Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence, and Constitutional Theory

by Duncan Black MacDonald

CHAPTER III

The rise of orthodox kalam; al-Ash‘ari; decline of the Mu‘tazilites; passing of heresy into unbelief; development of scholastic theology by Ash‘arites; rise of Zahirite kalam; Ibn Hazm; persecution of Ash‘arites; final assimilation of kalam.

As we have already seen, the traditionalist party at first refused to enter upon any discussion of sacred things. Malik ibn Anas used to say, “God’s istiwa (settling Himself firmly upon His throne) is known; how it is done is unknown; it must be believed; questions about it are an innovation (bid‘a).” But such a position could not be held for any length of time. The world cannot be cut in two and half assigned to faith and half to reason. So, as time went on, there arose on the orthodox side men who, little by little, were prepared to give a reason for the faith that was in them. They thus came to use kalam in order to meet the kalam of the Mu‘tazilites; they became mutakallims, and the scholastic theology of Islam was founded. It is the history of this transfer of method which we have now to consider.

RISE OF ORTHODOX KALAM

Its beginnings are wrapped in a natural obscurity. It was at first a gradual, unconscious drift, and people did not recognize its existence. Afterward, when they looked back upon it, the tendency of the human mind to ascribe broad movements to single men asserted itself and the whole was put under the name of al-Ash‘ari. It is true that with him, in a sense, the change suddenly leaped to self-consciousness, but it had already been long in progress. As we have seen, al-Junayd discussed the unity of God, but it was behind closed doors. Ash-Shafi‘i held that there should be a certain number of men trained thus to defend and purify the faith, but that it would be a great evil if their arguments should become known to the mass of the people. Al-Muhasibi, a contemporary of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, was suspected, and rightly, of defending his faith with argument, and thereby incurred Ahmad’s displeasure. Another contemporary of Ahmad’s, al-Karabisi (d. 345), incurred the same displeasure, and the list might easily be extended. But the most significant fact of all is that the movement came to the surface and showed itself openly at the same time in the most widely separated lands of Islam. In Mesopotamia there was al-Ash‘ari, who died after 320; in Egypt there was at-Tahawi, who died in 331; in Samarqand there was al-Mataridi, who died in 333. Of these at-Tahawi is now little more than a name; al-Mataridi’s star has paled before that of al-Ash‘ari; al-Ash‘ari has come in popular view to be the solitary hero before whom the Mu‘tazilite system went down. It will perhaps be sufficient if we take his life and experiences as our guide in this period of change; the others must have followed very much in the same path.

He was born at al-Basra in 260, the year in which al-Kindi died and Muhammad al-Muntazar vanished from the sight of men. He came into a world full of intellectual ferment; Alids of different camps were active in their claim to be possessors of an infallible Imam; Zaydites and Qarmatians were in revolt; the decree of 234 that the Qur’an was uncreated had had little effect, so far, in silencing the Mu‘tazilites; in 261 the Sufi pantheist, Abu Yazid, died. Al-Ash‘ari himself was of the best blood of the desert and of a highly orthodox family which had borne a distinguished part in Muslim history. Through some accident he came in early youth into the care of al-Jubba‘i, the Mu‘tazilite, who, according to one story, had married al-Ash‘ari’s mother; was brought up by him and remained a stanch Mu‘tazilite, writing and speaking on that side, till he was forty years old.

RETURN OF AL-ASH‘ARI

Then a strange thing happened. One day he mounted the pulpit of the mosque in al-Basra and cried aloud, “He who knows me, knows me; and he who knows me not, let him know that I am so and so, the son of so and so. I have maintained the creation of the Qur’an and that God will not be seen in the world to come with the eyes, and that the creatures create their actions. Lo, I repent that I have been a Mu‘tazilite and turn to opposition to them.” It was a voice full of omen. It told that the intellectual supremacy of the Mu‘tazilites had publicly passed and that, hereafter, they would be met with their own weapons. What led to this change of mind is strictly unknown; only legends have reached us. One, full of psychological truth, runs that one Ramadan, the fasting month, when he was worn with prayer and hunger, the Prophet appeared to him three times in his sleep, and commanded him to turn from his vain kalam and seek certainty in the traditions and the Qur’an. If he would but give himself to that study, God would make clear the difficulties and enable him to solve all the puzzles. He did so, and his mind seemed to be opened; the old contradictions and absurdities had fled, and he cursed the Mu‘tazilites and all their works.

It can easily be seen that in some such way as this the blood of the race may have led him back to the God of his fathers, the God of the desert, whose word must be accepted as its own proof. The gossips of the time told strange tales of rich relatives and family pressure; we can leave these aside. When he had changed he was terribly in earnest. He met his old teacher, al-Jubba‘i, in public discussions again and again till the old man withdrew. One of these discussions legend has handed down in varying forms. None of them may be exactly true, but they are significant of the change of attitude. He came to al-Jubba‘i and said, “Suppose the case of three brothers; one being God-fearing, another godless and a third dies as a child. What of them in the world to come?” Al-Jubba‘i replied, “The first will be rewarded in Paradise; the second punished in Hell, and the third will be neither rewarded nor punished.” Al-Ash‘ari continued, “But if the third said, ‘Lord, Thou mightest have granted me life, and then I would have been pious and entered Paradise like my brother,’ what then?” Al-Jubba‘i replied, “God would say, ‘I knew that if thou wert granted life thou wouldst be godless and unbelieving and enter Hell.’” Then al-Ash‘ari drew his noose, “But what if the second said, ‘Lord, why didst Thou not make me die as a child? Then had I escaped Hell.’” Al-Jubba‘i was silenced, and Al-Ash‘ari went away in triumph. Three years after his pupil had left him the old man died. The tellers of this story regard it as disproving the Mu‘tazilite doctrine of “the best”—al-aslah—namely, that God is constrained to do that which may be best and happiest for His creatures. Orthodox Islam, as we have seen, holds that God is under no such constraint, and is free to do good or evil as He chooses.