ILM al-KALAM, one of the 'religious sciences' of Islam. The term is usually translated, as
an approximate rendering, 'theology'.
I.--Definition.
It is difficult to establish precisely when 'ilm al-kalam came to mean an autonomous religious
science (or branch of knowledge). In any case, whereas the term fiqh meant
originally--especially in the Hanafi school (cf. fiqh akbar)--speculative meditation, hence
distinguished from 'ilm in the sense of traditional knowledge, the term kalam, literally 'word',
quickly acquired the senses of 'conversation, discussion, controversy' (cf. A. J. Wensinck, The
Muslim creed, 193t, 79, quoting two hadiths of Muslim). In his Ihsa' al-'ulum, al-Farabi regards
'ilm al-kalam as 'a science which enables a man to procure the victory of the dogmas and actions laid
down by the Legislator of the religion, and to refute all opinions contradicting them'. The
doctors of kalam (mutakallimun) themselves were to take a very similar view: this is one of many
well-known definitions: 'kalam is the science which is concerned with firmly establishing religious
beliefs by adducing proofs and with banishing doubts' (from the Mawaqif of al-_dhi, 8th/14th
cent.). Similarqdefinitions are to be found in Ibn khaldun, and again in Muhammad
'Abduh: they summarize a long elaboration, but add nothing new.
'Ilm al-kalam is the discipline which brings to the service of religious beliefs ('aqa'id) discursive
arguments; which thus provides a place for reflexion and meditation, and hence for reason, in
the elucidation and defence of the content of the faith. It takes its stand firstly against 'doubters
and deniers', and its function as defensive 'apologia' cannot be over-stressed. A fairly common
synonymous term is 'ilm al-tawhid, the 'science of the Unity (of God)', understood as concerned
not merely with the divine unity but with all the bases of the Muslim faith, especially prophecy
(e.g., al-Dhurdhani, Sharh al-Mawaqif, ed. Cairo 13t5, i, t6).
Another interpretation sometimes suggested explains 'ilm al-kalam as 'science of the Word of
God'. The attribute of the Word and the nature of the qur'an were indeed among the first
themes treated, and discussions on this subject continued throughout the centuries. But this was
by no means the first question undertaken (see below, a II) nor that later treated at most length.
It seems much more likely that kalam referred at first to discursive arguments, and the
mutakallimun ('loquentes') were 'reasoners'. This was the case as early as the time of Ma'bad
al-Dhuhani (d. 80/699-700). Kalam became a regular discipline when these arguments and
discussions dealt with the content of the faith. It is this character of discursive and reasoned
apologia which was to attract the attacks both of the traditionists and of the falasifa (a IV,
below).
II.--The great schools.
A. First tendencies.
--It seems that it is from the battle of ‘iffin and the schisms to which it gave rise that can be
dated not of course the first meditations on the content of the faith but their grouping into
tendencies and schools. The appearances of the three main politico-religious traditions,
kharidhi, Shi'i and Sunni, set before Muslim thinkers the problem of the validity of the imama
[q.v.] and the 'status of believer' which the imam must possess; thence arose the question of faith
and the conditions for salvation and the question of man's responsibility or lack of responsibility;
then, as parallel considerations, the nature of the Qur'an (created or not created) and hence the
stress laid upon the divine attribute of the Word; then finally, the more general problem of the
divine attributes, their existence and their connexion with the divine essence, and its Unity.
Many other questions were added in course of time; but already at this early period--the age of
the Umayyads and the early 'Abbasids--the essential themes which were to constitute 'ilm
al-kalam had arisen. Whatever may have been the effect of external influences--discussions with
Mazdean zanadiqa on good and evil in human actions or with the Christian theologians of
Damascus on the Word of God, and the discovery of Greek science and philosophy--kalam
tended at first to take shape over specifically Muslim problems. The external influences probably
had some effect as a result of the controversies, emphasizing some aspects of the subjects dealt
with, giving direction to the choice of arguments and (still more, perhaps) the method of
argumentation. The fact remains, however, that 'ilm al-kalam is certainly not an Arab
adaptation of Mazdean or Christian theology but arose within the Muslim community, where it
preserved its own originality.
It would be risky and tedious to attempt to establish the dates of the very first attitudes adopted.
So far, these are hardly known except through later works of heresiography (notably of
al-Ash'ari, al Baghdadi, al-Shahrastani, Ibn Hazm) and refutations. Again, it is not always the
same thinkers who are linked together under this or that comprehensive label (e.g., qadariyya);
and mere tendencies should not be transformed into 'schools' in the strict sense. This or that
mutakallim may be presented as showing diverse--even opposing--tendencies according to the
problem he is dealing with. There follow here, as a general indication, a few points of reference.
The qadariyya were those most opposed to the Umayyad regime, most critical of the ways of the
court at Damascus. The name was ordinarily applied to those who recognized that man had a
power (qudra) over his acts so extensive that determination (qadar) belonged to man alone, and
who saw in 'works' thus freely performed an integral part of the faith. Hence the man who
deliberately committed a great sin became kafir, infidel. This last tenet, which does not seem to
have been supported by all, was to remain one of the characteristics of kharidhi
thought.--Ghaylan and Ma'bad al-Dhuhani are the members of the qadariyya most frequently
quoted. To them may be added, but with reservations, Wasil b. 'Ata' and 'Amr b. 'Ubayd
(tnd/8th century), who are regarded as the founders of the Mu'tazili school and are, with them,
sometimes called 'political mu'tazilis". This tendency re-appears in later kharidhi or Shi'i
kalam. The term qadariyya was later readily applied to the Mu'tazilis proper, who disclaimed it.
Some of them, interpreting differently the etymology of the term, used it of those who upheld
the absoluteness of the divine Decree (qadar); this interpretation is found later in the works of
their opponent Ibn Taymiyya.
In this second sense, qadariyya becomes practically synonymous with what had been its
opposite, Dhabriyya (or Mudhbira [q.v.]), the upholders of dhabr, the divine 'compulsion', which
ccreates man's acts, good or bad, so that nothing is attributed to the man who performs them.
The Mu'tazilis regarded as Jabriyya those (including Ash'aris) who rejected their doctrine of qadar.
Ash'ari heresiographers accorded the term Jabriyya--perhaps somewhat hastily--to the disciples
of Jahm.
It was on the question of faith, sin and salvation that the Murdhi'a [q.v.] disagreed with the
kharidhis. A great sin (kabira) does not involve loss of faith. On the basis of qur'an, IX, 106, the
sinner's future fate is left in suspense (irdha'), awaiting God's decision. It is
Ghaylan and Ghassan
(who seem to have had Hanafi connexions) who are usually (e.g., by al-Shahrastani) named as
belonging to the Murdhi'a.
Later heresiographers constricted these diverse tendencies into condensed formulas, which
probably over-simplified and distorted them. But in these very first efforts to support
politico-religious attitudes by means of rational argument the main lines of later discussions are
already drawn. With greater or less success, the qadariyya anticipate some of the main theses of
the Mu'tazila; the Ash'aris were to seek a 'happy mean' to reconcile the 'compulsion' of the
Dhabriyya and human responsibility; the Murdhi'a prefigure, to some degree, in their treatment of
the problem of retribution in the next world, the explanations of the Maturidi-Hanafis and many
Ash'aris. Full discussion of this question would require a detailed study (which would however
be risky for lack of documentation) of ghaylan, who is sometimes classed with the qadariyya, as
having asserted human liberty of choice, and sometimes with the Murdhi'a, thanks to his theory
of the future lot of the sinful believer.
