Ibn ar-Rāwandī

Ibn ar-Rāwandī , with full name Abū l-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahyā ibn Ishāq ar-Rāwandī ( Arabic أبو الحسن أحمد بن يحيى بن إسحاق الراوندي, DMG Abū l-Ḥasan Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. Isḥāq ar-Rāwandī ) was a 9th century Islamic theologian who initially belonged to the Muʿtazila , but then turned away from their teachings and wrote works in which he criticized not only against the Muʿtazilite theology, but also against Islam and the Revealed religions of revelation as a whole. The later Islamic theologians regarded him as a heretic. His works are only known from quotations in works that were written to refute him.

In western research Ibn ar-Rāwandī is valued differently today. While Sarah Stroumsa sees him as a freethinker critical of religion , Josef van Ess thinks that Ibn ar-Rāwandī did not “seriously adopt the theses presented in his works”, but only “made fun of them To show self-satisfied theologians what unsafe ground they were on. "

Life

Ibn al-Rāwandīs life data is not clear, but it is known that he made Khorasan came and most of the time in Baghdad was staying. After his break with the Mu'tazila school he turned first the Shia to and frequented the circle of the Manichaeism related thinker Abu Eesa al-Warraq. He left Baghdad, probably to avoid persecution.

Works

The "Book of the Emerald"

Of Ibn ar-Rāwandī's books, the “Book of the Emerald” ( Kitāb az-Zumurrud ) in particular has achieved greater prominence, in which his rationalist and religious-critical position is particularly strongly expressed. In this book, Ibn ar-Rāwandī negated the existence of prophetic revelation and thus touched a cornerstone of Islam. Paul Kraus reconstructed this work from quotations in older literature. He discovered most of the passages from this text in the collection of sermons of al-Muʾaiyad fī d-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, the supreme leader of the Ismaili Daʿwa at the time of the Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir . His writings came to light in a private Indian library at the beginning of the 20th century. Kraus found further quotations from the scholars Ibn al-Jschauzī and Abū l-Husain al-Chayyāt.

From these fragments Kraus tried to understand the original composition of the script, and he came to the following conclusion: the book was divided into three main parts, the first of which was to emphasize the primacy of reason over revelation. In the second, criticism of Islam was made. A third part, which was supposed to refute the thesis of the original or the thesis of the prophetic origin of human gifts, concluded the book. The thoughts are put forward in the form of speech and counter-speech between representatives of the Brahmins and the Muslims.

The statement made in the first part about the prophets was directed against the revealed religions in general, where it says:

“It is clear that reason is the greatest benefit of God. If, therefore, the Messenger has come to confirm the judgment of good and bad, the obligation and the prohibition which are already given in and for themselves in reason, then we are no longer concerned with his authority and his Mission obey. For through what is given in reason we can do without that. "

The starting point of Ibn ar-Rāwandī's remarks is thus human reason, against the standard of which revelation is measured and then declared superfluous.

In the third part of the book Ibn ar-Rāwandī goes against the popular belief that people received music, astronomy and languages ​​from God through the prophets through superhuman teaching. The second part probably had the most blasphemous effect on orthodox Muslims, in which Ibn ar-Rāwandī launched into sharp attacks against the Islamic cult regulations and the teaching of Muhammad's miracles. These miracles were considered important evidence of his prophecy at an early stage and were the focus of theological discussion, especially in the first half of the 9th century. For example, Ibn ar-Rāwandī asks where the angels were on the day of the Battle of Uhud , when Mohammed lay half-dead, covered with slain, and why they did not come to his aid in this situation. Ibn ar-Rāwandī also criticized the Koran and declared that the language of ancient Arabic poets was superior to his. He even went so far as to claim that there were speech defects in the Koran. In the same part, Ibn ar-Rāwandī also criticizes the Islamic tradition and the Idschmāʿ (consensus of the community) and denies them any value for finding the law. He takes it to the point of absurdity by pointing out that the Muslims who agree on a religious question or in a tradition are only a contemptuously small group compared to the totality of the other religious communities.

Ibn ar-Rāwandī is said to have called his book "Book of the Emerald" because the emerald is said to have the property that the otters and all other snakes go blind when they see it. His intention, so it is handed down from him, was to blind the arguments of his opponents in the same way with his doubts, which he put down in his book.

