The doctrine propounded by the Qur’an is not a new doctrine, for it is similar to the Scriptures of the earlier apostles. It lays down the same way of faith as was enjoined on Noah and Abraham.  It con­firms in the Arabic tongue what went before it, the Book of Moses and the Gospel of Jesus-in being a guide to mankind, admonishing the unjust and giving glad tidings to the righteous. 

God never abrogates or causes to be for­gotten any of His revelations, but according to the needs and exigencies of the times, He confirms them or substitutes for them something similar or better.

The Qur’an is a book essentially religious, not philosophical, but it deals with all those problems which religion and philosophy have in common. Both have to say something about problems related to the significance of such ex­pressions as God, the world, the individual soul, and the inter-relations of these; good and evil, free-will, and life after death.

While dealing with these problems it also throws light on such conceptions as appearance and reality, existence and attributes, human origin and destiny, truth and error, space and time, permanence and change, eternity and immortality. The Qur’an claims to give an exposition of universal truths with regard to these problems ­an exposition couched in a language (and a terminology) which the people immediately addressed, the Arabs, with the intellectual background they had at the time of its revelation, could easily understand, and which the people of other lands, and other times, speaking other languages, with their own intel­lectual background could easily interpret.

It makes free use of similitude to give a workable idea of what is incomprehensible in its essence. It is a book of wisdom,  parts of which relate to its basic principles, (umm al-kitab) and explain and illustrate them in detail, others relate to matters explained alle­gorically. It would be a folly to ignore the fundamentals and wrangle about the allegorical, for none knows their hidden meanings, except God.  In what follows, a brief account is given of the Qur’anic teaching with regard to the religio-philosophical problems mentioned above.

Ultimate Beauty: God and His Attributes 

The Ultimate Being or Reality is God.  God, as described by the Qur’an for the understanding of man, is the sole self-subsisting, all-pervading, eternal, and Absolute Reality.  He is the first and the last, the seen and the unseen.  He is transcendent in the sense that He in His full glory cannot be known or experienced by us finite beings-­beings that can know only what can be experienced through the senses or otherwise and what is inherent in the nature of thought or is implied by it. No vision can grasp Him. He is above all comprehension. 

He is transcendent also because He is beyond the limitations of time, space, and sense-content. He was before time, space, and the world of sense came into existence. He is also immanent both in the souls (anfus) and the spatio-temporal order (afaq). Of the exact nature of God we can know nothing. But, in order that we may apprehend what we cannot comprehend, He uses similitudes from our expe­rience. 

He “is the light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His light is as if there were a niche and within it a lamp, the lamp enclosed in glass; the glass as if it were a brilliant star lit from a blessed tree, an olive, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil is well-nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it: light upon light !” .

Likewise for our understanding, He describes through revelation His attributes by similitude from what is loft­iest in the heavens and the earth  and in our own experience  (our highest ideals). This He does in a language and an idiom which the people addressed to may easily understand.  These attributes are many and are connoted by His names,  but they can all be summarized under a few essential heads: Life,  Eternity,  Unity,  Power,  Truth,  Beauty,  Justice,  Love,  and Goodness. 

As compared to the essence of God, these attributes are only finite approaches, symbols or pointers to Reality and serve as the ultimate human ideals, but though signs and symbols, they are not arbitrary symbols. God has Himself implanted them in our being. For that reason they must, in some sense, be faithful representations of the divine essence. They must at least be in tune with it, so that in pursuing them we human beings are truly in pursuit of what is at least in harmony with the essence of God, for they are grounded in that essence.

God is, thus; a living, self-subsisting,  eternal, and absolutely free creative reality which is one, all-powerful, a-knowing, all-beauty, most just, most loving, and all good.

As a living reality God desires intercourse with His creatures and makes it possible for them to enter into fellowship with Him through prayer, contemplation, and mystic gnosis, and lights with His light the houses of those who do not divert from His remembrance, nor from prayer, nor from the prac­tice of regular charity. 

His life expresses itself also through His eternal activity and creativeness. God is one and there is no god but He.  He is the only one  and there is none like Him.  He is too high to have any partners.   If there were other gods besides Him, some of them would have lorded over others.  He is the One and not one in a trinity. Those who attribute sons and daughters to Him and those who say Christ is the son of God and is himself God only blaspheme God. 

He has begotten neither sons nor daughters  nor is He Himself be­gotten.  And how could He be said to have sons and daughters when He has no consort ?  And yet the unbelievers have taken besides Him gods that create nothing, but are themselves created, who have no power to hurt or do good to themselves and can control neither death, nor life, nor resurrection.  Therefore no god should be associated with God. 

Setting up of gods is nothing but anthropomorphism. The gods that people set up are nothing but names of conjectures and what their own souls desire.  They do blaspheme who say, “God is Christ the son of Mary”; for said Christ, “O children of Israel, wor­ship God my Lord and your Lord.”  They regard the angels as females, as if they had witnessed their creation. 

God and the World – God is omnipotent.

To Him is due the primal origin of everything.  It is He, the Creator,  who began the process of creation  and adds to creation as He pleases.  To begin with He created the heavens and the earth, joined them together as one unit of smoky or nebulous substance,  and then clove them asunder.  The heavens and the earth, as separate existents with ail their produce; were created by Him in six days  (six great epochs of evolution).

Serially considered, a divine day signifies a very long period, say, one thousand years of our reckoning  or even fifty thousand years.  Non-serially considered, His decisions are executed in the twinkling of an eye  or even quicker,  for there is nothing to oppose His will. When he says, “Be,” behold’ it is.  His decree is absolute;  no one can change it.  He draws the night as a veil over the day, each seeking the other in rapid succession. He created the sun, the moon, and the stars, all governed by the laws ordained by Him  and under His command. 

Every creature in the heavens and the earth willingly submits to His laws.  The sun runs its course for a determined period; so does the moon.  The growth of a seed into a plant bearing flowers and fruit, the constellations in the sky, the succession of day and night-these and all other things show proportion, measure, order, and law.  He it is who is the creator, evolver, and restorer of all forms.  He it is who sends down water from the sky in due measure, causes it to soak in the soil, raises to life the land that is dead,  and then drains it off with ease.

God is the Lord of all the worlds,  and of all mysteries.  He has power over all things,  and to Him belong all forces of the heavens and the earth.  He is the Lord of the Throne of Honour  and the Throne of Glory Supreme, the Lord of the dawn  and all the ways of ascent. 

It is He who spreads out the earth  like a carpet,  sends down water from the sky in due measure  to revive it  with fruit, corn, and plants,  and has created pairs of plants, each separate from the others,  and pairs of all other things.  He gives the heavens’ canopy its order and perfection  and night its darkness and splen­dour,  the expanse of the earth its moisture, pastures, and mountains;  springs,  streams,  and seas   ships  and cattle;  pearls and coral;  sun and shadow;  wind and rain;  night and day;  and things we humans do not know. It is He who gives life to dead land and slakes the thirst of His creatures  and causes the trees to grow into orchards full of beauty and delight.

To God belong the dominions of the heavens and the earth and everything between them.  To Him belong the east and the west. Withersoever you turn, there is His presence, for He is all-pervading.  Neither slumber can seize Him, nor sleep. His Throne extends over the heavens and the earth, and He feels no fatigue in guarding and preserving His creatures, for He is the most high and supreme in glory,  exalted in might; and wise. It is He who gives life and death and has power over all things.

God is not only the creator, but also the cherisher,  sustainer,  protector,  helper,  guide,  and reliever of distress and suffering  of all His creatures, and is most merciful, most kind, and most forgiving.

God has not created the world for idle sport.  It is created with a purpose, for an appointed term,  and according to a plan, however hidden these may be from us humans. “God is the best of planners.”   He it is who ordains laws and grants guidance,  creates everything and ordains for it a proportion and measure,  and gives it guidance.  There is not a thing but with Him are the treasures of it, but He sends them down in a known measure.

The world is not without a purpose or a goal; it is throughout teleological and to this universal teleology human beings are no exception. To everyone of them there is a goal  and that goal is God Himself.

God is all knowledge. He is the Truth.  With Him are the keys of the un­seen, the treasures that none knows but He.  He witnesses all things,  for every single thing is before His sight in due proportion.  Verily, nothing on the earth or in the heavens is hidden from Him, not even as much as the weight of an atom. Neither the smallest nor the greatest of things are but recorded in a clear record.   On the earth and in the sea not even a leaf does fall without His knowildge. 

Should not He that created everything know His own handiwork? He is full of wisdom.   He understands the finest of mysteries.  He knows what enters the earth and what comes forth out of it; what comes down from heaven and all that ascends to it.  He knows every word spoken.  No secrets of the heart are hidden from Him,  for He has full knowledge of all things, open or secret.  He knows and would call us to account for what is in our minds, whether we reveal it or conceal it.  Two other attributes of God and our basic values are always mentioned together in the Qur’an. These are justice and love, the latter including among other attributes the attributes of munificence, mercy, and forgiveness.

God is the best to judge   and is never unjust,  He does not deal unjustly with man; it is man that wrongs his own soul. On the Day of Judgment, He will set up the scales of justice and even the smallest action will be taken into account.  He is swift in taking account,  and punishes with exemplary punish­ment.  He commands people to be just  and loves those who are just.

For those who refrain from wrong and do what is right there is great  re­ward,  and God suffers no reward to be lost.  People’s good deeds are in­scribed to their credit so that they may be requited with the best possible award.

Divine punishment is equal to the evil done. It may be less, for, besides being most just, God is most loving, most merciful, and forgiver of all sins,  but it is never more.  Such is not, however, the case with His reward. He is most munificent and bountiful and, therefore, multiplies rewards for good deeds manifold.   These rewards are both of this life and the life hereafter. 

Islam, no less than Christianity, lays emphasis on the basic value of love. Whenever the Qur’an speaks of good Christians, it recalls their love and mercy.   God is loving,  and He exercises His love in creating, sustaining, nourishing, sheltering, helping, and guiding His creatures; in attending to their needs, in showing them grace, kindness, compassion, mercy, and forgive­ness, when having done some wrong, they turn to Him for that; and in ex­tending the benefits of His unlimited bounty to the sinners no less than to the virtuous.  It is, therefore, befitting for man to be overflowing in his love for God  and be thankful to Him for His loving care.

God is all good, free from all evil (quddus). He is also the source of all good  and worthy of all praise.

The Qur’an uses synonymous words for beauty and goodness (husn wa khair).The word radiance or light (nur) is also used to signify beauty. God is the beauty (nur) of the heavens and the earth  and His names (attributes) are also most beautiful (asma al-husna).  He is the creator possessed of the highest excellence.  He creates all forms and evolves them stage by stage (al-bari al-musawwir).  Everything created by Him is harmonious and of great beauty.  Notice the beauty of trees and fields and the starry, heaven.  He is the best bestower of divine colour to man  who has been made in the best of moulds  and has been given the most beautiful shape.  How lovable is the beauty of animals whom you take out for grazing at dawn and bring home at eventime.    Throughout history God has sent messages of great excellence,  and given the best of explanations in His revealed books.  Therefore, people must follow the best revealed book (ahsan al-kitab).  How beautiful is the story of Joseph given in the Scripture.

God’s judgment is of the highest excellence,  and belief in the Day of Judgment of extreme beauty. Of great excellence is the speech of the righteous that call to God,  for they invite people to Him by beautiful preaching   and say only those things which are of supreme excellence.

The Qur’an lays the greatest stress on the beauty of action. It exhorts mankind to do the deeds of high value,  for God loves those who do excellent deeds. It wants men to return greetings with greetings of great excellence  and repel evil with what is best,  for in so doing they enhance the excellence of their own souls.

Notes:

Patience is graceful (sabr-i jamil)  and so is forgiveness.  Excellence of conduct shall not be wasted.  Those whose deeds are beautiful shall be given the highest reward  in this world and better still in the next.   They shall be given in paradise the most beautiful abodes and places for repose,  and excellent provisions shall be made for them.

God’s Relation to Man – God created man’s spirit out of nothing  and created mankind from this single spirit. He created his mate of the same kind and from the twain produced men and women in large numbers.  From the point of view of personal history and perhaps also from the point of view of the evolutionary process, man is created for an appointed term  as a being growing gradually from the earth,  from an extract of certain elements of the earth,  then by receiving nourishment from the objects of sustenance, l and being endowed with life, like all other living beings, l taking the form of water  or watery clay or adhesive mud  moulded into shape in due proportions  as a life-germ, a leech-like Clot  of congealed blood,  growing into a lump of flesh, further developing into bones clothed with flesh, and finally emerging as a new creation,  a human being in two sexes,  gifted with hearing and sight, intelligence, and-affection,  destined to become God’s vicegerent on earth,  decreed to die one day,  and destined to be raised again on the Day of Resurrection.  The form in which he will be raised again he does not know.  The whole of mankind is one family, because it is the progeny of a single pair.  In reality, man is the highest of all that is created, for God has created him in the most beautiful of moulds.  He is born with the divine spirit breathed into him,  even as for the Hindu, Greek, and Christian sages he is made in the image of God. Human perfection, therefore, consists in being dyed in divine colour  – in the fullest achievement and assimilation of divine attributes, for God desires nothing but the perfection of His light,  the perfection of these attributes in man. The sole aim of man, therefore, is a progressive achievement of all divine attributes-all intrinsic values. God encompasses  and cherishes  mankind. He is always near man  nearer than his jugular vein.  He is with him wheresoever he may be and sees all that he does.  Whithersoever he turns, there is the presence of God, for He is all-pervading.  He listens to the prayer of every suppliant when he calls on Him.

Soul -The soul of man is of divine origin, for God has breathed a bit of His own spirit into him.  It is an unfathomable mystery, a command of God, of the knowledge of which only a little has been communicated to man.  The conscious self or mind is of three degrees. In the first degree it is the impulsive mind (nafs ammarah) which man shares with animals; in the second degree it is the conscientious or morally conscious mind (nafs lawwamah) struggling between good and evil and repenting for the evil done; in the third degree it is the mind perfectly in tune with the divine will, the mind in peace (nafs mutma’innah).

Theory of  Knowledge

Man alone has been given the capacity to use names for things  and so has been given the knowledge which even the angels do not possess.  Among men those who are granted wisdom are indeed granted great good.

Understanding raises a man’s dignity.  Those who do not use the intellect are like a herd of goats, deaf, dumb, and blind  no better than the lowest of beasts.  The ideal of the intellect is to know truth from error. As an ideal or basic value for man wisdom means the knowledge of facts, ideals, and values. 

There are three degrees of knowledge in the ascending scale of certitude (i) knowledge by inference (`ilm al-yaqin),  (ii)knowledge by perception and reported perception or observation (`ain al-yaqin),  and (iii) knowledge by personal experience or intuition (haqq al-yaqan) -a distinction which may be exemplified by my certitude offire always burns,it has burnt John’s fingers, andit has burnt my fingers. Likewise, there are three types of errors: (i) the errors of reasoning, (ii) the errors of observation, and (iii) the errors of intuition.

The first type of knowledge depends either on the truth of its presupposi­tion as in deduction, or it is only probable as in induction. There is greater certitude about our knowledge based on actual experience (observation or experiment) of phenomena.

The second type of knowledge is either scientific knowledge based on ex­perience (observation and experiment) or historical knowledge based on reports and descriptions of actual experiences. Not all reports are trustworthy. There­fore, special attention should be paid to the character of the reporter. If he is a man of shady character, his report should be carefully checked.