We are dealing therefore with tendencies rather than with established 'schools of theology',
and with overlapping views which later were to diverge. Thus it is with the adherents of the sect
of the Jahmiyya [q.v.], who regarded as their founder Jahm b. ‘afwan (executed in 1t8/746)
but whose tenets are known only from the refutations of their opponents. To summarize: on the
problem of qadar they would ally themselves with the Jabriyya, and on that of faith with the
Murdhi'a. Beyond this, however, they refused to recognize any distinct existence of the divine
attributes, stripping them away (ta'til) from the divine essence in order the better to protect its
perfect and absolute unity. Finally, they supported the thesis of the created
Qur'an, and gave an
allegorical interpretation to the anthropomorphic features in its text. Thus there arose a certain
confusion between them and the Mu'tazilis (e.g., on the subject of 4irar b. 'Amr), although the
latter took position against them both for their excessive ta'til and for their rejection of human
freedom of action.
B. The Mu'tazili schools (for the origin of the name, details on the historical development of the
school and its doctrines, see mu'tazila).
The first Mu'tazilis were contemporaries of the various
tendencies and groupings surveyed above. It is sometimes difficult and perhaps pointless to
distinguish them from the qadariyya.
But after 13t/750, when 'Abbasid authority was asserting itself at Baghdad, discussions on the
validity of the imama lost their relevance, to be replaced by the defence of religious dogmas in
general against attacks of zanadiqa of all types. Doctrinal positions became so defined and
systematized that one may speak of a regular school (or rather schools), whose vocabulary and
methods of argument were to be influenced as a result of the activity of translation from works
of Greek science and philosophy
After the 'founders', Wasil b. 'Ata' and 'Amr b. 'Ubayd, and the 'forerunner', 4irar b. 'Amr, we
find two Mu'tazili groups taking shape, at Basra and Baghdad respectively, between the end of the
tnd/8th and the beginning of the 4th/10th century. Each embraced varying tendencies, but
can justly be called a 'school' (madhhab) (see W. Montgomery Watt, Free will and predestination in
early Islam, Edinburgh 1948, 65, for a table of the chief representatives of these schools and the
links of their affiliation; list in L. Gardet, Les grands problemes de la theologie musulmane: Dieu et la
destinee de l'homme, Paris 1967, t6).
One may, with Montgomery Watt, regard Abu 'l-Hudhayl al-'Allaf (d. ca tt7/841) as the
founder of the Basra school and, in a sense, of doctrinal Mu'tazilism itself. The great names in
this school are Mu'ammar, al-Nazzam (both of whom did not refrain from criticizing al-'Allaf),
the great writer al-Jahiz, al-Jubba'i and his son Abu Hashim (d. 3t1/933). The doctors of
Basra, in grappling with the doctrinal problems that arose, advanced original solutions in the
field of natural philosophy or in noetics: the theory of atoms (dhuz'), of Abu 'l-Hudhayl, the
semi-conceptualism of the 'modes' (ahwal) of Abu Hashim.
The school of Baghdad was perhaps less illustrious than that of Basra. It derived from Bishr b.
al-Mu'tamir (d. between t10-t6/8t5-40), who was for a time imprisoned by Harun al-Rashid,
was criticized by Abu 'l-Hudhayl, and was to influence Mu'ammar. Al-Murdar, øhumama,
al-khayyat and al-Ka'bi (d. 319/931) brought fame to this group.
As the oft-quoted remark of Ahmad Amin (4uha al-Islam, Cairo, iii, t04) puts it, the Mu'tazilis were
'firstly men of religion and secondarily philosophers'. It is not (pace D. B. Macdonald in EI1, s.v.
Kalam) the atomic theory (nor that of the 'modes') which characterizes the mutakallimun, but
their primary concern to engage in disputation and argument to defend the faith against the
zanadiqa of the period, the 'free-thinkers' inspired by Mazdeism or Manicheism, and later by
pure Greek rationalism. Although nuances of doctrine, sometimes important, divided them,
they were inspired by one and the same spirit: respect for reason ('aql) in the defence of religious
tenets ('aql becoming even the criterion (mizan) of the Law), the concern to purge the notion of
God of all 'multiplicity' and anthropomorphism, the desire to proclaim and justify the absolute
divine perfection. The Mu'tazilis themselves defined themselves as 'the people of Justice and
Unity'.
(We may note the influence of Mu'tazilism on Jewish thought elaborated in the Arabic milieu; it
too possessed a kalam, which opposed the Muslim doctors when necessary but which largely
borrowed from them its problematics, its method and its systems of argument.
Sa'adyah Gaon
(Sa'id al-Fayyumi) was the most famous Jewish mutakallim).
The five principal bases (usul) or theses upon which Mu'tazili problematic was elaborated are
known: (1) the divine Unity (al-tawhid): the divine attributes are meaningful only when taken in a
strict via remotionis (tanzih), which their opponents readily identified with the ta'til of the
Jahmiyya. God the Creator, an absolutely spiritual being, is inaccessible and can be seen
neither in this world nor in the next. (t) Justice (al-'adl): God acts with a purpose. Things, by
their nature, contain both good and evil. God can will only the good, and is obliged to
accomplish that which is better (al-aslah). Thus He neither wills nor commands that which is
evil. Man, 'creator of his own acts' by a contingent power (qudra) which God has created in
him, is responsible for what he does, and God is obliged to reward or punish him accordingly.
(3) 'The promise and the warning' (al-wa'd wa 'l-wa'id) or 'the names and the decrees' (al-asma'
wa 'l-ahkam): to possess faith is to perform the acts prescribed by the qur'an. Whoever commits a
'great sin' and does not repent is destined for hell. The thesis elaborates the 'decrees' for the
believer and the unbeliever. It deals also with 'traditions' (akhbar): contrary to the normal
doctrine, it does not insist that all the 'transmitters' should be believers; and
ijma' [q.v.] is not
infallible. (4) 'The intermediate state between faith and lack of faith (al-manzila bayn
al-manzilatayn)--the position of the 'believer who sins' (fasiq [q.v.]), a characteristic thesis of the
school. The sinner is neither a true believer (mu'min), nor a true infidel (kafir). He has failed to
perform the 'witness of the limbs', but his faith in God keeps him within the Community. It is
here that are discussed the conditions for imama and the respective merits of the first four
Caliphs. (5) 'The enjoining of what is good and the forbidding of what is evil' (al-amr bi 'l-ma'ruf
wa 'l-nahy 'an al-munkar): this thesis at first was of major prominence, but later lost relevance.
'The enjoining of what is good' is an obligation upon every Muslim (contra: al-Asamm, of Basra).
As against the more prudent view prevailing later, the Mu'tazilis advocated direct intervention,
if necessary with the sword. One may and should depose guilty leaders, one may and should
compel opponents, on pain of death, to profess the true doctrine (cf. al-Ash'ari, Maqalat, ed.
Cairo, ii, 466). This was the attitude of the Mu'tazilis, in their days of triumph under al-Ma'mun,
when they denounced to the courts the supporters of the doctrine of the uncreated qur'an.
The fact remains that the writings of the great Mu'tazilis, apart from the polemical Intisar (a
defence of Mu'tazilism by al-khayyat, against Ibn al-Rawandi), are available to us only at second
hand. After being for a time the official doctrine, Mu'tazilism was in its turn condemned and
most of its productions were destroyed. It is only recently (in about 1958), that there have come
to light, in the Yemen, the writings of a Mu'tazili (unfortunately, late), the qadi 'Abd al-Dhabbar
(d. 415/10t5): first al-Mughni fi abwab al-tawhid wa 'l-'adl, a true 'summa', now (1969) being edited
in Cairo, and second the Kitab al-Madhmu' fi 'l-muhit bi 'l-taklif (ed., not without mistakes, by J. J.
