{"collection":"Texts of Islam","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_isl_isl33_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_isl_isl33_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_isl_isl_isl33_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/isl/isl33.htm","summary":"This is a scholarly anthology excerpt combining historical framing with a translated primary source from 11th-century Islamic intellectual history. The historical portion traces how the Salj\u016bq Turks rose to power within the \u02bfAbb\u0101s\u012b Caliphate, and how their Persian minister Ni\u1e93\u0101m al-Mulk strategically patronized Ash\u02bfar\u012b theology \u2014 including founding the Ni\u1e93\u0101m\u012bya madrasa for the theologian al-Juwayn\u012b \u2014 as a weapon in the ideological battle against Ism\u0101\u02bf\u012bl\u012b Sh\u012b\u02bfa influence. The primary source itself is a section from al-Juwayn\u012b's creed (al-\u02bfAq\u012bda al-Ni\u1e93\u0101m\u012bya, c. 1085) defending the rational necessity of prophethood against a Brahman critique: the Brahmans argue that prophets are redundant if they teach what reason already knows, or irrational if they teach what reason rejects. Al-Juwayn\u012b's reply is that prophets legitimately bring both \u2014 confirming reason while also delivering divine commands (ritual law, eschatological promises) that reason could not arrive at independently. On the objection that certain ritual commands (animal sacrifice, prostration in prayer) are morally hideous, al-Juwayn\u012b replies with a divine command theory: God acts freely and is not subject to human moral evaluation, so what God does or commands cannot be deemed \"hideous\" by human rational standards. The text is distinctive for illustrating how high-level Islamic political patronage directly shaped scholastic theology, and for preserving a sharp interfaith polemic in a classical kal\u0101m format.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Islam: Chapter Five: Kal\u0101m: The Statements of the Theologians: 4. Al-Juwayn\u012b","tradition":"Texts of Islam","translated_text":null,"word_count":1030}