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Abu-l-Hasan al-Aschʿarii
Among the Shāfi‘ī School of Baghdad, Māturīdī's
con-temporary al-Ash‘arī (died A.H. 324/A.D. 935) played the same role
Māturīdī had among the Ḥanafīs of Samarqand, and of the two men al-Ash‘arī
has become the better known. While there were certain disputed questions
between the two schools they founded, their aims were basically the same: to
refute Mu‘tazilī theology and reaffirm the doctrines of the Old Believer
Sunnīs with the aid of logical demonstration and philosophic concepts.
Neither Ash‘arī nor Māturīdī was the first to thus seek a
medial position in the quarrel of the traditionalists and the rationalists:
al-Muḥāsibī the mystic had attempted it in the second century A.H. and had
been roundly denounced for it by his contemporary Ibn Ḥanbal. But while
Muḥāsibī's attempt had been abortive, by the fourth century long debates had
helped to prepare a party who would accept a middle way. The core of the
fundamentalists, the Ḥanbalīs, remained hostile to this new rationalism and
cursed al-Ash‘arī, not for his conclusions but for his innovating method.
Nevertheless, with time and official patronage, kalām
(dialectic theology) became an accepted formulation of Islamic doctrine.
Al-Ash‘arī had himself been a Mu‘tazilī, the pupil of
al-Jubbā'ī, chief of the Baṡra Mu‘tazila. In A.H. 300/A.D. 913, it is said,
Ash‘arī became convinced that Mu‘tazilism could not be reconciled with the
sayings of the Prophet, and left the Mu‘tazila for the fundamentalists.
Where the Mu‘tazila had denied the eternal attributes of
God, and had explained as metaphors the references
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to His face, hands and eyes, and where the Old Believers
had insisted that these be taken literally, Ash‘arī insisted that God has
all these things, but not as men have them; the Qur’ānic references must be
accepted, but not in a crudely anthropomorphic sense. The Qur’ān for him is
God's uncreated Word, but the writing or sounds by which men have access to
it are created things. Man's acts, too, are created by God--but man "acquires"
them, by moral responsibility.
In popular legend, al-Ash‘arī is usually given credit for
"defeating the Mu‘tazila." Far from it; the next century was to see gains
for them, due to the sympathy of the dictators of the House of Buwayh, who
themselves were Shī‘īs. Still, al-Ash‘arī had founded a school and a method,
and with the Saljūq restoration, his school triumphed. The Mu‘tazila
passed from the scene and their books were burned, but their doctrines have
been preserved to a considerable degree among the Shī‘ī sects.
To begin with, there are many deviators
from the truth among the Mu‘tazila and the ahl al-qadar [exponents
of free will, who believe that men have "power" (qadr), to act],
whose straying desires have inclined them to the acceptance of the
principles (taqlīd) of their leaders and their departed forebears; so
that they interpret the Qur’ān according to their opinions with an
interpretation for which God has neither revealed authority nor shown proof,
and which they have not derived from the Apostle of the Lord of the Worlds
or from the ancients of the past; and, as a result, they oppose the
traditions of the Companions, related on the authority of the Prophet of God,
concerning God's visibility to sight, although with regard to it the
traditions come from various sources, and the ḥadīth upon it have
been continuous, and (information) has come down in steady succession.
p. 190
[paragraph continues] (1) They deny the
intercession of the Apostle of God for sinners, and reject the traditions
concerning it that are related on the authority of the ancients of the past.