Scientific knowledge comes from the study of natural phenomena. These natural phenomena are the signs of God  symbols of the Ultimate Reality or expressions of the Truth, as human behaviour is the expression of the human mind. Natural laws are the set ways of God in which there is no change.  The study of nature, of the heavens and the earth, is enlightening for the men of understanding.  The alternation of day and night enables them to measure serial time.  They can know the ways of God, the laws of nature, by observing all things of varying colours-mountains, rivers, fields of corn, or other forms of vegetation, gardens of olives, date-palms, grapes, and fruit of all kinds, though watered with the same water, yet varying in quahty;  by studying the birds poised under the sky and thinking how they are so held up  and likewise by observing the clouds and wondering how they are made.  Those who think can know God and can conquer all that is in the heavens and the earth  night and day, and the sun the moon, and the stars.  Knowledge of the phenomenal world which the senses yield is not an illusion, but a blessing for which we must be thankful.

No less important for individuals and nations is the study of history. There is a measure and law in human society as much as in the whole cosmos.  The life of every nation as a collective body moves in time and passes through rises and falls, successes and reverses,  till its appointed period comes to an end.  For every living nation there are lessons in the history of the peoples that have lived in the past. It should, therefore, study the “days of God,” the momentous periods of history, the periods of divine favour and punish­ment, the periods of nations glory and decline.  People should traverse the earth to see what had been the end of those who neglected the laws of nature, the signs of God.  Those who do not guide others with truth and so do not act rightly, even though their days are lengthened, are gradually brought down by such means as they do not know.

God never changes the condition of a people until they change it themselves, but once He wills it, there can be no turning it back.  Therefore, it is all the more important to take lessons from the past. In the stories about the past there are instructions for men of understanding.  Even the bare outlines of the rise and fall of nations, of great events of history, and their consequences provide object lessons for their guidance and warning. Let them remember momentous events of the lives of such peoples and societies as the Israelites,  the Magians,  the Sabians,  the Romans,  the Christians,  the people of Saba,  the people of Madyan,  of `Ad,  of Thamud,  of Lot,  Companions of the Cave, the Seven Sleepers,  the Companions of al-Rass,  the Companions of the Rocky Tract,  and those of the Inscription,  and Gog and Magog;  prophets like Noah,  Abraham,  Isma`il,  Isaac,  Jacob,  David,  Solomon,  Joseph,  Moses,  Aaron,  Elisha,  Jonah,  Jesus;  and other personages great for their piety, power or wisdom, e.g., Mary,  the Queen of Saba,  Dhu al-Qarnain  (probably Cyrus of Iran), and the Pharaoh  (Thothmes I of Egypt), and Aesop.

So much importance has been given to history that fifteen chapters of the Qur’an have been given the titles bearing historical significance.  Nor indeed has the study of contemporary history been ignored. The Qur’an refers to contemporaneous events such as the battle of Badr,  the battle of Tabuk,  the trade and commerce of the Quraish,  the hypocrisy of those who were enemies pretending to have embraced Islam, and the animosity of persons like abu Lahab and his wife.

God reveals His signs not only in the experience of the outer world (afaq) and its historical vistas, but also through the inner experience of minds (anfus). Thus, the inner or personal experience is the third source of know­ledge. Experience from this source gives the highest degree of certitude. Divine guidance  comes to His creatures in the first instance from this source. The forms of knowledge that come through this source aredivinely-determined movement-movement determined by natural causes, as in the earth,  and the heavens, instinct, e.g., in the bee to build its cell, intuition or knowledge by the heart, inspiration as in the case of Moses mother when she cast her tenderly suckled child into the river,  andrevelation as in the case of all true prophets,  God’s messengers. Man’s Power – God has subjected for the use of man, His vicegerent on the earth,  everything in the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon; day and night; winds and rain; the rivers and the seas and the ships that sail; pearls and corals; springs and streams, mountains, moisture, and pastures; and animals to ride and grain and fruit to eat.

Free Will – God has given man the will to choose, decide, and resolve to do good or evil. He has endowed him with reason and various impulses so that by his own efforts he may strive and explore possibilities. He has also given him a just bias, a natural bias towards good.  Besides this He has given him guidance through revelation and inspiration, and has advised him to return evil with good,  to repel it with what is best (ahsan).   Hence if a man chooses to do good, it is because in giving him these benefits God has willed him to do so. He never changes the gracious benefits which He has bestowed on a people until they change themselves.  Therefore, whatever good come from man or to man is ultimately from God.  On the other hand, his nature has a bias against evil, his reason is opposed to it, and he has been given a warning against it through the revealed books; therefore, whatever evil comes from him or to him is from his own soul.  If God had willed He would have destroyed evil or would not have allowed it to exist, and if it were His will, the whole of mankind would have had faith, but that is not His plan?  His plan envisages man’s free use of the divine attribute of power or freedom to choose  and take all judicious and precautionary measures to suit different situations.  In the providential scheme man’s role is not that of a blind, deaf, dumb and driven herd of goats.  So even his free choice of evil is a part of the scheme of things and no one will choose a way unto God, unless it fits into that scheme or is willed by God.

There is no compulsion in faith. God’s guidance is open to all who have the will to profit by it.  Whosoever wills, let him take the straight path to his Lord.  Truth is from God, then whosoever wills, let him believe it; and whosoever wills, let him reject it.  The prophets are sent to every nation  for guiding the whole of mankind. Their duty is to preach, guide, and inspire by persuasion and not to drive or force people to anything, nor to watch over their doings or dispose of their affairs.  They cannot compel mankind against their will to believe.

Death – Death of the body has been decreed by God to be the common lot of mankind.  Wherever a man is, death will overtake him even if he is in a tower strong and high.  No soul can die except by God’s leave, the term being fixed as if by writing,  but every soul shall be given a taste of death  and in the end brought back to God  and duly judged on the Day of Judgment, and only he who is saved from fire will be admitted to paradise; it is then that he will have attained the goal of his life. As compared to that life, the life of this world is only a life of vainglory.

Life after Death -There are some who think revival after death is far from their understanding  and ask how they shall be raised up after they have been reduced to bones and dust.  Let them recall to mind that they were created out of nothing; first as dust, then a sperm, then a leech-like clot, then a piece of flesh, partly formed and partly unformed, kept in a womb for an appointed term, then brought out as babes and then fostered so that they reached an age of full strength; and further, let them ponder over the fact that the earth is first barren and lifeless but when God pours down rain, it is stirred to life, it swells, and puts forth every kind of beautiful growth in pairs.  Let them understand that He who created the heavens and the earth is able to give life to the dead, for He has power over all things.

God created man from the earth, into it shall he return and from it shall he be brought out again.  For everyone after death there shall be an interval (Barzakh)lasting till the Day of Resurrection.  On that day all the dead shall be raised up again.  Even as God produced the first creation, so shall He produce this new one.  We do not know in what form we shall be raised,  but as a parable  the Qur’an describes the Day of Resurrection as follows.

On that day there shall be a dreadful commotion.  The heaven shall be rent asunder  and melted like molten brass.  The sun folded up and the moon darkened shall be joined together,  and the stars shall fall, losing their lustre.  In terrible repeated convulsions,  the earth shall be shaken to its depths and pounded into powder.  The mountains shall crumble to atoms flying hither and thither  like wool,  the oceans shall boil over, there shall be a deafening noise, and the graves shall be turned upside down.

A trumpet shall be blown,  no more than a single mighty blast,  and there shall come forth every individual soul  and rush forth to the Lord – the sinners as blackened,  blinded,  terror-smitten  with eyes cast down  and hearts come right up to their throats to choke;  and the virtuous, happy and rejoicing.  Then all except such as it will please God to exempt shall fall into a swoon.  Then a second trumpet shall be sounded, when, behold! they will all be standing and looking on. The earth will shine with the glory, of the Lord and the record of deeds shall be opened. 

All shall fully remember their past deeds.  Anyone who will have done an atom of good shall see it and anyone who will have done an atom of evil shall see it.  They shall also recognize one another,  though each will have too much concern of his own to be able to be of help to others.  They will have neither a protector, nor an intercessor except God  or those whom permission is granted by Him and whose word is acceptable to Him.  They shall all now meet their Lord.  The scale of justice shall be set up, and not a soul shall be dealt with unjustly in the least; and if there be no more than the weight of a mustard seed, it will be brought to account,  and all shall be repaid for their past deeds.  There will be a sorting out of the sinners and the righteous.  The sinners will meet a grievous penalty but it shall not be more than the retribution of the evil they will have wrought.  All in proportion to their respective deeds and for a period longer and shorter shall go through a state of pain and remorse,  designated in the Qur’an as hell, and the righteous saved from hell shall enter a state of perpetual peace, designated as paradise. Paradise has been described in the Qur’an by similitude  in terms of what average human beings value most: dignity, honour, virtue, beauty, luxury, sensuous pleasures, and social discourse-and hell in terms of what they all detest.

People shall be sorted out into three classes. Those who will be fore­most and nearest to God, with whom God is well-pleased and who are well­ pleased with God. They shall have no fear, no grief, no toil, no fatigue, no sense of injury,  no vanity, and no untruth.  They shall enjoy honour and dignity, and, dressed in fine silks and brocade and adorned with bracelets of gold and pearls,  shall live for ever in carpeted places. They will recline on thrones encrusted with gold and jewels facing one another for discourse. They will be served by youths of perpetual freshness, handsome as pearls,  with goblets, beakers, and cups filled out of clear fountains of crystal white and delicious drinks free from intoxication and after-aches, which they will ex­change with one another free of frivolity and evil taint.  They shall be given fruit and flesh of their own choice in dishes of gold to eat, and shall get more than all they desire.  Their faces shall be beaming with the brightness of bliss.  They shall have as companions chaste women, their wives,  beautiful like pearls and corals.  Those who believe and whose families follow them in faith, to them God shall join their families, their ancestors, their spouses, and their offsprings.  Rest, satisfaction, and peace will reign all round. This will be their great salvation;  but their greatest reward, their supreme feli­city, will consist in being in the presence of God.

 Companions of the right hand who shall have their abode in another garden. They will sit on thrones on high in the midst of trees, having flowers, pile upon pile, in cool, long-extending shades by the side of constantly flowing water. They will recline on rich cushions and carpets of beauty,  and so will their pretty and chaste companions,  belonging to a special creation, pure and undefiled. They will greet one another with peace. They will also have all kinds of fruits, the supply of which will not be limited to seasons.  These are parables of what the righteous shall receive.

 Companions of the left hand who shall be in the midst of a fierce blast of fire with distorted faces and roasted skin, neither alive nor dead,  under the shadows of black smoke. They shall have only boiling and fetid water to drink  and distasteful plants (zaqqum)to eat.  Nothing shall be there to refresh or to please.

The fire of hell shall, however, touch nobody except those most unfortunate ones who give the lie to truth.

But for these similitudes, we cannot conceive the eternal, bliss and per­petual peace that awaits the righteous in the life hereafter,  nor can we conceive the agony which the unrighteous will go through. They will, however, remain in their respective states only so long as it is the will of God and is in accordance with His plans.

Neither is the bliss of paradise the final stage for the righteous, nor is the agony of hell the final stage for the unrighteous. Just as we experience the glowing sunset, then evening, and then the full moon at night one after another, even so shall everyone progress whether in paradise or in hell stage by stage towards his Lord, and thus shall be redeemed in the end. 

