Kalam

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A summary of the emphasis placed by scholars and theologians in Timbuktu , Mali (al-Din Ali ibn al-Amdi, Sayf)

Kalām ( Arabic كلام) is an Arabic term that generally means “speech”, “conversation”, “words”, but in a specific sense denotes a certain form of theological argument that is based on rational arguments and in this respect corresponds to systematic theology . In the Arab-Islamic Middle Ages, the Kalām was first cultivated by Muslim, but later also by Jewish and Christian scholars. Those scholars who took part were called Mutakallimūn . As far as the Kalām has developed into a separate discipline of controversial theology, it is also called ʿIlm al-Kalām (علم الكلام Kalām science ).

history

The Kalām in the sense of theological debate developed at the beginning of the Abbasid period and was promoted by the rulers as a means of combating the teachings of dualistic sects such as the Manicheans , the Bardesanites and the Marcionites . Since the followers of these sects resorted to the methods and concepts of Greek philosophy in defending their teachings , it was necessary that the Mutakallimūn who were supposed to defend Islam also know these methods. For this purpose, under the caliphate of al-Mahdi, the topics and physics of Aristotle were translated from Greek. The term Kalām itself is probably a borrowing from the Greek. It is based on the word dialexis ("conversation"), from which the term dialectic is derived. It was conveyed to the Arabs via the Syriac- Aramaic word mamlā or mell e ṯā (“speech”).

However, the specific meaning for the word Kalām has only slowly gained acceptance. We only find a definition in al-Jahiz (st. 868/9). In his “Epistle on the Preference of Speaking over Silence” ( Risāla fī tafḍīl an-nuṭq ʿalā ṣ-ṣamt ), after discussing various other meanings of the term , he describes kalām as the “cause for recognizing the truth of religions, for rational reasoning ( Qiyās ) in demonstrating the divine greatness and the truth of the prophetic message ”.

In the early days, the Kalām was practiced almost exclusively in the urban centers of Iraq , in Basra and Baghdad . However, evidence of theological disputes from Egypt is very rare. The only Kalam scholar known to have resided in Egypt for any length of time was Hafs al-Fard (early 9th century).

The earliest religious-political currents in which a pre-form of the Kalām can be found were Qadarīya and Murjiʾa . In this phase, the language level of the Kalām was still extremely elementary. In a somewhat more advanced phase, separate Kalām directions emerged, including the Muʿtazila . At the turn of the 10th century, Abū l-Hasan al-Aschʿarī tried to put the Kalām method in the service of Sunni teaching by justifying and defending it with the means of the Kalām. Those theologians who followed this line are called Ashʿarites . Another theological direction that pursues a very similar concern is Maturidiyya , which goes back to Abu Mansur al-Maturidi . But there were also Sunnis who completely rejected the Kalām. This included the early Hanbalites in particular . Strict rejection of Kalām can still be found today among Salafis , Wahhabis and Atharis .

Debates and concepts of Kalām have influenced Islamic philosophers such as Alfarabius (al-Fārābī), Avicenna (Ibn Sina), and Averroes (Ibn Ruschd). In particular through these theorists and more directly through Spain (Andalusia) and Jewish philosophers ( Saadia Gaon , ibn Daud , Maimonides in the Leader of the Indecisive ), terms and arguments of the Kalam have also found their way into and in some cases valued in Western discussions.

ʿIlm al-kalām as a discipline

history

At the end of the 11th century, the development of Kalām began to develop into a science of its own. The Asharit al-Ghazālī described at this time in his work al-Musta alsfā Kalām as the core discipline of the religious sciences, which guarantees the validity of its first principles and has a universal character. Among the religious sciences that are subordinate to the Kalām and have only a particular character, he counts Fiqh , Usūl al-fiqh , Hadith and Koran exegesis . According to al-Ghazālī, the Mutakallim is the one who, in contrast to the representatives of the other religious sciences, “studies the most general of things, namely that which exists. Then he divides the existing into the eternal and the added, then the added into substance and accidents , then the accidents into those for which life is a prerequisite, such as knowledge, will, power, hearing, seeing ... This is the content of Kalām science. "

The Kalām science is defined somewhat narrower by Ibn Chaldūn (died 1406). He ties it to the Sunni doctrine and describes it as “the science that involves the disputation ( ḥiǧāǧ ) on the doctrines of faith ( al-ʿaqāʾid al-īmānīya ) with rational arguments and the refutation of the heretics contained in the dogmas of the doctrines of the ancestors ( salaf ) and Sunni ( ahl as-sunna ). ”Later the term ʿIlm al-kalām became the general name for Islamic theology. The Ottoman scholar Tashköprüzāde equated ʿIlm al-kalām in his Encyclopedia of Sciences Miftāḥ as-saʿāda wa-miṣbāḥ as-siyāda with the term BegriffIlm uṣūl ad-dīn ("Science of the Fundamentals of Religion") and declares that it is science is, "with which one can determine the religious truths by citing arguments in favor of them and turning away the pseudo-arguments raised against them".

UnterIlm al-Kalām is also understood to mean a preschool of rational speech, which serves the purpose of discussing deeper theological problems, especially those that are the subject of the dogmatics of Islam. In comparison with western philosophy of science, the method roughly corresponds to theological propaedeutics . Acquiring knowledge of ʿIlm al-kalām was and is a basic requirement for Muslim theologians in order to understand and deal with dogmatics (Arabic ʿAqīda or Iʿtiqād), but also to be able to bring it closer to people. Systematic methodical reasoning (often in extensive contexts) and dialectical knowledge are in the foreground. The rhetorical use of metaphors and symbols as well as the inclusion of contextual Koran verses and traditions to support arguments also belong to this discipline.