Houben, Beyrouth 196t). To these may be added the work of synthesis Sharh al-usul al-khamsa (ed.
Cairo 1384/1965 by 'Abd al-Karim 'Uthman), probably compiled by a Zaydi disciple, the imam
al-Mandakim. We may mention also, in the line of 'Abd al-Jabbar's teaching, the Mu'tamad fi
usul al-fiqh, by his disciple the jurist Abu 'l-Husayn Ibn al-tayyib al-Basri (ed. Damascus by
Hamidullah).
'Abd al-Jabbar makes frequent reference to the 'early masters' of the school ('our shaykhs'),
more readily to the school of Basra, and especially to al-Dhubba'i and Abu Hashim. Thus we now
possess quotations from the early doctors and resumes of their thought presented from the
Mu'tazili viewpoint: this reveals, incidentally, how objective are the Maqalat of al-Ash'ari (and
tends to prove that the first part at least of this work was composed during the years that the
author adhered to Mu'tazilism). Again, the late date when 'Abd al-Jabbar was teaching induced
him to conduct polemic against the Ash'aris and set out the replies of the Mu'tazilis to the attacks
mounted against them. The discovery of these works in the Yemen is another proof that under
the challenge of the 5th/11th century reaction the influence of the school continued to be felt
in non-Sunni milieus.
Before passing on from the climate of thought of the first great schools of 'ilm
al-kalam, we may
mention the group whom al-Ash'ari calls Ahl al-ithbat or Muthbita (cf. W. Montgomery Watt, op.
cit., 104 ff.). It is by no means easy to define it precisely. It comprised a certain number of
thinkers, 4irar, al-Nadhdhar, Muhammad Burghuth, whom later heresiographers readily classed as
Mu'tazilis; but they were opposed by various supporters of the school of Basra (thus al-Nadhdhar
was opposed by Abu 'l-Hudhayl and al-Nazzam), and al-Ash'ari saw in them his forerunners.
They are said to have taught, inter alia, that God is the creator of human actions, and to have
foreshadowed the theory of kasb or iktisab, which defined and limited man's possession of the acts
thus created. Reference to the Ahl al-ithbat allowed al-Ash'ari to present
himself as being in no
sort an innovator in the field of 'ilm al-kalam.
C. The Ash'ari reaction.
--The 'resurgence of Sunnism' under al-Mutawakkil and throughout the 5th/11th century
was accompanied by an indictment of Mu'tazilism and concurrently, at least by Hanbali and
Zahiri traditionists, of kalam as such: what was questioned was the basic principle of reasoned and
discursive argument starting from the tenets of the faith. 'Ilm al-kalam however not only survived
but renewed itself, thanks to the new direction given to it by Abu 'l-Hasan al-Ash'ari
(t60-3t4/873-935), a former Mu'tazili. He is rightly regarded as the founder of the Ash'ariyya
[q.v.], the most accepted and official school of kalam from the 4th/10th century to the 19th
century. A certain number of his works (notably Luma', Ibana) have survived, and his Maqalat
al-Islamiyyin remain today an unrivalled source for our knowledge of the earlier tendencies and
schools.
Throughout the centuries, several very famous names brought renown to Ash'ari kalam. It is
certain that manifold tendencies appeared in this school, and that varying--even
divergent--attitudes were adopted. Thus al-Baqillani summoned to the service of Ash'ari tenets
the atomism first expounded by Abu 'l-Hudhayl; however, al-Juwayni did not follow him at all
on this point, but took up again the theory of 'modes' of Abu Hashim (and Baqillani), which was
abandoned by al-Ghazali. But the basic viewpoints from which the major tenets of the faith are
thought out remain the same; in spite of doctrinal differences--due largely to historical
accidents and the diversity of the opponents it was necessary to refute--it is legitimate to speak
of an Ash'ari 'school' (singular), perhaps more coherent than the Mu'tazili schools had been.
Is it necessary, as has been suggested, to admit a radical distinction, even a split, between the
thinking of the school's founder and that of the school named after him? It is true that in the
Ibana, al-Ash'ari precedes his 'credo' by a declaration of obedience to the teaching of Ibn
Hanbal, and that although the declaration of faith which became traditional in the school could
find justification in the Luma' yet it is notably different from those set out in the Ibana and the
Maqalat. Nevertheless, the obedience to Ibn Hanbal declared by al-Ash'ari did not deceive the
Hanbalis, who violently attacked the very principle of the defence of the faith by rational
argument; and again, many propositions of the Luma' had to await elucidation by later disciples,
who were influenced in their turn by new historical circumstances. Thus there are not two
"Ash'arisms", one of the founder and one of his followers, but, fundamentally, a
single common attitude which was to be progressively developed and variously coloured by
successive apologetic discussions.
This common attitude is the unblurred affirmation of God as the inscrutable Almighty, Who
does not act 'with a purpose in view' and Who 'is not to be questioned'. In the strictest sense,
God is 'the sole Being and the sole Agent'. He does not command an act because that act is just
and good; it is His command (amr) which makes it just and good. God is the creator of human
acts, of which man is merely the receiving subject (mahall). But God 'attributes' to a man his
acts (theory of kasb or iktisab), and hence are justified both human responsibility and the
Judgement promised in the Qur'an. Every statement of the Qur'an corresponds to reality; the
'ambiguous'q(mutashabih) verses are absolutely true as regards their affirmation of existence, but
the anthropomorphisms which they present must be accepted bila kayf, 'without asking how'.
With a return to Hanbali attitudes and against the Mu'tazilis it is asserted that the
Qur'an is
uncreated (ghayr makhluq) and that the divine attributes are real. The attribute of the Word is not
that it is 'contingent': it subsists in God. But the school later taught the existence of the interior
(dhati) divine Word, which is uncreated, and tended to admit that the 'signs' which express it
are created: such a distinction was to incur the vehement criticism of the Hanbali doctors.
A common attitude, we have said, but one which was continuously to seek to justify itself
dialectically before its various opponents: first the Mu'tazilis, al-Ash'ari's own favourite targets for
controversy, and then the 'literalists', such as the Karramiyya who were opposed by Ibn Furak;
later still the falasifa, and many others. Often enough the Ash'aris borrowed from their
opponents this or that way of posing the problem and even the methods of argument, so that it
is possible to establish the following distinct chronological phases: (1) the works of the founder,
al-Ash'ari; (t) the first disciples: al-Baqillani, who adopted the theory of atoms and the theory of
modes, which later were sometimes accepted and sometimes passed over in silence or rejected;
al-Baghdadi; Ibn Furak, the opponent of the Karramiyya; al-Bayhaqi and al-Dhuwayni, supporters
of the 'modes'; (3) this last, al-Dhuwayni, al-óhazali's teacher in kalam, is already a forerunner of
that line which Ibn khaldun calls 'the moderns' and which continued to summarize and
discuss the attitudes of the great falasifa; this line gained glory from the most renowned
mutakallimun: al-Ghazali, al-Shahrastani, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (one of the most original thinkers of
this school), al-Isfahani, al-Iji, al-Jurjani, al-Dawani (on whose works Muhammad 'Abduh later
wrote a commentary): these 'moderns' did not refrain from employing a certain degree of
(moderate) ta'wil to explain the anthropomorphic elements in the Qur'an (cf. al-Razi's
Kitab Asas
al-taqdis); (4) the manuals of 'fossilized conservatism', which merely repeated and systematized
the solutions presented by the masters of old time, reproducing their replies to Mu'tazilis or
falasifa who were progressively less familiar directly: the works of al-Sanusi of Tlemcen, al-Laqani,
al-Fudali, al-Badhuri.