By : M.M Syarif

However, the truth is that rational argumentation about Islamic doctrines starts with the Holy Qur’an itself, and has been followed up in the utterances of the Holy Prophet (S) and especially in the sermons of Amir al-Mu’minin ‘Ali (A). This despite the fact that their style and approach are different from those of the Muslim mutakallimun. [1]
Inquiry or Imitation?
The Holy Qur’an has laid the foundation of faith and belief on thought and reasoning. Throughout, the Qur’an insists that men should attain faith through the agency of thought. In the view of the Qur’an, intellectual servitude is not sufficient for believing and understanding its basic doctrines. Accordingly, one should take up a rational inquiry of the basic principles and doctrines of the faith. For example, the belief that God is One, should be arrived at rationally. The same is true of the prophethood of Muhammad (S). This requirement resulted in the establishment of ‘ilm al-’usul during the first century.
There were many reasons which led to the unprecedented realization of the necessity for the study of the fundamentals of the Islamic faith amongst Muslims and the task of defending them, a realization which led to the emergence of prominent mutakallimun during the second, third, and fourth centuries. These were: embracing of Islam by various nations who brought with them a series of (alien) ideas and notions; mixing and coexistence of the Muslims with people of various religions, such as, the Jews, the Christians, the Magians, and the Sabaeans, and the ensuing religious debates and disputes between the Muslims and those peoples; the emergence of the Zanadiqah [2] in the Islamic world – who were totally against religion – as a result of the general freedom during the rule of the ‘Abbasid Caliphs (as long as it did not interfere in the matters of state politics); the birth of philosophy in the Muslim world – which by itself gave birth to doubts and skeptical attitudes.
The First Problem:
Apparently, the first problem which was discussed and debated by the Muslims was that of predestination and free will. This was very natural, since it is a primary problem linked with human destiny and which attracts the interest of every thinking adult. Perhaps it is not possible to find a society which has reached intellectual maturity in which this problem was not raised. Secondly, the Holy Qur’an has a large number of verses on this subject, which instigate thought in regard to this problem. [3]
Accordingly, there is no reason to try to seek another source for the origin of this problem in the Islamic world.
The Orientalists, habitually, make an effort, in order to negate the originality of the Islamic teachings, to trace the roots, at any cost, of all sciences that originated amongst Muslims to the world outside the domains of Islam, in particular the Christian world. Therefore, they insist that the roots of ‘ilm al-kalam should be acknowledged to lie outside Islam, and they make similar attempts with regard to the study of grammar, prosody (and perhaps semantics, rhetoric, and studies of literary and poetic devices), and Islamic ‘irfan.
The problem of determinism and free will (jabr wa ikhtiyar) is the same as the problem of predestination and Divine Providence qada’ wa qadar, the first formulation relates to man and his free will, while the second one relates to God. This problem also raises the issue of Divine Justice, because there is an explicit connection between determinism and injustice on the one hand, and free will and justice on the other.
The problem of justice raises the issue of the essential good and evil of actions, and the latter in its turn brings along with it the problem of the validity of reason and purely rational judgements. These problems together lead to the discussion of Divine wisdom (that is the notion that there is a judicious purpose and aim behind Divine Acts) [4], and thereby, gradually, to the debate about the unity of Divine Acts and the unity of the Attributes, as we shall explain later.
The formation of opposite camps in the debates of kalam, later acquired a great scope, and extended to many philosophical problems, such as, substance and accident, nature of indivisible particles which constitute physical bodies, the problem of space, etc. This was because, in the view of the mutakallimun, discussion of such issues was considered a prelude to the debate about theological matters, particularly those related with mabda’ (primeval origin) and ma’ad (resurrection). In this way many of the problems of philosophy entered ‘ilm al-kalam, and now there are many problems common to both.
If one were to study the books on kalam, specially those written after the 7th/l3th century, one would see that most of them deal with the same problems as those discussed by philosophers – especially, Muslim philosophers – in their books.
Islamic philosophy and kalam have greatly influenced each other. One of the results was that kalam raised new problems for philosophy, and philosophy helped in widening the scope of kalam, in the sense that dealing with many philosophical problems came to be considered necessary in kalam. With God’s help, we hope to give an example of each of these two results of reciprocal influence between philosophy and kalam.
Al-Kalam al-’Aqli and al-Kalam al-Naqli:
Although ‘ilm al-kalam is a rational and discursive discipline, it consists of two parts from the viewpoint of the preliminaries and fundamentals used by it in arguments:
(i) ‘aqli (rational);
(ii) naqli (transmitted, traditional).
The ‘aqli part of kalam consists of the material which is purely rational, and if there is any reference to naqli (tradition), it is for the sake of illumination and confirmation of a rational judgement. But in problems such as those related to Divine Unity, prophethood, and some issues of Resurrection, reference to naql – the Book and the Prophet’s Sunnah – is not sufficient; the argument must be purely rational.
The naqli part of kalam, although it consists of issues related with the doctrines of the faith – and it is necessary to believe in them – but since these issues are subordinate to the issue of prophethood, it is enough to quote evidence from the Divine Revelation or the definite ahadith of the Prophet (S), e.g. in issues linked with imamah (of course, in the Shi’ite faith, wherein belief in imamah is considered a part of usul al-Din), and most of the issues related with the Resurrection.
DEFINITION AND SUBJECT MATTER OF ‘ILM AL-KALAM:
For a definition of ‘ilm al-kalam, it is sufficient to say that, ‘It is a science which studies the basic doctrines of the Islamic faith (usul al-Din). It identifies the basic doctrines and seeks to prove their validity and answers any doubts which may be cast upon them.’
In texts on logic and philosophy it is mentioned that every science has a special subject of its own, and that the various sciences are distinguished from one another due to their separate subject matter. This is certainly true, and those sciences whose subject matter has a real unity are such. However, there is nothing wrong if we form a discipline whose unity of subject matter and the problems covered by it is an arbitrary and conventional one, in the sense that it covers diverse, mutually exclusive subjects, which are given an arbitrary unity because they serve a single purpose and objective. In sciences whose subject has an essential unity, there is no possibility of overlapping of problems. But in sciences in which there is a conventional unity among the issues dealt with, there is nothing wrong if there is an overlapping of issues. The commonness of the problems between philosophy and kalam, psychology and kalam, or sociology and kalam, is due to this reason.
Some Islamic scholars have sought to define and outline the subject matter of ‘ilm al-kalam, and have expressed various opinions. But this is a mistake; because a clear-cut delineation of the subject of study is possible for only those sciences which have an essential unity among the problems dealt with. But in those sciences in which there is a conventional unity of problems dealt with, there can be no unity of subject. Here we cannot discuss this issue further.
The Name “‘Ilm al-Kalam”:
Another point is why this discipline has been called ” ‘ilm al-kalam”, and when this name was given to it. Some have said that it was called “kalam” (lit. speech) because it gives an added power of speech and argument to one who is well-versed in it. Some say that the reason lies in the habit of the experts of this science who began their own statements in their books with the expression “al-kalamu fi kadha”. Others explain that it was called “kalam” because it discussed issues regarding which the Ahl al-Hadith preferred to maintain complete silence. Yet according to others this name came to be in vogue when the issue whether the Holy Qur’an (called “kalamullahi”) ,the Divine Utterance [5], i.e. the Holy Qur’an) is created (makhluq) or not, became a matter for hot debate amongst the Muslim – a controversy which led to animosity between the two opposite camps and bloodshed of many. This is also the reason why that period is remembered as a “time of severe hardship” – mihnah. That is, since most of the debates about the doctrines of the faith revolved around the huduth (createdness, temporality) or the qidam (pre-eternity) of the “Utterance” or kalam of God, this discipline which discussed the principal doctrines of the faith came to be called ” ‘ilm al-kalam” (lit. the science of the Utterance). These are the various opinions that have been expressed about the reason why ‘ilm al-kalam was given this name.
The Various Schools of Kalam:
The Muslims differed with one another in matters of the Law (fiqh), following differing paths and dividing into various sects, such as Ja’fari, Zaydi, Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki and Hanbali, each of which has a fiqh of its own. Similarly, from the viewpoint of the doctrine, they divided into various schools, each with its own set of principal doctrines. The most important of these schools are: the Shi’ah, the Mu’tazilah, the ‘Asha’irah, and the Murji’ah.
Here it is possible that the question may arise as to the reason behind such regretful division of the Muslims into sects in matters dealing with kalam and fiqh, and why they could not maintain their unity in these spheres. The difference in matters of kalam causes disunity in their Islamic outlook, and the disagreement in the matter of fiqh deprives them of the unity of action.
Both this question and the regret are justified. But it is necessary to pay attention to the two following points:
(i) The disagreement in issues of fiqh among the Muslims is not so great as to shatter the foundations of the unity of doctrinal outlook and mode of practice. There is so much common in their doctrinal and practical matters that the points of difference can hardly inflict any serious blow.
(ii) Theoretical differences and divergence of views is inevitable in societies in spite of their unity and agreement in principles, and as long as the roots of the differences lie in methods of inference, and not in vested interests, they are even beneficial; because they cause mobility, dynamism, discussion, curiosity, and progress. Only when the differences are accompanied by prejudices and emotional and illogical alignments, and lead individuals to slander, defame, and treat one another with contempt, instead of motivating them to endeavour towards reforming themselves, that they are a cause of misfortune.
In the Shi’ite faith, the people are obliged to imitate a living mujtahid, and the mujtahidun are obliged to independently ponder the issues and form their independent opinions and not to be content with what has been handed down by the ancestors. Ijtihad and independence of thought inherently lead to difference of views; but this divergence of opinions has given life and dynamism to the Shi’ite fiqh. Therefore, difference in itself cannot be condemned. What is condemnable is the difference which originates in evil intentions and selfish interests, or when it centres around issues which drive Muslims on separate paths, such as the issue of imamah and leadership, not the difference in secondary and non-basic matters.
To undertake an examination of the intellectual history of the Muslims so as to find which differences originated in evil intentions, vested interests, and prejudices, and which were a natural product of their intellectual life, whether all points of difference in the sphere of kalam should be regarded as fundamental, or whether all problems in fiqh should be regarded as secondary, or if it is possible that a difference in kalam may not be of fundamental significance whereas one in fiqh may have such importance – these are questions which lie outside the brief scope of this lecture.
Before we take up the schools of kalam for discussion, it is essential to point out that there has been a group of scholars in the Islamic world which was basically opposed to the very idea of ‘ilm al-kalam and rational debate about Islamic doctrines, considering it a taboo and an innovation in the faith (bid’ah). They are known as “Ahl al-Hadith.” Ahmad ibn Hanbal, one of the imams of jurisprudence of the Ahl al-Sunnah, stands foremost among them.
The Hanbalis are totally against kalam, Mu’tazilite or Ash’arite, not to speak of the Shi’ite kalam. In fact they are basically opposed to logic and philosophy. Ibn Taymiyyah, who was one of the eminent scholars of the Sunni world, gave a verdict declaring kalam and logic as ‘unlawful’. Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, another figure among the Ahl al-Hadith, has written a book called Sawn al-mantiq wa al-kalam ‘an al-mantiq wa al-kalam (“Protecting speech and logic from [the evil of] ‘ilm al-kalam and the science of logic”).
Malik ibn Anas is another Sunni imam who considers any debate or inquiry about doctrinal matters to be unlawful. We have explained the Shi’ite viewpoint in this matter, in the introduction to Vol.V of Usul-e falsafeh wa rawish-e riyalism. [6]
The important schools of kalam, as mentioned earlier, are: Shi’ah, Mu’tazilah, Asha’irah, and Murji’ah. Some sects of the Khawarij and the Batinis, such as the Isma’ilis, have also been considered as schools of Islamic kalam. [7]
However, in my view, none of these two sects can be considered as belonging to the schools of Islamic kalam. The Khawarij, although they held specific beliefs in the matters of doctrine, and perhaps were the first to raise doctrinal problems by expressing certain beliefs about Imamah, the kufr (apostasy) of the fasiq (evil-doer, one who commits major sins), and considered the disbelievers in these beliefs as apostates, but they did not, firstly, create a rationalist school of thought in the Muslim world, and, secondly, their thinking was so much deviated – from the viewpoint of the Shi’ites – that it is difficult to count them among Muslims. What makes things easy is that the Khawarij ultimately became extinct and only one of their sects, called “Abadiyyah” has some followers today. The Abadiyyah were the most moderate of all the Khawarij, and that is the reason why they have survived until today.
The Batinis, too, have so much liberally interfered in Islamic ideas on the basis of esotericism that it is possible to say that they have twisted Islam out of its shape, and that is the reason why the Muslim world is not ready to consider them as one of the sects of Islam.
About thirty years ago when the Dar al-Taqrib Bayna al-Madhahib al-’Islamiyyah was established in Cairo, the Imamiyyah Shi’ah, the Zaydiyyah, the Hanafi, the Shafi’i, the Maliki and the Hanbali sects, each of them had a representative. The Isma’ilis tried hard to send a representative of their own; but it was not accepted by other Muslims. Contrary to the Khawarij, who did not create a system of thought, the Batinis, despite their serious deviations, do have a significant school of kalam and philosophy. There have emerged among them important thinkers who have left behind a considerable number of works. Lately, the Orientalists have been showering great attention on the Batini thought and works.
One of the prominent Isma’ili figures is Nasir Khusrow al-’Alawi (d. 841/1437-38), the well-known Persian poet and the author of such famous works as Jami’ al-hikmatayn, Kitab wajh al-Din, and Khuwan al-’ikwan. Another is Abu Hatam al-Razi (d. 332/943-44), the author of A’lam al-nubuwwah. Others are: Abu Ya’qub al-Sijistani, the author of Kashf al-mahjub (its Persian translation has been recently published), who died during the second half of the 4th/l0th century; Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani, a pupil of Abu Ya’qub al-Sijistani, has written a large number of books about the Isma’ili faith; Abu Hanifah Nu’man ibn Thabit, well-known as Qadi Nu’man or “the Shi’ite Abu Hanifah” (i.e. Isma’ili); his knowledge of fiqh and hadith is good, and his well-known book Da’a'im al-’Islam has been printed by lithotype several years ago.
MU’TAZILAH:
We shall begin our discussion – and we shall explain later why – with the Mu’tazilah. The emergence of this sect took place during the latter part of the first century or at the beginning of the second. Obviously ‘ilm al-kalam, like any other field of study, developed gradually and slowly attained maturity.
First we shall enumerate the principal Mu’tazilite beliefs, or what is better to say, the basic and salient points of their school of thought. Second, we shall point out the well-known Mu’tazilite figures and speak of their fate in history. Then we shall give an account of the main outlines of the transitions and changes in their thought and beliefs.
The opinions held by the Mu’tazilah are many, and are not confined to the religious matters, or which according to them form an essential part of the faith. They cover a number of physical, social, anthropological and philosophical issues, which are not directly related with the faith. However, there is a certain relevance of these problems to religion, and, in the belief of the Mu’tazilah, any inquiry about the matters of religion is not possible without studying them.
There are five principal doctrines which, according to the Mu’tazilah themselves, constitute their basic tenets:
(i) Tawhid, i.e. absence of plurality and attributes.
(ii) Justice (‘adl), i.e. God is just and that He does not oppress His creatures.
(iii) Divine retribution (at-wa’d wa al-wa’id), i.e. God has determined a reward for the obedient and a punishment for the disobedient, and there can be no uncertainty about it. Therefore, Divine pardon is only possible if the sinner repents, for forgiveness without repentance (tawbah) is not possible.
(iv) Manzilah bayna al-manzilatayn (a position between the two positions). This means that a fasiq (i.e. one who commits one of the “greater sins,” such as a wine imbiber, adulterer, or a liar etc.) is neither a believer (mu’min) nor an infidel (kafir); fisq is an intermediary state between belief and infidelity.
(v) al-’amr bil ma’ruf wa al-nahy ‘an al-munkar [bidding to do what is right and lawful, and forbidding what is wrong and unlawful]. The opinion of the Mu’tazilah about this Islamic duty is, firstly, that the Shari’ah is not the exclusive means of identifying the ma’ruf and the munkar; human reason can, at least partially, independently identify the various kinds of ma’ruf and munkar. Secondly, the implementation of this duty does not necessitate the presence of the Imam, and is a universal obligation of all Muslims, whether the Imam or leader is present or not. Only some categories of it are the obligation of the Imam or ruler of Muslims, such as, implementation of the punishments (hudud) prescribed by the Shari’ah, guarding of the frontiers of Islamic countries, and other such matters relating to the Islamic government.
Occasionally, the Mu’tazilite mutakallmun have devoted independent volumes to discussion of their five doctrines, such as the famous al-’Usul al-khamsah of al-Qadi ‘Abd al-Jabbar al-’Astarabadi (d. 415/ 1025), a Mu’tazilite contemporary of al-Sayyid al-Murtada ‘Alam al-Huda and al-Sahib ibn ‘Abbad (d. 385/995).
As can be noticed, only the principles of tawhid and Justice can be considered as parts of the essential doctrine. The other three principles are only significant because they characterize the Mu’tazilah. Even Divine Justice – although its notion is definitely supported by the Qur’an, and belief in it is a necessary part of the Islamic faith and doctrine – has been made one of the five major doctrines because it characterizes the Mu’tazilah. Or otherwise belief in Divine Knowledge and Power is as much an essential part of the Islamic faith and principal doctrine.
Also in the Shi’ite faith the principle of Divine Justice is considered one of the five essential doctrines. It is natural that the question should arise: what is particular about Divine Justice that it should be counted.among the essential doctrines, though justice is only one of the Divine Attributes? Is not God Just in the same manner as He is the Omniscient, the Mighty, the Living, the Perceiver, the Hearer and the Seer? All those Divine Attributes are essential to the faith. Then why justice is given so much prominence among the Divine Attributes?
The answer is that Justice has no advantage over other Attributes. The Shi’ite mutakallimun have specially mentioned justice among the principal Shi’ite doctrines because the Ash’arites – who form the majority of the Ahl al-Sunnah – implicitly deny that it is an Attribute, whereas they do not reject the Attributes of Knowledge, Life, Will, etc. Accordingly, justice is counted among the specific doctrines of the Shi’ah, as also of the Mu’tazilah. The above-mentioned five doctrines constitute the basic position of the Mu’tazilah from the viewpoint of kalam, otherwise, as said before, the Mu’tazilite beliefs are not confined to these five and cover a broad scope ranging from theology, physics and sociology to anthropology, in all of which they hold specific beliefs, a discussion of which lies outside the scope of these lectures.
The Doctrine of al-Tawhid:
Beginning with tawhid it has various kinds and levels: al-tawhid al-dhati (Unity of the Essence), al-tawhid al-sifati (Unity of the Attributes, i.e., with the Essence), al-tawhid al-’af’ali (Unity of the Acts), al-tawhid al-’ibadi (monotheism in worship).
Al-Tawhid al-dhati: It means that the Divine Essence is one and unique; it does not have a like or match. All other beings are God’s creations and inferior to Him in station and in degree of perfection. In fact, they cannot be compared with Him. The idea of al-tawhid al-dhati is made clear by the following two [Qur'anic] verses:
Nothing is like Him. (42:11)

He does not have a match [whatsoever]. (112:4)
AI-Tawhid al-sifati: It means that the Divine Attributes such as Knowledge, Power, Life, Will, Perception, Hearing, Vision, etc. are not realities separate from God’s Essence. They are identical with the Essence, in the sense that the Divine Essence is such that the Attributes are true of It, or is such that It manifests these Attributes.
Al-Tawhid al-’af’ali: It means that all beings, or rather all acts [even human acts] exist by the Will of God, and are in some way willed by His sacred Essence.
Al-Tawhid al-’ibadi: It means that except God no other being deserves worship and devotion. Worship of anything besides God is shirk and puts the worshipper outside the limits of Islamic tawhid or monotheism.
In a sense al-tawhid al-’ibadi (tawhid in worship) is different from other kinds of tawhidi, because the first three relate to God and this kind relates to the creatures. In other words, the Unity of Divine Essence, His Uniqueness and the identity of the Essence and Attributes, the unity of the origin of everything – all of them are matters which relate to God. But tawhid in worship, i.e. the necessity of worshipping the One God, relates to the behaviour of the creatures. But in reality, tawhid in worship is also related to God, because it means Uniqueness of God as the only deserving object of worship, and that He is in truth the One Deity Worthy of Worship. The statement “la ilaha illallah” encompasses all aspects of tawhid, although its first signification is monotheism in worship.