Since Muslim theologians have often not drawn a sharp dividing line between ʿIlm al-Kalām as a theological propaedeutic on the one hand and ʿAqīda as a dogmatics on the other, and the transition between the two is fluid - since the theological propaedeutic cannot be performed as an abstract dry exercise, but always on concrete When practicing thematic objects - ʿIlm al-Kalām has often also been assigned an expanded sense of the word, through the use of the broader term of Scholastic Theology . The method discipline of theological propaedeutics and the subject discipline of dogmatics can be summarized in such a term; In principle, the term does not have to be restricted to theological propaedeutics (ʿIlm al-Kalām).

Famous works

A particularly influential work of Kalām science was the Kitāb al-Mawāqif fī ʿilm al-kalām by ʿAdud-ad-Din al-Īdschī (d. 1355).

literature

  • Michael Cook : “The origins of kalām” in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 43 (1980), 32–43.
  • Alnoor Dhanani: The Physical Theory of Kalam. Atoms, Space, and Void in Basrian Mu'tazili Cosmology ( Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies ; Vol. 14). Brill, Leiden 1994, ISBN 90-04-09831-3 (also dissertation, Harvard University 1991).
  • Josef van Ess : The Logical Structure of Islamic Theology . In: Gustav Edmund von Grunebaum (Ed.): Logic in Classical Islamic Culture . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1970, pp. 21-50, ISBN 3-447-00001-5 .
  • Josef van Ess: “Disputation practice in Islamic theology. A preliminary sketch ”in Revue des études islamiques , Vol. 44 (1976), pp. 23-60, ISSN  0336-156X .
  • Josef van Ess: “Early Development of Kalām” in GHA Juynboll (ed.): Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society . Carbondale / Edwardsville 1982. pp. 109-123.
  • Josef van Ess: Theology and society in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Hijra. A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam . 6 vols. Berlin: De Gruyter 1991–97.
  • Richard M. Frank: Beings and Their Attributes. The Teaching of the Basrian School of the Mu'tazila in the Classical Period (Studies in Islamic Philosophy and Science). University Press, Albany, NY 1978, ISBN 0-87395-378-9 .
  • Louis Gardet, Georges Anawati : Introduction à la théologie musulmane. Essai de théologie comparée (Etudes de philosophie médiévale; Vol. 37). 3rd ed. Vrin, Paris 1981 (reprint of the Paris 1948 edition).
  • Saul Horovitz: About the influence of Greek philosophy on the development of the Kalam . Breslau: Schatzky 1909. Available online here: http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/freimann/content/titleinfo/771022
  • Tilman Nagel : History of Islamic Theology. From Mohammed to the present . CH Beck, Munich 1994, ISBN 978-3-406-37981-9 (particularly easily accessible introduction).
  • Shlomo Pines : “An Early Meaning of the Term mutakallim ” in Israel Oriental Studies 1971 (1) 224–240.
  • William Montgomery Watt : The Formative Period of Islamic Thought . Oneworld Edition, Edinburgh 2002, ISBN 1-85168-152-3 (reprint of the Edinburgh 1973 edition).
  • William Montgomery Watt: Islamic Philosophy and Theology. To Extended Eurvey . University Press, Edinburgh 1979, ISBN 0-7486-0749-8 .
  • Harry Austryn Wolfson : The Philosophy of the Kalam . University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1976, ISBN 0-674-66580-5 (according to current sources and research status [2012], much out of date).

Web links

  • David Bertaina: Christian Kalâm , in: Houari Touati (ed.): Encyclopedia of Mediterranean Humanism , Paris 2014.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ See Dimitri Gutas: Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ʿAbbāsid Society (2nd-4th / 8th-10th centuries). London 1998. pp. 69-74.
  2. ↑ Cf. van Ess Theologie und Gesellschaft Vol. I, p. 53.
  3. ↑ See van Ess TuG I 51.
  4. ↑ Quotation in van Ess Theologie und Gesellschaft Vol. I, p. 54.
  5. ↑ See van Ess Theologie und Gesellschaft Vol. II, pp. 729-735.
  6. ↑ Michael E. Marmura: Avicenna and the Kalam. In: Journal of the History of Arab-Islamic Sciences. Volume 7, 1991/1992, pp. 172-206.
  7. ↑ Quoted in George Makdisi: “The juridical theology of Shāfiʿī: origins and significance of uṣūl al-fiqh” in Studia Islamica 59 (1984) 5-47. Here page 33f. Reprinted with the same pagination in George Makdisi: Religion, Law and Learning in Classical Islam Hampshire 1991.
  8. ↑ Ibn naldūn: Muqaddima. Edited by Ḫalīl Šahāda and Suhail Zakkār. Dār al-Fikr, Beirut, 2001. Vol. 1, p. 580. Digitized
  9. ↑ Ṭāškubrizāda: Miftāḥ as-saʿāda wa-miṣbāḥ as-siyāda 3 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿilmīya od Vol. II, p. 132: huwa ʿilm yuqtadar maʿa-hū ʿalāiqa-bi-al -īrād al-ḥuǧaǧ ʿalai-hā wa-dafʿ aš-šubah ʿan-hā.
  10. ↑ See Josef van Ess: The Epistemology of ʿAḍudaddīn al-Īcī. Translation and commentary of the first book of his Mawāqif . Steiner, Wiesbaden, 1966.