Ashʿarīya

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The Ashʿarīya ( Arabic أشعرية, DMG Ašʿarīya ) is a theological direction of Sunni Islam that has historically emerged from Muʿtazila , but is differentiated from this direction as well as from Hanbali literalism . It is attributed to the Basrian scholar Abū l-Hasan al-Aschʿarī (approx. 874-936).

history

Beginnings in Iraq and Khorasan

Early representatives of the Ashʿarite school were al-Bāqillānī (d. 1013) in Iraq and Ibn Fūrak (d. 1015) in Khorasan . With the establishment of the various Nizamiyya schools in the second half of the 11th century by the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk , the Ashʿarīya received academic rank for the first time. The most important of these Nizamīyas was founded in Baghdad in 1065. Al-Ghazali was active on her . His teacher al-Juwainī (d. 1085), also Ashʿarit, received a chair at the Nizamīya of Nishapur .

A decided opponent of the Ashʿarite theology in Khorasan was the Hanbali Sufi ʿAbdallāh al-Ansārī (d. 1089) from Herat . He denigrated Ashʿaritic rationalism in a diatribe as a destructive principle that has been in effect since the beginning of Islamic history. When Alp Arslan and Nizam al-Mulk were visiting Herat in 1066 , the theologian Abū l-Qāsim ad-Dabūsī interrogated him to prove that he was hostile to al-Ashʿarī.

Other important Ashʿarites in Eastern Iran were later Ash-Shahrastānī (d. 1153) and Fachr ad-Din ar-Razi (d. 1209).

Spread to Syria

In the 12th century, the Ashʿariya entered Syria. The two historiographers Ibn ʿAsākir (d. 1176) and Tādsch ad-Dīn as-Subkī (d. 1368) were the most important defenders of the Ashʿari doctrine . Hanbalites like Ibn Taimīya criticized the Ashʿarites for their use of the Kalām .

Spreading in the Maghreb

Later, the Ashʿarite doctrine was propagated by the Muslim Berber dynasty of the Almohads (al-muwahhidun), who dominated the Maghreb and al-Andalus in the 12th and 13th centuries . Ibn Chaldun , Tahar Ben Achour , Mohamed Machfar , the Ash'arite Tunisian Sheikh Mokhtar Tounsi and all Tunisian Muftis are among their representatives .

Teaching

Attitude towards the Kalam

The Ashʿarīya is usually described in the Ashʿaritic sources as a middle ground between the rationalism of the Muʿtazila and the traditionalism of the Hanbalites . However , many Ash rationalarites had an ambivalent relationship with the rationalist Kalām . Although a defense of the Kalām with the title Istiḥsān al-ḫauḍ fī ʿilm al-kalām is narrated by al-Ashʿarī himself , this was not known to the medieval Ashʿarites. Several important Ash Aarites such as al-Bāqillānī, al-Juwainī, al-Shahrastānī and Fachr ad-Din ar-Razi are said to have endorsed the Kalām at a young age, but repentantly turned away from it at the end of their lives. In the early 19th century, the Egyptian Ashharit al-Fadālī (d. 1821) rewrote a defense of the Kalām with the title: Kifāyat al-ʿawāmm fī-mā yaǧib ʿalai-him min ʿilm al-kalām ("Satisfaction of the layman with regard to of what you need to know about Kalam ").

Doctrine of God

Also with regard to the doctrine of God, the Ashʿarites claimed to follow a middle path. While other groups, such as the Karrāmites , tended towards a questionable anthropomorphism ( tašbīh ) due to their literal and material interpretation of the terms “hand”, “face”, “eye” used for God in the Qur'an , Muʿtazilites conversely, through metaphorical interpretation of these terms God used such body parts agreed and thus operated what they considered to be a faulty “emptying” ( taʿṭīl ) of God, the Ashʿarites believed that one had to understand these terms amodal, that is, neither metaphorically nor literally, but “without asking how” ( bi-lā kaif ).

Characteristic of the Ash'arite theology is their view that God such qualifications as "knowing" ( 'ālim ), "powerful" ( Qādir ) "alive" ( Haiy ) only through associated attributes such as "knowledge" ( ilm ), "power" ( qudra ), "life" ( ḥayāt ) possesses. However, these attributes should not exist outside of God, but rather exist in God's being ( ḏāt ) himself. The Ashʿarites adopted this teaching from the theologian Ibn Kullāb .

