Bīrūnī (d. 440/1048) who upon the Ghaznavid defeat of the Maʾmūnid Khwarizmshahs in

407/101712 joined their entourage and went on to accompany their conquests in India.

The religious background of the Ghaznavids is also significant: The Ghaznavids were

originally patrons of the Karrāmīya religious movement, named after the charismatic Sufi

preacher Ibn Karrām (d. 255/869), whose teachings spread throughout Khurasan from their

traditional base in Nishapur and by the 4th/10th century had khānqāh lodges found in Baghdad,

Jerusalem, and Fusṭāṭ, Egypt.13 His teachings had originally been known to provoke the ire of

rulers and religious scholars alike, as he advocated a form of asceticism and mendicancy which

challenged social norms, upheld a definition of faith which was also considered extreme in its

9
George Makdisi, “VI. The Sunnī Revival,” in History and Politics in Eleventh-Century Baghdad (Aldershot: Variorum,
1990); Originally published in Islamic Civilization, 950-1150, ed. D.H. Richards, Papers on Islamic History III.
Oxford:Bruno Cassirer, 1973, 155-168, 156.
10
Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-umam wa'l-mulūk, vol. 15, 125-126.
11
C.E Bosworth, “XI. The imperial policy of the early Ghaznawids,” in The Medieval History of Iran, Afghanistan and
Central Asia (London: Variorum, 1977); Originally in: Islamic Studies, Journal of the Central Institute of Islamic
Research, Karachi I/3. 1962, 49-82, 70–2.
12
On their significance and patronage of the sciences, see C. E. Bosworth, EIr, s.v. “ĀL-E MAʾMŪN.”
13
C.E Bosworth, “I. The rise of the Karāmiyyah in Khurasan,” in The Medieval History of Iran, Afghanistan and Central
Asia (London: Variorum, 1977); Originally published in: The Muslim World L. Hartford, 1960, 5-14, 5–7.
271
irjāʾ, and preached doctrines about God which were considered tashbīh.14 They were Ḥanafī in

their legal principles, though rejected by other scholarly groups as innovators for their

theological doctrines. Nevertheless, founder of Ghaznavid dynasty Sebüktigin (d. 387/997)

embraced their teachings15 as did his more famous son “Maḥmūd of Ghazna.”16 Heads of this

religious school were given considerable power by the Ghaznavid leadership and for a time the

governorship of Nishapur was in their hands; their networks also were used to root out cells of

Bāṭinīya.17

As fate would have it, the Karrāmīya eventually fell from grace, even under the same

policies within which they had achieved political prominence, when chief Ḥanafī qāḍī of

Nishapur Ṣāʿid b. Muḥammad (d. 432/1031) publicly exposed them in Maḥmūd’s court by

revealing that they described God inappropriately and espoused tajsīm in their theological

works,18 likely referring to what is documented of their idiosyncratic nomenclature,19 thereby

providing the pretext for them to be publicly condemned as innovators in accordance with the

Qādirī creed. From the stuff of panegyric to heretics cursed on the pulpits, the rise and fall of

Karrāmism is a testimony to the contentious nature of orthodoxy in the public sphere.

14
Rudolph, Al-Māturīdī und die sunnitische theologie in Samarkand, 82-87, 92-95. For the most extensive survey of the
Karrāmīya’s historical significance see Aron Zysow, EIr, s.v. “Karrāmīya.”
15
As one of Sebüktigin’s panegyrists wrote: “The only true legal understanding (fiqh) is Abū Ḥanīfa’s, just as the
only true religious way (dīn) is that of Muḥammad ibn Karrām; Those who, as I observe, disbelieve in Muḥammad
ibn Karām’s system are a vile lot indeed (ghair kirām);” a modified version of the translation by Bosworth; see C.E
Bosworth, “I. The rise of the Karāmiyyah in Khurasan,” in The Medieval History of Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia
(see note 866), 8.
16
ibid., 9.
17
On the rise and decline of Karrāmī religious political influence in Nishapur see ibid., 9–13.
18
See al-Ustuwāʾī al-Nīsābūrī, Abū'l-ʿAlāʾ Ṣāʿid b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, Kitāb al-Iʿtiqād, ed. Seyit Bahçıvan (Beirut:
Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 2005), 56-57 (introduction), quoting al-Tārīkh al-Yamīnī
19
As documented by Zysow in his EIr article: “The Karrāmiya defended the use of the term jesm in relation to God,
insisting that what they meant by it was simply that God was an existent (mawjud) or more specifically a non-
dependent existent (qāʾem be’l-nafs). This response turned an apparently substantive debate into one concerning
the appropriateness of the word jesm to convey these meanings. While some opponents suggested that the
Karrāmiya were simply reinterpreting the teaching of Ebn Karrām, this is by no means obviously the case.”
272
In the context of this public contention for orthodoxy, finding its impetus from the Abbasid

push against the esotericist Fatimids and heterodoxy of Buyid court culture, such theological

controversies in Nishapur – which we have also come to know as that most important center

of the new Shāfiʿī-Ashʿarī synthesis – had ramifications for the public articulation of Ashʿarite

doctrine.

6.2 The Persecution of Ashʿarism and the Chief Figureheads of the Nishapur Synthesis

Under Maḥmūd of Ghazna’s rule, Ashʿarī theologians also came under scrutiny. Ibn

Fūrak (d. 406/1015) himself had impassioned debates with the Karrāmīya in Maḥmūd’s court

with famed Karrāmite theologian Moḥammad b. Hayṣam (d. 409/1019).20 It was later rumored

that Ibn Fūrak had been poisoned because of the gravity of such theological contentions.21 One

of the more extravagant causes for the grievances held against him by the Karrāmīya, and

reportedly the cause of Ibn Fūrak’s downfall – the notion that the Prophet Muḥammad was no

longer a prophet in his grave – made reverberations as far away as Muslim Spain.22

This continued even after the heyday of the Karrāmīya, as well as the decline of the Ghaznavid

rule in Khurasan.23 Tughril Beg, first of the major Seljuk rulers (r. 429-455/1038-1063),

supplanted Ghaznavid rule in Nishapur, and upheld the regional alignment with the Abbasid

caliph; Nagel believes that Tughrilbeg consciously upheld the religious policies of Maḥmūd and

20
See Zysow’s article on the Karrāmīya for information on Ibn Hayṣam and other theologians of the school.
21
See Halm Heinz Halm, “Der Wesir al-Kunduri und die Fitna von Nīšāpūr,” Die Welt des Orients 6, no. 2 (1971), 205–
33: 226 f.
22
It took on significance in the context of debates between Andalusian scholars Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064) and Abū’l-
Walīd al-Bājī (d. 474/1081); see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 28, 148-149. The former was a brilliant but
iconoclastic adherent to the ẓāhirī school, the latter was a vastly influential Mālikī scholar, and one of the earliest
prominent Ashʿarite theologians of that legal school, being a grandstudent of al-Bāqillānī through the Ḥanafī qadi
of Mosul, Abū Jaʿfar al-Simnānī (d. 444/1052-3).
23
On the subsequent details of Ghaznavid political power in E. Iran, Central Asia, and India until 582/1186, see C. E.
Bosworth, EIr, s.v. “Ghaznavids.”
273
Masʿūd of Ghazna as part of this arrangement.24 Under early Seljuk rule in Khurasan, Ashʿarite

scholars were to undergo a period of intense scrutiny and persecution, in the shadow of which

the school largely established by Ibn Fūrak would play an important role. Ibn Fūrak’s pupils

the Sufi Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) and muḥaddith/jurisprudent al-Bayhaqī (d.

458/1066), rose in defense of what may be called “the Nishapur synthesis” of classical Islam,

widely influential for the greater Islamic tradition, and become some of its most prominent

spokespeople.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Ibn Fūrak had played an important role in

nativizing Ashʿarī theology within the Shāfiʿī school of Nishapur. In a place where tensions

were already high between muḥaddithūn and mutakallimūn, Ibn Fūrak acted as a medium

between the two camps, explaining the kalām-based mandate of naẓar and taʾwīl within a Sunnī

framework, and more significantly, providing arguments by which the muḥaddithūn could

acquiesce to the mutakallimūn in regards to theological matters while preserving their

authority in matters of jarḥ and taʿdīl – the science of ḥadīth criticism. It was completely

Ashʿarite in spirit; preserving the modus operandi of traditional modes of instruction, while

nevertheless reconfiguring the priority of those sciences in accordance with the basis of naẓar.

This synthesis taught by Ibn Fūrak and his students, in particular al-Bayhaqī and Abū’l-Qāsim

al-Qushayrī marks the beginning of a movement whereby the Shāfiʿī school broke way from

older authorities of interpretation and took on its historical role as a vehicle for Ashʿarī kalām’s

methodological vision, and elevated the portent of that madhhab’s contributions to a new type

of universality which defined Islamic orthodoxy in many ways. From this tradition emerged

24
Tilman Nagel, Die Festung des Glaubens (Munich: Beck, 1988), 85–6.
274
scholars of such universal import for Islam as al-Juwaynī, al-Ghazālī, al-Shahrastānī, and al-

Rāzī.

Al-Qushayrī, though otherwise commonly known as a Sufi mystic,25 was not only one of Ibn

Fūrak’s most prominent students, but was quite active at navigating the societal challenges

that faced the Ashʿarite scholarly community. In 436/1045 he circulated a fatwa signed by

other prominent Shāfiʿī scholars including the venerable Abū Muḥammad al-Juwaynī (d.

438/1047, father of the more famous Abū’l-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī)26 and “Shaykh al-Islām” Abū

ʿUthmān al-Ṣābūnī (d. 449/1057),27 as a public defense of the orthodoxy of Ashʿarī theology:

The aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth are in agreement that Abū’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-Ashʿarī (may
God be pleased with him) was an imam from the imams of aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth and his
madhhab is the madhhab of aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth. He spoke (takallama) about theological
foundations (uṣūl al-diyānāt) with the method of the ahl al-sunna and refuted the
opponents among the deviants and innovators and was an unsheathed sword to the
Muʿtazilites, Rawāfiḍ, and innovators among the Muslims (ahl al-qibla) and those
outside of the religion, and whoever insults him or discredits him or curses or insults
him has spoken ill (basaṭa lisānahu) of the entirety of the ahl al-sunna. 28

In the following year (437 AH) al-Qushayrī wrote his famous compendium of Sufi

wisdom, commonly referred to as al-Risāla al-Qushayrīya. The first chapter also reveals his

Ashʿarī preoccupations, by both the jabs taken at theological positions of their theological

adversaries, as well as upholding an image of Sufis characterized as those who know evidences

25
On him see the recent contribution by Martin Nguyen, Sufi Master and Qurʾan Scholar: Abū'l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī and
the Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
26
He was a student of Abū’l-Ṭayyib al-Ṣuʿlūkī and Abū Bakr al-Qaffāl; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 29, 460-461.
He does not seem to have been a dogmatic Ashʿarī himself, but viewed al-Ashʿarī as a fellow Shāfiʿī and made
efforts to be fair in evaluating his contributions, absolving him of accusations of heresy in a work of his called
ʿAqīdat aṣḥāb al-Imām al-Muṭṭalibī al-Shāfiʿī quoted in Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām
Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 115. What these accusations were will be revisited below in chapter seven.
27
One of the first scholars to be called this title in his lifetime, al-Ṣābūnī was of great reknown, and influential for
the Shāfiʿī scholars spanning Khurasan, Iraq, and Syria; see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 30, 224 ff.
28
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 112–4. al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-
shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, vol. 3, 374-375. See the analysis by Halm, “Der Wesir al-Kunduri und die Fitna von Nīšāpūr,” 214
ff. Cf. Nagel, Die Festung des Glaubens, 96.
275
(dalāʾil) of God’s unity, and do not rely on taqlīd.29 Although Nguyen and others have noted

that he was not the first Sufi Ashʿarī, but rather, the most prominent of three generations of

Sufi Ashʿarīs,30 it is still worth emphasizing his role in shaping the nativization of Ashʿarism

within a Sufi context. An affinity between the subjectively affirmed modes of spiritual

realization in God as elaborated by the Baghdadi mystics such as Junayd and the naẓar process

of the mutakallimūn, made for a happy synthesis in al-Qushayrī’s view. Such a synthesis could

not have happened within Muʿtazilism which denied God’s intervention in human guidance

and inspiration, and disallowed miracles at the hands of non-prophets.

This was the final component in what is being called here “the Nishapur synthesis,”

wherein Ashʿarī kalām was internally and socially harmonized among representatives of the

traditions of Shāfiʿite ahl al-ḥadīth legal scholarshop and Baghdad Sufism. This was the

development of what Tilman Nagel called “die neue Frömmigkeit”31 a synthesis unique to

Nishapur but which became archetypal for later Sunni scholars, whereby Ashʿarite kalām – an

inherently non-traditional force as we have seen – was viewed as compatible with the

tradition-heavy notions of piety found in both Sufism and ḥadīth transmission.

Such initial efforts of al-Qushayrī, however, were of no avail, as things got worse.

Starting in 445/1053 and continuing even after his entry into Baghdad in 447/1055, until his

death in 455/1063, Tughril Beg endorsed a policy of publicly cursing al-Ashʿarī on the pulpits

of Khurasan.32 Makdisī has characterized this as part of a general “traditionalist” pushback of

29
Abū'l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla al-Qushayrīya, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm Maḥmūd and Maḥmūd Ibn al-Sharīf (Cairo:
Dār al-Shaʿb, 1409/1989), 24 ff.
30
Nguyen, Sufi Master and Qurʾan Scholar, 221–2. Nguyen pins the starting point at Abū Sahl al-Suʿlūkī (d. 369/980),
a student of al-Shiblī and al-Ashʿarī who settled in Nishapur in 337/948-9; ibid., 92.
31
Nagel, Die Festung des Glaubens, 98.
32
George Makdisi, “VI. The Sunnī Revival,” in History and Politics in Eleventh-Century Baghdad (see note 862), 157.
276
“the Sunnī revival.”33 But who were the ideological protagonists in this traditionalist wave?

The historical chronicles available to us put the blame squarely on the shoulders of Tughril

Beg’s vizier ʿAmīd al-Dīn al-Kundurī (d. 456/1064), who was generally believed to be a

Karrāmī.34 However, given that the Karrāmī school had fallen from grace already by the end of

Ghaznavid rule (indeed, was cursed from the pulpits as well), Halm has argued that the anti-

Ashʿarī policy of the early Seljuks was not an extension of Karrāmism, but rather a capitulation

to the Ḥanafī elite of Nishapur to undermine the advancement of the rival Shāfiʿī school which

was the substrate in which Ashʿarism flourished. That is to say, it was inter-madhhab (legal

school) rivalry, and not a theological one. This also could explain the paradoxical labelling of

al-Kundurī as a Muʿtazilite as well, which can also be interpreted as another polemical swipe at

that strong trend in Ḥanafism of the time

Despite Halm’s convincing arguments about the local Ḥanafite agenda behind anti-

Ashʿarī policy in the early Seljuk period,35 the agency he attributes to Ḥanafī Muʿtazilism in

using traditionalist policies polemically against the Ashʿarīs is improbable. Halm realized this,

which induced him to characterize their move as an “unscrupulous” manipulation of

Karrāmite doctrine in their favor.36 Nevertheless, the idea of Muʿtazilite Ḥanafīs using

Karrāmite traditionalism against Ashʿarite Shāfiʿīs a bit too Machiavellian, and just as

perplexing as al-Kundurī’s contradictory reputation as catch-all heretic. This thesis can be

dispensed with, however, by not limiting the Ḥanafīs of Nishapur to Muʿtazilism or

33
Ibid.
34
Halm, “Der Wesir al-Kunduri und die Fitna von Nīšāpūr,” 228.
35
Nagel also sees policy meant to placate the Ḥanafī majority of Nishapur, see Nagel, Die Festung des Glaubens, 86–8.
36
Halm, “Der Wesir al-Kunduri und die Fitna von Nīšāpūr,” 219-221, 223-228.
277
Karrāmism, as most historians have tended to do,37 but by taking heed of a third school of

Ḥanafism, one which can be considered “traditionalist” in the sense that it was founded on a

substratum of Abū Ḥanīfa’s transmitted sayings, and consciously eschewed the “innovations”

of Muʿtazilism and Karrāmism, and has been the subject of study by Rudolph’s 1998

monograph on al-Māturīdī.38

This was pointed out long ago by Madelung, who argued that “the most prominent

Ḥanafite scholars [of Nishapur] … were not Muʿtazilite,” and revealed the existence of a

manuscript by that city’s Ḥanafite chief qāḍī Saʿīd b. Muḥammad al-Ustuwāʾī (d. 432/1041) –

the same scholar who caused the downfall of the Karrāmīya in the rule of Maḥmūd of Ghazna39

– containing a polemic against kalām and religious doctrine of the variety applicable to the

Ashʿarites. This book, by al-Ustuwāʾī, entitled Kitāb al-iʿtiqād, which has since been published,

is a Ḥanafī text that defends the uncreated (ghayr makhlūq) Qurʾān40 and the creation of human

actions,41 condemns Jahm and his followers,42 rejects taʾwīl of God’s attributes43 and upholds the

example of Ibn Khuzayma as an unimpeachable representative of orthodoxy.44 All these

elements make it clear that the author is not a Muʿtazilite, but rather, a traditionalist Ḥanafite.

It is therefore all the more significant that it was al-Ustuwāʾī’s grandson Abū Naṣr Aḥmad al-

37
Because of this, Peacock has suggested Ḥanbalī influences, though unconvincingly, because he conflates events
there with later events in Ḥanbalī-dominated Baghdad, see A.C.S. Peacock, Early Seljūq History: A New Interpretation
(New York: Routledge, 2010), 214 ff.
38
This tradition of Ḥanafism, from which al-Māturīdī emerged, was characteristic of the Samarqand school from
which al-Māturīdī emerged, and has been the subject of study by Ulrich Rudolph, see chapter two.
39
As mentioned above. Peacock seems unaware that the Karrāmīya were targeted first by the Ghaznavids before
the Seljuks, see Peacock 113 and only acknowledges Madelung’s observation in a footnote, see 115 n. 116.
40
al-Ustuwāʾī al-Nīsābūrī, Abū'l-ʿAlāʾ Ṣāʿid b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, Kitāb al-Iʿtiqād, 166–75.
41
Ibid., 148–64.
42
Ibid., 197–8. Cf. ibid., index s.v. “Jahm.” Jahm is also condemned for his view of belief which does not entail
affirmation with outward profession.
43
Ibid., 199 ff.
44
Ibid., 206–7.
278
Ṣāʿidī who, in collaboration with another Ḥanafī preacher called Abū’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Ṣandalī,

led the persecution of the Ashʿarite-Shāfiʿīs along with al-Kundurī.45 In the outcome, Abū

ʿUthmān al-Ṣābūnī (mentioned above as co-signer of al-Qushayrī’s public statement) was

dismissed from his post at the congregational mosque and replaced by a committee led by a

member of the Ṣāʿidī family.46

Another contemporary Ḥanafite work can also be pointed to, which contains the same

accusations made against the Ashʿarites which justified their public cursing by the Seljuks.47

This text, the Sharḥ al-fiqh al-absaṭ, is a Ḥanafite creed written sometime between the 4th-

5th/10th-11th centuries which in the process of outlining the proper creed of the ahl al-sunna

wa’l-jamāʿa criticizes Ashʿarīs, Muʿtazilites, as well as Karrāmīya.48 Among its critiques of

Ashʿarite theology, the book contains three of the four major complaints against Ashʿarism

which the Ashʿarite-Shāfiʿīs had to defend themselves from in the fitna of 445: 1) the

disconnect of actions from salvation,49 2) the thesis that God’s speech is not actually in the

Qurʾān,50 and that al-Ashʿarī 3) imputed disbelief to the masses (kufr al-ʿāmma) for doing taqlīd

and not performing naẓar.51

45
Richard W. Bulliet, “The political-religious History of Nishapur in the Eleventh Century,” in Islamic Civilization
950-1150, ed. D. S. Richards (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1973), 71–91, 81.
46
Ibid., 82.
47
These reasons are listed in the Shikāyat ahl al-sunna by al-Qushayrī, to be discussed below.
48
Daiber presented evidence that the book was written by Abū’l-Layth al-Samarqandi; see Hans Daiber, The Islamic
Concept of Belief in the 4th/10th Century (Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa,
1995), 7 ff. Madelung thought it convincing, but held out for the possibility on evidence acknowledged by Daiber
as well that it could have been a later author; see Wilferd Madelung, “Review of The Islamic Concept of Belief in
the 4th/10th Century, ed. Hans Daiber,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 3rd series, no. 6 (1996), 420–1: 420.
Rudolph on his part argued for the late 5th century; Rudolph, Al-Māturīdī und die sunnitische theologie in Samarkand,
361–5.
49
Daiber, The Islamic Concept of Belief in the 4th/10th Century, 90–1.
50
Ibid., 155.
51
Ibid., 68 ff.
279
 We know what the four major accusations against the Ashʿarīs were because they were

documented in the Shikāyat ahl al-sunna bi-ḥikāyat mā nālahum min al-miḥna,52 a public letter

sent out to “the scholars of the Muslim world” by Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī in the year of the

fitna of 445.53 Showing shared sentiment with the goals of Seljuk policy, al-Qushayrī speaks

highly of Tughril Beg as reviver of the sunna, showing his concern for public orthodoxy as well,

but goes on to describe how al-Ashʿarī has been falsely slandered to the authorities and had

heretical doctrines inaccurately attributed to him.54 The letter is a public apology to uphold

the orthodox of al-Ashʿarī.

Al-Ashʿarī’s reputation is upheld by al-Qushayrī because of his accomplishments in

defending Islam from the Muʿtazilites and other mubtadiʿa,55 and each one of the accusations

listed in the Shikāyat is characterized by al-Qushayrī as slander that could only have been

devised by Muʿtazilites, Karrāmites, or other “innovators.”56

For this reason, al-Qushayrī emphasizes the significance of the Ashʿarite “middle way”

which we have seen advocated by his teacher Ibn Fūrak, when he says that:

They only resented al-Ashʿarī because he affirmed God’s decree (qadar), good and bad …
and affirmed God’s attributes of majesty, such as His power, knowledge, will, life,
perpetuity (baqāʾ), hearing, sight, speech, face, and hand, and that the Qurʾān is God’s
word uncreated (ghayr makhlūq), and that God exists and thus can be seen and that His
will permeates through all things that He wills, and many other obvious issues of faith
in which his methods (ṭuruquhu) differ from those of the methods of the Muʿtazila and
“corporealists” (mujassima)57

52
It is published in Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 109–12.
53
See ibid., 110. Cf. al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, vol. 3, 400-401.
54
See Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 111; al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-
shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, vol. 3, 403-404.
55
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 110.
56
See below.
57
Ibid., 111. Cf. al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, vol. 3, 405.
280
 Differing from the “negationist” Muʿtazila and “corporealizing” Mujassima is what

gives al-Ashʿarī’s theological paradigm its mandate as standard bearer of orthodoxy, contrary

to the claims of its detractors.

Yet immediately thereafter arises a tone of desperation in al-Qushayrī’s apology.

Although Ashʿarites and Muʿtazilites differed on theological matters, he implicitly

acknowledges the shared mandate of the two theological schools to establish the rational

validity of religion. It is only in this light that we can understand the paramount importance

which he ascribes to the existence of both groups in particular:

If, in a theological topic among Muslims (ahl al-qibla) there were no other position
(qawlun zāʾid) than the position of the Muʿtazila and the position of al-Ashʿarī, then if
al-Ashʿarī’s position were false, wouldn’t that necessitate the correctness of the
Muʿtazilite position? And if the two positions were false, would that not be an explicit
admission (taṣrīḥ) that the truth is not among the Muslims (ahl al-qibla)? And if the
Muʿtazilites and al-Ashʿarī are cursed concerning a topic for which the Umma has no
other position than their two positions, then isn’t this a cursing of the entirety of the
ahl al-qibla?58
Such an impassioned plea, in which any alternative to the two groups is viewed as tantamount

to religious suicide, can be read between the lines on the basis of the research presented here

so far: To al-Qushayrī, the policies of the Seljuks were endangering a sancrosanct mandate to

uphold naẓar which could only be fulfilled by the mutakallimūn – in whose ranks only the

Muʿtazilites and Ashʿarites could find admission, at least in the eyes of al-Qushayrī. The

Muʿtazilites being excluded from the outset (from a Sunnī point of view), there could be no

one else to fulfill the rationalist mandate but the Ashʿarite theologians.59

58
Ibid., vol. 3, 405-406. Ibn ʿAsākir notably omits this section.
59
This reflects a dismissal of Ḥanbalī or Karrāmī kalām.
281
Al-Qushayrī then calls for help (al-ghiyāth) from “those” who try to destroy the foundations of

Islam by slandering al-Ashʿarī,60 before going on to list and refute the false accusations made

against al-Ashʿarī. They can be summarized as follows:

1) the Prophet is no longer a Prophet – mentioning the Karrāmīya as the source of the
accusation61
2) people are not punished or rewarded for actions62
3) Moses did not actually hear God’s speech.63
4) God’s speech isn’t “actually” in the codex of the Qurʾān64
5) al-Ashʿarī anathemizes the laypeople (takfīr al-ʿawāmm).65
This last accusation was a particularly sensitive topic, which as we have seen, was

brought up in the Ḥanafī Sharḥ al-fiqh al-akbar, and like the accusation of the passing away of

Muḥammad’s prophethood, was even problematized by Ibn Ḥazm in faraway Andalus.66 Unlike

the issue of prophethood, however, this point of controversy is inextricable from the

epistemological underpinnings of al-Ashʿarī’s theology. As we recall, al-Ashʿarī’s paradigm

had originally reserved the unrestricted definition of a “believer” to those who knew God by

naẓar; this could naturally give rise to the conviction that the laypeople were not truly

Muslims, especially if they held beliefs that went contrary to that of the Ashʿarī mutakallimūn.

Al-Qushayrī responded to this accusation, however, with the assertion that this was an

instance of calumny that originated with the Karrāmīya sect. He approaches the issue from

60
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 111; al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya
al-kubrā, vol. 3, 406.
61
Including mention of Karrāmīya as source of accusation; see ibid., vol. 3, 406-413.
62
Including mention of Muʿtazila as source of accusation; see ibid., vol. 3, 413-416.
63
Al-Qushayrī says that is a Muʿtazilite position to say that God created his speech in the burning bush, which
would mean that it was the bush’s speech; see ibid., vol. 3, 416-417.
64
He also negates this and calls it a Muʿtazilite thesis; ibid., vol. 3, 417-418.
65
Also viewed as a Karrāmī accusation; see ibid., vol. 3, 418 ff. These last two accusations (absence of Qurʾān in the
muṣḥaf and anathemizing the masses) had been denied by Abū Muḥammad al-Juwaynī at least eight years
previous to the outbreak of the fitna, if not earlier; see Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām
Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 115.
66
Ibn Ḥazm, al-Fiṣal fī'l-milal wa'l-ahwā wa'l-niḥal, 5 vols., ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khalīfa (Cairo: Maktabat Muḥammad
ʿAlī Ṣabīḥ wa-awlādihi, 1347 AH), vol. 4, 28 ff.
282
another angle, changing the terms of the argument to ones which we are familiar with from

the Ḥathth by al-Ashʿarī: Al-Ashʿarī, al-Qushayrī states, does not require that all Muslims use

kalām terminology, but only use naẓar and istidlāl which leads to knowledge of God. Just like al-

Ashʿarī in the Ḥathth, he makes an analogy from the domain of uṣūl al-fiqh that alleviates the

problem of the novelty of kalām by saying that its terms like the terms of the legalists (fuqahāʾ)

which, while not found in the words of the salaf, are only meant to explain things to the later

generations (al-khalaf), and thus not “innovation” (bidʿa).67

However, it is clear that this tension between the past and the present is not merely

embodied in the formal differences of religious terminology, but rather in a perceived shift in

the mode of religiousity between successive generations. This is too much for al-Qushayrī,

who perceives in this a projection by kalām’s critics of their own anti-scholastic attitudes onto

their Islamic forefathers: the notion that the very practice of kalām is bidʿa because it was not

done by the salaf is considered an argument relied upon by ignorant people with “the

characteristics of plebeians” (ṣifat al-ḥashwīya)68 – unleashing an epithet which his predecessors

refrained from using.

On his part, al-Qushayrī deems it inconceivable that the salaf did not practice naẓar and

were content with taqlīd, as the Companions and Successors must have considered the

indications (adilla) of God’s existence mentioned in the Qurʾān and sunna. For this reason he

exclaims: “How strange that anyone could say there is no ʿilm al-kalām in the Qurʾān!”69 This is

evocative of the argumentation in al-Ashʿarī’s Ḥathth, and is the type of argumentation that al-

67
Al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, vol. 3, 419-420.
68
Ibid., vol. 3, 421.
69
Ibid.
283
Juwaynī would later utilize in his own engagement with those whom he called Ḥashwīya when

he questioned their ability to explain how the Qurʾānic command to reason should be fulfilled.

Al-Qushayrī thus concludes that the opponent of kalām is either an ignorant person content

with taqlīd, or secretly believes in false doctrines (madhāhib fāsida) and knows that people of

naẓar will expose him, so he wants to undermine them.70

Ibn Fūrak’s other eminently prominent student al-Bayhaqī was then inspired in the

following period71 to write al-Kundurī directly to explain the nature of the problem.72 Al-

Bayhaqī endorses al-Kundurī’s cursing of innovators on the pulpits, but wishes to explain how

Ashʿarī is not an innovator deserving of such censure. The argumentation he presents there

reveals to us further information about the nativization of Ashʿarī kalām in the Nishapur

Shāfiʿite milieu, and would come to be critical for Ashʿarite historical memory.

Al-Bayhaqī praises al-Kundurī’s stance against the people of innovation (bidʿa) who he

has been cursing from the pulpits, but like al-Qushayrī in his Shikāyat ahl al-sunna warns him

about deviant people (ahl al-zaygh) who have retaliated by telling him demeaning things about

ahl al-sunna wa’l-jamāʿa – whom he defines as “the Ḥanafīs, Mālikīs, and Shāfiʿīs who do not

adopt the path of negation (al-taʿṭīl) in the manner of the Muʿtazilites, nor tread the path of

assimilationism (al-tashbīh) in the ways of the corporealists (ṭuruq al-mujassima).”73 This again

70
Ibid., vol. 3, 421-422.
71
See Halm’s determination of the date of composion to between 445 and 447; Halm, “Der Wesir al-Kunduri und
die Fitna von Nīšāpūr,” 229.
72
The risāla of al-Bayhaqī is found in Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-
Ashʿarī, 100–8. See abbreviated version in al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, vol. 3, 395-398.
73
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 101. He reiterates these three
madhhabs again, ibid., 102.
284
is the middle-path established by Ibn Fūrak, which this time here implicitly excludes the

Ḥanbalīs.74

Among the new elements that we see documented in this letter for the first time is a

strong importance attached to al-Ashʿarīs descent from the Prophet’s Companion Abū Mūsā al-

Ashʿarī,75 the idea of transmission from generation to generation through that bloodline in a

way that may have been foretold by the Prophet,76 and the idea that al-Ashʿarī was in fact the

mujaddid of his time.77 As an expert on “tradition” he could authoritatively say that al-Ashʿarī

was not an “innovator” but merely took “sayings of Companions and Followers, and the imams

after them in theological matters (uṣūl al-dīn)”, with the only difference being “the addition of

commentary and explanation (ziyādat sharḥ wa-tabyīn) that what they taught in theology and

that which the religion (al-sharʿ) was rationally correct (ṣaḥīḥ fī’l-ʿuqūl).”78

Al-Bayhaqī states that al-Ashʿarī’s doctrine was an assistance (nuṣra) to the teachings of

Abū Ḥanīfa and Sufyān al-Thawrī from Kufa, al-Awzāʿī and others from the Levant, Mālik and

al-Shāfiʿī from the two holy cities (Medina and Mecca) and the people of the Hijaz, not to

mention other prominent representatives of the ahl al-ḥadīth such as Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, al-

Layth b. Saʿd, al-Bukhārī and Muslim.79 Al-Ashʿarī’s contributions are viewed as the defense of

the ahl al-sunna from those innovators (mubtadiʿa) who denied various descriptions of God,

various eschatological descriptions from ḥadīth, rejected the first four caliphs, and “claimed

74
It is noteworthy that al-Bayhaqī reconciliates with the Ḥanafīs given al-Kundurī’s affiliation with them, and
through omission of the Ḥanbalīs shifts the brunt of the polemic from the Karrāmīya (since fallen from grace)
towards the Ḥanbalīs.
75
Ibid.
76
Ibid., 103–6.
77
Ibid., 103–4.
78
Ibid., 103.
79
Ibid.
285
that none of that was sound on the basis of the intellect or opinion (zaʿamū anna shayʾan min

dhālika lā yastaqīm ʿalā al-ʿaql wa-lā yaṣiḥḥ fī’l-raʾy).80 However, al-Bayhaqī emphasizes, God has

sent this descendant of Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī in order to explain to people what the Qurʾān and

the sunna say and explain that “that which the salaf of this Umma believed in was proper

according to sound intellects (mā kāna ʿalayhi salaf hādhihi al-umma mustaqīm ʿalā al-ʿuqūl al-

ṣaḥīḥa).”81 After explaining the many merits of al-Ashʿarī he prays for al-Kundurī’s success and

that he will make the right decision in ending the fitna.82

At the height of the controversy of 445, a number of Ashʿarī scholars were imprisoned,

among them Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī. Pressures compelled approximately four hundred

scholars to leave Khurasan, many of them making their way to Baghdad where they settled,

while others continued on to Mecca to make pilgrimage and regroup themselves. Among this

latter group of scholars was Abū’l-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī.83 It was from his sojourn in Mecca that he

came to acquire the title Imām al-Ḥaramayn, “imam of the two sanctuaries.” By the time al-

Juwaynī made his way back to Nishapur ten years later in 455/1063, Seljuk leadership had

moved to Alp Arslan (r. 455-465/1063-1072), who not only challenged Tughril Beg’s son to the

succession, but also deposed al-Kundurī84 and replaced him with the famous vizier Niẓām al-

Mulk (d. 485/1092), a committed Shāfiʿī and supporter of the Ashʿarite scholarly vision, as is

generally well-known.85

80
Ibid., 104.
81
Ibid., 104–5.
82
Ibid., 107–8.
83
Nagel, Die Festung des Glaubens, 88–90.
84
For a celebratory poem by al-Qushayrī about al-Kundurī’s comeuppance, see Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī
fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 108–9.
85
Nagel, Die Festung des Glaubens, 95. K. A. Luther, EIr, s.v. “Alp Arslān.” H. Bowen, C. E. Bosworth, EI2, s.v. “Niẓām
al-Mulk.” Halm, “Der Wesir al-Kunduri und die Fitna von Nīšāpūr,” 232–3.
286
 According to Griffel’s calculations, it was only five years after al-Juwaynī’s return from

exile, that a 12 year old Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī came from Ṭūs to became his student at the

Nishapur Niẓāmīya madrasa,86 one of the first safe-havens that Niẓām al-Mulk built for the

Ashʿarite-Shāfiʿite scholars. We are now in better position to understand how al-Ghazālī

brings various elements together of his era in one person. He lived in a time when the Shāfiʿī-

Ashʿarite theologians of Nishapur had achieved a synthesis between the ahl al-ḥadīth and the

mutakallimūn, with public proclamations of their solidarity against “innovation.” He became a

figurehead of a classical form of Islamic orthodoxy that endures to this day.

Being taught by al-Juwaynī, a prominent representative of the “avantgarde wing” of

Ashʿarite theology, he was also more aware than most of the mandate to naẓar which

characterized the ethos of the Sunnī mutakallimūn. Known for his refutations of Avicennan

thought – the rehabilitated Aristotelian thought in Islamicate garb – he was likely exposed to

its teachings at a younger age than is commonly assumed, given his master’s engagement with

its ideas. Griffel has argued, among others, that al-Juwaynī revamped Ashʿarite proofs for

God’s existence using the “burhān al-ṣiddiqīn” formulated by Avicenna; it is thus probable that

he also gave al-Ghazālī his first awareness of Avicennan philosophy, as well as the formidable

intellectual challenges it presented87 – as the latest incarnation of peripatetic thought in

contention with revelatory religion, a challenge which even the earliest Muʿtazilites fought.

He wrote highly influential fiqh books, as well as rigorous refutations of the Avicennans and

Ismāʿīlīs.88 He reconciled Aristotelian logic with the methods of the jurisprudents and

86
Frank Griffel, Al-Ghazālī's Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 29.
87
Ibid., 29–30.
88
Ibid., 34–6.
287
mutakallimūn, as an objective epistemic tool, one with which standard legal hermeneutic could

be faithfully recast within a syllogism, and thus strengthened, or corrected;89 and last but not

least, as an ameliorative precaution against taqlīd in both law and theology.90

In what has preceded, a chain can be formed from Ibn Fūrak to al-Ghazālī in a unique

“Nishapurian synthesis” in which the Shāfiʿī madhhab formed the vehicle for the Ashʿarite

rationalist mandate, nativizing this impulse not just within the scholarly classes of Islam

(largely through their ground-breaking efforts in uṣūl al-fiqh), but within a public discourse

upset by the threat of the Fatimids and the “esotericist scare” which inspired the Qādirī creed

and the societal impulse to curtail religious movements perceived as introducing “foreign”

elements into the body of Islam.

If the Ashʿarite theologians faced persecution as “innovators,” such a crisis also

provided the opportunity for them to find a public platform to address the concerns of the

community as defenders of the faith and defend the modus operandi of traditional scholarship.

It is also in this context that the kernel of an Ashʿarite “tradition” was established, as opposed

to a purely rationalist kalām school. Naturally, intellectual paradigms almost invariably need

to be justified in a manner that likewise incorporates the contingent human actors that

espouse them, if they are to be subsequently perpetuated in society. The controversies of

Nishapur in the 5th/11th century, however, substantially dulled the non-traditionalist aspects of

Ashʿarism in its social negotiation. That it did not eradicate the mandate to reason is

attestable in the works of al-Ghazālī, al-Rāzī, and others that followed in their footsteps.

89
Ulrich Rudolph, “Die Neubewertung der Logik durch Al-Ġazālī,” in Logik und Theologie: Das Organon im arabischen
und im lateinischen Mittelalter, ed. Dominik Perler and Ulrich Rudolph (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 73–97, 75–83.
90
Ibid., 80–1.
288
Nevertheless, something similar to the “mixed reception” in regard to al-Ashʿarī’s

methodology that Ibn Fūrak noted in his Mujarrad maqālāt can be noted to have emerged in this

period, but not as a scholarly premise, but rather a split-view of his method as either

rationalist or traditionalist in its ethos and even construction of historical memory. This

development occurred without much note, as an exigency of the times, even if such larger

questions were consciously minimized for reasons of prudency, in the social negotiation of

orthodoxy.

6.3 Baghdad Public Life and the Social Construction of Orthodoxy

Al-Ghazālī worked as a messenger in the service of Alp Arslan’s son and successor,

Malik Shāh (r. 465-85/1072-92),91 before going on to be appointed professor of the Niẓāmīya

madrasa of Baghdad by Niẓām al-Mulk in the summer of 484/1091.92 Besides forming the

backdrop for the faith-crisis documented in the book Delivery from Error, which precipitated al-

Ghazālī’s spiritual sojourn in Mecca, Jerusalem, and Seljuk Damascus – where he left his own

legacy of scholarship –the madrasa was also symbolic in its forming a prominent outpost for

the Shāfiʿī-Ashʿarī synthesis. This was not uncontroversial, being located in the Abbasid

capital city, which as we have discussed earlier, was not only the traditional center of Ḥanbalī

learning, but also a place where the majority of the population espoused an affiliation to that

school.93

91
Griffel, Al-Ghazālī's Philosophical Theology, 32.
92
Ibid., 34.
93
Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, 121.
289
 The controversies surrounding the social positioning of Ashʿarite theologians are

illustrative of the struggles in the contentions of orthodoxy:

Construction of the Niẓāmīya had begun in Dhū’l-Ḥijja 457/Nov. 1065, and was completed two

years later.94 The first head instructor, Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī (d. 476/1083), was a towering

figure of the Shāfiʿī school, natively Persian but trained by the most stellar representatives of

the Baghdad school of Shāfiʿism. Falling outside of the direct influence of the Nishapur

synthesis described above, it is not surprising that the research has remained unsure of his

precise theological views.95 Nevertheless, his appointment at the Niẓāmīya, the historical

reports about his life, and a text attributed to him all suggest he had a significant role to play

in the defense of Ashʿarite theology in the Baghdad milieu.

This manifested in a major way during the fitna of Shawwāl 469/April 1077, when Abū

Naṣr al-Qushayrī (d. 514/1120)96 – son of the famous Sufi Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī as well as

student of the great al-Juwaynī – relocated to Baghdad to begin preaching at the Niẓāmīya

mosque, during which he started openly critiquing Ḥanbalīs, in particular about their position

on the eternal nature of the Qurʾān. Fights immediately broke out between Ḥanbalīs and

Shāfiʿīs, and since the Ḥanbalīs had the “masses of the population” (sawād al-balad) on their

side, the Shāfiʿīs were compelled to seek safety from Niẓām al-Mulk and arrests were made.97

Abū Naṣr al-Qushayrī incited a group to follow him in retaliation by attacking al-Sharīf Ibn Abī

Mūsā, a prominent leader of the Ḥanbalīs, in his mosque; in response the Ḥanbalīs threw bricks

94
Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Mirʾāt al-zamān fī tārīkh al-aʿyān, ed. Ali Sevim (Ankara: Maṭbaʻat al-Jāmiʿa al-Tārīkhīya al-
Turkīya, 1968), 124, 135.
95
E. Chaumont, EI2, s.v. “al-Shīrāzī.”
96
Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-umam wa'l-mulūk, vol. 17, 190.
97
Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Mirʾāt al-zamān fī tārīkh al-aʿyān, 186.
290
at them from the roof of the mosque and one Shāfiʿī was killed among other injuries.98 At this

point the Shāfiʿīs complained of the caliph’s bias towards the Ḥanbalīs and Ibn al-Jawzī’s

sources even say that that Abū Naṣr al-Qushayrī started publicly shouting pro-Fatimid slogans

in order to shame the authorities into assisting his cause.99 Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī was angered

by such developments, and even planned to leave the city out of consternation, but the caliph

intervened and requested his attendance at a council attended by both sides in order to reach

a conciliation. Al-Qushayrī was thus permitted to continue lessons – with armed guard

present.100 Even this provisional peace was short lasting, however, as Ḥanbalī laypeople

reignited the fitna of their own accord – on their part also declaiming the Ashʿarite position on

the nature of God’s speech, as well as publicly rejecting examples of Ashʿarite taʾwīl of God’s

attributes.101

Abū Isḥāq al-Shirāzī engaged in correspondence about the comport of the Ḥanbalīs

with the caliph’s vizier Fakhr al-Dawla (d. 483/890) and received a sympathetic letter in

response from the latter’s son ʿAmīd al-Dawla (d. 493/1100),102 wherein the latter denied the

authenticity of the Ḥanbalism ascribed to their opponents (yantaḥilūn madhhab Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal

raḥimahu Allāh wa-huwa barīʾ) and their habit of shamelessly insulting religious imams and

scholars in a way which he compares to “a chapter of scripture (sūra) which they study and a

ritual which they practice (ṣīgha yumārisūnahā).”103 On his part al-Shīrāzī told them about the

98
Ibid., 186–7.
99
Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-umam wa'l-mulūk, vol. 16, 182. Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila,
vol. 1, 139-140.
100
Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Mirʾāt al-zamān fī tārīkh al-aʿyān, 187.
101
Ibid.
102
ʿAmīd al-Dawla was married to one of Niẓām al-Mulk’s daughters and would eventually become an Abbasid
vizier himself. On the significance of this vizieral family, see Cl. Cahen, EI2, s.v. “Djahīr.”
103
Ibid., 187–8.
291
customs of Khurasan which he was familiar with, where only the madhhab of al-Shāfiʿī and Abū

Ḥanīfa were acknowledged, and anyone who opposed those two groups is seen as religiously

profligate and liable to be corporally punished (yarā damahu ḥalālan wa-nuwassiʿuhu ḍarban wa-

idhlālan). Nevertheless, al-Shīrāzī asked for their counsel in order to fix the problem.104

Yet another arbitration council was held between both sides, at the insistence of the caliph al-

Muqtadī (r. 467-487/1075-1094) over which presided the Ḥanbalī scholar al-Sharīf Abū Jaʿfar

(d. 470/1077) – one of al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā’s main students and chief of the madhhab at that

time.105 The Shāfiʿī-Ashʿarī side was compelled to acquiesce: Abū Jaʿfar is reported to have

said,

What settlement (ṣulḥ) can there be between us? A settlement can only be between two
contenders over a position or debt or division of inheritance or dispute over property –
but these people claim that we are disbelievers (kuffār) and we believe that whoever
does not believe what we believe is a disbeliever (kāfir). But here is the imam (viz. the
caliph) who is the defender of the Muslims, and his grandfather al-Qādir and his father
al-Qāʾim issued a creed for the people which was read out to them in their courts and
was disseminated by the Khurasanians and pilgrims to the far outskirts of Khurasan,
and we affirm their creed.106

The caliph was convinced of his arguments, and Abū Naṣr al-Qushayrī left, out of political

prudency and cathartic release, to the pilgrimage in Mecca.107 Niẓām al-Mulk subsequently

called him back to Nishapur, where he stayed active as a teacher until the end of his life.108

Although Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī was discernably more prudent in his political actions, we

also possess a text attributed to him which conveys what his theological views concerning the

104
Ibid., 188.
105
See Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 29 ff.
106
Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Mirʾāt al-zamān fī tārīkh al-aʿyān, 189.
107
Ibid., 190.
108
Al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, vol. 19, 425.
292
Ḥanbalīs are supposed to have been. The text is called al-Ishāra ilā madhhab ahl al-ḥaqq, and has

published on the basis of an Alexandrian manuscript copied in 599 AH.109 Although this book is

not mentioned in biographies of al-Shīrāzī, it contains circumstantial data that would place it

within the correct time period,110 and are relevant to the particular issue of Baghdad religious

controversy seen above.111 For working purposes, we will assume the manuscript’s attribution

is correct.

The reason al-Shīrāzī gives for writing the Ishāra is to set the record straight, due to the

activity of:

a group who falsely claim [scholarly] knowledge (al-ʿilm) and associate themselves with
it, yet don’t (even) know what it is they [truly] (believe),112 who also accuse the
upholders of truth (ahl al-ḥaqq) of things which they do not believe nor will they find in
any book, so that they might turn away the hearts of the laypeople (li-yunaffirū qulūb al-
ʿāmma) from inclining to them, and command them to constantly anathemize and
curse them (yaʾmurūnahum abadan bi-takfīrihim wa-laʿnihim).”113

This, like the correspondence from ʿAmīd al-Dawla reflects the Ashʿarite consternation at

Ḥanbalī rejection of their doctrine, and the conviction that latter-day Ḥanbalīs upheld a false

consciousness about the nature of Islamic orthodoxy which disqualified them as true

representatives of traditionalist Islamic scholarship.

This argument about the Ḥanbalī madhhab, as we recall, was also advanced by al-

Juwaynī in his ʿAqīda Niẓāmīya – a text meant to be taught in the Niẓāmīya curriculum – in his

109
See Marie Bernand, La Profession de Foi D'Abū Isḥāq al-Šīrāzī (Cairo: Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale,
1987), 3. Cf. the newer edition, whose editor says a second copy of the manuscript is to be found in Istanbul, in
Ḥājjī Maḥmūd Effendī 1607; Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī, al-Ishāra ilā madhhab ahl al-ḥaqq, ed. Muḥammad al-Zabīdī
(Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1419/1999), 171–2
110
The most important of these is the description of Shīʿite political dominance in Syria, most likely a reference to
the Fatimids, who only lost control of that region during the lifetime of al-Shīrāzī.
111
Ashʿarite theologians are perceived as the clear minority, not only relevant for the time, but the place.
112
This reflects a kalām critique against those who do not perform naẓar. This critique will also be applied again in
the Ishāra in regard to the Ḥanbalī position on God’s speech (see below).
113
Ibid., 179.
293
discussion of the Ḥanbalī position on God’s speech.114 Public confrontations about God’s

speech between Ashʿarīs and Ḥanbalīs in fact, concerned al-Shīrāzī in a very palpable manner,

as we saw from the fitna surrounding Abū Naṣr al-Qushayrī’s arrival at the Baghdad Niẓāmīya.

In the Ishāra he thus advances a polemic of his own: He refutes the position that God speaks in

words consisting of letters, since letters come in and out of existence in succcession (like

accidents in a body) and thus are temporal entities. Belief in eternal letters, al-Shīrāzī says, is

comparable to the Christian idea of Jesus as God’s eternal word – but even worse, because of

the greater multiplicity of temporal beings believed to be eternal.115

The problem would be solved, he says, if his opponents would answer the question

about the difference between eternal and temporal being (al-farq bayn al-qadīm wa’l-muḥdath)116

– emphasizing what we have come to know as the pillar of rationalist faith in God’s oneness.

Implicitly extending his comparison to Christianity, he declares that his mushabbiha opponents

also deserve to be called “incarnationists” (ḥulūlīya) because when they say that the letters and

sounds of the Qurʾān are not created, they thereby attribute eternality to objects within the

temporal world;117 by which he means the letters in the Qurʾānic codex, and recitation of

human beings. Those who do not believe in the Ashʿarī creed which he has laid out are

disbelievers (kāfir).118

Even more significant than this, however, is that al-Shīrāzī also dwells on elements of

theological dispute which reflect significant anxieties inherent to the public negotiation of

114
See above.
115
Ibid., 212–3.
116
Ibid., 214.
117
Ibid., 227–32. See other references to them as al-mushabbiha al-ḥulūlīya; ibid., 214, 220.
118
Ibid., 275.
294
orthodoxy in light of the emergence of Sunnī kalām. As we saw earlier, the Ashʿarites of

Nishapur were accused of anathemizing the masses who did not perform naẓar; this reflected a

real concern that elements of Muʿtazilite "innovation" had entered the greater fold of Islam.

The Ishāra, however, grapples with another, related accusation also leveled at the Ashʿarite

theologians; namely, that they secretly believed in doctrines different from those which they

proclaimed publicly.119 As we will see, in the context of the external Fatimid threat, this was to

be a perennial cause of Ḥanbalī suspicion concerning Ashʿarite scholarly integrity. The author

of the Ishāra’s immediate response to this accusation is that his theological opponents (viz. the

Ḥanbalīs) also secretly believe that God is one of three!120 – a polemic characterization of their

belief in the eternality of the Qurʾān’s words.121

But even this barbed riposte brings about more serious considerations about the nature

of dealing with religious difference in a context where the stakes are so high: al-Shīrāzī

emphasizes that Prophetic precedent is such that even hypocrites (viz. dissimulating

disbelievers) must be dealt with in accordance with their outward appearance (ẓāhir); honesty

or hypocrisy is not written on people’s foreheads, a fact which is especially true for those who

have less access to otherworldly knowledge than the Prophet did.122

For the sake of argument, al-Shīrāzī explains that the fact that Ashʿarites do not

proclaim what they believe publicly is not, as his interlocutors claim, a proof that their

doctrines are not true. The Prophet and his followers were also prevented from speaking

119
Ibid., 276.
120
Ibid.
121
That is they believe in 1) God, 2) the eternal words that He spoke, and 3) the eternal words contained in the
Qurʾānic codex.
122
Ibid., 276–8.
295
publicly when they were small in number and oppressed; according to the ḥadīth Islam started

strange and will become strange again as it began.123 This contention against “truth in

numbers” is then concretized in al-Shīrāzī’s immediate context by two examples in order to

get his point across: The public manifestation of tashbīh and cursing/anathemization of other

Muslims doesn’t mean that said position is correct.124 Likewise, in Syria and other places, he

points out, the numbers of “rejectionist Shīʿites” (rawāfiḍ) who openly insult (sabb) the

Prophet’s companions in the face of silence (sukūt) by Sunnīs doesn’t mean they are correct.125

The complications facing al-Shīrāzī in his post at the Niẓāmīya were such that it was

apparently sufficient for his opponents to disparage his school of thought in front of the

laypeople merely by calling them “Ashāʿira.”126 The perception of Ashʿarī theology as an

innovation especially as it met the public sphere was a difficult challenge to surmount. Such a

climate must have made his functions at the madrasa extremely difficult, despite his generally

good relations with the scholarly classes of Baghdad, even with other Ḥanbalī scholars

(excluding al-Sharīf Abū Jaʿfar). Such concerns were likely on al-Shīrāzī’s mind during the al-

Qushayrī fiasco at the close of the Islamic year 469/1077, during which he wrote to his main

patron – the Seljuk vizier Niẓām al-Mulk himself – concerning his grievances about the

Ḥanbalīs. Although al-Shīrāzī’s initial correspondence is not extant, Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī has

preserved for us Niẓām al-Mulk’s response, which arrived in 470/1077, probably near the start

of the new Islamic year.

123
Ibid., 278–9.
124
Ibid., 279.
125
Ibid., 279–80.
126
Ibid., 280.
296
 Niẓām al-Mulk’s response likewise illuminates his concern for the negotation of public

religiosity. On his part, however, he shows more sensitivity to the social dimensions of the

difficulty that the Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī scholars face. For this reason he chastises them for madhhab

partisanship, and clarifies his vision for their social role, explaining that:

Assisting al-sunan is a higher priority than creating strife (fitan). We did not go through
with building this madrasa except for the purpose of protecting knowledge and the
general welfare (li-ṣiyānat al-ʿilm wa’l-maṣlaḥa) and not to sow dissent and discord (lā li’l-
ikhtilāf wa-tafrīq al-kalima); if things proceed in a manner that conflicts with the
purposes behind our desire, then we will have no other choice than to close this avenue
of engagement. It is not in our capacity to do any more than seek stability127 in
Baghdad and its environs and change the habits of its population.
The madhhab of the imam Abū ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (may God bless him) is
dominant there – and his station among the imams and his rank in the sunna is known.
According to what we were told, the reason for the reoccurence of [the fitna] was a
scholarly topic (masʾala) in theology (al-uṣūl) about which Abū Naṣr al-Qurayshī was
asked. He answered in a manner that conflicted with the beliefs they knew and were
familiar with according to their customs, and they were resentful because of that: It is
not customary for a human being to hear his madhhab be disparaged, nor hear a
deviation from his own beliefs.
It is known that the people of Qāshān followed the madhhab of Abū Ḥanīfa and that the
Shāfiʿī scholars there did not force them to adhere to their beliefs (muʿtaqadahum).
Likewise, the Ẓāhirīs (aṣḥāb al-ẓāhir) adhered to the beliefs (muʿtaqad) of al-Shāfiʿī and
the aṣḥāb al-raʾy did not force them to leave their madhhab; God has prohibited such
things from our predecessors when He said: “And do not insult those who pray to other
than God, lest they insult God antagonistically without knowledge...” (Q al-Anʿām 6:108)
Such a madhhab was even more widespread in Isfahan and other regions than it is in
Baghdad, and they were not approached in a way that was difficult for them to bear.128

Niẓām al-Mulk’s response to al-Shīrāzī reflects a pragmatism about the role of the

scholarly class in preserving the public order that sought to curb al-Qushayrī’s grandstanding

in the Baghdad metropolis. The procedures of the mutakallimūn were not to be a revolutionary

force which overthrew popular religion, but merely “change the habits” of the laypeople in a

127
Reading thabāt for thawāb.
128
Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Mirʾāt al-zamān fī tārīkh al-aʿyān, 193–4.
297
way which would instill the acknowledgement of the scholarly class for the sake of knowledge

and the common good.

As the news spread of Niẓām al-Mulk’s letter, the Ḥanbalīs rejoiced at the Seljuk vizier’s

seeming acquiesence to their hegemony. But shortly thereafter an Ashʿarī scholar called al-

Iskandarānī gathered a group from the Niẓāmīya madrasa to the Tuesday market and started

openly anathemizing (takfīr) the Ḥanbalīs; fighting ensued and arrows were shot, one Shāfiʿī

was killed, and the caliph had to send in men to enforce the peace.129 Some years later, In

Shawwāl of 475 Ashʿarī Qāḍī called al-Bakrī went with a gang of followers to provoke the

Ḥanbalīs; fighting broke out, and he was removed from Baghdad to the camp of the Seljuk

sultan and given money and clothes.130

In light of these events in the latter half of the 5th/11th centuries, as well as the nature of

public religious life in Baghdad in the 6th/12th centuries, it cannot be said that the Ashʿarite

school triumphed as the new orthodoxy of the Abbasid era via the sponsorship of the Niẓāmīya

madrasa system. The Niẓāmīya madrasas merely created a safe space within which the

Ashʿarite-Shāfiʿī scholars could work, at a time when public sentiment had been turned

against them.

That the Ashʿarite school nevertheless came to enjoy the widespread favor that it did in

subsequent times is a testament to at least three things: 1) the undoubtable influence that its

representatives had in the domain of uṣūl al-fiqh, which we also saw was an important vehicle

for disseminating the rationalist mandate of naẓar 2) the refutations written by its

129
Ibid., 194.
130
Ibid., 217–8.
298
representatives against atheism, peripatetics, Muʿtazilites, Ismāʿīlīs, and other hardline

Shīʿites, and 3) the acceptance of its understanding of historical memory, especially as

articulated by al-Bayhaqī and other prominent representatives of ḥadīth transmission in

Khurasan, which neutralized the resistance to kalām always liable among the muḥaddithūn

against kalām. The importance of this third element, as we shall see, was particularly

important in Damascus.

6.4 Late Abbasid Ḥanbalism in Baghdad: Public and Private

As mentioned earlier, the common image of Ashʿarite Rationalists versus Ḥanbalī

Traditionalists does not fully encompass the dynamics of the age. Ever since al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā,

the mandate to do naẓar had been disseminated in the body of the Baghdad Ḥanbalī

scholarship. For this reason it is all the more significant to look at the internal dimensions of

Ḥanbalī school in Baghdad.

Abū Yaʿlā’s son, al-Ḥusayn, author of the Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, intentionally omitted any

information about the development of Ḥanbalī kalām practice, or even the paradigmatic shift

in uṣūl al-fiqh – both established by his father. This reveals something to us about the religious

climate of the times, as well as the nature of the historical memory that the Ḥanbalī school

publicly advocated in a time of religious controversy, in the fear against “innovation.” Even

his father had some under scrutiny for his work Ibṭāl al-taʾwīl, in the year 432 – but was only

redeemed once it was examined and found to not conflict with the Qādirī creed.131

131
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 30, 456-457.
299
 After Abū Yaʿlā’s death in 458, the leadership of the madhhab passed to al-Sharīf Abū

Jaʿfar, whom we have come to know from his role in the later Qushayrī controversy. But this

was not the first time he took on such a political role:

In the year 460, Abū Jaʿfar prevented the head of the Baghdad Muʿtazilites, Abū ʿAlī Ibn

al-Walīd (d. 478/1086) – a student of both al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār and Abū’l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī –

from publicly proclaiming his doctrines (iẓhār madhhabihi) by staging his own public reading of

Ibn Khuzayma’s K. al-Tawḥīd at the Jāmiʿ al-Manṣūr in front of the Ḥanbalīs and ahl al-ḥadīth,

before heading to the caliphal dīwān for a public reading of the Qādirī creed. Abū Jaʿfar then

requested a copy of the creed from the vizier’s office, to subsequently be publicly read at Bāb

al-Baṣra.132

According to Ibn al-Jawzī, the occasion which had inspired Ibn al-Walīd to break the

public ban on Muʿtazilite kalām since the issuing of the Qādirī creed was the death of the

wealthy Ḥanbalī merchant Abū Manṣūr Ibn Yūsuf, a well loved patron of the city who also

contributed to public works and the patronage of religious scholarship, in particular the

Ḥanbalī school.133 Abū Manṣūr’s most famous beneficiary was Abū Yaʿlā’s illustrious protégé

Ibn ʿAqīl. Ibn ʿAqīl too come into the sights of al-Sharīf Ibn Jaʿfar as a target.

Ibn ʿAqīl, like Abū Yaʿlā, originally a Ḥanafī, and the son of secretaries from the Buyid court,

had become a devotee of the Ḥanbalī madhhab early in his life, under the tutelage of the

famous Ḥanbalī qādī, recalling:

Until his [Abū Yaʿlā’s] death, I did not miss attending his courses, and accompanying
him in his retreats, during which he allowed me to be with him, keeping him company,

132
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 36-37.
133
George Makdisi claims that “Abū Manṣūr b. Yūsuf was for Bag̲h̲dād and the caliph what Niẓām al-Mulk was for
K̲h̲urāsān and the sultan;” see G. Makdisi, EI2, s.v. “Abū Manṣūr b. Yūsuf.”
300
 be it during his walks, or walking beside his stirrup, when he was on his mount. In
spite of my youth, I had access to his private moments more than any other of his
disciples.134

It was Abū Yaʿlā too, who had secured for him the patronage of Abū Manṣūr Ibn

Yūsuf.135 Ibn ʿAqīl represented the next logical step in the sort of scholastic Ḥanbalism that

Abū Yaʿlā had largely helped to establish, confident in its scholarly methods and willingness to

engage with the intellectual discourses of the times. In addition to his studies with Abū Yaʿlā

and other prominent Ḥanbalī scholars of the time such as Abū Muḥammad al-Tamīmī (d.

488/1095), Ibn ʿAqīl studied with important Shāfiʿīs such as Abū’l-Ṭayyib al-Ṭabarī (d.

450/1056), Abū’l-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463/1071) and Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī, but also also

undertook studies with the famous Ḥanafī scholar Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Dāmaghānī (d.

478/1085),136 and the Muʿtazilite Ibn al-Walīd.137 After al-Sharīf Abū Jaʿfar’s targeting of Ibn al-

Walīd, he turned his sights on Ibn ʿAqīl likely due to his association with scholars of opposing

theological schools.

Ibn ʿAqīl’s connection to Ibn al-Walīd and other Muʿtazilite authorities were used

against him, and al-Sharīf Abū Jaʿfar accused him of heresy, anathemized him, and called for

his death. After a period of exile, finding assistance from the caliph’s vizier Fakhr al-Dawla,

whom we also saw as collaborator with Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī, he was allowed to publicly repent

before Abū Jaʿfar and other witnesses from his heresy in 465/1072, in a signed confession

(tawba)138 and affirmation of the Qādirī creed. Far beyond the condemnation of a specific

134
Makdisi, Ibn ʿAqil, 27.
135
Ibid., 21–2.
136
Eventually chief qadi himself, see EI2, s.v. “al- Dāmag̲h̲ānī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAlī.”
137
Ibid., 18–22.
138
The transcript of the transmission is found in a later work by Damascene Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn Qudāma, see
George Makdisi, Ibn Qudāma's Censure of Speculative Theology (London: Luzac & Company, 1962), 4–7.
301
doctrine, it was a public wholesale renunciation of engaging with the scholarship of

“innovators” (mubtadiʿa), “Muʿtazilites and otherwise,” with the declaration that “it was not

permissible (lā yaḥillu) to write it, read it, or believe it.”139 After such a climactic event, it was

not until 470, i.e., immediately after the Qushayrī incident, not to mention Abū Jaʿfar’s death,

that Ibn ʿAqīl emerged again as a prominent figure of Baghdad Ḥanbalism, teaching another

forty years until his death in 513/1119.140

This raises questions about the nature of normative Ḥanbalī doctrine in ways which do

not have equivocal answers. Ibn ʿAqīl’s predilections for the study of kalām, in the light of the

contributions of his master Abū Yaʿlā and his other Ḥanbalī peers listed earlier, cannot be seen

as breaking the ranks of the higher cadres of Ḥanbalī scholarship. Clearly the attitude of Abū

Jaʿfar reveals none of the affinities for kalām shared by his peers in the school, and can be seen

to have headed a reactionary wing of the Baghdad school that cared nothing for the

“rationalist mandate” espoused by Abū Yaʿlā’s scholarship, despite their esteem for his

jurisprudential authority. Which brings us again to the question of Abū Yaʿlā’s son, author of

the Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila and also a student of Abū Jaʿfar’s, and the agenda he pursued in

depicting Ḥanbalīs as strictly traditionalist – even against the grain of his father’s scholarly

contributions. Was this a wholesale rejection of his father’s work, or was it a refortification of

the historical memory of the Ḥanbalī school – analogous to the “traditionalist” narrative

139
Ibid., 5.
140
For a summary of the whole affair see Makdisi, Ibn ʿAqil, 28–44.
302
constructed by Nishapur Ashʿarīs – a duty felt all the more strongly in the midst of the public

contentions on orthodoxy that colored Baghad social life?141

Such delicate negotiations are also reflected in what George Makdisi describes as a

letter from Ibn ʿAqīl to Niẓām al-Mulk, in 484/1091, in response to the vizier’s request for

Ḥanbalīs to be questioned on their doctrines, due to what he had been informed about their

“corporealism” (tajsīm). Ibn ʿAqīl prepared the following response:

Those people [the Ashʿarīs] should be asked to give their opinion of our leader (Ibn
Ḥanbal). If they should agree on his perfect knowledge of the Traditions of God’s
Apostle, and concede that he was trustworthy, [there would be nothing more to say],
for the revealed law is no more nor less than the spoken words of the Prophet and his
actions, except for special cases in jurisprudence, wherein independent personal
judgment is involved. Now we follow the doctrines of this very man, upon whom they
agree to bestow the rank of unimpeachable witness; and, as for them, they follow the
doctrines of people who, according to our unanimous agreement, are free from
condemnable innovation. If they agree that we follow the doctrine [of Aḥmad b.
Ḥanbal], they should accordingly agree that we are, along with him, safe; for he who
follows one who is safe, is himself safe. But if they accuse us of having abandoned the
doctrine [of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal] and having followed opinions contrary to the consensus
of the jurisconsults, then let them say it, so that the answer may be given to fit the
accusation. And if they say, “Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal was not an anthropomorphist, but you
yourselves are,” we shall answer them saying, “al-Shāfiʿī was not an Ashʿarī, but you
yourselves are.” Now if you have been the victims of a lie, we too have been such
victims.
But as for us, we shun metaphorical interpretation and, along with it, reject
anthropomorphism. We can therefore be accused only of having neglected vain
discourse and scrutiny into the minutiae [of kalām-theology], practices which were not
the way of the Fathers. Besides, what do these people who blame us want of us, seeing
that we do not compete with them in the race for the goods of this world.142

141
Cf. Bell, Love Theory in Later Ḥanbalite Islam, 52. Although the citations Bell gives are inconclusive, they reflect
his own concerns about the legacy of Abū Yaʿlā as founder of kalām and its lack of representation in the latter’s
son’s Ṭabaqāt.
142
Makdisi, Ibn ʿAqil, 190.
303
 The source for this, a quote of Ibn ʿAqīl’s writings quoted by Ibn al-Jawzī,143 suggests in

fact, that (despite Makdisi’s view) such a statement was probably never delivered to Niẓām al-

Mulk, as Ibn ʿAqīl’s words imply rather that he “would have liked to” say these things.

Ibn ʿAqīl’s hypothetical response to Niẓām al-Mulk reflects a cynical attitude about the

traditionalist self-understanding of the rising Ashʿarī school that undergirded its viability in

Baghdad public discourse – yet another reason why such a public rebuff of Niẓām al-Mulk was

likely refrained from being uttered. However, as a kalām practicing Ḥanbalī, Ibn ʿAqīl’s

statement also reflects two other notable self-conscious elements about the school that he

adhered to, if we may be permitted to read between the lines.