Al-tawhid al-dhati and al-tawhid al-’ibadi are part of the basic doctrines of Islam. It means that if there is a shortcoming in one’s belief in these two principles, it would put one outside the pale of Islam. No Muslim has opposed these two basic beliefs.
Lately, the Wahhabis, who are the followers of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, who was a follower of Ibn Taymiyyah, a Hanbali from Syria, have claimed that some common beliefs of the Muslims such as one in intercession (shafa’ah) and some of their practices such as invoking the assistance of the prophets (A) and holy saints (R) are opposed to the doctrine of al-tawhid al-’ibadi. But these are not considered by other Muslims to conflict with al-tawhid al-’ibadi. The point of difference between the Wahhabis and other Muslims is not whether any one besides God – such as the prophets or saints – is worthy of worship. There is no debate that anyone except God cannot be worshipped. The debate is about whether invoking of intercession and assistance can be considered a form of worship or not. Therefore, the difference is only secondary, not a primary one. Islamic scholars have rejected the viewpoint of the Wahhabis in elaborate, well-reasoned answers.
Al-tawhid al-sifati (the Unity of Divine Essence and Attributes) is a point of debate between the Mu’tazilah and the Asha’irah. The latter deny it while the former affirm it. Al-tawhid al-’af’ali is also another point of difference between them, with the difference, however, that the matter is reverse; i.e. the Asha’irah affirm it and the Mu’tazilah deny it.
When the Mu’tazilah call themselves “ahl al-tawhid”, and count it among their doctrines, thereby they mean by it al-tawhid al-sifati, not al-tawhid al-dhati, nor al-tawhid al-’ibadi (which are not disputed), nor al-tawhid al-’af’ali. Because, firstly, al-tawhid al-’af’ali is negated by them, and, secondly, they expound their own viewpoint about it under the doctrine of justice, their second article.
The Asha’irah and the Mu’tazilah formed two radically opposed camps on the issues of al-tawhid al-sifati and al-tawhid al-’af’ali. To repeat, the Mu’tazilah affirm al-tawhid al-sifati and reject al-tawhid al-’af’ali, while the Ash’arite position is the reverse. Each of them have advanced arguments in support of their positions. We shall discuss the Shi’ite position regarding these two aspects of tawhid in the related chapter.
The Doctrine of Divine Justice:
In the preceding lecture I have mentioned the five fundamental Mu’tazilite principles, and explained the first issue, i.e. their doctrine of tawhid. Here we shall take up their doctrine of Divine Justice.
Of course, it is evident that none of the Islamic sects denied justice as one of the Divine Attributes. No one has ever claimed that God is not just. The difference between the Mu’tazilah and their opponents is about the interpretation of Justice. The Asha’irah interpret it in such a way that it is equivalent, in the view of the Mu’tazilah, to a denial of the Attribute of Justice. Otherwise, the Asha’irah are not at all willing to be considered the opponents of justice.
The Mu’tazilah believe that some acts are essentially ‘just’ and some intrinsically ‘unjust.’ For instance, rewarding the obedient and punishing the sinners is justice; and that God is Just, i.e. He rewards the obedient and punishes the sinners, and it is impossible for Him to act otherwise. Rewarding the sinners and punishing the obedient is essentially and intrinsically unjust, and it is impossible for God to do such a thing. Similarly, compelling His creatures to commit sin, or creating them without any power of free will, then creating the sinful acts at their hands, and then punishing them on account of those sins – this is injustice, an ugly thing for God to do; it is unjustifiable and unGodly. But the Asha’irah believe that no act is intrinsically or essentially just or unjust. Justice is essentially whatever God does. If, supposedly, God were to punish the obedient and reward the sinners, it would be as just. Similarly, if God creates His creatures without any will, power or freedom of action, then if He causes them to commit sins and then punishes them for that – it is not essential injustice. If we suppose that God acts in this manner, it is justice:
Whatever that Khusrow does is sweet (shirin).
For the same reason that the Mu’tazilah emphasize justice, they deny al-tawhid al-’af’ali. They say that al-tawhid al-’af’ali implies that God, not the human beings, is the maker of human deeds. Since it is known that man attains reward and punishment in the Hereafter, if God is the creator of human actions and yet punishes them for their evil deeds – which not they, but God Himself has brought about – that would be injustice (zulm) and contrary to Divine Justice. Accordingly, the Mu’tazilah consider al-tawhid al-’af’ali to be contrary to the doctrine of justice.
Also, thereby, the Mu’tazilah believe in human freedom and free will and are its staunch defenders, contrary to the Asha’irah who deny human freedom and free will.
Under the doctrine of justice – in the sense that some deeds are inherently just and some inherently unjust, and that human reason dictates that justice is good and must be practised, whereas injustice is evil and must be abstained from – they advance another general doctrine, which is more comprehensive, that is the principle that “beauty” (husn) and “ugliness” (qubh), (good and evil), are inherent properties of acts. For instance, truthfulness, trustworthiness, chastity and God-fearing are intrinsically good qualities, and falsehood, treachery, indecency, neglectfulness, etc. are intrinsically evil. Therefore, deeds in essence, before God may judge them, possess inherent goodness or evil (husn or qubh).
Hereupon, they arrive at another doctrine about reason: human reason can independently judge (or perceive) the good or evil in things. It means that the good or evil of some deeds can be judged by human reason independently of the commands of the Shari’ah. The Asha’irah are against this view too.
The belief in the inherent good or evil of acts and the capacity of reason to judge them, upheld by the Mu’tazilah and rejected by the Asha’irah, brought many other problems in its wake, some of which are related to theology, some to human predicament; such as, whether the Divine Acts, or rather, the creation of things is with a purpose or not. The Mu’tazilah claimed that absence of a purpose in the creation is “qabih” (an ugly thing) and so rationally impossible. How about a duty which is beyond one’s power to fulfil? Is it possible that God may saddle someone with a duty which is over and above his capacity? The Mu’tazilah consideied this, too, as “qabih”, and so impossible.
Is it within the power of a believer (mu’min) to turn apostate? Does the infidel (kafir) have any power over his own infidelity (kufr)? The answer of the Mu’tazilah is in the affirmative; for if the believer and the infidel had no power over their belief and infidelity, it would be wrong (qabih) to award and punish them. The Asha’irah rejected all these Mu’tazilite doctrines and held opposite views.
Retribution (al-wa’d wa al-wa’id):
“Wa’d” means promising award and “wa’id” means threat of punishment. The Mu’tazilah believe that God does not break His own promises (all Muslims unanimously accept this) or forego His threats, as stated by the Qur’anic verse regarding Divine promise:
Indeed God does not break the promise. (13:31)
Accordingly (the Mu’tazilah say), all threats addressed to the sinners and the wicked such as the punishments declared for an oppressor, a liar or a wine imbiber, will all be carried out without fail, except when the sinner repents before death. Therefore, pardon without repentance is not possible.
From the viewpoint of the Mu’tazilah, pardon without repentance implies failure to carry out the threats (wa’id), and such an act, like breaking of promise (khulf al-wa’d),is “qabih”, and so impossible. Thus the Mu’tazilite beliefs regarding Divine retribution and Divine forgiveness are interrelated, and both arise from their belief in inherent good and evil of deeds determinable by reason.
Manzilah Bayna al-Manzilatayn:
The Mu’tazilite belief in this matter emerged in the wake of two opposite beliefs in the Muslim world about the faith (‘iman) or infidelity (kufr) of the fasiq. For the first time the Khawarij maintained that committing of any of the capital sins (kaba’ir) was contrary to faith (‘iman) and equal to infidelity. Therefore, the perpetrator of a major sin is a kafir.
As we know, the Khawarij emerged after the incident of arbitration (tahkim) during the Battle of Siffin about the year 37/657-58 during the caliphate of Amir al-Mu’minin ‘Ali (A). As the Nahj al-Balaghah tells us, Amir al-Mu’minin (A) argued with them on this issue and refuted their viewpoint by numerous arguments. The Khawarij, even after ‘Ali (A), were against the caliphs of the period, and staunchly espoused the cause of al-’amr bi al-ma’ruf wa al-nahy ‘an al-munkar, denouncing others for their evil and calling them apostates and infidels. Since most of the caliphs indulged in the capital sins, they were naturally regarded as infidels by the Khawarij. Accordingly, they were adversaries of the current politics.
Another group which emerged (or was produced by the hands of vested political interests) was that of the Murji’ah, whose position with regard to the effect of capital sins was precisely opposite to that of the Khawarij. They held that faith and belief is a matter of the heart. One should remain a Muslim if one’s faith – which is an inner affair of the heart – were intact, evil deeds cannot do any harm. Faith compensates all wickedness.
The opinions of the Murji’ah were to the benefit of the rulers, and tended to cause the people to regard their wickedness and indecencies as unimportant, or to consider them, despite their destructive character, as men worthy of paradise. The Murji’ah stated in unequivocal terms, “The respectability of the station of the ruler is secure, no matter how much he may sin. Obedience to him is obligatory and prayers performed in his leadership are correct.” The tyrannical caliphs, therefore, backed them. For the Murji’ah, sin and wickedness, no matter how serious, do not harm one’s faith; the perpetrator of the major sins is a mu’min, not a kafir.
The Mu’tazilah took a middle path in this matter. They maintained that the perpetrator of a major sin is neither a mu’min, nor he is a kafir, but occupies a position between those two extremes. This middle state was termed by the Mu’tazilah “manzilah bayna al-manzilatayn.”
It is said that the first to express this belief was Wasil ibn ‘Ata’, a pupil of al-Hasan al-Basri. One day Wasil was sitting with his teacher, who was asked his opinion about the difference between the Khawarij and the Murji’ah on this issue. Before al-Hasan could say anything, Wasil declared: “In my opinion the perpetrator of the major sins is a fasiq, not a kafir.” After this, he left the company, or as is also said, was expelled by al-Hasan al-Basri – and parting his way started propagating his own views. His pupil and brother-in-law ‘Amr ibn ‘Ubayd also joined him. At this point Hasan declared, “‘I’tazala ‘anna”, i.e. “He [Wasil] has departed from us.” According to another version, the people began to say of Wasil and ‘Amr “‘I’tazala qawl al-’ummah”, i.e. “they have departed from the doctrines held by the ummah,” inventing a third path.
Al-’Amr bi al-Ma’ruf wa al-Nahy ‘an al-Munkar:
Al-’amr bi al-ma’ruf wa al-nahy ‘an al-munkar is an essential Islamic duty, unanimously accepted by all Muslims. The difference occurs only in the limits and conditions related to it.
For instance, the Khawarij believed in it without any limits and conditions whatsoever. They believed that this twofold duty must be performed in all circumstances. For example, when others believed in the conditions of probability of effectiveness (of al-ma’ruf) and absence of any dangerous consequences as necessary for this obligation to be applicable, the Khawarij did not believe in any such restrictions. Some believed that it is sufficient to fulfil the duty of al-’amr wa al-nahy by the heart and the tongue i e one should support al-ma’ruf and oppose al-munkar in his heart and use his tongue to speak out for al-ma’ruf and against al-munkar. But the Khawarij considered it incumbent to take up arms and to unsheathe one’s sword for the sake of fulfilling this duty.
As against them there was a group which considered al-’amr wa al-nahy to be subject to the above conditions, and, moreover, did not go beyond the confines of the heart and the tongue for its sake. Ahmad ibn Hanbal is counted among them. According to this group,a bloody uprising for the sake of struggling against unlawful activities is not permissible.
The Mu’tazilah accepted the conditions for al-’amr wa al-nahy, but, not limiting it to the heart and the tongue, maintained that if the unlawful practices become common, or if the state is oppressive and unjust, it is obligatory for Muslims to rise in armed revolt.
Thus the belief special to the Mu’tazilah in regard to al-’amr bi al-ma’ruf wa al-nahy ‘an al-munkar – contrary to the stand of the Ahl al-Hadith and the Ahl al-Sunnah – is belief in the necessity to rise up in arms to confront corruption. The Khawarij too shared this view, with the difference pointed out above.
OTHER MU’TAZILITE NOTIONS AND BELIEFS:
Whatever we said in the last two lectures was related to the basic doctrines of the Mu’tazilah. But as we mentioned before, the Mu’tazilah raised many an issue and defended their opinions about them. Some of them were related with theology some with physics, some with sociology, and some with the human situation. Of the theological issues, some are related to general metaphysics (umur ‘ammah) and some with theology proper (ilahiyyat bi al-ma’na al-’akhass). [8] Like all other mutakallimun, the intended purpose of the Mu’tazilah by raising metaphysical questions is to use them as preparatory ground for the discussion of theological issues, which are their ultimate objectives. So also the discussions in the natural sciences, too, serve an introductory purpose for them. That is, the discussions in the natural sciences are used to prove some religious doctrines, or to find an answer to some objections. Here we shall enumerate some of these beliefs, beginning with theology:
Theology:
(i) Al-tawhid al-sifati (i.e. unity of the Divine Attributes)
(ii) ‘Adl (Divine Justice).
(iii) The Holy Qur’an (Kalam Allah) is created (kalam, or speech, is an attribute of Act, not of the Essence).
(iv) The Divine Acts are caused and controlled by purposes (i.e. every Divine Act is for the sake of some beneficial outcome).
(v) Forgiveness without repentance is not possible (the doctrine of retribution – wa’d wa wa’id).
(vi) Pre-eternity (qidam) is limited to God (in this belief, they are challenged only by the philosophers).
(vii) Delegation of a duty beyond the powers of the mukallaf (al-taklif bima la yutaq) is impossible.
(viii) The acts of the creatures are not created by God for five reasons;[9] the exercise of Divine Will does not apply to the acts of men.
(ix) The world is created, and is not pre-eternal (only the philosophers are against this view).
(x) God cannot be seen with the eyes, either in this world or in the Hereafter.
Physics:

 Teachers in such institutions direct the education of students and might draw on many subjects, including reading, writing, mathematics, science and history. This technical process is sometimes called schooling when referring to the compulsory education of youth. For example, Samuel Bowles  and Herbert Gintis,  Teachers in specialized professions such as astrophysics, law, or zoology may teach only a certain subject, usually as professors at institutions of higher learning. There is also instruction in fields for those who want specific vocational skills, such as those required to be a pilot. In addition there is an array of education possible at the informal level, e.g., at museums and libraries, with the Internet, and in life experience.

The right to education has been described as a basic human right: since 1952, Article 2 of the first Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights obliges all signatory parties to guarantee the right to education. At world level, the United Nations’ International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 guarantees this right under its Article 13.

University

The original Latin word “universitas”, first used in a time of renewed interest in Classical Greek and Roman tradition, tried to reflect this feature of the Academy of Plato (established 385 BC). The original Latin word referred to places of learning in Europe, where the use of Latin was prevalent. The Latin term “academia” is sometimes extended to a number of educational institutions of non-Western antiquity, including China, India and Persia:

China

Nanjing University and Southeast University were founded in 258 AD.

Korea

Taehak was founded in 372. and Gukhak was established in 682

India

Nalanda University an ancient university was established by the 5th century AD in Bihar, India.

Iran
Academy of Gundishapur was an important medical centre of the 6th and 7th centuries AD.

The University of Constantinople, founded as an institution of higher learning in 425 and reorganized as a corporation of students in 849 by the regent Bardas of emperor Michael III, is considered by some to be the earliest institution of higher learning with some of the characteristics we associate today with a university (research and teaching, auto-administration, academic independence, et cetera). If a university is defined as “an institution of higher learning” then it is preceded by several others, including the Academy that it was founded to compete with and eventually replaced. If the original meaning of the word is considered “a corporation of students” then this could be the first example of such an institution.