D. Maturidi-Hanafi tendencies.
These became, with Ash'arism, the second officially approved line of teaching. 'Tendencies', we
say deliberately, and not 'school', believing correct the remarks of Father Allard on this subject
(Le probleme des attributs divins dans la doctrine d'al-Ash'ari et de ses premiers disciples, Beirut 1965, 4t0).
Al-Ash'ari himself treated the Hanafiyya as a branch of the Murdhi'a (Maqalat, i, t0t-3). However,
we are here concerned with a line of thought sufficiently coherent to deserve study in its own
right.
It appeals on the one hand to the ancient texts entitled al-Fiqh al-akbar and Wasiyyat Abi Hanifa,
and on the other to al-Maturidi of Samarqand (d. 333/944), the author of a Kitab al-Tawhid edited
by one of his pupils. The Hanafi professions of faith (see A. J. Wensinck, op. cit.) have their
peculiar characteristics: the connexion between islam and iman, the statement of faith by qawl,
etc. But al-Maturidi, in advance of his contemporary al-Ash'ari, seems to have combated various
falasifa (and also dualists, materialists, esoteric sects; secondarily, Mu'tazilis and
anthropomorphists). Although he, like others, deals with the divine attributes and Names, the
main question which concerns him is the creation of the world. It is very possible that he did not
literally 'found' a school, but all the same many mutakallimun looked to him as a point of
reference. In later years it becomes difficult to distinguish clearly between followers of al-Ash'ari
and of al-Maturidi: although Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, al-Dawani, al-Laqani are Ash'aris under the
influence of al-Maturidi, Abu 'l-Barakat al-Nasafi and al-Taftazani may be regarded as belonging
primarily to the Maturidi-Hanafi line and only secondarily to Ash'arism (they accepted the theory
of atoms).
Indeed as compared with Ash'arism, Maturidi-Hanafism, as presented by certain manuals (e.g.,
'Abd al-Rahim Ibn 'Ali, Kitab Nazm al-fara'id, Cairo, tnd ed.) puts forward solutions which are
more psychological and intellectuallist in character. As to the first: God creates in man the asl,
the 'root' of his acts, whatever they may be, but it is human freewill which gives them a good
or an evil specification. As to the second (seeAllah, p. 413): the divine decree (qadar) and
predetermination (qada') are no longer related to the divine will (as with the Ash'aris) but to the
divine knowledge; and the connexions between the one and the other in time and in eternity
are reversed [see al-kada' wa'l-qadar].
E. Modern period.
The revival (nahda) of Arabo-Muslim thought, which has taken place from the end of the 19th
century, has concerned particularly culture in the general sense, predominantly in the field of
literature and under the strong influence of modern Western thought, but it has had its
repercussions upon the 'religious sciences'. We have in mind here the reformism of the
Salafiyya, and thus in exegesis (tafsir) and in usul al-fiqh. Is it legitimate to speak of a resurgence in
'ilm al-kalam? To answer this question we adduce the Radd 'ala 'l-Dahriyyin ('Refutation of the
materialists') of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (Cairo 19t5), and, still more, the Risalat al-tawhid of
Muhammad 'Abduh, and some other writings of the latter. Al-Afghani's work, attacking
contemporary 'doubters and deniers' is prompted by a concern for defensive apologia. 'Abduh's
Risala aims at being an attractive exposition of Islam calculated to affect and interest modern
man. We may note that it defines 'ilm al-kalam as being 'the establishment of religious beliefs and
the explanation of prophecies', in order to 'seek to conserve and establish religion' (Cairo
1353, 5).
The interest of the Risalat al-tawhid arises from the fact that it claims to reject nothing inherited
from the great periods of the past and to put to profit the positive achievements of every school.
Muhammad 'Abduh adheres primarily, but without rigidity, to Ash'arism (divine names and
attributes; no 'end' to God's actions, etc.). But he does not hesitate to draw inspiration from
attitudes customarily regarded as Maturidi, or even to adopt Mu'tazili positions. Hence arises his
famous declaration: 'The Law came to reveal what exists; but it is not the Law which made this
good (hasan)' (ibid., 80). 'Abduh seeks to pass beyond the disputes of past ages in order to reconcile
the various tendencies in kalam.
All the same, his role was less that of a thinker (or 'theologian') than that of a reformer. When
he comes up against the mystery (ghayb) of divine Action on the world, he does not attempt to
bring to bear on it his intelligence as illuminated by the revealed truth, in the way that such a
thinker as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi felt himself obliged to do. In order to maintain both the
affirmations of the faith and of human experience, he prefers to take refuge in an admission of
ignorance: 'As for going further, seeking to reconcile God's Omniscience and Will (which are
proved to us) with man's freedom of action (which are demonstrated by evidence), that is to seek
to penetrate the mysteries of the divine Decree; and we are forbidden to plunge into this abyss
and concern ourselves with matters that reason is nearly incapable of grasping' (ibid., 61; cf. Fr.
tr. by Michel and M. 'Abd al-Raziq, Paris 19t5, 43). The distinction should be noticed between
'proof' (by the qur'anic text) of divine Omniscience and Will, and the (experimental)
'evidence' of his freedom which man achieves. It may be said that in giving this reply
Muhammad 'Abduh is not carrying forward 'ilm al-kalam but re-stating in new terms a traditional
problem, and leaving it open.
III.--Method and problematic.
A. Argumentation and types of reasoning.
Thus the solutions advanced and the criteria selected are extremely varied; but they have in
common the fact that they always vary according to the doctrine being defended or the
adversaries being opposed. We will limit ourselves to a few remarks on the two great 'schools'.
Mu'tazilism sought to valorize, under the attacks of the zanadiqa, the absolute Unity and the
absolute Justice of God; but this valorization quite quickly becomes, thanks to the arguments
advanced to bring conviction, a 'justification': the divine Essence and Action become justified
before and through human reason ('aql). It is to counter this reduction of the mystery that the
Ash'aris take their stand, proclaiming the Omnipotence and the Omniscience of God, rejecting
any ontological basis for human freedom of action, but seeking to refute the Mu'tazilis (using the
same weapons as they) and at the same time, on the other flank, anthropomorphists (mudhassima)
of every shade.
IIn both cases, for Ash'aris as for Mu'tazilis, the starting point for the dialectical arguments
assumes that confidence may be placed in 'aql, and that a harmony is to be acknowledged
between religious law and the efforts of reasons brought to bear on it. This is, we believe, the
primary basis of 'ilm al-kalam, that which above all makes of it an autonomous discipline--and
not this or that cosmological or noetic theory, whether it is dealing with atoms or with modes.
But whereas in Mu'tazilism reason may and should account for its agreement with the Law, in
Ash'arism it is the Law which defines the limits of reason and controls its activity. In both cases,
the religious Law is the bearer of absolute truth--delimited, in the view of the Mu'tazilis, by the
criterion of 'aql, whereas for the Ash'aris it is only because the Law enjoins upon him to do so
that man may 'reflect upon the signs of the universe'.
The method of 'ilm al-kalam is thus basically explicative and defensive. It always postulates the
existence of an opponent who is to be won over. Not merely the choice of arguments but even
the method of presenting them will vary according to the nature of the opponents. It is
noteworth that 'rational' arguments were often the first to be ad-qvanced; they are primarily
dialectical, and pursue very subtle lines of reasoning; whereas the 'modern' manuals clothe
them in a syllogistic guise. Up to al-Juwayni, and sometimes also with the 'moderns', they are
based on logic 'with two terms', on the classical Semitic pattern, by way of implication and
involution, or concordance, or opposition. A suggestive summary is found in the Bayan 'an usul
al-iman of al-Sumnani, a disciple of al-Baqillani (cf. Gardet and Anawati, Introduction a la theologie
musulmane, Paris 1948, 358-61, 365-7).