First, it seems as if he views himself to be in accordance with the doctrines of his school’s

eponym – likewise part of the school’s self-understanding narrative – which his own

rationalist commitments do not compromise – unlike the Ashʿarīs. Second, and more

importantly, there is a collective sense in which he talks about Ḥanbalīs as “we” which entails

an acknowledgement of those in its camp who do not deal with rational inquiries related to

kalām, but he nevertheless defends the viability of this position for sound religious orthodoxy.

This is significant because of how the “mandate of naẓar” was negotiated in the public

discourse; Ashʿarites had come under fire in Nishapur for the perceived elevation of kalām into

a criterion for orthodox faith (leading to anathemization of the lay people); the Ḥanbalī

leadership had not – and never would – intimate their advocacy of such a radical religious

Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-umam wa'l-mulūk, vol. 16, 295; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila,
143

vol. 1, 333-334.
304
platform for public life.144 Ultimately this was out of an unwillingness to compromise their

own scholarly ranks, and traditional forebears.

6.4.1 Ḥanbalī Efflorescence: Public and Private

Ibn ʿAqīl’s life in fact covered an important transitional period for the development of

the Ḥanbalī school which has not received sufficient attention in the field. The most detailed

overview remains Henri Laoust’s 1959 article, which we shall depend upon here for a brief

overview:

Laoust has rightfully described the 6th/12th century as “la grande époque du hanbalisme

Bagdadien.”145 As he himself noted, the intellectual seeds of this development were sown by

the prolific al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā who contributed pioneering efforts in uṣūl al-fiqh and kalām,146

and his students Abū’l-Khaṭṭāb al-Kalawadhānī (d. 510)147 and Ibn ʿAqīl (d. 513), the latter of

whom he recognized as the first of an eclectic type which the school would see more of, who

combined the rigor of legal study with a diversity of interests and quickness of mind which

enriched the Ḥanbalī corpus considerably, in fiqh, uṣūl al-fiqh, and even belles lettres.148 Both

were advocates of the rationalist mandate in religion, and influenced the development of Ibn

al-Zāghūnī (d. 528/ ), another important figure of Ḥanbalī kalām, as we saw earlier.

144
Cf. another example of Ibn ‘Aqil’s defense of the Ḥanbalī school; Makdisi, Ibn ʿAqil, 192–3.
145
Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),” 107.
146
Ibid., 97–8.
147
A master of fiqh and ḥadīth, prolific and author of the Hidāya which was of great importance for the madhhab
for subsequent generations; ibid., 102–3.
148
Ibid., 103–5. In the following section on Ḥanbalī engagement with theology, attention will be given to more of
the eclectic members of the Ḥanbalī school who have not received attention in the research.
305
 In addition to these intellectual developments, the 6th/12th century also witnessed the

rise of even greater societal influence for the Ḥanbalī school: Ibn Hubayra (d. 560/1165),

trained in the madhhab from his youth, experienced a rags-to-riches story which made him

vizier of the Abbasid caliphate under al-Muqtafī li-Amrillāh (r. 530-555/1136-60), under whom

he helped strengthen the position of the Caliph vis-à-vis the Seljuks, encouraged Nūr al-Dīn al-

Zangī to counteract the Fatimids, and also established a Ḥanbalī madrasa endowed with his

extensive library as part of the waqf.149 He also left behind Ikhtilāf al-aʾimma al-ʿulamāʾ, an

example of the growing Ḥanbalī interest in the genre of khilāf; comparative fiqh encompassing

the different madhhabs.

The Baghdad that Ibn Hubayra oversaw created an environment in which scholars such

as the famous Ḥanbalī polymath Ibn al-Jawzī flourished:150 Thanks to the vizier’s support, Ibn

al-Jawzī was situated to curry the favor of three Abbasid caliphs: al-Muqtafī, al-Mustanjid (r.

555-566/1160 –1170)151 – during whose reign the famed Ḥanbalī Sufi ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī also

found his patronage and repute –and al-Mustaḍīʾ (r. 566-574/1170-80). Ibn al-Jawzī gave

sermons at the palace mosque during the reign of al-Mustanjid, worked in the personal service

of al-Mustaḍīʾ, and held the directorship of five madrasas.152 It was a glorious time for Ḥanbalīs:

In the last year of his reign, al-Mustaḍīʾ ordered the renowned Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn al-Mannī –

149
Ibid., 109–10. See also Zetterstéen, K.V, EI2, s.v. "al-Muḳtafī."
150
For the summary see Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),” 113–21. His
complete profile is outside of the scope of the dissertation, but deserves to be studied in more detail. See the
important contribution by Herbert Mason, Two Statesmen of Mediaeval Islam: Vizir Ibn Hubayra (499-560AH/1105-
1165AD) and Caliph an-Nâsịr li Dîn Allâh (553-622 AH/1158-1225 AD) (The Hague: Mouton, 1972). For some more recent
comments on the phenomenon of Ḥanbalī prominence in late ‘Abbāsid Baghdad see also Cook, Commanding Right
and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, 123–7.
151
See Carole Hillenbrand, EI2, s.v. “al-Mustand̲j̲id.”
152
Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),” 113–4.
306
a pivotal figure for the development of the madhhab – to give public lessons in the historic

Jāmiʿ al-Manṣūr, and had a special engraving made on the tombstone of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.153

A number of the descendants and pupils of the scholars just mentioned continued to

form a diverse band of legal scholars and intellectuals that held a variety of political positions

in the reigns of both the caliphal revivalist al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh (r. 575-622/1180-1225),154 and

his son al-Ẓāhir (r. 622-3/1225-6).

Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-Jawzī was part of al-Nāṣir’s retinue, named official preacher and

muḥtasib by the caliph, and went on diplomatic missions to Syria – during which he founded

the Jawzīya Ḥanbalī madrasa –and went on to serve the caliph’s successors al-Ẓāhir and al-

Mustanṣir.155 Al-Nāṣir also appointed the vizier Ibn Yūnus (d. 593/1197-7), another prominent

face of Baghdad Ḥanbalism.156

Al-Ẓāhir, a caliph who seems to personally have been Ḥanbalī,157 appointed ʿAbd al-

Qādir’s grandson Naṣr b. ʿAbd al-Razzāq (d. 633/1236) as chief judge (qāḍī al-quḍāt)158 and Ibn

al-Jawzī’s grandson “Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī” (d. 654/1256) as ambassador to the Ayyubids, sending

him with diplomas of investiture to the three sons of al-Malik al-ʿĀdil: al-Kāmil in Egypt, al-

Muʿaẓẓam in Damascus, and al-Ashraf in the Jazīra.159 They had inherited the kingdom of Ṣalāḥ

al-Dīn, who had supplanted the Fatimids and consolidated his control in those regions.

153
Ibid., 114.
154
Angelika Hartmann, EI2, s.v "al-Nāṣir Li-Dīn Allāh."
155
He was killed with his three sons when the Mongols took Baghdad; ibid., 121.
156
See below for sources on his life.
157
His early confidant was the zāhid and faqīh Muḥammad al-Maymūnī (d. 611/1214-5), considered one of the
abdāl, a student of Ibn al-Mannī and Ibn al-Jawzī and also a teacher of Majd al-Dīn b. Taymīya; ibid., 117.
158
Student of Ibn al-Mannī; see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 46, 173-175.
159
See Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),” 117. {Laoust 1959 #153: 117} Eddé,
Anne-Marie. "al-Ẓāhir bi-Amr Allāh."
307
 Such patronage of Ḥanbalīs also continued during the reign of al-Mustanṣir (r. 623 –

640/ 1226 –1242), whose reign, though overcast by the impending Mongol advance from the

East, witnessed the proliferation of public works, mosques, and places of worship,160 and the

completion of the Mustanṣirīya madrasa, his crowning accomplishment. The institution

housed teaching space for the four Sunnī madhhabs, and an incredibly rich library of religious,

linguistic, and technical sciences – all under the custody of a Ḥanbalī librarian.161

Although Ibn ʿAqīl’s unique personality is so vividly depicted by Makdisi so as to make

him seem the last of his kind, the reality of 6th/12th century is a bit more complex than that.

Baghdad Ḥanbalism of that period reveals a startling degree of electicism; besides the teaching

of kalām, there was also a philosophical inclination among various figures of the Ḥanbalī school

worthy of mention.

The first example is Ṣadaqa b. al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥaddād (d. 573/1177), a student of both Ibn

ʿAqīl and Ibn al-Zāghūnī.162 Not only did he study kalām with his teachers, but he was also

known for his study of math, logic, and falsafa.163 Among his scholarly accomplishments was a

historical chronicle (no longer extant) that later scholars made use of, including Ibn Rajab.164

To a certain extent he must have enjoyed a degree of intellectual liberty within the purview of

his work as a professional book copyist.165 Such indications are found in a disparaging Ḥanbalī

anecdotal claim that “he changed ever since copying the Shifāʾ by Ibn Sīnā.”166 Since,

160
He even reconstructed the mausoleum of Samarrā of ʿAlī al-Hādī and Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī; see ibid., 118.
161
Ibid. See Carole Hillenbrand, EI2, s.v. “al-Mustanṣir.”
162
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 40, 120.
163
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 304-305.
164
Ibid., vol. 2, 305.
165
Ibid.
166
This anecdote is reported from Abū Yaʿlā, which is impossible. It is more likely that it was from his son
308
according to Ibn al-Jawzī, he supposedly “used to incline to madhhab al-falāsifa wa-tāratan

yaʿtariḍ ʿalā al-qaḍā wa’l-qadar,”167 he became an – internal – subject of consternation among his

peers.168 Nevertheless, the Ḥanbalī vizier Ibn Yūnus defended him against Ibn al-Jawzī’s

insinuations of heterodoxy.169

The vizier Ibn Yūnus’ intervention for Ṣadaqa, besides reflecting a degree of political

prudency considering the ambiguities of the age, was not without a degree of personal

explanation as well. Along with his ḥadīth and Ḥanbalī fiqh studies Ibn Yūnus had been a

student of Ṣadaqa’s, expressingly studying kalām with him, reaching a level of proficiency that

he was apparently able to compose his own books in that discipline.170

When Ibn Yūnus became vizier for al-Nāṣir in 583,171 he was also able to support the

endeavors of another representative of Baghdad Ḥanbalism’s eclectic scholarly scene: Ibn al-

Māristānīya (d. 599/1203) and Ibn al-Māshiṭa (d. 610/1213).

As the former’s name would indicate, he was the son of two custodians of a sanatorium

(māristān) in Baghdad. In addition to his studies in medicine, he was known to study

astronomy (al-nujūm), logic, falsafa, and ʿulūm al-awāʾil. A litterateur of sorts, he also wrote a

biography of the vizier Ibn Hubayra and a history of Baghdad – the latter of which Ibn Rajab

Ibn al-Jawzī also has reports about him from Ibn ʿAsākir; Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-umam wa'l-mulūk,
vol. 18, 243. Cf. al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 40, 121.
167
Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-umam wa'l-mulūk, vol. 18, 243.
168
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, 305–10.
169
Ibid., vol. 2, 307. Ibn Rajab, reading his works, found evidence of rapprochement with the Ashʿarīs, “that which
is in the codex is not God’s speech truly (ḥaqīqatan) but merely an expression (ʿibāra) of it, and an indication
(dalāla) of it, and it is only called God’s speech metaphorically (majāzan) … there is no difference between us and
the opponents in this regard except that in our view, its referent (madlūlahu) is the speech of God which is letters
and sounds, while in their view its referent is speech which is an eternal meaning [subsisting] in the essence [of
God];” ibid., vol. 2, 310.
170
Ibid., vol. 2, 434; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 42, 136.
171
Ibid.
309
possessed an autograph copy of, and relied upon it for his own Dhayl.172 With the support of

Ibn Yūnus, Ibn al-Māristānīya was able to build an institution called the dār al-ʿilm with a

library in it and religious endowment (waqf) for ṭullāb al-ʿilm. He was also given public ḥalaqa at

the palacial congregational mosque (jāmiʿ), where he would read ḥadīth on Fridays. He was

also put in charge of the ʿAḍudī Māristān.173

In this same year rose another prominent face of Baghdad Ḥanbalism, al-Fakhr Ismāʿīl

(d. 610/1213), also known as Ibn al-Māshiṭa, an important disciple of the great Ḥanbalī faqīh

Ibn al-Mannī, (to the extent that he was called ghulām Ibn al-Mannī).174 After the death of his

master that year, he took on the latter’s teaching position at the Maʾmūnīya mosque and soon

was given public lessons at the palacial jāmiʿ as well (likely by the intermediary of Ibn Yūnus),

in addition to the lessons he gave at his private residence.175

Known as an excellent debater and jurisprudent, he was considered an expert on

theology, issues of khilāf (on which he wrote a taʿlīqa which was still in use during Ibn Rajab’s

time), as well as jurisprudential theory (uṣūl al-fiqh), on which he wrote a work called Jannat al-

nāẓir wa-junnat al-munāẓir.176 He deserves to be mentioned as no less than the main teacher in

Baghdad of Ibn Taymīya’s grandfather, Majd al-Dīn.177

Ibn al-Māshiṭa was a strange personality. Ibn al-Najjār – who proudly states he

refrained from speaking with him personally – was apparently told by others that “he would

always insult ḥadīth and its people, saying they were ignorant since they don’t know the

172
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 543, 545; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 42, 394-395.
173
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 543.
174
Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),” 119.
175
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 43, 360-361.
176
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 142; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 43, 361.
177
Ibid., vol. 43, 362. For more information, see chapter eight.
310
rational sciences (al-ʿulūm al-ʿaqlīya) nor the real meanings of the ḥadīth.” The negative

suspicions engendered by such anecdotes were confirmed by rumors that he read falsafa with a

Christian called Ibn Marqus, and composed a work entitled Nawāmīs al-anbiyāʾ in which he

apparently wrote that the prophets “were philosophers (ḥukamāʾ) like Hermes and

Aristotle.”178

Ibn al-Māshiṭa may have been the subject of some grumbling, and Ibn al-Māristānīya

was unanimously viewed as unreliable in ḥadīth transmission by Ḥanbalīs and others,179 but

they were never subject to public reproach for their scholarly predilections. When Ibn al-

Māristānīya encountered a sudden reversal in fortune (as we shall see), it was not his scholarly

eclecticism that created his downfall, but rather his participation in another political intrigue

between the Ḥanbalī scholarly elite of the time – which highlights another eclectic face of

Baghdad Ḥanbalism.

These centered around another fascinating face of 6th/12th century Ḥanbalism, ʿAbd al-

Salām b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī (d. 611/ ) – another grandson of the famous

Sufi. He studied ḥadīth with various scholars, fiqh from Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Barādīsī, and ʿAbd al-

Qādir and his father, and taught at his grandfather’s madrasa, al-Madrasa al-Shāṭibīya and had

various administrative positions.180 He wrote literature, and studied logic, falsafa, and

astronomy.181

We know how that such subjects were not an oddity for a Baghdad Ḥanbalī of that time

to occupy himself with. However, the contents of ʿAbd al-Salām’s personal library eventually

178
Ibid., vol. 43, 361; al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, vol. 22, 28-30.
179
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 42, 394-395.
180
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 152-153.
181
Ibid., vol. 3, 153.
311
became a major liability for him, as he found himself hereticized, disgraced, and personally

endangered on the basis of their contents. Were one to be ignorant of the nature of Ḥanbalī

scholarship, the public events that transpired around ʿAbd al-Salām would initially lead one to

believe that the Ḥanbalīs made him the target of an “anti-rationalist” manhunt by

“traditionalists.” However, this notion is undermined by the fact that the public shaming of

ʿAbd al-Salām was led by Ibn Yūnus182 and assisted by Ibn al-Māristānīya, two scholars we have

seen to fall on the side of the “rationalist mandate” of kalām. Ultimately if the contents of ʿAbd

al-Salām’s library put him in a difficult situatation, it was due to its containing the epistles of

the Ikhwān al-ṣafā, a work implicated in another public controversy in Baghdad some years

earlier,183 as well as other works containing hermetic invocations and magic. These were

seized from his house and read aloud in front of the crowded masses, before their public

burning, as the following anecdote describes:

Abū Bakr Ibn al-Māristānīya started to read from each book one by one, and what they
contained of prayers to the planets and the like, saying, “Curses on the one who wrote
these and believed in them,” in the presence of ʿAbd al-Salām. Then the masses (al-
ʿāwāmm) started a din of curses, and the curses went as far as to reach al-Shaykh ʿAbd
al-Qādir – nay all the way up to al-Imām Aḥmad [Ibn Ḥanbal] – and the rancor that was
in men’s hearts emerged.184

ʿAbd al-Salām’s madrasa was confiscated and reassigned to Ibn al-Jawzī. After a brief

period of imprisonment, he was released with a public affirmation of his adherence to Islam.185

182
See ibid., vol. 2, 504. Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),” 115.
183
This book had also been used as a pretext against the Qadi Ibn al-Murakhkham during the ascendancy of the
caliph al-Mustanjid; see Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-umam wa'l-mulūk, vol. 18, 141.
184
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 154. Cf. ibid., vol. 2, 549. We also read a poem by an Ashʿarite
opponent resident scholar at the Niẓāmīya mocking ʿAbd al-Salām; ibid., vol. 3, 154-155.
185
Ibid., vol. 3, 155-156.
312
 Ibn Rajab’s sources suggest to him that the reason for this entire affair was that Ibn

Yūnus was using his new found political power to single out ʿAbd al-Salām and his family due

to personal grievances with them going back to his pre-vizieral days of poverty.186 This

personal element cannot be excluded, since we may reflect that such a public event as the

burning of ʿAbd al-Salām’s books had the potential to be redirected at other members of the

Ḥanbalī elite. ʿAbd al-Salām was attacked for personal reasons, but persecuted by means of the

public religious discourse – according to which all of them had to regulate their behavior.

ʿAbd al-Salām did not miss the chance to take his revenge against those who had sullied

his name: This was facilitated as soon as Ibn Yūnus fell from grace with the caliph for his

collaboration with the Seljuks and was imprisoned. The confiscated madrasa was returned to

ʿAbd al-Salām’s father ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, and the remaining books unscathed by the fire were

returned to ʿAbd al-Salām. ʿAbd al-Salām then turned on Ibn al-Māristān – running him into

the gutter187 – and implicated Ibn al-Jawzī in matters of corruption and embezzlement of waqf

funds for his own use, for which Ibn al-Jawzī was put into exile in Wāsiṭ, staying under house

arrest there until very near to the close of his life.188

6.4.2 Silent Ruptures

186
Ibid., vol. 3, 153.
187
The report goes as far as to say that he was locked up in his own madhouse with the insane, the dār al-ʿilm and
its books were sold, and he lost all his money. After a period he regained his standing, working as a physician
making house calls, found success, became wealthy, came to work in the service of the caliph again; he died while
on business as a caliphal messenger; ibid., vol. 2, 544. While the report does not implicate ʿAbd al-Salām, the fact
that this happened expressly after the fall of Ibn Yūnus would make it seem extremely likely,
188
Ibid., vol. 3, 155-156.
313
 Ibn al-Jawzī is the last Ḥanbalī personage of the 6th/12th century with whom this

account of Baghdad Hanbalism will close. As is discernable from the anecdotes mentioned

earlier, Ibn al-Jawzī was in many ways the “public face” of Baghdad Ḥanbalism. Authoritative

jurist, regionally renowned sermonist and Qurʾānic exegete, advisor to caliphs, he embodied

his era in a way which is often lost on those unfamiliar with the history of the era and locale.

Yet despite all this, he became – for a time at least – a strong dissenter from within the Ḥanbalī

scholarly class.

This dissent had no public manifestation, but was completely internal to the circles of

Ḥanbalī scholarship. We possess only a literary record of its occurrence, embodied in a work

attributed to Ibn al-Jawzī which has been studied in detail by Merlin Swartz,189 and a

reproachful letter by one of his younger contemporaries, Ibn al-ʿAlthī (d. 634/1236) preserved

in Ibn Rajab’s Dhayl Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila,190 also studied by Swartz.191

The upshot of Ibn al-Jawzī’s dissent was that he broke with the informal consensus of

the Ḥanbalīs in refraining from reinterpretation (taʾwīl) of the descriptions of God in the

Qurʾān. This was not solely aimed at the Ḥanbalī layperson; he explicitly names and berates in

particular Ibn Ḥāmid, Abū Yaʿlā, and Ibn al-Zāghūnī for defending the anti-taʾwīl position. Ibn

al-Jawzī not only states that it is not tenable to affirm the scriptural statements as they are

without compromising the proofs of God’s existence – he invokes the familiar kalām arguments

common to Muʿtazilites, Ashʿarites, and Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn – but says that their

interpreting the Qurʾān and ḥadīth according to the “apparent meaning” (ẓāhir), has subjected

189
Merlin Swartz, A Medieval Critique of Anthropomorphism: Ibn al-Jawzī's Kitāb Akhbār aṣ-Ṣifāt (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
190
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 446-453.
191
Swartz, A Medieval Critique of Anthropomorphism, 282 ff.
314
the Ḥanbalī school and its eponym to public derision as “corporealists” (mujassima). Absolving

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal of blame in this manner, he did not fail to emphasize the presence of

ignorant muḥaddithūn who accepted any ḥadīth’s description of God, no matter how unreliable

its transmission was or grotesque it was in content, mentioning almost every oddity in belief

that had ever been imputed to the Ḥanbalīs by their opponents.

He was severely reprimanded for this by his younger peer Ibn al-ʿAlthī (d. 634/1236),

who reproached him for breaking the ranks, insulting authorities, and contravening the

position of taʾwīl held by the salaf and the latterday Ḥanbalīs, saying, “the disapproval towards

you from the scholars, the virtuous, and the elite, has increased across the region due to your

erroneous doctrine in regards to [God’s] attributes.”192 Appointing himself as “an ambassador

of the scholars and ḥadīth transmitters,” he tells Ibn al-Jawzī to desist from his position –

invoking the public repentance of Ibn ʿAqīl – “or else they will expose your secret to the

people.”193

As far as we know, the controversy with Ibn al-Jawzī never went public, and he never

broke ranks with the Ḥanbalī scholarship. If he had, he would not have been the first to do so,

as he knew very well. He preserves the biography of two of them in his Muntaẓam:

The first of these was no less than al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463/1071), the renowned

muḥaddith and author of Tārīkh Baghdad:

Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb long ago used to adhere to the madhhab of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, but
then our brethren turned against him because of his inclination to the innovators (al-
mubtadiʿa) and harmed him personally – so he moved on to the madhhab of al-Shāfiʿī,
may God be pleased with him, and showed partisanship against them [viz. the Ḥanbalīs]

192
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 447.
193
Ibid., vol. 3, 452.
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 in his writings, (sometimes) hinting at blameworthy aspects of theirs, and being
explicit when he could.194

The second was Abū’l-Fatḥ b. Barhān (d. 518/1124), a former student of Ibn ʿAqīl:

He was masterful in fiqh and its uṣūl, very smart and intelligent; but our brethren
resented (naqama) things about him which their rough manners could not handle, so he
moved on and learned jurisprudence from al-Shāshī and al-Ghazālī. He found all the
hospitality he could want from the Shāfiʿīs; he then rose in the ranks and they made
him a teacher at the Niẓāmīya.195

The last former Ḥanbalī to be mentioned here had not risen to prominence during Ibn al-

Jawzī’s lifetime, and so perhaps did not merit an entry in his Muntaẓam, but could very well

have crossed paths with him in Baghdad Ḥanbalī circles of knowledge. This was Sayf al-Dīn al-

Āmidī (d. 631/1233), the seminal Ashʿarī mutakallim and prolific author on theology,

philosophy, and uṣūl al-fiqh, who also started his studies as a Ḥanbalī.

He studied with the famous Ibn al-Mannī, before eventually moving on to the Shāfiʿī

school.196 He has no reported sob story with the Ḥanbalī school, though during his sojourn in

Shāfiʿī dominated Cairo he was faced with an accusation of “false creed (fasād al-ʿaqīda),

profligacy, negation (al-taʿṭīl), and al-falsafa.” Apparently his studies in falsafa, even if critical

in nature, did not inspire the confidence of his Ashʿarī brethren. Fleeing for his life, he

relocated to Ḥamāt, Syria where he composed his most important works in theology and uṣūl

al-fiqh – and met Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (whom he did not think much of)197 – before

relocating to Damascus.198

194
Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-umam wa'l-mulūk, vol. 16, 132.
195
Ibid., vol. 17, 226. Cf. Ibn al-Athīr, ʿIzz al-Dīn, al-Kāmil fī'l-tārīkh, vol. 7, 696; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-
Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 357.
196
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 46, 74-75.
197
Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ al-zamān, 8 vols., ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1972), vol. 6,
272.
198
Ibid., vol. 3, 294; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 46, 75.
316
 He taught Shāfiʿī fiqh there in the ʿAzīzīya madrasa located in the vicinity of the grave

of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, and continued his writing, but was removed from his teaching position for

political reasons, unrelated to matters of religion.199 He taught members of all four madhhabs, a

sign of the universality ascribed to uṣūl al-fiqh which transcended the traditionalism of the

eponymic madhhab collectives. When onlookers wondered at the extra time he devoted to

teaching the Ḥanbalīs, he quipped ironically, “The apostate doesn’t want to break the hearts of

the Muslims.”200 Arguably one of his most prominent students was Shams al-Dīn al-Maqdisī,

head Ḥanbalī qādī of Damascus, nephew of Ibn Qudāma, and the main teacher of Ibn Taymīya.

6.5 Conclusion: Inner and Outer Dimensions of Orthodoxy

In what has preceded, we have seen a depiction of the consequences of the Qādirī creed

for religious public life in Nishapur and Baghdad. They explain for us how, despite such

paradigmatic shifts as are evident in the development of kalām and uṣūl al-fiqh embraced by

important figures of all the madhhabs – two fundamentally anti-traditionalist Islamic sciences

colored by the “rationalist mandate” – the collective political corrective taken against the

existential threat of Ismāʿīlism pushed public scholarly discourse away from revealing the

fruits of these intellectual pursuits towards mutual rivalry over a more perfect representation

of emulative traditionalism in the public sphere.

To be more precise, we have come to appreciate the circumstances of both 1) the

articulation of Ashʿarite “traditionalism” – which is to say, Ashʿarism not as anti-taqlīd

methodology, but as rationalist defense of the inherited teachings of Muslim forefathers, as

199
Ibid. See the explanation in Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Khalīl b. Aybak al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi'l-wafayāt, 29 vols., ed. Aḥmad al-
Arnaʾūṭ and Turkī Muṣtafā (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth, 1420/2000), vol. 21, 228.
200
Ibid., vol. 21, 226. This was a reference to his own departure from the “orthodoxy” of the Ḥanbalī school.
317
well as the 2) historical obscurity of Ḥanbalīte kalām, undeniably present but tactically

inconspicuous in public life. This has been afforded us by an analysis of the social

circumstances of both discourses, in Nishapur and Baghdad.

Nishapur became the focal point for the rise and fall of various religious circles as the

consequence of public policy by Abbasid vassals to eliminate religious “innovation” meant to

countervail Fatimid influence in the first half of the 5th/11th century. In the capital city of

Baghdad, subsequent public controversies such as the fitna of Abū Naṣr al-Qushayrī and the

repentance of Ibn ʿAqīl reflect how alternate religious visions of orthodoxy conflicted along

the boundaries of social acceptability over the second half of that century, defining the

parameters of engagement for the following period until the Mongol invasion.

Not all social effects were deleterious: public contentions on theological difference

being banned, comparative fiqh and inter-madhhab study could flourish openly with no greater

soteriological consequences implied. Both legal scholars and transmitters of ḥadīth learned

from one another despite personal theological differences, whether across contending schools

of kalām or across the kalām/anti-kalām divide. Mutakallimūn of different schools were left

undisturbed as long as their endeavors did not ruffle social sensibilities.

Ashʿarism flourished as its ethos too came to accommodate trends both political and

sociological. This is reflected in al-Juwaynī’s theological work al-ʿAqīda al-Niẓāmīya which he

wrote for the purpose of instruction in the madrasas sponsored by Niẓām al-Mulk. Whereas al-

Juwaynī had, in his earlier work such as al-Burhān, seems to have advocated taʾwīl in dealing

318
with laypeople (al-ʿawāmm),201 by the time he wrote his ʿAqīda Nizamiyya, the tone had changed:

Despite the importance of understanding the rational nature of “the necessity of God’s

existence” (wujūb wujūdihi), the “conclusive transmitted evidence” that the salaf did not

perform taʾwīl had the implication of a consensus (ijmāʿ) that it was not a reliable tool for

normative doctrine.202

Although the social function of this text does much to suggest that this change in

position by al-Juwaynī was simply a matter of political expediency, inspired by the exchange of

Niẓām al-Mulk and Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī regarding the Islamic public religious order, the

conceptual dimensions to this change which factor in the lack of historical precedent for the

negotiation of kalām-based interpretation between the scholarly classes and the layperson are

also palpable, and are likewise reflected in the writings of al-Juwaynī’s student al-Ghazālī.

Al-Ghazālī advocated refraining from openly utilizing taʾwīl unless laypeople faced

problems in their personal faith; study of kalām for its own sake and reinterpretation of the

scripture as basis of public discourse, on the other hand, was inimical to societal needs and

antithetical to the natural constraints of human understanding – and contrary to the way of

the salaf. This he discussed extensively in his work Iljām al-ʿāwāmm min ʿilm al-kalām (Reigning

in the Masses from the Science of Kalām).203 Taʾwīl was the reserve of the masters of

interpretation, and should not be popularized, lest it run amok outside of the proper

201
Although “determining probablistic preponderance” (tarjīḥāt) is not permissable in definitive rational matters
(al-qatʿīyāt) such as kalām (i.e. for scholars), it is permissible when dealing with al-ʿawwām, since their beliefs are
not “knowledge” (ʿulūm) but only belief/conjecture (ẓann), so it is like dealing with “a conjecture within a
conjecture;” al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, al-Burhān fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 1143–5. This tarjīḥ would be most
applicable in the taʾwīl process.
202
Al-Juwaynī, Abū'l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik, al-ʿAqīda al-niẓāmīya, 23–5.
203
Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, “Iljām al-ʿawāmm ʿan ʿilm al-kalām,” in Majmūʿat rasāʾil al-Imām al-Ghazālī, ed. Ibrāhīm
A. Muḥammad, 319–55 (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Tawfīqīya).
319
methodology both epistemological and linguistic, the proper conduct both temperamental and

devotional, which legitimated it. Such deeper contemplations on the level of intellectual and

spiritual edification required as the basis for proper taʾwīl even informed the basis of what can

be described as an autobiographical Bildungsroman on the lifetime attainment of interpretive

ability, the Qānūn al-taʾwīl, written by al-Qāḍī Ibn al-ʿArabī, an influential Mālikī scholar of the

Islamic West who proudly recounted his encounter with the great dāneshmand al-Ghazālī from

whom he sought tutelage during his studies in the East.204

Perhaps the most significant contribution by al-Ghazālī on the role of interpretation

was his seminal reflection piece on the intersection of public and private religious life, the

Fayṣal al-tafriqa.

Much earlier, in his al-Iqtiṣād fī’l-iʿtiqād, he had defended the Ashʿarite principle of

linguistically defining faith (īmān) as affirming the truth (taṣdīq) of something. On this basis he

explained that Jews, Christians, Brahmans, and falāsifa were out of the fold (as disbelievers in

the truth of the Prophet), whereas Muʿtazilites, mushabbiha, and those who broke consensus

(ijmāʿ) could not be excommunicated, since, as Griffel explains, “die drei letztgenannten

Gruppen interpretieren die Offenbarungsschriften nur fehlerhaft.”205 Essentially, all

revelation-affirming Muslims stay inside of the fold of the faith.

The Fayṣal al-tafriqa reasserted this principle to the fullest logical conclusions by

focusing on the ontological classification of scripture’s content that underlies the entire

204
See Ibn al-ʿArabī, Abū Bakr, Qānūn al-taʾwīl, ed. Muḥammad al-Sulaymānī (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1990),
111.
205
Frank Griffel, Über Rechtgläubigkeit und religiöse Toleranz (Zürich: Spur, 1998), 15–6.
320
spectrum of belief in revelation. Al-Ghazālī classified the content of scripture within five

levels of existence:

1. the ẓāhir as referring to “real being” (al-wujūd al-dhātī)

2. “sensible being” (al-wujūd al-ḥissī)
3. “imaginative being” (al-wujūd al-khayālī)
4. “conceptual being” (ʿaqlī)
5. “similar/metaphorical being” (al-wujūd al-shibhī)206
Of course, moving down through these levels of existence still requires methodological

rigor; taʾwīl needs a rational demonstration (burhān) to show that the ẓāhir is impossible – a

point he had brought up in contention with the excessive taʿwīl of the Ismāʿīlīs in his al-Qisṭās

al-mustaqīm.207 Likewise, after moving beyond the first level of existence, a rational

demonstration is necessary to show the impossibility of a scriptural meaning within every

subsequent given level of existence before moving to the next.208 This is a highly developed

version of the kernel of the “rule of interpretation” we saw established earlier by his teacher

al-Juwaynī.

Again, incorrect interpretation is not a cause for anathemization, as affirming any one

of these five (even incorrectly; i.e. without the proper methodological rigor) still keeps one

within the fold. To reject all five, al-Ghazālī maintains, however, is disbelief, such as:

(…) when all these meanings are denied and when it is said that the statements (of the
lawgiver) have no meaning and are only pure falsehood (kadhib), that the only goal
behind (such a false statement) is to present things as they are not (talbīs), or to
improve the conditions in the present world (maṣlaḥat al-dunyā). This is pure unbelief
and clandestine apostasy.209

206
Griffel, Al-Ghazālī's Philosophical Theology, 111–2.
207
It is the rigor of the syllogism (burhān) which defeats the Ismāʿīlī’s interpretations; ibid., 116.
208
Ibid., 111–2.
209
Ibid., 108. Translation by Griffel.
321
He thus reiterates in the Fayṣal a point that he made earlier in the Iqtiṣād;210 namely that the

falāsifa and Ismāʿīlīs fall outside of the faith because of their assertion that prophets teach

patently false statements to lead the uneducated masses for the political good.211 These are

points he had made against Ibn Sīnā in his Tahāfut al-falāsifa212 and the Ismāʿīlīs in his Faḍāʾiḥ

al-Bāṭinīya,213 both of which he wrote before leaving Baghdad on his spiritual quest.214 Given al-

Ghazālī’s awareness of the entire gamut of interpretations that Muslims held from Muʿtazilite

to Ashʿarite to Ḥanbalī to Sufi to Shīʿite – he was willing to acknowledge a vast sphere of

interpretation as long as it did not entail a methodological affirmation of the “noble lie” at the

heart of the Platonic philosophical tradition.

Griffel suggests that al-Ghazālī’s equivocation of belief (īmān) with “affirming the

veracity of the Prophet” (taṣdīq al-rasūl) contradicts earlier Ashʿarīte views that faith consists

in accepting the veracity of God (taṣdīq Allāh).215 However, we do find the following quote by

Ibn Fūrak of al-Ashʿarī:

He used to say: “Faith in God is other than faith in the Prophet (as). If it were not for
the indications of the revelation (dalālat al-samʿ), it would not be intellectually
impossible (lam yunkar min jihat al-ʿuqūl) that the one who believes in God the Exalted
while rejecting the Prophet (ṣ) would be [considered] a believer in Him (muʾminan bihi).
[This is] because believing that God the Exalted sent the Prophet (ṣ) is different from
believing in Him and that He is One, Existing, not resembling His creation. But the

210
Griffel, Über Rechtgläubigkeit und religiöse Toleranz, 16.
211
Griffel, Al-Ghazālī's Philosophical Theology, 101.
212
In this work he aimed to show that the classic claim of the philosophers, the “demonstration” (burhān) did not
exist for critical aspects of their ontology and theology; see ibid., 98–101. There he excommunicated them for
their doctrines of the pre-eternality of world, God’s ignorance of particulars, and denial of physical resurrection,
which they justified “prophetically” as a type of siyāsa; ibid., 101. In contrast, Ghazali tolerated their position on
God’s unity and attributes, comparing it to that of the Muʿtazilites, and saying it was not worthy of
excommunication; ibid., 103.
213
Ibid., 101–2.
214
Mentioned in chapter one.
215
Ibid., 106.
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 indication of revelation (dalālat al-samʿ) has established that it is not valid (lā yaṣiḥḥ)
that one be a believer in God the Exalted while disbelieving in His Prophet (ṣ).”216

This would accord with the premise – contra the Muʿtazilites – that salvific categories are

established by revelation and not subjective reasoning. Encompassing, in addition to the

linguistic definition of faith as “belief,” the scriptural qualifier comprising belief in the Prophet

Muḥammad, “affirming the truth of the prophet” is considered essential to the meaning of

faith as defined by revelation. However, it is these very premises that inform al-Ghazālī’s

recognition of wrong “interpretation” (taʾwīl) as not taking one out of the fold, but part and

parcel of affirmation process, even if done “incorrectly.”

This methodological reduction of theological difference to difference of interpretation

resolved the problem of the Muʿtazilites, Shīʿites, Ḥanbalīs, Sufis, and unreasoning masses, and

is to be contrasted with the position of the Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn such as Abū Yaʿlā who saw

eye to eye with the Muʿtazilites in methodologically invalidating difference of opinion in

theological matters if based on ignorance (jahl) of the truth. But those considered outside of

the fold – Avicennan falāsifa and the Ismāʿīlīs – represented a red line which the methodology

could not be expanded to accomodate.

The social implications of this distinction is likewise a significant aspect of the the

Fayṣal al-tafriqa – embodied in the full title of the book itself: “The Criterion of Distinction

Between Faith and Clandestine Disbelief.” Incorrect interpretation is to be ruled out as the

basis of imputing clandestine disbelief in the public sphere, leaving only the conscious

adherence to a methodology which attributes the intentional purveying of useful falsehoods to

216
Ibn Fūrak, Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥasan, Mujarrad maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 153.
323
the masses on the part of the lawgiving prophets. Not only did this idea of religious siyāsa

apply to the Fatimid religious platform of legitimacy, but it also applied to the theory of

prophethood advanced by Ibn Sīnā – which had gained more adherents among the intellectual

classes of Islam.

Such ideas even found an audience among the Ḥanbalī elite of Baghdad, as we have

seen. The private occupation of these scholars could not be disclosed to the public, as this

would threaten group unity – as came out in the public shaming of ʿAbd al-Qādir’s grandson

ʿAbd al-Salām. Mirroring the concern of the Ḥanbalīs, we have also seen how al-Āmidī came

under intense scrutiny from his Ashʿarī peers for his association with falsafa. Even the

Muʿtazilites expressed their concern; Ibn al-Malāḥimī (d. 536/1141), a prominent student in

the school of Abū’l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī wrote his Tuḥfat al-mutakallimīn to critique certain Shāfiʿīs

– by whom he almost certainly met al-Ghazālī himself – who taught on the pulpit things that

they did not believe themselves, under the influence of the falāsifa.217 The seminal figure of

classical Sufism, Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234),218 spoke in his Kashf al-faḍāʾiḥ al-

yūnānīya about the necessity of creating a Muslim-Jewish-Christian alliance against the

pernicious influence of “the falāsifa and the materialists” who were changing the nature of

prophetic religion from within.219

217
See introduction of Malāḥimī, Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad, Tuḥfat al-mutakallimīn fī al-radd ʿalā al-falāsifah, ed.
Ḥasan Anṣārī and Wilferd Madelung (Tehran: Muʼassasah-ʼi Pizhūhishī-i Ḥikmat va Falsafah-ʼi Īrān, 2008).
218
On whom, see Erik S. Ohlander, Sufism in an Age of Transition: ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī and the Rise of the Islamic
Mystical Brotherhoods (Boston: Brill, 2008).
219
Al-Suhrawardī, Shihāb al-Dīn ʿUmar b. Muḥammad, Kashf al-faḍāʾiḥ al-yūnānīya wa-rashf al-naṣāʾiḥ al-īmānīya, ed.
ʿĀʾisha Yūsuf al-Manāʿī (Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 1420/1999), 96–7. Elsewhere he proudly states: “I, by God’s aid
(tawfīq), have washed out the book by Ibn Sīnā called al-Shifāʾ, about ten volumes [of it], with a noble and blessed
prophetic allowance (bi-idhnin sharīfin muqaddasin nabawī);” ibid., 86.
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 This particular subject of attack was not merely the old “materialist,” “naturalist”

doctrine of Aristotelianism which had been the intellectual adversary of the mutakallimūn since

the 2nd/8th century, but the particular synthesis of Ibn Sīnā. In this new form had been

Islamicized, which is to say that its theological implications were completely intelligible to the

mutakallimūn. It claimed to definitively answer the foundations of the ʿaqlīyāt, invalidating

both the ontological framework and methods of demonstration of God’s existence

quintessential to the kalām project. Its same system claimed to explain the ultimate

ontological and epistemological grounding of prophethood, which too had implcations for the

nubuwwāt and thus the revelational aspect of religion (samʿīyāt) – the natural locus of

disputation concerning the boundaries of interpretation, scholarly ideals, and the system of

taqlīd in the public realm.

Which is to say, that if the ideas of the falāsifa were a cause of concern, this was not

solely due to the rise of Fatimid political power, but because of their intellectual appeal in light

of the implications of the dissemination of the rationalist mandate among the scholarly classes

in Islam beyond its original Muʿtazilite framework. It can be observed that the public

negotiation of scholastic religion for the unreflecting “masses,” initially the chief concern (and

source of frustration) for the earliest Muʿtazilites, had likewise become a topic of debate for a

growing body of Sunnī scholars, heightened by disputes on taʾwīl, the formal intersection of

reason-based theology and scripture (ʿaqlīyāt/samʿīyāt).

This heightened the Sunnī scholarly perception of the existence of popular religion as

participating in scripturally-based religious discourse, yet being naively unaware or in conflict

with elements of reason-based orthodoxy. Although a polarized attitude towards the masses

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threatened to rear its head among Sunnī mutakallimūn (and was the subject of early anti-

Ashʿarī polemic), this energy was channeled more often at those perceived to be Ḥashwīya

scholars – their intellectual foes viewed as advocating a layperson’s position as scholarly truth.

If, however, the masses were truly exempt of critique, the possibility always existed

that the falāsifa’s “double-truth” vision of religious orthodoxy was correct. Just as the body of

possible ʿaqlīyāt had been broadened by the falāsifa, so too had another attitude towards the

mediation of scriptural religion: If the falāsifa were correct about the eternity of the world, the

impossibility of the physical resurrection, and God’s “natural” causality (i.e. without knowing

and willing temporal particulars), this meant that the statements taught by the Prophet

Muḥammad to his followers to the opposite effect needed reinterpretation. However, this

taʾwīl was not to be disseminated to the masses for a critical reason; namely, that the apparent

meanings of the Qurʾān were intended for the masses due to their natural intellectual

limitations.

We may observe that the anthropological critique of the masses of the type practiced

by the Muʿtazilites was foreign to the conceptualizations of the faylasūf, because from a falsafa

perspective, it constituted a brash denunciation of mere human nature, which functioned, as it

were, as the essential building block for the social organization of human life in communities

(milal) facilitated by the political management (siyāsa) provided by the naturally occurring law

givers – otherwise known as prophets.

It may be for this reason that the gravitation to Avicennan religious philosophy was

stronger for some Sunnīs than for their Muʿtazilite peers. We can even perceive how certain

Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn were susceptible to the “Avicennan temptation:” Their kalām paradigm

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1) established the rational validity of scripture, 2) deemed the Qurʾānic mutashābihāt as being

unascertainable by means of the Arabic language, and 3) incorporated in its methodology a

recognition of the inequality of the human intellect. As such it had a higher potential than

even Ashʿarism to posit the mutashābihāt as an intended form of mass communication to be

held in contradistinction to the fruits of naẓar.

Even Ibn al-Jawzī – who as we saw earlier, definitely inclined to taʾwīl along the lines of

Ashʿarism – shows elements of this attitude in his writings. The widely renowned preacher,

the public face of Ḥanbalism, wrote in Ṣayd al-khāṭir, his book of personal reflections, the

following words:

One of the most harmful things to the masses (al-ʿawāmm) is the words of the
practitioners of taʾwīl (al-mutaʾawwilīn) and negaters (nufāt) of God’s attributes and
relational characteristics. For the prophets (upon them be peace and blessings) spoke
profusely in terms of affirmation (bālaghū fī’l-ithbāt), so that the existence of the Creator
would be firmly established in the souls of the masses (fī anfus al-ʿawāmm). This is
because souls find familiarity (taʾnas) in affirmation, but if the layperson (al-āmmī)
hears something which necessitates negation (al-nafy), it will dispel affirmation from
his heart and be the worst harm to him…

For example: God has informed us of His establishment over the Throne, and so the
souls find intimacy in affirming the deity and His existence. And God has said, “The
Face of your Lord remains” and “His two hands are extended” and said “God was
angered with them” and “He was pleased with them”…

So if the layperson or child (al-āmmī wa’l-ṣabī) is filled with affirmation (imtalaʾa … bi’l-
ithbāt) and almost finds familiarity from the descriptions in accordance with a sensible
understanding of it (bi-mā yafhamuhu al-ḥiss)220 – it will be said to him “nothing is like
unto him,” which will erase from his heart that which his imagination inscribed on it
(mā naqashahu al-khayāl), while the words of affirmation (alfāẓ al-ithbāt) will remain
established.

And for this reason the lawgiver (al-shāriʿ) [i.e., Muḥammad] affirmed this: When he
heard a poet say, “And above the Throne is the Lord of the Worlds,” he laughed. And

220
Interpreting the Qurʾān on the basis of the senses (ḥiss) is what he criticized his Ḥanbalī predecessors such as
Abū Yaʿlā and Ibn al-Zāghūnī for.
327
 someone else said to him, “Does our Lord laugh?” He said, “Yes.” And he said, “Verily
He is on His throne in such a manner.” And all of this is so he could establish
affirmation in their souls…221

It is likely such an attitude, which he even attributed to Ibn ʿAqīl,222 which was conducive to

the rise of falsafa among the Ḥanbalī elite in the 6th/12th century.

Based on what has preceded, we can outline the following schema for the intersection of the

“rationalist mandate” as mediated between the scholarly classes of Islam and the public

religious order:

The Muʿtazilites:
1) Affirmed the necessity of taʾwīl methodologically,
a. Due to priority of naẓar as basis of ontology, and thus theology
and
2) Believed in its public dissemination but
a. were unable to do so, due to the public religious order
The Ashʿarites:
1) Alternated between affirmation and rejection of taʾwīl for methodological reasons
a. Due to priority of naẓar as basis of ontology, and thus theology
i. The “rule of interpretation” dictates taʾwīl
1. Rational and intelliglbe meaning for every statement in the
Arabic Qurʾān
vs.
ii. The difficulty of reinterpretation.
2) Tendency not to disseminate taʾwīl
a. Due to complex methodological concerns
b. So as not to upset the public religious order
c. So as not to contravene the salaf

221
See Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣayd al-khāṭir, ed. Ḥasan al-Masāḥī Suwaydān (Damascus: Dār al-Qalam, 2010), 116–7.
222
He writes “Ibn ʿAqīl used to say, ‘The best thing for the beliefs of the masses (iʿtiqād al-awāmm) is the apparent
meanings of the verses and prophetic narrations, because they find familiarity (yaʾnasūna) with affirmation,
whereas if we were to erase that from their hearts, the guidelines of proper conduct and respect (al-siyāsāt wa’l-
ḥishma) would be eliminated. The hastening of the masses to a questionable understanding (tahāfut al-ʿawāmm fī’l-
shubha) is better in my opinion then plunging them into teachings of transcendence (ighrāqihim fī’l-tanzīh),
because assimilationism (al-tashbīh) immerses them in affirmation, such that they yearn for and fear something,
the likes of which they are familiar with fearing and hoping from (qad anisū ilā mā yukhāfu mithluhu wa-yurjā),
wheras teachings of transcendence (al-tanzīh) propel them towards negation (al-nafy), and no desire or fear is to
be had from negation. Whoever contemplates the sharīʿa will find that it immerses the legally responsible (al-
mukallafīn) in assimilationism (al-tashbīh) with words (bi’l-alfāẓ) whose apparent meaning (can) convey other than
it, such as the statement of the bedouin, “Does our Lord laugh?” And he [viz. the Prophet] did not frown;’” ibid.,
199.
328
The Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn:
1) Rejected taʾwīl for methodological reasons
a. The self-sufficiency of revelation
i. Naẓar-established scripture does not contradict intellect
ii. Mutashābihāt are sui generis speech, not understood, and thus do not
contradict naẓar
b. The conjectural nature of reinterpretation
2) Rejected dissemination of taʾwīl
a. For methodological reasons
b. For the sake of upholding the public religious order
c. So as not to contravene the salaf
The Avicennans:
1) Affirmed the necessity of taʾwīl methodologically
a. priority of falsafa as basis of ontology, and thus theology
but
2) Rejected its public dissemination
a. Scriptural religion part and parcel of natural political order
b. Prophets intend false meanings in order to convince the unlearned masses

In what has preceded, it is hoped that a more concrete depiction for the negotiation of

religious authority in the public sphere of the 5th-6th/11th-12th centuries has emerged, with a

particular emphasis on the role of the “rationalist mandate” in the particular details of its

formation, for doctrinal normativity, scholarly authority, and historical memory. If much of

its particulars seem foreign to us, it is partly due to the fact that Baghdad was devastated by

the Mongols in 656/1258, and the weight of extent Muslim historiographical tradition, would

shift westward, towards such population centers as Cairo and Damascus. Late ‘Abbasid

Baghdad is considerably more foreign to us than the Ayyubid and Mamluk Egypt and Syria

which withstood the Mongol onslaught and preserved its historiographical and scholarly

lineages intact.

The fall of Baghdad highlights the significance of our return to Damascus, and the

formation of the public religious order there from the 5th/11th century until the Mongol

conquest. In light of the post-Mongol shift in cultural weight to Syria, the historiographical
329
and scholarly lineages of Damascus – as new cultural capital of the Muslim world – were

destined to influence much of how Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī scholars, as historians,

muḥaddithūn, and theologians, were to depict and transmit the historical memory of Islam, in

ways which have been broadly influential for the entirety of Islam up to the present time.

We will now be able to revisit the figures of Damascene religious life whom we have

familiarized ourselves with in the first chapter, and see where they lay in the negotiation of

religious orthodoxy, public and private. The Banū ʿAsākir and the Banū Qudāma, the faces of

Damascene Shāfiʿism and Ḥanbalism respectively, as well as the transmitters of ḥadīth and

historians of their respective communities must be understood by their relationship to this

long and drawnout contention on reason, revelation, and tradition. They form the most

immediate constitutive scholarly lineages for the context in which Ibn Taymīya lived, and

shaped the nature of his own intervention in the scholarly discourse of his times.

330
PART III. CONSTITUTIVE DISCURSIVE PRACTICES AND FORMATIONS FOR IBN TAYMĪYA’S
TIME

331
Chapter Seven. Scholarly Contentions in Damascus Before the Mongol Invasion

In the first chapter on the restablishment of Damascus as cultural capital of the Islamic

world, we came to see the Banū ʿAsākir and the Banū Qudāma as heads of the Shāfiʿī and

Ḥanbalī schools in the 6th/12th century, represented opposing sides in theological camps. Both

were tied to the collection of ḥadīth, and as such were also bound to the collection and

preservation, not only of scriptural material, but the collective historical memory of the

community. This was a natural product of the genesis of the two madhhabs – being as they

were, intimately connected with the ḥadīth collection movement – but as we have seen in the

preceding chapters, the outlooks of prominent representatives of these schools came to differ

acutely in key aspects to a degree that became very difficult to reconcile.

As we have seen, such a division, was not an obvious outcome, but rather the product of

a variety of intellectual developments that pivoted on fundamental questions about the nature

of tradition, reason, revelation, and the universality of the Islamic message. Even within this

split existed different configurations behind party lines: Kalām was practiced among Shāfiʿīs

and Ḥanbalīs – even if different conclusions were reached. Likewise, conflicting visions of

tradition and historical continuity were also articulated by both camps; we have also seen how

these represented both intellectual as well as political concerns.

This chapter is concerned with understanding the particular configuration of this split

in Damascus in the time immediately preceding the life of Ibn Taymīya. As we will see, these

debates centered on themes quite familiar to us by now: the role of reason, the role of taʾwīl,

the nature of God’s speech, and historical memory about the legitimacy of kalām in Islam.
332
7.1 The Foundations of Anti-Ashʿarī Polemic in Damascus

Post-Fatimid Damascus witnessed intense controversy surrounding Ashʿarī theology,

but the initial catalyst did not come from the Ḥanbalī school, but rather the Mālikī madhhab.

Its chief instigator, a certain Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī (d. 446/1055), was a reciter of the Qurʾān who

settled in Damascus in 391 AH/1001 CE. He could count among his students a number of

immigrants from the Islamic West, all Mālikīs, to whom he was known for narrating the

Muwaṭṭaʾ. 1 But he truly garnered his fame (or infamy) from a widely-circulated pamphlet he

penned wherein he disparaged the personal reputation of Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī.

The text, entitled Mathālib Ibn Abī Bishr (The Vices of Ibn Abī Bishr), was published by

Allard in 1970. The title itself is significant since it refrains from calling al-Ashʿarī by his name,

due to the fact that al-Ahwāzī denies that Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī was truly a descendant of the

famous Companion of the Prophet Muḥammad called Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī.2 Although

Muʿtazilites and their friends seem to have declined to call him by the Ashʿarī patronym,

preferring Ibn Abī Bishr as well,3 the dispute in the intra-Sunnī context has particular

significance. As we recall, a group of Khurasani Ashʿarites had emphasized his pedigree as an

indicator of the traditional provenance of the doctrine.4 Not only does al-Ahwāzī deny the

lineage, but argues for its inconsequentiality on the basis of scripture. In an appended

1
Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 295–6.
2
Michel Allard, “Un pamphlet contre al-Ašʿarī,” Bulletin d'Études Orientales XXIII (1970), 129–65: 153, 2a. He also
says the genealogy is inconsequential because Prophets and righteous people may be born to disbelievers, and
vice versa; ibid., 151-153, 2a.
3
Ibn al-Nadīm refers to him as Ibn Abī Bishr; see Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2, 648-649. He was also
called the same by al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār and his student Abū’l-Qāsim al-Bustī; see van Ess, Der Eine und das Andere,
vol. 1, 455.
4
See previous chapter.
333
statement to the text, the original scribe from his dictation even seeks to besmirch al-Ashʿarī’s

reputation by imputing him to be of Jewish lineage.5 This is the genealogical critique applied

as polemical strategy. The main purpose of the treatise, however, is to expose the harm which

al-Ashʿarī is supposed to have done to Islamic theology.

Al-Ahwāzī’s polemics against al-Ashʿarī are characteristic of those on the part of al-Sijzī

and al-Harawī which we have examined, and the anti-Ashʿarite wave of the 5th/11th century he

inhabited. The Mathālib, however, set a particularly new low. The entirety of the text is

written in highly invective language colored with insults and curses, with al-Ashʿarī made out

to be an arch deceiver of the community.

The main thrust is that al-Ahwāzī denies the sincerity of al-Ashʿarī’s conversion from

Muʿtazilism, and claims that he intended to trick the ahl al-sunna into accepting heretical

doctrine.6 The chief evidence he adduces for this is the book that al-Ashʿarī wrote called al-

Ibāna – this book, al-Ahwāzī claims, and other writings of his were used to trick the

commoners (al-ʿawāmm), and protect himself from the Ḥanbalīs. Al-Ibāna, according to al-

Ahwāzī, was only written after al-Barbahārī had given al-Ashʿarī’s new Sunnī identity a cold

reception, but was not even well received until after the latter left Baghdad.7 Al-Ahwāzī says

that al-Ashʿarī did not pray or keep ritual purity, was not a real religious scholar, and that his

followers only hid the falsehood of his doctrine to appease the Ḥanbalīs.8 Likewise, his

disciples are accused of the same ignorance and irreligiousity, knowing more logic and

5
Allard, “Un pamphlet contre al-Ašʿarī,” 165 (8b-9a).
6
Ibid., 153, 155, 157.
7
Ibid., 157, 159.
8
Ibid., 159, 161 6a-7b.
334
philosophy than religious scripture.9 To top it all off, al-Ahwāzī goes for the jugular, saying

that al-Ashʿarī died an ignominious death in his final adopted home; al-Aḥsāʾ, center of the

Qarmaṭī movement, a place of atheism and antinomianism.10 The imputation of Ismāʿīlī

influence is not new to us, but reminds us once more of the sway of the “esotericist scare” in

affecting public discourse.

Al-Ahwāzī closes the treatise in the common theodicean method to Islam: Reminding

his readers that Ashʿarī’s fame only began thirty years before the composition of this text,

when his doctrine was spread to Khurāsān, al-Maghrib, al-Ḥijāz; 11 al-Ahwāzī consoles his

readers by telling them that this will be rectified, however, by “God not leaving a place on

earth without someone who refutes and exposes them … As the Prophet (ṣ) said, “There will

always be a group of my Umma in accordance with the Truth, those who oppose them do not

harm them, until God’s command is fulfilled and they are victorious.”12 Al-Ahwāzī viewed

himself and his readers as fighting the good fight against an infiltrating body in the Muslim

collective.

The text circulated even outside of Damascus among those sympathetic to its contents.

It reached Baghdad where it was transmitted by the Ḥanbalīs there; most notably by al-Qāḍī

Abū Yaʿlā’s son Abū’l-Ḥusayn, author of the Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, who also transmitted the book

to, among others, the widely renowned muḥaddith Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī al-Iṣbahānī,13 who later

settled in Alexandria, Egypt. It is to al-Ahwāzī that Abū’l-Ḥusayn owed the famous narrative in

9
Ibid., 161, 163 7b - 8a.
10
Ibid., 163 8a-8b.
11
This would be ca. 400 AH according to Allard’s reckoning.
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid., 135. We have also noted earlier that al-Ahwāzī was the source Ibn Abī Yaʿlā used for his report on al-
Barbahārī.
335
his Ṭabaqāt about al-Barbahārī’s rejection of al-Ashʿarī which has gotten so much attention in

the secondary literature. As we have seen, the Mathālib also placed considerable emphasis on

the encounter between these two figures in order to undermine al-Ashʿarī’s latter-day legacy.

The book was also transmitted to Ḥanbalīs of other regions, such as Ḥarrān, as we will

see.14 Locally, however, the text was chiefly disseminated in Damascus by al-Ahwāzī’s Mālikī

compatriots; the earliest extant samāʿ records for the text in Damascus name for us the

maghribī scholar Abū Muḥammad Muqātil b. Maṭkūd b. Abī Naṣr al-Sūsī (d. ca. 500/1106) as well

as the his grandson Abū’l-Qāsim Naṣr b. Aḥmad b. Muqātil (d. 548/1153).15 It is to the nature

Damascene reception that we will now turn our attention.

The text enjoyed an intense initial period of dissemination there: We possess eight

samāʿ records16 from 474-490 alone, i.e. during the reign of the Seljuk Amīr Tutush (d. 471-

488/1079-1095), including a reading by Abū Muḥammad Muqātil on Saturday 26 Ṣafar 484/19

April 1091 in the Umayyad Mosque itself.17 In the following generation we find that Muqātil’s

grandson Abū’l-Qāsim Naṣr presided over a reading of the text Ramaḍān 547/1152 in the Dār

Biṭṭīkh in Damascus, a prominent mosque on Straight Street.18

In subsequent records, however, it seems that the dissemination of this text is

dominated by Ḥanbalīs. It was read again in in the Dār Biṭṭīkh in 587/1191 by Abū’l-Qāsim b.

Mismār,19 possibly the son of al-Shaykh Mismār who built the Ḥanbalī Mismārīya madrasa

14
See chapter eight.
15
The first two are the main transmitters of the text, see ibid., 136.
16
Records used by the muḥaddithūn to document the oral transmission of information, including the date of
transmission and names of people involved.
17
Ibid., 137–43.
18
Ibid., 143–4.
19
Ibid., 146–8.
336
mentioned earlier. Abū’l-Qāsim b. Mismār presided over another reading of the text that same

year, in an undisclosed location on no less than the holy day of Yawm ʿArafa of 587 (28 Dec.

1191), in a majlis attended by Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma himself.20 Allard has dated the last

extant samāʿ record to 620/1223; among the attendees was a member of the Ibn al-Ḥanbalī

family.21 The data on these public transmissions of the text suggests that its contents were well

known in Damascus for almost two hundred years from the time of its composition. We may

also observe that while those primarily engaged in transmitting the text were initially Mālikīs,

subsequent transmitters were primarily Ḥanbalīs and others engaged in the practice of ḥadīth

transmission.

7.2 Damascene Ḥanbalism and Anti-Ashʿarī Polemic

Indeed, in regard to anti-Ashʿarī polemics, history attests to a more prominent role on

the part of the Ḥanbalīs on the whole. Abū’l-Faraj al-Shīrāzī, the founder of Damascene

Ḥanbalism, had a foundational role in particular. Not only did he establish the madhhab in a

lasting manner in Damascus, but he also established certain predominant characteristics of its

theological outlook. Despite his tutelage under the famed Abū Yaʿlā of Baghdad, whom we

have come to know by now as the founder of Ḥanbalī kalām, Abū’l-Faraj completely rejected

kalām methodology in a manner which must be viewed as defining for the Ḥanbalī school of

Damascus. That is to say that unlike Baghdad Ḥanbalīs of the 5th-6th/11th-12th centuries, we find

after him no representatives of the Ḥanbalī kalām school whatsoever. The circumstances of

20
Ibid., 148. The session was also attended by a Ḥanafī scholar called Ibn Fallūs, known for his skill in kalām, logic,
and philosophy; see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 46, 321; al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi'l-wafayāt, vol. 9, 41.
21
Allard, “Un pamphlet contre al-Ašʿarī,” 149.
337
this phenomenon would only be accentuated by the rise of the Maqdisīs and the Banū Qudāma

at the end of that period. The nature of their kalām rejectionism, and its centering on the

perennially critical issues of reason, scriptural interpretation, and God’s speech make this an

essential chapter to understanding the Ḥanbalī milieu from which Ibn Taymīya would

eventually emerge.

7.2.1 The Banū’l-Ḥanbalī and Kalām Rejectionism: 1) Abū’l-Faraj al-Shīrāzī

As mentioned earlier, Abū’l-Faraj al-Shīrāzī had earned the endearment of the first

Seljuk amir over Damascus, Tutush. The latter even allowed him to debate Ashʿarīs in his

court on the controversial topic of whether the Qurʾān was to be conceived of as audible

sounds and letters.22 Tutush was apparently convinced by his arguments, and the son of al-

Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā could proudly write down in his Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila that Abū’l-Faraj had

“defeated the Ashʿarīs in the court of the Sultans in Syria with proofs (bi’l-ḥujja).”23

Indeed, in addition to his extensive works in fiqh and tafsīr (mentioned above), Abū’l-

Faraj also wrote books in which he refuted Ashʿarite theological positions.24 Two of these

works are known to be extant at this time. The first is the al-Tabṣira fī uṣūl al-dīn,25 found in a

manuscript present in the King Saud University Library, MSS no. 560. The second is Imtiḥān al-

bidʿī min al-sunnī, and has been published, though in some type of redacted form. The former

was meant as a general outline of creedal expressions and apologia as conceived by Abū’l-Faraj;

the latter is much more sectarian in expression, intended to be a point-by-point manual for

22
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 157; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 33, 239.
23
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 158.
24
Ibid., vol. 1, 159.
25
Mentioned by Ibn Rajab; see ibid., vol. 1, 161.
338
interrogating those suspected to be heretical innovators outside of his conception of

orthodoxy.

Although he had been a student of al-Qaḍī Abū Yaʿlā in Baghdad, both texts reveal to us

a significant departure from the method of his teacher, as Abū’l-Faraj displays therein his

complete antagonism to the practice of kalām and its trappings. This can be illustrated by a

concrete example: The first point of interrogation in the Imtiḥān, “What is the first blessing

God bestows on humanity?” is to be answered, “Guidance, Islam, and the Sunna,” in order to

merit being a true Sunnī.26 Whoever responds, “the ability to perceive pleasure,” is according

to the author, not a “Sunnī” but an Ashʿarī27 – even though Abū Yaʿlā had taught the same in

his Muʿtamad.28

The next question in the Imtiḥān is even more evocative: “Is knowledge of God (maʿrifat

Allāh) attained by scripture (al-sharʿ) or by the intellect (al-ʿaql)?” According to Abū’l-Faraj,

only a Sunnī says scripture, only a Muʿtazilite says by the intellect.29 Again, this contradicts

what his teacher Abū Yaʿlā had taught, and indeed what was affirmed by various prominent

scholars of the Ḥanbalī school in Baghdad over the course of the 5th-6th/11th-12th centuries.30

He expounds on the same topic in his Tabṣira: There he acknowledges that the Ḥanbalīs

(aṣḥābunā = “our brethren”) differ on the first thing that God has mandated upon the

religiously responsible (al-mukallaf). One group of them says “knowledge of Him

26
Abū'l-Faraj ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Shīrāzī, Juzʾ fīhi Imtiḥān al-Sunnī min al-Bidʿī, ed. Fahd b. Saʿd b. Ibrāhīm al-Maqrin
(Abu Dhabi: Dār al-Imām Mālik, 2006), 79.
27
Ibid., 78. Compare Abū'l-Faraj ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Shīrāzī, Kitab al-Tabṣira fī uṣūl al-dīn ʿalā madhhab al-Imām Aḥmad
b. Ḥanbal (King Saud University Library, MSS no. 560), fol. 1.
28
Abū Yaʿlā, al-Muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn, 27.
29
Al-Shīrāzī, Juzʾ fīhi Imtiḥān al-Sunnī min al-Bidʿī, 83.
30
As we have seen in chapter five.
339
(maʿrifatuhu),” while another group says al-naẓar wa’l-istidlāl. Both are acceptable to Abū’l-

Faraj, as both lead to knowledge of God (maʿrifat Allāh), he says, and one cannot worship that

which one does not know.31 Abū’l-Faraj cites the Qurʾānic verses that incite one to think (Q al-

Rūm 30:8, Q al-Aʿrāf 7:185); these verses indicate to Abū’l-Faraj God’s encouragement to use al-

naẓar wa’l-istidlāl to derive the certainty of God’s oneness (thubūt waḥdānīyatihi).32

However, naẓar and al-istidlāl in this context is not to be confused with the procedures

of kalām, nor with the role of the unaided intellect in knowing God.33 This becomes clear when

Abū’l-Faraj discusses whether knowledge of God is mandatory (wājib) by scripture or by

intellect. Only a Muʿtazilite says it is mandatory by the intellect, he correctly states, but then

he also says that the Ashʿarite position says knowledge of God is mandatory by both scripture

and intellect.34 This is technically inaccurate, but can otherwise be explained by explaining the

intentions of the other: Abū’l-Faraj has presumed the issue to concern what method will

“mandate” knowledge of God; mandating in the sense of creating a necessary relationship

between the two. He is in fact critiquing the Muʿtazilī and Ashʿarī pretense to necessarily

attaining definitive knowledge of God through the intellect. In other words, for Abū’l-Faraj,

attaining knowledge of God (maʿrifat Allāh) only “necessarily happens” (wājib) by scripture (bi’l-

sharʿ), and not by the intellect (al-ʿaql).