If the definition of a university is assumed to mean an institution of higher education and research which issues academic degrees at all levels (bachelor, master and doctorate) like in the modern sense of the word, then the medieval Madrasahs known as Jami’ah (“university” in Arabic) founded in the 9th century would be the first examples of such an institution.

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The University of Al Karaouine in Fez, Morocco is thus recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest degree-granting university in the world with its founding in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri.[5] Also in the 9th century, Bimaristan medical schools were founded in the medieval Islamic world, where medical degrees and diplomas were issued to students of Islamic medicine who were qualified to be a practicing Doctor of Medicine. Al-Azhar University, founded in Cairo, Egypt in 975, was a Jami’ah university which offered a variety of post-graduate degrees (Ijazah), and had individual faculties for a theological seminary, Islamic law and jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, Islamic astronomy, early Islamic philosophy, and logic in Islamic philosophy.

 
The University of Salamanca in Spain, founded 1218

Medieval universities
The first higher education institution in medieval Europe was the University of Constantinople, followed by the University of Salerno (9th century), the Preslav Literary School and Ohrid Literary School in the Bulgarian Empire (9th century). The first degree-granting universities in Europe were the University of Bologna (1088), the University of Paris (c. 1150, later associated with the Sorbonne), the University of Oxford (1167), the University of Cambridge (1209), the University of Salamanca (1218), the University of Montpellier (1220), the University of Padua (1222), the University of Naples Federico II (1224), and the University of Toulouse (1229). Some scholars such as George Makdisi,[3] John Makdisi[10] and Hugh Goddard[11] argue that these medieval universities were influenced in many ways by the medieval Madrasah institutions in Islamic Spain, the Emirate of Sicily, and the Middle East (during the Crusades).

The earliest universities in Western Europe were developed under the aegis of the Catholic Church, usually as cathedral schools or by papal bull as Studia Generali (NB: The development of cathedral schools into Universities actually appears to be quite rare, with the University of Paris being an exception — see Leff, Paris and Oxford Universities), later they were also founded by Kings (Charles University in Prague, Jagiellonian University in Krakow) or municipal administrations (University of Cologne, University of Erfurt). In the early medieval period, most new universities were founded from pre-existing schools, usually when these schools were deemed to have become primarily sites of higher education. Many historians state that universities and cathedral schools were a continuation of the interest in learning promoted by monasteries.

In Europe, young men proceeded to university when they had completed their study of the trivium–the preparatory arts of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic or logic–and the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. (See Degrees of the University of Oxford for the history of how the trivium and quadrivium developed in relation to degrees, especially in anglophone universities).

Outside of Europe, there were many notable institutions of learning throughout history. In China, there was the famous Hanlin Academy, established during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), and was once headed by the Chancellor Shen Kuo (1031-1095), a famous Chinese scientist, inventor, mathematician, and statesman.[citation needed]

 
The tower of the University of Coimbra, the oldest Portuguese university

Modern universities
The end of the medieval period marked the beginning of the transformation of universities that would eventually result in the modern research university. Many external influences, such as eras of humanism, Enlightenment, Reformation, and Revolution, shaped research universities during their development.

By the 18th century, universities published their own research journals, and by the 19th century, the German and the French university models had arisen. The German, or Humboldtian model, was conceived by Wilhelm von Humboldt and based on Friedrich Schleiermacher’s liberal ideas pertaining to the importance of freedom, seminars, and laboratories in universities.[citation needed] The French university model involved strict discipline and control over every aspect of the university.

Until the 19th century, religion played a significant role in university curriculum; however, the role of religion in research universities decreased in the 19th century, and by the end of the 19th century, the German university model had spread around the world. Universities concentrated on science in the 19th and 20th centuries and become increasingly accessible to the masses. In Britain the move from industrial revolution to modernity saw the arrival of new civic universities with an emphasis on science and engineering. The British also established universities worldwide, and higher education became available to the masses not only in Europe. In a general sense, the basic structure and aims of universities have remained constant over the years.

Organization
 
The University of Sydney is Australia’s oldest university.Although each institution is differently organized, nearly all universities have a board of trustees; a president, chancellor, or rector; at least one vice president, vice-chancellor, or vice-rector; and deans of various divisions. Universities are generally divided into a number of academic departments, schools or faculties. Public university systems are ruled over by government-run higher education boards. They review financial requests and budget proposals and then allocate funds for each university in the system. They also approve new programs of instruction and cancel or make changes in existing programs. In addition, they plan for the further coordinated growth and development of the various institutions of higher education in the state or country. However, many public universities in the world have a considerable degree of financial, research and pedagogical autonomy. Private universities are privately funded and generally have a broader independence from state policies.

Despite the variable policies, or cultural and economic standards available in different geographical locations create a tremendous disparity between universities around the world and even inside a country, the universities are usually among the foremost research and advanced training providers in every society. Most universities not only offer courses in subjects ranging from the natural sciences, engineering, architecture or medicine, to sports sciences, social sciences, law or humanities, they also offer many amenities to their student population including a variety of places to eat, banks, bookshops, print shops, job centres, and bars. In addition, universities have a range of facilities like libraries, sports centers, students’ unions, computer labs, and research laboratories. In a number of countries, major classic universities usually have their own botanical gardens, astronomical observatories, business incubators and university hospitals.

Universities around the world
 
Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, USSee also: List of colleges and universities by country
The funding and organisation of universities varies widely between different countries around the world. In some countries universities are predominantly funded by the state, while in others funding may come from donors or from fees which students attending the university must pay. In some countries the vast majority of students attend university in their local town, while in other countries universities attract students from all over the world, and may provide university accommodation for their students.

Classification
 
Brooks Hall, home of the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, USAcross the world there are differing standards for the legal definition of the term “university” and formal accreditation of institutions. There is no nationally standardized definition of the term in the United States, although the term is primarily used to designate research institutions and is often reserved for doctorate-granting institutions[13], but some US states, such as Massachusetts, will only grant a school “university status” if it grants at least two doctoral degrees.

In the United Kingdom, an institution can only use the term if it has been granted by the Privy Council, under the terms of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992.

In many regions of the world, a university is any institution of higher education and research which grants autonomously a range of academic degrees in several fields, from bachelor’s degrees to doctorate degrees, including masters’ degrees, as well as honoris causa degrees and agrégation/habilitation diplomas in the places where these are used.[citation needed] Independently performed research conducted by universities includes both fundamental research and applied research.

Colloquial usage
Colloquially, the term university may be used to describe a phase in one’s life: “when I was at university…” (in the United States and Ireland, college is used instead: “when I was in college…”). See the college article for further discussion. In Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the German-speaking countries “university” is often contracted to “uni”. In New Zealand and in South Africa it is sometimes called “varsity”, which was also common usage in the UK in the 19th century.

Criticism
 The examples and perspective in this section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page.

David Graeber in his 2004 study Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology claimed that the university functions as a hierarchical disciplining device that places graduates in state and corporate bureaucracies.[16]

Richard Vedder, an Ohio University professor and member of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, has been a vocal critic of how institutions of higher education, including the universities, are financed. In his 2004 book, “Going Broke by Degree,” Vedder says that tuition increases have rapidly outpaced inflation; that productivity in higher education has fallen or remained stagnant; and that third-party tuition payments from government or private sources have insulated students from bearing the full cost of their education, allowing costs to rise more rapidly.[17]

Cost

Religious / Political Control of Universities
In some countries, in some political systems, universities are controlled by political or religious authorities who forbid certain fields of study or impose certain other fields. Sometimes national or racial limitations exist in the students that can be admitted, the faculty and staff that can be employed, and the research that can be conducted.

Nazi universities
Books from university libraries, written by anti-Nazi or Jewish authors, were burned in places (e.g., in Berlin) in 1933, and the curricula were subsequently modified. Jewish professors and students were expelled according to the racial policy of Nazi Germany, see also the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. Martin Heidegger became the rector of Freiburg University, where he delivered a number of Nazi speeches. On August 21, 1933 Heidegger established the Führer-principle at the university, later he was appointed Führer of Freiburg University. University of Pozna? was closed by the Nazi Occupation in 1939. 1941–1944 a German university worked there. University of Strasbourg was transferred to Clermont-Ferrand and Reichsuniversität Straßburg existed 1941–1944 [1].

Nazi universities ended in 1945.

sourche : wikipedia

The systematic examination of the proofs of the existence of God should be preceded by a legitimate enquiry: Is the demonstration of God’s existence possible at all? In the Latin scholastic treatises of the Middle Ages, as for example in the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) this enquiry figures as the prelude to the demonstration of God’s existence proper. Although Wensinck has discussed some aspects of the problem of knowledge (erkenntnislehre) in his celebrated Muslim Creed, he does not touch upon this particular aspect of the problem in his monograph, except incidentally, as, for example, in connection with Al-Ghazali’s attitude to the question of God’s existence. But this question, it would seem, requires a fuller treatment than is accorded it in that parenthesis.

In his two little tracts; Fasl al-Maqal and al-Kashf ‘an Manahij al-Adillah, Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) raises this question in a systematic way. In the former tract, he is concerned with a wider problem: viz. Whether the philosophical method tallies with the teaching of revelation or not – to which he replies in the affirmative. “for if the aim of philosophy,” he writes, “is nothing other than the consideration of existing things and their examination, in so far as they manifest the Creator –viz. in so far as they created objects… revelation (al-shar‘) definitely enjoins the consideration of existing things and commends it” – a thesis which he supports by a wealth of Quranic quotations. When he returns to this question at the beginning of Al-Khasf, he distinguishes between three schools of thought on the specific problem of God’s existence: The Literalist who reject rational argument altogether and claim that God’s existence can be known by means of authority (al-sam‘) only. The Ash‘arites (with whom he includes the Mu‘tazilites) who admit the possibility of a rational demonstration of the existence of God from the concepts of temporality (huduth) or contingency (jawaz), as we will see later and  finally the Sufis who claim that we apprehend God directly but “whose method,” as Ibn Rushd observes, “is not speculative at all” and which, even if its validity is conceded, is not common to all men.

The earliest systematic discussion of the problem of knowledge (erkenntnis) as a prelude to theological discussions which has come down to us is found in Al-Baghdadi’s (d. 1037) Usul al-Din. It is possible that Al-Baghdadi continues a more ancient tradition, initiated by the Mu‘tazilite doctors of the 9th century, as their preoccupation with such abstract questions as notions (ma‘ani), science (‘ilm), etc. suggests. But it is significant that al-Baqilani (d. 1013), who is credited by some ancient authorities with having refined the methods of Kalam, does not dwell on this question at any length in the opening chapter of his Tamhid.

 The introductory chapter of Usul, to which Wensinck has drawn attention and discussed in some length in The Muslim Creed, is thus of considerable importance for the understanding of the Islamic approach to the question of knowledge or science.

We cannot dwell at length here on Baghdadi’s analysis of the divisions of knowledge (‘ilm), its presuppositions, the conditions of its validity, etc. which are genuinely reminiscent of Kant and the subsequent schools of modern epistemology. On the particular issue with which we are here concerned, it should be noted that Al-Baghdadi defines demonstrative knowledge “by means of reason” and instances “the knowledge of the temporality of the world, the eternity of its Maker, his unity, his attributes, his justice, his wisdom and the possibility (jawaz) of religious obligations (taklif),” etc. In further expounding the objects of knowledge, as distinct from the objects of revelation (al-shar‘), he states that the Ash‘arites (ashabuna) hold that reason is capable of proving the temporality of the world and the unity of its Maker, etc. as well as the admissibility in reason (jawaz) of what is possible and the inadmissibility of what is impossible, but adds significantly that religious obligations or prohibitions arising therefrom are not known by reason but only by revelation. Hence were one to arrive at knowledge of God, the creator of the universe, etc. prior to revelation by means of natural light of reason he would be “a believing monotheist” but he would not thereby deserve any particular reward; so that if God were to reward him in the life-to-come, such reward would be an act of divine grace. The Mu‘tazilah, on the other hand, argue that man was capable of discriminating between good and evil, prior to revelation, and was in proportion deserving of punishment and reward in the life to come.

Now it is patent that despite this distinction between the two aspects of our knowledge of God by means of reason: the one entailing reward and punishment, the other not, both the Mu‘tazilah and the Ash‘arites were in agreement, as Ibn Rushd remarks, on the actual demonstrability of God’s existence. What they differed on was simply the moral or religious implications of such knowledge: the Ash‘arites holding that punishment and reward are conditional upon the “advent of the law,” the Mu‘tazilah making them independent of the explicit dictates of the law.

Prior to the rise of the Mu‘tazilah, who initiated the whole current of scholastic theology (kalam) in Islam, of course, the question of the demonstrability of God’s existence, like the remaining questions of rational theology, could hardly arise. The early jurists and theologians, such as Malik b. Anas (d. 795) and his followers were content with a theological knowledge rooted in Scripture. Like the Sufis, who believed that God could be apprehended directly, these Traditionalist sought the ground of their belief in God in a non-rational sphere: that of revelation or authority. Thus neither for Traditionalism nor for Sufism was a proof of the existence of God necessary at all, since the existence of God was given directly either in Scripture, according to the former, or in the mystical process of direct apprehension, according to the latter.

If the argument from causality (cosmological or aitiological argument), initiated by Aristotle and developed by his followers throughout the centuries, is rightly regarded as the classical argument for the existence of God in the West, the argument a novitate mundi (dalil al-huduth), of which the argument a contingenti mundi, (dalil al-jawaz) is a mere variant, can be safely asserted to represent the classical argument for the existence of God in Islam. The Aristotelian argument, which rested upon the concept of causality, was never viewed with favor in the Muslim world, not even by the great representatives of Arab Aristotelianism: Avicenna (d. 1037) and Averroes (d. 1198). The former laid special emphasis on the argument from contingency in a manner which definitely influenced the later Mutakallims; the later showed definite predilection for the teleological argument (dalil al-‘inayah) which had a basis in the Qur’an, and was of a more compelling nature than the other arguments, according to him.

The main reason why the cosmological argument was thus rejected out of hand by both the philosophers and the theologians was the fact that the concept of causality upon which it rested had been exposed to doubt since the beginning of Kalam. Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) continuing a long tradition of speculation on this theme, repudiates the validity of the causal principle in Question 17 of his famous Tahafut on the ground that the alleged necessity of this principle is a mere illusion; because it is unwarranted inference, based on observation from the correlation of events. Observation, however shows simply that the alleged effect happens alongside the cause rather through it (cum se non per se: ‘indahu la bihi) and accordingly, such a correlation is not logically necessary but is rather the outcome of a correlation is not logically necessary but is rather the outcome of mere psychological disposition or habit.

It is clear from the foregoing that Wensinck’s statement that the argument a novitate mundi is ‘analogous’ to the Aristotelian-Thomist proof ex parte motus et ex ratione cause efficientis is rather surprising, since the very validity of the causal principle is challenged by the Mutakallims. Moreover, the Aristotelian argument presupposes the cardinal metaphysical distinction between potentiality and actuality (which the Mutakallims also rejected, substituting for it the duality of substance and accidents); and is further independent, as Maimonides (d. 1204) and Aquinas (d. 1272) both recognized, from the thesis of the beginning of the world (round which the argument of the Mutakallims centers as we are going to see). Instead, Aristotle’s casual argument for the existence of the Unmoved Mover grew logically and naturally from the Aristotelian thesis of the eternity of motion in an eternal universe.

The Traditional argument of Kalam presupposes a preliminary thesis upon which the theological treatises place a considerable emphasis: the thesis of the newness or temporality of the universe (al-huduth). This circumstance explains the vehemence with which the opposite thesis of an eternal universe is combated by the advocates of Orthodoxy. Ibn Hazm, the Zahiri jurist and heresiographer, who died in 1064, employs this as the principle on the basis of which he distinguishes between the orthodox or heterodox sects. Muslims or non-Muslim. Al-Ghazali, as is well-known, devoted the first question of his Tahafut to a refutation of the thesis of eternity, which he consider the most pernicious thesis of the philosophers.