(2) They gainsay the punishment of the grave and the doctrine that the
infidels are punished in their graves although the Companions and the
Successors have agreed upon this matter unanimously. (3) They maintain the
createdness of the Qur’ān; thereby approximating the belief of their
brethren among the polytheists, who said, "It is merely the word of a
mortal"; and so they think that the Qur’ān is like the word of a mortal. (4)
They assert and are convinced that human beings create evil; thereby
approximating the belief of the Magians, who assert that there are two
creators, one of them creating good and the other creating evil (for the
Qadarīya think that God creates good and that Satan creates evil). (5) They
think that God may wish what is not, and what He does not wish may be; in
disagreement with that upon which the Muslims have unanimously agreed,
namely, that what God wishes is, and what He does not wish is not; and
contrarily to the words of God "But ye shall not wish except God wish"--He
says that we shall not wish a thing unless God has wished that we wish
it--and to His words, "If God had wished, they would not have wrangled," and
His words, "Had We wished, We had certainly given to every soul its
guidance," and His words, "Doer of what He wills," and His statement with
reference to Shū‘ayb, that he said, "Nor can we return it, except God our
Lord wish; our Lord embraceth all things in His ken." Therefore the Apostle
of God called them "the Magians [Zoroastrians] of this Community" [according
to a spurious ḥadīth--ED.] because they have adopted the religion of
the Magians and copied their tenets, and think that there are two creators,
the one for good and the other for evil, just as the Magians think, and that
there are evils God does not wish, as the Magians believe. (6) They think
that they, and not God, have control over what is hurtful and what is
helpful to them, contrarily to the words of God to His Prophet, "Say: I have
no control over what may be helpful or hurtful to me, but as God wisheth,"
and in opposition to the Qur’ān and to that upon which the people of Islam
p. 191
have unanimously agreed. (7) They think
that they alone, and not their Lord, have power over their works, and assert
that they are independent of God, and attribute to themselves power over
that over which they do not attribute power to God, just as the Magians
assert that Satan has power over evil that they do not assert God has. Hence
they are "the Magians of this Community," since they have adopted the
religion of the Magians, hold fast to their beliefs, incline to their errors,
cause men to despair of God's mercy and lose their hope of His spirit, and
have condemned the disobedient to Hell forever, in disagreement with God's
words, "But other than this will He forgive to whom He wishes." (8) They
think that he who enters Hell will not come forth from it, in disagreement
with the tradition, related on the authority of the Apostle of God, that God
will bring forth people out of Hell after they have burned in it and become
ashes. (9) They deny that God has a face, notwithstanding His words, "But
the face of thy Lord shall abide resplendent with majesty and glory." They
deny that He has two hands, notwithstanding His words, "Before him whom I
have created with My two hands." They deny that God has an eye,
notwithstanding His words, "Under Our eyes it floated on," and His words "That
thou mightest be reared in Mine eye." They deny that God has knowledge,
notwithstanding His words, "In His knowledge He sent it down." They deny
that God has power, notwithstanding His words, "Possessed of might, the
Unshaken." (10) They reject the tradition, related on the authority of the
Prophet, that God descends each night to the lower heaven, and other
traditions among those that the trustworthy have handed down on the
authority of God's Apostle. Of like fashion are all the innovators--the
Jahmīya, the Murji’a--deviators in their innovations, who dissent from the
Book and the Sunna, and that upon which the Prophet and his
Companions take their stand and the Community have unanimously agreed, as do
the Qadarīya, Mu‘tazila. . . . 4
The rational proof of the creation of
men's acts is our experience that unbelief is bad, false, vain, inconsistent,
and
p. 192
of a certain contrariness, whereas faith
is good, toilsome, and painful.
Such being the case, unbelief must have a producer who
intentionally produces it as unbelief, vain and bad. And its producer can
never be the unbeliever, who desires that unbelief be good, right, and true,
whereas it is the contrary of that. Likewise faith must have a producer who
produces it as it really is, toilsome, painful, and vexatious, and who is
not the believer, who, though he strive that faith be contrary to its actual
painfulness, toilsomeness, and vexatiousness, has no way to effect that. So
if the one who produces unbelief as it really is cannot be the unbeliever,
and if the one who produces faith as it really is cannot be the believer,
then the intentional producer of both must be God Most High, Lord of the
Worlds. For no body can produce them, since bodies can effect nothing in
things distinct from themselves.
Question: Why is it that the occurrence of the act
which is an acquisition does not prove that it has no agent save God, just
as it proves that it has no creator save God?
Answer: That is exactly what we say.
Question: Then why does it not prove that there
is no one with power over it save God?
Answer: It has no agent who makes it as it really
is save God, and no one with power over it so that it will be as it really
is, in the sense that he creates it, save God. 5
Question: Is God free to inflict pain on infants
in the next life?
Answer: God is free to do that,
and in doing it He would be just. Likewise, whenever He inflicts an infinite
punishment for a finite sin, and subordinates some living beings to others,
God is gracious to some and not to others, and creates men knowing well that
they will disbelieve--all that is justice on His part. And it would not be
evil on the part of God to create them in the painful punishment and to make
it perpetual. Nor would it be evil on His part to punish the believers and
to introduce the unbelievers into the Gardens. Our only reason for saying
that He will not do that is that
p. 193
[paragraph
continues] He has informed us that He will
punish the unbelievers--and He cannot lie when He gives information.
The proof that He is free to do whatever He does is that
He is the Supreme Monarch, subject to no one, with no superior over Him who
can permit, or command, or chide, or forbid, or prescribe what He shall do
and fix bounds for Him. This being so, nothing can be evil on the part of
God. For a thing is evil on our part only because we transgress the limit
and bound set for us and do what we have no right to do. But since the
Creator is subject to no one and bound by no command, nothing can be evil on
His part.
Objection: Then lying is evil only because God has
declared it to be evil.
Answer: Certainly. And if He
declared it to be good, it would be good; and if He commanded it, no one
could gainsay Him. 6