The intellect alone cannot reliably do this, nor even establish God’s oneness (al-ʿaql

laysa mūjiban thubūt al-waḥdānīya). The deficiency of the intellect in this regard, he says, is that

31
Al-Shīrāzī, Kitab al-Tabṣira fī uṣūl al-dīn ʿalā madhhab al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, fol. 1b.
32
Ibid., fol. 2a.
33
We recall that Ibn al-Zāghūnī said some Ḥanbalīs interpreted theological naẓar as being based on scripture.
34
Ibid.
340
it leads to different conclusions, a case he believes to be demonstrated in that not every

thinking person (ʿāqil) believes in God’s oneness. This, according to al-Shīrāzī, not only refutes

the Muʿtazilites, but also the Ashʿarites. He explains his reasoning as follows: Either that

which is known by the intellect is 1) not present in the scripture (al-sharʿ) or 2) it is. It is

unacceptable to say that it is not present in the scripture, since that which would make God’s

revelation imperfect or incomplete, which goes against his understanding of Q al-Anʿām 6:38,

“We have not left out anything from the Book.”35 This first option being ruled out, then if that

which is known by the intellect is found in al-sharʿ, there is, according to Abū’l-Faraj, no need

to mention the intellect, “because it is ultimately to be found in the scripture” (li-annahu rājiʿ

fī’l-sharʿ).36

The other problem with the intellect has to do with an issue which was constantly

leveled at the Ḥanbalīs; namely, tashbīh or anthropomorphism. Abū’l-Faraj responds that

thinking about God with the mind is the very reason for likening him to other things. The

intellect, according to him, knows things:

in a speculative way, thinking about them, making likenesses, and imagining, though
the Creator … is transcendent (munazzah) beyond all of that because quantity cannot
encompass him nor can conjecture conjure him up, nor can his modality (kayfīya) enter
our minds. There is nothing like (mithl) Him nor anything similar (shabīh), so there is
no way to know him by the intellect (lā sabīl ilā maʿrifatihi bi’l-ʿaql).37

This is why some say that one only knows God through “the light of guidance” (nūr al-hidāya),

whereby God allows Himself be known. Abū’l-Faraj relates such views on the authority of al-

35
See ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s rejection of this verse for that meaning; al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd
wa-al-ʻadl, vol. 12, 167.
36
Al-Shīrāzī, Kitab al-Tabṣira fī uṣūl al-dīn ʿalā madhhab al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, fol. 2b.
37
Ibid.
341
salaf al-ṣāliḥ, citing al-Shāfiʿī and the Sufi Dhū’l-Nūn al-Miṣrī.38 The only path that will truly

mandate knowledge of God, then, is scripture alone, with God’s divine assistance.

Nevertheless, there is evidence that Abū’l-Faraj did take up some considerations from

his teacher Abū Yaʿlā, even if he did not put them up front and center. After his extensive

discussions on the Qurʾān as eternal (qadīm) audible words (ḥarf wa-ṣawt),39 and affirmation of

God’s establishment on the Throne,40 and the Vision of God in the next life,41 he reiterates the

statement that God is unlike anything else, but this time uses the terminology of kalām to do

so: “He is not a body (jism) and has no limbs, and does not resemble any of the creation.”42 God

cannot resemble bodies (al-ajsām) or a thing in space (mutaḥayyizan), or something described

with accidents (aʿrāḍ); if he were corporeal He would then have length, width, and depth

which are created qualities.43

Unlike Abū Yaʿlā and the practitioners of kalām in general, however, he does not use

these ontological terms to prove God’s existence. These concepts are merely affirmed as part

of the general “scientific” worldview of the Muslim scholarly elite; serving here as examples of

created being that God naturally transcends, as Creator of all being. Abū’l-Faraj suffices with

this to resume his discussion of descriptions of God in the Qurʾān and ḥadīth, defending them

from the interpretations of Muʿtazilites and Ashʿarites.44 Like his Ḥanbalī mutakallim peers of

38
Ibid., fol. 2b-3a.
39
Ibid., fols. 9-29. This includeds critiques of both Muʿtazilites and Ashʿarīs for their belief that all letters (ḥurūf)
are created; see ibid., 29b.
40
Ibid., fols. 36a - 39a.
41
Ibid., fol. 39 b.
42
Ibid., fol. 41b.
43
Ibid., fol. 42a.
44
Ibid., fols. 42b - 45b.
342
Baghdad, he is in no need of reinterpreting the verses, having established – but without kalām

– God’s essential otherness.

7.2.2 The Banū’l-Ḥanbalī and Kalām Rejectionism: 2) Sharaf al-Islām

Where is the Prophet of God (ṣ) to hear what the Ashʿarites say and write about [the
Qurʾān] and how they make the umma doubt in it and say it is not God’s speech and that
God may not speak in a language nor that His speech be in chapters and verses, letters,
and words?”45 – Sharaf al-Islām

Abū’l-Faraj’s son Sharaf al-Islām reached a similar status to that of his father, enjoying

the favor of the Būrid leadership of Damascus after the city’s Seljuk period. He even had a

majlis in the Umayyad Mosque. He shared his father’s theological outlook, and he wrote about

theology in his Burhān fī uṣūl al-dīn as well as a treatise against the Ashʿarī theologians. 46 The

second of these, the al-Risāla al-wāḍiḥa, is extant, has been published, and will be discussed

here.

Like his father, Sharaf al-Islām completely eschews the accoutrements of kalām

methodology, though he was clearly familiar with the main theses of his opponents and some

of their terminology. Like the Imtiḥān of his father, the Risāla al-wāḍiḥa was intended to clearly

demarcate the realm of orthodoxy, which for him clearly did not includethe Ashʿarite

theologians. But the work is also imbued with a sense of urgency which belies the fear that

Ashʿarite theology was spreading. In this he also resembles the tone of al-Harawī’s Dhamm al-

kalām. Like al-Sijzī, al-Harawī and Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī, he critiques the Ashʿarīs as a harmful

innovation in Islam which is detrimental to the well-being of the community. The chief

45
Ibn al-Ḥanbalī, Ibn al-Hanbali wa-kitabuhu al-Risāla al-wāḍiḥa fī'l-radd ʿalā al-Ashāʿira, 482.
46
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 450.
343
purpose of the book, therefore, is to expose “a number of absurdities (muḥālāt) on the part of

the Ashʿarites as well as a number of their lowly methods and tricks which they use on the

minds of the masses.”47

The primary refutation revolves around the perennially controversial Ashʿarite thesis

that the words in the Qurʾān were not a direct record of God’s eternal speech. The worst part

of it, according to Sharaf al-Islām, is that they “insinuate (īhām) to the ignorant commoners

that they affirm God’s speech and that what is in the Qurʾān is sanctified and glorified – even

though they establish false evidences to the effect that we do not have anything with us [of

God’s speech].”48 Such a belief is an insult to the Qurʾān, he says49 and causes them to

excommunicate (yukaffirūna) those who in his view truly honor the Qurʾān and say that it is

eternal (qadīm).50

At the same time as he accuses the Ashʿarites of disrespecting the Qurʾān secretly, he

warns of the dangers that will arise if their doctrine on God’s speech ever becomes widespread

among the masses. Discussion of such anxieties are prompted by an occasion recalled by

Sharaf al-Islām when someone spoke publicly on the matter (likely in Damascus); such

occurrences, Sharaf al-Islām says, will lead to the very “abolishment of religion.”51

The reason why is that their method resembles that of the Ismāʿīlīs (referred to here as

al-Bāṭīnīya): He illustrates this by example: the Ismāʿīlī will agree with you if you curse the

devil – but he doesn’t believe in the existence of a real devil, rather he intends by his

47
Ibn al-Ḥanbalī, Ibn al-Hanbali wa-kitabuhu al-Risāla al-wāḍiḥa fī'l-radd ʿalā al-Ashāʿira, 420.
48
Ibid., 422–3.
49
Ibid., 423–4.
50
Ibid., 426–8.
51
Ibid., 481–5.
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statement “the devil” every opponent of the imam he believes in52 Likewise, heaven and hell

can be explained into mundane things, because Ismāʿīlīs don’t believe in the possibility of

those things as commonly understood.53

We may observe that Sharaf al-Islām has in his own terms attempted to diagnose the

perils of taʾwīl described by al-Ghazālī in the Iljām al-ʿawāmm and Qānūn al-taʾwīl; namely, that

the nondefinitive nature of taʾwīl, once put in the hands of the masses, can be used

indiscriminately. What was the difference between the Ashʿarites and the Ismāʿīlīs, if both of

them resorted to metaphorical interpretation for elements of scripture that they couldn’t

bring themselves to believe? This comparison was provocative, but even al-Ghazālī had been

compelled to distinguish between the interpretations of the theologians, Sufis, and Ismāʿīlīs in

his Fayṣal al-tafriqa. During Sharaf al-Islam’s lifetime had just recently moved from Fatimid to

Seljuk control, and remained under Ismāʿīlī influence until the massacre of 523, perhaps more

tangible a problem.

Thus we may read Sharaf al-Islām as an unapologetic enemy of kalām. His refutations

of the Ashʿarite position on God’s speech, extensive as they are, focus exclusively on the

nature of speech in the common lexical sense and in the way scripture defines it, and avoid

extended engagement with the ontological framework of kalām.54 Sharaf al-Islām, like his

father, believed that God could only be known by the scripture, and not by the intellect, which

for him essentially meant “subjective opinion.” Scripture, or the way of Prophetic Knowledge is to

52
Ibid., 486–8.
53
Ibid., 488; cf. 552.
54
Though see pages ibid., 538 ff., 598.
345
be contrasted with subjective understandings of religion, exemplified by Greek philosophy and

(by extension) kalām:

Those who strive to know the Creator (al-mujtahidīn fī maʿrifat al-Bārī) by other than the
the Way of Prophetic Knowlege (min ghayr ṭarīq al-nubuwwāt) have differed:
Some of them believe in the “two sources,” i.e. light and darkness. Others believe that
the heavenly sphere is the creator of existing things. Others say that nature (ṭabīʿa) is
the explanation for all existing things. Others say: a force (quwwa) from which the
Intellect (al-ʿaql) emanated, and the Soul emanated from the Intellect, and from the
Soul comes the world of generation and decay. Yet others say: Nothing exists other
than that the existence of which we are a part, and nothing exists for a reason.
But when the Prophetic Knowledges (al-nubuwwāt) came with the message of the
Creator of the heavens and the earth and Shaper of existing things, names and
attributes were affirmed for Him, and they [viz. the prophets] explained that He spoke
to them and sent them and that they spoke to Him and He answered their questions
and that those who obeyed Him would see Him in the abode of recompense and speak
to Him.
So if anyone is inclined to liken or qualify (al-tashbīh/al-takyīf), then “the remedy can
only be from the source of the illness” (kāna al-dawāʾ min al-maʿdin alladhī jāʾa minhu al-
dāʾ) because the one who named Himself Seeing and Living and Speaking is God, and no
one knows his modality (kayfīyatahu) except for Him, and no tongue or explanation can
explain it. He has power and will over His creation, He is Hearing, Seeing, Knowing,
Wise, Preserving, Observing, and everything that He describes himself with in His book
or all of His names and attributes is true, and believing in it is mandatory, and using
kalām about Him is an innovation (al-kalām fīhi bidʿa)55

Such a vision of an age-old struggle between prophetic knowledge and that of the falāsifa is of

the type which will be seen later and made more explicit in al-Suhrawardī’s Kashf al-Faḍāʾiḥ al-

yūnānīya,56 and will also emerge in the writings of Ibn Taymīya.

Sharaf al-Islām follows this with a number of Qurʾānic verses and ḥadīth which

Muʿtazilite and Ashʿarite theologians reinterpret with taʾwīl.57 His refusing to reinterpret

55
Ibid., 602–7.
56
As we saw in chapter six.
57
Ibid., 607–21.
346
them with the methods of kalām, is a protest of this, and affirmation of the time-old Sunnī

principle of scriptural prioritism.

Just like Abū Ismāʿīl al-Harawī in his Dhamm al-kalām, he represents the Ashʿarites

merely as the latest in list of sects that have emerged since the beginning of Islam, Qadarites,

al-Murjiʾa, Khārijites, Shīʾites, Muʿtazilites.58 Like al-Harawī, he also quotes reports from

Companions, early fuqahāʾ, muḥaddithūn, and Sufis emphasizing the way in which God is above

rational comprehension, and warning against using reason to determine the manner in which

God exists.59 Like al-Harawī, he also quotes Sahl al-Tustarī60 and al-Junayd61 as spiritual

authorities in accordance with traditional teachings of Islam.

The sense of urgency reflects a turning tide in Damascus, as the Ashʿarīs engaged in

consolidating their authority in Damascene social space. They won a victory in Ramadan of

528/1134 when Ismāʿīl b. Faḍāʾil al-Badlīsī, the imam of the Umayyad Mosque62 was dismissed

from the position he had held for over thirty years because “something in his creed came to

light indicative of his inclination to tashbīh” – according to Ibn ʿAsākir.63 Once the commotion

58
Ibid., 442–52.
59
Ibid., 621–57.
60
Al-Tustari on qadar ( ibid., 742, 755, 763.) and in refutation of the Murjiʾa; ibid., 817–8.
61
On a general principle related to God’s attributes in the Qurʾān, see ibid., 642. On faith (īmān), see ibid., 790. On
the soul, ibid., 949.
62
Which means he led congregational Friday prayers. Otherwise prayers were divided according to madhhab, see
chapter one.
63
“Ẓahara ʿalayhi shayʾun fī iʿtiqādihi min maylihi ilā al-tashbīh;” Ibn ʿAsākir as quoted by Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Bughyat al-
ṭalab fī tārīkh Ḥalab, 12 vols., ed. Suhayl Zakkār (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1408/1988), vol. 4, 1745. Note that Sibṭ Ibn al-
Jawzī defends him by replacing tashbīh with sunna; Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides
(468-549/1076-1154), 365.
347
from this affair died down, we are told, it was agreed that only a Ḥanafī or Shāfiʿī could be a

congregational imam in the Umayyad Mosque.64

Such an exclusion of Mālikīs in addition to Ḥanbalīs might reflect the readings of Abū

ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī’s pamphlet by his students of that madhhab. However, there were Mālikīs on the

other side of the debate: The first is not explicitly named as Mālikī, but his maghribī toponym in

his name would suggest it: ʿAlī b. al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad al-Maghribī al-Qusanṭīnī (d.

519/1125). An Ashʿarī mutakallim trained in the Muslim West, and rumored practitioner of

alchemy, he wrote a Tanzīh al-ilāh wa-kashf faḍāʾiḥ al-Mushabbiha al-Ḥashwīya.65

We subsequently hear of disputes between between Sharaf al-Islām and the recently

relocated Mālikī scholar Yūsuf al-Fandalāwī (d. 543 AH/1148 CE) who came to preside over the

Mālikī zāwīya in the Umayyad Mosque.66 In contrast to Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī and his Mālikī

disciples of mentioned above, al-Fandalāwī was an adherent to Ashʿarī doctrine, and enjoyed

good relations with Shāfiʿī scholars known for their Ashʿarism, such as Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Sulamī

and Ibn ʿAsākir.67 Ibn ʿAsākir transmits the following verse from him:

The Ashʿarites are a people, guided truly to what is right

Not departing in their beliefs from the sunna or the Book68

64
See Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Bughyat al-ṭalab fī tārīkh Ḥalab, vol. 4, 1745. The imam, Ismāʿīl al-Badlīsī was known a Ṣūfī from
Armenia with knowledge of various Qurʾānic recitations, but no explicit madhhab affiliation is given, see ibid.
Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria, 51.
65
See al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 35, 433.
66
Al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, vol. 20, 104. For his general biographical information see Jean-Michel
Mouton, “Yūsuf al-Fandalāwī Cheikh des Malékites de Damas Sous les Bourides,” Revue des Études Islamiques 51
(1983), 63–75: 63–7.
67
Ibid., 67.
68
“Al-Ashʿarīyatu qawmun qad wuffiqū li’l-ṣawābi/Lam yakhrujū fī iʿtiqādin ʿan sunnatin aw kitāb;” Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn
kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 173.
348
 We do not have much more than circumstantial descriptions about what occurred

between al-Fandalāwī and the Ḥanbalīs, though the debate may have involved the issue of

God’s speech.69 Such confrontations took on spiritual portent for the Ashʿarites: We read that

at some point during Shams al-Mulūk’s reign, a Ḥanbalī threw a rock at al-Fandalāwī on the

last night of Ramadan; the latter’s prayer against the perpetrator was miraculously answered.70

Ibn ʿAsākir mentions a Ḥanbalī called Abū Turāb b. Qays from Baʿlabakk, who according to his

own testimony “used to believe the doctrine of the Ḥashwīya, and hate al-Fandalāwī for his

refutations of them.” But when Abū Turāb was (miraculously?) rescued from highway bandits

by al-Fandalāwī, he felt compelled to “repent” from his previous beliefs.71

Al-Fandalāwī enjoyed great renown posthumously, as he was heroically martyred

during the Frankish crusaders’ siege of Damascus in 543/1148. Several generations later, Ibn

Taymīya mentioned that both the graves of al-Fandalāwī and Abū’l-Faraj Ibn al-Ḥanbalī in Bab

al-Ṣaghīr were objects of visitation, viewed as places were prayers were more efficacious.72

7.3 Ibn ʿAsākir and Damascene Ashʿarī “Traditionalism”

Ibn ʿAsākir, whom we have come to know as a prominent figure of the Damascus ḥadīth

transmission scene, made no effort to hide his disregard for the Ḥanbalī opposition to Ashʿarī

theology. Leaving Damascus in 520 after his father’s death to study in Baghdad, Ibn ʿAsākir

had been trained at the Niẓāmīya madrasa there, that safe space for Ashʿarīs created in the

69
Fandalāwī states the impossibility of a temporal attribute (ṣifa ḥadītha) for God; see Yūsuf al-Fandalāwī, Fatwā al-
Fandalāwī wa-qiṣṣatuhā, ed. Jawād al-Murābiṭ (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Jadīd, 1966), 41.
70
Mouton, Damas et sa Principauté Sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides (468-549/1076-1154), 339. Mouton, “Yūsuf al-
Fandalāwī Cheikh des Malékites de Damas Sous les Bourides,” 68.
71
Ibid., 67–8. al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 37, 171. Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, vol. 74, 234.
72
See Ibn Taymīya, Majmūʿ fatāwā Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad b. Taymīya, 37 vols., ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad b.
Qāsim al-ʿAṣimī and Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad al-Aṣimī (Mecca: Maṭbaʿat al-Ḥukūma, 1381-
1386/1961-1966), vol. 27, 112.
349
capital by Niẓām al-Mulk in the previous century, and studied there for five years. This

strengthened the conviction he had received from al-Ghazālī’s students who laid the

foundation of Damascene Shāfiʿī-Ashʿarite scholarship.

Indeed, Ibn ʿAsākir recounts his teacher Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Sulamī announcing from his

chair in the Umayyad Mosque a list of spiritual renewers (mujaddid) for each Islamic century:

the first was ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, the second al-Shāfiʿī, the third al-Ashʿarī, the fourth al-

Bāqillānī, and the fifth the caliph al-Mustarshid billāh (r. 512-29/1118-35).73 Ibn ʿAsākir,

agreeing with the general outline of this list, notes, however, that he personally prefers that

the list be concluded with the name of al-Ghazālī.74 The list, in Ibn ʿAsākir’s rendition, thus

synthesized the historical course of Islamic scholarship in a succession of Ashʿarī theologians.

Ibn ʿAsākir had no love lost for the Ibn al-Ḥanbalī family. He expressed his disapproval of the

famous Abū’l-Faraj al-Shīrāzī in his Tārīkh Dimashq, referring to him there as a mere “Sufi,”

before mentioning his authorship of works on “eternal letters” (qidam al-ḥurūf) as “indicating

serious incompetence” (yadull ʿalā taqṣīr kathīr).75 He also did not take the attacks of Sharaf al-

Islām sitting down, as he penned in response to it a work entitled al-Maqāla al-fāḍiḥa li’l-risāla al-

wāḍiḥa.76 The Ibn al-Ḥanbalī family, established in close proximity within the walled city,

would in fact clash with the Banū ʿAsākir for generations. Ibn ʿAsākir’s efforts were not

73
Al-Mustarshid’s reign was characterized by a major shift in strengthening the position of the Abbasid caliphate
vis-à-vis the Seljuk sultanate; a fact appreciated by religious scholars of his time. He was also trained as a Shāfiʿī,
and deemed a man of some piety. See Hillenbrand, Carole, EI2, s.v. “al-Mustarshid.”
74
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 53.
75
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 33, 180-181.
76
Muḥammad Abū'l-Faraj al-Khaṭīb al-Ḥasanī, Dār al-sunna: Dār al-ḥadīth al-nūrīya bi-Dimashq (Damascus: Dār al-
Bashāʾir, 1423/2002), 200. The source for this is al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi'l-wafayāt, vol. 20, 218.
350
limited to these clashes with the Ibn al-Ḥanbalī family, but came to play a critical role in

articulating classic elements of the historical vision of the Ashʿarī school.

The precipitating reason for this, however, was the need to refute that caustic piece of

anti-Ashʿarite propaganda, Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī’s Mathālib Ibn Abī Bishr. Ibn ʿAsākir dedicated

himself to a full refutation of that treatise, in a work destined to become critical historical

document for the Ashʿarī school – “Explaining the Lie of the Slanderer in what He Imputed to

al-Ashʿarī” (Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fī mā nasaba ilā al-Ashʿarī).77

Ibn ʿAsākir’s Tabyīn, besides being a point-by-pint refutation of the Mathālib, is an invaluable

document for the historical memory of a growing body of Ashʿarī scholars in the Islamic world.

Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī’s accusations against al-Ashʿarī as enemy of Islam are dismantled through

an elaborate presentation of historical documents, documenting as much as possible on the life

and contributions of al-Ashʿarī, as well as the scholars who followed his example. In the

process Ibn ʿAsākir not only sheds light on how the Ashʿarī school was disseminated in the

Muslim world, but how its adherents in previous generations had come to view the role of the

school’s eponym in the light of Islamic traditionalism.

Here, the “traditionalist Ashʿarī” discourse of Nishapuri scholars such as al-Qushayrī

and al-Bayhaqī looms large, as synthesizers of Sunnī kalām in line with both the exigencies of

Muslim desire for historical continuity of scholarship and public perceptions of orthodoxy.

The reader of the Tabyīn thus finds that despite the intellectual prowess attributed to al-

7777
Al-Subkī would later say about the book, “It is one of the best and most magnificent books and greatest in
benefit; it is said that every Sunnī who does not have Kitāb al-tabyīn by Ibn ʿAsākir doesn’t know anything about
himself (fa-laysa min amir nafsihi ʿalā baṣīra), and it is said that a faqīh is not a true Shāfiʿī until he studies Kitāb al-
tabyīn by Ibn ʿAsākir. Our teachers used to order the students to peruse it.” al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-kubrā,
vol. 3, 351-352.
351
Ashʿarī in this work, Ashʿarism is not presented here as anti-taqlīd methodology, but rather as

part and parcel of a lineage of authoritative Islamic authorities. This image works so

powerfully because al-Ashʿarīs himself is depicted as a rationalist defender of tradition; in

other words, his kalām is described merely as a tool for the preservation and defense of

received wisdom from the Qurʾān and the sunna.

This emerges from the outset, as Ibn ʿAsākir places Ashʿarī within a vision of Islamic

salvation history among those defenders of Islam who perennially rise to perform their duty at

the necessary historical juncture. Al-Ashʿarī’s contribution is explained in the paradigm of the

happy medium we saw established by Ibn Fūrak, as primarily to defend Islam from the

Muʿazilites’ denial of God’s attributes and Speech, then address the mushabbiha who in their

affirmation of these scriptural descriptions likened God to his creation: This is embodied in Ibn

ʿAsākir’s presentation of him as using intellectual proofs (ḥujja) against those who oppose the

sunna (viz. the Muʿtazilites), and those who cause fitna (viz. the mushabbiha).78

As such al-Ashʿarī was one in a long line of scholars from the camp of muthbitīn who

followed the sunna strictly, strategically using intellectual arguments while the whole time

“restraining the masses from plunging into kalām”79 (to use a Ghazālian turn of phrase). Al-

Ashʿarī’s kalām was a rationalist defense of revelation, but was not implied by any means to be

the only mode by which one may attain belief in revelation. In this light, any potential tension

between the later Muslim practice and that of the salaf is completely reduced, not to mention

78
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 25–6. Cf. ibid., 148–51.
79
“Aljamū al-ʿawāmm ʿan al-khawḍ fī ʿilm al-kalām.”
352
the possibility of kalām-based orthodoxy precluding the faith of the layperson – two sensitive

points among the Sunnī collective.

Given the complete naturalization of Ashʿarī kalām to a traditionalist sensability, any

attack (such as the one by al-Ahwāzī) is thus characterized by Ibn ʿAsākir as part of a long

tradition of innovators (ahl al-bidaʿ), who in jealousy at his achievements sought to besmirch

his character.80 True, as al-Ahwāzī takes delight in mentioning, al-Ashʿarī was once a

Muʿtazilite, but for this reason he was all the more adept at undermining their arguments.

This underlines the extensive details of al-Ashʿarī’s conversion from Muʿtazilism preserved in

the Tabyīn.81

The title of al-Ahwāzī’s epistle intentionally called al-Ashʿarī by a different name;

namely Ibn Abī Bishr, underlining the insinuation that he was not truly of the lineage of Abū

Mūsā al-Ashʿarī, the Prophet Muḥammad’s famous Companion. The lineage of al-Ashʿarī, as

we saw in the writings of al-Bayhaqī, had been upheld in a Nishapuri context as an indication

of the authentic provenance of his teachings. As this theme unfolds in the Tabyīn, it reveals

itself to have been a cherished aspect of Ashʿarī sacral history in the intervening generations

up to Ibn ʿAsākir. For this reason, the latter writes in his introduction to the Tabyīn that al-

Ashʿarī was:

known by the nobility of his forefathers and genealogy, and his discourse on the
origination of the world (kalāmuhu fī ḥadath al-ʿālam) was an inheritance of his (mīrāth
lahu) from his fathers and grandfathers, which is a station (rutba) that Abū Mūsā al-
Ashʿarī (ra) inherited to his descendants.82

80
Ibid., 26–7.
81
Ibid., 38–43. Ibn ʿAsākir then refutes al-Ahwāzī’s notion that the repentance of an innovator can never be
accepted; ibid., 43–5.
82
Ibid., 28.
353
 Thus when Ibn ʿAsākir provides a detailed genealogy for al-Ashʿarī’s ancestry from Abū

Mūsā in order to refute al-Ahwāzī’s accusation to the contrary,83 the stakes are quite high.

Incredibly, over sixty ḥadīth are related either of specific praise for Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī, his

tribe of Banū Ashʿar, or the tribespeople of Yemen more generally to hit the point home.84

One narration is of particular importance, called “the ḥadīth of ʿImrān b. al-Ḥusayn,” wherein

Yemeni tribesmen come to the Prophet and say, “We have come to you to gain understanding

in the religion and ask you about the origins of the world (awwal hādhā al-amr)...” The Prophet

replies, “There was God (ʿazza wa-jalla) and nothing else existed before Him (lam yakun shayʾ

qablahu) and His throne was on the waters, then He created the heavens and earth and wrote

everything in the Remembrance (al-dhikr).”85

One of the sources for these narrations is al-Bayhaqī himself, whose explanations also

show themselves to be highly instructive for Ibn ʿAsākir’s presentation. It is al-Bayhaqī who

explicitly states that the reason for the Prophet’s extensive praise of Abū Mūsā and the

Yemenis was Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī’s eventual emergence from their progeny. Al-Bayhaqī

even says that even these early Ashʿarī tribesmen were rolemodels in their understanding of

theology, and their negation (nafy) of assimilationism (tashbīh) along with dedication to the

Qurʾān and sunna (mulāzamat al-kitāb wa’l-sunna).86 It is likewise al-Bayhaqī who is an early

articulator of the thesis that the ḥadīth of ʿImrān b. al-Ḥusayn is an indication (dalīl) that

“kalām in theology (al-uṣūl) and the temporal origin of the world (ḥadath al-ʿālam) is an

83
Ibid., 35.
84
Ibid., 45-51, 57-65, 67-73, 77-85, 90.
85
Ibid., 65–6.
86
Ibid., 49–50.
354
inheritance to their progeny (mīrāthun li-awlādihim)87 All this contributes to Ibn ʿAsākir’s

interpretation about the auspicious statements of the prophet concerning al-jurthūma al-

Ashʿarīya.88

The Nishapur context of this idea looms large: This idea, as we recall, was found in al-

Bayhaqī’s open letter to al-Kundurī,89 which we also possess as transmitted by Ibn ʿAsākir in

the Tabyīn: There we find the importance of al-Ashʿarīs descent from Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī,90

the idea of transmission from generation to generation through that bloodline the way it was

foretold by the Prophet,91 and the idea that al-Ashʿarī was in fact the mujaddid of his time.92 It

was this same letter which portrayed al-Ashʿarī as a defender of the doctrines of the early pre-

kalām Sunnī scholarship, including Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.

As we recall, Bayhaqī’s letter to al-Kundurī was a response to al-Qushayrī’s Shikāyat ahl

al-sunna, which Ibn ʿAsākir then transmits as well,93 as well as the 436 public declaration

composed al-Qushayrī to vindicate al-Ashʿarī in the eyes of the ahl al-ḥadīth.94 On the same

87
Ibid., 66. Cf. how Ibn ʿAsākir says that they were praised for piety and religious knowledge, and that the most
famous of them is Abū Mūsā, the ancestor of al-Ashʿarī; ibid., 71.
88
Ibid., 144. Cf. al-Subki’s more sober discussion of the Ashʿarī tribesmen legacy; al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-
kubrā, vol. 3, 363.
89
See chapter six.
90
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 102.
91
Ibid., 103–6.
92
Ibid., 103-104, cf. 51-53.
93
It is an incomplete transmission however. In addition to omitting details of the accusations made against al-
Ashʿarī, Ibn ʿAsākir omits al-Qushayrī’s insistence that the Companions carried out naẓar, discussed above,
perhaps because this would have been less in line with the image of al-Ashʿarī as preservationist. Qushayrī’s
letter is incomplete in Ibn ʿAsākir, but complete in the Ṭabaqāt; see al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, vol. 3,
400-423. Al-Subkī reproduces it completely because he knows that the way it angers “the people of falsehood”
would have them destroy it; ibid., vol. 3, 399.
94
See above. Ibn ʿAsākir transmits it directly from a great-grandson of al-Qushayrī’s; see Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn
kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 112.
355
manuscript as the petition, Ibn ʿAsākir tells us, is a saying written in Persian by ʿAbd al-Jabbār

al-Isfarāʾīnī al-Iskāf (d. 452/1060)95 – al-Juwaynī’s main teacher in kalām:

This Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī is the imam regarding whom God the exalted sent this
verse: “God will bring a people whom He loves and they love Him.” The Chosen One
(upon him be peace) and that time pointed to his grandfather Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī and
said, “They are the people of this man.”96
Such sentiments established a charismatic narrative for al-Ashʿarī’s emergence among

Ashʿarīs in subsequent generations,97 coloring Ibn ʿAsākir’s depiction of the emergence of

Niẓām al-Mulk as a fortuitous turning point against “innovators,” symbolized in al-Kundurī’s

comeuppance.98

Ibn ʿAsākir, however, alternates between two historical images created in the Nishapur

context. One we are familiar with: al-Qushayrī’s bold depiction of kalām in his Shikāya as

Qurʾānic, present during the time of the salaf,99 perhaps inspired by a text of al-Ashʿarī’s such

as al-Ḥathth. However, the more prominent and pressing image which Ibn ʿAsākir is concerned

with, advancing it first and in more detail, is the relationship of kalām to the eponym of the

Shāfiʿī school himself.

Again, he refers to al-Bayhaqī – the unanimously acknowledged expert on the works of

al-Shāfiʿī100 – in his articulation of a “Shāfiʿī” defense of Ashʿarism. This was necessary not

95
Nishapur-based teacher, taught in duwayrat al-Bayhaqī; ibid., 265. al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, vol. 5, 99.
96
“Īn Bū’l-Ḥasan-i Ashʿarī imām ast kih Khudāvand ʿazza wa-jalla īn āyat dar shaʾn-i vay firistād: wa-sawfa yaʾtī Allāh bi-
qawm yuḥibbuhum wa-yuḥibbūnahu. Va Muṣṭafā ʿalayhi al-salām dar ān vaqt bi-jadd-i vay ishārat kard Bū Mūsā Ashʿarī fa-
qāla hum qawmu hādhā;” Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 114.
97
Quotes a Baghdādī qāḍī of the Shāfiʿī school called Abū Maʿālī ʿAzīzī (d. 494/1100-1) about the prophetic
prediction of the emergence of Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī; ibid., 164–5. See his biography in Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam
fī tārīkh al-umam wa'l-mulūk, vol. 17, 69-70. al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 34, 190-191.
98
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 108–9. He also quotes a
celebratory line of poetry by Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī about that occurrence
99
Ibid., 357–9.
100
Ibid., 334.
356
least of all because, as anyone who had occupied themselves with collecting the statements of

ahl al-sunna scholars of al-Shāfiʿī’s generation knew, there were explicit condemnations of

kalām by this very scholar which made its latter-day practice by those in his eponymously

named school problematic – particularly from a perspective not as avantgard in its

engagement with kalām and uṣūl al-fiqh.101

Al-Bayhaqī explains that such early prohibitions of kalām were only a prohibition of

kalām ahl al-bidaʿ.102 In contrast, “ahl al-sunna … rarely plunged (yakhūḍūn) into kalām until they

were forced to do so.”103 Such a position is attributed to al-Shāfiʿī as well.104 Al-Shāfiʿī’s

statements can be understood, says al-Bayhaqī, to indicate that he “had learned kalām

extensively then preferred to refrain from debating (al-munāẓara/al-jidāl) when there was no

need for it.”105

Ibn ʿAsākir concludes from reading al-Bayhaqī’s critique that the kalām of “innovation,”

is to be viewed in contradistinction to the Sunnīs who took their theology from revelatory

sources:

ahl al-sunna’s methodology (madhhab) in theology (al-uṣūl) is based on the Qurʾān and
sunna, and those of them who dealt with the intellect only did so to disprove the
methodology of those who claim that it does not accord with the intellect.106
Ibn ʿAsākir elaborates with an example: explaining that the kalām ahl al-bidaʿ is to be

contrasted with al-kalām alladhī yuwāfiq al-Qurʾān wa’l-sunna which is manifest in the types of

101
See ibid., 333 ff. for a large selection of such quotes, some of them passing through Ibn ʿAsākir’s Damascene
Shāfiʿī predecessors.
102
Ibid., 334.
103
Ibid.
104
Ibid., 245.
105
Ibid., 344.
106
Ibid., 345.
357
argumentation made by al-Shāfiʿī and his students, as well as Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, against the

Jahmīya in the context of the Miḥna and the preceding decades.107

Upholding the need for historical continuity in the Shāfiʿī school as explained by al-

Bayhaqī and elaborated by Ibn ʿAsākir after him resembles the argumentation of Abū Yaʿlā in a

Ḥanbalī context defending naẓar in the cognizance of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s condemnation of

kalām. Ironically, despite his honoring of the salaf as knowing kalām in the vein of al-

Qushayrī’s Shikāyat, he characterizes the Ashʿarī epistemology as primarily revelational, and

not intellectual. This, as we recall, is a clear contradiction with the premise of naẓar-based

religion at the heart of al-Ashʿarī’s system; confusion on this principle had even been the

reason for Ibn Fūrak’s composition of the Mujarrad several generations earlier.

In this light, it should not be surprising that Ibn ʿAsākir upholds al-Ashʿarī’s Ibāna as the

means by which his religious knowledge and piety are upheld.108 The Ibāna was highly

esteemed by Ibn ʿAsākir’s peers: He even quotes one of his contemporaries’ laudatory poems

for al-Ashʿarī, which contains the following verse:

If in his lifetime he hadn’t written more than al-Ibāna and al-Lumaʿ, it would have been
sufficient
So what do you think considering his encompassing the sciences in which he was
prolific?”109

In overcoming the accusation that al-Ashʿarī was a crypto-Muʿtazilite, not only does

Ibn ʿAsākir have the testimony of numerous scholars preceding him, some of the Nishapur

tradition, others from other scholarly collectives, but he claims that the best way to

107
Ibid., 345–51.
108
He does this from the beginning of the book, saying “whoever reads his book called al-Ibāna knows his rank in
knowledge and piety; ibid., 28.
109
A non-literal translation; see ibid., 171.
358
demonstrate the falsity of accusations is by reproducing al-Ashʿarī’s doctrines as he put them

down in the Ibāna, from which he quotes extensively.110 As mentioned earlier, this creed has

an extensive praise of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and other religious authorities of the early ahl al-sunna

collective.

Ibn ʿAsākir reiterates after his lengthy citation of al-Ibāna that al-Ashʿarī and Aḥmad b.

Ḥanbal were in agreement (muttafiqayn) as to their beliefs.111 He then asserts that the Ḥanbalīs

of Baghdad used to seek help (taʿtaḍid) from the Ashʿarī scholars as the real mutakallimūn of ahl

al-ithbāt112 – and claims that it is only the problem with Abū Naṣr al-Qushayrī that caused the

break between the two camps.113 However, he goes on to say, “in general there is still a group

(ṭāʾifa) of Ḥanbalīs that exaggerates (taghlū) in the sunna and talks about that which is none of

its business (fī mā lā yaʿnīhā) out of a love of delving into dispute (al-fitna).”114

Ibn ʿAsākir here makes a corrective move for the incorporation of the Ḥanbalī school in

the ahl al-sunna collective – something which al-Bayhaqī had not even done – by distinguishing

between those Ḥanbalīs who rejected al-Ashʿarī and those who upheld his orthodoxy. The

latter were in line with proper Islamic tradition, whereas those who rejected al-Ashʿarī were

rejecting a man who was in accordance with the teachings of their schools eponym, which

they were unknowingly ignorant of. Such sentiments we saw expressed earlier by Abū Isḥāq

110
Ibid., 152–63.
111
Ibid., 163.
112
He was doubtless aware of Ḥanbalī kalām, even in its form antithetical to Ashʿarite kalām; he had even studied
ḥadīth with Ibn al-Zāghūnī (see al-Ḥasanī, Dār al-sunna, 169.), whom we have come to know as one of the more
accomplished Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn. However, he had learned not to take it seriously; according to his affiliates, it
was a semi-scandalous matter which – even if considered in earnest – could only be seen as an embarassing
admission of Ḥanbalī indebtedness to Ashʿarite scholarly prowess; see the anecdote related by Ibn ʿAsākir about
Abū Yaʿlā’s surreptitious practice of kalām in al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 30, 133.
113
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī fīmā nusiba ilā al-Imām Abī'l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, 163.
114
Ibid.
359
al-Shīrāzī and al-Juwaynī in regards to the Ḥanbalī position on God’s speech – attributing to

the Ḥanbalīs a fundamental error on their part in understanding the “traditional” orthodox

position.

Ibn ʿAsākir lets us know that such a view of latter-day Ḥanbalīs had reached the level of

a truism among Ashʿarī scholars of the previous century, who transmitted the following quip:

Two righteous men afflicted by terrible followers (aṣḥāb sūʾ): Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad [al-
Ṣādiq] and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.115
Here Ibn ʿAsākir – a Shāfiʿī scholar no less – creates an image of a “well-adjusted”

Ḥanbalī in accordance with Ashʿarī orthodoxy, as the embodiment of sound traditional Sunnī

orthodoxy, firmly between the two extremes of negation and likeness. Having dismantled the

imputation of al-Ashʿarī’s anti-traditionalism, he was also able to level a likewise traditionalist

standard against the Ḥanbalī critics of Ashʿarism as endangering their own relationship to

tradition.

However, the defense of kalām from within a Shāfiʿī perspective was also no less

important. The Nishapur synthesis of kalām and tradition within a Shāfiʿī context was not a

fait accompli for the rest of the Shāfiʿī school, regardless of the flowering reputation of its

scholars: This is illustrated by the case of an Iraqi muḥaddith called Yūsuf b. Ādam, who,

sometime after 550 AH, was expelled from Damascus on charges of tashbīh. A Shāfiʿī in

madhhab from Māragha in Iraq, he rejected the Ashʿarī trend, and was adamant in his rejection

of its adherents - if he heard an Ashʿarī qāḍī had officiated over a marriage, he would annul it.

Described by historian Ibn al-Najjār as “kathīr al-shaghab wa-muthīr al-fitan bayna al-ṭawāʾif,” his

confrontational attitude led to a scuffle where one Ḥanafī preacher punched him in the nose.

115
Ibid., 163–4.
360
He had come to Damascus in 542 where he narrated Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim to those who would hear it

from him. In the end, Nūr al-Dīn al-Zangī responded to the complaints of the Damascene

scholarship and had him paraded around the city on a donkey before expelling him to Ḥarrān,

where he remained until his death in 569 AH/1173 CE.116

Despite such rare instances, Shāfiʿī solidarity in Damascus was strong, and the ʿAsākir

family played an important role in consolidating the religious leadership along the lines that it

envisioned. When Ibn ʿAsākir died in 11 Rajab 569, his funeral was attended by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (d.

589/1193),117 himself also trained in the Shāfiʿī madhhab, and a friend to Ashʿarite scholars.

Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn was no theologian himself, but held both Ashʿarite-Shāfiʿīs and anti-kalām

Ḥanbalīs in high veneration. What mattered more to him was a respect for the institution of

Islamic scholarship, which he and his family also endorsed with pious endowments (awqāf)

that lasted for centuries. He did, however, take the council of his qādī Quṭb al-Dīn al-Nīsābūrī

(d. 578/1183), an Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī grandstudent of al-Ghazālī’s,118 in banning any discussion of

God’s speech as letters and sounds (ḥarf/ṣawt).119 The Ayyūbids followed a pragmatic religious

policy, staging no interventions for either side of the debate except when it challenged the

public order.

Nevertheless, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī repurposed his Taʾsīs al-taqdīs – a highly elaborate

reiteration of the principle behind the Qānūn al-taʾwīl originally penned in Hirāt in 596/1199

based on his debates with Karrāmīya and Ḥanbalīs there – and sent it to al-Malik al-ʿĀdil (d.

116
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 38, 374; al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, vol. 20, 591; al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi'l-
wafayāt, vol. 29, 32. Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria, 237.
117
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 40, 82. He was buried in Bāb al-Ṣaghīr just east of the mausoleum where
Muʿāwīya was interred; al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, vol. 2, 14.
118
Pouzet, Damas au VIIe-XIIIe Siècle, 26, 28.
119
Al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, vol. 7, 351-352.
361
615/1218), Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s brother and successor.120 The Karrāmīya, who persisted as rivals to

the Ashʿarīs in the Islamic East over the past two centuries, were al-Rāzī’s main theological

opponents in his life, and even a cause for harm to his person.121 The vehemence of the Taʾsīs

al-taqdīs, which reflects the intensity of his local debates, was not of the proper character to be

the matter of Ayyubid politics. Nevertheless, it found an audience among Ashʿarī thinkers for

whom it served as an important methodological reference in their ongoing disagreements with

their theological opponents.

As Sharaf al-Islām’s Risāla suggests, and Ibn ʿAsākir’s Tabyīn emphasizes, Ashʿarī

affiliation in Islamic scholarship was in ascendance. The Tabyīn would go on to inform such

important texts as al-Subkī’s Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿīya, a text which George Makdisi has also

discussed as seminal for the “mainstream” view of al-Ashʿarī and al-Ashʿarism for the duration

of Islamic history.122 The Taʾsīs al-taqdīs would go on to inspire those Ashʿarīs more seriously

occupied with the study of kalām.

7.4 The Confrontation: the Banū ʿAsākir and the Maqādisa

As mentioned earlier, the ʿAsākir family played a pivotal role in the religious life of

Ayyubid Damascus. Ibn ʿAsākir’s nephew, Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn ʿAsākir (d. 620/1123) in particular,

was a prominent example. He learned fiqh from Quṭb al-Dīn al-Nīsābūrī and even married his

120
This two-stage history to the text is the contribution of the editors of the Taʾsīs; see Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Taʾsīs
al-taqdīs, ed. al-Sharqāwī, Anas Muḥammad ʿAdnān and al-Khaṭīb, Aḥmad Muḥammad Khayr (Lebanon: Nursabah,
2011), 20–1. See the addressal to al-Malik al-ʿĀdil ibid., 44 n. 1.
121
Frank Griffel, “On Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's Life and the Patronage He Received,” Journal of Islamic Studies 18, no. 3
(2007), 313–44.
122
George Makdisi, “I. 'Ashʿarī and the Ashʿarites in Islamic religious history' Parts I & II,” in Religion, Law and
Learning in Classical Islam (see note 192).
362
daughter.123 Representing the local Shāfiʿī scholarly tradition, he taught ḥadīth under the

historical Qubbat al-Nasr as well as in the al-Nūrīya madrasa built for his uncle by Nūr al-Dīn

al-Zangī and kept in the family for another century;124 among his students he counted the great

muḥaddith and historian Abū Shāma.125 His most prominent student in fiqh, without a doubt,

was ʿIzz al-Dīn b. ʿAbd al-Salām (d. 660/1262) – the most prominent face of Damascene Shāfiʿī

scholarship of the 7th/13th century.126

Naturally, Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn ʿAsākir dealt with Ḥanbalī antagonism. As his student Abū Shāma

recalled,

He was trepidatious about walking through the neighborhood of the Ḥanbalīs out of
fear that they might sinfully try to harm him – because their laypeople (ʿawwāmahum)
hate the Banū ʿAsākir due to their Ashʿarism.127

It was later said that Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma himself, the head of Damascene Ḥanbalism,

would refrain from returning Fakhr al-Dīn’s greetings in kind. When the Ḥanbalī scholar was

asked why, he replied:

Because he believes in (pre-articulated) speech of the soul (al-kalām al-nafsī), so I am

responding to him in my soul (arudd ʿalayhi fī nafsī).128

123
Al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, vol. 22, 187.
124
After Ibn ʿAsākir, the madrasa was run by his son Abū Muḥammad al-Qāsim (d. 600/1203-4), before passing on
to his nephew Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn ʿAsākir. After him it was run by Fakhr al-Dīn’s brother Zayn al-Umanāʾ Abū’l-
Barakāt (d. 627/1229-30), then the latter’s son Tāj al-Dīn (d. 660/1261-2), last of the family to control the
institution; al-Ḥasanī, Dār al-sunna, 208–20.
125
Al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, vol. 22, 188.
126
Ibid., vol. 22, 190. For a thorough panorama of ʿIzz al-Dīn’s scholarly profile in Damascus, see Pouzet, index,
s.v. “Sulamī (ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām, ʿIzz al-Dīn)
127
Ibid., vol. 22, 188.
128
Al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿīya al-kubrā, vol. 8, 184.
363
Our source for this report, Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī, thought the narration strange and untrue, given

how “pious” Muwaffaq and Fakhr al-Dīn were, saying “perhaps this story was just a fabrication

by one of the latter-day Ḥashwīya.”129

In fact, this anecdote, regardless of its actual veracity, is a honest-to-life representation

of the tensions at that time between the Ḥanbalī scholars of Mt. Qāsyūn and the Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī

Banū ʿAsākir of the walled-city of Damascus. These tensions not only temporarily upset the

public order, but even resulted in the expulsion of one of the former group’s most prominent

representatives.

7.4.1 The Great Divide: Damascene Ḥanbalism on the Defensive

In what preceded we saw how Ashʿarī Shāfiʿī scholar Ibn ʿAsākir counteracted anti-

kalām critiques in Damascus with a comprehensive defense of the role of Ashʿarī theology as

honest to the spirit of revelation, tradition, and reason, in a happy medium between

Muʿtazilites and mushabbiha. The rise of the Ashʿarī school, both in numbers of adherents and

in terms of its scholarly output, was undeniable, and a sign of God’s divine providence.

The Ḥanbalī school of Damascus, as we have seen, was decidedly anti-kalām from the

outset. The Ibn al-Ḥanbalī family had set the tone for this, debating Ashʿarī theologians and

writing their own polemics against them. As the Banū Qudāma and their Palestinian (Maqdisī)

brethren developed their own scholarly profile, however, they took on the mantle of Ḥanbalī

scholarship for the Damascene milieu from their base in al-Ṣāliḥīya, established as a sanctuary

for their familial and scholarly networks separate from that of the walled city of Damascus.

129
Ibid., vol. 8, 184-185.
364
The experiences and scholarly contributions of this Ḥanbalī community reflect the tension

present among the scholarly classes of Damascus in a vivid manner. These even reached the

level of the political, when they took the form of public controversy to be decided by state

arbitrators. These are not surprising to us in light of the parallels (and origins) in Baghdad

religious life. However, given that the scholarly community of al-Ṣāliḥīya, post-Mongol

invasion (and post-Baghdad Ḥanbalī authority), was to be normative for Ḥanbalī tradition as a

whole, including the community in which Ibn Taymīya first made his debut, it behooves us to

understand the nature of its normative religious vision.

7.4.2 The Expulsion of ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī

The background to this event has been touched on briefly by Talmon-Heller,130 but with

only slight analysis as to the particulars of the matter, in particular as regards the profile of

the Maqādisa Ḥanbalīs. Revisiting details of the case reveals to us is how significant the

dynamic of Damascene topography was in mediating between the two theologically

contending camps.

The ruler of Damascus was al-Mālik al-ʿĀdil’s son, al-Malik al-Muʿaẓẓam ʿĪsā, ruling as

governor for his father 594-615/1198-1218 and independently from 615/1218 until his death in

624/1227. Like his predecessors, he was known for his patronage of public works and

endowments for religious scholarship. A proud student of the Ḥanafī school in whose

teachings he is supposed to have excelled, al-Muʿaẓẓam also looked favorably at the Ḥanbalīs,

130
Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria, 46, 237, 238 n. 63.
365
and even commissioned ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī to compose a topical compilation on ḥadīth

for him.131

The Maqdisīs, established in Mt. Qāsyūn as their primary center of habitation and

religious instruction, used to come down the walled city of Damascus to teach Ḥanbalī fiqh and

read ḥadīth in the Umayyad mosque. Tensions between Ḥanbalīs and Ashʿarīs built up as their

scholarly presence grew. It was perhaps inevitable that ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī, known for

his irrepressible drive to command the good and forbid the reprehensible,132 came to the

forefront in the clash between the two groups.

What is clear is that – just as with the anecdote on Ibn Qudāma and Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn

ʿAsākir – the perennially contested topic of God’s speech was at the centerpoint of the dispute

once more: ʿAbd al-Ghanī’s student Yūsuf b. Khalīl (d. 648/1250) summarized the entire

problem in that his teacher refused to say “my utterance (lafẓ) of the Qurʾān is created” so he

was prohibited from narrating ḥadīth in Damascus, and went to Egypt.133

ʿAbd al-Ghanī’s blood relation Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn al-Maqdisī,134 who was not in Damascus at

the time, but in Cairo listening to ḥadīth, was told by his sources (sympathetic to ʿAbd al-Ghanī)

that the Banū ʿAsākir family instigated the problem. Accordingly, they sent a family member

of theirs to ʿAbd al-Ghanī’s Friday ḥadīth session in the Umayyad Mosque after congressional

prayers to heckle him – when this person was beaten and kicked out it gave them the pretense

131
R.S. Humphreys, EI2, s.v. “al- Muʿaẓẓam”
132
He had a strong physical presence; said to have once poured out wine and then snatched the sword away from
its angry owner. He even broke some drums that were going to be played for the amusement of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s
children; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 16. He once scolded al-Malik al-ʿĀdil for attacking
Mārdīn – because it meant he was going to kill other Muslims; ibid., vol. 3, 17.
133
Ibid., vol. 3, 11.
134
Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn was the historian of the Ṣāliḥīya community, as we established in chapter one.
366
to complain to the authorities that the Ḥanbalīs were causing fitna and had an unacceptable

creed. The wālī in the Citadel requested that ʿAbd al-Ghanī brought forward for an audience.135

At this, Ḍiyāʾ’s source claims, the mashāyikh from the mountain came down to

Damascus, among them al-Imām Muwaffaq al-Dīn and Abū’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad al-Bukhārī, and

jamāʿat al-fuqahāʾ saying that they would debate his adversaries, and they told the hot-head

ʿAbd al-Ghanī not to come. But it so happened that the pro-Ashʿarī camp came for him on the

mountain when he was on his own, and brought him to the walled city without anyone

knowing, where they proceeded to debate him. They wrote out a creed, signed it, and wanted

him to sign it as well, which he refused to do. They then claimed to the wālī that ʿAbd al-Ghanī

was in opposition to the agreement of the fuqahāʾ, but could not explain their case

convincingly to him.

At this, the Ḥanbalī pulpit (minbar) in the Umayyad Mosque was destroyed, and

Ḥanbalīs were prevented from praying there. Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn Ibn al-Hanbali then got some of the

laypeople to protest their exclusion from the mosque, and so the chief Qāḍī (wa kāna ṣāḥib al-

fitna!) was persuaded to relent. ʿAbd al-Ghanī left in distress to Baʿlabakk, a predominantly

Ḥanbalī area, and read ḥadīth there. The inhabitants of Baʿlabakk wanted to go with ʿAbd al-

Bakk to Damascus and take revenge, but he declined. He then went to Egypt, and afterwards

returned Nablus.136

Ibn Rajab mentions however, that reports of those antagonistic (mukhālifīn) to ʿAbd al-

Ghanī mention things differently: They claim that the Shāfiʿīs, Ḥanafīs, and Mālikīs, gathered

135
Ibid., vol. 3, 30-31.
136
Ibid., vol. 3, 31-32.
367
to petition al-Muʿaẓẓam and the wālī of the citadel, al-Ṣārim Bargash in the dār al-ʿadl. The

creed (iʿtiqād) of the Hanbalis was written up, and the sons of Najm al-dīn Ibn al-Ḥanbalī

agreed to it,137 but ʿAbd al-Ghanī insisted on what he was known for believing – God’s

directionality (al-jiha), establishment (on the throne, al-istiwāʾ) and letters (in His eternal

speech, al-ḥarf). – and “the fuqahāʾ reached consensus (ajmaʿa) in their verdict of his disbelief

(al-fatwā bi-kufrihi) and that he was an innovator (mubtadiʿ),” whereat ʿAbd al-Ghanī was given

three days to leave the city of Damascus.138

Others, [i.e., Abū Shāma] report that ʿAbd al-Ghanī was accused of the following things

at the gathering with the authorities: 1) Saying “I do not make God transcendent in such a

manner that negates the reality of His descent (lā unazzihuhu tanzīhan yanfī ḥaqīqat al-nuzūl),” 2)

saying, “God was without a place and He is not today as He was then (kāna Allāh wa-lā makān

wa-laysa huwa al-yawm ʿalā mā kān),” and 3) the issue of God’s speech as sounds and letters

(masʾalat al-ḥarf wa’l-ṣawt).

Their critique was as follows: “If He is not as He was then a place has been affirmed for

Him, and if you do not make Him transcendent in such a manner that negates the reality of

descent, then you have made movement (al-intiqāl) permissible for Him. As for the letters and

sounds (al-ḥarf wa’l-ṣawt), nothing about that is authentically transmitted from your imam that

you are affiliated with (lam yaṣiḥḥ ʿan imāmik alladhī tantamī ilayhi), but it is only transmitted

from him that it is God’s speech not created (ghayr makhlūq).” At this, voices were raised in a

137
Ibid., vol. 3, 32-33.
138
Ibid., vol. 3, 33.
368
clamor, and Ṣārim al-Dīn asked ʿAbd al-Ghanī, “Are all of them astray and you correct? (kullu

hāʾuʾlāʾi ʿalā ḍalāl wa-anta ʿalā al-ḥaqq), to which he responded, “Yes.”

Abū Shāma goes on to mention how Ḥanbalis were subsequently prevented from

praying in the Umayyad Mosque. At this, ʿAbd al-Ghanī left to Baʿlabakk, then Egypt, where he

stayed reading ḥadīth until the fuqahāʾ of Cairo issued a fatwa for him to be killed. Abū Shāma

reports that “the people of Cairo” wrote to al-Ṣafī b. Shukr the vizier of al-Malik al-ʿĀdil in

Egypt complaining that ʿAbd al-Ghanī he had ruined the beliefs of the masses (afsada ʿaqāʾid al-

nās) and was mentioning corporealism in front of them (yadhkur al-tajsīm ʿalā ruʾūs al-ashhād),

so he in turn wrote to the wālī of Cairo to banish him to the Maghrib but ʿAbd al-Ghanī died

before the command arrived.139

Ibn Rajab narrates other views of ʿAbd al-Ghanī’s stay in Cairo: Those who attended his

lessons in the masjid al-maṣnaʿ in Cairo would cry until they fainted, and some Cairenes would

say “we were like dead people until al-Ḥāfiẓ came and took us out of the grave.”140 When he

was in Cairo, if he went out to the congregational mosque on Fridays, crowds would surround

him to get blessings (yatabarrakūna bihi).141

Ibn Rajab’s reports from Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn also depict things in Egypt differently. Al-Ḍiyā’s

sources claim that Damascene scholars had sent fatwas to Cairo in order to disparage him

there. Sums of money were supposedly put up by his Egyptian detractors to have him killed.

Al-Malik al-ʿĀdil looked at him with sympathy, however, which brought their attempts to

139
Ibid., vol. 3, 34.
140
Ibid., vol. 3, 13.
141
Ibid., vol. 3, 19.
369
harm him to naught. When al-Malik al-ʿĀdil went abroad, his son al-Malik al-Kāmil142 decided

to placate his critics by removing ʿAbd al-Ghanī from Cairo and imprisoning him for a week,

about which he is supposed to have said, “I have not found peace of mind (rāḥa) in Egypt like

those seven nights.”143

Al-Ḍiyāʾ’s narrative goes on to say that one of the amirs recalls trying to convince al-

Malik al-Kāmil to be merciful to ʿAbd al-Ghanī. Al-Kamil agreed to investigate, as well as hear

what shaykh al-shuyūkh Ibn Ḥamawayh144 and the amir ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Zinjānī had to say – but

found that they had nothing but praise for him.145 When the charges against ʿAbd al-Ghanī

were finally read out, al-Kāmil is supposed to have said, “What’s wrong with that (aysh fī

hādhā)? He’s saying what God and His Prophet (ṣ) say.”146

ʿAbd al-Ghanī died in exile, on Monday 23rd of Rabīʿ al-Awwal in year 600, and was

buried the following day in the al-Qarāfa district of Cairo, opposite from al-Shaykh Abū ʿAmr b.

Marzūq,147 another Ḥanbalī Sufi of the 6th/12th century known for invoking the ire of the

Ashʿarī scholars in his time.

The disparate versions of the story of ʿAbd al-Ghanī’s expulsion from Damascus reflect

the different visions of religious normativity present in that city held by the Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī

and Ḥanbalī scholarly communities. From the former perspective, ʿAbd al-Ghanī was an

142
Al-Malik al-Kāmil became governor of Egypt for his father al-ʿĀdil in 604/1207, and ruled it independently
when his father died in 615/1218; see EI2, s.v. “al-Kāmil” and “al-ʿĀdil.”
143
Ibid., vol. 3, 37-38.
144
Chief Sufi shaykh of Egypt; Zakī al-Dīn al-Mundhirī, al-Takmila li-Wafayāt al-naqala, 4 vols., ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād
Maʿrūf (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1405/1984), vol. 1, 178. On this new religious institution, see Nathan Hofer,
“The Origins and Development of the Office of the "Chief Sufi" in Egypt, 1173-1325,” Journal of Sufi Studies 3, no. 1
(2014), 1–37.
145
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 39.
146
“Yaqūl bi-qawl allāh ʿazza wa-jalla wa-qawl rasūlihi salla allahu ʿalayhi wa-sallam;” ibid., vol. 3, 40.
147
Ibid., vol. 3, 44.
370
“innovator,” contravening the traditionalist orthodoxy as articulated by Nishapur Shāfiʿīs of

the 5th/11th century and upheld by the Banū ʿAsākir in the following generations. From the

latter perspective, ʿAbd al-Ghanī was merely defending a scripturalist creed of the type

transmitted by the early ahl al-sunna, practically the reproduction of theology as taught in the

revelational sources of the Qurʾān and the Prophet’s sunna.

ʿAbd al-Ghanī had been a pillar of the Ṣāliḥīya community in Qāsyūn. Despite his hot

temper, he was well liked by the populace.148 Narrators of ḥadīth revered in him a throwback

to an older generation of ahl al-sunna scholars who traveled the world for the sake of

preserving revelational material. His Kamāl fī maʿrifat al-rijāl149 formed the basis for later works

of ḥadīth-science scholarship written in subsequent generations which remain highly

influential to this day across madhhab boundaries.

His other works, not as famous, reveal his other preoccupations. Although he does not

say it explicitly, the book he wrote on Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s experience in the Miḥna150 likely

points to a parallel perceived in his own anti-kalām tribulations with the Ashʿarite scholarly

class. Which is to say that in light of his own experiences, the perception he shared with his

fellow Ḥanbalī scholars that latter-day Ashʿarism was a form of crypto-Muʿtazilism heightened

his sense of history repeating itself when he himself faced persecution like Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.

His work Iʿtiqād al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī151 was provocative in that it was likely claimed to document –

contrary to the efforts of Ibn ʿAsākir – that the theological beliefs of al-Shāfiʿī, in accordance

148
Ibid., vol. 3, 19-20.
149
Ibid., vol. 3, 26.
150
See ibid., vol. 3, 24. This has been published as al-Maqdisī, Abū Muḥamad ʿAbd al-Ghanī b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-
Maqdisī, Miḥnat al-Imām Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ḥanbal, ed. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī (Cairo: Dār Hajar,
1407/1987).
151
See Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 25.
371
with the positions of the earlier ahl al-sunna, were incompatible with that of the later Ashʿarīs

who were affiliated with him.

ʿAbd al-Ghanī’s own theological works – al-Iqtiṣād fī’l-iʿtiqād152 and K. al-tawḥīd153 - reveal

his own methodology – Qurʾānic verses and quotations from ḥadīth accompanied by warnings

against applying taʾwīl to any of them. This should not surprise us, given the tendencies of the

Ibn al-Ḥanbalī family to completely eschew the kalām project undertaken by the Ḥanbalīs of

Baghdad. However, given the studies that ʿAbd al-Ghanī and Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma

undertook in Baghdad, this was not a forgone conclusion. Given ʿAbd al-Ghanī’s relatively

laconic nature in his theological work, we are advised to turn to an analysis of Ibn Qudāma’s

theological views, in which he was in general agreement with ʿAbd al-Ghanī, - but more

importantly, were paradigmatic for the Damascene school of Ḥanbalism as a whole.

In the wake of the Mongol invasion, after which Damascus became the unrivaled center

of Ḥanbalī teaching, Ibn Qudāma’s outlook on kalām became paradigmatic for “Ḥanbalism” by

default. If that were not significant in and of itself, as it came to shape the Ḥanbalīte milieu

local context was a direct formative component of Ibn Taymīya’s scholarly constitution.

7.4.3 Ibn Qudāma: Master of Anti-Kalām Apologetics

Talmon-Heller’s view that Muwaffaq al-Dīn’s creed was closer to the Ashʿarī position

than ʿAbd al-Ghanī’s is inaccurate.154 Unlike ʿAbd al-Ghanī, however, Ibn Qudāma was known

152
Al-Maqdisī, Abū Muḥamad ʿAbd al-Ghanī b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Maqdisī, al-Iqtiṣād fī'l-iʿtiqād, ed. al-Ghāmidī,
Aḥmad b. ʿAṭīya b. ʿAlī (Medina: Maktabat al-ʿUlūm wa'l-ḥikam, 1414/1993).
153
Al-Maqdisī, Abū Muḥamad ʿAbd al-Ghanī b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Maqdisī, Kitāb al-tawḥīd, ed. al-Hāyik, Muṣʿab b.
ʿAṭā Allāh (Riyadh: Dār al-Muslim, 1419/1998).
154
Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria, 238.
372
for his calm and unarming demeanor, being able to maintain his composition during the most

intense theological debate. It is not surprising that he offered to debate ʿAbd al-Ghanī’s

adversaries in his place.

True, he was more circumspect about how he dealt with religious innovation. He was

not so hasty as to declare his opponents disbelievers. Nevertheless, like ʿAbd al-Ghanī and the

Banū’l-Ḥanbalī before him he eschewed the methods of kalām completely. His creed Lumʿat al-

iʿtiqād,155 like those written by ʿAbd al-Ghanī, has no kalām terminology, and every statement

about God can be traced back to a verse of the Qurʾān or ḥadīth. He also attended the readings

of Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī’s anti-Ashʿarī pamphlet.

He was particularly concerned with the issue of God’s speech. For the past generations this

had been a source of contention in Baghdad and Damascus. In Baghdad it was the cause of

public controversies as well as scholarly writing anathemizing the other side. In Damascus too

we have seen how Damascene Ḥanbalī scholars Abū’l-Faraj al-Shīrāzī and his son ʿAbd al-

Wahhāb Sharaf al-Islam spent their energies on this topic; they were joined in this by the

latter’s son Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn, a peer of Ibn Qudāma’s, who also debated Ashʿarī scholars on the ḥarf

wa-sawt.156

ʿAbd al-Ghanī had been run out of town for his vocal position on the topic. But Ibn

Qudāma was no stranger to controversy himself: Ibn Qudāma himself disputed with Ashʿarī

theologians on the topic, and wrote a work where he expressly defended the Ḥanbalī position

155
Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma, Lumʿat al-iʿtiqād, 4th ed., ed. Zuhayr al-Shāwīsh (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī,
1395/1975).
156
For a description of Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn’s engagement in debate on the topic see Daiber, “The Quran as a "Shibboleth"
of Varying Conceptions of the Godhead,” 256, 289.
373
on God’s speech in the form of a written debate between the two sides. Hans Daiber has

published two versions of this munāẓara157 and yet a third, more expansive version has been

published by ʿAbd Allāh b. Yūsuf al-Judayʿ.158 The text was transmitted and even taught in the

following century.159 Another text on the same topic, al-Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm fī ithbāt al-ḥarf al-

qadīm;160 the manuscripts of the published edition contain samāʿ public audition records during

and after Ibn Qudāma’s lifetime, in 605, 608, 655, 674, and 681 AH.161

Ibn Qudāma explained that the Qurʾān was truly God’s word, referred to in this manner

Qurʾānically and in prophetic reports, and that it was audible to those it was revealed to,

described as being Arabic and divisible into chapters and words and letters.162 Again, he

affirmed as had his Ḥanbalī predecessors, that, contrary to the Ashʿarite position, speech

(kalām), linguistically speaking, could only refer to audible letters and sounds (ḥarf/ṣawt).163 To

affirm that the Arabic Qurʾān revealed to the Prophet was a creation of God was to be in actual

agreement with the Muʿtazilites on the creation of the Qurʿān (khalq al-Qurʾān)164 and contrary

to the truth. None of these arguments, though conscious of the Ashʿarite position, depended

on ontological discussions of kalām, but were based on the internal coherence of scriptural

statements, language, and a grounding in tradition. Ashʿarism despite his traditionalist

pretensions, advocated another form of Muʿtazilism.

