CHAPTER II
DAVID BEN MERWAN AL MUKAMMAS
Nothing was known of Al Mukammas until recently when fragments of his philosophical work were found in Judah ben Barzilai's commentary on the Sefer Yezirah.[35] The latter tells us that David Al Mukammas is said to have associated with Saadia, who learned a good deal from him, but the matter is not certain. If this account be true we have a second Jewish philosopher who preceded Saadia. His chief work is known by the title of "Twenty Chapters," fifteen of which were discovered in the original Arabic in 1898 by Abraham Harkavy of St. Petersburg.[36] Unfortunately they have not yet been published, and hence our account will have to be incomplete, based as it is on the Hebrew fragments in the Yezirah commentary above mentioned.
These fragments are sufficient to show us that unlike Israeli, who shows little knowledge of the Muʿtazilite discussions, Al Mukammas is a real Muʿtazilite and moves in the path laid out by these Mohammedan rationalists. Whether this difference is due to their places of residence (Israeli having lived in Egypt and Kairuan, while Al Mukammas was in Babylon), or to their personal predilections for Neo-Platonism and the Kalam respectively, is not certain. Saadia knows the Kalam; but though coming originally from Egypt, he spent his most fruitful years in Babylonia, in the city of Sura, where he was gaon. The centres of Arabian rationalism were, as we know, the cities of Bagdad and Basra, nearer to Babylon and Mesopotamia than to Egypt or Kairuan.
The first quotation in Judah ben Barzilai has reference to science and philosophy, their definition and classification. Science is the knowledge of the reality of existing things. It is divided into two parts, theoretical and practical. Theoretical science aims at knowledge for its own sake; practical seeks an end beyond knowledge, viz., the production of something. We call it then art. Thus geometry is a science in so far as one desires to know the nature and relations to each other of solid, surface, line, point, square, triangle, circle. But if his purpose is to know how to build a square or circular house, or to construct a mill, or dig a well, or measure land, he becomes an artisan. Theoretical science is three-fold. First and foremost stands theology, which investigates the unity of God and his laws and commandments. This is the highest and most important of all the sciences. Next comes logic and ethics, which help men in forming opinions and guide them in the path of understanding. The last is physics, the knowledge of created things.
In the ninth and tenth chapters of his book Al Mukammas discusses the divine attributes. This was a very important problem in the Muʿtazilite schools, as we saw in the Introduction, and was treated in Muʿtazilite works in the first division, which went by the title of "Bab al Tauhid," the chapter on the unity.
God is one—so Al Mukammas sums up the results of his previous discussions—not in the sense in which a genus is said to be one, nor in that in which a species is one, nor as the number one is one, nor as an individual creature is one, but as a simple unity in which there is no distinction or composition. He is one and there is no second like him. He is first without beginning, and last without end. He is the cause and ground of everything caused and effected.
The question of God's essence is difficult. Some say it is not permitted to ask what God is. For to answer the question what a thing is is to limit it, and the limited is the created. Others again say that it is permitted to make this inquiry, because we can use in our answer the expressions to which God himself testifies in his revealed book. And this would not be limiting or defining his glory because his being is different from any other, and there is nothing that bears any resemblance to him. Accordingly we should answer the question what God is, by saying, he is the first and the last, and the visible and the hidden, without beginning or end. He is living, but not through life acquired from without. His life is not sustained and prolonged by food. He is wise, but not through acquired wisdom. He hears without ears, sees without eyes, is understanding in all his works, and a true judge in all his judgments. Such would be our answer in accordance with God's own testimony of himself.
We must on no account suppose that the expressions living, wise, seeing, hearing, and so on, when applied to God mean the same thing as when we ascribe them to ourselves. When we say God is living we do not mean that there was a time when he was not living, or that there will be a time when he will not be living. This is true of us but not of God. His life has no beginning or end. The same thing applies to his wisdom. It is not acquired like ours, it has no beginning or end, and is not subject to error, forgetfulness, addition or diminution. It is not strange that his attributes should be so unlike ours, for it is fitting that the Creator should be different from the thing created, and the Maker from the thing made.