The general procedure of the Mutakallims in proving the temporality of the universe considered in showing that the world, which they defined as everything other than God was composed of atoms and accidents. Now the accidents (singular ‘arad) they argued, cannot endure for two instants of time, but are continually created by God who creates or annihilates them at will. Al-Bailani (d. 1013) who appears to follow the lead of Al-Ash‘ari in this respect, actually defines the accident as entities “the duration of which is impossible … and which cease to exist in the second instant of their coming to be.” Similarly, the atoms (sing. al-juz’) in which the accidents inhere are continually created by God and endure simply by reason of the accident of duration (baqa’) which God creates in them. But insofar as this accident of duration, like the other accidents, is itself perishable, the whole world of atoms and accidents is in a state of continuous generation and corruption.

Although the argument for the temporality of the universe form the temporality of its component parts is the favorite argument of the Ash‘arite doctors, it is by no means the only argument of Islamic scholasticism. Unfortunately we are in no position, owing to the scantiness of our sources, to reconstruct the reasoning of the Mu‘tazilite doctors on this question; nevertheless there is good reason to suppose that Al-Ash‘ari and his successors simply inherited the methods of argument, on this and allied subjects, which the Mu‘tazilah had initiated.

As an instance of the interest of the Mutakallims in the thesis of a temporal universe, we might examine here at some length the five arguments for the beginning of the world which Ibn Hazm, the great Zahiri theologian (d. 1064) advances in his Fisal; especially since Ibn Hazm appears to be the first Muslim theologian to have attempted a refutation of the eternity of the world, on the one hand, and a proof of its temporality, on the other, with any completeness. The biographer of Al-Ash‘ari, Ibn ‘Asakir (d. 571 A.H.), reports that Al-Ash‘ari wrote a treatise called Kitab al-Fusul, in refutation of the Materialists and the ‘philosophers,’ who professed the eternity of the universe, which as far as I am aware, is the earliest scholastic treatise dealing with the question of eternity in a systematic way, our sources record. Despite the statement of Al-Shahrastani that Al-Ash‘ari preferred the negative method of refutation (al-ibtal), as distinct from the method of positive proof, it is reasonable to assume that like Ibn Hazm, Al-Razi and others, he coupled the former with the latter species of argument.

Ibn Hazm’s first proof of the temporality of the universe rests on the premise that the accidents and substances (sing. Shakhs) composing the universe are finite and that time, which he conceives as consisting of transient moments, is finite also. In proving the finitude of these three terms: accident, substance and time, Ibn Hazm does not resort to the traditional method of the Mutakallims already mentioned, but maintains that the finitude of substance is evident from the finitude of its dimensions, that of accidents from the finitude of substances in which they inhere and the finitude of time from the transitoriness of the moments composing it. The second proof involves the Aristotelian dictum that everything in act is finite. The universe exists in act and is numerically determinate, therefore it is finite.

In the third argument he resorts to the process of reductio ad absurdum. The thesis of an infinite time, which the eternity of the universe, implies, involves the following absurdities: (a) Since infinity cannot be increased, all the time that will elapse would add nothing to the time elapsed hitherto. (b) The revolutions of a planet (e.g. Saturn) which revolves once every thirty years would be equal to the revolutions of the Upper Heaven, which amount to some 11,000 revolutions during the same period since one infinity is not greater than another. (c) The time elapsed since the beginning of time till the Hijrah (622 A.D.) and the time elapsed since the beginning till our day would be equal.

In the fourth and fifth arguments, he argues that, were the universe without beginning and without end, it would be impossible to determine it in number or in nature and consequently we could not speak of first, second, or third, in speaking of existing things. But this is contradicted by the fact that we can number things and refer to the first and last things. Hence the universe must have a beginning (awwal).

We cannot dwell longer on Ibn Hazm’s discussion of this cardinal theme and the manner in which he resolves the many objections to his arguments. But it is worth noting that most of the arguments of the later doctors such as Al-Ghazali and Al-Razi (d. 1209) are found here in an embryonic, though sometimes confused, state. This circumstance would appear to strengthen the view expressed by Maimonides (d. 1204), the great Jewish philosopher, that the Mutakallims were influenced in these arguments by John Philoponus (d. 568), author of De aeternitate mundi, a refutation of Proclus’s argument for the eternity of the universe – since it would imply that the Mutakallims from Ibn Hazm downwards were drawing on some common source.

With the temporality of the world as a premise, the Mutakallims proceeded to prove that the world being created (hadith) must necessarily have a Creator (muhdith), by recourse to the so-called “principle of determination.” In its barest form, this principle meant that since prior to the existence of the universe it was equally possible for it to be or not-to-be, a determinant (murajjih) whereby the possibility of a being could prevail over the possibility of not-being was required; and this ‘determinant’ – they argued – was God. Al-Baqilani (d. 1013),* who belonged to the second generation of Ash‘arite doctors and who is credited with refining the methods of Kalam, sums up this argument in succinct way. The world being temporal (hadith), he writes, it must of necessity have a Maker and Fashioner (muhdith wa musawwir), “just as writing must have a writer, a picture must have a painter and building a builder.” To this argument, however, he adds two others in which the ‘middle term’ differs but which reveal the same dialectical structure. In the first, he maintains that the priority of certain things over others presupposes an “Agent who made them prior” (muqaddiman qaddamahu) since priority does not belong by nature to a pair of equals; and this “determinant of priority” is God. In the second, he introduces a concept of contingency (jawaz) and argues that things in themselves are capable of receiving various ‘forms’ or qualities. The fact that existing things are endowed with certain determined ‘forms’ presupposes a ‘determinant’ who has determined that they should receive these ‘forms’ and no others; and this ‘determinant’ is God.

The element common to these three arguments, it will be noticed, is the “principle of determination” which they all invoke. Only the first argument, however, presupposes in addition the beginning of the world or its temporality. As to the third, it constitutes the basis of the argument a contingentia mundi (dalil al-jawaz) which was later developed by Al-Juwayni (d. 1086) as Averroes states in Al-Khasf, in a treatise which has not come to us, Al-Risalat al-Nizamiyyah. This proof, as Wensinck rightly observes, is affiliated to Ibn Sina (d. 1037) who seems to follow the lead of Al-Farabi (d. 950) in his respect, as Madkour has shown in his monograph on Al-Farabi.

In his major treatise, Al-Irshad, Al-Juwayni sets forth the more popular argument from temporality or huduth. “if the temporality of the world (hadath) is established and if it is established that (the world) has a beginning (muftatah al-wujud), since the temporal can equally exist or not exist … reason requires that (the world) must have a determinant (mukhassis) who determined its actual existence.”

Al-Baghdadi’s argument, as expounded in Usul ‘al-Din, differs little from that of either Al-Baqilani or Al-Juwayni. All rest, as we have seen, on the thesis that the world consists of atoms and accidents which have no subsistent being in themselves since they cannot endure for two moments of time. What, we might ask, is the extent of their debt to ‘Abul-Hasan al-Ash‘ari? The publication recently of Kitab al-Luma‘ enables us to give a provisional answer to this question, pending the discovery of fresh material.

The arguments of Al-Ash‘ari in this treatise has a distinct Quranic ring. It has nothing of the dialectical stringency of the later arguments and rests on the observation of the ‘phases’ of man’s growth from “a drop of water, to a leech to an embryo,” which the Qur’an has rendered classical. In so far as it is impossible for man himself to cause this change in his condition (tahawwul), the author argues, it is necessary that an “Agent should have transformed him from one phase to the other and disposed him according to his actual state;” for it impossible that this should happen without an agent of transformation, and by analogy the whole universe requires such an “agent of transformation.” This terse argument is of course in keeping with the nature of Al-Luma‘, as an introductory treatise, but confirms nevertheless the view that Ash‘arite Kalam was not fully developed by the beginning of the 10th century so that the authors of this period in general were content with purely rhetorical arguments based on the Qur’an or the Traditions. It is only with Al-Baqilani that a rigorous application of syllogistic methods of proof begins to make its appearance. But even here as we have seen no attempt at an elaborate analysis of the logical concepts involved is made.

The later history of Kalam reflects greater refinement in employing the technique of argument and a greater subtlety in handling logical concepts. Ibn Khaldun distinguishes between modern and the ancient stages in the development of Kalam and assigns the credit for introducing the ‘method of he moderns’ to Al-Ghazali. whether the credit for initiating this new ‘philosophical’ stage in the development of Kalam rightly belongs to Al-Ghazali or some earlier theologian, as Al-Juwayni or Al-Baqilani, is a controversial issue. It is certain, however, that this stage, as we have seen, is subsequent to Al-Ash‘ari’s time, and belongs to the latter half of the 10th century.

Al-Ghazali’s major contribution to the discussion of the problem at issue was twofold. In the first place, he brought out in a very forcible way the radical opposition between the teaching of Islam and the Aristotelian conception of a universe developing itself eternally and everlastingly; and in the second place, he gave added point to the arguments already advanced by the Mutakallims, by amplifying and perfecting them. Wensinck’s stress on the bipolarity in the thought of Al-Ghazali, the mystic, and Al-Ghazali, the theologian, is perfectly justified. Nevertheless it is only in Al-Ghazali as a Mutakallim and in his version of the argument a novitate mundi the we are interested here. The most succinct statement of this argument is found in Kitab al-Iqtisad fi’l-‘Itiqad, which he invokes, in the traditional manner of the Ash‘arites, the “principle of determination.” The syllogism runs as follows: Everything temporal (hadith) must have a cause. The world is temporal. Therefore the world must have a cause. By hadith, Al-Ghazali tells us, he means “what did not previously exist and then began to exist.” Prior to its existence, this ‘temporal world’ was ‘possible’ (mumkin) i.e. “could equally exist and not exist.” To tilt the balance in favor of existence a ‘determinant’ (murajjih) was necessary – since otherwise this ‘possible’ universe would have always remained in a state of not-being.

It would seem, considering the devastating attack which Al-Ghazali levels against the concept of causality in Question 17 of Al-Tahafut, flagrant contradiction. Al-Ghazali, however, explains in the same passage that by cause here he simply means a ‘determinant’ (i.e. murajjih) and consequently the apparent contradiction vanishes. Owing to its Aristotelian associations, this term was never in vogue among the Mutakallims. The earliest systematic refutation of the concept of causality as implicit in the doctrine of Tawallud (or production), of which I am aware, is found in Usul al-Din of Al-Baghdadi, who died in 1037, and which bears a striking resemblance to the more elaborate refutation of Al-Tahafut. Nevertheless, theologians of the later period are not entirely averse to the use of the term cause in this special sense of determinant. For instance, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1209) one of the subtlest theologians of Islam, employs this term and its synonym ‘illah repeatedly in his exposition of the scholastic proofs for the existence of God.

We might examine here Al-Razi’s exposition of the traditional proofs for the existence of God as outlined in Kitab al-Arba‘in, especially since this is one of the fullest expositions which our classical sources record, and one which Wensinck does not seem to have consulted in his important monograph.

Al- Razi sums up the proofs of the existence of God under four arguments. The argument from the possibility (Imkan) of the universe to the existence of a necessary being (wajib al-wujud), Creator thereof.

The argument from the possibility of the qualities of the universe to the necessity of a Determinant of the form, characteristics, and locus of bodies composing it, who is not Himself a body.

The argument form the temporality of substances and bodies to the existence of a Maker thereof. (p. 86) and finally, The argument from the temporality of qualities of the universe to the existence of an intelligent Designer who disposes things according to His power and will. (p. 91)

It will appear from this brief analysis that these four arguments resolve themselves – as Al-Razi himself points out in the preface to his discussion (p. 67) – into two: the argument from temporality (huduth) and that from possibility (imkan). The root-concept in the former proof is the concept of time; viz. the fact that the world has had a beginning in time or in Al-Razi’s words, the fact that, before its existence, the world was in a state of not-being (al-‘adam). The root-concept in the latter proof is the concept of contingency (jawaz or imkan); viz. the fact that the world, considered singly as in argument (1), or as a whole as in argument (2), could have been otherwise. Al- Razi, like the rest of the Mutakallims, however, does not distinguish sharply between these two distinct proofs, as Ibn Sina justly remarks, and is on that account liable to some confusion. Al-Razi, for instance, defines the ‘temporal’ (al-muhdath) in his third argument as “that whose being in itself is contingent” which he further describes “as that whose essence is equally susceptible of not-being and of being,” which he adds significantly, “is the precise meaning of the possible.”

We might overlook this point an dwell on the similarities between these two distinct arguments. In the first place, whether we argue from contingency for from temporality, a necessary Being distinct from the series of sensible things (p. 70) must be posited as a Determinant of the being of the universe, on the one hand, and of the particular mode or being proper to it, on the other. This in fact is the point of distinction between the two concepts round which these two arguments center. For the argument a novitate mundi presupposes as we have seen, that prior to its existence the being and the not-being of the universe were equally possible, no account being take of the mode of being proper to this universe as in the argument a contingentia mundi.

In the second place, the positing of a Necessary Being outside the series of temporal beings flows logically from the impossibility of the regress ad infinitum. That is why Al-Razi, more conscious of the importance of this circumstance than the earlier theologians, devotes a lengthy discussion to the refutation of the two concepts of circularity (al-daur) and the regressus ad infinitum (al-tasalsul). Although he summarizes what appears to be the traditional argument against circularity, viz. that if two possible things were said to cause each other, each would precede the other an consequently itself, which is absurd, – Al-Razi proposes a different argument which he states thus: “The effect (ma‘lul) requires the cause. Now if each of two (possible) agents was the effect of the other, each of them would require the other and accordingly each would require what requires itself. Therefore, each would require itself, which is absurd.”(p.81).

In refuting the regressus ad infinitum, Al-Razi begins by laying down as a postulate that it is necessary that the cause should exist actually at the time of the existence of the effect, or else the latter would be capable of existing by itself – i.e., independently of the agency of the cause – which contradicts our original postulate.

1. If so, then the regression of the series of causes an effects to infinity would entail that the whole series existed simultaneously. Now the whole series is either necessary in itself or possible in itself. The former alternative is absurd because “a whole requires each of its parts and each of these parts is possible in itself and that which requires the possible in itself is a fortiori possible in itself too.” Consequently, the whole series is possible in itself and requires a necessary determinant (mu’aththir) distinct from itself, and this determinant is the Necessary Being.

2. If the whole series is contingent or possible-in-itself as we have seen, and if every possible-in-itself must have a determinant, this determinant is either (a) the whole series itself, (b) something pertaining to it, or (c) something outside it. (a) is absurd since it entails that the series determines itself. (b) is also absurd because it entails the member of the series, which was assumed to determine it, was also its own cause or of the cause of its cause. The former is absurd for the same reason as above (viz.: that a thing cannot be its own cause); the latter because it involves us in the impasse of circularity. Hence the determinant must be something outside the series as in (c). But what lies outside the series of possibles must be necessary-in-itself, which is the Necessary Being.

3. Let us imagine a portion of the series of effects extending from the last effect (L) to infinity and consisting of five segments. Let us next imagine another portion extending from the fifth segment to infinity.

Now if we compare the first portion (A) with the second (B) then they would either be equal –which implies that the whole is greater than its parts –or that one is greater than the other; so that the shorter portion (B) would be finite, since it is shorter by four units; and the longer would be finite also, since it exceeds the former by four units. Consequently, the ascending (tasa‘ud) series of causes and effects would have an extremity and a starting-point which is contrary to the statement that it is infinite.[47] Not if that extremity is possible-in-itself, then it would require another determinant and thus would not be the extremity; if, on the other hand, it is necessary-in-itself, then we would have proved our case.

