Development of Muslim Theology: Appendix I: Illustrative Documents: VI. The Creed of Muhammad Al-Fudali

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This is a classical Islamic scholastic theology (*kalam*) tractate, translated from 19th-century Arabic, written by Muhammad ibn ash-Shafi'i al-Fudali in the tradition of the Ash'ari school and following the methodology of the influential theologian as-Sanusi. Its central purpose is to instruct Muslims on the fifty required articles of belief (*aqidas*) — twenty attributes necessary in God, twenty impossible, one possible, plus nine concerning the Prophets — and to argue that each article must be held with rational proof, not mere blind acceptance (*taqlid*). The author's distinctive and demanding position, aligned with as-Sanusi and Ibn al-Arabi, is that *taqlid* (accepting doctrines without understanding their proofs) renders a person an unbeliever (*kafir*), making rational theological knowledge an obligation of faith rather than an optional scholarly pursuit. The text introduces the foundational logical framework of the necessary, the impossible, and the possible as the cognitive basis for all theological reasoning, going so far as to cite Imam al-Haramayn's view that grasping these three categories *is* reason itself. The excerpt then turns to the first and most fundamental divine attribute — existence (*wujud*) — presenting a detailed debate between the Ash'ari position (that existence is identical with the divine essence) and alternative views (that existence is a distinct "state"), and argues for God's existence from the originated, contingent nature of the world. The work is pedagogically oriented, aimed at students with limited background, and sits squarely within the medieval Arabic philosophical-theological tradition of rational apologetics for orthodox Sunni doctrine.

Development of Muslim Theology: Appendix I: Illustrative Documents: VI. The Creed of Muhammad Al-Fudali

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