Texts of Islam

Development of Muslim Theology: III: Theology: Chapter III

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This is a chapter of Islamic intellectual history, written in the academic tradition of religious studies, tracing the rise of orthodox scholastic theology (kalam) in medieval Islam. It argues that the triumph of Ash'arite theology over the rationalist Mu'tazilites was not the work of a single heroic founder but a gradual, geographically simultaneous shift across the Islamic world in the early 4th century AH, with figures like al-Ash'ari, al-Mataridi, and at-Tahawi independently reaching similar conclusions. The central figure is Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari (d. after 320 AH), a former Mu'tazilite who publicly renounced his rationalism and built a new theological method that used dialectical argument to defend traditionalist positions—meeting the Mu'tazilites on their own ground while rejecting their premise that divine matters are fully accessible to human reason. Distinctively, the text treats al-Ash'ari as a serious philosopher, comparing his theory of existence to Kant's and his doctrine of free will (kasb, or "acquisition") to Leibniz's pre-established harmony. The work is aimed at a reader deciding whether orthodox kalam represents genuine intellectual achievement or mere reaction, and its answer is firmly the former.

Development of Muslim Theology: III: Theology: Chapter III

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