157
Ibid.
158
Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma, Ḥikāyat al-munāẓara fī'l-Qurʾān maʿa baʿḍ ahl al-bidʿa, ed. al-Judayʿ, ʿAbd Allāh b.
Yūsuf (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 1418/1997).
159
Ibid., 12.
160
Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma, al-Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm fī ithbāt al-ḥarf al-qadīm, ed. al-Khumayyis, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān (Ajman: Maktabat al-Furqān, 1419/1999).
161
Ibid., 11–5.
162
Ibid., 23–40.
163
Ibid., 40–4. This was a refutation of the kalām nafsī argument.
164
Ibid., 37.
374
 The idea that the Arabic Qurʾān was not God’s word, but merely an expression (ʿibāra)

of it, was of particular consternation to Ibn Qudāma, and framed the nature of his debates with

Ashʿarī interlocutors.165 He finds the idea of the kalām nafsī incoherent in its details,166 the idea

of temporal succession in letters necessary only if God speaks as humans do, which He

doesn’t.167 The original difference of opinion between early Muslims and the Muʿtazilites, he

argues, was not about an eternal word other than the Qurʾān.168 It is problematic, therefore,

that the Ashʿarites say that they Muʿtazilites were wrong, then go and say (in agreement to

them) that the Qurʾān is created, then add the position that it is not the Qurʿān (viz. not really

God’s speech).169 He says:

The revolving point of these people is the doctrine of the createdness of the Qurʿān and
agreement (wifāq) with the Muʿtazilites, but they prefer that no one find them out, so
they chose to deny what is obvious and contradict reality and oppose the consensus (al-
ijmāʾ) and abandon the Book and sunna behind their backs, and adopt a doctrine which
no one adopted before them, whether Muslim nor disbeliever.

The strange thing is that they do not dare to publicly (iẓhār) make their doctrine
known, nor say it explicitly (al-taṣrīḥ) except in private, despite the fact that they are
people of governance (wulāt al-amr wa-arbāb al-dawla). And if you report their doctrine
that they adhere to, they hate that and deny it, obstinately reject what is clear, and
they do not publicly show anything but respect for the Qurʾān and reverence of the
codexes, standing for them when they see them, but privately they say: that is only
paper and ink …

Once I (publicly) reported about the person that I debated the things that he said, and
he got word of that, and got angry… so some of our companions said to him: You are
people of governance (wulāt al-amr wa-arbāb al-dawla) so what is preventing you from
showing (iẓhār) your doctrine to the general population (ʿāmmat al-nās) and calling the
people to adopt it among themselves? At that he was at a loss for an answer (buhita)
and did not respond.

165
Ibn Qudāma, Ḥikāyat al-munāẓara fī'l-Qurʾān maʿa baʿḍ ahl al-bidʿa, 17–8.
166
Ibid., 20.
167
Ibid., 25.
168
Ibid., 30–1.
169
Ibid., 32–3.
375
 We do not know among the people of innovation (ahl al-bidaʿ) a group that hides its
doctrines nor does not dare to publicly show them except the dissimulating
disbelievers (al-zanādiqa) and the Ashʿarīya.170

The idea that the Ashʿarī doctrine if correct, was not transmitted via the Prophet is

problematized by Ibn Qudāma: it would mean that either 1) the Prophet and his Companions 1)

hid it or 2) were unaware of it, or that 3) the truth was hidden from their later followers. The

first two possibilities are rejected because they imply their maliciousness or ignorance on the

part of the Prophet, which is not in accordance with his prophetic nature. The last possibility

is rejected because it implies that true Islam was lost in transmission, which allows anyone to

claim that their Islam is the true one. However, “their religion would be other than the

religion of Muḥammad, because the religion of Islam is that which Muḥammad brought, and

this was only brought by al-Ashʿarī.”171

The position narrated by such early Companions as ʿAlī, Ibn Masʿūd, and Ibn ʿUmar and

subsequent generations that followed them that the constituent letters (ḥarf) were mandatory

to believe in.172 These reports were later narrated with the approval of the community:

No one rejected or differed about them until al-Ashʿarī came and rejected them and
opposed everyone else regarding them, whether believer or disbeliever. But his
opinion has no effect, according to the people of truth (ahl al-ḥaqq), established
realities (al-ḥaqāʾiq) and teachings of the Prophet of God (ṣ), and the consensus of the
umma are not abandoned for the position of al-Ashʿarī, except by the one whom God
has deprived of success and made his insight blind, and caused him to be misguided
from the straight path.”173

170
Ibid., 34–5.
171
Ibid., 36. Cf. ibid., 49–50. for similar discussions about early dissemination.
172
Ibid., 38–40.
173
Ibid., 40.
376
God is to be described as he has described himself, innovation is to be abandoned, theology to

be taken from the scripture and that which the early community agreed upon.174 The early

community agreed that the Qurʾān was God’s word, uncreated, then the Muʿtazilites emerged

saying it was created. Even in their position that it was created, they did not intend anything

other than the recitable words of the Qurʾān. Then Ashʿarī arose, and was in agreement with

the Muʿtazilites on that position, but intended deception (al-talbīs), “saying outwardly (fī’l-

ẓāhir) a doctrine in agreement with the ahl al-ḥaqq, but interpreting it in the manner of the

Muʿtazilite.”175 This deception is of the very worst kind, according to Ibn Qudāma; the nifāq at

the time of the Prophet being like the dissimulating disbelief (zandaqa) today, due to the dual-

level of their public religious discourse, which would appear to accord to that which everyone

knows, whereas:

The reality of their doctrine is that: There is no God in heaven, nor Qurʾān in earth, nor
is Muḥammad the Prophet of God!176

The first two of these positions attributed to them are the result of 1) Ashʿarī rejection

of God’s being on the Throne due to its concomitant directionality (jiha), and 2) Ashʿarī

rejection that the words of the Qurʾān constitute God’s actual speech. The last three of these

doctrines, as we can recognize from Ibn Qudāma’s explanation, was a throwback to the old

accusations in Ghaznavid Nishapur that the prophethood of Muḥammad had expired after his

death.

174
Ibid., 43–5.
175
Ibid., 46–7.
176
Ibid., 50–1.
377
 The view that Ibn Qudāma has of Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī seems derived as well from the

pamphlet of Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī in its denial that he was a man of piety or religious learning,

and after a repentance from 40 years of Muʿtazilism he did not contribute anything other than

this innovation (bidʿa).177 Ibn Qudāma takes the opportunity to mention his incredulity that

God only guided to the truth someone who had been His enemy (ʿaduwwahu) and not a more

firmly established religious scholar.178

If this were not a clear enough affront to the charismatic narrative of Ashʿarīsm

promulgated by the Banū ʿAsākir, he turns to the one vindicatory sign that had been so

successfully employed in the Tabyīn – the wide numerical support of religious scholars for

Ashʿarism – and turns it into an ominous sign:

Indeed, this innovation, despite how obvious its falsehood is, and excessively ugly it is,
has spread extensively (qad intasharat intishāran kathīran) and become exceedingly
dominant (ẓahara ẓuhūran ʿaẓīman) – and I think it will be the last innovation and the
most pernicious (ākhir al-bidaʿ wa-akhbathuhā) and a sign of the Hour (wa-ʿalayhā taqūm
al-sāʿa), as indeed it is only increasing in its numbers and ambit.179

This prompts a reflection on how the teachings of the Prophet Muḥammad contain a

warning about the increase in innovation at the end of time, and the spread of falsehood

(munkar) as good (maʿrūf) and vice versa. In such times the ahl al-ḥaqq will be small in number

but will not be the worse off for being forsaken. On this basis such words were spoken that

Islam would became a stranger (gharīban) just as it had been originally, and glad tidings are to

be had for the strangers (ṭūbā li’l-ghurabāʾ)180 Such people holding on to the truth as falsehood

177
Ibid., 51–2.
178
Ibid., 52.
179
Ibid.
180
Ibid., 53–4.
378
spreads were praised by the Prophet due to the difficulty they would face in upholding their

duty, “since a time would come in which the one who sticks to his religion will be like someone

holding onto a burning ember:”181

So it is strange that the people of innovation (ahl al-bidaʿ) seek evidence of their being
ahl al-ḥaqq by their numbers, wealth, social standing, and dominance, and seek evidence
of the falsehood of the sunna (buṭlān al-sunna) by the small numbers of its adherents (bi-
qillat ahlihā) and their estrangement and weakness, thereby making what the Prophet
(ṣ) made an indication of truth and a maker of the sunna into a marker of falsehood, for
verily the Prophet (ṣ) told us of the small numbers of ahl al-ḥaqq at the end of time (fī
ākhir al-zamān) as well as their estrangement, and the dominance and numerousness of
ahl al-bidaʿ.182

Ibn Qudāma closes the treatise with numerous quotations from the Qurʾān describing

how those who opposed truth used their relative power, prestige, or wealth vis-à-vis the

prophets and their followers as an excuse to reject their message. The Prophet Muḥammad’s

impoverished followers were a sign of his guidance, and Pharoah’s riches were not a setback to

Moses’ message. A prayer is made for the author and the one who reads the treatise to be

strengthened in their basis of Islam and the sunna and protected from kufr and bidʿa, in strong

faith and uprightness.183

7.4.4 The End of Ḥanbalī Kalām

Only a few years after ʿAbd al-Ghanī’s death in exile, Ibn Qudāma decided to formalize

what had only been an informal tradition in Damascene Ḥanbalism and declare the practice of

kalām – or even reading kalām – to be religiously prohibited (ḥarām). Again, this should not be

viewed as an obvious move for a Ḥanbalī of his time to make – a fact that he himself must have

181
Ibid., 54–6.
182
Ibid., 58.
183
Ibid., 59–61.
379
been aware of due to his scholarly training in Baghdad, where Ḥanbalī kalām was practiced. In

fact, the Baghdad counterpart to the Damascene Ḥanbalī tradition can be shown to have

informed his conscious decision to make a break with it. His choice to prohibit kalām can be

tied directly to interest shown by his contemporary Ḥanbalīs for the disapproved works of Ibn

ʿAqīl – that controversial Ḥanbalī prodigy torn between Ḥanbalī and Muʿtazilite convictions.

Although we do not know who among his peers Ibn Qudāma believed to have been at

fault for succumbing to the temptation of Ibn ʿAqīl’s ideas, we may recall the case of the

controversy surrounding his Baghdad contemporary Ibn al-Jawzī; it is possible that

sympathizers to Ibn al-Jawzī’s methods had a presence in Damascus Ḥanbalī community. That

we know of no Ḥanbalīs there who broke “party-lines,” as it were, is only a testament to the

public group-solidarity of that madhhab. Ibn Qudāma wanted to stop that possibility dead in its

tracks; hence his composition of the work Taḥrīm al-naẓar fī kutub ahl al-kalām, “The Prohibition

of Looking at the Books of the People of Kalām.”

This work, in which Ibn Qudāma solidifies a position which would seal the fate of kalām

for Damascene Ḥanbalism, is significant for a variety of reasons. It pinpoints the tensions

which the anti-taqlīd ethos of kalām had magnified, even within the Ḥanbalī school, but within

Islam as a whole. This leads to redemption of the notion that proper theological doctrine

could only be attained by scripture and sound tradition – i.e. without the procedures of kalām.

The methods of kalām being called into question, it entailed an undermining of the entire

historical narrative of legitimacy created by kalām, in addition to the system of religious

authority and scriptural interpretation that it legitimizes.

380
 This text was edited by George Makdisi in 1962 on the basis of a sole manuscript of the

Āṣafīya Library in Hyderabad.184 Makdisi gave this titleless manuscript its name on the basis of

one of the titles that Ibn Rajab mentions for Ibn Qudāma’s works, which coincides with the

subject matter of the text.185 The manuscript reveals to us that Ibn Qudāma wrote this after he

received – in authorized transmission complete with isnād – Ibn ʿAqīl’s retraction in

603/1206.186

After narrating the controversy between al-Sharīf Abū Jaʿfar and Ibn ʿAqīl,187 and a text

of the latter’s tawba along with its witnesses’ signatures;188 it is this tawba of Ibn ʿAqīl’s which

contains the prohibition of reading or writing kalām.

At this, Ibn Qudāma says he would not have ordinarily mentioned the faults of a fellow

Ḥanbalī, except that some unnamed brethren have taken him as an example and been caused

to feel doubt in their beliefs because of their good opinion (ḥusn ẓannihim) of him.189 However,

Ibn ʿAqīl’s influence has been to repel people from tradition (naffara min al-taqlīd) and create a

bad opinion of scholars (ankara ḥusn al-ẓann bi’l-mashāyikh). If this is the case, then why should

one have a good opinion of him and follow him?190

If Ibn ʿAqīl at some point accused the Ḥanbalīs of bidʿa – an accusation which

mutakallimūn who advocated a kalām-based orthodoxy tended to do – Ibn Qudāma rejects this

by emphasizing that taʾwīl is a later development, whereas the salaf did not do so, and any

184
Makdisi, Ibn Qudāma's Censure of Speculative Theology, ix.
185
Ibid., xii.
186
Ibid., xi.
187
Ibid., 3 (Arabic text). ibid., 3 Arabic.
188
Ibid., 4-7 (Arabic text).
189
Ibid., 8 (Arabic text).
190
Ibid., 9 (Arabic text).
381
claim to the contrary is pure conjecture. “Everyone knows” that the way of the salaf is to

narrate the sunna without reinterpreting it, Ibn Qudāma says – affirming a position

acknowledged by his kalām practicing interloctuors. He gives several reports to buttress this

position. Refraining from taʾwīl is not an innovation, but rather, kalām and its practice of taʾwīl

are.191 He wrote an entire work called Dhamm al-taʾwīl for the purpose of demonstrating that

“the way of the salaf” is to transmit the sunna without reinterpreting it.192

Piety is important here: Ibn Qudāma states that the ahl al-sunna who follow documented

reports (al-āthār) and follow “the way of the salaf (ṭarīqat al-salaf) are the saints (al-awliyāʾ) and

righteous men (ṣāliḥūn) whose reports fill books which inspire the populace, and whose

spiritual states and miracles are known. Kalām practitioners, on the other hand, have

blameworthy reports, and whoever looks will find that early authorities disparaged them.193

This is challenged by such statements by Ibn ʿAqīl as, “Whoever is fooled by his predecessors

and finds relief in the doctrines of his Shaykhs, seeking solace (ānisan) in following them

without proof (bi-taqlīdihim) without searching for [the basis] of their beliefs is an idiot.”194 Ibn

Qudāma responds that this is “a poisonous statement” which implies “considering it

blameworthy to follow the way of the righteous predecessors (ṭarīqat al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ).” This is a

proof of the blameworthiness of kalām, since it caused Ibn ʿAqīl to call people away from the

path of the salaf and warn them of it, while calling them to follow the ahl al-kalām.195

Essentially, Ibn Qudāma argues, Ibn ʿAqīl is calling his followers to do taqlīd of him and the

191
Ibid., 9-14 (Arabic text).
192
See Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma, Dhamm al-taʾwīl, ed. al-Badr, Badr b. ʿAbd Allāh (al-Shāriqa: Dar al-Fatḥ,
1414/1994).
193
Makdisi, Ibn Qudāma's Censure of Speculative Theology, 14-18 (Arabic text).
194
Ibid., 18 (Arabic text).
195
Ibid., 18-19 (Arabic text).
382
mutakallimīn instead of the earliest Muslims.196 This rejection of Ibn ʿAqīl’s position, however,

would equally apply not just to Ashʿarite kalām but also the Ḥanbalī kalām tradition which

continued into the 6th/12th century.

That Ibn ʿAqīl nevertheless says “Be mindful of God … and follow ṭarīqat al-salaf” is a

contradiction which exposes him. As Ibn Qudāma reminds that the best generations are the

first three, and the reports are many from early Muslims stressing the importance of following

the Companions.197 This critique means that the idea of a synthesis between kalām and the way

of the salaf posited by the mutakallimūn – the foundation of the historical narrative of

traditionalist inspired justifications of kalām-based orthodoxy – is rejected as an impossibility.

Ibn Qudāma then argues on the basis of legal principles: If, he argues, the uṣūl al-fiqh principle

exists that consensus (ijmāʿ) is a compelling argument (ḥujja), then if the Companions and

Followers after them were on this path (viz. no kalām and no taʾwīl), then how can it be

contravened?198 If his interlocutors claim to be performing ijtihād based on evidence (dalīl) and

calling away from blameworthy emulation (al-taqlīd al-madhmūm), his answer is that 1) that

ṭarīq al-salaf has been established with definitively sound evidence (al-dalīl al-qāṭiʿ salāmatuhu),

based on the Qurʾān, sunna, and consensus - and no other dalīl is needed.199 The other answer

is that 2) the lay people (al-ʿāmma) would be forced to do ijtihād in the minutest of matters and

theological topics (daqāʾiq al-umūr wa’l-iʿtiqādāt)200 which is wrong for the following reasons:

196
Ibid., 24 (Arabic text).
197
Ibid., 19-24, cf. 56-59 (Arabic text).
198
Ibid., 24-25 (Arabic text).
199
Ibid., 25 (Arabic text).
200
Ibid.
383
 a) It would be calling the Prophet wrong, because he never ordered his umma to know
kalām or rational evidences (adillat al-ʿuqūl) in order that the validity of his belief (ṣiḥḥat
muʿtaqadihi be known) – he simply commanded them to Islam.201
b) This is beyond what the lay people (ʿāmma) can handle – and “God does not make a
soul responsible for more than it can bear” (Q al-Baqara 2:286) – if they had to do this
they wouldn’t be able to work or farm and the foundation of society would crumble.202
As Ibn Qudāma well knew, this was the basis of a general scholarly consensus (ijmāʿ)
that the laypeople (ʿāmma) were not forced to do ijithād in legal matters.203 He was
extending the principle here to matters of faith.
c) If it was obligatory (wājib) it would necessitate attributing religious misguidance
(taḍlīl) to everyone because they don’t do it. Knowing that God is one and that
prophethood exists and that five prayers are mandatory is “obvious” and no one is
excused for not knowing it – but it doesn’t need research or investigation (al-baḥth/al-
naẓar).204 Ibn Qudāma here is rejecting the classical kalām mandate to naẓar for reasons
having to do with the issue of takfīr of the laypeople which plagued early Muʿtazilism
and also threatened to delegitimize early Ashʿarism.

Finally, Ibn Qudāma turns to the topic of taʾwīl. He interprets Q 3:7 as a prohibition of

taʾwīl, affirming, as had other Ḥanbalīs before him, a stop after the mention of God in §4a.205 If

taʾwīl had been necessary, he argues, then the Prophet would have commanded his umma to do

it and he would not have hidden it from them.206 For this reason, taʾwīl is a new occurrence

(ḥadath) and thus a bad innovation (bidʿa); Ibn Qudāma reminds the reader of the ḥadīth which

says that “every new thing is innovation and every innovation is misguidance” (kull muḥdatha

bidʿa wa kull bidʿa ḍalāla) – so the one who does it is a misguided innovator (mubtadiʿ ḍāll).207

201
Ibid., 25-26 (Arabic text). As we recall, Abū Yaʿlā’s argument for Ḥanbalī kalām entailed a recognition of the
difference in the earliest Muslims and latter-day Muslims; the latter of which had to perform naẓar in order to
avoid taqlīd; see chapter five.
202
Ibid., 26 (Arabic text).
203
Ibid., 26-27 (Arabic text). On this and the previous point, Ibn Qudāma, Dhamm al-taʾwīl, 40.
204
Makdisi, Ibn Qudāma's Censure of Speculative Theology, 27 (Arabic text).
205
Ibid., 28-29 (Arabic text). Cf. Ibn Qudāma, Dhamm al-taʾwīl, 35-37.
206
ibid., 29-30 (Arabic text). Ibn Qudāma, Dhamm al-taʾwīl, 37-39.
207
ibid., 31-32 (Arabic text).
384
 Echoing the arguments made by Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn, he problematizes taʾwīl as being

too conjectural, based as it is on different meanings that words can have in Arabic:

The most that an interpreter (mutaʾawwil) can claim is that a given expression bears
another meaning in Arabic, but the mere possibility that the utterance can bear the
meaning does not mandate that that meaning was intended.208

Ibn Qudāma expands the critique even further, and in a way which would have been

particularly sensitive for Ashʿarī mutakallimūn:

If taʾwīl were necessary (wājib), then it would either be 1) mandatory for everyone or

just 2) mandatory for those who know the evidences (dalīl). If it is 1) mandatory for everyone,

then it is compulsory for everyone without evidence (dalīl) to make judgement about God

based on ignorance. If it is not mandatory for the person who doesn’t have evidence (dalīl),

then why, Ibn Qudāma asks, do the mutakallimūn blame people for not doing taʾwīl? If his

interlocutors were truly pious, he claims, they wouldn’t mention taʾwīl to the masses and

command them to do that which they do not understand.209

This critique centered on knowledge of the inherent relationship between the methods

of the mutakallimūn and the prerogative to perform taʾwīl; what we have called “the rule of

interpretation.” Taʾwīl necessarily could not be the basis of public religious discourse, as even

al-Juwaynī and al-Ghazālī had noted. The latter in particular had expressed particular concern

for the necessary methodological rigor involved in taʾwīl which made its public dissemination

208
Ibid., 30-31 (Arabic text). Cf. Ibn Qudāma, Dhamm al-taʾwīl, 40-41. Similarly to Abū Yaʿlā he states that doing
taʾwīl is superfluous since one is not obligated to know what God means by his attributes since no deeds (ʿamal)
are connected with it. What is mandatory is belief alone, and one can believe in it without knowing its meaning.
God commands belief in angels books and messengers which we know only in name; Makdisi, Ibn Qudāma's Censure
of Speculative Theology, ibid., 32 (Arabic text); cf. Ibn Qudāma, Dhamm al-taʾwīl, 40 f., 46.
209
Makdisi, Ibn Qudāma's Censure of Speculative Theology, 32-33 (Arabic text). One is not allowed to interpret the
Qurʾān with mere opinions; ibid., 33 (Arabic text).
385
untenable, even harmful. Ibn Qudāma here refers to this concern to nullify taʾwīl’s role as

marker of Islamic orthodoxy.

Taʾwīl, for Ibn Qudāma, is not just the negation of an attribute of God, but the

description of Him by something he did not say about himself: God used the word istawā

multiple times in the Qurʾān to describe Himself; couldn’t He have said istawlāʾ instead?210 The

true way – the way of God (sabīl Allāh) – is to affirm these expressions in the Qurʾān and ḥadīth

with the meaning that God wanted for them and not talk about what we don’t know,

embodying those who believe, saying “we believe in it, it is all from our Lord” in Q 3:7.211

Ibn Qudāma only submits two (problematic) reasons for rejecting this position:

1) One does not believe in the scriptural expressions – but this is God’s revelation – which
makes this tantamount to disbelief.212
2) One objects to refraining from interpretation (al-tafsīr)213 – but this entails blaming the
Prophet, the “firmly established in knowledge” (Q 3:7), and the salaf because they did
not interpret (yufassir).214

Ibn Qudāma abides by the stance that his position cannot be considered blameworthy in any

way since:

1) Affirming revelatory expressions cannot be a source of blame (due to their divine

origins).
2) One can’t be blamed for something that one doesn’t do (i.e., refraining from
interpretation).
3) He cannot be blamed for tashbīh in particular because that is “slander,” and his
interlocutors “cannot judge what is in our hearts, since we explicitly deny likeness (al-
tashbīh), resemblance (al-tamthīl) and corporeality (al-tajsīm).215

210
Ibid., 33-34 (Arabic text). Cf. Ibn Qudāma, Dhamm al-taʾwīl, 41.
211
Makdisi, Ibn Qudāma's Censure of Speculative Theology, 34-35 (Arabic text).
212
Ibid., 35 (Arabic text).
213
He reiterates that if one doesn’t know the tafsīr than one has the religious duty to be quiet; ibid., 36 (Arabic
text).
214
Ibid., 36-37 (Arabic text).
215
Ibid., 37-38 (Arabic text).
386
 Finally, Ibn Qudāma grapples with the implications of two further statements of Ibn

ʿAqīl on the normativity of ḥadīth for theological first principles in a manner which reflects the

developments of Ḥanbalī kalām and uṣūl al-fiqh: The first statement is that “reports (al-akhbār)

should be put aside (viz. in matters of theology) because they are 1) non-mutawātir (akhbār

āḥād) and because 2) undeniable (al-qaṭʿ) intellectual indications (adillat al-ʿuqūl) establish that

al-tashbīh and al-tajsīm are to be negated.”216 Both of these principles would, in principle, hold

up in the court of Muʿtazilī, Ashʿarī, and Ḥanbalī kalām, and thus deserved a serious response.

Ibn Qudāma responds to the first claim with two defenses. The first reason why these

reports should be accepted is because of:

the agreement of the imams in narrating them and putting them in ṣaḥīḥ and musnad
collections – so leaving them aside goes against consensus (al-ijmāʿ). Those who
narrate these narrations are the transmitters of the sharīʿa and the narrators of rulings
(ruwāt al-aḥkām) who we are dependent on for knowing what is prohibited and
permitted (ḥarām/ḥalāl).

If, Ibn Qudāma argues, their beliefs are invalidated by taʾwīl then they too must be rejected, the

sharīʿa invalidated, and “the religion will be eliminated” (yadhhab al-dīn).217

The second reason is that:

We do not grant that these are non-mutawātir reports (akhbār āḥād) because among
them are those which have been narrated from many pathways that corroborate one
another, and mutually give each other credence and testify to each other’s reliability.
So even if individually they are not mutawātir, nevertheless from the whole we can get
certainty (al-qaṭʿ/al-yaqīn) for establishing their basis, and that is enough for tawātur…
We can be certain that Ḥātim was generous and that ʿAlī was brave and that ʿUmar was
just and that ʿAʾisha was knowledgeable and that the caliphate of the first four caliphs
happened, even if this was not transmitted to us in a single mutawātir report. Be that as

216
Ibid., 38 (Arabic text).
217
Ibid., 38-39 (Arabic text).
387
 it may, the reports come together to manifest (taẓāharat al-akhbār) these things and
affirm each other, and nothing has falsified them, so tawātur occurs by them all
together (bi’l-majmūʿ).218

As for the matter of tashbīh and tajsīm, Ibn Qudāma also invalidates these concepts as an

innovated, and thus inadmissible, criterion for orthodoxy advanced by kalām. He states that

these two terms were invented (w-ḍ-ʿ) by the mutakallimūn and other religious “innovators” in

order to invalidate reports (al-āthār/al-akhbār) under the deceptive pretense that they only

sought divine transcendence (al-tanzīh) and a denial of tashbīh.219 Ibn Qudāma denies, just as

his Ḥanbalī predecessors before him, that affirming God’s attributes entails a necessary

resemblance between God and His creation.

Additionally, however, Ibn Qudāma argues that such a criterion of orthodoxy shows

internal contradiction in that it unfairly singles out the opponents of the mutakallimūn:

The sect of the mutakallimīn and the innovators focus on tashbīh in order to shame those
who narrate scriptural material and in order to invalidate reports. However, how does
the tashbīh occur? If it happens by commonality in names and expressions (al-
mushāraka fī’l-asmāʾ wa’l-alfāẓ) then they have [also] likened (shabbahū) God Most High
when they affirmed for Him attributes such as hearing, seeing, knowledge, power, will,
life which have commonality (al-mushāraka) in their expressions. God has ninety-nine
names, and not one of them is not used to name something else except the names
“Allāh” and “al-Raḥmān” – the rest of them can be used to name other things than Him
– and this does not imply tashbīh or tajsīm.220

Essentially, Ibn Qudāma is arguing that applying the same names to God as to the creation does

not entail affirming a resemblance between God and His creation; using such names in

218
Ibid., 39 (Arabic text). Cf. Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma, Ithbāt ṣifat al-ʿulūw, ed. al-Badr, Badr b. ʿAbd Allāh
(Kuwait: al-Dār al-Salafīya, 1406/1987), 42.
219
Again, the fear of the Ismāʿīlīs looms large: he says the mutakallimūn in this matter are just like the Bāṭīnīya who
claim to love the ahl al-bayt although they secretly want to destroy the sharīʿa; Makdisi, Ibn Qudāma's Censure of
Speculative Theology, 39-40 (Arabic text).
220
Ibid., 40-41, cf. 51 (Arabic text).
388
common is something done by all Muslims, including the mutakallimūn who affirm God’s

description as knowing, willing, and powerful being. This is not something particular to

Ḥanbalīs.

If using common names for God and the creation is not particular to Ḥanbalīs, neither

is the affirmation of certain theological expressions found in scripture: Ibn Qudāma tires of

hearing from his opponents that “you” – i.e., the Ḥanbalīs –“say that ‘the Merciful established

Himself over the Throne’ and that ‘God actually talked to Moses’ and that ‘God descends every

night to the lowest heaven.” Ibn Qudāma insists it is not “his”statement, but rather the

statement of “God and His Prophet.”221

Even fellow Ḥanbalīs, to his chagrin, internalize the commonly spread idea that it is

“the Ḥanbalīs” who say that “the Merciful established Himself over the Throne.” To Ibn

Qudāma this is the worst thing imaginable – he emphatically states that this is not a Ḥanbalī

doctrine but the word of God Himself!222 Of course God is not similar to His creation and “we” –

Ibn Qudāma reiterates – “do not affirm that God’s attributes are like that of the creation,” since

“nothing resembles Him” (laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ - Q al-Shūrā 42:11) and “whatever occurs to the

heart or wahm, God is unlike that.”223 Ibn Qudāma refuses to accept that he is following a

“Ḥanbalī creed,” but rather, that of Islam’s original revelational message.

Ibn Qudāma warns his reader about the seriousness of innovation and misguidance

(bidʿa/ḍalāla), which are equivocated with one another.224 Ibn Qudāma is not speaking

221
Ibid., 41 (Arabic text).
222
Ibid., 42 (Arabic text). In fact, Ibn Qudāma wrote an entire book on God’s being above the throne, published as
Ibn Qudāma, Ithbāt ṣifat al-ʿulūw, cited above.
223
Makdisi, Ibn Qudāma's Censure of Speculative Theology, 42 (Arabic text).
224
Ibid., 61, 62 (Arabic text).
389
exlusively about matters of kalām and taʾwīl, but includes even the most minute kind of

theological discussion, such as the issue of masʾalat al-nuqaṭ wa’l-shakl225 and whether people of

innovation (bidʿa) are eternally (takhlīd) in Hell.226 Such topics of discussions are “innovations”

and “stupidities” and the one who talks about them is an innovator.227 He quotes the Sufi Sahl

al-Tustarī, inspiration to earlier anti-kalām Ḥanbalīs inluding al-Barbahārī, al-Harawī, and

Sharaf al-Islām:

“No one innovates anything except that he will be asked about it on the Day of
Judgment, and if it is in accordance with sunna, otherwise it will be their demise.228

Ibn Qudāma closes with a summary of the entirety of his argument: kalām is religiously

prohibited, and is incompatible with the way of the salaf.229 He goes on,” So if you want kalām

and to broaden your knowledge than study fiqh and its topics and rulings … and those topics

which require algebra and arithmetic and geometry.”230 Otherwise, he concludes, one should

abide by the sunna which is the “way of success.”231

7.5 The Significance of Damascus in the Wake of the Mongol Invasion:

Ibn Qudāma may have been more diplomatic in the public eye than ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-

Maqdisī, but he accepted the same basic worldview and attitude towards the proper sources of

theology. They rejected kalām, even Ḥanbalī kalām, and considered its practice a reprehensible

225
This referred to the obscure question of whether the diacritical marks in the Qurʾān are considered God’s
speech; see Ibn Taymīya, Majmūʿ fatāwā Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad b. Taymīya, vol. 12, 576.
226
See his prohibition of this topic in communcation with Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya in chapter eight.
227
Makdisi, Ibn Qudāma's Censure of Speculative Theology, 62 (Arabic text).
228
Ibid., 63 (Arabic text).
229
Ibid., 63-65 (Arabic text).
230
Ibid., 65 (Arabic text).
231
Ibid., 65-66 (Arabic text).
390
innovation. This was not a foregone conclusion, as we know, in light of the role of Ḥanbalī

kalām in Baghdad, a development which the two scholars were likely aware of. Eschewing such

theoretical discussions, both ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī and Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma found

the bases of theology in scriptural material, and bypassed the Baghdad Ḥanbalī theological

tradition. Their own works reflect this same desire for scriptural purism.

Both of them instead found their authoritative sources in earlier, pre-kalām

compilations of early ahl al-sunna creedal points, such as the al-Ibāna by Ibn Baṭṭa.232 This text

they taught publicly in numerous sessions in Damascus, as is documented by samāʿ records of

that work.233 The collection and dissemination of such early works of Sunnī theology was an

important occupation of the Ṣāliḥīya Ḥanbalī community. Many original manuscripts used for

the modern publication of these texts are currently only found in the Ẓāhirīya library in

Damascus, in the ʿUmarīya collection; i.e. the collection of books stored in the madrasa founded

by Abū ʿUmar the grand patriarch of the Ṣāliḥīya community. These works bolstered the

confidence of Ibn Qudāma’s students in the dispensability of kalām, and formed the basis of a

manuscript culture which had a preservationist ethos consciously emulative of the earlier

community.

Which is to say, that this was not a naïve rejectionism of everything but scripture

alone. The Banū Qudāma, rather, were documentarians of a body of theological literature

threatened with obsolescence in light of the rise of Ashʿarism: from their perspective, such

232
We saw the significance of Ibn Baṭṭa in chapter five.
Ibn Baṭṭa al-ʿUkbarī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad, al-Ibāna ʿan sharīʿat al-firaq al-nājiya wa-
233

mujānabat al-firaq al-madhmūma, 71–82.

391
traditionalist works were valuable pieces of historical evidence in refutation of the Ashʿarī

narrative of religious orthodoxy such as the one promulgated by the Banū ʿAsākir.

Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma, furthermore, in the closing of his diatribe made clear

that he was not rejecting scholastic learning in all domains of scholarship. Geometry and

algebra, part of the curriculum for scholarly studies in the Baghdad Ḥanbalī curriculum, were

upheld as useful sciences. The “kalām” he deemed permissable was that pertaining to fiqh; and

this is reflected in his expansive comparative legal studies in his magisterial al-Mughnī,234 also

indicative of the expansive vision of Baghdad Ḥanbalism to which he owed his training.

Furthermore, his own work on uṣūl al-fiqh, the Rawḍat al-nāẓir, has been known to be an

abbreviation of al-Ghazālī’s seminal al-Mustaṣfā235 – including that work’s groundbreaking

introduction of the principles of logic (manṭiq).236 Ibn Qudāma’s call to the way of the salaf was

essentially restricted to matters of theology. He even sent his nephew Shams al-Dīn, the son of

Abū ʿUmar, to study uṣūl al-fiqh from al-Āmidī.

With the approach of the Mongols, theological controversy was in no one’s interest.

The Mamluks, already rising from their ranks as slave soldiers of the Ayyubids to holders of

political power, took their defeat of the Mongols at the famous battle of ʿAyn Jālūṭ on Sep. 3

1260) to consolidate their independence from their overlords, led by the brash and ambitious

234
Mentioned in first chapter.
235
Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma, Rawḍat al-nāẓir wa-jannat al-munāẓir, ed. Muḥammad Ḥāmid ʿUthmān (Riyadh: Dār
al-Zāḥim, 1425), see page ḥāʾ of the introduction. The significance of al-Ghazālī’s incorporation of manṭiq in legal
studies has already been mentioned above.
236
Ibid., 4–25.
392
Baybars (r. 658-676/1260-1277).237 In the period leading up to the Mongol invasion and

immediately thereafter, we read of no more public theological debates or controversies.

With the destruction of Baghdad, Damascus became an important place of immigration for

those who fled the destruction of Muslim cities to the East. Its significance as center of Muslim

scholarship too was magnified tremendously. The Banū Qudāma inherited the mantle of

Ḥanbalī scholarship with no competitors. Even the Shāfiʿī school’s literary output reflects an

attempt to consolidate after the lost of Eastern centers of scholarship: the Shāfiʿī scholar al-

Nawawī commented and synthesized on the basis of the works of the brilliant Khurasanian

Shāfiʿī scholar ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Rāfiʿī (d. 623/1225), to write his indispensable Rawḍat al-ṭālibīn

and Minhāj al-ṭālibīn, seminal works for all subsequent Shāfiʿī scholarship till the present day.238

The modus vivendi of Damascene public religious life in the early Mamluk period was

preserved by the prudent quietism of the Banū Qudāma after the expulsion of ʿ̄Abd al-Ghanī al-

Maqdisī and the rise of a new political order which depended on communal solidarity in the

shadow of the Mongol conquest. It is this context into which Ibn Taymīya arrived, and which

his public profile should be contextualized. The following chapter will now turn to Ibn

Taymīya’s native city of Ḥarrān, and the native scholarly tradition to which he belonged. As

we shall see, it is the composite mixture of scholarly traditions unified in his personage which

led to the advancement of particular scholarly theses that upset the calculated balance of the

Damascene scholarly status quo. Reacting to and responding to the worldviews of both

Ḥanbalī al-Ṣāliḥīya and the Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī dominated walled city, led to the articulation of an

237
Robert Irwin, The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early Mamluk Sultanate 1250-1382 (Kent: Beckenham, 1986), 18–
38.
238
Pouzet, Damas au VIIe-XIIIe Siècle, 40–1. The works by al-Rāfiʿī on their part had been commentaries of al-
Ghazālī. Al-Nawawī also synthesized the work of Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī in his al-Majmūʿ; see ibid., 40.
393
embracal and critique of competing notions of reason, revelation, and tradition in ways which

have not lost their compelling relevance to this day.

394
Chapter Eight: The Ḥanbalīs of Ḥarrān up to the Mongol Invasion

In the first chapter, we studied the renaissance of Damascus in the 5th/11th century after

two centuries of relatively marginal importance in the Muslim world. The renovated city

flourished not only as a new political center, but as a major center of religious instruction,

influenced by the new madrasa model developed in Baghdad. The city attracted settlers from

far and wide, and a great diversity of thought and cultural expression was represented there,

from Sufis to philosophers, linguists to legal theoreticians. This is the Damascus that received

Ibn Taymīya and his family in the shadow of the Mongol conquests. However, if the cultural

history of Damascus has not been sufficiently taken into account in previous studies on Ibn

Taymīya, we may note that even less attention has been given to the formative influence of his

native city of Ḥarrān. Ḥarrān, as we shall see, was the home of various “Ibn Taymīyas,”

literally “sons of Taymīya” (Banū Taymīya in Arabic),1 who formed part of a Ḥanbalī tradition

likewise barely mentioned in the research. The purpose of this chapter is to throw light on the

religious history of this seemingly obscure city in order to identify what significant local

traditions Ibn Taymīya inherited from it, and how this shaped his worldview. Only then can

we understand the significance of his profile as a Ḥarrānian Ḥanbalī immigrant in Damascus in

the 7th/13th century.

1
I will refer to the subject of our study simply as “Ibn Taymīya” whereas his relatives will be called by a
compound name, such as Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya.
395
8.1 The Origins of Islamic Ḥarrān

Ḥarrān, the birthplace of Ibn Taymīya, was, like Damascus, an extremely ancient city,

and even played a role in the holy narrative of the three Abrahamic religions. Despite this

sacred pedigree, however, the city became widely known in later times as one of the last living

vestiges of late Antiquity’s pagan heritage. Islamic civilization’s reception of this cultural

oddity has already been the subject of study, but less well known is city’s subsequent

emergence as a bastion of the Ḥanbalī madhhab, commonly known as the least receptive of

Islam’s religious schools to the Hellenistic learning traditions. The city’s peculiar historical

legacy briefly described here belies successive layers of development at the periphery of world

civilizations, both before and after the rise of Islam. This legacy, as will be made clear in

successive chapters, left an indelible imprint on the mind of our famous theologian. In the

following overview, the unique elements of Ḥarrān’s legacy in medieval cultural memory will

be covered, as well as the more pertinent elements of the city’s religious heritage for the

upbringing of its most famous native son.

Historical documents dating to approximately 2000 BCE attest to the northern

Mesopotamian city’s ancient existence, identifying it as trade outpost for the civilization of Ur.

This was the city’s essential nature; two millennia later, Pliny the Elder (d. 79 CE) described the

city in his time (Carrhae) as fulfilling the same function.2 This continuity was a natural result

of Ḥarrān’s favorable location on the trade routes between the major civilizations of Persia,

Babylon, Assyria, and Asia Minor, located between the Mediterranean Sea and the plains along

2
The Bible also discusses trade between Ḥarrān and Tyre after the destruction of the first temple (586 BCE), see
Ezekiel 27:23; Tamara M. Green, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992), 19.
396
the middle of the Tigris River, and on the main road from Antioch to Nineveh.3 Even as

ancient civilizations died, the city lived on through new ones: Ḥarrān was conquered by Cyrus

the Great in the 6th century BCE and Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, then stayed

under the influence of the Persian successor states to his empire in the East, the Seleucids and

the Parthians, before being absorbed by the Roman Empire.4 By this time Ḥarrān’s status had

begun to diminish due to the rise of regional economic rivals such as Palmyra, the new

Armenian capital Tigranocerta, and in particular the nearby city of Edessa.5 This, with the

constant tension at the frontiers of the constant Roman-Persian wars over the subsequent

centuries had considerable ill-effects on the city.6

Indeed, Ḥarrān was never a major population center in ancient times, and merely

exchanged hands among empires in pursuit of greater glories. However, the city’s curious

mention in the Jewish scripture promulgated by the Christian world managed to secure its

place in a sacred history in which Islam was to play a major part. The Bible in fact located the

city at the pivot of the Abrahamic religious world: Abraham had initially fled with his family

from Ur of the Chaldeans to Ḥarrān;7 from there he had set out with Sarah and his nephew Lot

to the promised land, Canaan.8 His grandson Jacob later received his great vision of a ladder to

3
William Brice and Seton Lloyd, “Harran,” Anatolian Studies 1 (1951), 77–111: 80; Green, The City of the Moon God, 19–
20.
4
Green, The City of the Moon God, 44–7.
5
Edessa (called al-Ruhā by later Arabic sorces), only 30 km to the north of Ḥarrān and founded in the 4th century
BCE, was a great rival to the city and eclipsed its importance over the course of history; ibid., 44, 47. The eventual
importance of Edessa to Eastern Christianity is well-known, and it is the dialect of Aramaic spoken in its
surroundings which we commonly know as Syriac, see Müller-Kessler, Christa, “Syriac.” Brill’s New Pauly. Brill
Online , 2013.
6
Ibid., 52–4.
7
See Genesis 11:31-32.
8
See Genesis 12:4-5. Cf. Acts 7:4.
397
heaven on the way to Ḥarrān,9 and in the same ancient settlement Jacob married then sired

eleven of Israel’s twelve tribal forefathers.10 Practitioners of the Abrahamic religions in the

middle ages each had a reason to consider its presence on the map.11

Thus spoke scripture. But the truth of the matter was that Ḥarrān was an indomitably

pagan city. We may note, for example, that the existence of a temple there consecrated to the

deity of the moon is attested to as astonishingly late as 424/1032.12 In pre-Islamic times, in

fact, the city had become a classic case example for Christian authors writing of the ills of

paganism’s persistence;13 the city was often compared unfavorably with Edessa which had fully

Christianized unlike its smaller neighbor to the south.14 Christian sources on Ḥarrān from the

4th & 5th centuries CE describe for us a syncretic blend of deities from Mesopotamian, Western

Semitic, and Arab provenance associated with the sun, moon, and other planets.15 Even a few

centuries afterwards, Muslim authors could report a calendar’s worth of local festivals and

ritual observances associated with the worship of the celestial bodies.16 Popular devotion to

such universally recognizable deities naturally set the backdrop for more rarefied speculative

doctrines on the cosmos, in the hermeticist speculative tradition of late antiquity. A neighbor

of sorts, Bar Daysan of Edessa (lived 154-222 CE), a Christian apostate and eponym of the

9
See Genesis 28:10-15.
10
See Genesis 29: 4 ff.
11
As Green says, “Ḥarrān became for all three faiths a part of their own sacred history, a place that could be
located within the sacred geography of all three; the city's holiness transcends its physical location;” ibid., 11.
12
D. S. Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān: Studies on Its Topography and Monuments, I,” Anatolian Studies 2 (1952), 36–84: 43,
accessed October 29, 2012. The prominence of the city’s temple for the moon-god Sin is attested to as far back as
the 2nd millennium BCE; Brice and Lloyd, “Harran,” 87.;Green, The City of the Moon God, 21. See Brice and Lloyd’s
discussion on reports of Ḥarrānian moon temples from antiquity into the Islamic era;Brice and Lloyd, “Harran,”
87 ff.
13
See Green, The City of the Moon God, 52, 55; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 2,
443.
14
Green, The City of the Moon God, 76–9.
15
Ibid., 56–73.
16
Ibid., 145 ff. and 191 ff.
398
Daysanite sect, taught in his Book of the Laws of Countries that the universe was under the

governance of the seven visible planets of the night sky;17 and similar doctrines and correlating

rituals dedicated to such cosmological deities were ascribed to Ḥarrānians by later Christian

and Muslim sources. These same sources indicate that the city’s elite considered themselves to

be devoted followers of Hermes Trismegistus and other Hellenistic philosopher-mystics.18

Ironically, it was these pagans of Ḥarrān who negotiated the peace at the arrival of the

initial Muslim conquests in 19/639-640.19 Despite the conversion of their main temple into a

congregational mosque by their new overlords, they were surprisingly well tolerated as a

whole.20 Exactly how this was negotiated in the earliest period has not been sufficiently

clarified; did they truly manage to convince the early Muslim conquereors of their association

with the primordial monotheistic ḥanīf religion of Abraham, as van Ess has suggested?21

The eventual solution to this ill-defined modus vivendi created even more confusion in

the long run, when in 228/843 they were officially designated Ṣābiʾa (Sabians) by the caliph al-

Wāthiq (r. 227-232/842-847).22 This term, mentioned in the Qurʾān along with other faith

17
Ibid., 88–9.
18
Ibid., 117, 137-138, 170-171. Cf. the cautious review of the available sources and latest research by van Bladel;
Kevin van Bladel, The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science (Oxford University Press, 2009), 83–114.
19
Van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 2, 444; Green, The City of the Moon God, 94.
This may have had to to with aggressive anti-pagan policies against the Ḥarrānians by the Byzantine Emperor
Maurice (r. 581-602 CE); see Sebastian Brock, “A Syriac Collection of Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers,”
Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 14 (1983), 203–46: 209. Harrān had been part of a Roman colony (of which Edessa
was the center of administration), created in 224 CE on the basis of the Arabic Osroene kingdom, a vassal state
first to the Parthians and then the Romans. It remained under Roman rule under the Muslim conquests, with
only a brief interlude by the conquest of Khusraw II; see Kessler, Karlheinz. “Osroene.” Brill’s New Pauly. Brill
Online, 2012.
20
Green, The City of the Moon God, 121. Ibn al-Nadīm can even list their head priests since the time of ʿAbd al-Malik,
van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 2, 445.
21
And did the Syriac naming of the Ḥarrānian pagans Ḥanpē (“heathen”) have anything to do with it? See ibid.,
vol. 2, 444, 446-447.
22
Ibid., vol. 2, 447.
399
communities,23 was a proof-text for their eligibility for state protection, since it put them in a

similar category to Jews and Christians, known as “the People of the Book,” whose right to live

in Muslim lands in return for jizya was agreed upon. As Ibn Qudāma later said about them,

“jizya may be taken from two categories: People of the Book, and those who seem to have had a

book (man lahum shubhat kitāb).”24 The actual identity of the Qurʾānic Sabians was disagreed

upon by early scholars, and this confusion was only added to by the application of the term

“Ṣābiʾ” to the living pagan community in Ḥarrān: the word consequently took on the generic

meaning of “heathen,”25 which demanded of Muslim scholars the undertaking of a study of

comparative religion to distinguish the “bad” Ṣābiʾ from the “good” Ṣābiʾ, the latter of whom

was (theoretically) praised in the Qurʾān, but whose identity was not always clear.26

In the early years of the Muslim era Ḥarrān experienced a type of renaissance, in an

economic high point for the history of the immediate region. The Umayyads built residential

palaces in the city and in nearby al-Ruṣāfa, which brought new wealth to the region, and

Ḥarrān was even the short-lived capital of Marwān II, the last Umayyad Caliph.27 In early

23
See Q al-Baqara 2:62, Q al-Māʾida 5: 69, Q al-Ḥajj 22:17.
24
Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma, al-Mughnī, 3rd ed., 15 vols., ed. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī and ʿAbd al-
Fattāḥ Muḥammad al-Ḥilū (Riyadh: Dār ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 1417/1997), vol. 13, 203.
25
Buddhists and other non-Abrahamic religions were elsewhere labeled with this term; van Ess, Theologie und
Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 2, 448.
26
“The proper (position) is that they should be examined, and if they agree with one of the Peoples of the Book in
regards to their prophet or book, then they are (to be considered) one of them. They are not People of the Book if
it is related that they say, ‘The heavenly sphere is living and the seven planets are gods.’ If that is how they are,
then they are like idol worshippers” Ibn Qudāma, al-Mughnī, vol. 13, 204. It was this same methodology which
allowed Samaritans to be classified with Jews and multiple Christian sects to be accepted side by side (ibid, vol. 13,
203). Cf. Guy Monnot, “Sabeens et Idolatres Selon ʿAbd al-Jabbar,” Mélanges de l'Institut Dominicain d'Études
Orientales du Caire XII (1974), 13–48: 26 ff.
27
Stefan Heidemann, Die Renaissance der Städte in Nordsyrien und Nordmesopotamien: Städtische Entwicklung und
wirtschaftliche Bedingungen in ar-Raqqa und Ḥarrān von der Zeit der beduinischen Vorherrschaft bis zu den Seldschuken
(Leiden: Brill, 2002), 40; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 2, 442. When the
revolution against the ʿAbbasids came to a head, ʿAbbasid leader al-Imām Ibrāhīm was captured by Marwān and
put in prison in Ḥarrān where he languished away, see EI2, s.v. “Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad.”
400
ʿAbbāsid times, Hārūn al-Rashīd also took his residence in nearby al-Raqqa/al-Rafīqa where he

built extensive palatial residences.28 For this reason history documents a diversity of names

engaged in Islamic jurisprudence, narration of the Prophet’s sayings (ḥadīth), literature,

theology, and philosophy from that city and the surrounding whereabouts, especially Ḥarrān.29

In an odd twist of fate it may have been the actions of one of the most “orthodox”

Muslim rulers that played a part in further increasing the pagan city’s cachet in the Muslim

world; Umayyad Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (d. 101/720) is said to have been personally

responsible for moving the philosophical Academy of Alexandria eastward, to Antioch and

Ḥarrān.30 The newly relocated teachers of the Hellenistic sciences in Ḥarrān brought

considerable material benefits to Muslim society in following generations; medicine,

mathematics, astronomy, logic, and more, and they were a welcome presence in the Baghdad

intellectual scene sponsored most prominently by the ‘Abbasid caliph al-Maʾmūn (d.

218/833).31 We may note that the latter’s institution for translation of Greek science and

28
Heidemann, Die Renaissance der Städte in Nordsyrien und Nordmesopotamien, 40. Al-Raqqa was settled long before
the Muslim conquest. Al-Rafīqa was a new city built next to it whose construction began in the time of Abū Jaʿfar
al-Manṣūr; Hārūn al-Rashīd resided there 180-192 /796-808; see EI2, s.v. “al-Raḳḳa.”
29
This did not last however, and the 3rd/9th century inaugurated a continuous point of economic decline for the
region from which it never recovered. As a result, we find number of names that merit mention in the history
books dwindle, and it is also a fact that when the region recovered in the Zangid and Ayyubid periods it was not to
reach the same level of population density it had in early ‘Abbasid timesibid., 29.
30
This was first brought to light by Max Meyerhof, “Von Alexandrien nach Baghdad,” Sitzungsberichte der Akademie
der Wissenschaften 23 (1930), 389–429: esp. 405-407. Gutas collated mutually confirming sources for this narrative in
his study of the Alexandrian school, Dimitri Gutas, “The 'Alexandria to Baghdad' Complex of Narratives: A
Contribution to the Study of Philosophical and Medical Historiography among the Arabs,” Documenti e studi sulla
tradizione filosofica medievale 10 (1999), 155–93: 164–5., yet he remained skeptical , considering it “hardly historical
and not mentioned even in any hagiographic work in praise of the caliph” – to which it can be replied that the
hagiographies we possess would hardly emphasize this aspect. Although there is a discrepancy on whether the
move to Ḥarrān happened during ʿUmar II’s reign (99-101/119-122) or during the reign of al-Mutawakkil (r. 232-
247-847-861), the early mention of Ḥarrānians with relevant philosophical training would suggest the earlier
date, cf. Green, The City of the Moon God, 168.
31
See EI2, s.v. “Ṣābiʾa.” The most famous transplant from Ḥarrān to Baghdad was undoubtedly the mathematician
Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901), van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 2, 446.
401
philosophy, the Bayt al-Ḥikma, even had an administrator called Salm al-Ḥarrānī – “the

Ḥarrānian.”32

It is not surprising then to see that the first peripatetic philosophers in Islam – the

falāsifa – also found a source of inspiration in the Ḥarrānians. The famous philosopher al-Kindī

(d. 256/873) met such Ḥarrānians in Baghdad and related to his students with praise what he

learned of their doctrines.33 His student al-Sarakhsī (d. 289/899), known for his commentaries

on Aristotle, happily declared that “their beliefs about matter, the elements, form, nonentity,

time, place, and motion are in accord with what Aristotles has said.”34 Muḥammad b. Zakarīyā

al-Rāzī (d. 311/923) the reknowned physician and crank metaphysician, also viewed himself as

indebted to the Ḥarrānians.35 Ḥarrān’s offerings in the way of Greek philosophy also attracted

Nestorian Christians, such as the translator and master of logic, Abū Bishr Mattā b. Yūnus (d.

328/940), and others from whom the great Muslim philosopher al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) learned. 36

Heidemann mentions evidence for the reputation of Ḥarrān as center of Hellenistic learning

up to the 5th/11th century.37

If, however, Ḥarrān at that time was still a destination for those seeking the knowledge

of the Ancients, they must have found it a shadow of its former self. A period of decline had

32
Francis E. Peters, “Hermes and Harran: The Roots of Arabic-Islamic Occultism,” in Intellectual Studies on Islam, ed.
Michel M. Mazzaoui and Vera B. Moreen (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990), 185–215, 214, n. 57.
33
Green, The City of the Moon God, 135. Ibn al-Nadīm relates that “al-Kindī said he saw a book which these people
authorized. It was the Discourses of Hermes on the Oneness of God, which he (Hermes) wrote for his son, and
which was of the greatest excellence on the subject of divine unity. No philosopher exerting himself can dispense
with them and agreement with them;” ibid., 165-166.
34
This is also transmitted by Ibn al-Nadīm, ibid., 164.
35
ibid., 169.
36
See EI2, s.v. Mattā b. Yūnus. Al-Fārābī says he studied with Christians trained in Ḥarrān; see Meyerhof, “Von
Alexandrien nach Baghdad,” 405. Ibn Taymīya says he read in the work of ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī (d. 629/1232)
that “when [al-Fārābī] entered Ḥarrān he found Sabians who helped him master it;” Ibn Taymīya, al-Istigātha fī al-
Radd ʿalā al-Bakrī, ed. ʿAbd Allāh b. Dajīn al-Sahlī (Riyadh: Dār al-Waṭan, 1417/1997), 487.
37
Heidemann, Die Renaissance der Städte in Nordsyrien und Nordmesopotamien, 54.
402
long been begun for the city’s immediate region due to factors economic and political. The

Muslim world since the 3rd/9th century had undergone a period of internal instability which

threatened to split it to pieces. The lack of effective ʿAbbasid administrative and military

power from the core gave rise to new warlords at the periphery, and considerable shifting of

regional political arrangements. The Jazīra, i.e. the expanse of plateau between the northern

Tigris and Euphrates where Ḥarrān was located, was by no means spared from this difficult

chapter often overlooked by surveys of Islamic history: The ʿAbbasids had lost the ability to

effectively assert their rule here because of their underfinanced and overextended military

forces which had to confront both Ṭulūnid secession in the West as well as the bloody Qarmaṭī-

Ismāʿīlī revolts in the core of their domains; they were left with little choice other than to

endorse the leadership of the Ḥamdānids as lords of the Jazīra.38 When the Ḥamdānids took

control of the region in 330/942, the welfare of al-Raqqa/al-Rafīqa and its environs (including

Ḥarrān) suffered to the advantage of Aleppo and Mosul, the main cities at the eastern and

western edges of the region.39 The subsequent rise of “petty dynasties” of semi-nomadic Arab

tribes feuding amongst themselves characterized the politics of the region from the 4th/10th

century until the rise of Nūr al-Dīn al-Zangī two hundred years later. Internal divisions, the

demands of a frontier city now with renewed Byzantine aggression and the first wave of

Crusades, together with natural calamities, led to a period of great decline for the city, and

Ḥarrān may be listed among a number of dilapidated cities in the Jazīra.40

38
Ibid., 30–1.
39
Ibid., 31. On acts of destruction to al-Raqqa by the Ḥamdānids see ibid., 45-52; on acts of destruction to Ḥarrān
see ibid., 55-56.
40
Ibid., 155. For a summary of the causative factors see ibid., 138–44.
403
 This process was part of a significant but generally overlooked process in Islamic

history, i.e. the historical redistribution of semi-nomadic Arab tribes in Mesopotamia. The

Ḥamdānids themselves were merely a clan of the Taghlib tribe, which as part of a wider tribal

grouping called Rabīʿa traditionally occupied the eastern Jazīra, hence called “the abodes of

Rabīʿa” (Diyār Rabīʿa). To the north of Rabīʿa was the traditional settlement of the Bakr

confederation (Diyār Bakr), and in the Western Jazīra, where al-Raqqa, Edessa, and Ḥarrān was

located, settled the Muḍar confederation (Diyār Muḍar).41

Figure 3. Arab Tribal Distribution in the Jazīra42

The 4th/10th century witnessed the splitting and redistribution of the Qays clan of

Muḍar into five distinct groupings: Numayr, ʿUqayl, Kilāb, Qushayr, and al-ʿAylān. Banū Kilāb

41
“When the [Arabs] spread in the earth … and inhabited the Jazīra between the Euphrates and the Tigris, and
Muḍar settled in Ḥarrān and [the land] nearby it, it was called Diyār Muḍar, and Rabīʿa settled in Mosul and [the
land] nearby it, so it was called Diyār Rabīʿa;” Ibn Taymīya, al-Jawāb al-ṣaḥīḥ li-man baddala dīn al-Masīḥ, 7 vols., ed.
ʿAlī b. Ḥasan Ibn Nāṣir, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Ibrāhīm al-ʿAskar, and Ḥamdān b. Muḥammad al-Ḥamdān (Riyadh: Dār al-
ʿAṣima, 1999), vol. 5, 273-274. These regional groupings of Arab tribes are pre-Islamic, but cannot be precisely
dated.
42
Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 76.
404
stayed in their original domains between Aleppo and al-Raḥba on the Euphrates, whereas Banū

Numayr and Banū ʿUqayl settled along the length of the Khābūr and Balīkh. Banū ʿUqayl

extended eastward towards Niṣībīn and Mosul, whereas Banū Numayr based themselves in

Ḥarrān and the territory down the river Balīkh to al-Raqqa.43 Just as the Ḥamdānids had risen

as a proxy for the ʿAbbasids, so too did these tribes rise against their Ḥamdānid masters. The

Ḥamdānid ruler of Aleppo Sayf al-Dawla (d. 356/967) enlisted Banū Numayr (as well as Banū

Kilāb and ʿUqayl) to fight Kāfūr (d. 357/968) the ruler of Egypt and Syria after the Ikhshīdids,

but he was later forced to check the unruly expansion of the tribe in his territory, and ordered

Banū Numayr in 344/955 to confine themselves to the sources of the Khābūr.44 This

arrangement was a strained one, and the inevitable beginnings of Numayrid independence

began in 380/990 when Waththāb b. Sābiq al-Numayrī (d. 410/1019) the nāʾib of Ḥamdānid

ruler Saʿīd al-Dawla in Ḥarrān took the city for himself followed by the city of Sarūj.45

The Banū Numayr went on to rule the territory between Ḥarrān (their capital), Raqqa,

and Sarūj from 380 to 474 AH (990 to 1081 CE). Their peers followed suit, as the ʿUqaylids (r.

380-489/990-1086) also supplanted their Ḥamdānid patrons in Mosul, and the Mirdāsids (r. 414-

472/1023-1079) descendants of Banū Kilāb, filled in the power gap left by their previous

masters the Ḥamdānids of Aleppo, after the latter’s decline and fall at the hands of the

Fatimids.46 This was the state of affairs until Seljuk expansion into the region.

43
Ibid., 74. Banū Numayr still live near modern day Ḥarrān; see Heidemann, Die Renaissance der Städte in Nordsyrien
und Nordmesopotamien, 257.
44
Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 75.
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid., 74. See EI2, s.v. “Mirdās,” “ʿUḳaylids,”
405
 Of note is the role the Mirdāsids and ʿUqaylids played in advancing Fatimid ambitions

to eradicate the ʿAbbasid caliphate. Given the strong Fatimid presence in N. Syria (especially

after the taking of Aleppo in 406/1015), Numayrid chief Shabīb b. Waththāb ultimately found it

to his advantage to pledge his allegiance to the Egyptians in 430/1038. However, discord

prevailed when Shabīb died the following year with only a young son Manīʿ as heir; Numayrid

leadership split, and Shabīb’s sister Lady (“al-Sayyida”) ʿAlawīya married Mirdāsid chief

Thamāl who subsequently seized al-Raqqa.47 Fatimid leadership, which by then had

begrudgingly reached a standing peace with the Mirdāsids, disapproved of this development,

but maintaining Mirdāsid cooperation was logistically necessary to keep the Fatimid goal of

the conquest of Baghad alive.48

This manifested palpably in 447/1055 when Būyid general Basāsīrī in Iraq defected and

retreated with his men to al-Raḥba in Mirdāsid territory. Fatimid chief religious missionary

(dāʿī), al-Muʾayyad fī’l-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. 470/1078), was sent soon thereafter to meet Thamāl

and discuss the details of a collobration with Basāsīrī for the takeover of Baghdad.49 By this

time, however, Shabīb’s son Manīʿ had matured and reclaimed leadership of Numayr, and, as

some in Fatimid governance feared, used his power to stand as a stumbling block in the way of

their plans. Muʾayyad fī’l-Dīn was compelled to negotiate Manīʿs support for Basāsīrī, in

47
Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 78–9; Stefan Heidemann, “Numayrid al-Raqqa: Archaeological and Historical
Evidence,” in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras IV: Proceedings of the 9th and 10th International
Colloquium organized at the Katholieke Universitat Leuven in May 2000 and May 2001 (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 140),
ed. U. Vermeulen and J. van Steenbergen (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 85–100, 96.
48
Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 79.
49
Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 80; Stefan Heidemann, “Numayrid al-Raqqa: Archaeological and Historical Evidence,”
in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras IV: Proceedings of the 9th and 10th International Colloquium
organized at the Katholieke Universitat Leuven in May 2000 and May 2001 (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 140), ed. U.
Vermeulen and J. van Steenbergen (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 85–100, 97–8.
406
return for the handover (or Basāsīrī’s forceful recuperation) of al-Raqqa from Thamāl.50

Basāsīrī went on to take over Baghdad for the year of 450/1059, before oddly receiving the cold

shoulder from Fatimid command in Cairo, and being defeated by Tughrul Beg of the Saljuks,

the new masters of Baghdad for the next century.51

8.2 The Ḥanbalīs of Ḥarrān

8.2.1 New Beginnings

It is in this period of political transition that our sources once again impart to us more

detailed information on Muslim life in Ḥarrān. Although we no longer have access to the

histories written specifically devoted to medieval Ḥarrān, nevertheless much may be learned

about local religious tradition there by gathering the scattered reports on Ḥanbalī scholars

from that city. As mentioned before, Ḥarrān was homogenously Ḥanbalī as far as madhhab

affiliation went; as will soon be demonstrated, its scholars were remarkably unfettered by the

considerations of other schools in matters of law or theology.52 Therefore the lives of the city’s

Ḥanbalī scholars as recalled by later historians provide us with valuable glimpses of general

trends in that location.

Not surprisingly, our sources describe a strong dependency of Ḥarrān’s scholars on

Baghdad, the traditional hub of the Ḥanbalī school. The Ḥanbalīs of Ḥarrān were indeed

indebted to the same scholars of Baghdad who had been so important for the “Ḥanbalī

50
Muʾayyad actually described meeting Manīʿ personally in his memoirs Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 80; Stefan
Heidemann, “Numayrid al-Raqqa: Archaeological and Historical Evidence,” in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid
and Mamluk Eras IV: Proceedings of the 9th and 10th International Colloquium organized at the Katholieke Universitat Leuven
in May 2000 and May 2001 (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 140), ed. U. Vermeulen and J. van Steenbergen
(Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 85–100, 98–9.
51
EI2, s.v. “Basāsīrī,” “Saldjūḳids.”
52
In particular for the topic of God’s speech, which should be contrasted with the situation of Ḥanbalīs in Baghdad
and Damascus; see chapters five, six, and seven.
407
dynasties” of Damascus, particularly such scholars as Abū Yaʿlā and Ibn al-Mannī. This also

means that the Ḥanbalīs of Damascus and Ḥarrān saw each other frequently in the study

circuit of Baghdad, identified with the same points of theology, exchanged anecdotes with one

another, and corresponded with each other on scholarly topics. We may observe that the

working relationship between the Ḥanbalīs of these two cities strengthened particularly as

their respective scholarly profiles matured, and especially as Damascus and Ḥarrān were

politically unified under the Zangids and in the following periods. It is in this newly emerging

network of Ḥanbalī scholars that the Banū Taymīya made a name for themselves.53

Heidemann cites evidence to the effect that the majority of the Muslim population of

Ḥarrān was likely Ḥanbalī even in the 4th/10th century.54 This can be attributed to the relatively

early spread of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s followers in the area, but another factor behind the

homogenous nature of the city can also be found in Sayf al-Dawla’s relocation of Ḥarrān’s

Shīʿite population to Aleppo after the Byzantine massacre committed there in 351/962.55 Even

after this, revolts in 4th and 5th century continue to reveal a Shīʿite tendency in surrounding

areas.56 In fact, Heidemann even suggests that it was Shīʿite peasants who, during a period of

political and economic hardship in 423- 424/1032-1033, colluded with local militias in Ḥarrān

to plunder the city and ultimately destroy the last remaining Sabian temple.57 This is not

necessarily the case, as the more reliable sources on the event merely attribute responsibility

53
It will also become clear that Ibn Taymīya was knowledgable about the local history of his ancestors and the
opinions of Ḥarrān’s scholars in general.
54
See Heidemann, Die Renaissance der Städte in Nordsyrien und Nordmesopotamien, 56–8.
55
Heidemann, Die Renaissance der Städte in Nordsyrien und Nordmesopotamien, 56; Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Bughyat al-ṭalab fī
tārīkh Ḥalab, vol. 1, 60.
56
Heidemann, Die Renaissance der Städte in Nordsyrien und Nordmesopotamien, 58, n. 133.
57
At least Heidemann says it was done by poor disenfranchised Shīʿites; ibid., 140.
408
to ʿAlid chiefs (ashrāf, pl. of sharīf/ʿAlawīyūn)58 which does not ipso facto mean an adherence to

Shīʿite doctrine. After this incident, we hear only of Ḥanbalīs in the city.