'Rational' arguments are followed (or sometimes preceded) by 'traditional' arguments, or, in
other words, arguments from authority. These revolve around citations from the qur'an, on the
one hand those adduced in direct support of an argument and on the other those quoted by
opponents whose faulty interpretation of them is attacked. To these may be added hadiths,
sometimes numerous, sometimes few. This is especially the procedure of the first great Ash'aris.
Most of them also rely upon texts guaranteed by idhma'; 'It is agreed that ...' is a favourite
argument. Al-Juwayni, among others, gives an important place to idhma'. The fact that these
'traditional' arguments are in some manuals listed after the 'rational' arguments indicates that
the former are to be regarded as a confirmatur to the results of dialectical reasoning. The
defensive and apologetic character of kalam is thus manifested in its very recourse to the tenets of
the faith to supply arguments.
From al-Juwayni onwards, the old-style dialectic and its reasoning from two terms yields place
(without disappearing) to reasoning in three terms of the syllogistic type, with its universal
middle term, and its recourse, implicit or explicit, to the principle of causality [see 'illa]. The
falasifa now become the usual opponents, as much as or more than the Mu'tazilis. They must
therefore be refuted on their own ground, and Aristotelian logic (with Stoic influences) becomes
more and more influential in the arguments of kalam. The first manuals of the so-called
'modern' tendency (the Muhassal of al-Razi, the Sharh al-Mawaqif of al-Dhurdhani, etc.) introduce
questions regarding God and His Action with extended and purely rational discussions in which
are surveyed the logical, cosmological, noetic and metaphysical themes of the falasifa. Logic is
here treated according to the Aristotelian schemas, sometimes with modifications (notably the
four or even five figures of the syllogism). Yet the old argumentation from two terms does not
entirely disappear; an indication of this may be found in the favourite selection of reasoning by
the dilemma: this is probably Aristotelian in manner, but the implicit middle term is often
suppressed in favour of the argument from authority (of a fact or of a text) or in favour of the
dialectical judgement of existence [see burhan].
The school of the 'moderns' may be distinguished from the first generations of the Ash'ariyya by
its advancing of more subtle solutions and its posing of some new problems. It is distinguished
particularly by its use of the syllogism with a universal middle term and by its recourse to
causality, even when, on the ontological plane, the efficacy of secondary causes is denied.
Hence, to take a rather summary view, it is possible to re-classify the schools as follows: Mu'tazili
kalam and early Ash'ari kalam are opposed in the doctrines they maintain but may share the same
attitude to the problems and use the same methods of reasoning; early Ash'ariqkalam and the
Ash'arism of the 'moderns' support practically the same doctrines but differ perceptibly in their
approach to the problems (adoption of 'philosophical preambles') and more still in their
methods of reasoning; finally, 'fossilized conservatism' took up again the now classical doctrines
and combined the dialectical and the syllogistic approaches, without always distinguishing one
from the other.
Early Ash'ari kalam (al-Baqillani, al-Isfara'ini, and al-Ash'ari himself) professed, according to Ibn
khaldun in his Muqaddima (Cairo ed., 3t6, tr. de Slane, iii, 59), the 'retroactivity of proofs', i.e.,
'the nullity of a proof implies the nullity of that which it was sought to prove'. It is thus,
according to L. Massignon's comment (Passion d'al-Hallaj, Paris 19tt, 550, n. 1), that al-Baqillani
declared the atomistic view of the world to be 'co-essential' with the text of the qur'an. Such a
procedure, Ibn khaldun adds, in which truths to be proved and probative arguments are
interwoven, does not 'conform to the rules of the art'. This remark would be fully justified for a
logical statement in three terms, but not in a dialectic of like and like (or its opposite). The
'proof' to be adduced is no longer the result of a deduction. It, too, is a fact, a witness of truth.
For al-Baqillani, the atomistic discontinuity of the thing created 'proves' the absolute
transcendence and subsistence of God, the sole Agent, in the sense that this is its opposite
correlative, its muqabal, and that these two facts, presenting themselves to the spirit in a single
apprehension, can only affirm themselves or deny themselves together (cf. Gardet and Anawati,
op. cit., 359; L. Gardet, La dialectique en morphologie et logique arabes, in L'ambivalence dans la culture
arabe, by J. Berque, J.-P. Charnay, and others, Paris 1967, 1t5-30). It is less the strictly logical
validity of reasoning by implication and its 'conformity with the rules of the art' that is in
question here than the degree of universality and probative validity of the two procedures,
dialectical (with two terms) and syllogistic (with a universal middle term).
B. The formulation of problems.
This study of the methods of thought and of argument employed in 'ilm al-kalam emphasizes that
the struggle of Ash'arism with Mu'tazilism is part of a continuous process. There is a split as to the
chief doctrines professed but not (we cannot repeat too often) as to the type of arguments or the
method of reasoning employed, nor as to the general lines or the plans of the treatises. From
this point of view, kalam, as an established discipline, is greatly indebted to the Mu'tazilis. Their
five usul continue, with some variants, to dominate the whole question: so it is in the Luma' of
al-Ash'ari, and to a large extent also in the Tamhid of al-Baqillani.
From al-Juwayni onwards, however, and particularly from al-Razi, three new importations
appear: (1) introductions or preliminary remarks, on the character of reasoning
(al-Juwayni,
Irshad), on the nature of kalam (al-Ghazali, Iqtisad), and finally on the general principles of logic,
natural philosophy and ontology (al-Razi, al-Iji, al-Jurjani) become of ever increasing
importance until they figure in the actual treatises themselves. (t) In the more strictly
'theological' themes, a distinction arises between on the one hand the ilahiyyat, i.e., the chapters
concerning God, which (some attributes excepted) consist of a rational elaboration built up on
scriptural bases, and on the other the sam'iyyat, the 'traditional' (ex auditu) chapters, whose
very argumentation depends on positive data. The philosophical chapters and the ilahiyyat are
combined under the term 'aqliyyat; the sam'iyyat deal with prophecy, with eschatology, with the
decrees and the names (problem of faith) and with the enjoining of good. Some authors
(al-Juwayni, al-Ghazali) make prophecy a link between ilahiyyat and sam'iyyat. (3) Finally, a
distinction is made (a matter reconsidered by Muhammad 'Abduh) between 'that which is
necessary in God' (existence and attributes), 'that which is possible for God' (visibility, creation
of human acts, justification and reprobation, prophecy), 'that which is impossible' in God and
for God (the contrary of the attributes). These various additions are often intermingled.
Al-Juwayni, insisting on the tripartite division of the necessary, the possible and the impossible,
included prophecy and the creation of acts in the chapter treating of 'what God can do',
reserving the term sam'iyyat for the other 'traditional' chapters.
These new principles of distinction seem to be due to the influence of falsafa. It was in order to
reply to the falasifa that the preambles and the philosophical chapters became more numerous;
the term ilahiyyat is part of the vocabulary of the falasifa, and the distinction of the necessary, the
possible and the impossible was made by them. The formulation of problems of the great Ash'ari
treatises of the 'modern' age will therefore derive certainly from the old formulation of
Mu'tazilism and its 'five bases', but also from the organization of philosophical knowledge
characteristic of the falasifa (and in particular as presented by the summa or the compendium of
Ibn Sina).
The richest and most detailed manual, the Sharh al-Mawaqif of al-Jurjani, still studied in
specialist courses of the great teaching-mosques, is arranged as follows: Two-thirds of the work
(books-i-iv) treat of logic, natural philosophy and general ontology. The last third is divided
between the ilahiyyat (the divine essence, the unity and unicity of God, His positive attributes, and
His 'possible' attributes, namely, visibility and cognoscibility), the Actions of the Almighty
(creation of human actions), the divine names, and the sam'iyyat (which are relatively short).