Another important point of the Ashʿarite doctrine of God is the omnipotence of God, which stands above everything, including human reason. It is understood as the sole creator of God and is carried out in the doctrine of the kasb (appropriation).

Koran

Another teaching point on which the Ash Aarites followed Ibn Kullāb concerns the Koran . While the Muʿtazilites received the Qur'an as created, the Hanbalites as uncreated, Ibn Kullāb had differentiated between the speech of God ( kalām Allaah ) and his form of expression ( ʿibāra ): while the content of the speech was uncreated, the form of expression of revelation was created. Similarly, the Ashʿarites made a distinction between the “internal speech” ( kalām nafsī ) of God, which is with God and includes only meanings ( maʿānī ), and the “phonetic speech” ( kalām lafẓī ) of God, which is revealed and recited Quran manifested. It was on this that they based their special interpretation of the Iʿjāz .

literature

  • Peter Antes: Prophet miracles in the Ašʿarīya to al-Ġazālī. 2nd edition Freiburg i. Br. 1970.
  • Majid Fakhry: A History of Islamic Philosophy . 2nd edition. Columbia University Press, New York NY 1983. pp. 209-217. ISBN 0-231-05532-3 ( online ).
  • Richard Frank: Al-Ghazālī and the Ashʿarite school . Durham [u. a.], Duke Univ. Press, 1994.
  • Jeffry Halverson: Theology and creed in Sunni Islam: the Muslim Brotherhood, Ash'arism, and political Sunnism. New York 2010.
  • Anton Heinen: Ašʿarīya. In: Encyclopædia Iranica . Volume II, pp. 703-705, ( online version 2011 ).
  • George Makdisi: Ashʿarī and Ashʿarites in Islamic religious history. 2 parts. In: Studia Islamica. No. 17, 1962, pp. 37-80, JSTOR 1595001 ; No. 18, 1963, pp. 19-39, JSTOR 1595177 , (reprinted in George Makdisi: Religion, Law and Learning in Classical Islam (= Variorum Collected Studies Series. 347). Variorum, Hampshire et al. 1991, ISBN 0-86078 -301-4 , p. 1 ff.).
  • Tilman Nagel : The fortress of faith. Triumph and Failure of Islamic Rationalism in the 11th Century. Beck, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-406-33280-3 .
  • W. Montgomery Watt: A sh ʿariyya. In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam . New Edition. Volume 1. Brill, Leiden et al. 1960, p. 696.
  • The islam. Volume 2: W. Montgomery Watt, Michael Marmura: Political developments and theological concepts (= The religions of mankind . Vol. 25). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1985, ISBN 3-17-005707-3 , pp. 393-423.

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. cf. muslimphilosophy.com: Ibn Furak
  2. Cf. Nagel: The Fortress of Faith. 1988, p. 362.
  3. See Erika Glassen : The middle way. Studies on religious politics and religiosity of the later Abbasid period (= Freiburg Islam Studies . Vol. 8). Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 1981, ISBN 3-515-03250-9 , p. 69, (At the same time: Freiburg (Breisgau), University, habilitation paper, 1977).
  4. See Makdisi: Ashʿarī and Ashʿarites. 1962, p. 38.
  5. Makdisi: Ashʿarī and Ashʿarites. 1963, p. 25.
  6. abouhamza.wordpress.com: Les différents mouvements islamiques en Tunisie (Abou Hamza)
  7. abouhamza.wordpress.com: Les différents mouvements islamiques en Tunisie (Abou Hamza)
  8. See Makdisi: Ashʿarī and Ashʿarites. 1963, p. 39.
  9. See Makdisi: Ashʿarī and Ashʿarites. 1963, p. 23.
  10. See Makdisi: Ashʿarī and Ashʿarites. 1963, p. 31.
  11. See Makdisi: Ashʿarī and Ashʿarites. 1963, p. 33.
  12. See Islam. Volume 2: Watt, Marmura: Political Developments and Theological Concepts. 1985, pp. 393-423, here 403-406.
  13. Cf. Nagel: The Fortress of Faith. 1988, pp. 108-120.
  14. See M. Larkin: The Inimitability of the Qur'an: Two Perspectives. In: Religion & Literature. Vol. 20, No. 1 = The Literature of Islam , 1988, ISSN  0888-3769 , pp. 31-47, here p. 32, JSTOR 40059365 .