One sharīf who was certainly not a Shīʿite is also one of the earliest Ḥanbalī authorities

mentioned in this period of the city’s history: Abū’l-Qāsim “al-Zaydī al-Ḥarrānī,” known

chiefly as a specialist in modes of Qurʾānic recitation (qirāʾāt) and a transmitter of Qurʾānic

exegesis (tafsīr). He died on the 20th of Shawwāl, 433 AH at the age of almost 100.59 Though not

a prominent legal scholar in the madhhab,60 his religious views were nevertheless transmitted

for posterity: Ibn Taymīya was later able to cite his view on the relationship between God’s

Speech and the letters of the alphabet.61

Abū’l-Faraj al-Shīrāzī, the progenitor of the Banū’l-Ḥanbalī family in Damascus, as we

remember was originally born in Ḥarrān; he must have come back some time before Abū’l-

Qāsim’s death however, as he transmitted from the latter reports having to do with the

eternity of the alphabet.62

Venerable Abū’l-Qāsim, however, represented the end of an era, and the Ḥanbalī school

in Ḥarrān was soon to be reinvigorated with the efforts of a new generation. One of his

students, Abū’l-Fatḥ Ibn Jalaba, was its prime representative. After learning what he could in

Ḥarrān,63 the latter set off for Baghdad and became a student of Abū Yaʿlā. There he studied

58
Though one source seeks to implicate the Fatimids, which though possible, is unlikely, see ibid., 91–2. and cf. the
discussion in Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 43.
59
“Al-Hāshimī al-ʿAlawī al-Ḥusaynī al-Zaydī al-Ḥarrānī al-Ḥanbalī al-Sunnī;” See al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol.
29, 285; al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, vol. 17, 505-506. We should understand from the appellation “al-Zaydī”
that he was a descendant of Zayd b. ʿAlī (d. 122/740), the grandson of al-Ḥusayn.
60
We do know however that he learned a creedal text from Ibn al-Baṭṭa; see Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-
Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 198. Ibn Baṭṭa’s biography is mentioned in chapter five.
61
See Ibn Taymīya, Majmūʿ fatāwā Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad b. Taymīya, vol. 12, 84, 441.
62
Al-Shīrāzī, Kitab al-Tabṣira fī uṣūl al-dīn ʿalā madhhab al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, fol. 30 a., cf. fol. 32b.
63
Some of Ibn Rajab’s sources say he was originally from Baghdad. However, Abū Yaʿlā’s son could recall his
arrival in Baghdad from Ḥarrān; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 95-96. Furthermore, Ibn Rajab’s
409
the current state of the madhhab, attended sessions of ḥadīth recitation, and copied out many of

Abū Yaʿlā’s own compositions.64 Towards the end of his stay, he could very well have met

Abū’l-Faraj ʿAbd al-̇Wāḥid al-Shīrāzī who was studying with the same teacher.65 Finally, when

Abū Yaʿlā was named chief judge (qāḍī) of Baghdad by the caliph al-Qāʾim in 447 and Ḥarrān

was also attached to his jurisdiction,66 Ibn Jalaba personally received the honor of performing

this duty in his stead.67 Back in Ḥarrān, Ibn Jalaba “spread the madhhab and called to it,” as Abū

Yaʿlā’s son recalled: He established a court of grievances (al-maẓālim) in Ḥarrān, and was the

city’s qāḍī, congregational preacher (khaṭīb), and main teacher of law. He also followed in the

footsteps of al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā and authored books on the theoretical principles (uṣūl) of law

and theology.68 On the topic of God’s Speech, Ibn Rajab reports Ibn Jalaba’s position that “All

letters are eternal (qadīma), but their ordering (tarkībuhā) in other than the Qurʾān is

temporally originated (muḥdath).”69 This differs from the position of his first teacher al-Zaydī

al-Ḥarrānī, and is closer to the position of his later teacher al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā, who

differentiated between letters within and without the Qurʾān.70

notion that he was a companion of al-Zaydī al-Ḥarrānī (see ibid., vol. 1, 95., which one may assume he had a
source for), works chronologically better with him being of Ḥarrānian origin.
64
Ibid., vol. 1, 96.
65
See chapter one.
66
Ibn Abī Yaʿlā, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 199.
67
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 96. The last qāḍī of Ḥarrān previous to this recorded by al-
Dhahabī deceased in 270 AH; see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 20, 173.
68
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 96. Ibn Taymīya was familiar with his legal opinions, see ibid.,
vol. 1, 98.
69
Ibid., vol. 98-99.
70
See Ibn Taymīya, Majmūʿ fatāwā Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad b. Taymīya, vol. 12, 441-442. In fact, al-Qāḍī Yaʿqūb al-
Barzabīnī (d. 488/1095), who was Abū Yaʿlā’s student and a prominent faqīh, disagreed with his teacher on this
topic and bolstered his position by (among other things) a personal account from Ibn Jalaba that the “madhhab al-
ʿAlawī [al-Zaydī] al-Ḥarrānī and a group of people from Ḥarrān (wa-jamāʿa min ahl Ḥarrān)” differed with Abū Yaʿlā
on this issue ibid., vol. 12, 84.
410
 Ibn Jalaba’s activity naturally extended into the political, since his appointment as

judge came at a time when the Numayrid leadership was just beginning to turn their support

from the Fatimids to the Abbasid caliph;71 the sudden interest by al-Qāʾim in creating a new

jurisdiction in Ḥarrān was likely meant to consolidate a region which for years had made a

strategic dalliance with Shīʿite interests. In this light it is also possible to see Ibn Jalaba as a

figure meant to uphold Sunnī orthodoxy against the personal inclinations of the regional Arab

elite. This role persisted even after the end of Numayrid rule: When Muslim b. Quraysh

“Sharaf al-Dawla” the ʿUqaylid ruler of Mosul (and a Twelver Shīʿite) took Ḥarrān from the

Numayrids in 474/1081, Ibn Jalaba hatched a plan to hand over the city to the Turkoman

commander Janaq, “because he was Sunnī.”72 At least, this is what Ibn Rajab tells us, but his

original source seems to have been al-Dhahabī, who also mentions that Sharaf al-Dawla was

collaborating with the Fatimids to ambush the Seljuk emir Tutush in Damascus.73 In response

to the Ḥarrānian counter-conspiracy Sharaf al-Dawla raided the city in 476/1083 and had Ibn

Jalaba killed along with his two sons and a number of his students. They were crucified on the

city wall and their graves became visitation sites for later generations.74

Another old student of al-Zaydī al-Ḥarrānī who went on to study with al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā

in Baghdad (probably alongside Ibn Jalaba) was Abū’l-Ḥasan Ibn al-Ḍarīr (d. 488/1095). He

71
We do not know the exact date that he became qāḍī, but it must have been in 447 AH or thereafter (when Abū
Yaʿlā was officially appointed over Baghdad and Ḥarrān), see above. Numayrid allegiance to the Fatimids was
officially ended in 452/460; see Stefan Heidemann, “Numayrid al-Raqqa: Archaeological and Historical Evidence,”
in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras IV: Proceedings of the 9th and 10th International Colloquium
organized at the Katholieke Universitat Leuven in May 2000 and May 2001 (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 140), ed. U.
Vermeulen and J. van Steenbergen (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 85–100, 101–2.
72
Ibn Abī Yaʿlā, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 245. Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 96-97. On the
background of this political episode see Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 83.
73
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 32, 16. Sharaf al-Dawla was in fact double-crossing the Seljuks, since he had
formally made an allegiance with Alp Arslān and Malikshāh, see EI2, s.v. “ʿUḳaylids.”
74
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 1, 97.
411
was known for his piety and asceticism, and was considered one of the major shuyūkh of

Ḥarrān. Perhaps his asceticism drove him away from politics, which is why he survived Sharaf

al-Dawla’s retribution, and in 484 AH he was recorded as teaching the shorter recension of Ibn

Baṭṭa’s creedal text al-Ibāna; this book he had been authorized to read by al-Zaydī al-Ḥarrānī

before his Baghdad study days.75 The Ibāna was a more “traditional” creedal text than what al-

Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā had written, and unlike the latter’s theological works, did not dwell on

controversy or adopt the terminology of kalām; whether Ibn al-Ḍarīr disagreed with Abū

Yaʿlā’s methods cannot be known.

8.2.2 A Transition into Prosperity

We know very little about the earliest Ḥarrānian scholars of the Seljuk period, not even

their death dates. Among them we can count the prominent jurisprudent (faqīh), and one of

the students of Ibn Jalaba: Naṣr b. al-Ḥusayn b. Ḥāmid.76 Although Naṣr does not seem to

have left Ḥarrān, he was able to send his son Abū’l-Maḥāsin Hibat Allāh to Baghdad to pursue

in-depth training in the madhhab. There Abū’l-Maḥāsin studied with the new generation of

Ḥanbalī figureheads, including Abū’l-Khaṭṭāb al-Kalwadhānī and Ibn al-Zāghūnī.77 In line with

the new spirit of the school – the Ḥanbalī kalām movement – he wrote an ambitious book on

theology (uṣūl al-dīn) called Kifāyat al-muntahī wa-nihāyat al-mubtadī.78 The names of their peers

have reached us, but little else besides.79

75
Ibid., vol. 1, 197-198.
76
Ibid., vol. 2, 6.
77
Ibid., vol. 2, 7. On the importance of these scholars see chapter five.
78
Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya later quoted this work in his Tafsīr; ibid.
79
Other scholars of the period are Abū’l-Qāsim Ṣadaqa b. ʿAmmī b. Maḥshī, his companion Abū’l-Maʿālī Rāfiʿ b.
Muḥammad b. al-Ḥakīm, and the latter’s son Abū’l-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. Rāfiʿ, who was also a student of Abū’l-
412
 Much more information is available to us in the following period, as the city recovered

from the previous period of Seljuk neglect and came to enjoy the patronage of Nūr al-Dīn al-

Zangī, Muẓaffar al-Dīn of Irbil,80 and the Ayyubids. Mosques were rebuilt, madrasas founded,

khānaqāhs established, as well as other public works of benefit. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn could even stop

there in between military campaigns for a game of polo in the local hippodrome.81 The Ḥanbalī

school of the city matured substantially and went on to develop a local profile of its own; one

scholar could even write a book entitled The Creed of Ḥarrān’s People. The famous sermonist and

scriptural exegete Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya was the product of this new environment.

One of the important names in this new Ḥanbalī school of Ḥarrān was ʿAlī b. ʿUmar b.

Aḥmad b. ʿAmmār b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī Ibn ʿAbdūs, described as a jurisprudent, ascetic and

“knower of God” (ʿārif). Born 510 or 511, he left as a young man to study in Baghdad, wrote on

fiqh and tafsīr, authored sermon book compared favorably with Ibn al-Jawzī’s work, and was

even known as an accomplished poet.82 Back in Ḥarrān he became the imam of the

congregational mosque.83 His premature death clouded the celebration of Īd al-Aḍḥāʾ in 559

AH,84 provoking his young student Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya, still only 17 years old, to honor

him with a touching eulogy (which also imparts information on his theology):

Grief has increased and weakness overtaken me -

Fatḥ and became qāḍī of Ḥarrān; ibid., vol. 2, 8. No information is readily available on them, and what we have was
transmitted by Ibn ʿAbdūs, the next prominent name on our list.
80
His father came to power as an underling of Zangī, Nūr al-Dīn’s father, and his family acquired governorship of
various territories in the Jazīra including Ḥarrān; see EI2, s.v. “Begtegingids.” Muẓaffar al-Dīn received Ḥarrān as a
fief in 577/1181, and gave allegiance to Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn in 586/1190; Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 41. As we recall from
chapter one, he married Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s sister Rabīʿat Khātūn (a friend herself to the Ḥanbalīs) and also contributed
to the establishment of Banū Qudāma in Ṣāliḥīya.
81
Anne-Marie Eddé, Saladin, Translated by Jane Marie Todd (London: The Belknap Press, 2011), 342.
82
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 90-93.
83
Ibid., vol. 2, 91.
84
Ibid., vol. 2, 93-94.
413
 My dear, as you leave the brethren and me.
A scholar whose loss disillusions the world -
I can do nothing to God’s decree nor our mortality.
O people of Ḥarrān my woe and my misery –
all for the passing of the faqīh Ibn ʿAbdūs ʿAlī.
O woe to the beauty of the age -
A man whose faith was based on actions and also on deeds85
(man kānat ʿaqīdatuhu bi’l-qawli wa’l-ʿamalī) …

… The faqīh was not an innovator (ghayr mubtadiʿī) –

He with his religion was like a knight with his chivalry
He would say: God’s speech is for eternity (dhū qidamī),
letters and sound (ḥarfun wa-ṣawtun),
no matter how recited, truly (ʿalā al-taḥqīqi kayfa tulī).
His Lord, ʿAlī the faqīh would evoke with awe and fear
On a noble night God took his soul – as befits every beloved and walī …86

Fakhr al-Dīn passed on his teachings in the family,87 and generations later Ibn Taymīya was

aware of his positions in theology88 and fiqh.89

Ibn ʿAbdūs’ nephew Abū’l-Karam Fityān b. Mayyāḥ b. Ḥamd b. Sulaymān b. al-

Mubarak b. al-Husayn al-Sulamī al-Ḥarrānī al-Ḍarīr (b. 513-523, d. ca. 566/1170-1), also went to

Baghdad to learn fiqh and hear ḥadīth. He also excelled at qirāʾāt, and wrote a book on tajwīd.90

Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya mentioned him among his teachers in the introduction to his tafsīr.

85
This was at once an indication of his sincerity, but also an affirmation of the principle enshrined in every
creedal work of the Ḥanbalī school that deeds were a part of faith.
86
For the entire poem see ibid., vol. 2, 94-95.
87
Fakhr al-Dīn is actually described as a maternal relative of his: khāluhu “maternal uncle;” ibid., vol. 2, 91. It
seems more probable that the word ibn is missing before this word, by which we should understand that Fakhr al-
Dīn was his maternal cousin (ibn khālihi).
88
Ibn Taymīya wrote a commentary on one of his works: Sharʿh Risālat Ibn ʿAbdūs fī kalām al-imām Aḥmad fī uṣūl al-
dīn; see Muḥammad ʿ. Shams and Alī b. M. al-ʻImrān, eds., al-Jāmiʻ li-sīrat Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 661-728
(Mecca: Dār ʻĀlam al-Fawāʼid, 1420/2000), 682 (index).
89
See Ibn Taymīya’s mention of Ibn ʿAbdūs’ rulings on Muslim children who die before the age of responsibility
(taklīf); Ibn Taymīya, Jāmiʿ al-masāʾil, 6 vols., ed. Muḥammad ʿUzayr Shams (Mecca: Dār ʻĀlam al-Fawāʼid, 1422),
vol. 4, 222.
90
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 240.
414
He praised him for his deep understanding of grammar, the variant readings of the Qurʾān and

the verses in the Qurʾān dealing the rulings of legal permissibility and impermissibility.91

By the death of Ibn ʿAbdūs and Abū’l-Karam, Nūr al-Dīn al-Zangī had already

substantially transformed Ḥarrān. He took the city in 544/1149 and during his rule (off and

on) till 565/1169, constructed important public works there.92 He rebuilt and enlarged the

congregational mosque,93 as well as the mosque of the shrine to Abraham.94 He also built al-

Madrasa al-Nūrīya for the next scholar on our list:

Ibn Abī’l-Ḥajar (d. 569-70/1173-595), Ḥāmid b. Maḥmūd b. Ḥāmid b. Muḥammad b. Abī

ʿAmr, was known as a sermonist, jurisprudent, teacher, and mufti (khatīb, faqīh, mudarris,

muftī).96 Born in 513 according to what Ibn Rajab found in Ibn Taymīya’s notes,97 he too made

the well-known trip to Baghdad for his studies, and made the acquaintance of prominent

Ḥanbalī figures of the time: Ibn al-Jawzī was even to mention him in his history al-Muntaẓam,

calling him “our friend” (ṣadīqunā).98 He also met ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī, and proceeded to

become a committed follower of his.99 When he came back to Ḥarrān, he was considered the

undisputed Shaykh of the city, and Nūr al-Dīn, who had a good opinion of him, built al-Madrasa

al-Nūrīya (the first of its kind) in Ḥarrān for his sake.100 Ibn Abī’l-Ḥajar soon would make

91
Ibid., vol. 2, 241.
92
See also mention of other public works in the Jazīra Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 41.
93
Ibid., 38.
94
See Ibn Shaddād, al-Aʿlāq al-khaṭīra fī dhikr umarāʾ al-Shām wa'l-Jazīra, ed. Yaḥyā ʿAbbāra (Damascus: Wizārat al-
Thaqāfa wa'l-Irshād al-Qawmī, 1978), 42.
95
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 290.
96
Ibid., vol. 2, 285.
97
Ibn Taymīya is our source for his birth and death dates, which he copied from the Ḥanbalī ascetic Aḥmad b.
Salāma b. al-Najjār; see ibid., vol. 2, 286, 290. For Aḥmad b. Salāma’s biographical information, see ibid., vol. 3, 538.
98
Ibid., vol. 2, 286.
99
For descriptions of this relationship, see ibid., vol. 2, 286, 288.
100
Ibid., vol. 2, 287-288.
415
official visits to Damascus on behalf of the city; Naṣīḥ al-Dīn Ibn al-Ḥanbalī recalls that on such

trips his father Najm al-Dīn hosted him as a guest of the family.101 Despite Ibn Abī’l-Ḥajar’s

favor with the rulers, he was praised for his self-sufficiency and high personal standards, and

well remembered by the populace.102 Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya, mentioned him in the list of

his teachers in the introduction to his Tafsīr, praising him for his remarkably sharp mind and

ability to interpret difficult verses.103

The founding of the madrasa in Ḥarrān must have made the city more attractive for

outsiders. For this reason we hear of Aḥmad Ibn Abī’l-Wafāʾ, also called Abū’l-Fatḥ (d. 570-

75/1174-80). A native of Baghdad, born in 470-490 AH, he was a devoted disciple of Abū’l-

Khaṭṭāb al-Kalwadhānī (even called called “ghulām Abī’l-Khaṭṭāb). After some time spent in

Aleppo, he moved on to Ḥarrān where he lived and taught for the rest of his life. Arriving at

the time he did, he was able to impart religious knowledge to two important generational

figures at the same time: Ibn ʿAbdūs and Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya.104

The Sufis of Ḥarrān also benefited from the new regime of patronage, as both Nūr al-

Dīn al-Zangī and his Indian lieutenant Jamāl al-Dīn Shādhbakht individually built khānaqāhs

here.105 The teachings of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī do not seem to have had the reception they

had in Damascus, but perhaps that is because the local figures of Sufism were quite remarkable

unto themselves. When Fityān b. Mayyāḥ boasted to a muḥaddith, “I don’t narrate [miracles]

101
Ibid., vol. 2, 288.
102
Ibid., vol. 2, 288-289. This point is emphasized, since one Iraqi scholar criticized him harshly in satirical verse
for this reason; ibid., vol. 3, 343. Ibn Abī’l-Ḥajar’s son Ilyās, however, explained to Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn Ibn al-Ḥanbalī that
ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī had predicted that he would receive the favor of kings; ibid., vol. 2, 286.
103
Ibid., vol. 2, 287.
104
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 324-326; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 40, 160-161.
105
Nūr al-Dīn before 565/1169-70, and Jamāl al-Dīn in 589/1193, see Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 38.
416
from the dead, I narrate them from the living!”106- he was referring to the extremely

charismatic mystic of Ḥarrān Abū Bakr b. Ismāʿīl (d. 580/1184-5).107 The Sufis’ most

prominent representative from this period, however, was undoubtedly Ḥayāt b. Qays (d.

581/1185), who presided over a zāwiya where he taught his followers.108 Nobles used to visit

him for the sake of his blessings (yatabarrakūni bi-liqāʾihi), and both Nūr al-Dīn al-Zangī and

Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn consulted him and sought his blessing on military matters.109 Many miracles

(karāmāt) were reported of him by the populace. Legal scholars appreciated his scrupulous

religious nature, and he was said to have never missed congregational prayer under reasonable

circumstances;110 Ibn Taymīya approvingly noted that he, like ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī, was against

the practice of samāʿ.111 A shrine was later erected for him by his sons in 592/1195-6.112

Ḥarrān could also boast of accomplished muḥaddithūn who made the traditional voyage

abroad to gather ḥadīth and collect shorter chain of transmissions back to the Prophet.113 Two

deserve mention here because of their prominence in the isnāds of the time period.

The first is Ḥammād b. Hibat Allāh b. Ḥammād b. al-Faḍl al-Fuḍaylī (d. 598/1202); a

merchant, muḥaddith, and historian; as usual, he started gathering ḥadīth in Baghdad (from Ibn

106
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 40, 340.
107
Ibid., vol. 40, 338 ff.
108
Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿUthmān al-Dhahabī, al-ʿIbar fī khabar man ghabar, 4 vols., ed. Abū Jāhir
Muḥammad al-Saʿīd b. Basyūnī Zaghlūl (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 1985), vol. 3, 81.
109
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 41, 104.
110
Ibid.
111
Ibn Taymīya, Majmūʿ fatāwā Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad b. Taymīya, vol. 11, 592, 629.
112
D.S Rice, “A Muslim Shrine at Ḥarrān,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 17, no. 3 (1955), 436–48:
437. The historian Ibn al-Wardī says he was reputed for being one of the four shaykhs able to do in the grave what
other people could do living; Ibn al-Wardī, Tārīkh Ibn al-Wardī, 2 vols. (Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 1417/1996), vol. 2,
93. According to al-Yāfiʿī’s source those people are Maʿrūf al-Karkhī, ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī, al-Shaykh ʿAqīl al-
Minbijī, and Ḥayāt b. Qays; see al-Yāfiʿī, Abū Muḥammad ʿAfīf al-Dīn, Mirʾāt al-zamān fī maʿrifat mā yuʿtabar min
ḥawādith al-zamān, 4 vols., ed. Khalīl al-Manṣūr (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 1417/1997), vol. 3, 318.
113
The importance of the isnād has been mentioned in chapter one.
417
al-Zāghūnī and others) but then went as far East as Harāt in modern day Afghanistan before

heading West to Cairo and then Alexandria where he heard from al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Silafī. He settled

back in his hometown where he narrated ḥadīth, wrote a history of Ḥarrān (no longer extant),

and was known as a respectable poet.114

The second is the much more eminent ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Ruhāwī: Born to Frankish

parents, he was born 536/1142 in Edessa (Ruhā, hence the name), and captured 3 years later in

raids of Zangī, father of Nūr al-Dīn. He was bought and freed by a Muslim family in Ḥarrān,115

and he went on to learn ḥadith and study fiqh in Baghdad,116 and from there it seems he got the

urge to develop in ḥadīth, and continued in this pursuit from Iraq to Hamadān, Esfahan,

Nīsābūr, Marv, and Sijistān.117 Like al-Ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-Ghanī he was from the last generations of

great muḥaddithūn to transmit substantial material from the Eastern territories before the rise

of the Mongols. His personal achievement he commemorated in his al-Arbaʿīn al-buldānīya,

with forty isnāds he received in forty different cities, with not a single repetition in their

chains.118 Ibn Rajab pointed out in his day (after the Mongol conquests) that, “no one can even

think of doing similar because of the waste laid to those regions and the interruption of

transmission (inqiṭāʿ al-riwāya) from most of those countries.”119

114
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 520-522. He could even narrate poetry with isnād back to Abū
Nuwās; ibid., vol. 2, 525.
115
He was probably bought by the Abū Fahm family, Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 176; Ibn al-
Mustawfī, Tārīkh Irbil, 2 vols., ed. Sāmī b. al-Sayyid Khamās al-Ṣaqār (Baghdad: Dār al-Rashīd, 1980), vol. 131-132.
See below for a scholar from that family.
116
While in Baghdad, he stayed in the ribāṭ of Nāṣir al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. ʿUthmān al-Azjī, who hosted Muwaffaq al-
Dīn Ibn Qudāma and ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī as we saw in chapter one; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-
Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 133.
117
Ibid., vol. 3, 176-177.
118
Although al-Dhahabī found some error in this reckoning, see ibid., vol. 3, 179.
119
Ibid., vol. 3, 178-179.
418
 He may have gotten the idea to write the Arbaʿīn from Ibn ʿAsākir whom he came to see

in Damascus;120 there he copied out the entire History of Damascus himself and read it to its

author. During his stay in Damascus, he stayed in the madrasa of the Ibn al-Ḥanbalī family.121

Afterwards he went on to Egypt, first Cairo and then Alexandria where he heard ḥadīth with

the renowned al-Silafī.122 Finally he went back East to Mosul and took charge of Dār al-Ḥadīth

al-Muẓaffarīya there, built by Muẓaffar al-Dīn of Irbil.123 When he retired from this post, he

went back to live in Ḥarrān, probably on the plot of land given to him there by his patron.124

ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Ruhāwī was a Ḥanbalī, Ibn al-Mustawfī tells us, “but he wasn’t

excessive (ghāliyan) about it.”125 Transmitters of ḥadīth often put ideological barriers aside for

the sake of their craft. Despite this, Ibn al-Najjār said he was “on the path of the righteous

forebearers” (ʿalā ṭarīqat al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ),126 which meant he flatly rejected the kalām

methodology of the later generations. This is confirmed by his transmission from al-Silafī of

the Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād Ahl al-sunna by al-Lālakāʾī,127 and his authorship of a book entitled The

Praiser and the Praised (al-Mādiḥ wa’l-mamdūḥ) comprising a biography of “Shaykh al-Islām al-

120
He wrote a work entitled “Forty ḥadīth from forty shaykhs from forty cities; ” see al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi'l-wafayāt,
vol. 20, 218.
121
See Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 177.
122
Ibid.
123
Ibid., vol. 3, 177-178.
124
Ibid., vol. 3, 178. Muẓaffar al-Dīn used to visit him in Ḥarrān afterwards, and reported that ʿAbd al-Qādir used to
make frequent visits to his mother in Edessa who was Christian. When asked why he didn’t teach her Islam he
said, “She is an old woman who will never leave her religion, so my words make no difference.” When asked why
he still visited her he said, “I know she misses me so I visit her to satisfy her desire;” Ibn al-Mustawfī, Tārīkh Irbil,
vol. 1, 133.
125
Ibid., vol. 1, 132.
126
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 178.
127
This took place in Alexandria, 571, in See al-Lālakāʾī, Abū'l-Qāsim Hibat Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b. Manṣūr al-Ṭabarī,
Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunna wa'l-jamāʿa, vol. 1, 158-160. Cf. ibid, p. 5. He participated in readings of it in Ḥarrān
in 574, ibid., vol. 1, 160. The book, however, had already been present via direct transmission some decades
earlier, read in the madrasa of Ibn Manṣūr in rabīʿ al-ākhir 543 in Ḥarrān; see ibid., vol. 1, 161.
419
Anṣārī” along with biographies of those scholars who praised him128 – which could also be a

response to Ibn ʿAsākir’s Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī.129 When ʿAbd al-Qādir died, in 612/1215,

Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya presided over the funeral.130

Attention will now be given to Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya and his closest peers, i.e. those

scholars from Ḥarrān who studied in the second half of the 6th/11th century in Baghdad, this

time under the tutelage of Ibn al-Mannī. As seen in chapters one and five, Ibn al-Mannī was

also the main teacher in Baghdad of the influential Banū Qudāma and other Damascene

Ḥanbalī families of the time. He was the last Baghdadī faqīh of the Ḥanbalī school before the

Mongol invasion to reserve such wide acclaim and authority,131 and in the next century one

could confidently say that “Ḥanbalī jurisprudents today in all places (sāʾir al-bilād) accept his

authority and that of his students.”132 This was a time of particular strength for the Ḥanbalī

school in the Islamic capital,133 and the Ibn al-Mannī’s students were particularly inspired. At

the same time, the development of local venues for teaching and new networks created with

Banū Qudāma in Damascus formed a cadre of confident fuqahāʾ who by the turn of the century

were no longer solely dependant on the Ḥanbalī school’s ancestral home.

One such scholar who represented the increasing confidence of local scholarship was

Naṣr Allāh b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Ṣāliḥ b. Muḥammad ʿAbd ʿUthmān b. ʿAbdūs (d. before

128
See Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 179. The subject of the book was Abū Ismāʿīl al-Anṣārī al-
Harawī, the 5th/11th century Ḥanbalī mystic and vocal opponent of Ashʿarī kalām; discussed in chapter five.
129
That is, his famous apology for Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī; already covered in chapter one.
130
Ibn al-Mustawfī, Tārīkh Irbil, vol. 1, 133. Ibn Taymīya collected anecdotes on him, see Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā
Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 180.
131
In contrast, Ibn al-Jawzī’s reception was more mixed, likely because of his atypical theological positions; see
chapter one.
132
The statement is by Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn Ibn al-Ḥanbalī; ibid., vol. 2, 347.. More than a century later Ibn Rajab said the
same was applicable given the importance of Ibn Qudāma and Majd al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya for the scholars of his
time. The former was a direct disciple, and the latter a disciple removed-by-one. See ibid., vol. 2, 357-358.
133
Discussed in chapter six.
420
600/1203134), also known as Shams al-Dīn Abū’l-Fatḥ.135 He learned from the previously

mentioned Ibn ʿAbdūs,136 Ibn Abī’l-Ḥajar, and Abū’l-Karam Fityān b. Mayyāḥ,137 before heading

down the well-trodden path to Baghdad, this time to study with Ibn al-Mannī.138

Shams al-Dīn was a popular scholar, and gained a reputation for his indomitability.

Both examples mentioned here also highlight the role of external patronage in the city as well

as the growing relationship between the scholars of Ḥarrān and Damascus. The first was

occasioned by Nūr al-Dīn al-Zangī’s appointment of Damascene Ḥanbalī scholar Wajīh al-Dīn

Asʿad b. al-Munajjā (d. 606/1209-10) as qāḍī of Ḥarrān in 549.139 The problem arose when

Wajīh al-Dīn ordered the muʾadhhins in charge of the mosques of the city to loudly say salām

twice at the end of the prayer (once to the right, once to the left); up to that point the people

of Ḥarrān had only been saying salām once to the right. Shams al-Dīn wrote a book, Taʿlīm al-

ʿawāmm mā al-sunna fī’l-salām, to refute him and demonstrate that the the traditional practice

of Ḥarrān was in fact the proper position in the Ḥanbalī madhhab.140

This did not undo the solidarity of these Ḥanbalī scholars: Wajīh al-Dīn’s transmission

in 569 of Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī’s pamphlet against Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī was dutifully attended

by Shams al-Dīn, as a young Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya read the text outloud for the group of

134
The source for this is al-Nāṣiḥ Ibn al-Ḥanbalī, see ibid., vol. 2, 555.
135
Ibid., vol. 2, 550-551.
136
He was a relative of his (qarībuhu), see ibid., vol. 2, 91.
137
Ibid., vol. 2, 551.
138
Ibid.
139
Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le Califat de Bagdad (241/855 - 656/1258),” 122. We already know the Banū’l-
Munajjā as a well-established Ḥanbalī family in Damascus; see chapter one.
140
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 553-554. See Ibn Qudāma’s discussion of this topic, Ibn
Qudāma, al-Mughnī, vol. 2, 240-244.
421
attendees in one of Ḥarrān’s mosques.141 Shams al-Dīn enjoyed good relations with the Ibn al-

Ḥanbalī family of Damascus as well. Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn Ibn al-Ḥanbalī says that he met Shams al-Dīn

both in Damascus and in Ḥarrān and saw piety in him and good knowledge of the madhhab. He

also recalls that he was active in forbidding the reprehensible, even against the

indiscrepancies of local governor Muẓaffar al-Dīn of Irbil.142

Another representative of this generation was Abū’l-Rabīʿ Sulaymān b. ʿUmar b. al-

Mushabbik (d. a. 620/1223). Known as an uṣūlī, i.e. an expert on the theoretical principles

(uṣūl), of both fiqh and theology, he wrote many books, including one comparing the rulings of

the four imams, which can be compared conceptually to the bold project undertaken in the

Mughnī by Ibn Qudāma.143 He also defended the dominant theological stance of his school in

the anti-taʾwīl work, Defending the Integrity of the Verses on the Divine Attributes (Nafy al-āfāt ʿan

āyāt al-ṣifāt), and even wrote The Creed of Ḥarrān’s People (Iʿtiqād ahl Ḥarrān)144 – the likes of

which was impossible for a Ḥanbalī to write in any Muslim metropolis.

8.3 The Illustrious Banū Taymīya

8.3.1 Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya

Ḥarrān’s most prominent figure at the start of the 7th/13th century, it turns out, was not

from the city proper. Rather he was from the village of Bājaddā, south of Ḥarrān, located

141
Allard, “Un pamphlet contre al-Ašʿarī,” 144–5. We can answer Allard’s question “pourquoi Ḥarran?” quite easily
now, given its religious constituency. The importance of this pamphlet in Damascus was discussed in chapter
five.
142
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 552-553.
143
Discussed in chapter one.
144
Ibid., vol. 3, 381.
422
between Raʾs al-ʿAyn (at the source of the Khābūr tributary to the Euphrates) and al-Raqqa,145

and was even referred to in his lifetime with the nisba al-Bājaddāʾī. We are told this by the

famous geographer Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī (d. 626/1229),146 who says he met Fakhr al-Dīn more than

once, andreceived ijāza from him to narrate ḥadīth.147 This extra-Ḥarrānian origin is confirmed

by other contemporary historians.148

The name Taymīya also has its own history, which to later observers seems to have had

two versions, and so deserves a closer look. An important first hand account of the origins of

the family name may be found in Tārīkh Irbil. Here the author quotes verbatim from Abū

Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn Shuḥāna al-Ḥarrānī (d. 643/1245-6),149 a muḥaddith and

historian, who actually wrote a history of Ḥarrān in multiple volumes (unfortunately not

extant), and who met Fakhr al-Dīn personally:

I asked him about the name Taymīya, “What does it mean?” He said, “My father (abī)
or grandfather (jaddī) went on the Ḥajj – I forget which (ashukku ayyuhumā). He said:
“And his wife was pregnant at the time. When he reached Taymāʾ150 he saw a little girl
come out of her tent and when he returned to Ḥarrān and found his wife had given

145
According to the documentation of Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib al-Sarakhsī (al-Kindī’s student mentioned earlier); the
land was given as a fief by Umayyad prince Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik (d. after 114/732) to one of his men who
created the initial walls of its settlement; see Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-buldān, 5 vols. (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir,
1397/1993), vol. 1, 313. The name is Aramaic and means “abode of good fortune;” see EI2, s.v. “Bādjaddā.”
146
See EI2 s.v. “Yāḳūt al-Rūmī.”
147
Ibid. Yāqūt did err in placing his death date in 621, however.
148
There is a slight issue concerning the name of the village, owing to local variations or scribal errors in
manuscripts: For example, Fakhr al-Dīn was given the following nisba by Ibn al-Shaʿʿār: al-Kafr-Jadyānī, who also
says that“Kafr Jadāyā is a town outside of Ḥarrān” Ibn al-Shaʿʿār, Qalāʾid al-jumān fī farāʾid shuʿarāʾ hādhā al-zamān,
9 vols., ed. Kāmil Sulaymān al-Jabūrī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 2005), vol. 5, 353. The same seems to be
confirmed in distorted form by the published manuscript of Ibn al-Mustawfī of Tārīkh Irbil Ibn al-Mustawfī, Tārīkh
Irbil, vol. 1, 96. This may be the Kafr Jadyā which Yāqūt refers to in his Muʿjam, but he prefers the view that it was
outside of Edessa and not Ḥarrān, see al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-buldān, vol. 1, 313; al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-buldān, vol. 4,
469. Cf. the discussion of the editor of Tārīkh Irbil, whose indications I am indebted to for discovering this aspect
of Fakhr al-Dīn’s background Ibn al-Mustawfī, Tārīkh Irbil, vol. 2, 117.
149
Ibid., vol. 1, 334-335.
150
Ibn Khallikān explains that Taymāʾ “is an area on the outskirts of Tabūk, if one goes out to it from Khaybar one
will be on the main road of Syria (ʿalā muntaṣif ṭarīq al-Shām)” Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ al-
zamān, vol. 4, 388.
423
 birth to a girl. So when they lifted her up to him he said, “O Taymīya! O Taymīya!”
meaning that she resembled the girl he saw at Taymāʾ, so she was given that name, or
something like that.151

This wording of this account seems to be the basis of all future historian’s accounts on

the topic: Ibn Khallikān explicitly mentions Tārikh Irbil as his source for the same story in his

Wafayāt al-aʿyān.152 Al-Mundhirī’s version,153 taken as Ibn Rajab for an authority, removes the

“I asked him” from the account, as well as “I forget which” the latter of which was not part of

Fakhr al-Dīn’s words but rather Ibn Shuḥāna’s own interjection,154 but still keeps the “or”

which on the premise of our last thesis must also belong to Ibn Shuḥāna. Thus Ibn Rajab tells

us the confusing statement that “al-Mundhirī and others” related this story of Fakhr al-Dīn’s

“father or grandfather.”155 However, those who knew Ibn Taymīya personally, such as al-

Dhahabī,156 al-Ṣafadī,157 and Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī158 recount the story in generally the same wording

as related by Ibn Shuḥāna, but specify the main character as the grandfather (jadd), not the

father.

At the same time, the last group of historians, and Ibn Rajab in their wake, also narrate

to us a second important piece of information on the name Taymīya: Al-Dhahabī,159 al-Ṣafadī,

151
Ibn al-Mustawfī, Tārīkh Irbil, vol. 1, 97.
152
Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ al-zamān, vol. 4, 387-388. He also doesn’t forget to point out that
the proper derivation of the name is not Taymīya, but rather Taymāwīya.
153
Which may have been taken from Ibn Shuḥāna directly, or not, see al-Mundhirī, al-Takmila li-Wafayāt al-naqala,
vol. 3, 139.
154
Especially since the interjection is followed abruptly by “He said” to resume the narrative voice of Fakhr al-
Dīn.
155
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 337.
156
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 45, 134.
157
Al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi'l-wafayāt, vol. 3, 32.
158
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, ed. Ṭalʿat ibn Fuʾād Ḥulwānī
(Cairo: al-Fārūq al-Ḥadītha, 2002), 4.
159
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 45, 134.
424
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, and Ibn Rajab160 all narrate Ibn al-Najjār’s personal recollection of Fakhr al-

Dīn telling him that the mother of his grandfather Muḥammad was a local preacher woman

(wāʿiẓa) called Taymīya. Other contemporary sources confirm a similar narrative as well:

Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī learned from Fakhr al-Dīn that Taymīya was the name of his grandmother

(ism li-jaddatihi) who was “preacher of the village” (wāʿiẓat al-balad).161 Ibn al-Shaʿʿār also heard

through reputable sources162 that Fakhr al-Dīn responded in question to his last name: “That

was my grandmother (jaddatī), and she was a person of knowledge and the preacher of the

village … so we came to be known by her.”163 Yet none of these historians seek to reconcile this

narrative with the previous one.

The apparent reason for this is that the two narratives seemed to some to be mutually

exclusive. Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, for example, clearly feels pressured to relegate the anecdote about

the girl of Taymāʾ to a lesser status through preceding it with “it is said” (qīla).164 In his case,

the reason for this is that he explicitly assumes the grandfather in the anecdote about the girl

of Taymāʿ to be the same grandfather in the anecdote about Taymīya the preacher –

Muḥammad b. al-Khiḍr.165 In reality the two narrations can be reconciled, if we do not make

the assumption he did, and we keep in mind that the term jadd can mean grandfather, great-

grandfather and so-forth. This is also the case in the first-hand reports from Fakhr al-Dīn on

160
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 337.
161
Al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-buldān, vol. 1, 313.
162
From the ̣Aleppan historian Ibn al-ʿAdīm (d. 660 AH) via the respected and well-travelled Iraqi muḥaddith
Ibrāhīm al-Ṣarīfīnī (d. 641 AH); see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 47, 71.).
163
Ibn al-Shaʿʿār, Qalāʾid al-jumān fī farāʾid shuʿarāʾ hādhā al-zamān, vol. 5, 353.
164
All the historians show a certain degree of agnosticism on the topic.
165
Which would make her both his grandmother and his aunt!
425
Taymīya the preacher referring to her as both the mother of his grandfather, and his jadda,

which we must interpret as great-grandmother.

Accordingly, we can harmonize the two first-hand accounts given by Fakhr al-Dīn and

postulate with a fair amount of confidence that his grandfather (jadd), Muḥammad b. al-Khiḍr,

was raised by Taymīya, the preacher woman of Bājaddā.166 Taymīya, the great-grandmother

(jadda) of Fakhr al-Dīn, was named by her father (Fakhr al-Dīn’s maternal great-great-

grandfather (jadd) whose name we do not know) after a charming little girl he met on the way

back home from Mecca. Taymīya’s local fame as a preacher gave the family its name by which

it is known to this day.

Fakhr al-Dīn was born Muḥammad b. al-Khiḍr b. Muḥamad b. al-Khiḍr b. ʿAlī b. Abd

Allāh at the end of 542 AH. His father al-Khiḍr was not a legal scholar, but an ascetic and

considered one of the abdāl in his time.167 After completing his memorization of the Qurʾān at

his father’s hands at the age of 10, he began his studies with the scholars of Ḥarrān: Ibn ʿAbdūs,

Abū’l-Karam Fityān b. Mayyāḥ, Ibn Abī’l-Ḥajar, and (the Baghdādī) Aḥmad b. al-Wafāʾ, learning

fiqh and hearing ḥadīth.168 When the famous Sufi shaykh Abū’l-Najīb al-Suhrawardī (d.

563/1168)169 paid a visit to Ḥarrān, young Fakhr al-Dīn heard ḥadīth from him170 and

ceremoniously wore his Sufi cloak.171

166
In fact it could be argued that the origin from Bājaddā explains her lack of mention in the history of Ḥarrān.
167
According to Ibn Shuḥāna Ibn al-Mustawfī, Tārīkh Irbil, vol. 1, 97. Cf. Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila,
vol. 3, 322.
168
Ibid., vol. 3, 322-323. Their biographies have all been presented above.
169
Uncle of the even more famous Abū Ḥafṣ; see Ohlander, Sufism in an Age of Transition, see index, s.v. "al-
Suhrawardī, Abū’l-Najīb ʿAbd al-Qāhir".
170
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 323.
171
The khirqat al-taṣawwuf ; Ibn al-Mustawfī, Tārīkh Irbil, vol. 1, 98.
426
 As tradition demanded, he soon set off to Baghdad to complete his legal studies, and he

did so there with Ibn al-Mannī and Ibn Bakrūs (d. 573/1177-8),172 excelling in his studies.173 Of

course, even before leaving Ḥarrān Fakhr al-Dīn’s interest had already inclined toward tafsīr.174

He therefore took what opportunity he could in Baghdad to study Arabic with the acclaimed

Ḥanbalī linguist Ibn al-Khashshāb (d. 567/1171-2)175 and undertook an indepth course of study

on Qurʾānic exegesis with Ibn al-Jawzī.176

Upon his return to Ḥarrān he began instruction at al-Madrasa al-Nūrīya. He also

became the head sermonist of the city’s congregational mosque (jāmiʿ),177 and starting in 588

he began tafsīr classes there every morning, completing five complete readings between then

and 610.178 This was interrupted only once, when he made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 604 AH.

On the way there he stopped at Irbil where he was given provision by Muẓaffar al-Dīn al-Irbilī

172
A pious and well-respected Ḥanbalī teacher, and original study companion of Ibn al-Mannī, spoken well of by
Ibn Qudāma and Nāṣiḥ al-Dīn Ibn al-Ḥanbalī, see Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 301-304.
173
Ibid., vol. 3, 323.
174
As is evident from his mention of the scholars of Ḥarrān in his own book on the topic, see above.
175
Ibn al-Khashshāb, called the Proof of Islam (Ḥujjat al-Islām) by his contemporaries, is another example of the
eclectic and flourishing Ḥanbalī scene in Baghdad of the 6th/12th century, discussed in chapter six. A polymath, he
was a scholar of ḥadīth, language, logic, philosophy, mathematics, and geometry. It was, however, his exceedingly
accurate memory and breathtaking linguistic expertise which truly endeared him to his Ḥanbalī brethren: As a
muḥaddith, he was compared by to Ibn ʿAsākir and al-Silafī, and Ibn al-Jawzī himself testified, “There is no one
more knowledgable on knowledge on grammar and language than him.” He wrote commentaries of books by
famous grammarians al-Zajjājī (d. 340 AH) and Ibn al-Jinnī (d. 392) and was often viewed as equal or superior to
the teacher of the latter, Abū ʿAlī al-Fārisī (d. 377); ibid., vol. 2, 244-245. He catered to the market, writing a book
with corrections of mistakes in the Maqāmāt of al-Ḥarīrī and a commentary of a grammar book by the current
vizier Ibn Hubayra; his books were best sellers; ibid., vol. 2, 250-251. Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma called him an
authority in Arabic grammar and language and a constant resource for his scholarly peers – he would have
studied with him more if the demand for him had not been so high; ibid., vol. 2, 245. Some described him with
“extreme in his adherence to the Prophet’s way” (tashaddud fī’l-sunna) and said he had the habit of asserting the
superiority of the Ḥanbalī madhhab over the others with many proofs and examples; ibid., vol. 2, 248. Ibn al-Jawzī,
on the other hand, was not impressed with his knowledge of fiqh, and berated him for playing chess in the street
with commoners and watching street magicians and monkey trainers; ibid., vol. 2, 252. When he died Ramaḍān
567, he was buried next to Bishr al-Ḥāfī in the graveyard of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal; ibid., vol. 2, 261.
176
Ibid., vol. 3, 323. Fakhr al-Dīn wrote in the beginning of his Tafsīr that he read Ibn al-Jawzī’s Zād al-masīr on tafsīr
with its author “qirāʾata baḥthin wa-murājaʿa;” ibid., vol. 2, 503.
177
He had started giving sermons while studying in Baghdad, in the ribāṭ of Ibn al-Naqqāl; ibid., vol. 3, 325.
178
Ibid., vol. 3, 323.
427
(with whom he shared a very warm relationship179) along with a letter of commendation to the

Caliph al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh. On the way back from Mecca he stopped at Baghdad and was

granted access to the palace auditorium Bāb Badr; there he delivered a memorable sermon

from the same pulpit where Ibn al-Jawzī used to speak.180

Fakhr al-Dīn became the veritable headman of Ḥarrān;181 in comparison we hardly

know anything about his contemporary ʿAbd Allāh b. Naṣr, the Ayyūbid-appointed qāḍī of the

time.182 At one point he was even able to establish his own madrasa with the help of local

elites.183 By the end of his life, Fakhr al-Dīn could look back at an impressive literary output

over the course of the years: His al-Tafsīr al-kabīr on Qurʾānic exegesis filled many volumes184

and must have been rich with quotes by experts from at home and abroad. He also wrote three

fiqh works, ranging incrementally from a concise primer to an indepth discussion of the basis

of the law: 1) Bulghat al-sāghib wa-bughyat al-rāghib, 2) Targhīb al-qāṣid fī taqrīb al-maqāṣid, and 3)

Talkhīṣ al-maṭlab fī talkhīṣ al-madhhab; in writing these he intentionally adopted the format of

Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s al-Wajīz, al-Wasīṭ, and al-Basīṭ.185 Lastly, he wrote a compendium (dīwān)

179
See a selection of a letter by him to Muẓaffar al-Dīn with panegyric (madīḥ), expressions of fealty and praise of
his reign; Ibn al-Mustawfī, Tārīkh Irbil, vol. 96-97.
180
Ibid., vol. 1, 96. It is also said he picked on Ibn al-Jawzī’s son Muḥyī al-Dīn in poetic verse due to him occupying
his father’s position at a young age; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 325. At Bāb Badr the masses
gathered to attend public orations while the caliph attended from behind a curtain; see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām,
vol. 41, 370-371.
181
Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī said of him “He was an acclaimed Shaykh of Ḥarrān and [the city’s] sermonist and mufti. The
people of Ḥarrān have sincerely pure beliefs (iʿtiqād ṭāhir) about him, and his command is executed and obeyed by
them;” al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-buldān, vol. 1, 313.
182
See below.
183
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 323. See the list of madrasa patrons in Ḥarrān in Ibn Shaddād,
al-Aʿlāq al-khaṭīra fī dhikr umarāʾ al-Shām wa'l-Jazīra, 42.; Rice’s manuscript seems to have been faulty since one
name is missing there, Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 38, 41.
184
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 325.
185
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 326; Bakr b. ʿAbd Allāh Abū Zayd, al-Madkhal al-mufaṣṣal ilā fiqh
al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal wa-takhrījāt al-aṣḥāb, 2 vols. (Riyadh: Dār al-ʿAṣima, 1417 AH), vol. 2, 679-680. It is
significant to note his taking inspiration from al-Ghazālī, as had al-Muwaffaq Ibn Qudāma in writing his Rawḍat al-
428
of Friday sermons, the Tuḥfat al-khuṭabāʾ min al-barīya fī al-khuṭab al-minbarīya186 which

garnered him a certain measure of fame as well.187 His poems were also collected by family

members and others.188

The connection between Ḥarrān and Damascus was quite strong by that time. It seems

that Fakhr al-Dīn was greatly admired by the Ibn al-Ḥanbalī family in Damascus.189 On his part,

Ibn Qudāma had also developed quite a following in Ḥarrān among Fakhr al-Dīn’s peers:

Ḥarrān’s qāḍī ʿAbd Allāh b. Naṣr (d. 624/1226-7)190 wrote letters to Ibn Qudāma for legal

advice, the celebrated yet reclusive faqīh Ibn Abī’l-Fahm (d. 634/1236-7)191 studied and taught

his books,192 and Yūsuf b. Faḍl Allāh al-Sakākīnī (d. a. 621/1224) the local ascetic and “imam

nāẓir, see chapter seven. Possibly before this, he had written a sharḥ of Abū’l-Khaṭṭāb’s Hidāya but never finished
it; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 326. His al-Muwaḍḍiḥ fī’l-farāʾiḍ, was also well received; ibid.
186
Ibid. Even Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282) in Damascus said that it was famous and very good (fī ghāyat al-jawda) Ibn
Khallikān, Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ al-zamān, vol. 4, 386. The author of Tārīkh Irbil (Ibn al-Mustawfī, Tārīkh
Irbil, vol. 1, 96.) compared it to style of Ibn Nubāta, a famous sermonist in the court of Sayf al-Dawla, see EI2, s.v.
“Ibn Nubāta, Abū Yaḥyā.”
187
Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī made sure to attend his sermons when he visited Ḥarrān, though he told Ibn Khallikān he
thought Fakhr al-Dīn was too possessive of his official posts Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ al-
zamān, vol. 4, 387. He claimed that Ḥarrānian sermonist Najm al-Dīn b. al-Ṣaqīl settled in Baghdad because Fakhr
al-Dīn couldn’t abide the competition, see; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 64.
188
Ibid., vol. 331-332. For more of his poetry see Ibn al-Mustawfī, Tārīkh Irbil, vol. 1, 99-100. and Ibn al-Shaʿʿār,
Qalāʾid al-jumān fī farāʾid shuʿarāʾ hādhā al-zamān, vol. 5, 354-356.
189
Al-Nāṣiḥ Ibn al-Ḥanbalī heaped praise on him; see Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 323-324.
190
ʿAbd Allāh b. Naṣr b. Abī Bakr b. Muḥammad al-Ḥarrānī faqīh, muqri’, born 549, education in Baghdad, he wrote
books on the variant readings of the Qurʾān al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 45, 190-191; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā
Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 362-365. While holding the office of qāḍī, he maintained correspondence with Ibn
Qudāma on fiqh related matters; see Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 305.
191
ʿAbd al-Qādir b. ʿAbd al-Qāhir b. ʿAbd al-Munʿim b. Muḥammad b. Ḥamd b. Salāma Ibn Abī’l-Fahm, also called
Nāṣīḥ al-Dīn. Born Rajab 564 AH, he heard ḥadīth in Harran and learned fiqh there from Shams al-Dīn Abū’l-Fatḥ
(mentioned earlier). Afterwards he went to Baghdad where he heard ḥadīth with Ibn al-Jawzī and others. He then
travelled to Damascus where he learned from Ibn Qudāma. While in Damascus he also attended a reading of Abū
ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī’s pamphlet against al-Ashʿarī in 587/1191 (see Allard, “Un pamphlet contre al-Ašʿarī,” 147.. When
he returned to Ḥarrān he stayed in his mosque there teaching and did not marry, refusing an appointment as qāḍī;
however, a madrasa was built for his use by the Banū’l-ʿAṭṭār family;Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol.
3, 441-443. Ibn Taymīya was familiar with his work: Al-Dhahabī recalls, “I saw our shaykh Ibn Taymīya exaggerate
(yubāligh) in aggrandizing his status and his knowledge of the madhhab;” al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 46, 201.
192
He studied Rawḍat al-nāẓir with Ibn Qudāma personally, and taught the latter’s al-ʿUmda to his students, see Ibn
Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 442.
429
of the city for grammar and language”193 wrote a poetic eulogy (marthīya) for him when he

died.194 Fakhr al-Dīn was also known to have corresponded frequently (mukātabāt) with Ibn

Qudāma on different legal discussions within the madhhab.195 However, one significant point of

disagreement came up between the two in the realm of theology that provides us with a

unique glimpse of a perceived need for self-evaluation within the late Ḥanbalī school given the

intense controversy associated with the madhhab’s religious doctrines.

The issue, unsurprisingly, centered on the same thorny topic of God’s speech, which by

then had created serious tensions among Muslims in Baghdad and Damascus for almost two

centuries.196 Fakhr al-Dīn and Ibn Qudāma, both Ḥanbalīs in the Baghdad tradition, did not

differ on the essential nature of God’s speech; eternally audible words.197 They did differ,

however, on whether rejection of this teaching constituted a form of disbelief (kufr). Fakhr al-

Dīn took the stricter view, and what is more, stated that any Muslim who introduced such

religious innovations (ahl al-bidaʿ) which earned them the ruling of disbelief (al-maḥkūm bi-

kufrihim), would eternally burn in Hell (takhlīd … fī’l-nār).198 Ibn Qudāma, on his part, prohibited

discussion of the topic entirely. In response, Fakhr al-Dīn reproached him, on the basis that he

was contradicting the teaching of the Ḥanbalī school (“kalām al-aṣḥāb mukhālif li-dhālik”).199 In

193
An accomplished linguist and poet, he turned his house into a Dār Ḥadīth and made a waqf to preserve his
books there after he died. He wrote poems on asceticism and piety, for a sample see ibid., vol. 3, 385 ff.
194
Ibid., vol. 3, 388.
195
Specifically we hear that wanted more information on Ibn Qudāma’s critique of Abū’l-Khaṭtāb’s positions on
family inheritance, see ibid., vol. 3, 326.
196
Covered in chapters six and seven.
197
As we saw in chapter seven, Ibn Qudāma wrote more than one book on affirming the eternal words of the
Qurʾān.
198
Ibid.
199
Ibid. The expression“al-aṣḥāb” (the colleagues) is translated in the rest of the letter given here as “the Ḥanbalī
madhhab.”
430
response, Ibn Qudāma wrote him a letter, the following excerpts of which are preserved in the

Dhayl ʿalā ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila:

Your brother for God’s sake, ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad, sends his salutations to his brother,
the great imam Fakhr al-Dīn, the Beauty of Islam, Defender of the Sunna. May God
bestow to him that which he bestows to His awliyāʾ and give him the best bounty of
every good and allow him to reach his hopes and desires and keep him always in God’s
obedience …

I did not prohibit ascribing eternal Hellfire [for innovators] because I rejected it, nor
did I denounce it to give victory to the opposing view. I merely prohibited talking
about it (al-kalām fīhā) from both sides, for or against, in order to prevent scandal (fitna)
between those who disagreed on it, and in order to follow (ittibāʿan) the Sunna in
refraining from discussing it. For this issue is merely among a number of innovated
things (min jumlat al-muḥdathāt).

As for me, if I am with the Prophet of God (ṣ), in his party, following his Sunna, then I
do not care who opposes me nor who opposes someone else for my sake. I am not
troubled by the departure of those who leave my company. I am convinced that if
everyone opposed the Sunna and abandoned it, and opposed me because of [my
observance of] it, I would not increase except in cheer and devotion to it – i.e. if God
gave me such grace (waffaqanī), because all matters are in His hands, and the hearts of
[His] servants are between His two fingers.”200

From these words we can infer that Banū Qudāma’s situation in Damascus had forced

them to take a pragmatic position; as we recall, his cousin ʿAbd al-Ghanī had been banished

from Damascus as a result of the fitna arising from this controversy.201 Fakhr al-Dīn, on the

other hand, deep in Ḥanbalī territory, was allowed to take a hardliner position and openly

teach it.202 At the same time, Ibn Qudāma’s appeal to the Sunna shows the more rigorous

approach he wished to impart to the school’s positions. If theology was something absolute

200
Ibid., vol. 3, 326-327.
201
Covered in chapter seven.
202
It is likely for this reason Ibn al-Mustawfī recalled that Fakhr al-Dīn was “excessive in his beliefs” (mughālin fī
muʿtaqadihi, see Ibn al-Mustawfī, Tārīkh Irbil, vol. 1, 96.), compare this to his verdict on ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Ruhāwī
above.
431
and not relative, it could only come from an absolute source – the received scripture – and not

from a particular madhhab.203 Ibn Qudāma in fact showed concern that Fakhr al-Dīn was

following later opinions of Ḥanbalī scholars in the absence of clear evidences from scripture or

Islam’s earliest religious authorities. In that sense the “Ḥanbalī position” which Fakhr al-Dīn

adopted was being compared to the innovated (muḥdath) kalām which Ibn Qudāma. Ibn

Qudāma thus gave him advice (naṣiḥa) to “refrain from speaking about matters which the

Prophet of God (ṣ) and his Companions and the emulated Imams after them refrained from

speaking about.”204 His responses to Fakhr al-Dīn’s objections make this quite clear:

As for [Fakhr al-Dīn’s] words, “This issue is not at all unclear!” – He has spoken well and
truthfully. Because it isn’t unclear to me at all, thank God, but crystal clear, in fact. But
if it has become apparent to him – in his good fortune! – that discussing this issue (al-
kalām fīhā) is correct, as a result of his following the views (taqlīdan) of Abū’l-Faraj205 and
Ibn al-Zāghūnī,206 then let it be known that I have become certain (tayaqqantu) that
silence on this issue is correct from following (ittibāʿan) the Leader of the Prophets
[Muḥammad] who is the Criterion of Proof (ḥujja) for all peoples, followed by the
Rightly Guided Caliphs, the rest of the Companions and the accepted Imams. I do not
care who blames me for following them or disowns me for agreeing with them. I am as
the poet has said:

I find blame in loving you delicious, ‘Cause I love to hear you mentioned
So let the blamers blame …

So whoever agrees with me in following them and reponds to my invitation to join

them is my companion, intimate, and friend. And whoever disagrees with me in this
can go wherever he pleases, because the paths are many …

203
As seen in chapter seven, Ibn Qudāma was concerned with the common view that the theological positions he
adhered to were considered “Ḥanbalī views” and thus not really representative of Islamic doctrine as a whole.
204
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 327.
205
This is likely a reference to Abū’l-Faraj al-Shīrāzī, grandfather of the Ibn al-Ḥanbalī family, and author of the
popular Imtiḥān al-bidʿī min al-sunnī discussed in chapter seven. The latter in fact affirmed this position explicitly:
“As for people of innovation (ahl al-bidʿa), they are eternally in Hell (mukhalladūn fī al-nār);” al-Shīrāzī, Kitab al-
Tabṣira fī uṣūl al-dīn ʿalā madhhab al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, fol. 53a.
206
Ibn al-Zāghūnī had anathemized those who disagreed on this topic; see chapter five.
432
 As for [Fakhr al-Dīn’s] statement, “His insistence that the word takhlīd does not occur
[in the textual sources of doctrine] amounts to nothing at all.”207 – I say: Actually, to me
it amounts to something very big, and is a very important issue. I agree with my imams
in their silence like I agree with them in their speech. I speak if they speak, and I am
silent if they are silent. I go if they go, and I stop if they stop. I follow their path in all
of their states (aḥwālihim) as best I can, and do not do things differently, lest I lose my
way if I end up on my own. 208

Ibn Qudāma not only makes quite clear that the “Ḥanbalī position” is insufficient, he

flatly refuses to continue a discussion based solely on unreflective adoption (taqlīd) of a

particular group of latter-day scholars’ views. Ultimately, he says, the only proper way to

resolve the issue is investigation (naẓar) into the available evidence. The topic is more

complex than Fakhr al-Dīn has made it out to be, and both the pertinent scriptural material

and the history of the Ḥanbalī school’s deliberation on the topic would seem to contradict his

position:

As for [Fakhr al-Dīn’s] statement … “The old and new books of [the Ḥanbalī madhhab] all
affirm that disbelief is to be attributed (takfīr) to whoever says that the Qurʾān is
created.” – This would entail that the opinion of the members [of the madhhab] is an
unassailable proof (al-ḥujja al-qāṭiʿa), which is bizarre. Do you honestly believe that if
the members [of the madhhab] came to a consensus on an issue in the branches [of
religion (i.e. legal matters not pertaining to faith)], that that would be a satisfactory
proof whose mere mention would suffice? If Fakhr al-Dīn believes that, then he does
not need to mention more proof in his written works than the mere opinion of [the
madhhab]. If he does not consider this a proof (ḥujja) in the branches [of religion], then
how does he make it a proof in the foundations (uṣūl, i.e. pertaining to the basic articles
of faith)?

Let us suppose for the sake of argument that we excuse the commoners (al–ʿāmma) for
following the views (taqlīd) of al-Shaykh Abū’l-Faraj and others without any
investigation (naẓar) or evidence (dalīl); how would that be excusable for an imām with
authority in various sciences? Furthermore, even if we submit to what he says, he
doubtlessly hasn’t read everything written [in the madhhab]. And even if it so happens

207
Ibn Qudāma had apparently written in an earlier correspondence that the word or concept of takhlīd (being
made to spend an eternity) was not discussed in the earliest sources of Islamic doctrine, and so was invalid for
later theologicans to discuss.
208
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 327-328.
433
 that [the madhhab’s authors] really did all agree on attributing disbelief to them
[takfīrihim], this view is opposed by those who do not … such as al-Shāfiʿī and his
followers; they do not attribute disbelief to them except for Abū Ḥāmid [al-Ghazālī], so
how does one view become preponderant over the other?

Lastly, even if everyone [(i.e. regardless of madhhab)] agreed in ascribing disbelief to

them, this does not mean that eternal punishment (al-takhlīd) is a necessary
concomitant. The Prophet (ṣ) has attributed disbelief [to people] (aṭlaqa al-takfīr) in
instances where eternal punishment (al-takhlīd) had nothing to do with it. E.g.,
“Insulting a Muslim is immorality (fusūq), and fighting one is disbelief (kufr).”...

Abū Naṣr al-Sijzī209 has said: “Those who ascribe disbelief (takfīr) to the one who says
the Qurʾān is created have differed. Some of them say: disbelief (kufr) which removes
one from the religion (yanqul ʿan al-milla), and some of them say: disbelief (kufr) which
does not remove one from the religion.”

Furthermore, the Imam Aḥmad [Ibn Ḥanbal] who was one of the severest people
against the innovators used to address [the Caliph] al-Muʿtaṣim with “O Commander of
the Believers” and was of the view that the caliphs who called people to the creation of
the Qurʾān were to be obeyed, and that Friday and ʿĪd prayers were to be prayed behind
them. If Imam Aḥmad ever heard someone mention this doctrine [of yours] which has
not come down from the Prophet (ṣ) nor anyone before him, he would denounce it in
the severest manner. He used to denounce things less than this.

If you understand this, then is it permissible for me and the likes of me who do not
know the correctness of that position to adopt it? The ignorant of something cannot be
expected to practice it obligatorily. I have only prohibited it for those who are ignorant
of it. But if such secrets have been laid bare for [Fakhr al-Dīn] and he knows what God
Most High does in all clarity, then I do not prohibit it for him. But he should not order
me to adopt a doctrine given my ignorance of that which he is knowledgable of.

