Qadar

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Qadar ( Arabic قدر 'Dosage, measure, quantity') is a term from the vocabulary of the Koran that played a central role in the medieval Islamic discussions about free will and predestination . It is often translated with the words providence , fate or predestination , but above all it denotes an act of quantitative determination. Al-Jurjani defined Qadar in his Kitāb at-Taʿrīfāt as "the connection of the essential will with things in their specific times and the connection of each individual situation to a specific time and cause". The question of whether people also have their own Qadar assets was controversial. Those who ascribed such a fortune to man were called qadarites .

In the Koran

The term Qadar appears in twelve places in the Koran ( Sura 2 : 236, Sura 13 : 17, Sura 15 : 21, Sura 20:40 , Sura 23:18 , Sura 33 : 38, Sura 42 : 27, Sura 43 : 11, 54:49, Sura 77:22 ). For example, at one point from the early Meccan period, God addressed the following words to the people: "Did we not create you out of contemptible water and then bring it to a safe place in a fixed measure ( qadar maʿlūm )?" - Sura 77:22, Trans. H. Bobzin ). And at one point from the Middle Meccan period it says: “We have created everything in a (limited) measure ( qadar )” ( Sura 54 : 49, trans. R. Paret ). Qadar also denotes a point in time set by God in the Koran. For example, in Sura 20, God reminds his prophet Moses of his life path with the following words: “Then you stayed with the people of Madjan for (many) years . Then you came, Moses, at an appointed time ( ʿalā qadarin ) ”(Sura 20:40, transl . Paret). The related verb qadara, yaqdiru is also used in this quantitative sense in the Koran. So it says in sura 13:26: "God gives ( yaqdiru ) the goods of life ( rizq ) abundantly to whom he wills."

For the political-theological discussion, the passage from Sura 33 was particularly significant, at which the marriage to Zainab bint Jahsch, criticized by Mohammed's environment, is justified with the Qadar term. God's command to do this is qadar maqdūr (Sura 33:38). Paret translates the passage as “What God commands has measure and goal ”, Bobzin with “God's command is imposed fate ”.

In Islamic theology

Early discussions

Discussions about the Qadar arose as early as the Umayyad period . Ibn Qutaiba claimed that the first to discuss the Qadar problem was Maʿbad al-Jschuhanī (st. 703), but no specific statements on the subject have been recorded by him. Even the letter on the Qadar attributed to al-Hasan al-Basrī (st. 728) is not authentic according to the current state of research.

However, Ibn Qutaiba narrates an anecdote according to which the Umayyads justified their injustice with God's Qadar and al-Hasan indignantly rejected this view:

“They asked: 'Oh Abū Saʿīd (di al-Ḥasan), these princes have shed the blood of Muslims and are appropriating their goods; they do (various things) and say: Our deeds are only done according to God's purpose ( qadar ). ' Al-Ḥasan replied: 'The enemies of God lie.' "

- Quoted in Watt / Marmura 93 after Ibn Qutaiba al-Maʿārif .

Obviously al-Hasan got into political difficulties because of this statement, because a later traditionarian, Ayyūb as-Sichtiyānī, is quoted as saying: “I repeatedly reprimanded al-Hasan about the Qadar issue, so that I scared him of the authorities and he said: 'From now on I will stay out of it.' ”Al-Hasan's Yemeni contemporary Wahb ibn Munabbih (728) is said to have written his own“ book on the Qadar ”( Kitāb al-Qadar ), but later regretted it to have. The book has not been preserved.

Divisions among the Kharijites over the Qadar question

The Qadar question was also discussed very early among the Kharijites. The Ibadite tradition ascribes Suhār al-ʿAbdī, a Kharijite of the early 8th century, a separate letter about the Qadar, but it is not clear whether this ever existed. Abū l-Hasan al-Ashʿarī reports that the Kharijite group of the sect of the ʿAdjārida, which goes back to ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Ajarrad, split over the Qadar question. While in the Maimūnīya the Qadar were represented in the manner of the Muʿtazila and people were given their own ability to act ( istiṭāʿa ), the Shuʿaibīya taught that people are only capable of doing what God wants. Of the numerous other sub-cults of the ʿAdjārida, some (Hamzīya, Atrāfīya, Majhūlīya, Shabībīya) followed the view of the Maimūnīya, the others (Chāzimīya, Chalafīya, Baihasīya) of the Shuʿaibīya.

Among the Ibadis , the predestined view was the majority opinion. From Abū ʿUbaida Muslim ibn Abī Karīma , the organizer of the Ibadi network, the statement is narrated: "Whoever admits that God knows about things before their existence has also recognized their predestination." However, with Hamza al-Kūfī and a certain ʿAtīya there were two parishioners who leaned towards the Qadarīya. They were expelled from the community by Abū ʿUbaida. In addition, with the Hārithīya there was a sub-sect that held the same views as the Maimūnīya on the Qadar question. It is named after a certain al-Harith ibn Mazyad.