With Al-Razi, we might safely state, the ‘golden Period’ in the history of Kalam comes to an end. The merit of this subtle theologian is that he reintroduced into scholastic discussions certain.

All Islamic philosophers from al-Kindi to those of our own day such as ’Allamah Tabatabai have lived and breathed in a universe dominated by the reality of the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet of Islam. Nearly all of them have lived according to Islamic Law or the Shari ah and have prayed in the direction of Makkah every day of their adult life. The most famous among them, such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), were conscious in asserting their active attachment to Islam and reacted strongly to any attacks against their faith without their being simply fideists. Ibn Sina would go to a mosque and pray when confronted with a difficult Problem,’ and Ibn Rushd was the chief qadi or judge of Cordova (Spanish Cordoba) which means that he was himself the embodiment of the authority of Islamic Law even if he were to be seen later by many in Europe as the arch-rationalist and the very symbol of the rebellion of reason against faith. The very presence of the Qur’an and the advent of its revelation was to transform radically the universe in which and about which Islamic philosophers were to philosophize, leading to a specific kind of philosophy which can be justly called “prophetic philosophy”.3

The very reality of the Qur’an, and the revelation which made it accessible to a human community, had to be central to the concerns of anyone who sought to philosophize in the Islamic world and led to a type of philosophy in which a revealed book is accepted as the supreme source of knowledge not only of religious law but of the very nature of existence and beyond existence of the very source of existence. The prophetic consciousness which is the recipient of revelation (al-wahy) had to remain of the utmost significance for those who sought to know the nature of things. How were the ordinary human means of knowing related to such an extraordinary manner of knowing ? How was human reason related to that intellect which is illuminated by the light of revelation ? To understand the pertinence of such issues, it is enough to cast even a cursory glance at the works of the Islamic philosophers who almost unanimously accepted revelation as a source of ultimate knowledge.’ Such questions as the hermeneutics of the Sacred Text and theories of the intellect which usually include the reality of prophetic consciousness remain, therefore, central to over a millennium of Islamic philosophical thought.

One might say that the reality of the Islamic revelation and participation in this reality transformed the very instrument of philosophizing in the Islamic world. The theoretical intellect (al-aql a1-no ari) of the Islamic philosophers is no longer that of Aristotle although his very terminology is translated into Arabic. The theoretical intellect, which is the epistemological instrument of all philosophical activity, is Islamicized in a subtle way that is not always detectable through only the analysis of the technical vocabulary involved. The Islamicized understanding of the intellect, however, becomes evident when one reads the discussion of the meaning of aql or intellect in a major philosopher such as Mulla Sadra when he is commenting upon certain verses of the Qur’an containing this term or upon the section on aql from the collection of Shiite Hadith of al-Kulayni entitled Usul al-kafi. The subtle change that took place from the Greek idea of the “intellect” (noun) to the Islamic view of the intellect (al-aql) can also be seen much earlier in the works of even the Islamic Peripatetics such as Ibn Sina where the Active Intellect (al-aql al fa dl) is equated with the Holy Spirit (al-ruh al-qudus).

As is well known to students of the Islamic tradition, according to certain hadith and also the oral tradition which has been transmitted over the centuries, the Qur’an and all aspects of the Islamic tradition which are ’rooted in it have both an outward (*dhir) and an inward (batin) dimension. Moreover, certain verses of the Qur’an themselves allude to the inner and symbolic significance of the revealed Book and its message. As for the Hadith, a body of this collection relates directly to the inner or esoteric dimension of the Islamic revelation and certain sayings of the Prophet refer directly to the esoteric levels of meaning of the Qur’an. Islamic philosophy is related to both the external dimension of the Qur’anic revelation or the Shari `ah and the inner truth or Vagigah which is the heart of all that is Islamic. Many of the doctors of the Divine Law or Shariah have stood opposed to Islamic philosophy while others have accepted it. In fact some of the outstanding Islamic philosophers such as Ibn Rushd, Mir Damad and Shah Waliullah of Delhi have also been authorities in the domain of the Sacred Law. The Shari ah has, however, provided mostly the social and human conditions for the philosophical activity of the Islamic philosophers. It is to the Hagigah that one has to turn for the inspiration and source of knowledge for Islamic philosophy.

The very term al-hagigah is of the greatest significance for the understanding of the relation between Islamic philosophy and the sources of the Islamic revelation.5 Al-baqiqah means both truth and reality. It is related to God Himself, one of whose names is al-Hagq or the Truth, and is that whose discovery is the goal of all Islamic philosophy. At the same time al-baqiqah constitutes the inner reality of the Qur’an and can be reached through a hermeneutic penetration of the meaning of the Sacred Text. Throughout history, many an Islamic philosopher has identified faisafah or hikmah, the two main terms used with somewhat different meaning for Islamic philosophy, with the Haqiqah lying at the heart of the Qur’an. Much of Islamic philosophy is in fact a hermeneutic unveiling of the two grand books of revelation, the Qur’an and the cosmos, and in the Islamic intellectual universe Islamic philosophy belongs, despite some differences, to the same family as that of ma`rifah or gnosis which issues directly from the inner teachings of Islam and which became crystallized in both Sufism and certain dimensions of Shi’ism. Without this affinity there would not have been a Suhrawardi or Mulla Sadra in Persia or an Ibn Sab’in in Andalusia.

Philosophers living as far apart as Nasir-i Khusraw (fifth/eleventh century) and Mulla Sadra (tenth/sixteenth century) have identified falsafah or hikmah explicitly with the Uagigah lying at the heart of the Qur’an whose comprehension implies the spiritual hermeneutics (ta wil) of the Sacred Text. The thirteenth/nineteenth-century Persian philosopher Jafar Kashifi goes even further and identifies the various methods for the interpretation of the Qur’an with the different schools of philosophy, correlating tafsir (the literal interpretation of the Qur’an) with the Peripatetic (mashshd’,) school, to wit (its symbolic interpretation) with the stoic (riwagi),6 and tajhim (in-depth comprehension of the Sacred Text) with the Illuminationist (ishraqs) For the main tradition of Islamic philosophy, especially as it developed in later centuries, philosophical activity was inseparable from interiorization of oneself and penetration into the inner meaning of the Qur’an and Hadith which those philosophers who were of a Shiite bent considered to be made possible through the power issuing from the cycle of initiation (dairat al-walayah) that follows the closing of the cycle of prophecy (dd’irat al-nubuwwah) with the death of the Prophet of Islam.

The close nexus between the Qur’an and Hadith, on the one hand, and Islamic philosophy, on the other, is to be seen in the understanding of the history of philosophy. The Muslims identified Hermes, whose personality they elaborated into the “three Hermes”, also well known to the West from Islamic sources, with Idris or Enoch, the ancient prophet who belongs to the chain of prophecy confirmed by the Qur’an and Hadith.’ And they considered Idris as the origin of philosophy, bestowing upon him the title of Abu’I-I ;Iukama’ (the father of philosophers). Like. Philo and certain later Greek philosophers before them and also many Renaissance philosophers in Europe, Muslims considered prophecy to be the origin of philosophy, confirming in an Islamic form the dictum of Oriental Neoplatonism that “Plato was Moses in Attic Greek”. The famous Arabic saying “philosophy issues from the niche of prophecy” (yanba`u’l-hikmah min mishkdt al-nubuwwah) has echoed through the annals of Islamic history and indicates clearly how Islamic philosophers themselves envisaged the relation between philosophy and revelation.

It must be remembered that al-Hakim (the Wise, from the same root as hikmah) is a Name of God and also one of the names of the Qur’an. More specifically many Islamic philosophers consider Chapter 31 of the Qur’an, entitled Lugman, after the Prophet known proverbially as a hakim, to have been revealed to exalt the value of hikmah, which Islamic philosophers identify with true philosophy.

This chapter begins with the symbolic letters alif, lam, mim followed immediately by the verse, “These are revelations of the wise scripture [al-kitab al-hakim]” (Pickthall translation), mentioning directly the term hakim. Then in verse 12 of the same chapter it is revealed, “And verily We gave Lugman wisdom [al-hikmah], saying : Give thanks unto Allah ; and whosoever giveth thanks, he giveth thanks for [the good of] his soul. And whosoever refuseth —Lo ! Allah is Absolute, Owner of Praise.” Clearly in this verse the gift of hikmah is considered a blessing for which one should be grateful, and this truth is further confirmed by the famous verse, “He giveth wisdom [hikmah] unto whom He will, and he unto whom wisdom is given, he truly hath received abundant good” (2 : 269).

There are certain Hadith which point to God having offered prophecy and philosophy or hikmab, and Luqman chose hikmah which must not be confused simply with medicine or other branches of traditional hikmah but refers to pure philosophy itself dealing with God and the ultimate causes of things. These traditional authorities also point to such Qur’anic verses as “And He will teach him the Book [al-kitab] and Wisdom [al-hikmah]” (3 : 48) and “Behold that which I have given you of the Book and Wisdom” (3 : 81) : there are several where kitab and hikmah are mentioned together. They believe that this conjunction confirms the fact that what God has revealed through revelation He had also made available through hikmah, which is reached through aql, itself a microcosmic reflection of the macrocosmic reality which is the instrument of revelation.9 On the basis of this doctrine later Islamic philosophers such as Mulla Sadra developed an elaborate doctrine of the intellect in its relation to the prophetic intellect and the descent of the Divine Word, or the Qur’an, basing themselves to some extent on earlier theories going back to Ibn Sina and other Muslim Peripatetics. All of this indicates how closely traditional Islamic philosophy identified itself with revelation in general and the Qur’an in particular.

Islamic philosophers meditated upon the content of the Qur’an as a whole as well as on particular verses. It was the verses of a polysemic nature or those with “unclear outward meaning” (mutashabihdt) to which they paid special attention. Also certain well-known verses were cited or commented upon more often than others, such as the “Light Verse” (ayat al-nur) (24 : 35) commented upon already by Ibn Sina in his Ishardt and also by many later figures. Mulla Sadra was in fact to devote one of the most important philosophical commentaries ever written upon the Qur’an, entitled Tafrir ayat al-nur, to this verse.10

Western studies of Islamic philosophy, which have usually regarded it as simply an extension of Greek philosophy,” have for this very reason neglected for the most part the commentaries cc Islamic philosophers upon the Quran, whereas philosophical commentaries occupy an important category along with the juridical, philological, theological (kalam) and Sufi commentaries. The first major Islamic philosopher to have written Qur’anic commentaries is Ibn S-ma, many of whose commentaries have survived.” Later Suhrawardi was to comment upon diverse passages of the Sacred Text, as were a number of later philosophers such as Ibn Turkah al-Isfahani.

The most important philosophical commentaries upon the Qur’an were, however, written by Mulla Sadra, whose Asrdr al-ayat and Mafatib alghayb13 are among the most imposing edifices of the Islamic intellectual tradition, although hardly studied in the West until now. Mulla Sadra also devoted one of his major works to commenting upon the Usu1 al-kafi of Kulayni, one of the major Shiite texts of Hadith containing the sayings of the Prophet as well as the Imams. These works taken together constitute the most imposing philosophical commentaries upon the Qur’an and Hadith in Islamic history, but such works are far from having terminated with him. The most extensive Qur’anic commentary written during the past decades, al Mizdn, was from the pen of Allamah Tabatabai, who was the reviver of the teaching of Islamic philosophy in Qom in Persia after the Second World War and a leading Islamic philosopher of this century whose philosophical works are now gradually becoming known to the outside world.

Certain Qur’anic themes have dominated Islamic philosophy throughout its long history and especially during the later period when this philosophy becomes a veritable theosophy in the original and not deviant meaning of the term, theosophia corresponding exactly to the Arabic term al-hikmat al-ildhiyyah (or hikmat-i ilahi in Persian). The first and foremost is of course the unity of the Divine Principle and ultimately Reality as such or al-tawhid which lies at the heart of the Islamic message. The Islamic philosophers were all muwahhid or followers of tawhid and saw authentic philosophy in this light. They called Pythagoras and Plato, who had confirmed the unity of the Ultimate Principle, muwahhid while showing singular lack of interest in later forms of Greek and Roman philosophy which were sceptical or agnostic. How Islamic philosophers interpreted the doctrine of Unity lies at the heart of Islamic philosophy. There continued to exist a tension between the Qur’anic description of Unity and what the Muslims had learned from Greek sources, a tension which was turned into a synthesis of the highest intellectual order by such later philosophers as Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra.’4 But in all treatments of this subject from al-Kindi to Mulla Ali Zunuzi and Haul Mulla Had ! Sabziwari during the thirteenth/nineteenth century and even later, the Qur’anic doctrine of Unity, so central to Islam, has remained dominant and in a sense has determined the agenda of the Islamic philosophers.

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Complementing the Qur’anic doctrine of Unity is the explicit assertion in the Qur’an that Allah bestows being and it is this act which instantiates all that exists, as one finds for example in the verse, “But His command, when He intendeth a thing, is only that he saith unto it : Be ! and it is [kun fa-yakunl ” (36:81). The concern of Islamic philosophers with ontology is directly related to the Qur’anic doctrine, as is the very terminology of Islamic philosophy in this domain where it understands by wujud more the verb or act of existence (esto) than the noun or state of existence (esse). If Ibn Sina has been called first and foremost a “philosopher of being “,15 and he developed the ontology which came to dominate much of medieval philosophy, this is not because he was simply thinking of Aristotelian theses in Arabic and Persian, but because of the Qur’anic doctrine of the One in relation to the act of existence. It was as a result of meditation upon the Qur’an in conjunction with Greek thought that

Islamic philosophers developed the doctrine of Pure Being which stands above the chain of being and is discontinuous with it, while certain other philosophers such as a number of Isma`ilis considered God to be beyond Being and identified His act or the Qur’anic kun with Being, which is then considered as the principle of the universe. It is also the Qur’anic doctrine of the creating God and creatio ex nihilo, with all the different levels of meaning which nihilo possesses,”’ that led Islamic philosophers to distinguish sharply between God as Pure Being

and the existence of the universe, destroying that “block without fissure” which constituted Aristotelian ontology. In Islam the universe is always contingent (mumkin al-wujid) while God is necessary (wajib al-wujud), to use the well-known distinction of Ibn Sina.’ ? No Islamic philosopher has ever posited an existential continuity between the existence of creatures and the Being of God, and this radical revolution in the understanding of Aristotelian ontology has its source in the Islamic doctrine of God and creation as asserted in the Qur’an and Hadith.’s Moreover, this influence is paramount not only in the case of those who asserted the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo in its ordinary theological sense, but also for those such as al-Faribi and Ibn Sina who were in favour of the theory of emanation but who none the less never negated the fundamental distinction between the wujud (existence) of the world and that of God.

As for the whole question of “newness” or “eternity” of the world, or huduth and gidam, which has occupied Islamic thinkers for the past twelve centuries and which is related to the question of the contingency of the world vis-k-vis the Divine Principle, it is inconceivable without the teachings of the Qur’an and Hadith. It is of course a fact that before the rise of Islam Christian theologians and philosophers such as John Philoponus had written on this issue and that Muslims had known some of these writings, especially the treatise of Philoponus against the thesis of the eternity of the world. But had it not been for the Qur’anic teachings concerning creation, such Christian writings would have played an altogether different role in Islamic thought. Muslims were interested in the arguments of a Philoponus precisely because of their own concern with the question of huduth and qidam, created by the tension between the teachings of the Qur’an and the Hadith, on the one hand, and the Greek notion of the non-temporal relation between the world and its Divine Origin, on the other.