If you truly believe this [doctrine], then the signs of its practice should manifest upon
you: E.g. abandoning their210 friendship, intimacy, and visitation. And you should not
believe that employment by them is valid, nor accept any letters from from one of their
rulers or governors. You know that your qāḍī only got his position from one of their
advocates (min qibal aḥad duʿātihim).211

209
Accomplished ḥadīth scholar known for refuting Ashʿarī doctrine on God’s speech, or as al-Dhahabī put it
“madhhab al-salaf fī’l-Qurʾān.” Originally from Sijistān, he traveled extensively before settling in Mecca where he
passed away in 444/1052-3; see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 30, 95 ff.
210
He means those who say God’s speech is created.
211
He is referring to someone in Ayyubid administration responsible for appointing Ḥarrān’s qāḍī, ʿAbd Allāh b.
Naṣr (see above).
434
 As for your statement “How will you make amends for this error and repair the bonds
of confidence?” If you will be satisfied with my silence, then this is my way and path
upon which I rely, and I have provided my evidence (dalīlī) for it. If you will not be
content except by my profession of a doctrine which I do not know, and my treading of
a path which is not the safest and most direct, shamelessly heading on a treacherous
course of direction, and incurring the wrath of the Creator …212 well no intimate
brother of mine would prefer that for me, nor would anyone trying to help or be fair to
me (inṣāf) – I wouldn’t follow him even if he were Bishr al-Ḥāfī! …

Know, O sincere brother of mine, that you are about to meet your Maker, and will be
asked about this doctrine of yours. So consider the One who will question you and
what you will say to Him, and prepare an answer for the question … Do not think that
He will be satisfied with the answer that you were following the views (taqlīd) of some
[members of the Ḥanbalī school], nor will you be saved by the excuse that the [entire
madhhab] is agreed that [the advocates of the created Qurʾān] are disbelievers (min
jumlat al-kuffār) and so necessarily in Hellfire eternally. Those words are unsound
(madkhūl) and unsatisfactory as an answer …

If God has shown you the Unseen and freed you of ignorance and its deficiency and
imparted to you what He will do to His creation, then know that we are weak people
who are satisfied with the words of our Prophet (s) and his path, and we are not bold
enough to go beyond what God and His Messenger [have given us], so do not let your
strength turn you against us in our weakness, nor your knowledge against us in our
ignorance…213

Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya died 15 Ṣafar 622/1225. He was well remembered by the

populace, and it was mentioned that miracles (karāmāt wa-khawāriq) had happened at his

hands;214 auspicious visions of him in dreams (manāmāt) were recorded by the family in what

filled a small volume (juzʾ).215 One dream envisioned him walking hand-in-hand with Ibn

Qudāma to the mosque to give fatwas, awaited there by Shaykh Ḥayāt b. Qays and his sons.216

212
Various rhyming variations of the same theme.
213
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 328-331.
214
Ibid., vol. 3, 323.
215
For several examples, see ibid., vol. 3, 333 ff.
216
Ibid., vol. 3, 334-335.
435
8.3.2 Majd al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya

Fakhr al-Dīn’s son ʿAbd al-Ghanī, called Sayf al-Dīn (d. 639/1241) maintained the

Taymīya legacy, taking his father’s place as head sermonist of the congregational mosque, and

teaching tafsīr in his father’s chair there.217 He had studied fiqh with his father, and ḥadīth with

local experts ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Ruhāwī and Ḥammād b. Hibat Allāh. He then travelled to

Baghdad in 603 AH, where he continued to primarily focus on listening to ḥadīth; Ibn Rajab

mentions many of his teachers in that discipline including ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī’s son ʿAbd al-

Razzāq. The only fiqh teacher we know of his was Ibn al-Mannī’s disciple, the eccentric Ḥanbalī

intellectual al-Fakhr Ismāʿīl.218

Sayf al-Dīn may have been the successor to the reknowned Fakhr al-Dīn, head of Ḥarrān

and the Banū Taymīya in his time, but he was soon to be outshone by his younger cousin, ʿAbd

al-Salām, otherwise known as the celebrated Ḥanbalī faqīh Majd al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya, and the

grandfather of our subject of study. The beginnings of Majd al-Dīn’s scholarly career, however,

had been anything but certain: As it so happened, Sayf al-Dīn had been preceded to Baghdad by

his older brother ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm some years before, and possibly was planning to meet him

there upon his arrival, yet the latter tragically died unexpectedly in the same year of the

intended trip.219 It is not improbable that for this reason Sayf al-Dīn was convinced to take his

217
He also wrote a companion work to his father’s tafsīr, al-Zāʾid ʿalā tafsīr al-wālid; see ibid., vol. 3, 482.
218
Ibid. Al-Fakhr Ismāʿīl “ghulām Ibn al-Mannī” was described in chapter six as an example of the astonishing
eclecticism among the Ḥanbalīs of Baghdad before the Mongol invasion. Ibn Taymīya was familiar with his work,
specifically his book Jannat al-nāẓir on uṣūl al-fiqh; see Ibn Taymīya, Ibn Taymīya and Ibn Taymīya, al-Musawwada fī
uṣūl al-fiqh, 378, 571.
219
ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm had been Fakhr al-Dīn’s eldest son, but his intellectual interests differed from that of his father.
He went to Baghdad in his father’s footsteps, and studied ḥadīth there with Ibn al-Jawzī and others. However,
alongside the usual interest of a legal scholar, he showed particular interest for math, geometry, philosophy
(falsafa), and doctrines of the ancients (al-ʿulūm al-qadīma). Despite his son’s eclectic tastes, Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn
Taymīya honored ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm’s memory by quoting one his books in tricky fiqh discussions requiring algebra
and logic Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 75.
436
younger cousin Majd al-Dīn along with him to Baghdad for company. Majd al-Dīn was

fatherless, and likely in the guardianship of his uncle Fakhr al-Dīn; he was intended to go as

servant for his brother, but according to family lore, the scholars of Baghdad unexpectedly

discovered in him a young prodigy. Al-Dhahabī recounts:

Our shaykh Abū Muḥammad [Sharaf al-Dīn] Ibn Taymīya,220 the grandson of Majd al-
Dīn, told us that his grandfather was raised fatherless (yatīman),221 and when he was
thirteen years old he traveled with his cousin [(Sayf al-Dīn)] to Iraq for the purpose of
serving him and working at his side. He used to take his nightly rest next to [his
cousin] and listen to him review topics of dispute among the jurists (masāʾil al-khilāf),
and would memorize [what he heard]. One day al-Fakhr Ismāʿīl said, “What does this
little runt (tunayn) have memorized? – by which he meant young [Majd al-Dīn]. [The
latter] spoke up and said, “Yā sayyidī I have memorized the lesson,” and recited it to
him at once. Al-Fakhr was astonished by him and said to his cousin, “This one will
amount to something,” and got him to work.222

Majd al-Dīn studed khilāf with al-Fakhr Ismāʿīl who seems to have been quite fond of

him,223 but his primary training in the nuts and bolts of fiqh came from another of Ibn al-

Mannī’s students: ʿImād al-Dīn Abū Bakr b. al-Ḥalāwī (d. 611/1215).224 In addition to

220
This is Ibn Taymīya’s brother Sharaf al-Dīn. Oddly, Ibn Rajab reads “our Shaykh” then replaces “Abū
Muḥammad” with “Abū’l-ʿAbbās Ibn Taymīya” which cannot be reconciled with the original text in the Tārīkh al-
Islām. Perhaps he mistakenly assumed that al-Dhahabī was referring to Ibn Taymīya and changed the text to
make this clearer to the reader.
221
Note that the text of al-Dhahabī is corrupt, and reads “raised in Taymāʾ (rubbiya bi-Taymāʾ);” al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh
al-Islām, vol. 48, 129. The correct reading is rubbiya yatīman, which Ibn Rajab transmits, and which makes more
sense.
222
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 48, 129; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 3.
223
Sharaf al-Dīn recalls that “al-Fākhir wrote the following dedication to Majd al-Dīn in his book Jannat al-nāẓir in
606: Read to the faqīh, the imam, the scholar, the unique among the elite (awḥad al-fuḍalāʾ),’ or some expression
like that, and another one like it.” Majd al-Dīn was only 16 years old at the time; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol.
48, 129; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 3-4.
224
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 166. Ibn al-Ḥalāwī was considered an accomplished and
outstanding student of Ibn al-Mannī’s; al-Nāṣiḥ Ibn al-Ḥanbalī fondly remembered his great reverence for his
teacher, whose baraka he credited with giving him understanding of religion. In general he preferred seclusion in
the mosque, and was considered “one of the abdāl by whom God preserves the earth and who is in it” ibid., vol. 3,
164-165. The caliph al-Ẓāhir was fond of him as a young man, and spent time in his company, somtimes reading
fiqh with him; ibid., vol. 3, 165.
437
jurisprudence he also studied Arabic, the qirāʾāt (on which he wrote a didactic poem (urjūza))225

and was also said to have a real knack for algebra (al-jabr wa’l-muqābala).226 He also pursued

extensive attendance of ḥadīth recitation; something he had begun with ʿAbd al-Qādir al-

Ruhāwī in his early youth. He stayed six years in Baghdad, before heading back to Ḥarrān with

his cousin Sayf. There he spent time reviewing with his uncle Fakhr al-Dīn before going back

to Baghdad again a few years later on his own.227 When the time came for him to leave

Baghdad for good, the Ḥanbalīs of the city insisted that he stay and teach, yet the

responsibilities of family and the needs of his community pulled him back home.228

His al-Muḥarrar was a widely acclaimed book of jurisprudence appreciated for its

elegant simplicity which also belied great erudition. Despite its straightforward explanation of

the Ḥanbalī madhhab’s legal rulings, it was the product of the extremely delicate and laborious

task of reviewing the many fatwas and jurisprudential discussions transmitted from Aḥmad b.

Ḥanbal, which were many and sometimes contradictory.229 Its success is attested to by its

prolonged acceptance in the Ḥanbalī school; over the centuries received at least 11

225
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 6; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 48, 128.
226
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 3.
227
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 48, 129; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 2.
228
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 4.
229
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 6; Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Sālim Bāzmūl, “Majd al-Dīn Abū'l-
Barakāt ʿAbd al-Salām Ibn Taymīya wa-Manhajuhu fī kitābihi al-Muntaqā fī'l-aḥkām” (MA Thesis, Umm al-Qurā,
1408/1989), vol. 1, 167-170; Abū Zayd, al-Madkhal al-mufaṣṣal ilā fiqh al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal wa-takhrījāt al-aṣḥāb,
vol. 2, 683. This may or may not have been preceded by his unfinished commentary on Abū’l-Khaṭṭāb’s Hidāya,
which was a work based on the same approach. Despite its incompleteness, this work was popular and cited in
later works and even abridged, see Abū Zayd, al-Madkhal al-mufaṣṣal ilā fiqh al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal wa-takhrījāt al-
aṣḥāb, vol. 2, 714; Bāzmūl, “Majd al-Dīn Abū'l-Barakāt ʿAbd al-Salām Ibn Taymīya wa-Manhajuhu fī kitābihi al-
Muntaqā fī'l-aḥkām,” vol. 1, 179-181.
438
commentaries and 5 abridgements or additions,230 including a taʿlīqa written by his grandson

Ibn Taymīya in multiple volumes.231

No less important was his al-Muntaqā min aḥādīth al-aḥkām. This work, organized

according to the topical chapter-headings of books on jurisprudence, was a compilation of

ḥadīth used by Muslim scholars to derive rulings (al-aḥkām) taken chiefly from the seven major

collections of al-Bukhārī, Muslim, al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī, Abū Dāwūd, Ibn Māja, and Aḥmad b.

Ḥanbal, and sometimes the sunan of al-Dāraquṭnī.232 It was originally much larger, but the

Qāḍī of Aleppo, Bahāʾ al-Dīn Ibn Shaddād (d. 632)233 asked him to make a selection (muntaqā) of

its contents.234 In the following centuries at least 5 commentaries were written on it.235

Majd al-Dīn combined a sharp memory for the texts on which rulings were based with a

deep understanding of the theoretical principles of deriving legal rulings, both called uṣūl by

the fuqahāʾ of traditional and theoretical bent. His early training by al-Fakhr Ismāʿīl in the

principles of khilāf also instilled in him the drive not only to comparatively study the legal

reasoning of the Ḥanbalī school’s earlier scholars but also those of other schools; his ability to

memorize the opinions from opposing schools was quite celebrated among his peers.236 The

fruits of this is evident in his Uṣūl al-fiqh, which allows us to see his thought process in action:

230
Bāzmūl, “Majd al-Dīn Abū'l-Barakāt ʿAbd al-Salām Ibn Taymīya wa-Manhajuhu fī kitābihi al-Muntaqā fī'l-
aḥkām,” vol. 1, 171-178.
231
Ibid., vol. 1, 171.
232
Ibid., vol. 1, 208-209.
233
He was a widely respected scholar in the service of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn and his family, whose biography he famously
wrote. He also wrote a work called dalāʾil al-aḥkām, see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 46, 134-135. He is not to be
confused with the author of the al-Aʿlāq al-khaṭīra cited elsewhere.
234
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 6.
235
Bāzmūl, “Majd al-Dīn Abū'l-Barakāt ʿAbd al-Salām Ibn Taymīya wa-Manhajuhu fī kitābihi al-Muntaqā fī'l-
aḥkām,” vol. 1, 209-210. The influential reformist Yemenī scholar Muḥammad al-Shawkānī (d. 1255/1839) also
wrote his expansive Nayl al-awṭār as a commentary, see ibid., vol. 1, 210-212.
236
See al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 48, 127-128; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 4-5.
439
the opinions of different schools of thought from their founders to the present day (such as

Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī for the Ashʿarīs and Ibn Qudāma for the Ḥanbalīs), and even detailed

positions of the Muʿazilites are discussed side by side. Unfortunately he did not finish the

work; hence it has remained known as ‘the Draft’ (al-Musawwada), but it was added to later by

his son ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm, and grandson Ibn Taymīya.237

From this uṣūl al-fiqh work we find him to be situated within the Baghdad Ḥanbalī kalām

tradition, quoting the positions of Abū Yaʿlā and Abū’l-Khaṭṭāb al-Kalwadhānī on the necessity

of performing naẓar. 238 Although we do not possess any of his theological works, we know that

his students carried on the same kalām tradition.239 Again, were it not for the destruction of

Ḥarrān by the Mongols, this tradition would have flourished in Ḥarrān.

Majd al-Dīn sat at the center of the city’s religious life, teaching in the city’s

indispenible al-Madrasa al-Nūrīya,240 and keeping with what had now become family tradition,

maintained the usual tafsīr lessons in the congregational mosque of Ḥarrān after the passing of

his cousin Sayf al-Dīn. On the topic of Qurʾānic exegesis, he wrote the Aṭrāf aḥādīth al-tafsīr,

where he compiled relevant ḥadīth according to the order of the chapters of the Qurʾān.241 He

died after Friday prayer on ʿĪd al-Fiṭr 653/1255, exactly one day after the passing of his wife

237
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 6; Bāzmūl, “Majd al-Dīn Abū'l-Barakāt ʿAbd al-Salām Ibn
Taymīya wa-Manhajuhu fī kitābihi al-Muntaqā fī'l-aḥkām,” vol. 1, 181-182. Collected and incorporated into one
work after the death of Ibn Taymīya, it was used by Ḥanbalīs in later centuries [Ibn Taymīya, Ibn Taymīya and Ibn
Taymīya, al-Musawwada fī uṣūl al-fiqh, 2–5. Apparently Majd al-Dīn wrote a Musawwada equally comprehensive in
scope on the linguistic study of Arabic; unfortunately it is no longer extant.
238
Ibid., 455 ff.
239
See the discussion of Ibn Ḥamdān in chapter nine
240
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 4.
241
Ibid., vol. 4, 6.
440
Badra, the daughter of Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya.242 The crowds turned out in abundance for

his funeral.243

8.4 Ḥarrān’s Twilight

8.4.1 Shihāb al-Dīn in the Shadow of the Mongol Conquest

Majd al-Dīn’s son ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm, called Shihāb al-Dīn, was the last member of the Banū

Taymīya to preside over the sermons of the city’s congregational mosque and provide general

religious direction to the city.244 Since his birth in 627, he had been raised by his father to

follow in his footsteps. Notably, however, he did not have the chance to study in Baghdad, but

sufficed with his father’s lessons in Ḥarrān, only leaving the city to Aleppo to hear ḥadīth.245

Unlike his father or his uncle, he was not a larger-than-life personality, but characterized as

humble and unassuming. For these reasons the biographical material on him shrouds him in

quasi-anonymity. Al-Dhahabī, on his part, preferred to say he was a “star of guidance, who

had only been hidden between the moon and the sun,”246 i.e. his famous father Majd al-Dīn and

even more famous son Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya, the subject of our study.

In truth, it was only natural that the political conditions of the age deprived Shihāb al-

Dīn of the opportunities available to his more famous predecessors. The disunity of the

Ayyubids and the approach of the Mongols from the East put the safety of Ḥarrān at risk once

more. When the Mongols made their first raids in the Jazīra in 629, the locals of Ḥarrān

242
Apparently she also narrated ḥadīth, see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 48, 120.
243
Other sources say it was 652, see Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 7. However, a young Ibn
Taymīya wrote down from his father that it was in 653, see ibid.
244
“After his father, he became Shaykh of the area, as well as its sermonist (khaṭībuhā) and headman (ḥākimuhā);”
al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 51, 104.
245
Ibid.
246
Ibid., vol. 51, 105.
441
quickly found they were no match for them.247 Other unnerving signs of the changing power

dynamics in the region can be seen as well: Ḥarrān was occupied in 635/1237 by the

Khwarizmshāhs who had been displaced by the Mongols to the East.248 Although the city was

reclaimed by al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ of the Ayyūbids a few years later, protection of the Jazīra soon

became the least of his interests, as he was focused on simultaneously defeating rival Ayyūbid

amirs and fending off the Crusaders to the West. We read that in 650 a caravan from Ḥarrān

headed to Baghdad was ambushed by the Mongols, its contents were taken, men massacred,

women and children enslaved.249 In 653, at 25 years of age and with his father deceased, Shihāb

al-Dīn had to care for his family in the unnerving backdrop of the ʿAbbasid caliphate’s

inevitable fall.

In 658/1259, a little over a year after the sacking of Baghdad, Mongol troops led by

Hulagu, together with Armenian, Georgian, and Rūmī (Anatolian) Seljuk reinforcements

crossed the Euphrates heading for the main power centers of Syria.250 Ḥarrān was just one of

several cities that bore the brunt of the storm. Hulagu attacked the city and was about to take

it by force until two figures called al-Shaykh Yūsuf b. Ḥammād and ʿAlī al-Ṣūrānī negotiated a

peaceful surrender. Al-Ṣūrānī was appointed governor by Hulagu, and the Mongols moved

into the city. However, the citadel endured as a refuge for the city elites, and thus remained

under siege until al-Shaykh Abū’l-Qāsim, grandson of al-Shaykh Ḥayāt b. Qays,251 and Muḥāsin

247
Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira fī mulūk Miṣr wa'l-Qāhira, 16 vols., ed. Muḥammad Ḥusayn Shams al-Dīn
(Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 1413/1992), vol. 6, 247.
248
See Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 45. This was preceded briefly by a military occupation by ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn of the Rūmī
Seljuks, see Rice, “A Muslim Shrine at Ḥarrān,” 447.
249
Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira fī mulūk Miṣr wa'l-Qāhira, vol. 7, 22. In spite of this, Majd al-Dīn made ḥajj the
following year – al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 48, 128; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 4.
250
Reuven Amitai-Preiss, Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Īlkhānid War, 1260-1281 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995), 26–7.
251
Mentioned above.
442
b. al-Baqqāl, the wālī al-barr (regional adminstrator) negotiated with Hulagu for safe conduct of

the men, women, and property therein.252 Once evacuated, the citadel was gutted, and the

parapets of the city walls removed. At this,

[the governor of the citadel] Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad al-ʿAyn-Tābī went to see Hulagu
and said, “You have avenged us … For ʿAyn-tāb was ours and the Muslims took it from
us.” Then he shaved his head and put on a sarāqūj (a type of Mongol headgear) and
forsook Islam (irtadda).253

Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī the Shīʿite faylasūf (d. 672/1274) was also present during the siege

of Ḥarrān in his new administrative position among Hulagu’s entourage. His counsel was

sought when Hulagu encountered a group of Qalandarīya Sufis: The Mongol leader was

perplexed by them, and wanted al-Ṭūsī to explain who they were. He replied, “The surplus of

this world (faḍlatun fī al-ʿālam).” Hulagu promptly had them executed. When asked what he

meant, al-Ṭūsī replied,

People are four classes (al-nās arbaʿ ṭabaqāt): Governance, trade, manufacturing, or
agriculture; whoever falls outside of these is a burden on all the rest.254

Coins were minted in Ḥarrān with the Mongols’ slogan of victory:

By the Power of God Most High and the Favor of the Great Khan Möngke
The World has Been Conquered for His Brother Hulagu255

252
Rice, “A Muslim Shrine at Ḥarrān,” 447. The source is Ibn Shaddād’s al-Aʿlāq al-khaṭīra; see Ibn Shaddād, al-Aʿlāq
al-khaṭīra fī dhikr umarāʾ al-Shām wa'l-Jazīra, 60–1. This Ibn Shaddād (d. 684/1285) is not to be confused with Bāhāʾ
al-Dīn mentioned above.
253
Ibid.
254
Reuven Amitai, “VII. Sufis and Shamans: Some Remarks on the Islamization of the Mongols in the Ilkhanate,” in
The Mongols in the Islamic Lands, 27–46, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing
Company, 2007), 29; Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Kitāb al-ḥawādith, ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf and ʿImād ʿAbd al-Salām Raʿūf
(Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1997), 373. This cold pragmatism is also reflected in Ibn Taymīya’s impression of
him, “[al-Ṭūsī] advised Hulagu to kill people of knowledge and religion, and spare people of manufacturing and
trade that would give him worldly benefit;” Ibn Taymīya, Minhāj al-sunna al-nabawīya, 9 vols., ed. Muḥammad
Rashād Sālim (Riyadh: Jāmiʿat al-Imām Muḥammad ibn Saʿūd al-Islāmīya, 1986), vol. 3, 446.
255
Stefan Heidemann, Das Aleppiner Kalifat (A.D. 1261): Vom Ende des Kalifates in Bagdad über Aleppo zu den
Restaurationen in Kairo (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 292. On the history of minting in Ḥarrān, see Stefan Heidemann, “Die
443
 The Mongols’ attention turned westward, but the Mamluk resistance proved more than

they had expected, and they were turned back.256 The “cold war” between Mongols and

Mamluks had begun. However, Ḥarrān participated in one last episode of resistance, which

though obscure, deserves to be told here:

With the fall of Baghdad two supposed members of the Abbasid family emerged as

pretenders to the throne. One of the two, who later took the title Al-Mustanṣir billāh, fled the

capital and found safety with the bedouin, who helped him make his way to Damascus. The

Mamluk ruler Baybars then ordered him to be brought secretly to Cairo where a council was

held and witness was given as to his lineage, and pledge of allegiance (bayʿa) took place. He

gave his first khuṭba as Caliph on 14th Rajab 659/17th June 1261, in the mosque of the Citadel,257

and bestowed Baybars with the investiture of the Sultanate a few months later.258

The second pretender to the throne, who later took the title al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh,

also left Baghdad in the company of bedouin, and had the protection of Arab clans of northern

Iraq and Syria.259 As he head to Egypt to present himself to Baybars, he heard word of al-

Mustanṣir billāh’s acceptance in Cairo, and decided to flee first to Damascus, then Aleppo,260

which had just been taken by the renegade (ʿAzīzī) Mamluk Āqqūsh al-Burlī.261 There al-Ḥākim

was given bayʿa by Āqqūsh,262 yet both men ended up as fugitives as Baybars sought to bring

Fundmünzen von Ḥarrān und ihr Verhältnis zur lokalen Geschichte,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies, no. 2 (2002), 267–99.
256
See end of chapter seven.
257
Heidemann, Das Aleppiner Kalifat (A.D. 1261), 95–7.
258
Ibid., 98 ff.
259
Ibid., 78 ff.
260
Ibid., 105–6.
261
He was a Mamluk of the Ayyubid amir al-ʿAzīz, and had been active in the power struggle among the Ayyubids
in previous years, ibid., 112 ff.
262
Ibid., 133–4.
444
Aleppo back under his control, which he did by 3 Shaʿbān 659/July, 2 1261.263 In the same

month the two arrived in Ḥarrān, which Āqqūsh had recovered from Mongol control earlier.264

Here, al-Dhahabī states:

… They headed to Ḥarrān where the Shaykh Shihāb al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm Ibn Taymīya,
father of our Shaykh [i.e. Ibn Taymīya] pledged allegiance to him [i.e. al-Ḥākim] along
with the people of Ḥarrān.265

We cannot say whether Shihāb al-Dīn knew of the Caliph of Cairo at the time. In fact,

we cannot assume that Ḥarrān had even accepted the authority of Baybars by that time, as the

latter’s rise to power had come so suddenly on the tail of ʿAyn Jālūt. At the very least we can

say that Shihāb al-Dīn was attempting to provide for Ḥarrān and its people the social order

which the new caliphate promised them after the collapse of Baghdad.

By the following month Āqqūsh had taken Aleppo back, and al-Ḥākim took residence in

at city for the next few months, as Caliph (essentially of Diyār Muḍar).266 Āqqūsh’s appeal for

reconciliation was not well received by Baybars, and so he showed a gesture of his good-will by

assisting the former’s proposed reconquest of Baghdad. He sent al-Ḥākim with a battalion of

troops to join al-Mustanṣir, who had been sent out by Baybars to take back his ancestral

home.267 The operation was destined to be a fiasco for various reasons,268 and they were only

able to take the city for a month in the autumn of 659-660/1261 before meeting a disastrous

end.269

263
Ibid., 134–5.
264
Ibid., 137.
265
Ibid., 137, n. 18.
266
Ibid., 138-139, 141.
267
Ibid., 139–40.
268
On the planning of the military expedition, and the discussion of Baybar’s motives, see ibid., 145 ff.
269
Ibid., 153.
445
 Al-Ḥākim survived and made it back to Cairo on Rabīʿ I 660/Feb. 1262, hoping for the

reception of a caliph, instead he was imprisoned in the tower of the Cairo citadel.270 In

Muḥarram of 661/ November 1262, a public allegiance in the presence of the notables was

made, and khuṭba given; Baybar’s symbolic legitimacy as defender of the caliphate was

preserved once again.271 Al-Ḥākim found ways to spend his time other than statecraft: He was

provided with a secretary (kātib durūj), the Shāfiʿī scholar Sharaf al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Aḥmad b.

Niʿmat al-Maqdisī (d. 694/1295), who wrote his inaugural khuṭba, taught him fiqh and other

sciences, and even penmanship,272 but starting in 663/1266 Baybars forbade the Caliph any

visitors or messengers whatsoever,273 perhaps to prevent a repetition of the episode with

Āqqūsh. Almost thirty years of his thirty-nine year “reign” were spent in the confinement of

the Cairo citadel tower.274 His descendants remained under house arrest in the citadel for over

two centuries, until the Ottoman conquest.275

8.4.2 The Destruction of Ḥarrān

Before we recount the final destruction of Ḥarrān, it would be befitting to describe

what the city was like in its final years. We have at our disposal the record of Aleppan scholar

Ibn Shaddād (d. 684/1285) who inspected it under the auspices of the Ayyubid prince al-Malik

al-Nāṣir in 640/1242.276 He tells us:

270
Ibid., 156.
271
Ibid., 163 ff.
272
Ibid., 177–8. He was later an important teacher of Ibn Taymīya’s in Damascus, see chapter nine.
273
Ibid., 178–9.
274
Some years were better than others, for the details see ibid., 177 ff.
275
For their names and death-dates of his descendants till the 10th/16th century, see EI2, s.v. “ʿAbbāsids.”
276
Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 36–7.
446
 The chief city … of Diyār Muḍar before the Mongols destroyed it was Ḥarrān. It was
situated in flat country and had an oblong shape. Its buildings were built of stone and
plaster, and it had wide streets. It was surrounded by a wall and had a suburb … whose
wall was joined to the city wall. Ḥarrān has a citadel … which was called of old al-
Mudawwar (the round one) and which was one of the temples of the Sabians who lived
at Ḥarrān ...277

The city walls had seven gates; the seventh one, Bāb al-Māʾ apparently had two copper

jinns within it, viewed as talismans against snakes.278 There were four madrasas (all Ḥanbalī),

at least two khānaqāhs, public baths, and a hospital (bīmāristān) built by Muẓaffar al-Dīn of

Irbil.279 On his 1184 visit to Ḥarrān Ibn al-Jubayr was impressed with the city’s markets covered

by wooden roofing, “The people there are constantly in the shade. You cross these sūqs as if

you were walking through a huge house;” these led to the congregational mosque.280 There

were numerous public baths.281 Additionally, Ibn Shaddād mentioned two visitation places

(mazārāt) associated with the Prophet Abraham,282 these were also mentioned by the SufiʿAlī b.

Abī Bakr al-Harawī (d. 611/1215),283 in his guidebook to popular pilgrimage places Kitāb al-

ishārāt ilā maʿrifat al-ziyārāt,284 as well as by other Jewish and Muslim writers of the period.285

277
Ibid., 37.
278
Ibid.
279
Ibid., 38.
280
Ibid., 39.
281
Ibn Shaddād, al-Aʿlāq al-khaṭīra fī dhikr umarāʾ al-Shām wa'l-Jazīra, 63–4.
282
Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 38. One of the earliest accounts of such a piligrimage site is in the writings of Egeria,
the Gallic piligrim from the 4th century CE, who asked her guide to show her Abraham’s home in Ḥarrān; van Ess,
Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, vol. 2, 443, n. 1.
283
The author was a Shāfiʿī and led an ascetic life, but had official relations with the ʿAbbāsid caliph and the
Ayyūbids. See introduction to ʿAlī b. Abī Bakr al-Harawī, Kitāb al-ishārāt ilā maʿrifat al-ziyārāt, Edited and
translated by Josef W. Meri (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 2004).
284
“There is there mashhad Ibrāhīm, called mashhad al-Ṣakhrah because they say that Abraham would sit on it
waiting for his sheep. They say it was named Ḥarrān because Abraham's brother Hārān built it, but that is not
true; rather Sām (Shem) built it;”ibid., 160–3.
285
Al-Harawī, Kitāb al-ishārāt ilā maʿrifat al-ziyārāt, 172, n. 56; Rice, “Medieval Ḥarrān,” 42.
447
 As we saw earlier, Ḥarrān underwent substantial damage during the Mongol

occupation of 658. But this was nothing compared to what happened to its sister cities in the

western Jazīra, which was the main Mongol frontier with the Mamluks.286 Both al-Raqqa and

Edessa were completely devastated that year, and the following decade witnessed sporadic

destructive border raids as well.287 Ḥarrān felt some respite under the protection of Āqqūsh,

but this was shortlived. Ḥarrān was open for the taking when Āqqūsh was put down by

Baybars’ men in 4 Jumāda II 660/April 26 1262, and Mongols reoccupied the city. 288 At this time

many of the inhabitants left to Mardīn and Mosul. Shihāb al-Dīn fled a few years afterwards, in

667/1268, accompanied by his family, among which was the young Ibn Taymīya.

Ḥarrān’s time was running out. In 670/1271 Baybars sent his troops led by ʿAlā al-Dīn

Ṭaybars together with Arab tribal chiefʿĪsā b. Muhannā and his men from Āl Faḍl289 across the

Euphrates in a military expedition. The Mongols they encountered in Ḥarrān surrendered

without a fight and were taken prisoner. Despite the wishes of the city’s inhabitants, Ṭaybars

did not appoint a governor, but merely took some hostages with him back to Syria. The

Mongols in turn retaliated against the city which had been more trouble then it was worth: On

the 25 of Ramadan 670/ April 25 1271, they destroyed Ḥarrān’s congregational mosque and

the market place, walled up the city gates, and deported its people to Mārdīn and other places.

The city was left uninhabited.290

286
Reuven Amitai, “Northern Syria between the Mongols and Mamluks: political boundary, military frontier, and
ethnic affinities,” in The Mongols in the Islamic Lands, 128–52, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Burlington,
VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007), 140.
287
See e.g. Amitai-Preiss, Mongols and Mamluks, 111-112, 118, 123.
288
Ibn Shaddād, al-Aʿlāq al-khaṭīra fī dhikr umarāʾ al-Shām wa'l-Jazīra, 62; Rice, “A Muslim Shrine at Ḥarrān,” 447.
289
ʿĪsā b. Muhannā and his tribesmen had been key at providing protection and support for al-Ḥākim’s claims in
Syria and Iraq Heidemann, Das Aleppiner Kalifat (A.D. 1261), see index.
290
See Quṭb al-Dīn Mūsā b. Muḥammad al-Yūnīnī, Dhayl Mirʾāt al-zamān, 4 vols. (Hyderabad: Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-
ʿUthmānīya, 1374/1954), vol. 2, 471; Ibn Shaddād, al-Aʿlāq al-khaṭīra fī dhikr umarāʾ al-Shām wa'l-Jazīra, 62–3; Rice, “A
448
 Figure 4. The Ruins of Ḥarrān’s Congregational Mosque291

8.5 Conclusion and Analysis

Ibn Taymīya left Ḥarrān for Damascus as a boy of only six years old. It could thus be

strongly argued that he spent an insufficient amount of time there for the city to have left any

significant impression on him. He was too young at the time of his departure to remember

anything of consequence. That being said, there are other ways in which the history of his

hometown retained a formative influence on his profile.

First, we may mention the Sabians of Ḥarrān. As will be seen in future chapters, the

Sabians represented to Ibn Taymīya, as they had to others, the last living source of pagan

philosophy in the known world. As such, Ibn Taymīya was particularly concerned with the

influence of its inhabitants in disseminating “the way of the polytheist philosophers” in

opposition to “the way of God’s prophets.” This was a primordial dialectic which according to

Muslim Shrine at Ḥarrān,” 447; Amitai-Preiss, Mongols and Mamluks, 126. Ḥarrān is the only example known of a
deliberate transfer of the population by the Mongols because of their sympathies to the Mamluks, Reuven Amitai,
“Northern Syria between the Mongols and Mamluks: political boundary, military frontier, and ethnic affinities,”
in The Mongols in the Islamic Lands (see note 1601), 141.
291
Taken in 1951; Brice and Lloyd, “Harran,” plate VII, fig 1.
449
Ibn Taymīya had its roots even in the days of Abraham, the city’s most famous inhabitant, who

in the Qurʾān called the star-worshippers of his time to the pure monotheism of Islam.292 This

reoccurring motif in his writings cannot be discussed in detail here, but it suffices us now to

point out how even Ḥarrān’s very ancient history is relevant for the study of Ibn Taymīya’s

thought.

As regards Ḥarrān’s Islamic heritage, the preceding study has shown us that Ibn

Taymīya was quite familiar with the biographies of the city’s scholars as well as their views in

theology and law. His own vocation of scholarship in fact, was the continuation of a family

legacy which can only be properly understood by our study of the local Ḥanbalī tradition. Two

specific elements from his forefathers’ biographies may be emphasized here: The first, and

most obvious one, is their dedication to Qurʾānic exegesis, tafsīr. We have seen how, starting

with Fakhr al-Dīn, the Banū Taymīya cultivated the study and instruction of tafsīr in Ḥarrān for

almost three generations. It is not without precedent then, that Ibn Taymīya later took up this

same discipline and developed a public profile on that basis in Damascus.293

More evocative, however, are the scholarly accomplishments of Ibn Taymīya’s

grandfather Majd al-Dīn. Our preceding study of his work, though brief, allowed us to observe

in him an exceedingly high degree of literacy in the Islamic scholarly discourse of his time.

This was evident in his engagement with the primary foundations of the Ḥanbalī legal school

(as seen in the Muḥarrar), as well as his comparative study with other madhhabs (in seen in the

Musawwada). At the same time, Majd al-Dīn’s composition of the Muntaqā in the style of the

292
Q al-Anʿām 6:76-83.
293
As will be shown in chapter nine.
450
People of Ḥadīth, displayed his conviction in the combatibility of scholastic methodology with

the undiluted sunna of the Prophet. This set him apart from those muḥaddithūn who merely

read ḥadīth and did not delve into such theoretical principles, as well as from those fuqahāʾ

who did not feel at ease with the “raw material” of Islamic legislative scripture outside of

codified legal principles and rulings.294 If Shihāb al-Dīn transmitted anything to Ibn Taymīya of

Majd al-Dīn’s legacy, it would be a practical emphasis on scripture as the ultimate foundation

of law, coupled with a drive towards capable participation in discussions of hermeneutic

theory with Islam’s other madhhabs and rationalist schools: In other words, the Ḥarrānian

fruits of Baghdad Ḥanbalīsm’s intellectual zenith in the late ʿAbbasid era – both of which have

been obscured to later observers by the destruction of their respective cities.

Although such judgments are somewhat hypothetical, a final discussion of Ḥarrān’s

significance as a stronghold of the Ḥanbalī madhhab sheds light on a more palpable factor of

Ibn Taymīya’s life trajectory: As we have seen above, starting from at least the 5th/11th century,

the city’s religious authorities, whether fuqahāʾ, muḥaddithūn, mutakallimūn, or Sufis, were all

affiliated with the school of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal. Although this was not a unique case, the

intimate look we have taken at such a homogenous community of Ḥanbalīs has been a rare

opportunity. Not surprisingly, we have also been able to gather evidence of a unified stance

against the Ashʿarī creed, in particular their positions on God’s speech and their participation

in the reading of Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī’s pamphlet.

294
One meaningful analogy for this dichotomy is that a legal historian does not necessarily feel comfortable
discussing contemporary legal theory, nor does a lawyer necessarily feel comfortable discussing legal history.
451
 This group solidarity among the Ḥanbalīs of Ḥarrān is worthy of our consideration

because Damascus, in contrast, was a very diverse city, with all four madhhabs represented, and

what is more, had passed through a number of scandals (fitan) involving Ḥanbalīs and their

theological positions.295 What a Fakhr al-Dīn could say openly in Ḥarrān had become

completely proscribed in the public life of Damascus that Ibn Taymīya and his family became a

part of. They were Ḥanbalī refugees in an environment which had only recently managed to

negotiate an agreement of non-confrontation with its local Ḥanbalī population, and as such

were a dynamic variable in the religious life of that city. But as the next chapter will show, Ibn

Taymīya himself was to be formed by the heterogeneity of Damascene religious life and its

own rules of engagement.

295
As seen in chapter seven.
452
Chapter Nine: A Prolegomena to the Study of Ibn Taymīya

The previous chapters have attempted to flesh out scholarly and even geographical

particulars which constituted the backdrop for Ibn Taymīya’s scholarly activity. The present

chapter will now show how they come together in his person. This will be achieved with three

different approaches; biographical, intellectual, and philological.

The first section will study Ibn Taymīya’s education, analysing its makeup with an eye

to the different scholarly collectives of Damascus which we have outlined previously. As this

will reveal, Ibn Taymīya brought together Ḥarrānian and Damascene (Ṣāliḥī) Ḥanbalism in his

education; but he also received instruction from scholars of the Shāfiʿī majority which colored

the normative religious vision for the inhabitants of Damascus’ walled-city.

The second section will attempt to trace out how these scholarly genealogies translate

into intellectual theses or paradigms which, in unison or disagreement, came to be

constitutional for Ibn Taymīya’s views in regard to those main theological topics the earlier

development of which we have surveyed above.

The third section will be a philological examination of Ibn Taymīya’s al-Fatwā al-

ḥamawīya, his first “public text” by which he gained some of his notoriety. The text will be

treated as a statement of “first principles,” being paradigmatic in its outlook and

argumentation for the rest of Ibn Taymīya’s corpus. Much of the text, it will be argued, is only

intelligible through an acquaintance with the religious discourse and specialized terminology

of the theological discourses which preceded it.

453
9.1 Ibn Taymīya’s Scholarly Genealogy:

Shihāb al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya found work as head of a dār al-ḥadīth called al-Sukkarīya

located in the walled-city of Damascus.1 He seems to have been the first to hold that position,

which suggests that the institution was created for him by a patron. He was also given a chair

for public lessons at the Umayyad Mosque after Friday prayers.2 The location is significant,

because it situates Ibn Taymīya and his family within the walled city and its diverse social

milieu.

Ibn Taymīya learned how to read and write as well as how to do math (ḥisāb) as a small

child with other children in a maktab; this was also supplemented by memorization of the

Qurʾān. The study of fiqh followed in the Ḥanbalī tradition to which he pertained by

birthright, as well as rigorous study of Arabic.3 He then began his studies in Qurʾānic exegesis

(tafsīr), and proceeded to study and master uṣūl al-fiqh. These latter accomplishments were

supposed to have been accomplished when he was only a teenager (ibn biḍʿi ʿashara sana).4

Alongside these subjects of study, Ibn Taymīya was a regular attendant of sessions of

ḥadīth transmission, starting from childhood. We are told that he attended auditions of the

musnad of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal several times, as well as the “six books” of ḥadīth,5 and many other

compilations (ajzāʾ) not quite as “canonical.” A mainstay of his scholarly activity, as he

progressed in his studies, Ibn Taymīya would spend much time reading and copying out ḥadīth

1
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 187.
2
Ibid., vol. 4, 189.
3
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 6.
4
Ibid.
5
See Brown, Hadith, 39.
454
by himself.6 Ibn Taymīya’s biographers were themselves involved in ḥadīth auditions, and so

emphasized these first and foremost in his list of teachers, even if they were not particularly

influential for his scholarly formation. Nevertheless, their profiles do flesh out for us the

scholarly environs of Damascus as they were established in Ibn Taymīya’s time. Ibn Taymīya

often attended these sessions from his youth, often with his younger brother Zayn al-Dīn, and

it is in these circles that he met some of his life long associates.

The list starts with Ibn ʿAbd al-Dāʾim (d. 668/1270),7 an ancient Ḥanbalī muḥaddith

originally from Jabal Nāblus in Palestine, who had resettled in Damascus. Born in 575/1179-80,

he was old enough to have heard ḥadīth from Ibn al-Jawzī as a youth in Baghdad, and had also

spent time in Ḥarrān where he heard ḥadīth from Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya, Ibn Taymīya’s

paternal grand-uncle. Due to his old age and short isnāds, many students came to him from

Mamluk Egypt and Syria to hear his ḥadīth auditions, including most of the great Damascene

scholars of the generation prior to Ibn Taymīya’s, including al-Nawawī, Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd, and

Shams al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma. He died and was buried on Mt. Qāsyūn, which indicates that he was

part of the al-Ṣāliḥīya community.8 When Ibn Taymīya first heard ḥadīth from him he could

have been no older than seven years old.

The other highlight was al-Shaykh Fakhr al-Dīn Ibn al-Bukhārī (d. 690/1291).11 A

product of the instruction of the Banū Qudāma and Maqdisī family of al-Ṣāliḥīya, his paternal

6
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 6.
7
Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿUthmān al-Dhahabī, “Dhayl Tārīkh al-Islām [Excerpt],” in Shams; al-
ʻImrān, al-Jāmiʻ li-sīrat Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 661-728 (see note 162), 279. Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-
Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 493.
8
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 49, 254-255; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 2, 279-280. ʿAbd al-
Ḥayy b. Aḥmad Ibn al-ʿImād, Shadharāt al-dhahab fī akhbār man dhahab, 10 vols., ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Arnaʾūṭ and
Maḥmūd al-Arnaʾūṭ (Damascus: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 1406/1986), vol. 7, 567. al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi'l-wafayāt, vol. 7, 22-23.
11
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 6.
455
uncle was Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn, who procured for him many important chains of ḥadīth transmission.12

Possessor of extremely short isnāds, he was said to be the last person in the world to have only

eight trustworthy narrators (thiqāt) between him and the Prophet.13 As a result, he enjoyed an

extensive teaching itinerary, narrating ḥadīth in Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Alexandria, Ḥimṣ,

Baghdad, Mosul, Tadmur, al-Raḥba, and elsewhere – he would even accompany al-Malik al-

Ẓāhir’s army on military expeditions to read them ḥadīth.14 Although it was said to have been

difficult to receive permission to narrate from him, as he got older he relaxed his conditions

and essentially anyone could listen to him; people travelled to see him in public recitations of

ḥadīth in Damascus, where “about 700 people” would listen to him at once, with Sharaf al-Dīn

al-Fazārī reading out loud.15 As with Ibn ʿAbd al-Dāʾim, again, there were almost no major

scholars of Damascus who did not attend his ḥadīth sessions.16

He was a venerable and cherished person, and among his students was known to be a

generous and encouraging teacher, possessing – unlike many isnād peddlers – discernment and

legal understanding as well.17 Among the most dedicated of the young generation of students

were al-Mizzī and al-Birzālī, who are said to have “read volumes” with him,18 and would go on

in their own right to prominence in the study of ḥadīth. Ibn Taymīya said of him, “my chest

would expand (yanshariḥ ṣadrī)” if he found Ibn al-Bukhārī in a chain of transmission between

himself and the Prophet.19

12
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 51, 423.
13
Ibid., vol. 51, 426; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 248.
14
Ibid., vol. 4, 242, 246.
15
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 51, 424. Cf. Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 247.
16
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 51, 425.
17
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 243-245.
18
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 51, 426.
19
ibid., vol. 51, 425; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 245.
456
 Ibn Taymīya likewise heard ḥadīth from Ibn Abī’l-Yusr (672/1273),20 Kamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd

al-ʿAzīz b. ʿAbd al-Munʿim (d. 672/1274),21 Aḥmad Ibn Abī’l-Khayr (d. 672/1273),22 al-Qāsim al-

Irbilī (d. 681/1282),23 Aḥmad b. Shaybān (d. 685/1286)24 Abū’l-Qāsim b. ʿAllān (dhu’l-hijja

680/1282)25 - none of them younger than an octagenarian, as well as Majd al-Dīn Ibn ʿAsākir

(d. 699/1300),26 a scion of the once illustrious ʿAsākir family, who would die after having

completed more than one hundred and ten years of age.27 The significance of these figures for

Ibn Taymīya’s early development in the eyes of his biographers is merely to highlight how

frequently he attended ḥadīth narrations from the holders of the shortest isnāds of their

generation. Most of these auditions, though not all, took place on Mt. Qāsyūn in the al-Ṣāliḥīya

community founded by the Banū Qudāma. In this milieu Ibn Taymīya made the acquaintance

of his life-long friends al-Mizzī, al-Birzālī, and al-Dhahabī.

20
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 4. Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt
al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 493. For biographical details see al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi'l-wafayāt, vol. 9, 44. Both Ibn ʿAbd al-Dāʾim
and Ibn Abī’l-Yusr had given ijāza to the caliph al-Ḥākim, see Heidemann, p. 178.
21
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 4–5. For biographical details see al-
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 50, 97-98.
22
{ Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 5. For biographical details see al-
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 50, 296-297.
23
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 5. al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol.
50, 361. Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 493. For biographical details see al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-
Islām, vol. 50, 361-362. Shams al-Dīn Ibn Abī ʿUmar used to recommend to his students (among them Ibn Taymīya,
see below) to go hear Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim from him.
24
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 6. For biographical details see al-
Dhahabī, al-ʿIbar fī khabar man ghabar, vol. 3, 358.
25
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 6. Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt
al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 493.
26
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 4–5. Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt
al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 493.
27
See al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 49, 294. al-Dhahabī, al-ʿIbar fī khabar man ghabar, vol. 3, 320. al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī
bi'l-wafayāt, vol. 2, 156.

457
9.1.1 Scholarly Influence:

As mentioned above, Ibn Taymīya acquired proficiency in legal and jurisprudential

sciences in his adolescent years. It is in such disciplines where Ibn Taymīya’s scholarly

genealogy shows more variety, likewise reflecting the combination of teachers from al-Ṣāliḥīya

and the walled city of Damascus.

His education naturally started with instruction from his own father Shihāb al-Dīn, a

conduit of the legacy of the Banū Taymīya’s Ḥarrānian Ḥanbalī scholarship. His Ḥarrānian

scholarly inheritance, however, was to be supplemented with Damascene scholarship, which

on its part can also be divided into two: Damascene Ḥanbalism in the vein of the Banū Qudāma

of al-Ṣāliḥīya, and Shāfiʿism represented primarily by students of ʿIzz al-Dīn b. ʿAbd al-Salām.

The following section will present a detailed look look at the constitutional elements of his

scholarly education, entailing an analysis of their genealogical relationship to the main

currents of Islamic scholarship outlined in the preceding chapters.

As we saw in the previous chapter, Ibn Taymīya was quite familiar with the Ḥarrānian

Ḥanbalī legal tradition. This was very probably passed on to him by his father, Shihāb al-Dīn,

about whom the sources say that he taught Ibn Taymīya both fiqh and uṣūl.28 It is via his father

as well that another important family legacy was also passed on: the teachings of the Baghdad

Ḥanbalī tradition which the latter had inherited from his own father Majd al-Dīn. This is

clearly the case in matters of uṣūl al-fiqh: the collective uṣūl al-fiqh work written by the

28
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 494.
458
grandfather, father, and son, is replete with extensive quotes and discussions of the views of

the leaders of the Baghdad Ḥanbalī uṣūl and kalām tradition.

This can be considered foundational for providing Ibn Taymīya with a Ḥanbalī

framework in the kalām-based ʿaqlīyāt from a young age. The historical significance of this is

now apparent – in Damascus, post Mongol invasion, Ibn Taymīya was one of the last

representatives of the Baghdad Ḥanbalī kalām tradition in a Ḥanbalī environment greatly

colored by the anti-kalām legacy of Ibn Qudāma. Ibn Taymīya’s works in general display

thorough knowledge of the Ḥanbalī kalām tradition,29 quoting Abū Yaʿlā, Ibn ʿAqīl, Ibn al-

Zāghūnī, and Ibn al-Jawzī for their various theological positions.

The Ḥarrānian legacy also lived on in the figure of Jamāl al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. al-Ṣayrafī (d.

678/1279),30 another one of Ibn Taymīya’s early teachers. Advanced in age, he was born in

Ḥarrān in 583/1187-8, where he also heard ḥadīth from ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Rūhāwī and Ḥammād

b. Hibat Allāh.31 From there he travelled to Baghdad, as was expected of an advanced Ḥanbalī

scholar of that time. He seems however, to have left that city in order to join Muwaffaq al-Dīn

Ibn Qudāma in Damascus as his student in legal studies. After a time, he turned once again to

the traditional center of Ḥanbalī learning, Baghdad. There he also found a close friend (rafīq)

and study companion in Majd al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya, Ibn Taymīya’s grandfather, who had the

same teachers there. Jamāl al-Dīn apparently was well-regarded in Baghdad, and teaching and

issuing fatwas there.32 He may have even have disseminated something of Ibn Qudāma’s

29
It was in fact his constant citation of it, which brought the attention of the author of this thesis to its existence.
30
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 5. Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt
al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 493.
31
Seen in chapter eight on Ḥarrān.
32
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 50, 315-317; Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 166.
459
teachings there. The circumstances of his return to Damascus are not known, but we can

imagine it to have been caused by the Mongol invasion; with the destruction of Ḥarrān, he

could not return to his home town. Even though he was known for his intolerance for

“innovation,”33 by which we must understand Ashʿarī theology among other things, he was

well regarded by the Damascenes for his piety,34 and permitted to have a study circle (ḥalqa) in

the Umayyad Mosque which was well attended, by, among others, Ibn Taymīya and his two

brothers Muḥammad and Abū’l-Qāsim.35

More important, however, are two other figures of Damascene Ḥanbalism, connected

by scholarly and biological genealogy with prominent local traditions:

The first of these is Zayn al-Dīn b. al-Munajjā (d. 695/1296),42 member of the Ibn al-

Munajjā family seen earlier among the leading families of Damascene Ḥanbalism. Excelling in

fiqh and Qurʿānic exegesis, he was well-regarded among the Ḥanbalīs. His scholarly formation

was a product of the students of his grandfather Wajīh al-Dīn as well as the students of

Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma. He can be considered indebted primarily to the latter’s school,

even writing a commentary on Ibn Qudāma’s work.43 In addition, he was considered an

exemplary student of the grammarian Ibn Mālik, writing a commentary on the latter’s al-Alfīya

with the approval of the master.44 Displaying the same scholastic openness as Ibn Qudāma for

matters outside of theology, he began a commentary of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s al-Maḥṣūl in uṣūl

33
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 50, 316.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid., vol. 50, 316-317.
42
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 494.
43
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 52, 279.
44
Ibid., vol. 52, 280.
460
al-fiqh, and made a partial abridgement of it.45 He seems to have held no institutional

positions, but rather sat in his ḥalqa in the Umayyad Mosque for thirty years, issuing fatwas

and teaching, without taking anything in return.46

The final teacher, and perhaps one of the most significant for Ibn Taymīya’s studies was

Shams al-Dīn b. Abī ʿUmar Ibn Qudāma (d. 682/1283).47 Son of Abū ʿUmar himself, one of the

co-founders of al-Ṣāliḥīya, he had been born in Muḥarram 597/1200 on Mt. Qāsiyūn, where he

began his studies narrating ḥadīth from his father and from his uncle Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn

Qudāma and other possessors of high isnāds. Naturally, however, his most important scholarly

formation took place under the tutelage of Muwaffaq al-Dīn, from whom he acquired a

mastery of the legal sciences. He wrote a ten volume commentary of the latter’s al-Muqniʿ

(with the author’s approval), in which he also incorporated parts of Muwaffaq al-Dīn’s

magnum opus, al-Mughnī.48

In addition, he studied uṣūl al-fiqh with Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī, having been encouraged to

do so by his uncle.49 Again, this reflects Muwaffaq al-Dīn’s separation between the domains of

theology and law; Muwaffaq al-Dīn’s own writings in uṣūl al-fiqh reveal an embrace of the

Ashʿarite-Shāfiʿite contribution to that discipline.50 However, Shams al-Dīn’s own scholarly

engagement may have extended into speculative theological discourse as well, as is suggested

45
Ibid., vol. 52, 279.
46
Ibid.
47
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 494.
48
Ibid., vol. 4, 174.
49
Ibid., vol. 4, 175.
50
See chapter seven.
461
in a eulogy for him extolling his many scholarly and pietistic qualities, by the Sufi Shihāb al-

Dīn (d. 698/1299)51 of the Banū al-Zakī family:

There were moments (mawāqif) witnessed when he lead his lessons, which no imam
before attained

In knowledge of kalām he had jewels (jawāhir) and pearls (ghurar) whose beauty defies
being arranged (niẓām)…52

Shams al-Dīn was considered to have attained “the leadership of the Ḥanbalī madhhab”

in his time, and – like his uncle Muwaffaq al-Dīn – was well respected by all classes of

Damascene society;53 al-Nawawī was said to have considered him “the most venerable of my

teachers.”54 Known for his humility and – again, like his uncle al-Muwaffaq – being wont to

engage in debate that would create animosity (al-tashājur/al-nufūr), his moderate disposition

and forebearance were notable. Among his noted qualities is that despite his esteemed status,

he was kind and generous to those who depended on him, whether Muslim or dhimmī.55

He was given the first teaching position in the Dār al-Ḥadīth al-Ashrafīya on Mt. Qāsyūn

by al-Malik al-Ashraf in Ramadan of 629/1132,56 and the mashaykha of another Dār al-Ḥadīth in

665/1266-7.57 In the winter of 664/1266, with Baybars inauguration of a four-madhhab judicial

system in Damascus, he was appointed as chief Ḥanbalī Qāḍī, a position which he held for over

twelve years.58

51
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 52, 366-367.
52
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 184.
53
Ibid., vol. 4, 175. Very kind and endearing, always praying and supplicating, concerned about people, if they
were sick, if anyone from the jabal died he attended their janāza, not known to get angry; ibid., vol. 4, 177.
54
Ibid., vol. 4, 176.
55
Ibid., vol. 4, 178-179.
56
Originally meant for ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī’s son Jamāl al-Dīn; al-Nuʿaymī, Al-Dāris fī tārīkh al-madāris, vol. 1,
36-37.
57
See Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 176. al-Nuʿaymī, Al-Dāris fī tārīkh al-madāris, vol. 1, 37-38.
58
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 177-179.
462
 Upon his death, he was buried beside his father Abū ʿUmar on Mt. Qāsyūn at a well-

attended funeral.59 Al-Dhahabī reports the significance of Shams al-Dīn to Ibn Taymīya, who

was 21 years old at the time, in a death notice written by the latter:

I saw the death [notice] of al-Shaykh Shams al-Dīn b. Abī ʿUmar in the handwriting of
our shaykh, Shaykh al-Islām Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya, among which was:

“So died our Shaykh, the Imam, leader of the people of Islam in his time, the pole of the
sphere of mankind (quṭb falak al-anām) at his moment, the only one of his time truly,
truly; the unique one of his age honestly, honestly; gatherer of types of fair virtues, free
and cured of all deficiencies and bad qualities, he who combined the traits of
knowledge and forbearance, good upbringing and lineage, intellect and rank, sound
body and character, pure habits and pleasing deeds, unblemished heart and character,
subtleness and kindness, good intention, good motivation – even if a hardheaded
person (al-mutaʿannit) were seeking for his deficiency, he would be at a loss,” until he
said, “And all eyes cried for him, and his loss was felt by all parties and sects (al-
ṭawāʾif/al-firaq). What tear was not shed, what limb was not afflicted, what pillar has not
fallen, and what grace was not lost? The calamity, O how great! The quietus, O how
powerful! And the pain, O how forceful!”60

Ibn Taymīya’s father was to die at the end of that same year as well; and buried on Mt.

Qāsyūn.61 After a few weeks, at the start of the new lunar year, in 683/1284,62 Ibn Taymīya gave

his first public lesson at the Sukkarīya which originally had been run by his father since the

Banū Taymīya’s arrival in Damascus. Neither Shams al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma nor Ibn Taymīya’s

father could be there, but Ibn al-Munajjā attended to show his support.63 After this lesson, well

regarded by its attendees, Ibn Taymīya resumed the tafsīr lessons his father had been giving

after Friday prayers in the Umayyad Mosque,64 maintaining a tradition in public Qurʾānic

59
Ibid., vol. 4, 180.
60
Ibid., vol. 4, 181-182. I would like to thank Joe Bradford for his help with this translation.
61
Ibid., vol. 4, 189.
62
Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Les intermédiaires entre Dieu et l'Homme (Risâlat al-wāsiṭa bayna l-khalq wa'l-ḥaqq), 21.
63
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 495.
64
Ibid.
463
exegesis started by his Ḥarrānian forebears,65 and emerging fully into the Damascene public

eye.

9.1.2 Non-Ḥanbalī Teachers

Having covered Ibn Taymīya’s Ḥanbalī education, we now turn to some of his non-

Ḥanbalī mentors and the respective scholarly genealogies to which they pertained.

As already stated, when Ibn Taymīya gave his first public lesson in Damascus, Ibn al-

Munajjā attended. The presence of two other scholars, however, is also noted by the

biographers: Tāj al-Dīn al-Fazārī Ibn al-Firkāḥ (d. 690/1291) and Zayn al-Dīn Ibn al-Muraḥḥil (d.

691/1292).66 The emphasis given to their attendance points to their social status, but perhaps

indicates a mentorial relationship, which would also explain their interest in being present at

his first public lesson.

We do know that Ibn Taymīya learned ḥadīth from Ibn al-Firkāḥ, perhaps in the

company of al-Mizzī and al-Birzālī, as his two companions’ names are mentioned in the list of

al-Fazārī’s students as well.67 Considered the “Shaykh al-Islām” of the Shāfiʿī school at that

time, Ibn al-Firkāḥ had been student of such luminaries as ʿIzz al-Dīn b. ʿAbd al-Salām and Ibn

al-Ṣalāḥ, and was considered the supreme authority of the madhhab in his time whose fatwas

were sought internationally. Viewed as having reached the level of ijtihād, he was also

remembered as al-Nawawī’s primary mentor.68 He was said to have copied out notes of Ibn

Taymīya’s first public lesson in his own hand.69

65
As seen in chapter eight.
66
Ibid.
67
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 51, 415.
68
Ibid., vol. 51, 415-416.
69
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 495.
464
 Ibn al-Muraḥḥil had also been a student of al-ʿIzz b. ʿAbd al-Salām’s, as well as a student

of a scholar named Shams al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. ʿĪsā al-Khusrūshāhī (d. 652/1254). Likely a

refugee in Damascus from the Mongol onslaught in the East, al-Khusrūshāhī had been a

student of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s. He was a Shāfiʿī scholar in law, and an expert in both kalām

and falsafa; he wrote an abridgement of Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī’s al-Muhadhdhab, an abridgement

of al-Shifāʾ by Ibn Sīnā, and a work on logic.70 Ibn al-Muraḥḥil, the only student of al-

Khusrūshāhī’s mentioned by al-Dhahabī, was in no less a public position than custodian of the

treasury (wakīl bayt al-māl) and main sermonist (khaṭīb) of the Umayyad Mosque.71 We do not

know if he had a teaching relationship to Ibn Taymīya, though we do know that his son Ṣadr

al-Dīn used to engage with Ibn Taymīya in theological and philosophical discussions.72 The

reason why the possibility must be entertained is because of Ibn Taymīya’s connection to

falsafa which started at a young age, as we shall see.

The significance of mentioning the non-Ḥanbalī scholars attending Ibn Taymīya’s first

lesson is to highlight the general scholarly recognition that he received from his peers – across

madhhab delineations – before his first theological controversies. This theme, present in every

biographical entry on Ibn Taymīya, has been duly noted by Donald Little.73 One of the more

interesting figures of non-Ḥanbalī scholarship to have a mentorial relationship with Ibn

Taymīya’s, however, is Sharaf al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Aḥmad b. Niʿma al-Maqdisī (d. 694/1295), whom

we have come to know earlier as the secretary of the ʿAbbasid caliph al-Ḥākim in Cairo.74

70
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 48, 126.
71
See Pouzet, Damas au VIIe-XIIIe Siècle, index, s.v. “Ibn al-Muraḥḥil (ʿUmar b. Makkī, Zayn al-Dīn).”
72
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 94–101.Al-‘Uqud, 94-101
73
Little, “Did Ibn Taymiyya Have a Screw Loose?,” 99–100.
74
See chapter eight.
465
 After Tāj al-Dīn al-Fazārī, Sharaf al-Dīn was considered by some to be next highest

authority of the Shāfiʿī school, due to his noteworthy mental acumen and expertise in

jurisprudential theory, language, and sciences of naẓar: he taught in the Shāmīya Shāfiʿī

madrasa, held the head lectureship at the Dār al-Ḥadīth al-Nūrīya, and presided over the ḥalqa

in the Ghazālīya corner of the Umayyad Mosque.75 Having studied fiqh with ʿIzz al-Dīn b. ʿAbd

al-Salām, his own contribution was a book on uṣūl al-fiqh “in which he combined the two

methods of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī.”76 Such a profile and pedigree is all

the more noteworthy when we consider the unexpected role he played in Ibn Taymīya’s

scholarly development.

According to the Ḥanafī scholar and historian Badr al-Dīn al-ʿAynī, it was Sharaf al-Dīn

who first authorized Ibn Taymīya to issue fatwas (al-iftāʾ), and later used to boast of this

accomplishment, saying, “It was I who gave permission to Ibn Taymīya to issue fatwas.”77 We

cannot say precisely why the privilege of giving Ibn Taymīya this authorization was left to

Sharaf al-Dīn al-Maqdisī – an adherent to the Shāfiʿī school, and not a Ḥanbalī. However, for

Ibn Taymīya, as a Ḥanbalī immigrant within Damascene city walls – an environment

potentially unkind to his background –such an endorsement from a Shāfiʿī scholar of this

regard was undoubtedly a guarantee of social acceptance. Ultimately, however, this teacher of

Ibn Taymīya’s, however, will reveal to us something about internal tensions within Shāfiʿī

scholarship would come to be reflected in his own works.

75
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 52, 205-206.
76
Ibid., vol. 52, 206.
77
Badr al-Dīn al-ʿAynī, ʿIqd al-jumān fī tārīkh ahl al-zamān: ʿAṣr salāṭīn al-mamālīk, 5 vols., ed. Muḥammad
Muḥammad Amīn (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub wa'l-Wathāʾiq al-Qawmīya, 1413/2010), vol. 3, 285. See Heidemann, p. 177
n.2.
466
 These are the scholars of the greatest significance for Ibn Taymīya’s scholarly

formation. The nature of their scholarly profiles also reflects the serious nature of young Ibn

Taymīya’s acclimation in the Damascene scholarly milieu. There remain only two more

relatively marginal figures to mention, who nevertheless complete our picture of the topic.

The first of these is Shams al-Dīn Ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Ḥanafī (d. 674/1275),78 a highly respected Ḥanafī

scholar, based in a madrasa built by al-Malik al-Muʿaẓẓam on al-Ṣāliḥīya, made chief Ḥanafī

qādī by al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Baybars in 664/1265.79 This was one of two chief qādīs whose lessons

Ibn Taymīya attended, the other being Shams al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma.

The second, identified as Ibn Taymīya’s Arabic teacher, was a minor figure, Muḥammad

b. ʿAbd al-Qawī al-Murdāwī (d. 699/1299), a Ḥanbalī scholar known for his linguistic expertise

who taught in the al-Ṣāḥibīya madrasa;80 he is usually credited with bringing Ibn Taymīya to

the level that he could read (and critique) the original works of Sībawayh.81 Ibn ʿAbd al-Qawī

seems also to have been a student of the Imāmī Shīʿite practitioner of falsafa and linguist ʿIzz

al-Dīn al-Irbilī (d. 660/1262)82 – one of the few known teachers of falsafa in Damascus other

than those in the Ashʿarī Shāfiʿī tradition mentioned earlier.83

9.2 The Intellectual Anatomy of Ibn Taymīya

As already stated, Ibn Taymīya began his studies with his father Shihāb al-Dīn, the last

of the great Banū Taymīya of Ḥarrān. Majd al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya, the grandfather, had given

78
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, “Mukhtaṣar Ṭabaqāt ʿulamāʾ al-ḥadīth,” in Shams; al-ʻImrān, al-Jāmiʻ li-sīrat Shaykh al-Islām Ibn
Taymīya, 661-728 (see note 1696), 249.
79
See al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 50, 132; al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi'l-wafayāt, vol. 17, 314.
80
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 307-309.
81
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 6.
82
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 48, 413.
83
As identified by Pouzet, Damas au VIIe-XIIIe Siècle, 253.
467
Shihāb al-Dīn his education on the basis of his own studies in Baghdad. Although none of

Shihāb al-Dīn’s works are extant, we can refer to the works of Majd al-Dīn’s other student from

Ḥarrān who died near the same time as a refugee in Cairo, Ibn Ḥamdān (d. Safar 695/).84 In his

Nihāyat al-mubdtadiʾīn and Ṣifat al-fatwā, he reveals how much of the Baghdad Ḥanbalī kalām

tradition Majd al-Dīn passed on to him, supplemented by positions held by the Ḥarrānian

Ḥanbalī school, but even the works of Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma. In what follows, these

sources will be used as representative of Majd al-Dīn’s and thus Shihāb al-Dīn’s theological

positions – passed on to Ibn Taymīya.

We learn of the obligatory nature (wujūb) of rational inquiry (naẓar) and prohibition of

taqlīd in establishing the existence of God,85 which also entails a detailed discussion of the

terminology of kalām. This, we recognize as part of the legacy of the preceding two and one

half centuries of Baghdad Ḥanbalī kalām inaugurated by Abū Yaʿlā. Ibn Taymīya’s earliest

education must thus have begun with full exposure to the “rationalist mandate” in Islam, as

mediated by its Ḥanbalī advocates.

Yet we find that Ibn Ḥamdān also refers to “the Shāfiʿī mutakallimūn” to make an

important point about the role of kalām in the public sphere: Quoting al-Ghazālī’s Iljām al-

ʿawāmm and Fayṣal al-tafriqa, Ibn Ḥamdān emphasizes the warnings those books contain

against encouraging the masses to “plunge” into kalām or engage in taʾwīl.86 This is

supplemented by a reference to al-Harawī’s compilation of the salaf’s prohibition of kalām,

84
See Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 4, 266-269.
85
Ibn Ḥamdān, Aḥmad b. Ḥamdān b. Shabīb, Nihāyat al-mubtadiʾīn fī uṣūl al-dīn, 22-23, 72. Ibn Ḥamdān, Aḥmad b.
Ḥamdān b. Shabīb, Ṣifat al-fatwā wa'l-muftī wa'l-mustaftī, ed. Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (Damascus: al-
Maktab al-Islāmī, 1380/1961), 51.
86
Ibid., 46-47, 50.
468
containing Mālik’s, al-Shāfiʿī’s, and Ibn Ḥanbal’s damning statements concerning its

practitioners.87 The synthesis of these two arguments, issuing from kalām and

devotionalist/traditionalist positions, respectively, thus demands a proper response. Thus a

distinction must also be made between what is appropriate and what is inappropriate for the

would-be orthodox mutakallim to do:

Blameworthy kalām (ʿilm al-kalām al-madhmūm) refers to matters of theology (uṣūl al-
dīn) if they are spoken about by intellect alone (bi’l-maʿqūl al-maḥḍ) or by [intellect]
opposing that which is explicitly transmitted (al-mukhālif li’l-manqūl al-ṣarīḥ). So if they
are spoken about with 1) transmission alone (bi’l-naql faqaṭ) or with 2) transmission and
intellect that agrees with it (al-ʿaql al-muwāfiq lahu), then this is [true] theology (fa-huwa
uṣūl al-dīn) and the ṭarīqat ahl al-sunna…88

The methods of reason are problematized here only when they oppose the contents of

revelation. Revelation having been established by the methods of naẓar, however, rationalism

per se cannot be considered problematic. Furthermore, the reason-based grounding of

revelation is what allows revelation to speak for itself – without taʾwīl – as an authentic

representation of Islamic theology. Such a position, indebted in its framework to the Ḥanbalī

mutakallimūn, was even defensible from an Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī point of view, as he tactfully pointed

out.

Ibn Ḥamdān’s approach is noteworthy because it seeks to minimize the tension

between the naẓar-based prerequisite to faith and the unmediated scriptural representation of

theology, the latter of which, as we know, was upheld alike by Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn and

Ḥanbalī kalām-rejectors in particular as unimpeachable sua generis speech of God. Yet the self-

87
Ibid., 48–9.
88
Ibid., 50.
469
sufficiency of revelation as basis of uṣūl al-dīn here actually highlights a premise of kalām-

rejectionism more vividly than would expect, in that it seemingly contradicts the above-stated

premise of naẓar as an absolute prerequisite to knowledge of God.

This is all the more evident when Ibn Ḥamdān states that knowledge (maʿrifa) of God is

attainable by revelation (al-sharʿ), or at least, upholds it as a strong position in the Ḥanbalī

school.89 Such a position which he felt a duty to transmit from early Ḥanbalī authorities,

regardless of his own methodological commitments, he knew to be untenable according to the

position of Abū Yaʿlā, Ibn ʿAqīl, and Ibn al-Jawzī, among others. But to argue that the

scriptural representation of theology did not suffice for proper Islamic belief was a difficult

position to argue, whether due to the well-known implications of that for the laypeople – or,

just as significantly, the Ḥanbalī scholarly ranks that did not practice kalām. Such internal

fissures within the framework of the Ḥanbalī madhhab would catch the notice of Ibn Taymīya.

9.2.1 The Influence of al-Ṣāliḥīya

As noted earlier, Ibn Taymīya often attended ḥadīth sessions in the circles of

transmitters found on al-Ṣāliḥīya, that living space established on Mt. Qāsyūn by the Banū

Qudāma and their relatives in the 6th/12th century, overlooking the walled city of Damascus.