There is no question here of a distinction between 'philosophy' and 'theology' in the Western
sense and the attempt to harmonize them, but of a reply, which seeks to be exhaustive, to the
treatises of the falasifa or of the Mu'tazilis. Since this reply seeks to use the weapons of the
opponents, the vocabulary and the arguments of falsafa are found widely incorporated in 'ilm
al-kalam. It is in a sense through the intermediary of the mutakallimun that the influence of the
'philosophers' penetrated Sunni thought in general.
IV.--The position of 'ilm al-kalam in Muslim thought.
--'Ilm al-kalam remains one of the officially recognized religious sciences. But in the universities
of Muslim countries the faculties of religious sciences are called kulliyyat al-shari'a, a term generally
rendered by 'Faculties of theology'; fiqh is there taught as much as, if not more than, kalam.
Kalam, based as it is upon its function of defensive apologia, does not hold the leading place in
Muslim thought that theology does in Christianity. To find an equivalent for 'theology' in the
Christian sense it is necessary to have recourse to several disciplines, and to the usul al-fiqh as
much as to kalam. We turn now to establish the limits and results of this fact, and to place it in its
historical context.
A. Three opinions.
(a) In his Ihsa' al-'ulum, al-Farabi groups the sciences according to the schemes of Aristotelian
classification, appending to them the strictly Muslim disciplines of fiqh and kalam. His summary of
the methods of argument employed by the mutakallimun is far from being laudatory; he
emphasizes, to put it at its highest, its apologetic character, and seems to make of kalam an
extension of fiqh: 'the mutakallim procures the supremacy of the principles which the faqih uses as
bases but without deducing from them any new consequences' (ed. Gonzalez Palencia, Madrid
193t, 56). (b) In his Iqtisad, al-Ghazali devotes three of the four chapters of his introduction (ed.
Ankara 196t, 11-15) to the nature and the role of 'ilm al-kalam. This discipline has its place
among the religious sciences because it is concerned with curing doubters of their doubts and
refuting the denials of those who deny. But its role is essentially 'medicinal'; hence the study of
it, as the Ihya' 'ulum al-din states (ed. Cairo 13t5/1933, i, 3), is an obligation upon the community
(fard al-kifaya), but it is not the concern of every individual Muslim, for it could be dangerous for a
simple soul firmly anchored in his faith. And the Munqidh min al-dalal (ed. Cairo 137t, 195t, 60)
reproaches kalam for its insufficiently proved rational principles. (c) The authors of the great
'modern' manuals (hence Idhi-Jurjhani) on the contrary esteem kalam so highly as to define it as
the most exalted science of all, since it 'proves' the truths known by faith. Some would make
the study of it a personal obligation (fard al-'ayn) on every Muslim capable of undertaking it. This
estimate is repeated verbatim by the manuals of 'fossilized conservatism'. For al-Badhuri, for
example (Hashiya 'ala (...) Dhawharat al-tawhid, ed. Cairo 135t/1934, t6), faith through taqlid
(meaning here mere acquiescence in what has been handed down) loses all value as compared
with faith firmly rooted in science, 'an 'ilm, such as kalam can provide.
B. Opposition.
In fact throughout its history kalam had two great lines of opponents: on the one hand the
Hanbali (and Zahiri) traditionists, who refused to bring rational arguments to bear on the
absolute truths provided by faith; and on the other, the falasifa, who passed from silence, indeed
from a concealed opposition (Eastern falasifa), to the most violent attacks (Ibn Rushd), when they
themselves were attacked by the mutakallimun.
(a) Hanbali opposition.
The great period for Mu'tazili kalam was the reign of al-Ma'mun, when it rose to the status of
official doctrine. It was then that the doctrine of the 'created Qur'an" was imposed by the
secular arm, the supporters of the doctrine of the 'uncreated Qur'an" were persecuted
and condemned by the courts, and Ibn Hanbal himself was accused and flogged. This period
was later called al-mihna, 'the testing'. The reaction under al-Mutawakkil led Sunni Islam to
deliver a decisive blow against the Mu'tazilis; they in their turn were dragged before the judges
and their works (as we have noted) were destroyed. Now this historical movement, which (with
G. Makdisi) we may call 'the resurgence of traditional Islam in the 1tth century' (Ibn 'Aqil,
Damascus 1963), remained at first under the influence of the 'pious men of old', condemning
any use of the reason, even the dialectic method, in making assertions relating to the faith.
It is true that the Ash'ari reform at first had acknowledged its respect for Ibn Hanbal; but it also
sought to overcome the Mu'tazilis and to reply to them on their own ground. It had ambitions
also to become the official doctrine of renascent Sunnism. The struggle between Hanbalis and
Ash'aris became sometimes sharp, even violent, and some authors were able to speak of a second
mihna when, after the death of al-Ash'ari, his tombstone was destroyed in the cemetery of
Baghdad. In the 5th/11th century, the vizier al-Kunduri had Ash'arism cursed from the pulpits of
Nishapur, and al-Juwayni was obliged to take refuge in Baghdad (although soon afterwards
Nizam al-Mulk granted his favour to the Ash'aris). At about the same time, the Hanbali mystic
al-Ansari was writing his Dhamm al-kalam wa-ahlih, one of the most vigorous attacks we possess. In
the 7th-8th/13th-14th centuries, the famous Hanbali Ibn Taymiyya [q.v.] was to echo him, and
to be himself attacked and condemned (to prison, for a time) under the pressure of the other
juridical schools. When he mentions the opinions of the mutakallimun, for whose solution of any
problem he denies any validity, he adduces the qadariyya and the Mu'tazila together, opposing
to them only the Dhaharis, and thus not distinguishing the Ash'aris from them. (We should note
that it is through the hearings granted to them by his Shi'i opponents that he often attacks
Mu'tazili theses). It is true that 'ilm al-kalam ended by enjoying official recognition; but at the
present day, wherever Hanbalism, and especially Ibn Taymiyya, exercise a considerable
influence on contemporary movements for reform, the dialectical subtleties of the schools and
the treatises are regarded with some suspicion.
(b) The quarrel of the Tahafut.
Quite early on, the campaign to defend the faith pursued by kalam led it to challenge the
falasifa.
Although it failed to overcome completely Hanbali opposition, it may be said that up to the end
of the 19th century, and perhaps even today in some circles of thought, it played its part in
branding falsafa with a mark of heterodoxy and relegating it to a peripheral position.
The first great faylasuf, Abu Yusuf al-Kindi, had some Mu'tazili friends and was himself regarded
as a mutakallim. But al-Farabi (who made some severe criticisms of the methods of kalam) and Ibn
Sina took their stand in a field of philosophical research which was quite different from that of
the mutakallimun. Unlike the Mu'tazilis, wrote Ahmad Amin (4uha 'l-Islam, iii, t04), 'the falasifa were
philosophers first and men of religion afterwards; they concerned themselves with religion only
when their philosophical speculation was in disagreement with it and in order to harmonize the
two'. We are now dealing not with a dialectical or apologetic defence of the faith, but with
wide philosophical perspectives, which are largely inspired by Greek philosophy, though
certainly containing some Muslim influences, and which aim to demonstrate their agreement a
posteriori with the Qur'an. Rational research holds the first place, and agreement with the
doctrines of the faith is achieved often enough by means of a broad interpretation (ta'wil) of the
Qur'anic text. The milieu in which al-Farabi and Ibn Sina lived was strongly tinged with or even
dominated by Shi'i influences, and interpretative glosses of the Qur'an were not uncommon. The
orthodoxy of the 'philosophers' was hardly ever called into question there. But things were
different from the 5th/11th century onwards, after the Sunni revival. Together with the
Mu'tazilis and the anthropomorphists, the falasifa speedily became the opponents attacked by
Ash'ari or Maturidi kalam. After objectively summarizing their thought in the Maqasid,
al-Ghazali undertook to refute them in the famous Tahafut al-falasifa (ed. Bouyges, Beirut 19t7).