Even if the sharp criticism of Ibn ar-Rāwandī shows parallels to the attitude of other Muʿtazilites in some points, he caused a sensation among his contemporaries and also among the following generations. This can be seen particularly clearly in the number of refutations directed against him. Kraus counts a total of 14 authors who have polemicized against him in writing, including such well-known scholars as al-Kindī , Abū l-Hasan al-Aschʿarī , al-Farabi and Alhazen .

The picture that Paul Kraus drew based on the Zumurrud fragments of Ibn ar-Rāwandī, which he edited, was later questioned by Josef van Ess . He had found other quotations from Ibn-ar-Rāwandī in Abu Mansur al-Maturidi and Qādī ʿAbd al-Jabbār in which Ibn-ar-Rāwandī appears as the defender of prophecy. From this he concluded that also in the Zumurrud book it is not the statements of the anti-prophetic Brahmins Ibn ar-Rāwandī that have to be added, but those of the Muslims who defend the prophecy. However, he has not yet established himself in science with this view of Ibn ar-Rāwandī. Sarah Stroumsa, Daniel de Smet and Ilkka Lindstedt, who have studied Ibn ar-Rāwandī in recent years, continue to hold on to the fact that he was an anti-religious free thinker.

The "Book of the Crown"

Another work by Ibn ar-Rāwandī was the "Book of the Crown" ( Kitāb at-Tāǧ ). In it he criticized the proof of God of the Muʿtazilite Abū l-Hudhail , who had inferred from the transience of accidents on the necessity of the existence of God. Ibn ar-Rāwandī objected to this that the impermanence of accidents does not necessarily include the impermanence of the body, rather there are good reasons that speak for the eternity of the body, because nothing can emerge from anything. This later earned Ibn ar-Rāwandī the reputation of representing the heretical doctrine of the "eternity of the world" ( qidam al-ʿālam ).

literature

• Josef van Ess : Theology and Society in the 2nd and 3rd Century Hijra. A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam. Volume IV. Berlin-New York 1997. pp. 295-352.
• Josef van Ess: Ibn ar-Rewandi, or the Making of an Image , in: Al-Abhath [Beirut] 27 (1978-79), 5-26.
• Josef van Ess: Al-Fārābī and Ibn al-Rēwandī , in: Hamdard Islamicus 3/4 (1960), 3-15.
• Paul Kraus: Contributions to the history of Islamic heretics: The `Kitab az-Zumurrid 'of Ibn ar-Rawandi , in Rivista degli Studi Orientali 14 (1933/34) 94-129, 335-379.
• Ilkka Lindstedt: Anti-Religious Views in the Works of Ibn al-Rawandi and Abu l-'Ala 'al-Ma'arri , in: Studia Orientalia 2011 (111) 131-158.
• Daniel De Smet: Al-Mu'ayyad fi d-Dīn aš-Šīrāzī et la polémique ismaélienne contre les 'Brahmanes' d'Ibn ar-Rāwandī , in: Urbain Vermeulen, Daniel De Smet (éds.): Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 73) Louvain 1995. pp. 85-97.
• Sarah Stroumsa: Freethinkers in medieval Islam, Ibn al-Rawandi, Abu Bakr al-Razi, and their impact on Islamic Thought . Brill, Leiden 1999.

Trivia

Ibn ar-Rāwandī and his teachings play a part in the novel by Agnes Imhof: The Book of the Emerald . Piper, Munich 2006.

supporting documents

1. ↑ Cf. van Ess TuG IV 336.
2. ↑ cf. van Ess TuG IV 343.
3. ↑ Cf. van Ess TuG IV 295-300.
4. ↑ See Stroumsa 40-46.
5. ↑ Kraus 111 under point 3.
6. ↑ Cf. Kraus 116.
7. ↑ Cf. Kraus 124.
8. ↑ See Kraus 116, point 13.
9. ↑ See Kraus 119.
10. ↑ See Kraus 115, point 12.
11. ↑ Cf. Kraus 119, point 21.
12. ↑ p. 360ff.
13. ↑ See van Ess 315-335.
14. ↑ Cf. van Ess TuG IV 335f.