This was a practice he began as a small child, and would continue throughout his lifetime. This

was also supplemented by the scholarship of that community, embodied for him personally

through Jamāl al-Dīn Ibn al-Ṣayrafī, Zayn al-Dīn Ibn al-Munajjā, and Shams al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma.

89
Ibn Ḥamdān, Aḥmad b. Ḥamdān b. Shabīb, Nihāyat al-mubtadiʾīn fī uṣūl al-dīn, 23.
470
 Through these scholars Ibn Taymīya supplemented the legal teachings of his father

with that the local Damascene Ḥanbalī tradition, at some point even composing a commentary

of Muwaffaq al-Dīn’s primer al-ʿUmda.90 He also was able to study uṣūl al-fiqh with Ibn al-

Munajjā and Shams al-Dīn in the tradition of al-Rāzī and al-Āmidī – two shining stars of late

classical Shāfiʿī Ashʿarism. As mentioned earlier, Ibn Qudāma himself had utilized the

framework of al-Ghazālī’s al-Mustaṣfā for his own theory of jurisprudence. Such an openness to

the best elements of the Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī jurisprudential tradition characterizes Ibn Taymīya’s

thought on the whole, albeit supplemented and even critiqued on the basis of the Baghdad

Ḥanbalī contribution to that scholarly discourse which he inherited from his father Shihāb al-

Dīn. In trying to explain why this openness was possible, we must remember that uṣūl al-fiqh,

as a discipline based on scriptural reasoning, supplemented with the fruits of linguistic theory,

fit perfectly within the age old framework of revelational prioritism dear to Sunnī scholarship.

If Ashʿarī scholars – even as theological opponents – were to be learned from, it was on the

basis of their scriptural reasoning – within the framework of ijtihād. This was nothing new

from the perspective of the Banū Taymīya’s scholarly tradition.

However, to the extent that Ibn Taymīya was exposed to the latest developments in

Ashʿarī jurisprudential theory by such Ḥanbalī scholars, it must have also been Ibn Taymīya’s

direct contract with the scholars of the Ṣāliḥīya tradition that exposed him to their living

tradition of Sufism as well as their uncompromising kalām rejectionism – the latter of which,

we must recall, went against the teachings of the Taymīya family’s scholarly legacy.

90
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 38.
471
One of the important avenues of influence was Shams al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma, whom we saw earlier

as a scholar of especially profound influence on Ibn Taymīya; indeed, Ibn Taymīya attended his

ḥadīth sessions as young as age 6.91 The nature of this influence should seriously be taken into

consideration:

First, it is worth noting that it is Shams al-Dīn who is in fact mentioned in a 10th/16th

century manuscript as the initiator of Ibn Taymīya into the ṭarīqa of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī, as has

long ago been described by Makdisi.92 Although we cannot know for sure whether this initiatic

chain is authentic, it is true that the legacy of ʿAbd al-Qādir, first teacher of Muwaffaq al-Dīn

Ibn Qudāma in Baghdad, is a mainstay of Ibn Taymīya’s discussions of Sufism. ʿAbd al-Qādir is

reoccuringly upheld in Ibn Taymīya’s writings as a prominent example of legitimate Sufi

practice, as well as the subject of a brief commentary.93

Shams al-Dīn was likely also the conduit of Muwaffaq al-Dīn’s critiques of the Sufi

ecstatic song rituals (samāʿ), which he wrote in contention with the Ibn al-Ḥanbalī family who

endorsed them;94 such a “sober” Sufism was also imparted to Ibn Taymīya, who likewise wrote

in condemnation of the practice.95 Ibn Taymīya is described in his youth as going to dhikr

sessions,96 likely in the community of piety established on Mt. Qāsyūn, the legendary meeting

place of saints.

91
Ibn Taymīya, Majmūʿ fatāwā Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad b. Taymīya, vol. 18, 95, 102.
92
George Makdisi, “V. The Hanbali School and Sufism,” in Religion, Law and Learning in Classical Islam
(Hampshire: Variorum, 1991); Originally published in: Boletin de la Asociacion Española de Orientalistas XV.
Madrid, 1979, 115-126, 122–3.
93
See Michel, “Ibn Taymiyya's Sharḥ on the Futūḥ al-ghayb of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī,”
94
Ibn Rajab, al-Dhayl ʿalā Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, vol. 3, 429.
95
Jean R. Michot, Musique et danse selon Ibn Taymiyya (Paris: J. Vrin, 1991).
96
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 9.
472
 The Sufism imparted to Ibn Taymīya, additionally, eschewed any Ashʿarī affiliation: As

we have seen in earlier chapters, various Ḥanbalī scholars, including Ibn Qudāma, quoted Sufis

in their polemics against the mutakallimūn. This kalām-rejectionist tradition of Sufism was

passed on to Ibn Taymīya; in one of his works, he approvingly quotes Muwaffaq al-Dīn’s

anecdote via Abū Ḥafṣ al-Suhrawardī of how ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī read the latter’s mind

(kāshafahu) to dissuade him from studying kalām.97 ʿAbd al-Qādir is also quoted with approval

that “there never was and never will be” a saint (walī) with a creed other than that of Aḥmad b.

Ḥanbal.98

Another Ḥanbalī Sufi of importance in the anti-kalām tradition of Sufism (as we have

seen earlier), was al-Harawī, who, it may be noted, is the only figure consistently called

“Shaykh al-Islām” by Ibn Taymīya in his works.99 It was likely in the library endowments of

Ṣāliḥīya that the latter was able to read al-Harawī’s Dhamm al-kalām in its entirety. Whenever

it was that Ibn Taymīya first accessed the work, he now had the opportunity to understand its

implications in a manner separate from the Ḥanbalī kalām tradition such as the one quoted

above in the work of Ibn Ḥamdān.

He was thus exposed to the historiography of kalām rejectionist Muslim scholars of

earlier generations. Other works likely accessed via the Ṣāliḥīya scholarly community were

books such as al-Ibāna by Ibn Baṭṭa, al-Radd ʿalā al-Marīsī by al-Dārimī, Kitāb khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād

97
Ibn Taymīya, al-Istiqāma, 2 vols., ed. Muḥammad Rashād Sālim (Medina: Jāmiʿat al-Imām Muḥammad ibn Saʿūd
al-Islāmīya, 1403 AH), vol. 1, 86-87.
98
Ibid., vol. 1, 85-86.
99
Ibn Taymīya’s future disciple Ibn al-Qayyim would eventually write a lengthy commentary on al-Harawī’s
Manāzil al-sāʾirīn.
473
by al-Bukhārī, and al-Sunna by ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal100 – none of which belied the

perception of a “legitimate kalām” by the earlier community.

That being said, it is nevertheless worth noting that Shams al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma, as

conduit of kalām-rejectionism may also have – due to his familiarity with the work and

personage of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī – imparted significant comments and critiques about the

contents of his works, even his theological ones.101 Similar comments about al-Rāzī’s work,

possibly could have come from Ibn al-Munajjā. The bold, complicated, and contradictory

nature of both al-Āmidī and al-Rāzī’s intellectual output was to be a mainstay of Ibn Taymīya’s

intellectual output, and we will look briefly at the other conduits of their thought to our young

Ḥanbalī scholar.

9.2.2 The Shāfiʿī-Ashʿarī Side of Things

The influence of al-Rāzī, besides its osmotic effect on the approach of al-Āmidī, was also

to be found in the figure of Sharaf al-Dīn al-Maqdisī and Ibn al-Muraḥḥil. Sharaf al-Dīn, as a

student of al-ʿIzz b. ʿAbd al-Salām, and a synthesizer of the work of al-Rāzī and al-Āmidī, had

an impeccable Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī pedigree, and was in a privileged position to expose Ibn Taymīya

to the most cutting-edge scholarly production of that school, both in jurisprudence and

theology. For this reason, it is all the more interesting that Ibn Taymīya found in him an

internal dissenter on theological premises:

Ibn Taymīya told al-Dhahabī personally that Sharaf al-Dīn confessed to him and his

students three days before his death, “Take witness that I have the same creed as (ʿalā ʿaqīdat)

100
These books were all utilized in the second chapter.
101
As we recall, his eulogy included praise of his knowledge of kalām.
474
Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.”102 This vivid instance of a Shāfiʿī scholar breaking with the ranks of

Ashʿarism, despite the enormous efforts of its historiographical tradition embodied in the

Banū ʿAsākir, was a living reminder of that inherent possibility for Muslim scholarship. This

anecdote is supplemented by al-Dhahabī’s own view that Sharaf al-Dīn was “Salafi in his

devotion” (salafī al-niḥla)103 – by which we can certainly understand that Sharaf al-Dīn’s

relationship to kalām or at least taʾwīl was not in conformity with the mainstream of the

Ashʿarī mutakallimūn. Al-Dhahabī, having had the opportunity to personally transmit ḥadīth

from him,104 ought to have known.

Al-Dhahabī, twelve years Ibn Taymīya’s junior, seems at some point to have been

influenced by his Ḥanbalī companion’s investigations into the nature of the Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī

orthodoxy, as theological and historiographical school. In his own writings, al-Dhahabī shows

an interest in documenting the scholarly activity of Shāfiʿī personages who fall outside of the

Ashʿarī scholarly genealogy outlined in the preceding chapters. Throughout all this, he

silently mediates between the two sides, mentioning both instances of brilliance or

shortcoming on the part of scholars on both sides of this genealogical divide. His comments

belie his lack of conviction for the Ashʿarī historical narrative, despite his undoubted respect

for its scholarly luminaries. Not belonging to a scholarly family, but the son of a prosperous

Damascene goldsmith of Turkmānī stock (the family emigrated during the time of Nūr al-Dīn

al-Zangī from Mayyāfāriqīn in Diyār Bakr),105 al-Dhahabī had only begun the path of

102
Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. 52, 206.
103
Ibid.
104
Ibid.
105
Muḥammad b. ʿAzzūz, Madrasat al-ḥadīth fī bilād al-Shām (Beirut: Dār al-Bashāʾir al-Islāmīya, 2000), 100-101, 106.
475
scholarship after meeting al-Birzālī,106 and was more cautious than Ibn Taymīya about treading

into contested scholarly territory.

Of those scholarly paths which – as far as we can tell – none of Ibn Taymīya’s earliest

intimates seem to have followed him is the topic of falsafa. The study of this topic began, he

tells us, at a young age:

At the beginning of my acquaintance (awāʾil maʿrifatī) with their doctrines, shortly after
reaching sexual maturity (baʿda bulūghī bi-qarīb), I had such a desire to seek knowledge
and get to the bottom of such matters, that I inevitably saw Ibn Sīnā in my dreams (fī
manāmī) and I would debate him … saying, “You claim that you are the intellectuals of
the world (ʿuqalāʾ al-ʿālam) and the smartest of the creation (adhkiyāʾ al-khalq), and you
believe these things that the stupidest people (aḍʿaf al-nās ʿaqlan) wouldn’t!”107

When looking at Ibn Taymīya’s teachers or associates to evaluate who could have

provided him with access to these works, the best candidate would have been Ibn al-Muraḥḥil,

whose teacher Ibn Khusrūshāhī was also an expert in falsafa. But for that matter, any of his

Ashʿarī teachers with the ability to teach him Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s more advanced works

would have provided him with the requisite knowledge to access Ibn Sīnā’s system of thought.

Falsafa, was, in some sense, forbidden knowledge: Al-Malik al-Ashraf had publicly

banned such sciences during his reign.108 Al-Āmidī had had to leave Egypt due to the negative

associations with it.109 Later historians tell us too that prominent Ḥanbalīs also had their

misgivings about Ibn Taymīya’s engagement with these disciplines.110

106
Ibid., 81.
107
Ibn Taymīya, Bayan talbīs al-Jahmīya fī taʾsīs bidaʿihim al-kalāmīya, 10 vols., ed. vars. (Medina: Majmaʿ al-Malik
Fahd li-Ṭibāʿat al-muṣhaf al-sharīf, 1426/2005), vol. 5, 262-263.
108
Pouzet, Damas au VIIe-XIIIe Siècle, 205.
109
See chapter six.
110
Caterina Bori, “Ibn Taymiyya wa-Jamāʿatuhu: Authority, Conflict, and Consensus in Ibn Taymiyya's Circle,” in
Rapoport; Ahmed, Ibn Taymiyya and his Times (see note 1728), 34.
476
 Its study was legitimated in an orthodox context from within a long-standing

methodological critique articulated by such Ashʿarī scholars as al-Juwaynī, al-Ghazālī, al-

Shahrastānī, al-Rāzī, and others. Through this vehicle, Ibn Taymīya gained the ability to read

Ibn Sīnā on his own, and even be exposed to the philosophical writings of authors with a

narrower reception, such as Abū’l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī.111 Ibn Taymīya also became acutely

aware of the implications of the famous literary debate between Ibn Sīnā and al-Ghazālī in the

latter’s Tahāfut al-falāsifa, and even the response to al-Ghazālī offered by that underappreciated

Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd in his Tahāfut al-tahāfut.112

Al-Rāzī, however, despite being one of the latest and greatest of these Ashʿarī critiques

of the falsafa system, had a multisidedness to him that evades simple categorization. His

works, in fact, reveal a clear fluctuation between advocating the Ashʿarī kalām he was raised

with and an embracal of the falsafa he had originally set out to disprove;113 at other times, al-

Rāzī’s work reveals clear intellectual skepticism.114 It is not improbable that it was such

contradictions in the Rāzian corpus which underlined Sharaf al-Dīn al-Maqdisī’s renunciation

of the kalām enterprise. Al-Rāzī’s scholarly output remained for Ibn Taymīya an indication of

both the undeniable brilliance and soul-wrenching confusion that kalām’s rationalist mandate

could bring about.

111
See Griffel, “Between al-Ghazālī and Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī: The Dialectical Turn in the Philosophy of Iraq
and Iran During the Sixth/Twelfth Century”
112
Ibn Taymīya, Darʾ taʿārud al-ʿaql wa'l-naql, vol. 10, 141 ff.
113
For a chronological overview of al-Rāzī’s works with emphasis given on this fluctuation, see Ayman Shihadeh,
The Teleological Ethics of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 6–11.
114
Ibid., 182 ff.
477
 Fundamental topics in kalām, such as its atomistic ontology, for example, had clearly

been problematized by al-Rāzī115 in a manner to have lasting influence on Ibn Taymīya’s view

of kalām as a whole. Although al-Rāzī’s view may have fluctuated on the issue, the critiques

made by falsafa of atomism’s shortcomings seem to have thoroughly convinced Ibn Taymīya;

any later discussion of the topic by the latter treats it as an obvious intellectual stumbling

block on the part of the mutakallimūn.116 Other topics, no less essential for the kalām proof of

God’s existence, were problematized by al-Rāzī’s probing mind in ways of lasting consequence

for Ibn Taymīya.117 If, Ibn Taymīya came to believe, objective truth was to be attained by

reason, it was not to be found within the particular framework of naẓar established by the

mutakallimūn. Kalām (Ashʿarī or otherwise) as normative communal basis for theological

“orthodoxy” was not tenable, neither in its historical particulars, nor its intellectual

framework.

Ibn Taymīya thus fully embraced the historical narrative of anti-kalām critics who

documented the rise of Jahmism, Muʿtazilism, and Ashʿarism as part of dangerous inroads of

“innovation” in Islamic theology – the classical genealogical critique of the ahl al-sunna. That

being said, he distinguished himself from many of his predecessors in that line of critique

through a more nuanced engagement with Ashʿarī scholarly tradition: Thus we find that the

heinous accusations leveled at Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī by Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī and subsequently

transmitted by Ḥanbalīs in Baghdad and Ḥarrān alike are dismissed by Ibn Taymaiya as the

115
See ibid., 183.
116
Ibn Taymīya’s assertion that it is rejected by “most intellectuals” (akthar al-ʿuqalāʾ) is typica; see Ibn Taymīya,
Darʾ taʿārud al-ʿaql wa'l-naql, vol. 3, 355.
117
See below.
478
promulgation of “Muʿtazilite slander;”118 the related accusation that Ibn Kullāb (al-Ashʿarī’s

predecessor) had been a dissimulating crypto-Christian, is likewise dismissed by Ibn Taymīya

as baseless.119 The almost conspiratorial view of Ashʿarism’s eponym held by al-Harawī and

Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāma, two of Ibn Taymīya’s most important scholarly inspirations, was

thus counteracted by an independent reassessment of his scholarly legacy.

But as his independent investigations of kalām went on, Ibn Taymīya naturally turned

his eye to the Ḥanbalī kalām tradition as well – the tradition inherited from his father Shihāb

al-Dīn and famous grandfather Majd al-Dīn. The implications of his investigations naturally

pointed to its essential indebtedness to Ashʿarism’s intellectual genealogy as well. He could

not look at Ashʿarīs as advocates of innovated doctrine without doing the same for the

mutakallimūn of the Ḥanbalī school as well:

Myself and others used to have the beliefs of our fathers (kunnā ʿalā madhhab al-ābāʾ) …
taking the position of people of innovation (ahl al-bidaʿ). But when it became clear to us
what the Prophet came with, it came down to either following what God had revealed
or following what we found our fathers believing. It was therefore necessary to follow
the first and not be like those about whom it was said: “If it is said to them follow what
God has revealed they say: No, rather we will follow what we found our fathers
believing.” (Q Luqmān 31:21)120

In this light, it is worth noting that if Ibn Taymīya’s general critique of kalām was in

accordance with the traditionalist sentiment of the scholarship of al-Ṣāliḥīya, the ultimate

118
Ibn Taymīya, Sharḥ ḥadīth al-nuzūl, ed. al-Khamīs, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (Riyadh: Dār al-ʿAṣima,
1414/1993), 434.
119
Ibid., 433. For the Muʿtazilite accusation of Ibn Kullāb as such, see Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-fihrist, vol. 1, part 2,
645-646.
120
Ibn Taymīya, “Risāla fī'l-ṣifāt al-ikhtiyārīya,” in Jāmiʿ al-rasāʾil, ed. Muḥammad R. Sālim, 2 vols., 2–70 (Cairo: Dār
al-Madanī, 1405/1984), vol. 2, 56. This Ḥanbalī backdrop is the proper context of this citation, which Jon Hoover
has interpreted differently, see Jon Hoover, “God Acts by His Will and Power: Ibn Taymiyya's Theology of a
Personal God in his Treatise on the Voluntary Attributes,” in Rapoport; Ahmed, Ibn Taymiyya and his Times
(see note 1738), 71.
479
conclusions would put him at odds with important elements of Ḥanbalī scholarship. This may

be one of the reasons, though certainly not the only one, why Ibn Taymīya’s circle of associates

and students was not composed primarily of Ḥanbalīs, a fact pointed out by Bori in a recent

article.121 Despite Ibn Taymīya’s clear indebtedness to many schools of thought, a fact he

himself never ceased of pointing out, in some matters he clearly walked alone.

9.2.3 Conclusion

In what has preceded we have seen an overview of how disparate scholarly genealogies

came together in the personage of Ibn Taymīya. They help us to properly contextualize his

thought within the dominant paradigms of Islamic scholarship whose methodological and

historiographical development we have outlined in previous chapters. Situating Ibn Taymīya

within these scholarly discourses of Islam present in early Mamluk Damascus helps us to better

contextualize the basis from which his own contribution to Islamic thought is derived,

particularly with an eye toward the longstanding dialectic of scripturalism and rationalism

embodied in the later Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī scholarly classes. These two, as we have seen, can

also be analysed on the basis of internal difference among them.

Taking the Ḥanbalī school first, we have already located the two disparate trends

dominant dominant in Baghdad and Damascene Ḥanbalism. The former of these, heavily

indebted to the kalām tradition of that school, was passed on to Ibn Taymīya through his

father, who first exposed him to the rationalist mandate of naẓar. The latter of the two, ie., the

Damascene tradition of Ḥanbalism, embodied in the tradition of al-Ṣāliḥīya head by the Banū

121
Caterina Bori, “Ibn Taymiyya wa-Jamāʿatuhu: Authority, Conflict, and Consensus in Ibn Taymiyya's Circle,” in
Rapoport; Ahmed, Ibn Taymiyya and his Times (see note 1728), 30 ff…
480
Qudāma, was flatly kalām rejectionist. Shams al-Dīn b. Qudāma, the most prominent

representative of this school in Ibn Taymīya’s time, was also a conduit of a genealogy of Sufism

that maintained a calculated distance from kalām and its advocates. Ibn Taymīya’s departure

from “the beliefs of the fathers” are in no small part a product of the Banū Qudāma’s call to

“the way of the salaf” in matters of theology.

Both of these Ḥanbalisms were fully situated in the uṣūl al-fiqh discourse of their times;

but it should be pointed out that paradoxically the latter was more fully receptive to the

Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī tradition’s contribution to that subject than their theological outlook might

predispose them to be. Ibn Taymīya’s scholarly outlook, undeniably altered and convinced by

the Damascene Ḥanbalī worldview in his own kalām rejectionism, also displays their

characteristic tendency to strip theology of all “innovated” dimensions, while evaluating

jurisprudential sciences by another standard – an implicit recognition of the legitmacy of

“scriptural reasoning” with all its auxiliary sciences. In this light, it must be acknowledged,

before we review the nature of Shāfiʿī influence on Ibn Taymīya, that Ibn Taymīya’s

Damascene Ḥanbalī teachers were in fact his first conduits to the fruits of that school, via the

uṣūl al-fiqh of al-Rāzī and al-Āmidī.

This brings us to the living influence of Shāfiʿī thought on Ibn Taymīya. This took place

through the presence of Shāfiʿī teachers within the walled city of Damascus who also reveal

diverging scholarly paths in the scholarly conceptions of that school. Al-Firkāḥ, Ibn al-

Muraḥḥil, Sharaf al-Dīn al-Maqdisī, and together imparted to Ibn Taymīya the legacies of al-

ʿIzz b. ʿAbd al-Salām, al-Rāzī, and al-Āmidī – the premiere theorists of theology and

jurisprudence of that time – in fact, archetypal for later Muslim thought as a whole since then.

481
Nevertheless, if Ibn al-Firkāḥ represented a mainstream Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī scholarly pedigree and

outlook, the latter two of these scholars (Sharaf al-Dīn and Ibn al-Muraḥḥil) represent two no

less possible diverging paths: The former, Ibn al-Muraḥḥil, represented the trajectory of the

avantgarde wing of Ashʿarī Shāfiʿism, embodied in the thought of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, a bold

scholar who combined kalām and falsafa together in an unprecedented manner – often to not

so “orthodox” effects. The latter, Sharaf al-Dīn al-Maqdisī, also part of this living Ashʿarī-

Shāfiʿī tradition, however, represented the always possible path of internal dissent – rejecting

the kalām based orthodoxy for a salaf-inspired fideism similar to that of Ibn Taymīya’s

Damascene Ḥanbalī teachers. This dissent, as pointed out earlier, was also communicated to

Ibn Taymīya’s friend al-Dhahabī, but also his Shāfiʿī colleagues al-Birzālī and al-Mizzī, who, as

pointed out before, frequented the circles of ḥadīth narration in al-Ṣāliḥīya with him.

Although the preceding outline of influences is tendentious in that it necessarily

assumes and looks for the points of controversy which would come together in the person of

Ibn Taymīya, it is nevertheless informative for the purposes of this study in that it identifies

those points of contact or influence which would form Ibn Taymīya’s most impactful scholarly

theses. It also allows us to appreciate that certain better-known components of Ibn Taymīya’s

thought – such as kalām rejectionism and defense of sober Sufism – have a longer history

which must be taken more fully into account when assessing his unique profile. Other aspects

which have come to light more recently (through the work of Jon Hoover in particular), which

emphasize his philosophical contributions, are likewise explained in a more concrete fashion

which does not treat them as a particular idiosyncracy; rather, these can be explained

historically as the encounter of his Ḥanbalī kalām training with the more avantgarde elements

482
of Ashʿarī scholarship. The fact that neither of these latter influences are perfectly situated in

the commonly known periodizations or historiographical approaches to Islamic thought,

highlights the significance of the preceding chapters for explaining the historical and

philosophical underpinnings of Ibn Taymīya’s primary scholarly contributions.

9.3 Ibn Taymīya’s Emergence into the Spotlight: al-Fatwā al-Ḥamawīya

This section deals with Ibn Taymīya’s first public controversy, the consequences of

which were to lead to a trial entailing examination by his scholarly peers and eventual

imprisonment. The theological treatise, the so-called al-Fatwā al-Ḥamawīya, which sparked this

controversy has not been examined in the scholarship on Ibn Taymīya thus far; we will have

an unprecedented opportunity to examine it and situate it in the scholarly discourses which

we have traced out up to this point. As a “public text,” it helps us to understand the nature by

which Ibn Taymīya first gained notoriety in his own times, and the profile which he took on.

Additionally, it provides us an important window into the unique contributions which he

advanced in the Damascene scholarly milieu.

Written in 698/1298-99 in response to a questioner from the city of Ḥamā in northern

Syria,122 he wrote his famous response on account of which “affairs and tribulations (miḥan)”

happened, as its manuscript’s scribe tells us.123 The fact that Ibn Taymīya’s opinion was sought

from outside of Damascus noteworthy since it gives an indication the scholarly prominence he

122
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 162. Caterina Bori, “A New Source
for the Biography of Ibn Taymiyya,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 67, no. 3 (2004), 321–48: 344.
Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Les intermédiaires entre Dieu et l'Homme (Risâlat al-wāsiṭa bayna l-khalq wa'l-ḥaqq), 22.
123
Ibn Taymīya, al-Fatwā al-ḥamawīya al-kubrā, ed. Ḥamad b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Tuwayjirī (Riyadh: Dār al-Ṣumayʿī,
1998), 175.
483
had reached at that time, despite his relatively young age (approximately 37 years old).

Indeed, his al-ʿAqīda al-wāsiṭīya, written in the same year, was written for readers as far away as

al-Wāsiṭ in Iraq.124 Since his scholarly debut, Ibn Taymīya’s teacher Zayn al-Dīn Ibn al-Munajjā

had died, leaving vacant the chair of the Ḥanbalīya madrasa on Mt. Qāsyūn – the first Ḥanbalī

institution of Damascus built by Abū’l-Faraj al-Shīrāzī, the progenitor of the Ibn al-Ḥanbalī

family. This position Ibn Taymīya took on in addition to his teaching in the city walls.125 From

an immigrant to public face of Ḥanbalism on the mountain and the city; he would have seemed

to become Damascus’ most likely inheritor of the Banū Qudāma’s scholarly mantle.

The question, itself significant, is a request for Ibn Taymīya to explain the proper

scholarly position on Qurʾānic verses such as: “The Most Merciful established Himself on

(istawā ʿalā) the Throne” (Q Tāhā 20:5) and “other verses and Prophetic narrations containing

descriptions of God” (aḥādīth al-ṣifāt).”126

The posing of this question merits our attention since it reflects that these questions

were not settled in the mind or even social context of the questioner, but demanded

clarification. Which is to say, that although the theological disputes prior to the pre-Mongol

invasion had dissipated from the social sphere, the questions that they centered on remained

alive. That being said, it is quite probable that Ibn Taymīya’s response, reportedly written

between noon and midday prayers, imparted much more information than had been

anticipated, reflecting in fact a summary of much of his own scholarly investigations into the

topic over the previous two decades.

124
Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Les intermédiaires entre Dieu et l'Homme (Risâlat al-wāsiṭa bayna l-khalq wa'l-ḥaqq), 22.
125
He began instruction there on 17 Shaʿbān 695/June 20, 1296; see ibid.
126
Ibn Taymīya, al-Fatwā al-ḥamawīya al-kubrā, 175–6.
484
9.3.1 Al-Fatwā al-Ḥamawīya: Introduction:

This fatwa cannot be completely comprehensive on this topic; we are only giving an
indication to the first principles of things (mabādiʾ al-umūr); the intelligent person (al-
ʿāqil) can go and look for himself. – Ibn Taymīya 127

Ibn Taymīya responds to the questioner that his scholarly position (qawl) is the same as

that of the Prophet, and the earliest Muslims of the Emigrants and Helpers, and that of “the

imams of guidance” after them, about whom the Muslims have consensus of their guidance

and knowledge hidāya and dirāya. Following such a position is mandatory (wājib) for every

Muslim, not just in this topic, but everything else.128

Immediately we perceive that this response could not have issued from an Ashʿarī

mutakallim, since the methodology of taʾwīl within that paradigm is implicitly understood as a

necessary practice of later scholarship that distinguishes itself from that of the salaf. Ibn

Taymīya’s presentation instead upholds, like Ibn Qudāma in Taḥrīm al-naẓar, the precedence

and priority of the earliest generations in knowing what was intended by the revelation: God,

having sent the Prophet Muḥammad “as a light from the darknesses” commanded him to say

in the Qurʾān:

Say: This is my path; I am calling to God – with knowing insight (ʿalā baṣīra) – I am, and
those who follow me.” (Q Yūsuf 12:108).129

This “knowing insight,” however, is translated into terms that a mutakallim can

understand: If the Prophet came with complete knowledge of his religion, than “it is

impossible (muḥāl) rationally and religiously (fī’l-ʿaql wa’l-dīn)” for such a guide described in

127
Ibid., 252.
128
Ibid., 177.
129
Ibid.
485
this manner by God,130 to have left the topic of belief in God unclear “without explaining what

has necessary, possible, or impossible” in relationship to God.131 This tri-partite categorization

of what is rationally necessary, possible, impossible, comes from the terminology of kalām –

describing what is solely within the prerogative of the intellect to know, and not scripture, as

we have seen above.132 Ibn Taymīya argues that if such knowledge is necessary for proper

belief, than it is necessary that it have been laid out by the Prophet himself, and not derived

only by subsequent generations. If the Prophet taught his followers all manner of things of

benefit to them, including toiletry, he goes on to say, then how could this exclude the

knowledge of God, which is the basis of religion in its entirety?133 He quotes statements of

Companions to illustrate this matter:

Abū Dharr has said, “When the Prophet (ṣ) died, there was not a bird flapping its wings
in the sky about which he had not mentioned some kind of knowledge.

ʿUmar said, “The Prophet (ṣ) stood among us and mentioned to us the beginning of
creation up to when the people of Paradise and the people of the Fire enter their final
abodes – whoever remembers what he said has remembered, and whoever forgot,
forgot.”134

At this point Ibn Taymīya’s argumentation resembles Ibn Qudāma’s once more: To deny

this is to face two other options: Either the earliest generations of Muslims 1) did not know

correct theological doctrine, or 2) they did not talk about it clearly and truthfully. Both

options are rejected. 135 In contrast, Ibn Taymīya berates those “idiots” who think that later

130
With reference as well to Q 2:213, Q 4:59, Q 5:3.
131
Ibid., 177–8.
132
In fact, the argumentation here is evocative of elements of al-Ashʿarī’s Ḥathth as well as al-Qushayrī’s Shikāya,
both of which say that the Prophet taught elements of kalām to his followers.
133
Ibid., 178, 181-182.
134
Ibid., 180–1.
135
Ibid., 182–3.
486
generations (al-khalaf) are more knowledgeable than the earliest ones (al-salaf), embodied in

their saying, “The way of the predecessors is safer, and the way of the later generations is

more knowledgeable and precise” (ṭarīqat al-salaf aslam, wa-ṭarīqat al-khalaf aʿlam wa-aḥkam).”

These people not only show disregard for the salaf, but “they have not known God and His

messenger and those who believe in Him, in the true knowledge (ḥaqīqat al-maʿrifa) which they

were commanded to have.”136 True knowledge of God and the Prophet, characterized by Ibn

Taymīya in terms of Sufi connotation, has ramifications for the understanding of the early

community’s role.

To make this more concrete: What Ibn Taymīya is critiquing here is the image of the

salaf created by the methods of kalām; acknowledging on their part that the earlier generations

did not do taʾwīl, the mutakallimūn entertains the notion that “the way of the salaf” was

summed up in mere belief in the utterances (mujarrad al-īmān bi-alfāẓ) of the Qurʾān and ḥadīth

without interpretation of their meanings. This Ibn Taymīya perceives to be a state comparable

to illiterates described in the Qurʾān as follows:

And among them are unlettered ones who do not know the Scripture except as
recitation, only making assumptions. (Q al-Baqara 2:78)

In contrast, the “way of the latter generation (al-khalaf) is to “extract the meanings of the texts

removed from their actual content, by various types of metaphor and lexical oddities”137 – a

polemical description of taʾwīl.

136
Ibid., 185–7.
137
Ibid., 188.
487
 Such a view could have been advanced by Ibn Qudāma himself. However, Ibn Taymīya

adds another component to the critique not found in the work of his Ḥanbalī predecessors,

which reflects a more intimate with the kalām tradition as a whole. The reason for the current

state of affairs, Ibn Taymīya argues, is that proponents of such a view do not believe that there

is “in and of itself” (fī nafs al-amr), anything in religious texts which indicates an attribute of

God.”138 This goes even further than most critiques of taʾwīl we have seen, in that it cuts right

at the heart of the “rule of interpretation” upheld by the mutakallimūn based on the

methodological priority of naẓar for the establishment of theological doctrine before the

readings of texts. Without undertaking the process of naẓar at the basis of kalām—based

knowledge of God, the texts’ normative theological content cannot be known.

As Ibn Taymīya no doubt knew, and was implicitly referring to, this hermeneutical

principle was upheld in al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs al-taqdīs,139 and was the basis upon which the latter

characterized the view of the salaf as based on belief in scripture while consigning its meaning

(tafwīḍ) to God.140 In highly polemical language, Ibn Taymīya faults “invalid misconceptions”

(al-shubuhāt al-fāsida) similar to beliefs of “their brothers from the disbelievers.” The imputed

similarity to disbelief is that the beliefs of these interlocutors do not allow them to view

scripture as a source for knowledge of God’s attributes. Affirming the texts, but not their

meaning:

“they remained between 1) believing in the expression and consigning their meanings
[to God] which is what they call the way of the salaf, and between 2) turning the

138
Ibid., 189.
139
Al-Rāzī, Taʾsīs al-taqdīs, 227–8.
140
Ibid., 220. Compare this to Ibn Taymīya, al-Fatwā al-ḥamawīya al-kubrā, 189.
488
 expression towards [other] meanings with exaggerated effort (bi-nawʿ takalluf) – which
is what they call the way of the khalaf.141

The problem, in Ibn Taymīya’s summary, is “incorrect rational [premises] and disbelief

in revelation” (fasād al-ʿaql wa’l-kufr bi’l-samʿ), or in other words, reliance on “intellectual

matters which they thought to be clear, but were falsehoods (umūr ʿaqlīya ẓannūhā bayyināt, wa-

hiya shubuhāt),” and “corrupting speech [in scripture] from its proper bases (ḥarrafū fīhi al-

kalām ʿan mawāḍiʿihā).”142 This argumentation, in a nutshell, informs all of Ibn Taymīya’s

theological disputations – a critique that his opponents’ positions is both rationally and

scripturally invalid – a standard embodying the highest aims of both rationalists and fideists

alike. As we shall see, it is this honoring of revelation and reason without opposition between

the two which, to Ibn Taymīya, is “the way of the salaf” which every Muslim is bound to

uphold.

We can look at this setting apart of the salaf and khalaf (viz. the mutakallimūn) as the

revisiting of an older dispute which al-Shāfiʿī engaged in on the source of the ʿilm al-khāṣṣa –

specialized interpretive knowledge not known to every living Muslim in the world. In al-

Shāfiʿī’s time this source was either the sunna or the consensus of an arbitrarily defined group

– as regards to matters of law. In this latterday dispute, on matters of theology, expertise is

given either to the pre-kalām predecessors or to the kalām-practicing successors.

The predecessors, Ibn Taymīya has argued, received theological teachings directly from

their source, namely the Prophet (viz. a revelational source), whereas the successors received

their theological teachings from an external source (kalām, with unIslamic origins). To uphold

141
Ibid.
142
Referencing Q al-Nisāʾ 4:46, see ibid., 189–90.
489
the khalaf as superior in matters of theology, Ibn Taymīya argues, is an implicit accusation of

the predecessors to be ignorant and illiterate, much like righteous laypeople (al-ṣāliḥīn min al-

ʿāmma) whose knowledge of the divine was not profound or subtle.143 But this would belie

their proximity to the prophetic source of their knowledge.

Where Ibn Qudāma would have sufficed at merely reminding the reader of the salaf’s

proximity to the prophetic era to refute this, for Ibn Taymīya, the proof of the relative merit of

these two camps is to be found in their spiritual fruits, which he also couches in Sufi concepts

of experiential knowledge of the divine in order to highlight the existential nature of the

problem: The spiritual reason why the mutakallimūn’s vision must be rejected as “the utmost

ignorance and misguidance” is because the group the salaf are juxtaposed with – namely, “a

group among the mutakallimūn” – “are those who have been subject to much irregularity in

their approach to religion and whose veil (ḥijābuhum) from knowledge of God (maʿrifat Allāh) is

thick.”144 He then proves his point by quoting authorities of kalām in order to demonstrate

their spiritual woes, with the following lines of poetry:

By my life, I’ve frequented every learning institution, and let my eyes survey their
landmarks
But naught did I see except confused men resting chins in palm or biting fists in
regret.145

And also from “one of their leaders” (baʿḍ ruʾasāʾihim):

Entanglement, the acme of mind’s pursuit,

Most human endeavour is but straying;
Our souls are estranged from our bodies,

143
Ibid., 190.
144
Ibid., 191.
145
“La-ʿamrī laqad ṭuftu al-maʿāhida kullahā – wa-sayyartu ṭarfī bayna tilka al-maʿālimī Fa-lam ara illā wāḍiʿan kaffa
ḥāʾirin - ʿalā dhaqanin aw-qāriʿan sinna nādimī.” This is taken from al-Shahrastānī’s Nihāyat al-iqdām; see editor’s
note, ibid., 191 n. 5.
490
 The yield of our world, but harms and bane;
All we’ve gained from a lifelong research,
Is but collecting quotations and sayings.146

I have pondered the ways of kalām and the methods of philosophy, and I did not find
them cure sickness or quench thirst, rather I found that the closest path [to the truth]
was the way of the Qurʾān. I read for affirmation (ithbāt) “The Most Merciful
established Himself on the Throne” (Q Tāhā 20:5) and “To Him rises the goodly word” (Q
Fāṭir 35:10) and I read for negation (nafī): “There is nothing like unto Him, yet He is the
All-Seeing, All-Hearing” (Q Shūrā 42:11) and “They do not encompass Him with [their]
knowledge” Q Ṭāhā 20:110). And whoever has experienced the likes of what I have
experienced, will know what I know.”147

And:
“I have plunged into the vast ocean and left behind the people of Islam and their
sciences, and I plunged into that which they forbade me from, and now, If God does not
set me aright with mercy from Him, then woe is me, and here I am dying, with the same
creed as my dear [unlearned] mother.”148

These three unattributed quotes,149 which belong to al-Shahrastānī, al-Rāzī, and al-

Juwaynī respectively, represent within Ibn Taymīya’s representation the types of doubts that

plagued kalām practitioners, who therefore cannot be considered superior to the salaf, who

followed the Prophet and were mentioned in the Qurʾān. The latter, who are “the inheritors of

the Qurʾān,” cannot be compared to those representatives of the khalaf who are “spring

chickens (afrākh) of the pseudo-philosophers (mutafalsifa), followers of the Hindus and

Greeks, inheritors of the Magians, and those among the Jews, Christians, and Sabians who are

146
ibid., 192. The verse is by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzītranslation is by Shihadeh; Shihadeh, The Teleological Ethics of
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, 197. The verse continues:
“Many a man and dynasty have we seen,
That all quickly perished and expired;
Many a mountaintop was surmounted,
By men, who perished, yet the mountains remain.”
147
Ibn Taymīya, al-Fatwā al-ḥamawīya al-kubrā, 193. See Shihadeh, The Teleological Ethics of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, 187–
8.
148
Ibn Taymīya, al-Fatwā al-ḥamawīya al-kubrā, 194. This is attributed to al-Juwaynī in mainstream Shāfiʿī sources,
see editors note in ibid., 194 n.2.
149
They are attributed by name in other writings of Ibn Taymīya.
491
astray.”150 The metaphor of inheritance is undoubtedly a use of the classical genealogical

critique of “innovation;” however, it is being used by Ibn Taymīya to highlight the

shortcomings of kalām’s methods: were the historical source of kalām truly Islamic, it would

not have led to doubt. Ibn Taymīya concludes:

I only put this introduction first, because whoever finds certainty in this premise
knows the path to guidance, and where it is to be found in this topic and elsewhere.151

Beginning of Inquiry into the Sources:

That being said, Ibn Taymīya begins his review of the sources:

The Qurʾān and the Sunna of the Prophet from beginning to finish, and the words of
the Companions and Successors, and the words of the majority of the imams are filled
with that which is either explicit (naṣṣ) or apparent (ẓāhir) to the meaning that God is
above (fawq) all things and elevated (ʿalī) above all things, that He is above (fawq) the
Throne, and that He is above (fawq) the heavens.152

Qurʾānic Sources:

“To Him rises the goodly word and He raises up the righteous deed” (Q Fāṭir 35:10)

“I will take you and raise you up to Me” (Q Āl ʿImrān 3:55)153

“Do ye feel secure that He Who is in Heaven will not cause you to be swallowed up by the earth
when it shakes? Or do ye feel secure that He Who is in Heaven will not send against you
showers of stones?” (Q al-Mulk 67:16-17)

“Nay, He raised him154 up to Himself” (Q al-Nisāʾ 4:158)

“The Angels and the Spirit ascend up to Him” (Q al-Maʿārij 70:4)

“He rules (all) affairs from the heavens to the earth: in the end will (all affairs) go up to Him” (Q
al-Sajda 32:5)

150
Ibid., 198–200.
151
Ibid., 201.
152
Ibid.
153
Addressing Jesus.
154
Referring to Jesus.
492
“They all fear their Lord, above them” (Q al-Naḥl 16:50)

“Then He established Himself on the Throne” (Q Yūnus 10:3, Q al-Aʿrāf 7:54, Q al-Raʿd 13:2, Q al-
Furqān 25:59, Q al-Sajda 32:4)

“The Most Merciful established Himself on the Throne” (Q Tāhā 20:5)

“O Haman, build for me a lofty building perchance I may reach the means of the heavens so
that I can reach the god of Moses; I truly think he is lying” (Q Ghāfir 40:36-27)

“It is sent down (tanzīl) by One Full of Wisdom, Worthy of all Praise” (Q Fuṣṣilat 41:42)

“Sent down from your Lord” [Q al-Anʿām 6:114]155

Ḥadīth Sources:

An “uncountable number of ṣaḥīḥ and ḥasan ḥadīth”156 as well:

1. The narrations of Miʿrāj of the Prophet (ṣ) to his Lord157

2. The narrations of angels ascending and descending to and from God.158
3. The ṣaḥīḥ ḥadīth al-khawārij where the Prophet (ṣ) said, “I am the trustee of the one who
is in Heaven (ana amīn man fī’l-samāʾ).”159
4. The ḥadīth al-ruqya where it is said “”Our Lord, Allāh, who is in Heaven (fī’l-samāʾ), may
your name be exalted.”160
5. The ḥadīth al-awʿāl where it is said, “The Throne is above that, and God is above His
Throne, and He knows your state.”161
6. The ṣaḥīḥ ḥadīth where the Prophet asks the slave-girl, “Where is God?” and she replies
“In Heaven (fī’l-samāʾ).” Then he asks her, “Who am I?’ She says, “The Prophet of God.”
He replies, “Free her, for she truly is a believer.”162

155
“And many others which would take more effort to produce;” ibid., 201–2.
156
Ibid., 202.
157
Ibid., 203.
158
Ibid.
159
Ibid., 204.
160
Ibid., 204–6.
161
A ḥadīth which describes the throne as being above awʿāl, massive angels in the form of rams. This ḥadīth, Ibn
Taymīya points out, is narrated in the sunan of Abī Dāwūd, Ibn Māja, al-Tirmidhī and the K. al-Tawḥīd by Ibn
Khuzayma in which the author stipulated that each narrator be ʿadl in the chain. He acknowledges that there is a
dispute by the scholars on its authenticity despite its narration; he himself says that one of the two chains of
transmission is stronger than the other one; ibid., 207–9. See the editors compilation of the numerous books in
which this was narrated, the various scholars who thought it was weak or sound, and Ibn Taymīya’s judgement
that it was ḥasan; ibid., 209, n. 3.
162
Ibid., 211.
493
 7. The ṣaḥīḥ ḥadīth where the Prophet says, “Indeed, when God created the creation He
wrote in a book put with him above the Throne (ʿindahu fawq al-ʿarsh), “Verily My
mercy overtakes My anger.”163
8. The ḥadīth about the taking of the soul from the deceased, “Until he takes it up to the
Heaven where God is (al-samāʾ allatī fīhā Allāh);” Ibn Taymīya says this ḥadīth’s
soundness is in accordance with the conditions of the Ṣaḥīḥayn.164
9. The poetic verse by the Companion ʿAbd Allāh b. Rawāḥa which he recited to the
Prophet (ṣ):
I testify that God’s promise is the truth
Shahidtu bi-anna waʿd Allāhi ḥaqqun
and that the Fire is the final abode of the Disbelievers
wa-anna al-nāra mathwā al-kāfirīna
And that the Throne is floating above the water –
Wa-anna al–ʿarsha fawqa al-māʾi ṭāfin
and that above the Throne (fawq al-ʿarsh) is the Lord of the Worlds
wa-fawqa al-ʿarshi rabbu’l–ʿālamīna165

10. The verse by Umayya b. Abī’l-Ṣalt al-Thaqafī which the Prophet approved of:

Glorify God for He is worthy of Glory

This evening our Lord in Heaven (fī’l-samāʾ) is (most) great
With the elevated edifice which preceded humans
He smoothed out a couch above the sky (wa-sawwā fawqa al-samāʾi sarīran)
Exalted, the eyes’ vision does not capture Him
He sees below Him the Angels peering (Yarā dūnahu al-malāʾikata ṣūrā).166

11. The ḥadīth narrated in the books of sunan that describe God not turning away those
who raise up their hands to Him/to the sky.167

Ibn Taymīya asserts that this is universal knowledge, being:

The most extensive of explicit and semantically mutually corroborating transmitted

matters168 (ablagh al-mutawātirāt al-lafẓīya wa’l-maʿnawīya) which bestow certain
knowledge (ʿilman yaqīnīyan) in one of the most necessarily known things one can know
(min ablagh al-ʿulūm al-ḍarūrīya):

163
Ibid., 212.
164
Ibid., 213.
165
Ibid., 214.
166
Ibid., 215–6.
167
Ibid., 217–8.
168
Ibn Taymīya is referring here to a concept also invoked by Ibn Qudāma of al-tawātur al-maʿnawī – where the
“meaning” is corroborated by many reports, even if the same narration is not found in many iterations; see
chapter eight.
494
 Namely; that the Prophet (ṣ) who conveyed [messages] from God, told his umma who
were being called [to faith] that God the Exalted is above the Throne (fawq al-ʿarsh) and
above the Sky (fawq al-samāʾ), just as God as created all of the nations (jamīʿ al-umam) to
intrinsically believe (faṭara … ʿalā dhālik), whether Arabs or non-Arabs, in Jāhilīya or in
Islam – except for those whom the devil’s minions have taken away from their natural
constitution (fiṭra).169

This compounds a point which Ibn Taymīya makes later in the fatwa, as well as other works;

namely, that the affirmation of such attributes for God is a common heritage of prophetic

religion found in all nations, and not the particular thesis of a school of Islam. All the more

reason why, given “hundreds or thousands of such narrations from the salaf,”170 “not a single

word” in the Qurʾān, sunna, or early Muslim’s sayings, whether explicitly or apparently,

contradicts this.171

Not one said, for example, that God wasn’t in Heaven (fī’l-samāʾ), nor what he wasn’t on

the Throne (ʿalā al-ʿarsh) – nor did they say that He was in every place, or that all places are

equal in relationship to him, or that God was both neither inside (dākhil) nor outside (khārij)

the world, and both neither connected (muttaṣil) or disconnected (munfaṣil), nor that it was

not permissible to point to Him with one’s finger with a sensible indication (al-ishāra al-

ḥissīya).172 This assembly of kalām inspired statements in fact summarize the Ashʿarī creedal

articulation since al-Juwaynī up to al-Rāzī at the very beginning of his Taʾsīs al-taqdīs.173 Ibn

Taymīya states that many narrations go against the last point here, not least of which is the

narration of the Prophet’s final pilgrimage when he asked the believers whether not he had

169
Ibid., 218–9.
170
Ibid., 219.
171
Ibid., 220.
172
Ibid., 220–1.
173
Al-Rāzī, Taʾsīs al-taqdīs, 46 ff.
495
conveyed the message and when they affirmed it, “the Prophet raised his finger up to the sky

and then inclined it down to them and said ‘O God, bear witness.’”174

9.3.2 The Recasting of the Genealogical Critique:

If divine attributes are established scripturally without indication to the contrary from

prophetic sources, the following question emerges: If those who deny divine attributes (al-

sālibūn al-nāfūn li’l-ṣifāt) are correct, and not that theological content which is established in

scripture, whether explicitly or apparently, (naṣṣan/ẓāhiran) – then how can God (kayfa yajūz

ʿalā Allāh) and His Prophet (ṣ), and the best people of the umma speak in contradiction of, and

in omission of the truth? The lack of a scriptural basis for correct faith would point to a

critical void left empty “until the Persianized Nabateans, Romans, latter-day Jews, and

philosophers (al-falāsifa) came along to explain the correct belief mandatory for those with

religious responsibility (yajib ʿalā kulli mukallaf).”175

In fact, if what these mutakallimūn adhere to is mandatory for people to believe, and
they are dependent in that regard on their mere intellects (mujarrad ʿuqūlihim) and
denying that which the Book and sunna indicate either explicitly or apparently – then
on that premise, leaving the people without a Book or sunna would have been more
guiding and useful (ahdā/anfaʿ) for them; in fact, the existence of the Qurʾān and the
sunna would be pure harm to the foundation of religion (ḍararan maḥdan fī aṣl al-dīn).176

The idea that the scriptural contents, if useless as vehicles of theological truth or

contrary to its premises, would consequently be harmful for humanity, also reveals Ibn

Taymīya’s concern to address the thesis of the falāsifa who believe that the “noble lie” of

religious scriptures is for the benefit of humanity; a notion appealing to not a few of the

174
Ibn Taymīya, al-Fatwā al-ḥamawīya al-kubrā, 221.
175
Ibid., 222–3.
176
Ibid., 223, cf. 229.
496
mutakallimūn, whether Ashʿarī or Ḥanbalī. This concern, as we shall see, weighed particularly

heavily on him.

But there is more: The ultimate reality (ḥaqīqa) of this view (viz. the “rule of

interpretation”) is that theological matters should not be sought out in scripture or the way of

Muslims’s predecessors, but rather that one has the ability to establish one’s self as the

subjective source of theological matters.177 This is embodied in two archetypal groups of

theologians who deny scripturally defined attributes:

1) Most of them say: Whatever your intellect does not affirm, deny.

2) Others say: Don’t affirm or deny (tawaqqafū fīhi), until your rationally-based analogies –
“in which you differ among yourselves more than any difference of opinion on the face
of the earth,” Ibn Taymīya interjects – oppose it, then deny it.

If the text contains something that opposes one’s reason, or contains information that
one has not reached by one’s own reasoning, then no meaning is affirmed for the text,
but the position is taken that these texts are there as a test (imtaḥan) and not for
seeking guidance from. Instead, they call for 1) ijtihād in reinterpreting them based on
rare linguistic constructions (shawādhdh al-lugha/gharāʾib al-kalām), or 2) the necessity
of staying silent and saying that God alone knows its meaning – meanwhile denying
that it posseses a linguistic indication of meaning in regards to divine attributions (nafī
dalālatihi ʿalā shayʾin min al-ṣifāt)178

The upshot of this is that the Book of God is not the criterion for sorting out difference of

opinion on the attributes of God, but rather, the criterion is “whatever people happen to

believe, whether it was something they believed before Islam or based on beliefs of people who

don’t even believe in prophets”179 – such as the falāsifa.

177
Ibid., 224.
178
Ibid., 224–5.
179
Ibid., 225–6. Later he reiterates that the Prophet never taught his followers to reject scripture for what their
own analogies produced; see ibid., 229–30.
497
 What Ibn Taymīya hints at here, which he will only explain more fully in his later

works, particularly the Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa’l-naql, is that “the rule of interpretation”

dismantles the communicative aspect of God’s speech to the extent that it makes “divine

intention” as embodied in taʾwīl180 answerable solely to the intellectual proclivities of its

practitioners, who reify their subjective conception of reason independent of scripture’s

contents into the ultimate ground of religious authority. Ironically for a standard of

orthodoxy in adherence prophetic religion, it thus finds no grounding for its normativity other

than its own independent understanding of the world. The fight for prophetic religion against

philosophy, as we saw evoked earlier in the writings of Sharaf al-Dīn Ibn al-Ḥanbalī and al-

Suhrawardī,181 is thus resituated in a pragmatic discussion about the ultimate role of a

scripture which, when mediated by “the rule of interpretation” is not allowed to “speak for

itself,” so to speak, but in fact – when taken to its logical conclusions – become a mere

receptacle for other belief systems.

Unlike most anti-kalām polemic we have seen so far, Ibn Taymīya recognizes that the

main reason for this outcome is that the mutakallimūn intended to establish a proper

methodology for the defense of religion: Their excuse he recounts as, “we only intend

righteousness (iḥsān) in knowledge and deeds with this path we have tread, and to harmonize

the rational indications with that of scripture (tawfīq al-dalāʾil al-ʿaqlīya wa’l-naqlīya).”182 This

recognition is notably missing in the writings of his predecessors, and reflects Ibn Taymīya’s

deeper engagement with the intellectual output of the mutakallimūn of their varying traditions,

180
Explained in chapters three and four.
181
In chapters six and seven.
182
Ibid., 228.
498
Muʿtazilite, Ashʿarī, and Ḥanbalī. Ibn Taymīya, addressing the rationalist underpinning of this

justification, argues, however, that the basis of those things which have been called “rational

indications” in the parlance of the mutakallimūn are in fact no other than intellectual

“fallacies” (shubuhāt) which were only learned from “polytheists” such as the Sabians;183 this

despite the fact that the Muslims were ordered by God to refer to the scripture concerning

things about which the community differs (see Q al-Nisāʾ 4:65).184

Ibn Taymīya’s take on the genealogical critique – now heightened with an additional

layer of scrutiny on its supposed rational merits – problematizes the historical development of

Islam’s ultimate proofs for monotheism coming from an ultimately polytheistic source. Of

course, this is not accidental; if the origin of these teachings truly is polytheist in pedigree

then it is not surprising if those kalām teachings in opposition to scripture are in fact

“fallacies.”

This recasts familiar anti-kalām polemics in a different light: Ibn Taymīya reminds the

reader that the Prophet foretold that his community was to split into seventy three sects,185

but he also said that he was leaving something which if his followers held on to, they would

not go astray: the Book of God.186 Ibn Taymīya invokes the narration from the Prophet

describing the characteristics of “the saved community” (al-firqa al-nājiya) as consisting of

“whoever believes what I and my companions believe.”187 Ibn Taymīya retorts that in light of

the kalām-based orthodoxy, wouldn’t it have been better if the Prophet had said: “Whoever

183
More on this below.
184
Ibid.
185
This ḥadīth has been used in previous polemics against kalām as we have seen before.
186
Ibid., 230–1.
187
Ibid., 231.
499
believes the ẓāhir of the Qurʾān in matters of faith is astray? Or: guidance is only to be found in

the analogies of your minds and that which the mutakallimūn will innovate after the first three

generations…?”188 If the standards of kalām-based orthodoxy – in opposition to the true

meanings of scripture – can be demonstrated to have only taken hold at a later point, it will be

enough to discredit their prophetic genealogy.

Ibn Taymīya then proceeds to depict a cursory outline of the genealogy of the kalām

orthodoxy, in a manner evocative of al-Barbahārī, Ibn Baṭṭa, al-Harawī, the Banū’l-Ḥanbalī, and

Ibn Qudāma. However, there are specific elements added to it which are of greater

consequence for understanding Ibn Taymīya’s thought, as well as his efforts at writing

intellectual history.

It is narrated that the origin of this doctrine – the doctrine of negating (al-ṭaʿṭīl) the
attributes was taken from some of the pupils of the Jews and polytheists, and those
among the Sabians who are misguided.189

In the mold of earlier genealogical critiques,190 Ibn Taymīya, traces negationism (taʿṭīl)

to Jahm b. Ṣafwān, and his teacher al-Jaʿd b. Dirham. The Jewish component refers to the

notion that “it is said” (qīla) that al-Jaʿd b. Dirham learned the doctrine from a Jewish

teacher.191 This detail is mentioned in Ibn ʿAsākir’s Tārīkh Dimashq,192 which was probably Ibn

Taymīya’s source. However, Ibn Taymīya never mentions this Jewish aspect again in any of his

other works, which indicates that he did not put much stock into it.

188
Ibid., 232.
189
Ibid.
190
See chapters three, five, and seven.
191
Ibid., 234–5.
192
Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh Dimashq, vol. 72, 99-100.
500
 What is more important for Ibn Taymīya is that al-Jaʿd b. Dirham was from Ḥarrān, “the

place where the Sabians and Philosophers were numerous – the descendants of those who

believed in the religion of Nimrod and the Canaanites.”193 True, Ibn Taymīya feels obligated to

point out the existence of good Sabians (in reference to Q al-Baqara 2:62 and Q al-Māʾida 5:69);

however, the majority of them are blameworthy “star worshipers who built temples in

devotion to them.”194 This reflects Ibn Taymīya’s acquaintance with the religious practices of

indigenous Ḥarrānians, called Sabians through the process described in the preceding chapter.

However, Ibn Taymīya also emphasizes that the Sabians are the same people to whom

the prophet Abraham was sent.195 This back-projection of the term was not unique to him:

Maimonides (d. 599/1204) likewise refers to Sabians in order to describe a generic polytheist

orientation of humanity in his Guide for the Perplexed,196 and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī does so as well;

the latter inspired in this by the works of Abū Maʿshar al-Balkhī (d. 272/ 886),197 the famed

astrologer and self-professed expert on Ḥarrānian religion whom he quotes to this purpose in

his al-Tafsīr al-kabīr.198

193
Ibn Taymīya, al-Fatwā al-ḥamawīya al-kubrā, 235–6.
194
Ibid., 239.
195
Ibid., 240.
196
Sarah Stroumsa, “Entre Ḥarrān et al-Maghreb: La théorie maimonidienne de l'histoire des religions et ses
sources arabes,” in Judíos y musulmanes en al-Andalus y el Magreb: Contactos intelectuales, ed. Maribel Fierro
(Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2002), 153–64. Sarah Stroumsa, “Sabéens de Ḥarrān et Sabéens de Maïmonide,” in
Maimonide: philosophe et savant (1138/1204), ed. R. Rashed and T. Lévy (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 335–52.
197
“Abū Maʿšar expounds the astrological theory of the Harranians in his Ketāb al-madḵal al-kabīr (“Great
introduction”), which became the basic handbook on astrology not only for Islam, but also, through various
translations, for Byzantium and western Europe as well. He also wrote a large number of other astrological
treatises; some were general, some very specific, some compendia of the opinions of others; but all were
extremely influential. Of less importance, but present, are some writings on the talismans used in theurgy and on
the planetary temples in which was performed the liturgy of the Harranians. Abū Maʿšar asserted that the Sabean
astrological religion was the original and true belief taught to the earliest man by God.” See D. Pingree, EIr, s.v.
“ABŪ MAʿŠAR.”
198
Al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr, vol. 30, 656-657.
501
 The reason for singling out the Sabians, besides their presence in the Middle Ages as

the most vivid living example of pagan religion, is that the Qurʾān itself describes Abraham as

debating star-worshippers (Q al-Anʿām 6:75-83), a story also found in Jewish midrash,199 and

both Muslim and Jewish traditions emphasize the religio-philosophical significance of this

encounter between monotheism and astral worship. Ḥarrān was chosen from the itinerary of

Abraham’s biblical travels to provide a backdrop for this encounter. Ibn Taymīya, in line with

this exegetical tradition, thus uses the latter-day term of “Sabian” to refer to the ancient

ancestors of the Ḥarrānian population. The Sabian-Abrahamic encounter thus looms large in

Ibn Taymīya’s understanding of history, as a concretization of the prophetic/philosophic clash

of heritages.

The matter at hand is that “negationist theology” (madhhab al-nufāt), or the concept

that God only has negative attributes or relational ones, or a combination of both, has a

polytheist (read: Sabian) pedigree, being the source of al-Jaʿd’s teachings who passed them on

to Jahm b. Ṣafwān.200 Ibn Taymīya also points out to the reader that al-Farābī found inspiration

in Ḥarrānian teachings for his own system of falsafa.201 Ibn Taymīya summarizes his findings as

follows: Jahm’s “chains of transmission” (asānīd) go back to Sabians, polytheists, philosophers.

“Things only got worse when the Roman books were translated into Arabic in the second

[Hijrī] century,”202 these naturally being at the foundation of the falsafa movement; Sabian

inspired Muslim theology found confirmation in the older texts of the Greeks.

199
Bet HaMidrash, ed. A. Jellinek, 2:118-196.
200
Ibn Taymīya, al-Fatwā al-ḥamawīya al-kubrā, 240.
201
Ibid., 240–1.
202
Ibid., 242.
502
 The general outline of genealogical narrative is familiar to us, though the Sabian

component is new. It is followed by a situation of Jahm within the historiography of Muslim

orthodoxy. Ibn Taymīya describes the spread of a blameworthy teaching which the salaf called

“the doctrine of the Jahmīya” – in particular focusing on critiques of Bishr al-Marīsī and others

– such as those articulated by Mālik, Sufyān b. ʿUyayna, Ibn al-Mubārak, Abū Yūsuf, al-Shāfiʿī,

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh, al-Fuḍayl b. ʿIyyāḍ, Bishr al-Ḥāfī, and others.203 He goes

on to explain that the same type of taʾwīl practiced by Bishr al-Marīsī is to found in the works

of:

Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī

ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī
Abū’l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī
Ibn Fūrak (e.g. Kitāb al-taʾwīlāt204)
Ibn ʿAqīl
Al-Ghazālī
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (e.g. Taʾsīs al-taqdīs)

This, despite the fact that in some of these books one finds refutations of certain forms

of taʾwīl as well as “good discussions about certain things” (kalām ḥasan fī ashyāʾ).205 The point,

however, is that the taʾwīl found in these books is the same as Bishr al-Marīsī’s, as can be

gleaned from reading the refutation of the latter by ʿUthmān b. Saʿīd al-Dārimī, “where he

directly quotes Bishr al-Marīsī.’’206

This points to a unique method of analysis by Ibn Taymīya, whereby he establishes by

analysis of excerpts of al-Marīsī’s no longer extant kalām text (an early example in its genre),

203
Ibid., 243–4.
204
This is likely the Mushkil al-ḥadīth seen in chapter five.
205
Ibid., 245–50.
206
Ibid., 250–1.
503
as quoted in transmission via al-Dārimī’s work, that the sort of scriptural reinterpretations

advocated by al-Marīsī preceded and seemingly informed the reinterpretations of latter

mutakallimūn, whether Muʿtazilī, Ashʿarī, or Ḥanbalī. Again, such a study was only facilitated

by the sort of resources available to Ibn Taymīya, bringing together the libraries of al-Ṣāliḥīya

and Damascus; al-Dārimī, Abū’l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, Ibn ʿAqīl, and al-Rāzī were never read by the

same audiences, a truism which generally holds true even today.

The normativity of the perspective of al-Dārimī as representative of the salaf, the foil

against which al-Marīsī’s quotes are cast, is also highlighted by the following list of sources:

Al-Sunan of al-Lālakāʾī (d. 418/1027)

Al-Ibāna of Ibn Baṭṭa
Al-Sunna of Abū Dharr al-Harawī (d. 434/1043)
Al-Uṣūl of Abū ʿUmar al-Ṭalamankī (d. 429/1037)
The writings of Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (d. 463/1071)
Al-Asmāʾ wa’l-ṣifāt by al-Bayhaqī
Al-Sunna of al-Ṭabarānī (d. 360/971)
Al-Sunna of Abū’l-Shaykh al-Aṣbahānī (d. 369/979)
Al-Sunna of ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Manda (d. 395/1005)
Al-Sunna of Abū Aḥmad al-ʿAssāl al-Aṣbahānī (d. 349/960)
Al-Sunna of al-Khallāl
Al-Tawḥīd of Ibn Khuzayma
Words of Abū’l-ʿAbbās b. Surayj (d. 306/918)
The al-Radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya by many people
Al-Sunna by ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad
Al-Sunna by Abū Bakr b. al-Athram (d. 260/873-4)
Al-Sunna by Ḥanbal
Al-Sunna by al-Marūdhī (d. 275/888)
Al-Sunna by Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī (d. 275/888)
Al-Sunna by Ibn Abī Shayba (d. 235/849)
Al-Sunna by Abū Bakr b. Abī ʿĀṣim (d. 287/900)
Al-Radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya by ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Juʿfī, the Shaykh of al-Bukhārī
Khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād by al-Bukhārī
Kitāb al-Radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya by ʿUthmān b. Saʿīd al-Dārimī
Statements of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Makkī [al-Kinānī] the author of al-Ḥayda in refutation of the
Jahmīya.

504
Statements of Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād al-Khuẓāʿī (d. 229/844)
Statements of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh, Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā al-Naysābūrī and others;
and before them ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak.207

9.3.3 Statement of Principles for the Madhhab of the Salaf

This allows for the articulation of a body of theological first principles, intended to be

constant in its normativity for both earlier and later Muslims: God should be described as He,

the Prophet (ṣ) and the earliest Muslims have done. This, which is the madhhab of the Salaf,

should occur without 1) corrupting the description – taḥrīf, 2) negating it – taʿṭīl, 3) saying how

or positing resemblances –takyīf/tamthīl.208

In addition to this foundation, Ibn Taymīya goes on using the terminology of kalām to

explain the rational basis of why God is unlike anything (laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ) in His essence,

names, and attributes, and actions:

Everything which would mandate imperfection (naqṣ) or temporal origination (ḥudūth),

God is transcendent from (munazzahun) in actuality (ḥaqīqatan), because God inherently

possesses perfection (kamāl) which is unlimited; temporal origination is impossible (yamtaniʿ)

for Him because of the impossibility of nonexistence (ʿadam) for Him, because every

temporally originated entity (muḥdath) needs an originator (muḥdith). This is furthermore the

case because His existence is necessary in and of itself (wujūb wujūdihi bi-nafsihi).209 This last

term in particular reflects the Avicennan terminological shift in Ashʿarī kalām, starting from

al-Juwaynī and continuing in that Nishapuri tradition up to al-Rāzī and al-Āmidī.

207
Ibid., 252–63.
208
Ibid., 265.
209
Ibid., 266.
505
 We see that Ibn Taymīya upholds the idea of the “happy medium” as did previous

theologians, explaining the madhhab of the salaf as a middle-point between negation (al-taʿṭīl)

of the Beautiful Names and attributes, and positing resemblances (al-tamthīl) between God and

His creation.210 The key difference is that tashbīh here has been replaced with tamthīl, for

reasons that will become clear in the following section on al-Risāla al-tadmurīya. This creates a

different system of critique: both “negators” and “those who posit resemblance” are guilty of

combining taʿṭīl and tamthīl together:

1) “Negators,” when hearing God’s names and attributes don’t understand anything but
that which pertains to created being (lāʾiq bi’l-makhlūq) which they then rush to deny.
They thus posit resemblances (tamthīl) first, and then negate (taʿṭīl) them.