Another issue of great concern to Islamic philosophers from al-Kindi to Mulla Sadra, and those who followed him, is God’s knowledge of the world. The major Islamic philosophers, such as al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Ibn Rushd and Mulla Sadra, have presented different views on the subject while, as with the question of huduth and qidam, they have been constantly criticized and attacked by the mutakallimun, especially over the question of God’s knowledge of particulars.’ Now, such an issue entered Islamic philosophy directly from the Qur’anic emphasis upon God’s knowledge of all things as asserted in numerous verses such as, “And not an atom’s weight in the earth or the sky escapeth your Lord, nor what is less than that or greater than that, but it is written in a clear Book” (10 : 62). It was precisely this Islamic insistence upon Divine Omniscience that placed the issue of God’s knowledge of the world at the centre of the concern of Islamic philosophers and caused Islamic philosophy, like its Jewish and Christian counterparts, to develop extensive philosophical theories totally absent from the philosophical perspective of Graeco-Alexandrian antiquity. In this context the Islamic doctrine of “divine science” (al-ilm al-laduni) is of central significance for both falsafah and theoretical Sufism or alma`rzfah.

This issue is also closely allied to the philosophical significance of revelation (al-wahy) itself. Earlier Islamic philosophers such as Ibn Sina sought to develop a theory by drawing to some extent, but not exclusively, on Greek theories of the intellect and the faculties of the soul.20 Later Islamic philosophers continued their concern for this issue and sought to explain in a philosophical manner the possibility of the descent of the truth and access to the truth by knowledge based on certitude but derived from sources other than the senses, reason and even the inner intellect. They, however, pointed to the correspondence between the inner intellect and that objective manifestation of the Universal Intellect or Logos which is revelation. While still using certain concepts of Greek origin, the later Islamic philosophers such as Mulla Sadra drew heavilyfrom the Qur’an and Hadith on this issue.

Turning to the field of cosmology, again one can detect the constant presence of Qur’anic themes and certain Hadith. It is enough to meditate upon the commentaries made upon the “Light Verse” and “Throne Verse” and the use of such explicitly Qur’anic symbols and images as the Throne (al arch), the Pedestal (al-kursi-), the light of the heavens and earth (nur al-samdwat wa’l-ard), the niche (mishkat) and so many other Qur’anic terms to realize the significance of the Qur’an and Hadith in the formulation of cosmology as dealt with in the Islamic philosophical tradition .21 Nor must one forget the cosmological significance of the nocturnal ascent of the Prophet (al-mi raj) which so many Islamic philosophers have treated directly, starting with Ibn Sm !. This central episode in the life of the Prophet, with its numerous levels of meaning, was not only of great interest to the Sufis but also drew the attention of numerous philosophers to its description as contained in certain verses of the Qur’an and Hadith. Some philosophers also turned their attention to other episodes with a cosmological significance in the life of the Prophet such as the “cleaving of the moon” (shagq al-qamar) about which the ninth/fifteenth-century Persian philosopher Ibn Turkah Isfahani wrote a separate treatise.22

In no branch of Islamic philosophy, however, is the influence of the Qur’an and Hadith more evident than in eschatology, the very understanding of which in the Abrahamic universe was alien to the philosophical world of antiquity. Such concepts as divine intervention to mark the end of history, bodily resurrection, the various eschatological events, the Final Judgment, and the posthumous states as understood by Islam or for that matter Christianity were alien to ancient philosophy whereas they are described explicitly in the Qur’an and Hadith as well as of course in the Bible and other Jewish and Christian religious sources.

The Islamic philosophers were fully aware of these crucial ideas in their philosophizing, but the earlier ones were unable to provide philosophical proofs for Islamic doctrines which many confessed to accept on the basis of faith but could not demonstrate within the context of Peripatetic philosophy. We see such a situation in the case of Ibn Sina who in several works, including the Shifa, confesses that he cannot prove bodily resurrection but accepts it on faith. This question was in fact one of the three main points, along with the acceptance of qidam and the inability of the philosophers to demonstrate God’s knowledge of particulars, for which al-Ghazzali took Ibn Sina to task and accused him of kuft or infidelity. It remained for Mulla Sadra several centuries later to demonstrate the reality of bodily resurrection through the principles of the “transcendent theosophy” (al-hikmat al-muta dliyah) and to take both Ibn Sina and al-Ghazzali to task for the inadequacy of their treatment of the subject 23 The most extensive philosophical treatment of eschatology (al-ma ad) in all its dimensions is in fact to be found in the Asfdr of Mulla Sadra.

It is sufficient to examine this work or his other treatises on the subject such as his al-Mabda’ wa l ma ad or al-Hikmat al arshiyyah to realize the complete reliance of the author upon the Qur’an and Hadith. His development of the philosophical meaning of ma dd is in reality basically a hermeneutics of Islamic religious sources, primary among them the Qur’an and Hadith. Nor is this fact true only of Mulla Sadra. One can see the same relation between philosophy and the Islamic revelation in the writings of Mulla Muhsin Fayd Kashini, Shah Waliullah of Delhi, Mulla Abd Allah Zunuzi, Hajji Mulla Hath Sabziwari and many later Islamic philosophers writing on various aspects of al-ma ad. Again, although as far as the question of eschatology is concerned, the reliance on the Qur’an and Hadith is greater during the later period, as is to be seen already in Ibn Sina who dealt with it in both his encyclopedic works and in individual treatises dealing directly with the subject, such as his own al-Mabda’ wa’l-maid. It is noteworthy in this context that he entitled one of his most famous treatises on eschatology al-Risalat al-adhawiyyah, drawing from the Islamic religious term for the Day of Judgment.

In meditating upon the history of Islamic philosophy in its relation to the Islamic revelation, one detects a movement toward ever closer association of philosophy with the Qur’an and Hadith as falsafah became transformed into al-hikmatal-ilahiyyah. Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, although drawing so many themes from Qur’anic sources, hardly ever quoted the Qur’an directly in their philosophical works. By the time we come to Suhrawardi in the sixth/twelfth century, there are present within his purely philosophical works citations of the Qur’an and Hadith. Four centuries later the Safavid philosophers wrote philosophical works in the form of commentaries on the text of the Qur’an or on certain of the Hadith. This trend continued in later centuries not only in Persia but also in India and the Ottoman world including Iraq.

As far as Persia is concerned, as philosophy became integrated into the Shiite intellectual world from the seventh/thirteenth century onwards, the sayings of the Shiite Imams began to play an ever greater role, complementing the Prophetic Hadith. This is especially true of the sayings of Imams Muhammad al-Bagir, Jafar al-Sadiq and Musa al-Kizim, the fifth, sixth and seventh Imams of Twelve-Imam Shi’ism, whose sayings are at the origin of many of the issues discussed by later Islamic philosophers.24 It is sufficient to study the monumental but uncompleted Sharh Usfd alkafi of Mulla Sadra to realize the philosophical fecundity of many of the sayings of the Imams and their role in later philosophical meditation and deliberation. The Qur’an and Hadith, along with the sayings of the Imams, which are in a sense the extension of Hadith in the Shiite world, have provided over the centuries the framework and matrix for Islamic philosophy and created the intellectual and social climate within which Islamic philosophers have philosophized. Moreoever, they have presented a knowledge of the origin, the nature of things, humanity and its final ends and history upon which the Islamic philosophers have meditated and from which they have drawn over the ages. They have also provided a language of discourse which Islamic philosophers have shared with the rest of the Islamic community.25 Without the Qur’anic revelation, there would of course have been no Islamic civilization, but it is important to realize that there would also have been no Islamic philosophy. Philosophical activity in the Islamic world is not simply a regurgitation of GraecoAlexandrian philosophy in Arabic, as claimed by many Western scholars along with some of their Islamic followers, a philosophy which grew despite the presence of the Qur’an and ,Hadith. On the contrary, Islamic philosophy is what it is precisely because’ it flowered in a universe whose contours are determined by the Qur’anic revelation.

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As asserted at the beginning of this chapter, Islamic philosophy is essentially “prophetic philosophy” based on the hermeneutics of a Sacred Text which is the result of a revelation that is inalienably linked to the

microcosmic intellect and which alone is able to actualize the dormant possibilities of the intellect within us. Islamic philosophy, as understood from within that tradition, is also an unveiling of the inner meaning of the Sacred Text, a means of access to that Hagigah which lies hidden within the inner dimension of the Qur’an. Islamic philosophy deals with the One or Pure Being, and universal existence and all the grades of the universal hierarchy. It deals with man and his entelechy, with the cosmos and the final return of all things to God. This interpretation of existence is none other than penetration into the inner meaning of the Qur’an which “is” existence itself, the Book whose meditation provides the key for the understanding of those objective and subjective orders of existence with which the Islamic philosopher has been concerned over the ages.

A deeper study of Islamic philosophy over its twelve-hundred-year history will reveal the role of the Qur’an and Hadith in the formulation, exposition and problematics of this major philosophical tradition. In the same way that all of the Islamic philosophers from al-Kindi onwards knew the Qur’an and Hadith and lived with them, Islamic philosophy has manifested over the centuries its inner link with the revealed sources of Islam, a link which has become even more manifest as the centuries have unfolded, for Islamic philosophy is essentially a philosophical hermeneutics of the Sacred Text while making use of the rich philosophical heritage of antiquity. That is why, far from being a transitory and foreign phase in the history of Islamic thought, Islamic philosophy has remained over the centuries and to this day one of the major intellectual perspectives in Islamic civilization with its roots sunk deeply, like everything else Islamic, in the Qur’an and Hadith.

NOTES

1. Within the Islamic world itself scholars of kalam and certain others who have opposed Islamic philosophy over the ages have claimed that it was merely Greek philosophy to which they opposed philosophy or wisdom derived from faith (al-bikmat alyunaniyyah versus al-hikmat al-imdniyyah). Some contemporary Muslim scholars, writing in English, oppose Muslim to Islamic, considering Muslim to mean whatever is practised or created by Muslims and Islamic that which is derived directly from the Islamic revelation. Many such scholars, who hail mostly from Pakistan and India, insist on calling Islamic philosophy Muslim philosophy, as can be seen in the title of the well-known work edited by M. M. Sharif, A History of Muslim Philosophy. If one looks more deeply into the nature of Islamic philosophy from the traditional Islamic point of view and takes into consideration its whole history, however, one will see that this philosophy is at once Muslim and Islamic according to the above-given definitions of these terms.

2. When accused on a certain occasion of infidelity, Ibn Sina responded in a famous Persian quatrain : “It is not so easy and trifling to call me a heretic ; 1 No faith in religion is firmer than mine. / I am a unique person in the whole world and if I am a heretic ; I Then there is not a single Muslim anywhere in the world.” Trans. by S. H. Barani in his “Ibn Sina and Alberuni”, in Avicenna Commemoration Volume (Calcutta, 1956) : 8 (with certain modifications by S. H. Nasr).

3. This term was first used by H. Corbin and myself and appears in Corbin, with the collaboration of S. H. Nasr and 0. Yahya, Histoire de la philosophie islamique (Paris, 1964).

4. We say “almost” because there are one or two figures such as Muhammad ibn Zakariyya’ al-Razi who rejected the necessity of prophecy. Even in his case, however, there is a rejection of the necessity of revelation in order to gain ultimate knowledge and not the negation of the existence of revelation. See Corbin, op. cit. : 26ff.

5. The term riwagi used by later Islamic philosophers must not, however, be confused with the Roman Stoics, although it means literally stoic (riwaq in Arabic coming from Pahlavi and meaning stoa). Corbin, op. cit. : 24.

6. On the Islamic figure of Hermes and Hermetic writings in the Islamic world see L. Massignon, “Inventaire de la litterature hermetique arabe”, appendix 3 in A. J. Festugiere and A. D. Nock, La Revelation d’Herm2s Trismegiste, 4 vols (Paris, 1954-60) ; S. H. Nasr, Islamic Life and Thought (Albany, 1981) : 102-19 ; F. Sezgin, Geschichte der arabischen Schrifttums, 4 (Leiden, 1971).

9. See for example the introduction by one of the leading contemporary traditional philosophers of Persia, Abul-Hasan Sha’rani, to Sabziwari, Asrdr al-hikam (Tehran, 1960) : 3.

10. Edited with introduction and Persian translation by M. Khwajawi (Tehran, 1983).

11. The writings of H. Corbin are a notable exception.

12 See M. Abdul Haq, “Ibn Sima’s Interpretation of the Qur’an”, The Islamic Quarterly, 32(1) (1988) : 46-56.

13. This monumental work has been edited in Arabic and also translated into Persian by M. Khwajawi who has printed all of Mulla Sadra’s Qur’anic commentaries in recent years. It is interesting to note that the Persian translation entitled Tarjuma yi mafanh al-ghayb (Tehran, 1979) includes a long study on the rise of philosophy and its various schools by Ayatullah Abidi Shahrridi, who discusses the rapport between Islamic philosophy and the Qur’an in the context of traditional Islamic thought.

14. See I. Netton, Allah Transcendent (London, 1989), which deals with this tension but mixes his account with certain categories of modern European philosophy not suitable for the subject.

15. See E. Gilson, Avicenne et le point de depart de Duns Scot, Extrait des archives d’histoire doctrinale et litteraire du Moyen Age (Paris, 1927) ; and A. M. Goichon, “L’Unite de la pensEe avicennienne”, Archives Internationale dHsstoire des Sciences, 20-1 (1952) : 290ff.

16. See D. Burrell and B. McGinn (eds), God and Creation (Notre Dame, 1990) : 246ff. For the more esoteric meaning of ex nihilo in Islam see L. Schaya, La Creation en Dieu (Paris, 1983), especially chapter 6 : 90ff.

17. This has been treated more amply in Chapter 16 below on Ibn Sina See also Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (Albany, 1993), chapter 12.

18. See T. Izutsu, The Concept and Reality of Existence (Tokyo, 1971).

19. The criticisms by al-Ghazzali and Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi of this issue, as that of huduth and qidam, are well known and are treated below. Less is known, however, of the criticism of other theologians who kept criticizing the philosophers for their denial of the possibility of God knowing particulars rather than just universals.

20. See F. Rahman, Prophecy in Islam, Philosophy and Orthodoxy (London, 1958), where some of these theories are described and analysed clearly, but with an over-emphasis on the Greek factor and downplaying of the role of the Islamic view of revelation itself.

21. On this issue see Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines,, and Nasr, “Islamic Cosmology”, in Islamic Civilization, 4, ed. A. Y al-Hassan et al (Paris, forthcoming).

22. See H. Corbin, En Islam iranien, 3 (Paris, 1971) : 233ff.

23. Mulla Sadra dealt with this debate in several of his works especially in his Glosses upon the Theosophy of the Orient of Light (of Suhrawardi) (Hashiyah ’ala hikmat al-ishrdq). See H. Corbin, “Le theme de la resurrection chez Mulla Sadra Shirazi (1050/1640) commentateur de Sohrawardi (587/1191)”, in Studies in Mysticism and Religion – Presented to Gershom G. Scholem (Jerusalem, 1967) : 71-118.

24. The late Allamah Tabataba’i, one of the leading traditional philosophers of contemporary Persia, once made a study of the number of philosophical problems dealt with by early and later Islamic philosophers. He once told us that, according to his study, there were over two hundred philosophical issues treated by the early Islamic philosophers and over six hundred by Mulla Sadra and his followers. Although he admitted that this approach was somewhat excessively quantitative, it was an indication of the extent of expansion of the fields of interest of Islamic philosophy, an expansion which he attributed almost completely to the influence of the metaphysical and philosophical utterances of the Shi’ite Imams which became of ever greater concern to many Islamic philosophers, both Shi’ite and Sunni, from the time of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi onwards.

25. The Qur’an and Hadith have also influenced directly and deeply the formation of the Islamic philosophical vocabulary in Arabic, an issue with which we have not been able to deal in this chapter.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Source : http://www.muslimphilosophy.com