He there denounced twenty of their tenets as erroneous, and branded four of them as incurring
infidelity (takfir): the eternity of the world ante, the eternity of the world post, the symbolic
interpretation of the resurrection of the body, and the divine lack of knowledge of the individual
as such. The autobiography of the Munqidh min al-dalal in its turn emphasized the errors of the
'philosophers' and the danger for the faith which they represented. Some decades later
al-Shahrastani won the nickname of 'adversary of the falasifa'.
Ibn Rushd's response came in the next century. In his Tahafut al-Tahafut (ed. Bouyges, Beirut
1930), he applied himself to refute al-Ghazali and to justify the agreement between
falsafa and
Qur'anic teaching; in the apologia sua of the Fasl al-maqal (ed. and tr. L. Gauthier, Algiers 194t)
and of the Kashf 'an manahij al-adilla (apud Falsafat Ibn Rushd, Cairo 1313 and 13t8), he calls into
question even the legitimacy of kalam, accusing it of 'cutting the Law into pieces' and 'dividing
people up utterly' (a similarly severe attitude to kalam is taken by Maimonides). It is remarkable
that Ibn Rushd went so far as to re-employ (but more emphatically and severely) the criticisms
which al-Ghazali had first outlined (see above, IV, A, b). In fact Ibn Rushd, who was to play such
a role in the history of the Latin Middle Ages, seems (unlike his Eastern predecessors) to have
had little influence on Muslim thought.
All the later handbooks of kalam summarize and refute unflaggingly the position of the
falasifa,
above all al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, hence acquiring (as we have noted) their long philosophical
introductions. It should be recognized here that although the Muhassal of al-Razi and the Sharh
al-Mawaqif of al-Jurjani continue to condemn as false many tenets of the falasifa, the resumes of
them which they give are strongly analytical and aim at objectivity, whereas the refutations
proposed are sometimes (especially in the Muhassal), no more than general affirmations. It is
nearly always eastern falsafa which is in question and which therefore continued to influence the
developments of 'ilm al-kalam. We find a kind of mixed genre arising--a sort of 'ilm al-kalam
impregnated by falsafa, or a sort of falsafa moving into the field of the problems which belong to
kalam. This was not always to the advantage of either discipline. Finally we may mention the
attitude of Ibn Taymiyya, as violently hostile to falsafa as to kalam; that of Ibn khaldun, who
practically repeats, with regard to falsafa, the distinctions and criticisms of
al-Ghazali; and a
third Tahafut, the work of the Turk khÙdhazade (9th/15th century), which, adopting
al-Ghazali's
title, sought to refute the Tahafut al-Tahafut of Ibn Rushd.
C. 'Ilm al-kalam and the juridical schools.
--'Ilm al-kalam presents itself as an explanation and a defence of the faith. It is on these grounds
that Mu'tazilism combated the zanadiqa and the literalists of the first centuries, and that the
Ash'aris challenged the Mu'tazilis, the literalists and the falasifa. We find however that the
Hanbali line or heterodox £ahirism refuses to recognize the legitimacy of this undertaking. Now
Hanbalism and Zahirism are schools of fiqh, and it is as such that they reject the dialectical
argument of the mutakallimun but propose to ensure, by their own procedures, this defence of the
faith which kalam claimed forqitself. Thus one may find in the works of such writers as Ibn Hazm
or Ibn Taymiyya many expositions on the attributes of God, human actions, prophecy and
faith, which convey as many or even more 'theological' matters as (for example) some late and
stereotyped manuals of Ash'arism.
The other juridical schools, on the other hand, came to an easy accommodation with 'ilm
al-kalam, its methods, and its argumentation. We are here dealing with attitudes arising from
different families of thought, and the link between kalam and fiqh, emphasized already by
al-Farabi, should never be forgotten. It may be said that Ash'arism developed most easily in a
Shafi'i, sometimes in a Hanafi, and later in a Maliki climate; and that the so-called Maturidi
tendency was in its early days so closely linked with Hanafism that one can justly speak of a
'Hanafi-Maturidi" line. Finally, the welcome accorded to Mu'tazilism by non-Sunni sects,
principally Zaydism, is a point of considerable significance.
Thus if one wishes to establish the place of 'ilm al-kalam in Muslim thought, it should not be
regarded as a discipline developing in a self-sufficient manner; it is linked with the other
religious sciences, particularly usul al-fiqh, in a supple cultural unity which more than once
dictated both the attitudes of its schools and the battles which it had to fight.
D. Present-day situation.
Ibn Rushd's attacks failed to shake the legitimacy which 'ilm al-kalam was recognized to possess.
The attacks of the Hanbalis and the 'pious men of old', on the other hand, left a legacy of
distrust and suspicion. We find some traces of this at the present day, to the extent that the
influence of the 'men of old' (salaf) inspires the 'return to the sources' advocated by modern
reform movements. It is true that 'ilm al-kalam, as embodied in its most eminent doctors, remains
as a venerated achievement of the great cultural centuries of Islam. But if one excepts the
attempt of Muhammad 'Abduh, it is difficult to point to any modern and living renewal; it might
be truer to speak of a certain alienation from kalam.
Two reasons may, it appears, be advanced: (1) For too long the teaching of this 'religious
science' in the great mosques had been given only by means of 'fossilized' manuals, without
any striking intrinsic merit and without originality. (t) The subject-matter of a defensive
apologia for the faith is meaningful only so far as it relates to immediate issues. Now the content
of these manuals is dictated by the refutation of adversaries (the Mu'tazilis of the 3rd/9th century
and the falasifa of the 4th/10th century) who have long since vanished from the scene, whereas
the burning problems of today are ignored. A defensive apology must be based on new themes.
Are the efforts of al-Afghani and 'Abduh in this direction to be continued? Interesting as their
attempts are, they fall far short of the philosophico-theological standard achieved by the great
doctors of the past. Al-Afghani and 'Abduh were first and foremost reformers and men of action,
not mutakallimun.
We can conclude only with a series of questions. Will anything take the place of 'ilm al-kalam,
with more widespread perspectives and serving a practical, rather than a speculative, attitude?
Or shall we see a renewal, with regard to the tenets of the Muslim faith, in which the great
questions raised in the past regarding God and man and the conditions for man's salvation will
be taken up again, but this time taking account of the demands of scientific discoveries and
present-day thinking? For this the scholar would require a two-fold objective acquaintance both
with the great works of the classical age and with contemporary problems.
It is appropriate to emphasize here the recovery of favour enjoyed today by Mu'tazilism: not
directly for its defence of the Unity and the justice of God, but for its assertion of human liberty,
in the very elan of belief in the One God, the Creator, the Almighty. Ash'arism no longer
appears to be necessitated by the demands of the faith. Will there take place a synthesis of the
different tendencies of 'ilm al-kalam, operating through a revised set of philosophical equipment?
The study of the text of the Qur'an and a more fully developed anthropology seem here to be
called for, not to replace the 'questions concerning God' (ilahiyyat), but to open wider
perspectives for their discussion. From the 3rd/9th to the 9th/15th century 'ilm al-kalam enjoyed
a glorious past and produced works which demand the historian's fullest respect. It may be
hoped that a new kalam, perhaps quite different from the old in its methods, its arguments and its
approach, will one day arise, to play its part in animating a cultural recovery in the religious
sciences of Islam.