E.g., if they say “If God was above the Throne (fawq al-ʿarsh) that would require that He
be bigger, smaller, or equal in size to it, which is impossible (muḥāl),” this indicates that
they didn’t understand from God’s being above the Throne except “that which is
affirmed for any body over any other body.” As for an establishment (istiwāʾ) which is
appropriate for the Magnificence of God (yalīq bi-jalāli Allāh) and which is exclusive to
Him (yakhtaṣṣu bihi) – no false concommitants are necessitated (lā yalzamhu … al-lawāzim
al-bāṭila) which should be denied (allatī yajib nafyuhu).211

2) The “positor of resemblances” (al-mumaththil) says: if there is a Creator, then He must

be composed of atom (jawhar) or accidents (ʿaraḍ), because we cannot conceive (lā
yuʿqal) of an existing thing (mawjūd) except for these two things. Ibn Taymīya reminds
his reader that these descriptions for God are impossible. Or they say that if God
established Himself over the throne (istawāʾ ʿalā al-ʿarsh), then it resembled (mumāthil)
the establishment of a human being over a bed or a boat since no istiwāʾ is known
except for that.212

Both of them do tamthīl, and negate (ʿaṭṭala) the reality of what God has described Himself with

(ḥaqīqat mā waṣafa Allāhu bi nafsahu).213

210
Ibid., 267.
211
Ibid., 267–8.
212
Ibid., 269.
213
Ibid., 269–70.
506
 The idea of the middle path is inspired by the Qurʾānic verse (Q al-Baqara 2:143), about

Muslims being a “middle nation,” which Ibn Taymīya references to present the proper

position: God is described with the attributes of perfection without sharing the particular

qualities (khaṣāʾiṣ) of created being. God’s aboveness (fawqīya) is not characterized by the

same particular qualities (khaṣāʾiṣ) for the aboveness of a created being. On this basis, “there

is nothing in the unadulterated intellect (al-ʿaql al-ṣarīḥ) nor in sound transmission (al-naql al-

ṣaḥīḥ) which mandates contradicting al-ṭarīqa al-salafīya.”214

9.3.4 No Simple Return: Way of Salaf as Harmony of Scripture and Reason

But what is al-ṭarīqa al-salafīya? In answering this question it is important that we note

Ibn Taymīya’s methodological considerations: He evades characterization as fideist by positing

that the contents of scripture as understood by the early committee satisfy the exigencies of

reason. This would indicate that his adherence to scriptural theology and an outlook inspired

by the salaf does not intended to bypass scholastic method. He takes the latter’s concerns to

heart and attempts to resolve them. In attempting to deconstruct a “rationalist orthodoxy,”

however, he necessarily has to problematize the use of reason as a reified absolute, in order

that he may discuss an alternative to the “rationalities” that he calls into questions. He does

this by problematizing difference of opinion among rationalists, by which he can remind the

reader that reason is an embodied discourse, and thus contingent, and advocate an alternative.

He points out to his readers that on the basis of rational impossibility, some reject and

reinterpret scriptural descriptions of one or more of:

214
Ibid., 270–1.
507
 1) The vision of God
2) God’s knowledge and power
3) God’s speech being uncreated (ghayr makhlūq)
4) The physical resurrection on Judgement Day
5) Real bodily pleasures in paradise
6) God being above the Throne

The problem of this paradigm as a whole, then, Ibn Taymīya asserts, is that “they do

not have a fixed rule (qāʿida mustamirra) for what the intellect deems impossible (mā yuḥīluhu

al-ʿaql); rather some of them claim that the intellect permits or mandates what the other

claims the intellect deems impossible.”215 Contrary to how fideists like Abū’l-Faraj al-Shīrāzī,

for example, dealt with the “multiplicity” of mere reason216 – ultimately deeming it even

incapable of knowing God’s oneness – Ibn Taymīya takes the rationalists’ difference of opinion

as license to offer an alternative approach.

Ibn Taymīya thus explains how the dispute is to be resolved, in a short list of principles

which – as an extensive reading of his corpus reveals – is emblematic of his working ethos for

the entirety of his scholarly output, saying that in regards to these matters:

1) “The intellect does not deem them impossible”

2) “The texts on these topics do not handle reinterpretation”
3) “It is known by necessity (bi’l-iḍṭirār) that the Prophet (ṣ) came with these teachings, just
like the five prayers and fasting the month of Ramadan.” The notion that such things could
just be reinterpreted, he goes on to say, is similar to the reinterpretations (taʾwīlāt) of the
Ismāʿīlīs (al-qarāmiṭa wa’l-bāṭinīya) concerning the meanings of pilgrimage, fasting, or prayer.
4) “It will be shown that pure reason is in agreement (al-ʿaql al-ṣarīḥ yuwāfiq) with that which
the texts have brought, even if there may be in the texts that which the intellect is not capable
(yaʿjiz) of realizing in its details, but can only have a general conception of it (ʿaqalahu
mujmalan)”217 This despite the fact that “the greats” in these fields, “admit that the intellect
cannot find certainty in most “topics concerning divinity” (al-maṭālib al-ilāhīya);”218 therefore it

215
Ibid., 272.
216
See chapter seven.
217
Ibid., 272–5.
218
Ibid., 275.
508
is necessary to receive this knowledge from prophetic sources (al-nubuwwāt) as they are (ʿalā
mā huwa ʿalayhi).219

Thus, there is no return to scriptural fideism because Ibn Taymīya is clearly moved by

similar concerns to those at the heart of the Islamic rationalist discourses that have preceded

him. The chief difference, however, is that the “way of the salaf” which he seeks to uphold

aims to transcend the problematization of scripturally-based theology inherent to the

dominant forms of rationalism in his time.

9.3.5 Prophetic Guidance in Historical Memory and the Pivot of Interpretation:

Although the intersection of theological principles with historical conceptions of Islam

usually finds its locus in discussions about the actions of the early community vis-à-vis later

scholarly frameworks, Ibn Taymīya recenters the discussion on the personage of the Prophet

Muḥammad himself. Here, one’s view of the prophetic personage – and thus one’s

genealogical relationship to the revelational grounding of religious normativity – creates a

typology that is also paradigmatic for assessment of later scholarly trends and their

articulation of the “pivot of interpretive authority,” Q 3:7:220

God has clarified (bayyana) belief in God and the Last Day on the tongue of his Prophet
(ṣ) as a means of guidance for His servants, and made manifest by him His
communicative intention (kashafa bihi murādahu).

It is known to the Believers that the Prophet (ṣ) is more knowledgable (aʿlam)
concerning these subjects than others, and more sincerely concerned (anṣaḥ) for the
umma than others, and more eloquent (afṣaḥ) than others in expression and
communication (ʿibāratan wa-bayānan) – nay he is the most knowledgable of the
creation in regards to this, and the most sincere of the creation to the umma, and the

219
Ibid.
220
Covered in chapters three, four, five, and seven.
509
 most eloquent, there having come together in him (ṣ) the perfection of knowledge,
capacity, and will (kamāl al-ʿilm wa’l-qudra wa’l-irāda)

And it is known that the speaker and active agent (al-mutakallim wa’l-fāʿil), if his
knowledge, capacity, and will are complete, then so is his speech and action – and
deficiency (al-naqṣ) only enters from a deficiency in his knowledge, or his incapacity
(ʿajzihi) to communicate what he knows, or because of a lack of desire to communicate
(ʿadam irādatihi al-bayān).

But the Prophet (ṣ) is the paramount (al-ghāya) in perfection of knowledge, and
paramount in perfection of willingness to communicate clearly (al-balāgh al-mubīn),221
and the paramount in capacity to communicate clearly. And with the existence of
complete capacity (wujūd al-qudra al-tāmma) and unerring will (al-irāda al-jāzima) – the
intended thing must manifest (yajib wujūd al-murād)222

Again, in regards to these two pillars of religion – belief in God and the Last Day – the

Prophet is the most sincere (anṣaḥ) of the creation in his communication (bayān), his defining

of things (taʿrīf), the connotations of his words (dalāla), and his mentorship (al-irshād).223

Likewise, being complete in knowledge and his will to communicate that which he knows, it

must manifest in his communication (al-bayān) in a way which conforms to his knowledge

(muṭābiq li-ʿilmihi),224 which is the most perfect of knowledge (akmal al-ʿulūm). This is where the

point of contention arises: Whoever thinks that other than the Prophet has more knowledge, is

more perfect in communication, or more desiring (aḥraṣ) to guide humanity is “atheistic” (min

al-mulḥidīn).225

Planting the foundations of theological normativity in the prophetic source of

revelation and emphasizing the concommitant pragmatic aspects of its role for

221
This is a reference to Q al-Māʾida 5:92, Q al-Naḥl 16:35, Q al-Naḥl 16:82, Q al-Nūr 25:54, Q al-ʿAnkabūt 29:18, Q Yāsīn
26:17, Q al-Taghābun 64:12, which specify the primary role of the Prophet as that of “clear communication.”
222
Ibid., 275–6.
223
Ibid., 266.
224
Here Ibn Taymīya invokes elements of kalām based discussions of psychology and human agency.
225
Ibid., 277.
510
communicating God’s message, allows a new typology for critique of the opposing points of

view. These Ibn Taymīya classifies as three groups (thalāth ṭawāʾif): 1) ahl al-takhyīl, 2) ahl al-

taʾwīl, and 3) ahl al-tajhīl.

The first, 1) advocates of takhyīl, who are the pseudo-philosophers (al-mutafalsifa), and

those mutakallimūn or Sufis who emulate them, “believe that the Prophet created imaginary

representations of reality (takhyīl li’l-ḥaqāʾiq) for the benefit of the masses (li-yantafiʿ bihi al-

jumhūr); not explaining to them the truth, teaching the masses, or explaining reality.”226 We

naturally expect to see the falāsifa critiqued here, but it is also significant that brief mention of

a certain class of Sufis is made here as well, since this helps to properly frame his critique of

that class of scholarship.

Some advocates of takhyīl believe that the Prophet himself was unaware of

philosophical truth, whereas the philosophers or saints are aware of it: this is the extreme

(ghulāt) position. Others say he knew but did not explain the truth because these false

conceptions were of benefit of the masses (fī maṣlaḥat al-khalq);227 calling people to

corporealism (al-tajsīm), resurrection of bodies, and physical delight in paradise, despite its

falsehood (maʿa annahu bāṭil) – “because it is not possible to call the people (daʿwat al-khalq)

except by this method which contains lies (al-kadhib) for the sake of public benefit (li-maṣlaḥat

al-ʿibād).228

The second, 2) advocates of taʾwīl, say that the Prophet did not intend people to believe

falsehood – but he intended meanings which he did not explain or indicate (lam yubayyin … wa-

226
Ibid., 277–8.
227
Ibid., 278–9.
228
Ibid., 279.
511
lā dallahum ʿalayhā). “Rather, he wanted them to investigate and know the truth by their

intellects, then exert themselves to divert those texts from their semantic indications (ṣarf tilka

al-nuṣūṣ ʿan madlūlihā).” The purpose is to test (imtiḥān) people and their intellects in their

ability to do so. This is the position of the Muʿtazilites and those who follow them.229

Ibn Taymīya explains that the reason why this fatwa singles out this second group is

because most Muslims are already repulsed by the doctrines of the former group; the latter

group acts as if it gives assistance to the sunna and assisted Islam, but they have failed in this

mission, particularly in refuting the arguments of the falāsifa.230

Ironically, Ibn Taymīya, points out, the arguments used by advocates of taʾwīl against

the falāsifa concerning the bodily resurrection (namely, that it is a tenet of Islam “known by

necessity”)231 is the same argument that the ahl al-sunna say to the practitioners of taʾwīl about

the divine attributes. This being the case, it is significant that divine attributes are in fact

more plentiful in religious texts than mention of the physical resurrection.232

Again, situating the Prophetic message in his historical circumstances poses further

questions: The Qurʾān debates pre-Islamic polytheistic Arabs about the resurrection, not the

attributes; likewise, the ahl al-kitāb are accused of corrupting the scripture, but the Torah is

“replete with mention of attributes” (mamlūʾa min dhikr al-ṣifāt). If that had been part of the

supposed scriptural corruption, “it would have been more deserving of rejection (la-kāna inkār

dhālika ʿalayhim awlā)” – but in fact it is Qurʾānically confirmed.233 Again, the thesis is advanced

229
Ibid., 280–2.
230
Ibid., 282. .
231
An argument used by al-Ghazālī against the falāsifa in his Tahāfut and Fayṣal al-tafriqa; see Griffel, Al-Ghazālī's
Philosophical Theology, 101-102, 109.
232
Ibn Taymīya, al-Fatwā al-ḥamawīya al-kubrā, 282–3.
233
Ibid., 283–5.
512
here that the matter of attributes is a scriptural issue, and not one bound to a particular

interpretive school of Islam.

What is more: “The Torah is filled with [divine] descriptions that match what is in the

Qurʾān and ḥadīth, whereas it does not have explicit mention of the resurrection.” Therefore,

Ibn Taymīya, concludes, “If it was permissible to reinterpret the attributes that the two books

agree upon, then reinterpretation of the resurrection which is only found in one of them is

more worthy; but since we know by necessity from the religion of the Prophet (ṣ) that the

latter [viz. reinterpreting the resurrection] is invalid, then the former [viz. reinterpreting the

attributes] is even more invalid.”234 Just as Ibn Taymīya views the kalām “rule of

interpretation” as arbitrarily opening up the door for any philosophical system to impose itself

as a normative reading of Islam, likewise it follows that the scope of scripturally based

theological arguments made by the mutakallimūn function arbitrarily in their claim to

normativity.

No less important, however, is the third group, 3) the ahl al-tajhīl, a neologism of his

own, to describe “many people associated with the sunna and following the salaf.”235 Here he

criticizes a group without specifying who they are; they remind us, however, of the

interlocutors of Ashʿarī mutakallimūn criticized for denying the rationalist mandate as well as

professing an inability to know the taʾwīl of the mutashābihāt – including the Ḥanbalī

mutakallimūn:236

234
Ibid., 284–5.
235
I read atbāʿ in the printed text as ittibāʾ here.
236
See chapters three and four for early rejections of this position. See the adoption of this position by Abū Yaʿlā
in chapter five. Ibn Qudāma comes somewhat close to this position; see chapter seven.
513
 The problem with this group, according to Ibn Taymīya, is that they say no one knows

the meaning of the verses and ḥadīth on God’s attributes, not even the Prophet. They stop on Q

3:7 after mention of God (§4a) – saying that the “firmly established in knowledge” do not know

the taʾwīl.237 If the Prophet himself, however, Ibn Taymīya says, is made unknowing of what he

teaches of scripture (al-samʿīyāt), then God’s revelation cannot be guidance or a clear

explanation (bayān) for humanity. But he goes even further in his critique of this group:

Furthermore, they deny rational matters (al-ʿaqlīyāt) in these topics completely (bi’l-
kullīya), and don’t ascribe to the Prophet (ṣ) and his umma in regard to knowledge of
God either rational or scriptural knowledge – and in this matter they resemble the
atheists from many perspectives – and are in error in the ignorance that they ascribe to
the Prophet (ṣ) and the salaf…238

This group, despite the few words he reserves for them, are criticized with

unexpectedly harsh language for a group which avowedly follows the salaf – putting them out

of the mainstream of the kalām tradition and closer to rejectionist circles. Seemingly fideist in

their position, they adhere to scripture without concern for rational matters. In their lack of

concern for rationality’s harmony with scriptural theological teachings, they resemble

atheists, likely in the latter’s view of prophetic religion as contradictory to the efforts of

human reasoning. Their attitude towards the taʾwīl in verse Q 3:7, they which we have seen

critiqued by Ashʿarī scholars before (and Muʿtazilites indirectly), not only posits an intentional

and insurmountable obscurity to God’s revelational intention, but bars human efforts to make

it intelligible.

237
Ibid., 286.
238
Ibid., 295–6.
514
 This affords Ibn Taymīya the opportunity to explain his own position on the verse Q

3:7, which is initiated by a study of the word taʿwīl. According to Ibn Taymīya, the word

historically has had three meanings:

1) According to “many later Muslims” it means “to turn an expression from the preponderant

meaning to the less likely meaning because of an indication (dalīl) associated with it.” Taʾwīl,

“according to their terminology,” “cannot be the meaning of the expression in accordance

with the semantic referent of its apparent reading (maʿnā al-lafẓ al-muwāfiq li-dalālat

ẓāhirihi).”239 On this basis, people believe the Qurʾān refers to this type of taʾwīl, as an

interpretation which goes against its apparent meaning; which either God alone may know, or

others may know as well.240

It is this latter-day definition of taʾwīl which Ibn Taymīya claims has created the

attitude of tajhīl advocates “associated with the sunna” who say that texts are to be left

according to their apparent meaning (ẓāhiruhā), while at the same contradictorily believing

that these texts possess an interpretation (taʾwīl) in opposition to it which only God knows.241

2) The second meaning of taʾwīl means simply “interpretation” (tafsīr), “according to most of

the Qurʾānic exegetes” – and this is what the “firmly established in knowledge” know – as

interpreted by Mujāhid, Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar b. al-Zubayr, Muḥammad b. Isḥāq, and Ibn

Qutayba who stop their recitation to include them (i.e., after §4b).242

239
Ibid., 287.
240
Ibid.
241
ibid.
242
Ibid., 288–9.
515
3) The third meaning of taʾwīl means “the reality that the speech returns to (al-ḥaqīqa allatī

yaʾūl al-kalām ilayhā), even if it matches the apparent meaning” – matters such as heavenly

delights and other eschatological matters are understood, even if their ultimate realities

escape our minds or expressions – this is the taʾwīl that no one knows but God (assuming a stop

after §4a).243 Thus the ultimate reality of what is being described can escape human

conception.244

Rejecting the first terminological meaning of taʾwīl created by kalām, Ibn Taymīya

upholds the latter two which come from traditional exegesis, accommodating a stop at both

§4b and §4a, respectively. The “firmly established in knowledge” know the lexical

interpretations (tafsīr) of scripture, but only God knows the ultimate modality (ḥaqīqa) of

certain revelational descriptions, whether of the next life or of God’s essence.245

Documentation of God’s Aboveness or Affirmation of Attributes:

Having established his theological and interpretive first principles, Ibn Taymīya

returns to the main question at hand, namely the verses about God’s throne in the Qurʾān.

Having made his point that the Prophet taught the meaning (tafsīr) of such verses clearly as

inheritance to the early community without need for latter-day taʾwīl, he proceeds to

document the transmission of explicit affirmation of God’s “aboveness” by early authorities.

However, as becomes clear, he is not talking about the first few generations alone, but also

243
Ibid., 290.
244
Ibid., 291–5.
245
Ibid.
516
many generations later, across school and regional divisions, including members of different

madhhabs, Sufis, and even the earliest generation of Ashʿarī scholars:

Early Scholarly Authorities:

1. Al-Awzāʿī246

2. Mālik247

3. ʿAbd Allāh b. Nāfiʿ al-Ṣāʾigh, student of Mālik248

4. Ibn Mājishūn’s letter against the Jahmīya249

5. Abū Ḥanīfa, ,250

6. Abū Yūsuf251

7. Muḥamamd b. al-Ḥasan252

8. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak253

9. Hishām b. ʿUbayd Allāh al-Rāzī, qādī of Rayy, student of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan254

10. Yaḥyā b. Muʿādh al-Rāzī255

11. al-Shāfiʿī256

12. Ibn al-Madīnī257

246
Ibid., 296–9. Via al-Bayhaqī’s Kitāb al-asmāʾ wa’l-ṣifāt.
247
Ibid., 305.
248
Ibid., 341–2. Reporting from his teacher Mālik; narration from Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal found in his son’s al-Sunna.
249
Ibid., 308–18.
250
Via the al-Fiqh al-Akbar narrated by Abū’l-Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī; ibid., 318–22. On this book see Rudolph, 57 ff.. Also
quoted via the K. al-Fārūq by al-Harawī (not extant); ibid., 323–4.
251
Anti-Jahmī positions via Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī; see ibid., 343–4.
252
Via al-Lālakāʾī; ibid., 328–9.
253
Ibid., 333–4.
254
Via al-Harawī and Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī; ibid., 324–5.
255
Via al-Harawī; ibid., 325.
256
Ibid., 343.
257
Via al-Harawī; ibid., 326–7.
517
13. al-Tirmidhī258

14. Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī259

15. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī260

16. Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim b. Sallām261

17. ʿAbbād b. al-ʿAwāmm al-Wāsiṭī262

18. al-Aṣmaʿī, famous linguist263

19. Sulaymān b. Ḥarb (qādī of Makka) student of Ḥammād b. Zayd

19. Saʿīd Ibn ʿĀmir al-Ḍubʿī, Basran Imam, teacher of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal264

20. ʿĀṣim b. ʿAlī b. ʿĀṣim, teacher of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and al-Bukhārī265

21. Ibn Khuzayma266

22. ʿAbū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Abī Zamanīn, Mālikī authority of Cordoba, quoting his Uṣūl al-sunna267

23. al-Khaṭṭābi’s al-Ghunya ʿan al-kalām wa-ahlihi, against taʾwīl but for affirming attributes

without likeness.268

Similar positions, Ibn Taymīya says, are to be found in writings of al-Khaṭīb al-

Baghdādī, Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Abū Bakr al-Ismāʿīlī, Abū ʿUthmān al-Ṣābūnī, and Yaḥyā b. ʿĀmmār

al-Sijzī – “the shaykh of Shaykh al-Islām” Abū Ismāʿīl al-Harawī.”269

258
Ibid., 327.
259
Ibid., 327–8.
260
Ibid., 338–9.
261
Via al-Bayhaqī’s Kitāb al-asmāʾ wa’l-ṣifāt; ibid., 329–32.
262
Via ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal; ibid., 337.
263
Ibid., 339.
264
Via Ibn Abī Ḥātim’s lost al-Radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya; ibid., 335–6..
265
Ibid., 341.
266
Via al-Ḥākim al-Naysabūrī; ibid., 336–7.
267
Ibid., 344–61.
268
Ibid., 361–5. It is not clear how this text is to be reconciled or explained given al-Khaṭṭābī’s statements quoted
by al-Bayhaqī about the historical necessity for taʾwīl; see chapter four.
269
Ibid., 365–8.
518
Sufi Figures:

1. Fuḍayl b. ʿIyyāḍ,270

2. al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243), Sufi theologian, in his book Fahm al-Qurʾān.271

3. ʿAmr b. al-Makkī (d. 297), Sufi companion of al-Junayd, al-Taʿarruf bi-aḥwāl al-ʿubbād wa’l-

mutaʿabbidīn272

4. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Khafīf (d. 371), Sufi and student of al-Ashʿarī, in Iʿtiqād al-

tawḥīd bi-ithbāt al-asmāʾ wa’l-ṣifāt273

5. A waṣīya written by “al-Imām al-ʿārif Muʿammar b. Aḥmad al-Aṣbahānī (d. 418), shaykh al-

ṣūfīya in the fourth century in his region”274

6. Abū Nuʿaym al-Aṣbahānī (d. 430/1039), author of Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, in an ʿaqīda text, as well as

a book called Maḥajjat al-wāthiqīn wa-madrajat al-wāmiqīn.275

7. Abd al-Qādir al-Jīlī (d. 561), quoting his book al-Ghunya276

Latterday Legal and Theological Authorities:

1. Mālikī scholar Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (d. 463/1071) in his documentation of early Muslims’

opinions, via his commentary on Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ.277

270
Via the Kitāb al-sunna by al-Khallāl, Khalq afʿāl al-ʿibād by al-Bukhārī, and al-Fārūq by al-Harawī; ibid., 374–7.
271
Ibid., 385–402.
272
Ibid., 377–85.
273
Ibid., 403–76.
274
Ibid., 373–4.
275
Ibid., 369–73.
276
Ibid., 477–9.
277
Ibid., 479–82.
519
2. al-Bayhaqī “despite his affiliation with the mutakallimūn following Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī,”

quoting from the K. al-Asmāʾ wa’l-ṣifāt.278

3. al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā’s Ibṭāl al-taʾwīl – against the general principle of taʾwīl.279

4. Abū’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, “the mutakallim, eponym of the method attributed to him (al-ṭarīqa

al-mansūba ilayhi) in kalām” via the Maqālāt al-islāmīyīn, affirming the establishment of God over

the throne without saying how, as opposed to the reinterpretation of the Muʿtazilites.280 Al-

Ibāna, affirming the attributes without taʾwīl, including God’s elevation over the creation, and

praise of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.281

5. Al-Bāqillānī, “the best of the mutakallimūn associated with al-Ashʿarī,” via his book al-Ibāna

and al-Tamhīd.282

6. Al-Juwaynī’s al-Risāla al-niẓāmīya, containing an eloquent defense of the salaf in not doing

taʾwīl of the text.283

Ibn Taymīya closes with the following caveat and admonition:

The questioner should know that the purpose of this response is to mention the
expressions of some of the imams who have narrated the madhhab of the salaf in this
topic, and not everyone from these and other than them whose positions we have
mentioned in part adheres to everything that we do in this topic and other than it, but
the truth should be accepted by everyone who speaks it; Muʿādh b. Jabal [the
Companion] used to say in his famous saying narrated by Abū Dāwūd in his sunan:
“Accept the truth from whoever brings it…284

278
Ibid., 482–8.
279
Ibid., 488–91.
280
Ibid., 492–8.
281
Ibid., 498–508.
282
Ibid., 508–14.
283
Ibid., 514–7.
284
Ibid., 518.
520
 It may be observed that in leaving out the Banū Qudāma, Ibn Taymīya also highlighted

the most important argument made by Ibn Qudāma’s earlier work, namely that this issue was

not an exclusively Ḥanbalī issue, but one that concerned the greater Muslim community. In

quoting a variety of texts from different madhhab authorities, spiritual figures, and even early

Ashʿarī mutakallimūn, Ibn Taymīya wished to transcend the polarity between the Ḥanbalī

school and the rest of the community, thereby illustrating the universal implications of his

investigations for Islamic tradition.

9.3.6 An Abbreviated Methodological Intervention:

As for explaining this with proof (al-dalīl) and that which clears away fallacious
arguments, and systematic examination of the topic (taḥqīq al-amr) in a manner which
brings the heart the coolness of certainty, and informs one of where people’s opinions
stand in these confusing territories, this fatwa does not have enough room for that,
though I have written something about this before, and spoken about it to some of
those who study with me (man yujālisunā), but perhaps I will write – if God wills – about
this topic something by which the purpose will be achieved.285

The fatwa, despite its apparent expansiveness, was not meant to be a comprehensive

depiction of Ibn Taymīya’s intellectual defense of revelation, that being left for subsequent

works of his much more voluminous. However, he does give us insight to at least some of his

methodology; as we will be shown, it maps organically onto previous discussions about the

nature of language and ontology which occupied mutakallimūn of Muʿtazilite, Ashʿarī, and

Ḥanbalī persuasions.

For example: The Qurʾān talks about God being “with” humanity wherever they are,

and being above the Throne, showing that withness does not necessitate a physical mixing

285
Ibid., 519.
521
with another entity; such a meaning of withness also applies to lexical usage of “with” used in

reference to humans, whether physical or not.286 The fact that words take on different

connotations depending on their particular usage, and particular referents is of importance

here; their semantic referent (dalāla) differs accordingly, despite a shared value (qadr

mushtarak) that unifies them.287

Ibn Taymīya explains a linguistic principle important to his framing of the topic: There

are asmāʾ mutawāṭiʾa – words used for a common set of objects, asmāʾ mushtaraka – words that

are mere homonyms (sharing the same phonetic construction), and asmāʾ mushakkika –

expressions of the first category, which nevertheless apply to entities of such essential

difference that one is “confused” about whether they are only homonyms. “Withness” applied

to humanity and God is the example in point here. However, as “experts” (al-muḥaqqiqūn)

know, this latter category nevertheless is a type of asmāʾ mutawāṭiʾa because of the shared

value (al-qadr al-mushtarak) among members of the species with a common name.288 This

common name indicates a shared value – even if each individual is distinguished with unique

essential properties.

The contention that Ibn Taymīya wishes to make is that the idea that when God is

described as “with us,” the meaning “He is physically right next to us” should not be described

– as it is by some – as the apparent (ẓāhir) reading of the text – which begs a taʾwīl. It might

seem apparent to some people, in which they are “correct” from that perspective, and

“forgiven for using such an expression:”

286
Ibid., 520–4.
287
Ibid., 523. .
288
Ibid., 524.
522
 However, apparentness (al-ẓuhūr) and hiddenness (al-buṭūn) of a reading differ in
accordance with people’s varying conditions, and is a relative matter (min al-umūr al-
nisbīya). It would be better instead, to explain to whoever thinks that this is the
apparent reading289 that it is not … such that he gives the speech of God and His
messenger its due (ḥaqqahu), both lexically and semantically (lafẓan wa-maʿnan).290

Ibn Taymīya is pinpointing a linguistic issue at play, when inappropriate meanings for

God are methodologically categorized as “the apparent meaning.” As we recall, even Abū Yaʿlā

had treated the mutashābihāt as containing apparent reference to meanings inappropriate for

God’s eternal being. But whereas Abū Yaʿlā concludes that these statements therefore cannot

be understood via the Arabic language – precisely because they would necessitate

inappropriate meanings – Ibn Taymīya’s approach to language aims to dispel the “fallacy” of

restricting language’s connotative power. If the Ḥanbalī mutakallim puts the meaning of these

verses out of the purview of human language contra the Ashʿarīs and Muʿtazilīs, the Ashʿarī

mutakallim limits the scope of what natural language can connotate.

God being fī’l-samāʾ does not mean that the sky encompasses Him; and no one will find

this narrated by an early Muslim, according to Ibn Taymīya. The expression fī’l-samāʾ means

elevation (al-ʿulūww), in particular over the Throne, which is known to be beyond “the heavens

and the earth” (al-samāwāt wa’l-arḍ).291 This explanation given by Ibn Taymīya refers to and

builds on several quotations provided in the above list of Muslim scholars, who explain God’s

being over the Throne as an essential “separation” (mubāyana) from created being. Ibn

Taymīya provides other linguistic examples, via Qurʾānic quotes where the preposition fī does

not mean “inside,” but “on” or “above.”292 The “separation” of God from created being, as

289
I.e., the reading positing “withness” as indicating physical proximity.
290
Ibid., 529.
291
Ibid., 525–6.
292
Ibid., 526.
523
rational premise embodied in scriptural information about God’s elevation, is in accordance

with the Arabic language in which it was revealed; an implicit honoring of the ideals of reason,

scripture, and natural language upheld by Sunnī mutakallimūn which we have seen upheld by

al-Ashʿarī, al-Bāqillānī, and Ibn Fūrak.

The “rule of interpretation,” however, rendering scripture incapable of communicating

without kalām’s premises, calls into question any theology based on scriptural content

innocent of kalām’s premises. The result has consequences for historical memory as well in

regards to the nascent Islamic community that received the scripture: One consequently

asserts that the salaf did not intend the “apparent” reading, to suggest that they refrained

from affirming appropriate meaning for attributes that appear in the scripture, regardless of

whether these descriptions are necessary (wājiba), mentally conceivable (jāʾiza ʿalayhi jawāzan

dhihnīyan), or actually possible (jawāzan khārijīyan), in a manner appropriate for God.293 What

Ibn Taymīya is critiquing is the methodological marginalization of scripturally-derived

theology as based on a ẓāhir that cannot be reliably known, irregardless of the validity of the

content itself. Scripture is rendered inoperative, regardless of the merits of its contents – the

logical consequence of the rationalist mandate denying knowledge of God except via kalām

methodology.294

Removing the communicative power of the text by negating the normative value of the

ẓāhir, practitioners of taʾwīl can then say that their method is the same as that of the salaf,

when the latter are characterized as passing on texts without interpreting them. This

293
Ibid., 530.
As we recall, Ibn Fūrak had even said that laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ could not be definitively understood without
294

the rational premise which establishes God’s existence, see chapter four.
524
functions as a backprojection of the idea that texts in and of themselves do not indicate

attributes. The gap in practice is bridged by asserting that “the salaf refrained from taʾwīl

whereas the latter-day scholars see benefit (al-maṣlaḥa) in taʿwīl of them; the difference is that

[the khalaf] specify (yuʿayyinūna) that which is intended (al-murād) by taʾwīl, whereas [the salaf]

do not specify, because of the possibility that something other than that might be intended (li-

jawāz an yurād ghayruhu).”295 This explanation for difference in practice between earlier and

later generations, as we have seen earlier, was explained in this manner by Ibn Fūrak in his

Mushkil al-ḥadīth.296

Ibn Taymīya tells us that his own investigations of the matter came to a different

conclusion:

God knows that I, after a complete examination (baʿd al-baḥth al-tāmm), and reading
what I could of the sayings of the salaf, did not find any of their sayings indicate –
whether explicitly or apparently, nor with circumstantial indications (bi’l-qarāʾin) – the
inoperative nature of scriptural attributes in and of themselves (nafī al-ṣifāt al-khabarīya
fī nafs al-amr). Rather, what I saw was that much of their statements indicate, either
explicitly or apparently, the affirmation of this category of attributes (taqrīr jins hādhihi
al-ṣifāt). I have not transmitted from each one of them affirmation of every attribute,
rather I saw that they affirm their category in general (jinsahā bi’l-jumla).

I did not see any of them negate them, but only negate tashbīh, rejecting the mushabbiha
that liken God to His creation while also rejecting those who negate the attributes, like
the statement of Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād al-Khuzāʿī, one of al-Bukhārī’s shaykh’s, “Whoever
likens God to His creation has disbelieved, and whoever denies that God has described
Himself with has disbelieved; none of that which God has described Himself with, nor
the Prophet, is tashbīh.”297

295
Ibid.
296
See chapter four.
297
Ibid., 531. Al-Dhahabī transmitted this statement through a living isnād via Ibn Qudāma; see al-Dhahabī, Siyar
aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, vol. 10, 610.
525
This ultimately highlights a difficult conclusion arrived at by Ibn Taymīya’s investigations;

namely, that an affirmation of scriptural attributes – affirmed by Prophet and large numbers of

early Muslims alike – has become heresy according to latterday kalām-inspired theologians,

and a point of blame.298 Therefore, the blameworthy titles used to critique scriptural

theology’s adherents too need dismantling, as they take on analogous importance to refuting

blame of the Prophet himself. This Ibn Taymīya illustrates through another historical

observation: When earlier Muslims saw someone deny tashbīh without affirming attributes,

they called him a Jahmī muʿaṭṭil. The Jahmī, on the other hand, called those who affirmed

attributes a mushabbih.299 Most of the Muʿtazilites did so to early Muslim authorities,300 and

some – Ibn Taymīya asserts – even dared to call the prophets Moses, Jesus, and Muḥammad

mushabbih, such as Thumāma b. Ashras.301 The point he seeks to make is that the epithet of

tashbīh, while used against other Muslims, hovers dangerously around implicating the Prophet.

9.3.7 Deconstructing Anti-Scripturalist Typologies

Ibn Taymīya brings up the many epithets used to describe ahl al-sunna by their

opponents: nawāṣib by Imāmī Shīʿites, mujbira by Qadarīya, mushabbiha, ḥashwīya, nawābit by

Muʿtazilites – all of which Ibn Taymīya says are terms untrue in what they seek to connotate;

since these groups in Ibn Taymīya’s view are characterized by separation from the sunna of the

298
See for example al-Juwaynī’s anathemization of Ḥanbalīs and Karrāmīs for affirming God’s establishment over
the Throne; chapter four.
299
Ibn Taymīya, al-Fatwā al-ḥamawīya al-kubrā, 532.
300
Ibid., 533.
301
Ibid., 532–3. Al-Dhahabī has this statement attributed to Ibn Abī Duʾād (on whom see chapter three), via Ibn Abī
Ḥātim’s Radd ʿalā al-Jahmīya (not extant); see Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿUthmān al-Dhahabī, al-ʿUlūw
li'l-ʿAlī al-Ghaffār, ed. Ibn ʿAbd al-Maqṣūd, Abū Muḥammad Ashraf (Riyadh: Maktabat Aḍwāʾ al-Salaf, 1416/1995),
191.
526
Prophet, he concludes that is not surprising that this manifests in such false name-calling.

There is also a precedent for this in the circumstances of the Prophet’s life, since, “those who

deviated from his teachings used to call him by false names even if they thought they were

accurate based on their false convictions.” Such names can be dismantled with the reasoning

that despite such epithets, “those that follow him with knowing insight (ʿalā baṣīra) are more

deserving of him in life and death, inwardly and outwardly (bāṭinan wa-ẓāhiran).”302

Conversely:

Those who are in agreement inwardly but being incapable of establishing the outward,
or matching him outwardly but being incapable of actualizing (taḥqīq) the inward, or
matching him inwardly and outwardly according to capacity; those who turn away
from his sunna must inevitably believe there to be a deficiency in it, blaming [those who
follow it] on the basis of that [belief] and calling them false names – even if they they
believe them to be accurate.303

A religious typology grounded in kalām being inauthentic due to its antithetical attitude to

scriptural content, the falsehood of said typology is a reflection of one’s aberrant relationship

to the prophetic grounding of religious normativity.

More examples are given: In refuting the abovementioned names attributed to ahl al-

sunna he shows their common fallacy: It is not true that everyone who loves Abū Bakr and

ʿUmar hates ʿAlī; nor must the one who thinks that God creates human actions think that

human beings have no power or choice (al-qudra wa’l-ikhtiyār) and are compelled like

inanimate objects; nor must the one who affirms God being above the Throne or being

described by attributes believe that God is enclosed in a space or a body composed of temporal

302
Ibn Taymīya, al-Fatwā al-ḥamawīya al-kubrā, 534–8.
303
Ibid., 538.
527
qualities.304 These deficiencies are only falsely attributed – but viewed as accurate – due to

fallacious notions that certain scripturally-based doctrines cannot be affirmed without

necessitating a particular deficiency. The Ibn Taymīya’s authorial intent is thus to explain why

this is not the case; again, there is no naïve return to the past, but an attempt to address the

concerns of the present.

This too lays out for us Ibn Taymīya’s scholarly agenda much of his subsequent work in

conversation with the different schools of Islam, as he wrote to correct misconceptions about

normative Sunnī doctrine with an eye to what he viewed as false characterizations

surrounding it – many arising from within as much as without. His own personal background

and upbringing is relevant in this regard too: Raised a Ḥanbalī, he necessarily faced wide public

perception (some even self-fostered by past school authorities) that his school was the anti-

rationalist wing of Sunnī Islam, epitomized in the epithet Ḥashwīya. To Ibn Taymīya, the

pariah-like status of those classified under this term for their belief in scriptural theology was

a parable for an internal crisis of the Islamic tradition as a whole. Knowing full well that to be

a Ḥanbalī was not necessarily to be anti-rationalist based on the scholarly tradition he

inherited as well as his own personal intellectual formation, he also rejected the accusation

that belief in scriptural theology inherently made one an unrational being – the ultimate

logical conclusion he perceived to result from the mutakallimūn’s typology of Muslim society.

This also explains his own concern with typologies on topics of theology, which he

reiterates once more.305 He then closes with a recommended prophetic prayer asking God’s

304
Ibid., 538–40.
305
Ibid., 541–51.
528
guidance in that which humanity has differed,306 and reminds the reader who will carry out his

own investigations of the enormity of the subject, saying:

People have said: among the most ruinous things in the world are a halfway-mutakallim,
a halfway-jurist, a halfway-doctor, and a halfway-grammarian: This one ruins religions,
that one ruins countries, this one ruins bodies, and that one ruins tongues.307

Ultimately, the the mediocre (al-mutawassiṭ) mutakallim will not investigate these matters to

their fullest because he “only has conjectures (mutawahhim) on the basis of the doctrines he

has adopted, blindly following (taqlīdan) the [authority] he aggrandizes and concerning whose

status he intimidates others (tahwīlan).”308

The principle of taqlīd, long acknowledged by practitioners of kalām as contrary to the

principles of sound religious conviction, is here invoked by Ibn Taymīya to highlight a

particular paradox which we have seen unfold over the preceding chapters; namely, the

creation of kalām “traditions” to which uncritical adherence is expected as a measure of

orthodoxy. Resistance to the redemption of the salaf which he offers is depicted as prevalent

more so on the basis of tradition than rational insight and proof.

However, no sooner does he critique the negative underside of latter-day tradition then

he invokes al-Shāfiʿī himself, vehicle of Ashʿarī traditionalist legitimacy via the substrate of

the Shāfiʿī madhhab, whose historical antagonism to kalām even Ibn ʿAsākir had to negotiate in

his Tabyīn. The rational validity of way of the salaf (embodied in al-Shāfiʿī among others), is to

Ibn Taymīya the basis of an non-contradictory acceptance of their condemnation of kalām: Ibn

Taymīya promises his reader that the one who is “truly knowledgable” (ʿalīm) about the

306
Ibid., 551.
307
Ibid., 554.
308
Ibid.
529
greater issues at hand will understand why the intellectual opponents being singled out here,

deserve “from one perspective,” what al-Shāfiʿī mentioned when he said, “My ruling for the

ahl al-kalām is that they should be beaten with palmtree fronds and sandals and paraded

around the tribes and clans, it being said, ‘This is the outcome of the one who leaves the Book

and the sunna and engages in kalām.”309 That being said, Ibn Taymīya’s intervention does not

stop at a demonization, but offers a reconciliation, when he goes on to say:

But from another perspective, if you look at them with the eye of destiny (bi-ʿayn al-
qadar) – confusion having control over them, and the devil having overcome them –
you will have mercy for them and be kind to them (raḥimtahum wa-rafaqta lahum); for
they were given intelligence but not uprightness, they were given understanding but
not given knowledge, given hearing, sight, and hearts, “But their hearing, sights, and
hearts did not avail them a bit when they denied the signs of God and that which they
mocked overcame them.” (Q al-Aḥqāf 46:26)310

9.3.8 Outcome of the Fatwa and Conclusion:

According to al-Dhahabī, the dissemination of the fatwa caused a commotion among

the scholarly class; some insisted that Ibn Taymīya be prohibited from issuing fatwas, others

pleaded his case.311 The head Ḥanafī qādī Jalāl al-Dīn al-Ḥanafī (d. 745/1344-5) ordered that it

be impaled on a stick and paraded through the city of Damascus on a stick.312 Ultimately, after

an audition with the head Shāfiʿī qādī, the controversy subsided.313 The following year

309
Ibid., 555. Such quotations were grappled with by al-Bayhaqī as we saw in quotation by Ibn ʿAsākir in his
Tabyīn; see chapter seven.
310
Ibid., 555–6.
311
Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, al-ʿUqūd al-durrīya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīya, 162.
312
Bori, “A New Source for the Biography of Ibn Taymiyya,” 344.
313
Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Les intermédiaires entre Dieu et l'Homme (Risâlat al-wāsiṭa bayna l-khalq wa'l-ḥaqq), 22.
530
(699/1300) the Mongols invaded Damascus, an event which, as in previous years, prevented

any further conflict.314

In 705/1306, a letter arrived from Egypt to Damascus, commanding Ibn Taymīya’s

theological views to be be examined; this appartently had been precipitated by his

correspondence with scholars there about theological matters.315 A trial was held in the

Damascus citadel, which Ibn Taymīya later wrote his recollections of, and has been the subject

of study by Sherman Jackson.316 Ultimately absolved of heresy there due to the authority of al-

Ashʿarī’s Ibāna quoted during its precedings, in quotation from Ibn ʿAsākir’s Tabyīn no less,317

the command nevertheless came for him to be deported to Egypt for examination.318 Although

the comparison has been completely neglected by historians, there is much in this episode

which reminds us of the banishment of ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Madqisī approximately a century

earlier; since as with ʿAbd al-Ghanī, the topic which put him under scrutiny was the topic of

God’s speech as eternally audible words.319 The trial was aborted due to a conflict of

personalities, and Ibn Taymīya was imprisoned in the Cairo citadel on charges of religious

“innovation”320 as the first of a series of imprisonments which were destined to make him a

point of controversy from that time till now.

Both Donald Little and Sherman Jackson have speculated about political reasons for Ibn

Taymīya’s trials and imprisonment. Little readily admitted, however, that the historical

314
Ibid.
315
Ibid., 23.
316
Sherman A. Jackson, “Ibn Taymiyyah on Trial in Damascus,” Journal of Semitic Studies XXXIX, no. 1 (1994), 41–85.
317
Ibid., 75.
318
Michot and Ibn Taymīya, Les intermédiaires entre Dieu et l'Homme (Risâlat al-wāsiṭa bayna l-khalq wa'l-ḥaqq), 23.
319
On that episode see chapter seven.
320
See Ibn Taymīya, al-Tisʿīnīya, 3 vols., ed. Muḥammad b. al-Ibrāhīm al-ʿAjlānī (al-Riyāḍ: Maktabat al-Maʻārif li'l-
Nashr wa'l-Tawzīʻ, 1420/1999), 55 of introduction.
531
chronicles do not give any indication of this,321 and acknowledges the deficiencies with

Laoust’s assumption “that the biographers purged their works of ‘signs of overly political

activity and reduced his personality to a piety devoted solely to religious matters’, when in

reality ‘he should be considered a political as well as religious reformer’.”322 Our problem, as

he duly noted, is a lack of clear indications to that effect, and thus even after Little’s article

Jackson speculated (again, with no explicit sources) that Ibn Taymīya’s adversaries may have

surmised an attempt to convert the Mongols to his cause for a political design of his own.323 It

would seem more likely, on the basis of the above presentation, however, that history was

merely repeating itself, with Muslim scholars attempting to neutralize yet another Ḥanbalī

subversion of the public religious order as it had come to be formed over the preceding two

centuries.324

If it is noteworthy that the historical chronicles do not mention a political dimension to

Ibn Taymīya’s run-in with the authorities, they are likewise silent as to the greater

implications of the theological controversies at stake as well. In this light, it is telling that both

the historical chronicles as well as contemporary researchers have been oblivious to the fact

that one of the first things Ibn Taymīya did during his Cairo imprisonment was write a

systematic refutation of Muʿtazilī, Ashʿarī, and latter-day Ḥanbalī views of God’s speech –

321
Donald P. Little, “The Historical and Historiographical Significance of the Detention of Ibn Taymiyya,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies 4, no. 3 (Jul., 1973), 311–27: 313, 316, 319. Little’s observations quotes
Laoust
322
Ibid., 322–3.
323
Jackson, “Ibn Taymiyyah on Trial in Damascus,” 49–51.
324
This point is lost on contemporary studies of Ibn Taymīya who view him primarily as a state reformer; see
introduction. Little himself inclined towards studying the controversy surrounding Ibn Taymīya as a contention
of opposing schools or even personalities among the ʿulemāʾ; see Little, “The Historical and Historiographical
Significance of the Detention of Ibn Taymiyya,” 323 ff.
532
including the doctrine of the eternal audible voice.325 History was thus not repeating itself

with Ibn Taymīya as a second ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī, but this is a fact which the historical

chronicles are impervious to. Given the socio-political analysis dominant in contemporary

research which naturally privileges such sources over theological ones, it is not surprising that

“history books” have obscured the true historical significance of the detention of Ibn Taymīya

– its theological significance.

This chapter aims to show that rather than characterizing Ibn Taymīya as anomaly in

Islamic history, his profile both intellectual and social is better contextualized over the

“longue durée,” embodying not only a particular scholarly genealogy through the institutions

of scholarship which he belonged to but also a genealogy of ideas. This is highlighted by the

key themes which he invokes: the role of reason, the nature of language, and the basis of

interpretive authority for Islamic scripture. Even as an interlocutor in contention with

dominant scholarly views on these topics, his discourse is a direct product of, and articulated

in the same terminology as the scholarly discourse of his times. This should not be surprising,

but merely emphasize the inadequacy noted in the introduction on the autocthonous image of

Ibn Taymīya which prevails in the research. In the conclusion to this thesis, we shall revisit

our findings on Ibn Taymīya’s scholarly genealogy with an eye to the broader topics covered in

previous chapters, for an assessment of Ibn Taymīya’s historiographical significance.

325
This is the main topic of Ibn Taymīya's al-Tisʿīnīya.
533
Conclusion:

This study has accomplished what it set out to do by depicting Ibn Taymīya’s scholarly

genealogy in a comprehensive manner. Ibn Taymīya’s thought has been situated within the

prevailing discursive traditions of his time via prosopographical analysis of his scholarly

genealogy and within a philological analysis of the particular methodological frameworks

which determine its form of locution. As ought to be expected, there exists in Ibn Taymīya’s

thought a clear discursive continuity with what preceded, both in terms of language,

conceptualizations, and concerns. No less does this apply in regard to more concrete terms

such as tradition, rationalism, scripturalism, Sufism, etc. What is in fact highlighted is how

contingent such frameworks were, historically being negotiated by scholarly discourses over

multiple generations, in which Ibn Taymīya represents an important chapter.

Ibn Taymīya represents both continuity with these discursive traditions, as well as a

participation in them, which is only intelligible through understanding their terms. The

reason for such an extended backstory to Ibn Taymīya’s thought, encompassing centuries of

Islamic intellectua history, is that these terms are generally as obscure to the research as Ibn

Taymīya’s participation in them. Intellectual history has suffered at the expense of social

history in Islamic Studies. This dissertation, while aiming to satisfy both intellectual and social

historians, wishes to highlight the importance of the former for understanding the conceptual

negotiations which indeed many social occurrences are a reflection of.

Ibn Taymīya’s own contributions to the discursive traditions that he was a part of, if

considered radical, reflect the radical nature of the scholarship that preceded him, in the

confidence with which it negotiated its own grounding of the authoritative past in Muslim

religious life. Over the course of centuries, the highly conceptualized understanding of Islam

534
advanced by the mutakallimūn both broke and formed living traditions, shaping them

according to the exigencies of normative methodological principles undergirding a

universality promised by their scholastic methods. Ibn Taymīya’s own discussions are shaped

by these, and presented as a solution to an inherent problem that he perceives in them.

However, it is where discourse meets the real world, in genealogies of normative

authority, where Ibn Taymīya’s contentions are most frequently engaged with: as in

contention with authoritative figures, schools of thought, or mystical orders, which in his own

time, and perhaps subsequently, are reified as embodiments of reason, Sufism, or a greater

Islamic tradition. It has been the social configuration, then as now, which limits our approach

to Ibn Taymīya, for we posit him not in relationship to ideas, but in relationship to particular

groups, schools, or political actors.

Ibn Taymīya’s Relationship to Scripture and the Salaf: Fundamentalism or New

Scholasticism?

Ibn Taymīya’s rehabilitation of the idea of the salaf is the product of an extended

conversation about the nature of the early community in relation to various modes of

scholasticism. This is to say that the salaf as reified concept does not begin with him, but was

already part of the scholarly parlance, mediated through the lens of orthodoxy and historical

memory in development. The problem of the salaf, however, is magnified most through the

lens of kalām, which due to its epistemic priority on unmediated rational proof, necessarily

puts an emulative predecessor into question.

Ibn Taymīya’s own investigations reveal a sensitivity to the fact that for the mutakallimūn the

tradition-forming past in the Asadian sense1 can only begin at the articulation point of kalām,

1
“When the practice was instituted, and from which the knowledge of its point and proper performance has been
transmitted;” Asad, “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam,” 20.

535
i.e., post-salaf. For this reason, the mutakallimūn’s relationship to the prophetically colored

salaf of Islam’s early generations who precede kalām’s scholarly normativization is necessarily

problematized, in terms of methodology and normative interpretative practices.

The only way kalām’s method can be rooted in the prophetically imbued past of the

salaf is via assertion that the Prophet taught a form of kalām to his followers (as in the Ḥathth

or Shikāyat), or that al-Ashʿarī received a prophetic inheritance (Bayhaqī as transmitted via

Ibn ʿAsākir’s Tabyīn). This was admittedly not the predominant view of the past, particularly

not of the Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn who never dared to assert such ideas, but likewise not for the

Ashʿarī mutakallimūn (see Ibn Fūrak, al-Bayhaqī, al-Juwaynī, al-Rāzī), due to the recognition

that kalām’s methodologically based interpretive approach of taʾwīl (one of the most influential

normative forms of the kalām-based normative present2) was absent from the practice of the

earlier generations of Muslims. In this light, the historical relationship of the salaf in regard to

normative practices of the present had be mitigated in a different way:

The formal Ashʿarī argument, initiated by Ibn Fūrak and polished by al-Rāzī, asserts

that the salaf’s abstention from taʾwīl of scripture effectively means non-interpretation

(tafwīḍ), which allows texts to later be reinterpreted by later generations of mutakallimūn, as

the “firmly established in knowledge.” Meanwhile, and in methodological contradistinction to

the Ashʿarī mutakallimūn, Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn such as Abū Yaʿlā asserted that the abstention

of taʾwīl by the salaf entailed an inherent human inability to know the meaning of such verses

via natural language, leaving the “firmly established in knowledge” to affirm scripture without

knowing its meaning. As such both Ashʿarī and Ḥanbalī kalām practices were Qurʾānically

(read: revelationally) situated and affirmed the historical precedence of the salaf, even with the

2
“How it [viz. the practice] is linked to other practices, institutions, and social conditions.” ibid.

536
admission that there was a necessary historical difference between them and later

generations, analogous to the development of uṣūl al-fiqh, or for the sake of preventing Islam

from becoming an unreflecting emulative tradition (taqlīd).3

Ibn Taymīya, originally raised in a Ḥanbalī kalām paradigm which acknowledged this break

between the salaf and later generations, must have been alerted to the deeper underpinnings

of the conscious methodological break between the salaf and later articulations of orthodoxy

via the kalām-rejectionist Ḥanbalīs of al-Ṣāliḥīya. It was the libraries of the latter containing

the documentation of early theology which made clear to him that the kalām tradition’s

characterization of the salaf was historically untenable, as earlier generations of Muslims

clearly had the tendency to interpret and affirm texts which were either reinterpreted or left

unknowable by subsequent mutakallimūn; this realization was only compounded by his reading

of early Kullābī and Ashʿarī kalām texts. It was impossible to maintain the “rationalist”

tradition

For Ibn Taymīya, the conscious or unconscious mischaracterization of the salaf’s

interpretive practice is based on the assumption that affirming the apparent meaning of the

text (ẓāhir) is always assumed to indicate the incorrect meaning and thus risks the fear of

theological heresy. The salaf, however, affirmed texts on the basis of their ẓāhir; indeed, not

only does Ibn Taymīya quote figures of the 2nd/8th century as one would expect, in the tradition

of ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Ibn Baṭṭa, and others; but also quotes prominent early

members of the four madhhabs, Sufis, and even early Ashʿarīs. The recasting of the salaf’s

position as refraining from interpretation of the texts – for the sake of preserving later kalām’s

3
This underscores the accuracy of Asad’s statement that, “Clearly, not everything Muslims say and do belongs to
an Islamic discursive tradition. Nor is an Islamic tradition necessarily imitative of what was done in the past.”
ibid.

537
normativity as methodological framework for grounding the traditional past and present – was

historically untenable, Ibn Taymīya argued.

Ibn Taymīya determined that the methodological underpinning for kalām’s positing the

salaf as not-interpreting or unable to interpret the texts was based on an incompatibility in its

methodology with affirmation of the “apparent meaning” (ẓāhir) of certain descriptions of God:

For both Ashʿarī and Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn, “the apparent meaning” (al-ẓāhir) of the text often

contradicted their rational proofs of God, in for example, the case of affirming a “corporeal

hand” or God being above “like a body over another body.” In the case of the former, it thus

demands taʾwīl, in the case of the latter it leads to agnosticism (tafwīḍ).

Ibn Taymīya disagrees quite strongly with the Ḥanbalī mutakallimūn on this point and

sides with both Ashʿarīs and Muʿtazilīs in that it is theologically problematic for revelational

content to contain uninterpretable verses, especially if the reason for this goes back to the

intentions of God or the Prophet (see ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Ibn Fūrak, al-Bāqillānī, al-Juwaynī). That

being said, if this mandate to know, understand, and interpret verses is theologically true

(being buttressed by the Qurʾānic concept of baṣīra or knowing insight), then, Ibn Taymīya

argues, its normativity must hold true of the earliest generations as well and not exclude the

salaf from consideration. This mandate of interpretation upheld by kalām-inspired

practitioners of taʾwīl is the basis of Ibn Taymīya’s rehabilitation of the salaf’s interpretations

(taʾwīl in the traditional sense of tafsīr) in matters of theology, on the basis of sound linguistic

and reasoning principles.

This leads to two surprising conclusions about Ibn Taymīya’s view of the salaf and the

role of scripture: From within his own historical context, the most radical aspect of Ibn

Taymīya’s salaf-ism is in his insistence that there need not be a voiding of the salaf’s scriptural

538
interpretations in order for the validity of the Islamic revelation to be upheld, but that these

earlier interpretations be considered as valid sources of information. Likewise, Ibn Taymīya’s

scripturalism can be summed up in that scripture is allowed to communicate that which

reason does not necessarily know by itself, a possibility ruled out by “the rule of

interpretation.”

Indeed, the radical nature of kalām, underappreciated by most intellectual historians,

had rendered scripture incapable of conveying theological meaning without reason’s consent,

and pre-emptively silenced earlier generations of scholars that potentially contravened this

principle. If this does not seem apparent, it is because the Ashʿarīs, in a way perhaps more

obvious than the Muʿtazilites, but still indebted to them in their methods, were nevertheless

defenders of the scripture’s supremacy – once established by reason. But affirming the

authority of a text and affirming the meaning of a text were potentially two different

processes, as we have come to understand.

The fact that Ibn Taymīya’s position seems radical in a Muslim context is a reflection of

our ignorance about his predecessor’s commitments to rationality, as contingent as these may

be on the intellectual developments of their time. For some, this may lead to the surprising

conclusion that Ibn Taymīya’s argument for the harmony of reason with a theology derived

from scriptural content and early communal interpretive tradition seems a scholastic

synthesis more akin to the views of an Aquinas than a Luther, were an analogy to Christianity

to be made.

539
 Such a comparison is impossible, however, only if Muslim reconciliation with “reason”

or even “philosophy” (as metaphor for reason)4 is equivocated solely with an embracal of the

core ontology, cosmology, and theology of Aristotelianism or Neoplatonism (viz. Sabianism in

Ibn Taymīya’s framework), as happens in surveys of Islamic history.5 For this reason, the

analogy of Ibn Taymīya to Aquinas fails, precisely because the former’s reconciliation with

reason is consciously anti-Aristotelian in key elements of its first principles, namely, those

ontological and epistemological topics which historically have been witnessed to perennially

be at tension with key elements of revelational theology (God’s essence, actions, creation of

the world, etc.). Ibn Taymīya, well acquainted with the implications of such falsafa doctrines

since his youth, attempted to articulate an alternative to them.

For this reason it remains an important desideratum to explore Ibn Taymīya’s

rationalist method in all of its details. “Reason” in Ibn Taymīya’s time being contingent on

contingent discursive traditions of of reason present in his time (kalām, falsafa, uṣūl al-fiqh),

expertise in both philosophy and philology will again be necessary to scrutinize how Ibn

Taymīya addressed the exigencies of “those particular forms of reason” in his scholarly

writings.

Revelation, Reason, and Spirituality: Themes of Private and Public Discourse

This leads naturally to the key themes with which Ibn Taymīya is used as an emblem or

foil; namely, reason, spirituality, and tradition. By now, however, enough groundwork has

been established to qualify these terms with more historical precision. There existed, during

Ibn Taymīya’s time, varying traditions of engagement with all three, and Ibn Taymīya could

4
The philologist should point out that not all Muslim’s opposed to falsafa were opposed to “reason.” For this
reason, falsafa
5
Esposito, Oxford History of Islam, 281-303

540
point to scholarly lineages which linked him personally and methodologically with influential

figures for the articulation of rationalism, traditionalism, and spirituality. Arguably, however,

it is in the social manifestation of these traditions, as narratives of authority embodied in

historical figures, that the most tension can be posited, as will now be summarized.

The first of these is “reason.” If “reason” had a lineage embodied in a normative

Ashʿarī or Avicennan framework, then Ibn Taymīya was clearly at odds with certain elements

present in them. However, as his al-Fatwā al-Ḥamawīya makes clear, this opposition is not

fideism-based but founded on reason as well. While the argument that Ibn Taymīya clearly

believed in a rationalist alternative to these paradigms is an easy one to make, the fact that it

has gone underappreciated deserves further reflection: To Ibn Taymīya, at least, the denial of

an alternative represents the reification of a particular type of reasoning that cannot be

challenged; the particular problem is not simply that “reason” is mandated, but that a

particular kind is mandated, even one possessing serious internal problems in his view.

But if to Ibn Taymīya questioning what seemed an incoherent rationalist methodology was an

ethical necessity, it also had seeming implications for the public articulation of Islamic

tradition in a broader sense:

Authority in kalām-based theology being given to a particular form of reasoning, this

authority is in turn imbued in a particular school or class of individuals who participate in

articulating it. Their rationalism is thus no longer an individual action, but the embodiment of

theological orthodoxy, and thus a normative tradition. Ibn Taymīya criticized the Ashʿarī and

Ḥanbalī kalām schools duly in this regard, attributing erroneous views to many of its figures by

name: al-Juwaynī, al-Ghazālī, al-Rāzī, and others; this challenged a very strong sense of

embodied authoritative normativity in his time.

541
 If questioning certain authorities via a methodological critique were not provocative

enough, Ibn Taymīya’s resurrected genealogical critique that attributed “Jahmism” to later

Sunnī scholars was fit to thoroughtly offend the public order by associating revered figures of

Islamic scholarship with “innovation,” the watchword of illegitimacy in his times. We are in a

position to appreciate how scandalous implications of genetic “innovation” against Ashʿarīs

should be tempered by cognizance of how Ḥanbalīs too were accused of “innovation” in

regards to their theological positions and faced communal exclusion, as in the case of ʿAbd al-

Ghanī al-Maqdisī, for example. Ultimately, however, due to the normative nature of the

scholarship of the former, both for subsequent scholarly and historiographical traditions, the

implications are felt more strongly by the reader in this case than in the latter.

On the public level, not only was Ibn Taymīya perceived to have undermined the

dominant embodied tradition of theology in Sunnī Islam, but likewise must have been

perceived as impugning critical figures of legal authority – at the top of the taqlīd system in

fiqh. In the public sphere, it was the potential for repercussions related to the critique of this

particular embodied authoritative tradition which was perceived as more problematic in Ibn

Taymīya’s time than a critique of a particular form of “reason” per se.

Again, the social implications must be contrasted with discursive anaylsis: Ibn

Taymīya, though preferrring “the way of the salaf” in matters of theology, seems to have

continued in the non-emulative jurisprudential discourse of uṣūl al-fiqh, much like Ibn Qudāma

– the basis of ijtihād. The framework of his uṣūl al-fiqh, clearly bound in genealogy to the

scholarship of al-Āmidī, al-Rāzī, and al-ʿIzz b. ʿAbd al-Salām, must also be evaluated in further

reseearch.

542
 More significant, than this, however, was his public insinuation of the threat of siyāsa in

the scholarly world, which we know to have created a stir ever since the generation of al-

Ghazālī, due to the threat of Fatimid Ismāʿīlism and the rise of Avicennism.6 Embodied in his

critique of “imaginary manipulation” (takhyīl), Ibn Taymīya not only explains this paradigm as

the true target of his critiques, but also reveals this to lie at the foundation of his critique of

certain Sufis, by which he certainly meant Ibn ʿArabī and others of the same persuasion:

The latter, as Ibn Taymīya must have been able to determine through his research methods,

advocated a hybrid form of Avicennan cosmology and prophetology, would otherwise would

have been incriminating; but Ibn ʿArabī had been embraced by the Ashʿarī-Shāfiʿī Banū al-Zakī

family and others in scholarly circles, and was being established as a normative force in

Mamluk Sufism. To insinuate that such Sufis were embroiled, even unknowingly, in the falsafa

paradigm of “religion as noble-lie for the masses” was likewise a serious allegation, and it is

not improbable that this is the ultimate reason why Ibn Taymīya was summoned to Cairo for

trial at the request of Ibn ʿArabī’s devotees.7

Final Words

The duality present in academic research on Ibn Taymīya thus represents the presence

in his thought of a perennial ideal articulated scripturally and discursively in Islam for a

6
To invoke Aquinas again, it is also worth noting that the same time period in Western Europe witnessed
considerable controversy concerning the “Averroists.”
7
Cf. Knysh, Ibn Arabi, 92-93. Based on Ibn Taymīya’s critique of the “rule of interpretation,” we can understand
the negative implications of Ibn ʿArabī’s brand of Sufism. If the “rule of interpretation” had emptied texts of their
meanings to become a vessel of contending notions of reason, then Ibn ʿArabī’s particularly bold and charismatic
articulation of “internal illumination” (kashf) which underpinned his ontology – and therefore hermeneutic
premises – would imply the highest order of interpretive authority and emulative universality. Again, the texts
are emptied of their content for the sake of a radically subjective view, for the sake of which “public Islam”
becomes a mere tool of a spiritual elite.

543
harmony with religion and revelation. Ibn Taymīya’s scripturalism is based on a belief in

rationalism, and perhaps vice versa – that God’s revelation would not entail a contradiction of

human reason.

The contemporary characterization of his thought, however, has as much to do with

where his activities place him in relationship to the prevailing institutions or embodiments of

religious authority, as parsed out in the scholastic mediation of discursive tradition as driver of

Muslim historical memory, and the entailing reification of historical actors as embodiments of

a particular practice to the exclusion of others.

Ibn Taymīya’s persuasive theses about kalām’s rejection of the salaf has the negative

potential for justification of religious groups outside the centers of Islam’s historically

normative scholarly institutions; in the same vein, fringe groups adopt a facile understanding

of Ibn Taymīya’s theses in order to justify themselves as resuming a broken tradition with the

salaf. Some aspects of Ibn Taymīya’s writings – in his own words or in quotation of earlier

authorities – perhaps cause some to reject reason altogether, or inhabit an apocalyptic vision

of Islam’s decline. Both, reactions, in fact, are only the product of being exposed to a much

older historiographical tradition to which Ibn Taymīya belonged.

For example: it is quite reasonable to presume that the manuscript of Dhamm al-kalām

by al-Harawī, or even the K. al-Ibāna by al-Ashʿarī, rediscovered suddenly and made point of

contention, would be more than sufficient to polarize a consituency of Muslims – without any

further contribution from Ibn Taymīya. If Ibn Taymīya’s additions have been stifled, then this

is due in no small part to those who have deemed themselves his authoritative interpreters,

“whether they like him or not,” for or against.

544
 It is here where the significance of Ibn Taymīya’s own contributions must clearly be

seen as a significant addendum to that historiographical tradition, in not succumbing to

fideism, conspiratorialism, or fatalism, but rather, attempting to reconcile its sense of

normativity with the greater scholarly discourses of Islam, and blaming “those who affiliate

themselves with the salaf” to the extent that they place importance on affirming certain texts

fideistically without understanding why. If the Taymīyan intervention is rejected offhand, this

has the consequence of contributing to the certainty that such positions of the salaf (denied or

rejected by the kalām tradition) are condemned de facto to “be anti-rationalist,” and contrary

to the wider scholarly discourse of Islam, even by their adherents.

As revealed by our analysis of the public dissemination of Ashʿarī “traditionalism,” or

the intentional public obscurity of the Ḥanbalī kalām school, the quest for “a more perfect

representation of tradition” in Muslim public discourse has colored the terms through which

these disputes have been negotiated. All the more reason why analysing these social

constituencies into discursive components is all the more necessary, so that the legitimizing

components of Muslim “traditions” are allowed to speak for themselves, and not engaged with

solely via their discursive fate in representations intended for mass-consumption – medieval

or modern.

545
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