Later developments in Sunni theology

The earliest surviving independent work on the Qadar is the Kitāb al-Qadar by the traditionalist Jafar ibn Muhammad al-Firyābī (d. 913). It consists of 447 individual traditions about statements by Muslims of the first three generations on the question of predestination, each of which is introduced with an Isnad . Thus, for example, the prophetic companion ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās is ascribed the statement: "Whoever exceeds the appropriate limits in the Qadar has left the realm of faith"

A little later, Abū l-Hasan al-Aschʿarī (d. 935) devoted the fifth chapter of his Kitāb al-Lumaʿ ("Book of Spotlights") to the discussion of the Qadar. In it he put forward the view that man does not determine his actions himself, but only "acquires" them while God creates them. Those who rejected this doctrine he called Qadarīya . Al-Ashʿarī explains this to an imaginary qadarite in the following words: "Because you claim about the actions you have acquired that you determine and make them for yourself, and not your Creator" ( anna-kum tuqaddirūna-hā wa-tafʿalūna- hā muqaddaratan la-kum dūna ḫāliqi-kum ). Conversely, in his Kitāb al-Ibāna ("Book of Discussion ") he protests against the use of the Qadarīya designation for his own group:

“The Qadarites believe that we deserve the name Qadar because we say that God has ordained evil and unbelief ( qaddara ), and whoever affirms the Qadar ( yuṯbit ) is a Qadarit and not those who do not to confirm. They must be countered: The Qadarite is the one who confirms that the Qadar is his own and not that of his master, and that he himself, and not his Creator, determines his actions. That is the correct usage ... "

Both al-Ashʿari and Ibn Qutaiba refer to those who affirm that the Qadar is from God as "people of affirmation" ( ahl al-iṯbāt ). The terminology used in this regard is not uniform in Sunni theology, however, because Ash-Shahrastānī later used the term conversely for those who affirm that the Qadar is that of man.

swell

  • Ǧaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Firyābī: Kitāb al-Qadar . Ed. ʿAmr ʿAbd al-Munʿim as-Salīm. Dār Ibn Ḥazm, Beirut, 2000.

literature

  • Zafar Ishaq Ansari: "Taftāzānī's views on taklīf, ǧabr and qadar: A Note of the Development of Islamic Theological Doctrines" in Arabica 16 (1969) 65-78, with Corrigenda Arabica 17 (1970) 309-311.
  • Pierre Cuperly: Introduction a l'étude de l'Ibāḍisme et de sa theologie . Office des publications universitaires, Alger, 1984. pp. 213-234.
  • 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. Vol. II, pp. 202-206.
  • L. Gardet: "al-Ḳaḍāʾ wa-l-ḳadar" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. IV, pp. 365a-367b, here especially pp. 365b-366b.
  • Richard J. McCarthy: The Theology of al-Ash'ari . Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique 1953. pp. 53-75.
  • Hasan Qasim Murad: "Jabr and qadar in early Islam: a reappraisal of their political and religious implications" in Abdullah Saeed (ed.): Islamic political thought and governance; Vol. 1: Roots of Islamic political thought: key trends, basic doctrines and development. London [u. a.]: Routledge 2011. pp. 182-196.
  • W. Montgomery Watt, Michael Marmura: The Islam II. Political developments and theological concepts. Stuttgart u. a. 1985. pp. 72-115.
  • Ali Ghandour: "The freedom of God and man: On the theory of the kasb in Ashʿarītic theology" In: Yearbook for Islamic Theology and Religious Education Volume 2, ed. Ahmad Milad, Khorchide, Mouhanad Karimi, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2014.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. as-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurdschānī: Kitāb at-Taʿrīfāt. Ed. Gustav wing. Leipzig 1845. p. 30, lines 6-7. Available online: http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10249383_00198.html
  2. ↑ Cf. Josef van Ess : "Maʿbad al-Ǧuhanī" in R. Gramlich: Islamwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen. Fritz Meier on his sixtieth birthday . Wiesbaden 1974. pp. 49-77.
  3. ↑ See Suleiman Ali Mourad: Early Islam between Myth and History. Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d.110H / 728CE) and the Formation of his Legacy in Classical Islamic Scholarship. Leiden: Brill 2006. pp. 218-239.
  4. ↑ Zit. Watt / Marmura 93rd
  5. ↑ See Fuat Sezgin : History of Arabic literature. Volume 1: Qur'ānwissenschaft, Hadīṯ, Geschichte, Fiqh, Dogmatik, Mystik up to approx. 430 H. Leiden 1967. S. 590.
  6. ↑ Cf. Cuperly: Introduction a l'étude de l'Ibāḍisme . 1984. p. 258.
  7. ↑ Quotation from van Ess: Theology and Society . 1993, Vol. V, p. 133.
  8. ↑ Cf. Cuperly: Introduction a l'étude de l'Ibāḍisme . 1984. p. 260.
  9. ↑ Quotation from van Ess: Theology and Society . 1992, Vol. II, p. 205.
  10. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . 1992, Vol. II, pp. 202-204.
  11. ↑ Cf. Cuperly: Introduction a l'étude de l'Ibāḍisme . 1984. p. 260.
  12. ↑ See Sezgin 166.
  13. ↑ Mā ġalā aḥadun fī l-qadar illā ḫaraǧa min al-īmān , quoted. according to al-Firyābī 172.
  14. ↑ Cf. McCarthy 74, arab. Text 52.
  15. ↑ See Watt / Marmura 113
  16. ↑ See Watt / Marmura 114.