(L. Gardet)
Bibliography:
I.--Some classic works of (or concerning) 'ilm al-kalam beyond those mentioned in the text:
Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, al-Radd 'ala 'l-zanadiqa wa 'l-dhahmiyya, in Dar al-Funun Ilahiyat Fakültesi
Medhmu'asË, 19t7
Sa'id al-Darimi, al-Radd 'ala 'l-dhahmiyya, ed. G. Vitestam, Lund-Leiden 1960
Abu 'l-Husayn al-khayyat, Kitab al-Intisar wa 'l-radd 'ala Ibn al-Rawandi al-mulhid, ed. by H. S.
Nyberg with Fr. tr. by A. N. Nader, Beirut 1957
Abu 'l-Hasan al-Ash'ari, Maqalat al-Islamiyyin, ed. Ritter, Istanbul 19t9-1930, ed. 'Abd
al-Hamid, Cairo 1950
idem, al-Ibana fi usul al-diyana, ed. Cairo 1348
idem, Kitab al-Luma' fi 'l-radd 'ala ahl al-zaygh wa 'l-bida', ed. with Eng. tr. apud R. J. McCarthy,
The theology of al-Ash'ari, Beirut 1953
Abu Bakr al-Baqillani, Kitab al-Tamhid, ed. khudayri and Abu Rida, Cairo 1947, ed.
McCarthy, Beirut 1957 (excellent critical edition)
'Abd al-qahir al-Baghdadi, Kitab Usul al-din, Istanbul 1346/19t8
idem, al-Farq bayn al-firaq, ed. Badr, Cairo 13t8/1910, ed. Istanbul 19t4
Ibn Hazm, Kitab al-Fisal fi 'l-milal, ed. Cairo 1347
Isfara'ini, al-Tabsir fi 'l-din ..., ed. Kawthari, Cairo 1359/1940
Abu Ma'ali Dhuwayni, Kitab al-Irshad ila qawati' al-adilla fi usul al-i'tiqad, ed. with Fr. tr. Luciani,
Paris 1938, ed. M. Y. Musa and A. 'Abd al-Hamid, Cairo 1950 (better critical edition)
Shahrastani, Nihayat al-iqdam fi 'ilm al-kalam ed. Guillaume, Oxford 1934
idem, Kitab al-milal wa 'l-nihal (on the margins of Ibn Hazm's Fisal)
'Ali Ibn 'Asakir, Tabyin kadhib al-muftari fi-ma nusiba ila 'l-imam Abi 'l-Hasan al-Ash'ari, ed.
Kawthari, Damascus 1347/19t8
Ibn Maymun (Maiemonides), Dalalat al-ha'irin (French tr. S. Munk as 'Le Guide des Egares',
Paris 1856, t1960)
Razi, Muhassal afkar al-mutaqaddimin wa 'l-muta'akhkhirin min al-'ulama' wa 'l-mutakallimin, ed.
Cairo n.d.
idem, al-Ma'alim fi usul al-din (on the margins of the Muhassal)
idem, Kitab Asas al-taqdis fi 'ilm al-kalam, ed. Cairo 13t7
idem, Kitab al-Arba'in fi usul al-din, ed. Cairo 1353
idem, Kitab Lawami' al-bayyinat fi 'l-asma' wa 'l-sifat, ed. Cairo 13t3
tusi, Tadhrid al-'aqa'id, ed. Tehran n.d.
idem, qawa'id al-'aqa'id, ed. Tehran 1305
idem, Talkhis al-Muhassal (on the margins of the Muhassal)
Ibn Mutahhar al-Hilli, Sharh Tadhrid al-i'tiqad, ed. Tehran n.d.
Idhi, Kitab al-Mawaqifqfi 'ilm al-kalam (see Dhurdhani)
Taftazani, Sharh al-'aqa'id al-nasafiyya, ed. Cairo 13t1
idem, Maqasid al-talibin fi usul al-din, ed. Istanbul n.d.
Dhurdhani, Sharh al-Mawaqif fi 'ilm al-kalam, ed. Cairo 13t5/1907
Ibn khaldun, Muqaddima, ed. Cairo n.d. (tr. de Slane, iii)
Ibn al-Murtada, tabaqat al-Mu'tazila, ed. T. W. Arnold, Leipzig 190t, ed. Diwald-Wilzer,
Wiesbaden 1961
Dawani, Sharh 'ala 'l-'aqa'id al-'adudiyya, ed. Cairo 13tt. Many other names and works could
be mentioned (particularly text books of 'fossilized conservatism': Sanusi, Laqani, Fudali,
Badhuri). It is to be hoped also that important works still in manuscript will be published. For
example: Maturidi, Kitab al-Tawhid
Sumnani, Bayan 'an usul al-iman
Dhuwayni, Kitab al-Shamil (in the press), etc. II.--Some studies on 'ilm al-kalam: W. Patton,
Ahmad Ibn Hanbal and the Mihna, Leiden 1897
D. B. Macdonald, Development of Muslim theology, jurisprudence and constitutional theory, New York
1903
I. Goldziher, Vorlesungen über den Islam, Heidelberg 1910 (Fr. tr. Le dogme et la loi de l'Islam, Paris
19t0)
M. Horten, Die philosophischen Systeme der spekulativen Theologen im Islam, 191t
Ahmad Amin, Fadhr al-Islam, Cairo 19t9
idem, 4uha 'l-Islam, iii, Cairo 1936
A. J. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, Cambridge 193t
M. Ventura, La philosophie de Saadia Gaon, Paris 1934
J. Windrow Sweetman, Islam and Christian theology, London-Redhill, 3 vols. (i, 1945)
A. S. Tritton, Muslim theology, London 1947
Z. Djharullah, al-Mu'tazila, Cairo 1947
S. de Beaurecueil, óhazzali et S. Thomas d'Aquin, Cairo 1947
W. Montgomery Watt, Free will and predestination in early Islam, London 1948
idem, Islamic philosophy and theology, Edinburgh 196t
idem, Political attitudes of the Mu'tazila, in JRAS, 1963
L. Gardet and M. Anawati, Introduction
A. N. Nader, Falsafat al-Mu'tazila, Beirut 1950
idem, Le systeme philosophique des Mu'tazila, premiers penseurs de l'Islam, Paris 1956
Ch. Pellat, Le milieu basrien et la formation de Dhahiz, Paris 1953
J. Schacht, New sources for the history of Muhammadan theology, in St. Isl., i (1953)
Mubahat Türker, ܱ Tehafüt bakÌmÌndan felsefe ve din münasebeti, Ankara 1956
R. Caspar, Le renouveau mo'tazilite, in MIDEO, Cairo 1957
R. Brunschvig, Devoir et Pouvoir, in St. Isl., xx (1964)
J. Bouman, The doctrine of 'Abd al-Jabbar on the Qur'an as the created Word of Allah, in Verbum,
Utrecht 1964
R. Rubinacci, La Professione di fede di al-Djannawuni in AIUON, 1964
M. Allard, Attributs divins
R. M. Frank, The Neoplatonism of Jahm Ibn Safwan, in Le Museon, 1965
idem, The Metaphysics of created Being according to Abu l-Hudhayl al-'Allaf, Istanbul 1966
L. Gardet (Dieu et la destinee de l'homme)
G. Vajda, Autour de la theorie de la connaissance chez Saadia, in REJ, 1967/t-4 (see also his Etudes
sur Saadia, in REJ, 1948-9).
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Source: from the Encyclopedia of Islam --© 1999 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands