Wāsil ibn ʿAtā '

Abū Hudhaifa Wāsil ibn ʿAtā ' ( Arabic أبو حذيفة واصل بن عطاء, DMG Abū Huḏaifa Wāṣil ibn ʿAṭāʾ d. 748/9) was an Islamic preacher and theologian from Basra , who is considered the founder of the Muʿtazila .

Life

There is little information about his life. Wāsil belonged to the Mawālī and earned his living as a yarn dealer. In individual texts it is reported that he attended a teaching session of al-Hasan al-Basrī in Medina . In Basra he frequented circles that are attributed to the Qadarīya .

In addition, Wāsil maintained good relations with the Alides in Medina. Various sources report that after the overthrow of al-Walid II in 744, he also took part in a meeting of the Hashimites in the town of al-Abwā in the Hejaz , at which Alide Muhammad an-Nafs az-Zakīya was chosen as the future ruler has been. However, there are other reports according to which he was in Wasit at that time , as a member of a Basrian delegation, the new ruler Yazid III. sent governor for Iraq to greet ʿAbdallāh, the son of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz .

Wāsil's appearance in Wāsit is remembered mainly because he gave an impromptu speech on the occasion. They were particularly impressed by the fact that Wāsil, who was unable to pronounce the Arabic letter rā eines due to a language mistake , managed to only choose words that did not contain this letter. The text of the speech has been preserved and Hans Daiber has evaluated the content of his theological teaching positions.

In some sources it is reported that Wāsil sent missionaries to the various areas of the Islamic empire ( Kufa , Arabian Peninsula, Yemen, Khorasan , Armenia and Maghreb ) to call the people to the "religion of God" ( dīn Allaah ). In the Maghreb, where his missionary ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Hārith was active, this mission fell on particularly fertile ground. Naschwān al-Himyarī reports that 100,000 people professed to be wāsilīya and carried weapons there. When the Alide Idrīs ibn ʿAbdallāh later fled from Hārūn ar-Raschīd to the Maghreb, he found shelter with former followers of Wāsil.

Political beliefs and teaching

In his political views, Wāsil showed preferences for ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib . Supporting the Alides was also a prominent element in the sermon of his missionaries. When Wāsil's followers were executed by the Umayyads in Yemen around the year 747 , it was because they were believed to be Shiites . However, Wāsil also recognized the caliphate of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān . With regard to the first Fitna , he developed a position similar to that of the Murjiʾa before him : namely, he believed that one should refrain from judging the fellow prophets who had participated in the Fitna. In the camel battle one must assume that one of the parties has strayed from the right path ( fasaqa ), but one does not know which one. From this he also deduced that nothing could be given to the testimony of the persons involved, Aisha bint Abi Bakr , ,Alī and Talha.

Wāsil also applied the category of fisq , the aberration from the right path, to the mortal sinner and thus developed a new compromise position in the doctrine of sin, which at that time was characterized by the extreme positions of the Kharijites and Murjisites . While the former classified the mortal sinner as an unbeliever and the Murji'ites regarded him as a believer, Wāsil said that he was on the intermediate level of the "errant" ( fāsiq ), whose testimony is invalid, but who cannot be excluded from the community of Muslims. This intermediate stage was called by him al-manzila baina l-manzilatain ("the stage between the two stages"). Wāsil is said to have written his own treatise on this, but it has not survived. It was of crucial importance for the success of his teaching that he could win ziehenAmr ibn ʿUbaid , who was highly regarded in Basra, to his side. ʿAmr led the student group of al-Hasan al-Basrī since the death of Qatāda ibn Diʿāma in 735.

With regard to the doctrine of abrogation , Wāsil developed a distinction that was later adopted throughout Sunni Islam. It says that only the commandments and prohibitions of the Koran can be abrogated, but not narrative passages ( achbār ).

Wāsil as the founder of the Muʿtazila

From the 9th century at the latest, Wāsil was considered the founder of the Muʿtazila. The later doxographer asch-Schahrastānī developed a picture of Wāsil's teaching, according to which it already contained all five theorems of the Muʿtazila. Some western scientists like Wilferd Madelung and Hans Daiber have adopted this picture. Daniel Gimaret and Josef van Ess , with reference to the fact that the early sources are silent, however, have expressed reservations about such a view. Of the five tenets of the Muʿtazila, only the one from the intermediate stage of the mortal sinner ( al-manzila baina l-manzilatain ) can be safely traced back to him.

literature

Arabic sources

• Adh-Dhahabī : Mīzān al-iʿtidāl fī naqd ar-riǧāl . Ed. ʿA. M. Muʿauwaḍ u. ʿA. A. ʿAbd al-Mauǧūd. Dār al-Kutub al-ʿilmīya, Beirut, 1995. Vol. VII, p. 118. Digitized
• Abū Saʿīd Našwān al-Ḥimyarī: al-Ḥūr al-ʿīn ʿan kutub al-ʿilm aš-šarāʾif dūna n-nisāʾ al-ʿafāʾif. Dār Āzāl, Beirut, 1985. pp. 260-263.

Secondary literature

• 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. 234-280.
• Josef van Ess: Art. "Wāṣil ibn ʿAṭāʾ" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. XI, pp. 164a-165b.
• William Montgomery Watt: "What Wāṣil a Khārijite?" in Richard Gramlich (Ed.): Islamic Studies Treatises. Fritz Meier on his sixtieth birthday . Wiesbaden 1974. pp. 306-311.
• Hans Daiber: Wāṣil ibn ʿAṭāʾ as a preacher and theologian. A new text from the 8th century. Leiden 1988.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. van Ess TuG II 248-253.
2. ↑ Cf. van Ess TuG II 240-248.
3. ↑ Cf. al-Ḥimyarī: al-Ḥūr al-ʿīn . 1985, p. 264 and van Ess Theologie und Gesellschaft Vol. II, pp. 310-316, 382-387, Vol. V, pp. 183-186.
4. ↑ See Našwān al-Ḥimyarī: al-Ḥūr al-ʿīn . 1985, p. 262.
5. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theologie und Gesellschaft Vol. II, p. 249.
6. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . Vol. II, pp. 270-273.
7. ↑ See adh-Dhahabī 118.
8. ↑ Cf. van Ess TuG II 260-266.
9. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . Vol. II, p. 260.
10. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . Vol. III, p. 255.
11. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . Vol. I, p. 35, Vol. II, pp. 276-280.
12. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . Vol. II, p. 273.